15strangers | FINAL WEEK

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FINAL WEEK

FINAL WEEK

[There are no new floors that open today.

No food, if you didn't bring any with you. No way to figure out how much more anyone can take of this. There's just no way to know. Half of your number are gone. Half of your number either betrayed, or were betrayed. It is overwhelming and terrible-and who knows what more is to come.

You can feel the shift in the air. The fear, the strain, the tension, between everyone who is left. What can anyone do? Is there any way out of this? Is everyone truly condemned, after all? Who will betray whom?

What will happen next?

There are seven strangers left in this place.]

((OOC NOTE: This post is your last chance to have your characters explore the Mansion and all of its corners for possible clues. After the Final Investigation is open on Thursday, the Mansion will still be accessible, but the Strangers will be unable to uncover any new clues-or alter their Nightmare levels-in Investigations or Encounters.

You have been warned.))

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[As of Sunday, the following characters have the following levels of Nightmares:

Level 1
Emma

Level 3
Ambrosine

Level 6
Arthur

Level 8
Harriet

Level 9
Eric]

Edited 2019-05-19 18:59 (UTC)

You are my sunshine; my only sunshine...

[From behind this appears to be a familiar sight from when you first arrived at the mansion. The garden, with its usual drab sky. Krone in her matronly dress bent over the well, singing.]

You make me happy when skies are grey...!

[The bucket is all the way up and Krone scoops it out of the well into her arms. She turns to put the water down safe on the ground.]

You never know, dear! How much I love you~

[The right side of her face is completely familiar. On her left eye is a purple eyepatch.]

Please don't take my sunshine away ♪

Edited 2019-05-19 17:32 (UTC)

[Harriet is still spurred on by restlessness and agitation. She's going to check the armory for any advantages they may have missed.]

Edited 2019-05-19 19:02 (UTC)

[As she looks through the armory, she will catch something dripping from the walls near the swords.]

[It's like when they met, almost. The woman at the well, almost like that parable. But not once-married, not more-than-once-married, not a metaphor, not her, not Krone. She is entirely real.

Eric hopes so, at least - and then she turns, and - ]

What awful coincidence, how - God, the same side where Quincey - what happened?

[It was Quincey, wasn't it? And he'd failed, so - then - but no, it was - there had been someone else.

But he's gone, and she's here.

And she's been hurt. Any thought of his present disheveled state falls from Eric's mind as he closes the remaining distance between them at a sprint.]

He hurt me.

[She says slow and clearly, like to a child. With her arms free of the bucket, she spreads her hands; loose and light, bouncing a little too far forward on her feet to resemble most depictions of the Virgin Mary.]

You were the one who cared the most that he didn't respect my body~ How could you forget or change your mind? Did he actually make time to charm you that much? Before he murdered a child?

He -

It was - it was Thanatos.

[Of course it was. There was no way it could be otherwise. Quincey Morris died twenty years ago, true to the end, and kind, never a murderer. Not like the man who carved the arrowhead shoved into his right boot, who'd spun yarns almost as well as he did. The man who apparently -

The events of the recent past are crushing him. But he doesn't know what that's like, being crushed, he doesn't know what it is to have something pin his entire body from the middle of the chest down, to be given by brute force new, loose joints no one alive could have, to feel things inside him that he's never supposed to feel tear and burst - there's nothing in him to vomit, but knowing so apparently doesn't mean his body understands. He turns aside, trying to pass the spasm that just wrenched him halfway over off as a cough that doesn't cover it.]

I'm sorry, I just - he - he experienced what I thought of and didn't... he felt Jun die, and he still didn't confess. Then he - but how did - you were with us in the coffins, weren't you?

[Good morning, friends! Today starts with a shout from the bedrooms. Not a scream - not some extended cry of pain or danger. Just a shout, short and loud and somewhere between fear and shock. Then silence. Then a call, to clarify for anyone worried:]

I'm okay!

[Sort of. He's not sure, his mind is playing tricks on him.

Somewhat later, he'll be in the workshop, just....glumly making figures out of clay. Nothing big or detailed, nothing all that good, just....makeshift toys, really. This is what we're doing now.]

[uh, that's pretty fuckin weird, chief! Let's see what happened there...]

[That Eric would choose either of these two things to fixate on is not something Krone had predicted. She puts a hand on her hips, with that blank stare typical when Eric has exceeded her expectations.]

"Do unto others"... [The tilt of her head seems to indicate this applies to what Thanatos felt in spite of not confessing. It's not worth addressing more seriously, to Krone. She's been in chains and put others in chains. It's a chain or be chained world.]

You saw that night. The way I can—[She brushes the tip of her boot against the bucket. It reappears in the air between them, upside down. The water brushes out.] That's how it was the second time. [You know, for you.] But this time the Lady needed protection, so I made arrangements.

You seriously thought that thing was me? I couldn't even tell it to hold hands with you.

[She smiles mirthlessly.]

Not that anyone else would have noticed if it went to bed early and then I took my position back from that thing the next morning.

Edited 2019-05-19 22:07 (UTC)

[Drip. Drip. Drip.

It's blood.]

All I saw was your - its back. I wasn't - I don't - I don't know what's real anymore, Krone. I want to go home. I want to go home, but there's nothing there but a destiny that...

[He spits out "destiny" as though the word is foul and burns his tongue, then shakes his head, trying to clear it. It doesn't work. He didn't expect this - hadn't dared hope, and isn't that the most awful thing? That in the midst of this, some part of him hopes there's still a future where they walk out of the front gate this place doesn't have, hand in hand like children?]

I wondered how you knew their names. I never asked, when we spoke, so I guess... I guess that you did what I didn't. It was usually the - Giriko, and I told him I'd stay loyal. If you protected his Lady, if you - then -

[Words and voice fail him, and the look on his face is something like wonder, something like dumbfounded shock.]

[Her eyes are fixed on the flick of his tongue on those sibilants, before returning to this new landscape he's building with his words. Populated by at least one objectionable thing...]

Hell no! [The rush of indignation before words that come out all at once, something she's wanted to talk about and hasn't, for so long.] I called him Kirogi because I asked for a name when we first met like I thought ordinary people do, and that's what he told me back then! Before I ever made my offer to him the next day! I still don't know what the hypocritical one is even called!

[As she's gasping for breath, it sinks into her eyes - oh, right, he can only see one of her eyes because the other is behind this thing - he's seeing what she's done—there's not the slightest sign of anger at that deed. Relief at any rate is the name of the expression: Krone's lips part with a slight cry, and she throws both her arms around his neck.]

I was so sure when you saw the real me you'd leave me behind...!

Edited (he -> she ) 2019-05-19 23:22 (UTC)

[of course it's blood. What else can she expect from this place? Harriet freezes, on guard now.

She's not going to get closer to the blood before trying to look up to see what it's dripping from.]

[The ceiling. And the walls. And the moment she takes a step, she will find that the floor is also leaking blood as well.]

[Emma sets up in the dining room, spreading out a couple of sheets of paper full of notespaperweight prototype of some kind of machine.

Emma still looks a little troubled, or perhaps a little shellshocked, but either way, she's here to answer any questions anyone has about these.]

[You would think Emma would be a little more concerned about her own well-being after yesterday, but no. Apparently, not, because she hears that shout and comes running.]

Arthur? What's going on?!

[for some reason, Osomatsu's been able to sleep without nightmares lately.

that doesn't mean he sleeps well, considering everything that's happened. he's still haunted by his thoughts when he's awake, wondering where Akko and Franciscus are. if it was possible to talk to the dead, maybe he... can try...

he throws off his blanket and gets up early that morning, grabbing one of the souls he took from the trial two Saturdays ago. he can't sleep, so he might as well try this. he goes down to the parlor and sits on the couch. then he holds out the blue soul and stares determinedly at it before closing his eyes and focusing on the whatever power he has inside of him]

My heart inside of me... my heart inside my image... Oh, Franciscus... live once again.

[Judging by the fact he's sitting upright in bed, eyes wide, breath heaving? A nightmare. It takes him a moment to respond.

He isn't used to the nightmare continuing after he wakes up.]

S-Sorry!

[Eric wants this to be real. More than anything - more than wanting the ache of knowing he can't go back to who he's been to cease, more than the way the growing awareness that he's heading into a second week without "food" gnaws at him - he wants this moment, this action he'd so hoped Krone would take,to be real.

So he doesn't question it. This is permission; he settles his arms around her as he's longed to for weeks. This is almost muscle memory - there may have only been one woman for him, before, but he knows how to hold a woman who clung to him first.]

I made my choice. If I have any say about it, I will not leave your side. I was... I was afraid, too....

[And yet here she is. Krone is holding on to him as though he's real, when he's exhausted and confused and heartsick and wearing clothing stiffened and stained with the blood of a child-turned-soldier. He's a confused, frightened mix of a grown man and young boy, twined together so neither could be called anything but a part of the other, desperate to find a way to discern what is memory and what is illusion and what is real -

Krone is real enough, for him, for now.

He made his choice, after all.]

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Page 1 of 9

FINAL WEEK

CURRENT NIGHTMARE LEVELS

SUNDAY

INVESTIGATION/ENCOUNTER THREAD

MONDAY

TUESDAY

WEDNESDAY

...

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CNTUAW - this is likely to head bleak, dark places

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TPN spoilers and concomitant disturbing themes start here.

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bedroom

1d150 for talking to the mummies = (77) = 77

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