melodiesofeternity | FABULA NOVA CRYSTALLIS || INTRODUCTION LOG

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FABULA NOVA CRYSTALLIS || INTRODUCTION LOG

Who: All characters (New Arrivals and Native OCs)
When: April 11th
Where: The Dream Width (Airship), the Curti Center, and the Housing District
What: For the first time in 10 years, outworlders have been found the Dream Width. This unprecedented number of new arrivals are rescued and brought to Vaikuntha, and must now try to start adjusting to their new home.
Warnings/Notes: All players can put up a toplevel. Please post to the NPC toplevel if you have an IC question for them.

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. The makeshift infirmary is becoming uncomfortably warm, packed to its capacity with people.

Stepping out, there is a lobby space that bears the signs of having once held some furniture, now cleared away to make space. Even with the sparse accommodations, the space quickly fills to standing-room only.

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 to play again. ]

’Welcome travelers’…

CURTI CENTER

[ Finally after hours of flight, you arrive at the Curti Center. The other NPCs await you along with the Native OCs. Cid gives a short and to the point 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 today. Indeed, here you are. No one knows why such a large number of people has been found at once, but the Curti Center is a place dedicated to piercing the Dream Width's secrets.

Cid also introduces the other ones: his assistant Jessie, Claire, the woman looking at the group in horror upon being pointe 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.

After Cid finishes (and Claire despairs at the pile of paperwork she must complete by the end of the week), 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 specifically during this introduction, please respond to the toplevel with the name of the NPC in the subject header. The mods will try to reply at least once a day for each NPC. ]

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 Cid mentioned in his 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. ]

A BAD OMEN

[ Wandering around, you may stumble upon an old and tired-looking moogle wearing what can only be described as a decrepit fortune-teller attire. Upon seeing you, or any of the new arrivals for that matter, he will slowly approach and tell you all the exact same speech. ]

If you stay here, you're doomed. She will find you and make you suffer hell. [At which point his eyes will grow exorbitant.] This world is cursed. You will die and never be free. [And finally he'll fly right into your face.] Never!

[ Then he will leave and go say his speech to someone else, without doing anything but repeating different variations of his warning if asked for details. Should you ask your assigned Moogle, Biggs or Wedge, they will mention this crazy moogle can't be reasoned with and sometimes stick around the center, even though he's always chased away. He never says anything besides doomsday predictions. For unknown reasons, he's always been particularly nasty with Biggs and Wedge... And with you as well now, it seems. ]

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 the sudden and unexpected number of 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?]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I, uh, kinda. It's complicated. But safe to say this ain't the first time I woke up in a void and got dropped on a different planet. Least this time they ain't tellin' me I'm a 'Hero of Light'."

Sparks sadly scoops up his pistol and returns it to the holster.

"Reckon if that place and this one are anything alike - and they already have way too much in common - I'll have to take up the right Job in order to shoot straight again. Same with your sword fightin'."

Connie grimaces. Fantastic. It sounded like the multiverse was starting to make a habit of abducting people from their homes to do... something. Given Sparks' offhand remark about being a "Hero of Light" and the way that most of the people brought to Vaikuntha had some kind of former adventuring experience, Connie was willing to bet they were there to solve some kind of problem.

"Yeah, I know that. I just wanted to see if there was any way I could fight if I ended up deprived of the, uh, asterisks for whatever reason. Might as well have a backup plan, right?"

"Yeah, makes sense. I recommend takin' up more than one Job to counter that. Though Jobs don't seem to work completely the same here, so maybe take what I say with a grain 'a salt since I'm, y'know, new and all too."

Sparks poked idly at his food. All this thinking about Jobs and starting over and such was harshing his appetite, but it was pretty unavoidable right now.

"Y'know, if some other planet is gonna make me go through the same motions again, they coulda at least let me bring my Jobs from last time too. Save me some time 'n headaches."

"That was my plan, yeah." Connie debates whether the benefit of the potential information gained from grilling Sparks about his time as a "Hero of Light" would counteract the drawbacks of prying in such a rude manner.

Her curiosity prevails, and Connie asks, "So, uh, if you don't mind me asking... what did you do, exactly, as a Hero of Light?"

"Oh, uh..." Sparks makes a face that say this might be complicated. "Just saved the world. Universe. Multiverse. Whatever."

He tries not to think about it a lot. It was a long and arduous task. Much, much longer than the last time he had to save the universe.

"My guess? That's probably what we were all brought here to do. They just don't know it yet."

"...that makes sense, actually," Connie says, cupping her chin. Considering what she's seen of the people brought to Vaikuntha so far, most of them seemed to be hero-types, or possessed some other useful trait. "Everybody here seems to have some kind of strength, yeah? Adventurers, strategists, diplomats, tech geniuses... this seems like a good crew to save the world, if it does actually need saving."

"Are they? Cuz it turns out one of my roommates is, like, a high school kid who started a fight back on the ship with a little girl."

Okuyasu didn't seem much like an adventurer or diplomat. Sparks shrugged lightly. "Can't win 'em all, I guess."

"Okay, there are probably exceptions to the rule," Connie admits. In fact, Connie could recall making the conscious decision to avoid the part of the ship that particular scuffle had taken place in. "Still, though. It's probably a good idea to keep a lookout for any hokey prophecy-y things around here. After all, once is an anomaly, twice is a coincidence, and three times is a pattern. And there are no coincidences, at least not when dealing with weird interdimensional magic stuff."

"Yeah, reckon when yer rollin' the dice of the cosmic lottery, you're bound to hit snake eyes sometimes." The universe was probably more filled with duds than winners, right? "Guess I got a good track record, so my number keeps comin' up. A reward for a job well done." His flat expression and voice says what he thinks about that idea.

"Ain't that the truth. This place had way too many things in common with Crystallis. Even the names of things." He takes out his Slate and opens to a map of the world. "See this here?" He points to Sparks Goldsaucia. "That's my name. Well, Sparks is. Sparks Nevada. But loads of these places got the same names 'a Heroes back from Crystallis. 'Nakagawa'? Saori Nakagawa. 'Ka'Pandol'? That's fer K'Pandolu. 'Cloud City'? Cloud Strife. Wait, 'Bahr Kip Island'?" Sparks wrinkles his nose at that one, surprised. "Is that supposed to be 'Barkeep'? He gets a whole island named after him?" Sparks thinks on this, wondering if he should be jealous or not.

"Well, I just hope that if I make it out of this alive, I won't get called on for round two of... whatever this is." Connie didn't think her poor, anxiety-riddled brain could take the thought of getting trapped in a never-ending loop of dimension hopping and she was stopping that train right in the station before she could get on.

"Maybe it's some kind of transdimensional resonance? Like what you did back on... Crystallis affected the psyches of the people here? Somehow? Maybe?" Connie suggests. "Mind you, I have no idea what I'm talking about if I go beyond the very basics of multiverse theory, but considering that magic is a thing apparently, I might as well throw all logic out the window."

A bolt of inspiration hits Connie. "Wait wait wait. How did you get off Crystallis in the first place, anyways? That might be a good place to start if we're trying to leave Vaikuntha."

"Oh, like that whatcha-callit, Butterfly Effect or whatever? Maybe..." Sparks drifts off into thought again, looking at the map. When he left Crystallis, they were underway remapping the entire world after the continents had been shattered and broken. Was it possible...?

Connie's question snaps him out of it. "Oh, uh. Long story. But there was a magical device they used for interdimensional travel. It was called, uh, the Soul Divider. They were supposed to have destroyed it right after I left, though." Sparks was the last one to go through it, back to his home universe.

That was certainly a name with distinctly unpleasant connotations. It sounded more like some anime villain's ultimate move than an interdimensional travel device. "I'm, uh, guessing by the ominous, spooky name and the fact that it was supposed to be demolished that it was something just a little bit worse than a machine to get everyone home. Were there any side effects, or...?"

"Oh yeah, no, it uhhh was not a good thing. To make a long story short, it got repurposed. I don't know much about magic so I can't even give ya the details anyway.

If there were any side effects in gettin' people home, I wouldn't know. I mean, we never heard from again. And I made it home. Gone for years 'n years and back home I was gone a day. That sure took some explainin'."

He's still not sure everyone believed him, but it was hard to explain why he had aged 8 years overnight, too.

"Hang on. Saori 'n Mary - they got home okay. Cuz, 'coincidentally' - he uses air quotes for that - I met Saori's husband here. Whatever cosmic force that wanted to drag her here I guess aimed a little too far to the left or somethin'. Forgot to carry the 2."

"I would argue that it probably had a purpose in bringing him here, but," Connie remembers Sparks' offhand mention of the rather aggressive youth, and what she saw of the scuffle, "...maybe sometimes destiny really is left to chance.

"But still, there has to be something bringing us here on purpose. If we can find it, we might find a way to get back." At least Connie hoped so, and Connie was pretty certain that hope is the only thing keeping her going at this point.

"Right, that's step one. We're not the first folks who got pulled here, right? I mean, I think they said somethin' about it happening before, just not to this scale. Maybe we can find out what those other folks got up to once they were here."

Sparks points to the star-shaped marshal's badge on his jacket. "Meanwhile, I got an SOS signal broadcastin' on this thing. Any USSA ships come through this part 'a space, and they'll come pick us up in a juffy." Not that the same thing worked on Crystallis, but it's still worth a shot.

Connie glances at his badge, eyebrow raised. She somehow doubted that it would work across dimensions, but there wasn't really any point in bringing that up since if it did, by some miracle, manage to get the signal out and call the cavalry in, they could all just go home and talk about the crazy few days they just had.

"Good idea. I was actually thinking about pestering Claire when she isn't so... overworked to see what records she has on previous arrivals, but that, uh. May be just a while yet."

"Claire, Claire... That the paperwork lady? Wonder if she needs a hand..."

Maybe he could help. Sparks loved paperwork, after all.

"But yeah, maybe there's a pattern in there. Or we could find out what happened to those people. Um, no one's turned to crystal, have they? Cuz uuh, that's a problem we had back on Crystallis."

"Yeah, but, uh, she might give you a bit of the cold shoulder. I'm getting the feeling that she's too used to everyone around her being incompetent to take any attempts to help her seriously. Or at least that's what I got off her when I tried to help out." Although Connie couldn't really blame Claire. As mature as she could be, Connie was still just a kid, and who in their right mind with trust a thirteen year-old with heinously complex and important paperwork?

"...turning to crystal? Um, as far as I know, that hasn't been happening." Connie shakes her head. "From what you're telling me about Crystallis, it sounds like... one big, hot mess to be honest. I'd say that I hope that Vaikuntha isn't the same, but I'm fairly certain that taunting Murphy like that would be a bad decision."

"Hnn. Her loss. Little does she know what an expert in paperwork Sparks Nevada is. 'S one of the best reasons to be marshal."

Very few people would agree with him there.

He was glad to hear there was no one turning to crystal. That was one last thing to worry about.

"Oh yeah. Can't argue with that. Honestly, 'mess' is a bit of an understatement for how things got towards the end. 'Ugly', 'terrible', 'apocalyptic'. Those are definitely closer. So, y'know, as long as things don't go that route, we should be fine."

Connie quirks an eyebrow upward at Sparks' first comment. From her experience, paperwork was hell to deal with. Filling in for her mother when she was too tired from a graveyard shift to fill out forms properly had taught Connie that at the very least.

"...do I even want to know how many times Crystallis nearly ended, or should I be grateful that I don't have that knowledge keeping me up at night, since it's pretty likely that something similar drew us to Vaikuntha like what Crystallis did to the, um, 'Heroes of Light?'"

"How many times? Uh, well, it was kinda just once, it was sort of a slow movin' thing. Relatively, I guess. I don't think I know how fast the apocalypse is supposed to move."

There definitely was a lot of similarities between Vaikuntha and Crystallis, and Sparks was going to have a hard time resting easy until he knew why they were here. Just waiting for that metaphoric other shoe to drop.

"There's, like, some kinda prophecy about people getting pulled here, right? But not this many people. Let's just hope it's some kinda cosmic hiccup."

"Well. Um. That's... relatively relieving to hear," Connie says when Sparks explains Crystallis' singular brush with annihilation. "That's at least one less near armagedon than I've been through. One was considerably faster, one was considerably slower." Technically, she didn't really help out with the Cluster, but she was still on Earth when it was about to emerge.

As to Sparks' question, Connie replies, "Yeah. That tidbit has been driving me crazy, too. It has to mean something, especially with that weird doomsaying moogle getting all up in our faces."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

FABULA NOVA CRYSTALLIS || INTRODUCTION LOG

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