Welcome to Paradisa

[paradisamods]

[As with almost all sudden changes that take place in Paradisa, it happens at the stroke of midnight.

Everything is different.

The castle itself hasn't changed at all, of course. It's the same as it was at 11:59 PM. Someone's late dinner is still spinning in the microwave, another's stereo is still playing softly in the background. Everything is just as it should be for Paradisa.

It's another story entirely for the residents. On a whim, the castle has decided to have a little fun with them. But don't worry, it's only temporary.

Each resident's memories of the castle have simply vanished. The last moments they recall take place in the world they call home. In fact, it happens so suddenly that it's almost as if they've just suddenly appeared in this strange castle.

To them, they've just arrived. All of them.

What's a sentient castle to do with so many new arrivals? Why, welcome them, of course!

Above the grand staircase is a simple banner that reads "Welcome to Paradisa."

That's about all the information it's giving.]

[OOC: Mass mingle log for the plot! You can use this however you'd like and feel free to make your own sections.]

Comments

[samson]

[Um... okay, what the hell?

Brock's pretty sure he would have remembered going to sleep in some swanky place like this, and he's definitely sure he would have remembered going blind in one eye. Which he currently is. He checks his watch, struggling to read it for a second with like zero depth perception: 15 after midnight.

Cautiously, his knife drawn, he stalks through the hallways, looking for somebody to give him answers.]

[rogueofheart]

[Yeahhhh, he's probably just going to find more questions. Especially after he comes across a young girl with gray skin and some bright-colored horns.

If it helps, she looks just as lost as he is, claws extended as she stalks around looking for answers as well. She hears him coming and whirls around to face him, guard not down just yet, especially since this person approaching is definitely not a troll. The knife doesn't help, either.]

Don't you come any closer! Who are you?

[dog_eat_dog]

[Tess has been better.

With her heart beating double-time and her hands fit to her handgun, Tess moves down the halls like she's in a trance. This isn't what she expected cordyceps to feel like, but here it is, suspiciously real hallucinations of castle hallways, all white marble and gold ornaments. Tess has never seen anything so pristine in her life, and here she is, sweaty and muddied and scruffy. How is this real? How is any of this real?

It has to be the cordyceps.

She takes another corner slow, and when a large man comes into sight, she immediately raises her pistol to aim at him. He's not dressed like anyone she could ever identify, that's for sure.

What she hisses at him comes out in one breath:]

Don'tyoufuckingmove.

rooftop/castle grounds

[akweks]

[Connor is awake.

He's awake and standing on the roof what is either a castle or a ridiculously extravagant house. The last thing he remembered was lying in the belly of a ship, shooting Lee, falling unconscious --

Quickly, he checks his side. No blood. No wound. Well -- he puts more pressure on it, digging his fingers in through his robes, and there is a wound there after all, but mended. What happened? Was he comatose, and was brought here? But to the roof makes no sense...

He glances up at the sky, the stars not making sense, the moon completely different. Is he dead?

Reeling, Connor grabs the side of the wall and quickly begins scaling down to the ground.]

[clever_girl]

[Serin had been on her way to the town when the clock struck. She froze on the spot, suddenly having no memory beyond sitting in the cockpit of the Port Stanely and mulling over the recent events that had finally come to a close. To find herself so suddenly on solid ground with actual gravity sent he stomach reeling. She reached in her pocket for a crystalized ginger to settle it, making a small circle where she stood in order to get a sense of her surroundings.]

[She finally turns on the castle, and even more curious than the ancient architecture and lack of anything remotely 26th century, was the man climbing down the wall. Serin makes her way over to meet him on the ground.]

Well, that's one way of getting groundside.

ok you had to know this was coming

[givetheslip]

[Maria is furious. Not only has she apparently been ditched by her friend/traveling companion, but she's been taken somewhere different from any place she remembers. What's more, her kidnappers haven't even remained nearby for her to yell at!

But then she spots familiar sort of hood on a man performing a familiar sort of action.]

You there! Assassin!

[gottaknockhard]

[Spike just happened to be poking his head outside to see if the fire and brimstone is a little further out on the horizon, when he notices the man taking the hard way down. That's kind of bizarre, but maybe it's a thing they do here. He hasn't really talked to many of the locals in this... kingdom(?)... so it's hard to tell.

This reason alone is why he bothers him at all, greeting him as casually as he would have passing him on the street after he finally makes it to a horizontal surface. (Wouldn't have wanted to break his concentration before that.)]

Hey.

[putuporshutup]

[Meg has the misfortune of waking up in an empty alleyway much like ... in a medieval fucking village? She's badly beaten with bruises clearly from different points in time and bleeding profusely from what she was sure had been a fatal stab wound, and yet... here she is. Still kickin', and that's all she needs to know at the moment.

By the time she makes her way to the castle - because why wouldn't there be a castle, and why wouldn't she saunter right up and walk in the front door - she's put together a makeshift bandage and wiped at least some of the blood off her face, but it's slow going as she limps into the lobby, surveying the crowd of confused people and glaring up at the banner, muttering under her breath.]

Not in Kansas anymore, are we? Someone's got some 'splainin' to do.

[both_neither]

[Gren stumbles out of his apartment feeling confused and generally unsure about his current position on the mortal coil. He's still not sure if this is all really real or if this is some kind of afterlife, nor how he feels about either of those possibilities. He's dressed himself, at least, but in his daze he hadn't gone as far as wrapping his chest, even if the bandages had been nearby. He makes for a rather ambiguously gendered person with his particular figure and wearing mens clothes, and he gets a few askance looks from the townspeople that he doesn't quite acknowledge.

He hasn't gone all that far when he sees Meg coming into the street ahead of him. Now she looks how a dead person should probably look - not that it clears up the mystery any. Gren isn't numb enough to ignore someone that looks like they're in trouble. Even if it might be kind of moot if they're both already dead. He's not going to assume anything for sure, just yet.

Gren hails her with a wave and speeds up his pace to meet her.]

Hey. What happened to you?

[schrodingersghost]

[This was not Amity Park. Danny was sure of that.

It was the only thing he was sure of. Just looking the bedroom wasn't telling him whether he'd been kidnapped by Vlad or Skulker, or stranded in an alternate dimension or stuck in an different time. Although whoever decorated it did have awesome taste in home decorating. Was that a model of the space shuttle?

Alright, no. He had to focus. He checks quickly around the room for cameras, and then quickly transforms into his ghost form and phases through the door.

As Danny Phantom he quickly flies throughout the castle, phasing through the walls when he can to save time.

And he finds nothing useful.

Grumpily, Danny lands in the courtyard and stares up at the sky.]

Oh come on! What does a ghost have to do to get some answers around here?

[clever_girl]

[Serin has seen a great many things in her time serving ONI and the UNSC, but a ghost has never been one of them. Closest thing would have been the AIs, their holographic projects, and their origins, perhaps approximating some sort of posthumous existence, but this was something else entirely.]

[She approaches cautiously, because she's not about to assume anything in this strange new place.]

I'm going to hazard a guess probably about the same thing the living do.

[both_neither]

[Gren, on the other hand, at least wakes up in a bed, as charitable as a description as that might be. The mattress is lumpy, but at least the blanket is soft - both of which are things his mind seems to remark on in a distant kind of fashion as he stares up at the wooden rafters and the thatched roof and wonders where he is when he should by all rights be a cold dead corpse floating in the black of space or a smouldering pile of wreckage on the surface of Titan. Even if he's somehow he'd survived long enough to be rescued, he's not on Titan because he's not hot enough and even that backwater planet had better facilities than this.

He should be dead. He kind of wanted to be. He'd certainly resigned himself to it after how things had turned out with Vicious.

Sitting up in bed his eyes take in all the signs of him living here: saxophone case, clothes draped over the back of a chair, empty bottles of booze on the table. It feels a bit like waking up from a binge he doesn't remember except there's no hangover. Or maybe he's gone completely crazy and he's really still in prison.

He wasn't going to find answers in this room, at least. He numbly dresses himself, though the idea of wrapping his chest doesn't quite occur to him in his daze, and in the same state exits his tiny apartment in town and begins to look for someone or something that made sense.

Maybe eventually his wanderings lead him to the castle, where the majority of equally confused residents are wandering.]

Excuse me. Can you...tell me where I am? Are we...dead?

[givetheslip]

You look well enough.

[Maria is still very annoyed at suddenly being kidnapped.]

If you want to be, I'm sure someone would be willing to help you with that.

[deductiongeek]

[Conan's first theory was kidnapping.

It seemed like a logical assumption to make. This was certainly not the train station he had been exploring with the Detective Boys, and there were very few other explanations for how he could have suddenly found himself in an entirely new location.

And this would hardly be the first time he had been kindapped. When you were in his line of work, it was an occupational hazard.

No, what was strange was that he had woken up in an empty room with no sign of any kidnappers and no clues on what the motivation behind this might be.

And if they weren't going to lock him in a room? Conan certainly wasn't going to stay there. He was in search of answers.

Deliberately Conan heads out into the hallways of the castle and seeks out the nearest adult.]

[gottaknockhard]

[It's a shame that the 'nearest adult' doesn't really narrow the field down to the most helpful people in the castle. Spike is currently holding up a wall in the hallway while staring at a book filled with weird writing that he found. He hasn't even noticed the rooms with all of their names on them yet.

The kid does get a slight glance, but that's about it. Bottom of the useful barrel right here.]

[lightbranded]

[Will's first reaction is not panic or worry, but tired acceptance. He had hoped that there would be a time of peace for him, now that he had become the Watchman and the Dark had been defeated.

But it wasn't to be, he supposed. If he had been brought to this place, it must be because there was a task here waiting for him. And he could not reject his duty, even if he was still tired from the last battle against the Dark.

He takes some time to wander quietly around the castle and through the gardens outside, waiting and listening in hopes of some guide as to what he was supposed to do. But the Light was silent.

In the end he closes his eyes and reaches out with his mind in hopes of reaching another mind open to this kind of speech.]

Please. Can anyone hear me?

[toobravehearted]

[ The Doctor is part-way through his exploration, wandering the first floor and finding rooms with nameplates on the doors. People he doesn't know, but this place seems to.

He's about to try another door, his hand reaching for the knob when a voice comes through. Not through the door of course, but in his mind. Young, a child, perhaps? He stops, standing very still and head cocked as if to listen for more. Cautious to respond at first, what sounds like a child doesn't necessarily mean it will be a child, but it's the plead that was made that makes up his mind. The Doctor closes his eyes and concentrates to respond back. ]

I can hear you. Who is this?

[lord_wizard]

[Felix doesn't so much 'wake up' as comes back himself as if out of a daydream, which is all the more alarming for the fact that the last thing he remembers doing is falling asleep in a lumpy bedroll at his brother's side somewhere in the Perblanches. Instead he's sitting a large overstuffed chair with a book in his hand that he's never seen in his life.

He drops the book in alarm as another absence makes itself known. The bond is gone. Or rather, it's there, but there's nothing at all on the other end of it, no matter how hard he mentally tugs on it.]

Mildmay?!

[He gets out of the chair and moves towards the only open door, and finds yet another shock. The mosaic floor in the circular parlor is familiar but unfamiliar, as if put there to taunt him. Fingers to his lips, he darts out the front door and down the stairs, trying not to fall in his haste. The only thing he can figure is that someone has enchanted him and is possibly some kind of spell to obscure Mildmay from him that the obligation d'ame cannot permeate. If he gets his hands on whoever is responsible...he will do something very unpleasant to them.]

Where is he? What have you done with him?!

[deadlybanker]

I should be asking you that question...

[The words came with the deadly accompaniment, the sound of a blade sliding against metal. Although the man in the hall being confronted looked to be unarmed, in that at least his hands were free of a sword, the leather belts he wore glittered as the weapons at his disposal caught the light escaping through the open doorway and reflected it back. Throwing knives and a short notched blade were only a quick grab away.

Giovanni paced away from the man, sizing him up with shrewdly narrowed eyes. This man was a great deal more oddly dressed than he would have expected from a Templar but maybe that just meant he was one of the more well traveled ones? A leader in the order? He would have answers soon enough.]

Federico, Petruccio, where are they?

[He and his boys had been captured by a trick of the enemy, forced to face a mock trial and a traitorous friend in front of a raging crowd of bloodthirsty Florentine citizens. It couldn't have been that long ago, he still felt the bite of the rope against his neck from when the floor had dropped away beneath him. Had they also dropped? A father's worry drove his words harsher, growing more threatening as the standoff continued. ]

If they have died then I swear... you will die far more painfully and slowly than they did!

[freeslider]

[Shortly after waking up that morning, Wade is wandering the halls in her pajamas, trying to figure out what world she's in this time and why she can't remember vortex'ing into it. This sure a heck isn't the Chandler.

By the time she finds the banner in the entrance hall she's halfway to panic]

Great. Just great. The last slide finally fried my brain. I knew it was a matter of time.

[The tone of her voice says that she's not sure she entirely believes that though, and she spins in a desperate circle]

Quinn? Hey Quinn! C'mon guys where are you?

[gottaknockhard]

[Spike is there when she spins, hanging out in the lobby and all. It's none of his business, but... well, what is he supposed to do here? Ignore her?]

...You were with someone?

[fearbringer]

[Pitch is... lurking. As usual. But this time, it's confused lurking. He has no idea what's going on here, and that's not at all something he's used to. What the hell.

He can be found all around the Castle-- he's traveling via shadow most of the time, so he's moving rather quickly, and can be found in the same place multiple times throughout the day.]

[OOC: Info on what sorts of characters will be able to see/sense him off-journal!]

[gottaknockhard]

[If the years Spike spent in Paradisa had any effect on him, it should be evidenced by the fact that now he doesn't even glance at any impossible invisible people lurking around. Or so much as suspect that impossible invisible people exist. He's having a hard enough time taking in where he is; some kind of mansion that somehow represents the afterlife. Who knew he'd be rich?

Since none of this is real, he shouldn't be hungry, and yet he finds the kitchen fairly quickly. But rather than fix himself anything, he sits at the nearest table where he can properly contemplate his existence. This whole 'Paradisa' phenomenon is an unexpected detour, but maybe if he mediates on it, he can wake himself up.]

[radiantwingedone]

[ Duke stumbles back on the way from the library, then sits heavily right where he is, trying to make sense of... everything.

He'd jumped from the top layer of Tarqaron, and it had been night, but it most definitely hadn't been this dark. Had it been a mistake to turn his back on Brave Vesperia? No, he didn't think so.

Only reaching to double check that no prank had been pulled gave him something else to focus on. He wasn't sore. ]

.... Who healed me. [ Wow, he almost sounds accusing about that. ]

[strangewonders]

[Well, this was disconcerting. Not the sudden castle part really, but simply the fact that it was clearly the wrong castle. It didn't float or anything. Howl glares at the thing for a long moment, hands on his hips, tapping one foot impatiently as though waiting for an explanation, though he already has a fairly good idea of the culprit, even if he doesn't understand how she's done it.]

What has that one-woman natural disaster done now?

[wizard_redfive]

[Dairine wakes up in a panic, no clue where she is nor how she got here. Last she remembers she was in the midst of a transit with Roshaun over to where the Hesper was. Now she was on a bed, in... what looks to be her room? What gives?!

She leaps out of bed, not even noticing the PJs she's wearing right now. The room looks uncannily like her own, but there are noticeable discrepancies. She didn't have a bookshelf nor all these gismos in her own room. Her eyes narrow as she stares at a painting on the wall, one with herself and some guys she's never met. Weird. Speaking of guys... one is missing.]

Roshaun?!

[That's right, he was in the transit with her! He should be here, but he's not. Dairine hates to think what that might mean. Hurrying out the door, she hurries to check the strange building's halls, yelling all the way.]

Roshaun? Roshaun!!

[freeslider]

[Wade is doing pretty much the same thing as she hurried pads down the halls in the bare feet and flannel pajamas she woke up in, calling out for Quinn, Rembrandt, Arturo, or anyone else who might be able to hear her and direct her in the right direction. It doesn't seem possible that she's alone.

Thus, she turn a corner and literally run right into Dairine]

[teenagebadboy]

[He has no idea where he is. The last thing he remembers is being in the Barton barn, kissing Ed. But now he's here, outside a grand castle. He looks around himself with a frown and his guard up.]

Ed? Where are you Ed? [He doesn't get a response so he decide to check the area out. He doesn't head inside and instead walks across the courtyard with a suspicious look on his face.]

Are you yanking my chain? Where are you guys? Adam? I swear if this is some kind of joke...

Fourth floor

[pompous_today]

[Something wasn't right here.

When Simon woke up, instead of the feel of Kaylee's warm body pressed against him, he was obviously in an empty bed. The bed wasn't on a ship, but a building with walls made of stone. Moreover, when he opened his eyes, he could see that this room had obviously been lived-in for a long time- and to make it even more unsettling, Simon clearly recognized some of the objects as the sort of thing that would belong to him and River. Clothing, especially. A wardrobe was filled with- well, his wardrobe, his usual professional clothes.

However, the icing on the proverbial cake was when he got up, walked outside his room- and noticed the nameplate with SIMON TAM clearly inscribed on it.]

What in the name of-

[He glanced around- other rooms, some with nameplates, some with none- were lining the hallway. He promptly decided to see if one of the rooms contained his sister, Kaylee, anybody.]

[toobravehearted]

[ He's been methodical in his search, floor by floor, room by room, and has already found a door with his most known moniker on it. A bit worrying that. He'd continued his search, another floor up, when he sees the man doing his own search by the looks of. ]

You too? Interesting, isn't it?

[raisingdad]

[Alexis was wandering around the castle aimlessly, trying to make sense of whatever was happening. She might have thought that she had been kidnapped again if not for all the other people milling around and the fact that she was free to move.

Mostly she just wanted to find someone she knew - dad, Kate, Pi, anyone - who could explain to her what was going on.]

[assassino]

[And there's Ezio, looking terribly confused. He's as aimless as the rest of them, but he keeps getting distracted by the smallest things –– he'll stop and stare even at lightbulbs, as if he cannot comprehend what they are. (Fun fact: he can't.) It certainly makes it difficult to make any headway on figuring out where he is.

He knows he's far from home, at any rate.

His eyes land on Alexis, though, and he approaches her. He's in his mid-thirties, with Mediterranean well-traveled skin and a short beard, his long dark hair pulled back with a red ribbon, and he's dressed like he just stepped out of Florence in 1492.

Which he did.

He speaks with a heavy Italian accent, too:]

Ah, scusa, scusa –– do you know where we are?

[gottaknockhard]

[The last thing Spike remembered is walking -- or falling -- on a staircase. In his mind, that was going to be the end of it, and it seemed fitting enough. When he opens his eyes again, he's upright again with one foot on the step above him.

"Welcome to Paradisa"......

He reads the banner in front of him enough times that it should start to sink in, but it doesn't. Finally, he turns to look behind him to see that everything is a lot more intact than it should be. And also isn't the same room, as evidenced by the lack of people with guns and things of that nature. Then he looks down to note that he's not even bleeding.

This collection of facts should inspire some form of panic from him, and yet he's oddly calm. So he's either dead or in a coma and dreaming this up. Either way, he's not in a hurry any more, so he sits down on the steps. As he does, he feels a box of cigarettes in his pocket and pulls one out, because if there was ever a perfect time for one, this qualifies. Even if it's only in his own mind.

Except the lighter he had to accompany it won't light it. He holds the flame up to the end of the unlit paper for a good minute before he finally figures out where this is.]

I guess they have stairways here too.

[toobravehearted]

[ The Doctor starts on the stairs and then watches the man that's a little way ahead of him a moment. Interesting hair as an aside, guy. There's an air of rush and urgency to the Doctor, being in the middle of looking for his friends, and his mood is enough on the sour side to make a flippant remark. ]

It looks that way, but smoking will still stunt your growth.

[molotov]

[The first thing Molotov noticed upon waking up was that she now had some very mysterious scarring she didn't remember obtaining. Falling into... acid or something was definitely something she felt like she would remember.

So she's walking around with her gun drawn, slinking around corners and down corridors with a cautious air. Someone or something has kidnapped and hurt the wrong damn Russian, that's for sure.]

[therealrisette]

[Unfortunately for poor Rise, all she knows is that she's been kidnapped to a strange castle - her second kidnapping this year! When suddenly a tall, scary Russian lady carrying a gun comes out of nowhere around the corner.

Understandably, she screams. And looks positively terrified of the stranger.]

I... I'm sorry! I didn't...

... Are we not supposed to leave our rooms? No one said anything!

[She doesn't like the thought of going along with this, but if being a hostage keeps her and everyone else alive, she'll play along for now! It's not like she can do anything in the real world... and she hasn't figured out she can use her Persona here yet.]

[firethroat]

[Those in the castle are lucky Firethroat is not there when she awakes. Her slumber is interrupted suddenly and violently. She is not in her lair. Instead she is in a far smaller cave, on ground level no less! Who would dare take her from her territory unannounced. A blast of hot fire goes upwards, signalling her anger and annoyance.

Once she checks that her chest is safe and accounted for (though the rest of her hoard is nowhere to be found, Firethroat takes to the sky to find some answers. Those who see her flying might notice more flames arcing into the air.]

[toobravehearted]

[ No. No, this wasn't right.

It was the warehouse in Shad Thames just a moment ago. The air had been thick with the smoke and propellant from gas cannisters he had set off and instead the air was clean. He'd been stepping out of the TARDIS and looking directly at Daleks that he had killed with the Movellan virus and now there wasn't a single dead Dalek in sight. A moment ago his hearts had been pounding, a moment ago he had been about to survey the damage with--

Instead, where the heck was he? For sure, this wasn't a dilapidated warehouse in London during the 1980's. Turning around in what can only be a hotel lobby at first look, his gaze goes up the staircase and he reads the banner. ]

Call me a suspicious Simon but this can't be good.

[ Around the lobby and then up the stairs, he starts calling for his friends with a whispered shout, trying not to draw too much attention to himself as he peers in alcoves and around doorways. ]

Tegan? Turlough?