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spacecoast2023-04-05 07:36 am
dropoffs) wrote in spacecoast2023-04-05 07:36 am
Entry tags:
WEEK 4: DECOMMISSION
WEEK 4 ALERT
emergency detected
ALERT: EMERGENCY IN THE SIMULATION ROOMS.
LOCKDOWN SEQUENCE ENGAGING.
SYSTEM REBOOT LOCKED.
LIFE SUPPORT STABLE.
CLIMATE CONTROL STABLE.
FUNCTIONALITY WILL RESUME AFTER EMERGENCY ADDRESSED.
WARNING: PROCEED WITH CAUTION
REQUESTING CALLSIGNS:
INQUISITOR AND HARLEY QUINN
REPORT TO THE MAIN SIMULATION ROOM.
LOCKDOWN SEQUENCE ENGAGING.
SYSTEM REBOOT LOCKED.
LIFE SUPPORT STABLE.
CLIMATE CONTROL STABLE.
FUNCTIONALITY WILL RESUME AFTER EMERGENCY ADDRESSED.
WARNING: PROCEED WITH CAUTION
REQUESTING CALLSIGNS:
INQUISITOR AND HARLEY QUINN
REPORT TO THE MAIN SIMULATION ROOM.
A barrier barred me from leaving my location and the other senior officers are not responding to messages. Tread with caution.
CALLISTO
It's somber, this morning, barring the sudden, clipped request sent out by the Eudora. Hard to not be, considering the proceedings of yesterday - the loss of two crew members that you had come to know over the past weeks. The sequestering of one in the brig, the other monitored in the medical bay. The truth of their actions, come to light. The night passes without fanfare, and the sleep is barely fitful, no matter where you have spent the night.
And then, the morning comes.
The walls of the Eudora feel looming in the silence, but duty calls. Temenos and Harley have been requested to investigate the simulation room. There's nothing to guide them through these hallways except their own feet and the familiarity of this alert from many weeks past; there is no compulsion, there is no guiding light, just a request from the synthetic AI voice of the ship herself chirruping over and over again. If others attempt to investigate in their stead, they'll find that they're given no access through the archway of the simulation room's entry, but these two individuals can make it through without trouble.
The simulation room is not off, like it has been the past couple of weeks.
Instead... it's rather different from before.
And then, the morning comes.
The walls of the Eudora feel looming in the silence, but duty calls. Temenos and Harley have been requested to investigate the simulation room. There's nothing to guide them through these hallways except their own feet and the familiarity of this alert from many weeks past; there is no compulsion, there is no guiding light, just a request from the synthetic AI voice of the ship herself chirruping over and over again. If others attempt to investigate in their stead, they'll find that they're given no access through the archway of the simulation room's entry, but these two individuals can make it through without trouble.
The simulation room is not off, like it has been the past couple of weeks.
Instead... it's rather different from before.
no subject
as you walk, you will see a figure that has already been rotting, impaled on what looks to be some briars that have wound around them so tightly they are piercing straight through multiple parts of their body. finery, that may have once been very fine, torn to shreds and covered in blood. they are indistinguishable, no identity to be seen, but the gold on their bony fingers might indicate they were once a wealthy prince.
the briars creak, the briars grow, they see you, they watch you, they wait. just up ahead, a dead mount of this prince, clearly scared when its rider had been snatched off, now crumpled like a dead spider on all four legs and food for the briars to continue to grow.
closer and closer, you draw towards the tower. the bridge holding the both of you as you walk eventually opens up overhead. allowing you you see a dingey sky, without sun, without light. the bridge stretches on, fans out. the tower... awaits, covered in many of the same, winding green things. ]
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Mn. The real question will be the condition in which we find her.
[ which is worrying, considering the events of last night's trial, and every week up until this point. it's a foreboding thought.
in the meantime, he lets harley worry about the wolf, trusting her enough at his back. investigating the body of the wealthy prince with a frown on his face. if the familiarity of the situation is a bother, he doesn't show it, but he makes his way to examine the horse (octopath horse murderers) and shakes his head. ]
How gruesome. [ ugh. but, okay. he's poking and prodding at some of the briars with his staff so they're not stabbing harley in places where he can, and then heading towards the tower.... ]
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I don't have to tell ya to be prepared for the worst, do I?
[onward they go. she'll push some of the briars away with the tip of her shotgun, too. if it becomes a problem then she'll just, idk, simulate a jacket for herself or something.]
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More!
Briars!
but also in among the thorns and the overgrowth, more bodies, more hapless princes, each and every one of them broken and twisted, squeezed and smothered. each one had so boldly tried to reach this same tower that seems to simply unfurl its welcome mat towards you. and each one had so boldly failed. some of them twitch, some of them are barely breathing, none of them would survive with any amount of healing. they are doomed.
as the two of them reach the base of this tower, or rather, the midway point of this tower because you are on a bridge of briars suspended high up, they'll see that thinner briars and roots, climbing up towards a window there at the topmost part of the tower. they are covered in thorns themselves, but what's a little pain between crewmates?
what's a little pain to ascend the tower?
it'll be quite the climb... ]
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[ prepared for the worst that is. anyway! hateful! where's the knight to do the dirty work for you? the answer is currently dead and surrounded by briars.
anyway despite all the jokes he will be fine. he's feeling fairly ~* vitalized *~ at the moment, and his own stubborness far outweighs his low strength score. he does look over the still living figures, but ultimately... ultimately, with how finicky his magic is right now, it's especially not worth it, and they're not real. so.
it is way, way too familiar after the hanging gardens, anyway. his focus is directly on the tower itself, and the briars. ]
Onwards and upwards...
[ this is going to hurt, but it's fine. he reaches behind himself, securing the staff of judgement in a way that's it's not going to flying off of him behind his back. and then takes a deep breath.
and, because he is powered by spite, a deep and obsessive need to uncover the truth, and a lot of care for rosamund, he will do the physical labor to climb this tower, taking his first handful of painful briars and starting to pull his way up. ]
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Ugh... [TAKING A SECOND TO STRETCH. THIS IS IMPORTANT. she also secures the shotgun behind her back... somehow. it may involve using her shirt as a holster so she is now in her sports bra, i guess. don't ask me to think too hard about the rpg logic of this.] Simulate those muscles, bro, because we got some climbin' to do.
[it's a simulation, she said! yeah, well, she still has to take a deep breath to brace herself.
and then she's closing her hands around the briars and pushing herself up, starting the long, painful journey to that window. it doesn't take long before their hands become slippery with their own blood. but harley is nothing if not stubborn. even while she's hissing through her teeth in pain, she forces herself to keep going.]
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and so the ascent begins.
the briars dig into your skin, into your clothes, scratches and scrapes, pinching at your palms and your fingers. you cling and you grab, hauling yourself up slowly stone by stone as a measure. on enormous briars bracketing your climbing path, harley and temenos will see the fates of others - speared effortlessly on these vicious thorns, hanging like gruesome decorations. some are even dangling by their necks, limbs limp, their blood long dried.
so the story goes onward - years and years. the brairs shift, but do not move for either of you as you climb. they simply seem to breathe in and out, slowly... a sleeper's unconscious cadence of air through the lungs. ]
1/2
no, focus. this climb is grueling and difficult - temenos pushes his hand onto a briar, feels it scrape and dig into his palms. feels them puncture through skin. it's fine. teeth gritted, he grabs onto another vine and pulls himself upwards on to it, bit by painful bit. again with this? temenos is starting to get a feel for the way it moves, though. breathing. slow, steady.
he doesn't regard the corpses. there's no time to waste - temenos' arm stretches up, his foot catches in the groove between two stones. as he's lifting his right, bloodied hand, a corpse held tight and speared by the briars sags. temenos grabs onto a vine, and the briar snaps.
his other hand is bloody, and it windmills once, desperately grabbing for another briar to make up for the lost hold, but there's no purchase, and
he has exactly enough time for a short, sharp gasp as he realizes the only thing he's got a hold on is open air. ]
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did you think this was going to say something different? ]
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ah.
harley reaches for him immediately, one of her hands in a vicegrip around the briars while blood runs down her arm and the other darting out immediately to try and grab temenos the moment she notices him slipping. and, well.
it would be nice if this tag said harley totally succeeds at catching him just before he slips out of her reach. but we are in the neverafter simulation and nothing here ever works out for the better. harley's fingertips brush against his cloak for just a split second — but then he's gone by the time she closes her hand into a fist. and now she's all alone, almost all the way up the tower, screaming her head off.]
Temenos—-!!
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he does have enough time for one thing, at least. the only actual thought to cross his mind as he's about to hit the ground -
throné -
and temenos mistral is dead ]
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░̸͇̄░̷̻̓░̵̭̓.....still on the tower?
he's in the exact spot he was ten seconds ago - like he did a full body glitch, holding onto a briar and perfectly fine. he blinks, a little surprised?
.... and then just keeps climbing like nothing happened. that was weird. will he be addressing this? no. mysteries need to be solved. ]
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Fuck! [KNEEJERK REACTION AHHHHHH DON'T JUST KEEP CLIMBING!!!] You gave me a heart attack. Are you okay?
[resumes climbing! sweatily!]
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in any case, the two of them continue to climb, and this path becomes a fast one, briars aside, bloody palms, they will make it to the top of this tower, to the window that drops them well inside...
and...
and things shift. they widen, they spread. the bridge of briars, the exterior of the terrible world, even the wolf is gone. and instead you are in a room, a room that everyone outside the simulation room can see. but... it is a lonely room. a lonely room full of more briars. and there, suspended overhead where the briars climb high like a mountain...
is your sweet, sweet princess.
rosamund du prix is suspended near the ceiling, her slender, strong limbs wrapped upright in several briars, all of which have pierced or scratched her skin while restraining her. there is blood all around her mouth, dribbling thickly down her chin and her front. her neck has been savagely stabbed several times, and briars are reaching into the wounds with their roots, threading themselves to become a part of her. above her head and gripped by another branch is an ornate enchanted spindle that has been poised to strike, quite close to her eye. she is suspended in those briars, hanging, the spindle's work stolen away...
... there's naught left to do but to... extract the princess.
for it seems she has already been slain.
so how, now, will you get your princess fair down from her tower of thorns? ]
no subject
[ like this is just a normal occurrence? ?? things happen sometimes. whatever. it's easter. he does flash harley a smile that's apologetic, briefly, before it's right back up onto the wall itself. the briars are still awful and hurt, and there's blood running down his palms, but eventually, up to the window they get.
the world seems to shift and zoom and flash, dizzying and painful by the time both of them are through the window, and their tower prize is...
... well. temenos falls silent. it's - he can't say it's surprising, but the grotesque nature of it all is new. the briars, the mockery of the pain rosamund already carried. the placement of the princess in the tower, the spindle at her eye. he closes his mouth, slowly, closes his eyes. inhales in and out.
...
and then, quietly: ]
... I can try to revive her, but... it may be too late, and we're still in a simulation.
[ it's always too late, isn't it? ]
Let's get her down.
[ ...he shakes his head and summon up a little simulated dagger, to start sawing through the briars where they can. ]
no subject
[harley closes her eyes, grief plainly written across her face after seeing rosamund's corpse strung up like a halloween decoration. after a second, she rubs at her face and recomposes herself.]
Right. Don't let the spindle fall on her. The kid's... Ugh. Her corpse doesn't need to look any more fucked up than it already does if we gotta carry her through the crowd to the stasis pods.
["if," though she's thinking "when." she doubts the ship will let them have this one nice thing even in a simulation.
either way, she summons a machete for herself to start cutting through the briars.]
1/2
once they cut her down and bring her body to the ground, the simulation will begin to gather itself up again, dissipating, eating itself alive until the room is back to its deactivated state, the light that are wavering in their standby mode as the visions of briars, of princes, of spindles, of towers... fades.
the barrier has yet to fall, it is still just them and rosamund's body. they will find she is wearing her bow and quiver, which has two arrows still tucked inside. the third, they will find nearby… bloodied and cast down upon the floor like a final declaration.
beside the droplets of blood, flecked from the arrow’s being cast aside, there is a tome upon the ground, a beautiful antique copy of sleeping beauty, though when opened… the pages are blank. in the far back… a page that has been torn out. there is also a large scale held in the back of that book, which both of you can recognize as one of sidon's. on her delicate, too pale and tooc old wrist... she is also wearing a bracelet.
both temenos and harley's i.r.i.ses will ping. twice. familiar?
the first message is simple:
CALLSIGN NYQUIL (ROSAMUND DU PRIX) STASIS POD UNLOCKED. PLEASE SECURE CREWMATE.
and the second... well. you two may want to brace yourselves for what arrives next... because it's a video... that plays as such: ]
2/2 (CW: body horror, gore, mouth/throat injury, near eye gore, suicide)
The room lights up. Then gives way to a dark and wondrous forest. The trees grow high and the shadows run long, but a quaint campfire keeps them at bay. Five travellers slumber around it. An old man with a grand book, a froggish prince. A cat in boots, a puppet whose nose has been broken off, a girl who's turned half-wolf. Rosamund takes a turn at each of their sides, touching a hand to their back or their shoulder as she lays a kiss on each sleeping head. One by one she anoints them, then scoops her skirt beneath her and claims the remaining spot by the fire.
She draws an arrow loose. Looks to the axe by the little girl's side, biting her lip, but shakes her head. ]
No, no.
[ She opts to stick to the plan. Her own book is set aside, the title too distant to make out as she brushes her fingers over the cover. She takes a deep breath and shakes out her hands, blinking fastly, collecting any nerves left to her. Both hands grip the shaft and she positions it above her pulse. She pulls it back, holding, breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth, forcing a steadiness that won't stick to any part of her. At last she jams it down.
And is left gasping. It's not enough force to kill, but the blood is flowing and she's gone shell-shocked, clutching at her neck for reprieve. She hadn't lied to Eunhyuk: it's a difficult act to commit in one blow with a weapon that's meant to be fired.
It's enough, though, to remind her that she's not the only living thing in the simulation room.
"The Princess!"
"Put her to sleep—"
"One hundred years."
"Sleep, sleep, sleep!"
Hissing voices rise and her eyes blow even wider as the briars woven around her middle writhe. Then suddenly, shoot out.
There's a sharp shriek. She's hefted into the air before she can even think to get on her feet, the tendrils growing fast and thick and slithering over over the ground, snaking through the air around her, winding over her limbs. Rosamund kicks, she rips at them. The briars burgeon and ripple, coiling around her sleeping friends and digging into the dirt, choking the forest floor. ]
No! Stop it! Stop!
[ If they have a mind for reason they have yet to show it.
"Keep her safe..."
"The highest room in the tallest tower!"
The forest and all her friends flicker away. There's a new will and so there's a new way, and Rosamund is now dangling in a stately room of a stone tower, the window facing a bleak and starless night. Her old room, her old castle.
She pulls at the thorns threatening to bind her wrist, gripping the arrow deathly tight as this curse makes to save her. Before she can scream again she is gagging. Rosamund goes oddly stiff. She straightens her back, mouth wide open with a hand waiting.
A tendril sneaks over her tongue from deep within and she snatches it on the spot, yanking it loose. She's lucky — it's still too thin to truly shred her throat but she spits up a slew of blood nonetheless. The strand swings in her grip, its wet roots wriggling to reach back for her.
"Sleep, Princess, sleep."
They've had time to consume the room. It's hard to make out the furniture, and it's only because Rosamund is held so high that her struggle still reads on film. It's only because of this that the next invading branch can be seen. It's wrapped itself around something long, and sharp, and ancient, wound with black silk string. A spindle. It lowers towards her head.
Rosamund gurgles. She drops the rooting tendril and grabs the arm of this new branch. They hold a stalemate, the tip of the needle an inch from plunging into her eye. She coughs, she sucks in bubbling breaths through the mess made of her mouth, but she holds it at bay.
Now or never.
She drives the arrow into her throat. Again, and again, and again.
Those hisses turn to shrieks. So many little roots spring loose, clambering to nest in the new holes she's gouged. Heal them and feed from them.
She strikes again. She strikes with a mindless madness.
And everything stills. Air rattles as she tries to draw it in. Blood drips to the floor. Her body can't slump while held up straight like this. She just hangs slack in the cradle of thorns, both arms dropping, the arrow clacking against the briars and slipping to the floor of the tower.
She's never been more firmly in their grasp, but it's the first time she beat the briars to the punch.
Rosamund du Prix is dead. ]
no subject
the entire scene is horrifying. from beginning to end - even the sweet kindness of each greeting she passes to her friends is made sour. (Your party sounds wonderful. It's nice to be able to do those things together, whether in good spirits or sad ones.)
to his credit, temenos remains silent, composure kept perfectly in place at the gore and the misery and the despair played out on a live screen for the two of them to see. by the time the simulation ends, the magic spark is gone - no chance of revival, and there never was - and rosamund has long been gone, too. ]
... She ended it herself, after all. [ temenos says, in the achingly grieving silence that follows. in the most fucked up way possible. but that driven arrow - she did it herself. let me write my own story - she wrestled it away. even at the very end, even in the hands of the briars, she wrote it away. there's this awful sense of grief and... a little pride for her, too. for her strength, in the face of adversity.
looking down at rosamund - who looks so small, now - temenos reaches to close her eyes, if they're still open, and leaves his hand there, murmuring, silent: ] May the Sacred Flame light your path, your highness.
[ ... ]
We had best get her to the bay. Let's lift her together, if we must.
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[t's more of a whisper than anything else. distraught. she rubs at her face, squeezing her eyes shut like that's going to help her unsee and unhear the contents of the video. this time, it takes her longer to compose herself. long enough for temenos to close rosamund's eyes and pay his respects, at least.
and then she slowly inhales. exhales. forces herself to crouch down on her still fucked up leg. and since her strength stat isn't 8—]
I've got her. [quietly. weary. she'll carry rosamund like a princess even if it means another round in the healing pods. and in the saddest clown attempt to lighten the mood up, just a little bit:] At least we don't have to climb down the tower, right?
[god. well, only one thing left to do now.]
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because rosamund du prix is dead.
like the world's saddest funeral procession, harley and temenos carry the body of rosamund out of the simulation rooms, and down in careful process towards the stasis bay... where she will be laid to rest at last. where she will know no pain of thorn or briar or spindle or needle, where her story ends for now. here. ever after.
a soft ding reverberates on everyone's i.r.i.s. device, announcing what they all very well might know already. wretched sunday. terrible sunday. ]