[During the Fourth Wall]

[itsananimalthing]

So I guess most of you went to Italy or somethin'. The rest of us went to Plathville, on Belljar island. Guessin' some of you will remember that place. I did. For anybody who don't remember it, basically an island with little city where you showed up from some other world and got stuck there forever. Big-ass forcefield kept everybody in, even underwater, and supplies got ported in from somewhere. We showed up, grumped around and made people angry cuz we were stuck differently from their kind of stuck, then disappeared again without actually solving the mystery, or whatever we were supposed to do there.

It's changed a lot since then. It was pretty much abandoned not long after we all vanished-- and we did actually vanish, even the ones who didn't show up in liminal again after, from the sound of it. There were riots and shit, they burned the Hotel California out, and everybody wound up getting evacuated.

Whole place looked like some kinda surveillance state shit. Cameras everywhere, dimensional portal in the basement of the hospital controlled remotely, underground bunkers with office desks and training grounds, the works. Not sure if the evacuation was an end to the experiment or whatever it was, but might've been.

Anything else I missed that the rest of us should know? I got out of contact with a lot of the kids exploring around the island, but I heard back from some of you.

Comments

[amadine]

Raidou and I came across another subterranean structure, on the manmade island near the barrier. A staging area for their guard detail, I'd wager - there were weapons and armour, and robots that resembled some of the less sentient equipment from Gehenna, along with sensor stations.

[capital_asset]

Adding to what Sabetha said, the older rabbits on the island mentioned that they used to hear strange noises that frightened them away, but the noises stopped at least a few years ago - their sense of time is different enough that it's difficult to pinpoint exactly, but I'd guess that the noises stopping coincided with the evacuation of the remaining population.

The entrance to the bunker was hidden under a boulder, although if they truly wanted to keep it hidden, they probably shouldn't have shaped the island itself to look like a star. Then again, they may not have expected people to be able to spot it from the air.

[amadine]

Or it was well enough defended when it wasn't empty that they had no real concerns about anyone spotting it. Assaulting a guard post is a fool's errand at the best of times; unarmed and hampered by the difficulty of the crossing, it would have been suicide.

[capital_asset]

True... they did have all that weaponry stored there. And the shape of the thing isn't really the important part, anyway.

I'm wondering if it wasn't someone's idea of humor somehow.

[amadine]

Which part?

[runawaystory]

...Nice to know what happened, I guess.

[as long as evacuation isn't a euphemism for something else]

[claudiometer]

Hotel California? Seriously? [No really seriously.]

I think I'm glad I missed out.

[pseudologist]

...Well, shit. Any luck figuring out what was going on this time?

[pseudologist]

What, you mean you don't want to visit a giant prison with a bunch of creepy references in its naming scheme?

[Okay, he might have brought a little more than magic back from teaching in teenaged sparkle hell. Don't judge.]

[claudiometer]

Already done my time in the bell jar, thanks. And dealt with Sylvia Plath's soul-sucking typewriter.

[pseudologist]

It says something about the kind of weird shit we've all been through that I'm not actually sure whether you're being figurative or literal.

[claudiometer]

The part about the soul-sucking typewriter's entirely literal, but that was also at home.

[pseudologist]

Then you have my sympathies. Demonic shit is always a pain in the ass.

[claudiometer]

Not exactly demonic, just... owned by one of the last people you'd want to leave that kind of impression behind.

[She doesn't say that without sympathy; Sylvia Plath didn't have an easy time of things. It's just that her soul-sucking depression is what she was best known for, and it left an Artifacty mark that nearly killed Pete.]

[pseudologist]

...Huh.

So, does everyone in your world imbue important possessions with some part of themselves, or does it take a specific set of circumstances?

[claudiometer]

I think the latter, but it's way more likely to happen with famous people for some reason. Probably just a perfect storm of everything. Most Artifacts are of the 'it's all fun and games until someone dies horribly' variety, but the typewriter skips directly to 'someone dies horribly.' It's in secure lockdown for a reason - all Pete did was stand next to the thing and it got its hooks in him.

[pseudologist]

Did you manage to get him free?

[There's a trace of concern there. Never mind that he's never met the man and has barely met Claudia, death by evil artifact (or Artifact) isn't a fate he'd wish on anyone.]

[claudiometer]

Yeah, we did. He survived to touch everything in museums another day.

[pseudologist]

Let me guess: an even worse idea in your world than it is in most places.

We should trade notes on weird shit some day. It sounds like there might be a few common points.

[claudiometer]

He wound up hallucinating that one of our supervisors was out to kill us all. Pete's kind of an idiot sometimes - when he's good, he's good, it's the rest of the time you have to watch out for.

Sounds like a plan. I'm all for being prepared in the event of unexpected overlap.

[pseudologist]

Well, that just sounds horrible.

And I'll drink to that.

[claudiometer]

Really, it was worse on him than the rest of us. [Once they established he wasn't drinking again, anyway. Either way, you'd think the lesson would eventually sink in, but no - she's still half expecting him to get Artifactily screwed thanks to his cookie-munching habit one of these days.]

[pseudologist]

It usually is. It's easier to forgive something done under the influence of weird magic shit than to forget it.

[canbebrave]

I suppose out of all of that, we can be glad none of ours were trapped there, after the few of us that left did.

[claudiometer]

No kidding.

Anyway, note trading should definitely be a thing sometime.