melodiesoflife | Intro Log || This Keeps Happening

Characters: All the "Heroes of Light" (only new characters can start threads).
Where: Aqures Ixen.
When: The 5th of January. The new Heroes of Light will awaken early in the morning.
Summary: The new Heroes of Light awaken in Aqures Ixen and are informed by their assigned Moogles of what the situation and what their destinies are. This a log for them to react to the situation, meet each other and be welcomed by the former batches of Heroes of Light.
Warning: Snow. Also some leftover decorations from Christmas.

Where you were or what you were doing— It does not really matter. Not any more. Within an instant, the world around you collapses. Reality twists and shatters... Or maybe you are the one who is collapsing and shattering away from reality as you knew it. No matter what the answer is, it will only take a few seconds for you to find yourself sinking into a void, your world vanishing into the distance. There is nothing but darkness as far as the eye can see. Even you feel different: all the powers you might once have had, are now gone. It is silent, cold and it feels as though life itself is slipping out of you.

At this moment, when it looks as though nothing but a never-ending void awaits you, a red Crystal forms before you. In this void, its warmth compels you to grab it. Upon doing so, you can hear a soft, soothing voice speaking:

"Wake up."

Soon, the void itself vanishes and is replaced by distant noises of engines. Had it all been nothing more than a dream? The soothing voice repeats its call one more time, but is soon replaced with a much less graceful "Wake up Kupo." Hand clutched on your Crystal, the call of the Moogle may finally wake you up. But you are no longer in your world, nor in the void. You are before the Crystal of Fire, in the third district of a city called Aqures Ixen. At this point, you may realize the engine noise actually originates from an Airship flying low over the city and headed to dock beneath the castle. As if it wasn't strange enough, your clothes have changed as well. They are now a reflection of the Jobs you are wielding. Last but not least, you are surrounded by Moogles, small and fluffy creatures who are more than happy to tell you about everything you want to know, about your 'destiny' as a Hero of Light, about what awaits you.

Or at least, they will tell you everything they do know, which isn't much in the end.

The only people around you are like you-- There are quite a few of them, all clothed in their Job garbs and most likely wondering what is happening. If somehow you do not realize it, the Moogle who woke you up will be more than happy to inform you there are others like you around. In fact, there are other Heroes who have arrived in the course of the past year and they will come soon! Like you, they have Jobs and a Crystal.

If asked, the Moogles will mention that the Heroes of Light - that is to say you - are fighting against time to save Crystallis from the Calamity that is about to awaken to devour the entire world. Sounds terrible? Welcome to Crystallis.

The Other Heroes
— Shortly Thereafter —
Thanks to the efficiency of Mognet, it does not take long for the other Heroes to come around: those who arrived in this world within the past year. You may have imagined heroic and charismatic figures when your Moogle told you that there were other Heroes of Light in this city. You may have imagined persons with fearsome powers when they told you about how they managed to push back the Empire and defeat gigantic beasts in the past. And more importantly, you may have imagined them as people who would have all the answers to your, doubtlessly, numerous questions.

If so, you may be up for a tragic disappointment. Still, for the most part they know more than you on the situation and may be more than happy to fill you in, especially if your Moogle didn't tell you much.

The City of Aqures Ixen
— Anytime —
With Christmas being barely over, there are still Christmas Decoration in the streets, and while the reconstruction are nearly over, there are still traces of the attack the Empire led against the city six months ago. A few buildings are being worked on.

And besides the decorations and reconstructions, there are a lot of things to do in the city for newcomers. A few groups of Triple Triad players are playing before Mognet Office in the ninth district, and a Blitzball Match is set to start at 20:00 in the stadium! Characters are also free to visit the city-- Mognet Office just behind the Triple Triad games is filled with Moogles, most of them discussing about the election for the future director of Mognet. They can also visit Airship Port in the twelfth district from where characters can board for free Airships from Shoopuf Airline.

Or maybe you could visit your new house in the 11th District, and get to know your new neighbors and housemate. Hopefully your neighbors are people you will get along with.

The Laboratory
— Anytime —
A location where a lot of Heroes of Light seem to be gathering is Palitutu's Laboratory. It is a place where employed characters can research into various topics. However, most importantly, characters can see a file with their name...

Should your character decide to go there and peek at their file, there are two possibilities. Either the file is corrupted and they cannot access it: too bad for them, but at least their life will remain a mystery. Or should you decide the file isn't corrupted, they will find a summary of their lives up to their canon point, as if written by a third-person omniscient narrator. On the column left to the text, to the top there is a portrait of them, and beneath it there is a 3D model of them. Said portrait and model can be switched to any year of their life. At the bottom there is a percentage, indicating 0%. On the right column, there are various links, most of which are grayed out. The clickable links lead to their Homeworld History and their future post-canon point history (corrupted file for unfinished canons).

At least, they can lock this file away if they don't want anyone to see it.

The Hospital
— Anytime —
Characters who have already been in Crystallis before do not wake up by the Crystal of Fire like everyone else. Instead, they will wake up in the Hospital of Aqures Ixen, in a room where there are over a hundred of other Heroes of Light like them-- Maybe even some familiar faces... Except they're all in Crystal Stasis.

A couple Moogles and a few nurses will be waiting by the room, and they will welcome all characters waking up. Upon exiting the room, they will also meet a lot of guards, and they all have for order to shoot anyone that comes out of this room without a Moogle. Hopefully you won't try running out without waiting for your Moogle. As for why the guards are so on edge, it might be a good idea to ask the other Heroes of Light about what happened a couple months ago.

Close Encounters of the Third(?) Kind
— 15:00 —
Characters venturing by between the city's outskirts and the Chocobo Farm at this specific time will be able to see a most peculiar sight: a flying saucer seemingly abducting a Chocobo before flying away and disappearing into the sky without leaving any traces of its presence. If your character do see it, hopefully there will be someone with them. Otherwise, nobody will believe their story.

Was it an UFO or just a hallucination? Previous sightings of such a thing have happened. It might be a good idea to investigate this sometimes...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Another person Duster doesn't recognize, but he's more distracted by her hair. He knows one human with pink hair, but Kumatora was a special exception: she was a powerful psychic, after all. The small girl might be one as well.

Her voice draws his attention back to her face. "Oh. Right. I think that's the case for everyone here." He turns at the other Heroes, who all look equally confused while talking to their own fluffy white creatures.

Tamekichi, meanwhile, gapes at Allenby, slightly miffed at her description of Moogles.

"I must be missing a lot of my memories because this...is definitely not how my world looked like a while ago."

Carol didn't mind it. It's true after all, and totally not a positive first impression for a good fraction of people. But she was just as blunt as Allenby was.

"No, you're probably not, unless you lose them often?" she inquires. "But most likely not at all. You've been brought, summoned more or less, to this city. Aquares Ixen. You're not at all in the world you're from. Home is some far away dimension right now and..." About that 'being blunt' thing, "You're kind of stuck here with the rest of us for now. But it's not bad. Just jarring."

If Duster had woken up after a normal day, he would have laughed at that statement. Unfortunately, watching your world break apart and finding your friends missing when you wake up tends to put a damper on your sense of humor.

"Twice, if we're not counting this one," he shrugs. His normally expressionless face tightens as Allenby mentions being transported to another world.

"...But what happened to my world? My friends? Did they just capture me?"

"I don't know what they're still telling people, but really they should come out with the truth. They pull us here to help this world. But I think they make it look like our world was just destroyed and we have nowhere else to go. But really... I think they're just pulling at random out of desperation. It's some huge computer thing doing all the work, I think."

Allenby looks to Carol, who is just as out of the loop as she is, and she's met with a shrug.

"You've lost your memories twice though. I'd think once is enough, mister."

Tamekichi crosses his arms and glares at Duster. He was going to give him the basic overview and be so cool, but here was Allenby stealing his thunder!

"A computer...that's a one of those huge machines that controls other machines, right?" He can only caught glimpses of those in the labs, but he could tell they were something important. "Oh, and I'm Duster. I didn't forget my name this time."

If he did lose his memories, it's the least devastating bout of amnesia: all he lost were a few days. Maybe.

If he was missing a few days, then everyone was; from going from their home world, to here, and who the heck knew why?

"Allenby. Allenby Beardsley, and that's pretty much the gist of a computer. There's a lot of that kind of stuff where I'm from. A lot." she makes sure the emphasis is there. At least he knew, some people had never heard of such a thing; but they had magic.

"So what'd you do back home, mm?"

Duster's world has psychic powers instead of straight-up magic, though that could explain the other weird stuff that goes on there.

"A lot, huh. And it's alright?" Computers were brought in by invaders from another time, and they didn't exactly do a lot of nice things with them.

"I was a musician for the most popular band in the islands," he says nonchalantly. Between his tone and appearance, he might have been lying, though his unchanging gloomy expression shows no sign of it. "But recently, I spent a lot of time trying to save the world."

And that's the key element to his summoning here.

"Well then, that explains why you're here at all. If you were trying to save your world, then, of course you got picked to save this one. Or at least try. It's kind of a confusing mess. Not that it's bad, but it's not the easiest to explain right now. I saved my world back home... and lemme tell ya, it's TONS easier when you know exactly who your bad guy is, where they are, and you just have to go punch them in the face."

He nods. "That...makes sense. But couldn't they have picked someone who actually did it? I'm not even sure if we succeeded." Unless whoever took him was a kind soul who saved Duster from the planet's destruction, it doesn't make any sense? And why only him? Where were the others?

This is all too much, and judging by how Duster holds his hand to his forehead, all these thoughts are making his head spin.

Tamekichi isn't amused. "Look, this guy's clearly having a hard time dealin' with all this, alright? It's hard enough havin' to explain everything to this guy, alright, toots?"

Allenby shoots the Moogle a glare for calling her 'toots'. She's not beyond slugging one of these things.

She waves Tamekichi off and continues with a softer tone. "We still don't know why, but, the short of it is, that's why we're here. But, it's not mandatory either. And there's no hurry to fall into line. If you can do something, then do what you can, but totally at your pace, okay, mister?"

She'd put the pressure on him, by mistake, it was on her to take it off some. She could do that much at least.

"Yeah, I'll--" He waves a hand around, unsure where that thought was going. He's good at doing things at his own pace, but the actual saving of the world? It's a tall order to give someone that just had one of the most stressful days of his life.

"...I'll do it." There wasn't any other way around it.

She didn't like the way he said it, like, it was a contractual obligation. It kind of was but... all the say it didn't... Well, she felt bad.

"Look... there's no hurry to get right on it. Take some time. Get used to being here, get used to this Job stuff. Right now everything's fine. So just take your time." she tries to explain, really trying to make up for the big break down of things she just had to do.

"...Right." First things first, get used to living in a new world, meeting people for the first time again. It shouldn't be too hard for him; there was always the kindness of strangers to depend on. "I should go outside first."

Tamekichi muttered "Finally!" his breath and lead Duster out of the temple. The thick walls did not dispel Duster of the notion that this holy place was on the outskirts of a small town, most likely in the middle of a forest. The airships, castle, and houses that stretched out to the horizon came as a huge surprise, and he stood at the entrance of the temple as his Moogle flew outside.

Intro Log || This Keeps Happening

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