Streets of Hope

I guess I walked out pretty abruptly, and I'm sorry about that. Recently I've been laid off in part because of the pandemic; not directly, just a side effect of the lockdowns and stay-at-home orders in place and thus fewer people traveling, breaking down and needing roadside help.

No idea when they'll be back either. I'm hoping for next month that things pick up again. Bad timing all around, as I picked last month to move out into an apartment of my own! Nothing fancy, just a studio. But it's enough for me.

Anyway, I guess I'm bored and lonely and not sleeping well, so I figured I'd pop in and say hi, get lost in nostalgia.

How are you guys doing? Either of you ever get Discord yet?

Hey Karl!

I can't speak for Ten, but I'm doing mostly well. I also got laid off - temporarily - and my job's only just starting to evaluate our work-from-home options after three months of radio silence. I still had contract work with my old university's faculty, but now, even that's been put on the back-burner. My best guess is I have a few weeks of joblessness to go through, then they'll toss a few class syllabuses my way.

As for nostalgia, all you need is to say the word and I raise your guys from the dead. We've reached a point where death is more a waiting area and less of an absolute status, so reintroducing a few people wouldn't bother things in the least.

We've mostly stuck with Steam and Messenger since it's just Ten and I, a Discord server might make more sense if we had bigger numbers.

Still, I'm glad you decided to stop by. We could always schedule a Steam chat, if you'd like.

Eh, no need to make a whole server, group chats are always an option. Either way I'll keep an eye out for you guys on Steam.

And now that you mention it, how DID they all die? Or did you leave the details undefined?

I left things largely undefined; only Katherine and Aldergard are known to have died. Jenkins and Zahavi are presumed dead, so is Winters, and folks in Magnus Tower don't have high hopes for Jameson, seeing as the Black Goat quickly installed administrators to pacify key population centers. The Sin Seven wouldn't have gone down without a fight.

As to why that's not much of a problem; all the physical and metaphysical planes of existence have merged together since the war began. Heaven's admitting all non-combatant souls for prolonged stays and trying to use the Celestial stints of fallen soldiers to improve their training. The post-war situation might involve some traffic restrictions for the sake of avoiding overpopulation scenarios on Earth. For now, though, if you've got a good enough reason to come back, there's a few Gateways controlled by the resistance. One of them is in Magnus Tower, which is run by the Shieldies. Traffic goes both ways, so Heaven's getting used to the occasional sight of corporeal mortals walking around, and Pandemonium has administrative attachés on Earth.

Eventually, we'll start to see differences between the Returned (e.g. Jenkins and Zahavi, prospectively) and the Soulborn, like Archie's daughter. If you died young enough and spent most of your formative years in Heaven, your constructed corporeal self comes with a few perks that haven't been discovered yet.

Hello Karl!

I'm doing alright. I'm still staying at home even though my state's partly reopened. I've mostly been working on leatherwork as a trade. I'm getting better with each attempt, and I'm hoping it can become an online business for me one of these days. A Steam group chat would be fun to do again one of these days.