lifeaftr | [ENSŌ] - THE TEMPEST NEVER DIES

Who: Everyone!
What: The final player enters the field
When: April 30th and onward
Where: On the coast of Ensō
Warnings: Nothing of note!

For the past several months, you've seen it on the horizon. A dark shape, at first, like a distant landmass getting closer and closer. It's continued to draw close, until it becomes apparent that for all it might look like a fragmented chunk of land, overgrown with moss and decaying vegetation, it is far from it.

It's a living being.

And by April 30th, it will have made landfall. A rush of seawater surges up over the beaches of Ensō as the beast settles along the northwestern shore, hulking and massive and rivaling even the great dragon Ahidalgo in sheer size.

When they nestle down against the edge of Ensō, they will lift their heavy head, rocky and streaming water, and open a set of six small, glowing eyes.

They do not appear hostile. They regard any who might come near them with a seeming impassivity, though given how much they dwarf all of you, it might be awfully hard to read this creature's demeanor.

At least until they speak aloud.

"SO. THIS IS WHAT YOUR HISTORY HAS WROUGHT."
They're not going away anytime soon, either. It's only a matter of time before the other two gods in the area realize what's happening and reach out.

If you want answers, better talk to them now.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

ONLY LONG ENOUGH TO SEE THIS WORLD TO ITS END.

Oh. Yeah. Okay. I've uhhhh. Had it indicated to me that on the grander scale of things, that probably won't be too much longer, so. I guess...you'll get front row seats to the fireworks when this place finally implodes?

IT IS LONG OVERDUE.
I HAVE WITHSTOOD TOO MANY REPETITIONS OF THIS WORLD'S DEMISE.
I INTEND FOR THIS ONE TO BE FINAL.

...Uh. Oh. Uh. So uh. So this has happened...a couple of times? Like uh. The world's ended more than once? And they just keep remaking it over and over, until they get it right, until it sticks?

IN A WAY.
THIS...LIFE RAFT KEEPS BEING SPUN BACK TO ITS INCEPTION.
ITS TIME RUNS OUT AFTER THE SAME POINT, EACH TIME.
AGAIN AND AGAIN, YOU HAVE WOKEN ON THESE SHORES.
AGAIN AND AGAIN, YOU HAVE SEEN IT TO ITS END.

...

Hold the god damn phone. We're in a time loop?!

Are you saying. That we're just in a fucking time loop and we've all been here before and we've all done this before and we'll do it again if it doesn't end-end?

OOOOOOHHHHHH and of COURSE we don't REMEMBER so that we can change LITERALLY ANYTHING, because that would be--that just would be too damn CONVENIENT, huh! Because then we'd probably actually pull the Storyteller aside and go hey, you know, maybe this isn't cool and you should stop, so of cooooourse we're all reset back to the start! Not that you can change anything when you time travel but that's another story altogether--

Just wiiiind that shit back to the beginning and relive the story over and over again like it's your favorite video from Blockbuster and you have to watch it as many times as you can before you return it and then you wear the tape out. SURE! WHY NOT!

YES.
A LAW OF DIMINISHING RETURNS.
IT HAS HAPPENED TIME AND TIME AGAIN.
BECAUSE THEY RAN OUT OF TIME.
BECAUSE THEY DID SOMETHING THEY REGRETTED.
BECAUSE THEY FELT THEY COULD DO BETTER THAN BEFORE.

WHY DO YOU THINK THEY CARRY THAT TOME OF THEIRS?
EVERY PAGE IS A COMMEMORATION OF WHAT LAST OCCURRED.

I'm gonna put 'em in a fucking headlock and-- [Storyteller had confided in him, before. Asking after the idea of doing something awful, something you regretted, but you didn't remember doing it. About what kind of person it says you are. You could be. Church's flame of anger dies down after a very hot second.]

...They write it down before, don't they? And. They reset, too. Right? They don't remember the things they did. So they're just trying to figure things out all over again, only with a guide that says what they did in all the iterations before, yeah?

PRECISELY.
THEY MAKE THE SAME MISTAKES, OVER AND OVER AGAIN.
AND TIME AND TIME AGAIN, THIS DYING, TIRED WORLD MUST SUFFER FOR IT.

That's not...that's not fucking fair. [He knows how petulant he sounds. Doesn't matter. It bears saying.

"They say doing the same thing multiple times and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. Maybe people who don't remember what they've done have a predisposition to insanity."

"Or perhaps it is the world that has lost its mind, and we are all doomed to concede to its nature."

It's not any god damn fair. Responsibility. Guilt. Sin. Identity. Memory.

Memory's always the fucking key, isn't it.]

There has to have been--I mean, we have to have talked to them before. This can't be the first time we're learning what's going on, right? And it hasn't worked. But. I don't know, but maybe it is different this time? We have to talk to them. We have to--they'll listen. Maybe they won't agree, but they've got to at least listen to us. I think.

[He'd been so angry, upset, thinking what the Storyteller regretted was remaking and preserving a dead world in all the twisted dream images it could. But that wasn't what it had been about, not really. It was other choices, in other iterations. Down the rabbit hole.]

YOU'RE CORRECT.
IT IS NOT.
THIS IS THE FIRST TIME THAT THEY WOULD REGRET LOSING YOU.

...Oh. [That...that sure is something. Only the first time, huh? That kind of hurts in ways he's not sure he wants to examine right at this very minute.]

Well maybe they shoulda thought of that before we got here. [Is them being here Storyteller's fault? Not actually entirely sure on that one.]

What about Mu? They don't control that. I think...someone else was, but they bit the dust? It's kind of. Unclear. But that would end, too, right? Or would it just kinda keep going out of anyone's jurisdiction because it's also not actually this world?

THE GOD OF DREAMS DIED IN THEIR EFFORTS TO CREATE THIS WRETCHED LIFE RAFT OF A WORLD.
MU IS THEIR CREATION. AFTER THEIR DEMISE, IT ACTED IN THEIR STEAD.

I INTEND TO DESTROY IT.
THAT WILL SEAL THE WAY TOWARD ANY FURTHER TAMPERING WITH THIS WORLD.

...Anything we can do to help?

DESTROY THE ALTAR OF THE ONE YOU CALL THE STORYTELLER.
WITH THEM DEAD, THIS WORLD CAN BE DISMANTLED, AND EVERYONE RETURNED TO THEIR OWN HISTORIES.

[ENSŌ] - THE TEMPEST NEVER DIES

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