THE DETENTION DIMENSION

[tiredcharmer]

WHO: Tyzias and YOU
WHERE: Primarily Lumiere dorm, but other places around the academy as well.
WHEN: The week or so after arriving back from the bone horror mission.
WHAT: At Ekkehardt's request, Tyzias develops a security system to prevent students from going on the roof of Lumiere dorm. At least that's what she heard. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Tyzias has refused to accept that for whatever reason she has human limitations now, and created the system while sleep-deprived and under the influence of enough caffeine to kill somebody. Shenanigans ensue.
WARNINGS: Anybody who dares to tag into the roof prompt will experience ELDRITCH HORROR. Be warned, but the roof prompt is opt-in.

Signs and Portents (Closed to Lumiere floor 1 and visitors)
Tyzias isn't exactly the best dormmate, but at least she's far better than her first few days at the academy. She still works late into the night, but the noises coming from her room are no longer unbearably loud. Tyzias even removed the garbage from the dumpster she sleeps in lieu of a bed and deodorized her side of the room. But it seems that of late, she's... relapsed. Now her room not only smells like a dumpster, it smells like a dumpster fire. Explosions rock the first floor every hour on the regular, followed by shrieks of eureka and/or cursing. Every thirty minutes on the dot, she emerges from her room to stumble to the vending machine, pay for three Monsters, guzzle them down in under a minute, and sprint back to her room. And worst of all, the partition that separated her and Shuuji's parts of the room has become a solid wall, with no way in or out.

Somebody should really talk to her about this. But who's going to?

Cutting and Clearance (Closed to faculty and RAs)
Usually, Tyzias is the epitome of a diligent student. She takes notes at a prodigious pace, asks insightful questions, and remains quiet and on-task. Usually. But she hasn't shown up to class for days now, although the teachers still somehow get all her work in their inboxes.

But perhaps what's even more concerning is how Tyzias just popped into existence right in front of you, haggard and red eyes visible from behind her goggles. "JustStayStillForAFewSecondsThisWon'TTakeAMoment," she chatters, jittery hands manipulating rapidly spinning teal runes in the air.

Eureka (Closed to Ekkehardt)
Out of nowhere, an extremely pale-looking student, shivering, clutching their knees, eyes wide and pupils dilated, and wearing a dunce cap of all things, appears in Ekkehardt's office.

Moments later, he gets a message from Tyzias over the network.

iw

it a

it warks

weorks

works

w/e

mmet me @ rof entr

D/D/D (Open!)
There's a new sign on the entrance to the Lumiere dorm roof.

"STUDENTS, DO NOT ENTER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES"

That, of course, is bait for a number of daring fools. There's a fairly large sum of money up for grabs for whoever can brave whatever new security measures the faculty have put up and post proof to the network

But it's there for a reason.

Who dares brave the roof?

Aftermath (Closed to Michael)
Michael feels something tugging at the back of his mind. An urgent, desperate call, by a very familiar--if too busy to actually visit him, gosh--soul.

Tyzias feels very, very scared.

Comments

gah sorry for tag quality my brain's not sure how to handle this scene

[tiredcharmer]

Not(?)Tyzias sits down and watch her slumbering counterpart, murderous intent radiating off her in waves. "Oh, you know. Girl is contracted from birth to a crazy powerful daemon, runs away from family because she's a big ol' softie, then realizes she's still contracted and just rips out the part of her soul that has the contract on it." The doppelganger inspects the claws of her monstrous arm like they're nails.

"Next thing you know, you're in the astral plane, and who's this douchebag pretending to be you? And then she has the gall to drain you down to almost nothing just she can stay up all night with no consequences, dumps all of her emotions and mental issues on you so he doesn't have to deal with them, and makes all the friends and has all the good times while I'm stuck running away from daemons that wanna eat me!" There's a rising tide of bitterness in her voice, then she sighs, twiddling her thumbs. "Hey. At least that fisher guy gave me a physical form so I could drain all the life out of her fuckin' body and take back what's mine."

She coughs.

"Um. Anyways. Haven't... seen you in a bit, Mike. How's? I, uh. Have a band now."

Well. That was certainly... a lot. The doppelganger does seem oddly friendly and comfortable with Michael, lying back and relaxing as if she hadn't just been casually discussing murdering Tyzias. She almost seems like a friend who isn't quite sure what to do around an old acquaintance after she hasn't seen them in a while, so she's desperately trying to get all the baggage out of the way so she can get to know Michael again.

lol, take your time

[eudaimonikos]

"...well, shit."

Michael's not gonna just relax; this one seems too murderous, regardless of her deal. But he tugs his body into a more comfortable position, before sliding most of the way out of it. He wants to get a better look at this, and this bit of Tyzias seems capable of perceiving him.

(From the outside, it probably looks like there's just a corpse slouched over a chair in here now. Whatever.)

"I could tell you had a contract, but you know. Half the people here have one." He gives a sort of intangible-daemon version of a shrug. It hadn't seemed like that big a deal; he'd have dealt with it when her contractor came calling. Assuming he was even capable of fighting them anymore...well. Later. "Those arrogant mage families are always doing things like that. How are you making a band on this plane of existence?"

[tiredcharmer]

Tyzias(?) shrugs, apparently unbothered by Michael's meatbag collapsing. "Eh, it's a new thing. Second performance ever is in Soleil soon. Wanna come?" What Michael sees is... odd. That's definitely part of Tyzias's soul, but it's been stained back and hollowed out. Perhaps even stranger is that it's absolutely full to bursting with emotion despite its desperate state: happiness, passion, killing intent, joy, contentment... All of those emotions are not supposed to be there anymore.

[eudaimonikos]

"Suuuuure..." he agrees off-handedly, pretty blatantly just checking this out. He reaches out a...limb? Thing? To try to poke the hollowed-out soul bit. "Music's cool, I like music."

Michael has no experience in fixing human souls. Very much the opposite, for all that he's worked with them a fair amount in general. "You know you can't actually kill her, right? Physically, murdering her body and everything? I doubt you'd survive that."

[tiredcharmer]

"That tickles," she says mildly as Michael pokes around, but doesn't seem to mind all that much. Further investigation yields an interesting discovery: a seed of black, dripping, murderous hate. While the rest of the emotions in soul are artificially implanted, they're easily compatible with Tyzias(?), having come from fundamentally the same person as her. But the hate? It's completely alien to the soul, and very, very powerful--only the sheer amount of positive emotions that Tyzias has been funneling to Tyzias(?) keeps its target singular.

"Nah, that's the cool part about what Fisher did to me. I can eat souls and stuff. Don't really do it that often, but if I take that bitch's soul for myself, I'm, like, 90% certain it'll integrate with what I have."

[eudaimonikos]

"That's still a gamble. Even if you did actually know, and I'm fairly sure you're guessing."

Michael peers curiously at the hate seed, and doesn't touch it for the moment. It's gotta come out, that much is clear. He's offended that someone would leave that here at all. Sure, okay, he's played with mortal minds too, but this lacks all subtlety! At least he had some flair. You can always manipulate people into generating hate like this themselves, and that's so much more...

He won't let this lie long. But messing with it is likely to start something, and he wants a little more information first. So he pauses in his investigations - not withdrawing, but turning more of his attention towards her outward form in what probably passes as conversational politeness for intangible daemons. "Who's Fisher?"

[tiredcharmer]

As Michael looks closer at Twozias's soul, it trembles for a bit and a small, almost microscopic piece of it falls and fades into the ether. If he's keeping an eye on Tyzias, the exact same thing happens to her soul. Seemingly unaware of what just happened, Twozias kicks her feet and leans back in her chair. "Oh, he's the daemon who keeps on giving lost souls these cool powers and physical form. Also a MASSIVE killing instinct and urge to devour the souls of the living, but eh. Got that under control."

[eudaimonikos]

"Zombie ghost guy? He's so basic. What's the point in sending them after their loved ones like that?" If Michael sounds a little distracted, it's because he's watching bits of Tyzias's soul just fall off. Yeah, that hate seed's gotta come out now.

...he hesitates, though. Screwing with her soul, even to help, is making him feel unaccountably squeamish. He knows how easily they can break, and this is one time when he actually doesn't want that. Maybe just yanking it out is a bad idea.

Michael gathers his essence thoughtfully. He could always consume it. In another time and place he might've been scavenging the healthy bits of her soul right now; it'd be just like that, only picking away at a kernel of another daemon's magic instead. Now that he's trying not to be completely evil, he doesn't have that many avenues to build his power back up anymore. Can't eat souls, probably shouldn't make any more Contracts. But stealing strength from another daemon is common enough in the Outlands, and he can't think of any objections the humans might have. Suuuure, it's a nugget of concentrated murderous hate, but he's a daemon! That's like, their whole thing!

"Hey, this might be weird," he says off-handedly, before surrounding the hate seed and attempting to absorb it himself.

well i can't think of any reason why this wouldn't work so this makes things easier i guess

[tiredcharmer]

The sheer amount of loathing for the living contained in the seed is prodigious--it's honestly a wonder that Twozias has kept her homicidal rage contained to just Tyzias. The seed is absorbed after some struggling, but some of its oily black smears of hate remain on the interior of the Hollow soul. And it looks like that after depending on something so alien to keep her soul in the physical plane, both Twozias and Tyzias's souls are degrading more rapidly. It's not an urgent problem, but it will need to be dealt with at some point.

"Ow! Hey, what did you do?" Twozias complains, wincing.

lol he tries

[eudaimonikos]

Michael doesn't respond right away, writhing around himself a bit as he gets the damn thing settled. His own essence will break it down, but right now it's still pretty much concentrated hatred. The sudden influx is strange, almost because of how strange it is - wasn't there a time when he held mortals in a similar level of contempt? It feels way more alien now than he'd expected.

"Nothing," he snaps in a moment, and winces. He knows that pissiness he's feeling isn't genuine. "It's fine. Except for the part where your soul's disintegrating, we're getting someone to look at that."

[tiredcharmer]

"Oh, yeah. Another reason why I need to predominate over her," Twozias says, jabbing a monstrous thumb at the sleeping form of Tyzias. "Yeeeeeeeeah, our soul can't really sustain two bodies on the physical plane at once. Not enough structural support for that kind of thing. So one of us has to go! Simple as that."

Well, that's a problem.

[eudaimonikos]

"Just merge back together. It can't be that hard, stitch that thing up."

Michael gestures vaguely at the whole soul deal in general, a note of irritation still lingering in his voice. But if Tyzias Two can keep a handle on the murderous rage, he can do it too. "Stupid thing to do to yourself to begin with."

[tiredcharmer]

"I am not merging with the person that ruined my fucking life," Twozias snaps, glaring at Tyzias. It looks like more than a little bit of hate residue remains. "I am going to dominate her, do you hear? And I'm not accepting anything less."

somebody really needs to teach both tyziases about innuendo

[eudaimonikos]

Michael has no real concept of human sexuality, so it's probably not gonna be him.

"You were her when you split off," Michael grumbles. What kind of dumb idea was that, just ripping out the part of the soul with the Contract attached? Both of them were the same being when they came up with that, so he's just gonna blame them both. "That was you, too. Both of you are idiots and you need to quit dumping your shit on each other."

[tiredcharmer]

Something thumps against the inside of Twozias's mask. "Oh god fucking-- I'm sticking my tongue out at you. Just so you know." What is she, five years old? Well, that's technically true, but still. "And hey, I'm not the one doing the mass emotion purge! She's the one who put all that shit on me! I'm just giving it all back so she gets a taste of what I've been dealing with all these years!" There's a pause. "Well, uh. Giving most of it back, anyways," she mutters.

[eudaimonikos]

"What's with the mask, anyway?" It's so overly dramatic and unnecessary. "And you are the one putting all the blame on her for your combined dumb soul plan. What're you holding onto, being mad about that?"

[tiredcharmer]

"I don't know how to take it off," Twozias says, glaring at Michael. Oh, whoops. May have committed a faux pas there. "And ugh! You don't get it! Nobody gets it! I'd expect you of all people to understand, but... guh!" Twozias throws up her hands. Apparently, Tyzias has also been depositing her teenage angst into Twozias as well. "Whatever! You're not going to let me kill her anyways, so I guess I'll just leave!" And just like that, she disappears.

[eudaimonikos]

"Leaving won't get you out of this!" Michael calls after her as she goes. Out of what? He's not even sure, but it's not like he's just gonna fuck off and forget about this until something happens.

Grumbling to himself, he settles back down into his body. Stupid Tyzias. Stupid Tyzias Two. Stupid humans with their dumb ideas about what they should do with their soul. "I should have just consumed your essence when I had the chance," he comments idly to the sleeping physical Tyzias. "Would've made your afterlife less like a bad Star Trek episode."