[??? Day 465]

[quitplayinggames]

[you wake up.

the first sensation you feel is your key, warm and alive against your chest. you know immediately that this place is responsive to this power, the power of your will applied to magic. if you've started to experiment with what your special ability is, or if you want to, that realization might be easier to find here as well - though it's not strictly necessary. all you need for sure is a question: what are your desires. . .?

. . . you're in a blank white room. the walls and ceiling are featureless. the floor is covered in a million feathers and scraps of cloth, which drift up in muffling gales around you if you so much as move.

up in one corner high off the ground, you glimpse a splash of bright electric blue through the drifting airy debris. the only other thing of note in the room is the door on one wall: it's white and featureless as a piece of paper, and you get the sense that it will vanish into the wall again if closed. undifferentiated noise pours through the place where it's cracked open, unbearably loud. even with the feathers in the air shutting out the noise a little, it's hard to hear yourself think.

there's something hard and clanging underfoot too, hidden by the feathers. you trip over it immediately because of course you do; ow! what is that?]

((This is a short, individual, play-at-your-own pace plot explore, which will run until 11:59 PM EST on Tuesday, June 2. Anyone jumping in before then is welcome! This is not directly connected with heartgames, so people are free to jump in regardless of whether they've played or run another heart this round.))

Comments

[whyitgottabeblack]

[scribbling back with the key as paintbrush/pen:]

I can try?

I'm really better at changing by taking away than I am at adding though. Still won't kill you though, that's not the goal here apparently.

[and next with the paints in as close to gold as he's got]

SILENCE IS GOLDEN

[and in whatever color seems the least loud and painful to look at]

SETTLE DOWN

[aloud]

We'll see if that makes thing less crazy in here so I can think for half a second.

Is there something I should be writing?

[quitplayinggames]

up to you...

[...the words that were "to you" fade out, and rearrange themselves back into the original "don't get your fool self killed" manifesto, now repaired and unscratched again.

the words you're adding tend to be a little drippy, but since you're focusing with your key while working with them, that seems to be helping/minimizing the problem.]

[whyitgottabeblack]

[focusing on really making the messages sink in in the hopes they might do something

and adding in as close to the Aather team colors as he can manage:]

Sometimes the only way out is through. You make your own doors, you find a way to open the ones that are there. You make your own way because you have to.

[he then draws sterling and onyx keys to represent his own time in aather because it seems pertinent and to add emphasis to the message

after that he keeps focusing on fixing the messages to the wall but also begins to put the photos of familiar faces by and large in a ring next to all the messages before resuming paint usage to connect them with team colors or as close to it again before adding a last message:]

OPEN THE DOOR

[quitplayinggames]

[your paint sinks into the wall as if it had always been there. the process of applying your will to the space around you with your keys is more familiar, now; it's not the same effort of mere imagination as it was in the cloud realm, but this is still a power you can access.

whatever you left feels like a rebuke, a message to see through even the haze of noise and feathers and listen to. get a sense that this disruption of the white in the room will at least last for a long time. . . very satisfying.


while you're contemplating the results of your actions, you hear a tinny sound, somehow cutting completely through the noise each time: it layers itself on top of all the other voices rather than removing them, so now it's really loud in your head.

it's coming, improbably, from the cord-cut hotel telephone in the pile of feathers.

the sound is impossible to ignore, hideously compelling - who's even calling? it would be very, very hard not to react to the ringing.]

[whyitgottabeblack]

[picking it up and eventually holding it up to his ear when it's stopped ringing upon toying with the strange thing he doesn't fully recognize a few other ways (wearing them as binoculars etc.)

Uh...

[quitplayinggames]

[picking up the phone does nothing right now - the cut cord is sparking a bit, with no indication of where - or if - the other side is in the mass of feathers. THIS IS A TERRIBLE SYSTEM.

R I N G]

[whyitgottabeblack]

[UGH PUSHING FEATHERS WITH ALL HIS GRAVITY MAGIC TO TRY TO TRAIL THE DAMN RINGING OR SPARKS OR SOME SIGN AS TO WHERE THIS THING IS CONNECTED TO JEEZ]

[quitplayinggames]

[your key reacts to your urgency, helping your gravity magic blow the feathers aside. there-- the cut cord disappears into the floor over that way, hanging loose. there's a couple of feet of slack there.]

[whyitgottabeblack]

[ok even with a limited conception of what electricity is he knows how energy flow works and what he needs to do now (hopefully)

either way he heads over to the cord and starts to use the key to will the sparking end and the split cord to merge together again]

[quitplayinggames]

[YOU GOT IT. this is a weird way to fix a phone, but your key keeps glowing on your chest. . . and eventually, your Red Green bullshit succeeds.

the phone comes off the receiver as you finish. there's a moment of silence. . . then a click. they've hung up.

you feel a powerful emotion, hard to identify. . . mixed hope and dread. . .? it hits you so hard that you physically double over.]

[whyitgottabeblack]

[yeah falls to his knees like he got punched in the gut]

What...? After all that--Why--?

[and he's wheezing again trying to deal with the overwhelming feels]

[quitplayinggames]

[ah. . . the noise is dimming around you, as if it was drowned out by that shock of emotion; perhaps this is all for today. You hear Dream's voice, a little uncertain, as the noise finishes fading out.]

". . . answering that call's something dangerous. It's scary. But. . ."

[. . . you wake up. don't forget how your key worked here; you can keep using that.

don't forget any of this.]

[whyitgottabeblack]

[waking with a start grabbing onto his key with all of him]

Dream, I finally recognized your voice! I'm sorry if I hurt you!

[he won't forget]