third loop

[cancrymods]

SUPERBIA

On midnight of the fourteenth day, it happens again. Time rewinds itself back to the Executors' starting point, putting them right back at the beginning of the loop. This is now their third time experiencing the events of the two-week Superbia loop and while they've made some good progress on the investigation, they still have a ways to go in bringing it to and end and escaping. Use this log to investigate during this two-week time period and drop a comment down to the Investigation Request subheader if you'd like to explore. If you're continuing or building off of a previous loop's investigation results, please link to it in your comment. If you need a refresher on the loop mechanics, check out this post. Good luck, Executors.

Comments

[ourtomorrow]

[ Monarch has brought a chess set this week. He is in the process of setting it up - camouflage? - when Chiron shares his experiences and he fumbles a rook. Clatter.

Excuse him. ]

They'd reached graduation?!

[ And then...a disaster. Which is chilling. But doesn't that imply... ]

So the loop is purposeful. Someone's avoiding...something. In the future.

[ But is it that they don't want to graduate? That they don't want someone else to graduate? That they don't want.....whatever awful thing happened......to occur, and are trying to prevent it?

More information means more possibilities! ]

[schardynfreude]

[Monarch honey there are chess sets for the chess club, but, you know what, that's really cute. Just...let Chiron help with that rook.]

Avoiding the graduation itself, or avoiding whatever happened during it. Everyone's been trapped here; I suppose when being stuck it makes the most sense to have a school year that never ends.

[ourtomorrow]

[ Monarch nods. ] There's something else. That Miss President said. It - might not be important, given what you discovered, but....

[ In case it's useful, he may as well. (Though now he's chomping at the bit to go take a look at the gym. Apparently he is the sort of person whose reaction to "there's trouble" is to...run right at it? ]

She wants the school festival to be something "everyone can look forward to".

[ He frowns. ] The loop resets right when the festival is set to occur. That's two key days the loop prevents.

[schardynfreude]

Normally, one would want to avoid disaster. A festival...doesn't seem like it. Unless it was all bundled together? I'm afraid my knowledge of, ah, school timelines is a bit lacking.

[ourtomorrow]

I'm not sure. [ He doesn't think it's tied in... ]

In any case, she's different. I can't say if that means she's the Authority, or remembers the loops, but she's significant.

[ or is he just intimidated by her and that makes him mad

it's one of these two things

monarch honestly can't differentiate between them sometimes ]

[schardynfreude]

It does still...alarm me that she found us last loop...

[He glances toward the door. AS IF BY SAYING THAT HE COULD SUMMON HER.]

[cancrymods]

[









Someone knocks on the door. ]

[crypddyd]

[Lion was here the whole time what are you talking about, though mostly looming against the wall and trying to not snap out at his friends. But when the door knock happens he jerks, half yelling under his breath like he just heard a gunshot.

He reaches out and swings the door open in a rush, eye wide and just barely not summoning his weapon through willpower alone- though that might change at the slightest hint of 'danger']

1/2

[cancrymods]

[ The person on the other side of the door... ]

[cancrymods]

[ ...

Is not Miss President.

The poor, poor Specter who was just on his way to a lunchtime club meeting staggers back from the door, clutching his chest and his glasses slip down his nose. ]

I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! I didn't realize this room was in use!

[ He starts scrabbling to leave... ]

1/2

[crypddyd]

[Lion reaches out, grabbing the poor teenager-]

[crypddyd]

[And carefully puts his glasses back properly on his face before turning him around and... well intending to just give him a little bump on the back to get going but with his strength and lack of current control is more a shove]

Never return.

[cancrymods]

[ The kid fucking BOOKS IT. You have literally never seen a Specter move so fast in all your time in Purgatory.

There he go... ]

[etincelledefierte]

Just to add to that, there was a picture hidden in the back of the snack cupboard in the student council room. I took a picture of it -

[she’ll pull out her phone, showing the photo]

- and noticed something about it. See here? The girl we know as Miss President isn’t wearing her armband. Instead, this other girl is.

There’s something written on the back of it, too. It’s signed R.

[schardynfreude]

...So perhaps the damage to the gym was after this? It's troubling, at any rate... Have we known any of them to be in possession of mementos from their living lives, anyone?

[etincelledefierte]

I think whatever happened in the gym had to be after the photo was taken. They look so happy in the picture, like they didn’t have a care in the world. Just based on this, I don’t think they knew anything bad was going to happen.

[mementomoritz]

[Medic looks like she's pondering something. Historically, this has resulted in contributions ranging from 'you've all been poisoned and we should fix that' to 'do you think snails feel pain'.]

I wonder... both of the Authorities we've fought so far turned into a sort of monstrous Revenant form to fight us, right? Could an Authority turn into that form and just... stay that way?

[Apparently we're getting something a little closer to the first option on the relevance scale today. That's nice.]

Maybe we aren't finding an obvious Authority in the school because they're not up here at all. They could have been in the Underside the entire time.

[ourtomorrow]

Can they become their Revenant form without being -

[ let's not think about esme's head abruptly flying off

drat ]

--attacked first?

[alcahest]

If they lost their sense of self... then maybe. And they would stay that way, wouldn't they? The same as the other Revenants in the Underside.

[ourtomorrow]

[ Good point. And yet. Something feels off. What? ] But...

[ Monarch gives this a Ponder. He has a thought but it's not fully formed yet, so he'll let other people go first. ]

[schardynfreude]

Hold on, but if the Authority isn't even on this layer, then who would have the power to prevent us from moving forward? Or would that Authority still have the power to block us out without even being here?

[alcahest]

No... Neither Esme nor Greta seemed to be very attached to the lives they had. [ but: ] It couldn't be from her life, could it? None of us have any possessions from life.

[ she leans in to peer at the photo. her expression as she considers it is— pained. Esme was cruel; Greta was selfish. but the person that Miss President looks to be in this picture... doesn't look like a bad person. she knows that the hand she extended to Esme only got rejected, but—

... she sighs. ]

In Avaritia, the Authority passed around to the richest without anyone even knowing it. So... Maybe here, whoever is the current student council president holds the Authority? That might be the previous Authority-holder.

[etincelledefierte]

I think that’s plausible. What’s more, after meeting Miss President, I got the feeling that she was trying a little bit too hard to make people happy. If something happened to the former student council president sometime after the photo was taken, I have to wonder if she wants to do something that would make her friend proud of her. That would explain why she’s so determined to make other people happy.

The question is still what exactly happened, though.

[mementomoritz]

I can't be completely certain if she is the Authority, but our Miss President is definitely very powerful- it almost felt like her power was feeding back into itself. If she's not the Authority, then she sure is something!

Without knowing... [Medic frowns deeply, a sudden thought striking her.] We're in a time loop.

If someone became an Authority, and then time reversed to before they became the Authority... would they still hold that power?

What if... [She speaks slowly, putting the idea together piece by piece.] What if whatever happened in the gym involved the previous Authority, maybe the president before this one, losing their grip on the power? They became a Revenant and the power went to Miss President, time went back, and she had all the power of an Authority without ever even knowing it.

[etincelledefierte]

Etoile flips to the photo of the back of the picture, running her finger over the words. She’s thinking carefully about Medic’s theory. Eventually, she flips to the original photo.]

I think that’s definitely a possibility. If something happened with the previous president, where she lost control, and her power passed on to Miss President…

[She goes quiet again, thinking things over.]

Do you think she could be using that power without realizing it? As if she’s half asleep? If she’s trying to forget what happened to her, or trying on some level to prevent it?