Akudamax

You have received—reappropriated, by rights—the tools you needed. In the end, you are gathered on the floor of one very tall and quite humid factory. Perhaps it's exciting, for those of you who thought you were dead. Perhaps the news that you are fundamentally altered is shaking. And besides, it's not as if there are a lot of snacks or drinks in the factory. You've had a long, difficult fight.

So now, you are offered the choice. This world? Your own? Yet another's? Is there a distinction between separate timelines that you need to decide about?

Good luck, to those who will be known forever as the infamous X-Class Akudama.

Starting Saturday, the layer of clouds in the sky is more solid than ever. Overcast, reflecting the neon light of the city. By Sunday, you'll see more colors than ever, as several new areas are added to the span of your probation. And some areas aren't, but might see an approach anyway. Do the pods containing six weeks of treatment daunt you in the slightest now that judgment awaits at the end of the fourth week? Though faithful treatment participants only experience flashes on the upper third of their bodies now, their counterparts will experience occasional waves of isolating existential coldness. Does your physically present overseer have anything to say for herself? Just remember one thing: Kanto is watching and waiting.

INTERNET | SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY | FRIDAY


((Internet investigations of any kind go here, and for all IRL areas, please use "investigate" in the subject line of your top-level comment, or link the thread to a moderator!))

The investigation ends yet again, perhaps the most exhausting one yet. Still, the tribulations are not over, as the trial awaits. Shuttles pick the X-Classes up, and it’s best to get on board… otherwise, it’s unlikely you’ll find out the perpetrator of all this fishy behavior. There are even more empty seats now, which is sad, but at least it makes it less likely you’ll have to smell each other (a certain vampire notwithstanding.)

After spending so much time in the gory scene, the trial room’s new holo-decor may even seem easy on the eyes. It’s apparently a nature setting, as larch trees surround the podiums standing amid a floor covered in bracken ferns. The podiums themselves have transformed collectively into the ribs on a giant rib cage, and climbing up this rib cage are flowering clematis vines. Other giant bones are buried among the soft ferns, forming some kind of fossil. The whole thing is really creepy and beautiful. Zealot’s drone still carries a camera, but it does not respond to anyone’s words or actions. It definitely seems more lifeless than before... Physicist is shielded within the hollow of a forlorn willow, staring expressionlessly into the eyes of the Noh masks that appear as usual in their audience area.

The podium screen has the evidence and the billboard information shining at the ready. But will the people still dare to vote, after the display at the police station? Time will tell.

On Saturday, it is relentlessly sunny. Sunday too. Monday will be the same but with a lot of wind. For now, you get a new area: Old Shinsekai, the den of depravity surrounding the police station. Will you venture into the unknown and seedy? Or retreat into the familiar pods, keep bothering your overseers?

Maybe you plan something else altogether.

INTERNET | SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY

((Internet investigations of any kind go here, and for all IRL areas, please use "investigate" in the subject line of your top-level comment, or link the thread to a moderator!))

Once again, the X-Class Akudama are herded into the shuttle. You see bits and pieces of the trial. There's Adam on the billboards, as he calls himself now and on Cardinal, blue and bombastic and beautiful—the true demon who destroyed the Shinkansen. A fraction of undecided voters. And... one screen amongst the others, of the Vessel with the sharp vines. There are some who suspect him. But 10% is a small amount. By the time you park by the police station, everyone knows for sure who's going to be pulverized.

When you venture outside, there is a single theme in the whispers of any person on the street.

“Shinkansen-sama, I’m so sorry... “ “Forgive us, Shinkansen-sama…” “Can’t believe they defiled Kansai Station…” “Damn you, X-Class Akudama!”

The sky is cloudless above the smog. Does this really have anything to do with you? Did everyone else wake up in the residences this morning? Or will you take the bus route up to Chuo just in case?

Once the investigations wrap up, a self-driving shuttle comes out to the X-Class Akudama, requesting them to board in accordance to the fifth ordinance of their paroles and insisting that none of the group stay behind. A few of the large robot aircraft seen in the late Marcille's Uto-Uto PSA distantly occupies the air above the shuttle, surely a coincidence.

Once everyone is on the shuttle, it drives east - this is an area the X-Classes are not usually granted access to, that looks like some kind of entertainment district judging by the number of colorful spotlights they pass on the way to their destination. A Stadium comes into view, surrounded by faintly glowing poles that tower around it. There's apparently an entrance that can fit the shuttle, because it takes them directly inside and lets them all out right in the middle of the stadium. At first, it looks like little more than a metal stage with some podiums, surrounded by empty seats. Several cameras are placed in strategic places, getting as many angles as possible. Each podium has a screen projecting a hologram in front of it, and on the top of the podium the evidence has been helpfully loaded on a touch screen for each Akudama. For now, the screen projects an image of each of the Akudama's faces and their titles, so people know where to go - even the ones that can't read! But you can also display evidence with a press of your touch screen. It will float up beside them just like a certain lawyer game!

Soon though, there's a faint buzz, and hard light scenery forms all around them. Visually, it looks exactly like a dungeon - "stone" walls surround them, covered in flickering torches. Though they are still just transparent enough to see the audience seats, they effectively form a barrier, and the podiums take on the stone-like texture as well. Zealot's drone flies in from above this wall to join them, keeping its distance but carrying a camera with it - Physicist is also present, although she is in a cove of the dungeon behind a thick "glass" barrier. She looks a bit smug as six holo-touch keyboards and monitors surround her, but the scene is still unfolding. The sun in the sky darkens and shines with a solar eclipse, letting the trial room stay in the neon-glow darkness. Finally, the "audience" takes its seat. Not real people. A host of golden Noh masks appear to beam down into seats around the dome, watching the proceedings, stern and silent. Occasionally, they all make a slight movement such as a head tilt, in unison. They're creepy.

Is someone gonna explain what's going on here? Well....

((The trial will last until 7PM EST, which will be similar to the duration in game. Good luck.

The voting post is available right here!))

So, the first day is over. You are confined in various ways for the foreseeable future. There are two overseers you can bother, and pods they want you to get into, but many of you would rather do anything else. Honestly, even the flurry of posts on social media don’t seem particularly interested in talking up this prospect; when searches for the titles start to get results, they’re mostly about the posters’ own avoidance or occasional morbid fascination. There are even one or two newly taken pictures of the particularly outrageous and photogenic poses. At least photos are rare enough that you can be confident not every move is being watched. Conditions are much better than Saturday to wander all the way down to the Execution HQ Ruins, take the shuttle to the police station, or investigate other parts of the setting. As the weather forecast said, Sunday and Monday are smoggy and sunny.

What will you do?

INTERNET | SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY

((Internet investigations of any kind go here, and for all IRL areas, please use "investigate" in the subject line of your top-level comment, or link the thread to a moderator!))

Where are you? When are you? According to the smoggy sky above you, "noon" is a reasonable guess. You are in Dotonbori, though it may seem unwise to get closer to the bridge over the river or any iconic signs. Wandering past this single city block will be met by police robots, stopping your way with a hologram that claims you are on "probation" and will soon be given a "briefing", that the next robot scans and copies. There are human citizens in this area, at first simply stunned by your arrival and appearance. Over the minutes, though, they notice the information circulating on all sorts of holographic surfaces, and they begin chattering suspiciously about you.

The holographic surfaces aren't the only bright light in the city. You also find yourself experiencing glitches multiple times over these first few hours - parts of your body temporarily turning into bursts of color along with a burst of intense pain, or briefly losing awareness of yourself and coming back into focus a good few centimeters to the left, making an agonizing adjustment to sensory non-deprivation all over again. The other "Akudama" seem to be undergoing the same phenomenon of inexplicable sudden little changes in location. Akudama - that's what the citizens are calling you under their breath from the other side of the narrow alley street.

Want to bum a cigarette regardless? Hide in a karaoke booth and scream? Hey, you do you, buddy. Looks like nobody is coming to give you trouble just yet, unless you make it yourself. Maybe those "Gifts" some of you have will make sparks fly.