tdm i

[pareidoliamods]

test drive meme i

navigation. locations. application. rules. faq.

Welcome to our first Test Drive Meme! The TDM is open to anyone to play and can be game canon. The TDM takes place February 2 - February 28; its events can take place at any time invitations are open. NPCs are not available in this round's TDM.

Applications are open today, February 2, until February 28. Invitations are automatically extended to the Plurk list of both mods. First-round applications will receive a +1 to give to a friend to apply.

The game will officially begin on February 8.

i. arrival

content warnings: n/a

You jolt awake, remnants of a nightmare slipping through your mind like water, the lingering shapes and voices blurring in the edges of your memory. You find yourself on cold, damp ground in a narrow alley between two dilapidated cabins. As your senses return to you and you push yourself upright, your muscles ache, stiff and painful as if you’ve been lying on the ground for far too long.

You’re in the clothes you were wearing last, but nothing else from home. Your pockets are empty; any jewelry or trinkets or notes are lost. A new, unfamiliar iron key is hanging from twine around your neck.

A faint fog clings to the ground, swirling gently around your feet, thickening to an impenetrable dark wall beyond the edges of the village. The cool air is heavy with the sounds of a home reclaimed: the faint creak of distant bridges; the drizzling of rain against the creek; the wind through the trees; animals calling out to one another.

No one comes to welcome you, and there is nothing to indicate why you are here, where you should go, or where you can rest when night falls. A crow cocks its head from its thatch rooftop perch, eyes glinting. It watches you with unnerving curiosity as you orient yourself and wipe the mud from your cheek.

Welcome to Pareidolia.

tl;dr

☠ Characters arrive in the clothes they were wearing last, nothing else from home, and a key around their neck. The key unlocks their cabin — if they can figure out which one that is.

ii. rest your soul

content warnings: n/a

As you begin to wander the town, your path inevitably leads to the sprawling, weathered building at its heart. The moss-dappled sign above the double doors, painted in uneven and fading lettering, reads GATHERING HALL. The windows are a patchwork of broken glass and hammered boards, but the glow of light seeping through the cracks is strangely, undeniably inviting.

The bite of the mountain wind is immediately banished by the soft thud of the doors shutting behind you. Pass coat hooks and low, cluttered shelves as you wipe the mud from your shoes and approach the sagging sofas and blackened hearth. The fire crackles, casting long shadows that dance along the walls.

Mismatched chairs are set around numerous crooked tables, each set with a carefully lain tablecloth and stained cloth napkins. On the tables are meager arrangements of unappetizing food: slightly burnt bread, overripe fruit, bruised apples.

On the table closest to the fire rests a steaming iron teapot, stacked cups, and a book with a fraying spine reading The Language of Leaves. The pages are scrawled with illegible, frantic notes, lined so heavily in places it warps the paper. Its pages are bookmarked with ripped scraps of parchment and bent corners; they're covered with diagrams of varying formations of tea leaves: swirls, clusters, streaks, an endless array of shapes, each labeled with interpretations ranging from vaguely poetic to threatening and ominous.

You're not the only one who found this town's place for community gathering. Take a seat. Warm your hands around a cup of tea.

tl;dr

☠ You find the Gathering Hall, which has been prepared for your arrival. It's the only warm place in town to rest.

☠ The food doesn't look particularly appetizing, but there's tea and a book on tasseography. Comment for a random assortment of clusters and interpretations (or make one up yourself, or steal one from another comment).

iii. don't go

content warnings: hallucinations

Trying to find your bearings may be more disorienting than stumbling into the gathering hall. Figures appear in your peripheral vision, but turning to catch them reveals only shadows too dark to be cast by the dim, clouded sky slipping past the cover of a building. Unfamiliar voices susurrate under the wind; air stirs behind you for no reason at all.

Your next exhale blooms in the cold air, and suddenly — there they are. Just ahead, in a place you could have sworn was empty, is a person from your past who couldn't possibly be here. Their presence pulls something primal from your core: a desperate yearning so intense it cracks open old wounds; a loathing so visceral your chest tightens with white-hot anger; a joy so bright it blinds. They seem impossibly sharp in detail: the fall of their hair, their uncanny gait, their clothes snapping in the merciless wind. They're just as you remember. If you look away or allow them out of your line of sight, they vanish, and you could spend hours wandering the streets, never to find them again.

But should you chase after them, rush towards them, take a single step of intent — everything narrows down to just that figure, the world around them a blur of unimportance. With every step closing the distance, your pulse floods in your ears as that emotion builds, splinters in your chest.

It's not until you get close enough to touch their shoulder or catch their hand, not until they turn at your call or your voice, not until you think you've caught them, that the vision shatters. Your mind clears, and relief or anger or mourning cracks your chest as you realize it was never who you thought you were chasing at all.

tl;dr

☠ As you explore the village, you come across someone from your past whose presence triggers an intense emotional reaction of any kind: hate, love, longing, mourning, etc.

☠ When you approach them, it turns out they're a hallucination, and it's really another PC.

iv. margin scrawls

content warnings: hallucination, potential violence

Cross the swinging bridge over the deep, mist-filled ravine to find the library. The dusty shelves of the library are densely crowded with stacks of rolled parchment and leather bound books, their edges and corners marred by tiny teeth and minuscule claws.

In the far corner of the library, a raised pedestal stands beneath a suspended oil lamp. The flame flickers and wavers gently behind the glass. On the pedestal is a book, its leather cover gleaming with intricate designs of twisting vines and unfamiliar symbols. Small, sharp studs protrude from the edges of the leather, breaking through the unnervingly organic curves of the binding. A small pointer rests on the lip of the pedestal, fastened to it by a thin gold chain.

Opening the book reveals neatly inked pages, but the lettering is of strange and unreadable design, and hurts the eye to look at too closely for too long, leaving your vision blurred and head throbbing. Nearly every line has been underlined in dull pencil, marked with endless nonsensical annotations of half-formed questions and cryptic warnings. Tucked between the final page and the back corner is a note on faded parchment, written in the same scrawled hand: WHO CAN BRING OUT CLEAN FROM UNCLEAN? A neater, blocked hand replies, THERE IS NOT ONE.

Touching the pages themselves sends a visceral sensation sliding up the nerves of your fingers, through your arm, and the library around anyone inside is replaced by a place in your memory. It trembles as the haze of vision settles into place.

You’re standing in a room you recognize: it’s the backdrop to an important moment in your life. A place where a touch was exchanged — physical or emotional, kind or unkind, something burned into your memory or something best forgotten. Only sharing the context of the memory, the context of what it means to you, aloud to your companion allows you to escape the vision and stand safely back in the library.

But should you choose to withhold what the place means to you, or if you lie? The scene before you becomes a grotesque, intensifying nightmare: the air thickens with fog and soot, impossible to breathe; the furniture rapidly degrades, the walls twisting and warping, the floors rotting and breaking under your feet; shadow creatures grab at your arms; bugs swarm from cracks in the walls; eyeless crows swarm, clawing at your skin and tearing at your hair.

Only confessing the significance of the room frees you and your companion – be stubborn enough, and your dream’s death leaves you gasping for breath on the library floor.

tl;dr

☠ Cross the ravine to find the old library. There’s one particularly attention-drawing book on a pedestal. Touching the pages of the book transports you (and anyone in the library with you) to a room where a strong memory occurred.

☠ Talking about the memory frees you from being trapped in the vision.

☠ Not sharing the memory (or lying about it) causes the vision to warp into a vicious nightmare that only ends when you confess – or, if you’re stubborn, when the nightmare becomes so intense you both ‘wake up’ on the library floor.

Comments

QUESTIONS

[pareidoliamods]

[hellonspectacles]

Hi hello I have questions :D

Given Pal is showing up from a point when he has no body, what should he be wearing?

Can he pick up on the age of any of the buildings, furniture, or other objects?

What’s the ambient thanergy like? Are there any locations where thanergy would be noticeably higher?

[dreamtraveller]

hello. i have one question

klonoa gets summoned to other worlds via being drawn to a person's earnest wish for help; he hears this wish when he gets yoinked.

my question is: would he have heard anything when he got brought here? or just silence?

[sinkingstars]

Hello. Inquiring minds would like to know if there is anywhere that keeps spare blankets and the like around?

[sinkingstars]

Question!

The fourth prompt indicates that all the bad stuff happening in the library should the book-toucher decide to withhold truth is an extreme nightmare, and therefore illusory. Xingchen's outer robes are warded to protect him against "magical" attacks and are able to take a certain amount of damage before being spent (burning up into flames). If something were to try and hurt him in a nightmare, would it activate his robe's wards and tip him off that something is up?

[black_light]

how strong, exactly, is the bridge connecting the town to the library? what is its upper limit?

TASSEOGRAPHY READINGS

[pareidoliamods]

[anglophone]

Hit me up with that random tea goodness!

[centanni]

spinning the tea wheel!

[dreamtraveller]

give it to me doc

Alec | Worm

[anglophone]

i. arrival
This isn't the first time Alec has woken up aching in a place he doesn't recognize. It's one of those things a person learns to roll with when their power has a habit of hitting the hard reset on their nervous system when they overdo it.

It could be worse. If Alec bothered with catchphrases, he still probably wouldn't use that one, because it sucks. No punch, not funny. It's more of one of those immutable facts of the universe: it could always be worse, and it usually is.

So instead of wasting time with a lot of questions he knows he can't answer, Alec drags his spindly teenage limbs together into rough coordination and levers himself off the ground as he absently cradles the shattered, charred remnants of a mask to his chest. Old habit about not leaving behind evidence that, apparently, someone managed to rattle into his brain at some point. He's not attached to it. That's a kind of sentimentality that eludes him. He doesn't feel naked without it, either, blinking his too-pale blue eyes out of his too-delicate face without a qualm of concern about exposure.

It's not his real mask anyway.

"Gross," Alec mutters, after a few moments surveying his surroundings, "The sticks."

With that diagnosis of the situation rendered, Alec starts trudging toward the cabins, the iron key around his neck surprisingly bright against the charred ruins of what was once a white shirt layered over a bodysuit of silk armor.

ii. rest your soul
Alec doesn't bother to eat in the Gathering Hall. Nothing looks interesting, and hunger has always been a vaguely slippery feeling for him. Nausea and light-headedness can mean plenty of things.

But he is thirsty, and he is cold, so one slender teenage boy in unidentifiably charred clothes can be found swinging one leg over the arm of a chair he dragged over to the fireplace while he pretzels his spine with the casual indifference of youth in the chair's seat and sips a tea cup he holds in both hands. The cracked ruins of his mask sit on his stomach as he stares vaguely into the fire, the shadows casting his soot-smeared cheeks in sharp relief as his eyes glitter like the button-eyes of a doll.

"The tea sucks, by the way," he says, idly, if anyone approaches him, not looking up.

He hasn't touched the book. He's not really a reader. He drains his cup and stares at the residue on the bottom, nose wrinkling in faint distaste.

"Nasty," he declares, lowering the cup to rest on top of his shattered mask.

a. fire
The tea leaves have settled in patterns almost like the flickering tongues of a fire, echoing the one casting shadows over Alec.

b. ram's horn
This time, the residue lies in a curved spiral emerging from a blur of nearly fluffy seeming detritus.

iii. don't go
Alec follows her.

If pressed, he wouldn't be able to call it a decision. He sees the silhouette, the flash of purple over black, and he pivots mid-stride with reflexes that would startle anyone who'd never seen him go still and poised at the edge of a fight. There are places where Alec can be nearly quicksilver quick, other places where he still never seems to know what to do with his elbows.

In this case, they're sharp at his sides, ready to slam into anyone or anything who gets in his way. He's used to navigating cities, not weird little damp villages.

His hand flicks out, ash under the fingernails, and he reaches across the feet between them—

"Ai—!"

Alec yanks his hand back like it's been slapped, whatever incipient almost expression that threatened to bloom at the corners of his eyes and mouth cracking and sloughing off like chalky drying clay. He shifts back on his heels, staring at the stranger unblinkingly.

"Who the fuck are you?" Alec asks, in a tone so flat and dull it nearly sounds bored.

iv. margin scrawls
After the whole thing with the tea leaves, Alec has a vaguely more developed impulse to mess with stray books lying around. That, and there's a severe lack of stimulation available otherwise. It'd make someone laugh—or, more likely, pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration—to learn the big divide between Alec and the written word has been 'absolutely anything better to do with his time'.

As soon as the room ripples and dissolves around him and whoever, Alec decides that he's going back to illiteracy.

"What the fuck?" Alec mutters, glancing around a loft that looks like a hybrid of a squat and a teenager's dream cave, which is precisely what it is. A massive television dominates the front half of the space, facing wide couches and underpinned with game consoles and media players. Tables and shelves fill the rest of the room up until a collection of cubicles with walls that don't meet the ceiling, six in total.

Three of the doors have symbols spraypainted onto them. A crown done in a dramatic graffiti style, a paired symbol of a man and woman like the signs on bathrooms, and a girl's face with puckered lips.

Alec lets out a tiny, vaguely irritated sounding sigh, his shoulders slumping even more than they already were. He crosses over to one of the couches, kicks the side, and flops down face first on the cushions without bothering to stick his arms out to catch himself.

"This is stupid," he mumbles, muffled by the couch under his face.

ii; spoilers for severance season 1

[107hours]

Ms. Casey read the book. It seemed like the appropriate thing to do, given how obviously it was displayed. And, she figures, it's for the best that she follows all available instructions, even if the instructions are vaguely-given reading assignments, and not instructions at all. She's lucky to be awake. Can't give them a reason to send her back.

And, as it turns out, it's a good thing she read the book, because here's a young man who needs help. He doesn't know what the tea leaves means, but she does. She can give him facts about the leaves. It's a nice thing to do, possibly, and it's something she's good at, so it'll feel nice for her, too. What a wonderful synergy.

Softly, but a little rote, Ms. Casey does her best to recall what she's read.

"Fire. It means a period of change and personal growth. Consumption and passion. Destruction and death. You may have experienced all these things."

She doesn't sit down. That part might be a little strange.

sofia falcone | the penguin (2024)

[centanni]

i: arrival.
cw: prison/institutionalization, panic attack, vague spoilers for The Penguin

[ There's something around her neck.

The second Sofia wakes, she sits up, clawing at the unfamiliar weight around her neck. It presses into the back, heavy, weighed down by something. She didn't put it there. She can't breathe if it's there. She can't breathe. She can't -

She starts clawing at it, before her fingers find purchase around thin string. She yanks, but the string won't snap. It just digs into her skin, the friction burning. She doesn't notice. Heaving, the air cold and glass-sharp and not enough in her lungs, she ducks her head, pulls it through the hole, and throws whatever she woke up with off to the side.

Only after that can she actually breathe. Quick, at first, then slower over time. In these silent woods, her lingering wheeze sounds horribly loud between her ears.

Sofia lifts her head, and for the first time in weeks, looks at the stars. ]

ii: rest your soul.
cw: prison/institutionalization

[ The woman who sits in the Gathering Hall is a far cry from the person hyperventilating in the snow. She knows how to work a mess hall.

That doesn't mean she doesn't stand out. Sofia doesn't look at anyone, keeping her head bowed as she picks at a piece of bread that's somehow burned and stale. But the orange-and-white striped jumpsuit is a bit of an eyesore, and the big black lettering printed on the back, reading Arkham State Hospital, doesn't help much either.

If someone chooses to sit by her, Sofia will do as best she can to pretend they're not there. She's not looking for trouble. Doesn't even want to know if the newcomer is giving her a sideways glance - that's a given.

It's only when she finishes her tea, revealing leaves shaped like a key, that she scoffs. ]

Well, this place is obsessed.

[ That's the second key they've given her today. Almost like they're trying to tell her something. ]

iii: don't go.
cw: ableism

[ Sofia spends as little time as possible inside. The keys, she's decided, are a joke. A mockery. They're there to make fun of her, to suggest that if she spends too long inside any given place, she won't be able to leave. She hasn't found anything to smoke, but sitting on some random cabin's front stoop is at least somewhat of an approximation.

That's when she sees him. A man that isn't young anymore, not really, shuffling away from her, shoulders in, hands in his pockets, with the dumbest, floppiest party-boy haircut this dump has probably ever seen.

It's like he's come to visit her. Once a week, every week, for ten years. He's been gone for so long - and now he's back.

He's not real. Sofia knows that. She's always known that better than most people thing. Which means that she should stay where she is. She's in a new place. Her jumpsuit is a strike against her. Can't have people thinking she's crazy.

But she isn't. She isn't, and if she could just touch it, if she could know for sure - ]

Alberto?

[ Her voice sounds like that of a stranger. There's none of the cold, cynical hardness in it. It sounds like the voice of a young child, waking their brother up after a terrible nightmare.

And as soon as she makes contact with the stranger, as soon as the world snaps into focus, her voice goes back to something as impenetrable as concrete. A gentle, tentative touch turns into a shove. ]

Watch where you're going.

iii. don't go

[anglophone]

[ As soon as the stranger turns around, his age becomes obvious. He can't be older than sixteen, and it'd be a sixteen well under the growth curve if he was. But Sofia is well aware that age has little to do with innocence or safety as a pair of flat, pale blue eyes narrow reflexively at the contact, the boy's narrow shouldering sharpening in a way that almost looks like a razor being spat out of a mouth. ]

Watch yourself?

[ The tone is all teenager, though: faintly incredulous at the temerity of an adult to address him, otherwise vaguely bored, an obviously cultivated disaffectation as the young man raises his right hand with his fingers splayed in an oddly deliberate looking way—before he takes a breath, sighs, and lets them drop. ]

Whatever.

[ He rocks back on one heel slightly in the mud, his arms limp at his sides, and cocks his head like a bird at her. ]

Nice outfit. [ He says, matter of factly unkind. ] You look like sad crime scene tape.

Klonoa | Klonoa: Phantasy Reverie Series

[dreamtraveller]

i. and I begin to wonder (arrival)

[As far as entrances go, this is very far from the worst that Klonoa has made. That would probably have to go to getting slam-dunked into a storming sea. Or maybe crashing into a forest and then promptly getting his memories altered. One or the other.

In any case, jolting awake from a nightmare in a suspicious, cold, eerily empty alleyway is pretty good.]

...!

[At least, those were his thoughts until he realized that his wind ring is nowhere to be seen. He pats himself down, making brief note of the key about his neck, before proceeding to check his surroundings with the same desperate fervor.

If anyone is passing by, they might notice a very strange animal rooting around in the dirt of the alley, yellow eyes glinting.]

ii. the dreams I can't remember (rest your soul)

[Eventually, he gives up his search as a lost cause for the moment, because even with his fur, this place is quite cold! In search of warmth, he winds up at the gathering hall, and further winds up nursing a cup of tea while he sits on a rather gangly, misshapen chair that he threatens to sink into and vanish forever.]

Haaah... this is definitely the weirdest world I've been to. [It's unclear if he's talking to himself, or anyone nearby.] It's so quiet here. I don't like it.

[With that, he quaffs the rest of his tea down and slams the empty cup down onto the table before him...]

a

[...and the dregs form into the shape of a tree. You don't even have to squint to see it.]

b

[...and sodden leaves make a startlingly accurate rendition of an arching bridge at the cup's base—albeit, one that's in distinct disrepair.]

iii. when I wake in the morning (don't go)

[At around noontime, when the sun has reached its apex and just begins it's descent, one might find their exploration interrupted.

It starts out with the pitter-patter of the rain giving way to a more spirited sloshing-thud of footsteps in the mud, and then a cry of—]

Huepow!

[—is all the warning you get before 5 feet of fur and claw rocket straight towards your midsection.]

iv. where in the world did they go? (margin scrawls)

[Klonoa's first inclination is not, actually, to explore the building on the ravine's other side. Rather, his first inclination is to want to explore the ravine, but the present lack of footholds or acceptable collateral to use as parkour implements or wind ring have him, with some reluctance, put the matter off for another time.

So, he goes into the library, where he explores it in (what he would like to think is) amiable silence with one of the others who were called here. So quiet, in fact, that it might be easy to forget that you're here with him at all, up until the moment that your vision swims with a light and haze, and the library gives way to what appears to be a living room.

A bombed out living room. One of the walls are fully missing, and a bright sky shines above.

Klonoa stands off a bit to the side, his arm held out before him. He's gone completely still, eyes wide as plates.]

iii

[centanni]

[ Sofia is minding her own fucking business. She is staying out of trouble. She is the picture-perfect example of someone who has never even thought about recidivism once in her life. Totally rehabilitated.

Then a god damn.... creature comes barreling towards her, claws and everything, and then all bets are off. ]

What the fuck?

[ She's all instinct. Sofia attempts to grab that thing's neck, or really, any part of its body, and either twist a limb or throw it off her. Regardless, she's not even close to being gentle. It came at her first. It can deal with the consequences. ]

Xiao Xingchen | The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation

[sinkingstars]

i. arrival

Xingchen startles into consciousness with a sharp inhale, yanked from the darkness of a nightmare and into the newer darkness of waking. He sits up, and immediately he feels that something is wrong— Shuanghua is gone, his whisk is gone, his bones ache from an exhaustion deeper than he's used to, and everything he hears and smells, though familiar individually, don't mesh together to form any place that he knows.

He stands up, brushing his hair out of his face and dusting off his white robes in an effort to remain presentable. Old habits. A small weight knocks into his chest at the movement; he makes a quiet noise of curiosity and reaches up to make the object out.

"A key," he murmurs, slender fingers tracing the cold iron teeth. "Not an answer, but maybe we'll find one behind the door it unlocks?"

The silence that answers him is entirely different from what he's used to, as well. Xingchen sighs, adjusts his blindfold, and presses on. The faint sound of his own footsteps is, at least, better than nothing.

ii. rest your soul

It's warm here, and Xingchen is grateful. He follows the sensation until he finds a seat close to the crackling of the fire, then feels around on the table. He smiles when his fingertips find the kettle.

"Thank you for your hospitality," he says to nobody in particular. Though he still can't decide whether this place feels lived in or desolate, it wouldn't do to just take without acknowledging the effort that someone put into making tea. He can't smell any poison in it. It's the small things. He sips in silence, unaware of whatever dreggy portents of fate remain in his cup at the end. He only wishes he could pour himself another cup, but that would be ill-mannered. Best to save some for any other wanderer who might be seeking refuge from the chill.

iii. don't go

"Zichen," he breathes.

It's him, it's him, Xingchen would know that footfall anywhere, would know the energy radiating off the sword and the man. It hasn't been that long, and maybe he would look like a fool, but all that matters is the end to the loneliness, the relief from the heartache, the tiny possibility of forgiveness that was only a few steps away.

And then Xingchen falters as he closes in, his outstretched hand slowly dropping back to his side. No, of course not. Zichen had said that he never wanted to see him again, and Zichen never broke his word.

"My apologies." A small smile. "I thought I heard someone over here, and I haven't met anyone else yet. I suppose I was a little more on edge than I thought."

iv. margin scrawls

Xingchen had been silently lamenting the inability to gain knowledge from a room so palpably filled with it, and then, oddly and inexplicably drawn to it, he gently runs a finger down a page of the book.

The room, so cloistered and thick with the scent of musty pages, opens up into the fresh, crisp air of a pavilion set in a lush mountainside. And yet, Xingchen suddenly finds it a little hard to breathe.

iii

[dreamtraveller]

Klonoa cranes his neck to look up at the stranger. He tilts his head a bit to the side, long ears drooping with the motion.

There's something sad about that smile, Klonoa thinks. Sad in a familiar way.

"Don't worry about it," Klonoa says, scratchy voice tinged mildly by amusement. "Honestly, it'd be weirder if you weren't on edge. This place is seriously freaky."

Palamedes Sextus | The Locked Tomb

[hellonspectacles]

i.
A spindly, bespectacled young man stands near a cluster of rundown buildings, eyes closed, standing perfectly still. Draped in drab grey robes that seem to swallow his wiry frame, he could almost be mistaken for a shadow or an apparition. He has two fingers pressed to the pulse point on his wrist, and his breaths are slow and deliberate; his chest rises and falls carefully, as though unused to filling with air and unsure if it can withstand the pressure.

It has been a long time since Palamedes Sextus has had a body to call his own. And while the one he is currently occupying appears to be the one he was born with, he hasn’t yet decided if he should trust it.

His voice, when he speaks, is quiet and calm, and his words don’t seem to be meant for anyone but himself. “Pulse: a bit rapid, but within usual parameters. Blood pressure: good. Aptitude—“ he stretches his fingers and closes his fist, and the air in front of him briefly shimmers as though with heat, “present.”

Pal takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. “Well, I haven’t fallen to dust yet, so I suppose I should take that as a good sign.”

ii.
No one would call the self-proclaimed gathering hall cozy, but Palamedes will admit that it is a significant improvement on the damp chill outside. Entering with a breath of icy air, Palamedes still looks ghostly—if ghosts had curly brown hair that stuck every which way, and wore glasses that fogged up the moment they hit the warm interior. “Oh, for the love of—“ he mutters, taking them off and attempting to clean them on the sleeve of his dusty robe.

Once the spectacles are sorted, he approaches the food table and inspects the offerings—picking up a hunk of bread, an apple, a plate, holding each for a moment with an introspective hmm before he sets it back down again. It isn’t clear what he’s looking for, though he does pause and brighten when he reaches the tea.

“Civilization at last,” he says, pouring himself a cup, and then idly flipping open the mouldering book beside the kettle.

iv.
Palamedes Sextus, Master Warden of the Library and Heir to the House Formally Known as the Sixth, finds the library. Of course he does.

He’s there for quite a while before he bothers with the book on the pedestal. In that time, he takes books off shelves, flipping through some of them, and merely running his fingers down the spines of others; regardless of the method of examination used, he begins to sort them into piles—not by topic but by age, though it’s difficult to tell as much at first glance. He talks to himself as he goes, muttering about humidity and dust, and offering a few choice words for the librarian who dared let their collection fall into such a wretched state.

Eventually, he is drawn to the book that sits in a place of pride, which has clearly been better cared for than the rest. Palamedes peers at the pages, then takes off his glasses as his vision begins to swim. “What’s so special about you, then?” he murmurs, running his index finger down the open page.

His finger tingles, but he doesn’t receive the expected psychometric reading. Instead, his surroundings transform. The room grows slightly smaller, the light brighter, and the walls sprout peeling, mouldy wallpaper. A few bookshelves remain, but they’re empty now.

He turns around, knowing that he’ll see a sofa behind him, with a little side table and a stool beside it. Palamedes isn’t sure what’s happening, but the setting feels appropriate. It is the place he’d lost his body, after all.

Or, to put it more bluntly: this sad, sunny little room was the site of his own death.

ii

[sinkingstars]

Although the chill is not much of a hardship for Xingchen, he still finds himself seeking refuge from it, or perhaps looking for any sign of warmth at all in this seemingly desolate place. It's a relief when his foot finds the threshold to the gathering hall.

He feels the presence of someone inside before he even gets through the door, so he politely stands at the entryway once inside despite the smell within promising food and fire. He doesn't yet know if the stranger is friend or foe, after all, and he doesn't wish for things to sour before they've even properly begun.

"Hello?" His voice is calm, gentle, a touch curious. "I'm sorry I let myself in. I hope I'm not disturbing you. I only mean to rest for a little while."

armand | iwtv

[haram]

❦ ARRIVAL⨾

---

 CW | past abuse/forced captivity (implied)⨾ intent to kill and eat the crow

[ Like a cat, Armand now comes awake all at once, desperately gasping in air as if he's just now resurfacing from being held underwater. His limbs feel strangely heavy, body stiff with the sort of frigid, bone-damp ache he normally would have sooner associated with doomed Polar Expeditions, or the hundreds of lost, frozen bodies on Everest, but never himself, so rarely is he so weakened anymore as to be bothered by the elements. How hungry and exhausted must he be right now?

The rest is almost painfully familiar, though; Armand has awoken in places he didn't recognize feeling damaged, disorientated, and unwelcomed more times than he could ever possibly hope to remember (which is not to say that he should ever actually want to). Much less typical, however, is how he's unceremoniously been abandoned out here like an anonymous corpse in a dumpster, free of any apparent shackles — be they literal or otherwise — that would suggest he's somehow been caged.

He brings himself up into a crouch, examining the key around his neck before then continuing to fidget with it even once his attention turns instead to his surroundings, eyes jack-o-lantern bright as they sweep the landscape.

At the very first sign of movement, Armand's gaze snaps immediately to the crow and then remains there, staring hungrily. And again, like a cat, he finds himself beginning to circle patiently below the bird with all the fixed intensity and focus of a predator. ]

❦ REST YOUR SOUL⨾

---

[ The tea tastes like nothing to him, neither bitter or sweet, but taste is hardly why Armand's been forcing himself to choke it down in small, steady sips until the cup has finally been drained.

No, the reason is the book, of course (though admittedly, he hadn't so much minded the warmth of simply holding the cup between his palms), which has intrigued Armand since the moment he first noticed it.

Tasseography isn't exactly something he believes in, but nor does he strictly disbelieve— for the most part, he gives very little thought one way or the other towards things like divination, fortune-telling, or Tarot (beyond, perhaps, being good work if you can get it!) except for sometimes, if he's been feeling particularly... at sea, so to speak. Desperation will make believers out of anyone, though, and Armand is no exception; right now, especially, he could really use a sign, anything that might help to point his new way forward, because otherwise he still feels so profoundly at a loss.

Gulping down his first cup of tea in over 500 years is only but a small price to pay for gaining any more insight, clarity, than he currently feels capable of. He hunches over the dregs like a witch staring into her cauldron, paging through the old book carefully to interpret what he sees.

He bares his teeth as he reads, biting down on his lower lip aggressively enough draw blood. The taste provides small comfort as it floods his mouth, grounding him just enough to resist the sudden urge of flinging his empty cup at the closest wall to watch it shatter.

Armand presses his lips together, drawing a slow breath inward to help him mentally reset before he turns to whoever is nearest with their own cup of tea in hand. ]

Shall I read you your tea leaves?

[ It's almost playful, spoken with a wry smile as Armand draws the book onto his lap. ]

❦ DON'T GO⨾

---

 CW | stalking

[ The whole world suddenly comes to stop when he's confronted unexpectedly with the familiar. He has to look twice, hardly prepared to believe what he's seeing— or rather, who he's seeing, but the glasses, the thick crown of grey curls, the flannel, the posture, by now all of it's quite unmistakable to Armand's eye.

The longer he stares, the surer he becomes, but Armand keeps himself at a distance as he begins to follow, quietly stalking Daniel like prey. Wanting to see what he does, where he goes. What Armand plans to do with this information, these observations, is for the moment still unknown to even him, but it'll come to him in time, he's confident of that much. Whatever happens next need not be rushed into yet; he's a creature of patience, after all, not one of impulse. Usually.

Yet the itch to confront the man who destroyed his life is so strong, it feels like Armand's blood is boiling. He bares his teeth, feeling as if he doesn't show himself to Daniel today, now, he might just crumple to the ground like a dead leaf under the weight of all the loss he's suffered and then never get up again, too overwhelmed by grief to move.

Or maybe not. Maybe he just wants Daniel to know he's here so the man will always feel that prickle of fear at the base of his neck wherever he goes, even when he's alone. Why allow him the privilege of feeling safe after all the damage he's done?

He overtakes Daniel easily with an abrupt burst of speed, standing before him now so that the old man has no other choice but to see him, acknowledge him— yet it's Armand himself who is now forced to notice that the person he's been pursuing isn't Daniel Molloy at all.

This is not a relief. It enrages him.

In another eye-blink of a second, Armand's suddenly moved much, much closer (maybe even a bit too close?) to this stranger, vermilion eyes blazing with something that seems, for just a moment, almost murderous. Then the seething fire within that gaze will flicker, gutter like a candle, as Armand's fury burns itself out and leaves him feeling empty, drained. Harmless, for now. ]

How rude of me. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. [ He smiles, congenial and disarming. ] I must have gotten turned around while I was wandering the woods, but it's... such a relief to have finally found another person.

❦ MARGIN SCRAWLS⨾

---

[ Oh, how Armand simply adores a good library.

This library, of course, so far seems to leave much to be desired, but as far as he's concerned, any library is still better than none. He wanders aimlessly for a time through the rows of dusty shelves, studying the various book spines, and occasionally pulling one off a shelf to flip through some of the pages. It's only a matter of time before he reaches the leather-bound book displayed upon the pedestal, and of course he is compelled towards it to examine closely.

The lettering is unreadable, or possibly written in a language that's wholly unfamiliar to him, which is... so unlikely that the thought surprises him; usually Armand can at least recognize a language, by sight or by sound or both, even if he's unable to speak or understand it.

As he continues paging through, the room around him seems to shift and lose focus, reforming itself into something else entirely.

Somewhere else. Suddenly now he's standing in the apartment he and Louis shared in San Francisco, and he isn't there alone. ]

Where are we? [ he demands softly, wide-eyed, of his companion, content to play up the very real confusion he's feeling. ] Did you do this?

IV

[lord_daigonis]

[It would be great, Ademnet thinks, if he could stay in one bizarre place for a while before getting whisked to a new one. Yet here he is, in the weirdest-looking room he's seen yet, being asked by a stranger twice his age if he has any idea what's going on.]

Me? Nah. Do I look like I got friends in places like this?

[He gestures at his homespun tunic and tattered cloak for emphasis, his nose wrinkling. Among the cold, minimalist grandeur of the apartment, he stands out like a winestain on a wedding dress: antiquated, ill-mannered, and poor.]

Come on.

Ademnet | OC

[lord_daigonis]

I. Arrival

[This ain’t the view I was looking at when I lay down.

Panicked, Ademnet jolts upright, looking around for his bag of provisions. Sure enough, he sees no sign of it. A glance down at his belt reveals his coin pouch has gone missing, too, along with–even more worryingly–his dagger. All he has left are his clothes, his questionable wits, and his life, none of which has any particular value to anyone. The last, least of all.

As if things ain’t bad enough, now I’m getting tohburned robbed. Me. The dalpounding thief. Pound me with a pike of splinters.

With a groan, he lies back down on the muddy alley, clamping both hands over his face. If anyone needs him, he’ll be lying here for a moment, wallowing in self-pity and muttering a steady stream of cuss words to himself.]

II. Rest Your Soul

[Ademnet’s mood brightens considerably upon entering the Gathering Hall. He heads directly toward the table nearest the fireplace, grabbing as much of the unappetizing food as he can along the way. Once there, he pushes The Language of Leaves aside to make space for his dinner, hangs his damp, tattered cloak over a chair to dry, and sits.

Anyone who wants to make a cup of tea or examine the tasseography book will come face to face with a scrawny, muddy teenager in well-worn peasant garb, tearing into a loaf of blackened bread as if he hasn’t eaten in days. He stops eating when anyone approaches him, looking up with all the wide-eyed wariness of a feral cat.]

I’m in your way, yeah? Sorry. Wasn’t trying to be.

III. Don’t Go

[The first few times a hazy, familiar figure appears in the corner of Ademnet’s vision, he turns his head away. He’s not a child, not anymore, and he’s not fool enough to believe in the impossible. Even if they were here--any of them--what good would it do him? He’s done nothing that they would be proud of, and he’s committed himself to worse. Whatever they might have to say to him, he doesn’t want to hear.

But when a young boy runs past him, giggling, Ademnet doesn’t look away. His scarred face turns to stare, and he stands frozen, breathless, every muscle in his body taut to the point of shaking.]

Tam?

[Without thought, he rushes forward, desperate to catch up. As the person turns toward him, Ademnet's face falls, and he pulls back with a grimace.]

Dal's tits. You ain't who I thought.

IV. Margin Scrawls
cw: claustrophobia, imprisonment

[It’s a sad testament to how little there is to do in town that Ademnet enters the library at all. The dusty old covers are kind of interesting to look at, maybe, but he feels no temptation to peek inside. Why should he? It’s not as if he ever learned to read.

He frowns at the book on the pedestal for a moment, tilting his head as if the change in angle will make it all make sense. Then he reaches out to turn the page, hoping the rest of the book might have pictures.

Whoever happens to be in the library with him at the time abruptly finds themself in what is unmistakably a dungeon: damp, drafty, and reeking of rot. An open archway leads out to a dim corridor, and a single torch burns in a sconce high on one wall, sending shadows dancing across four iron grates set into the stone floor. They appear to be trapdoors, latched shut from above--and beneath one of them, a frantic teenager gasps in terror and begins clawing at the bars.]

Let me out! Let me out! For the love of mercy, let me out!

IV. Margin Scrawls

[sinkingstars]

[The sudden change in atmosphere is enough to put Xingchen on high alert, and he drops the scroll he had been feeling with careful fingers— the panicked screaming sends him running. Not away from it, of course, but full tilt towards. He wishes more than ever that he has his sword, or anything. He stops when his foot hits the clang of metal beneath his feet, right above the sound of the voice. He kneels down, his own tone matching the boy's urgency, but still managing to ripple with calm all the same.]

Hello down there? Are you hurt?

Kaz | Six of Crows

[harborborn]

i. arrival

Kaz is used to pain. In many ways– if greed is his god and the city is his mother– pain is his father. It makes a certain sense, if you don’t think about it. What he’s not used to is the unfamiliarity of his surroundings. He knows every inch of the city, every port, every alley, every building. He doesn’t know this place, and he doesn’t know how he got here.

He doesn’t like not knowing things.

He feels for his cane, pushing himself unsteadily to his feet and ignoring the aching stiffness of his body as he rises. He feels for a weapon next, but someone’s stripped him of that. That, and everything in his pockets. This isn’t a surprise. It would be more shocking if whoever had knocked him out and left him in an unfamiliar place hadn’t robbed him thoroughly. What is surprising is that they seem to have left him something.

There’s a key around his neck. Another mystery to solve. He looks around him, not sure what he’s searching for. Maybe he’ll never find it.


iii. don’t go

He’d thought the shape of him would always remain in his mind completely unchanged. He’d thought that his memories were reliable, that when he pictures the events of his life before everything went wrong and tastes again the bitterness from the past that drives all his actions in the present it could be relied on. Now, seeing his brother in front of him as he really was, Kaz realizes he’d gotten it all wrong. His hair, parted in the wrong direction. His walk, less arrogant in reality than in his memory. This is his brother, and Kaz cannot even trust himself.

Kaz can’t look away. The thought to do so never enters his mind, so sure he is that doing so would make him lost to him forever. What does he want with him? Vengeance? He braces himself for the words, for the confession he knows they’re both thinking. It should have been you.

“Jordie–” Kaz steps toward him, and everything comes into focus. Everything is him and the conversation they’re going to have. Maybe he’ll blame Kaz, maybe he’ll apologize for being foolish and young, maybe he’ll tell him he’s done good or maybe he’ll say he doesn’t know him at all. Either way, he’ll finally know.

He finally reaches him. He reaches out his hand to touch his shoulder (the first touch he’s initiated in as long as he can remember), and reality comes crashing in around him. He pulls his hand away as if he’s been burned.

You’re a fool, he thinks, his chest aching with a mix of disgust and loathing for himself for even daring to want– and grief, that once again what he wants most is something he can never have.

“What business?” he snaps, as though it were their fault in the first place that he went after them.


iv. margin scrawls

The library is the most promising. It seems to be his best shot at finding out anything valuable about this place. There’s enough books here to give him something– if he can manage to stop his mind from wandering toward all of the possible things that could have left bite marks and claw marks on them.

One book pulls his attention more than any other. It was set-up to do so, given a kind of special treatment far different than the neglected dusty shelves the rest of the books are on. It’s intricate. It looks expensive. How much could something like that fetch, if he were to take it to an antique dealer in the University District? He’s not considering it, he wouldn’t know how to get there from here if he tried, but the sums still swim through his mind as he approaches it. If he’s going to find any answers, it may well be here.

He opens the book to quickly find it’s nothing approaching legible to him. It could be the handwriting, or it could be in one of the many languages he doesn’t know. No matter what it is, it makes his head start to pound. He doesn’t stop reading it, taking the signs of his vision blurring and head throbbing as a sign that he should push through just to prove to himself he can. He touches the book to turn the page, and suddenly he’s somewhere else.

The Menagerie. I can help you, she’d said. The words are stuck in his head forever. He’d had no idea how significant it would be when he’d replied, help me with what? He wouldn’t mind her help now, but he couldn’t tell her that if she were here. What is he saying? She is here. They’re both here. They’re in this room. He can smell the incense, and something else. The dim lighting, the golden bars on the window. He’s never liked being here for any longer than he has to. He might stay forever.

iv

[dreamtraveller]

Klonoa has been to many places. The towering spires of Lalakoosha, or the flowing waterways of Jugpot. Still, the quiet of the library had its own sort humble, quiet, and eerie majesty. There's something peaceful about exploring the silence and the battered books, moreso for the companionship that is presented by doing the activity in parallel to another.

Though, something about the other guy has Klonoa figuring that any companionship would go quite swiftly up in smoke if he made his presence too... apparent.

Still, when his mind throbs and his vision swims and he finds himself somewhere else, somewhere he recognizes even less, even though he's not sure that it will be appreciated at all, he walks up to the irate-looking stranger.

"Are you alright?"

Maybe a better question would be do you know where we are? or what just happened? but Klonoa has his priorities.

fidelio magnus | metaphor: refantazio

[fideline]

i. arrival

[ He smells something wrong before anything else, wet and earthen in the back of his throat. Fidelio snaps to alertness in a second, scrabbling for a weapon and finding none. His bag, the coin pouch in his inner pocket, even the igniter clasped around his throat under his turtleneck – all gone. Not like he'd expect someone who'd leave him for dead in an alley wouldn't rob him, mind.

Plenty of possibilities run through his head, none of them good. Lord Louis would sooner kill him if he'd done something to earn this sort of runaround, at least, but if not him, then who could have plucked him out from right under the Count's nose, and why? And if someone could get their hands on him, then what could they have done to Bas, to Lady Junah, even, almost sacrilegious as it feels to fear for the man, to Lord Louis himself—

None of that's going to answer itself with his sorry arse lying in the mud, though. He peels himself out of it, noting the key around his neck before giving his surroundings a thorough check.

Yet another alley might reveal a pair of yellow animal-like eyes gleaming in the dark, if someone happens to be looking. ]

ii. rest your soul

[ The so-called Gathering Hall is the kind of siren song Fidelio's not particularly wont to trust, but the damp cold's hardly going to be any kinder to him than whatever he finds inside.

Sizing up the company as he passes, he finds himself a table close enough to the fire that doesn't put his back to the door and tries to rub the chill out of his hands. The food's nothing he'd turn up his nose at – he's had to scrape by with worse, and his stomach growls despite himself. Sniffing the bread doesn't reveal anything amiss, but wariness about poison still gives him pause.

Grimacing, he glances askance at the person nearest him. ]

Everyone who's eaten this is still standin', yeah?

iii. don't go

[ This whole damned place is murder on his senses, between the chill and the wind and the whispers having his ears flitting five ways to Flamesday trying to place them and making his head spin for the trouble. When his eyes catch on a broad, black-clad back and a familiar shaggy brush of a tail, though – God, if that isn't the first spot of relief Fidelio's felt tonight. ]

Bas, you big daft bastard—

[ —he starts to rib like he always would, ready to tear his little brother a new one for taking this long to find him in this mudhole, but as soon as he catches up to Basilio's longer stride, well. ]

...Shite. Losing my bloody mind out here.

[ That's not Bas at all, and he's no better off than he started. ]

iv. margin scrawls
cw: medical experimentation, torture, imprisonment

[ He's not expecting the library to turn up much he can use – and less he can actually read, like – but, well. It's the first place Lord Louis would look in a place like this, and Fidelio would be a fool to not at least have a full picture of his surroundings. Nothing much catches his eye save the tome set apart from the others; it looks like it might hold some magic formulas, at least, even if he's lacking for an igniter to put them to use.

He flicks it open, scanning for anything he recognizes, and—

—then he's flat on his arse again, tail fluffed up like he'd been on the wrong end of a lightning spell and eyes wide as dinner plates. His legs gave out before his brain even caught up – like in the alley, it's the smell that did him first. Blood and alcohol and burning skin, the strange electric buzz in his sinuses after the igniters had gone off.

The room is windowless, lined with rows of battered metal cots. Each is dressed in filthy linens, rigged with leather shackles. Rusty stains streak the stone toward a drain in the center of the floor, and several of the tiles toward the door have claw marks gouged into them. Fidelio's half sure he could still point out which ones he'd left. ]

...This ain't funny.

[ It's directed at no one in particular. More at the room itself. At himself. All he can think is that he needs to turn tail and run while there's no one to catch him, but he can't quite will his legs to stop shaking. ]

ii

[dreamtraveller]

[Klonoa looks at the other creature being, from his position sat down on a really ugly, rickety chair. He swallows the bite of bread in his mouth.]

So far, yep. If it's gonna kill us, it won't do it faster than hunger. Probably.

soldier blue | toward the terra

[firstroar]

o1.

Where are you?

[where is he?]

Can you hear me?

[where are they?]

Please...

[the call isn't a voice on the wind - it's in the mind. Blue reaches out as much as he is able before the strain of doing so starts to spot his vision and make his breath hitch amidst trembling.

he can't see them: the glimmering lights of his people's psions. where are they? the reds, the yellows, the greens...

in the state he's in, the nearby minds may as well be mirages of that which he seeks - wisps he reaches for, only to have nothing to grab hold to.

his quiet, earnest call is a tugging to nearby, receptive minds, layering the confusion and yearning into those words as they're perceived. it's a call for help without 'help' being spoken at all.]

[psychic permissions/info]

Re: soldier blue | toward the terra

[harborborn]

[Something isn't right. He hears someone ( something? ) calling out to him, but not out loud. It's unsettling, and he can't help but find the cause. Wherever the voice is coming from, Kaz is just as confused as the voice is. He searches for the cause.]

Hello?

[It must be another illusion. He should be careful.]

Kyubey | Puella Magi Madoka Magica

[inkyubeytion]

OOC: Kyubey can only communicate telepathically or through charades. It can't read minds or anything like that.

i. arrival

The Incubator realizes immediately that this terminal has been cut off from the others. This is unprecedented, and likely to be of negative impact to the Incubator's purpose. Likewise, the Incubator's start, prone in the mud, implies that this terminal's functions had been temporarily disabled, and though most systems are fully operational once more, the Incubator has no memory of how it had come to be in a disabled state in the first place.

In the best interest of the Incubator's purpose, the Incubator ought to investigate. For the sake of this preliminary goal, the Incubator gets up, shakes off the worst of the mud, and paws the key off of itself.

The Incubator proceeds to eat the key whole, for safekeeping.

ii. rest your soul

The Incubator finds a self-styled Gathering Hall, already occupied. It goes over to where the tables and the food are, and hops up onto a table's surface, to sniff at the food. It turns, then, to the nearest individual, intent on obtaining what information it can. Staring the other down with perfectly round, perfectly red eyes, its tail swishing behind it, the Incubator asks its question telepathically into the other party's mind.

"Can you hear me?"

iii. don't go

The Incubator takes to the rooftops, trotting and hopping along, keeping track of the crows. It intends to get the lay of the land, when on the ground just below, it sees...

a.

A second terminal, sat on its hind legs and with its tail a pendulum at its back. Something, though, is amiss. This terminal is foreign to the Incubator, who isn't able to feel through its limbs, hear through its ears, or see through its eyes. It watches the Incubator, its eyes round and red.

The Incubator stops dead in its tracks and sits on its hind legs, a mirror of its counterpart. Telepathically, it attempts to speak into the strange, alien terminal's mind, as it would with a human.

"Can you hear me?"

b.

The magical girl in the grey-and-white costume, walking, seemingly ignorant of the Incubator's presence. The one that the Incubator has no memory of having made a contract with. Their last encounter didn't go so well for the Incubator, and this time, it doesn't have the luxury of terminals to spare. Could she be connected to the Incubator's present predicament?

The information gain of a confrontation is worth the risk of this terminal's destruction. It would result in an information void, since this terminal has been disconnected from the others, but that can be borne.

So, the Incubator speeds up and jumps down into her path, a healthy distance away. It regards Homura Akemi with its beady, bright eyes.

"So we meet again," the Incubator observes, communicated telepathically into their company's head.

Only to realize too late, of course, that this isn't Homura Akemi at all.

iv. margin scrawls

The Incubator finds a library, and in the library, a book of particular note. The Incubator hops up on the book's pedestal to take a look, flipping the book open with its great, cat-rabbit ears.

The library gives way to a girl's bedroom, filled with cutesy, colorful furniture and knickknacks. Most prominent is the low sitting table at its center, triangular and surfaced in glass. Pillows are strewn around it, and it's set with cake, plated for two people.

The Incubator jumps up onto the table to sniff at the cake, debating whether or not it should try to eat any.

ii

[switch_over]

The Incubator wasn't the only one who had found themselves cut off from their purpose. Eas wasn't about to show it but not having her masters orders to fulfil had put her on edge.

When the Incubator lands in front of her she stares at it briefly with her own all to red eyes, and then shrugs.

"Yes. I can hear you."

Tsar Mirnatius | Spinning Silver

[tsarmirnatius]

I. Arrival

[The moment Mirnatius opens his eyes, he knows that something is off.

It's not the fact he's woken up somewhere he doesn't remember going. That's normal, actually. Nor do the surroundings themselves--the crude cabins, the misty forest, the chill--strike him as out of place. He was traveling, last he remembers, and much of Lithvas looks much like this. He's never felt any burning desire to go mingle with peasants, let alone pass out in such a charming, quaint patch of mud, but his desires have never mattered to anyone. The point is, he could. And now has, apparently.

It's the fact he's done it in daylight that gives him pause.

His muscles ache as he gets up, but he barely registers the pain. The cold, he doesn't register at all. He has an eerie, almost inhuman beauty, and not even his beard can disguise that he's barely twenty years old. His ornate furs and embroidered traveling clothes are dirty but undamaged--another oddity--and he wonders briefly if it's worth the risk to magic them clean. As he considers this, a stranger enters his line of sight.]

You there. What is this place?

[It may be a question, but his sharp, condescending tone makes it clear it's a demand.]

II. Rest Your Soul

[Whoever chose to label this place a hall was either deluded, poor, or a fool. Mirnatius would wager ten zloteks on all three. He surveys the food on offer with open disgust, then goes to peer into the tea kettle. It's equally wretched, no doubt, and there are no cherries or honey in sight to make it drinkable. What a miserable turn of events.

He pours himself a cup of tea, takes an experimental sip, and makes a face like he's been crucified. Turning to whoever else is present, he commands:]

This is undrinkable. Fetch me honey, if there is any.

IV. Margin Scrawls

[Mirnatius had hoped the book might tell him something useful, but of course, that's too much to ask. Instead, it transports him to a church, every arch gilded and every wall covered with brightly painted icons of various saints. He looks around for a moment in surprise, then lets out a bitter chuckle.]

How delightful.

ii

[gloomstrider]

[ It takes Rownan a moment to realize they’ve been addressed. They pause, staring at the book in their hands with a brief upturned expression of faint amusement. They turn the page. ]

There is no honey.

[ There’s honey - thick and crystallized and unappetizing, but in the kitchen all the same. ]

Riot | OC

[fateripper]

i. arrival

Riot sits up like he had been awake this whole time, eyes wide. This isn't the first time he's woken up in a random alleyway with no recollection of how he got there, and he knows it won't be the last, but the thing that's really fucking with him is the lack of noise inside his head.

He reaches out. Static silence. He turns his head this way and that, then reaches out again. Hello? Is this anything? For a second, it's almost like he gets some reception, and then— no, there's just more static.

Riot chalks it up to not yet knowing what the hell is actually up with this place. He pushes down the discomfort of being alone, because they'll find him, of course they will. He just has to make do for a little bit while they get here. It'll be easy because he's Riot. He's unstoppable. He's got his sexy face and his stupidly sharp axes, and he can conquer the world, and maybe even the universe if he wanted to.

He reaches into the space where his weapons usually are and finds nothing.

He throws his hands up with a disgusted noise, then rests one on his hip, truly looking around for the first time since he got here and realizing how off the vibes are. His eyes land on the one living creature he can find. When the crow tilts its head at him, he tilts his back.

"Well, just fuck me sideways with a rake," he says cheerfully.

ii. rest your soul

The gathering hall isn't the worst place in the world. Riot's been to more rundown shitholes than he cares to remember; the important thing about places like this is that there's usually some manner of mortal pleasure to soothe the soul, if you looked hard enough. Depending on what you were willing to settle for.

It's a good thing that Riot's standards are flexible.

His heels clack on the floor as he saunters in, taking in the scenery to see what he's got to work with. "Seven out of ten ambiance. Could use some mood music."

It's unclear who he's talking to, because it doesn't quite sound like he's just talking to himself.

i

[dreamtraveller]

Yellow eyes glint at Riot from further into the darkness of the alley.

"I'm... I'm not going to do that."

See, Klonoa was going to say any number of other, more useful things, but they kind of got chased out of his head by the stranger's... cheerful reaction to his present situation.

Alex J. Mercer | [PROTOTYPE]

[black_light]

[OOC Note: Alex is a walking mass of mutable viral matter in the shape of a man, to anyone with the sense to pick up on this. To those to whom it is a matter of magical notice, Alex is an amalgam of near countless stray pieces of identity and soul anchored around a single tattered core. He has also killed a comical amount of people.]

I: arrival

[Alexander J. Mercer has many needs. He needs answers, self-actualization, to be left alone, the power to defend the few he cares for...

Living flesh.

But among the myriad of these necessities, one thing he does not need is sleep. So when his eyes snap open from an already forgotten nightmare, Alex knows something is wrong. The few times he's spent unconscious have been due to extreme circumstances, such as dying, or having a nuke explode damn near on top of him.

Alex doesn't move further than the opening of his eyes. He lies there in the alley, taking silent consideration of his situation. From the lip of the alley, he easily passes for a dead body. Certainly, he's still enough for it.]

II: rest your soul

A

[Alex has never had reason to fear the cold. Of the many things that have threatened his life, a lack of heat isn't counted among that number. But, he also doesn't see any reason to test his limits now of all times, so with a simple writhing in his eyes to see in thermal, it takes him no time at all to find his way to the warmest place in town.

The entrance to the gathering hall creaks open, Alex having made the judgement call that if he tried anything more intense the door would have plain flown from its hinges. Alex's gaze falls on one of the occupants, though his natural glower doesn't let up.]

So this shit-hole isn't completely abandoned. Guess miracles can happen. [There's a hint of amusement in his voice, but it's mostly flat and dry.] You light that fire?

B

[Or, maybe, the roles are reversed. Maybe you enter the gathering hall and see a new face, one sat quite far from the flame on a particularly garish chair off to the side.

There's really only one way to put what he's doing; he's brooding. His face is set in an impressive glare, his back hunched and hood casting him in chiaroscuro with the dancing shadows of the flame. The target of his ire?

Alex appears to be glaring at a cup of tea and a piece of squishy, overripe fruit. If looks could kill, the entire hall would be a crater.]

III: don't go

[When Alex sees Dana his first emotion, before any thoughts form, is relief.

Then, whatever it is that Blacklight has that passes for a brain produces a thought, and he is filled with pure worry. He darts forth, and grasps his sister by the shoulder firmly, turning her around.]

Dana, what the hell are you—

[And then all of a sudden, his sister is instead a stranger he's never seen before. Alex shoves at them, forcefully, aggression mixing with confusion in his stance.]

Who the fuck are you?

IV: margin scrawls

[Maybe you can recognize what the stony hall that the library turns into is. Maybe you can immediately tell that this is a subway station, albeit unusually abandoned. Maybe you have no frame of reference for what this enclosed space is.

Regardless, you won't have much time to take in the sights, because there will hardly be even an entire second before Alex bears down on you, aiming to grab you by your shirt, moving with unnatural swiftness.]

What the fuck did you do?

[These words are more bitten out than said, snarling like a beast.]

III. don't go

[fateripper]

[Riot laughs, regaining his balance with a shuffle backwards that somehow looks graceful. Definitely not the first time someone has reacted to him that way.]

Depends who's asking. [With a knowing look:] Mist got you good, huh? Don't feel too bad. Happens to everyone.

Nova | OC

[girlbossedtoohard]

i. arrival

Nova had just gotten used to luxury. Waking up in a gorgeous, comfortable four poster bed with silk sheets. Wearing fancy custom gowns dripping in jewels. Waited on by servants. Being the center of everything. It was a very nice change to how she'd grown up: existing only for the whims of someone else.

So to say she's disappointed to find herself waking up on a damp, uncomfortable ground with nothing but a mystery key around her throat is an understatement. She feels fourteen again, running away from home only to realize shortly after that she really can't make it on her own.

She screams, full of rage and frustration and bitterness. It's the scream of someone with very little emotional regulation, or perhaps a child throwing a tantrum. She sets a nearby tree on fire with just her mind and watches as it burns to ash.

Then, she wipes her tears, smooths her dress, smiles. There. She feels a lot better now.

iii. don't go

Things still don't make sense as she wanders around, trying to find someone to tell her what's going on. Occasionally she'll think she sees a figure from the corner of her eye, but as soon as she turns to get a proper look at it it's gone. There's some magic at work here that she doesn't understand, but knowing anything about magic at all was never her job. She doesn't even know where to start in using her own magic to counter this, and she'd killed the only person ever willing to teach her.

Things finally start to make sense when she sees him. Technically they make less sense: he's not supposed to be anywhere near her, but it's just like him to try and play the hero and rescue her. Perhaps she could accept his help again just once. Only because she's scared and she's confused (don't tell anyone) and he knows everything always, somehow.

“Atlas!” She yells, running toward him to throw herself at him in a hug. Once he hugs her, he's bound to give her everything he wants and tell her everything she needs to know. He doesn't know how to keep a secret from her. When she pulls away, it's someone else.

She frowns. “Why were you pretending to be Atlas?”

iv. margin scrawls

She promised herself she wouldn’t ever read a book again and would do her best to forget every single piece of knowledge she was ever taught by any tutor. Finding herself in a library somehow feels cruel and mean, as though they all exist to remind her that she knows nothing. She's just considering burning the whole place down and turning all the books to ash before her eye catches a book just pretty enough to change her mind.

She wanders toward it, turning the pages without thought.

It was a trap, of course. Books are always a trap. More illusion magic, more people trying to fuck with her somehow. She waves her hands trying to dispel it (something else no one's ever taught her how to do) but nothing changes. It really is a cruel joke, dropping her here in this ash-filled, miserable mess of a study. She looks up through the broken ceiling. The sky looks just as she remembers. Hm.

She wanders over to the charred corpse in the center of the floor and kicks it a little bit.

“I promise, he was much prettier when he was alive,” she says to the person she's just noticed is there with her.

iii

[black_light]

Alex had, of course, put together what must be happening the very instant the cry of 'Atlas' passed through whatever it is that he uses to sense these things. He made the further decision that it would probably be more trouble if he dodges than if he doesn't.

Staring at the frowning stranger, he's no longer so sure.

"You've got a brain in there," he says, only somewhat uncertain of the notion, "So let's think things through for a moment. If I was doing that, why would I stop all of a sudden?"