Labyrinthium Inbox

[heartofthestar]

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CHRISTENS YR INBOX !! text; un: doc0203

[placation]

Hi, Venat-san.

I didn't intend to take you up on this offer so soon, but you'll perhaps be unsurprised to know the young man that I share living quarters with is slightly troublesome at times.

I'm sure he'll get it out of his system soon, but for the time being, it's difficult to sleep while a demolition is occurring in the room next door.

What say we go camping tonight?

[heartofthestar]

Of course, you are more than welcome to join me. I'd welcome the company.

Have you a particular place you'd wish to camp?

backdated May 27 | text, un: aub

[headhooligan]

Hi, Venat. It’s Aubrey. I hope your labyrinth trip went okay, if you went at all.

Can I ask you a morbid question?

[heartofthestar]

You may ask me whatever you wish, of course.

text - un: akechi

[enteloki]

[Since Maruki won't give him enrichment this week-]

I heard you defeated the Green Knight.

What sort of power did you use to end him? I imagine it was more than a sword and shield.

[heartofthestar]

[Venat has two predictions: He is playing normal so he can try to pass off their last conversation as something inspired by the Greek Knight etc.; and he will be profoundly irritated by Venat acting as if it never happened, despite that.]

The particular technique is called Thelema. I bind the target, hail conjured weaponry down upon it, then condense sufficient aether in my blade to ensure a strike from it will fell the target.

[fromshadows]

[ ooc : open logs will be posted on the 6th and 7th of July, where players can make their own toplevels and tag into others! 🥳 ]

five nights @ yikeroonis

[enteloki]

These rooms really are full of surprises.

[A part time job? This is ridiculous. The glowing eyes down the hall ominous in nature, but he stares them down anyway, as he peers around the metal door. He hopes they wander up here. ]

It seems simple enough, at least.

[heartofthestar]

This looks like an Allagan experiment gone wrong.

[Venat watches the fan idly spin for a moment in the security room, before turning to the monitors, and then the buttons by the doors.]

And Allagan experiments gone right generally proved sufficiently troublesome to torment mankind for ages, so I must confess to little optimism here.

text; un: doc0203 - early august, before the event

[placation]

With another wave of new arrivals pouring in, I thought I might ask you...

The other Ancients who have appeared from your reality recently. How are you holding up about that?

[ Hythlodaeus is a preeminently charming and friendly man, and Lahabrea seems fine as well, but Maruki knows enough about her history to know he should ask. Should have done so sooner, but... well, the past month was a mess on several levels. Better late than never. ]

[heartofthestar]

You needn't worry. Hythlodaeus is practically incapable of a negative though, I sometimes think.

[At this point, she has yet to even realized Lahabrea has appeared here -- their paths have simply not yet crossed. And Emet-Selch might very well have been a trick of the Labyrinth, for all that he has yet to surface again.]

UN: mooncancer | Text

[devilishkouhai]

[ Prolly pre event... ]

Do you know what a yandere is?

Re: UN: mooncancer | Text

[heartofthestar]

That is not a creature I am familiar with.

text | un: kabru

[partywipe]

Hi, Venat. It's Kabru again. Do you have time to talk?

[heartofthestar]

A pleasure to hear from you again. Certainly I do. Talk away.

anon

[devilishkouhai]

👻🕸️ Cursed Text Warning 🕸️👻

Once upon a midnight dream, while you opened your oracle so weary... This message came to be! 😱 And now, you’ve been CURSED!! It's real curse magic! 😈💀

If you don’t send this to 10 people within the next 6 minutes, you’ll wake up to these horrors:

1. Your phone screen will mysteriously crack... 📱💔
2. A pixie will rearrange your furniture in the middle of the night 🛋️🧚 (and you’ll fall on your face)
3. The shard magic you collected will go to 0... and you'll have to start all over again 💎😱
4. You’ll lose your abilities you regained one by one 🔮😳
5. Vaeros will come into your nightmares and force you to date him... 😘💋
6. But if you do send it... nothing creepy will happen 👀 …maybe… 🕷️

Good luck 😏💀

[heartofthestar]

[Venat reads the text...]

[..about 45 minutes after it was sent. 39 minutes too long, right?]

[Well this is awkward.]

10/20ish

[devilishkouhai]

What do you know about this Meteion Bird? What is she? Who is she? Did she really evaluate the whole universe and decide that all humanity was incapable of living?

[heartofthestar]

You have been talking to Hythlodaeus.

[Little question there. She has explained some of history to many people here, but at no point had that particular name ever come into play. Only one other currently here knew it now.]

Meteion -- and by extension, her sisters, collectively known as the Meteia -- was a specific sort of lifeform known as an entelechy, designed to interact with an energy called dynamis rather than aether. Hermes, the overseer of the lifeform testing grounds we called Elpis, created her with the intent that her kind would travel to other stars, interact with other life forms, and transmit back the knowledge they gained through their bond to Meteion herself, who would remain at his side.

Hermes sough an answer to a question he believed only he had: what is the purpose of life? Our own society appeared to have an answer he could only view with pained skepticism, and so he sought answers from outside that society. The Meteia, however, did not find the answer to the question he posed. They found the ruins of other civilizations, or civilizations whom their existence and questioning led to destruction.

How often have I said, most particularly here, that suffering is ever a component of living? Inherently and without exception, for the very laws of existence that necessitate life also necessitate suffering. As the Meteia learned this, they drew the very conclusion you have heard: that only in nonexistence lies salvation. To end suffering, one must end life.

I regret to say that she, or they, had the power to cause this to happen. Hermes, in the depths of his own despair and anger, gave her reign to do as she would -- a test, he called it, for mankind. Should we find a way to survive her efforts, we would have earned our right to exist. If not, we were flawed creations, and thus should be discarded.

I -- we -- tried to stop her, but she made good her escape, and all I could do was mark her, that we might know where she was even though we could not reach her. At the edge of the universe, she sang her song, and across the void it traveled. Eventually, it did indeed prove the end of our flawed society... but not of mankind.

> machiya, the morning after sleepr

[placation]

[ Every time of day is quiet in the machiya, but mornings are uniquely so. Settled far away from anything in Somnius that could constitute civilization, in its own thicket of woods close to Horizons and nothing else, mornings are dead silent save for birds and breeze. It's peaceful, pale autumn sunlight filtering in through the open windows, rustling trees, a coffee maker softly percolating.

Maruki watches it attentively, still in the worn-soft flannel pants and undershirt he slept in, hair sleep-mussed and arms folded over his chest. Not yet awake enough to don the apron and begin making breakfast proper, but the promise of it is there.

He looks over to where Venat sits at the bar counter overlooking the kitchen, where he and Akechi eat nearly all of their meals, and smiles warm and sleepy. ]

I have to ask, was coffee a thing in your reality? I'm afraid I'm rather addicted to it...

[heartofthestar]

You may be surprised to hear that our magics generally proved superior to ground beans. [Indeed, Venat looks almost irritatingly put-together, as if she'd spent the night in stasis rather than asleep. Nor do her eyes or smile betray any tiredness, either.]

text; un: doc0203

[placation]

[ The morning after Akira's appearance, sent as soon as he can get away from breakfast with his once and future friend turned housemate: ]

Good morning. ♥

Could I meet you somewhere? Anywhere but the machiya. You pick.

[heartofthestar]

Then let us meet at the base of the cliff, and climb, as we've done before.

text; un: doc0203 - 12/04

[placation]

[ Sent quite literally as soon as it becomes clear that the world around them has crystallized and become uninhabitable, save for those few spaces that already were carved out for homes. The woods surrounding the machiya are even a maze of crystal now. It's a mess. ]

I was hoping to do this in a more formal and meaningful way, but given what just happened-

My home is yours, if you'll allow it.

Please.

[heartofthestar]

I had wondered what circumstance might at last cause me to settle down, even that little bit.

I am hardly surprised it is you.

12/25 gift delivery !!

[placation]

[ Christmas morning, Venat will receive a crystal pendant necklace. When held up to the sun, it reflects a lovely prism of light in all directions. Though he's with her when it's given, obviously, there's a note tucked into the box all the same, in painstakingly neat handwriting: ]

For the brightest light I'll know in any reality.

12/25 gift delivery!!

[devilishkouhai]

[ A box is left outside alongside Maruki, Akechi's, and Akira's gifts, so the Machiya, inside the box, are the following items!

Obtained
x1 Box of Chocolate
x1 A basket of Girlish Items, such as nail polish, body wash, lotion, etc.
x1 A Small sakura flower that fell from a tree that will never age or die. It is clearly imbued with magic to make it this way. It seems like it can easily be crushed or destroyed by other means, though. Handle with care!
x1 Beautifully crafted wooden carving that was painted on of a glowing Moon, on top is a little mini BB. The mini BB has bunny ears/looks like a bunny and is standing on top of it in a pose that makes her look as if she is looking off the moon. All around the moon are tiny holes, but craftily done, it is hard, if not impossible, to see. There is a button there, and when turned on activates an inner light. This glow radiates outwards, casting its luminosity across the surrounding walls. Venat will then see stars - those stars are the stars and constellations that belong to Earth!

Letter/Card: Merry Christmas! The Moon I got you shows the Constellations of my universe, I hope you enjoy them! - BB ]

( christmas gift )

[purrsonality]

[ after listening to maruki's advice and not being sure what to give, this is the solution izutsumi hits upon. ]



happy holidays.

action; backdated to early dec for move-in :3

[arsenist]

[The future of Somnius may be in a precarious state, but life goes on. In the house tucked away from the rest of the populace, that's true more than ever.

And that means that through several fortuitous but cataclysmic events, someone new is moving in.

Maruki tells them that Venat is coming to live with them. That's his Partner. That is, as some would say, A Big Deal. So Akira makes preparations as best as he's able to.

Maruki isn't his parent. He's not even his legal guardian here, and Akira doesn't know Venat at all. But none of that changes the fact that her moving to the machiya is still important.

So Akira shops, with any other Dreamers able to do business with him. He gathers any cat-safe flowers he can find, using them to brighten up any rooms that he can. And he dedicates an entire afternoon to dusting and clearing out one of the guest rooms, completely unaware that Venat will have other arrangements.

It's perfect.

The appointed day, Akira is out til the evening working, but he hurries back as soon as he can. The moment he lays eyes on her, all pale hair and brilliantly bright blue eyes, Akira offers a smile that's a few degrees warmer than he offers to most adults. Gauging, as he always is... but with a little more openness. This is somebody that Maruki cares for immensely, that he's let into his own home - and Akira has every intention of curbing his own instincts in order to think of her as someone he should try to trust.]

You must be Venat-san. Are you settling in okay so far?

[heartofthestar]

[Venat's smile, for her part, holds nothing back -- warm and radiant, welcoming and delighted. How should it not be? She has heard much and more about this boy from Maruki, all of it positive and none of it doing the slightest bit to discourage her.]

[If anything, she lacks the context to know which of the boy's names is his given one and which his family one. A quirk of the same translation effect that must be in place to render an honorific that has no inherent meaning in the language she knows, though its context makes the denotation clear.]

In truth, I feel much that my 'settling' here is less of a discrete process and more an acknowledgment of what has already occurred -- but welcome enough, for all that. I might ask the same of you, if for no other reason than I am not entirely certain how much of Maruki's general concern for you is legitimate and how much is him simple being a profound worry-wort by nature.

( machiya shenanigans )

[purrsonality]

[ izutsumi wanders the machiya, looking to bother maruki and akechi when she comes across venat.

she pauses, eyeing her curiously. ]

You're here now?

[heartofthestar]

Oh! I say, I should ask the same of you. [This is an unexpected encounter by any description, and Venat claps her hands together in delight.] Indeed, Maruki and I have taken another step in the formalization of our relationship.

text, un: copycat

[readytobe]

Venat.

I hope you have been well.

[That's polite, right? He's doing a polite? Though he actually means it. It's been a while, but she's stuck out in his mind as a particularly nice human(?).]

[heartofthestar]

Well enough, to be sure. Concerned for many here, but that ought to be no surprise. I myself have taken no illness.

invitation - no need to respond!

[placation]

[ At some point during the week, Venat receives an invitation:

I'll be hosting a dinner party on March 22 and would love to see you there!

Feel free to come to the Horizons farmhouse any time after 5 PM.

Please do not bring anything! No food, no drinks, nothing but your presence. I appreciate the thought, but for me, the joy of this is being able to cook for a group of people, and I would like to handle it myself.

Hope to see you there!

Dr. Maruki

One gets the impression that if you go against his wishes to bring something anyway, it might stress him out...

When the mingle log goes up on the 22nd, please feel free to come tag around! ]

[heartofthestar]

I was sitting right next to you