[Memory iS a fiNiCKy t█in█ ████████. Mem0rYy is █ MEMORY ████████
As you awake in Arpéchéle, the country beloved by death, a seco██ THIRDfourth 5█h life becomes your own. Memories that feel as real as anything that you've ever ███ EXPER█ENCE█. Thoughts of space, distant planets, and the people that you met there come and go onl█ ██ █████ come and stay, in the jumble of everything else you remember. All you've loved, all you've lost.
You awake in a place somewhere between a dungeon and laboratory. It is not as clean and pristine as the Institute. It is underground, and you distantly hear the sound of rushing water. Where are you? Why are you? There are chains that bind your wrists and ankles to posts, all separate from each other, saving you from each other... for now.
A distorted voice comes in.
"Won't you reveal to me what is stronger? Memory or emotion? In this land where so many people view them as one and the same, can't we do an experiment? Show me. Show me, show me! What will you cling onto? Your desire to live, or your loyalty to each other?” And then briefly, softer. "How pointless would life be if she did not still love me?"
One by one, each of you will be taken into a cell—but don't worry, those remaining will still be able to watch through the holographic screens that flicker to life. Those of you who are still alive to watch can do so, or may be forced to do so. Outside of the matches, your memories from the Eudora are clearer—you know who these people are to you.
And you know that they will all destroy each other.]
[Well! Here you are, snug as bugs in a rug - or like a bunch of captive sardines in a can. All of you have been revived into fresh, new Reliver bodies between your last terrible venture and waking up here, but these models are... flawed, to say the least.
Diluc's model has its full range of emotions, but is prone to lingering on negative feelings. Though his previous injuries no longer exist on this body, he'll experience occasional, temporary bursts of white-hot pain where they once were. The vision in his right eye also flickers now and then, showing him horrific images of imagined scenarios in which he just barely fails to save the people he cares for.
Scien's model has its full range of emotions, but every so often, if he comes into direct contact with a person or holds their gaze, he's forced to experience the weight of their emotions, too. His body also echoes with occasional aches and pains of a life he's only now remembering with greater clarity, as if divine punishment has been biding its time until this moment to greet him.
Dion's model has its full range of emotions, but with a setback: his feelings tend to spike into extremes (sadness becomes grief, annoyance becomes fury, etc). While these spikes don't last long, they're hard to control. His body also sometimes feels as though parts of it are being painfully petrified, though nothing is physically wrong with him and he can move just fine.
Luke's model has its full range of emotions but also what one might call... anxiety. There is a paranoia that seeps into every inch of his body. He cannot focus on the present moment, but rather thinks intensely of both the past and the future. The mistakes he's made, the disasters he's going to encounter. For whatever reason, his cough also hasn't disappeared in this body. Some things truly follow from life to life.
Dahut's model has its full range of emotions, but suffers from indecision. Every choice comes with second-guessing, uncertainty. Is what he's doing correct? Is this in alignment with his goals? Or is he making a choice based off of those pesky emotions? On occasion, his right hand will sometimes move out of sync with his body, as though it has a new life of its own... and it seeks to kill him.
Sheba's model has its full range of emotions, but there is a lack of compassion for others. She struggles to process true consideration for anyone else, except for sudden moments of clarity. At random points, her limbs will fail to obey her, as if they have shattered and the bones have broken apart. The pain sears and she'll lose strength momentarily before putting herself back together.
There's still time yet before the experiment begins. You're free to talk amongst yourselves, though it's obvious you're being watched.]
[Anyway wow hi he's aged a thousand fucking years after the horrors of part 1. He's just blinking in a daze and listening to yet another madman say some wild shit and wondering how he got here.
But more importantly - he knows the Eudora, and he knows the people in this room as his groggy gaze roams over them one by one, still trying to shake the haze away, trying to cope with the weight of all this new trauma.]
We're...
[ON A HORRIBLE ADVENTURE BUT WHY IS THIS ONE SO MUCH WORSE THAN THE LAST.]
sheba lets her gaze sweep over the others in the cell with her. she can remember the eudora more clearly, now; she can remember who these people are and what they've been through together.
she can remember that, up until now, she's never seen more than six people come back from one of these things - though even that has been contained to three on the living side and three on the dead side. still, it brings her a sick, twisted measure of hope. if six is the limit, and there are five others in this cell with her - she re-counts, just to be sure: dahut, diluc, dion, luke, scien - then maybe it wasn't really shouxue she left to die. maybe it wasn't really eunhyuk and viktor they saw tortured after the decision had been made to set rosa and salome free.
maybe, maybe, maybe.
she raises her head sligtly when dahut speaks, then looks away.]
[ he awakens to a burst of phantom pain in his right hand and shoulder, the entire arm spasming until the sensation subsides just as abruptly. emotions stir next, and then flood as he regains his full consciousness and far too many memories—on archepele and before, eudora and its underbelly, home. (how much more distant that is, now.)
he moves upright to take inventory of his new reliver body, and of his companions in captivity with him. dread coils in his gut, and he can't seem to shake it no matter how he tries. ]
...Are you all right?
[ he inhales tersely, trying to grasp a semblance of logic in the confusion. this must be another anomaly.
[Why are there so many people here HELLO. Dahut is both unhappy and baffled to see five whole other people here, and all of them dead, both unusual for what he assumes is their usual Thursday hell visits. He kicks a leg out a little, trying to look Diluc over.]
Um... I'm remembering things a little better now, at least. Are you okay...?
[Don't you just love when you can't get rid of your TB
Luke doesn't wake gracefully. He launches back into consciousness the same way he did on the Eudora--panicked and violent, overcome with guilt, regret, and pain. His heart races, his mind immediately latching onto what he'd seen before the experiments started, and he'll tear himself apart for failing to save the rest of them later. For now, far above the memories of parted flesh and flayed minds, even above the hatred and betrayal in the eyes of those that had been trapped with them--]
[ Before entering the cell, a different variable will be introduced to the experiment for both participants.
A memory is implanted in Dahut. You were born under an auspicious star, they said. How lucky that the heavens blessed you with a strong, healthy body. Even as a child, you didn’t so much as fall ill even once. The older you got, everyone found it remarkable how formidable your body was. No broken bones, no illness, no problems. Somehow, you seemed impervious to illness… and isn’t that a gift in this land? It didn’t take long for you to earn the attention of the Institute, brought to their doors under the guise of invitation—and then kept their for experimentation. Your parents sold you off. You’d be surprised how much people would be willing to part with, for enough gold. Each day, you were picked apart until you lost track of your scars and experiments. You didn’t have a single friend to find, instead only locked away in the white walls of your room, waiting for what horrors would come next. They do not let you choose to end it, and are just barely careful to keep you alive. And yet despite it all… you do not seek the end. No. You want to see that blue sky again. Your family. Maybe if you survive this, that will be your ticket. Maybe someone else’s life can be the price you pay.
A memory is implanted in Luke. How happy you were on your wedding day. After all that hardship, you were able to survive past earning your parent’s acceptance and married your sweetheart even though she was beneath your station. How could you have expected that jealousy and cruelty lurked beneath the surface, ending at her death by the hand of your previous arranged marriage? Love had saved you. It had made you a happy man, content to die at the end of your 23 years so that you could preserve how dearly you adored her… but now it’s impossible to let go of. You killed the person who killed her. You killed your family for the poor security afforded to your fallen beloved’s home. You killed her family for their lack of compassion. You intend to kill everyone who had ever had the privilege of laying eyes on her and being incapable of saving her. And then, when it is over, you will kill yourself—but not yet. No, not yet. Now isn’t this a love worth surviving for?
In the cell, the following await you: a dagger, a poison, a rapier.
The rage in your memories is strong. This newly implanted life fights against the last life’s memory of your years in Arpéchéle and that memory still fights against the memory of your weeks on the Eudora and time in your home world. They all wrestle for dominance, but a bloodlust permeates every single feeling.
But the heart isn’t so simple. The other strong feeling demanding your attention is your relationship with the person you’re in the cell with—what you know, genuinely know of them, and all the feelings that come with that.
Is emotion still worthwhile, if it will destroy you from the inside? ]
Cloaked figures come in to snatch away each set of sweet, darling participants before their respective matches, untying them from the posts. They're impossibly strong, capable of lifting even the biggest members of this group with ease, so attempts at escape are futile.
Participants are then dragged or carried to a small room between the holding area and the cell that's aglow with machinery. Those still in the holding area will have trouble seeing what's happening. Those in the small room, on the other hand, will be hooked up to one of the machines. Moments later, an entire lifetime of new memories flood into their minds in a hideously painful, disorienting burst.
Before they have a chance to start processing, they're thrown into the cell, the door slamming shut and locking behind them.]
Edited (don't look at me it's so late) 2024-04-10 10:54 (UTC)
[ Before entering the cell, a different variable will be introduced to the experiment for both participants.
A memory is implanted in Dion. You're the son of a well-established member of the Royal Guard, born with innate talent in every art of battle you think to try your hand at. Your skill is applauded from youth, and you outshine even your eldest superiors by the age of 8. You're lauded as a genius in tactics, in speed, in warfare. Most importantly to you, you're beloved among your peers, who find you sweet and loyal. You've worked incredibly hard to make yourself approachable, because your skill is so vast that others are too intimidated to even talk to you after training sessions, which leaves you lonely often. But while you succeed in making friends and your skill grows ever more impressive, your body has another future in mind. You're only 16 when the curse begins to eat away at your lungs four whole years before it should. It digs into your body quickly, and in just months, you've gone from the shining jewel of the Guard to a bed-ridden shell of your former self that can barely finish a bowl of porridge. The desire to live hooks into you even deeper than the curse, though. You want to live and be well so badly that it makes you delirious. Just one more day, and it'll be your turn on the list. One more, and you'll get your new body. You can hold out long enough to survive one more battle, can't you?
A memory is implanted in Scien. You're the doting eldest sibling of three wonderful brothers and sisters, and you pride yourself in caring for them in lieu of your absentee father and dead mother. You refuse to let orphanages take any of you in and break your back to make ends meet, and you do it all with a smile because you're greeted by their loving, grateful faces at the end of each grueling day. You cherish these dinners, the times when you can let your hellish reality fade and pretend you're just a boy chattering away with his precious family. But one day, while you toiled at work, someone took everything from you. A burglar entered your home, foolishly expecting to find something worth pilfering. Finding nothing, they snatched the lives of each of your beloved siblings instead, leaving you to come home and find their cooling, mutilated corpses. Through the years, you've lost all hope in the Corps or the Royal Guard. No one has brought that fiend to justice, and so you must live no matter the cost, because your family won't be able to rest while they're still out there, unpunished.
In the cell, the following await you: a morningstar mace, a broadsword, and a box of matches and canister of gasoline.
The rage in your memories is strong. This newly implanted life fights against the last life’s memory of your years in Arpéchéle and that memory still fights against the memory of your weeks on the Eudora and time in your home world. They all wrestle for dominance, but a bloodlust permeates every single feeling.
But the heart isn’t so simple. The other strong feeling demanding your attention is your relationship with the person you’re in the cell with—what you know, genuinely know of them, and all the feelings that come with that.
Is emotion still worthwhile, if it will destroy you from the inside? ]
[ Before entering the cell, a different variable will be introduced to the experiment for both participants.
A memory is implanted in Luke. You were a good man. Oh, you were among the very best. You served your community well, joining the Corps for no reason other than to be of service to others. You helped little old ladies carry their groceries from the marché and you fed stray cats. How well-loved you were. … so, why? Why was it, that when you entered a home with the intention of helping with another favor, finding a bloody massacre, you were named the murderer? Why did no one testify to help you during your trial? Why were you sentenced to this life of torture and agony without a single soul to turn to? What was that saying about good deeds…? You intend to continue living, one way or another. You can’t be stopped. Won’t be. Others must have a taste of this cruel irony: that nothing in life is guaranteed, and you will be the deliverer of injustice to anyone who gets too comfortable.
A memory is implanted in Sheba. You are a young woman born with an unforetold amount of power. You have always been strong, faster, more formidable than anyone else. Your parents, Relivers, fostered your pride more than any other trait. What did you need for kindness? Growing older, you did not have a great deal of compassion for anyone else—any problems could be solved with your family’s wealth. Until they couldn’t. You crossed a noble house more powerful than yours, and how quick your family was to abandon you. A beast of a child, they said. They let you get captured. Tortured. Your body and pride left in shambles until only the thirst for revenge remained. You need to survive this fight, if only to seek out your revenge on everyone else who wronged you. What is worse? To be abandoned by your family or cherished only when convenient?
In the cell, the following await you: an axe, a whip, a bomb.
The rage in your memories is strong. This newly implanted life fights against the last life’s memory of your years in Arpéchéle and that memory still fights against the memory of your weeks on the Eudora and time in your home world. They all wrestle for dominance, but a bloodlust permeates every single feeling.
But the heart isn’t so simple. The other strong feeling demanding your attention is your relationship with the person you’re in the cell with—what you know, genuinely know of them, and all the feelings that come with that.
Is emotion still worthwhile, if it will destroy you from the inside? ]
[ Before entering the cell, a different variable will be introduced to the experiment for both participants.
A memory is implanted in Dion. You've hungered for acceptance all your life, though that hunger isn't the only thing you've known. You were born into an outcast family and labeled a curse among curses for the inhuman bloodlust you've felt since before you even spoke your first word. Your mother and father looked at you with fear and hatred, until you could take it no longer and murdered them both. Your peers jeered and mocked you for the "accidents" that followed you through your early youth, until you snapped and killed them, too. Your first lover, dead. Your annoying neighbor, dead. Your coworker who was kind to you in just the wrong way, dead. Each body you fell brings you nothing but misery. It's just... you simply can't contain the violent impulses within you that demand you draw blood again and again. But if you die now, won't it all have been for nothing? Isn't it better to keep pressing forward, to breathe and find the love you've yet to experience? Your existence is a bloodspot in this nation, but you just can't let life go. What's one more body to your stack?
A memory is implanted in Diluc. It's just been you and your childhood friend for as long as you can remember, your parents and their deaths little more than a distant speck in your mind. Together, the two of you trudge through the reality of existing on this awful island and try to make the best of it - until he slips on the rocks one day while you're playing by the sea. He tumbles into the rough waters and you're too afraid to jump in after him, or even reach a hand out, lest he panic and pull you in, too. He screams for you once and then vanishes below the surface, never to be seen again. You've lived in guilt ever since. Everything you do is shadowed by how badly you wish you'd even tried, and how much you hate your cowardly self. Every choice you make, no matter how altruistic it seems on the surface, is just you trying to make things up to him. It's with this heavy guilt that you know you have to keep pushing forward. You owe it to yourself, and you owe it to him. You can't just lay your life down when you're living for two people now, can you?
In the cell, the following await you: a lance, a hammer, a razor wire.
The rage in your memories is strong. This newly implanted life fights against the last life’s memory of your years in Arpéchéle and that memory still fights against the memory of your weeks on the Eudora and time in your home world. They all wrestle for dominance, but a bloodlust permeates every single feeling.
But the heart isn’t so simple. The other strong feeling demanding your attention is your relationship with the person you’re in the cell with—what you know, genuinely know of them, and all the feelings that come with that.
Is emotion still worthwhile, if it will destroy you from the inside? ]
[You've been through this two times before by now. You've each spilled enough blood to end two lives apiece, their corpses lying in the room you leave behind one final time. You've watched your friends and loved ones tear each other to shreds, anguished in the split between their fierce and combating desires to live and to protect.
Before entering the cell, a different variable will be introduced to the experiment for both participants.
A memory is implanted in Dion. You've spent all your life thinking you were someone special, meant for more. Your parents - founders of a small cult who spend their time praying in the cliffside caverns of Arpéchéle - treat you as a godlike entity delivered to them directly from the Heavens. They chose not to continue with their backups when you hit your 15th birthday, instead trusting care of your "family" of around twenty to thirty people to you. And since you're the guiding star, shouldn't it be fine...? ...It isn't, of course. What teenaged shepherd could actually make decisions that would keep a clearly mentally unstable flock afloat? One by one, over the years, your beloved followers die or vanish, overtaken by madness or the curse or simply the misfortunes of living on this island. You find yourself full of anguish for your inability to save them, and full of anger toward the Heavens and your parents. If you're meant to be a savior, why is it so hard? Why can't you seem to save anyone? You're too stubborn to give up, though. You have to keep living whatever the cost, so you can return to your dwindling family and prove yourself - to them, and to you.
A memory is implanted in Luke. You're born to a father who hates you more than anything else, for reasons no one can comprehend. He treats you coldly from before you can walk, calling you monster, a wretched blight, never once referring to you by name, always by "that thing". Your station in life - a relatively high noblefamily - keeps you isolated. You know no love or friendship in or out of the walls of your manor, but you still hope for both someday. On your tenth birthday, your father spits on these wishes by hiring assassins to kill you. Your survival is accidental; in your scramble to escape, you set something explosive alight, blowing the entire ballroom to bits. You are the only survivor, and it embitters you. You wanted for so little, and life gave you even less. You never wished to live at the expense of others, and yet, they pushed you into such an awful situation. Spite is your primary driving force now, and has been for years. You refuse to die, because every moment that you're alive is your way of saying fuck you to the cosmic entity that put you in this shitty situation to begin with.
In the cell, the following await you: hedge clippers, a glaive, an oodachi.
As usual, the rage in your memories is strong. You are now on your fourth falsely remembered life in Arpéchéle, each set of memories stacking atop each other, fighting against the memory of your weeks on the Eudora and time in your home world. They all wrestle for dominance, but a bloodlust permeates every single feeling.
But the heart isn’t so simple. The other strong feeling demanding your attention is your relationship with the person you’re in the cell with—what you know, genuinely know of them, and all the feelings that come with that.
It's just the two of you now, no one left to hope for your survival or reel away from the carnage. You've claimed your right to this final fight through strength, luck, and the fuel of your feelings. Someone is waiting for you to answer their question.
But more importantly, the time has finally come to answer it for yourself: is emotion worthwhile, even though it will most certainly destroy you from the inside? Even though it already has?]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ACT II: ██████ █████
As you awake in Arpéchéle, the country beloved by death, a seco██ THIRDfourth 5█h life becomes your own. Memories that feel as real as anything that you've ever ███ EXPER█ENCE█. Thoughts of space, distant planets, and the people that you met there come and go onl█ ██ █████ come and stay, in the jumble of everything else you remember. All you've loved, all you've lost.
You awake in a place somewhere between a dungeon and laboratory. It is not as clean and pristine as the Institute. It is underground, and you distantly hear the sound of rushing water. Where are you? Why are you? There are chains that bind your wrists and ankles to posts, all separate from each other, saving you from each other... for now.
A distorted voice comes in.
"Won't you reveal to me what is stronger? Memory or emotion? In this land where so many people view them as one and the same, can't we do an experiment? Show me. Show me, show me! What will you cling onto? Your desire to live, or your loyalty to each other?” And then briefly, softer. "How pointless would life be if she did not still love me?"
One by one, each of you will be taken into a cell—but don't worry, those remaining will still be able to watch through the holographic screens that flicker to life. Those of you who are still alive to watch can do so, or may be forced to do so. Outside of the matches, your memories from the Eudora are clearer—you know who these people are to you.
And you know that they will all destroy each other.]
>TALK
Diluc's model has its full range of emotions, but is prone to lingering on negative feelings. Though his previous injuries no longer exist on this body, he'll experience occasional, temporary bursts of white-hot pain where they once were. The vision in his right eye also flickers now and then, showing him horrific images of imagined scenarios in which he just barely fails to save the people he cares for.
Scien's model has its full range of emotions, but every so often, if he comes into direct contact with a person or holds their gaze, he's forced to experience the weight of their emotions, too. His body also echoes with occasional aches and pains of a life he's only now remembering with greater clarity, as if divine punishment has been biding its time until this moment to greet him.
Dion's model has its full range of emotions, but with a setback: his feelings tend to spike into extremes (sadness becomes grief, annoyance becomes fury, etc). While these spikes don't last long, they're hard to control. His body also sometimes feels as though parts of it are being painfully petrified, though nothing is physically wrong with him and he can move just fine.
Luke's model has its full range of emotions but also what one might call... anxiety. There is a paranoia that seeps into every inch of his body. He cannot focus on the present moment, but rather thinks intensely of both the past and the future. The mistakes he's made, the disasters he's going to encounter. For whatever reason, his cough also hasn't disappeared in this body. Some things truly follow from life to life.
Dahut's model has its full range of emotions, but suffers from indecision. Every choice comes with second-guessing, uncertainty. Is what he's doing correct? Is this in alignment with his goals? Or is he making a choice based off of those pesky emotions? On occasion, his right hand will sometimes move out of sync with his body, as though it has a new life of its own... and it seeks to kill him.
Sheba's model has its full range of emotions, but there is a lack of compassion for others. She struggles to process true consideration for anyone else, except for sudden moments of clarity. At random points, her limbs will fail to obey her, as if they have shattered and the bones have broken apart. The pain sears and she'll lose strength momentarily before putting herself back together.
There's still time yet before the experiment begins. You're free to talk amongst yourselves, though it's obvious you're being watched.]
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But more importantly - he knows the Eudora, and he knows the people in this room as his groggy gaze roams over them one by one, still trying to shake the haze away, trying to cope with the weight of all this new trauma.]
We're...
[ON A HORRIBLE ADVENTURE BUT WHY IS THIS ONE SO MUCH WORSE THAN THE LAST.]
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sheba lets her gaze sweep over the others in the cell with her. she can remember the eudora more clearly, now; she can remember who these people are and what they've been through together.
she can remember that, up until now, she's never seen more than six people come back from one of these things - though even that has been contained to three on the living side and three on the dead side. still, it brings her a sick, twisted measure of hope. if six is the limit, and there are five others in this cell with her - she re-counts, just to be sure: dahut, diluc, dion, luke, scien - then maybe it wasn't really shouxue she left to die. maybe it wasn't really eunhyuk and viktor they saw tortured after the decision had been made to set rosa and salome free.
maybe, maybe, maybe.
she raises her head sligtly when dahut speaks, then looks away.]
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he moves upright to take inventory of his new reliver body, and of his companions in captivity with him. dread coils in his gut, and he can't seem to shake it no matter how he tries. ]
...Are you all right?
[ he inhales tersely, trying to grasp a semblance of logic in the confusion. this must be another anomaly.
and, it won't end well. ]
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Um... I'm remembering things a little better now, at least. Are you okay...?
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Luke doesn't wake gracefully. He launches back into consciousness the same way he did on the Eudora--panicked and violent, overcome with guilt, regret, and pain. His heart races, his mind immediately latching onto what he'd seen before the experiments started, and he'll tear himself apart for failing to save the rest of them later. For now, far above the memories of parted flesh and flayed minds, even above the hatred and betrayal in the eyes of those that had been trapped with them--]
Rosa--? Rosa--
[Sorry he's feral right now]
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Anyway this is terrible because Dahut can't even reach out but it's probably a good thing he can't reach out because Luke might deck him on reflex.]
She's not here.
[Rather, she'd never been there, he's almost entirely certain, even if memories of his life here beg to differ.]
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MOVEMENT I
DAHUT & LUKE
A memory is implanted in Dahut. You were born under an auspicious star, they said. How lucky that the heavens blessed you with a strong, healthy body. Even as a child, you didn’t so much as fall ill even once. The older you got, everyone found it remarkable how formidable your body was. No broken bones, no illness, no problems. Somehow, you seemed impervious to illness… and isn’t that a gift in this land? It didn’t take long for you to earn the attention of the Institute, brought to their doors under the guise of invitation—and then kept their for experimentation. Your parents sold you off. You’d be surprised how much people would be willing to part with, for enough gold. Each day, you were picked apart until you lost track of your scars and experiments. You didn’t have a single friend to find, instead only locked away in the white walls of your room, waiting for what horrors would come next. They do not let you choose to end it, and are just barely careful to keep you alive. And yet despite it all… you do not seek the end. No. You want to see that blue sky again. Your family. Maybe if you survive this, that will be your ticket. Maybe someone else’s life can be the price you pay.
A memory is implanted in Luke. How happy you were on your wedding day. After all that hardship, you were able to survive past earning your parent’s acceptance and married your sweetheart even though she was beneath your station. How could you have expected that jealousy and cruelty lurked beneath the surface, ending at her death by the hand of your previous arranged marriage? Love had saved you. It had made you a happy man, content to die at the end of your 23 years so that you could preserve how dearly you adored her… but now it’s impossible to let go of. You killed the person who killed her. You killed your family for the poor security afforded to your fallen beloved’s home. You killed her family for their lack of compassion. You intend to kill everyone who had ever had the privilege of laying eyes on her and being incapable of saving her. And then, when it is over, you will kill yourself—but not yet. No, not yet. Now isn’t this a love worth surviving for?
In the cell, the following await you: a dagger, a poison, a rapier.
The rage in your memories is strong. This newly implanted life fights against the last life’s memory of your years in Arpéchéle and that memory still fights against the memory of your weeks on the Eudora and time in your home world. They all wrestle for dominance, but a bloodlust permeates every single feeling.
But the heart isn’t so simple. The other strong feeling demanding your attention is your relationship with the person you’re in the cell with—what you know, genuinely know of them, and all the feelings that come with that.
Is emotion still worthwhile, if it will destroy you from the inside? ]
1/2
Cloaked figures come in to snatch away each set of sweet, darling participants before their respective matches, untying them from the posts. They're impossibly strong, capable of lifting even the biggest members of this group with ease, so attempts at escape are futile.
Participants are then dragged or carried to a small room between the holding area and the cell that's aglow with machinery. Those still in the holding area will have trouble seeing what's happening. Those in the small room, on the other hand, will be hooked up to one of the machines. Moments later, an entire lifetime of new memories flood into their minds in a hideously painful, disorienting burst.
Before they have a chance to start processing, they're thrown into the cell, the door slamming shut and locking behind them.]
2/2
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PEANUT GALLERY
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MOVEMENT II
SCIEN & DION
A memory is implanted in Dion. You're the son of a well-established member of the Royal Guard, born with innate talent in every art of battle you think to try your hand at. Your skill is applauded from youth, and you outshine even your eldest superiors by the age of 8. You're lauded as a genius in tactics, in speed, in warfare. Most importantly to you, you're beloved among your peers, who find you sweet and loyal. You've worked incredibly hard to make yourself approachable, because your skill is so vast that others are too intimidated to even talk to you after training sessions, which leaves you lonely often. But while you succeed in making friends and your skill grows ever more impressive, your body has another future in mind. You're only 16 when the curse begins to eat away at your lungs four whole years before it should. It digs into your body quickly, and in just months, you've gone from the shining jewel of the Guard to a bed-ridden shell of your former self that can barely finish a bowl of porridge. The desire to live hooks into you even deeper than the curse, though. You want to live and be well so badly that it makes you delirious. Just one more day, and it'll be your turn on the list. One more, and you'll get your new body. You can hold out long enough to survive one more battle, can't you?
A memory is implanted in Scien. You're the doting eldest sibling of three wonderful brothers and sisters, and you pride yourself in caring for them in lieu of your absentee father and dead mother. You refuse to let orphanages take any of you in and break your back to make ends meet, and you do it all with a smile because you're greeted by their loving, grateful faces at the end of each grueling day. You cherish these dinners, the times when you can let your hellish reality fade and pretend you're just a boy chattering away with his precious family. But one day, while you toiled at work, someone took everything from you. A burglar entered your home, foolishly expecting to find something worth pilfering. Finding nothing, they snatched the lives of each of your beloved siblings instead, leaving you to come home and find their cooling, mutilated corpses. Through the years, you've lost all hope in the Corps or the Royal Guard. No one has brought that fiend to justice, and so you must live no matter the cost, because your family won't be able to rest while they're still out there, unpunished.
In the cell, the following await you: a morningstar mace, a broadsword, and a box of matches and canister of gasoline.
The rage in your memories is strong. This newly implanted life fights against the last life’s memory of your years in Arpéchéle and that memory still fights against the memory of your weeks on the Eudora and time in your home world. They all wrestle for dominance, but a bloodlust permeates every single feeling.
But the heart isn’t so simple. The other strong feeling demanding your attention is your relationship with the person you’re in the cell with—what you know, genuinely know of them, and all the feelings that come with that.
Is emotion still worthwhile, if it will destroy you from the inside? ]
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PEANUT GALLERY
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MOVEMENT III
LUKE & SHEBA
A memory is implanted in Luke. You were a good man. Oh, you were among the very best. You served your community well, joining the Corps for no reason other than to be of service to others. You helped little old ladies carry their groceries from the marché and you fed stray cats. How well-loved you were. … so, why? Why was it, that when you entered a home with the intention of helping with another favor, finding a bloody massacre, you were named the murderer? Why did no one testify to help you during your trial? Why were you sentenced to this life of torture and agony without a single soul to turn to? What was that saying about good deeds…? You intend to continue living, one way or another. You can’t be stopped. Won’t be. Others must have a taste of this cruel irony: that nothing in life is guaranteed, and you will be the deliverer of injustice to anyone who gets too comfortable.
A memory is implanted in Sheba. You are a young woman born with an unforetold amount of power. You have always been strong, faster, more formidable than anyone else. Your parents, Relivers, fostered your pride more than any other trait. What did you need for kindness? Growing older, you did not have a great deal of compassion for anyone else—any problems could be solved with your family’s wealth. Until they couldn’t. You crossed a noble house more powerful than yours, and how quick your family was to abandon you. A beast of a child, they said. They let you get captured. Tortured. Your body and pride left in shambles until only the thirst for revenge remained. You need to survive this fight, if only to seek out your revenge on everyone else who wronged you. What is worse? To be abandoned by your family or cherished only when convenient?
In the cell, the following await you: an axe, a whip, a bomb.
The rage in your memories is strong. This newly implanted life fights against the last life’s memory of your years in Arpéchéle and that memory still fights against the memory of your weeks on the Eudora and time in your home world. They all wrestle for dominance, but a bloodlust permeates every single feeling.
But the heart isn’t so simple. The other strong feeling demanding your attention is your relationship with the person you’re in the cell with—what you know, genuinely know of them, and all the feelings that come with that.
Is emotion still worthwhile, if it will destroy you from the inside? ]
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PEANUT GALLERY
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MOVEMENT IV
DION & DILUC
A memory is implanted in Dion. You've hungered for acceptance all your life, though that hunger isn't the only thing you've known. You were born into an outcast family and labeled a curse among curses for the inhuman bloodlust you've felt since before you even spoke your first word. Your mother and father looked at you with fear and hatred, until you could take it no longer and murdered them both. Your peers jeered and mocked you for the "accidents" that followed you through your early youth, until you snapped and killed them, too. Your first lover, dead. Your annoying neighbor, dead. Your coworker who was kind to you in just the wrong way, dead. Each body you fell brings you nothing but misery. It's just... you simply can't contain the violent impulses within you that demand you draw blood again and again. But if you die now, won't it all have been for nothing? Isn't it better to keep pressing forward, to breathe and find the love you've yet to experience? Your existence is a bloodspot in this nation, but you just can't let life go. What's one more body to your stack?
A memory is implanted in Diluc. It's just been you and your childhood friend for as long as you can remember, your parents and their deaths little more than a distant speck in your mind. Together, the two of you trudge through the reality of existing on this awful island and try to make the best of it - until he slips on the rocks one day while you're playing by the sea. He tumbles into the rough waters and you're too afraid to jump in after him, or even reach a hand out, lest he panic and pull you in, too. He screams for you once and then vanishes below the surface, never to be seen again. You've lived in guilt ever since. Everything you do is shadowed by how badly you wish you'd even tried, and how much you hate your cowardly self. Every choice you make, no matter how altruistic it seems on the surface, is just you trying to make things up to him. It's with this heavy guilt that you know you have to keep pushing forward. You owe it to yourself, and you owe it to him. You can't just lay your life down when you're living for two people now, can you?
In the cell, the following await you: a lance, a hammer, a razor wire.
The rage in your memories is strong. This newly implanted life fights against the last life’s memory of your years in Arpéchéle and that memory still fights against the memory of your weeks on the Eudora and time in your home world. They all wrestle for dominance, but a bloodlust permeates every single feeling.
But the heart isn’t so simple. The other strong feeling demanding your attention is your relationship with the person you’re in the cell with—what you know, genuinely know of them, and all the feelings that come with that.
Is emotion still worthwhile, if it will destroy you from the inside? ]
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PEANUT GALLERY
(junji ito voice) this is my top level, it's made for me
MOVEMENT V
DION & LUKE
Before entering the cell, a different variable will be introduced to the experiment for both participants.
A memory is implanted in Dion. You've spent all your life thinking you were someone special, meant for more. Your parents - founders of a small cult who spend their time praying in the cliffside caverns of Arpéchéle - treat you as a godlike entity delivered to them directly from the Heavens. They chose not to continue with their backups when you hit your 15th birthday, instead trusting care of your "family" of around twenty to thirty people to you. And since you're the guiding star, shouldn't it be fine...? ...It isn't, of course. What teenaged shepherd could actually make decisions that would keep a clearly mentally unstable flock afloat? One by one, over the years, your beloved followers die or vanish, overtaken by madness or the curse or simply the misfortunes of living on this island. You find yourself full of anguish for your inability to save them, and full of anger toward the Heavens and your parents. If you're meant to be a savior, why is it so hard? Why can't you seem to save anyone? You're too stubborn to give up, though. You have to keep living whatever the cost, so you can return to your dwindling family and prove yourself - to them, and to you.
A memory is implanted in Luke. You're born to a father who hates you more than anything else, for reasons no one can comprehend. He treats you coldly from before you can walk, calling you monster, a wretched blight, never once referring to you by name, always by "that thing". Your station in life - a relatively high noblefamily - keeps you isolated. You know no love or friendship in or out of the walls of your manor, but you still hope for both someday. On your tenth birthday, your father spits on these wishes by hiring assassins to kill you. Your survival is accidental; in your scramble to escape, you set something explosive alight, blowing the entire ballroom to bits. You are the only survivor, and it embitters you. You wanted for so little, and life gave you even less. You never wished to live at the expense of others, and yet, they pushed you into such an awful situation. Spite is your primary driving force now, and has been for years. You refuse to die, because every moment that you're alive is your way of saying fuck you to the cosmic entity that put you in this shitty situation to begin with.
In the cell, the following await you: hedge clippers, a glaive, an oodachi.
As usual, the rage in your memories is strong. You are now on your fourth falsely remembered life in Arpéchéle, each set of memories stacking atop each other, fighting against the memory of your weeks on the Eudora and time in your home world. They all wrestle for dominance, but a bloodlust permeates every single feeling.
But the heart isn’t so simple. The other strong feeling demanding your attention is your relationship with the person you’re in the cell with—what you know, genuinely know of them, and all the feelings that come with that.
It's just the two of you now, no one left to hope for your survival or reel away from the carnage. You've claimed your right to this final fight through strength, luck, and the fuel of your feelings. Someone is waiting for you to answer their question.
But more importantly, the time has finally come to answer it for yourself: is emotion worthwhile, even though it will most certainly destroy you from the inside? Even though it already has?]
margaret's gonna be so mad
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