W͜͏̶Ę͏E͝͠K͝͞ ̧1̵͟

[strangerpeople]

W͜͏̶Ę͏E͝͠K͝͞ ̧1̵͟

[The national council just announced the blight to the country.

There was no sugarcoating it anymore. This was a critical time. Saving all of the vines is paramount, but what does one do when the blight hits? It keeps encroaching on the grapes, day by day. Entire clusters, entire bunches, dead and rotting, while allowing the blight to spread, and the leading botanists and viticulturists cannot identify the origin or the cause. They can't even successfully isolate the culprit in their labs; it seems to disappear like air no matter the precautions taken.

It is a catastrophe that seems to be beyond science, and it will result in the complete collapse of the entire country's wine industry. Already, embargoes on this year's crop have forced other grape-growers to close shop for the year after they'd sold their previous stock; it is all too possible that no grapes might ever be grown here again if a cure cannot be found. The tourists have stopped coming. The towns have grown silent.

You, meanwhile, are devastated. With the way your business is going, it will be on the brink of bankruptcy within the year. You will soon have no choice but to close shop and let every grapevine die, let the land go fallow. There must be a cure for this, there must be. Yet everything that can go wrong is.

Then, as you watch the news, it happens. Breaking news. The blight has been found in another country.

It is a pandemic-and it is only getting worse.


-

Well. This is...what else can can anyone say? You all know the deal. You all know what situation you're in. All that is left is to figure out what you can do about it. If there's anything that can be done.

You still feel that compulsion to distrust. To know you cannot win. To know that only the hosts have your best interests in mind. It would be easy to just do all that. But would it be the right thing to do? You can't be completely sure. Indeed, nothing is certain here, except for that damned ticking sound. If only you could stop it.

But you can't stop it. It is inevitable.


There are 15 strangers in this place.]

Comments

INVESTIGATION

[strangerpeople]

[backuphero]

[Well, Jonathan's staying with his wife, in her less messed up house. The layout is the same as the one he woke up in, pretty much. (Don't think it's identical, don't, that is a fast train to crazy -) Walking through, looking closely at the way the building is constructed... do the dimensions of House 12's interior actually add up?]

[strangerpeople]

[The dimensions of House 12 look to be exactly the same as his house, down to the layout and materials used for construction.

Jonathan might notice something about the houses if he's savvy about house architecture of his approximate time, though!]

[backuphero]

[So it's really, truly identical. Great. But that wasn't quite what he was looking at - based on the size of the place seen from outside, does the interior seem... off?

Well, he's no tradesman, but the fact that these seem to all be built of metal is weird. Beyond that, though... he's not really one to notice architecture that much if it isn't actively hostile. Is it something that'd be noticeable to someone with no idea what Le Corbusier means, or are we really talking detail here?]

[strangerpeople]

[The interior doesn't seem off in any way, size-wise or otherwise. It all looks reasonably normal for...well, for what this place seems to be at least. The furniture is just as prefabricated as the building itself, with some of it even embedded in the wall.

It's thankfully something noticeable to a mind unlearned about the modernist movement-it's an almost small thing, but given this place, it's still noticeable. There's a slot where the address number is on the door, and beneath that, a slot where a family name would be put onto.

It's nothing but static, as if erased or simply undone.]

Library

[beguiledcard]

[ He's hitting the library today, but not to read.

Instead, he's here to very thoroughly examine the walls, first.

. . . Also, any chance he can do something like Scanning? ]

[strangerpeople]

[He can scan, but when he does, he doesn't see any thoughts.

All he sees is ticking static around him.]

[byanyother_name]

[Kurama is rarely ever far from Akira and honestly is in complete agreement on looking for things that might be hidden. So he's helping Akira check the walls, and also examining bookshelves in case someone wanted to live the cliche.]

I'm wondering if this place has some equivalent to the UG. I haven't tried retuning yet but I'm considering it.

[beguiledcard]

[ He's frowning at Kurama, pausing from looking closely at everything just to take his boyfriend's hand. Sorry to include mushy romantic gestures in an investigation thread, mods. ]

Whatever you do, be careful.

[ But back to Scanning ticking... static... Sigh, he'd be weirded out or fazed if not for his entire life's Everything. What happens if he focuses on the static? Anything else he can note about it? ]

[strangerpeople]

[Nothing with the walls, save with how one enters and exits.

As for the bookshelves, dear god they are a mishmash of shelving and books, as if someone went to totally different time periods and just threw in whatever they found onto the shelf. As he continues, though, he might notice something in the R section.]

Barrier

[illusionarymelody]

[Vita will be looking into the barriers some more. Since she's familiar with a few different sorts she wants to get some more information and see if there is anything that can be done to break them. Even without her powers she has experience working with both magical and technologically sourced barriers and first wants to get an idea of what may be powering this one. Anything she can figure out?]

[strangerpeople]

[Will she be touching it, trying to walk through it, etc.?]

[illusionarymelody]

[She'll first get as close as she can without touching it to see if there is a reaction. If nothing then she'll touch it. She just wants to make sure it won't shock her or do anything bad first.]

[strangerpeople]

[At first, nothing happens as she gets close to it. The closer she gets, however, the closer she feels a cold start to still in the air.

Touching it results in that cold becoming stronger, bone-deep to the point of near-paralysis. More than that, it starts to draw Vita towards it.]

Houses

[touchsensors]

[Lala has two different things she wants to do here today.

First, she has an experiment. In her own house, with her little friend looking on, she unscrews a light bulb and tries to power it with her antennae. Can she manage to produce any electricity, or is that cut off entirely?

Regardless of the outcome of that experiment, she'll move on, going outside and heading over to house number question mark aka the building across from Eric. Starting with the obvious approach, she tries the front door.]

[strangerpeople]

[The experiment is a dud. Nothing happens.

As for the the door of the unknown building, it opens easily. Come on in!]

[touchsensors]

Oyo...

[Wow, she, uh... she was kind of expecting to have to get a little more creative there.

What do we have in here? Or to be a little more specific, does it look more or less like house 3 inside, or does something immediately stand out as Different?]

[strangerpeople]

[It does look more or less like Lala's house, on first glance.

As she looks, though, she might spot something interesting on the bed.]

shore let's put this here

[incendiarize]

[Okay. Yesterday's peek at time went weird. He's gonna just sit cross-legged on his bed in House 2, and try to repeat that. He knows he doesn't have a lot of control so maybe he won't get the same guy, but....he did say come back later. And it's later!

He has no idea if that was future or past. Oh well. Let's see what we can see!]

1/2

[strangerpeople]

[For one long moment, there is nothing. Nothing at all.

Then, fire-]

A Season Unending [cw: death, fire, blood, some sadism]

[strangerpeople]

[The city is on fire.

You watch, beneath your helm as the gleaming white-gold stone burns, and the fleeing survivors are cut down like dogs. You wade through the blood and bodies of your fallen enemies-civilian, soldier, it means little. All are inferior to your race, and all will fall before the end.

The end. You smile at the thought. The fell muse which seized you is strong, and you have done many things for it that before you would not have even entertained to think of, but you do not care. This is what must happen. This is how you and your people-the true people, the greatest people-will ascend into what they were always meant to be. Compared to that, what are your actions in this imperfect mortal reality?

You finally make your way to the center of the White-Gold, where your men are dragging out the relics you were seeking. With them were two unconscious bodies. One is female, and the other...impossible to identify. But at the same time, for you, impossible to forget.

The Emperor and their foul vampiric consort. You cannot help the smile on your face. You have waited years for this moment, ever since they humiliated you. But you will do more than humiliate them.

One of your men unsheathes their sword.]

Sapiarch Elenwen, shall we-

[You hold up a hand.]

No. I want them alive. Prepare these two and the Daedric artifacts for my journey to Skyrim.

[Your man immediately bows. Another soldier hands you the bow and arrows you also sought; you sling both onto your back. Even in its uncorrupted state, you know the weapon is useful against bandits, for the moment.]

Sapiarch, what of the Tower?

[You feel sadistic, petty glee flow through your veins as you respond, nodding to a subordinate with a cart filled with the dead. Yes, the Tower is inert and has been for centuries. Now, you will make sure it can never come back to life again.]

Take the dead of this disgusting city and fill them into every level of the reality spike. Cast a detonation spell on one of them. That will do it.

[So you watch as thousands of dead are brought into the White-Gold; it takes hours, but it is worth it to see the detonation spell cast, to watch as from bottom to top the Tower explodes, the dead within making the entire endeavor like a chain of dominoes falling. Ancient stone cracks and falls as the massive thing collapses on itself.

A Law has fallen, crumbled to ruin and ashes and pebbles strewn around broken walls. It will never rise again.

Reality is that much closer to ending...and soon the game you have devised from that fell muse's inspiration will begin.


but not for Arthur, who falls back, still feeling the heat in the air and the strange sparkle of madness from whoever's memory he had just experienced.]

[incendiarize]

[It's not what he was after. It's worse.

Fire, everywhere, so much the air itself may as well be ablaze, he can taste the smoke thick on the air, smell the putrid stench human skin makes when it burns, and it's familiar. He knows this world. It's the first world he ever knew - not the one he's seeing now, but the world of fire and death. Hell on Earth.

Before he knows what he's doing, before he's come all the way back to the present, he stumbles outside. Air. He needs fresh air. He needs open space, and fresh air, clean of the wreckage of Gotham. So he sits on the ground right outside the door of House 2, breathing heavily.]

What the hell's a Skyrim?

[byanyother_name]

[Aside from his library trip with Akira, there's something specific nagging (ha) at Kurama that he wants to check out. So he's stopping back in at Cat Nya-land to see just how identical it is to the original.

Specifically, he's checking for the trap door to the fabricator's hideout.]

[strangerpeople]

[The trap door is still there.]

[byanyother_name]

[Very identical. Kurama is going to see if he can open it, then.]