melodiesoflife | Event || The Answer

Event || The Answer

Characters: All characters who signed-up for the event.
Where: South Continent of Balance (Imperial Territories)
When: April 20th to April 30th.
Summary: The Heroes of Light have lost consciousness and now find themselves in the middle of nowhere, without their Moogles and away from everything they know. They will have to get back home, but what awaits them on the path? For more information, please check the First OOC Post and Second OOC Post.
Warning: Bad things.

Group 01: Team Hijinks House
Group 02: Team Brigands
Group 03: Team Discovery Channel
Group 04: Sephiroth's (In)Sanity Squad
Group 05: Team (Bad) Shipping Advice
Group 06: Team Blue-Haired Lords on Fire
Group 07: Team Mom and Late Sleepers
Group 08: Nothing Bad Will Happen
Group 09: The Hellhounds
Group 10: Loftwings, A Working Title
Group 11: Team Oni
Group 12: Team F.N.T.I²
Group 13: Team Name-In-Progress
Group 14: Team The-Mods-Couldn’t-Brain-A-Name
Group 15: Seraphim Shenanigans

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[All paths are valid so long as the Explorer chooses widely. Else, if they ever go over 44, a set of walls slams down right in front and behind them, and the floor opens up to drop the Hero below. They would slide ino darkness, and when they saw light again they would be back at the start of the maze.

Fortunately, all possible exit doors lead to the same metal corridor, which runs the perimeter of the maze. There is only one exit door, however, which is right in front of Santa when he emerges from the puzzle. However, when the open it, they are greeted by a corpse.

The gaping cavity in his abdomen and the bloodstains on the wall imply that something inside him exploded, which also damaged the rest of his body. The bone in his left arm is exposed, and his mouth is open in a mix of agony and horror, as it was in his final moments.

All Heroes can see the victim's pitiful face and only know him as a stranger, but to Santa, the corpse's face looks different. The eyes are cloudy, as if the man were blind when he was alive. His features are one that Santa got to know well.

It looks like Snake.]

[Things did not seem so bad in the maze, other than being cold and hungry and tired, especially when their various paths merged back into one. Santa actually thought to himself, 'This isn't so bad.'

...and then the door opened on the corpse. Santa's bare feet slip in blood as he throws himself back, scrambling on his ass to put distance between himself and the body.]

Shit shit shit what the FUCK!? [His voice comes out hoarse, panicked. It's not...it can't be...]

There wasn't a bomb in you. You never died. This isn't... [He runs a hand through his hair, then shudders. He doesn't have blood on his hands, but it feels like he does. On his hand and feet, in his hair, thick and coppery and impossible to scrub away. He doesn't try to get up.]

[The moment they see the horribly mangled body, Keiko cries out in horror before she whirls away and shuts her eyes, her hands clapped to her mouth.]

Oh my gosh...! Aaaaahhhhhhh!

[She didn't recognize the face at all, but does that really matter?! This is going to haunt her nightmares for weeks to come. Keiko shivers violently. Santa seems like he's affected just as much as she is. Does that mean he knew that guy? Who was he? And why was he here?]

[She clutches at her hair before forcing her pale fingers to let go, and her hands shake as she clutches them in front of her.]

Y-you know him? I'm so sorry...!

[Ed's startled, but he's seen quite a few corpses in his time. Granted, most aren't so desiccated or... exploded. He'll step in between it and Keiko, in order to block her view and get a better look at it.]

Terrible way to go... Santa, are you sure this is someone you know? How's that possible in here?

[He really doesn't like where this is all going.]

[ Having experienced the carnage of war, Ace watches the scene with a hollow expression on his face, but makes no sound, knowing it's the least he can do in a moment of mourning. Only a moment later, he walks past Santa and stops in front of the crimson pool of blood, studying the stranger's body as if expecting the image to fade like an illusion would. ]

If there's a point they want to prove... what could it be?

[ He doesn't direct that question at anybody in particular, but he eventually casts his gaze at his companion on the floor, wondering about the relevance of the panicked confession the other man has just made. This time, however, the cadet looks genuinely sympathetic. ]

[Santa pushes himself to his feet. He's visible shaking, but he forces his body to respond, if for no other reason than that he's too stubborn to let the others see him break.]

[He says nothing about why this has happened. Ain't none of Ace's goddamn business. He takes wobbling steps toward the corpse, stopping at the edge of the pool of blood and chunks around him. He forces himself to look.]

It's...it's his face, but it's not him. [He forces himself to view dispassionately. The shattered bone in the left arm, gruesome and raw, is proof that Light Field is still alive, on earth.]

Doppleganger. It's gotta be one of them. [Because that's definitely Snake's face, not Nijisaki. So someone recreated this horror scene with another Snake, for some reason.]

[He steps forward, biting back a hysterical laugh as his bare feet once again touch blood.]

Least I'm not ruining my shoes.... I'm gonna search him, see if he has anything on him.

[Santa'so search would not yield any results: the man's pokets had long been emptied. By looters, animals, or time, it can't be deducted.

Behind the remains of "Snake" is another metal corridor, which leads straight forward about a hundred feet before ending at a wooden door.]

Edited 2016-05-08 21:50 (UTC)

[Keiko appreciates Ed's gesture more than she can adequately put into words right now. It's just so horrible! And he resembles someone that Santa knew? A doppelganger of some sort?]

[Her stomach feels as if it's in angry knots, and it's probably a good thing she hasn't eaten in a while or she might throw up. As Santa proclaims he's going to search the corpse, Keiko nods glumly, not quite ready to turn around just yet.]

A-anything?

A doppleganger... [Ed repeats that to reflect on it. He'd heard about them, but considers himself lucky that he hasn't come across any he'd recognized yet.]

It's not looking so. I guess we don't have any choice but to move on. Not a lot we can do about it, I'm afraid.

[He looks down at the unassuming door, a feeling of dread creeping up on him further.]

Only one way to go, too.

[Finding nothing unusual on the body, Santa sits back on his heels and stares at the not-Snake.]

Sorry, man. [He reaches forward, and shuts the blind eyes staring out from that blood-splattered face. Light is one of a very short list of people that Santa actually likes. He's really, truly sorry that this had to happen to this world's version of him, especially if it was to get at Santa. He'd make the fucker that did this pay.]

Alright, let's go. [He rises and walks toward the door, leaving bloody footprints behind him until his feet dry.]

[The steel door would look familiar to Santa, as well as the room within. Before he can step into a recreation of the shower room from the Gigantic, he stumbles onto two more corpses, both of the same height and build. However, he would be able to distinguish their faces.

One is of a man without that ability to tell faces apart, and the other is a man is who because of that inability. Gentarou Hongou and Nagisa Nijisaki lie in front of each other, heads turned towards the entrance and eyes wide open. The bodies have bruises around their necks as if they chocked each other to death, but their arms lay by the sides of their bodies.

The rest of the room is arranged exactly as Santa remembers it. The puzzles are exactly the same, the method to opening the exit door is the same; someone took painstaking measures to perfectly recreate this.]

[ The unmistakable scent of death grows only thicker in the next room they enter, confirming Ace's suspicions as his gaze falls upon the two corpses. Though he finds himself unable to recognize either, the scene in all its horror possesses an almost theatrical quality, revealing another deliberate move on the captor's part.

A heavy sigh leaves his mouth before he speaks up. Doppelgangers or not, the lives taken away had once belonged to somebody, people whose roles have now been reduced to mere pawns in the game. ]

... Do any of you recognize them?

[These two, Santa only gives a quick and clinical glance. He scans the faces, the folds of Hongou's jacket for the telltale bulge of knife or gun, and the left wrists for bracelets. That done, he turns away from them and starts triggering the answers to the room's puzzles, expression blank.]

Yeah. They're not worth wasting any time over. Keiko, don't even look at them.

[He gestures for the others to stand on the non-corpse side of the shower stalls while he takes care of the locked door.]

Y-yeah...

[She had to pick her way carefully around the exploded body Santa had called 'Snake,' but at least there's no blood on the floor around these two. His reaction is so different. The first encounter had really affected him, but despite the increase in body count, he's strangely indifferent.]

[She hastens forward, trying not to look at the bodies, trying not to think of any of them. Instead she looks at Santa's back, feeling a surge of concern and pity. There was something very wrong with this place, and it seemed like the entire goal was to traumatize her friend.]

[Keiko sticks close to Santa, trying to will away the paleness and shaking that consumes her. The others are all being brave, she needs to be more like them.]

[Just as predicted, the door unlocks with the same puzzle solution as the one Santa set up before. Exiting is only a matter of minutes when one of the members already knows the solutions.

Fortunately for the group, there are no corpses in the next hallway. Instead, the thick, metal corridors are gone, and the interior has been replaced by a system of jail cells lining the concrete floor. Each unit is surrounded by a windowless stone wall on three sides and a series of iron bars on the fourth. In each cell, old leatherbound books are haphazardly thrown into a giant pile on the floor, and some of them are open. However, it's too dark to make out the contents from outside the cell, but some of the titles can be deciphered, all related to "chemistry" and "magic tricks."

This room is set up like an actual prison building, with hallways connecting to each other in a grid pattern.

Ed would recognize this area, and where the exit should be.]

[Santa freezes as he steps through the door.

This isn't where that door's supposed to lead...

[He looks around, but there's nothing familiar to him. His confidence falters, and he slows down, looking around at the rest of the group to see if this place means anything to anyone else.]

[Ed would like to hide the fact that this is disturbing him, but it's caught him so off-guard, he's having a hard time keeping his cool He's quickly broken out into a cold sweat.]

What kind of sick joke is this? I'm starting to think I'm not even awake.

[After peering into some of the cells frowning, he addresses the rest of the group without looking at them.]

There's not a lot of options for exits. Let's go.

[And he sets off down the hallway rather quickly.]

Edited 2016-05-13 02:36 (UTC)

[Row after row of identical cells filled with books line their path towards the exit. Without any inmates or guards, the prison retains an eerie, silent atmosphere. It feels like something keeps on watching them behind their backs, though if they were to turn around, they would find nothing there.

Upon reaching the exit, they would find a clean, wooden table with a set of bottles and chemical vials along with two different chemical recipes: one marked "EXIT" and one marked "ACTIVATION".]

[ Before long, Ace's patience begins to draw thin, but the boy's frustration has little to do with the unsettling imaginery. It's being kept in the dark that makes him uneasy, and as they stop at the table, he regards the group with a somewhat tired look. Clearly, some of them have clearer ideas of what is going on than others, and that air of secrecy carries into their nervous movements. ]

Any clue what this activation might be about?

[Santa looks to Ed, who seems to be more in the know now.]

Yeah, if you know, share with the class. [If they were still back in the shower room, he'd have thought it had to do with verifying their digital roots and solving puzzles, but with the change of scenery and the weird bottles, he's thinking they've veered away from Santa's area of expertise.]

[He reaches out to pick up a vial to examine.]

[Ed's hand stops Santa before he can pick up any bottles.]

I wouldn't do that. We don't know what any of this is yet.

[He looks over the recipes with a serious face. All that affable easiness he displayed earlier in the maze seems to have dried up fast.]

I don't know what either of those words mean in relation to any formulas. Is "exit" a way out of this room? This maze? And activating, what, I don't know...

[Unless the recipes or bottles were going to give him any clues as to what this was all about.]

[The recipes indicate nothing as to the properties of the results. The ingredients reference a few chemical compounds Ed would recognize, but they include ingredients like "evaporated blue potion" and "Adymantine pellets". There is no need to wonder what those look like, because the table has all of the bottles labeled, as any good scientist or alchemist should.]

[Dude, how are they gonna get anywhere if they don't touch some shit? Santa rolls his eyes at Ed, put yanks his hand away from the bottle.]

Do we got everything we need to follow those formulas? If there's a recipe for an exit, maybe we should just try it and see if it helps. Can't be worse than sittin' around here doin' jack shit.

[Keiko nods uneasily in agreement.]

Santa's right. I mean, the 'Exit' recipe seems like the most obvious answer, but I'm not sure how a potion's going to create something like that.

[Plus it's a little TOO obvious.]

Can we make both?

[Ed was still learning Crystallis's spell components, and he looks over the unfamiliar ones closely.]

I was thinking that too. There's enough ingredients here for both. But I can only finish one at a time, if we're going to do this. Anyone have a burning preference? I don't, because I don't like being so obviously set up.

[But there wasn't much of a choice, either.]

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