spellbinders | [WORLD TWO

Entry tags:

[WORLD TWO | INTRO LOG]

Who: All coven members
Where: In and around the new world’s apartment building where the coven is staying
When: Day (the calendar isn’t syncing for me hELP)
Open/Closed: Open to All

You’re in a room. It’s pretty bright — blindingly so, even. There’s something very stark and very clean about the place, and also the person you’re sitting in front of. You’re sitting? You’re sitting. There’s also a pane of very powerful plexiglass separating you from the uniform-clad person who is now speaking to you.

It’s impossible to transcribe what they say verbatim, but here’s the gist of it:

- You’re being welcomed to a city called Shehui. Depending on who you are, the level of technology may be light years ahead of you or child’s play.
- There’s a very strict policy about magic. While there are measures put in place to prevent magic from happening, this is still something that they reiterate over and over. They don’t want to take chances.
- Crime is also frowned upon. Small infractions will result in credit deductions, while major crimes will get you banned. Antisocial behavior is also looked down upon. You’re locked in the city for your initial eight weeks. You can leave afterwards, but trying to break out of the city or cause social unrest will result in monitoring and a potential ban.
- This city is supposed to be somewhat relaxing. Is it a free pleasure cruise? No. Is it a self-contained society that runs on community and indulgence? Yes.
- You’re being given an allotment of credits in order to stay in the city, which is what the economy there runs on. This goes on for quite some time.
- You’re being moved to a housing location. Despite the slotted speaker in the middle of the plexiglass, the only time you have a chance to ask questions is when a small slit opens in the bottom and a package is slid towards you.
- What’s in the package? There’s a credit card-like apparatus that has apparently taken a picture of you. It contains a place to write your name, an identification number and barcode. It also has a thin strip near the top that has scrolling script floating by. It states “WELCOME TO SHEHUI. YOUR ID WILL UPDATE WITH COMMUNITY NOTICES AND PERSONAL PINGS FOR JOBS AND VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES RELATED TO YOUR INTEREST.” It’s a lot to take in, but that’s the long and short of it.

Have questions? The person will reiterate a few times that there are information desks around the city. That’s all for now…now you’ll be traveling to your next destination: your new home.

The floor slowly lowers as if you’ve been in an elevator the whole time. It connects to several other glass containers, much like your own, all suddenly clanking together in a chain. After a short wait, the chain begins to move — quickly. Faster, maybe, than you’ve ever gone before. It’s hard to even make out the scenery when you’re zipping past everything so quickly.

Where does this trip lead you? The ground floor of your new apartment building. The plexiglass cases open up and you’re in a hotel lobby. There’s a flashing board on the wall — NEW ARRIVALS, COME HERE.

The apartment building is locked up tight for three hours in order to let new arrivals get their bearings. After that, the ground floor lobby doors open into the city of Shehui. There’s a lot to take in, but let’s cover the biggest bases:

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[it does. Dirk has succeeded at creating more happiness. Geir likes being petted very much.]

You don't have to do all those things, though. You haven't destroyed me even a little.

Are you afraid you'll start again?

[This doesn't count because he says it doesn't.]

Yeah. I think... that's the kind of shit it's easy to fall back into.

You talked about Names with me before. In the world I'm from, players of Sburb have something called Mythological Roles. They're basically titles you're made to fulfil. The Aspect is the element of the universe you interact with, while the Class defines how you interact with it, so that two people might have the same class or title, but they'll operate in very different ways. Like, a Thief of Light steals luck for themselves, while a Rogue of Light would steal luck and redistribute it to others. Meanwhile, a Seer of Light would see the most fortuitous path forward.

[he listens with great attention, and when Dirk pauses, interjects agreeably:]

Sure, that all makes sense.

[Terezi mentioned that she and Dirk were gods of a sort, and this all sounds easier to remember than the murky, intensely personal journeys that await those who draw close to the Tree.]

[The important thing is most of these dumbasses failed to do their planet quests.]

Mine is the Prince of Heart. Heart deals with selfhood, or basically the soul of a person. Prince is an active and destructive class. A Prince destroys with, or destroys through, their aspect.

[that was a very dramatic statement and all, but Geir's reaction is...

well, uh,

relief and delight?]

--! You're like me!

[he shoves his head against Dirk's side more.]

No wonder we get along!

Dude, you are going to destroy my ribs if you keep that up.

[SOMEHOW! SOMEHOW HE KNEW GEIR WOULD BE LIKE THIS]

Diiiiirk! I'm really good at not breaking human bones! I haven't broken any.

[he hasn't. he's so good at this. he does ease off slightly though, just enough not to be actively shoving Dirk halfway over. Dirk has a sweet armrest now.]

Not any? [Geir gets a pat, while also being an arm rest.] Damn, that is impressive. Nice work, bro.

But yeah, I'm like you. Sorry I didn't bring up sooner that I was part of the Destroyer God club.

Wow, I didn't know there was anyone else like me. Even Fenrir's fate is different than mine. I mean, you're human and not a monster, but still...

[this is such EXCITING INTELLIGENCE TO HAVE.]

Wait, weren't you supposed to be creating something? How did that work?

Our session was a Void session. It meant we were incapable of creating any kind of universe. We were supposed to get the fully developed battlefield from Jade's session and place it in our session, so that we could transform it into an active session and win. Instead, shit went to hell and we mostly all died.

[SO YEAH]

Either way, I'm sure Sburb's cosmology would argue that destruction is a necessary part of creation. The game itself is premised on destroying one planet for the sake of creating a new universe.

You died?

Wait. What?

[that puts a period on Geir's delight quite effectively.]

[Oh.]

Sorry. I thought someone had filled you in that by now. When I said my actions all ended in disaster, I was understating the number of corpses that ended up in a pile. John and Roxy survived, while I'm not certain whether my state counts as dead or alive. We're the only ones.

How are you here?

I guess us being corpses, or weird accumulations of jpeg artefacts, isn't really an issue for Qri's summoning process. It isn't as if this was any of our first deaths even aside from that. My understanding is that all the trolls had died at least once, while the players of my session had all died twice before. Postmortem continuations aren't unusual for us.

[slowly:]

I didn't realize Qri could summon the dead. That's... huh.

[does Qri have anything to do with his sister? he doesn't want to ask her that in front of everyone. maybe if she really does finally talk to them alone...]

I didn't know you all came back like that, either.

[that's actually a little less unnerving. if the gods of Dirk's world could travel freely between their version of Niflheim and the other realms, that's one thing -- being plucked from there altogether is another.]

[He wonders if Geir is okay? It seems this surprised him a lot. It occurs to Dirk, not for the first time, that this game warps your perspective on things.]

Sburb essentially demands death to progress to its highest levels. Every player starts with, essentially, an extra body they can switch over to if they're killed. Then, to achieve what's called God Tier, a player has to die on a Quest Bed or Sacrificial Slab. When they do that, they're given conditional immortality, the power of flight, greater control over their powers, and a new outfit that ranges from badass to frankly embarrassing. I don't know if Terezi or Karkat ever reached that level, but all of my friends did together.

Once you're conditionally immortal, you can only die in one of two ways. You either have to die in an act of heroism, or your death has to be considered just, which basically means retribution on someone acting like a villain. They'll revive from any other death.

. . . that's a little like deciding where people go after they die, to Valhalla or wherever. Except it's whether they go at all. . . that's so strange.

[Geir's tone is a little distant. unfamiliar metaphysics he's relatively okay with following, but the fact that Dirk was pulled out of that mechanic by Qri is still troubling, if better than him being permanently dead.

the fact Dirk died is also still a problem.]

[well on that]

It's a similar judgement system, right. It's also why I'm not entirely certain about my state back in our world. I can see an interpretation for just standing there in the middle of your mistakes and giving up being counted as 'Just,' but it also wouldn't be out of Sburb's usual scheme of things to just leave me there glitching out for eternity.

[There's a casualness to the monotone, like he isn't casually discussing what is to him a far worse fate than death.]

Was that what your nightmare was about. . .?

[his voice, on the other hand, is rather small.]

[Dirk nods, but his attention is on Geir. He gives Geir's snout a pet.] You don't sound okay, bro. I'm sorry for upsetting you. This isn't the sort of bullshit you need to deal with.

Of course I'm upset? Don't apologize, though.

[that sounds a little more normal, at least.]

I'm sorry you and your friends died. Even if you were used to it, that sounds awful.

It wasn't great.

[He will admit that much. He keeps patting Geir's snout, and he decides not to elaborate on the worst part of it, the blessing and the curse: that they'll all be displaced, pushed aside for other versions of them who might be more successful. That they're free and things will be better, but also that they're discarded and irrelevant.

He doesn't think Geir needs to hear that.]

But we're dealing with it.

You're pretty good at that...

[Geir closes his eyes under the petting, feeling very tired for a moment. honestly, Dirk being so blasé is almost as unnerving as the discussion of death. is he overreacting? he doesn't think he's overreacting. he remembers, for a vivid moment, Vern's nightmares about being buried alive: death is a pretty big deal.

how could Qri...?

he can't quite see how else to respond to "it wasn't great," so he keeps his eyes closed and reviews the conversation quietly for a couple of moments. he tries to keep track. finally he slits one eye open and sighs, enormously.]

You were starting to say something else, about the classes and things. Sorry, I got distracted.

It's okay. At this point, I'm more concerned about you. [It was a BIG dragon sigh there.] Sburb tends to force its players to accept things that they shouldn't have to. It can be easy to forget that those things shock and upset people, when the game does its best to numb us to it. Frankly, it should still shock and upset people. It isn't right that the game forces its players to accept these things in order to progress.

[Geir looks at Dirk. this part he understands already, perhaps even better than Dirk does.]

Right doesn't have much to do with being a god.

[honestly, his family treats death almost as cavalierly, albeit in a different way. it never made him flinch to remember that his half-brother's guts were used to chain Loki down. it occurs to Geir more clearly than it has for a while that his relationships with the members of the coven, much less Vern, are very different.]

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