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

[incendiarize]

[...Oh right, he was gonna ask Vita about Eddie. Jonathan will do just as well.]

Eddie....Kim? He's like super duper dead.

[As for math demon.] Yeah, his name's Shoe Minamimoto and he never shuts up about math, and the guys from the mall hate him because he's terrible, and they caught him but he got busted out by some lady.

[illusionarymelody]

Of course Eddie is dead. We killed him and took back the plane.

[Of course Vita is listening still.]

[incendiarize]

Uh, he was in the mansion with us though. He died in the first week and the Stewards didn't bother with a trial.

[illusionarymelody]

Do we know if he's even the same person? His name isn't exactly unusual, but his personality was definitely... unique. Maybe you could start by telling us more of the one in the mansion?

[incendiarize]

I never actually talked to the guy, but his profile said he liked snakes, planes, and putting snakes on planes.

[illusionarymelody]

He sure did put many snakes on that plane. I wonder if he was another double or if he was actually brought back like Ace and Satania and we just didn't realize it?

[necroyalty]

I had the displeasure of disposing of his corpse, but I still never got to see much of the man when he was alive. Someone else was the one to actually kill him.