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

Meeting 2: Electric Boogaloo

[byanyother_name]

[Well, it worked last time for Caleb so Kurama is going to follow his lead of leaving notes under doors. His handwriting is very pretty?]

Please meet at 7pm at house 13. I doubt I'm the only one that's been finding things out the past few days.

[It might be noticeable when people arrive that the house's TV is nowhere to be seen.]

MTV

[byanyother_name]

[Kurama's expression is a little grim and unhappy but he seems in firm control of himself at least. He gestures towards where the TV was.]

I seem to be in the business of warnings this time. The televisions are dangerous. There was a red fog and... something in my mind when I turned it on and examined it.

[His jaw sets a little.]

I unplugged it, but because this is not our first rodeo and I am a very suspicious person, I tried turning it back on after that, just for a moment. And it came on, so we have no way to make sure they're nonfunctioning.

[unwittingking]

...yeah, figures those things could do more mind control or something.

[He shouldn’t be surprised at this point.]

Should we take bat from the weapon’s storage and smash them, just in case?

[byanyother_name]

I wouldn't recommend it. Our game had a rule against property damage just like this one does, and breaking it was a death sentence.

I pushed mine into the closet with the screen against the back wall.

[unwittingking]

Of course it’s probably like that...

[Said more quietly, before he speaks a bit louder.]

Any chance it’s just the TVs, or do you think any other electronics are effected with it?

[incendiarize]

[Arthur is here, he's tired, no seriously he nay not have actually slept since arriving.]

Figures it's not something I can just feed to a crocodile this time.

[That's all he really has to add. But he's not liking that mindscrews are a trend.]

[byanyother_name]

Even if it was, I don't think we have a crocodile yet.

[Yet. Kurama got a severed android head once, he puts nothing past the regain hole.]

Creature + Dressing room

[illusionarymelody]

[Vita is there and Grianos is also sitting on her shoulder.]

I did notice some strange things in the clothing area. There were two outfits that came from the Base. One was a costume Halley had been wearing, the other was the spacesuit we all woke up in. That was all I could recognize from the Base and plane. Others may want to see if they recognize anything.

Then in the dining room I found a strange creature under the table. It was white and had ears like a cat, but also looked like it had floppy ears like a rabbit. It was quite friendly and even came right up to me. It eventually ran away and I couldn't find it again. I even had Grianos look around from above for it.

[otherworldlyking]

[ Wait, what. ]

...Did it have red eyes?

[illusionarymelody]

It did. It seemed to be a strange cross between a cat and rabbit. It also made a sound like "~kyuu". [Vita tries her best to imitate the sound, and it's actually not terrible.] Grianos was actually the first one to spot it.

[otherworldlyking]

[ Kudos for the attempt, Vita. ]

What a giant pain in the ass. Can't believe they're here too.

[byanyother_name]

[Kurama goes stiff for a second at Vita's description. He doesn't especially want to talk to her but this is important and he can be professional. So he sounds stressed and urgent but polite.]

This creature. Did it have rings around the longer ears and pink markings?

[illusionarymelody]

It did. It also made a sound. [And he'll get a similar imitation as McBurn got.]

[touchsensors]

Oh, you found Kyuu-lun. It probably went back to my house-lun.

[illusionarymelody]

Did it show up at your house yesterday? It definitely vanished into thin air and can clearly teleport itself. Grianos looked around from above and it didn't appear to be hiding.

[backuphero]

[Jonathan's standing beside Vita, ready to put himself physically in the middle of an argument if need be. He's trying his best to look nonthreatening, almost laid-back... and it's not really at all convincing.

Mostly, he just looks like he feels - worried and out of his element.]

So they grabbed some reminders from there, too, somehow. I hope Halley's okay, that... it seems directed.

[poorlovefool]

Friend of yours? [He's just going to focus on this instead of the Kyuubey talk, because he doesn't know what the hell everyone else is going on about with that.]

House Number Question Mark

[touchsensors]

[Since it came up elsewhere...]

I looked in the extra house the other day-lun. It looks like someone small has been living there-lun.

[poorlovefool]

How small are we talking?

[Part of him is hoping for BABETTE!!! but if it is her then how rude of her to snub him when he went knocking before...]

[touchsensors]

Like a little kid-lun.

[She holds her hand out about three feet above the ground.]

I'm not sure exactly since I didn't find a whole outfit, just a hoodie-lun.

TITLES, I'M NOT LATE YOU'RE LATE ALSO SHUT UP

[incendiarize]

[Arthur is here, he has a jar with a clearly evil thing - a dark red egg-blob with a wiggling tail and blackish scales, and three vertical writhing eyes. I'm sure that's fine. That's not what he's here to talk about.]

So, I'm not sure if this means anything, but we've noticed that there's some coincidences in who was in which games, right? Other than the obvious, there's people who were in different ones but know some of the same people. That kind of thing.

But there's also some overlap in our titles. Like....we had a "The Noodles" and a "The Embarrassing" in the mansion, but the ones here aren't the ones who were there with us.

[...]

Unrelatedly if anyone knows of an Ebarra Forest, that would be cool.

[poorlovefool]

[Eric doesn't know shit about any of these things so he'll DEFINITELY focus on that cursed jar, sorry not sorry.]

What the hell is THAT?

[unwittingking]

Yeah, uh, seconding that?

[He's used to seeing weird things but this is...new...]

[illusionarymelody]

Oh, now that you mention it, one of our hosts had the same title as you on the plane. That would be Hiyori. Link's title was the same as one from the Base and the power involves growing extra limbs.

Jonathan and I gained new titles and powers then. His was one from the Base that belong to one who had died. Another person on the plane got his old title and power. My old title was the Immune and I was immune to other powers. [And she'd much rather have that one back instead of the one she has now.]

Would it help if I give the titles from both the Base and plane then? I don't know all the powers associated with the ones from the plane though.

[poorlovefool]

[well, this topic does sound a bit unsettling already so he'll try to pay attention.]

Maybe. If it's like that, then I wonder if I'll recognize any of them...