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thenashira2025-12-02 08:56 pm
nashiramods) wrote in thenashira2025-12-02 08:56 pm
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Game Update: August II 2377
🎶 Recommended Listening: Answer - BUMP OF CHICKEN ♪
august ii 2377
EPISODE 8: When You Wish Upon a Spark...
August 16 - 31
NOTE: As a reminder, there will be no event or missions this month while the mod team takes a break. The game update contains prompts for all of August II, so play around to your heart's content!
Star Suite: The Training Room has been unlocked! Special training machines are now available to the Nova Knights, and they now have access to a new Star Suite power, Sparkle of Life. More details about this power are included in the Starlight section. The Rewards page has been updated with information about the next unlockable room, the Portal.
Constellations: 2/7 Constellations captured. The Nova Knights have the Dancer and the Three Sisters.
Weather: Chalra City's hot hot summer continues! While August isn't quite as hot as it was last month, it's a good deal more humid and stickier. Whether it's a swimming pool or a beach, Chalra City residents are flocking to the water to cool off and relax. Sunbathing in the park is a popular activity on cooler days, and local shops and restaurants court young shoppers by offering special services and sales suited to the student wallet. The highs for the month average around 90°F/32C° with lows around 78°F/25C°.
Recap: The Nova Knights got some badly needed wins in the first half of August! Not only did they rescue the Three Sisters from the Harbingers' clutches, but Dirk and Reese escaped from the Abyss more or less intact as well. They managed to foil most of the Harbingers' plans at Littleneck Beach, but the Harbingers got away with their stolen energy, and whatever they were harvesting from the folks consuming Potari Sweet. The Harbingers have since disappeared from Nautis's magical radar, however, suggesting that they're prioritizing their defenses over a proactive attack.
BY DAYLIGHT
⭐︎ Summer break is over — it's back to school for all students. Hope you did your summer homework, or at least copied it from someone else last minute!
⭐︎ As the summer swelters on, the Midnight Diner serves up a Chalra City summer favorite: finger food-sized fried chicken with a spicy yogurt dipping sauce known by locals as pieces and beach sauce. While beach sauce is typically associated with fried chicken, Chalra City residents will put it on just about anything, and everyone's got their own recipe. Master's beach sauce is known to pack a powerful chili kick.
⭐︎ Chalra City commemorates the end of the summer with a fireworks festival on the waterfront running from the 26th to the 28th. Chalra City's artisans take great pride in their craft, and they spend months preparing three consecutive nights of elaborate fireworks displays on the waterfront, each more fantastic than the last, leading up to a truly show-stopping finale on the evening of the 28th. The festival is only active at night, but much like the Smoketree Promenade's midsummer event, there are plenty of food stalls and street vendors to occupy people's time before the fireworks go off. Sparklers are a popular toy for children and adults alike!
In Chalra City, the fireworks festival is about more than just tasty food and spectacle — it's an important opportunity for community togetherness and gathering with friends and family. There's an enduring old custom in this part of Atlace of making wishes on fireworks — if you make a wish aloud as a firework goes off, it may come true, and conveniently, the noise of the fireworks drowns out all but shouting. Of course, most people will agree that it's just an old superstition, but sometimes you can hear a murmur of voices intermingled with the deafening pops and cracks, so perhaps some of the Chalra City folk are a little more superstitious than they'll readily admit. Everyone needs a little something to believe in.
And it wouldn't be a true Chalra City summer event without a little competition! On the evening of 27th, the festival holds a spicy food eating contest hosted by the celebrity comedian Wakaba. Contestants will be tasked with eating a variety of hot sauce-coated foods, with the spicy factor increasing with every round; in between rounds, while the contestants take a brief breather, Wakaba asks them a variety of personal questions, most of which inevitably end on a joke. While there is a small cash prize for winning the contest, the real incentive is bragging rights.
BY STARLIGHT
⭐︎ Hope's Prophecy: Thanks to their past life as a diviner for the Oracle, Hope may occasionally receive prophetic dreams that give the Knights a hint about what's to come. Hope did not have a prophetic dream this time around either, but there's always next time!
⭐︎ Hideout Status: The Aquarium has 20 new quartz shrimp in addition to the four goldfish! The massive tanks are still mostly empty, but it's a start.
The Training Room is now accessible! If you were expecting a classic gym experience, think again — rather than conventional workout equipment, the Training Room holds what appear to be a series of arcade machines with a decidedly Hassalean aesthetic. Apparently, this is how the Nova Knights in their past lives honed their skills! There are currently three working arcade-style workout machines in the Star Plus training series: Star Plus Blazer, a target practice game to help hone weapon proficiency; Star Plus Light Catcher, a Whac-a-Mole style game where you bop cute little star-shaped monsters; and Star Plus Beats, a drumming game with two large drums that helps with magic power circulation.
There are more workout machines, but the rest are all out of order...who knows, maybe you'll find a way to repair them someday!
⭐︎ Star Suite: Another Silver-level Star Suite power has been unlocked! The Nova Knights can now use Soul Flash, a Silver-level finishing move that cleanses ordinary people who have been temporarily possessed or changed by the Abyss. The overzealous beachgoers who had drunk Potari Sweet, for instance, would have been cured in an instant by Soul Flash!
Star Suite powers cannot be alone; they must be used in concert with at least one other Nova Knight, and the more Knights who participate, the stronger the attack. It can only be used once per supernova transformation. Characters in eclipse lose access to Star Suite powers for the duration of their eclipse.
⭐︎ Maomao's Garden: If Maomao has made any crucial progress, she hasn't shared it with anyone. Instead, she's just fully taken over the Lab and relocated the entire hydroponics garden there for better study. Trespassers will be hissed at.
⭐︎ Nautis Updates: Late in the evening of the 15th, Nautis informs everyone with unusual gravity that two more of their number have been claimed by the Abyss: Sunbeam and Crescent. As far as she can tell, they're not in one of the more surface-level pockets of the Abyss like the last few Nova Knights, but somewhere deep and as of yet unreachable like Nova Zenith. The Harbingers have gone to great lengths to hide themselves from Nautis, so it'll take time before she can find a way that deep into the Abyss. She urges everyone not to lose heart — their friends aren't dead, only captured, and the Nova Knights are coming for them.
> I know it's hard to think about having fun at a time like this, but...
> I just don't think it's good to dwell too long on what's already happened! You've got to take all that emotion and let it drive you forward! ( ◡̀_◡́)ᕤ
> Besides, you know they wouldn't want you giving up at every setback! We'll prove their faith in us and rescue them for sure!
> So you have to make sure to take care of yourselves, OK?
> We've got some of the training machines up and running if you want to feel productive about your emotions ദ്ദി ˉ͈̀꒳ˉ͈́ )✧
> I hear this city's got some great fireworks...I know! You should all go take pictures for me! ^_^
> After all, it's not like I can go myself... Don't you want me to enjoy the fireworks? Don't I deserve to witness beauty too?
> I've been hard at work trying to put together what the Harbingers did to the Three Sisters and everything...
> The Constellation will recover, but yikes, those clowns really did a number on it. What they did was basically sacrilege! Don't they know these are precious artifacts of Hassaleh's Ocean Temple?!
> It really fries my circuits to see those good-for-nothing villainous losers abusing priceless pieces of our history (｡•̀ ⤙ •́ ｡ꐦ)
> The Constellations' magic was never meant to be used so directly...I don't think they have any idea what they were tampering with.
> Thank the stars they didn't! They could have done much worse than mess with some drinks. We can't let another Constellation fall into the Harbingers' hands again!
> But it seems like they're laying low for the time being... So I think it's time for everyone to take a load off! ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡
⭐︎ Intel: Although it's still unknown as to how the Harbingers' ship managed to disappear itself from Nautis's sensors, a conversation overheard by Dirk and Reese during their escape strongly suggests that while Mistiluxia clearly has dealings with the Abyss, the other Harbingers may not even know of its existence.
That doesn't mean all is quiet on the Nova Knight front, however. Even though there doesn't appear to be real any Harbinger activity on Earth these two weeks, there is an uptick in drinks monster sightings — more specifically, slushie monsters. While many of the monsters the Nova Knights face are directly summoned by the Harbingers, some, like the drinks monsters, are a byproduct of the Abyss's influence on Earth. So while there may not be a bigger Harbinger plot to foil, these monsters still need defeating! It is really hot out, though...would getting hit by just one frozen slushie attack be all that bad?
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This time, Pandora needs to be Pandora. This time, for the conversation where it's the Nova Knight who's caused more problems than their actual self, Pandora has to endure the weight of their new identity. They sigh. They've still got on the yukata they've been wearing, though it's hanging slightly open and shows a little bit of their Nova Knight costume underneath it.
Hey Mortis? It's Pandora.
I think we need to talk about a lot of stuff.
Of course, talking about stuff has been the problem to begin with. They really don't know why they expect today to be any different. Under their breath, as a firework goes off in the distance, they whisper a wish for this conversation to not end in disaster. They're still in that little secluded area, the benches almost totally empty as the crowds gather at the stands and under the open sky. A quiet space lit by a couple lampposts under a little bit of tree cover isn't going to be especially popular, and they're grateful for that.
They send Mortis directions to where they're sitting and spend the rest of the time clutching the edge of the bench with both hands, looking up at the sky and repeating their wish in their head.
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It's not as though she's forgotten any of the awkwardness between them, both before and after Pandora's involuntary trip to the Abyss. Of course it must have been an unbelievably scary experience, but whenever Mortis has been around Pandora since then, Pandora has treated her like...she's not sure. It's almost like Pandora has been afraid of her.
But then, Mortis had been avoiding Pandora for a while, too. There had been that discomfort early on, and then the strange guilt after Pandora wound up in the Abyss — but it's not like that was her fault, right? Even if she'd been having uncharitable thoughts of any kind — even if she'd been a perverse kind of relieved — that didn't change the fact that what had happened to Pandora and Glimmer was the Harbingers' fault, not hers.
Still, it's not exactly behavior she's proud of, and if Pandora wants to talk, then sure! Why shouldn't they talk? They're all on the same side, after all. They should clear up all those awkward misunderstandings and work together! That's definitely would Glimmer would do, and whatever Glimmer saw in the Abyss, she didn't treat Mortis any differently afterwards.
Mortis climbs the stairs up to that little area, glancing around with a bright smile. "Wow, how'd you find this spot? It's like we've got our own little VIP area! I bet you can see the fireworks really well from here!"
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"I found it a few weeks ago and I like coming here to think," they say, though seeing it in any hour that doesn't count as the middle of the night is kind of new. "I thought it would be good for us." It's not a great greeting, but it's better than nothing. They're going to remain as Pandora for now, though; sorry, Mortis, it's not personal, but it is really, really scary.
They pat the bench they're sitting on and force themself to look at Mortis for at least a moment. "I don't want to knock you off your feet from how much I have to apologize for." They have so many questions of their own, but they asked Mortis here for a reason. And if they're lucky and this goes well, maybe (maybe) they'll end up in a place where they can actually ask them.
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Come closer, dear — my, what avoidant eyes you have.
But there's nothing wolflike about the way she neatly arranges herself on the proffered seat, carefully smoothing out her clothes, the effect almost uncannily doll-like. She tilts her head and smiles at Pandora.
"Okay! I'm ready."
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"All right, so. Where do I even start. I guess... I guess all this started with my stupid crap. Back to, like, when we first met." They mean in the hideout, but they think that maybe Mortis can piece together something deeper than that. If Pandora can come to a conclusion about who Mortis is that makes this much sense then there's no way Mortis can't do the same and—more stalling, they think, and they tense their fingers together like they're about to snap them but stop just shy of doing it.
"Sorry. I'm not good at—" Excuse. "I just. I was a dick to you for no reason. I kept... thinking that everything I said was the exact wrong thing for the situation, and instead of ever checking in with you to see if you were okay or showing... I don't know, anything that let you know I felt bad for being an asshole and wanted to make it right with you, I just let it all snowball into. Whatever this is." It feels like they'd just torn something from their own chest and placed it on display for both of them in its gross, beating, bloody glory. They don't think they're done, but they're looking ahead of them as though their actual heart is right there.
"I'm sorry. I've been really fucked up ever since I got back from the Abyss, but I wasn't a lot better to you before it. And it's so unbelievably not okay to take all of my problems out on you like you've done anything to deserve it." They have no idea if that's going to be good enough even just to start with, but they leave it there for now. They don't look away from that invisible object in front of them, though; if they have to look at Mortis right now, they might die.
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"You're right, Pandora! It really wasn't okay." A furrow appears in her brow, her lips pursed in a small frown, and she hugs her doll to her chest. "All this time...I thought you've been angry or upset. Right, Melly?"
Isn't it great that you now have two comrades who are Doll Weirdos, Hope?
"You don't seem to want to talk about what happened when you were in the Abyss." Mortis arranges the doll in her lap, now facing her, and her gaze is on the doll's face as she rearranges its mussed hair. "And I understand. It must have been incredibly scary. You don't have to talk about it. But being avoided like that...makes it hard to feel like we're on the same team, you know?"
And given that Pandora pretty much fled the scene of their last crushing defeat while Mortis sat on the floor crying, could anyone blame her for feeling that way?
"I'll admit that things could have been handled better on my end. But when you're worried someone's upset with you...it's hard to ask, isn't it? I know it shouldn't be, but when it's someone you're looking to for guidance...wouldn't the chance of hearing that the answer is yes be almost unbearable?"
Curious lack of "I" language here, huh.
So, is this how you thought this conversation would go, Pandora?
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But regardless of how the information is being delivered, Pandora is hearing it now, and that's the important part. And... and the idea that Mortis had been looking at them for guidance this whole time, too, like. Had they really been so caught up in their own problems that they couldn't even tell that's what Mortis had been doing? They'd just... ugh. They can't believe themself. (That's a lie.)
"Yeah," they agree. It's just as agonizing to worry about hearing it from someone you're trying to make up with. "I... it really wasn't anything you did," they say after a moment of struggling and an unpleasant feeling in their gut that can't be anything but guilt. "I was never actually upset with you. I was terrified and I felt helpless about all the people we were losing and you were just there." They're well aware that that makes them sound absolutely terrible, but they have to say something to justify the knot in their stomach somehow, don't they?
"And, like... I want to actually be on this team with you." Finally, they bring themself to look directly at Mortis. It hurts. All of this hurts. "I don't want to be someone that people have to work around if we're trying to save the world, and I don't want you to be afraid of me."