WEEK 5

[bathymetric]

That's three murders now - and this last trial got more than slightly out of hand. It looks like you might be in for another tough week... or at least, maybe that's just the refusal of this place to change too much. You lose Saturday again, but maybe six-day weeks are starting to feel normal by now. Who knows? The cycle of day and night continues apace, changing so little.

Speaking of change, though, there's a new area to look through, the biggest and most complex yet. And the end of one wing of the facility, from the looks of it - though you can probably guess where more areas might start to open up.

And speaking of opening up (segues!), this week if you're out particularly late, you might sometimes see Angel out and about! So hey, maybe change is on the horizon.

Just gotta hope it's a change for the better, don't you?



SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY

[ ooc: Welcome to Week 5! Remember to turn in AC here, threads for regain coins here, and if you feel so inclined you can visit Angel's office hours over here! Or, if you want Angel to come to you, that's now an option! Simply put a prompt after lights-out into your toplevel and indicate you want Angel in the subject line, same as investigations! ]

Comments

[drladysounds]

The monument to Zelos. A visually appealing man, but ultimately indifferent to everyone below him. That's why he's looking away.

[She's so stretching thin her justification for the fact she asked for the freaking David for this.

And also she had some crush on him, because Shelley is absolutely a disaster when it's about picking suitors]

It's symbolic.

[hardnosed]

Didn’t think he cared much for the people above him, either. Not after what happened last week.

But we didn’t talk much. You did?

[drladysounds]

True! But to symbolize that part I'd have to build an entire walkway on the ceiling for people to walk on, and that'd take a week or two.

[Because apparently the issue is the time, not if it's possible in the first place. Shelley wanted to make it quickly before someone else died and she had to make another addition!

Still, when Zelos was mentioned, Shelley can't help but dial down the cheerfulness]

From time to time. We got along, and discussed a few things. He even listened when I wondered if the Professor bought this entire place, instead of building it himself.

[Which was wrong, she'd find out later. Turns out the Professor did build it, although not with his own hands, really]

[hardnosed]

... Or you could just draw something on the ceiling.

[ We’re all eight feet tall, aren’t we? We all just need a little stepstool to reach the ceiling, right? She also immediately realizes she’s not equipped to discuss the second part further, and also not interested, so she just keeps talking about the art instead of talking about Zelos. ]

Mira was doing something like this too.

[drladysounds]

I guess we did have a similar idea.

[Bless Mira]

Do Gems do this too? Try to commemorate the dead?

[She kind of already has a feeling what the answer is. Gems seem to be rather...well, not the kind of do that, she thinks]

[hardnosed]

No.

[ She says it with a sort of reproving undertone to the general low growl that is her default voice. After everything she’s said to her over the last week and a half or so, Shelley should know better. ]

We don’t celebrate our failures.

[drladysounds]

I thought so.

[Indeed, she should know better. Still...]

I guess we humans just celebrate those who die because it's nice. Sometimes death happens just because of bad luck, or because someone looked at you and all of a sudden thought 'oh may as well kill you'. It doesn't really make much sense. If our deaths was the last thing people remembered of us, the world would be pretty depressing. At least by celebrating it, dying feels less of a failure.

[Speaking from experience. To her, death always came all of a sudden. So did the close brushes with death. It was never her fault, really!]

That makes us failures, for gem standards, I'm sure.

[hardnosed]

I don't hold you to Gem standards.

[ In case this might sound almost considerate, she immediately continues. ]

Not anymore, anyway. While I'm stuck with the lot of you, I'm not gonna waste my time comparing you to something you'll never attain. Anyway, you don't have a set goal to accomplish with your short little lives — you just wander around on this ball of mud until they're over.

[drladysounds]

[Uf, rough words. Rough, but true. Shelley lets go of the ridiculous ZelosDavid statue, stepping back and dusting her hands off]

You're probably right. I don't even know what I'm doing with my life anymore -- I was looking for a goal for a while, chase that dream, you know? But maybe I should just take whatever comes to me. You never know when something will get in your way, so I may as well just tackle anything that comes and not think too much about purpose.

[Life throws wrenches at you! Like, you know, being brought to a murdergame? That gets in the way of some goals, yup]

[hardnosed]

I didn't say to just give up. If there's something you want to dedicate yourself to, you should do it. Unless it's art.

But since you don't live for a reason, it's [ ... ] it's not like you're failing anybody by dying. Just yourself. And if you remember everyone else, people will remember you. And maybe that makes it feel like it was worth something. Like this wasn't just it.

[drladysounds]

Too late, Jasper, I have given up. For my next trick I'll dabble in nihilism and bemoan the pointlessness of existence.

[She's joking about that, really]

...but you're right. The least I should do is make sure I won't fail myself. I don't know how long it'll take me to figure out something to both get out of here, and then to do something with my life, but I will.

[Or her name stops being Shelley Endeavour Winters!]