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

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]

Kakuya was surprised that Nanami came out of the machine...so there must be something about it she doesn't know.

[copycut]

[ Kuro hums and nods. ]

It's making a bit of an assumption, but... If Father isn't the one who put her there, that makes Kakuya the most likely candidate, don't you think? I'm not sure Nanami remembers much of anything, but—do you think, if Nanami had become one of the "unseen"... that Kakuya was surprised that she managed to find a way out?

[hashtagwoof]

... You're serious? We could revive the dead like that...?

[ That idea leaves a bad taste in his mouth after what Jeanne did, but at this point he's getting desperate.

Plus... If Dylan's really in there... He still has a chance to redeem himself. At least to him. ]

I... Well, thanks for pointing that out for everyone who didn't pay attention. Definitely for stepping up our investigation, but...

You realize what her offer means, right? Two more people will have to die before we get her hints. You sure we can afford to let that happen?

[temmapathy]

I don't think that's what she means by the mystery game. She said Anya won two times, but we've had four trials. I think she was talking about the things that happen on Monday.

[copycut]

Consider it from another angle. We've already been here for more than a month. Even if we put aaall of our time and effort into finding an escape route... Do you think we'll do it before the end of the week?

[ she actually has more thoughts on what "reviving the dead" means in this context but, also: one point at a time ]

[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.

[hashtagwoof]

Might take a while for everyone to learn a second language... Though we could have the tactical signals taught, at least. Like they use in those war films?

[temmapathy]

Yeah, getting down the basics we'll need when escaping is the most important here.

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.

WEAPONS PILE

[lets_dewey_it]

_{[An axe, a keytaur, and a big gold trophy's already there. Anyone else have anything to toss in?]}

[hashtagwoof]

[ Hunter has a nail bat, a combat knife, a dueling sword... ]

I also have the net gun and Dylan's Party Bubble Wrapper. I'd like to keep one of them on me in case something happens...

Think we should start bringing at least one concealed weapon to the trials? Just in case?

[temmapathy]

[Emma adds a stone shaped like half an owl's head.]

I dunno how useful it'll be, but at least someone can throw it?

TRAINING

[lets_dewey_it]

_{[Anything about fighting anyone knows, now's the time to share!]}

Adding some two cents finally

[canreallymove]

[Very quiet, but he does finally speak.]

Guys, we...we need to assume that we aren't gettin' our powers back and we can't rely on them. If we had any. So...we gotta adapt. So it's something to keep in mind. I...can do my best to help with that, but.

[Yeah, he's still clearly trying to get over what happened. It's an understatement to say it all stinks. rn.]

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.

Open

[lets_dewey_it]

...Thank you, Adorabat. We could really use the help.

Closed

[hashtagwoof]

[ Aw... He can't stay mad at her. She did make an honest mistake and she was really close to... ]

Yeah. Monsters are so much more complicated for the rest of us...

[ Heck, he recently found out you can be related to one and not realize it. Things are very complicated. ]

But you know what? It's fine, just...

Actually, you know what might help? If we stop calling horrible people "monsters" and find a better word for them. Just so we can stop getting those mixed up with the big scary beasts that just wanna eat everyone.

[spychic]

.....

[Anya sits far away from this. She doesn't say a word, but she glares at everyone else with a distinctly defensive air.

That's fine if she's a civilian.

She really can't trust these people anymore, anyway.]

[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.

[shinedsobright]

Huh. I knew they ate fear cause of the book Yuta found, but us being monsters is new. Is it because brainwashed people are scary?

[holyironmade]

[Congratulations, Carrie, you have been sent one (1) Spirit Ball Shamash! He followed Hunter who took the iron maiden finger trap to the memorial, heard about this 8 AM church plan, and... knew it was not church but it seemed as good a plan as any to properly meet that other girl who communes with spirits ancestrally.

Keep him?]

[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 ]

[violence_ensues]

[...It takes a couple seconds for Adorabat to remember just who this person is. Koishi!]

Oh, maybe you can five it a try? The only way to get better at things is to do them, right?