❧ The End is the Beginning is the End

[luministimods]

[After Xion succeeds in unlocking the door to Lab #3--and once Filippo leaves them all with an ominous warning (as well as taking his office scheme with him)--the door to Lab #3 opens to reveal...the interior of Lab #3, a silver, cylindrical room with a small observation room on the other side of the central cylinder chamber. The observation room is walled off with glass. But unlike the last time a number of residents saw this room, Dr. Caligin is not inside waiting for them. The room is quite empty, actually.

On the other side of the room, Nathan suddenly appears again, donning a dark suit. Like before, he sounds slightly strained, like he's exerting a great deal of energy to keep moving but is trying to keep that fact hidden. He greets them with a small smile before immediately heading over to pick up the picture frames that had fallen onto the ground.]

Sorry, I just need...hold on. [he takes a moment to finish picking them up, clutching the frames to his chest] Sorry about that. These are--never mind. [he adjusts his hold on them] Anyway, you found the lab! I had a feeling it was here, and boy, I'm glad you were able to find that key. Audrey had left it in my care when--oh, I need to get her once I get you home. She should be okay resting in the clinic for a while longer...

[he hurries over to the messy desk, carefully depositing the frames and hastily arranging them somewhat neatly. but then he looks up, a somewhat grave look in his tired, dark eyes] But there is a problem. I need to find Filippo Resarci. He's my only connection to finding the person ultimately responsible for everything you've gone through. If I don't find either of them, there's a possibility you will be pulled from your homes yet again. I know many of you wish to go home, but with Audrey in her current state, I can't risk using her again for the time being and... I guess what I'm trying to say is that I need someone to stay behind. It'll be temporary, and I promise I will get you home, just...not as soon as the others.

If you wish to go home, I've turned the life support back on in the town so you can go get your belongings. Well, I guess that goes for those who wish to stay, too. And I think I've finally got things reconfigured so the proper layout of the lab is back in place. [he looks at the lab door; a bit sheepishly] Er, with one exception, but I'll fix that later. You just need to go out these door and all the way down the hallway to the elevator. It'll bring you back to the observation deck and you can go back into town the normal way.

Just to warn you, though...I did encounter some problems in town, too. For some reason, certain things are still in town and around the spacestation, like this giant windmill and a temple. I don't exactly know why they're still there, but I think if you go home, they should go with you. I think. That's my theory, anyway...

But yes. [he shifts, wincing a bit] Um, I'll give you some time to think about things amongst yourselves. We have some time. Come back here once you're ready to go home or if you want to stay. I'll be waiting.


❧ Plot Details: The End is the Beginning is the End

And here we are at the end of another eventful season! Season Two was pretty darn awesome, guys. Thank you so much staying with the game until the end, despite having to push back the end date. I'll have to keep that in mind for next year since this season and last season ran a bit longer than planned... Oops.

Now, back to what Nathan said... Well, here's where things get interesting. You have a choice: do you send your character home? Or do you have them stay in the universe through to the time the next season starts? So you know, there can be more than one person who stays and helps Nathan. (He'll be surprised there'd be more than one person, but hey, he's not going to turn down the extra help!)

If your character goes home, you'll still go back to the very canon point you left, and you will be able to keep your memories of your time in the town--but you'll only remember them in your dreams. Your time in Luministi will be all you dream about, and man, those dreams will be vivid. And like most dreams, when you wake, you won't be able to recall details to well, but every now and then, a name, a smell, etc will stick out. How your character deals with the dreams is up to you.

If your character stays, you will be subject to a universe that has an extremely fanatical obsession with you. What Filippo discussed with Ichijou about was the complete truth. Sure, it was highly demented and morally wrong to do what was done to the people in town, but the fact remains that each and every character is loved by some part of the galaxy! (And of course, there are other parts who don't care for you at all, but why dwell on the negative?) You'll also find that while there are still 12 months in a year, the rest of the galaxy believes there are 38 days per month. (When and how they came to this decision, well, it's all in the past, really.) The current year is 546 SSC (Standard Solar Calendar) and everyone operates in standard solar time (which, fortunately for everyone, is still 24 hours in a day, though it wasn't always the case). Other than that, the universe is pretty much the same as ours. It just...has a weird obsession with TV... So those of you who don't want to go home, well, you won't have to.

But regardless of your decision, things are going to be different. If you went home and go to that location/object that appeared in the town during the "Wind of Change" plot, you'll feel...like something is missing. The place isn't quite right and it'll probably be a little unsettling, or mysterious. Depends on how your character handles absence. And if you stay, well, naturally you'll feel nostalgic for home, if you're the type to give into nostalgia. Also...if you have ever traveled in time before, you may feel a bit...off now. (And this will be the case for anyone with time travel experience who comes into the game next season too.) Those who are inherently time-sensitive will be able to feel it even more, like something is going with time itself, but the farther you go away from the town, the less you'll be able to feel it.

Like last year, you got the best possible ending for this season! Congratulations! What led to the best ending, you might be asking yourself right now? WELL! Basically, to get this ending, you needed to discover certain bits of information about Filippo Resarci (both in the maze and from him during the most recent plot) as well as find Proctor and Audrey (though in Proctor's case, the other part of that goal was not to kill him outright when he was found.) Things would have turned out differently if you hadn't achieved all four objectives in the maze. Also, if you had killed Proctor (and/or Audrey), things would have turned out differently for the future. It came close with him, but he said all he needed to before escaping.

But things would have been very different if something else hadn't happened. You would have gotten a fairly bad end if you weren't able to break the right two objects in town at the end of the murder plot. If you hadn't succeeded, you wouldn't have been able to break into the rest of the spacestation and would have continued to be subject to the whims of the town and the plan to break out would have been set back another month or more--if at all. Proctor DID wait for Audrey to expose herself, after all, and he would have outright killed her. Why he DID stay his hand in the end...well. I'm sure we'll find out sometime.

But that is just one of many questions left to answer...and only one more season of the game left. Fortunately, we did found out some things! Like Plan B was the selling of the lab right out from under Caligin's feet. And "PL" turned out to be "Program: Luministi", and from the sounds of it, it was the television program name. And as for who was running things in the town, well. For the most part, it was Filippo Resarci, son of Ernesto Resarci who had sold the lab to his own company at the end of the first season. But through discussion with him, Filippo revealed that while he largely did things to keep his client and benefactor happy (and any monetary gains that were made went to the company and program, but not the client/benefactor for some reason), that client did have a hand in things for the maze. Oh, and that exact same person was Man in Black that everyone has encountered directly before coming to the town.

That still leaves us with many questions that still need answering. Like:


• How were people able to communicate with others in the 4th wall?
  
• Where's Proctor now?
  
• Who was Proctor speaking to in this secret video?
  
• Where's Filippo?
  
• Where's the rest of the NPCs?
  
• Who is the Man in Black?
  
• Who is Nathan? And why does he have to find the Man in Black?
  
• Why will people still be able to be brought to this universe even though an important component was destroyed?
  
• How were things moved around so easily in the lab without anyone knowing it? (The same question can be applied to the maze and pretty much every event.)
  
• Why are the time travelers and time-sensitives feeling a bit odd?
  
• Why haven't the bits from everyone's homes disappeared?
  
• Why is there a door that only appears once for people in Lab #4?
  
• Why was Willis in pain after stepping on his photo?


...Yeah, that's a lot of questions, huh? Believe it or not, we will find out the answer to all of those next season.

But do you have any questions about this season? Other things that aren't on the list there? I might not be able to answer them now depending on what it is, but I can definitely add it to my list of things that need to be answered!

And speaking of next season, I have a couple questions for you all (aside from wondering if your character will go home or not!)


1. What sort of things would you like to see next season? Like event-wise and things that'll happen to the characters?
   
   
2. Because of the summer-time nature of the game, we'll never be able to do anything Christmasy during the season. But I'm wondering...would you like to do a Christmastime 4th wall event? (I haven't quite decided if it'll belong in the game canon (like our previous 4th wall) or not.)
   
   
3. Would you like to do a special pre-season event in March? This one won't be a 4th wall and definitely will count towards game canon, and yes, you'll be able to participate in it no matter what decision you make for your character.


Like last season, I'll contact you (most likely through PM to your character's journal) to let you know exactly when the game will start up again. I am thinking of early May again, but I haven't quite pinned down an exact date yet. So start thinking about whether you want to canon update your character or not! You'll only have this opportunity if you go home, though. If you stay, you won't have this chance. Keep in mind that a canon update can be a huge leap in time, or even mere seconds ahead in their time--but it's all up to you. Also, I won't require any current players to resubmit your application prior to the start of the third season. I'll probably do what I did for returning players for this season: I just asked to see if you had canon updated and what sort of changes that made in your character's history. Some people did add to their applications and adjust things in the personality section and such to reflect the change in canon point, but I'm not going to require you do that. If you decide to stay, I'll probably ask for a brief description about what your character did in the meantime, whether they worked with Nathan or stayed in the town/spacestation during that time.

And that...should do it for this season! I'll be putting up an entry for your "exits" from the game right after this one (and that entry is here!), but please feel free to do your own entries to talk with other characters and such. You can always go back to the "exit" entry (and you can also speak with Nathan there, but don't feel like you have to have made your decision to leave/stay when you do.)

So that is it from me! If you have any questions, I'm always contactable here, through email, PM to this mod journal, my characters' journals, or my personal one, as well as Plurk (both the my own and the mod one.) And I'll be available to you in the off-season, as well, if you have any questions about the game universe or anything!

Thanks again, everyone, for a wonderful season and I look forward to seeing you all back for season three! ♥!