ioduanlogs | [EVENT] March Memory Madness

[EVENT] March Memory Madness

Characters: Everyone!
Date: March 5-9
Location: All around Aifaran
Situation: The Dreaming is a bit enthusiastic about the research at the Aisling Tower. Memories ensue.
Warnings/Rating: Shouldn't need any, but add to subject lines as needed!

Outside the Aisling Tower, the first clue anyone will have that something is wrong is small. Little things: trinkets lost, but fondly remembered, appearing in your hand when you reach for something else. A snatch of song that tugs your heartstrings.

That alone might have been nice. Unfortunately, things escalate quickly.

How did memories get loose on Aifaran?

Science Fair

Well that all went a bit wrong. Researchers at the Aisling Tower sent out a request for volunteers, hoping to get to the root causes of just why Dreamfolk frequently wind up with memory loss. The tests are reasonably painless beyond the occasional blood samples taken and rather tedious questionnaire volunteers must fill out.

And then there’s the machine.

It’s not big or scary looking - just a small, strangely organic looking earpiece linked up to a console used to measure neural oscillations. All very new, high-tech stuff that the researchers just barely control their enthusiasm about. Again, the tests are mostly tedious. Just a lot of sitting around while researchers display pictures, ask questions, have you smell a variety of scents, and other things to spark various mental associations. Though side-effects may include dizziness and nausea afterwards. It’s still a little bit too ‘mad science’ for some, even if the researchers involved don’t even cackle maniacally even once.

But as all things of this nature must go, something takes a turn for the weird.

Memories On Display

The Dreaming takes an interest, insofar as much as an omnipresent force of nature can be assumed to take an interest - maybe it just reacted strangely to the mental probing of the Dreamfolk. The how, for now, is not important.

The immediate problem is that memories are running rampant in the city - and not just from volunteers for the little research project, but also any Dreamfolk who come in contact with them. It starts off small - little things appearing in and out of your peripheral vision such as an old toy or a beloved pet. Maybe the echo of friendly laughter, or the incomplete form of a first love’s smile. These flashes of memory only grow more potent, however, as entire scenarios begin to play out for you and those in your proximity - just as vividly as you remember them. And just as accurately as you perceive them.

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OOC Notes: Your characters will have the option of seeing memories play out, and/or being drawn into a mind-share memory experience-- basically, however you want to play it, the Dreaming will accommodate! It's also more than possible that the Dreaming will oblige if someone really wants to show someone else something specific-- but there may always be a little more than bargained for.

There is a specific starter for shenanigans at the Aisling Tower but the rest of the post is open!

Please address questions regarding the event to the monthly agenda post.

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"What, and it isn't?" Rokuta asked with a snort, and the information that it wasn't by choice didn't really change his opinion. Sure, that just made it all the worse it was happening (and had happened) at all, but she was still doing it. "You could've let it, after all."

Relaxing a little more, Rokuta turned his head to look back out over the ocean, arms curled around his knees. "Good thing you had those friends, then. That thing..."

A brief little shiver, and Yokuhi's hand tightening on his wrist before she finally withdrew fully into his shadow again as he glanced over, head cocked.

"What about me?"

Wasn't he who'd had a memory of the last time some evil creature tried to take over his body and soul, after all.

"It's very complicated, Enki," She said, not looking at him, though her grip on her knees tightened. "I wasn't always like this. I didn't always have a soul. Or at least, I lived without one for a very long time. Regaining one...caused some problems initially."

Problems that came with new experiences and trials. She had coped pretty well, until Keeliai had thrown her off. Until emotions she didn't think were possible had turned up.

"I'm lucky that they came, I had given up, but they wouldn't let me...The Void is cruel, but it doesn't have the power it desires, partly because of them, partly because of magic that I don't understand."

There was that strange presence again, bright and sharp, but fading into the background, almost as if it had been issuing a warning. Valdis looked at him, brow arching at his question.

"You are steeped in more light than anyone I have seen in some time. For someone like you to see something so incredibly dark...I guess I'm surprised you're still sitting here."

Peering at her from the corner of his eyes as she said that, he frowned a little. He understood what she was saying but what it meant to her - what the lack or not of a soul (or any soul at all) meant where she came from, since she did mean it as something that factually existed and not just a theoretical, he could pick that much out, was... a lot harder to figure out.

"Sometimes we need help, especially with something like that, and it being inside of you," he said with a nod, deciding he could maybe ask about the soul thing later, especially since she turned the whole thing around on him. Clearing his throat, Rokuta shot Valdis a slightly lopsided grin.

Ah well, he'd already decided that it seemed to be okay to be less careful, at least on a one-on-one level, and she already knew there was something... different.

"Oh, that? I'd be more concerned if things were different... it's not your fault it's there, and whatever else, you're trying," shrugging, he unfolded to stretch, turning himself around so he was facing her more than sitting beside her. Planting his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands, Rokuta shrugged.

"But that's just how it is. I'm not human, but you figured that out already. Kirin are divine beasts of benevolence, justice and mercy, Valdis. Not that I can't dislike people," Rokuta's almost lecturing tone dissolved for an arch little grin, feeling kind of relieved to be saying this to someone else, too, "but that's got nothing to do with any sort of avoidance on principle just 'cause you've got some evil in you. People do... even if yours definitely is worse than the average person's."

A lot more, but details.

Valdis had never been great at accepting help before that particular incident. She blamed pride, and fear to some extent. Accepting help meant that one was not strong enough on their own, a certain death sentence among her kind. Strength in numbers had been a necessary lesson, one she might never have learned.

Valdis laughed, shaking her head, "Well, that explains why it wants you dead," she admitted, "You're like the opposite of everything I'm supposed to be."

She looked at him when he adjusted his position to face her, a sort of amusement in her eyes. He had called himself a Kirin, but what he described seemed more like the legends of unicorns on her world.

"Hounds are creatures of judgement, chaos and death. My pack doesn't exactly possess a moral code, or emotions." She shrugged, "The only reason I do, is because I have a soul. The rest of them do not."

He flashed her a grin and shrugged. Yeah, it did explain that brief, sudden burst of absolute, malicious murderous intent he'd felt after she first sent those Igheeri off.

"Huh, that's what it's supposed to do? If it was just that easy..." Rokuta trailed off, then coughed, "I mean, since people can lack those things anyway, but I guess you mean on a different level than that."

Swaying a little where he sat, Rokuta frowned. It was a little, like youma, he supposed, calling back his earlier thought. It probably couldn't be compared, exactly, since youma certainly didn't judge anything or anybody, but the 'chaos' and 'death' parts certainly applied.

"But if that's what you were, no wonder getting those things through a soul would make things hard. Not being used to 'em and everything."

"There is a difference between choosing to ignore morality and emotions and not even possessing the ability to have them in the first place." Valdis clarified, since the boy seemed to be missing the point.

His frown made her wonder what he was thinking, empathy only took her so far when she didn't know someone well.

"The Dreaming seems to have a knack of dragging things into the light that we'd prefer to stay hidden." She sighed, "Anything else you'd like to know?"

"Ah... yeah." Nodding slowly, Rokuta frowned. That was a huge difference, and yes, he'd missed it. It wasn't something he'd assume to think of like that. Sure, he'd never have assumed youma could show any care either, unless they were made into shirei, and yet...

"Looks like it. What's been happening with all these memories... I hope it doesn't drag up too much stuff." It'd already dragged up things that people didn't like to think of, obviously. At the question, he looked over at Valid again, cocking an eyebrow.

"You gonna be okay?" Despite the slightly arch expression, the question was sincere.

"I'll be fine," Valdis replied, arching her own brow, "It's not like it can kill me."

Considering she was immortal, and the Void counted on her survival for its own. Then she laughed, "You really are a unicorn, aren't you? More concerned about others than the fact that there is such great potential for evil in your midst. You remind me of someone I used to know."

"Like that's the only thing that could happen," he said with a scoff, shaking his head. Death was, of course, bad enough on its own; it was an irretrievable end and was usually painful in itself. But there were so many other things that could be almost just as bad or even worse, in their own ways.

"Oh, I could show you my true form if you really want to, but there's no place here to be polite about it," Rokuta laughed, a little smirk hovering on his lips. It was a beach, and there were no handy rocks nearby or large bushes further up... he wasn't one of those that could change with his clothes on. "But, basically. That's how it works."

There were so many ways to try and express that, but he could see how, to others not from any of the twelve kingdoms, someone trying to claim those things would come more easily across by simply being what he was.

"Who?"

"It's not the only thing that could happen," Valdis agreed. There were worse things it could do, but unless it was able to break the barrier again and destroy her soul, everything else was bearable. She shook her head, smiling at his next comment.

"No, I believe you. I'm a shapeshifter as well. A giant wolf. Though one of my friends once screwed up a spell and I was stuck as a snowy white horse for several days."

One of her fonder memories, but not nearly as fond as the memories she held of Wan.

"Just one of my friends. He was very kind, saw past all my darkness and believed very strongly that I could be light despite the darkness. He shared a body with a spirit of light and order from his world."

"I was wondering," he said, nodding shortly. Remembering the wolf the snake creature had been attacking in the memory, and while he'd assumed it ought to be Valdis one way or another, it could have been in a less literal fashion, too, of course.

Laughing a little at the revelation of having been stuck as a horse, Rokuta grinned, even as he listened to the rest, thoughts again wandering back to what he was thinking about earlier.

"So, which one do you like best? And he's right, you know." Frowning in thought, Rokuta swayed a little where he sat, then stilled. "We've got these monsters back where I'm from. Youma. They've got various supernatural powers, and are always hostile to people; they can't be tamed, usually, and will take any chance to kill."

Looking out over the ocean, and the waves breaking in the beach, he thought of another beach entirely, and while the time of day was all wrong, it was almost like it could've been the same one.

"All that, and yet, I knew a kid once, who got picked up by a youma. It took care of him as well as it could, and protected him as it knew how to. Something that anyone knows kills and eats people with no exception, and this thing picked up a starving child from where he'd been tossed into the sea and saved him." Looking back to Valdis, Rokuta shrugged.

"So, why shouldn't it be possible?"

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[EVENT] March Memory Madness

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