Superbia Intro Log ... ?

[cancrymods]

SUPERBIA

With the dragon of greed thoroughly slain, the Executors are at last free to escape the sensory hell of the Avaritia Underside and descend to the next Layer. There's still sound and chatter, of course, but compared to where you've been spending all your time until now. Welcome to Superbia. And make yourself comfortable... because now that you've arrived, the stairs that guided you down here have disappeared and you won't be leaving any time soon. Feel free to use this arrival log to chronicle your initial misadventures in the Pride Layer of Purgatory. As noted in the location page, several locations will require further investigation if you'd like to get some information on them, so get investigating! Drop a comment down to the Investigation Request subheader if you'd like to explore. Get out there and have fun! ... is anybody else feeling some deja vu?

Comments

[mementomoritz]

[Medic is just bouncing excitedly. She has so many theories right now.]

I can't confirm directly whether this is genuine time travel or just the layer altering itself to put things and people in the same state they were before, I'm working on figuring it out. It's going to be a big project!

But at least now we know where to look for the Authority, so that's a relief!

[...Wait, what was that last part? Someone might need to get her to explain her reasoning here.]

[schardynfreude]

...In the...locked rooms of the school? [just...taking a wild stab at it. obviously?? it's somewhere?? they haven't gotten into yet??]

[mementomoritz]

[Blinking, confused:] With the students...?

[She's beginning to doubt this conclusion, now. Maybe she should back up and try to explain instead of just assuming everyone's following the exact same train of thought she is.]

It's a high school that no one can graduate, because time never progresses. I don't think something here could be like that without the Authority actually wanting it to be that way- that, or the afterlife is a lot more broken than we thought. Basic physics may be having some problems.

So... that means the Authority almost has to be a student, right? [She shrugs slightly, looking uncharacteristically shy about her answer. She's confident in her scientific analysis, but this is a guess based on, well. People. She's not always so great with those.] If they were a staff member, they wouldn't need a time loop to happen, because teachers can keep working at a school until they get fired or quit. But students graduate.

Except they don't, here. So someone who wanted to be in school could just keep being in it, forever.

[schardynfreude]

Ah--you weren't speaking of a physical "where", forgive me! [It makes quite a bit more sense now with some explanation.]

It's true, there's something strange about time, and not just simply waking up with everything...back as it had been. I perused yearbooks, and seem to have found the one for this year. Now, I can hardly claim to know everyone's faces, or even quite know who's in what, ah, year, though now I do have a much better idea. But the majority of the current graduating class seems to be gone. Simply not here. The graduating class I found in the book is quite larger than what's actually present.

I haven't the faintest what it means. If a student is the cause of this...hrm, are they for some reason picking off others in their class?

[mementomoritz]

Maybe? I guess if they were a threat to them somehow, or just made them mad...

Or they could be Revenants! [That's a cheery thought.] If they were ready to graduate back when the linear passage of time still worked, they'd probably have been here the longest, right? I haven't confirmed yet whether Specters notice if another Specter just disappears, but if the records were maintained by someone who could tell...

[schardynfreude]

Is there really such a thing as a linear passage of time here? I suppose there must be, for people to remember what came before, a progression of sorts, even if typically not much changes... And nothing has looped in this way before.

Still...something's happened to the other students, and no one has noticed, it seems. And we can't even ask anyone about them by name. I'm afraid it's like a dream, where you see text and you know it says something, but the actual wording itself is jumbled.

[emberserker]

The Revenant theory holds water. Stagnation in an unaware Spectre would cause them to corrupt and degrade eventually, would it not? But then, we haven't seen any... unless that's what's in the locked rooms. Keeping them in rather than keeping us out, as it were.

[phantasmagorial]

Which locked rooms are these?

[ Catch her up on the deets please gang, she spent most of last loop being a Totally Ordinary High School Student. ]

[schardynfreude]

I've noticed the gym is locked up for some reason. Perhaps I'll check there. It would be big enough to keep an unsavory lot...

[phantasmagorial]

It was locked up last time, too. I asked around a little bit, but nobody seemed to know why.

[emberserker]

And a gymnasium would be the perfect place to hide something large you didn't want getting out. Only a theory, of course.

[phantasmagorial]

The question is, who would have put it in there? Presumably it would have been whoever has the Authority on this layer but even then, I think that just on a physical level, that'd be difficult for just one person to do.

[emberserker]

You don't suppose they're sharing the Authority?

[phantasmagorial]

[ Rei thinks over it for a second... then shakes her head. ]

No. Not in a place like Superbia. Pride is the sin of elevating yourself above all others... so how could you share a spot like that with anyone?

[emberserker]

You've got a point. I do wonder why Pride would be a place like this, though. Invidia was all about inspiring others' envy of Esme. Avaritia was about Greta hoarding and everyone else there chasing their own greed. Why a school? Do they expect the Authority here to be the most accomplished, the one the school is proud of?

[phantasmagorial]

Mm... I think you're coming at it backwards.

The layer doesn't change to match the Authority – someone is granted Authority because they match the layer, they have a stronger affinity for it than anyone else. But that doesn't necessarily mean they have to meet the same qualifications every time.

Remember Greta and the Authority that came before her?

[emberserker]

Well, yes, of course. But wouldn't that mean that the Authority must be the one who fits the best into the layer, its sin, what it wants?

[phantasmagorial]

The layer doesn't really 'want' anything, is the thing. Nothing down here is really living, of course, but...

[ She trails off, going quiet and thoughtful for a moment. Her understanding of Purgatory and its functions is, on some level, purely instinctual and it can be difficult to articulate to the others if she doesn't take her time with it. ]

I think... over time, the layer must have become this, because of the sins of the people who were trapped here. Something about the sin of "pride" in people's hearts must have influenced it to take this shape.