DO BETTER,

[agogemod]

WHO? Everybody! Including fourth wall visitors.
WHAT? HRHR and swap shenanigans, among other things.
WHEN? 12 XII, Year 6 of Sanaliel's reign.
ANYTHING ELSE? Please warn for anything besides physical violence and move to a personal journal if it's beyond PG-13.

BE MORE, DO MORE;

check your blood pressure

READ THE LEMURIA INFOPAGE.

STRANGE THINGS ARE AFOOT

You've been in Lemuria a little while now, trying to fit in, assimilate, and survive. But on the dawn of the twelfth day of the twelfth month of Lemuria's third and final season, something strange happens.

You wake, but it's as though your mind isn't your own. Or maybe you stayed up all night and felt the change, in the AM hours before it's so late it becomes early. A mental stirring, a feeling that only gets worse as it goes on, no matter what you tried to do and how you tried to halt it. Whatever the case, you're in its sway: Lemuria has become a hive mind.

Your memories are no longer private. Your powers are no longer your own. The barrier between you and everyone else is gone as easy as thinking. In a flash, just looking at someone allows you to instantly understand their thoughts, or encourages their memories to suddenly become your memories, too. It's instantaneous, like the memory has always been there, like it truly happened for you. Once upon a time, it was tangible.

It isn't a perfect science, however. While the intention is there, what exactly you experience is fuzzier. Your scouts will eventually chalk up the inconsistency of the experience (why do some hold up better against it than others?) to individuality and the BCEs, but who knows, really.


IS ANYBODY OUT THERE?

Stranger still, when you venture out to see the rest of the city, the city is calm and silent, like a perfectly preserved relic or a dream. The average citizen is dead asleep, in their beds or in the streets, whether they collapsed walking, riding a hoverbike, or driving a vehicle.

There are accidents, eerily still besides smoke curling from the wreck, with no paramedics on the scene. When someone dies, they die as unaware as everyone around them.

Besides you, of course.

For anyone who dies, their memories remain out of reach; otherwise, you might very well see the past of any Lemurian citizen you pass. Even if their hopes and misfortunes don't survive with them for the night, they might survive with someone else.

In the midst of the sleeping city, you can try and help those in need. They won't wake up and you'll probably never get a thank you, but bandaging wounds sure would be nice of you.


A CITIZEN'S ADDRESS

Not long after the sun rises, a post goes up on the network:

@ASHOLE | @ALL

something got seriously fucked up holy shit
were doing our best to figure it out but honestly? it seems like some kind of technomagical intercurrent based on hypothetical thaumaturgic mnemomancy
uhhh in laymans terms somebodys fucking with memories but you knew that right?
the thing is theres somnomantic undercurrents as well
only thing i can figure for why were still awake and theyre not is because of the bces
they havent been invented yet, but theyre designed to protect us from things like the sleeping shit
so we arent being affected exactly the same way as the lemurians, either
but thats got its own problems because uh
you know how were undercover spies in a volatile period of time and shit
well we aint the only ones
the regency-to-be has guys hanging around here and they got bces too
vega's already run into a couple

be fucking careful
and for the love of GOD dont go to the bolthole
youll lead them right to us

ill update with better intel as i get it
i have some theories but i wanna run a few tests

I WANNA ROCK AND ROLL ALL NIGHT

So despite all the sleeping people and the horroresque quiet, you're not alone.

Walking around in broad daylight is a dead giveaway to Regency spies that you have a BCE. And they will attack. They're dressed as civilians and seem better prepared for the situation, lurking in the shadows and staying out of sight. Some of them may tail you for a very long time before waiting for the right moment to make a move. Some may leap out as soon as you reveal yourself. Each fights with their own style and aim to kill.

They're equipped largely with blasters similar to yours and they don't, for once, have power nullifies. They do have superhuman strength, speed, senses, and healing, so watch out.

Some may engage in conversation, but it's largely of the trashtalk variety. It's not impossible to have a genuine talk with one or two (feel free to NPC them as you like and ask if you need any specific information on something they would or wouldn't say, but really, it's up to you), but it is unlikely. They are consummate fighters.

They're trying to find the source of COST's boltholes around the city, and take out as many COST operatives as possible in the process. Why don't you return the favor?

Ooor maybe you lead them right to the bolthole. Somebody's always gotta be that guy.


I'M A BELIEVER

During all of this (and maybe despite it), there are missions. Their exact timing is up to you; while they take place around the hive mind overtaking Lemuria, they don't necessarily happen during it—barring, of course, the one where you save the day and bring down Fafnir.

You can use this event to your advantage or disadvantage, through gaining someone else's memories or knowledge, or adapting to a set of powers you haven't spent a lifetime honing. The Lemurian people are a silent wellspring of information; even the most oblivious has an intimate understanding of their home and outlying territories that COST can't replicate. And, well, an unconscious person is an easier target than a conscious one.

READ THE LEMURIA INFOPAGE.

NAV. NETWORK LOGS OOC MEMES PLURK

Comments

[doublejumps]

[ It's not a bad idea to check the network for other reports, and Genji stands by and listens to the various messages read off by the BCE, his hearing good enough that he doesn't have to get too close to Mamoru's chest to pick up on it. He doesn't mind waiting here until things blow over, though it could get awkward if all of the people in the apartment complex suddenly wake up. That's something they can deal with if it happens, though.

Both of them will be ready if the Regency brings the fight to them, and Genji responds to Mamoru's grin with a firm nod, forceful enough that Mamoru should be able to hear the movement and extrapolate from there. ]

They'll have picked the wrong people to pick a fight with, I think.

[ It seems that Mamoru is calculating the best place for them to hole up for now, and Genji has no problem with accepting his determination. His enhanced senses mean that he has that extra edge that will help him find the safest spot to wait.

Mamoru then shares a detail about his teacher -- some attempt to smooth over his reaction from earlier, perhaps. Genji doesn't think that it's necessary for Mamoru to explain anything, but saying as much might only make things more awkward. ]

A demon? What did he do to earn such a title?

[prizeneck]

It's not what he did. It's what he wouldn't do.

[Try as he might, it's very difficult to keep his voice from lilting into something nostalgic. Even climbing down the stairs to the master wall and under what he calculated would be the gravitational axis of the building would only shake the flow of what he's saying, but not the tone.

It's difficult, considering this had been the person he had closest to his father. What's done is done. He'll have time to regret not sounding neutral later, anyway.

Reaching a decent enough room - empty, lest whatever caused this mass slumber lift - he sits on a couch, grimacing at how soft the cushions were, making him fold a little too much than he felt necessary.

He pushes the bridge of his shades higher on his nose.] He was known for going to extreme measures to teach his students - but only because that's the way he learned it himself.

[doublejumps]

[ The nostalgic tone isn't something that Genji even thinks twice about. He's sure he'd sound much the same way if the topic of conversation shifted to his brother. There had been a time when thinking of Hanzo had only filled him with anger, but that's all simmered out and now all he wants is to repair things, somehow.

Granted, Mamoru speaks of his teacher in the past tense, and it seems that what Genji had gathered in that vision had been as it seemed. To have killed someone he cared about -- that can't be an easy thing to reconcile.

That alone seems to answer the question of 'extreme measures,' although there must be more to it than that.

After a moment of hesitation, Genji goes to join Mamoru on the couch, if on the other side, leaving some space between them. ]

So, what would he not do?

[prizeneck]

[Mamoru will always find that the quietude of Genji's motions will always betray him. Like finding an audible black hole, it's the lack of it that makes his presence stand out. He knows very few people are able to point it out, though. Like an actual black hole, it takes some machinery, knowledge of what you were looking for in the first place.

So it's unavoidable that his lip twitches when the cushion of the couch dips, rustles, but there's no sound associated with it. It's definitely something interesting to experience. ]

Nothing. [He removes his glasses, wipes the lenses with a neatly folded rag (from the Anzac trenches - where he first met this guy) he draws from his pocket.] You have it in your head, right? How he smiled for the sake of mastery. How he throws a starving dog a bone, knowing how it would follow him forever.

[He snorts, disbelieving, even if half hidden in the push of his now clean shades up the bridge of his nose.] I was supposed to inherit his dojo but... seems like he had a change of heart.

[doublejumps]

[ It's strange to see Mamoru remove his sunglasses, even if it's only for the brief moment it takes for him to clean them. That he would do that at all seems to indicate that he trusts Genji. He wouldn't be telling him this much about his past if that weren't the case, would he?

Mamoru refers to his past self as a 'starving dog,' but Genji hasn't borrowed any memories from his younger days. Still, if he'd been taken in by his master, then that gives some clue of how he'd grown up. It's not quite like how Zenyatta had taken Genji in, but it's a feeling he can relate to all the same. ]

Why's that? Or do you not know?

[ While it's hard to imagine Mamoru as the head of a dojo, Genji can't help but think he'd do well at it all the same. ]

[prizeneck]

I can only guess. [He shakes his head. He takes his time thinking about it. The last time actually sitting down and think about this, Makabe's reasons for summoning him for a midnight spar, everything that had led up to that, he had been sitting on the back seat of a police car, handcuffs on his wrists.

The image is faded with wear, with the time since he last saw anything, but it's there. The darkness of the car, the shouting of prosecutors and attorneys alike when he refused to say a thing. The blame a certain prodigy detective sent his way, calling him a murderer. ] He was a flag bearer of real combat - he would take no excuses, the bokken in your hands is supposed to be an actual, cutting sword. The rules in kendo were just suggestions - in real combat, there would be no rules, after all.

[Mamoru sighs, a frown weighing on his brow. Not even Igawa had known the full extent of this story, and they had been partners for years. Then again, it's not like he had actually seen what happened.] There's only so much you can learn by teaching, I guess.

[The hardest part, actually, was admitting that Makabe had been right.]

[doublejumps]

[ It's clear that Mamoru is putting real thought into this, that he's considering his response with proper care. All of that is no doubt due to the fact that he still has great respect for his master, regardless of how that relationship may have left scars on him.

He'd been able to see back then, hadn't he? That part of it only just now sinks in.

Mamoru's master had been correct -- there's a point where practice and sparring will only teach you so much. It's no substitute for actual combat, for feeling your opponent's killing intent, for knowing that one wrong move could lead to your end.

That doesn't mean that he should have traumatized his student to make that point, but that's not for Genji to comment on. There's a long pause, and then Genji shifts to look more directly at Mamoru, across the couch. ]

Thank you for telling me about it, Mamoru. I did not mean to speak out of turn.