[ Don't listen to her. Anyway, Jolyne can look around the cameras and equipment in the back... the stage... the podium... she can take a look behind the stage walls, which turns out to be panels, and get jumpscared by a few (or a fucking lot of) mannequins! Eek!
...But it just seems like mannequins is all they are. They aren't unusual, and since this hall is also occasionally used for fashion displays, this seems to track.
Suppose she could play with the lights but it might interfere with the other two working away.
★★★
Sabo
Or maybe it burned up into complete nothing.
Don't listen to him either, what the fuck. Also Ace gets blasted with the Wikipedia page for CNT, while Sabo fully realises Ace will not understand this. However Ace will at least be able to understand: tiny tiny thread-wire, sturdy as all hell.
★★★
Nico
Or it phased out of this dimension entirely?
Huh??? Nico sounds wry, like he's just giving out a spot of dry humour. Anyway, Lillium can see something... floating, and round. It looks kind of weird, but you can't quite see with your plain eyes here. How will you reach up there? ]
[ jolyne makes a face and when she comes to the light switch she will consider it and yes, she could be a very wonderful and courteous investigation partner. or she can just do the damn thing and
she's gonna play with the lights. or i guess switch them in the opposite direction of whatever they are now? ]
[ he is ASSAULTED by wikipedia and Sabo absolutely snickering at doing him like this, and so here is ace putting his hand on his forehead as he attempts to read this without his brain exploding. ]
... So there was a thread here. A really strong, basically invisible one. Is that how they dropped the body...? Did they drag it back up and faked it being exploded, maybe?
[ why? because there are no BLOOD PARTS, okay.
and now the lights are changing.
I don't think this will illuminate you guys. ]
Why.
[ he knows you don't even like puns, sabo, you are just doing it to be a little shit. you suck. is there anything else he can see with thermal vision? what if he switches to look around with night vision if jolyne is turning the lights off. ... obviously let's not do that if the lights are on... ]
[ Jolyne plays with the lights. OooooOOoOOOoOOOooo, spooky times in the real world now. Nothing happens that she herself can see.
★★★
Sabo recreates Jolyne's actions helpfully in the VR even though he doesn't have to. Shit goes dark, then light again.
He could swear he saw the Mayor's body move a little. Spooky.
★★★
It is like, WAY up there. Like, in the rafters level. Even Lillium's fully extended baton can't help him here. Nico CAN fulfill his request though, and Lillium can zoom-eyes into whatever's up there. Throw in a little bit of night vision while at it, and he spies...
A balloon...! Which also bounces with the timing of the light switch, albeit very subtly. ]
[ hm. oh well, she turns them back off again, since i went back and ig they were off before. we didn't turn the lights on. that's fine. ABIS pays for our night vision or something like that. curiously, she'll return to the body and rest her chin on her hand, kind of idly flicking through the like different kinds of vision that f.f. has on tap.
actually. anything like... hidden inside of him like a saw trap? maybe something left behind by mistake or something? ]
Tell me your secrets, old man...
[ as she xrays the mayor of townsville oceanside. why not. let's see inside. she's hoping it's normal. please be normal. ]
[ can we like. slow mo the lights turning on and off to see if the mayor's body really does move it would've been great if i sent this in 5 minutes ago when I wrote it ]
[ Welcome back to the VR. News flash: it was not normal. Also help you didn't turn the lights on??? Here we are, piloting in the dark.
Jolyne can see right through the Mayor with her x-ray vision and see that --
F.F.
His organs, Jolyne.
They're or-gone.
,
Anyway, there's also some kind of Saw-looking contraption inside of him yeah. This is not a joke.
★★★
Say please, etc. Yeah Sabo will do a slo-mo replay for you using the real-world information to add into the VR so that nobody has to go turn the lights off/on again. It did indeed, move, just a teeny tiny bit. Like, the tiniest pull upwards.
★★★
Vengaboy relays this information to your coworkers just in case they're too busy lost in their VR mind palace to listen to the real-world Lillium. Good thing you sent him to go communicate with the team because this information is adding up quick.
Nico
Yeah, looks like the CNT leads up to the rafters and then back down to... you guessed it, the light switch.
Maybe the balloon is attached to it? For some reason.
Technically it's like WAY up in there but honestly this is not a hill I'm going to die on to make you work for so Lillium can grab a stage ladder or something to get up there and reach it with his baton that way. He can bring it down and see that it's a bizarrely coloured balloon, exactly half blue and half red.
He hears something in it when he moves it, but whatever it is, it's light enough that it doesn't weigh the balloon down or make it feel weird. ]
Literally not the time for jokes about a dead dude's organs!
[ she just groans a little because wow john kramer was really here and he said "let's play a game" to the mayor. can't believe this is an aini x saw franchise crossover. ]
I... can we get a better look at what that thing is? The... the thing in him? Without having to open him up? Please tell me we don't have to open him up... [ then, less-so to herself, telepathically to the group through ai ball magic ] Uuuuuh... there's something inside of the mayor, guys...
[ He will be polite to everyone in the world. but not sabo. anyway right telepathic thinking is a thing, he's surprised by both nico's voice and jolyne's following ]
... Guts? [ We both know it's not guts. Shut up. You are unhelpful to his optimism. ] I've got a thread here linked with the light switch, like Nico said, but it leads to the body too. It's moving in the simulation whenever the light turns on and off?
[ if he just lets it play out so that it turns dark for a bit does the body kind of go nyoom upwards or. what. ]
[ Yeah she'll see with the x-ray that, well, first off, the signpost pierces him pretty thoroughly. It is really in there. But at the base of it are two compact objects, which when combined with the pole, resemble.... re... nay... I shan't say it...
But no, really, a closer look will reveal some kind of fuse and lighter system in there and an almost dynamite-like container of... something. Just going to expedite this and F.F. will helpfully inform her that that shit is full of thermite. She also flavourblasts Jolyne with the appropriate Wikipedia page.
★★★
No, the body stays still.
However, after a minute, Sabo gets bored and starts flicking the light switch on and off again rapidly. The Mayor's body does a few consecutive pathetic flops, extremely reminiscent of a fish on a line and you're just bouncing the thread, until the weight of the signpost causes him to flop over.
Rip, desecrated and peaceless. Nice thing is that now you all get to see the lack of guts, replaced by thermite contraption.
★★★
Lillium does NOT find a Saw trap inside of the balloon. In fact, it appears to be... a piece of paper. ]
[ you are the worst. no guts just thermite i guess!!!! she sure is just gonna watch the mayor's body flop around. it's fine probably. she doesn't look particularly happy about the display, but she's not relaly moved to stop it either. flop, little man. ]
There's some mechanism connected to the body this way. But I feel like we're missing something.
[ watching the flopping mayor... ]
Is the trigger broken now, like maybe it only works once? [ she watches lillium carefully. did it fall? she's just gonna watch lillium go after the balloon... there he go. ]
We've seen worse. [ he doesn't sound entirely sure when he says that. but yes he has actually bug body was worse. HE'LL STILL LOOK AT THE BOMB SET UP JUST SO SABO CAN ANALYZE IT EVEN IF HE CANNOT ] So all they had to do was tug on that string to light up the body?
[ i do not remember there being any bugs in this body, but i guess there are termites in the simulated half body??
Lillium doesn't know exactly what's happening in the simulation world just that likely the CNT from the balloon connects to the body, definitely to the lights, so... ]
There's a piece of paper in it.
[ He's just going to pop it with his knife, but make sure the air blows away from them. Can he read it? ]
[ Well, since Jolyne is looking, there does seem to be a fuse in there, but right now it is not lit. That being said...
F.F.
There's an impact-activated fuse in there.
It's not lit in this simulation.
F.F. is also watching the Mayor do little bounces while Sabo looks on with disgust. Groce. You've found all the evidence you need in this particular sim you think, now whether you can come up with the picture of events is another story.
★★★
There are NO TERMITES, there is only THERMITE. No bugs. Yeah, the balloon pops with little fanfare. It just pops as you would expect a balloon to do, it's not special. The paper inside comes fluttering down out of it. It's small, just slightly larger than say, business card. Printed on the sturdy, almost cardstock-like material is --
[ releases herself from the vr since they get the feeling that they've got what they needed from the mayor. see ya, shorty. hello reality again. she just kinda shakes her head a bit and waits to see what the findings are!
[ is also releasing himself from vr and reflexively nods for sabo to follow him before remembering that. it's an ai in his eyeball. fuc
anyway that embarrassing moment aside there are no termites (STOP SHAMING ME) and he goes to the rest to read the balloon prizes. and turn the fucking light on so they can read the balloon prizes i hate us. ]
Left of where? Of this place? Or of where the body was?
[ what's on the left of the body... what's on the left of this entire building also. what does ⤩ mean, since that's clearly what it says and isn't a picture with arrows ]
I wonder if this has to do with the corpse itself... He was missing his left half, right?
[ it was eaten... by the termites. Lillium racks his head as he wonders the same things as them. It really could mean left of anything and these arrows could mean crossing ANYTHING. ]
Maybe we should look for the rest of the balloons. There might be more pieces of paper in them. [ ... ] I don't like that there are these weird notes left behind. We might be dealing with a freak.
[ The Mayor is entirely missing his left half :'( It got eaten by termites. ← This was pre-written content I had ready and waiting for you until Hei stole my joke instead.
That is to say, there was nothing there, and in the real world, there is still nothing there beyond the scorch mark.
There's nothing to the left of the building but you did get a QR code earlier with locations yeah. Wyd. Wanna split to cover ground? ]
[ just disdainful agreement at the thought of having to collect literal balloons like come on people are dead here! what are you! the joker!? worse!?!? in any case jolyne just gives a stretch and crosses her eyes briefly. ]
Alright. I can hit the... [ looking at list... ] Park and the shrine?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
[ Don't listen to her. Anyway, Jolyne can look around the cameras and equipment in the back... the stage... the podium... she can take a look behind the stage walls, which turns out to be panels, and get jumpscared by a few (or a fucking lot of) mannequins! Eek!
...But it just seems like mannequins is all they are. They aren't unusual, and since this hall is also occasionally used for fashion displays, this seems to track.
Suppose she could play with the lights but it might interfere with the other two working away.
★★★
Don't listen to him either, what the fuck. Also Ace gets blasted with the Wikipedia page for CNT, while Sabo fully realises Ace will not understand this. However Ace will at least be able to understand: tiny tiny thread-wire, sturdy as all hell.
★★★
Huh??? Nico sounds wry, like he's just giving out a spot of dry humour. Anyway, Lillium can see something... floating, and round. It looks kind of weird, but you can't quite see with your plain eyes here. How will you reach up there? ]
no subject
[ jolyne makes a face and when she comes to the light switch she will consider it and yes, she could be a very wonderful and courteous investigation partner. or she can just do the damn thing and
she's gonna play with the lights. or i guess switch them in the opposite direction of whatever they are now? ]
no subject
[ he is ASSAULTED by wikipedia and Sabo absolutely snickering at doing him like this, and so here is ace putting his hand on his forehead as he attempts to read this without his brain exploding. ]
... So there was a thread here. A really strong, basically invisible one. Is that how they dropped the body...? Did they drag it back up and faked it being exploded, maybe?
[ why? because there are no BLOOD PARTS, okay.
and now the lights are changing.
I don't think this will illuminate you guys. ]
Why.
[ he knows you don't even like puns, sabo, you are just doing it to be a little shit. you suck. is there anything else he can see with thermal vision? what if he switches to look around with night vision if jolyne is turning the lights off. ... obviously let's not do that if the lights are on... ]
no subject
[ Not real laugh. If it isn't jump-able, then he will turn his knife into a baton... But... Before he goes poking at it. ]
Hey, Nico, think you can zoom onto that round object up there?
[ If it is relatively not dangerous to be around, Lillium will try to prod it a bit first. ]
no subject
★★★
Sabo recreates Jolyne's actions helpfully in the VR even though he doesn't have to. Shit goes dark, then light again.
He could swear he saw the Mayor's body move a little. Spooky.
★★★
It is like, WAY up there. Like, in the rafters level. Even Lillium's fully extended baton can't help him here. Nico CAN fulfill his request though, and Lillium can zoom-eyes into whatever's up there. Throw in a little bit of night vision while at it, and he spies...
A balloon...! Which also bounces with the timing of the light switch, albeit very subtly. ]
no subject
actually. anything like... hidden inside of him like a saw trap? maybe something left behind by mistake or something? ]
Tell me your secrets, old man...
[ as she xrays the mayor of
townsvilleoceanside. why not. let's see inside. she's hoping it's normal. please be normal. ]no subject
Hey, can you do that again? But slower.
[ can we like. slow mo the lights turning on and off to see if the mayor's body really does move it would've been great if i sent this in 5 minutes ago when I wrote it ]
no subject
There's an actual balloon here, just so everyone knows.
[ Please send that message to the VR vengaboys, AI-ball assistant. ]
And it's also reacting to the lights, live. [ To Nico: ] Can you deduce what's happening to it?
[ And Lillium will try to look to see if there's a path where he can... Go get this balloon, or if there's a bridge higher than here he can use. ]
no subject
Jolyne can see right through the Mayor with her x-ray vision and see that --
They're or-gone.
,
Anyway, there's also some kind of Saw-looking contraption inside of him yeah. This is not a joke.
★★★
Say please, etc. Yeah Sabo will do a slo-mo replay for you using the real-world information to add into the VR so that nobody has to go turn the lights off/on again. It did indeed, move, just a teeny tiny bit. Like, the tiniest pull upwards.
★★★
Vengaboy relays this information to your coworkers just in case they're too busy lost in their VR mind palace to listen to the real-world Lillium. Good thing you sent him to go communicate with the team because this information is adding up quick.
Maybe the balloon is attached to it? For some reason.
Technically it's like WAY up in there but honestly this is not a hill I'm going to die on to make you work for so Lillium can grab a stage ladder or something to get up there and reach it with his baton that way. He can bring it down and see that it's a bizarrely coloured balloon, exactly half blue and half red.
He hears something in it when he moves it, but whatever it is, it's light enough that it doesn't weigh the balloon down or make it feel weird. ]
no subject
no subject
[ she just groans a little because wow john kramer was really here and he said "let's play a game" to the mayor. can't believe this is an aini x saw franchise crossover. ]
I... can we get a better look at what that thing is? The... the thing in him? Without having to open him up? Please tell me we don't have to open him up... [ then, less-so to herself, telepathically to the group through ai ball magic ] Uuuuuh... there's something inside of the mayor, guys...
no subject
... Guts? [ We both know it's not guts. Shut up. You are unhelpful to his optimism. ] I've got a thread here linked with the light switch, like Nico said, but it leads to the body too. It's moving in the simulation whenever the light turns on and off?
[ if he just lets it play out so that it turns dark for a bit does the body kind of go nyoom upwards or. what. ]
no subject
[ Just going to come down with the balloon, staring at it suspiciously and nervously. ]
Switch's a trigger? There's definitely something inside the balloon.
[ Before he muses popping it, can he x-ray the balloon... what's in it. ]
no subject
But no, really, a closer look will reveal some kind of fuse and lighter system in there and an almost dynamite-like container of... something. Just going to expedite this and F.F. will helpfully inform her that that shit is full of thermite. She also flavourblasts Jolyne with the appropriate Wikipedia page.
★★★
No, the body stays still.
However, after a minute, Sabo gets bored and starts flicking the light switch on and off again rapidly. The Mayor's body does a few consecutive pathetic flops, extremely reminiscent of a fish on a line and you're just bouncing the thread, until the weight of the signpost causes him to flop over.
Rip, desecrated and peaceless. Nice thing is that now you all get to see the lack of guts, replaced by thermite contraption.
★★★
Lillium does NOT find a Saw trap inside of the balloon. In fact, it appears to be... a piece of paper. ]
no subject
There's some mechanism connected to the body this way. But I feel like we're missing something.
[ watching the flopping mayor... ]
Is the trigger broken now, like maybe it only works once? [ she watches lillium carefully. did it fall? she's just gonna watch lillium go after the balloon... there he go. ]
no subject
We've seen worse. [ he doesn't sound entirely sure when he says that. but yes he has actually bug body was worse. HE'LL STILL LOOK AT THE BOMB SET UP JUST SO SABO CAN ANALYZE IT EVEN IF HE CANNOT ] So all they had to do was tug on that string to light up the body?
What's with the balloon?
[ POP IT. TWIST IT. etc ]
no subject
Lillium doesn't know exactly what's happening in the simulation world just that likely the CNT from the balloon connects to the body, definitely to the lights, so... ]
There's a piece of paper in it.
[ He's just going to pop it with his knife, but make sure the air blows away from them. Can he read it? ]
no subject
It's not lit in this simulation.
F.F. is also watching the Mayor do little bounces while Sabo looks on with disgust. Groce. You've found all the evidence you need in this particular sim you think, now whether you can come up with the picture of events is another story.
★★★
There are NO TERMITES, there is only THERMITE. No bugs. Yeah, the balloon pops with little fanfare. It just pops as you would expect a balloon to do, it's not special. The paper inside comes fluttering down out of it. It's small, just slightly larger than say, business card. Printed on the sturdy, almost cardstock-like material is --
Flip it over, and the other side reads --
Hmmmmm. ]
no subject
which mostly just has her tilting her head like
uh-huh. ] ... Left...? [ & s e s w a r ; ]
no subject
anyway that embarrassing moment aside there are no termites (STOP SHAMING ME) and he goes to the rest to read the balloon prizes. and turn the fucking light on so they can read the balloon prizes i hate us. ]
Left of where? Of this place? Or of where the body was?
[ what's on the left of the body... what's on the left of this entire building also. what does ⤩ mean, since that's clearly what it says and isn't a picture with arrows ]
no subject
[ it was eaten... by the termites. Lillium racks his head as he wonders the same things as them. It really could mean left of anything and these arrows could mean crossing ANYTHING. ]
Maybe we should look for the rest of the balloons. There might be more pieces of paper in them. [ ... ] I don't like that there are these weird notes left behind. We might be dealing with a freak.
no subject
That is to say, there was nothing there, and in the real world, there is still nothing there beyond the scorch mark.
There's nothing to the left of the building but you did get a QR code earlier with locations yeah. Wyd. Wanna split to cover ground? ]
no subject
[ just disdainful agreement at the thought of having to collect literal balloons like come on people are dead here! what are you! the joker!? worse!?!? in any case jolyne just gives a stretch and crosses her eyes briefly. ]
Alright. I can hit the... [ looking at list... ] Park and the shrine?
no subject
[ It could also just be a noble. hm. ace inclines his head. touche. ]
I'll take the department store, then?
no subject
uh ]
... You know what a department store is?
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