idolpro | Eclipse's Heart Game ☉ Session #2

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!heart games

Eclipse's Heart Game ☉ Session #2

You drift like you're floating in water. It's almost relaxing, actually. As long as you don't think too hard that what you're floating in may be bottomless, because under you lies only a deep darkness that only the ocean can provide.

Then something grabs you and drags you deeper, down, down, down into the abyssal depths. You can't breathe, but that's not on the forefront of your mind now, is it?

There is a mounting sense of anxiety and dread.

Who do you want to become? Will you even get to see tomorrow? What if all roads lead to ████████? Can you still stay '███'? If people see the ████ you, will they think less of you? Will they feel cheated?

You want to live. Even if it's a ███, even if your hands must be covered in █████, you want to live. You want to be '███'.

Finally, a voice pierces through the darkness. It a woman's voice.

"My, how unfortunate. Your journey ends before it even begins."

"... Just kidding. That would be terribly boring! I suppose I can do the boy a favour just this once."

You feel someone grab your arm and pull you up to the surface.

...

When you come to, you are standing somewhere else.

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"You're a guest and his friend, dear. I wouldn't have minded."

Mm... still. What is this place?

[apparently everyone knows him but he doesn't know much of anyone]

That moment when all the NPCs are, in a sense, also Eclipse, and thus know everything he does.

"This is where all of my boy's 'bonds' are. Everyone he cherishes has a place here."

[very true... it's his mind, after all]

Oh. Are you his family?

"Oh, it'd probably be better to say I am 'Love and Affection'. I look like his mother, because that is who he thinks of the most in relation to that."

[... that almost has him smile, but just almost. because he does relate his own mother to this too]

I see. It's nice to meet you.

"That's a much cuter look on you."

... Sorry, his mom is also like this.

"I assume you're here to help?"

[he blinks and the smile drops in favor of surprise at being called cute]

Ah... yes. I don't really know what to do, but I figured I'd... explore and see if I could figure out anything.

"Well, this where a lot of his feelings towards people are. You can see as little or as much as you'd like upstairs."

She pauses, thinking.

"... There is something you could do for him, if you wouldn't mind?"

What is that?

"One of the rooms upstairs is a mess. It's the one apart from all the others."

"... He really ought to clean it up, but he hasn't had the heart to do it himself. So I think it's fine for me to ask someone else to help him get started."

...oh. Are you sure that's all right?

[he looks to the stairs. moving things around could be bad... right? then again he didn't feel bad after people moved things around for him, so]

"It'll be all right."

... Then, she seems to remember something.

"Ah, right. In that room, there's also a box. I leave it up to you to decide what to do with it, whether to leave it there, take it out, destroy it or something else. But..."

There's probably something kind of surreal about how she's smiling so serenely, even as she says this:

"Please don't put it in any of the other rooms upstairs, no matter what you decide to do. He already took everything he cherished from that room and put them in their proper place. All that's left are unhappy things, there."

That room?

"I think you'll know which one it is once you see it."

"That room represents something he hasn't been able to truly let go of yet. Even though it would be for the best that he does."

Mm... all right. I will try my best.

"Thank you, Duality."

There is a set of stairs that leads up to a hallway with several rooms.

[he'll nod at her and then go for the stairs]

There are four rooms in the hallway, three closer to you, and one at the far end. Each room has a small wooden nameplate next to its entrance.

Of the three closer to you: One room has a thick, purple crystal bead curtain instead of a door ('A place of belonging'), the second room has a latticed folding door ('A place of familiarity'), and the third one has a door that looks similar to the ones in the hotel ('A place of beginnings').

The room at the far end has a metal door that doesn't match the decor of the rest of the building at all, not even a little. A big, bronze deadbolt stretches across it, though it doesn't look like you'll need much effort to lift it up if you want to open the door. The nameplate next to it is scratched out.

[okay gonna go for the metal door then]

Numbness washes over you when you walk into this room. As you breathe in the stale air, a slight bitterness forms in the back of your throat. It smells faintly of rot.

The room seems to be an approximation of the conference room in Heart Soldier's dorm, albeit in ... a pretty terrible state. The spinny chairs have been left on their sides on the floor. None of the buttons light up or function at all, even uselessly. Some display monitors are smashed, glass shards scattered on the floor. There's a pretty thick layer of dust on everything.

Besides the destruction however, the room is pretty bare. There are no decorations, and only a few items that stand out. There's a broom and dustpan, like someone thought of cleaning the place up but then just ... didn't do it.

On the conference table is a notebook and some pens. Next to them is a wall scroll laid out across the table, with cursive calligraphy. On the far end of the table is a locked box.

[oh... okay, at a glance he can see that cleaning up shouldn't be too bad, right?

he goes to pick up the chairs first, putting them back to the table, before he finds the broom and dustpan so he can clean up the glass and dust. and of course looking around for somewhere to discard of it.

too bad he can't use his powers or he'd take advantage of Repair for the panels.]

As Duality cleans up the room, it feels easier to breathe, somehow. The smell starts to clear up, and the bitterness fades. The room may not be perfectly repaired or in working order, but at least now it doesn't feel as though it's a stagnant bog.

[all this time he's made sure not to breathe in too deeply, but at least it's easier now.

he'll check out the conference table next, to see if it's anything that can be saved of the monitors or buttons. and to look at the notebook too, of course]

Edited 2021-01-23 19:43 (UTC)

The smashed monitors are, unfortunately, still smashed. The buttons didn't really do anything to begin with (much like a lot of the buttons in the actual dorm), so them not even lighting up is just them becoming truly useless.

The front pages of the notebook have been ripped out. The first page that comes after is filled with words and sometimes whole sentences that have been completely blacked out with a pen, rendering the text illegible.

There is one bit that isn't scratched out:
Not worth it.

... It seems you can leave a message of your own, if you want to.

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