Castle W Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
whimsicalism) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fabledend2022-08-25 11:49 pm
whimsicalism) wrote in fabledend2022-08-25 11:49 pm
EXPULSION
You wake up in a bathroom. In a bathtub, to be specific. The tiny, cramped space is clammy and cold, the mirror on the wall opposite you dulled by a fine layer of dust and mist. You're conscious of your final moments immediately upon waking: Whether murdered or executed, you failed to survive Ira Academy and have died. You may even be stuck in that bathtub with someone else as you wake up..
'
As you gather your wits about you and step from the clammy bathroom, an equally cramped apartment waits outside. It's a single room that feels rather lived in, with the bedroom area portioned away from the kitchen.
Leave the apartment and you likely blink as the rough scenery of a Japanese neighborhood greets you. Even more strangely, everything seems to have a purple hue. Even the air feels like it's drenched in purple. For now, just the apartment, parking lot, an underpass and a convenience store are available to explore.
Deadland FAQ:
This is the "deadland," or graveyard, for the round.
Map info goes here.
Nope, AC isn't required from characters who have died! Towards the end of the game, depending on the choices characters make and the potential ends, we may ask you to check in before the final week to see if you'd like to participate in some endgame plotting. Otherwise, feel free to take being dead at your own pace!
What can you do in spooky creepy Japanese city?
A staff member runs the deadland here, and they may be responsible for some of your strange events and surroundings.
Poke around enough and you may find other denizens, trapped in this realm on the other side of the bathroom mirror.
Well...
'
As you gather your wits about you and step from the clammy bathroom, an equally cramped apartment waits outside. It's a single room that feels rather lived in, with the bedroom area portioned away from the kitchen.
Leave the apartment and you likely blink as the rough scenery of a Japanese neighborhood greets you. Even more strangely, everything seems to have a purple hue. Even the air feels like it's drenched in purple. For now, just the apartment, parking lot, an underpass and a convenience store are available to explore.
Deadland FAQ:
► What is this place?
This is the "deadland," or graveyard, for the round.
► Spooky! Is there a map?
Map info goes here.
► Do I need to make AC to stay here?
Nope, AC isn't required from characters who have died! Towards the end of the game, depending on the choices characters make and the potential ends, we may ask you to check in before the final week to see if you'd like to participate in some endgame plotting. Otherwise, feel free to take being dead at your own pace!
► What can I do while I'm here?
What can you do in spooky creepy Japanese city?
► Are any NPCs available for interactions?
A staff member runs the deadland here, and they may be responsible for some of your strange events and surroundings.
Poke around enough and you may find other denizens, trapped in this realm on the other side of the bathroom mirror.
► Is there any way I can contact the living?
Well...
cw violent torture described from past
[Jeanne sits up in her white church dress without the vest. There was some... weird shuffling... Was that Dylan's voice? It doesn't make sense, she thinks, she knows that the noose didn't shut his throat but his brain was smashed and shouldn't have been able to send signals to him anymore. As sincerely as she had believed that both of them would have existence after death, there had been no evidence for this particular specific scenario. She pulls herself up slowly and the incredibly small bathtub brings a certain quaint homestay textbook image to mind.]
It's Japanese style...
[As she loops her arm around the edge of the bathtub a second time, she leans down to peer more closely at the long ruffled sleeve and wrinkles her nose. It's already covered in dark black and subtler white fur all over again. So, when she can be seen trudging dutifully towards the convenience store, not necessarily first to notice anything or anyone else, she's muttering something.]
Lint roller. I require a lint roller...
[There is a growl in her voice, though Jeanne is so young that it is more like a purr. The French accent can be heard because even though lapsing back into the French language should be automatically translated as a unified whole, she's been estranged for so long that a technical term like lint roller is still English.]
Re: cw violent torture described from past
...Jeanne-san?
[...her brain just goes into a holding pattern. Jeanne killed Dylan? Dylan killed Jeanne? Neither scenario seems remotely like anything that would ever happen. (Not that "Reika kills Luz" probably seemed especially more likely.) So... she's just going to stare for a while, hope that's okay.]
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[Despite everything, seeing her first ever girl friend again fills Jeanne with joy and camaraderie. But she has school nurse paraphernalia? Jeanne stares openly and blinks heavily.]
Did something happen? [Did Reika fetch it, seeing Jeanne wandering and lost?] I am dead, but I'm alright.
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Ah! No, this is for me. I fell over earlier.
[Upon closer examination, she has a few minor scrapes on her legs.]
...I didn't expect to see you.
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...well.]
I wish I could say I projected my spirit here for your sake. But that is not the case.
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...is that something you can do?
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[Accent pretty strong there. Homegirl is bitter.]
...but I did not have experience with that particular technique even before I lost my powers, no.
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[Doubly shut down, there.]
I was hoping we could sent a message to the living.
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[...well...]
I was dismissed as insane for hoping to revive you all when my powers returned. I had admitted I would have needed your bodies; I assume I am interacting with your soul. Is there anything beyond "we are here" that you wanted to say?
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We need to warn everyone away from A-san.
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[Jeanne had been thinking very little about A-san at this point, and her voice cracks a bit. Had she overlooked something important?]
What about her?
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[In her utterly drained state, Jeanne intones this sentence word by word like she wants to swear but has to realize that she's not even intellectually aware of how to do so.]
It had come to our attention that the Principal's precarious position was suspicious. He claimed total ignorance of the time that Mistress Prefect was attacked within a washing machine. A-san is at fault, then?
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[...]
Wait, with a what?
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[She makes a shape with her hands to convey the traditional circle-on-cube washing machine.
...a little wistful.]
Are Valmont and all the others here...? He could tell you about it in more detail.
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[Reika restrains herself from saying "they were being ridiculous when they arrived and I just kind of ignored them until they worked things out."]
It seems like we might need to have a proper discussion amongst ourselves.
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[Jeanne's face says NO THANK YOU. What does her mouth say. Her mouth says...]
I think my energy is better spent focused on finding any means of contact at all...
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there was never another version of this tag!!
Jeanne?!
[ It's not like he hasn't thought about seeing her again over the past week, as awkward as that reunion would be, given their last conversation. But if she's here - That means -
He skids to a stop in front of her, staring for a moment before his eyes narrow dangerously. ]
What. Did. He. Do.
[ CALL HIM HUNTER'S AUNT BECAUSE IT'S FUR COAT TIME BABEY ]
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[Jeanne has said this phrase so many times already, and she was so engrossed in her morbid little march, that her brain can barely catch up to the ambiguity it will have for Valmont, probably thinking "he killed me so he had better be killed back". It's so nice to see him again, to have someone she can maybe be honest about her resentment around.]
On patrol with that childish little toy of his.
[Even her giggle sounds totally different in a French accent. Cute, right?]
You cannot seriously think—[She puts her hand down at Dylan's height.] He barely reaches the femoral artery.
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[ Valmont pounds a fist into his scrawny palm, barely restraining himself from openly seething. Boy is pissed. ]
If that mongrel thought he could get away with harming you for one -
[ Never mind that Jeanne supposedly enjoys a spot of personal bodily harm, which Valmont still has trouble wrapping his head around. But sticking yourself in an iron maiden and getting torn apart by a rabid dog have to be two different kinds of flavor profiles, right?
...Wait hang on ]
Do you mean - he didn't do it?
[ THEN WHO DID ]
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[She steps forward.]
I understand if you do not want anything to do with me after this, but—[She puts her hand on his shoulder.] They let him slit your throat like a pig, like a calf. They ate their apples before the trial was over. It was in that moment I realized... there was no choice but to aim for escape and do my best to give them Shamash's kiss afterwards.
[Her lips quirk.]
And all of you as well. I imagine that would have given you [singular! you can hear the "tu" in the French in fact!] quite a start.
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You killed him? And after you got out of there, you were going to try to... bring us back? Bring me back?
[ He had a chance at resurrection, and he didn't even know it before the others went and slaughtered her. Valmont's eyes are suddenly very watery. He sniffles loudly. He hasn't cried since he's been here, at least not in front of anyone, but - damn it. Damn it all. ]
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As you say, I would try. Please be aware that the conditions were not ideal here. Your slit throat is similar to the stabbing I have healed; Edward in ashes poses a bit more of a problem. Furthermore A-san's power apparently surpasses Father's all along. It is a gamble that I truly regret making.
[Now that she's soothed her conscience with this... which is babble that's really hard to follow, she can't blame Valmont... Jeanne can follow her emotions to reel in the fishing line. She hugs him.]
But I am so glad... that at least one of the conditions did hold true... that your soul has held strong through all these trials... I am so glad...!
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Also, I'm so sorry, he's just going to be crying all over her shoulder for a minute. When the floodgates open, they open hard, and now he's a blubbering mess getting snot all over her nice church dress. ]
I... I missed you...
[ Jeanne would be excused for thinking she heard that wrong. It's a lot more emotionally open than Valmont usually lets himself get. Also, it's through a whole lot of hiccuping. ]
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[She pats Valmont a bit now that he's even closer to her. They're... hugging... it once again reminds Jeanne of how little human life she has experienced, what a relief it is to be held, as opposed to impaled with spikes. And she feels intense empathy for him too, this realization washing over her, that he badly missed her all this time, that he had cared for her during their time together. That he wanted to see her again... that he's seeing her again now...
Jeanne feels guilty for being so quick to assume that his intentions were so lustful. Maybe little boys and little girls really do go around holding hands like in the picture books. She still doesn't feel the urge as strongly as she assumes Valmont must, but perhaps like the satiation of hunger and exhaustion, it will come with time. She had written that she felt like they had to ask Marco for permission. Now she's not sure she should continue relying on her father figure at all. And she thinks that Valmont understands that, cares about her enough not to push. That he just felt an even stronger form of companionship that was equally pure.
Eventually, when it seems that they might be tired of this embrace, she rearranges herself and clings to his elbow, more eagerly than before.]
Then let us eat together again.