John

6 AM . . . Yesterday

Yah.

Reminder that, as mentioned a while ago, I'll be away from the 6th until 12th of June, to a place far, far away that...actually has an internet connection, which doesn't help, however, because I probably can't manage to bring my notebook, or find time to write, for that matter.

I should be able to throw in a post tomorrow and take care of Julia and Ruée's C2 entrance and to make way for the system post. If Shin doesn't post before then, however, I'm afraid we will have to perhaps work out flashbacks or other methods to fill that back in.

Sorry to keep you waiting everyone! And I wish you and this roleplay all well during the time I'm away.

6 AM . . . Yesterday

Gabe you sneaky bastard choosing that apartment door.

Love the new posts, folks.

I'll have time these two evenings since I cleared off a few tasks that had to be taken care of, and a Julia post is to be expected after Que's post.

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

Posted. Sorry for being that last person holding the cycle up again!

Synopsis: Leila freaks out and runs around pointlessly until she runs into Inadi and foils his plans of being the hero-left-behind and then eventually gives up.

404 seems like a good number of posts before the end of the midnight game. Sword not found.

Meanwhile, reminder that I'll be away from the 6th to the 12th, and things are going to intensify from tomorrow to the 6th. Lots of meetings and preparations. I'll still try my best to keep up and at least throw notifications up on the OOC when I can't post for cycles happening during that time, but if I disappear and you can't contact me that will probably be why.

Also looking forward to that post tomorrow!

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

”I see you.”

The words continued to echo in her head long after they were first said.

Leila couldn’t even remember when they were first said. Yet it persisted - the deep, haunting voice that evokes enough fear on its own without even being attributed to the legendary Midnight man. It persisted even when the cries and yells and sounds of collision going on among the group of Lost Souls all around her should’ve drowned it out.

Leila nearly tripped over her glowing jar as the group scurried out from the cabinet. She didn’t fetch her yet unlit candle, and wouldn’t realize that until much later.

There was no such thing as a spirit of a Midnight Man that responds to rituals and materializes as will in the form of a figure all in black.

”I see you.”

As soon as she realized she didn’t have the time to think she started running.

There were flashes of light, most of fire, some brighter briefer, akin to the light produced by electrical discharges of sorts. Leila could tell that it was likely the mages in their group. Sources of light - in the darkness Leila wished for light, but the temporary, intense illumination from the fire and the lightning provided no comfort, and invoked instead panic. After the flames faded Leila’s eyes were left unadjusted to the darkness, the remnants of the signals of light imprinted in her brain materialized in the painful and confusing blue-purple shadows in her sight, and the already feeble light of the lit candles in the hands of others appeared even weaker.

Her fellow Lost Souls yelled various things, none of which she could entirely make sense of.

Her feet propelled her body blindly forwards, pushing onto whatever hold they could gain, without time to think about position or force or direction. She certainly bumped into a number of things, may have been people or walls or other things, she couldn’t tell. There were lights, softer lights, like that of the reflected light of the moon, shining through rectangular openings, projecting their shape onto other surfaces, yet it didn’t provide sufficient information as for how the surfaces were arranged, having Leila clueless about where she was and where she was headed. She was too disoriented to even follow the sounds - the only way she managed to stay with the group was grabbing onto someone’s clothes and following roughly the direction it jerked, and being determined to never, ever let go. Not in this chaos - not in this darkness.

There was no way either to determine whether it was just her imagination or was the horrifying figure of the Midnight Man composing itself again out of the darkness - she thought she saw it, but then there was a flash and an explosion and when she looked that way again there was nothing. She felt her way through the hallway, keeping her grasp on the sleeve that belonged to-

- it turned out the sleeve was Inadi’s robe, as she heard his voice when she heard him yell something about the guests and later about the sword they had to look for. It was too late when she came to the realization that he intended to stop at the doorway, however, and upon accidentally stepping onto a what sounded like a wooden shard from the disintegrated door she lost her balance and the momentum she carried in her scurry tossed her right into Inadi.

“wah”

She let out a sound as she stumbled over - a rather awkward one that was a result of part of her wanting to scream and the rest telling her that she needed to stay silent to stay safe. Possibly rolling a few times on the ground and potentially bringing the young man who intended to guard the door down with her, the action -along with all the action around them - finally seemed to come to a halt with her lying face-up, left hand still gripping firmly although she couldn’t tell onto what anymore.

And after an interval of several seconds that felt much longer than it actually was, when her mind was finally composed enough to tell up from down and her eyes adjusted enough to receive signal from the lights of the candles and the distant windows - she saw, this time clearly, the thick mist of emptiness gathering itself to form the silhouette of the figure of a man.

Many things went through her mind upon that sight.[/i] There is no such thing as a Midnight Man. What is happening? I want to see light. What was going to happen? Go away. Let me out of here.[/i] But most prominently, there was a signal that her consciousness screamed in a deafening volume above all other thoughts: the unreasonable, irrational, yet overwhelming sensation of fear.

Leila didn’t know what to do, so she closed her eyes.

6 AM . . . Yesterday

Tossed up a post for Lib. The Librarian is being an utterly unreliable and irresponsible tour guide.

Waiting on Ruée for Julia's post.

Anticipating what comes next! Much looking forward to C2.

6 AM . . . Yesterday

Gabe’s place | The Librarian

The smile on his face grew wider as The Librarian tilted forwards to see his new master fill out the forms.

Of course, he didn’t really need to do that to see the words on the form - the information was easily accessible from the inside. Besides, given that he was now seeing through the screen, moving around inside the phone did practically nothing to his view of the interface for it was actually above him. Yet he had gotten into the habit of pretending that it did - more in the sense of gestures so that people knew where he was looking, than the movements themselves serving any functional purpose.

“...Bookman.”

Not exactly creative, but not bad either. Librarian. Book - man. Made sense. It had a nice ring to it as well, he’d say.

The key smiled at the memory of that one time his name was decided by a thirteen-year-old boy. Man, was that an adventure. But then the smile turned into something he struggled to maintain when he remember what eventually happened to said thirteen-year-old boy.

My, it was no time to randomly think about events that had long become the past, was it?

The Librarian shoved those thoughts aside and noticed his new master was done deciding his own username as well, and was starting to toss questions at him. The Librarian straightened his stance and his scarf, his eyebrows raised. This young man seemed quite interesting, in the sense that he appeared to be...ready. Or eager, even. As if he knew precisely what was coming up and couldn’t wait to jump right into it. As if he knew all along and was waiting for this to happen.

Maybe he should’ve pulled the information dump trick earlier. Would’ve been fun.

The key looked again at the young man, who was now well-dressed in an outfit reminiscent of some sort of...butler? Or a waiter of sorts, from the older times. The Librarian didn’t know - by any chance, he could actually be a man of such a profession.

He’ll have time to find out.

So will the young man, about his Key, and about that other world.

“Yes, this is indeed a PvP game. Excellent instincts.” The Librarian said, in reply to Gabe’s questions, all the while being secretly glad that PvP was an acronym that was already around the last time he visited.

“You will fight other players in the game. People like you. To the death. In a grand tournament. The eventual, sole remaining survivor will ascend to the throne to become the next almighty demon king.” he continued, delivering that sentence deliberately in a tone that made it impossible to decide whether it was intended as a joke - or, rather, in a tone that made interpretations in either direction equally justified and reasonable. The only thing that made such a statement possible was the abundance of material that the humans produced that included similar situations - sometimes he believed that some surviving player somewhere must also be an avid and influential writer.

Yeah, that was likely.

“...except, of course, according to common sense, there’s no way such a thing exists in real life.” He concluded, after what seemed to be that specific kind of laugh that one would let out after holding back for so long to deliver one of those jokes that relied on the coexistence of seriousness and absurdity.

“...Aaaand...I actually don’t know. How about this place?” He said, answering Gabe's second question as he wandered in small steps around the phone while appearing to be looking around Gabe’s room, eyes pointed straight out from the screen, as if trying to peer through a window pane: “Is this place still in Beta? Or did you sign up for the stress test?”

He smiled, and there was a pause. That little snippet of talk was probably supposed to be thought-provoking. Or philosophical, even. Or just outright boring. Or, more likely, a combination of more than one of the above. Either way, a pause would be appropriate.

“O-Mari,” He then said, in a sudden switch of attitude, his speech now rid of the frivolity that it once carried, and now sounding more like some sort of opera actor trying to hard to deliver the lines of Shakespearean play, even complete with that little bowing gesture: serious, but somehow not lacking in comedic value. Comedic value may or may not have been his intent. He also assumed that was how the name was to be pronounced, and frankly, if it wasn’t, he was still going to pronounce it that way regardless. “...my master. For now I ask one more favour of you: would you bother to fetch me - um - fetch that key you received - and go ahead and try to...open something.”

This was always the hardest part to explain. Ugh, the Key Shop and all its unnecessarily complicated, supposedly rich-in-metaphorical-meaning rituals…

...he probably had no right to complain, though.

“...oh and, um, don’t worry about the teeth.” He had reverted to the tone of normal speech, delivering the last miscellaneous warnings - lest accidents occur. Humans were known to be unreliable with their choices - or at least some of them. Precautions were probably not a hundred percent necessary, but they were certainly sufficient. “...And try not to open something such as the door to somewhere you...wouldn’t like to arrive at often. Or yourself, for that matter. Or - ” He thought for a moment. “ - actually, nevermind. I’ll start yelling at you when you’re doing something that you’re not supposed to.”

“...Now please proceed with the key.”

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

Group two seems to be a bit silent. Well. Time to write again. Will be away starting from the sixth all the way until the twelfth and I really hope we can get through this part before I leave.

Unrelated info, my family keeps a Maltese and he considers himself a human.

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

Posted. Sorry for the delay.

Folks of group two please don't walk past doors without carrying out a headcount. People gon be killed ya know.

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

Leila would have spoke with Riley some more, but the conversation sort of trailed off by the time they reached the end of the staircase, leaving most of Riley’s questions unanswered and Leila pondering by herself about various things as they carried on in their investigation.

* * * *

Leila tapped the side of the liquid-filled jar.

As she walked among the group around the now pitch-dark interior of the mansion, she’d do that one every few minutes. It started off as an attempt to disturb the bugs so that they glowed brighter, like they did the first time around. The first few times she tapped, the light emitting bugs would sometimes reluctantly flash a bit brighter when she did so. Though, after a while., they persisted to stay near the bottom of the container, in only a faint glow of green. They’ve been acting like that since the game started, as if they, just as the humans and Nobodies in this room, were afraid. Leila, however, persisted with the tapping on the jar, insisting to herself that it would make her feel safer.

She rubbed the little cut on her index finger, which was made when her blood was required for the ritual, and instinctively brought her hand up and pressed the cut against her mouth. She could feel that it wasn’t bleeding anymore, but the metal-like taste of blood was still there. Biting her lip in disapproval she wondered why so many of these rituals necessarily involved human blood.

She was still amazed that trying such an absurd “game” - as they called it - had become the only reasonable path for them to proceed on this journey. She didn’t reject that idea, but that didn’t make all of this any less scary either.

The light from the jar was now only barely bright enough to let her see her own footsteps, and the sense of secureness it once provided no longer remained. Leila struggled with the restricted visibility that made her rather anxious, and tried as hard as she could to keep at least one person in the group close enough for her to see at all times - and to grab onto, if necessary. The jar was a good thing to have as it provided illumination, but having to hold onto it as well as the candle she was handed as backup required both hands - which meant there would be little she could do if it so happened that something was to -

- Leila decided it wasn’t the best of ideas to think about such things at the moment.

The area the group was in seemed to be a display of a collection of art, presumably owned by the past residents of this mansion. Leila didn’t know enough about art to tell anything definitely about the collection, but the pieces, in the dark room and under the dim green light of the glowing bugs, did succeed in invoking a very eerie atmosphere.

Leila would’ve said that some of them didn’t look the same the second time around she looked at them, but didn’t because that obviously was less probable than herself remembering incorrectly.

Still, it was unsettling.

She kept close to Inadi, who had just finished inspecting one of the pictures along with Ace. They were near the end of the group, and Leila hurried not to be left behind by the others in front, just having decided it was time to move on, perhaps because that they’ve done searching through here, or the hope that being constantly on the move would make it harder for the Midnight Man to catch up.

thud.

Leila turned around to see what once was the exit from the cabinet they were earlier inspecting now replaced by a solid surface.

She didn’t really have spare time to think about that when she heard the thuds on the door and the muffled yelling from the item hunter that came from the other side. She couldn’t make out what he was saying, but the picture that emerged in her mind was the imagination of being trapped inside a dark, sealed area; and that made her shiver.

There was a conflict between wanting to run away as fast as she could and feeling the necessity to get the people in that room back out so that they didn’t feel the same.

Leila hurried back, without making sure that anyone followed - a choice that she regretted almost immediately as she found herself submerged into the darkness, seemingly alone. To make it worse, her jar and candle slipped out of her hands as she leant against the wall - throwing her off into a small session of panic until she managed to grab hold of the jar, stopping it from rolling away. She placed them onto the ground close to her so she could see, and pressed her ear against the door:

”...can you guys open this from the opposite side-!?”

It was Songbird’s voice. Open this from the opposite side...Leila scrambled to look for any sign of a switch or trigger, to no avail.

How could she open this door? She tried hard to figure out a way. She recalled about mechanisms for trapdoors and gates and how they were embedded, in hope of getting a clue about where such a trigger might be located. There had to be one because only so would the design make sense. How could she find it? She thought hard, and meanwhile wished that she would have yelled something back then so that the others would know - no signs of anyone coming back yet. Riley was able to locate the book that was the switch to the gate back at the library - how?

Leila hoped Riley was there only to realize that she was, but only on the other side of the door. She figured she could ask, but in these surroundings she wouldn’t dare as much as make a sound. She gritted her teeth and went on. Few of the possibilities that she could think of fitted the design of this house and the ones that were plausible she tried but found nothing. Where potential levers and switches and tripwires could be placed, Leila only felt the constant smooth texture of the walls….

...Felt. Her heart skipped a beat when she realized that: she needed to feel the surface to know about them. She didn’t see anymore - she had wandered far enough into the darkness - a mere couple of meters, perhaps, but it was already where the light did not penetrate. She needed to go back to the jar.

But she kept looking. She was sure she wasn’t thinking clearly right now - couldn’t afford to. She had to keep looking because she realized that the presence of this task as a distraction was the only thing keeping her from feeling her fear of the darkness. If she stopped -

The thought of what would happen if she got distracted served as the distraction needed to have her look away for a second and end up collapsing to the ground.

She saw the light from a distance, to her left - it seemed farther than she knew it was. She hoped she could stare at it - the light made her feel safe, at least she could see something - but then she would worry about the darkness on the other side that she knew existed. Yet she could see nothing even if she looked into that darkness. Every act she could probably think of was wrong in a different way - and she froze in place because that’s the only known safe thing to do, but that not even for long. And the light from the jar seems to have started to decrease in intensity - or was it just her imagination? It was seemingly fading farther away by the moment.

”uhhhhhhh-”

She felt like screaming, or crying even. Or both at once. But neither could she do that. So she tucked herself tighter towards the wall, and closed her eyes - if she did that she could perhaps persuade herself that there will be light when she opened her eyes and she just wasn’t seeing it yet? Somewhere in that, for one moment she believed that the temperature was dropping around her. And then a loud thud from the other side of the wall...

Can you open this door?”

Songbird.

Leila opened her eyes again at the sound of that. Not because the sentence itself, but because that sentence was uttered nearly right into the wall and Leila could hear that the walls were solid.

There was no hollow space for mechanism triggered by switches or levers of tripwires a distance away.

She almost wanted to punch herself in her face for her stupidity, but that can wait until later. Leila nearly held her breath as she forced herself to decide without thinking it through - that was the only way she could have decided - to dash back at the door and the glow jar and candle.

It wasn’t far and she made it, just at the moment the light from her jar flickered out and she thought her heart was going to stop. At the same time, though, at a turn of the doorknob, the locked door to the cabinet clicked open.

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

Aaaaaand I come back just in time for the game! Whee.

Hyped for the game.

Just got home though, and I need some time wrapping school stuff up so it'll probably be until tomorrow that I can post - but still. It's good to be back!