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- *event log,
- animal academy: sasuke sagami,
- danganronpa: kokichi ouma,
- danganronpa: mondo oowada,
- fate/: enkidu,
- girls' frontline: ro635,
- hunter x hunter: killua zoldyck,
- kagepro: tsubomi kido,
- megaten: akira kurusu,
- megaten: hibiki kuze,
- megaten: rei,
- night in the woods: mae borowski,
- npc: minato arisato,
- npc: souji seta,
- original: terrence nowell,
- pokemon: red,
- the world ends with you: neku sakuraba
AUGUST EVENT PT 2
premise ⬥ taken ⬥ faq ⬥ navigation
→ 8/13-8/15 Obon Festival
Lanterns start to dot the streets, hung by the front door of each house who still have an able body to hang them. From there, the lights spread outward, neighbors visiting neighbors with lanterns in hand and prayers in their hearts that the light will be enough to guide the spirits of their ancestors home, enough to heal their loved ones and bring the health and energy back into town.
The first day of Obon passes in silence.
On the second day, the oppressive heat starts to lift, skies clear with a cool breeze that passes through the streets and rocks the lanterns at each door, which opens as people trickle out onto the street. By late afternoon, the entire town is alive with chatter and laughter, the townspeople bustling about to get their late start in setting up the festival stalls and the large stage set on the lakeside in front of the school. Some of the missing have started turning up again, with claims of having recovered from illness or returned from a trip, and more than that, visiting relatives are introduced to one another despite no car or plane ever seen entering or leaving the town. With most businesses closed for the Obon holiday, the second day is spent catching up with one another, making last-minute purchases and renting yukata, and finishing preparations so that both the spirits of their ancestors and those who have become well enough again may celebrate with all in full. By the end of the night, everybody has returned, the town restored.
Loud drumming can be heard the morning of the third day, taiko drum performances starting early and lasting late into the evening. The steady beat fills the air no matter where in town you are, but standing right in front of the stage, it can be felt in your chest, as if the entire town's hearts beat as one. Though less compared to during the tanabata festival, stalls are set up for Obon and largely consist of games and shops selling toys and trinkets, food stalls focusing on small treats rather than meals. With the taiko performance in the background to keep the rhythm, folk dances are held on the stage and in the parks and are open to anybody, participants being pulled in from the streets to join the circles to dance. Traditional clothing like yukata can be seen worn by almost everybody, from young children to great-grandparents, as they gather around the lake at sundown to say farewell to the spirits. Lanterns are lit and sent off into the lake, where they gather at the center and burn bright until there's nothing left to burn, and the town settles into warm, sleepy darkness.
When night falls and the townspeople begin to clean up, retrieve the lanterns, and go home, the breeze picks up a little, soft and cool, cutting paths throughout town much like the freezing gusts of winds that first Lockdown night. Rather than to the schoolhouse, however, the wind gently nudges you towards the forest, towards the edge of forest blocked by caution tape to keep people out of scorched earth and blackened trees. Only one lantern is left untouched, hanging on a tree branch just before this forest fire site, fallen trees cleared out to widen the path, that leads into the forest.
Soon, the full moon hangs high in the sky, shining its light straight down onto the castle ruins below.
→ 8/15 Castle Ruins and the Shrine
Carried along by the breeze that winds through the streets and blows down this path, finding your way through the forest becomes simple, and soon the trees part to reveal the castle ruins hidden away inside the forest -—at least, what used to be castle ruins. The changes come unexpected and instantly, in a blink of an eye during the day for those who still live in the castle, and a sight to behold for those who haven't returned in a long time until tonight.
Entering the castle reveals a repaired foundation and pillars which stand whole again, stairs to the second floor still broken but with all the rubble underneath cleared away, the air inside the castle no longer choking with dust. In the main hall, red candlesticks line the perimeter of the room, the glow of fire illuminating the murals that have shown up on previously blank walls, images faintly visible under a layer of yellow mildew. If you carefully scrub them clean, they depict a small village surrounded by farmland, a familiar lake at the center, flocks of crows adorning the skies with one large crow standing on the peak of the mountain overlooking the town.
At the center of the castle's main hall, a mother bear and two cubs can be seen snoozing in the middle of the room, sleeping next to a meter-by-meter square that has been cut into the stone ground. If you can get the bears to leave or are brave enough to approach without waking them up, you will see that hinges on one edge suggest it to be a door, but there is no handle and no way to lift the panel, nor can the door or the surrounding area be damaged no matter how hard you try. Upon closer inspection, there are four impressions on each corner of the door matching the size and shape of the ofuda received as a reward for defeating the dungeon boss, currently in RO's possession. Placing the ofuda on one of the slots causes the edges of the door to glow bright blue for a second before the light disappears, and the ofuda turns to stone, just like the door and the castle around them. Nothing more seems to happen after, the other three impressions remaining exactly the same.
All throughout the night, the candles burn along the perimeter of the hall, one hundred in total that cast the room in warm light. Whether you remember the fortune teller's words or are simply chatting with one another and catching up on all that's happened during your time here, each time a story is shared, a light blows out, leaving the castle dimmer and dimmer as the night goes on. The darker it gets, the more restless you begin to feel, Personas becoming more agitated and prone to lash out as the clock ticks closer to midnight. Those who choose to take a walk to the shrine to cool their heads find that the shrine looks different from before too, revealing unbroken steps, a thoroughly swept floor, stone lanterns whole instead of crumbled and broken, and the water basin filled to the brim with clear water that almost seems to sparkle in the moonlight— a far cry from how broken down the abandoned shrine appeared just a month before. There's still work to be done, however: in particular, the sign- restored and painted over in pure white so that it looks almost new- still displays no name. The paint is still a little wet, so perhaps somebody is just waiting for the paint to dry...
The night seems to drag on, but as long as people keep talking, no matter where they are in the castle or at the shrine, the candle lights continue going out until they count down to zero.
→ 8/15 Welcome to the Velvet Room
When the last of the candles go out and the castle plunges into complete darkness, a bright blue light begins to shine from beside the throne, taking on the form of a doorway set into the wall. Without fanfare, two figures step out, the taller with silver hair and a kind face, and the other with golden eyes that peek past long bangs to squint at everybody inside the castle. ...The latter immediately turns around back through the doorway to leave his partner to explain things to everybody here, who takes a seat on the throne as if he belongs there all along. If you have questions, come talk to this guy; but otherwise, there's nothing stopping you from going through the doorway to follow after the other one.
This isn't the only doorway that opens up: blue light shines between the pillars of the torii at the shrine, and similar doorways appear scattered throughout town to replace your bedroom door, the bathroom stall in a store you've run into for an emergency, set into the wall in an alleyway where there was no door before, even at the first floor of the school dungeon if for whatever reason you're there. Regardless of which door you enter, stepping through any doorway brings you into a small room, a bowl of fresh fruit and a bottle of some sort of non-alcoholic mixed drink in a bucket of ice sitting on the table in the middle of the room, two chairs flanking the table and a plush velvet couch against one wall. The ground shakes and rocks as you look around, curtains pulled aside to reveal inky blue darkness, spots of light floating past the windows out in the distance like stars. Each person arrives in their own room, a placard with their name and arcana set on the door labelling it theirs.
Down the end of the hall, the door opens up into a brightly lit lounge, wide windows set along the walls although the landscape outside remains as dark as ever. The lounge is filled with chairs and couches covered in the same blue velvet as the rooms and music seems to fill your entire being rather than just your ears. Passing through the door at the end of the lounge brings you to the conductor's cab where a young man sits, changed out of his costume into a more formal uniform in dark blues with a train engineer cap pulled low over closed eyes, slouched far back on his seat with his feet up on the control panel. Despite all that, however, the train simply zips along, the rail just barely visible from the front window of the cab. The attendant tilts his head your way, looking rather irritable, silent until you speak first.
→ MOD NOTES
⬥ As a reminder, characters are more likely to lose control of their Personas around the time of the full moon (8/15) but this can also occur at any time, especially with internal conflict and during Lockdown. This is an optional mechanic. Personas will also temporarily disappear once the character enters the Velvet Room.
⬥ The two Velvet Room assistants will have their own top-levels below for those who wish to speak with them in this log, and they may be contacted at the NPC contact page at any time as well. The NPC contact page will serve as an "IC inbox" for the characters to freely interact with the attendants to ask questions, receive and fill requests, hang out, etc. Please read this page carefully for more information about accessing the Velvet Room.
⬥ While each attendant may have individual requests for those who ask for them, they will also give tasks for the characters as a whole. These general requests will be listed on the NPC contact page at the beginning of each month. Successful completion of a request will earn characters rewards, and there is no time limit for completion.
no subject
I'm always okay, so no worries.
[ He stretches his arms out in front of him, fingers laced and palms out. ]
But I know the same isn't true for all of you guys. So it's not okay... But also sort of okay. Or- at least, it doesn't change much, I guess.
[ He was trying to say something, but he thinks the point got lost somewhere, so he just shakes his head and sits upright in his chair. ]
Are you upset? About all this?
no subject
[Even Gon, who Killua considered one of the brightest people he's ever met had been decidedly not okay once life piled on too much pressure all at once.
He sighs, rubbing at his nose.] I don't mind helping. It's being dragged here without warning that I don't like--there's someone I'm supposed to be protecting, and I can't do that while I'm here. If she'd been brought along, too, I guess... it wouldn't be so bad.
no subject
Things have always been okay. If life sucked before, I can't remember any of it. It's all locked away, my time before this train. Same with Souji.
[ As far as he's concerned, he's always been okay. He never had a reason to not be. ]
I'm okay 'cause he's here, and... I dunno, I guess that's the effect that friends have. Ones you knew, ones you'll make... it'll be okay.
[ He'd like to say something about the worlds people were dragged from and whatever effect on time or space there is, but it's a can of worms he doesn't want to prod at and spill right now, so instead, he asks ]
Tell me more about the one who's important to you?
no subject
[And now his expression softens again.] My sister. Her name's Alluka. She doesn't really know how to defend herself, so... I've been looking after her.
no subject
Lucky she has you. Older or younger? What's she like?
no subject
Younger. [A smile flits over his lips.] She's kind, playful--kind of excitable. She loves traveling and seeing new places.
[Granted, a lot of that's because she simply hasn't had a chance to see much of the world until now, but it still counts.]
no subject
...Do you wish she were here? Even with all the...
[ The smile drops as he gestures vaguely about the conductor's cab, with slow, broad strokes to indicate this entire mess of a situation. ]
Would that make you feel any better? Though, it's kinda a pointless question, when I can't do anything about it. [ he adds, as not to get Killua's hopes up. ]
no subject
Finally, he sighs.]
Alluka...there's some dangerous people who want to use her for their own gain, back where I'm from. It'd probably be safer for her to be here with me than alone back there with those people still looking for her.
no subject
You're probably be here a while. Just realistically speaking... But, um.
[ He rubs a hand over the back of his head, then sits up straight so he can look at Killua and play the part of a proper guide, even though it always feels like he's just pretending. ]
This place is set apart from time, space, reality... That sort of stuff. Not just the Velvet Room, but this place in general. This world. So when you go back, I think you'll go right back to when and where you came from.
no subject
[He won't waste his breath saying something like "that's impossible!" when he's seen first hand that there's an extra hour where the monsters appear every night. Knowing that, he can at least believe time manipulation is possible, when before he would've scoffed at the idea of it. Even dimensional pockets constructed from nen weren't able to bypass time like that, after all.]
no subject
[ Nothing to send back, if their soul gets destroyed. Just having a Persona makes everybody more resilient than they should be, Minato still worries about a lot of these guys who seem to through themselves headfirst into danger without thought of consequence. He gets why. He would do it too. But it's still stupid. ]
It's not like your time here doesn't count... If something changes inside you while you're here, you're going to carry that forward.
no subject
I kind of figured as much. That means if I die here, no one back home will know what happened.
[As always, it's Alluka that he's worried about here. Even if time works the way Minato said, she'll still be left by herself if he doesn't even make it back.]
no subject
[ If it's some sort of magic portal thing, maybe Minato can throw a corpse inside and hope it goes to the right place, but somehow, he doubts that's how it'll work. It's not really a soul thing anyways, with some of the people here claiming they don't have those things, it has nothing to do with being alive, but...
It's complicated.
He'll cross that bridge when he gets there, and hope he never has to. ]
Worst case scenario, what do you want me to do?