Undervale Opal Orbit

Undervale Opal Orbit

is a town cloaked in perpetual light. The capital office is located on Amity street, an 8-fold path going out to an octagonal corner of each edge of the city. The buildings are crooked, wood constructed and backlit with bright yellow candlelights which have a special bioluminescence left candled from molded slugwax. Oil-lit streetlamps use finishing waxes of the same substance on their bowls, distorting the light to the same ambience throughout, illuminating cobblestone roads. Dark arches, columns and bridges decorate the hung streets with lanterns of similar eerie gleam, lighting the way carriages and robed goers in a moonlight romance.

The scarce use of electricity in Undervale, from flash bulbs to electrical fencing is run by Amp Fey (Also called "Voltflies"), which are kept underground with the termites they prey on. On 177th Amity Street, is a small shop with assorted necrophilia memorabilia run by Annabelle Eve, a girl of about 19 who only stands 3 feet in height with a violet velvet dress. She can be seen by the counter running the shop nearby the Counting Man, a lanky almost emaciated figure constantly doing his tax returns and triple checking his signature on every last form. Eve, with her grumpy scowl said the Morgue Itinerary shop to be a 'grift shop', which was something like a Gift Shop except she you go to lose gifts, not buy them. Eve is occupied by the Whisper Child, a mid-30s woman with long white hair and lanky dress, sleeves and staff who speaks to the cadavers in the shop. A canine casted in flickering penumbra made of no discernible tangible matter exists as a cryptoid by Eve's side, whom she names Iggy, watching and guarding her always. Its shapeshifting prowess is contrasted with a young girl in dreads, umber skin and a lithe body, a green soccer tee and shin pads constantly bouncing a soccer ball nearby. Esme, as she was named her accent was rather heavy with a canterbury dialect, she spoke about the town's rugby team with great interest for 15 minutes and went interrupted while lifting Eve up to a higher bookshelf.

These 4 individuals and a shadowdog make up the Grift Shop. Interviews with the young Esme revealed more about the town's recent historical threads. Less than half a decade past, a world, very separate from the Tower's hypergeometry lead to a seperate hypergeometric conglomerate had interfered with their development. The portal south leads through the sewers and connects further into the Tower, the portal far in the sky leads to the dimensional collective of Pier, of which parts are lead by a supposed Red Queen. Failure to submit to subjugation from the monarchy lead to troops being sent to enforce their rule, leading to a violent sectarian conflict between Undervale and Pier's authorities.

Undervale ultimately lost autonomy, and now submits heavy fees and material concessions as part of the Queen's decree. Due to the hatred and stigma for their aggressors, all contraband from the marshes of Pier is completely banned on penalty of transfusion into 'Cockroach feed.' The original defenders of Undervale, a garrison unit known as Nitro Psyche was originally commemorated by a series of silvery statues on Amity Street 1#, but Pier authorities tore them down with much resistance.

The streets of Amity, appear to contain extra-dimensional properties that interact with a cognitive matrix in their alteration throughout different points in time. Every recorded documentation of a street was different, varying its geography and pathways to effective destinations. Quite simply, the streets are never the same twice. Citizens appear not to notice this odd reality disfigurement, able to navigate where they please but merely shrugging when this fact is pointed out.  A sort of hyper intuition, cultural signifier missed or perhaps mental conditioning has been put forth to explain why the locals do not get lost "Feeling their way around" despite the streets remapping. On Amity street 678# The Kaitlyn Memorial Library is to be found, which of course means the Library is located differently every single day. Named after an incident where a pile of books fell on and crushed a girl named Kaitlyn, this library has extensive books on every type of cockroach in the city, of which there are said to be 1186. There don't appear to be any books not cockroach-based. Undervale, altho under the forceful annex of Pier, maintains a local body and three formal aristocracies, two of which are bureaucratic in nature and play an active part in the community. The third maintains a far distance from the city itself in a wayward castle architecture, surrounded by cliffsides and a lone architecture. The two bureaucracies identify as the Baking house of the Plentiful, run by the Maudlin' Dumple family fortune. Their rivals, the Roashchelle Silverhouse of Winery and fine dining, or simply the Roashes abbreviated.

The Mauds are a well established baking family, amassing wealth through a subsistence industry of cupcakes, sweets, tarts, fine pies, candied treats, also owns various farms and great quantities cropsland. Hailed as the "Feeders of the Underside", they're predominantly stereotyped as wealthy bakers and connoisseurs of nutrition, calories and cultivating stocks of rich food. About 12% of their income comes from the discovery of a digestible face powder, which serves as both flour for cakes and also a fine facial and hair accessory. The stereotypical imagery of the Maud is that of rather paunchy, rotund woman, and our research shows there is verifiable proof to this "Stereotype." Mauds appear often well dressed, lavishing themselves with silken clothes and XXL garments, and never go out without as much makeup as thick as their plump bodies. They're known to celebrate excessively with food, in the form of feasts and banquets. The Maud's, while predisposed towards basic hereditary membership (Favoring a matriarchal structure, their males being quite spoiled, feminine and seldom working), aren't opposed to letting new employees and staff into their dynasty, assuming they earn their trust. Observations have shown most newly hired members in very short order, are fed exceedingly well and often take up the fine silks, powders, refined mannerisms and even appetites of most Mauds after joining.

Their rivals, the Roashes, are obsessed with decor (Plates, teacups) and antiques from which they make their living, as well as funds from their property management, including various museums and tea shops. They've made substantial investments in textiles and fine china, silverware and tea sets of which they've made a remarkable fortune, it can be said not a single plate in all of Undervale is eaten on without the Roashchelle family logo. Roaches are often lanky and stereotypically tall, thin and never without corsets. They frequently carry umbrellas even when the weather conditions don't demand such, simply to 'protect them from the airspace of commoners.' Obsessed with rules and etiquette, the Roach manors are pragmatic and neatly organized, in contrast to the Maud's whose villas are overcrowded, possession-heavy and garnish with knickknacks. Among their favorite pastime, the Roaches engage in literary clubs with tea socials to discuss the latest in Undervale (Non-Cockroach) fiction and its deeper meanings, These narratives, we must state as a matter of personal preference are, very very 'bad.' There's no accounting for tastes, the pallid Roaches say laughing nasally in our direction as we tried to stomach their tedious literature. These tales, often sordid romances are seemingly written by one youth, a 12 year old named Issac Hurst who holds the inheritable role of Prose Meister in the town's authorship as its sole fiction writer. The previous Prose Meister role belonged to his mother, a beloved guest of the Roach household name, and further investigation reveals her work to be about as abominable as one can get. Yet for the Roaches they are a time of gathering, thought-provoking discussion, and we should note cause of immense sweat and coital stench.

 Employment into the Roashchelle fortune requires mandatory sittings of these bookclubs, and it can be said that after the excessive wardrobe upgrades, corsetting, waxxy makeovers and high-class assimilation one undergoes in joining the upper ranks, one's sense of literary palette and good taste is the last aspect of oneself to go to truly become a member. A young crafter woman under the guise of a textile craft-apprentice, after following her original profile for 8 months we found to reflect such- from the start her disgust at the Roach's teasets and literary 'purple prose meister' garbage was pronounced. After her full employment and indoctrination, with a massive bouffant hairstyle, sleek porcelain gloves and waxxy painted face, she blushed immensely and sang her praises for what she considered the "Greatest masterpiece this side of written history."

 The two aristocracies are heavily connected across the town and seem to manage every service or municipal function by proxy. They organize frequent events, be they charity, festive or celebration often in passive-aggressive rivalry of one another. The Fall season, which comes 3 times a year to celebrate the Moon festivice sees both carving pumpkins and filling them with jarred Ampflies to decorate the town. The only competition in which both groups participate is the 'Patchwork Buildoff Festival', a summer activity where the town comes together to build patchwork homes for the local Freakbound community, beyond Bugly Mountain. The Freakbound patchgoers, often nicknamed 'Patchies' or 'Patchlings' are a population of near-homeless mutated folk who live by an old abandoned graveyard past the town. They're notable for their exotic features, be they skeletal or rotting, mummified, undead, insectoid, beastial, aquatic or otherwise, often sewn together for their lingering health to live a chimeric existence, from many different species and types of being.

 They are made of many different assorted creatures, recognized most strongly by the differing limbs/bodyparts/merged nature and the patches they often have sewn to their bodies to hold themselves together. The Patchies are fond of singing, campfires, raw food, such as cochroaches, Beans, Hard toffee, and Coffee ground. Their quarters are makeshift tents, made from patchwork quills and textiles donated by the Roashchelle fortune, year after year they're rebuilt. A heft surplus has lead them to grow upwards and outwards and connect into an intertwined camp, with hallways, apartment tents and a small sub-town in itself. The Maudlin' Dumple family, despite its limited help in patching up the patchgoer's residence, dontate a substantial amount of food out of charity. The Freakbound join in turn on the Moon festivice to wander throughout the town, and it's tradition to leave food in a pumpkin by your doorstep in Undervale to offer as treats for these individuals as they come into the Amity streets.

The Moon itself in Undervale is artificial. It's little more than an extremely vivid projection run by the locals. Specifically, the Moon is left as the responsibility of the one titled 'lightening witch', a girl named Janice Jolly of the house coffeeshop, filed under 'Joly Lites'. The twiggy, gothy Janice, with her spiked boots and collar, latex-miniskirt and jacket over her mesh croptop tends to keep a jovial sense of humour, if sometimes morbidly so. The top of Janice's shop build upwards as a large tower, of which an instrument resembling a massive telescope sits. The Jolly Lites, responsible for all light in the town and also the artificial Moon via this projector. Night is perpetual, and the only conception of a 'day' is when the Moon isn't projected up for a short time in daily light cycles. Millions of Voltflies stored in large quantities within a 10m orb inside the top tower provide the lighting for this projector, and also keep the coffee machines warm and running.

 Janice, from her guests description loves to shake this up, as others are often looking up into the sky for encouraging messages, pranks, shadowy notes and town reminders. Closely connected to both aristocracies, Janice is always hosting balls, bashes and jamborees in her usually "Jolly" Janice celebratory way inside her coffeehouse. Her grey hair and ponytail, tawny fur, pointy ears and paws and tendency to howl when excited have earned her an almost mascot like status among the town. One party she held at her shop hosted Ellie herself, who heard the wolfy girl riff on the Prose Meister's recent literature for 3 hours while coffee and cupcakes were served. The sense of humour and charisma seemingly won over Ellie, but not the Roashchelle members attending, taking offense to her reading as not up to their sensibilities. (We're told they forgave her transgression after a few weeks) Esme seems to take an adversarial relationship with Janice, this appears to be due to 'sports related reasons' according to Esme herself, although the contention is one sided.

 Research into the third aristocracy, the 'royal hand lent to the common stead' is only seen once a year, during the Blacknight flower festival. On that night the Moon is 'turned off' along with all lights until the town gathers in complete darkness along Amity Mainstreet. The members of the 3rd group, coming from Castle Xesodus arrive with luminescent headdress containing glowing, neon thorny flowers. The event is a grim procession. The Emperor, king of the Xesodus ring and troupe makes a silent walk through along with their consorts, such as the many hooded blindfolded, gimped members. Their ride is made on giant crab-carriages, carrying the group while they wave flags held with skulls in a dire motion. After the group finishes on Amity Street's southern side, they take the northern track. The paradoxical nature of the street's layout results, in them returning going back up the mountain, onto their rock of desolation and into their somber castle despite making a straight line and arriving from the opposite direction.

 The castle frequently extorts simple taxes and tribute as part of Undervale's defense. Having been the institution to organize Nitro Psyche a time past, a stern respect is given to them as a principle body. Most see the castle as the only defensible force against which they might prevent the Red Queen's smothering, as well as invasion from the beastial wraiths that lay far beyond the confines of the town's valley, mounted uptop as a lookout tower of sorts. Investigations lead us to realize, these wraiths, able to appear and reappear at will around the town were likely sourced from the Xesodus castle itself. Upon looking closely, we learned there was no real 'Emperor' the town has been paying tribute to, merely a title and costume, abit with glamour enchantments, the members use to project an image and symbol once a year and give the illusion of authoritative power. The nature of the pavement and streets shifting was better understood once we located it in relation to the castle itself. Seemingly, Xesodus contains its own 'temporal-spacial gravity', and with it the ability to shift reality along terms of dimensional planes along a higher Z-membrane axis.