cancry | Luxuria Intro Log

PROCEEDING...
With the real super power of teamwork, the Executors have successfully managed to make their way through the Gula Underside and defeat the previous Authority there. With Gerda now freed from her past regrets and given the power of an Executor, Gula and its inhabitants seem to be in safe hands... for now at least. More interesting – or concerning, perhaps – is the tentative ally you've gained in the form of Birdie, the mysterious girl who attacked some of your number in the Superbia Underside. While she seemed to be nothing but an enemy back then, a surprising connection has been formed with who you now understand to be the Authority of Purgatory itself. While she doesn't necessarily believe the Executors will be able to repair Purgatory, she is at least willing to admit that she shares their goals of wanting to see Purgatory restored... either to its former state, or to something new. But what does that mean for the Executors? And what does that mean for Rei supposedly born from the Authority's discarded heart? There are still many questions the Executors need to answer and as a blast of dry, hot air blows up from the next layer, you can only hope that Luxuria holds the key to at least some of them...
LUXURIA
♪♫ Wet & Dry – Sakuzyo After the humidity and noise of the Gula Underside, passing down to the Lust Layer of Purgatory initially seems like a relief. The air here is dry and sharp and though you hear noise drifting up to meet you and see a whole rainbow of lights clustered together in the dark, it doesn't seem as though it'll be quite as overwhelming as some of the bustling Layers you've had the pleasure of exploring before. But as you set foot down into Luxuria and feel the heat of the ground under your feet, you begin to wonder if you might just have hopped out of the frying pan and into the fire...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I suppose it would depend on how that changed things. It certainly can't stay like this, with everybody stagnating so long they turn into Revenants because they can't bear it. That's hardly a proper afterlife at all, much less a temporary one.

I was under the impression that it had only gotten so bad because the Cogs are stuck. There's no point in forward momentum if there's...well. No way forward. So in theory, I suppose fixing that problem might smooth everything out.

We'll have to see, won't we. Or somebody will, after we're gone.

Why this train of thought, though? About being in charge of Purgatory. Do you suppose that demon girl plans to relinquish the title?

She's not a daemon. [...Different spelling, same pronunciation, alas.] Though I could not tell you what she is.

She and I had an enlightening conversation. I'd prefer to float the idea to everyone, although...there is a theory that if several people share the Authority for Purgatory, together they may be able to change it. She alone cannot.

Sharing? So doing what was done for Invidia, then?

In a sense. I do want to ask some of our fellows if they are able to truly exert any power and influence with their Authority... Change it from the inside out first, perhaps. But again, perhaps something of a moot point if the Cogs don't turn.

Unless we do away with the Cogs entirely.

Do away with the system? And put what in its place? Just keep people here?

I don't know. Perhaps put nothing in its place. [He shrugs.] Something else entirely? I admit I remain unclear as to the purpose of Purgatory. 'Work through your sins' seems so broad and...well, what is the point if you're to be reincarnated anyway? If you don't remember your self previously, then what does it matter?

And what of the gods and afterlives any of us thought we believed in? Is it all invalidated? Is this death, truly, or something between? What if what is dead may never truly die?

[bruh we're just eating some carnival food why you gotta do this]

I haven't got any answer for that. If my gods were real, I don't owe a thing to them anyway. All they did was make an ungrateful wretch their saviour and have her take everything I deserved for herself.

[Wolfsbane stews in this and takes an angry bite out of her turkey.]

...My gods are real. Demonstrably real. But this isn't the Beyond that I know of. Unless it's some pocket dimension, hrm...

[He polishes off his corndoggy abomination.]

What if you didn't actually deserve it?

Excuse me? I --

[But something makes her stop. Thinking of the meeting, or maybe something else.]

I always thought destiny was something one was born for. If you weren't born under the right star for what you wanted, you shouldn't try. I put everything I was into becoming a mage good enough that my family would acknowledge that I was the kind of talent they hadn't seen in centuries. And then it turned out I wasn't. It was all some sick show of pity.

Destiny is...a fickle and complicated thing. [More complicated than he had ever thought, apparently. The thought makes something in him flicker with a bright and terrible fire, but from a distance, removed from the heat of it.] And one is not always destined for good if they are destined at all.

Did you ever want to be or do anything else? When you were younger. Or were you convinced of this false destiny right from the start.

...I don't know. I do doubt it. Especially with how dedicated I was to this. I don't know why it matters so much to me, if only because nobody will let me forget we're all dead.

Being dead doesn't mean our pasts don't matter. Even if we aren't the same, even if we are in some transitory state, it all still happened. It seems only natural to want to understand ourselves first before we move onward to whatever might come next.

Perhaps. But by the same metric, would it not then matter whether we worked through our sins, new self or not?

What does it even mean to work through or past a sin? By whose metric? In what manner? If I am, for example, gluttonous, and I like it, why should I seek to move beyond it?

...Perhaps because it's a nuisance to others and eventually yourself. You saw what a ruin Gula was.

[That hesitation, though, infers she might not completely be sold. At least given her own issues.]

That's only because everyone was trapped there, quite literally incapable of moving on. In a fully and normally functional Purgatory, perhaps everything would refresh eventually, and surely not everyone in that layer would want to stay there eternally. But...it does inspire questions.

These people. [He motions around them.] The ones in Gula, the ones in the school, all of them. They don't know that they are dead, that they have a sin to divest themselves of. Is it meant to be that way, or merely a side effect of not being able to move forward? How could one move forward without having an understanding of the situation? How could I choose to remain a glutton if I don't even understand that that's an option to even choose to begin with?

Mm...I may need to have another chat with our elusive Birdie friend...

What, she's giving you answers? What changed, then?

We came to an understanding. Ah, I got separated from the group in the underside, and we happened upon one another. She is...not exactly the enemy we thought her to be.

I'm surprised you even gave her a chance, after everything she's done and threatened.

She didn't attack on sight, and knowing that I could not take her alone, I chose to speak instead. It worked out.

I've also had worse than a stab wound.

...I see. Very well, it might as well happen. She is the most likely to have the answers you're out for.

Luxuria Intro Log

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