balance_logs | Field Mission 5: Il Prigioniero, Part 3

Field Mission 5: Il Prigioniero, Part 3

	They had discovered one could grow as hungry for light as for food.
	NAVIGATION

1. THE FATE OF WONDERLAND

A. CRESCENDO; FINALE

The beauty of the sentient mind is that hope is hard to kill. Even living in illusion for so long, the Bureau of Balance as a whole believed to the end that a happy ending was possible in Wonderland. That's a good thing, even if an unrealistic dream. Without that vision, that hope, there's no way to succeed. You all know that, don't you?

You knew it when you went back into the tree to save absolutely anyone that you could. Strangers some of them. Strangers most of them. It didn't matter. There's a happy ending to this story; everyone believed in it as surely as they carried out the innocent, as surely as they carried out each other.

You knew it when you got crafty with needle and thread, trying to reassemble the cruel joke Wonderland made with those who lost their way and fell into debt. Nine bodies are saved — including Henrik's, Henrik whose soul is reattached to his body, Henrik whose shaking arms can finally reach out to hold his son.

You knew it when you spoke to a dying Yggdrasil, Maya taking in the suffering and sickness of its years, listening with an open heart until, suddenly, as the tree's consciousness began to collapse, she was taken Somewhere Else. To speak with a man in a sharp suit with places to be. Things to do. Planar systems to devour. You know how it is. A poisoned arrow to Yggdrasil's open wound brought it down for good, leaving Shuichi to hurriedly plant the new Golden Leaf for a new World Tree; leaving Sayori and Angus McDonald to pick up the pieces of their dazed comrades.

You knew it when you tricked the Mirror Maze into glitching apart, giving it quite simply too much to keep track of. The fact that you found a helper along the way certainly didn't hurt, but let's face it: this was genius. The reward is Niel, crystallized, encasing the Compact. Suffering, as he has been for a very long time.

You knew it when three warlocks and a very angry wizard embarked on an ultimately suicidal mission, which just goes to show that the best-laid plans of mice and men sometimes lead to a 50% vore rate. A desperate attempt to keep Adrian distracted for long enough that the Compact could be retrieved was only able to delay him in the end. Just because success is possible doesn't make it guaranteed. Sometimes a fight with the villain ends in stalemate.

Sometimes a fight with the villain isn't a fight at all. Sometimes it's an outstretched hand (or two, or four), and sacrifices from each member of the party, and pain, and . . . self-awareness. Sometimes the villain just wants to let go. Sometimes there are happy endings, but this time Niel — fused into the Tree itself, his life tied up in the dying Yggdrasil, extended by the Compact — just wants it to stop. He doesn't want to hurt anyone anymore.

His friends are holding his hands as they take the Compact and make it stop.

This isn't a happy ending. But that isn't your fault. Hope for a happy ending has, quite literally, saved the world.

The nightmare is over. Wonderland slips away.

2. ON THE EDGE OF THE HORIZON

B. THE PEOPLE

And as suddenly as the myriad indulgences of Wonderland went to ... well, complete shit, there's something of a metaphorical blink of light. Those who were meant to be dead are - both your fellow Reclaimers and the Rolands who could not be fixed in time - but there is still many that are saved. Injuries knot back together at the slightest curative magic. Smog and negativity vanish like they never were, taking the last shambling monsters away with it. The souls of Shadowdale that you have returned to their respective bodies have a new life to forge. Things can be fixed.

If only it were that easy.

Shadowdale, for all intents and purposes, is uninhabitable. For the first time since the Bureau's mission began, an entire city population has lost its home, and must move on. No matter how much blame you may place on yourself for the way things turned out, whether it's guilt or hope that drives you forward, time, and the cycle of life itself, spins onward. And the people who live march on.

To New New Aspen.

Matthew has promised to bring the survivors of Shadowdale to his home, to give them a new chance. You have a couple of options here, if you would like to help them. You may serve as guard, helping escort the people of Shadowdale to New New Aspen. Super convenient for you, since it's right by the Moon Base! You may help them build and settle.

The people of New New Aspen, only months away from Candlenights, are hard at work carving their annual ornaments. You may help the new residents acclimate - whether it's helping them work the fields, start a business, or take part in their new home's most coveted tradition. And you'll have a new ornament to bring home with you, too.

C. THE FOREST

The deadened woods you traveled through to reach Shadowdale at the beginning of this mission seem somehow even more silent, cloaked in demise, than when you first stepped in it. The madness is gone, replaced with double the silence, a stillness like nothing you've ever experienced before. It's almost as if your senses, save for however you perceive the light of the sun, are gone.

At least, until someone speaks to you. A wood elf - he doesn't give you his name, but he does identify himself as someone who was trapped. Someone who, through your efforts to restore the Rolands, you gave life to again.

And he does have a request for you.

"This place has little hope for revival," he says, sniffing slightly, taking in the silence around you both. "At least, it has little hope in your lifetime.

But I do have something to ask of you. Give this place life, the way you did for the people here. Even if you, or even I, for that matter, will never likely live long enough to see it."

That's sort of an existential way of asking you to do some hardcore landscaping. But you will be provided with seeds of all sorts, and you will have the opportunity to plant them as you see fit. If you would like to build a shrine, or remember those who lost their lives here in some other way, you are free to do that as well.

There's something else curious, though: literally anything you plant, regardless of what it is, will eventually produce a viable bud sprouting from the gray, dry soil.

What does that even mean? If you plant a book of poems, are you going to get a poetree?

Are you even going to live long enough to see it in full bloom?

D. THE EXHAUSTION

You might not be on Lucretia levels of exhausted (she is, remember, zonked, and will remain so all the way back to the Moon Base and beyond for a while), but this has not been an easy mission for anyone who dared to test this Grand Relic's powers.

Whether you return from New New Aspen, or whether you finally catch a ride back to the Moon Base from the forest, you are now free to return home. This is your welcome home wildcard, a chance for you to try to recuperate, address anything at all before the next Lunar Interlude begins.

You will find that the Moon Base has an awfully somber feel to it, from the inner members of the Bureau to the people serving the Reclaimers in the town. Word is starting to trickle in on what you all went through.

blurb code by photosynthesis

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[Actually you know what it still applies.

But yes. She absolutely did this to herself.

All that's on her neck now are the faint scars of her self-inflicted scratches. The urge to hide again is overpowering, a reflex from years(?) programmed to hide everything away behind smiles and laughter. And that's what she shields herself with instead, but the airy way she titters does little to hide her overwhelming affection. Even if it did, it's hard to hide from your paladin.

She suddenly has no idea what to do with her hands if not hide behind them, and she wrings them together for a moment before settling one on Mista's stomach and nervously grasping a fistful of his shirt. She keeps her gaze fixed on his notebook, because she feels like she might die if he looks into her eyes and says something like that. As is habit, she speaks without thinking, though this doesn't come out with the same casual ease as complimenting his looks did.] Ahaha. You're the one who's special.

[Izuku wants to help the elves. He goes with the intention to help the elves. But it's hard. His eyesight is still dull and he can barely make out shapes. He cuts his own fingers more than he cuts an ornament and ends up abandoning it on the ground, dotted with blood. He tries to plant things but it feels so pointless, so stupid. He'll never know if it was something that helped. Maybe it will be something useless.

Maybe it won't grow at all.

He tries to play his violin as inspiration. But his fingers on his damaged hand are clumsy, like he'd been out in the cold for too long. His song his awkward, screechy, and just uninspiring.

And that's how he feels.

Uninspiring.

He should have found Niel earlier. He should have reached out to someone that needed help. Instead he wasted his time in the stupid maze that never did anything for anyone. He's stupid. He's so stupid. He's so useless. He just stood there and didn't do anything to help Honoka, or Kokichi or Niel. How could he call himself a hero.

Rage bubbles up when his bow hand slips and causes a sour note. He grabs the neck of his violent, twists, and smashes it against a tree. He smashes it until it's nothing but a pathetic array of splinters held together by some strings. With a cry, he flings it and then turns his useless right hand onto the tree, punching it again and again until his knuckles are bruised and bloody.

He doesn't even feel it. Instead he just lets out furious cry of rage and sorrow.

Some hero.]

Edited 2019-10-14 21:49 (UTC)

[He's not gonna make her look. Not right now, anyway. All the same, he watches her, gaze light but attentive in the way it always is when he's watching something (someone) important.]

[It's getting easier to feel what she's feeling, not only the literal sensations but what they imply. It wasn't safe in Wonderland, but it's safe here. And — that makes him wonder what it is she feels from him, because he only halfway knows what he's feeling, other than a lot.]

[Her hands clutch at him; he pulls her closer against his side, and remembers he is going to have to carry her again soon because it made her happy. For now, his breath catches and huffs in a pleased way with how she holds onto him.]

I don't really feel special. But I believe you.

[That's so knightly, he remembers, and ducks his head a little to hide his grin. His fingers go on writing of their own volition: hero, in Common, and then when he's unsatisfied with that, eroina.]

[He doesn't ask if she believes him in turn. Thinks about it, but doesn't. Either way, it's still true.]

Why don't we try finding things to look into?

[They don't have to focus on how things really Work; they can enjoy the mundane now and again. If they both like it, if it reminds them of home in a pleasant way, then... why not? Even if he's still struggling with feeling useless... cheering up a friend has to be worth something.]

Then we can just... talk about what we found. There's always going to be something new to learn.

[76 stares him down for a moment, though he seems more exhausted than angry. It seems he’s in disbelief more than anything, that this would come up now, of all times.]

I’m not sure now is really the time.

[He gestures to all the stuff that’s still in the cart—he’s got work to do, man!]

[Well, the fact that something is growing is a good sign, because 76 is most certainly having his doubts about the quality of the soil. Maybe the plant was this big when Shuichi put it in, or maybe 76 just wants to hope that the land hasn’t been rendered totally useless in the wake of Wonderland’s damage to it.]

Been better.

[But he’s sure that’s true for everyone. Better to talk about the tree, instead.]

You look like you’re having some luck.

[Or magic. Or both.]

Sounds like an understatement.

[Considering. Alex doesn’t look injured, but 76 knows that’s not really an indication of anything. They’ve all been mentally through the wringer as well. He’s jumped headfirst into helping out around New New Aspen because he doesn’t want to be idle, but he knows that not all of the Reclaimers will operate the same way he does.]

Don’t push yourself if you don't have to.

[Ferran hums his agreement. He shares a similar feeling to Crowley, and whatever he might want to say to the Director, Ferran wouldn't try to argue him out of it.]

There might be a line when she wakes up. I think people are finally starting to realize how haphazard this all is.

[Nobody he's brought up Lucretia to has tried to defend her in any meaningful way.]

[It's a lot, but it doesn't start out that way.]

[It's one thing to wonder about static - the Voidfish messes with a lot here, and nobody really remembers what happened when the Hunger hit - but this is different. The page of programming terms throws it in a completely different context, and for a moment Wash has to stop and shut down the fragments of Director Doctor Leonard Church that still live in the back of his mind, spouting AI theory and clamoring to be heard.]

[The next page he recognizes as memories - he'd used some of these himself to fight back against Epsilon's influence and rebuild his sanity. But the water damage- and next the train, with its catty talking portraits accusing her of being fake in the same breath they'd accused him of being crazy- and the questions about reality itself- and Wonderland-]

[It all starts to build a picture he hadn't seen before, a level of hell he hadn't known she'd been dealing with, and...well, nothing exacerbates hell like Wonderland.]

[The blacked-out page is not enough to prepare him for the rest of the entries.]

[He remembers the research - remembers how much he hated the idea of sending any of the kids back into the tree, even though they'd volunteered, in the same breath that he hated himself for not going in their place despite knowing that he'd never survive if he did. He remembers the dice, remembers how badly they'd warped Alex and Kaede and hurt so many more of their party.]

[He reads the summary of what happened to her in Event Square.]

[It's when he reads it again that his hands start shaking.]

[Sans had brought Sayori to the infirmary with wounds on her neck. They'd looked like scratches - he'd thought she'd been attacked by a monster, but this...an illusion wouldn't leave ligature wounds, but trying to get out of a fucking noose would definitely leave some marks-]

[And then there's the poem, vestiges of Epsilon in someone who never deserved anything that horrifying anywhere near her-]

[And then there's the drawing-]

[He closes the journal, finger between the pages to mark his place, and puts a hand over his eyes.]

[He can't. He fucking can't. She's been living with this for- for how long? He doesn't fucking know- he should have known, should have realized, and he didn't- and Wonderland pulled it all up and dragged her through it and he-]

[He needs to get a fucking hold of himself. He needs to step up. He couldn't help Sayori in Wonderland; the least he can do is be here for her now.]

[He takes a breath, reopens the journal, takes in the poem and the drawing again - God damn it - and continues on.]

[It's another minute or two before he finishes, eyes still on the unfinished poems on the last pages as he tries to process.]

[She's...depressed. He gets that - he's been there, in a slightly different fashion, but nonetheless.]

[Someone she trusted got in her head and destroyed her. He's been there too, to say the absolute least.]

[But he'd survived.]

[Had...had she?]

[And there's the difference- there's a goddamn difference between Epsilon, tortured beyond sanity, crashing and burning and taking Wash with him because he was unlucky enough to just be there, and Monika - whoever the fuck Monika was pretending to be - rewiring Sayori's brain on goddamn purpose, for whatever malicious intent she'd had. It's not a tragic accident; it's fucking AI warfare-]

[He has to stop and reexamine that thought. Is Sayori an AI?]

[Not as he knows them, but if her world was digital-]

[Wait-]

[Hang on-]

[Does it even fucking matter?!]

[Who cares if she's made of code or flesh or magic - she's Sayori, and she's hurt, and he has utterly fucking failed to protect her in any way that matters, and she's still here, still sharing this with him-]

[He has a lot of time to make up for. A lot of missed opportunities. A lot of pain he failed to prevent. But at least, right now, he can be here for her.]

[He closes the journal gently, hands it back to her, and then pulls her into a hug.]

I'm sorry.

[His voice may be shaking, but it's fine. He's fine. He can pull himself together. He's had practice. What matters right now is her.]

[Replace the would with should, and Wash has it entirely right. He takes a slow breath, thinking about the plans he's already made despite himself. And he's already forced them to look at his corpse once.]

Yeah. I know they would... I couldn't do that to them.

[Somehow he's managed to make dear friends here, if just because he hasn't shown them everything he really is, but he knows some of them wouldn't be shaken so easily. It's not like home, where he's already showed the worst of himself to the people who used to be his friends after cutting them off for half a year. Would they have missed him, after they realized he might be their enemy after all? He's not even sure ███████ would be—]

[Eyes going wide, he surges to his feet, nearly upending the table and forcing Athena to find another surface to sit on. His breaths start coming in shaky, more frantic—

His friends. █████. ██████? He even told Mista about ███████ and █████, how could he have forgotten ████?

Trembling, his hands come up to grasp his hair as tears build in his eyes.]

No...

[Someone, anyone. ██████. █████. Even ███████, who hates him. Please, at least his parents, at least ████—]

I can't remember...!

[It'd be hard to believe something like that about herself with her whole heart. There's just too much inside of her weighing it all down, too much she hasn't yet been able to shake off.

But she'd like to believe it.

She's practically draped fully along the length of his side now, and once again becomes self-conscious of the rapid beating of her heart, hoping he can't feel it through her chest. She hasn't yet fully absorbed the scope of their connection, too easily overwhelmed by her own strong emotions to pick out the sensations that might not belong to her and not quite realizing just how much information she's transmitting, herself.

Watching him write like this, though--it almost feels right. Her face feels unbearably warm at his word choice (Italian, she's sure.)

She commits, a bit more oomph behind the words once they've had a moment to steep.] Well, you're special to me. So I'm just gonna have to make sure you feel like it too!

Huh? Oh! The tree... [He looks down at it.] Well it's the new Tree of Life, so...I don't think it's anything I've done or any luck I may have that's responsible for how fast it's growing...

[It's magic. Probably.]

[There. That's the difference, isn't it. The particular part that neither of them have said. Special to me is different, more personal, than just special. He looks sideways at her in surprise, caught off-guard by how different that feels. How, just by saying it like that, there's a burst, an instant, when he really does feel like it.]

[No matter how ordinary he feels, to Sayori, he's someone special. He never really thinks about himself that way, but . . .]

You're special to me, too. [Quiet and thoughtful, as though he's examining his own feelings — which more or less is true. Sayori makes him think about himself more than most people do. He's resisted getting close to everyone here for so long, but she caught him just so, just at the right time, and got him thinking by not making him think very hard at all.]

[Writing a poem about someone is something special. Even if it feels natural. Maybe especially then. He looks down at the page and feels a faint flicker of doubt, a moment of self-awareness that whatever it is he's feeling, he doesn't have the skills to express.]

How—

[He licks his lips, nervous. Unsure if this is the right question to ask.]

If you wanna write a poem about somebody. For somebody — the same— [The same person, he means, but grows frustrated with his own fumbling and starts to doodle a bumblebee on the page to distract himself.] What I was thinking was, was a story about you. What you did. But I dunno if that's right.

[ School is absolutely bizarre. Even after graduating in the midst of that unbearable tragedy, he's back here. College itself was unthinkable after It started to come after them again. Genuinely, Alex never thought he'd be back in this setting.

It's funny, he always liked school. And yet, he just can't connect with it again. He shrugs his shoulders further into his hoodie. ]

Dunno. [ He answers absently; he's more thinking about the aforementioned soul-crushing mission. ] Thought at first I'd just hull up here, less...factors. [ Factors? Slow down, Alex, you're acting like you're back there again. He spends a moment re-calibrating. ] 'm sayin'... You're right. Haven't really seen much of this world anyway.

Here. Drinks are on me, as they say.

Carmen pours them both a cup. Her movements are practiced, either from having picked up shifts here or perhaps she'd poured tea for a lot longer than that. She sets a cup in front of Roxas and then takes one for herself. She has to return to the topic at hand.]

That's nice of you, really. A lot happened and I think I'm still processing this first time out.

[She studies him for a minute.]

You've been around a lot longer than I have...but I can't imagine they've all been like this, have they?

[Yeah, that hits differently. There's overlap, of course, with the way her skin warms as she blushes and the hummingbird beating of her heart, but there's a tightness in her chest that isn't quite painful. This is...somehow both easier and harder to accept as a feeling. The tense grip of her hand relaxes, though her fingers still fidget meditatively in the fabric of his shirt.] Thanks.

[She should write about this feeling, she knows. She will, later.

The small curve of her smile is intimately affectionate as she watches the movements of his writing hand. Her own notebook has a lot of doodles in it, too.] I'm not an expert or anything, ehehe. But I think the only wrong way to write poetry is when it's not genuine, you know? Everyone likes different things, so whatever you write is never gonna be right for everyone!

So the most important thing is staying true to what's in your heart. If... [She pauses, giggles a little bashfully.] If you wanna write a story like that, you should! Just write what comes naturally. You can always go back and change things if they don't come out right the first time.

[From Wonderland?

To here.

Oh.]

Oh. [In a tiny voice, strained with revelation, eyes gone wide:] Ohhhh.

[Oh holy shit it was completely one hundred percent an illusion.

And the part before that was real.

Probably.]

...Oh, fuck.

Factors?

[It takes a moment for it to sink in, but he eventually thinks, erroneously or not, that it's most likely referring to the lack of a danger around here versus literally anywhere else in the world.

Ryuji'd been thinking about it too, himself. Go off somewhere else for a while. Not be him, not be stuck in the mindset that he's been in for the past few months. Not that he didn't want to be in his own mind, but the culmination of the last few months has been well, awful. For him, for all the Reclaimers, all the people they were saving. Or damning without intending to do so.

He opens his mouth to talk about something along those lines- to echo the guilt he felt over everything. Over not being able to save anywhere near enough people back in Wonderland, but the tool of communication needed to get there just fails before even launching. And at this point, it'd probably be loading his own issues onto someone else.

We're all great at coping here in the Bureau of Balance, huh.

But he remembers that he didn't always see Alex in class, and can't remember how long it's been since he was plucked out of his world to begin with. He nods when he says how little he's traveled.]

You, uh, you grow up in a big city at all? I'm from Tokyo, if that means anything to ya. Kinda find with really big places you can kinda meld into the streets, if you know what I mean. Become part of it and just like, lose sense of where you are. I hear Neverwinter's this place's biggest one.

But if that ain't your speed, New New Aspen's pretty nice. Lotsa stars and shit.

[He looks towards the hallway and not directly anywhere in specific.]

After everything that went down, it just feels kinda rough bein' here, I guess.

[ They're already following it with a Cure Wounds or twenty, hands alight with that brilliant golden glow and pressed against his ribcage to try and direct the magic, when Mista starts to breathe.

It takes them a moment to realise it, but when they do, it's- ]

Oh, thank-

[ A nervous, almost desperate laugh bubbles up and out before they can really stop it. He's not dead. He's not dead. ]

W-what do you mean the hell did I do- the hell did you do, that made you collapse like that?!

[ But if he's breathing, and cognisant, that means they can worry less - and that leaves room for so many other things, like confusion and anger and relief and it's just a jumbled mess that they absolutely have no strength left to deal with.

So Mista gets sworn at. This is fine. ]

Edited 2019-10-15 02:11 (UTC)

...You should be sorry.

No, they really haven't.

I mean, they've all been pretty tough and those relics are no joke, but. It's never been anything like this.

[He looks into his tea. The madness and horror, that was far more than he'd ever really expected.]

I don't know why this place was so messed up.

[He'd offer ice cream, if he had more. And he'll have to remember that for next time.

It takes a moment for that statement to settle on Roxas, but his expression clouds when it does.]

It. It really sucks.

I'm sorry.

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Page 28 of 71

Field Mission 5: Il Prigioniero, Part 3

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Wildcard - The Forest

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Wildcard - The Forest

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OH BOY OH BOY OH BOY

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un: deku

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