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  • 📅 February and March 2024 are YE 46.2 in the RP.

RP The Furious Sound of the New Year

hyralt

Well-Known Member
RP Date
YE 45.1
RP Location
The Furious Sound, Kyoto, Yamatai
Down an alleyway that ran between a pair of towers that stretched into the cottony clouds that billowed low over Kyoto, a snow-crusted Kodian in a dark leather cap and matching vest used his immense strength to seal closed a massive metal doorway for the final time in YE 44. A collective uproar signalled the dismay of the gathered patrons who, for one reason or another, were now stuck outside until the new year. Within an hour, each of them would be glad that they'd been stuck outside, but none of them knew it yet.

Just inside of the metal doorway, a handful of people stood in the dim light of a pressure chamber as a vent filled the tiny room with air from inside. Smoking was strictly prohibited and swiftly enforced, so the air was clean of any personal pollutants, though it still reeked from the combination of aerosolized sweat from hundreds of alien bodies and thousands of spilled drinks.

Among the occupants were young Ginji, far too young to order drinks, and Daizō, who wanted to give his little brother a fun story before going back home to Jiyuu. Both of them had black hair and dark brown eyes like their father, though only Daizō inherited his father's tanned complexion. Ginji took after their mother and had much paler skin, even after long summers working in the tea fields.

Both boys were wearing spiked leather jackets, but Ginji's was visibly ill-fitting. Daizō knew that Ginji only had the clothes his parents had picked out, which were not cool, and his Kikyō Scouts uniform, which was even less cool, he had taken it upon himself to ask around at the academy where he was studying to see if he could borrow something to help them fit in. It was a girl's jacket, belonging to Daizō's friend Ikumi, but it was close enough to Ginji's size and more than cool enough that they wouldn't stick out. As they waited for the pressure inside the chamber to equalize with the pressure deeper inside, Ginji looked up with the biggest grin at Daizō, who only replied with a dumb smirk and a slight nod. Like he's not also excited, Ginji thought to himself.

The momentary sound of grinding metal portended the chamber's inner door swinging open, suddenly bombarding the occupants with the raucous sound of hundreds of voices trying to scream louder than a few punks with amplified instruments could make noise. Blazing polychromatic lights sparkled between thrashing bodies through the narrow but widening gap between the huge inner door and the chamber's wall.

When the gap was sufficiently wide, first Ginji and then Daizō squeezed into the club and then pushed their way between the people ahead of them until they reached the railing where they discovered that they were standing on a promenade overlooking a dancefloor and stage. The former of which was somehow both more and less densely packed than above, with undulating waves of crowd density around an amorphous open circle across which the most energetic people were throwing themselves against each other.

On the stage, there was a trio of skeletal-looking insectoids who had sloppily painted themselves either red, blue, or green. They were in the process of attempts to either play or eat their instruments, which were mostly unsuccessful and increasingly successful, respectively. They were arranged around a 5 meter-tall volumetric projection of an ant girl dressed in torn clothes simultaneously playing guitar, bass, and singing. Whatever projection hardware they were using was rapidly deteriorating, as evidenced by the image being a dim monochromatic purple and constantly glitching into distorted shapes. But the ant girl's sound was clearly being broadcast from a proper studio as the sound was filling the space and bridging the gap left in the noise of her bandmates, turning their screeches into music.

Ginji and Daizō, the latter of whom had now entirely lost his cool, rushed to join the moshers below as the ant girl's song changed, shifting into a tone that mixed mourning for what had been along with hope for what was to be. Then, on cue, she cut the music and spoke.

"I thank you all for attending the Furious Sound tonight! Playing with me tonight, give it up for The Rixxikors," she yelled, prompting cheers from the crowd as the skeletal insectoids gave everyone rude hand gestures. "I am Kwabba-an and we are just about to usher in the new year in 5...4...3...1..."

The boys covered their ears as the crowd thundered louder than ever, screaming, stomping their feet, crashing into the walls and each other. For a moment, it felt like the cheer had reached its crescendo before suddenly it seemed to grow louder. That was, until the broken projector cut out and the lights flickered and a deep fissure tore the stage in half, throwing the insectoids into the air to be caught by the crowds.

The lights cut out completely for half a second and Ginji felt himself pulled away from his brother into the crowd that was fleeing up the stairs to the exit. Dim amber emergency lights flicked on, only to dramatically highlight the features of the unfamiliar faces in the crowd around Ginji as he called out "Daizō!"

Unfortunately for them both, the same random fluctuations of the crowd had pushed the bigger Daizō even closer to the now gaping chasm where the stage had been. A particularly heavy shove sent him falling in before he reached out just in time to grab the edge of the floor. As he swung there, dazed from everything that had just happened, he looked down into the void below him. And for a second he thought he saw something, just before he scrambled up and out. And the something in question also saw him.
 
Early the next morning, after the last of the clientele who had stuck around for apologetically cheap beer had left, only two people remained in the club. One of whom, J'dompal Gruk'mirr, was the acting manager and long-time bartender. He was also a giant octopus, which was handy for cleaning. He used two of his arms to propel himself around, while 5 of the rest simultaneously swept, mopped, dusted, vacuumed, and collected garbage. His final hand held a communicator up to his ear.

"I understand that you are quite overloaded with work while being unfortunately understaffed, but it certainly must count for something that this is an emergency," J'dompal enunciated with surprising clarity for a human-sized creature with such inhuman physiology. Exactly how he managed to recreate bilabial consonants was quite a mystery to his quiet onlooker, when all he had to work with was a beak.

"I am the proprietor of a club in downtown Kyoto and the stage collapsed. No, quite a bit more serious than that, I'm afraid. The floor caved in. Yes, that's right. No, the club is located on the ground floor and the stage was in the basement. No, the building manager claims there is no sub-basement, and every plan I've managed to acquire has confirmed this," J'dompal explained as patiently as he could. "Yes, it's an older building - one of the first towers constructed during the rebuild after the destruction of Geshrinopolis. No, as far as I'm aware there was never any underground tunnels running underneath. After the rubble was cleared, they dug a new foundation including deep piles to anchor the tower above. What's not to understand?"

J'dompal sighed and listened to the builder on the other end of the line express a deep confusion. "Yes, I'm quite sure the floor collapsed," he asserted as he cleaned his way over to the chasm where the stage had been. "I'm looking directly into what appears to be a bottomless pit. I'm really not sure where I've left room for any miscommunication. Perhaps Trade isn't your strongest language. 邪馬台語が出来ますか? Hello?"

Pulling the communicator away from his ear to inspect it revealed that the builder had hung up. "Well, that's somewhat discouraging," he noted as he continued cleaning. Out of the corner of his eye, he swore he saw something move, so he stopped and looked around. "Hello? Is someone there?"

When no answer was forthcoming and he saw no further movement, he shrugged and started dialing the number for the next builder in his list while the figure lurking in the shadows continued to listen to him with silent curiosity.
 
Kyoto in the last hours before dawn was a city of blinding lights even as most of the population slept. But for every glowing beacon in every possible colour for every imaginable indulgence, there was cast a shadow whose darkness was as deep as the light was bright. It was through this interconnected web of concentrated dusk that a figure slipped silently in obscurity, observing the affairs of those who were blissfully unaware.

A phod stumbled through the streets, her bright purple plumage a mess of stains from having fallen repeatedly into gutters earlier. In her hands she held a bottle from which she kept trying to drink, but all she could get was the occasional drop of a cheap rum that had long since been diluted by her own saliva as she'd finished its contents over the course of the evening prior.

Two minkan boys, who could attest first-hand to the excitement at the Furious Sound at the stroke of midnight, made the long trek back to the Kyoto Academy for the Arts. Though disheveled and still recovering from the panic of their momentary separation, they were excited to tell the story of what they'd seen. The shadows watched as the boys returned a spiked leather jacket to a girl, still bleary-eyed from having recently been asleep. She rubbed her eyes and visibly woke up as the boys recounted their tale.

A delsaurian, tired from her night shift as nurse at the Academy but recently relieved by the day shift nurse, walked languidly to the nearby Ypperlig Café, where she waited in line before buying an espresso and a hot cup of sake which she sipped in alternation at the bar. The café's private booths gave the shadow a perfect place to hide from the dawn and watch the citizens of Kyoto awaken, studying those who had built their home above her own.
 
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