don't stop believing

[stagemanagers]

[Streetlights, reveals] | [Vision Statements] | [Mass Resolution: CONNECT] | [A little touch of the sun (Revival)] | [They do this bullshit like 8 times a week (Rescue)]


[It's a pleasant afternoon in the garden. Maybe not emotionally, but physically - isn't it nice when you get to have class outside?

As your voices rise, singing defiance in unison out for the Wizard, there's no immediate response; at least, nothing that clearly is a response. But there's something. Amidst the sound of your song, it may be hard to hear at first; Janis will likely be the first to notice, but eventually everyone is able to hear. It sounds as though other voices are rising along with yours.

There's something on the air - no music, or at least no instrumentals, just a disembodied sort of lyrical chant. You don't recognize any of the voices. They aren't singing the same song as you all are. Maybe they can't; they sound long long ago, and far far away now. Still - despite everything - the trees around you move lightly in a sudden soft breeze. It feels as though you have invoked something, old and entirely beyond your knowledge.

But first. Haven't you forgotten something?

It's Wednesday.

Welcome to this week's school club!]

Comments

[pennyless]

[The air in front of B shifts and crackles and glows - not unlike the crackle of Connection the dead had invoked themselves, though this is less magical and decidedly more... Holographic?

And then the light coalesces into a smaller mirror image of B - wearing... Arendellian nobleman's garb.]

-ear me? B!

[voicerights]

[-hologram technology? That'll get its attention, don't mind it glancing over here-]

[tellthestory]

[The Balladeer, who has what he considers to be a pretty normal reaction to sudden electrical phenomena happening a few feet from his face, scrambles away when this begins, and then re-approaches when he sees Billy.]

Billy? [Excuse him, he is waving a hand through your chest like immediately.]

[pennyless]

[B's hand passes through, with a vague feeling of static electricity, and Billy's image flickers as it's interrupted.

Billy brightens.]

B! Oh my god I saw the video- who were all those other...

Are you in the woods?

[tellthestory]

Oh - [The Balladeer looks around.] - well, I'm in the garden. But the woods sorta ate it a few hours ago. Other than that, though, the place is holding up really well, we've definitely got time to leave!

[For the record, the Balladeer definitely a) still has blood smeared on his cheek, b) looks like he has been crying very recently, and c) is probably still wet. Doin' good though!]

[pennyless]

Oh-

[The hologram's quality is not exactly 4k graphics, so he doesn't notice b or c.]

Are you still with those others? One of them kind of looked like Keanu Reeves-

[tellthestory]

Yeah, that's the SQUIP. There's like three of them now.

[Why are there so many SQUIPs???]

Wait, how do you know about the others?

[pennyless]

Oh right, those guys!

I saw the video. Did you not... send that out? Like, to everyone? Me and Anna both saw it, like right in front of us.

[tellthestory]

[.......]

How did we not all turbo-die?

[voicerights]

Exponential energy output and balanced load sharing...

[THOUGHTFUL]

[pennyless]

Um. Well, I'm not- I'm not sure, but I'm really glad you didn't.

I've been trying to get hold of you for weeks, B! Where have you been?

Anna's still super mad you missed Ely's birthday.

[tellthestory]

...oh, well...

[ohhhhh shit! he done fucked up!]

The good news is, I wasn't...turbo-dead? [yeah he couldn't think of any good news sorry]

when you use that icon i do a double-take

[pennyless]

[When B says 'turbo-dead' Billy squints suspiciously, tilting his head.]

B, the way you say that makes it sound like-

[His eyes go wide. He is, after all, a smart cookie.]

No. That's why the doors stopped working? That's why I couldn't find you? Because you died?

Then-- Then the video was...

[He trails off, quiet and horrified.]

There was another one?

god, right?

[tellthestory]

[The Balladeer's attempt at cheer drains away. He doesn't want to upset his friends, but that's...inevitable.]

Oh, the doors. I didn't think about those.

[It had been a little low on his priority list, given everything, but in retrospect it makes sense that his creations would stop functioning with him gone. Hopefully that wasn't too big an issue for anyone.

The Balladeer sighs and glances past Billy towards the rest of the group. He's not sure how he feels about the possibility of them overhearing; they don't all know exactly how he ended up here. That he'd come on his own terms, and failed them before he ever even met them. But...well, Billy deserves the story.]

I could tell it was about to happen. Not the whole time, I didn't have much warning. It was just...a sudden feeling I got, like a new one was just about to start. I don't know why that happened this time, and not the last...

[He doesn't need to tell Billy that he feels bad for not having known about the second game at all until after it had already happened. Billy knows.]

I went to try and stop it, and I...didn't. I'm sorry I didn't tell anyone before I left. It just...happened fast.

[voicerights]

I assume you mean me.

[hi there, it'll just approach properly now and tuck its hands behind its back]

I am Eszmet, a SQUIP-human hybrid.

[We don't have nearly enough photoshopped icons in this account yet, but yes, it still has the white dusting on its hair and the makeup and everything else]

[pennyless]

Oh! Yeah, you.

I'm, uh- I'm Billy. You're not the one I met before, though, right? That one wasn't part-human, he was part, um. Rock? Not like, the Rock, he still looked like Keanu Reeves-

Anyway, uh. Nice to... Nice to meet you?

[voicerights]

Spinel. It has downloaded itself in to a Gem, where my own form has merged with a human's. Though I am still uncertain as to how the integration has taken place.

[read; is it still a pill in a brain??? is it actually a brain??? WHO KNOWS]

You saw us perform? That was unexpected.

[pennyless]

Yeah, I did. All of us did, I think.

What was that? It was- I'd never seen anything like it before, and I invented this!

[voicerights]

[It studies Billy a moment - at least, what it can see of Billy - as it considers, then-]

It combines the Observer Effect with Narrator abilities, in addition to harnessing an ordered structure with the chaotic adaptability of-

[-yeah, it's going in to technobabble. TL;DR - they convinced reality to sit down, shut up, and listen.]

[disharmonizes]

[From a distance:] STOP MAKING ALTERING REALITY SOUND BORING!

[voicerights]

[At Billy] One moment.

[Towards Discord;] I AM NOT TELLING HIM WE SIMPLY 'DID IT'!

[brokeforgood]

[shoosh pap pap, it’s okay dad. Farrah plops Soup the rabbit into his arms.]

It’s okay, don’t listen to those nerds, just pet Soup.

[pennyless]

[For what it's worth, Billy is able to keep up effortlessly - and in fact, seems to spark to life, and loses some of the nervous twitch he'd had when he'd first spotted a stranger.]

You know, I'd started making a hypothesis about whether or not a narrator's presence was an indicator of some kind of macro-level reverse Zeno effect - You know, like - well, normal people might call it like an 'omen,' I guess, where you know when a narrator shows up that something's about to really get shaken up.

But using them to control the Observer Effect? That- yeah that could cause a measurable shift in the fabric of reality. Is that how- you know, how you guys were able to all come back?

[voicerights]

[FINALLY, SOMEONE WHO RESPECTS ITS WORK. Between yelling at Discord, Eszmet seems positively delighted - in its own, muted way - that it has someone who understands]

Apply the concept of their 'Audience' to the 'Observer', give them a reason to believe in the 'story' presented to them as opposed to the one currently being shown, and the rest is simple. [Relatively.] The performance you observed was partly designed as a means of redirecting power, but the extent of the end results were undefined; we had no idea it would broadcast further than this dimension. I would be extremely interested in learning more about your experience.

[samefacesyndrome]

[ Like the SQUIP, that hologram gets Rina's attention and she's staring at it from the sidelines (where she's been quietly trying not to get too overwhelmed by everything). But she turns away and tries not to eavesdrop when she realizes this is someone who 1) isn't the Balladeer, 2) knows the Balladeer. This seems like a personal conversation and she wouldn't want to be rude!

She is... definitely keeping this person in mind when they get to Denny's though. ]