etrayamemes | TDM 009

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!tdm

TDM 009

❬ ARRIVAL ❭

Arrival does not happen normally. While the AI known as Aurora would typically handle your incoming- this time it is instead a strange coincidence. And while she would ordinarily contact you, provide you with context and access to the network- she cannot currently reach you. One moment, you are where you were, and now you’re here: in the middle of some kind of Comic-Con looking event. Weirder still: you now have some kind of super power. You will find that your arrival on this Earth may have granted you new capabilities - perhaps someone without abilities is now able to fly, or someone with their own set of extraordinary abilities now has something new to help with.

❬ SUPERFEST ❭

Not to be confused with Hero-Con or Villian-Con. This is a fan-made convention in downtown SF that takes place during a prime Con weekend that boasts that everyone is welcome here. Well, as long as they adhere to Con Rules. Sleep, Eat, Drink Water, Shower, and don’t blast any holes in the walls. They already have enough of those. Despite the recent Kaiju attack with corresponding tsunamis and earthquakes, the Convention Runners are utterly committed. Though it is held and hosted by fans, there’s a nice variety of Artists, Exhibitors, Panels, as well as a live-streamed Cosplay Contest. Artist’s Alley & Dealer’s Hall Are you even a slightly public hero or villain? Find fan art, merch, even fan comics of yourself and your friends- Or enemies. Panels You don’t even need to have anything planned! Seems like there were some cancellations. Slip in and talk about whatever you like. Cosplay Contest Wear your own costume to the contest- Or find a knock off of someone else’s in the Dealer’s Hall. The Water That Makes You Stupid Yes, the convention is staffed and run by fans… But it’s still run by someone, isn’t it? The badge line is long and the weather is sweltering. Grab a SUPERFEST branded water for $12- Or drink from the fountains as soon as you get into the con center. The Convention President is testing a chemical that will make you harmlessly stupider for a handful of hours to loosen wallets and increase overall enjoyment of convention activities.

❬ THE DIVIDE ❭

First earthquakes and tsunamis culminating in wide scale Kaiju attacks, now this. It’s more subtle than any of those things, but reports of people being dragged by some invisible force or teleporting cross town start emerging. And these people all have powers. But none of them are on your corresponding apps, nor in your network. Weird. It would really be best to investigate this matter. After all, it seems the Hero and Villain organizations (League of Heroes and Vale & Venture) want more information, and if possible- to recruit members before the other does.

❬ THE SAN FRAN WALKING TOUR ❭

For the first three days, the boundary that new arrivals can travel seems very stable. It’s centered upon the convention center, shifting no more than a couple of city blocks in any direction. The boundary is completely invisible and totally indestructible. It can only be found by touching it. After those first three days, though, the boundary starts to move, and the newly warped in have no choice but to come along with it, even if they end up dragged through traffic or made to make hasty exits from buildings. Yet should they come truly against something they cannot escape- Like a closed alleyway or a freight train, they will find themselves spontaneously clipping through the force field boundary and projected onto the inside opposite end of the bubble. It must be disorienting to be thrown a few miles from where you just were.

❬ MISSION NOTES ❭

📌 — This Earth heavily resembles current-day Earth. All cities will be what we would find on the map of our Earth - meaning, there is no Gotham, or any fictional cities in play. Players are free to create their own locations within locations! We won't be monitoring this closely, and want to give players free reign to play with the environment around them as they would like. 📌 — TL;DR: A body-hopping interstellar being has come to visit Earth 2’s San Fransisco for the Fan Convention as well as provide a self-guided walking tour. Newcomers to the TDM are stuck inside the several mile radius of his force-field. He doesn’t know it’s happening, but the Force Field is impenetrable for TDMers, and will push and pull them around San Francisco during these two weeks. 📌 — This setting is from our current Off-World Mission. Additional details can be found HERE. 📌 — Characters already in game are welcome to post to the TDM, too! Please mark them as current characters in your header. 📌 — Because of the way newcomers are arriving, players are welcome to treat this as a fourth wall event of sorts! Threads can be remembered by those in game even if those they speak to do not app, as long as it's approved by all necessary parties. 📌 — For all questions relating to the TDM specifically, please use the MOD QUERIES comment below. All other questions can be directed to the FAQ.

🔵 FULL NAVIGATION 🔵

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She’d thought she’d seen Lune in the crowds. Just briefly –– a flash of gold appliqué on black canvas, dark hair with what she thinks was a braid. In the crush of people in silly costumes, it’s easy to assume it’s a coincidence. Gold-on-black is popular, apparently.

But then the woman turns, and there’s the blur of a tattoo, and Sciel’s heart jumps into her throat. She starts to surge forward, but there’s people in the way. She mutters some apologies and tries to find a path, but some idiot in a giant foam suit of armour stops to pose in the aisle, and a bunch of others stop to take pictures, and by time she elbows her way through, Lune is gone.

Her heart sinks. Why hadn’t she just yelled over the crowd?

But now she has a hunt, and she spends the better part of the next twenty minutes following some imagined trail. She doesn’t think Lune would linger long in a place like this, so she moves out to less populated areas, craning her neck and looking everywhere she can see, and then, finally, finally, Sciel spots her again. She’s exiting the building. Sciel’s immediately sure that’s Lune. The relief is intense, like a hand off her windpipe. Sciel breaks into a jog to catch up. It’s difficult in ballerina flats but she doesn’t care.

“Can you believe I almost lost you in the crowds?” she announces, falling into step behind her. Her hand floats just behind Lune’s elbow, but she’s itching to pull her into a hug. She smiles, eyes bright, but there’s a concern there too. A lot has happened. It’s overwhelming. “Are you alright?”

(She probably looks a little ridiculous, dressed to fit in with Americans in blue jeans and a crop knit tee, but who cares at all? She’s found Lune.)

That tone, so airy and familiar, breaks through to Lune a beat before Sciel's actual presence materializing beside her registers. Pulled into a halt by bewilderment, Lune faces her friend properly, a flicker of something raw crossing her face for just a second. She's not alone after all, in this strange space and time that Lune is loathe to call an afterlife. But what else can it be? She remembers the Gommage, remembers the horror of realizing her being was crumbling away into ash and petals, blown away by the wind.

"S-sciel?" The rare stutter betrays her confusion, not that her expression alone isn't doing a good job at that. But it is undoubtedly Sciel, with that same smile and those bright green eyes so concerned as they gaze at her.

There are so many things Lune wants to say, wants to ask her, but all that comes out is:

"...What are you wearing?"

Everything moves so fast, in these moments. There’s a million things to explain, and a million things to catch up on, and she expects questions because it’s Lune, but it amuses her that that’s the first. Her smiles breaks a little broader, her shoulders rounding comfortably.

“Jeans. They’re a little stiff at first, but they’re not so bad,” she says. She does not imagine Lune was asking literally, so here’s the actual answer: “We’re undercover on a mission here. Did you just get here?”

And without an explanation, too, it seems. So rude of Aurora, really.

"...Oh." Still bewildered by everything, she's kind of stymied by Sciel's initial reply. An achievement, surely.

"Undercover? Mission?" Lune parrots, confusion and suspicion both in her tone now, expression scrunching up like she's smelling something foul. She really does despise being so entirely out of the loop, being the one who doesn't have the answers.

"I... suppose. Sciel, what is all this? We– we Gommaged. We shouldn't even–"

She doesn't know how to finish that sentence, another rarity for her. And it certainly doesn't occur to Lune to even think of more impossible things like timeline discrepancies.

That look on Lune’s face is a little heartbreaking, but the mention of the Gommage plunges her face into something much more sober. It’s been a month, for her. She’s had time to settle into this blistering new reality, and manage all the sore spots it’s created. She’d had distractions. About a million of them, but who’s counting?

For Lune, it’s fresh.

Sciel pauses, looking beside them. There’s people everywhere, and they’re standing in the middle of the thoroughfare, so Sciel puts a hand to Lune’s lower back and scoots them both to the side, to some sort of privacy in the shade of the building’s side.

“We did gommage,” Sciel says, with a serious little nod. That was as real as this is. “And now we’ve been swept up by an organization that takes in people from destroyed worlds. They put us to work, Lune, saving other worlds. We’re on one of them right now. And if we do enough of these, we get ours back.”

Edited 2025-08-02 16:10 (UTC)

Lune allows Sciel to touch her, to herd her off to the side, her steps slow as she listens all the while, the cogs already turning behind her eyes. Her concentration shifts slowly to dismay; offense, even.

"What... what does that even mean? Lumiére is gone. We failed, Sciel. We did everything we were supposed to, and we still failed."

In this instance, the world is black and white to Lune. If it's not a success, it's a failure. Whatever stage of grief anger is, Lune is working her way toward it. Guilt also churns in the pit of her stomach; was it something she missed? Something she should have noticed, the so-called expert. She can almost hear the ghostly disapproval of her parents, hovering over her shoulder. No points for effort, only results. Failure, the worst offense in the household Lune grew up in.

"Does that mean we get Lumière back, too? Everyone we lost?"

Not for the first time, Sciel feels out of place in the chain of command: she’s a member of the expedition for survival and firepower, not to make plans or sense of the logistics of it all. It feels like an honour to help put Lune back in her rightful place doing just that. She leans a shoulder against the side of the building, gaze fixed on Lune’s face, hands folded in front of her and kept to herself.

“We’re still here to make a difference, so let’s think of it as a detour, rather than the end,” she says, patiently. “We get to set exact terms, I hope, but yes. If we do our part, we get it back.”

A beat, then: “Are you hungry? Thirsty? This is going to be a long conversation.”

Lune can't mirror Sciel's stillness, the tension in her needing some release; she paces slowly, a few steps back and forth, hands planted on her waist.

"You hope? Sciel..." Now she only sounds weary instead of upset, trailing off with a sigh. Sciel's optimism is usually just the silver lining their group needs, a counter to Lune's relentless pragmatism. Lune wants to press her further, to challenge, to ascertain exactly what they are dealing with and how to react to it, but...

She pauses, turning to face Sciel and sighing again. "Wine?"

Weary is a step in the right direction. Sciel watches her, a softness to her brows, her smile creeping back in. It’s just so good to see her.

“There’s a woman here named Aurora who normally on-boards new arrivals,” she says. “When we get back to our home base, Etraya, I’m sure we can get you an audience with her. For now… yes, wine.”

She shifts off the wall.

“There’s a good bar about a block from here. Let’s lift your spirits as much an we can, and then I’ll answer anything I can.”

Aurora. Etraya. Lune is making mental notes already, nodding her head distractedly. She'd have plenty of questions for this Aurora by the time that day comes, most likely.

But, yes: wine. Sooner rather than later. She is thirsty.

"Lead the way." Lune motions with her open palm, easily falling into step next to Sciel. "How long have you been here to know this place so well?"

“Almost two weeks in Etraya, and two weeks here,” Sciel admits, starting off.

It doesn’t feel like a long time, but if she’s being honest, that’s entirely hinged on having loved ones already here. If she’d been here alone, it would have been a very different story. And that whole thing, she’s sure, Lune will learn about soon enough.

The streets are busy, and Sciel casts a brief glance at Lune’s feet –– they’ll have to do something about that, even if only for the sake of blending in –– but they’re in a nice enough part of the city that she’s not too worried. She chats as they go:

“Our mission here takes us all over, too. Something’s causing the locals to behave out of the ordinary, so everyone has been running all over the place to try to figure out what. That and lots of good food places makes it easy to get the lay of the land.”

"An entire month? Interesting," Lune muses idly, able to listen and take in their surrounds at the same time– which she does with wide-eyed wonderment, every single thing from the architecture to the cars to the billboards and the sheer amount of people making her gape.

She picks up her line of thought after a beat, still busily taking everything in. "Some sort of time displacement, perhaps– or maybe that's just the effect of the Gommage. Needs more data–"

It's clearly just notes to self spoke out loud, her innate curiosity beginning to edge out the confusion. Finally she tears her eyes from everything around them and glances back at Sciel.

"What exactly is this mission you're supposed to accomplish here? Are the parameters usually defined, do you know? How are you supposed to know if you've succeeded?"

She never thought she’d be so thrilled to hear Lune narrating every little observation, a thing that usually falls closer to “mildly endearing, if not a little boring.” Now, it’s music to her ears. Time displacement? She’d never given it a single thought, but it’s so quintessentially Lune that it takes every shred of dignity not to throw her arms around her neck and kiss her face.

She meets Lune’s look with a wry smile. She cannot wait to expose her to city driving and ugly American suburbs and California wines. Soon. For now, answers.

“We get a briefing. We were told that a ‘cosmic anomaly’ has caused people with ‘strong moral compulsions’ to do the opposite of what their ‘natural instincts’ would dictate. We’re meant to find the source of this anomaly and get rid of it. I assume the results will be obvious in some way. People won’t be turning on their principles like sick dogs anymore.”

She trails, with a little shrug of her shoulders. They’re here to save worlds, aren’t they?

Lune is hearing a lot of air quotes, there. Not that she knows what air quotes are, but she hears their weight regardless in Sciel's explanation. Predictably, she only has more questions. Questions on top of questions. She's a little sorry that Sciel has to shoulder the brunt of them.

"Not overly precise, is it," she comments, lips pressing into a thin line for a beat. "Do you know is this anomaly only effecting the habitants of this particular world?"

It's concerning enough on its own, but if it's– communicable...

“I overheard Aurora tell someone else it shouldn’t,” Sciel replies. How true that will hold, she has no idea. It also makes Aurora sound like she doesn’t truly know herself, which makes Sciel even less sure. Still: “If it’s impacted any of us, I haven’t heard about it.”

They stop at a crosswalk and Sciel gives Lune a little grin. Her tone slips towards playful. “You’ll tell me if I’m acting strange, won’t you?”

"Stranger than usual?" Lune returns with a hint of playful amusement of her own once she tears her eyes from the traffic lights she'd been puzzling over. "Of course."

It shouldn't is not the most reassuring possibility, but that's hardly Sciel's fault. It sounds like they're all playing things by the ear at least to some degree here, which may not be ideal but it is, at least, familiar.

"Is there anything else I should know?" Not just regarding this mission, but in general. Lune leaves it open for interpretation on purpose.

Sciel makes a face, playing at being offended, but she can’t hide her grin for more than an instant. It’s just as fun to be teased as it is to be teased, you know, and from Lune it feels twice as fun.

“I knew you’d have my back,” she says.

But the other question brings a flood of other things to mind, and her grin very politely fades with the gravity of the matter, and though the light has changed, she stays on the curb and reaches to Lune to take her by the shoulders and face her, straight on.

Sciel knows she’ll hate this reply.

“We do have some very serious things to talk about,” she says. “Some news you’ll be very happy about, and some will make you want to yell, very possibly at me. But I’m going to tell you all of it.”

She gives Lune a quick squeeze.

“But nothing is so dire that it can’t wait until after we’ve got some red in you, yeah?”

Lune gives a small but earnest smile at that. She knows she has plenty of inadequacies as a person, but she does take pride in being dependable in several domains.

Sciel knows her too well. Lune sobers immediately, standing stock-still under the gentle but firm press of Sciel's hands and watching her unflinchingly. Her expression flickers with hesitation at first, then shifts toward impatience and frustration even, her jaw clenching. But after a moment she takes a deep breath and exhales in surrender, nodding her head once.

Maybe the middle of the street isn't the best place for that conversation, anyway.

"You win. Wine first." She manages a small upward hitch to the corner of her mouth. "Sounds like we'll both need it."

Her brave, relentless Lune. Sciel smiles despite the seriousness, and she hopes it’s as bracing for Lune as it is for her.

“Enough to fill us to our eyeballs,” she confirms, and she lets her hands drift down Lune’s arms and then away. She turns her head to check the light –– damn, ten seconds left, but they can make it. Impulsively, she takes Lune’s hand looks and tugs her into the street with her, at a quick clip. “And I have this wonderful new invention called a credit card that lets me buy anything without spending a single franc.”

Or chroma, but this is civilization, of a sort.

"A what? Sciel, I'm fairly certain that's not how commerce works anywhere!"

But a small laugh escapes Lune anyway as she's dragged along at a brisk pace, nearly running over the crosswalk. It's impossible to do anything else. Sciel is like a hurricane sometimes, irrepressible– Lune recalls being taken in by that same energy that first time they met, recalls how it pushed away the sorrow if only for one night.

Some things haven't changed. Thankfully.

“It does here and you’ll see,” she says, and she, too, is momentarily 19 again. This is the excitement before the plunge into somewhere dark.

She looks back over her shoulder, pulling Lune back to her side again as they reach the other sidewalk, and then it’s a short walk from there to a little restaurant with a theme Sciel can’t put a name to. Colourful birds, thatched reeds, fantastic greenery, and carved wood decorations that look like distant cousins to the Gestrals –– these ones all face, no body. This place has bottles, Sciel knows, because all restaurants here like an opportunity to bill a hundred American dollars to her credit card, but they often have other drinks, too, if Lune wants to get drunk very, very fast.

“Not as sophisticated as Verso’s bar, but that’s an hour’s drive away in traffic,” she says. Okay, Lune can know one thing, for now. He’s important to future news, anyway. “And I want you to myself for a little bit.”

Lune blinks in bewilderment as she follows Sciel (or is lead) into the restaurant, head turning left and right as she takes in the outlandish decor with arched brows and parted lips. She lifts her free hand and points at the wood carvings, mouth already beginning to shape out a question... but then she thinks better of it, shaking her head and dropping her hand.

They really aren't in Lumière anymore.

"Did you say Verso's bar?" She asks as she follows along, startled all over again. "He's here, too?"

Sciel leads Lune right to the bar and slings her purse at the foot of one of the stools before sliding onto it. She doesn’t sit just yet, though, keeping her weight on the footbar so she can reach a menu. She flips it open. She can’t tell the difference between the red wines –– they’re all local, even if the names sound like lost parts of Lumière –– but she needs a name to order it.

“Yes, he’s here,” she confirms, while she scans the menu. To the bartender: “Bonjour! The Cabernet Sauvignon. The bottle, yes. Thank you.” To Lune: “He’s busy being Verso, but I usually hear from him every few days. We’ll all get in one room soon. Are you hungry, too?”

Lune follows suit and slides onto the stool next to Sciel, eyeing the array of bottles up on the shelves behind the bar, nearly an endless amount of shapes and colors. Everything here is so... plentiful. Almost decadently overindulgent. They were used to rationing back in Lumière more often than not; the difference is so extreme.

He's busy being Verso. Lune glances sideways at Sciel, perusing the menu. "You mean evasive? Secretive?"

What's there left to be secretive about, she wonders. That moment comes back to Lune, them flying back to Lumière with Esquie after the Paintress. Verso's silent reticence, her own gaze nailing into his back just as they arrive, the questions burning on her tongue silenced.

"I'm not hungry. You eat, if you'd like."

“Yes, and more than usual, in some ways,” she says. It doesn’t surprise her, but she’s not sure she’ll ever feel confident about there being a bottom to the pit of what Verso hides. “We’ve spoken a little about what happened on the Monolith, but I think it’s going to be some time before the whole story comes out.”

The bartender comes back with the bottle and the glasses. He pours, and the moment he leaves, Sciel tops the glasses up even more.

“Alright, but whatever I get, you have to try it,” she says. She picks up her glass, raises it in toast. “To your much anticipated arrival.”

the arrival

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