WEEK FIVE

[whimsicalism]

WEEK FIVE

There's one thing that belongs in Closetland: Monsters.

It was a monster that brought the students here to begin with, and it's a monster who controls their lives now. By now, some have even accused their classmates of turning into--or always being--monsters themselves.

The academy is just as cold as it was last week, autumn air seeping in through the unfriendly architecture and the artificial light seeming darker than before. The occasionally cloud of purple fog snakes through the hallways at ground level, a constant reminder of the new presence haunting the school and her role in the past five weeks of torment. Now that Kakuya is back in a body of her own making, the music room is silent, though the rooms and halls of the Academy themselves occasionally fill with a low, haunting flute melody. With the school's new overlord already wishing her ill, Nanami's already deflating power and free roam capabilities are more or less completely limited as well: She's just one more toy in the box.

The stairwell has opened into another new floor. Upon closer inspection, it seems to be the uppermost one. This is the top of Ira Academy, and while it likely bears some new answers and some new locations to try and find a solution to your plight, is there anything that can heal some of the rifts that formed from the accusations thrown at the last trial? Still, if you don't find answers, then you'll be here playing this eternal deadly game.

Is the devil you know better than the devil you don't?

Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday
Regains | AC | IC Profiles | Locations | Mystery Information | Sheep Contact | Nanami Contact | Kakuya Contact

OOC NOTES

Welcome to Week 4! Nanami has joined the party! She no longer has office hours but still be contacted privately, as can Kakuya, who is no longer stuck in the music room. New locations are now open, and some minor adjustments have been made to the IC profiles and rules. Please hit the mods with a ping in Discord and put INVESTIGATE in your subject line if you're interested in exploring a new location. The SHEEP are still taggable, though you may find them in a...different mood.

You now have a week to make sure your AC in for last week and to start collecting AC for this week. Remember to submit your regains, and sign up for a spot exploring this week's mystery if you want to!

Comments

SUNDAY

[whimsicalism]

INVESTIGATION/Open

[canreallymove]

[Well. He knows where he’s going.

Records Room.

There has to be something her to make…anything make sense. Just. At all.







Later he is just wandering around. Go ahead and bother him. He is just trying to clear his head more.]

[whimsicalism]

[Are you looking to break a lock or two, Sonic?]

NO CHURCH, ONLY MEETING

[hashtagwoof]

[ With Jeanne out of the picture, it's a wonder who would be around to conduct Sunday service in her absence...

The awnser comes quickly enough. Someone woke up early enough to slip a note under everyone's door:

EMERGENCY MEETING

Playground. 8AM. If anyone asks, we're attempting to hold church.

When everyone gathers, though, there is no church. There's just Hunter and his net gun looking incredibly stern. ]

Morning everyone. Hope you've all had some time to calm down after the drama bomb that dropped yesterday...

[ He starts pacing as he speaks. ] Look, I get it. A dog everyone liked had died, people who were really close to him wanted to avenge him, but jumping the gun and attacking someone based on suspicion alone just caused a huge angry mess. In the future, if this happens again, how about we save the angry insults until after we find concrete evidence of someone with blood on their hands?

[ Yes. He is stopping to emphasize that last bit. Feel the annoyance in your bones. ]

Of course, I don't want to stay here any longer than most of you. And as Dewey pointed out to me last night, we can't fight all the monsters on our own. I mean, we're outnumbered by them anyway. Even if everyone was still alive, that's still about twenty of us and a whole lot more of them.

So what we need to do is strategize an escape plan.

That means scoping out every part of the school as thoroughly as possible for clues. Look for an opening, a document that lists the monster's weak spots, something that combats ghost stuff. I have a feeling there's gonna be another late night terror tomorrow. If you wake up for that, check out everything you can. We need all the Intel we can get.

Oh, and weapons! How many people got those out of the vending machine? Non-lethal, preferably, but we can't afford to be that picky. Dewey has offered self defense classes, but if anyone else wants to help him teach that, that would be great... I'm hoping we won't have to face too many monsters in our path, but we should be prepared to fight back... [ A pause. Something else came to mind. ] Oh yeah, I should've mentioned this earlier. When I talk about monsters here, I mean the twisted nightmare things in the glass containers. Not our classmates. Even if they end up being driven to murder for some reason. Trust me when I say none of these deaths would have happened if our collective captors didn't keep poking us with the proverbial stick.

That should cover everything... Any questions? Concerns? Maybe a good suggestion or two?

[copycut]

So you're saying we should cut our losses and run? Well... I get it, but we might be missing out on an opportunity by doing that. I don't know who else was paying attention, but did you catch onto the important part of what Kakuya said?

We're in Utsushiyo, the land of people. Kakuya's "broken toys" are in Kakuriyo, the land of the unseen. Kakuya also called it the land of the dead, but... I think "land of the unseen" is the better name for it. After all, she said that it's possible to reach Kakuriyo without dying.

In theory, that should mean... Anything that enters can also move in reverse. If we find a way to pass freely between the two, we can bring the souls of our "dead" back to Utsushiyo. Whether they'll come attached to their bodies... Well, that's another story. Still, we can talk about that once we've actually found a way into Kakuriyo.

Lucki~ly... [ And Kuro's voice brightens up. ] I convinced Kakuya to start giving us hints! The next time we win a match against her, she'll give us a clue about how to get to Kakuriyo. It involves her greatest mystery yet, though, so we all need to be careful over the next couple of weeks.

In the meantime... Well, we can't just rely on Kakuya to tell us what we need to know. I think we should also step up our investigations. It might be useful to double-check any rooms where "mysteries" have already appeared... For example, the laundry room, where we found Nanami. As weird as it sounds, the inside of that washing machine might be a space where one can pass between Kakuriyo and Utsushiyo.

[temmapathy]

[Emma raises her hand.] I can help teach karate. And Carrie suggested that I should teach everyone here sign language so we have a more private way to communicate.

SELF-DEFENSE

[lets_dewey_it]

_{[Dewey has tossed his forester's axe into whatever weapons pile there was for the sake of keeping track of them, along with his keytaur and the Druid Cup.]} Two of these are more last resorts if anything, but that's beside the point.

Sonic and I had this in mind for quite some time, but we were never able to get around to it. Sunday was for church and Saturday was for trials. And even now, Sonic is in no state to help me out with this; he needs time to get his footing back so to speak.

I'm not a fighting expert like Webby back home, but I'll do my best to teach you all what she does. And I can use help from anyone else who knows a thing or two about fighting. Emma knows karate. Anya's parents are a spy and an assassin. Adorabat had been getting training from Mao Mao and Badgerclops. Any kind of fighting knowledge, no matter how limited, is better than none.

CW: Mao Mao Spoilers

[violence_ensues]

Closed to Hunter

[Adorabat does hear more arguments directed her way. She can't really argue against them. Someone she really misses wouldn't like it. So instead of screaming and yelling, Adorabat will go up to Hunter, looking... not exactly guilty nor remorseful, but still down.]

...I know now that Sonic's not a monster. It's just that... all the monsters back at Pure Heart Valley never thought,. They only cared about eating and smashing. But... but it's so coffusing. I've never seen monsters that can think before. It's weird to think of such mean things as people when...

[When she lost her mother to one.]

I'm... I'm sorry.

Open to all

LISTEN UP, EVERYONE! We can't just do self-defense. We need to start thinking of moves to use as a team. But not just that. We need to stretch, cuz flexibility is really important. We'll need to build our stamina, too.

Dewey, I'll help you with your self-defense and dodging. Hunter, I'll help you with that bubble blaster and your aim. Anya won't be fighting with us. Treat her as a civilian. Sonic, I'll help you learn how to plan things out. Anyone else, try to use the rest of your coins on the machine to see if we get anything useful.

Me and Kuro talked last night and we think we can find a way to get to the people who have died without actually dying ourselves. We just need to be on the lookout for strange magical things. Other than that, we maybe should do a seance to try talking to the dead. Hunter can tell you more.

[panglici]

I found something weird out from the furry doll.

[It's obvious that she assumes what she overheard Ava and Fret calling their captor was some kind of insult.]

Apparently while we were brainwashed, her friends couldn't feed off of us. I think they eat fear, don't ask me how that works. And we counted as monsters while we were like that, she said as much outright.

[romancing]

I can defend myself, so you don't have to worry about me~. I'm not really good at teaching, though.

[ she's here to vibe at the meeting and do nothing helpful as per usual ]

Investigation w/Kuro

[temmapathy]

[Well, right after the meeting, Emma first heads towards the laundry room with Kuro.]

So, we check that one first? [She gestures towards the washing machine that Nanami fell out of.] Then maybe the others, just in case they also have something?

[Afterwards, she heads upstairs to the pool, where she's going to spend most of the afternoon. She's mostly just doing laps with various strokes, although at times she does take a deep breath to dive down deeper, before surfacing swiftly. While she's doing this, she also tries to investigate, checking the wall and floor of the pool for anything out of place.]

yeah yeahhh

[copycut]

Actually, I want to start with the one that attacked Valmont. That one... almost seemed like it was controlling the others, don't you think?

[ So, Kuro's priorities here are Monster Washing Machine → Nanami Washing Machine → all the others. She approaches the monster one first, without a lot of caution; assuming it looks inert, like a normal washing machine, she'll pop it open and peek inside. ]

Pool Investigation

[whimsicalism]

[The pool itself seems like a normal pool, no sigils or signs of tampering. If there's something important it's not in the pool itself.]

Investigation x2

[violence_ensues]

[Adorabat feels as if the students have mostly reunited after the emergency meeting. Good. All the more strength on their side. Now it is time for investigations. The first stop Adorabat will be the Little Fears room. She enters and looks around before fluttering closer over to the screens. She's looking for anything, trying to take note of everything, and gets her police notebook out to record the things she sees.]

[whimsicalism]

[The ones that are on are of the containment room, that area that you've passed a few times before. Some monsters seem familiar. The ever-burning flame, that creepy clown that always seems to be there... the giant wolf... the sea serpent that ate Jeanne...

It might take a bit but do you want to do anything in particular?]

MONDAY

[whimsicalism]

MYSTERY SIGN UP

[whimsicalism]

[Please respond to this comment if you wish to sign up. Sign ups will close at 9AM PST / 11 AM CST / 12 PM EST on Monday or when we have four players signed up. We'll be going back to trying to run by 12pm PST / 3pm EST for this mystery. Please note when you're most available after or around that time in your sign-up comment so we can try and work out scheduling!

If you've already participated in a mystery, please wait until 3pm PST / 6pm EST on Sunday the 11th to put your sign-up in to allow new folks a chance before we start taking reruns!]

MYSTERY 6: What is Home?

[whimsicalism]

[Another Monday, another ‘game’ awaits the students… At the very least the identity of the ‘game master’ is known this time. Kakuya did promise one of her greatest mysteries yet today. For a few students, it seems she’s chosen them to participate. No blood drips from your ceiling, no screaming, or even shaking walls come with the silence of midnight as Monday slowly turns to Tuesday.

You might even begin to think that the fox-like trickster forgot. Yet, a small series of voices begin to sing a wordless tune. At first, it doesn’t seem that dangerous. Memories of a time outside of the Academy come to mind. Good, peaceful memories… maybe you think you’re still dreaming as you wake up.

Maybe those voices sound familiar, too: maybe a sibling or parent or a long lost friend from when you still didn’t know anything about Closetland. You could shake it off, of course, but what harm would it do if you simply listened to the song and followed it to the source? Perhaps Kakuya is going easy on you, if you think of your new captor at all in this peaceful moment.

The top floor of the Academy is beckoning to you, do you follow?]


((As with the previous mysteries this is a locked event. You may talk about the events after they happen, of course, but trying to wake up the other students isn’t allowed. If they try they’ll get a sensation that they just don’t have the time to spare. While you may respond to the event individually to put in your reactions since this an investigation, we prefer that you stick together for the duration. After everyone has put in a reaction to the mystery we will set up a comment order to go on.))

TUESDAY

[whimsicalism]

MOTIVE

[whimsicalism]

[The Principal’s ostentatious announcements are gone, but Kakuya’s game is still in full swing. Any apprehension about the release of the upcoming motive will be answered with a familiar scenario that quickly turns to a reminder that the end goal is still the same.

On Tuesday, each character is passed a picture by a silent sheep: The subject this time is not a loved one but an event. The picture depicts a moment of significant achievement or triumph in the recipient’s life. Maybe you see the time you saved the world. Maybe it’s a moment you came to true understanding with another person, without whom you can’t imagine your life ever being the same. Whatever it is, you accomplished something important to you, and if this moment hadn’t happened, things probably would have been much worse.

Kakuya’s voice imprints telepathically on everyone. The loudspeakers remain silent, as do the sheep. There’s no longer any need for them to pass out this information as long as your host can share words directly with your mind, after all.]

Hello… friends. Let’s play…a game. This was… a happy time…for you…wasn’t it? It looks…nice. Kakuya thinks…it would be so sad… if you lost…and it never happened. Kakuya… will stop this… from happening… if no one dies by Friday. Are these… stakes better? Hehe… Kakuya hopes so…

[Kakuya’s voice grows silent as your mind echoes with her girlish laughter.]

WEDNESDAY

[whimsicalism]

Meeting 2: Electric Boogaloo

[lets_dewey_it]

_{[After his brain cleared up yesterday and he felt bad for taking his rage out on a poor innocent vending machine, Dewey is going around leaving papers everwhere, in the various rooms, in hallways, in front of dorms...]}

SECOND MEETING, AFTERNOON, PLAYGROUND
PLEASE BE THERE
Because at this point it's necessary.

_{[When afternoon comes, Dewey is hanging right on top of the jungle gym, where everyone can see or hear him. But as soon as the time comes to speak, he looks nervous.]}

...I have a time machine...?

_[Sigh.] Seriously. I know this motive seems... hopeless. But Dr. Gearloose, who works for my Uncle Scrooge, has working time machine, and if it turns out Kakuya does in fact have the ability to change history and erase certain events, then... I have a solution at home, please just don't kill anyone, I know it'll happen regardless, but I am begging at the feet of the universe here!

With that out of the way, Sonic is also setting up a body check workshop in the art room in order to train everyone who doesn't know how. Just in case...

And, I guess now's the time to tell everyone what we've discovered this week. And tell you guys of the mystery that Koishi, Kuro, Adorabat, and I have been involved in on Monday.

INVESTIGATION

[shinedsobright]

CLASSES PRE-MEETING

[Fret has been quieter in class lately, though one can't really assume whether that is out of stress, mere disinterest, or even coincidence.... He looks different now, his school uniform spiced up by some accessories he found among Dylan's belongings in the last investigation, and finally having went back for it. The brown cloak obscures but does not quite hide the spot he's hanging the dueling sword from - hopefully it's still subtle enough that the Little Brothers do not panic from him bringing weapons to class, but he's just trying to get used to having it on him since it's a lot bigger than a pin. (However, he is still wearing his full deck of pins on his lapels.) Perhaps they've been here long enough that by now many of you have started customizing your uniforms too? If so, Fret will take notice of it and lean over to them once the sheeple's back is turned.]

Hey, could I see that for a second? It's given me a good idea of your style...

[They all have more serious matters at hand, but regardless. Come here and Fret will assign TWEWY Clothing Stats to your character's items. It's important to know for any upcoming battles, totally. Just kidding it is for shits and giggles. He also has a new cellphone inside his desk, that he occasionally fidgets with. No one is going to snitch on him for that, yes?]

INVESTIGATION??? SCHOOL COUNCIL OFFICE

[This is after the meeting as it has occurred to Fret that he still hasn't found anything of value, but he's not willing to take on the bad mojo of the corpse toucher responsibility. He can certainly see what the hell is on this bulletin board though, right?? Unfortunately, Neku-kitten is rubbing against his legs and meowing at him in hopes that he will give her some more lobster mac kitty treats, so he is a bit distracted! Also, he'd casually ask Nanami to meet him in here since she would probably be able to shed some light on whatever is going on with it. But she is welcome to ignore him, or freak out over him walking around with all of her stuff instead of being helpful!]

THURSDAY

[whimsicalism]

MINI EVENT: CRANE OPERATOR

[whimsicalism]

[Thursday arrives uneventfully. Maybe you’re looking through the library for more information, maybe you’re scouring filing cabinet after filing cabinet in the records room. Maybe you’re even just trying to peacefully ignore the upcoming deadline. One way or another, soon you feel someone next to you. It’s a peaceful presence, at least, lacking malice that your host possesses.

The presence doesn’t say anything but the image of the dance studio comes to mind. Something important is waiting for you there, waiting for everyone.

As soon as people start moving into the dance studio there’s something new there. Something that shouldn’t be there. On a little nightstand table is a landline phone with the cord leading to nowhere. It’s ringing.]