[Game Opening, Part 1 - What Souls Here May Bring]

[stringmods]

The drawstrings cut,
my hollow ebony stained wood plomps to the floor—
THUD

Eyes open, souls recollect.
The new me, erect.

I make my own decisions, have my own priorities,
have my own thoughts.

No external force taps into me—
Freedom.
- Jana Bielecki
Who: (Everyone OPEN LOG)
Where: (City Hall)
Summary: (You've just arrived in the city. Welcome.)
Warnings: (Intro logs are pretty warnable.)
Style: (The text is in prose, but feel free to write back in action tags if you feel more comfortable.)

They always say the first day on a new job is always the hardest.

But tell me...did those tasks include being taken from your own homeworld, dumped into a city you didn't recognize, meeting a man dressed in the purest of whites with a butterfly mask, to be bestowed the power of Persona, and then having some Men in Black lead you to the city hall saying you were expected?

...

...at least your things are apparently safe in your new apartments?

...

...looks like you might be here for a while.


What a way to start the first of September...

As they usher the last of you in, you realize that they've been preparing this for quite a while. There is a small table with food on the right, mixed cuisine (although the main theme seems to be Japanese dishes). Some strange computer program appears next to you and seems to be translating what you are saying so those before you understand. Language barriers? Don't be silly!

Most of the men ignore you after that. You are expected to mingle amongst yourselves a bit before the main 'show' starts, it seems....

Comments

[deathboss]

He batted his eyes at her, grinning.

"Oh that is a charming name, Minako-kun. As for me? My full name is Eikichi Mishina...but you may continue to call me Michel." It suited him much better, he thought. At her question, however, he sighed. "Not a clue. I knew the butterfly guy. That was Philemon. But the fact we're in some new city? Hell if I know. Last thing I remember was him telling us we'd have to go back in time for ten years and erase our memories..."

....yeah that lowered his mood real fast.

[greatseal]

That... added even more questions to her list. It takes a moment for her to decide where to start. "But you'd met him before? Where did you meet him?" And why the time-travel and memory erasing... but that can wait for later in the conversation.

[deathboss]

"Oh uh. Philemon's like..." An asshole? A guy he hates? Something like that? "He represents humanity's hope or something. When my friends and I were kids, we played the Persona game, and met up with him. He gave us our Personas, but that...caused a few problems."

To put it lightly.

"I don't get why here's here too, mind you. The hell does he want us to do now?"

[greatseal]

Humanity's hope... that just makes Minako want to have a long discussion with Philemon even more. But then her attention turns to the rest of what Michel is saying.

"Persona... game?" Wait a minute. "But you did have a Persona before this, too! Did anything about it change? Did you-" Wait, Minako, other people only get one Persona at a time. "Does anything else seem different now?"

[deathboss]

"Yeah! For one, Hade's way different than before. And I can't call on the other ones I had either..."

Oh.

Oh.

...hey wait a minute.

"Wait...you...too? You could use Persona before coming here, but you don't know Philemon?"

[greatseal]

"No, I'd never heard of him before this, but..."

Hm. 'The other ones' he had?

"...Have you been to the Velvet Room?"

[deathboss]

"...yeah." He shivered a little. "Well me and my friends did. Igor's a servant of Philemon, after all..."

[greatseal]

...Michel doesn't seem to have had a very good experience as a guest.

"I've met Igor-san but... he never mentioned that to me."

[deathboss]

"Really? Huh that's weird. Yukino mentioned she'd seen Philemon too when her group got their powers...but I've seen Igor..."

Hmm.

"Hey! Maybe you just forgot you saw him? I kinda forgot for a while myself..."

[greatseal]

"....I guess it's possible."

Pharos comes to mind... how she'd forgotten all about him, only to remember after Ryoji's reveal... "That place is certainly mysterious enough."

[deathboss]

"Right! Anyway.."

He hadn't really met actually other Persona users before, Yukino and the SEBEC gang withstanding. "What exactly did your group do?"

[greatseal]

"We were working to stop the Dark Hour." Which... may or may not mean anything to him. But she had to try. "What about yours? Besides time travel..."

I am so sorry Persona 2's plot is this silly

[deathboss]

Oh no don't mention time travel...he looked sadly at her for a minute before pushing that thought away.

"Oh you know. The usual. Had a friend who was brainwashed since he was a kid, helped him snap out of that, escaping flaming zeppelins, trying to stop the Crawling Chaos from destroying all of the earth..." (And failing, but that was a detail he didn't need to talk about.) "...Fighting Hitler and his Last Battalion." (WAIT...WHAT?!)

"...well not really Hitler. Turned out it was Nyarlathotep in disguise."

I really need to get back to playing it...

[greatseal]

That's...

"I... see. It sounds like you were busy!"

Well if you like your soul being being pulled out..

[deathboss]

"...yeah. So what's the Dark Hour exactly?"

Anything for Persona

[greatseal]

"Well... it's kind of a long story..."

And a lot of it she doesn't want to get into just now. But she can go with the highlights, like he did. "It's an extra hour that happened every night at midnight. It was created ten years ago in an accident. Normally only Persona-users or people with the potential to be were awake during it, but sometimes the Shadows would call in normal people and turn them into the Lost."