interstellar5555 | ☆TRACK VII: IN REACHING OUT PT. 1

Who: Everyone in Pride and Virgo HQ.
What: Ghosts need your help.
When: The evening of January 30th, 2055
Where: Pride and Virgo HQ.
Warnings: Phantasmal violence, possibly some real violence.

“Hold your colours against the wall,
When they take everything away,
Hold your colours against the wall,
With me (soaking through)”

☆IN REACHING OUT

Starting around the 20th of January, the heavy lockdown and supervision of the musicians of both labels will begin to fade. While they still require escorts to be out and about, the guards that have been routinely stalking them around their own homes and HQs will be gradually phased out, until it is just the regular managers and security remaining. Sweet deal, right? Over a month after the hysteria of the ill-fated solstice party, things seem to be finally letting up a little. Whether because you've played nice for long enough, or whether their attentions are being directed elsewhere, it isn't clear.

Either way, this is the also the start of some increasingly familiar paranormal activity. All the way back to the first tour of this generation of musicians, members of both Pride and Virgo have found themselves haunted by strange and inexplicable happenings. Starting on the 23rd, these happenings begin to flare up again - lights switching on and off, TVs starting on their own, and even things falling off of shelves unprovoked. (These minor happenings can be made up by you and don't need to be mod designated - however, they should not be anything that would be threatening or dangerous to the characters.) For some people this will be completely new, and for others it may even be faintly nostalgic.

This will continue until the night of the 30th, when things finally seem to come into swing. The hauntings will become more pointed and explicit. The details are specific to each HQ, and there and you can make yourself open to an NPC haunting down below.

☆PRIDE RECORDS

About halfway through the evening on the 30th, Predator will begin prowling the halls of Pride HQ. At first it won't be clear for what, but after catching a few snippets of conversation (this can be handwaved) characters will have a change to realize that they are looking for the ghosts that have been causing a fuss recently. How crazy this will sound to you will probably depend on how new you are. They will actively shake down random musicians they meet for information about what they've seen the last couple days. As usual, Jenny is leading the pack, with Cass and Donny (nsfw) providing back up muscle.

Provided you lie well or tell them the truth, they will move along fairly quickly. If you start shit with them, they will probably rough you up a little. Any major confrontations with them will be handled on the companion OOC post, and a few top levels may appear over here that can be tagged into in limited amounts.

Beyond those activities, Pride members will feel various effects based on their EMOTIONAL ALIGNMENTS:

► ALL: Their connection and desire to create music will be especially heightened. They will find themselves subconsciously beginning to tap out rhythms, hum, peck at instruments, or straight up sing things even when it would otherwise be totally inappropriate. Strong emotions will cause them to want to sing and play to each other. They may also feel very strongly that they want to dance, to a particularly addictive beat that seems to emanate from the air. It may shift and change as the night goes on, but at any given moment everyone will hear the same rhythm. It sounds like particularly great percussion.

► LOVE & DUTY: They will have no extra special effects, but they will feel this urge to create music even more strongly than the rest, as it seems to be focused on them as they are not being directly targeted by any other sensations. When Hope and Passion musicians hear music made by these characters, they will feel stronger, like energy is being gifted to them.

► HOPE: Characters of this alignment will feel increasingly like they are being drawn somewhere, or like someone is calling for them, but they can't quite make out the direction it's coming from. The aspect of hope will be empowered within them, and they will find themselves unusually trusting towards the other characters, as if they only have the most optimistic outcomes in mind. Beyond this, they may feel dazed or confused by the sensations they are feeling. They may also experience strange visions, or the sensation of being another person they are not (and not just their true self this time, someone else completely).

► PASSION: Characters of passion will be targeted by the 'hauntings' much more directly than the others. More than random acts, the hauntings around them seem like someone is actively trying to communicate with them. Sometimes it will even feel like someone is trying to speak in their heads, though they won't quite be able to make it out. Passion characters who request haunting instances will get the most major effects.

☆VIRGO ENTERTAINMENT

Soon after things start to get extra weird on the 30th, Juno and a couple Virgo veterans (Anansi and a man you recognize as a popular folk artist named Brett Hogan) will start wandering the halls. They will pull individuals aside for questioning in private rooms, asking about the strange occurrences. They will not attempt to rough anyone up, but excessively resistance or attempts at violence towards them may result in characters being locked in their rooms for the rest of the night.

All three of them seem particularly hard to lie to for some reason, tonight. It's possible, but while you make the effort to do so, the words seem to be on the verge of falling out of your mouth. Juno seems to have something very particular in mind as she searches the HQ, like she can see something you can't. There will also be top levels for these guys appearing.

Beyond those activities, Pride members will feel various effects based on their EMOTIONAL ALIGNMENTS:

► ALL: Their connection and desire to create music will be especially heightened. They will find themselves subconsciously beginning to tap out rhythms, hum, peck at instruments, or straight up sing things even when it would otherwise be totally inappropriate. Strong emotions will cause them to want to sing and play to each other. They may also feel very strongly that they want to dance, to a particularly addictive tune that seems to emanate from the air. It may shift and change as the night goes on, but at any given moment everyone will hear the same song. It sounds like someone riffing expertly on a guitar.

► HOPE & PASSION: They will have no extra special effects, but they will feel this urge to create music even more strongly than the rest, as it seems to be focused on them as they are not being directly targeted by any other sensations. When Love and Duty musicians hear music made by these characters, they will feel stronger, like energy is being gifted to them.

► LOVE: Characters of this alignment will feel increasingly like they are being drawn somewhere, or like someone is calling for them, but they can't quite make out the direction it's coming from. The aspect of love will be empowered within them, and they will find themselves unusually loving, connected, and emotionally open to others, even if this would usually be out of character. (This can also mean they are more inclined to get physically intimate, if you want to.) Beyond this, they may feel dazed or confused by the sensations they are feeling. They may also experience strange visions, or the sensation of being another person they are not (and not just their true self this time, someone else completely).

► DUTY: Characters of duty will be targeted by the 'hauntings' much more directly than the others. More than random acts, the hauntings around them seem like someone is actively trying to communicate with them. Sometimes it will even feel like someone is trying to speak in their heads, though they won't quite be able to make it out. Duty characters who request haunting instances will get the most major effects.

☆PLOT NOTE

This will be a two part event, and the second part will be posted in a few days and will only include those that choose to help the spirits. This can be discussed OOC. Any alignment can assist, though the Passions from Pride and the Duties from Virgo will be the most directly pursued because they will be the easiest for the spirits to communicate with. Realize that participating is serious business, though: there are good odds the characters will be caught eventually, and there will be consequences. Do not volunteer your characters for this plot if you don't want them to suffer potential physical or mental trauma.

“Fading gently, soaking through,
And starting not to show at all.
In reaching out and into you, 
nothing else could touch me.”

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[The smile on her face shifts into a puzzled frown as the music comes to a stop, and oh no... She recognizes the way he starts to drift into his own world. It's become so distressingly common in these last few months.]

[Luce wastes no time. Instead, she starts to make her way over to him, her voice soft.]

Ankh?

Over 800 years...

[The memory was gone save for the tiny pieces, just like before. Like the man who he could see from behind, talking about how it doesn't matter who they were, people still deserved to be saved. Like the armored form of the King and the way he held a Core up before snapping it.]

Am I human?

[At the sound of his name, Ankh's head jerked up and he he looked at Luce, his eyes still not fully seeing the world around him. Something was wrong and it didn't help that he could feel the ghost's desire.]

They want to help and protect us.

[A few months, Luce would have wondered what he meant by a question like that. At this point, however, with everything she's been told and experienced...]

I don't know. [She lays a hand on his arm.] ...But I do know that about the people you're talking about.

Have you heard him, too?

[The ghost who possessed her.]

[His right arm twitched and something really didn't like the idea of getting touched. But this was Luce and he trusted her and he had to breathe slowly through his mouth before his heartbeat slowed down again.]

No. I haven't heard them.

[He tilted his head and it looked almost painful the way he did it, as if he had gotten another extra joint in his neck.]

I can sense their desires.

['Sense their desires'... Luce swallows, pulling her hand away. Even a small gesture like his twitch hadn't gone unnoticed. She just keeps forgetting herself...]

Have you told anyone that you can do that?

[She really hopes he hasn't.]

[It wasn't her, but it wasn't normal for him too. Things were just getting weird and one of them was his arm.]

Kise knows. I got very mad at him and told him to stop thinking about sex because it was really screwing up my timing. I traded stories with Luci too.

[Two people, one of them a bandmate... That's not too bad, is it? And Luci is reliable.]

...Be careful. I don't think Virgo wants you to be able to do that.

There's a lot of things going on with me that I doubt they want me to be able to do.

[He rubbed his thumb over his Cores, feeling them pulse like they were almost alive. Somehow he knew they were alive, almost like he knew German and could talk in reasonable Japanese.]

I think we all have things that they do not want us to have.

...The visions.

[Her voice is very very quiet as she broaches the subject. Talking about it so plainly without Doctor as a middleman puts her on edge.]

Do you have an idea of what they are?

Are they really visions?

[His voice was equally quiet as he glanced down at his hand, the fingers curling a little.]

Someone said that we should trust our guts.

[Ankh is sharp. Good. That means she can say what's next and pretend it counts as only a little nudging towards the inevitable.]

I've heard they're memories.

[He would never consider himself smart, but he was cunning. He had to be cunning in order to try to...

The memory slipping and he looked at her, goosebumps rising on his skin.]

If they are, then they can't be from the same place and time.

There's a lot of questions to be sure... I can't explain something like that. Not yet.

But... I think we can find out. Somehow. And I think we'll be much better off that way than letting Blanche jerk us around.

I think that they have to be from different places. [He thought again about the king and the need to let the desires free and how he couldn't. Not yet. He needed more.]

I agree with that. I think that whatever he wants from us... it will turn out badly for us.

He knew that a woman would die doing something for him and did nothing.

It will absolutely turn out badly for us even if we try to delude ourselves into thinking otherwise.

We're the pawns.

[A sharp feeling of deja vu, the idea of being nothing more then someone's tool in a fight, Ankh's hand curled and he pressed his fingers against the Core again.]

What would a king want to do to protect the pawns around him?

Not very much, if Solstice was any indication.

[He had to know what would happen. Everyone had to know what would happen, including Naomi.]

As long as we're all scattered instead of united, as long as he still has people he can use himself...

☆TRACK VII: IN REACHING OUT PT. 1

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