I'm not quite sure how, exactly, this idea came to me but the longer I've had this idea the more it has sunk its roots into my imagination so, here we are. Anyway, this time around, the inspiration specifically comes from four groups' R1 entries into VCB-Anemoía, UNKNOWN, Re:Tired, and Last Minute Legends. I did try to ask all four groups before proceeding with this , but I had issues reaching Last Minute Legends, and while I wasn't sure if maybe I should just take that as a sign, ultimately I decided to just hope for the best.
But, Last Minute Legends, if it turns out you aren't happy with being included in this, then that's fine. I do have a back-up plan where you won't be directly featured. I can't completely scrub away the general traces of inspiration , but what I have done is essentially come up with a back-up set of characters. The same number and same name, and with some commonalities (for example, both versions of Helmvir are sword-wielding dudes with attitude problems, both versions of Kinjeet have a signature pose of looking over the shoulder) but essentially in the backup version they're not played by you, whereas here they are.
Which means at this stage, if I did need to use the backup, I would switch over the prologue, then continue the rest of this story's planning using the backup versions of the characters. I would also not include any other references to your R1 entry in future chapters, although I would retain them in Chapter 1 (as they are relatively minor/small, and scattered too). So, if you see this/if you can, please let me know if you are happy for me to proceed with you in this, or if you'd prefer me to switch to the backup version.
Anyway, thank you to Anemoía, UNKNOWN and Re:Tired for letting me feature you in this story. I hope you'll enjoy it. And actually, I hope anyone who reads this will enjoy it. I've popped a cast list at the bottom, so you all know who is who :)
You idiot: there is no one to blame for this mess but yourself. You chose this path as blithely as a musician picks a sheet of music, giving herself to the precise choreography of movement and sound plotted by a stranger long before. Let it play you to its ending, foolish harpist. Prepare the strings.
-from A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ní Ghríofa
…and in the end what have we done?
What have we become?
Let fall our final curtain call
And bowed out, let it all fall.
…and in the end what have we brought home?
Just scars on our skin
and memories
black like wings
-From Deity by Matt Wesolowski(taken specifically from lyrics to a fictional song by fictional artist Skexxixx)
[CHOOSE YOUR PLAYER]
[Dosiana]
[Kinjeet]
[Helmvir]
[Jaslasa]
[Leonag]
[Wandelir]
[Amarun]
[PLAYER CHOSEN. GAME LOADING…]
Dosiana flees in the dead of night, with nothing but the clothes on her back and the weapon in her hands. The moon is full, illuminating her, and yet she is unseen and unnoticed. She wants to weep, but she does not. She wants to turn back, but she does not. She wants to peel her skin away, stop being herself, stop remembering. But she does not.
She cannot.
Dosiana was a good girl, once. It was all she wanted to be, really. She had believed that if she were a good girl, if she was kind and sweet, if she remembered to honour the Old Gods, then she would be safe. Her life would go the way it was meant to, and she would be safe.
What a lie that was.
She had never been so arrogant as to demand favours from the Gods. She had not asked for fame or glory, or any particular special regard. But tonight…she had asked to be safe, that was all. She had asked, begged, pleaded. And all she'd received in return was a deafening silence.
And so, tonight she runs, with nothing but the clothes on her back and the weapon in her hands. It's far too heavy, this scythe. Its blade alone dwarfs her slight figure. There have been moments where she has viewed herself from above, laughed bitterly at the dissonance between the big brutal weapon and the small, tearstained girl she is. The once-good girl she was, with her curtain of silvery-brown hair that shimmers under the moon as she flees, with clothes that were once pretty and lilac but are now ripped and stained and only become more so with each panicked step.
And more than once, the thought flits through her mind that I should not be carrying this weapon. I should not have used this weapon. Good girls don't take up arms, especially not against other good, honourable people, especially not unprovoked. That's what they'll be saying, back in the place that is no longer home. Once they see what she has left behind, what she has done, that's what they will be saying. It is why she runs, now, to put as much distance between herself and that place before anyone thinks to hunt her down.
But even though the weapon is heavy, she does not feel the strain of it. Though it dwarfs her, it now feels like it belongs there, in her hands. She will not part with it, just as she will not turn back to the place that is no longer home. So perhaps, in a way, she is peeling off her skin. Perhaps, in a way, she is becoming someone who is not herself. Perhaps this weapon, and her easy handling of it, is a way of forgetting. After all, she'll never be a good girl again, will she? Not after this.
And perhaps she doesn't want to be one anymore, anyway.
[CHOOSE YOUR PLAYER]
[Dosiana]
[Kinjeet]
[Helmvir]
[Jaslasa]
[Leonag]
[Wandelir]
[Amarun]
[PLAYER CHOSEN. GAME LOADING…]
Kinjeet never hesitates.
Tonight is no different.
She cuts her way through the chaos, not caring that the slash of her blade causes more chaos. She only has her purpose in mind, that cold-burning drive for revenge first and foremost. Of course, she has no intention of being caught, but she wants the world to see. She has tried all the morally upstanding things and ended up nowhere, ended up invisible. There is no point in such handwringing, she thinks. Perhaps by the end of this, she will go up in flames, but it does not matter.
She is already burning anyway, after all. And she is Kinjeet. She is Kinjeet, and she never hesitates.
Yet, as she reaches the exit, she hears something whispering to her and she stops in her tracks. Her fox-ears prick up, and she looks over her shoulder. Her sword is still drawn, and she is ready to raise it if she needs to. But she stands there, and she strains to listen. It sounds a little like a song, though not one she recognises from campfires or taverns, from long caravan journeys or funerals. She cannot make the words out, either. But one thing comes through loud and clear, in a way beyond words:
GO ANOTHER WAY.
She has no sense of foresight, certainly not in the way of the fate-readers, let alone Wilachya or Alseo. Yet, the words she hears feel like a fortune being told, a snatch of the future unfurling itself in front of her. GO ANOTHER WAY. And when she tries to grab the words and scrutinise them more closely, she gets a sense of others. Others who might be of use in her purpose. But she does not want to admit what it means that something inside her leaps at the idea of walking this path with other people. She is Kinjeet, after all. She has given up on such things.
GO ANOTHER WAY. THERE ARE OTHERS WAITING.
She is Kinjeet. Kinjeet never hesitates, especially not when so clear a sign is presenting itself in front of her. So she turns around, slashing an attacker who had hoped to evade her fox-senses and cutting them in half. She doesn't wait for them to hit the ground before she moves on, does not break her stride until she breaks into a run, instead. She just keeps going.
[CHOOSE YOUR PLAYER]
[Dosiana]
[Kinjeet]
[Helmvir]
[Jaslasa]
[Leonag]
[Wandelir]
[Amarun]
[PLAYER CHOSEN. GAME LOADING…]
Helmvir is not particularly living up to his name, but then again, he never has. He's never wanted to, anyway. What's the use of heroics in real, everyday life, anyway? What's the use of being honourable and upstanding in a life where nobody does the same, where they all look out for themselves? Where the Old Gods only toy with people for entertainment? He should be doing the same, and that's exactly what he'd be doing if he didn't have people yakking in his ear about making something of himself all the time. It's enough to make him want a drink, and that's exactly why he's come to the tavern.
The doors are closed, but he doesn't care. He's perfectly aware that it will open soon enough. And if it doesn't? Well, he has his sword with him. He just has to wave it around, and he'll get to go in and sit at his usual seat at the bar. So he marches up to it, his white over-coat flapping in this breeze (something else that is also giving him grief, making him wish for control over the elements) and reaches out for the door handle-
-but then, his hand stops.
It is not him that is doing this. He wants to yank open that door and stomp in, stomp to his usual seat at the bar and snap at one of the bartenders for his usual order. Yet, he finds himself stopping right there, staring at the door like he's daft, blocked from moving forward by something he can only sense and yet cannot make any sense of. He growls, and tries to kick at the door, but even that simple expression of anger evades him, making the feeling bubble up in him impotently. Instead, he just has to clench his free fist and stare at the door in frustration.
But then, a thought comes to him: heroes leave, don't they? He looks over his shoulder at the rest of the dead-end town. The road on which he'd come was also the road which would lead him out of the town, too, if he walked far enough. And really, what was stopping him? It was not as if there was anything keeping him here. Only habit and obligation, both so stifling. Only people nagging at him, sneering at him, not just leaving him alone like he wished they would. It would be a relief to ditch them, ditch this place, even if he did have to start fending for himself. Not that it could be that hard, he thought. He wasn't stupid, even if everyone assumed it.
Heroes leave, don't they? All the tales of heroes seemed to start with, or at least involve, a hero leaving their small and ordinary hometown, a place too little to contain someone as heroic and amazing as they were. Helmvir was not a hero, not even slightly, but it was true he was too big for this place. And they all keep telling him to live up to his name, as if he'd chosen it. But heroes didn't choose their destinies either, did they? They just gave into them, just left.
So, I'll just call it destiny, he thinks. And for the first time in a long time, Helmvir smiles. Only slightly, for he is not one pre-disposed to beaming or grinning. Nonetheless, he smiles. And instead of kicking in that door, he turns away. He walks down that road, and keeps going.
[CHOOSE YOUR PLAYER]
[Dosiana]
[Kinjeet]
[Helmvir]
[Jaslasa]
[Leonag]
[Wandelir]
[Amarun]
[PLAYER CHOSEN. GAME LOADING…]
Jaslasa's ears are ringing.
They are ringing, and everything feels so loud and tangled. Yet she raises her staff a little higher for the benefit of the crowds that are depending on her, flashes a smile as she gazes down from the roof of the apartment block she is standing on. Through her uncovered eye, she can see their adulation, their desperation. They need her, still, and will need her especially once she is gone.
But she has to be gone. There is no two ways about it. She has come here tonight to make a statement. The crowds are here watching, supporting her, defying the orders of the soldiers and the lawmakers to make that statement themselves, to support it. So although her ears ring, although everything is tangled like steel wires, too loud, Jaslasa raises her staff again, and she sings. She sings, and she makes sure everything is in place for what comes next. She steps on a plinth placed in the middle of the rooftop space, so she is raised higher and more visible, and smiles beatifically as the crowds below go crazier than ever, as their yells rise up to her. Even as the soldiers and the lawmakers go in harder, pushing them away, her adoring followers strain to be as close to her as possible.
This day will be remembered, Jaslasa knows. This day will be remembered, and it will make her rivals shake in fear to do so, even as they try to clamp down harder. She is making her mark on the world, and so she should be glad to leave it. She should be.
But she isn't. And though they don't know it, she has no intention of actually leaving.
Jaslasa stops her song, and flicks the switch hidden on the plinth with her foot. She squints as the exploding light blinds her, and as it grows larger and envelops everything, she runs back. She watches for a moment as the light blooms into fire, as the smoke billows, as people scream.
Then, as the building begins to crumble beneath her feet, with her ears still ringing, she jumps.
[CHOOSE YOUR PLAYER]
[Dosiana]
[Kinjeet]
[Helmvir]
[Jaslasa]
[Leonag]
[Wandelir]
[Amarun]
[PLAYER CHOSEN. GAME LOADING…]
Leonag does not have a cause. It is a strange thing to know about oneself, especially when he has spent most of his life upholding a cause of sorts. Nonetheless, he does not have a cause of his own. All his life, he has only followed orders. How could he have had a cause?
Even here and now, as the raided building starts to crumble and go up in flames, he does not think he has a cause. He just raises his gun and uses it as a threat to keep people away, the exact way he has been instructed, all while looking for collaborators to apprehend. Most of his colleagues are covering the front and sides of the building fairly well, to say nothing of barricading the street itself, so he calls out that he is going to the back and does so.
He does not expect to see the main player herself fall off the side of the building as it burns.
No. She isn't falling, Leonag realises. She's flying down, slowly, gracefully. Unharmed, not even dirtied. All the people around them are screaming and crying and causing disorder because they think she has gone up in flames. He and his colleagues are ignoring that distress and simply bundling them away because they think she has crumbled to ash. But she's here instead.
And if this cause was Leonag's cause, perhaps he'd be angry about that. Perhaps he'd think, how dare you cause all this chaos, disrupt the order of things, just to walk away unharmed. If this cause was his cause, he'd call out and give chase, apprehend her. If he forced her to the front, and got her noticed, her followers would turn on her at the betrayal. Their cause would crumble. He'd become a hero, of sorts.
Truth be told, all he can wonder is: how is it that nobody else has noticed her? With those purple pigtails, her distinctive staff gripped tightly in her hand, that air of charisma that is somehow still there even without a true audience, how is it that she has remained invisible? How is it he's the only one who can see her, here and now? But it's not as if her cause is his one, either. He has no interest in their extreme declarations, and if he has to be honest with himself, the collapsing building does spark some anger. Just not the anger he's supposed to have.
Then again, he's not supposed to be here staring at her, is he?
Leonag grips his gun tighter, points it in her direction but without any intention of firing it. Not yet, anyway. He listens out for the first indicator that he may be ordered to back up some of his colleagues but does not make any particular move to actually check. He does return to trying to clear the scene, but neither does he try to apprehend any more collaborators. He just waits, and watches.
The girl lands on her feet. She dusts down her skirt and catches her breath, before adjusting her eye-patch. She looks into the distance for a moment, and does not wear the smug, charismatic smile that she had been wearing while inciting chaos from the rooftop. Instead, she stares at something he suspects that even she, technically, cannot see. Her skin looks pale and bloodless, her expression drained. Nonetheless, she grits her teeth before taking a step forward. But then, to his astonishment, she pauses.
Then, she turns and stares right at him.
[CHOOSE YOUR PLAYER]
[Dosiana]
[Kinjeet]
[Helmvir]
[Jaslasa]
[Leonag]
[Wandelir]
[Amarun]
[PLAYER CHOSEN. GAME LOADING…]
When Wandelir comes to the fork in the road, he stops to consider the two paths. There is nothing beyond them apart from dirt and grass as far as his eyes can see. There is not much but dirt and grass behind him, either. Not that he would turn back, anyway. He is not one to return to a place he has been to before, not unless there is a pressing need. And since no such need presses at him, he only considers the other two options. Left, or right?
This road is far too insignificant for it to turn up on his map, but he pulls it from the pack he wears on his back and unrolls it anyway. Holding it up to the moonlight, he frowns at it. He sees the town he came from, sees the towns and cities he is thinking about heading to next. But as he thought, this road is not there. So whether it is left, or whether it is right, it makes no difference to him. As long as it is not back he must go, instead.
Perhaps I shall ask the Old Gods, instead, he thinks. So, Wandelir bends down and shrugs off his large pack, and then pulls a cloth out of it. He inspects the ground until he finds the five smoothest pebbles and then polishes them as best as he can. These, he uses to hold the map down on the ground, before he hunts for the bottle of honeyed mead. After some thought, he decides to hedge his bets and finds his spiced mead, too. One for Talamante the Honey-tongued, one for Alseo the Traveller. Though he is sure the other three Gods would happily partake of either mead as well, it is these two he will appeal to, this time. However, when he carefully spills each portion of mead across the map, connecting each stone, it is in the shape of Alseo's jewel, the round-cut, that he spills it. Then again, it is Alseo who would hear him first, whoever he chose.
Next, he rolls his sleeves up for the sacrifice, but then stops. He looks down at the scars that mar his arm, and again changes his mind. Best to save such a weighty sacrifice for a weightier decision. Instead, he yanks out a few strands of his dark green hair, and places them down under one of the stones. Then, he goes to his pack one more time, this time for flint and steel, which he holds over the mead-soaked map and stones and rubbed together.
When a spark drops onto the map, he yanks his bag away and stood up, waiting. It does not take very long for the map to catch fire, and for that fire to turn green and blue, the colours winking in and out as the flames danced. The map beneath the fire curls up and blackens into ashes, which start to float up, guided by sparks from the fire. Wandelir holds his breath as they move through the air, gleaming like fireflies. At first, they seem as aimless as he is, but then they start to come together in a line, not quite pointing in one direction but slowly going there. More sparks and ashes rise, and they, too, push in that one direction…
…until all of a sudden, they do not.
Wandelir does not know why, or how. There is no sudden breeze to explain it, the fire itself is starting to die down. But just as the ashes and sparks seem committed to one path, they abruptly move over to the other, and slowly drop there, illuminating it for a moment before finally, finally dying out alongside the last of the fire. Wandelir stares for a moment, unable to make sense of it. But then, he tells himself, it does not matter if I cannot make sense of it. This is what Alseo and Talamante have decided.
And so, he shakes off the last of his confusion, buries the last remnants of his map and throws the stones far away after wiping off any remaining drops of mead. He gathers his things and stuffs them back into his pack, hefts that pack up onto his back and adjusts the straps of it.
And then, he makes his way down the path that heads to the right.
[CHOOSE YOUR PLAYER]
[Dosiana]
[Kinjeet]
[Helmvir]
[Jaslasa]
[Leonag]
[Wandelir]
[Amarun]
[PLAYER CHOSEN. GAME LOADING…]
Amarun knows more than she will ever tell. It is this she holds onto now she is cast out, in ways both literal and not. It is why, instead of seeking shelter, she looks to the pages of her book. It is not the words printed on the page that she is trying to glean knowledge from, but the shimmering beneath. She studies it carefully, this shimmering that only she can see, again smarting with the shame of being condemned for her desire to see more, to see it brighter.
Her only consolation is that her ideas were so shameful, the ones who cast her out for them would not use them themselves. They would not share them. She can tuck this knowledge away along with her other secrets, this one shining brighter than all the other secrets that she holds. And perhaps one day, if she is lucky enough to meet The One Who Hungers then maybe….just maybe…she can become them.
Until then, she must find somewhere else to go, someone else to be. And so Amarun looks to the pages of her book the way she always has. Flips one page, and then the others, images and statements coming to her in the shimmering, all of them threading together until she has a clearer picture in her head.
But despite the clarity, she still does not understand. What does it mean, that she has done this before? What does it mean, that the cycle is breaking? What are these memories of her leading a life outside the library she'd lived in all her life, of smoke and fire and blood and swords and people, people who she has never met yet somehow, she knows almost as well as any secret she keeps…
A final answer: wait here. They will come.
And Amarun tears her eyes away from the shimmering, from their secrets, and looks right up into the mist. She should be afraid, she thinks, and perhaps a part of her is, indeed, afraid. But she can see something in the mist, heading towards her. Six figures. Of course, she cannot see their forms, their hair colour, their faces. But somehow, she knows, it's them.
And so she closes her book, hugs it close to her chest and rises. She does not call out. She does not wave. She just lets the mist wrap around her, and she waits for them to meet her. Because they will. After all, isn't that what the book told her?
Wait here. They will come. You have done this before. The cycle is breaking, now.
And you should make it shatter.
[CHOOSE YOUR PLAYER]
[…]
[…]
[…]
And as the world begins to spiral, somewhere far away, the Old Gods laugh.
Cast List
Last Minute Legends
This is like the vaguest cast list in the world I am so sorry. I tried to make my best guesses but ended up stumped.
Dosiana (CV: Chiisa?)
Kinjeet (CV: Yayari, I think? The one with the fox ears looking over her shoulder)
Helmvir (CV: Will Stetson)
Jaslasa (CV: rachie)
Leonag (CV:…the one whose design in the entry has a red shirt and like, holding the huge gun thing. Tuonto I think but am definitely not sure of)
Wandelir (CV:…green haired, backpack. I want to say Shoohey but am not confident enough to be sure of this, either)
Amarun (CV: Cillia. At least, I'm assuming Cillia's the one with the big book)
Re:Tired
Alseo (CV: ZEN)
Wilachya (CV: negi)
Sinhira (CV: Aika)
Alanoa (CV: イズ)
Talamante (CV: Nayuji)
With Akito and Calcium as the funny little familiars/mascots/companions, and other members' real aliases used as the character's stage names (as part of their current disguise as idols)
Anemoía
Reverie "Evie" Johansen (CV: Reverie)
Adrielle Connors (CV: lyka)
Sylvie Anne Thomson (CV: SilverCS)
Bonnie-Rae Matthews (CV: Lu)
Alaia Carlin (CV: Yuuni)
Nell Gentry-Khan (CV: Agekk)
Jodi Ellen Spencer (CV: Esiane)
Karolin Vanhanen (CV: Kars Kuma)
Parisa Mistry (CV: Pomme)
Olivia Chen (CV: Raituna)
Maxine Hannah Blake (CV: Hanzh)
Chantelle Rivers (CV: Acchan)
UNKNOWN
Francesca "Ces" Hariharan-Grace (CV: Camellia)
Niamh Connors (CV: Limonletta)
Hae-won Sang (CV: Enigma)
Lowen Reece (CV: Kai✮)
With the members' real aliases used as the characters' gaming handles.