118th ♫ | asking myself over and over – "have i won? has a new me been reborn?"

[phaiinein]

Welcome, Champions, to the Tulipa Residency Station, the #1 top voted temporary home away from home, currently orbiting the beautiful uninhabited planet of Seraphim #52973! You've been given the very exciting opportunity to test out our facilities for free over the next few weeks. All the food fun and relaxation you could ever want alongside a beautiful view, at absolutely no cost! If space makes you anxious, don't fret! We have an on-board therapist, the distinguished Doctor Maruki here to attend to your every need! Oh, you didn't agree to come here? You want to go home? There's a weird rule in your resident ID about murder? Well, I guess there is one teeny tiny catch... Welcome to the murdergame meme: Airlocked Gaiden edition! This is a meme-ified version of the Airlocked sequel/Round 6 AU cooked up by myself and Jess made available for everyone to goof around with. HAVE FUN, GANG TL;DR: we still have airlocked brainrot THE BASICS: This meme is for threads/plots/mingles/whatever set in an Airlocked-based AU as outlined above. You don't need to be Airlocked alumni to play here but some familiarity with the game's vibes and mechanics is useful! The game's setting is Tulipa Residency Station, a high class space station orbiting an unoccupied planet. It's basically a cross between a super fancy hotel and a super fancy cruise liner so feel free to make up fitting locations as you see fit. AND YES, YOU CAN HAVE ROOMMATES. Slap up a toplevel quickly outlining what's going on with your character in the tradition of murdergame memes gone by – you can also outline your character's role in the game, how long they last and maybe give ideas for progressive CR, memory reveals, that sort of thing! TAG AROUND AND HAVE FUN THAT PART IS NOT OPTIONAL PROMPTS: Downtime 1. Excuse Me, Who Are You? You've just woken up in this weird place and you have no idea what's going on. But hey -- maybe this stranger's more informed than you. Or maybe you can put your heads together and investigate what's going on. 2. Social Link Go! Well, if you're going to be stuck in here for however long, you might as well get to know the people stuck in here with you. You've got plenty of rooms to explore together and there's enough to do to keep you occupied. How do you plan on passing time without killing each other? 3. Vending Machine Woes Somewhere in this place there's a mysterious vending machine that spits out all manner of bizarre items and occasionally dispenses items that belong to you and the other people trapped here. You've got a fat stack of tokens and nothing to lose. 4. The Corners of My Mind So as it turns out, your lovely hosts have been fiddling with your memories. Maybe you're just discovering this now or maybe you've had a particularly upsetting memory regain you're dealing with. 4. Wildcard! GO WILD AND BE FREE (or as free as you can be here, anyways) PUTTING THE MURDER IN MURDER GAME 1. Motive Your mysterious overseer has decided there's not nearly enough murder going on and so they've ~helpfully~ given you a little push to do the deed. Maybe one of your loved ones is in danger, maybe they're offering more money than you could ever dream of or they're threatening to reveal your deepest darkest secrets. Whatever is it, would you kill for it? 2. Murder WELL APPARENTLY, YES. Are you a killer or are you being killed? Either way, someone's not walking away from this alive. 3. Body Discovery Rise and shine, murdergame! It's a brand new day and someone's dead. Better get investigating! 4. Trial You know how this one goes. Line up all your evidence and sniff out the killer -- or sit there and sweat and hope no one works out you're the murderer. Will they go down with a confession or put up a fight? 5. Afterparty You've survived another trial, but more of your friends have died. Even without the executions, trials are a stressful enough affair. It's time to destress and lick your wounds and support each other. 6. Mastermind It's the end. It's time to uncover all the mysteries behind this murder game -- and find out just who trapped you here. Are they really an unconnected party, or is the mastermind someone among you...? 7. Freedom Just as it says -- you're finally free, but at what cost? Have those you love been returned to you, or are you still reduced to just those who made it to the end? Are you on your own, or is anyone here to help you? And more importantly, how the hell are you going to get home? CHAMPION PROFILE CODE: <center><b>Name:</b> NAME | <b>TITLE (Super High School Level, Ultimate, Champion, etc)</b> <b>Age:</b> AGE | <b>Species:</b> SPECIES | <b>Occupation:</b> OCCUPATION <b>Likes:</b> LIKES <b>Dislikes:</b> DISLIKES <b>Traits:</b> A HANDFUL OF NOTABLE TRAITS <b>Trivia:</b> A PIECE OF TRIVIA</center>

Comments

[finalflower]

I'm sure it does. [She raises her eyebrows.] Say someone found their life was better than they'd thought before, and thus more worth killing to return to. Or that it was worse, and then an offer comes by to escape.

[reaperrabbit]

Yeah. Imagine.

[He holds her gaze levelly for a few long seconds.]

I'm not gonna talk about it.

[finalflower]

After you went to the trouble of asking about me. That doesn't seem fair, does it?

[reaperrabbit]

Fair or not… even if I wanted to talk, I can’t. If it was real, talking about it would go against the arrangement I made with my boss. He’s not someone I want to piss off.

[finalflower]

What, so that means you're under a contract? Probably a magically reinforced one, if you're afraid of it extending even across worlds. And one with consequences. Given you're in the business of death, likely permanent ones, I would suspect.

[reaperrabbit]

…Yyyyeeeah?

[Oh, man, she’s trying to work it out herself from what he says. He has no idea what he’s in for.

Brook may be stupid.

Bottom text.]

I dunno if it’s magic, but yeah, that’s more or less right.

[finalflower]

[Annu is the smart one in the family. Though that might not mean much if you met her siblings. Or her parents.]

That would seem to be commonplace. Well, I may be a medium, but I'm not in the business of leaking anyone's magical nondisclosure agreements, if you can put it that way.

[She raps her fingernails on the table. Her hands look weird with the gloves off, like the tips are stained with black ink fading into purple.]

So if you don't know if it's magic, I suppose your organization uses a power that it calls distinct from magic. Like how Arven and Turo's creatures just have "natural abilities."

[reaperrabbit]

[It's not that he doesn't notice the stains. They just don't register to him as terribly strange.]

Sure. It's whatever you wanna call demon and angel stuff. We usually just go with "powers."

[finalflower]

Some would agree with you.

[She seems to remember her breakfast is there and getting cold, and takes another contemplative bite.]

After all, there are worlds with different sources of abilities, and they only call some of them magic. How is it magical when an enchanted tool only works for the pure of heart, but not magical when a machine made by mundane humans can alter a person's genes, even if the result is the same power?

[reaperrabbit]

...So you're saying it doesn't really matter what it's called, magic or powers or technology. Fine, I can agree with that.

[Smartphones definitely aren't magic, but they might as well be for all he understands how they work. Her logic checks out.]

Point is, yeah, I made a deal, and yeah, it comes with consequences. That's how deals work.

[finalflower]

Generally, unless one of the parties is either very good or very bad at them. That goes without saying. But I'm not sure it doesn't matter, just that the worlds are more complicated than any of us give them credit for.

[reaperrabbit]

Okay. Fine. Whatever.

[You win, Annu. You win. At least they're not talking about his memory regain anymore. Everybody wins!]

So it was magic, then, that made your hands like that?

[He finally acknowledges the darkness tinting her fingers by inclining his head at them.]

[finalflower]

Dark magic is not for the faint of heart.

[She recites like she's heard it somewhere, though she doesn't look all that sorry.]

I've only been practising for a little while, relatively. Someone who's done it all their life will look worse. I can't imagine what my professor looks like by now. He hides it, like I do with my gloves or kimono sleeves.

Of course, I hide it because I don't officially have permission to study in the restricted section, but that's another matter.

[reaperrabbit]

Does it hurt? Or make you stronger?

[Asked like those are two possibilities, not the only options. They might feel like or do nothing at all, except tell on her for sneaking into the Forbidden Zone.]

[finalflower]

Hurt... not exactly. Not always. It did when I started out. But it does give me power I wouldn't have otherwise, and it's strong. My siblings were never that interested in magic, even if we all go to the same school for it. I am. I have to do something that's my own.

[reaperrabbit]

[That actually seems to strike a chord in Brook.]

Something that's your own...

[His gaze slides away, and he doesn't say anything for a moment.]

Guess so.

[finalflower]

[That's interesting, and she sneaks an interested glance between bites of pancake.]

Something like that. My little brother wants to be a painter. If my older sister had her way, she'd spend her whole life eating candy and living off the family fortune. Our parents were so excited to send us to learn these things, so perhaps I'm doing my part ensuring at least one of us actually likes it.

[And she looks back up at him, voice in that smug and slightly ominous tone she seems prone to affecting.]

I suppose it's different if you've run out of time, though, is it?

[reaperrabbit]

[He looks back at her when she takes that tone. Then he smirks.]

You're barking up the wrong tree. You want to know what makes me tick, right? So you can disarm it like a bomb and stop another murder from happening.

[Something about his expression is hollow.]

How nice of you. But you shouldn't worry. The only person who thought my life was worth killing over died a long time ago--and it wasn't me.

[He puts his chin in his hand.]

I was just thinking about her. Wondering if she got that something that was her own. Nothing to do with last night or this place.

[finalflower]

Oh? [She lowers her head.] It's an innocent question. After all, you're the one who said you were dead in the first place.

[Annu leans back slightly and hums to herself.]

Friend of yours?

[reaperrabbit]

No.

[And that, his tone implies, is all he cares to say about her.

Brook points a gloved thumb at his chest.]

I died over a hundred years ago, yeah. To make me a Reaper, Satan created this flesh puppet body to put my soul in, along with a demon. That's how I'm able to go kill sinners for him. I couldn't do it without a physical body.

[finalflower]

I would've thought a job like a shinigami would be a little less hands on. Why do you need to kill them yourself?

[reaperrabbit]

Honestly? Pretty sure it's because Satan gets bored. If people are really bad, they'll end up in Hell whether a Reaper kills them or not. Sending us out to do it just makes it more entertaining for him, or something.

[finalflower]

When you put it like that, your usual demeanour is really no wonder.

[She takes another contemplative bite.]

Some might theorize that you're preventing them from doing further harm. Others, that you're cutting off the possibility for them to turn around and do good. But you jump straight to the idea that there's really no point. Of course, unliving as long as you have, your outlook is appropriately world-weary. Or I would say that, but Estrella's dad is positively ancient, and the stories about him are a little more lively.

[reaperrabbit]

...Uh... Thanks.

[What does anybody say to that.]

[finalflower]

Oh, don't give me that look. It's a simple observation.