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week 7
[On Sunday morning, there is a small gift waiting for the early risers in the tower: a gold key, dangling from a length of twine tied to the wooden beam across the ceiling at the cross section of the four dorms. Upon further inspection it has a particular symbol on the back half and a note that reads "Good job. Here's your reward". The note is signed Heisenberg. The key goes to seventh floor, where there is the same symbol etched above the keyhole on the lock.
Another new floor, another pair of deaths and their numbers halved in a matter of weeks. Things can't go on like this much longer.]
Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday
✨WEEKLY DEALS✨
1. Random Record Shuffle* - A funky fresh record you can play in a record player! The only catch is Garfield gets to pick the artist. *Repeat customers now welcome [1 coin]
2. Pondering Orb - A large red-tinted orb. Good for pondering in your deep dark lair. [2 coins]
3. Dis Bear - A human-sized plush bear in fun monochrome colors! Good thing the doorways here are pretty big. [3 coins]
✨LEFTOVER STOCK AT50% MARK-UP ON SALE✨
1. Moon God Mask - A very large moon mask that covers your entire head. It kind of makes you want to either get a hamburger or form a cult. [1 coin]
(( OOC: Don't forget to submit your orders for any threads that aren't with Heisenberg or Garfield! And don't forget activity check! ))
Another new floor, another pair of deaths and their numbers halved in a matter of weeks. Things can't go on like this much longer.]
1. Random Record Shuffle* - A funky fresh record you can play in a record player! The only catch is Garfield gets to pick the artist. *Repeat customers now welcome [1 coin]
2. Pondering Orb - A large red-tinted orb. Good for pondering in your deep dark lair. [2 coins]
3. Dis Bear - A human-sized plush bear in fun monochrome colors! Good thing the doorways here are pretty big. [3 coins]
✨LEFTOVER STOCK AT
1. Moon God Mask - A very large moon mask that covers your entire head. It kind of makes you want to either get a hamburger or form a cult. [1 coin]
(( OOC: Don't forget to submit your orders for any threads that aren't with Heisenberg or Garfield! And don't forget activity check! ))
no subject
[ She peers down at the board in thought before clicking a piece into place. ]
I suppose I taught myself? From books and such. Teacher – my guardian – collected all manner of things, but he was most fond of books and so we had a great many of them from a collection once owned by a great chessmaster. I used to copy the logs of his games from the books we had and see how well I could hold my own against him.
no subject
[A thoughtful pause as he made his next move.]
...Was he much older than you?
[why the fuck is he asking-]
no subject
[ She mulls on it as she considers her next move before carefully sliding a knight across the board. ]
I think he would have been... perhaps in his fourties when I was that age? Or at the very least, he was when the books were written. Why?
no subject
[Which sounded honest enough, Somnus thinking over his next move before shifting another pawn into place.]
...I do not know if it applies anywhere but Lucis; no one I've played with has brought it up. But it was once customary for the elder of the two players to sacrifice one piece for every year difference.
Within reason, obviously. There would be no game at all with half the other side's pieces missing at the start.
no subject
[ Then she giggles again as she taps a piece across the board. ]
Of course, for you, I imagine a rule like that isn't exactly convenient!
[ Hah, He's Old ]
no subject
The person who taught me was only three years my elder, so it applied a little more easily there. It would be difficult to enforce for many of us, I think.
no subject
[ She goes quiet, thoughtful, with the slightly faraway expression of someone searching their memory for a recollection even they aren't quite sure is there. ]
I don't think I ever managed to beat Teacher... well, we didn't play together all that often to begin with, but perhaps I would have had a better chance with a rule like that in play.
no subject
[He paused in much the same way, shaking his head slightly.]
I never particularly liked that he insisted upon enforcing it, but far be it from me to argue with a stated rule.
no subject
You should have insisted on removing your own pieces in turn! One for every piece he removed!
[ Then she pauses and considers that for two seconds before cracking up again. ]
Then again– if the two of you were as stubborn then as you are now, I can only imagine it ending in the two of you being rid of all your pieces before the game had even started!
no subject
no subject
[ Her little snicker sounds as if she's mostly poking good natured fun at least. ]
Who was this teacher of yours, then?
no subject
...It no longer matters. He died long ago.
no subject
[ Bryn, too, lapses into a moment of quiet. It's tempting to prod and poke a little further – Somnus talks about this sort of thing so rarely and she's curious – but she resists. Just barely.
Instead, she makes her move and passes something else across the boars as well. An admission. ]
He might not have taught be chess, but... I lost my Teacher too. Some time ago.
no subject
Were you particularly close?
no subject
He was my guardian. And he... raised me, for as far back as I can remember.
[ Which isn't, strictly speaking, an answer to the question he asked. ]
no subject
...I see.
no subject
... I think... perhaps we weren't as close as I might have believed. Or wanted to believe. I had no one else, so I cared for him and in turn, I suppose I was...
[ She shifts uncomfortably in her seat. ]
A troublesome pet, perhaps.
no subject
[At first, the silence was broken only by the click of a well-worn and oft-used piece placed on the board.]
As if he were your entire world, but that world extended only to the boundaries of living in his shadow.
no subject
Precisely. And if I had ever wandered outside of those boundaries, I certainly wasn't permitted to remember it.
[ She taps a piece into place. With it, something else clicks into place as well. ]
... I had– have an older brother, you know.
no subject
...Is that so.
no subject
[ She doesn't know why she's saying all this now – to Somnus, of all people. But it's like something has come loose inside of her, a door she doesn't know how to shut, and all sorts of things are flooding out. ]
For a very long time, I thought it was just Teacher and I. And then as it happened... there was another person who cared for me and wanted to find me and I wasn't even given the dignity of knowing he existed.
[ She snorts to herself and brings her piece down with perhaps a little more force than is entirely necessary. ]
... not that it matters anymore, of course. Dumping all of this into your lap won't change much of anything.
no subject
[Silence passed for a few moves, and it almost seemed as though Somnus would say nothing more. But then again--he'd already said too much at the previous trial. His existence itself was no longer the secret Somnus wished it was.]
My-...our parents died when I was very young--young enough that I can scarce remember much of them, especially now. Fallen to the scourge, both of them. It was only the pair of us and our guard, Gilgamesh.
He...my brother was once everything to me. But it is exactly as you say--it no longer matters. It was generations upon generations ago, two thousand years at least.
no subject
[ She says it... as gently as Bryn can ever say anything, really. She's similarly quiet as she makes her move, keeping her gaze on the board as if to spare Somnus from having her see his face. ]
That is to say... I wouldn't say that it doesn't matter, however long ago it was.