melodiesofeternity | Introduction Log || Third Time's The Charm

Introduction Log || Third Time's The Charm

Who: All characters (New Arrivals, Previous Arrivals, and Native OCs)
When: August 5th
Where: The Dream Width (Airship), the Curti Center, and the Housing District
What: It is happening for the third time now. More outworlders have arrived in the Dream Width and must be rescued and brought back to their new homes on Vaikuntha
Warnings/Notes: Only new players can put up a toplevel. Previous arrivals and established native characters can respond to new characters' toplevel posts.

MEMORY

[ You've been here before...? No, wait, why would you think that? You're here in the moment, everything is as it should be...(?) The memory you are trapped in has completely enthralled you. You stop questioning and accept, you relive and repeat. Luckily, you are not alone. Others have arrived to help you. The travelers in the airships will enter the nebula formed by your memories and attempt to wake you up and bring you back to the present. The dreamer's mind will shape how these newcomers are perceived and how the NPCs in the memory respond to them. For more details on the mechanics, please refer to this post]

ARRIVAL

[ You wake from your dreams, from your memories, on a narrow cot. There are fleeting impressions- recycled air, humming machinery, movement, strangers waking around you. The room you wake in is lined with cots, with barely enough space between them to walk to the door, though not all of them show signs of having been occupied. The makeshift infirmary seems like it was prepared to hold many more than are here.

Stepping out, there is a lobby space that bears the signs of having once held some furniture, now cleared away to make space. Your footsteps echo in the emptiness.

As the automatic door slides shut on the infirmary, a light flashes on the far side of the room.

A flickering holographic projection of a man’s face and gloved hand appears projected in the space above the arrivals’ heads. He backs up so his upper body is in frame for the recording. An arm, covered in the same orange flightsuit sleeve, hands him a tablet. The man begins to read. A written version of the message scrolls along the bottom of the projection as he speaks. ]

’Welcome travelers’… That’s way too formal. Hey everyone.

Hi!

[ The second man leans into the frame to add his greeting. ]

Don’t panic. You were floating out there, but we pulled you in and rescued you.

Yeah, we’re heroic AND handsome. And also the only ones crazy enough to come out here to get you.

[ A woman’s voice calls from out of frame. ] Can you two be serious for ONE moment and stick to your scripts?

[ The two men give each other a conspiratorial eyeroll. This does not appear to be their first take. ]

Anyways, no need to panic. Seriously, don’t do anything reckless. We got our fill of that with Skywalker.

[A huff is heard offscreen, and the men finally spare the tablet another glance.]

‘Your pilots will be navigating treacherous environs as this message plays…’ Claire, seriously? Nobody talks like this!

[ The tablet is tossed to the side and lands with a thunk offscreen. ]

We’re gonna wing it. Look, everyone, we’re workin’ hard to get you planetside safely, and it’s gonna take some tricky flying to do it. So the door to the cockpit is locked so we can focus on not getting us all killed. Don’t try to open it, unless you want to be stardust.

We promise you’ll get answers about what’s going on once we land. But for now, please trust us. Right now, we’re your only hope.

[ The second man leans forward, close to the recording device, and presses a button. The projection freezes for a moment, and then the message starts on the next recorded message. ]

CURTI CENTER

[ Finally after hours of flight, you arrive at the Curti Center. The other NPCs await you having been notified of your retrieval in the Dream Width. Jessie gives a long and somewhat awkward welcome speech, explaining what the situation is: you were lost in a space called the Dream Width. You are now on a planet called Vaikuntha: for ages, the people of this world have used Airships to rescue people lost in the Dream Width, with one person being found roughly every ten years. No one knows why this happens, but this has been a mutually beneficial exchange, with the people from Vaikutha rescuing people lost in the Dream Width and the rescued ones sharing their wisdom with the people of Vaikuntha. Ten years ago, something unusual happened: two people were found at once, Biggs and Wedge. But that was nothing compared to what happened four months ago... And two months ago. And now, here you are. No one knows why such a large number of people has arriving lately, but the Curti Center is a place dedicated to piercing the Dream Width's secrets.

Jessie also introduces the other ones: Claire, the woman sighing and writing in her schedule book upon being pointed out as the bookkeeper, Kupoto and Mogaruru, their Mognet representatives and finally the Native OCs: those brave and kind souls who have accepted to help you all on a daily basis. She also mentions Cid, the director who is busy preparing for certain dealings later this month.

After Jessie finishes , the employees, including the Native OCs, provide a tour of the facility and help the newcomers navigate their future lives. Now is the time to ask questions and look over pamphlets regarding locations, Jobs, life in Vaikuntha... ]

[ If you want to contact an NPC, you can do so on the NPC Contact Page. ]

A BALL OF FLUFF NAMED MOOGLE

[ It has been a long day, perhaps now you would like to find your way to a place to sleep? Or perhaps you'd like to get some answers, but you can't be bothered to go seek people out?

And lo, just as despair begins settles in, a Moogle slams into you! Or stops by your side if their aim is decent... It's the Moogle Jessie mentioned in her speech earlier! And they'll be informing you that now, they will stick to you like your shadow and help you in anyway they can!

They're also giving you your iMog Slate- Now you can get onto Mognet! Isn't it great? ]

A QUICK CHECK-UP

[ Whether it's your Moogle, Native OCs or NPCs, all will urge you to stop by the hospital wing for a basic check-up. You may disagree, but listen. You've just been thrown into a space between worlds, rescued, and brought to another world. For your own sake, that's a good idea. Should you give in and go (or should you be dragged by your Moogle or a Native OC), you will find yourself in the cold and white space very reminiscent of an hospital. For characters with specific medical conditions necessitating help, this is where they will receive it if asked.

The doctors and nurses are all White Mages or Chemists, with various levels into their Job as well as medical knowledge. Don't mind the confused looks if you look like nothing they've ever seen before... It's hard for a doctor to be unable to give a proper diagnosis to a patient! For everyone else though, they'll be let go with smiles and be given a candy as they leave.

No one likes medical check-ups, but it's a very quick and basic one: testing reflexes, taking your temperature and the likes. On the bright side, while you're grumpily sitting on a bed with a thermometer on your forehead or in your mouth, it might be a good time to socialize with your fellow new arrival who's having lights flashed into their eyes by a doctor. Misery loves company, after all. ]

PRETTY SIGHTS

[ There's plenty of rooms to wander about in, with several points of interest apart from the offices.

The Airship Hangar is where the airships are kept and the first room you entered. Workers keep guard to prevent the outworlders from getting too close to the vehicles. Airships are expensive and they don't want you messing with them, after all.

Venturing into the Research Section, you can walk through public exhibitions on astronomy, airship design, and asterisk studies. A good place to get used to the basic science of this world. The laboratories lie behind a thick locked door with a sign reading "EMPLOYEES ONLY". No going there, for now anyway. Not too far from there are the Employee Quarters - work stations, apartments, and lounge areas. The latter are available to the public, whereas the rest is locked to Native OCs. But if you get them to be friends with you, perhaps they'll let you visit?

Also open to all is a Cafeteria - a standard food court with stalls serving all types of Vaikunthan cuisine. The Chef is a very jovial and absent-minded Hypello. Beware of long lines and crowded tables. Should you prefer open spaces, then the gardens are for you! There are different sections in the gardens around the center. One boasts a wide array of blooming flowers, another more practical with herbs commonly used in Vaikunthan cooking. One had been cultivated for butterflies and hummingbirds to visit. Paths have been laid through so that visitors can safely navigate, and moogles will swoop down and shout at anyone who strays into the flower beds.

Or perhaps, you want to wait till the sunset. Dusk on a new world, but a beginning of a new life... The sea shines bright in the orange light. A good moment for quiet contemplation. ]

HOUSING

[The housing accommodations are the best the Curti staff could provide, given that they are still also sheltering most of the previous arrivals from the Dream Width. The keys have been entrusted to the moogles who will be guiding the new arrivals.

The new arrivals can stop by the Curti Center storage room to collect some essential supplies that have been donated by charity organizations from around the world (there are boxes of toothbrushes and whitening toothpaste sent from the Zora, hair brushes from the Elezen, quick-drying towels from the Hypello, among the various donations of clothes, toiletries, and blankets), before heading to their temporary homes. The people of Vaikuntha have done their best to provide for their new neighbors and help them get on their feet.

Still, things will be a little cramped until the off-worlders can find employment and move into better housing. The staff hopes they can get along with one another until alternate arrangements can be made.

You can survive living with roommates for a few months, right?]

THE JOB FOR YOU

[An important part of life on Vaikuntha is the Job (or Jobs) you choose to take. No, not the way you earn your living. Your Job Class. Most Natives only choose one or two, but you'll have an opportunity to take on more Job Asterisks after you master your first Jobs.

The Curti Center's resident Job Master, Ganeshan, is more than happy to arrange transportation to the various Guilds so that you can claim your first Asterisks. ]

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He was just minding his own business on a wander, head in the clouds, that sort of thing when he turned a corner and saw someone very familiar.

"Aaargh!" He let out a surprised cry but covered it with a little cough, nope there was nothing to see here. Maybe he wouldn't know who Demyx was?

"Hi!" That was what that cry was, a greeting, yes.

He could feel his Superior's disapproval even if he was in another world.

Unfortunately, Xehanort knows more or less who Demyx is!

... And it's frankly not a bad association. One of the very few reasonably good associations he had, in fact, with anyone in his own multiverse. The yelp of surprise draws his attention instantly, alert for sudden problems - but upon spotting the musician, anything like tenseness just vanishes.

This man is not a threat. Well. He probably could be but Demyx had never struck him as dangerous before.

"Hello. You can relax, my shinki isn't here." Instead of disapproval or frowns, the rather younger-looking version of Xemnas looks and sounds ... a little amused. Surely it's the same person he met before! The idea that it might be a different individual who looks and sounds and acts exactly like Demyx-from-another-reality is not something Xehanort's encountered yet.

Demyx could have been a threat. In The World That Never Was, he'd hardly been the weakest member, and in this world, he'd been here at least four months and had poured some of his experience into his job.

Probably the least worrying thing, was that that job was 'bard'. All Demyx had were buffs and debuffs and very little physical strength here.

Not a threat indeed.

"Your what?" Demyx tilted his head in confusion and then gave it a shake as he shrugged.

"Right so, uh, you look younger than I'm used to." He wasn't going to make the mistake of thinking that meant this man was not in charge. "So um..." He wasn't sure how to go about saying what was on his mind.

"Good to see you, Superior."

That was a tiny white lie, because he was certain he was in a great deal of trouble, and yet, Demyx smiled.

This is considered for a long, long, loooong moment.

Eventually: "Ah."

While it's nice to get a title, it's pretty clear that it's not actually meant for him ... at least not yet. It did explain some things, like how Demyx had reacted before. Perhaps Zangetsu's presence had been terrifying enough to actually prevent any such revelation. In fairness the hollow was pretty intimidating. "... I have some questions. You do not have to answer any of them, because I am not your Superior. At least not yet."

This is about where he's expecting Demyx to decide to take off instead of answer anything, freedom has downsides and the skittish and nervous tend to not hang around the scary things.

He would not claim to be skittish or nervous, officially the line was that the Nobodies didn't feel anything.

Demyx blinked at the offer, and the reaction. He wasn't his Superior yet but maybe if he helped him, he'd remember and hate him a tiny bit less?

After all, he'd been pulled from a suicide mission of all things.

"Nah, it's cool, what do you want to know?"

He did, however, relax a little bit. It wasn't as though he actually thought he had the freedom to walk away, but it was nice of Xehanort to offer.

"I'd like to know the name you know me under, and where we know each other from, to begin with." Those are important and relevant things!

Things that have eluded him for a long while now, what with people popping up randomly now and again just hating him for no reason. Apparently it was something to do with an older self... and Demyx seems to know who that is.

The past was a mystery he was no longer really interested in unravelling. But the future is an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT MATTER.

"Name?" Demyx parroted and blinked a few times. "Well, we call you Superior, but it's Xemnas."

He wasn't sure if that was helpful or not since this version of the man didn't seem to know that.

"And you're number one in Organization XIII, and uh, everyone's boss? That's a good way to put it. We were all Nobodies. And I mean some of them are gone, but, yeah."

He wasn't the best at explaining things.

... Of course nobody knows him as Xehanort. Why did anyone who recognized him, never use his name?

"My name right now is still Xehanort." Which sounds nothing like Xemnas at all really, except for the X on the front. Or Z? It could be a Z. Zemnas. "What does this Organization do? .. And what in this context is a 'Nobody'?"

Xemnas wasn't a terrible name. Better than Terra, certainly; if he had to pick one he'd prefer it over the other. "..And for that matter, what should I call you?"

It could have to do with the fact that Xemnas had done away with the name, that was possibly part of it, and many people knew his name.

"Oh...well..." Demyx hesitated a little bit over what they did. He tended to gloss over that because it sounded really bad objectively and all the nice, normal people knew bad things when they heard it.

"The Superior had us collecting hearts to form Kingdom Hearts. It's supposed to restore balance to the worlds and get us our hearts back."

That sounded somewhat like the story one told a child, as an overview of what they did.

"Nobodies are..." He paused, this time to think, not so much for hesitation purposes. "When someone with a strong heart loses theirs, a shadow is made, and a Nobody. The thirteen of us had the strongest hearts because we're the only Nobodies that look and act like people, if you want to think of it that way. But don't worry, he says we're not."

Monsters was probably a better way to put it.

"Oh, uh, Demyx." He smiled a little. "Or Number Nine, the Superior uses that a lot. He named me. You did. I mean. Older you. I'm confused."

Telling Xehanort a bad thing and expecting him to respond like any normal person with an iota of common sense when it comes to hearts and so on, is never going to happen. As Demyx describes what the Organization was hypothetically up to, he looks keenly interested instead.

Kingdom Hearts was of course a myth, but that and restoring balance to the worlds (when had they become imbalanced?) certainly sounded like lofty, impressive goals. Ones he'd have to find out more about.

Later.

Some of it though, it fits with the things they'd been studying. The heart - but no one had been considering what happens to the body, only the heart. Was this the side effect? "If you're capable of thinking, reasoning, planning for the future and holding a conversation, you're still people."

Xehanort's tone is terribly dry at this. "The other option is 'animal', and you're very clearly not. I think I know of the 'shadows' you speak of, those creatures of mere instinct. They would not qualify as people. ... I'll use 'Demyx', numbers only work when there's others to likewise number."

Older him. With a different name, and a leader of some organization bent on getting hearts back and restoring balance to the multiverse. Demyx isn't the only one who's confused. "Though if you truly have no heart, I can honestly say there's no way to tell from the outside, you act very much exactly like I would expect anyone to."

"It's so weird to hear you say that."

All of those ideas, that Nobodies weren't people, unwanted glitches caught between the light and the dark, all of that had come through Xemnas and his incessant droning on about hearts and Kingdom Hearts, and just thinking about it bored him.

"They're not." He agreed, about the shadows. "And yeah, that's fine. I'll answer to either anyway. Or anything else one of the Nobodies calls me." Saix in particular was fond of idiot.

"The Superior says it's all an act, and they don't like it so much that I act like I do. They'd rather be cold and unfeeling. I'd rather try and remember what it was like to be a whole person, you know?"

He sighed a little. "Anyway, I've been like this awhile. Almost nine years, I think, but I'm not that good at math." He'd grown up in the Organization, to some extent. He'd been the first to join the founders, a complete surprise by his calculations, but he didn't know what made his Somebody's heart strong.

"Well. I don't think that Organization is here, and whatever my older self thinks.. right now since the worlds aren't in balance isn't the best thing to do, to focus on regaining what you lost?"

Demyx it'll be. Xehanort has issues with people not being called their names, thanks to a long parade of not being called by his own name. Surely Xemnas had a reason for doing things the way he did, but without that knowledge, from where he was right now, it was ridiculous. "After all, how will you know your heart when you find it again, if you don't hang onto the memory of what it was like to have it?" Demyx had the right idea!

... And it really was the right idea, it just also was very inconvenient for one of his other future self's plans. It's hard to fill a cup which is already full.

Nine years though. That's a long time to be heartless. "You've made it a very long time in a state even Master Ansem thought would be impossible. I feel as if I should be sorry for you, but instead I find myself impressed by what must be incredible tenacity."

"Well..." Demyx had his doubts about how Xemnas was supposed to deliver on the promised prize, but he wasn't going to say that. He valued his life as it was. "I don't really know. I don't really understand that stuff."

That was a true statement, if ever there was one.

Demyx didn't know how it was a problem for Xemnas, he'd never thought about it. He'd mostly done what he was told, albeit with some serious laziness that would probably come back someday and haunt him.

"Uh, thanks I think? The founders have been there longer." There were others, more impressive than him, for what that was worth. "It's hard to tell how long it's been, it just feels like awhile, but I got taller so..."

Pale eyebrows rise. "You don't know, but you've set yourself to working for that goal. Have you considered ... asking questions so you do understand it?" Probably not; Demyx didn't strike him as the sort to pursue knowledge for the sake of knowing it, even if it was now his JOB. "To quote a coworker of mine, ignorance is a good way to get screwed."

In fact, the Organization is counting on it. But honestly Xehanort's really not that concerned about whether or not Demyx might be getting screwed over, he's just a tiny bit crisped that Demyx's ignorance means even if he has questions, they won't be answered in the detail he likes.

Some answers are better than none, at least..

"..Who cares if someone was there longer? Or did it first, or faster, or might be stronger? That doesn't make your achievements any less." Xehanort shakes his head. "I get the impression you're not one to even try for achievements, so you should have pride in the ones you do possess. Even if it's something as dreadful as lasting this long with no heart." Or well in this case, pretend pride? How did that work?

"Uhh, yeah, I asked when I was younger and stuff, but everyone talks about stuff I don't understand so..." Demyx shrugged. Mainly, they sent him to Vexen and Vexen seemed to delight in talking above his head so he stopped asking questions and just went with the flow.

"The Superior wouldn't do that, would he?" He blinked, as though he hadn't considered Xemnas to be that untrustworthy.

"I don't know, I was just..." He trailed off a little. It wasn't an achievement exactly, but he didn't think that he was trying to be there so long.

"Hey, I do stuff. I'm a musician." Now that was something he did care about- or seemed to, if Nobodies couldn't really care, but it felt like he cared about it, he was pretty sure.

"And I'm a bard here." In fact, he might have seemed a little miffed at Xehanort's assessment.

There's a slight shrug. "I don't know what he'd do. Even if he and I are the same person, much can change in a few months, never mind nearly a decade. I'd like to say no, but I also know I personally prefer my underlings to understand what's going on. He.. apparently does not."

It's a mystery! Xehanort is not Xemnas, and won't be for a while yet, so why he does the things he does, or what he's even capable of, Xehanort can only guess at.

One hand rises, palm out, as if to try to stall a counterargument, shaking his head quickly. "I don't mean you do nothing. I mean you don't seem the sort to say.. want to be the first person to reach the top of a mountain. Or run the fastest mile. Achievements. You're a bard here - are you looking to be the best bard there is? Write an amazing song? Get a lot of fans?" His tone suggests none of this at all is required - he's just listing examples. "Some people are content to take life as it comes. Others .. achieve things. Occasionally achievements just happen to someone, but not usually."

"Yeah, well I can't say I know him that well. I'm not his favourite."

Meaning, Demyx was lazy and Xemnas was not a fan of that.

"Maybe not the best bard, but I care about the music I write and I want to make it amazing."

He put his hands in his pockets. "I don't care if they don't like me though. No one gets me anyway."

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Introduction Log || Third Time's The Charm

Arrival

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