EXPULSION

[whimsicalism]

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:

► 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...

Comments

[curdle]

[ Yeah, she's just sitting on the floor of the apartment building, staring at the walls, and hugging her knees to her chest! It's fine, don't worry about it. ]

[holyironmade]

[Jeanne's fuming, fugitive footsteps slow down when she gets close enough to realize that the vibrations might travel over to Thomasin. Her face softens. She thinks. She speaks.]

...you said you had been false with everyone due to your fear. There was not much time on the phone, but... would it lighten your heart to talk now...?

[curdle]

[ Thomasin does hear footfalls, tempered as they are. She looks up at Jeanne. For the first time in several weeks, there's a little intentional wryness in her tone when she speaks. ]

You would have me make confession.

[ Normally, this would probably be bitter-sounding, a no without actually saying no. But since it's Jeanne, it's more of a little Catholicism joke than anything else. ]

[holyironmade]

[There's this moment before she "gets it", like, dang, Protestants don't have confession either, what's next, is nothing sacred?! Then:] Ahaha. Laity can give eucharist in emergencies, but only God can forgive sins.

[She sits down a little ways away, where they don't really have to look at each other every second. Feels cozy.]

Carrie had wanted to share her story with me too, not for absolution, just so it would live on if she did not survive starvation. ...I was a disappointment, but in our present case, it is not as if the circumstances can grow worse.

[UNTIL THEY GET YEETED INTO THE OCEAN PLATFORM...]

the witch spoilers start here! even though there's technically not any explicitly in this comment!

[curdle]

Aye. I will.

[ She gazes ahead (so, you know, at the wall) in silence for a moment, unsure of how to proceed. Then she speaks, if not before squeezing her eyes shut. ]

At the trial -- the first, I suppose -- even when they saith I had done murder, none of you questioned my faith. Carrie said she'd not blame me, if I'd hated her for witching. Thee, too. Still I stood silent and let you think me pious.

'Tis different here, I know that now. None shall hang for the sin of witchcraft. Yet I feared if I spoke truth, 'twould cease to be so. You'd turn on me as at trial, or worse...

He would be here.

[holyironmade]

[The trial being just the first one... that is sad. But Jeanne is also a little stunned that she didn't pick up on the sheer dramatic irony that Thomasin was obviously the real witch all along. Even when she admitted she was false, Jeanne still thought it was likelier that she had killed a witch out of prejudice and regretted her actions upon meeting Carrie and the others. So this leaves her stunned and listening at Thomasin's invocation of him.]

The devil himself? Or...

[AHA!]

Was that goat boy your kin?

[curdle]

[ Thomasin's eyes fly open. ]

No—

[ This escapes her violently, the same as did her I've had no dealings!, weeks ago, to Yasu at the first trial. She's halfway to whipping her head around, the better to stare at Jeanne, but stops herself. ]

You saw his likeness, then? [ ... ] Giving such to me was naught but a cruel jest, for the beast calling himself Father to cheer himself. Aye, it was true enough to say the Adversary was nearest to me. 'Twas that goat what made it so.

[ This state is, maybe, impossible to parse for anyone who's not Thomasin! But she sounds bitter and snappy enough to convey her feelings toward that goat without little things like "coherence." ]

I lied not about our farm, nor the witch who beset it. But I stopped my tongue. I spoke not on what came of it.

There is no kin left to me.

[holyironmade]

I was actually the very one to present it to the others. [Providing the requested confirmation about the "likeness", then listening again. Sad when she realizes that it was wrapped up so much due to its loathsomeness.

Jeanne has one fortunate advantage: she can immediately assume the Adversary is the Devil. With effort she can tie this to a second statement: "There is no kin left to me". The Devil has killed Thomasin's entire family. Perhaps indirectly through incitement at times, much like how their group of students has been decimated; it could even be incitement that Thomasin had to triumph within. Jeanne is willing to apply a discerning ear to those coy, skittish words and not judge any of the possibilities contained within them.

Thomasin has nothing. To lose everyone, and be left with nothing. Not even a familiar face from the next village over, a fisherman's son or weaver's daughter. And their isolation on the farm did make them vulnerable to the Adversary, perhaps. Jeanne flops part of the way around to look at Thomasin.]

My heart bleeds for you. I have no part of the new families that have been spoken into being by some of the others in this school. But if you are separated from your home forever in this violet mockery of hell, then you will not be alone.

[angedechu]

[Ao won't stay long if Thomasin doesn't say anything but she... lays down a rice ball near her (on a napkin) and tries to leave.]

[curdle]

Oh—!

[ SHE DOESN'T GET OFF THAT EASY ]

Thank you, Ao. [ ............. ] What is't?

[angedechu]

Oh, uh. Thought you might be be hungry.

[curdle]

I've not hungered since I died at the school. Is't different for you?

[ She says, like a buzzkill! But also she's taking the rice ball and taking a bite of it, then daintily covering her mouth with her free hand. ]