(no subject)

[strangerpeople]

FINAL TRIAL

[When the doors open, the killed also find themselves allowed into the Room of Reckoning as well. And - similar to the living - they, too, have a table, with their own names and places and sitting pillows. They, too, receive the note on their phones with a ping.

The dead, however, have something else that the living do not have.

They can see that there is someone sitting on the gold pillow by the stairs.]

Comments

[notgentle]

[Dio has been exhausted after his adventure and is picking slowly at his hotpot to get up his energy. Eventually, with hooded eyes, he raises his hand, at a slightly jaunty angle that projects a devil-may-care attitude instead of studiousness.]

So... did anyone figure out why we have to die in these games?

[Leaning forward.]

Now don't get me wrong. I understand how the gaming part is supposed to increase our Imagination a shitton, and that we get stronger in the underground. But when you make something stronger, you're building off of something that was already there. We were already able to use pins. And noise were sometimes visible in the Strangerground - they're what killed some of us!

Anyone? Bueller?

[He spreads his hands and casts stern glances to the room at large.]

[foolishjustice]

[Dio's not the only one eating, though Goro is eating a bit more steadily.]

From the documents the living found, it seems like Kana-chan being a candidate for Conductor while still alive is an abnormality. It's possible that being dead is a job requirement for Composers.

[eyesofdespair]

There's got to be something more than that. If being dead is it, then there's a few things that make no sense. After all, someone went through the trouble of healing some pretty serious wounds on me, ones that I would have died from.

Meguka ping

[foolishjustice]

...But would you have entered the Game? Kana-chan, can you tell us if someone dying in another universe would be able to enter the UG here?

[cyclicalconcept]

From what I know? I don't see why it wouldn't be possible. But, you needed to be alive for this game, because of your esper levels.

...

Though, Akechi-san, you are a little bit wrong about me. I'm not alive.

[foolishjustice]

Ah, then was the document I read referring to something else when it said you gained your powers without dying?

[cyclicalconcept]

That's right.

I gained my powers when I was created.

[foolishjustice]

Created? So you aren't actually human?

[notgentle]

Okay, so we might have to be dead to run these games ourselves, fine.

I'm asking why anyone has gotta run games at all when living people in the Strangerground can sometimes use psychs and see noise.

[foolishjustice]

We've never seen Noise outside of an execution. Remember, there are certain areas where people in the Realground can see us...it might be similar.

A better question would be, why do they need people native to our worlds to run the Games? What's preventing them from sending people who died here to fill that purpose, and possibly come back once they've trained a successor from those who died on their own?

[cyclicalconcept]

Well, I--

[And...then this happens.]

...oh.

[foolishjustice]

[And all the calmness and understanding immediately drains from his face. This expression? He looks a lot more like someone who could kill.]

Should I just take that question up with your boss, then?

[cyclicalconcept]

...I think so, if she tunes into this plane as well.

I'll need to tune into the Strangerground...but I'll still be here, as well.

[foolishjustice]

I certainly hope she pays attention to us. We have just as much to say to her as the living.

[Speaking of the living, he might be...getting up to stand protectively by Akira. Look, he knows he can't actually stop him from doing anything dumb if he decides to try, but it makes him feel better to have a hand on his boyfriend's shoulder.]

[notgentle]

Well, I'm with you that maybe a person from one world could run a game in another world, but I actually think it's pretty clear why you can't train a successor from people who died on their own.

Not everyone who dies in this whole world ends up in the Underground, right? It's not crowded enough. So I'd buy it that keeping your souls in the Underground, where you'd have to be if you wanna act as this "successor", takes a little something extra. Like a game.

[foolishjustice]

Being able to run Games is the point. If it were so simple to fight Noise on the Strangerground, I doubt they would have gone to all of this effort to train new Composers. And if new Composers can emerge from Games, then it shouldn't be that difficult to send one person to a different world and let things happen as they would here.

[notgentle]

I'm asking why it's not so simple to fight noise in the Strangerground! Yeah, it probably isn't, but nobody has given us an actual answer!

[foolishjustice]

At a guess, I'd say it's because people on that plane can't usually see them. How our executions were exceptions, however, and why they can't apply that same effect to larger areas...those are questions for our 'hosts.'

[byanyother_name]

I do have a theory, actually. According the the documents the others found, the Strangerground is an artificially created reality plane. Whereas the Realground and the Underground seem to take shape naturally thorough the various worlds.

They may not have the power or resources to duplicate the feat on a broad spread. Which means when they return us to our own worlds, we would only have access to the Realground, where these noise do not seem to appear until it's too late, and the Underground....which only the dead can typically access.

[Kurama is picking at his own food, more out of necessity than anything. His tone is quiet and calmly thoughtful.]

[notgentle]

[Dio frowns and looks over this document some more.]

Okay, so I'm with you on it being hard to make another Strangerground. But this doesn't give me a reason why you definitely shouldn't try to see noise from the Realground. With sigils or anything.

[byanyother_name]

I'm less certain there, but I wonder...

It's possible our psychs wouldn't work in the Realground. Being able to use these sigils to perceive the Noise would be of limited use if we can't fight them. We've already seen that they're impervious to normal weaponry.

[notgentle]

Shouldn't the difficulty of using psychs go down the higher up you go? Strangerground hardest, Realground medium, Underground easiest. [This is just a vague assumption Dio made from the layer section though...] I wanna see someone test it out.

[byanyother_name]

Perhaps we could convince them to...retune one of us? Or, I suppose, we could simply ask if anyone has tried.

[Kurama props his chin on his hand, frowning thoughtfully.]

As well, it's quite possible to visit the realm of the spirit in my world. Astral projection isn't even that difficult to learn, generally speaking, I'm sure any of us with the level of power they seem to be collecting here could do it.

It would be quite a bit more convenient if we could simply live for the most part, and then step away from our bodies into the Underground when we were needed.

[notgentle]

Imprinting the idea on someone who's still alive seems easier...

[Dio weighs with his hands.]

This "astral projection" might be good, but is it that different from the way some of these guys can go back and forth at will even after they've died?

[eyesofdespair]

We haven't seen that they are impervious to abnormal weaponry, like the sword I used to open the way to the elevator. We also haven't seen if they are impervious to powers from other worlds, especially the higher elements. There may be worlds out there that already have ways to deal with this and just need a way to see them.