☆TRACK III: THE STREETS ARE EMPTY

[interdimanagers]

Who: Drafted Virgo Members
What: Juno makes everyone do a seance.
When: October 21st-22nd.
Where: The basement of the Virgo residential tower.
Warnings: Ghosts, apparently.

“You can't shake the feeling. Be quiet not one sound. But the wind seems to speak, Something's here in the room with me.” ☆THE STREETS ARE EMPTY Juno arrives without notice. In fact, you can’t even really remember seeing her approach. One moment you’re doing your business, and the next she is telling you that you have to come down to the basement with her, in order to complete a “task” you’ve been assigned. This sort of thing would seem preposterous to a normal person, but even if you don’t realize it, you aren’t one. As Mr Blanche’s personal assistant and sometimes second in command, her word seems to carry almost as much weight as his does. You don’t really have any choice but to agree. “Bring whatever instrument you know best,” she says. “You’ll need it.” She snaps up every one of you that she sees in her initial sweep, and soon she has a whole pack of Virgo newbies following her down to the lowest floors of the residential tower. It feels weird, but it’s like you can’t quite articulate why. No one else seems to be able to either. Most of the lights are turned off on those lower floors, but it’s easy to tell it’s a place you’ve never been before. It’s strangely...hospital like, down there, in both aesthetic and a sense of sterility. Maybe some kind of laboratory setting? Which seems like a super weird thing to be in the basement of an apartment building, but this is yet another thing you can’t quite bring yourself to ask about. Juno leave most of the lights off, except for a few central features. The ambience is dim and cold. She tells you not to stray, and you don’t. The thought of going against her becomes somehow repulsive, like you don’t even want to think about it too long. You try not to think about your surrounding too hard, either. She lines you all up, and then after some strangely intense eyeballing, she starts breaking you up into some incredibly lopsided groups that seem to have nothing to do with your actual bands. In the end, she looks disappointed with resulting teams, but carries on regardless. Each “group” is given some complexly timed sheet music and a funny looking mobile speaker. She says that you have a half hour to compose a group piece to play alongside the sheet music , and that it needs to be good. Then, she wanders off to start pacing the basement in a strangely arcane series of movements, and leaves you all to it. Only among your peers do you start feeling like you can voice any of your previously stowed concerns, but make sure Juno doesn’t overhear you – occasionally she’ll come by to bluntly critique anyone who is performing inadequately. You feel lucky that she doesn’t have a whip with her, because you’re almost certain that she’d use it without much remorse. ☆THE SEANCE The performance is about as awkward as you’d expect, given the set up. The four groups are set up so that they’re facing each other, as if standing at the corner of a square. Each speaker is set up in the center of its group, and the precisely timed electronic beat that plays from them is what you’re supposed to perform along to. Odds are that you do your level best, but, outside of your control...something goes wrong. “Have you ever felt... Something evil, Lurking around? The moon is full, The streets are empty. Shadows cover the town.”

Comments

[giglio_madonna]

"You said you were going to protect them!" Luce doesn't know why this is bothering her so much. Perhaps it's the unsettling disconnect- of love without duty, without staying. It's thrown her into a bit of disarray.

"Doesn't that matter?"

[nibelungvalesti]

She had said that, hadn't she. Her own words turned against her, and instead of meeting casual agreement they rang sharp and hollow in the empty hole within her.

What had happened, anyway?

"I... don't know," she said, at last.

[giglio_madonna]

And that's the most un-reassuring way that statement can be said.

Luce wraps her arms around herself, worry naked across her face. This isn't right. Yet, at the same time, she can't collect herself to figure out what they need to do.

"This... This happened because of the music, right?"

[nibelungvalesti]

"Music has powers over the soul and all, but this isn't what that means." The conclusion was ridiculous. Very understandable, but it flew in the face of all logic.

[giglio_madonna]

"Then what's another explanation?" Crossing her arms, Luce digs her fingers into her arms. "Everything... Everything was fine before we came down here, wasn't it?"

[nibelungvalesti]

"Perhaps there is something about this part of the building. Some chemical or the like." That made far more sense than having a song be responsible, didn't it?

[giglio_madonna]

"Then why bring us down here in the first place?" Contrary to helping, that's just turning her emotions a different way. "I knew they were garbage."

She didn't, actually, until this event.

[nibelungvalesti]

"I do not have these answers!" The note of sharp anger in Meril's tone said more about her frustration and growing alarm than it did about any anger she might have for Luce herself.

[giglio_madonna]

"And you're not even trying to look!" Luce shoots back, a temper that's never appeared before surfacing like a shark. Her shoulders jerk back as she speaks, quivering and frustrated.

[nibelungvalesti]

"I have no idea where to even begin! Shall I rip the walls down? Shall I cut through those who stand before me?" What an odd thing to say, that came out in the heat of the moment without real conscious intent behind it.

[giglio_madonna]

"Well why not!" Her fists are jerked downwards, to tremble at her sides. The words should be stranger than they feel in the moment. "Krieg certainly seems to be on that track!"

[nibelungvalesti]

Meril huffed, a completely inappropriate noise for the circumstances. "The day Krieg is a model for anyone's behavior..."

[giglio_madonna]

That comment seems to calm down some of what's gotten Luce all riled up. "He's trying something, at least..."

[nibelungvalesti]

"Krieg often tries many things, and this is to his credit... sometimes. But his methods leave much to be desired." And they certainly weren't methods Meril could emulate readily, even in her right mind.

[giglio_madonna]

"Then you could help focus him or get him to try new things, couldn't you?" Luce rubs her arms. "Something...."

[nibelungvalesti]

"'Sobriety' was a hard enough push for him. 'Sanity' would be triply more so." Meril hadn't lost so much of herself that she couldn't be wry about it.

[giglio_madonna]

A laugh bubbles out of her at that, so unexpected that Luce looks surprised at its existence. "Ha... You sound more like you then..."

[nibelungvalesti]

"I am still me," Meril groused. "How could I not be me? This is just -- just different..."

The explanation sounded weak and feeble even to her, and she let it trail off without trying to salvage it.

"Perhaps I should go look."

[giglio_madonna]

With a weak smile of her own, Luce reaches over to lightly press her hands against Meril's shoulder.

"And I'll... I'll try to find my band again. I won't leave." Maybe finding them again will make it obvious what's wrong with her. With anyone. "I.. Take care, Meril."

[nibelungvalesti]

Meril looked at Luce's arm as if it was an alien thing, before slowly lifting her own hand up. Just the tips of her fingers to Luce's skin.

"Thank you." For more than just the sentiment, of course.

[giglio_madonna]

"It's nothing." Another fragile smile before Luce turns away. She has to find some of the others, now.

It's the only path to go on at this point.