WEEK SIX: MINGLE

[retellers]

WEEK SIX: MINGLE (25 remain) Rise and shine, gremlins. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and it's the start of a new week. To the participants, yesterday's events may seem distant now—albeit not as distant as their life before this. Whether or not they notice, they will have lost a memory upon waking up. The barrier to the north is down, and beyond the bridge lies new areas to explore. Strangely, what was there last week seems to have been replaced overnight. That's not the only thing that's different, either. The participants will find that their lodgings have changed. Finally, should anyone check their PHS, Elsa, Yona, Shigeo, and Fiora's profiles have been removed. Three Leaders can be found around the area, open (?) to approach. If participants want to speak to them more privately, or to an absent Leader, it looks like they'll have to go through another channel. Furthermore, it looks as though the rules have updated. Once again, participants may find that they have difficulty recalling complete details of the past weeks. Also, anyone who had been poisoned during trial will still be feeling sick! Haha! Finally, participants will find that they are now sporting a new injury. This injury is one that they received in their past, whether they remember it or not. No matter how fatal the injury is, participants won't die from it, and the pain they feel will be dulled down. However, if another participant touches someone's injury effect, even if it's covered, then they will both be hit with whatever pain that was felt when the injury was first inflicted. This pain will last ten seconds. The injury can also be as minor or major as desired.

NAVIGATION locations ₓ˚. statuses *+:｡ ic profiles :ₓo ic rules ･ﾟﾟ･｡ audience requests murder proposals ｡✧o private conversations ･ﾟo｡ curfew ･ﾟ✧ memories

Comments

[horologia]

I've juggled enough for long enough that... while I would like to try to catch a break, as you put it, I don't think I'll ever be comfortable with not doing.

[ so, uh, awkward solidarity there. ]

Did you know? We've been here longer than I spent in any one cycle.

[reconnective]

Doesn't have to be a long one, you know. But I get it. We're pretty used to going off on the next adventure almost right away, too. [but things change. sometimes...you realize you really would like to go home for a while.

but he tilts his head.]

Were your cycles always that short...? It's been about two months now, almost.

[horologia]

Mmm. Early March, to Walpurgisnacht. Just under two months. We've matched that now.

When I think about it, I don't remember the last time I saw summer. [ so. beach. ]

.. It doesn't sound like a lot of time when you put it that way, but who knows how long we've been here?

[reconnective]

It just keeps repeating spring, just before the summer can come. [that's depressing.] For all we know, we've been doing this for years.

[a pause.] But what's Walpurgisnacht?

[horologia]

[ let her explain, with her entire conspiracy board tier level of notes in her living room- okay no, unfortunately. ]

In the Christian tradition, Walpurgis Night is the eve of the feast day celebrating Saint Walpurga, who was known for battling, amongst other things, pests, rabies, and witchcraft. Apparently in some traditions, people would light bonfires to... I digress.

[ none of that research is particularly relevant here, so. ]

I suppose I should go back a little. I've told you about witches, haven't I? How they're beings of purely negative emotion, and how dangerous they are. Most witches build labyrinths and barriers to hide away in, pocket realities where they control and manipulate everything, so they're safe to lure and trap people within.

Walpurgisnacht is a witch strong enough to not need a barrier. Her appearance alone is able to destroy a city.

[reconnective]

[he's listening to all of this carefully, mulling over these thoughts and letting homura explain everything. witchcraft is a little different than pests or rabies but he doesn't argue that. rather, he observing and he's thinking about how some of it is similar to the stuff he's heard before in his own world.]

So when Walpurgisnacht appears, it's the only chance to save everything before it's destroyed and if that happens, you have to reset your timeline and try again. Something like that?

[horologia]

More or less.

... I have never seen Walpurgisnacht defeated without something worse happening in the aftermath, except for just one time.

[reconnective]

...do you remember what happened then?

[horologia]

I am the only one who would, I believe.

The world rewrote itself, erasing the one who accomplished it from existence. They never have, and never will exist- neither Walpurgisnacht herself, nor the one who ended her. Such is what happens when you go against the laws of casuality.

None of it ever happened. That's why, even if I could still go back, there wouldn't be any point. There would be nothing to accomplish.

[ she's just... the awkward, unfitting remnants of all those doomed timelines. ]

[reconnective]

[...]

Yeah. Such is what happens. [that's a little spooky for reasons he doesn't quite elaborate on, though he seems to be lost in his own thoughts then.] Even if none of it happened, because of your magic you remember everything. Every single time you tried to fight Walpurgisnacht and the aftermath.

[that's really unpleasant for her, he thinks.]

Then...what happens now?

[horologia]

... I don't know. I think that's something I've been trying to find the answer to for a while.

But I also think... It might be too late to, where I come from.

[reconnective]

...maybe I'm crazy for feeling this way, but I don't think it's ever too late for anything. Miracles can still happen when you least expect it.

[horologia]

I don't have much faith in miracles. They never come without cost.

... I've never really explained where witches come from, have I?

[ that's not exactly what they were talking about, but okay yuuri. ]

[reconnective]

[she's not wrong in that regard either, but he stays quiet about it.]

You haven't. Am I allowed to ask?

[horologia]

You are.

Make no mistake. Witches are cruel, evil perpetrators of chaos that spread despair all about them. But... they're us.

They're the final, inevitable form of of a magical girl after they've lost sight of the hope that once guided them, and have fallen into despair. The price of a miracle, for wishing for things to be better, is for an equivalent amount of sorrow to be wrought elsewhere, eventually.

[ something something about the karmic balance of the universe correcting itself, eventually. she's heard different girls dress it up in different ways, but it always seems to come back to the same sort of concepts in the end. ]

... Oftentimes, the 'something worse' that happened after Walpurgisnacht... was the same person who struck her down in the first place.

[reconnective]

So then it just becomes a repeating cycle of different magical girls fighting each other. [jeez. he understands the karmic balance idea behind it, even if he doesn't agree with it entirely.]

But...what if there was a way to keep holding onto that hope? If you didn't lose sight of it, would you be able to keep yourself from falling into the darkness and transforming into a witch? Or is it really that inevitable?

[horologia]

It's not completely inevitable, but it was a system designed to lead to it. It isn't... losing hope alone, that can corrupt a gem. One could say that our magic is born of hope, which means that in using that magic at all, we taint our gems. To stave off this drain, we could use grief seeds to draw away the taint into themselves... but in order to retrieve a grief seed, you have to defeat a witch, and they weren't always capable of performing a full cleanse.

[ so, like, if you expended more magic than the grief seed was able to restore... well, sucks doesn't it. ]

There are those who have had their soul gems destroyed on learning the truth, thinking that to die then and there would be better than to eventually become a monster.

[reconnective]

...it's a familiar concept even if it's not exactly the same for us and how the light and the darkness can affect us. But I think I understand. It's really one of those things where it's possible, but not likely unless you know of a way to replenish your own source to keep fighting off what's coming.

And the only way to die is to destroy the soul gem?

[horologia]

... Yes.

[ she's honestly a little surprised sora follows along so well, after she hasn't been believed about this so many times, but maybe, with all the impossibilities around them already, this is minor by comparison.

or maybe it's less damning, less worth denying, when it doesn't concern him personally. ]

Exhausting our magic leads to us becoming a witch. Physically- we cannot. Even if every bone in our body were to break... even if we were to lose every drop of blood within us, even if we took severe, otherwise lethal injuries... so long as we still had magic, we would heal.

[reconnective]

...back home, the light was something that helped protect people. But from the light comes darkness, and if the darkness grows too powerful inside a person and eliminates the light, they lose their hearts and become a creature called a Heartless. The Heartless are monsters that feed on other darknesses, seeking out places of light to destroy them.

[so. similarlish, or at least enough to understand.]

It sounds like a painful cycle to keep up with.

[horologia]

Well. Most aren't aware of the truths. After a while, I stopped... trying to tell people, because they either don't believe me, or react poorly.

Then they just refuse me when I try to cleanse their gems instead, saying that it's fine if they die or lose their magic- because they don't know that what happens when their gem corrupts is worse.

[ miki sayaka, who is always so eager to think the worst of her and paint her the villain... ]

That witches and heartless both wish to drag others down with them ... It isn't any easier for you, is it?

[reconnective]

And there's no amount of warning you can do each time. People just believe what they know until bad things happen. [sometimes you call your best friend stupid for giving into the darkness and he does it anyway no matter what you say.]

...it's never been easy, I guess. But it's just another reason we keep fighting to try and make things right and protect the light. Even if people resist, and even if other worlds are lost, we keep going.