[text]

[fracturedsoul]

So I guess we know now what happens when you sacrifice three corpses to the tower.

Everyone might just want to stay out of the tower in the arena until this is cleared up. If you go in, you wind up in a mirror boss fight with a shadow version of yourself.

If you leave and go back in, it keeps happening. I wound up fighting mine four times just to make sure. But on the plus side, if you beat it there's a chance it'll drop a memory charm. I got three of them, all from, like, alternate universe mes. I don't know if that's universal or not. Anyone else have data they'd like to submit?

[ Filtered to Jake English ]

Something I need to run by you, bro.


((OOC: After consulting with the mods: A memory charm definitely drops after the first fight; on each subsequent fight, there's a 50% chance of a charm dropping.))

Comments

text --> action?

[goodboybestshot]

Of course!!
Im not about to let a cheap imitation get the better of THIS english!

[Filter]

Certainly.
Be there in a tick!

[Casually opens the door to their room. What's all this about, he wonders.]

action!!

[fracturedsoul]

[ Dirk looks up from where he's sitting at his desk, and casually tosses a memory charm over to Jake. It contains the conversation from this page, shown from the Dirk splinter's perspective. ]

You got any clue what this is all about?

Re: action!!

[goodboybestshot]

[Jake snatches it up with relative ease and clips it on.]

[The reaction is neigh instantaneous. He goes from curious and concerned, to confused, realization, and then complete and utter abject horror. His face is bright red and he snaps the charm off his wrist like it was diseased.]

That!! Ha, that, that's nothing! Nothing at all! So let's just, forget that ever happened!!

[Moves to open the window. He's gonna chuck it.]

[fracturedsoul]

Oh no you don't. [ He's up and moving, going to intercept Jake and grab the charm back. ] I expended quite a bit of effort to get this little piece of bling.

So you recognize this memory. Don't you?

[goodboybestshot]

[No, it must be destroyed. It's evil!! No, its really just his dignity. God he is so embarrassed right now. That wasn't something he really ever wanted Dirk to be privy too, augh.]

And I am terribly sorry to say that you were cheated of a proper prize- now let me do away with this wretched thing!

[AUGGH. Sigh. He probably gives up after a while because Dirk could still take him if he wanted to fight for the thing. He'll chuck it later when Dirk's guard is down.]

...I do, unfortunately. Not one of my finer moments.

[fracturedsoul]

[ Once he has it back, it goes back onto his wrist. He remembers it again, and doesn't bother stifling the snicker that comes out. ]

I don't get what's going on here, though. I mean, you taking my boner magic like a man I get. But why is there a Dirk in your brain?

[goodboybestshot]

[When he does that he just- Gets flustered all over again and hurls one of his pillows at him]

It's-- Something I don't completely understand myself. You- That Dirk- is actually a manifestation of my own subconscious as well as a perfect replication of my perception of you. Or-- some kind of convoluted hoo-ha like that.

It has something to do with my title as the page of hope. Don't ask my what or how, because just like the real you, brain ghost you was cagey as fuck.

[fracturedsoul]

[ He catches the pillow and holds it. ]

Interesting. From the brief snippet of conversation, he didn't seem any different from how I usually am. Maybe I should go try for more memories from that replica and see if they'd provide answers.

[ And he hurls the pillow back. ]

[goodboybestshot]

I suppose that speaks volumes for us both.

[Vague hand gesture.]

Pages are supposed to have a fat lot of untapped potential. According to brain-ghost Dirk, anyway. Creating that splinter of you was apparently in my realm of mysterious power.

That and yours is supposedly something to do with "walking the path of self" or some shit.

[fracturedsoul]

Yeah, that's apparently what heart powers are all about. It's the reason I've got that abstracted thought stuff going on with my waking self and my dreamself.

...I don't remember where I heard that, though.

So if that's what pages do as a class, what about hope as an aspect?

[goodboybestshot]

[Shrugs.] Not a single idea.

All I know is that apparently pairing up page with hope is business of the serious sort.

[fracturedsoul]

Huh. [ He rests his hand on his chin contemplatively. ]

It'd sure be fucking nice to have a walkthrough for Sburb. Someone in one of the myriad universes out there has got to have written one.

[goodboybestshot]

Of course not, that would be far too easy, you know.

[But he will fiddle with a memory charm of his own before tossing it over to Dirk.]

[fracturedsoul]

[ He catches the charm and clips it onto his bracelet without a word. And is silent as he processes it. ]

What the fuck, Jake.

[goodboybestshot]

[He shrugs.]

Your guess is as good as mine.

[fracturedsoul]

[ He reaches over his shoulder to rub at his shoulderblades where he can now "remember" wings growing in painfully. ]

You were trying not to let on to me that it was happening. Which means I... what, lived with you in this freaky-ass alternate wing-people universe?

[ He detaches the charm and tosses it back to Jake. ]

[goodboybestshot]

[Takes it, hesitates before he slides it into his pocket.]

Maybe. I was terribly concerned with you finding me like that- Though I think it had to do with the wings themselves, too.

It's not much to go off of but I have to say I'm seriously curious about this one.

[fracturedsoul]

Maybe you can get another one from that version of you if you go back in? I don't know, though, since all three of mine so far have been from different versions of me. There could be an infinite number of possibilities.

[goodboybestshot]

[!!] You have more? Can I see them?

[fracturedsoul]

Sure, two more. Might as well, as long as you let me take a look at whichever ones you get in the future.

[ He takes the two remaining charms off and hands them over.

One is a very short, mostly insubstantial memory, of an eleven-year-old Dirk sitting on a stool in front of a watching crowd as the hat on his head calls out the name Slytherin.

The other is a bit longer; Dirk is walking down a sidewalk when a car veers around a corner and shots ring out. He barely manages to duck out of the way and survive the assassination attempt. The other thing that's strange about this memory? His surname is Crocker. ]

[goodboybestshot]

[Wow. And you know, something about that first one feels familiar. Like he knows that scene from one of his movies or something but he can't quite put his finger on it.]

[That second though, has his eyebrows jutting up in surprise.]

Good grief, that last one.

[fracturedsoul]

I know, right? [ He holds his hands out for the charms again; even though he can't remember the contents per se with them off, he wrote down the basics of them and memorized what he'd written so that he'd still know the basics. ] I'm really curious about that one. Both of 'em, really, though I can't tell if the first one is for real or just LARPing or some shit.

[goodboybestshot]

The first one feel frightfully familiar. Like I've seen it in a movie or something. [He's seen so many damn movies.]

[fracturedsoul]

That's strange. [ Dirk is just not going to elaborate, because there's already at least one fictional character here and if people from Harry Potter wind up in Rakuen somehow he feels it will be catastrophic if Jake realizes they're from one of his movies. ]

I'm going back in once I've rested up a bit. You game for another shadow brawl?

[goodboybestshot]

... [And then he grins.]

Have I ever turned down an opportunity to scrum with another?

[He's wearing it like a champ, but he does have a busted lip and a few nasty bruises from the last encounter.]