Heart Game: Duality - Round 3

[idolpro]

Your sleep is restless, and it's hard to settle as your eyelids refusing to stop twitching, and you can feel an itch at the back of your mind, flashes of uncomfortable thoughts dipping in and out of your dreams, constantly interrupting your tries to relax. ... Are you even asleep?



...



Apparently you were, because you wake up with a start, cheek pressed uncomfortably to steel flooring and flickering lights overhead. Unfortunately, you don't feel very rested at all.

Comments

OOC

[asonoficeandfire]

Instructions

[asonoficeandfire]

OOC Information:

There is nothing glaringly obvious to fix, but there are ICly known objectives to do.

Scoring will be based on how far a character gets with one or several objectives.

You're allowed to do as much or as little as you want, this includes doing more than one objective.

This is an exploradora with some linear areas that will trap you and force you to move forward.

TRY TO KEEP AN INVENTORY. You're free to pick up items and move around/bring them with you.

Powers aren't off, but it's as if they're hard to remember. You only retain your favorite unit skill with clarity along with your chosen quirk.

Cats.

More cats.

.......................Mmmmmaybe save some cats?

Heart Objectives as displayed on your phones:

Rescue! What or how you rescue something/cats/someone is up to your discretion.

Return things that are lost or misplaced.

Explore.

Find the True Heart.

ICly known information:

You have a quirk! You know this power intimately, and you're good at using it.

Your unit skills are muddy in your head, and you only seem to remember one with clarity. Maybe this will change?

Your phone displays the heart objectives without further explanation.

Your phone also has a countdown of sorts. You don't know what it's for, but it's ominous, isn't it?

You have a map on your phone! Too bad it's useless as it's completely covered, and the only visible area doesn't seem to reflect the hallway very well.

TURN IN

[asonoficeandfire]

For scored runners, please turn in below with significant things you did. Did you save any cats, did you find any items, etc.

HALLWAY

[asonoficeandfire]

The moment your mind clears and you sit up, you notice you’re in a large hallway! It’s fairly nondescript, blank and all FiN chrome and silver and stretches off far away in both directions, columns lining the middle. The way you’re facing is only shadows, darker the further away it goes, and you can’t even make out any details no matter how hard you squint. If you stand still for too long, you can feel a breeze of cold coming from that direction. Behind you the hallway stretches to a pinprick of light in the distance.

To your immediate right there are two doors: The rightmost door is silvery, like an elevator, looks automatic and has a sensor pad beside it, probably to swipe some sort of device to open it. The screen above the pad currently displays a red X.

The leftmost door is a silvery futuristic take on a traditional Japanese sliding door. It’s also closed. There's a white cat flopped on the floor in front of this door, quietly snoozing away.

Across the hall is a staircase, though it’s hard to see past the first few feet inside the archway in the wall, the rest veiled in shadows. Does it go up or down? That’s also not discernible from where you’re standing.

To the left of the staircase is another door. Probably? Or is it just a doorframe? It’s hard to tell as it’s completely void and thickly black.

You can also follow the hallway in either direction if you so wish.

Re: HALLWAY

[kingofexplodokills]

[ FIRST OF ALL. He's gonna make some light with his quirk if he can, controlling the explosion so he's just continuously making small but very flashy ones, just to see if he can see anything with a bit more clarity ]

What the fuck.

Re: HALLWAY

[asonoficeandfire]

[The area you're standing in is fairly well lit, but your light doesn't reach further down the hall for the shadows. You'd have to walk over there.

There seems to be no one else in sight.]

Re: HALLWAY

[kingofexplodokills]

[ well he was going to walk forward keeping the light on but. he notices the cat, and he guesses that's gonna scare it off if he does it.

So first thing first, gonna go to the cat and kneel in front of it ]

Hey, shitty cat. What's up with this whole thing?

[ reaching over for it to scratch behind its ears, if it'll let it ]

Get the fuck away so I can move on. a'ight?

Re: HALLWAY

[kingofexplodokills]

[ going RIGHT TO THE FUCKING END THIS TIME using his quirk to make light ]

Re: HALLWAY

[asonoficeandfire]

[You’ve chosen to walk the dark trek down the hallway and you eventually come up to a dead end? No, not quite, there’s an outline of a door on this wall, but there’s no immediate handle.

What do you do?]

Re: HALLWAY

[kingofexplodokills]

[ Destroying it sounds like a bad idea but on the other hand why is this shit hidden. Looking for a weak point with achilles' radar, can he see any cracks or any weakness? ]

CATS AND PILLOWS

[asonoficeandfire]

Gosh, did you step into pillow heaven? This room is filled to the brim with soft pillows, blankets and cat plushies. It’s clearly a room where all things soft are supposed to live. It’s not empty because there are cats everywhere! White, calico, fluffy, less fluffy, young, old, on pillows, curled up in blankets and stretched out in all the soft. In the middle of the room is… Duality? Though he doesn't quite seem like himself, with cat ears and a tail, languidly stretched out like a large cat himself, dozing. He looks up as you enter, blinking slowly as he sits up.

“Oh. Hi~”

There is another door right ahead across the room, but it’s barely visible behind a mountain of blankets and pillows.

Re: CATS AND PILLOWS

[kingofexplodokills]

[ The temptation to just close the door and leave RIGHT FUCKING THEN AND THERE is strong

But instead he's going to just get up after being assaulted by pillows and blankets and just stare ]

Shit, I knew you had werid tastes.

Re: CATS AND PILLOWS

[asonoficeandfire]

[He flicks an ear as he stretches his arms over his head before looking right at Hardcore, tail swishing.]

Weird? What's weird?

BASEMENT

[asonoficeandfire]

The moment you step inside, the door behind you shuts and won’t budge no matter how much you push or pull. In other words, you can only go forward, downstairs.

Every step you take seems to get slightly heavier the further you go, and it’s tempting to sit down and rest, but would you be able to get up if you do? You’ve only taken a few steps, it seems… so why? The air is a little thick, hard to breathe. Halfway down the stairs you step into something wet and very cold. It doesn’t feel like water, but more like some icy sludge. It’s running in rivulets down the stairs (from where??) but at least it doesn’t reach above your ankles.

Technically, you don’t walk very far until you reach the bottom floor. The basement isn't very large, but it's not isolated. You can see this because the room you enter isn’t entirely dark, but illuminated from some light source you can’t determine.

Straight ahead you see a barred off area (bars like this!). There’s no door, so no actual way to get into it. For some reason any light you carry and the light of the room won’t reach beyond the bars, so you can’t see what’s on the other side. The sludge on the floor seems to emanate or flow into this area through the bars.

To the left is what looks like the silvery doors to an elevator, with a similar pad sensor beside it, and to the right is a black door, simple with a handle.

Re: BASEMENT

[kingofexplodokills]

[ that's some disgusting shit but he's going to try and go for the black door for now ]

Re: BASEMENT

[asonoficeandfire]

[I hope you don't mind the cat crawling up to rest around your shoulders like a cat scarf.

You open the door...]

VOID

[asonoficeandfire]

This room is a huge, no, VAST cave. It’s covered in ice and snow, jagged black and blue icicles protruding from almost every available surface, a blueish dark light illuminating the space. It’s almost pretty in a way, but it feels cold and oppressive. It’s clear now that this is the barred off area you saw when you entered the basement, as the bars are visible further ahead. In the middle of all this ice is a dark lake. It’s iced over but it looks precariously thin. What looks like a slab of rock sticks out from the middle of the lake, and upon closer inspection you can see a cat, tightly curled up on it, shivering against the cold. If you look closer at the lake, you can see shapes of items on the bottom, clearly things that don’t belong there.

You could risk stepping across the ice for the cat, even break the ice to get to the items on the bottom of it, or you could choose to take the long way around the lake to get to the other side and get out of here. The air is freezing after all, and you don’t want to stay here for too long.

On the other side of the lake stands a figure, completely still, almost like a statue.

There seems to be another door behind him, though it's completely iced over.

Re: VOID

[kingofexplodokills]

[ guess who does BADLY with the cold. He was going to put the kitty down, but now he's going to keep it warm inside his jacket. ... Except there's a cat in the middle of the lake. ]

Shit.

[ it's freezing cold so removing the jacket so he can keep emperor death warm is not an option. ]

Hey, little shit. You trust me?

Re: VOID

[asonoficeandfire]

Mrrt.

[He just licks a paw, unconcerned. I guess that's a yes?]

BLEAK

[asonoficeandfire]

The moment you step into this room, the door slams shut behind you. The blast of regularly temperature air is enough to shock your senses and you feel dizzy. Your head clears after a moment, but it doesn’t improve otherwise, as your body, now heavy like lead, struggles to keep you upright from the immense pressure in the air, almost as if gravity increased tenfold. It’s… painful to say the least, and it feels so utterly wrong as if this room has turned upside down and is tilting on its axis.

The worst feeling is the feeling of empty and loneliness and utter uselessness, though. It's reflected by the white walls, the white floor, the white ceiling and sterility of your surroundings. It's... big? Probably, and utterly and completely barren. This room needs more, something… just more of anything that isn’t empty. Despite the urgency to leave, you have a feeling that you can’t move forward without leaving something behind. It doesn’t matter what it is, physical or otherwise, perhaps a thought or an idea, something you picked up along the way.

In a corner sits another figure, hunched over, arms protectively curled around something.

Re: BLEAK

[kingofexplodokills]

[ Holy shit. It's good that at least the door isn't locking behind him, because it would freak him out even more. The room is unpleasant in ways he hates ESPECIALLY, hitting at all the bad feelings and thoughts he already doesn't want to deal with.

And then there's the tiny figure. By this point he's sure it's another duality ]

... Hey.

Re: BLEAK

[flamebound]

[Duality doesn't look very old here indeed, and more a child, if it matters. He's eerily quiet himself, but there are small mewls coming from whatever he's holding, and he only curls up a little tighter at being called out to.]

LABYRINTH

[asonoficeandfire]

You’ve stepped into a corridor. To the left and right ahead is a dead end. There are no doors. To the right it stretches for a bit until it takes a turn to the left. The walls are fancy and decorated, like the game tower lobby. Something doesn’t feel quite right, and there’s a sense of dread and resignation in the air that you can’t shake.

Do you proceed?

Re: LABYRINTH

[kingofexplodokills]

[ The cat scarf is totally welcome, and because the sense of dread is, well. dreadful, he's going to absent-mindedly reach for it and pet it with one hand, furrowing his eyebrows as he proceeds ]

'm gonna call you Emperor gruesome death the bloody, fifth.

Re: LABYRINTH

[asonoficeandfire]

Mreow...

[Did you just name Duality something weird. He butts his head into his hand, though, trying to be comforting.

Nothing happens as Hardcore walks along the hallway, until he reaches the bend and everything suddenly goes dark.

You're treated to flashes of a memory. It's vivid and physically painful, like a punch to the gut.]