15strangers | W͜͏̶Ę͏E͝͠K͝͞ ̧1̵͟

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.]

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

All he sees is ticking static around him.]

[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.

[ 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? ]

[At first, there is nothing.

As the moments pass by, however, he will start to notice forms within the static.]

[ Oh that's... uhhhh...

What - if any - distinguishing features can be made out about these forms? How many are there? ]

[Oh, Akira will be able to recognize them very well. One word: stencil-like. And there are dozens within the static.

More than that, the longer he stares, the more the static becomes darker, and darker...and the ticking sound that is everywhere gets louder.]

[ Recognize them... as in these are somethings from the game he was just in?

On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being unbearable, how loud is the ticking going to get if he just ignores common sense? ]

[Yes.

The tick is getting up to 3 right now.]

[ OH BOY - so, basically, we have a Noise problem? Or at least what looks to be a Noise problem, to him? ]

[Looks like it, yup. And a pretty bad one at that-the area looks saturated. It seems it would be impossible to clear them all out, even if one pacted.]

[ Ugh, yeah, this is definitely a problem. He's going to get right on with talking to Kurama and Karma as soon as they're done here.

For now, he'll be putting the rest of this investigation on hold. There's still a lot to talk about and plan. ]

[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.]

[Okay, let's take a closer look at the R section, then.]

[There is a book spine-shaped line of static on one of the bookshelves.]

[Kurama frowns slightly at that. He's going to find a pencil to poke it with before he risks trying to touch it himself.]

[The static seems to glitch and stutter at the poke. The pencil seems fine, though.]

[Alright, since the pencil seems okay, Kurama's going to touch it carefully.

Just out of curiosity, does this book shaped static resemble what it looks like when a soul or Noise is Erased?]

[It does.

As he touches the book, however, the static starts to flicker.]

[Kurama didn't even know objects were subject to Erasure. But that flickering looks like a bad sign and if they bothered to Erase the book it was probably important.

He's not completely sure where all the lines are between what a Reaper can do and what a Composer can do; he wasn't supposed to be a Reaper for long. He's also not sure if he has access to those Reaper abilities with the game taking his other powers again.

But seeing as he'll never know if he never tries, he's going to try to stabilize the book's existence since it hasn't vanished yet.]

[Oddly enough, it doesn't take much to stabilize it-in fact, it looks like something anyone can accomplish in this case. All Kurama needs to do is pull the book out and hold onto it, until finally, the static wavers, falters, and then dissipates, leaving an. ordinary book in its wake.

Or maybe it isn't an ordinary book? It was clearly targeted for a reason.

>Examine?]

[>Examine.]

[It is a green book. Thankfully for Kurama, it is also in Japanese.

It is called Run, Melos! And Other Stories, by an author named Osamu Dazai. It seems an otherwise ordinary book, but one still has to wonder why this book, out of all others, was Erased as it was.]

Edited 2020-01-28 19:36 (UTC)

[He can read some English! But yes, Japanese is easiest. Osamu Dazai... One definitely has to wonder. He's going to open the book and skim the pages to see if anything stands out.]

[He will notice that the publication date is 2001.]

[Past his time and before Akira's. Is it after 2001 in this world or was this pulled here from somewhere else?

Is this a paperback or some other sort of binding?]

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strangerpeople - 2020-01-31 23:52 (UTC) - Expand