redactable | WEEK SEVEN: MINGLE

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mingle

WEEK SEVEN: MINGLE

WEEK SEVEN: MINGLE
(21 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.

As usual, the participants will find that their lodgings have changed, and should anyone check their PHS, Chiron, Ochako, Soo-won, and Dorothy's profiles have been removed. They may also find that they have difficulty recalling complete details of the past weeks.

Furthermore, it looks as though the rules have updated.

Not everything is the same as the previous pattern, though. The barrier to the north is back up, and once more, what lies beyond is an empty field. In contrast, however, participants may notice that they can finally access a place they haven't been able to before...

Additionally, it looks like the Leaders aren't around. No matter where the participants look, they're nowhere to be found. Should anyone try calling for them in the Planetarium, there will be no response—not even a message telling the participant that they're busy.

Finally, everything around the participants begins to... glitch? Buildings may suddenly blink out of existence and then back in, random items like chairs or cups may suddenly distort even while they're being used, and looking at any particular thing for too long may give someone a headache. It's worse than it was that one week, though: participants will find that it's happening to themselves as well. Body parts might suddenly glitch out of existence then back in, and there will be a shot of pain when it occurs. It'll happen randomly, but it also seems to occur more often if they're touching something or another person.

NAVIGATION

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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ luckily the desire to not get killed and/or let sora get killed overrides her short moment of panic pretty quickly.

clem is taking more care to not shoot sora than she is to shoot it in the head specifically, but she is shooting at it. why is it so buff, i hate this. ]

[ Taako goes off to the left! There's ... more boxes. Was this a box factory. There's clear scratches and bite marks on some of the boxes this time, though. The rat trail... continues. There's also a vending machine here for some reason.

The cats are all Taako's, so Lup does not get a friend. But that's fine, she doesn't need friends, she has a knife. Following the dirt trail will lead her to another hole in a wall, and if she looks closely at this one, it looks like it was chewed through? Hm.

The buff dog, which is buff because ff7 is a nightmare world, is rebuked from eating Sora's face by both kicking and shooting. This is only partially RPG logic, so once it's been wounded it bounds back and actually looks like it was shot, growling. Unfortunately, it then decides to go for Clementine, bounding away from Sora and towards her while also swiping the weird head tentacle it has in her general direction. Gun bad, hound mad, etc. ]

[ that’s . . . ominous.

What’s the vending machine got? Anything he can exchange the coin for? If not, he’ll keep following the rat trail despite his better judgment. ]

[ ... very ominous. she's going to go to the hole in the wall with her weapon raised and she's going to stab the shit out of some rats with her only friend, the knife. ]

[uh, no? no, he's bounding back on his feet and chasing after this stupid dog, using a pile of garbage as leverage to jump and try to bring his sword down for an aerial strike to its back.]

Don't hesitate! [he thinks he probably does not have to tell clem this but also he's highkey concerned given she still doesn't remember how to fight without her gun. also he's from an rpg and he's used to adding items to his weapons; does his sword from his cyoa have any sort of slots for these weird orb things at all?]

[ clementine freezes up again when the hound comes at her. more noticeably this time. her gun is up, trained on he monster, but she can't get her body to move - to dodge or to pull the trigger.

until sora snaps her out of it. she doesn't even really process his words, just - that the hound is getting dangerously close, and her brains says shoot or die? so she shoots at it. there aren't many interesting ways to say "she shoots it," are there? ]

[ Taako can't use his coin on the vending machine, unfortunately, but there's just enough money in it for him to buy a cool song. It is once again the hip hop de chocobo one. Own it now on Fantasy Spotify. Or he can buy, like, something called "Memory Slot", but whatever, buy the music Taako. The music is better.

Lup goes in and finds a rat! WHY IS THIS RAT SO BIG. WHAT'S WRONG WITH ALL THE ANIMALS EXCEPT CATS IN THIS PLACE. Anyway uh the rat tries to bite her face off. Alpha rat is here.

Sora can't put the orbs in the sword because they're not materia they're a plot point, but he does succeed in hitting the hound with a cool aerial move about the same time Clem shoots it like, right between the eyes? The hound falls over, defeated, sliced up and shot. It doesn't bleed so much as slowly fade into a green and blue light and vanish entirely.

It drops 500 exp, which would be great if any of these people used experience, and also some more ammo to replace Clem's. Why was it carrying bullets. ]

[blissfully ignorant (ignorat) of anything else happening! Just having a fun time shopping. He does seriously considering the music. I mean? Memory Slot? Who cares. If you just never turn the game off and mom doesn't unplug the playstation, then you never have to save. I guess also try not to die. Well.

Buying the Memory Slot! Really depressed he's leaving behind Hip Hop De Chocobo. I guess he can always stream it on his Fantasy Spotify later, because you don't have to buy things for it.]

[ JESUS THAT'S A GIANT RAT

lup yelps and falls over and dies because a rat ate her face. or she like, tries to stab it. she definitely tries to stab it but she's a wizard so her skills at stabbing are bad. die rat, die.

can't believe she left her sword in one of the other leader's fucked up memories. ]

[bye bitch! the hound staggers and falls, fading away in its pretty blue-green light as sora himself also staggers to the ground when his sword arm glitches out and drops the weapon. that's not great, but he just makes a face before picking up the sword and turning to face clementine.]

At least we got something out of it. [bullets are important. he will let her pick those up and then they can return to the quest giver. then again...he did notice the way she froze up, so it's worth asking.] You okay?

[ she still seems pretty out of it. a little bit dazed - she's not even going to pick up the bullets right away or really registering that sora just glitched.

good thing the hound vanished. she takes a deep breath. ]

I... Yeah. I'm fine. [ ... belatedly, does go to get those bullets. ] You?

[ The memory slot turns out to be some kind of weird belt accessory that can hold up to four round things in these slots! The belt is at least fashionable. Even if Taako decided not to go for the much, much better song. One of the cats that is hanging around Taako still (grey tabby, best cat) meows as it looks at the ceiling.

The rat is huge and trying to bite any place of Lup it can reach and also seems not too bothered by getting slashed, which is what happens when you try to stab but are bad at stabbing. I can't believe I am going to be part of the problem of letting Lup get injured all the time. This is terrible.

There does not seem to be more hounds around Sora and Clem's trash moment, at least! Yay relaxing. ]

[Putting it on as a cool fashion accessory! This probably isn't important or anything. By the way does that blue orb they got for the memory earlier happen to fit in the memory slot. Just checking.

Also, uh.

Backing off to kind of hide next to the vending machine before he. Very slowly. Also looks up.]

[ she gets bit a few times because i'm a terrible person

but then there's a glitch, and her arm vanishes for a second, and when it comes back, she has the shotgun clementine gave her earlier that i totally didn't forget about. she immediately tries to kick the rat off her and then shoot it, point blank.

she has at least used a gun before. so there's that! ]

[he's putting the sword back on his back with the other before he holds up both hands, flipping them back and forth as if to show her he's totally unharmed.]

Didn't even get me. [it's...odd to see her this uncertain about things, but he doesn't remark on it. instead, he's taking one of her hands once she has the bullets and starts to pull her back toward the fence. he's on guard on their way back through, but they can start heading back to town.] Let's go see whoever you talked to and tell them we got rid of the hound. Then we can go to the bar and see what might be there.

[he figures she won't mind if he takes charge for the moment just until they're very far away from where the hound was.]

[ she takes an obligatory moment to look him over herself, but relaxes when she can see he's fine. and - yeah, she's good with him taking the lead, here.

she's shaking it off. it's fine! she's fine! haha! she'll be able to point out her quest giver when they're close. ]

... He gave me a flower. Said it would help out, later? Whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean, since it didn't seem like it had anything to do with killing the hound.

[ It does fit there! Wow! It doesn't seem to do anything right now, but the orb absolutely does fit there. Meanwhile, on the ceiling, there's... another rat just hanging out on one of the support beams. It is about thrice the size of the cat, so, I do not think Taako's cat strategy will pan out as the cat just hisses at it from below. The rat, luckily, has not noticed ducked Taako and is just kind of hanging out being a gross mutated rat.

The other rat got a shotgun to the face! It is dead. It's a dead rat. It didn't even have the decency to drop anything good. Around Lup, she can finally see that this seems to be the rat's nest, however, because there are tiny baby rats in the nest itself! The babies are too young to fight back. You know what horror you must do.

Anyway, Clem and Sora go back to the white haired boy with a monocle, who looks very pleased ]

Congratulations! This will be very helpful for my research. Here, in exchange. [ he hands them a purple orb? And--

there's a memory set in an elevator, which I would write down, but I'm lazy, so the point is, why is this black man yelling exposition words. what. everyone gets to see it! you all get a headache!

this is just how it is ]

[Yay! Exposition! This guy seems to be yelling some good words and then Wolf is a big asshole to him! Anyway.

Taako doesn't have. A weapon at all. He's got like a little tiny knife. So. Uh. What if he goes pspspsps to attract some more cats? Cat gang, assemble.]

[ lup just lays on the floor after that memory. haha, get help. what a rude thing to say, she's amused.

anyway, zia's nuts if she thinks lup is going to murder a bunch of baby rats? these rats are hers now. she scoops them up and puts them... in her hood? idk. how big are these babies.

the point is, they're now her familiars, so. off we go to save taako from the big bad ceiling rat. she's bleeding in several places, as you do. ]

[god where the fuck even are the twins on this map. it's fine. sora's walking with clementine and he says this before they get to knockoff joshua.]

...Aerith gave him that. Not sure what it could be used for, but it's probably important to him somehow. [he realizes these are absolutely not the same versions of the people he knows but he doesn't even care anymore. instead, they get to this guy and sora blinks in surprise, taking the orb to put in his pocket with the other two they have.

anyway, it's always headaches and he frowns suddenly, squinting at the ground. why is cloud such a dick to everyone he knows? who the hell is that guy? why is everyone yelling?

it's probably fine. once that clears up, he thanks the monocled lad and he turns to clementine again.]

Well...that's that. Should we head to the bar? I'm sure the twins are fine. [they are avoiding their rat siblings for as long as possible.]

[ these sure are a lot of memories that clementine has no strong feelings about. wow wolf is so rude. but also what's that guy talking about. who cares. (i'm sorry she's like this.) ]

Yeah, sure. Bar it is.

[ good luck with your rat children, taako and lup. the human children will be at the bar. where... children belong...? ]

[ Wolf is paid to be an asshole, fun fact. Anyway! Taako pspsps to no avail except to get attention from ceiling rat, which scampers over to Taako's hiding place and drops down onto him straight from the ceiling. The grey tabby tries to jump on the rat to help but rolled REAL bad and so it is thrown off into a wall and badly wounded. LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO, ALLI.

Lup has her own baby rats! They are about the size of six month old kittens right now and there's like five of them. That's a lot of rats to gather. Anyway, she won't run into any more rats, at least until she gets to Taako who is currently being attacked. Some of the cats that have abandoned him from boxes peer up at Lup in interest over the baby rats, but they do not seem interested in going to fight a doom rat. That's what they're called. Doomrats.

Meanwhile, for Sora and Clem, there are three people in the bar! They don't have a quest mark over their head, but also, they're not Sephiroth, so, you win some, you lose some. They turn in surprise when they see the kids enter, because this is a bar, what the fuck. It's the chubby one who speaks up: ]

Uhh. Can we ... help you?

[Maybe Taako used his high Dex score to leap and grab that cat outta the air before the rat can launch it which is godmoding but I literally cannot deal with even fictional fake memory cats being injured I cannot I'm sorry I am crying real life tears I'm overriding it just kill Taako instead

anyway taakos screeching like a rat because a rat is just On Him. It's on him!]

[ she just shoves these baby rats into her hood and also her pockets. rat taxi.

she makes a pbhhhtlltlt sound at the cats as she passes them. she has a headache, get away from her... children, or whatever. and when she sees taako being tackled she just immediately yells: ]

Hey! Get off him! [ and makes as much noise as possible to get the thing to turn and face her so she can shoot it? can't believe lup's out here orphaning these rats. ]

[while all of that's going on, sora's busy thinking about the planet being in pain and even if that guy was busy yelling and being weird about it, it's something he can also kind of vaguely understand. even if he has no idea what mako is.

regardless, they enter this bar and there are people there? there are people he does not know, except he vaguely recognizes the girl from that previous memory and he thinks about what he knows about wolf and about their current situation.

which means it's probably time to lie.]

...hey! [good start.] We're, um...looking for Cloud. He might be going by Wolf? We have a job for him.

[clem please back him up, he's not great at this. all he remembers is that at least the girl probably knows wolf and that wolf is a mercenary, a guy who takes on any job and gets paid for it. it has taken him this long to remember that wolf told him this.]

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