once more with feeling [act 3]

[stagemanagers]

You awake in an unfamiliar bed.

It’s comfortable enough, sure, but it’s certainly not yours. The room, too, is unfamiliar, especially in such heavy darkness. There seems to have been a great effort put into making it a livable space, with fuzzy rugs laid over linoleum, beds arranged as best to fit (and one bunk bed per dorm, rip whoever has the bottom bunk), and a single desk. You've also got individually labelled trunks; if you look inside yours, you'll find a yearbook with mostly blank pages, as well as a few with some interesting information. But even with all these changes it’s clear this room started it’s life as a classroom, every window hidden behind heavy dark green curtains.

To add to the strangeness of it all, your clothes have been swapped for some kind of uniform. It, though fitting your body perfectly, might feel a bit odd to some of you, as the body you have isn’t quite the same as it was before you mysteriously fell unconscious. The other important thing to note is the people in the other beds around you, all wearing the same color-coded uniform.

The hallway outside the dorms is narrow but well-lit, with fresh white walls and some scattered posters advertising some kind of midweek club meeting. The hallway goes on until, for the more contemporary of you, the pieces start to fall together as to your location: a school. Once you leave your rooms you’re free to wander as you wish but pinned up on a corkboard just outside the cafeteria there’s framed information that you might find helpful. If you explore further into the other rooms, in fact, you'll see there's an identical copy outside all of them.

In the lobby there are linoleum floors and fluorescent lighting, and a pair of glass doors that appear to lead outside. You can see out of both of them that the sun is shining brightly and there’s definitely more to see in the distance but the glass is unbreakable; you can't get out that way right now. A rolling metal sheet blocks off the hallway to the west. For the moment, both doors leading outside are locked.

It looks like you’re stuck. But hey - at least you aren’t alone.

Comments

[tellthestory]

[The Balladeer is as surprised by all of this as anyone, reaching out a hand to steady himself when the floor shakes. But as it draws to a close, he straightens and looks up at - nothing, apparently.]

"The entire building shakes - just for a second or two. It's as if someone, somewhere, is angry. That was your warning."

[He says it like he's quoting something, then blinks and returns his attention to the others.]

Sounds serious. I wouldn't do that again.

[themuseabandonsyou]

[ Orpheus stumbles, torn between watching the spot where the knife disappeared and giving Lumpy Space Princess a horrified look, but then the Balladeer speaks up and - narrates the earthquake? ]

What? [ he asks, looking back and forth between him and LSP with a look of incredibly confused dismay. ]

[tellthestory]

Oh, that's...that's what happened.

[He still seems a little oddly abstracted.]

But I can't hear the rest of it.

[voicerights]

[ALSO INTERESTING]

Explain.

[tellthestory]

[He's already sort of explained at Maya's prompting, but at this, he clarifies:]

I'm a narrative device, mostly. I narrate.

[voicerights]

Clearly, you are not narrating now. But you can hear the- narration?

[This is not computing to its processor. But it cannot detect any deceit in the Balladeer's mannerisms, so. Time to pull this further.]

[tellthestory]

Usually a LOT better than this.

[god who the fuck is he if he's not working]

[feudalladyshandmaid]

Yeah, we know that's what happened. We were here, too.

[Still, that's... bad. That knife is just Gone.]

Looks like a direct attack isn't going to work.

[mayavericks]

Perhaps you ought to tell the others some of what you told me.

[tellthestory]

Hm? [Sorry, he's still sort of trying to channel narration that isn't there, it really should be there...] Oh, I'm not a real person.

[mayavericks]

He's a Narrator. [Which means...]

Are you narrating right now?

[tellthestory]

Not anymore. I got a little bit of it, there...

[He rubs at his eyes. That was actually kinda weird.]

I think that just proves I shouldn't be here. Not my show.

[mcfife]

You can see the action at such a level?

[Clearly this man is some sort of wizard.]

[violentenvies]

[after that statement, followed up by Maya's clarification, Salieri is more confused about legitimately everything than ever before. However...]

The Narrator? And what, exactly, does that imply? [he studies him for a moment] After all, a narrator needs a story to narrate, does he not?

[tellthestory]

[God, he came out here for...kidnapping reasons, really, and he's feeling so attacked right now.]

Well, I did.

[violentenvies]

You did? [Salieri arches an eyebrow at that] What did you narrate, exactly?

[samefacesyndrome]

W... Warning?

[ That's the most alarmed Rina has sounded all day. If she was feeling uh, shaken before she's even more so now (heh) ]

[tellthestory]

That's what it said.

[samefacesyndrome]

[ Simply, and to the point: ]

What?

[ That's what WHAT said B??? ]

[tellthestory]

The...script?

[Eh, close enough]

[sugarlumps]

That was no warning, that was attempted regicide you weirdo!

[tellthestory]

No, it said "warning" pretty clearly. In bold and everything.

[.....]

Are you a...queen, or something?

[sugarlumps]

I am a lumping princess, how dare you!

[tellthestory]

Oh, alright. But that's still like a head of state, right?

[Is that why he's here, does he need to provide commentary on an attempted assassination? Weird to go outside of America, and he isn't sure it counts if the princess attacked first, but...]

[sugarlumps]

Yeah, duh! I'm super important and junk, and this woman just tried to lumping murder me!