vault113 | EPILOGUE

from here until forever

EPILOGUE

Though it's only been three weeks, the vault has taught all of you an important lesson: War. War never changes.

Whether it is the wars you fight at home, the wars your comrades fight in their worlds, or the interpersonal wars you've experienced here... There is always strife and conflict, but you have still come out on top of it.

Once the reactor room party disperses, Ianthe keeps word (under Kanon's watchfull eye) and removes all of the souls from the mainframe, restoring them into their fixed up beautifully healthy bodies. It's really as if you'd never died at all!

There is still a little time to pack your things and say goodbye to the nuclear fallout shelter that has been home for a while, but then the plan will be put into action and the SNART is powered up.

The machine of miracles is fulfilling its true purpose for the first time.

And the group can move forward towards greener pastures, which are actually redder pastures, because it's hell, and there is fire. But Mordawwa is here to keep us all safe, one assumes.

And with the infinite flow of souls, the SNART can remain a permanent fixture of the underworld, allowing everyone to go where and when they'd like, freely, as many times as necessary. ~~Until Erin has enough of everyone, at least.~~

((Welcome to your epilogue and congratulations on finding a way for everyone, really everyone, to live!! You can use this post for all your post-game interactions, whether that is a toplevel while still in the vault, interactions in the underworld, or even something far later than!))

NAVIGATION

Vault 113: a short-run murdergame

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Going to hell after being uploaded to a computer is like two afterlives for the price of one, when you think about it. Which is why Ruby doesn't think about it!

Initially, you can find her sitting up against some brimstone, scribbling away in her journal. Despite actually dying, it looks like she's doing a little better than when she was last seen in the Vault - her posture is less tense, and if you approach her, she'll actually smile. ]

Hey. Nice place, huh?

[ Later on, she'll even approach you, which is wild, offering an easy half-smile and a hand to shake. ]

I wasn't gonna take off without saying goodbye. Take care of yourself, all right? Wherever you end up.

[ The smile Klaasje offers her back is uncertain and tilted in a way her smiles never used to be. It's like seeing something new and damp peeking through a split in a chrysalis, unready to face the open air. ]

It's not so bad.

[ Comparatively. She comes closer, turns around so she can sink to a seat near Ruby, ever so slightly off of true parallel. It's a tiny shying away, but it's enough to make it easier to let her hair fall over her eyes as she wraps her arms around her knees.

She's quiet for a minute, maybe two. ]

...I was hoping that when I sat down, I'd figure out what I wanted to ask you.

[ It's a sweet smile. Ruby likes it. ]

A ringing endorsement.

[ Ruby turns back to her journal. From here, Klaasje can probably see that she's writing down as much as she can remember about the SNART - how they hacked into the Vault's computers, its fuel source, that sort of thing. There's a note that says name is stupid - look for a better one?? ]

I'll give you a bit to think about it, then. I'm not going anywhere yet.

[ Ruby knows what she wants to ask Klaasje, but she'll give Klaasje a second, first. ]

[ A little puff of breath at that, and the latent tension in Klaasje's shoulders unwinds a touch. It looks real. It even feels real from the inside.

She tucks her hair back behind her ear and looks at the journal. Somewhere else, she'd have slid close and set her chin on Ruby's shoulder to read it. In another place, she would have cocked her head and smiled like she didn't understand the words, but was willing to play along. Here, she just looks, quietly attentive.

Real, not real. The wave function uncollapsed. She still doesn't know what she wants to ask, only what she's about to. ]

Where are you going, when you're ready?

[ Ruby turns the page. There's no schematics on this spread. No notes. Instead, it's a view of the stars from the cruise ship, and not a single one is out of place. Ruby studies her work, as if it'll show her a path. ]

Revachol.

[ Where else? Not Martinaise, of course, but the city is huge, and there are lots of corners to get lost in. Besides, her lorry is there.

She looks back up. ]

Do you want to come with me?

[ It's not the first time Ruby has asked. But it will be the last. If she says no, then Ruby will close her journal, get up, and leave, and that will be that. But either way, Ruby will have an answer. ]

[ Klaasje stares back at Ruby dumbly, all the breath knocked out of her, static hissing in her ears.

Oubliette: You betrayed this woman unforgivably. You betrayed her in your body and your heart, in your mind and your soul, in all the worst ways a person can betray another. You set the dogs of law on her. You killed her, and you made her a desecration. You died for it, and for nothing, and too late.

Sufferance: And rolling in your graves, she denied you the catharsis of punishment. She took you, wretched, miserable traitor you are, into her arms, and it hurt you terribly, but not terribly enough. She holds a knife over your chest, but only so you can't drive it in.

Oubliette: If you say yes, the power she has over you will be cataclysmic, total. You will never get out from under it. A part of you will be irrevocably altered, and you will not understand what it is until the transformation has already occured. You know the word for what this is. You are more afraid to know it than you have ever been of loneliness or cold or pain.

Archipelago: When the ice thaws, it cracks like gunshots.

Archipelago: There's only one thing you can say. Say it. ]

Yes.

[ Her fingers reach for Ruby's. She doesn't quite interlace them, but lays them in the slots between Ruby's fingers, gears' teeth not yet engaged. But ready, when they need to be. ]

I think I'd like to go anywhere with you.

[ She's already followed Ruby to hell twice. What's Revanchol to that? What's anything? ]

[ One of the hands that killed Ruby lays itself to rest. Ruby turns her palm over. If they're going to do this, they might as well do it right.

Besides. It's not like Ruby's hands have never held the gun, and that gun has been pointed at all kinds of stupid places. ]

You think so?

[ Ruby smiles slowly, noise through the static, a warm memory from the pale. It's almost teasing. She shouldn't, of course, given how much Klaasje is putting herself out on the line, but she does anyway. ]

That's good. Revachol's an incredible city. I think you'll like seeing it for real.

[ Ruby laces her fingers in between Klaasje's. Then she squeezes, just a little. ]

[ That squeezes pushes a tiny stuttering noise out of Klaasje, something just shy of relieved or hurt, a balm pressed over a wound. She wants to squirm away from the feeling as much as she wants to lean into it. She is feverously aware of how exposed they are, of how exposed she is, skin peeled back over tender flesh.

She squeezes back, and for reasons beyond even the chorus of noise in her head, that's it. Klaasje laughs, thin and papery, and leans in to dig her head against Ruby's shoulder like seeking shelter from the heat. ]

There's more to it than housing blocks and ugly saltwater?

[ If she could hide the quaver in her meaningless question, she doesn't. She's well aware of how little she's seen, and she should be nice about it - but she's not nice, she's never been nice.

And Ruby wants to show her things anyway. ]

I want to see it. I want to see everything you love about it. I want - I want to know things about you, for real.

EPILOGUE

no subject

initially

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

cw: vague suicide reference

no subject