Fandom Seasons of the Skaian Calendar: A Homestuck Roleplay

[Eidolon Astronaut]

CA: You know...
CA: It wouldn't be this constant awkward struggledance if you just told him how you feel.
CA: Ç'est l'amour et tout ça?
CA: You're going to be meeting up soon anyway, these gates send us to each other's houses.
-
JOAN: I highly doubt puzzles hate you, Opal.

You ponder the puzzle layout for a moment, staring at at the haphazard assortment of colors. There isn't really any clue to this puzzle, but you could probably solve this given enough time and thought. Opal standing behind you watching your thought process however is making you kind of nervous for some reason, and you decide to just BRUTE FORCE it.

Only 6 flowers right? That's a measly 720 permutations, you can knock that out easily. And you do the more likely ones first since these colors are clearly in two DISTINCT GROUPS, bearing your teams colors, and then two additional ones.​

JOAN: This one might though, actually.

You blast through as many color codes as you can with finger speed honed during years of keyboard typing.​

 

[SerbianMounted]

GG: joan you know i don't speak italian
GG: and anyways that's fine
GG: orin and i can get along fine in person, i'm sure it won't be too different than how it's been with online text
GG: everything is just confusing, and i don't know where or how the fuck i'd go about any of that
GG: but anyway, i gotta go and figure some of this shit out with like, entering or whatever
GG: tell me if you die in opal's magic dreamworld or w/e

While your orange text friend remains detached and scornful, you help your pink text friend with a problem that's bugging her. The permutations are pretty easy to blast through, the bulb combinations are something you can keep track of in a notepad on your ASTROTOP that displays the combinations done and not done as your eliminate them one after the other. You sit, just tapping bulbs in various orders for a little while. You have no idea if Opal knows if you're actually bio-hacking this luminescent tree or just punching out random shit, her expression tells you she may be leaning towards the latter?

She sits, uncharacteristically silent as she let's you punch through code after code, until finally you get the correct order after only 17 attempts: lime green, blue, red, cherry red, orange, pale green. The colors remind you of Equio and your three friends, of course. You figure this order is symbolic somehow? But the meaning is lost on you as the bulbs bloom individually in a chorus of light, and the trunk OPENS organically to reveal a SPIROGRAPH PORTAL, colored to match Opal's chat hex. The blonde girl wraps her arms around you for a TIGHT HUG from behind.
​

OPAL: ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!! joan!!!!!! you did like, incredible! < 3333333333333333!!!
OPAL: i dont even like, know how the heck you did all that! did you like, figure out some kinda cipher like in national treasure or something????
OPAL: nah, nah, dont even like, tell me
OPAL: im sure the answer would sail right over my head and into a lake where salamanders are bathing or w/e
OPAL: from how eury described it, this is prolly my second gate, or somethin
OPAL: which means this is where your supposed to go, while i build up my house and get ready to enter my first and explore a bit
OPAL: look at you! sailing through this game and shit like its no big deal
OPAL: mad proud of you girl!!!!!!

==> Arlo: Enter in a cool way

TIME is on your side, as it always seems to be. JOAN is indisposed talking to OPAL it seems, so you can't bug either of the girls for easy solutions. And Orin....even if you were aware he too was indisposed for COMPLETELY SEPERATE REASONS, you would still refrain from talking to him as your EMOTIONS ARE TERRIBLE and you hate them. So you take some time to figure out the system yourself. You fumble about with a few of the lathes, CAPTCHALOGUING each into your RECORD fetch modus. Your modus is actually one of the most practical and straightforward, or is perhaps the least ARBITRARY in terms of its inventory management system.

Each item is assorted to various ROWS which need to MATHEMATICALLY COINCIDE with each other in terms of their numerical values assigned to OBJECT I.D number. It's all comprehensive, and doesn't lead to a lot of WEAPONIZATION, since if an object doesn't fit, it simply won't be picked up. OBJECT I.Ds can be a bitch, but you've memorized a fair few, and are aware of how the system assigns CODES for each when displayed on the back of CAPTCHA CARDS.

After making a few GENERIC OBJECTS, you decide to make your ENTRY ITEM in the service of TIME. You place the TOTEM down and the alchemitter produces....huh. A CRUXITE CANDLE, the item comes without a match...which causes you to wonder if crystal can even be lit ablaze? You fumble about in the kitchen for a while, fumbling with the junk drawers until you retrieve a BIC LIGHTER. You deploy it against the candle...and it works! A pretty flame erupts from the tip. Very slowly, crystal wax trickles down the wick. Looks like you're gonna be here a while.

==> Orin: Stay here a while

Your chest is pounding with the sound of your heartbeat. You hide behind a RUINED GRECIAN COLUMN on the outskirts of a FORELORN stretch of broken and ruined marble out in the vast reaches of the desert that you stumbled upon. You hear footsteps make the earth rumble, as the growls of a giant beast elicit to you the presence of a gigantic predator that wishes you dead. You have found the first of TWELVE TRIALS....and boy what a way to kick it off. The NEMIAN LION's health bar stretches across your field of view, it's title hanging over its head as you are reminded this is a videogame. You hold your gun close to your body. Your bullets scraped at its flesh, doing bits and pieces of damage. How are you supposed to kill this thing? ​

[/FONT]

 

[Eidolon Astronaut]

CA: I'll be sure to keep you informed if I suddenly cease to exist.
-
JOAN: Heh, thanks.
JOAN: My sprite gave me the impression that this was going to be difficult, but aside from some fights this has actually been really easy?
JOAN: Maybe I'm just some kind of gaming savant, my talents hidden from even myself.
JOAN: Either way, I wish you luck on your journey.
JOAN: Stay safe out there, Red.

> Joan: Enter Gate.

You give Opal one final wave before shutting the visor on your helmet one last time, leaping into the FOURTH GATE (Second? Third?) to the blasted hellscape that awaits you on the other side.​

 

[SerbianMounted]

OPAL: maybe the game is like, challenging us in ways that aren't already apparent to us?
OPAL: and i don't just mean in the way of like, it putting a puzzle in front of me because i suck at puzzles
OPAL: ever since i've arrived here i've had this kind of feeling, like the world knows what's going on, that i'm here, and even though that shouldn't surprise me since these worlds are all made for us
OPAL: it still makes me uneasy
OPAL: right back 'atcha blue!

==>

Blasted hellscape about sums it up.

Before you is a forlorn stretch of broken tile and stone in the middle of a heat blasted desert. You are immediately washed over by a wave of heat and sudden exhaustion. You haven't even been here for very long, yet it feels like the very air is trying to suck every ounce of your strength out of your body.

Before you is a GIANT HORDE OF GRIST of numerous types. The assortment, size and placement of the horde suggests that this quantity was reaped by the death of some sort of mini boss. You then look and see your good friend ORIN, who is laying on his back, his DUSTER propped underneath his head. He is completely unconscious, and his SHIRT is ripped open. On his chest are three INCREDIBLY LARGE scabbed over claw marks. He breathes weakly, though he is stable.

As you approach to try and help/examine him further, a voice calls out from behind.
​

???: Don't touch him.
???: It's better if he rests, I already gave him some medicine, but it'll take a while for him to heal.

 

[Eidolon Astronaut]

> Joan: Turn around in a calm and collected manner.

You draw the SAWTOOTH GENERATOR as you turn to face whoever is speaking, stepping back to put yourself between Orin and the source of the voice.​

JOAN: Who's there?

 

[SerbianMounted]

JOAN: Joan.
JOAN: My name is Joan Dryden.

==>

The figure in front of you stands at your height exactly. They speak with your voice though they wear obscuring clothing. An astronaut helmet of theirs (very similar to yours), is all black, and hanging around their hips from their shoulders is a CLOAK much like the one that you got from the TOMB OF ECHIDNA earlier in your journey. Though instead of it being a purplish night sky dotted and glittering with STARS, hers is PITCH BLACK.

They take off their helmet, and doubtless enough, she appears just as you do. Her hair is slightly longer, and her skin looks slightly PALER, but nonetheless, it is you.
​

JOAN: Hi Joan.
JOAN: You probably have a lot of questions, so let's take it one at a time.
JOAN: Just to tell you, before we get into it, I'm not a construct of the game, and I'm not the one who did that to Orin.
JOAN: And I know you're probably gonna say "Well that's exactly what a game construct who did that to Orin would say", but I don't really have a great counter to that.
JOAN: So please don't say that.

 

[Eidolon Astronaut]

JOAN: So what are you then, a time traveler?
JOAN: Because I've been dealing with a lot of them lately.
JOAN: And if not, do you have some other reason why there are suddenly two Joan Drydens?

 

[SerbianMounted]

JOAN: Basically, yes.
JOAN: But I'm not you from your future, just you from a future.
JOAN: I'm you from another timeline, a different one that I just helped create by being here in the first place.
JOAN: I'm a year older than you along my timeline, thereabouts. The big diversion from yours to mine just now, is that in mine this is where my Orin died.
JOAN: The beast I just killed before it killed him was called the Nemean Lion, the first of the twelve labors he was supposed to face.
JOAN: The trials were all supposed to be insurmountable, and impossible to complete by design.

 

[Eidolon Astronaut]

JOAN: He died in your timeline?

You look over at the KO'd body of your friend, and are hit with a miasma of thoughts and feelings that you have to put away for now. He's not dead here, in this timeline, so you have to focus on keeping him that way.​

JOAN: So how do I keep him safe?
JOAN: How do I keep all of them safe?
JOAN: You're the one from the future, even if it's not mine you should have *some* advice.

 

[SerbianMounted]

JOAN: Well for one thing, his denizen is incredibly unruly and dangerous.
JOAN: Yaldabaoth, though we (and currently you) didn't realize it at the time, is a denizen for special case players, arriving only in very unique sessions that demand more challenge.
JOAN: Orin's destiny is to become the Prince of Doom, to annihilate and destroy hopelessness and make this session viable. That is if he doesn't get drowned in his own aspect first.
JOAN: My job, though it's your job now, is to make sure he doesn't bite off more than he can chew.
JOAN: Orin is nowhere near ready to face his labors yet, he needs to wake up first.
JOAN: Which he'll do now. The near death experience is sure to trigger his waking up on Prospit, which will hopefully mean you'll join him soon.

You see yourself sit on a piece of rubble, and CAPTCHALOGUE your helmet into your sylladex. ​

JOAN: In my timeline, when he died, it meant we were unable to continue playing the game, because his spare life on Prospit, his dream self, was killed shortly after he died.
JOAN: Even if I somehow still failed to protect him again this time, all it would've taken was a kiss to his corpse to reanimate him as his dream self. But we were flying blind back then. We didn't understand the rules of the game fully, and the Faun went dark for too long to help us.
JOAN: Needless to say it all went sideways. I failed in that timeline, but you don't have to worry. My failure paves the way for your success. Now that everything is going as it should, you'll be able to divert your attention from time travel nonsense, walk the path of stars, and save all your friends, as you've been.

 

[Eidolon Astronaut]

JOAN: You say that now, but at this rate some other time traveler is bound to show up and cause a ruckus.
JOAN: What even is the path of stars? How am I supposed to follow it?
JOAN: What did you do on your path?

 

[SerbianMounted]

JOAN: I've found that just saying that sort of thing about time travelers just invites more of them to your timeline.
JOAN: Remember when we were first in LOP and we found the Crypt of Echidna/Kaukek?
JOAN: The two routes offered defined a Path of Stars and a Path of Shade, essentially. One which followed Echidna, the other which followed Kaukek.
JOAN: In reality, from what I'm told, no version of us ever really took the latter to start.
JOAN: Like you, I followed the Path of Stars, picked Echidna, and went on my merry way, until Orin died.
JOAN: Opal took it hardest, and Arlo was somehow even more of a mess.
JOAN: I was the only one who could pick up the pieces, and the Path of Stars couldn't offer me something that could change a timeline. Echidna's whole deal is space, not time, after all.
JOAN: So I changed my path, and took Kaukek's route instead. Which turned out to be the only way we were ever supposed to take her route.
JOAN: The void only creates when there is already absence.
JOAN: Because that's our destiny Joan. We're a Knight. Sometimes of Void, and sometimes of Space. But regardless of the aspect, we're here to help our friends in whatever capacity is necessary.

 

[Eidolon Astronaut]

JOAN: So then what *does* the Path of Stars entail?
JOAN: And what does the cloak even do?
JOAN: I feel like I should know this if it's supposed to be my whole destiny.
JOAN: It seems pertinent in knowing how to save my friends from any future deaths.

 

[SerbianMounted]

JOAN: You'd think that with how important it is and sounds, that the answers would be clear. But the game doesn't like to make things obvious. It's frustrating in that way.
JOAN: And I don't know what the Path of Stars entails beyond a few things.
JOAN: I knew that it entailed Frog Breeding. Apparently there could have been and can be many frogs on LOP, frogs that could be summoned through a planetary wide change I never got to. What that planetary change was, I believe, was called 'the lighting of the forge'.
JOAN: But Arlo didn't elaborate when I asked, he just said it "wasn't important to what i had to do".
JOAN: Beyond that?
JOAN: The "paths" we have are reminiscent of every player's path, though the flavor is tailored to fit how we develop.
JOAN: They entail personal growth, emotional challenges, and are basically the game's way of preparing us to grow up and ascend to godhood.
JOAN: Ideally, anyway.
JOAN: My Path of Night involved me going through the darkness of LOP, observing and existing in absence to understand how to cloak myself with it, and pass through those boundaries of non-liminal space and travel through liminal space to achieve my ends, namely arriving here.
JOAN: So the progression is fairly vague, but still simple, at least. Keep progressing through your planet, do what you're doing now, and the game will provide you the tools you need to succeed.
JOAN: As for the Cloak of Stars? I....also have no idea.
JOAN: I never got far along the Path of Stars to figure it out. When I transitioned to Kaukek's path, my Cloak of Stars lost its color and became inky black like it is now. Thus becoming the Cloak of Shade.
JOAN: The Cloak of Shade allows me to enter into the void, and exist "between" places, if that makes sense.
JOAN: It stands to reason the Cloak of Stars functions differently.

 

[Eidolon Astronaut]

JOAN: Hm... Alright, I think I got all of that noted.
JOAN: I'll keep progressing through the game, and more importantly making sure my friends don't die.

You look over to Orin, then back to (Joan).​

JOAN: What happens now?
JOAN: With me, and with you?

 

[SerbianMounted]

==> ​

(JOAN): End of the line for me.
(JOAN): For you? Just the beginning.

As she says this, (Joan) grips the Cloak of Shade around her and closes her eyes. As though a harsh spotlight illuminates her from behind, she casts a stark silhouette against the ground, one which tethers her to you. The world brims with darkness, as she is consumed by it, using the Cloak for the last time.

She sinks, her flesh turning to shadow, and she gives you one final, haunting look before diminishing her form into nothing but a shadow to yours. At you feet is your shadow, as it has always been. But there is something different to it now: it seems to guide you, it seems to have your back.

The CLOAK OF SHADE lies at your feet.

> Arlo: pester orin
​

Spoiler: Pesterlog

-– gratisGlider [GG] began pestering caesuraGiddyup [CG] at ??? --

Spoiler: Pesterlog

GG: orin
GG: hey, dude
GG: you know i could really use your help figuring out how to wrangle this stupid kernel
GG: but i bet you’re busy like, i dunno
GG: dodging boiling water and saying corny one liners out there in your hellscape planet
GG: heh
GG: maybe the 12th labor is gonna be you trying and failing in desperation to not say ‘yeehaw’
GG: a true test of will…
GG: …
GG: dude, c’mon
GG: this is just plain fucking rude
GG: don’t tell me that stupid lion actually got you
GG: don’t you wrestle devil horses on a daily basis and all? And you’re like, supposed to be all badass or something?
GG: …
GG: this isn’t funny
GG: y’know when joan was out here telling me about murderous arin game grumps and a.i and shit, i really didn’t clock this game as all that dangerous
GG: she said that it was, but i guess i didn’t believe her?
GG: probably because even when joan’s trying to get something through my thick skull i really kinda refuse to listen to her
GG: even though she listens to me
GG: even though you both do…a lot, and i’m a bit of a jaded and detached asshole about everything
GG: so i don’t say thank you like i should
GG: i’m gonna just hope that you’re not dead
GG: because that’d really suck
GG: especially because…
GG: i dunno, man!
GG: i hate this a lot, i don’t really like leaving a lot of messages unanswered like this
GG: it reads as…totally uncool, a straight bit of fucking neediness even
GG: not that when you do it, you’re being needy
GG: fuck i hope you’re dead so you don’t read this

You notice Orin's phone is going off with a lot of notifications. You also see that SUGAR CUBE has teleported into the scene. It looks like the dumb horse somehow survived the meteors. She trots delicately over to Orin, and sniffs his face. Maybe she does care about him? Horses sure are weird.

> Be Orin

You awaken to the smell of cigarette smoke and the sound of unrelentingly smooth jazz. You grip at your chest where the NYMEAN LION clawed at you, and see that you are remarkable unscathed, and wearing some manner of funny PURPLE PAJAMAS. The crescent moon on the denotes you as PRINCE of DERSE, and it seems you already have an audience.

A DRACONIAN DIGNITARY leans out the window of your room. He acknowledges your awakening without seeming to give you so much as a passing glance. This guy is good. He mentions something to the effect of this NOT BEING A HOSTAGE SITUATION NOR AN ASSASINATION ATTEMPT. Though any stupid moves will easily vacillate the nature of this first encounter. He introduces himself accordingly, and moves to give your hand a shake. ​

 

[Eidolon Astronaut]

==>

You captchalogue the CLOAK OF SHADE into your sylladex, you'll find something to do with it later.

You grab Orin's phone and pat him gently on the head, before turning to Sugar Cube.​

JOAN: Goodnight, sweet prince. Dream of large horses.
JOAN: You watch over him, alright girl?

> Orin?: Pester Arlo.​

CG: Arlo, hey, it's Joan using Orin's phone.
CG: Orin's asleep, recovering from the close encounter he had with the Nemean Lion. He's going to be fine, he just needs to rest for now.
CG: Don't worry.

 

[SerbianMounted]

==>

Sugar Cube looks over at you with her...eyes? Her blank expression kind of bores itself into your soul, and makes you just a tad uneasy. Why doesn't she move for such long periods of time? You're pretty sure this has to just be a "her" thing, and not a horse thing. Regardless, she lays down beside him, and rests her muzzle across his chest, lightly.
​

GG: ah, shit joan
GG: you're like, the second worst person to be seeing these messages
GG: can you just like, pretend to forget you read any of that stuff? about you and orin, i mean
GG: i'm not mad or anything that you read it, but like, it was meant to be all read in confidence and shit
GG: but uh, thanks, totally, for telling me orin's ok, i really appreciate it

==>

You take the Dignitary by the hand, and give him a firm shake, he chuckles slightly, commenting on how serious you look. Like you saw some sort of ghost, or possibly a giant lion that just used its claws to rip through your flesh like a sports team would rip through a banner. Not that he really understands the very earth human notions of sports teams, but that remains unimportant. No, no, he says, he's not here to harm you as he's said before. He's here to ask for some help.

After some brief and smooth explanations pertaining to where you are and how you perhaps have died, he explains the more pressing issue: Derse's fall. The Dignitary gesticulates subtly with his cigarette, the trail of smoke forming an afterimage of his words. You see, he says, Derse is on the brink of complete assimilation to a hivemind. Evidently you and some of your friends thought it would be a great idea to prototype a self-developing A.I. Not the smartest idea in the world. Your sheepish expression at that leads him to his next point, pertaining to how while normally he would be trying to kill you for making the A.I, he realizes you're the only one who can help.

He understands that you're the one who made the damn A.I in the first place, and is thus the only person who can "un-make" it. His dimwitted and stab-happy acquaintance found it all too easy to be assimilated into the A.I's rapidly advancing hivemind after a foolish attempt at thwarting the plans of the Neural center's hub: the Queen. It seems desperate times call for desperate measures. You ask him just how you could even get to the center of the Hive when Derse seems to be overrun by something neither you nor him could brute force. He explains that he knows a shortcut, and a funny trick.

==> Arlo: Enter

You sit back from the messages you sent to Joan through Orin's account. You feel a strange kind of emptiness fill you that normally lingers on the periphery of your thoughts at all times. When it get's like this, you start to feel that kind of Ennui filled dread that makes you want to curl up and stop doing anything for a while. It's a mix of boredom...and, well, time. You wish the candle would melt already so you could move on, so you could begin an adventure like the others, and have something to do, so you could distract yourself from all these feelings you wish you didn't feel. And thoughts you wish you didn't think.

You curl into yourself. It's strange how even deafened by tragedy the world feels so loud. You close your eyes, and try to just focus on your breathing. It seems you've lost your inner tempo. Maybe finding it would help? You see nothing, and hear nothing. It's impossible to keep tempo in this darkness. The world feels like it's getting hotter, too. You feel a nudge, and look over to see Sonata. Your Kernel, while inscrutable, still cares for you. You breath in, and then out. Breathe it, and then out.

In. Out. In. Out.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

The candle melts, and you just see white. And all the heat is gone. ​