unknownseas | WEEK 7

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week 7

WEEK 7

Another Saturday gone and just like that you wake on Sunday, down five of your number. The largest dent taken out of you at once so far - it's surely noticeable, the head count being cut by a third. Almost enough to make you wonder how many of you will even be left by the next motive or two. Surely this isn't a sustainable rate for body counts to increase... right?

There's a new and, it looks like, final wing of the building to explore, bringing everything full circle. Maybe you'll get some more answers to some of the questions and mysteries of this place there - or at least, you can certainly hope for them. Time to turn your investigative eyes towards one last batch of rooms, who knows what you might find?

Angel remains around at night, her appearances much more common now that... well, she's certainly seen a downtick in necessary surveillance work, hasn't she? The app giving you a line to The Professor remains open, and well... whatever's going on with that ouija in the library continues to happen! You're not suffering from a shortage of leads, at least, even as things get more bizarre.

Something's going to have to give here, eventually. Right?

SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY

[ ooc: Welcome to your last player case week! AC is over here, regains as always are over here, and... well, enjoy! After this we get to take our big turn towards the Serious. ]

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Seems simple enough.

[Oh boy.]

...Want to try it again?

[ You know, when Della asked her this a couple of weeks ago, she said no. However, maybe because it's the middle of a Monday instead of the aftermath of a particularly stressful trial... ]

...Alright, but you're not allowed to make fun of me if I'm not very good at it.

Then you can't laugh at me. I don't even have electricity in my world, let alone this. [He gestures at the arcade as a whole.] Deal?

I wasn't planning on it. [ Probably. Maybe. ] So, sure. Deal.

[ Even if there's obviously still some discomfort in the way she stomps over to the DDR machines. ]

[He follows and watches the screen for a bit while it displays, you know, the barest of DDR instructions.]

Guess I shouldn't have changed. These clothes are hard to move around in.

[It's not stopping him from taking off the denim jacket and draping it over the railing at the back of the Player 2 station.]

[ Rin makes an effort to get into the activity by giving her legs a decent stretch. ]

Are they? But denim can be really comfortable and flexible once its worn in.

[ As if to demonstrate, Rin slaps her... uh... Well, they're a pair of cut-off denim shorts. Which do not constrict anywhere near the same amount of surface area as a pair of pants do! Obviously this is a good point of comparison. ]

It's not like you have to do anything that spectacular, anyway. If you can walk in those, you can play DDR.

Suppose we'll find out.

[He steps onto the pad, taps his keycard to put in his virtual quarters, and presses start. That much he's figured out from Tetris, at least.]

Dance Dance Revolution, huh.

[Rhea would have hated it!]

[ God. Rin would have laughed if he'd made that joke out-loud! ]

Not exactly sure what the revolution part is, but... Hey, we wanna play this on normal difficulty, right?

[ playing on easy when you're a beginner is for COWARDS ]

Right. [As if he has any idea what she's talking about. He rolls his shoulders and lets his arms swing.] No one ever got good at anything taking it easy.

[ Gotta stomp on these buttons to select! Alright, now... ]

Okay, since I picked that part, you should pick the song.

[ 95% of her reason for saying that is because she wants to see what he does when faced with a genre of music that is almost certainly entirely unfamiliar to him. ]

[He gives her a look, suspicious that she's teasing him somehow, but complies. Ah, so stepping in this direction changes the song, that one changes the difficulty. After some exploring, he just leaves his weight on one arrow, scrolling fast through the whole tracklist just to see that he can. In the end, he settles on some R&B.]

Which one's the start button?

[ Maybe she's teasing him a little, but sometimes that's just what people do when they're being friendly! It's good-natured, she swears. ]

Hm, let's see... [ It takes her a second, not being particularly versed in DDR herself, but— ] Here.

[Oh-kay! He hits that, too, and the game begins.

Unfortunately, there's a damned steep learning curve when it comes to DDR, and while Let the Beat Hit 'Em doesn't go too fast, it's still, like, shit, where are the arrows? Where are his feet? If he manages to hit any arrows, it's purely by accident, and he fails out fast enough.]

Damn--!

[>:T !!!

He doesn't sulk for long, though. If Rin's arrows are still flying, he'll look over at her side of the screen and then follow along on his pad. He'll get it. He will.]

[ Unfortunately, a single practice game hasn't done much to help Rin conquer that learning curve herself. She likes to think she isn't uncoordinated, but boy, DDR makes her feel like she is — and that frustration isn't doing anything to help her performance. ]

Augh, stupid—...!

[ She lasts maybe a couple of bars longer than Therion does, and by the end, she's hitting the arrows more like she's trying to punish them than actually play the game. And if that doesn't make her feelings obvious enough, then her red-faced expression will. ]

[As soon as they game over, Therion reaches down to swipe his card again.]

Won't get the best of me.

[ Normally, she would declare DDR to be stupid and not worth the time at the juncture. Fortunately(?), Therion being there makes her feel like she has something to stick it out for... Or, at least, someone she doesn't want to look like a quitter in front of. ]

...Fine. I guess neither of us have anything better to do with our time at this point.

[ Swipe. It...

It's not going to go much better this time, either, huh? ]

[Well, it might not, except Therion accidentally drops his difficulty to Easy while he's getting back in position after selecting the song.]

What--hey. Why do you have so many more arrows than me?

Wh—

[ Rin looks over, which is a fatal mistake to make in DDR, but also with the way it was going it barely matters. ]

H- Hey, you're on easy mode?!

[ She sounds like she's protesting, but it's hard to say exactly what? ]

Like I know what that means.

[He's starting to get it from context, though. This is a lot easier, even if he's still struggling to master timing and the positioning of that damn back arrow at the same time.]

Hey, you're failing, anyway. Get over here and hit that back step for me when it comes up.

[ Rin huffs at that, but, like, he's not wrong. ]

Seriously? You'll never learn to do it yourself if you have me taking care of it for you.

[ She says this, but she hops from her station to sit on the rail behind his anyway. She can swing her foot down when she has to, so she guesses she'll do what he asked! ]

[He scowls at the screen in concentration.]

Never learn how to do it if it--stops when I misstep, either.

[Maybe together, they can form one competent DDR player...!]

Well, whatever. [ sigh ] If you learn wrong, it's no skin of my nose.

[ But wow, DDR is a lot easier when there's only one button you have to press, huh. ]

[With Rin's help, despite hovering in the danger zone for the entirety of the song, Therion masters enough pattern recognition to clear the stage. It's definitely more due to his speed and reflexes than any actual DDR skill, but a win is a win.]

Hah.

[He crosses his arms and looks back at her, pleased and smug.]

...Guess I should thank you for having my back.

[ Oh god, he looks so proud of himself. Over DDR. She can't help herself, she puffs out an amused sound through her nose. ]

Hey, what did we just talk about the other day? I couldn't let you down.

[Yes, well. Now he's happy but embarrassed, so he nods, manages to navigate past the score screen, and starts scrolling through music again.]

I can see why people enjoy this. We could both keep playing on... what did you call it. "Easy mode." So I can get used to how the songs sound without your extra arrows distracting me.

[That's a reasonable suggestion not at all based on sparing Rin's pride, clearly.]

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mouflon - 2020-05-20 22:23 (UTC) - Expand

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