WEEKS 7 & 8

[linkupmods]

WEEKS 7 & 8

THE SEASONS TURN...

Time really passes, doesn't it? Before you know it, you're halfway through the time that the goddess Braphine has promised that you'll be here, your home away from home. You are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, maybe, even through all the challenges and eventful (!) twist and turns that have followed you through your stay here. Surely there can't be anything else lurking in the wings, right?

Through the efforts of all of Braphine's chosen, the city definitely is starting to feel a little bit cheerier, in contrast to the temperatures that are starting to cool as the seasons in Sunset City turn and the leaves change their colour. The Shopping District and the Entertainment District look and feel decidedly more warm, and a quick trip into the Nekyia also show that the haze has cleared from both districts, with the Shadows lurking much fewer in number.

Further exploration will find that the haze has thinned to explorable levels in the Nekyia Fashion District - there are Shadows to be cleared, after all. Maybe if you are lucky, they might drop you a little something in reward for your efforts.

DO YOUR PART FOR CHARITY!

On Saturday, there's a notice pinned in the lobby of the dormitory:

CHARITY EVENT FOR THE TEMPLE OF BRAPHINE
9/21
FLEA MARKET AM
FORMAL MASQUERADE BALL PM
Come and support the temple when we need it most!



Yes, you read that right: There will be a Charity Event for the Temple of Braphine, hosted by no one other than her devoted followers. They sent this over to the dorms to request the Chosens' assistance, it seems, and as the flyer says, this is an all-day event to take place on September 21st.

In the morning, there will be a Flea Market! There's a note from the hosts that they'd like the Chosens to either find a vendor to assist, provide entertainment, or participate as vendors in the Flea Market. At night, a ball will be held with live music, dinner, refreshments, and an open dance floor for all. They are not asking for your assistance with the ball, however; rather, you are automatically invited as esteemed guests and are encouraged to dress your finest for the occasion!

Given that this isn't for another week, however, it is highly encouraged that you shop around to find an outfit you'll look snazzy in for the ball. You can also start preparing merchandise to sell; or maybe, perhaps, you'd like to save that street performance for the Flea Market? Either way, you've got a long week ahead of you…

…but it won't be all rainbows and sunshine.

KEEP DREAMING.

Late into the night on Saturday, you will dream. What that dream consists of varies with each individual, but you will have one, even if you've never dreamed before. This dream could be a core memory, or perhaps about something you've always wanted, your worst fear...the list goes on.

The next day, anyone who enters the Nekyia will find that, aside from the strange "Palaces" that have popped up, things aren't right yet again…but for an entirely different reason. No matter where you are, you enter the Nekyia to a hallway full of dressing rooms. It's a fairly long hallway, because venturing down it will eventually lead you to a door that has your name on it.

Why don't you journey there and find out what awaits?

–

After seeing "Sayaka" and finding your door, you'll find something even more strange.

That dream you had last night? Well, it's here. Your dream may manifest as a small, contained landscape from your dream; a creature that you may have dreamt of might be scurrying around; another version of you, different from a Shadow; or you could be unlucky and have one of your memories on full display for everyone to see.

This phenomenon will last for the next two weeks, and dreamscapes will shift with the different dreams characters have. It won't be a one and done ordeal, unfortunately…but there is, perhaps, a way you can stop it.

(OOC: Sayaka's top level is NOT time sensitive, nor is it a mod-run event. This can be treated like a regular top level to be tagged at your own pace!

Please see the "A Dream Unraveled" commission for some details on what's causing the dreamscapes to appear! Welcome to your dreamwalking/memory share event!)

WEATHER FORECAST

Temperature: hot and humid, but gradually getting cooler! Surprise showers may occur during these two weeks when you least expect it, so stay sharp and don't get drenched!

Characters who journery into the Nekyia when it is raining may find HP-restoring items dropped during combat with Shadows.

COMMISSIONS

REAL WORLD COMMISSIONS

BATTLE OF THE BRANDS

Two boutiques on Amaranth Avenue have been at war with each other - figuratively, at least. The sweet lolita brand Cookies for Mice and the punk brand Panthera Punks started out merely vying for advertising space, but have now been taking rather pointed pot shots at each other in their marketing. As the shops are across from each other, it’s plain to see the owners are taking it personally as they can’t seem to stop glaring at each other from across the road. Won’t somebody help mediate before it escalates any further…?

AN ALTERNATIVE CANVAS

Up-and-coming makeup artists are looking to land a job with a new makeup brand in the area, and their final test: finding a model (or two) to model their work and prove their skill. Characters will find that these artists are on the prowl for willing (or not so willing) faces - but at least you’ll be compensated for your patience as they endeavor to make you look your best?

FISHY FUN FASHION

Saffron Street has been chosen to host a highly regarded fashion show! The theme: aquatic life. They need models of all sexes and sizes to walk the runway in ethereal clothing that brings to mind deep sea creatures like bioluminescent jellyfish, or even angler fish! For those who are not brave enough to walk the walk, volunteers are needed to help maintain the large, specially made tanks the city’s aquarium has generously lent out for the occasion. The tanks are full of friendly fish and plant life to create the perfect backdrop for the show! …You know how to use diving gear, don’t you?

NEKYIA COMMISSIONS

THE LION AND THE MOUSE

She thinks she’s so great… I’ll show her! We don’t need her prissy, holier-than-thou attitude around here! We’ll see how she behaves when her shop’s reduced to shreds…

It seems the owner of Panthera Punks having beef with the owner of Cookies for Mice isn’t just a real world problem - she has her very own Shadow in the form of a level 30 Narcissus. Take him on in battle and help to loosen its grip on her in reality before things get much, much worse.

HER HEART WON'T GO ON

How could he… After all I’ve done, after all the money I’ve spent… He leaves me behind for her?! I’ll make him pay… I’ll make them both pay!!

It seems one of the local models has had a rather nasty breakup, and the ex and other woman may end up suffering a rather harrowing fate if all these feelings of anger are left to fester… Characters who follow these angry rants will find themselves face to face with a Level 32 Leanan Sidhe, a jealous lover all too willing to enact a very real harm on those who wronged her. Fight back against the Shadow and teach her the value in moving on from a lover who was never worth her time to begin with.

A DREAM UNRAVELLED

Deep in the Nekyia, whispers and wails can be heard; a fashion designer bemoans their dearth of ideas, and hotly defends their choice to steal their designs instead. After all, this was their dream, and they can’t give it up now - no matter the cost.

Characters may find the Unfaithful Dream-King in a nest of collected dreams of the populace - including some of Braphine’s own chosen. He will be a powerful opponent for sure, but it seems solving this particular Shadow problem is the only way to ensure everyone can have a good night’s rest once more.

Once he is defeated, he will drop a rare item. Who knows, maybe this will help you in your journey ahead.

(OOC: Please turn in your threads for this commission on the rewards page to receive a stat boost item, valid for one time use during any battle.)

OOC

READ ME!!!!

Welcome to your log for Weeks 7 and 8! Feel free to use this log for any developments that happen during the next two weeks. There will be no log posted next week, but a top-level for the charity event will be posted instead on next Saturday!
For plotting, please feel free to head over to this post on the OOC comm to post your plotting top levels.
For Nekyia commissions, you can assume that the Shadows will respawn until they've been beaten enough times to go back to normal.
Don't forget that the deadline for applications and character swaps is on September 28!

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[vogelfrei]

[ McGillis doesn't pay any mind to the sensation of shrinking. None of this is real - they're in the Nekiya, or some new facsimile thereof, and all that matters to this place is emotion.

It's emotion that makes him rush towards the voice even as he consistently de-ages - he'd been prepared to find something like this since he saw Celeste's name on the door, but that just makes him want to rush in even more.

If there is anything he can do for someone who is so like himself, it's wake him up. ]

[cirquedesang]

[In Izou's palace, he'd mentioned that the dumpster - full of trash bags and refuse as it was - wasn't the worst he'd been dumped into, and compared to the place McGillis finds him (or the boy he can reasonably assume is who would grow up into him, despite how different as they look, brunette and too-skinny as this one is), it would seem that wasn't hyperbole. There's no food waste or fabric, no paper products. It's even been picked clean of scrap metals. Instead, there's the sharp, jutting angles of stone and winter-wet wood, littered with useless shards of glass, too indicative of a city still recovering from occupation. To make matters worse, just as he comes into view, there's one last bottle thrown at him, accompanied by a curse and a slamming of a door, shattering on impact and drenching him in its contents, leaving him to shiver in the winter cold and pick shards from bleeding skin.

Despite that, he's quick to turn his attention to footsteps, body tense like he's ready to bolt any second...

Though the appearance of what he perceives as a child is enough to settle his nerves for the moment.]

cw: implied underage prostitution

...Sorry you had to hear that. Lady's husband came home and didn't like seeing somethin' like me there, yanno? Wish he'd got his hands on her lover instead, but that bastard would've probably given him a fight.

[And so explains why he's barely dressed for the cold, like he had moments to pull on what he could grab before being thrown out - threadbare pants and thin shirt. No overlayers. Not even shoes.

Though perhaps not quite as concerning as how he refers to himself as 'something', rather than someone, when there were three other 'someones' in the situation.]

...Ah, it took so long to steal those shoes, too.

[Adrenaline is clearly already draining from him, replaced with cold and exhaustion, but still he looks around, finds a piece of wood he can shove over to make a reasonably decent perch for this new kid. He even pats it before going right back to picking glass from his arm.]

What about you, though? Y'have somewhere to go?

[vogelkaefig]

[ McGillis looks down at himself and it's not much of a surprise to find that his body has become small and spindly, dressed in rags. It's irritating to be small in this situation, quite literally powerless and also very cold, but at least this means Celeste won't perceive him as a threat.

McGillis takes the invitation and comes to sit next to the other boy, different entirely from how his adult self would one day look. They really have too much in common for comfort. ]

CW more talk of underage prostitution

Don't really wanna go back there right now.

[ It's easy enough to put himself in the shoes of his child self - or a child vaguely like himself. The brothel he actually was forced to work at would not have tolerated him running away for a night, but it's simple enough to fudge the details. ]

I've had enough of clients. I only ever get men, too.

[ Sincerely 'gets bought by both sexes' might be the most shocking thing to McGillis about this whole miserable ordeal.

He gives a glance at Celeste's glass injuries. ]

Need help with that?

just hits this whole thread with a subject line cw of flippant allusions to csa

[cirquedesang]

[Perhaps that's why the Nekiya decided to diminish anyone taking the path McGillis did. This Celeste, cold and injured though he is, is flighty, but not heartless, and for others to appear as the sort of person he'd protect, even now, rather than run from...

It's surely not worth unpacking.

McGillis responds, and there's only a brief, pitying once-over. 'Back there' implies a place to go back to, sure. Warmth, maybe, a roof over his head... but 'clients'... A different, adjacent hell. It's met with dark humor, instead of pity.]

Wait 'til you get older.

[He'd thought women joining the rotation would make things easier. It did, sometimes, but ultimately it just made things less predictable.]

...You're out now, though. Don't have to go back, if you don't want.

[The offer to help, too, goes unremarked on, but... he does shift to offer his arm over. He's not stupid, he knows smaller fingers and a mind unclouded by pain would make faster work of picking out all those pesky shards of glass.]

[vogelkaefig]

[ McGillis, his fingers once again tiny and thin, wastes no time getting to work on Celeste's injuries. He's not precisely gentle about it, but he is efficient.

It's a strange feeling, to be in his childhood body but fully aware of his adult memories. In his own room, he'd regressed himself, but now... ]

I know. But I don't feel like starving either.

[ It's the most stable food income he's had in his life. ]

Are you actually getting by like this?

[cirquedesang]

[Efficient is better than gentle in cases like this, anyway. When one attempts to be gentle, then there's some squeamishness. The blood continues to flow. Shards of glass can be missed. Infection can set in.

And infection now, on the streets, in the middle of winter? Not necessarily a death sentence, but not a risk he's willing to take.

So efficiency is good. Appreciated. And he only flinches once, when a particularly nasty shard is pulled free.]

...Sorry you had to make that choice.

[Simple. Matter of fact. He doesn't try to press the issue, or get him to change his mind, because... well, he can't say he wouldn't have made the same choice. Can't say he wouldn't make that same choice now, if it was offered, and if he didn't have self-imposed responsibilities.

Another of which he does seem more than willing to take on. The workaholic impulses started early.]

I have to. Else I'll end up rotting in one of these gutters and... ah, shit, how many of them are there by now? Fuck, it doesn't matter- another kid like you will have to make the same choices we did.

[So. Yes, technically, but barely.]

[vogelkaefig]

[ McGillis raises an eyebrow at that. Kids beyond count... ]

Well, aren't you the gentle soul...

[ Don't mind that this statement really sounded a bit out of character for a pipsqueak like this current appearance to be saying. ]

What do the others do instead? Steal?

the thread cws are back

[cirquedesang]

[Maybe there's some distant awareness in this scene adjacent to memory that McGillis isn't really the child he appears. Maybe Celeste just acknowledges that he's had to grow up too fast, so of course his language would sound more mature, too. Either way, the statement isn't commented upon except to rebuff it outright.]

Nothin' gentle about it. We all do what we can, s'just those of us who know what this [a gesture to the door-] is like don't... usually want those who don't to have to learn. They're too young for that.

[Celeste, meanwhile, is at most thirteen, here, and speaking like this sort of exchange is normal. Like he'd been at it since he was McGillis's apparent age or younger. Like he isn't too young for this, too.]

Besides, there're too many of us out here on the street, so someone figured if we kinda stuck together we would be able to get by a little easier... so we get food and money and other stuff where and how we can and share it when we have enough to, mostly. And the littlest try to stay alive and try to keep a fire going, right now, with how cold it's gettin' at night.

[Speaking of the cold, though - he's stopped shivering altogether. That's surely not concerning at all.]