week 4

[stagemanagers]

[Another week, and two more dead. King Richard and Red are both gone, and once again, it was through nothing more than an accident in the heat of the moment. Maybe if you all stay calm and collected, nothing bad will happen again?

Well, maybe not.

When you wake on Sunday, you'll find that you've recovered another one of those memories - or had another dream, if you still wanna be in denial about it. The grounds remain as they are, but this time, the door blocking the stairwell has been unsealed. You can now venture up to the second floor! This is the second time that's happened; it's almost as if you get more space every time someone dies. Or maybe the whole place just seems quieter.]

Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday


(( Welcome to Week 4! Please remember to submit your AC and your memory regains, as well as your coins! You can also still contact the Phantom. ))

Comments

SUNDAY

[stagemanagers]

MONDAY

[stagemanagers]

TUESDAY

[stagemanagers]

WEDNESDAY

[stagemanagers]

THURSDAY

[stagemanagers]

MOTIVE: GIVE ME THE STRENGTH TO TRY

[inside_yourmind]

[Just like last week, the Phantom does not make an announcement about today’s motive. In fact, he hasn’t been heard from since yesterday’s incident. But that’s not terribly unusual - right?

Regardless, his voice is audible wherever you are, but those who are lucky or who go searching will find that he is standing in the cemetery. To start with, he’s simply standing by the mausoleums, the collar of his black overcoat turned up, facing away from the gates. If he hears anyone approaching he will quickly approach the Daae tomb and vanish - inside it? Behind it? He's no longer visible, anyway.]

They were once a true companion
They were all that mattered
They were a friend, a child, a mother
Then your world was shattered

Wishing they were somehow here again
Wishing they were somehow near
How much are you willing to do
If you could bring them here

You could finally hear their voice again
You know what you have to do
A life for a life - that is the price
To return them to you

[The Phantom becomes visible again, as he rises up onto the roof of the Daae tomb. He perches easily, one foot on the peak of the roof and one on the slope. But, for the moment, he seems to be looking up at the sky rather than at you.]

Carved headstones and offered bouquets
Mem’ries that were treasured
All those dead, like any others
They would be remembered…

[But then he seems to snap back to what he’s doing, and glares down at all of you. It’s a little hard to see behind his mask, but you can just sort of feel it.]

Kill someone this week, and a dead person of your choosing shall be revived in their place.

It’s all the same, nothing has changed
Why can’t we end this game?

[He turns in a dramatic swirl of cape, and leaps from the roof to the top of the wall surrounding the cemetery, and then jumps from there and disappears.]

[37773972]

[Sunday morning, Stephen does not leave his room. He does, however, leave Mephisto's room a few hours after most people have woken up and started their day - wearing one of the very shirts Mephisto has claimed for himself. Make of that as you will, because he'll only be in it for a little bit; he's stopping over at his room, then taking a shower, then getting dressed in his own clothes, thank you.

After that, he takes his own explorations. He lingers in the library for a good while before taking a book to the coffee shop, whereupon it's temporarily left on a table while he tries to create something. He...somehow manages to make something that he can drink with only so much mess, but he's planning on cleaning up, promise.

Near the end of the day, he's back in the laundry room. Just watching his clothes go through the cycle, a pensive expression on his face]

Mephisto's Room because HOLY SHIT DAD

[madgiganticfeelings]

[There is a tiny girl in an oversized wolf pelt, sipping tea as she flips through her script in the hallway. There is a tiny girl beaming when she sees Stephen leave the wrong room in what appears to be the wrong clothes. She is trying not to just. Jump up to her feet to give him a standing ovation. Instead, she just tries to calmly set her tea down and fold her hands in her lap.]

Morning, Stephen. You look like you had a good night!

CACKLES MADLY

[37773972]

[-wait, what.

1) where did Christine get the pelt

2) why is she looking so happy]

I do?

[Because he still kind of feels like crap, honestly.]

[justmeheere]

[It's kinda killer to sit and chat with you -
I know that's not what you want -
I'm serious! I need. I need -
WARNING. WARNING. WARNING.

................... He should probably apologize to Riley about the setting a fire joke he made like two weeks ago. Rich definitely set a fire and burned down Jake's house. RIP.

That can wait, though, because a) computers and b) OH MY GOD LAST WEEK WAS 100% WORTH IT HE IS NEVER LEAVING THIS ROOM AGAIN. If you manage to catch him before he finds the game system, he's meticulously checking the computers to see if any of them are actually connected to the wifi. He will figure out this wifi puzzle. Once he finds the game system, though, he's just gonna. Well. Okay, Sonic '06 is not ideal but if he can't get on tumblr then he'll take this instead. He's fine with this.

Jeremy lives here now. This is just where he lives. He's going back to his disgusting gamer boy habits and you can't stop him.]

laundry room

[garbageface]

[ Santana absolutely saw Stephen in Mephisto’s clothes, but she doesn’t make a comment on it until she runs into Stephen in the laundry room at the end of the day. ]

You washing Medieval Times’ stuff? That’s nice of you.

[ There’s a little bit of snark in her tone, but mostly, there’s pride. Good job, you weird nerdy old guy. ]

sonic 06

[37773972]

Video games? Now I know we're not back in time.

[Stephen sounds more amused than anything else, though]

[37773972]

[looks towards Santana] What? I- [mental record scratch. IMMEDIATELY LOOKS BACK AT THE LAUNDRY MACHINE]

...right. Sure.

[heathencall]

[Like Stephen, Mephisto is much slower to rise than everyone else. He'd allowed himself to sleep that evening, lulled by the warm weight beside him. Not that it did him much good come morning. He wakes, stares at the ceiling for some time, Ariel's voice still echoing in his head.

He's almost grimly amused, how much things had changed.

When he finally drags himself from his room and cleans himself up, he makes his way outside to the graveyard. He's gathered enough flowers by now to have a substantial offering for Red's headstone.

Just the thought is simply wild--

He shakes the song from his head and makes for the kitchen. He's limited in how much he knows how to make, and with biscuits having just been passed around, he settles on pasta. Gluten-free, of course. This is left on the stove, still warm for anyone that needs it.

If you stumble in soon enough, you might find a pair of eyes locked on you, though.]

Cookies. Do you know how to make them.

[With his morning "chores" done, Mephisto finally allows himself to explore. Or... tries to. He manages to peek his head into the movie room, and then the computer room and.....

Promptly backs right out.]


The fuck, the fuck,
There's something in the air
The fuck, there's strange shit everywhere

[madgiganticfeelings]

[She collides with someone.

Not an unsurprising event, really, but she had been hoping she could just avoid everyone, because she had so much to do and so much to worry about and it's harder, it's always harder, when she sees one of those worries face to face.

Jeremy tries to help her with the props that tumbled out of her hands. She would push him back, but that would mean spending more time lingering on this situation, so she just packs up the beakers in the crate and starts moving again, starts doing what she can again-

"Can we talk about-?" Jeremy tries to ask, but Christine cuts him off immediately, sounding too cruel to her own ears.

"I'm sorry, Jeremy, I can't do this." When he tries to protest, she spins around, and she realizes that cruelty was a flimsy patch, ripped off now and doing nothing to stop the emotions tumbling out. "Rich is in the hospital! Jake broke both his legs trying to jump out a window! And we were laughing at Rich... We could have helped him. And Jake wouldn't have been alone at the end of the night if it wasn't for me."

"You can't feel bad about that!" Jeremy protests, and Christine almost laughs, because of course she can.

"Well, I do! I look around, and everyone's hurting! And the people who don't show it are just better at hiding it! I wish there was something real that I could do to make things better, but I don't know how... so I guess I'll just do theatre."

When Christine opens her eyes, she's found herself in the coffee shop, adding milk to a cup of tea, except she's added far too much, the glass overflowing, pale brown liquid pooling over the counter. She gasps and sets the milk jug down immediately, scrambling for towels to clean up the mess.

After that whole... experience, she isn't exactly enthused about exploring the new areas, until she actually sees what's there. The movie theatre is her absolute favourite, when she sees the selection, though she isn't the most... considerate theatre patron, as she can often be found balancing on the tops of the chairs, screaming at the screen.]

Pull yourself together, Hathaway! Sobbing is going to gum up your vocals! This is how you sing it!

[She also does her part investigating, like a good little detective should. In the computer room, she might accidentally bump someone's knees as she crawls under the desks there.]

Sorry! Sorry, just looking around!

[And near the end of the day, she moves to the cemetary once again. She has a roll of tape and her binder, and she goes between each grave, taping the stars from last week to the monuments memorializing Sigyn and Jonny.

Hopefully, she can find Richard's stone. And Red's too. She has a lot to share with her.]

Computers

[heathencall]

[Mephisto has been... lingering outside the computer room for some time. And by lingering, he's been doing that thing where he stares at someone doing something he doesn't understand. Watching.

It helps a little. From his observations it... looks a little like the strange thing that Jeremy had outside. But -- ]

I feel as if you are the best and worst person to ask about this. [He motions to the computers.]

What are they. What do they do.

[justmeheere]

This game is horrible. It's my favorite.

[You ever remember he's a zoomer? He's a zoomer.]

Well, no. Actually Apocalypse of the Damned is my favorite? But I like Sonic '06 too.

movie theater

[garbageface]

[ Santana can take or leave movie musicals, but the distraction is a welcome one, so she takes a seat behind Christine to watch. The fact that Christine is yelling at the screen makes this even better. Insulting people sure is fun! ]

Yeah, gosh, Anne. Just because you’re hot doesn’t mean you can sing!

[ Oops, probably shouldn’t have made that comment about Anne Hathaway’s appearance. Santana uncharacteristically goes very, very quiet. ]

[isawallflower]

[ “I just don’t want you to go crazy trying to keep this all together.”
“Oh, I’m fine! I’m a phoenix, Cairo. Maybe you should try thinking like that too.”


Riley actually doesn’t leave her room for a very long time. You can try checking in on her but she probably won’t open the door. There’s definitely signs of life in there, though! Like, a loud shuffling or soft thud. It’s fine.

It’s well into the afternoon when she finally emerges, she’s groggy and her usual ponytail’s messy. She doesn’t really want to...do anything, but eventually she sees the stairs. What Riley wants to do is explore the whole floor. What she does do is find the fitness room and immediately launch into a proper workout. Running on the treadmill, various lifts with training weights, just so much. She’ll be here until someone can convince her to, perhaps, chill the fuck out. ]

[37773972]

It's horrible and you like it?

[He's moving in to take a closer look]

-that's Sonic, right? [Born in '81? He was 10 when the first game came out. Damn right he played.] He looks different than I remember.

[justmeheere]

Oh! Um. They're. It's the same thing that I showed you, just. Just bigger? Less. Less portable.

[He still doesn't know how to explain a computer, unsurprisingly.]

[heathencall]

[What kind of teen are you, Jeremy!]

But these ones don't move? [He's looking at all of the... ropes connecting them to the lightning portals that Steven explained to him.]

You have these everywhere, where you're from?

[justmeheere]

Yeah? It's. It's a kusoge. You. It's only good because it's bad.

[Anyway, you shouldn't have asked about Sonic. I'm so sorry, it's SONIC LORE TIME. You unlocked Jeremy's special interest.]

Anyway this is. This is the game where they tried to reboot the Sonic franchise after 15 years and were all like "what if sonic, but REAL?" so they gave him a human girlfriend which. Weird flex? But whatever. Then they, like, tried to release it for multiple systems at the same time so it was not QA'd at all and it's just. It's a beautiful, buggy mess. You can speedrun it in like thirty minutes with all the glitches.

[37773972]

[all he knows is that the faster you went the better in the original games, he didn't play much after Knuckles was introduced and what.

What.]

'Speedrun'?

Coffee Shop

[heathencall]

[By now, Stephen should be used to Mephisto just... butting into whatever he does. At least there's no Mourning morning after nonsense here. He also doesn't immediately shove himself into what Stephen is actually doing.

He just. Settles into the table that Stephen appears to have claimed and starts reading his book. Or trying to.]