achates | [DAY 1-]

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[DAY 1-]

The night drags on.

The moon, full and bright, illuminates the world below as demons rise in indulgence of the hunt. All those who are not securely tucked away become prey, whose blood runs freely down the streets, whose screams fill the air in symphony, whose lives are snuffed out one by one as the night grows darker- but not quieter, no. Towards the far west, wind picks up in a deafening howl that tears through the forest violently enough to uproot trees, followed by a thunderous explosion atop the wall that sends large chunks of rock crashing down on parts of the immobile train, creating shockwaves felt all the way into town. Dark clouds gather overhead, smothering the moon and unleashing a downpour that continues unrelentingly until dawn, when the paltry sunlight behind the clouds is only enough to see that the rain that falls is in fact blood, thick and warm, coating the rooftops and the streets. Rivulets trickle towards the east, where they spill over the edges of the world and into the cavernous abyss of a mouth below.

Those who sleep will dream. They dream of being flat on their back, lying on hard metal, a warm breeze caressing their cheek, the faint scent of cherry blossom in the air. They dream of their bodies feeling like lead, heavy and unable to move, hardly able to breathe— and all the while in complete darkness. Whether they give in to exhaustion or struggle valiantly against it, they will eventually open their eyes to a different scene: of somebody's home before here, you and that person reliving the very last memory they had before waking up in the train just yesterday. It's a memory that culminates in darkness. Give in. Struggle. Open your eyes again and again and again, and eventually you will wake up to what you wish were just another bad dream: the unfortunate plane of existence we call reality.

It may not be a good morning, but it's morning. If characters glance at their COMP, they will see a bright number 7 on the screen that disappears as their chosen AI chimes in with a good morning greeting ("Whoa! Congrats on surviving the night, boss!" or "Yikes, you look like shit. Did you get any rest at all?"). Pulling up the map function shows fewer blue ally dots as expected, but perhaps unexpectedly, much fewer red enemy dots as well: there are very few demons to be seen, and those that are, show little interest in hunting unless they are attacked first. The forest is still and quiet, red Mandrake leaves littering the floor in abundance but the demons remain rooted underground, the Hares of Inaba huddled snug within their dens, bird demons taken roost underneath the canopy to keep out of the blood rain. The concert hall is silent today, guards at the door watchful and ready to snipe intruders. Inside the powerplant, the giant Ooze spreads lazily across the first floor, filling the space wall to wall, acid seeping underneath the front doors and burning its way outside. Indoors, outdoors, demons keep to themselves, seemingly sated.

It's almost peaceful. If you didn't know better.

The drizzle of blood tapers off over the course of Day 1, replaced by normal rain once night hits. The water that falls is clear, though bitter and metallic tasting, and the stormy weather continues for several days more. The temperature outside dips, even during the daytime, and the hunger that continues to persist (unless you're BB, who ate a Pixie, maybe) is made worse by the appearance of a hot dog stand that has been set up in front of the school building. Its existence in this place is wholly suspicious, entirely nonsensical, manifested as if out of a yandere devil summoner fever dream— and yet the mystery meat smells divine, and you are so so hungry.

"Hee-ho! Get your hot dogs here-ho! What? What kind of mee-hee-t is in it, ho? Don't worry about it, ho!"

JACK FROST

LOCATION
hot dog stand

STRENGTH
ice

WEAKNESS
fire

INFORMATION:
Jack Frost is a spirit originating from England who brings in cold weather during the winter and is responsible for the frost that forms on the windows of homes and buildings. Though it is usually friendly and innocent, it also has a mischievous personality and will freezes those it dislikes to death, smiling all the while.

SKILLS:
Mabufudyne: heavy ice damage (multi-target)
Megidolaon: mega almighty damage (multi-target)

NOTE: This demon is non-recruitable.

Can anybody resist that cute face? never mind the sales pitch. Jack Frost will operate on a barter system, though it really only seems interested in people's gemstones, or if they're willing to slaughter and bring it a Katakirauwa in exchange for a cold but still delicious hotdog dressed up in any variety of condiment. For those who muster the courage to go demon hunting to earn their meal, they will find that a single hotdog will stave off hunger for up to three days. For those who gave up their gemstone instead, K5 will be screaming at them not to do that, but also, please tell me. Maybe they'll rethink the offer, noticing that the gemstones they'd found on their person now feel slightly warm to the touch- growing warmer when in proximity to another person's gemstones, their colors more vibrant, stones faintly glowing as if with internal light.

Generous as Jack Frost is with providing dubious sustenance, it's a different story when it comes to the vending machine beside its stall. Inside are various drinks guaranteed to be cold, and include bottled water, coffee, teas, juices, blood and tears and many other questionable unlabeled liquids among its touted 100!!! varieties of beverage ("""beverage"""). Two problems: 1) there is no selection button, so you do not get to choose your drink; and 2) the machine will only take macca. Where to get macca? Figure that out yourself and earn your drink gacha.

[ Locked pending: SCHOOL investigation ]

[ Locked pending: GREENHOUSE investigation ]

[ Locked pending: HOSPITAL investigation ]

[ Locked pending: CONCERT HALL investigation ]

[ Locked pending: POWERPLANT investigation ]

OOC

Since I know a handful of you are still working on apps, this event log in general will be open to all players, but Investigations will be closed to current players only. See below for more information.

On Day 1 only, wild demon encounters will be scarce and it will rain blood all day, after which the weather will transition into normal rain and demon encounters will also return to normal rates, less during the day and more frequent after dark.

When characters fall asleep any time in the next several days (including victims of the concert hall lullaby that will begin again starting Day 2, as well as inadvertent naps for those of you who are like lmao yeah whatever, i don't need sleep, i'm fine), they will be able to see the circumstances around other characters' canonpoints. This dream may take the form of being a bystander, or from the point of view of the character, whichever would be more fun/interesting to play.

Players can advance time by posting new logs set on the current or next IC date— don't be afraid to advance time as needed! Plot beats will be adjusted accordingly, and there'll be ample warning if plot necessitates a deadline or specific event date for any reason. If you have any trigger warnings, please let me know here! Comments are screened, and warnings will be listed in the log format post for player awareness.

As characters investigate different locations in the setting, more aspects of the game will be unlocked and will be updated in the post above. In summary, from the previous TDM event, characters have found doors sealed by barriers in the school, greenhouse, and hospital. The concert hall and powerplant are still both heavily guarded by demons that prevent thorough investigation until dealt with.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Alright, losers, who's going graverobbing with me? The ground is still damp from the blood rain, so today's our best chance.

[ On principle, she has absolutely no issue with looting. They have to do what they have to do to survive here.

She is curious, however— ]

What do you plan to look for there?

I wish I knew. I saw a gravestone with my old name on it, and I doubt it was just a tasteless pun about deadnames. If we figure out what's actually buried underneath those headstones, we might get a clue about why we're seeing pictures of ourselves that none of us remember getting taken all around town.

I see. Knowing what can't be there, it could yield some kind of answers... Do you have an umbrella or shovel?

Umbrella check, trowels check, but it might be more efficient to use the femurs from BB's Big Bone Bonanza Pile outside the church.

I'll see if I can break off another pipe on the way. It should work just as well.

Are you headed there now?

Mhm. See you there.

[ The Princess makes her way to the graveyard as agreed, wrenching another length of pipe free along the way. She comes armed with this and a plain black umbrella, stark in contrast to her pallid features.

Then again, the blood makes them all stand out in its own way.

She marches right over to Alice's position when she spots her, her long dress gathered up and held out of the way by the belt she's been using to carry weapons. Her shoes aren't ideal for the muddy task, but it can't be helped, and she doesn't appear concerned with it. ]

So which grave is it?

Edited 2024-09-21 19:56 (UTC)

[Alice is already there when the Princess appears, umbrella opened and idly twirling the femur in her hands with all the respect for the dead that you'd expect of a girl who proposed this idea in the first place. Despite going to all the trouble to raid a new outfit from the train, she's back in her torn-up hoodie and jeans, mostly because she doesn't want to get said outfit dirty.]

Mine. [She points the bone at the grave marker engraved with ARKOS JUNGHART.] It obviously can't be my body down there, so let's find out what this graveyard is hiding.

...I'm Alice Machias, by the way. That's... an old name. [She looks troubled, but only for a moment.] Let's get to work.

[ The names — old and current — are information that the Princess simply accepts with a nod, albeit an abbreviated one. Her shackle only allows for so much movement, but she's accustomed enough that it doesn't concern her.

Alice is Alice. That other name's only relevance is that it couldn't be her grave, despite being labeled so. She understands. ]

Alright.

[ She shifts her umbrella pinning the handle under one arm, then begins moving dirt aside with her scavenged pipe. ]

I don't remember my name, so if one of these is supposed to be mine, I wouldn't know it.

[ Her tone suggests nothing about how she may feel regarding that as she works. Truthfully, her lack of recollection can't be helped, and she has accepted it. ]

[Setting about the grim work with her femur, Alice lets the silence hang between them. It's nice working with someone else who knows how to act professional, for once.

But god damn it, her shriveled-up, vestigial empathy is tugging at the back of her mind. She resists it for a few minutes before finally relenting.]

You can choose a name for yourself, you know. That's what I did.

...the day I became "Alice" is the day I really came alive. [In more ways than she knows.]

[ It's a curious thought: naming herself. By now it has come up a few times and she no more knows what she'd choose than she ever has. But she recognizes it's a kindness when others tell or encourage her, offer suggestions, or just outright pick one and hold to it like BB.

Yes, she thinks that's kind. ]

...How did you choose your name?

[ She asks after a healthy round of silence, eyes on the dirt at their feet as she digs. It clearly made such a difference to Alice, so how did she come up with the right one for her? ]

...

[It dawns on Alice that she doesn't actually remember. The exact moment that she became "Alice" and left the wimpy, sunshiney "Arkos Junghart" in the dust is lost to her.

But that isn't what the Princess needs to hear right now, and she at least remembers her reason.]

There's this children's book back home. Alice Through the Looking Glass. It's stupid nonsense designed to give kids nightmares, but... that image always stuck with me. Passing through the mirror instead of just staring down my reflection, hating how I looked.

...being the "me" on the other side instead of just the "me" from the past. [There's something she's missing, she knows that, some element that's escaping her, but whenever she reaches for it all she finds is cold static.]

[ Her first response is an affirming sound caught between closed lips. Eyes still on the dirt before them, she pauses at the first sign of something moving, frowning at the wriggling, pale forms they unearth.

The bugs hardly tell them much of anything, so she resumes pushing soil aside with her iron pipe. ]

So a story inspired you, then?

[ She turns the thought about in her mind. There are no such tales in her memory, since it only spans her imprisonment and now this new one, but it seems like a nice thought... Becoming who one wants to be, rather than what outside circumstances had dictated.

What would she want to become, other than free? ]

I hope you're happy as you are now.

[ It's a startlingly innocent thought, yet it's sincere. ]

[The maggots worm through the dirt, through the corpses, into Alice's mind. It's not the bugs that disturb her, though. It's the Princess's question.

Alice realizes, slowly, fatally, that she's never been truly happy.

She shakes off the thought and gets back to work, as heedless of the maggots as the Princess.]

...I'm happy to be alive, at least. I wouldn't be if I never had the guts to choose my own name.

I see.

[ Perhaps it's a difficult thing, choosing a new name when one remembers the one they were given. She turns the thought about in her mind as she displaces more bloodied earth, more writhing pale masses of bugs.

It must be harder than filling the void of failed memory, she supposes. ]

Maybe something will inspire me too, one day.

[ Survival and freedom are more pressing concerns than what she's called, at least in her mind. She'd fought for and won both, yet here she is fighting for them again. ]

Can't blame you for having bigger priorities when we're in the middle of someone else's apocalypse, digging up a... ugh, this has to be a mass grave, ew. [Alice crinkles her nose, not at the disgusting smell or grotesque mush of corpses, bugs, and bloodied mud, but over the fact that there's a mass grave in a podunk town like this.]

There was definitely something wrong with Beelzeburg even before it was, you know, Beelzeburg.

[ It'd be a curious sight, were it not so terribly macabre. Perhaps the town's entire population before their arrival could be found here, or even... ]

Others were brought here before us, right?

[ She pauses, if only to knock aside a stray stone. ]

Do you think they're also here, in this?

[ Even the small patch they're digging in is such a jumble of bone. Too many of one part, too few of another, as though someone had shuffled the remains around to make a challenge of ever putting individuals back together. ]

I doubt it. Even lazy assholes who pitch corpses into one big pile would need infrastructure to keep it from showing aboveground. It seems unlikely that the town was in any better shape—or had any more people—when the first wave of bozos stumbled in here to get themselves killed.

But... [Ugh. Now the Princess has gotten Alice thinking. This will bug her until she figures out what ruined a perfectly dreary graveyard like this, isn't it?] It's still a question worth looking into.

So that leaves the question of where they all went... Unless every bit of them was devoured.

[ Which is entirely possible, but the mess outside the train doesn't suggest that to her. It's all speculation for now, and if the local populace was gone by then, odds are there aren't records.

Not that that's really her domain. How people work isn't something she recalls. ]

Do demons need fresh food, for that matter...

[ The corpses were undisturbed until they started digging, after all. ]

Considering how many corpses are littered around Beelzeburg and all those creepy photos of us decorating the houses here, I doubt it'll be easy to tell which corpses belong to townies and which ones are from the last round of schmucks anyways.

[A particularly grody-looking worm latches onto Alice's sneaker, and she curses under her breath as she stomps it to death.]

Judging by these creeps, at least some demons are willing to settle for rotten meat.

I hate this town so much.

Not the sort of place I'd been hoping to see when I got outside.

[ She can admit that easily, pausing to kick aside one of the nasty, worm-like demons that wriggles too close for comfort. Everything here wants to eat them, and evidently this is all by design.

For what reason, and to what end...? ]

Wonder what it is they want, bringing us here.

[ If death is failure, they must not simply be demon food. ]

...I don't think we were "brought" so much as sent.

[This has been bugging Alice all day, and it just so happens that the Princess has given her the opportunity to voice her thoughts.]

Before it was sabotaged, the train's direction indicated it was coming into the town from the void on the west end of town. The damage to it is fresh, too- there's none of the wear and tear that's characteristic of other structures in Beelzeburg. Then there's our COMPs. Someone must've supplied them and installed K5 and A, star, L, star, A on them so we could use the demon summoning program.

We were sent here to accomplish something. Now the question is what, and why.

If we were sent, that would mean someone from our homes wanted us here. If we were brought, someone from this place wants us here. Since it's supposedly happened before, I lean toward the latter.

[ Brought or sent — the end result is that they're here. She expects they're here for a reason, particularly since batches have been referenced. The last place she'd been confined to had been for a set purpose as well, albeit a questionable one. ]

There has to be a goal, or this wouldn't have happened more than once. [ She pauses to adjust her umbrella, where it had begun to slip. ] Whether it's one we want any part of is another matter.

[ Whatever has happened here has seen repetition, and they may not like what the end goal is. It's difficult to say with any certainty, but there's been a great deal of death. Whoever is pursuing this clearly doesn't have any problems with loss of life. ]

Edited (typo rip) 2024-10-02 19:02 (UTC)

[ But judging you all the same. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[DAY 1-]

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