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

[narcoolepsysensei]

[Nanaki actually nods at the response. He has a student that speaks entirely in bird coos and even the human can somehow understand him, so... yeah, he can probably understand Grianos.]

Ah, I see. Still, intelligent enough to understand me! Well on his way.

It's nice to meet you, friend.

[And that smile he offers Grianos is actually pretty genuine. Aww, look, he's making a friend(?).]

[illusionarymelody]

[Grianos looks like a happy bird at making another friend, but he's pretty easily pleased.]

He's a familiar, so he's a bit different from a normal bird. He's very comfortable around people, so he won't be scared of you.

[She did hear what was said at the meeting, and she knows Grianos probably is picking up on Nanaki being a bird in human form and that is going to make it easy for Nanaki to befriend the familiar.]

[narcoolepsysensei]

Haha, well. Where I'm from, what you'd think of as a "normal bird" are pretty few and far between. This lovely fellow here would actually be a bit lower on the intelligence spectrum than some of us.

[A pause.]

...Which is of no offense to you, of course. [Spoken gently to Grianos.] My world has been through a much different set of circumstances. I'm sure, in yours, you're much brighter than your peafellows.

vague mention of CS4 spoiler

[illusionarymelody]

If we both had powers he'd be more clearly magical in nature. Some familiars can even talk and change into human forms and use magic like a witch. Grianos isn't like that but he has ways to communicate with me. Sadly without his powers he's not much different from a well trained pet.

[narcoolepsysensei]

I see. Magic, hm~? Fascinating... in my world, that's just in the realm of fantasy.

But then again, I know my world sounds insane to all of you, so I suppose it works out.

[He's just... not gonna comment on the 'pet' part. It's maybe a little uncomfortable, given the world he's from.]

In my world, birds are the dominant species. Many of us are just as intelligent as humans ever were. I was speaking like this long before I ever wound up in this body, for example.

[illusionarymelody]

Most people in my original world don't know about witches and magic, so I'm used to it seeming like fantasy.

But birds are truly normally able to talk and such? That's quite interesting since I've only seen that from some familiars due to magic.

[narcoolepsysensei]

Hm, interesting. You manage to keep something like this a secret? That's impressive.

[...A yawn.]

Yes. Birds were the originators of a virus that was harmless to us, but devastating to humans... it decimated much of the human population. They made an attempt to do the same to the bird population with a counter-virus, but it failed. All it did was mutate us so that we're just as smart as they ever were.

[illusionarymelody]

You're saying a virus can actually make a creature more intelligent? I only thought they were capable of doing harm, well except for Halley.

Or is that what you're saying is that it's like her and does good things for, well birds in this case. Sounds like it wasn't so good for the people.