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

DISCOVERIES

[lets_dewey_it]

What's new in this place?

[temmapathy]

[Emma holds up a water-damaged book to a certain page, showing it to everyone before she starts signing.]

I found this in the pool locker room. It seems like we have two ways to handle Kakuya-either find out what she really wants or seal her away somewhere.

[lets_dewey_it]

Good find, Emma! This is perfect!

[temmapathy]

Yeah. If only it had more information...

[lets_dewey_it]

Hm... Hunter and I are making a point to go to the library and research Japanese exorcism rituals. Maybe we'll find something related to sealing.

[hashtagwoof]

So, she can slip through reflections, right? If we seal her up, we have to find some place with no reflective surfaces...

[temmapathy]

Like a V-A-N-T-A-black box?

[hashtagwoof]

"Vanta?" Don't think I heard of that brand... But hey, it's a possibility if we can get our hands on one.

[keyringwitness]

And what happens when some idiot inevitably stumbles along and breaks the seal, or it decays over time? Kakuya has been sealed before, that much is evident from the visions from those objects we've found on Mondays. Yet some arrogant fool or hapless bumbler who doesn't know what they're doing, potentially both as evidenced by the Principal, will eventually find her and unseal her one way or another.

Sealing Kakuya is just kicking the can down the road for some other poor child to deal with later. I know I'm biased, but I really think that there is a better solution.

What Kakuya wants is to play games, as twisted as her definition is. That's the only way she knows how to interact with others, and it might be the only way she can because of her nature as a spirit. This presents a problem, in that when she wins, all of us die, but when she loses, she'll just want to play again.

So. [Yasu snaps her fingers.] To keep Kakuya from simply restarting the game once we win, we need to accomplish two things: beating her so thoroughly and utterly that she has to acknowledge that she has well and truly lost, and presenting her with some other distraction that she'll find interesting enough to stop bothering with this particular game.

I can take care of the latter. It's up to all of us to find a way to accomplish the former.

[violence_ensues]

[Adorabat raises a wing. Sorry to distract Yasu from her main point, but...]

What do latter and former mean?

[temmapathy]

[Emma huffs.] So what, we ask her to throw the hardest mystery she's got at us?

[canreallymove]

I found these records.

[A pile of papers is now being presented.]

And so far as I can tell? Nothin' about Kakuya or the weird stuff we've been experiencing on Mondays. And it's not like this stuff isn't thorough, either.

[lets_dewey_it]

Well... It's still something important, I think. Thanks, bud.

[canreallymove]

Yeah, but it does make me wonder. Like. If Kakuya's not in these files, I wonder if it means that she's...I dunno, like us? Not from Closetland, I mean.

MODS

[temmapathy]

[Emma picks up the papers to flip through them. Do any of the scenarios/fears seem familiar to her, whether it's people she knows from home or here?]

[whimsicalism]

[In the group Sonic brought? No, but there is a lot of these papers in the records room. It’s not unthinkable to believe that you’d find familiar ones if you looked through every single one but it would take a lot of time.]

[violence_ensues]

[First off, Adorabat is SO THANKFUL to hear that Dewey has the capability of traveling through time, so he may have had to deal with a crying Adorabat hugging him for a while. After she's calmed down, though...]

I found the room that keeps tabs on all the monst- um... cr- creatures. It also had this weird machine that looked like a keyboard but it also didn't and was drawing these things I couldn't make sense of.

[Adorabat gets out her notebook and shows everyone the drawing she made of the machine. It looks like some sort of seismometer.]

[lets_dewey_it]

Hmmm... Thanks, Adorabat. Everyone else ought to check that machine out as well, but thanks for bringing it to our attention.

[violence_ensues]

I don't know what the papers it made meant it at all, but maybe there's something here to make it so we know what they mean. Keep a lookout.

[copycut]

Well, for one thing, the monster that attacked Valmont and me and everyone a few weeks ago is still in the washing machine. [ She says this in a tone of voice that is... fairly peppy? ] This time, though, Emma and I were able to talk to it.

It mentioned that Kakuya released it from its container. It also said that it feels most suited to living in the pipes. Given what we discovered from this week's mystery game... Well, I think it's safe to say Yasu's theory was correct. Kakuriyo and water are linked. And, with that in mind...

The real Ao seems to have been taken to Kakuriyo through a bathtub. This monster must have exited its cage through the same system of water pipes. If I had to guess, I would say the pipes being flooded with water while a monster passed through them must have made it easier for objects in Kakuriyo to float into Utsushiyo alongside it. That's how Nanami wound up there without Kakuya meaning it, and why we found her inside a washing machine of all places.

But... The problem with that theory is that even if I'm right, I'm not sure we would be able to recreate the phenomenon. Either we'd have to convince the monster to go back, or... We would have to wait for Kakuya to release another monster that creates the same conditions. And... More than that, we would have to somehow communicate with the people in Kakuriyo to be on the look out... I guess we could try a seance? Hm...

[ She trails off at this point, mulling the thought over. ]

[keyringwitness]

We already know of one very large monster that fits the bill, likely large enough to create a portal of equivalent scale.

It would just be a matter of misdirection from there. Kakuya likes playing her game, and that means that we have to be alive to play it once we win a round. If we're bold enough to take advantage of that, then we have many avenues open to us.

[Yasu, for one, already has a wonderful idea.]

Does anyone here have a talent for gadgetry? I could read up on the topic and give it a spin myself, but for this plan I'd like more than an amateur's eye to make it go right.

If it works, we have an opportunity to capture the piece that I think Kakuya considers her "king," along with bringing everyone else back. It's risky, but that might be a way to win the game.

[copycut]

What kind of gadgetry do you have in mind, Yasu-chan?

CORRECTION

[copycut]

[ Apparently, one of the sheep put Nanami into the washing machine! Weird how this apparently happened without either Father or Kakuya knowing about it(?), so What Is The Truth.

Additionally, she would have mentioned this exchange, suggesting that some monsters are being made to behave more dangerously than they would under normal circumstances. ]

[violence_ensues]

Oh, you talked to the angry washing machine? Um... I went back to the science lab and found Slimy. It was the blood creature.

...

I... I think we're friends now.

[copycut]

Not the washing machine — a sludge spirit that lives in the pipes attached to it. It...

[ ... ]

So the one you talked to seemed pretty agreeable, too?