come_sailaway | [OPEN+CLOSED] An Endless Cycle

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[OPEN+CLOSED] An Endless Cycle

Who: Wayne, mostly prior CR, and a couple open slots for new friends
What: Memory share reality funk, for those that are more into the chiller end of poking brains
When: Early-Mid March
Warnings: N/A, will update as threads progress

The cracks in reality seem to gather where he passes by most frequently, usually in the highest density around his cabin, and the buffet. The colors that peek from inside are soft, pastel yellows and oranges, pinks and blues, and if one is to get close enough to them to investigate, they might hear some pretty sick guitar riffs, a result of the thing most prevalent in his mind lately, as they're being dumped into a reality very much like the man himself: soft and squishy-looking, with mild weather and a spectacular view of the surrounding ocean. You have arrived on an island chain, in the middle of a deeply blue, weirdly reflective ocean, and in the distance you can see an edifice. Everything here seems by and large pretty peaceful.

You might look down to see some changes to yourself. Perhaps not your clothes, but maybe your shape, or the texture of your skin. Do you still have the same number of limbs? Are there more? Are there less? Have you turned a color? Have you sprouted horns in any configuration? Are you now yet another Wayne? No matter how you might have ended up...

1. The Garden [Closed, for Fio and ??]
Wayne seems busy, moving back and forth from his house out to his garden. There are a few tools sitting on the ground outside the low wall, some dirty gloves over the top of it, and there are sprouts of plants already coming up in one half of the plot that he's working on. He's clearly been out here for a little while already, his preoccupation half borne of exhaustion.

A cat sits on top of the wall. It watches him moving back and forth across the plot that he's preparing for another row of vegetables. It looks smug. That's probably just its face.

Wayne pauses when he's deposited a sack that could possibly be soil, or fertilizer, or whatever this world's equivalent might be, standing straight and stretching his arms out behind him with a soft groan and a pop of the joints. His expression slackens when he spots a visitor, one hand coming up in an easygoing wave.

"Sup?"

2. The Afterlife [Closed, for Nobunaga and César]
The beach is kinda nice. If you like red water and random fish on the shore. The sand underfoot holds the shape of footprints even better than normal wet sand, and the few denizens of the realm seem largely content to keep to themselves. One fish might explain that its seen people making sand castles and how pleasing an activity it seems to be, even when the tide inevitably comes to wash them away. Down the beach, further away from the little crystal complex, Wayne is hanging out with another fish, holding idle conversation with it while he builds a sand castle himself.

Or, it would be a sand castle, if not for the buildings that he's constructed all around himself, carefully sculpted until it's become more of a small citadel. He probably shouldn't be spending as much time here as he is right now, but there's a certain reluctance that comes with the fact that if he simply goes back out there again, alone and unprepared, he will once again be reduced to goo. Not a pleasing prospect.

3. The Airship [Closed, for Security and ??]
Wayne and his crew are setting up for departure. The newly-acquired airship is spotless after having been grounded after the initial fall of Lord Gibby, Blerol's officers taking good care of it in the event that it would be necessary to deploy again. Now, after the solid done for him by Wayne and his crew, and being made more fully aware of the terrible situation presented by the return of Gibby and his cult, they're preparing to head out and gather resources, get in touch with the sages and with the Monitor, and attempt to find more information on the cult itself to be able to actually stop it permanently, since it apparently just didn't take last time.

Hopefully anyone else coming along with them has been informed of the situation. Otherwise, it's going to fall to Wayne and his crew to do the explaining. Which means going and attempting to catch one of them after they've settled in with their supplies, topped up the pneumataphores of the ship, and set a proper course. They just...have to decide what their course should actually be. There's so much to do, and not enough time to sit around and talk about it all.

4. The Concert [Closed, for Ava and ??]
It's been a while since they've had a show this raucous. Usually the people that come out to see Moonage Lobotomy are a chill bunch, but now the crowd is pressed right up against the stage, watching the Crew with an energy borne of having finally been allowed to snap out of the intense fugue state brought on by the Hylemxylem's signal. They're happy, the monstrous and humanoid alike crushing up against each other and getting absorbed in the music that has only gotten better in the last half dozen cycles.

Wayne sits on the edge of the stage when it's all over, shaking hands and getting hugs, pressed against his best friend's side while the others rest and talk with others in the audience. There's mention of new merch that will be coming out soon and, when the group starts to disperse to go and get some fresh air, Wayne has his arms out wide, looking out toward a figure he recognizes, a neighbor or perhaps a friend from the City, grinning more widely than most ever see.

"Heeeey you made it!"

5. Waynehouse [OPEN!]
It's nice out here. Quiet, most of the time. There's a breeze off the ocean, a beach where the Larvae congregate to be looked after, a field where there's almost always a group of Waynes in various stages of their training occupied with drills to keep them sharp while they prepare for the tasks that Old Wayne might send them out on, and at the top of the House, Old Wayne himself overseeing the place from his shaded perch where he'd settled in before he could no longer easily move under his own power.

Some Waynes are utterly identical, others have found their own little claims to individuality. Most have very similar names. The two that stand out the most are also those at the head of the bunch, making sure that they're all able to take care of themselves when left to their own devices. Old Wayne says they're not ready yet, and so, it falls to the toughened Wayne that had only just made it upright before the first 'xylem was erected, and a twin from the same hatching that had found her own identity and started to tailor her own clothes. The former is hanging out near the ocean cliffs with a juice box in hand and his legs hanging over the edge, watching the water and perhaps dissociating a little bit while on a break. Nearby, a larva meanders back and forth, just seeking to be close to someone else while it suns.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

César looks around in absolute confusion. This is an afterlife? That's what this memory is? It's like claymation meets some weird french animated movie. Definitely some sort of alien world. But likely not the entire world being dead.

"I'm afraid I didn't. My name is César. I certainly don't remember dying." He remembers the last time, though.

Oh César, you don't even know the half of it...

The figure on the ground sits up a little, staring at César for a quiet moment, then scooting over in the center of his little sand city to let the guy sit. If he's gonna be here for a while trying to figure out what's going on, might as well get comfortable, right?

"Yeah I get that sometimes. Get hit in the head hard enough it kinda knocks the memory out."

He really doesn't.

"Step on a crack...." César mumbles under his breath before taking a few more steps and sitting down where space has been made. "So... are you saying you've died more than once?"

Wayne waits until César has settled down before going back to his careful building. He can talk and work at the same time, after all.

"Yep. Turns out getting swarmed by freakin'cone cultists is bad for you."

He looks down a bit at the sand, brain going through a few quick calculations as he realizes the sand's properties is different than what he's used to back home. Oh. It holds its form a little better. A tiny bit more clay-like.

Well, this has to be the first world with physics this different. What does the entire universe look like? Good god. It's hard to focus on the conversation when he wants to go poking everything, but he just sat down, and it'd be rude to just up and vanish.

César's face slowly turns to one of complete bewilderment as he backs up his thoughts to process what Wayne just said. "Cone... cultists?"

If he were paying more attention to César himself he might have actually taken note of the facial journey the poor guy was going through as he attempts to parse through literally everything...

"Yeah, they're all over the upper ruins not too far off the city. Don't go in there without like, some real good area Gestures or you're just gonna end up right back here."

If you like César's face journeys, you should see his baby brother's. Well, you'd here them, too. Rex isn't exactly a quiet teenage boy.

Also, yes, César's literally parsing everything. He figured out a way to manipulate the laws of his universe. It's no surprise he's already trying to figure out how this one works.

"Thanks. I'll, uh, definitely keep that in mind. I'm not much of a fighter." César's going to put his hand in the sand and squish it in his palm. "Oh, wow... This sand is so much different than what I'm used to! It's way better."

He's got his work cut out for him, especially with the massive amount of interference he's likely to get in the event that they left the Afterlife to attempt to get back to the task at hand.

Wayne doesn't wanna.

"Yeah, me neither," he sighs, scowling at his last building and the way it seems to sag a little, the same way his mood has been. He mashes it down to try again while César evaluates the sand itself. "It's pretty cool, sure. Holds a sand castle better than anything I've seen out there." He jerks a thumb over his shoulder, up toward the weirdly melty-looking white building further up the beach.

At some point, César will notice there are changes to himself, but he's too fascinated by the world around him. ~~Mostly when I have a chance to deep think about it. But he's probably just assuming some sort of weird filter affect in this world maybe I DUNNO~~

César looks up at at the indicated building and just. Stare.

"........ wait can you just. Come back from the dead?" César's very much going to just blurt that out, unable to stop himself, thanks, brain, for not letting him blend in. "Like by going through a portal or something?"

Wayne, for what it's worth, is taking it in stride. It must be César's first time dying if he's that shocked about it. But then again, maybe not everyone has access to the Afterlife to begin with. He knows he was kind of distressed and confused the first time he learned about this place firsthand.

"I mean, you gotta want to, but...yeah. It sucks out there right now though." He brushes the sand off his hands and straightens his posture a little bit to be able to look César over, then stand with a quiet huff and sort of hop-step his way out of the middle of his construction project. "C'mon. If you wanna get out of here you gotta know where you're supposed to be going. You found any transport crystals yet?"

Sorry César, he's just assuming you know what that means.

He's died before, but he certainly wasn't conscious between his death and revival. And that was only on the ship. Not here in a memory of another world.

César is just continually dumbfounded as he stands and looks around, although he can give an educated guess from context clues about: ".. No, I haven't encountered any, yet."

He drops the sand down from his hand and then stares at it. Because it's his hand but the texture is... odd. And the color is a bit off, almost closer to orange. Like a bad spray tan.

"Huh."

Okay, César, focus, he tells himself. Stop acting all incredulous about all this and simply just try to experience this. Relax. This is all part of the journey, and it's not nearly as crazy as the idea of you managing to get two husbands that love you very much. You're going to enjoy this a lot more if you start going with the flow. Just let things be and experience it. Take a breath. There.

César looks back up, smiling a bit (oh yup that felt off). "I don't need to go back right away. It's not every day you get to experience something like this, right? Don't let me disturb what you were doing. Perhaps I could even help? It's been years since I've had time to make sand castles."

Sometimes, attempting to overanalyze a situation only makes it worse. It's why most of what Wayne does is completely off the cuff, after some time to assess the basics of the moving parts of it all. It's why he's fine just showing César around, in the hopes that he'll get it without too much explanation.

"Here, c'mon," he calls, waiting for César to follow along, hands in his pockets as he heads up the stairs away from the beach and its small collection of fish. It all looks like rough-baked clay, except for the person-sized crystals glowing in various colors here. He touches one with a pink-orange sort of light inside, and it makes a musical sound, as if a xylophone struck with a soft mallet were put through a particularly crunchy sound filter. "There, that means you can go through to the ruins. Just, don't go through there yet ok? Too many cones."

He doesn't even give additional context before he heads off to one side instead, where another fish is sort of just hanging out at the top of another set of stares. It asks him if he wants to go down to the Executive Balcony, and Wayne just sighs and agrees. There's something down there that he wants, after all. They could go back to the beach when he retrieved the weapon leaning against a very out of place water cooler down there.

"Going with the flow's a little harder when the flow gets me put right back in here, y'know?"

César follows as he's bidden, eyes just wide as he takes everything in. This world is completely different from his own. The physics are amazing. But it makes sense that at least one universe had to be claymation if they're all falling into genres on the ship. Because that's what it looks like, almost.

And a quick pinch of the back of his hand is mildly alarming. Except he knows by now that he'll end up back on the ship, probably normal. Asking questions now will only make him seem suspicious. Right. He was trying to go with the flow.

... the explanation of the crystals is simple enough. The mechanics can't be explained by any modern physics on his end. César's not even going to try. He'll just listen instead.

"Ah, that makes sense enough. Thank you."

And then he follows him... to a fish. César looks down the stairs. The most normal thing he's seen so far is that water cooler, and it's still odd.

"It would cramp most people's style, to be honest. Mine, too."

Wayne is at least too wrapped up in his own problems in the here and now to register just how rough of a transition this all is for César. He holds up a hand to let the man know to hold on a moment up there, and by the time he returns, he's got an axe over his shoulder with an iridescent blade, the metal tarnished and the edge a little bit dulled, but otherwise still looking like a deadly weapon.

"I'm gonna cramp something's style out there in a minute," he huffs, looking grumpy as he eyes the exit portal up another set of stairs, then turns the look on César, though it doesn't stay hostile. "Where are you headed? We're gonna be just north of the city in the ruins if you use the portal now."

"Oh, nice axe." Sudden upgrade? Maybe this is an RPG based reality. "I'm... ah. Not sure where I'm going. I don't remember... much of anything, now that I think about it."

César winces, convenient to sell his story but not because of it. Sorry, Rex. He'll never let Rex know he is using the amnesia excuse, but it's better to allow for mistakes.

Wayne's brow furrows some, and he moves to take a seat on the steps leading up toward the portal. He gestures to the spot beside him, inviting César to come sit.

"Do you remember what you were doing before you got here? Might help to backtrack a little." Because unfortunately, he has a need to be helpful if there's a problem right in front of him.

César wonders if the other man has a case of RPG protagonist syndrome, if he has to be helpful despite being annoyed about some of this. Does this mean he's a sidequest NPC now? Christ. No. Stop thinking of the world like this. Just... chill, César.

He sits down next to Wayne, considering for a moment. "I was... on a ship with a lot of other passengers. Walking down a hall."

The funniest part is that César isn't even necessarily wrong. Wayne, in spite of his status as just a comparatively normal dude that just walked into a bad and baffling situation, has been shunted into the main character role against his will. He's working on collecting a party, even though at this point he doesn't know that yet. He doesn't have much fetchquesting to do at least, cutting down on the time he needs to waste.

He listens, elbows on his knees, paying César his close attention. "Did something happen then? Like, alarms?"

"I touched a crack in reality and ended up here." César answers truthfully. "I don't think I... died?"

He isn't necessarily wrong, but it's a bit rude to assign people to genres in more than just a quick passing.

"Oh weird. I haven't seen anything like that around." He's pretty sure he would have heard from someone if reality were actually physically cracking, rather than it just being a matter of peoples' forms changing and their minds going the same way.

There's a furrow of his brow that comes with the realization that César is here without having died. "Wait really?"

"Really. I didn't die. But yet, I'm in the afterlife." César looks at his hands. "And I don't normally look like this, either. It's honestly fascinating."

He's terrible at lying, so might as well tell parts of the truth.

Wayne is baffled by the idea of just coming and going from here whether you're alive or dead, but surely there's a way for the gate out to go both ways. They just haven't found it yet.

He'd noodle over that, but there's still the idea of cracks in reality that isn't particularly comforting. He looks at César's hands in kind, trying to see what's different about him, but he looks like he fits in here fine, even if the amount of detail on him is a little bit busy.

"Huh. Think you'll turn back if you go through it again? Wonder if I'll turn into whatever you are."

Are you saying his hair is busy. Because it is. Too much detail.

"Honestly, there's really only one way to find out!" What's the worst that could happen? César suddenly sounds more cheerful than he probably should. "Do I just get to be extra lively, then?"

It's a really dumb joke, but there's an experiment to be done, and César wants to perform it.

Humans in general are too busy, too detailed to him when they end up in his memories. The only time they're not is when they end up as other Waynes.

Wayne brightens a little and straightens himself out, shaking his jumpsuit straight and offering César a hand up. "Let's rock."

Leading the way through the gate back to the ruins, Wayne doesn't even react as the world whites out around them. They would touch back down on pale sand, standing next to a figure keeping watch in front of their tent. The look surprised to see two people stepping into view, but their body language speaks interest, and delight.

"Greetings! Are you here to assist in the search for the paper cup?"

"And roll." César beams to him as he takes the hand and pulls himself up.

He has no idea what's going on, but he's found enough of his footing that curiosity has taken over. This whole world is very strange. And that's amazing and interesting.

César has played enough games that the transition isn't very surprising. Aw no cool wormhole effect, though. He does need a moment to look around (including at the person without a face, although they're less strange than the EVOs he deals with every day).

It's delayed by several seconds, but César smiles at the question, looking at Wayne. "Are we?"

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