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[bluescreenwhitedragon]

"This is Intensity. Leave a message."

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[bluescreenwhitedragon]

[By then he will have made two cups of coffee. Does Eclipse drink coffee? He sure doesn't know.

He looks at the outfit, blinking twice. Just to make sure he's not seeing things.]

I see.

...

Are congratulations in order?

[inspiteful]

[ Flatly: ] Hah.

[ Eclipse picks up the cup and...looks into it, because it doesn't smell like tea. Is this...coffee...? He isn't really sure, he doesn't remember having had coffee before. But Mars has had plenty and it seems like it. ]

It wasn't in the best of circumstances.

[bluescreenwhitedragon]

So not via a profile edit, I assume.

[Also slides over some cream and sugar, because (probably not unexpectedly) Intensity prefers his black.

He gestures toward the floating lab chair as well]

Sit.

It sounds like it's a long story.

[inspiteful]

[He recognises the sugar, but not the quite the cream, so he's taking his coffee with sugar. Then, he takes a seat.]

You know one the hosts here? Calls herself things like "this unit" or "this program"?

[bluescreenwhitedragon]

Are you talking about the AI? White hair. Extremely unhelpful.

[inspiteful]

Yes, her. She personally came to take me off the show, as part of... [ He pauses to recall what was said, and the way he says it makes it clear that some of this is pretty foreign to him. ] "the Tokyo-F Program Transfer System", on the instructions of someone she called "sysop". Mars was there with me and tried to grab hold of me, which seemed to cause some error in the process.

[bluescreenwhitedragon]

[That raises an eyebrow.]

Sysop?

...

Where were you when this transfer took place?

[inspiteful]

We were just hanging out in the city. Happened to be walking through some place out of the way so there wasn't anyone else around.

...I'm pretty sure because of whatever error Mars caused, the two of us ended up in another city. It wasn't the Tokyo in the Liars' realm, and it didn't match the description of Vengeance Hell, either. Full of shades of the damned, but it was 'normal'. Sky was still regret-inducing to look at, though.

[bluescreenwhitedragon]

What do you mean by shades of the Damend?

[inspiteful]

At least, that's what I assumed they were. They...kind of looked like shadows of people? When they walked past us it felt warm, but if you try to touch them they aren't solid. When we arrived we found a map of the city -- the layout's pretty much the same as this one, as far as I could tell -- that had one particular building marked on it. We headed over there and it looked like an...'office building', I guess that's what it's called?

We headed in and there was...someone? Something? At the reception desk. I can't tell you who or what it was 'cause just looking at it gave me a headache and I couldn't figure it out. It said we were at the 'Fanservice Branch' of...

[ How the hell do you communicate this: ]

...Some garbled nonsense I couldn't understand. Then the AI girl showed up again, saying something to it about how it 'can't really interact with us' and explaining some of the situation to us.

[bluescreenwhitedragon]

[He looks particularly interested at the bit where Eclipse says the Damned were warm, but not touchable.

Yes, that sounds familiar]

Did you see any Heaven hosts there? Run into any guards---

They would have looked like...

[Wait, he has to flip through his notes. Give him a moment]

[inspiteful]

I didn't see any other hosts. Aside from whoever was at the reception and the AI girl, we didn't get to speak to anyone else.

[bluescreenwhitedragon]

[Well that's good. Because the only description he has for the security guards is "bloody bleeding claw-y scary person". Not helpful, past!Intensity]

When we bought that first meeting with Our Lady of the Circus, that's where she brought us.

She claimed it was Delphi.

But from your account, it was a space in between here and Delphi.

[inspiteful]

Delphi, as in where we were during maintenance? The city looked a lot like here, but I wasn't sure if it was the same as the one in the Liars' realm because it wasn't so bright that you needed to get your eyes checked.

Mars and I ended up running into...I think, some kind of storage or waiting room. It had things like mannequins that matched the number of people usually on units -- three of them had outfits that matched the styles of Alcheme, Wild City and Bad End. We also found 'Imepro Volunteer Fan Outreach' badges in there, as well a unit-themed pamphlets and...glowing sticks?

Fun fact, apparently AI girl couldn't follow us inside the room because she said she's not a volunteer. Which I'm guessing has something to do with 'fan outreach'. Didn't stop her from waiting outside the door, of course.

[bluescreenwhitedragon]

"Volunteer" Fan Outreach.

What the fuck does that even mean?

[inspiteful]

I suspect it means there are demons who have contact with the whoever makes up our audience and...take their opinions? Give out those pamphlets I mentioned? What do 'fans' do?

It seems like the sort of thing some of the denizens of the Liar's Realm would be interested in, anyway.

[bluescreenwhitedragon]

...

Able to keep any of those badges per chance?

[inspiteful]

Mars pocketed some. I'm not sure if they came back with him, but you can ask him.

[bluescreenwhitedragon]

I will.

So then what happened?

[inspiteful]

I put on the Alcheme uniform in the room and went out to ask her, what if I was on Alcheme instead? It seemed to change the audience's mind.

[bluescreenwhitedragon]

So what? They just don't like you on Heart?

[inspiteful]

Apprently.

[bluescreenwhitedragon]

. . .

[Very eloquently]

That's stupid.

The audience is stupid.

[inspiteful]

Yeah, well. Life's a bitch and the audience are dumbasses, but the only options I had were to let AI girl follow her orders or, uh. Perish.

[bluescreenwhitedragon]

You're probably too stubborn to lose to the grey disease.

But.

I also prefer you being here rather than not.