melodiesofeternity | Introduction Log || The Night of the Thirteen Moogles

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Introduction Log || The Night of the Thirteen Moogles

Who: All characters (New Arrivals, Previous Arrivals, and Native OCs)
When: October 5th
Where: The Dream Width (Airship), the Curti Center, and the Housing District
What: It is happening for the fourth 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. ]

~~SCARY~~ 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. This month however, there is an overwhelming scent of spice and pumpkins in the air. Pumpkin soups, pasta dishes, bread, pies, lattes.... There are even some carved pumpkins with moogle faces of different styles floating in the air just above the tables, candles flickering from within. 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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Frisk flinches almost imperceptibly when Asriel reveals his name, but they quickly recover their composure. After the whole Chara heart-to-heart thing, it wasn't nearly as much of a hard pill to swallow. "Well, welcome to the alternate universe adopted children pseudo-except-not-really-at-all-because-of-universe-shenanigans family, although even if we were actual-real-not-fake-joke family I wouldn't be your brother0. There's licorice scottie dogs on the table to your left, ibuprofen for your headaches on the table to your right, and a pretty good fascimilie of dad's golden flower tea recipe taped to the inside of the fridge door. Come on in." They pause. "And, for the record, I didn't turn into a flower. I guess I just won the Frisk height lottery. Or the scientific spaghetti has actually been working. Next stage, laser eyes!"

Asriel steps inside, looking around at the place. Oh, hey, they have this stuff locked in pretty well, don't they? Headaches from trying to figure out which timelines people actually did or didn't go through, no doubt. He dumps the small bag of junk against the wall next to the door, smiling. "What, don't tell me you're from a reality where Papyrus can actually cook?" He's about to make a comment about how even if they did have laser eyes nobody would able to tell since they would be squinting too often for them to ever activate, but he stops himself. No, best not start ribbing them. This might be Frisk... again... but it's not the same Frisk. Maybe there's difference he isn't aware of besides just the height.

Frisk rolls their eyes at Asriel's question. There was no way that they were in the weird outlier universe here. "I told Frisk this a few hours ago, but you guys are living in the terrifying mirror universes because Papyrus' cooking is the bomb and anywhere that's not the case must be a doomed timeline."

"Hey, so long as it doesn't set the entire place on fire, I'll take it. Does he ever need help cooking?" Asriel says, rolling his shoulders back as he remembers what happened to Undyne's old house. "Wait, does Papyrus live here?" He asks, peering over the inside of the house before he turns back to Frisk. "If it's you, and me.. uh, how many other people can fit in a place like this?"

"I help him out when he needs a few extra hands, but he's pretty capable on his own. And it's me, Papyrus, Frisk, and now you." Frisk saunters into the kitchen and begins rummaging through the kitchen, tongue sticking out slightly as they begin putting together a meal. "I'm going to take a wild guess and say that you couldn't get much food at the cafeteria. You in the mood for anything in particular."

Asriel blinks slowly, just registering that little tidbit.

"Wait, two Frisks. In the same house. ...With Papyrus." He says, with a beat of silence.

That sounds like the most glorious nightmare he could imagine.

"Well, this is going to be interesting." He says, pulling up a stool after shutting the door behind him. "Honestly, I'm just surprised that I can eat anything in this world without feeling like someone stuck a ball of liquid cement in my insides. Just give me whatever you're having, and uh, thanks."

They were right. Asriel is significantly starving right now.

Frisk chuckles at Asriel's bemusement with the concept of double Frisks. "Yeah. Don't tell Frisk this, but Pap's proooobably going to try and set them up on a date with the first person he sees them flirting with. I know exactly where to put the hidden cameras when that happens, and I don't want you to ruin the surprise. Got it?"

The food is exactly what you'd expect a twelve year-old to put together on short notice. Frisk slaps together a meal out of reheated ravioli, milk, and spaghetti smelling vaguely of potions in under two minutes. "Don't worry about the scientific spaghetti," they say as they sit down with Asriel. "At worst, it'll heal you up a little bit. At best, it'll make you taller and give you laser eyes."

Asriel smirks, leaning over the table as he blows on the food a little bit. "Just them? I'm surprised he's not going to go all out. Just imagine going on a double date with someone, and both of the other guys are the same person. Actually.. maybe not. You might turn into some kind of flirty singularity."

Asriel takes a bite of the food. And then another. And he keeps eating and eating and then he takes a sip of the milk and..

Mother of god.

"...Holy crap. Papyrus can cook."

Frisk chuckles at Asriel's friendly jab, thinking back to the day that the other Frisk first arrived. "Yup, can confirm that's what happens. Somebody must've uploaded the flirt fracas that was our first meeting onto MogNet somewhere, let me check..."

While Asriel digs in, Frisk flicks through their iMog slate, searching for the video in between taking bites out of their own meal. They give him a triumphant smirk when he finally acknowledges Papyrus' prowess. "Told you so. Apparently, he was pretty bad when Undyne was teaching him, but Queen Toriel staged an intervention and showed him how to actually cook."

"Oh, mom taught him. Yeah, this is starting to make a lot more sense now." He says, continuing to eat because damnit it's good. "Undyne's teaching style worked a lot better on Undyne than it did Papyrus. Or, you, come to think of it." He muses.

"Did you two set her entire house on fire in your reality too, or was that just mine?"

There's a small sound blip from a pocket inside his robes, but Asriel doesn't seem to have noticed.

When Asriel mentions Undyne, Frisk's expression immediately sours, and they stab a piece of ravioli with unnecessary force, splattering sauce all over their plate. Ugh. They've been on Vaikuntha for almost half a year, and even the merest mention of that fish still gets on their nerves. "You know, I don't get it. How in any universe could I like Undyne? It's just so weird that Frisk Two is apparently bffsies with her, at least to me. It would be one thing if she tried to kill me, I've made friends with plenty of monsters that tried to kill me," they grouse. "But getting Papyrus all tangled up in her stupid traps? Berating Mettaton like that? Stirring the entire Underground into a frenzy and making them think that I'm a mass murderer in the making just for being human? Yeah, that's a whole new level of badness."

"Wait, they did what?" He says. That does not fit at all with Undyne that he knows. Well, except for the mass murderer part. That fits pretty well.

"Something's wrong with your Undyne. If there's anything I can say with complete definitive confidence, is that she would never mess with Papyrus, ever."

He takes another bite of the food, almost finished with it just from eating so eagerly.

"I don't know what your Mettaton's like, but I think ours could use a bit of berating sometimes. Still, it sounds like there's something weird going on there. Undyne is intense, but she's just super protective of everyone."

Still, if there was ever any doubt, that answers some questions. Making friends with people trying to kill them? Yep, Frisk is still Frisk.

Frisk snorts, then sighs, shaking their head. At least these past few months have given them the opportunity to ~~stew~~ ~~ruminate~~ reflect on the whole situation. "Okay, okay, I... might be being a bit hard on her. She doesn't mean to get him caught up in all of it, she just gets so pissed off and hateful she gets tunnel-vision on me and forgets Papyrus is in the crossfire.

"As far as Mettaton goes... well, Mettaton is actually really cool. He introduced himself to me by getting two Royal Guards off my back and then giving me a place to spend the night," they explain. "Undyne hijacked his show to mess with me, but he always ended up finding a way to mess with whatever plans she had." Frisk's eyes are glimmering, it's clear that they have genuine admiration for the metal box.

"Mmm." That sounds a lot more... familiar. "Okay, I guess I could see that."

"I'm surprised about Mettaton." Asriel takes in this information slowly, just thinking about Mettaton. The one he knows is a... diva.

"Glad you two get along so well at least, though. Our Mettaton basically did what Alphys told them to, tried to kill you, and then passed out. Uh, hey, so just curious here, but..."

God but this is an awkward question. How can he word this in way that isn't going to put a boatload of pressure on them if they haven't? He doesn't want to just say

Asriel says "Have you saved everyone yet?"

...F

Frisk's body language is probably an answer in of itself; they flinch, tensing up, then sigh, hanging their head. It was always painful to be reminded of how close (relatively) they were to the end of their journey before they were snatched into Vaikuntha. "...no," they admit, shifting in their chair. "Flowey had a plan, and me and Papyrus were helping him get to the barrier to... do whatever he was going to do, but then..." they gesture towards their surroundings, smiling sardonically. "Welp. Now I'm here."

Asriel winces, holding his hands up.

"Ahh damnit, I didn't mean it like that!" He smacks himself in the face. Why must he bumble everything. "...Sorry. That's a stupid amount of pressure to put on anyone, and I shouldn't have said anything. You definitely don't deserve someone like me giving you any kind of... anything."

He looks down, finishing the last little remnants of food that aren't really food and are more just fragments of pasta.

"...Is there anything I can do to help?" He asks, after a few moments, finally looking up from the bowl. "Help.. figure out my plan, or.. something? It might be a different reality, but.. I spent a really long time there. Maybe there's some similarities."

Well, obviously there's similarities.

"I mean, I trust Flowey," Frisk says, listlessly poking their own meal. They weren't in the weird mirror dimension, everybody else was! Right? Right? Flowey couldn't be evil in anyplace normal, he was... he was Frisk's second best friend. Right? "I don't think there's really a need to figure out his plan. Once we get back, I know he'll be able to pull off... whatever he needs to pull off."

Asriel glances down, just trying to think of how to handle this. "...Yeah, I guess so."

He drums his digits against the table a few times before continuing.

"Look, I'm... not from your reality. I don't know what your version of me as a flower is like, but.. I was not a good person. I was really manipulative, too. Especially with Papyrus. Really trusting."

Asriel shakes his head. "I don't want to tell you your business; heck, I am the absolute last person that should tell you what to do. I don't want to.. freak you out or anything. And I don't know the details of your timeline, so just, take whatever I say with a grain of salt. But there's definitely some similarities, and I just.. thought you should at least hear it."

"Wait." Frisk.bin has stopped working. They gawk at Asriel, wheels obviously spinning. "Hold on for just one minute. Are... are you saying that you're Flowey? I mean, you were, but, I, uh." Frisk slumps back in their chair, rubbing their hands over their face. "Okay, that's... that's a lot to unpack there. Could you maaaaaybe give me a more thorough explanation before my brain spontaneously implodes?"

Edited 2018-11-18 22:36 (UTC)

Asriel offers a hapless expression that says "Oh yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about" before he gets up to clean the dishes.

"Guess I should have led with that, huh. Well, if anyone's earned the right to the backstory of my horrible existence, it's you."

Once he returns, he sits back down and.. thinks. This might be getting more complicated than he thought, now that he considers it. "...What do you know about monster and human souls?"

Frisk's expression darkens as they stab listlessly at their plate of food, recalling all that they had learned in Waterfall. "Human SOULs are super powerful and persist after death, monsters' are less powerful but can hypothetically absorb human SOULs to get ridiculously strong. That's why humans went to war with the monsters, we got afraid of a bunch of things you could maybe do and decided you were all better off dead because humans can be pretty terrible sometimes. That about right?"

"Yyyeahh, something like that anyway." Asriel says, propping his head up on an elbow as he glances to the side. "So.. after the monsters were all sealed in the underground, this human named Chara" He glances up to gauge Frisk's reaction to the name "fell in and was adopted by my mom and dad. They weren't a big fan of humans."

It is so weird summarizing this.

"Anyway long story short we were dumb stupid kids and bad decisions were made. Chara poisoned themselves and I absorbed their soul and went up past the barrier, we got shot, we limped back home, and then died in dad's flower patch."

Asriel pauses, taking a drink just to sort out what to say next.

"...Then the royal scientist started experimenting with DT. Injected more of it than all the monsters in the underground had into a flower. Don't.. ask where she got it. I don't know how much you know about that stuff, but... it has effects. And when I woke up, I was alive for one thing, and also a flower. Oh, yeah. And I was an immortal loveless void of petty hatred and sadism."

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Introduction Log || The Night of the Thirteen Moogles

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