★ wanna crack the code, her spell is so mysterious

[liedol]

⭐ Who: Ai and you!
⭐ When: End of July through August
⭐ Where: Various prompts around Yumemigaoka and the Dream Sphere
⭐ What: August Ai catchall! With things in the Dream Sphere officially getting Weird, Ai's doing her best to investigate like a good Experienced Dreamer while keeping up with her duties as a Mentor and as an idol. I'm also down for doing closed/private prompts so hit me up on Discord if you'd like to plan something!

Comments

Final week of July - closed to Ford

[liedol]

[ With the spikes in odd activity all over the Dream Sphere the last few months, exploring and gathering data has quickly become a top priority for anyone with time to spare at the DU. They're lucky that on top of all the newbies quickly getting acclimated to their powers, there's also plenty of Experienced Dreamers who are still available for a little surveying. And while Ford Pines is, uh, a unique example of the talent the DU has signed on you'd have to be a fool to try and deny that he's one of their best sources of information about the Dream Sphere right now.

It's just finding the damn guy when you need him that's the real problem.

He's been off the radar in the Waking World for just a little bit too long and while they mostly know whereabouts in the Dream Sphere he is, the problem is that he's been there for way too long. They can't risk losing anyone to the Dream Sphere, let alone someone as valuable as Ford, so here Ai is to perform the thankless task of dragging him home. ]

... he hasn't been here the whole time, has he?

[ She lets herself mutter that as she crosses the threshold of the Reverie Necropolis and starts to creep inside. Even a guy like Ford Pines would get sick of a place like this eventually. Right?

Right??? ]

[meteorman]

[Wrong!

The Necropolis is Ford's favorite of the more... for lack of a better term... 'reliable' Dream Sphere locations. It might be a dark, windowless, ever-changing labyrinth of claustrophobic little corridors and cavernous echoing tombs, but... actually, there really isn't an end to that sentence. There isn't a but. He doesn't consider any of that stuff a downside.

Besides, it's very common for less-experienced Dreamers to find themselves lost in the corridors and not because they want to be. If a guy named after Icarus can't even be good at getting out of labyrinths when he wants to then what's the point? Plus the way in is easy to find even if the way out isn't, and once he's inside it's easy to lose track of time. It's a little like a casino: no windows, no clocks, and lots of fun things to do!

You know how in dreams text never seems to stay still, or maintain consistency, or be in a language that exists? Stanford Pines is a big fan of languages, which means Icarus likes to try and decipher the text on the tombs. It's a fun little puzzle, because he knows the Dream Sphere is too changeable for it to have any kind of unified alphabet or language. He figures if it's anything it's more like a super-pidgin, something made up of all the alphabets and languages of all the people who've ever dreamed-- or even more likely thousands of smaller pidgins all overlapping each other, sharing bits and pieces like a horrific rat king of a venn diagram.

It's enrichment in his enclosure, basically, broken up by the occasional Torment fight for exercise. Luxury vacation, basically. At least he's not too hard to spot in one of the deeper open catacombs, a glittering silver and gold shape in the gloom.]

[liedol]

[ Ugh.

There are definitely places in the Dream Sphere that are worse than the Necropolis, but she doesn't think she'd be busting out a controversial statement if she called it her least favourite. On the one hand, it's probably good that one of the most easily accessible locations for newcomers is so... this. It gets them caught up fast on what the Dream Sphere can be like when you peel back all the pretty sparkly layers and take off your rose tinted glasses.

On the other hand. Are all the weird graves necessary? Seriously?

So she's a little on edge when she finally stumbles her way into the catacombs, perhaps understandably. Not that she's going to let so much as a ruffle on her skirt look out of sorts, though the tension is kind of obvious in the same in just how aggressively sunshiney she's being. ]

Ahah! There you are! [ The rhythmic taptaptap of her heels is just a touch too loud as she comes racing over. ] Don't tell me you were in here this whole time!

[meteorman]

[Of course the weird graves are necessary, they're symbolic. That's how dreams work. It can't all be sparkly starlight and crystal palm trees; if it was none of them would be here to begin with.]

No, of course not.

[He paused, standing up a little straighter and running a hand thoughtfully over his jaw.]

... Well, actually. Maybe? How long is 'this whole time', exactly?

[liedol]

Ai folds her arms across her chest and does her level best to beam disappointment at him. She has no idea how effective this particular strategy will be on Ford, but she can at least try for a little guilt trip. As a treat.

A few weeks. Minimum. And that's just on the other side – who knows how long it is in here.

[ Staaaaaaaaaaare. She's gotten pretty good at radiating Motherly Disapproval, even if it isn't exactly going to work on a guy who's old enough to be her dad. ]

You know it's dangerous to spend this much time in here, especially all by yourself.

[meteorman]

[Unfortunately he is completely unable to feel shame, at least about things he ought to be ashamed of. It's not even an age thing, it's that he's been allowed to develop bad habits and now he's too old to unlearn them. He's like a poorly-socialized cat.]

No it isn't. How many times in forty years have I disappeared or died? None. And you would know that because you're talking to me currently and I'm clearly fine.

[Really what he means is it's not dangerous for him. Other people, sure, but they haven't been doing this for as long and aren't as monumentally stupid.]

[liedol]

[ YOU'D THINK RAISING TWO TROUBLEMAKING TWINS WOULD HAVE GIVEN HER THE PATIENCE FOR THIS... AND YET... ]

And what happens if you do die or disappear and that's the one time we decide not to check up on you? It's better to be safe than sorry, especially with all the strange things going on lately. ... and besides, you need to go home and feed your cat!

[ Ai sure as hell isn't risking her life to do that. She's seen that beast before and she's only mostly certain that it even IS a cat. ]

1/2

[meteorman]

[oh fuck that's right he's got a cat]

[meteorman]

[In his defense it's easy to forget because Shifty is less a beloved pet and more a very small, angry roommate who won't pay rent. He can get outside and he's more than capable of doing his part to decimate the local small animal population, so he's probably fine, but she still has a point.

Icarus pushes his glasses up a little to rub at the bridge of his nose.]

Alright, alright. Though I'm certain he's perfectly fine. He's determined to outlive me.

[There's no other reason for a cat that old to continue existing except pure spite, right?

In that way they really are the perfect pair.]

[liedol]

[ SIGH. ] If you keep leaving him alone like this then one of these days, he's going to make certain of it.

[ Again: she's seen that cat. If any beast could fight a fully grown man at least three times its size and win, she'd bet on the cat every single time. ]

And besides that – aren't you curious about everything you've missed while you were in here?

[meteorman]

No.

[How much could happen in a couple of weeks? Unless one of the many people he's been arguing back and forth with in the footnotes of his research papers has published something new. Then he'll have to start drafting a response. It's just he has a feeling that's not what she means.]

But I imagine you're going to tell me about it?

[liedol]

[ remember ai... you're an idol... it's not like an idol to give a man in his seventies a noogie no matter how badly you want to do it and how badly he might deserve it... ]

Dreamer Crimson is back, for one. So I've heard.

[ Might as well lead with the most exciting part of the headline first, if only to take a shot at getting him to pay any kind of attention. ]

[meteorman]

[Okay. Wait. That actually does get his attention. He knew Crimson had been sighted, that was part of the reason he'd been fucking around in the Dream Sphere for the past couple weeks. 'Back' implies...]

As in 'out'?

[For the first time he is looking directly at her and giving her his undivided attention. He was never particularly close with Crimson on account of he's never been particularly close with anyone, but for a time they were contemporaries. He's at least familiar with some of her research. People being lost isn't new, but people coming back after such extended disappearances... it's never been proven impossible but it's also never happened. It's not something you can test, it would be unethical to purposefully lose people in the Dream Sphere and see if they could get back out again. He knows, he suggested it and the IRB of the DU research branch shot it down immediately.

He'd been working under the assumption that after a set amount of time a person passed a kind of point of no return. Apparently that set amount of time is a lot longer than he'd guessed? On a more unsettling and personal note, this has implications regarding Bill Cipher than he doesn't much like to think about. The point is he is very actively invested in this particular thing, past the point of simple detached scientific curiosity.]

Awake?

[liedol]

[ She shakes her head. ]

Not as far as I know. ... but by the sounds of things, that's by choice.

[ Crimson being sighted would be one thing – getting proof positive that she hadn't simply ceased to be in the comings and goings of the Dream Sphere would have been enough of a revelation for everyone. Even if they hadn't been able to rescue her then, it would've given them a goal to work towards and some hope that maybe some of the other people trapped there could eventually be found and brought back.

But if it's like this, then... ]

A group went out to find her and came across this strange dream she'd been spotted in before. They tried to get closer but she split the whole thing apart and told them never to come back. From the sounds of things... she was pretty hostile.

[ Her irritated expression has made way for something flatter, more uncomfortable. She hadn't known Eliza all that well but she'd known her well enough to tell how close she and the other girls in RAY had been. Close enough that it'd made Ai a little envious.

Even if she'd had no family or anything else to come back to... was she really fine with leaving RAY behind? ]

Whatever's going on with Crimson... things are pretty different than we'd all guessed.