Intro Log || This Keeps Happening

[melodiesmods]

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...

Comments

[chondriosome]

There's something about the man that catches Aya's attention before he even addresses her; it could be because he looks nothing like anyone she would've ran into back home. And, for a moment, he spent a brief time trying to figure out something as well, before he speaks.

"Believe me, if it's one thing I've figured out by now it's that." She scoffs, before glancing at the district around them. "This wouldn't happen to be the fourteenth district, by any chance? I'm trying to figure out where my 'home' is supposed to be."

Home being said with some level of scorn. Aya doesn't like to think of this as a long-term thing. As far as she is concerned, fixing whatever problem with this place should be simple enough, and then everyone can go back to where they're supposed to be.

Right...?

[shinrasfinest]

Sephiroth seemed to stand up a little straighter as he quickly caught onto the tone of Aya's voice as she referred to her 'home' in Aqures Ixen. Really, he just brought his head up out of his scarf a little so that he might be able to talk to her more clearly. His deep frown had receded in the meantime, though now a delicate silver eyebrow was cocked upwards; the outer-curve of which was mostly hidden by the front parts to his hairstyle which fell on either side of his face.

"If you'd rather not refer to it as such, residence is just as fitting." He had a problem referring to his first residence as a home as well, but that had been a long time -and no less than two moves- ago. Where he was living now; home had worked it's way into casual vocabulary without even so much as a footnote.

A few blinks of heavily-lashed eyes later and Sephiroth looked pointedly around Aya, specifically at her shoulder height. If she didn't know where her residence was, there should be a moogle somewhere that would know-

"Your moogle?"

[chondriosome]

"Residence works, then. Is there any way I could get my own place?" Aya doesn't do well with roommates, and has always preferred her own space. Well, before Eve came along, that is.

She then stops and stares at the man's query.

"My moogle...? Oh!" Her posture straightens. "Um, she's--"

Looking around, she's unable to find where Iva had gone off to. That's when she turns her head to find a red ball floating over one of the nearby bushes, and a pair of eyes blinking behind the leaves.

Aya's eyes narrow slowly, her brows knitted. "--rather timid," she finishes.

[shinrasfinest]

"Not really." Though he perhaps didn't mean to sound so blunt, Sephiroth would rather be plain about it than spout off a tirade about how there were only a limited number of residences available for new Heroes of Light. Even though he did empathize a little; he'd always preferred his own space over the shared accommodation that he'd had to get used to. It was a case of having to.

He followed Aya's gaze as she looked around for her moogle, similarly resting on the pom floating atop one of the nearest pieces of shrubbery. His expression softened a little at the very obvious fact Aya pointed out; remembering well how Spencer had explained to him in the past that being allocated to a Hero of Light was a big honor for mooglekind.

"I see. Well that's understandable I suppose." He flashed a small smile in the direction of the bush before looking back to Aya. "It's a big deal, to most moogles. Being partnered with a Hero of Light is a huge responsibility."

[chondriosome]

"Damn."

Sure, he's blunt about it, but Aya appreciates the bluntness. Her shoulders sag at the news, but she isn't entirely deterred. Not until she knows who her actual housemates turn out to be.

Aya makes a face at Iva in the bushes before turning her attention back up at the taller man. "I think I might've scared her when we first met or something. I guess I wasn't exactly very nice to her."

Being ignored would make anyone either pissed or brittle.

[shinrasfinest]

At least in this case, where bluntness is appreciated Sephiroth wouldn't be able to inadvertently offend her. Point for Aya; in that she doesn't fall into the over-excitable template that was the reason Sephiroth tended to avoid newer Heroes, or at least give them a wide berth until they found their feet.

He tried not to look for too long back in the direction of where Iva were hiding, the part of him that had grown quite accustomed to moogles during his time here almost wanted to go over there and encourage her to come out. At the same time, Iva would have to work on how she 'fit' with her Hero now, just like every other moogle had done.

"Where I come from, moogles are just mythical creatures enjoyed by the worlds children. They can be rather unbelievable-" Sephiroth blinked his wandering gaze back to Aya's face once more while making his point.

"-their personalities can widely differ and I'd argue they're more diverse than us -in that respect- as far as races go. You'll not find better advise, at least to begin with, than from your moogle."

[chondriosome]

The surreality of her situation has left Aya feeling rather numb to start out with. Once she gets over the 'wow, this is really real' phase, she'll actually ease in right quick. Right now, she's just trying to get her head wrapped around the whole thing.

"So you come from a place where you've heard of them before, too?" She's spoken with a few others who claim that their world isn't that much different from this one. Aya actually envies them for having that familiarity to relate to. She just feels like an alien in this place.

In a way, she actually is.

"I'll keep that in mind, then... if she decides to give me another chance."

[shinrasfinest]

"Well, yes...but it's not as if they are real creatures, at least in my own experience." He sounded as sure as he could be, considering he hadn't exactly had the most open of childhoods. "There are a few similarities between my home world and this one, most notably when it comes to the monsters, in particular."

Sephiroth turns a little on the spot so he's looking more directly over Aya, in the hope that Iva might not feel quite so on the spot.

"I'm sure that she will. In time." A light smile followed.

"So, which house were you looking for, in particular?"

It was time to get back on the topic; at the very least he'd be able to guide her in the right direction even if he didn't walk her there himself.

[chondriosome]

Much like the first time she heard of it, Aya doesn't balk that the mention of monsters. If anything, it felt to be the one familiar thing about this place. "Seems that this world has some similarities to mine, after all."

While on the surface things seem to be radically different, Aya can try to look on the bright side of things. At least she won't get bored when there's work to be done.

She nods, returning her attention to Sephiroth from Iva. In a way, the little creature reminds her a bit of Eve, who had taken some time before she was able to fully open up to the world.

"Oh, um..." Aya pauses to think about where her moogle said they would be living for the time being. "B-05, I think is what Iva said."

[shinrasfinest]

It was obvious that Aya were referring to monsters being a similarity just based off how he'd replied but there was little and no point to inquire further. Aya would, like any other Hero of Light, adapt eventually - it was a case of having to. In many ways, even Sephiroth had never completely adjusted.

A slow nod showed her that he'd understood what she meant though.

"B-05. Hm." Sephiroth took half a step back from Aya and looked around the street, so as to get his bearings with regards to the position the houses were in. It had been a while since he'd been really on this side of the district for any long period of time; though, he quickly remembered, being as he'd not lived far away previously.

"I believe, it's just on the other side of this block. The residences aren't numbered in the more logical of ways, it can be a little confusing at first."

[chondriosome]

"Yeah, I noticed." Aya threw her arms up into an exaggerated shrug. "I've had to have been wandering around for a half hour now."

It was getting really tiresome. Really.

She then waved a dismissive hand. "Thanks for pointing me in the right direction, though. I appreciate it."