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

[poorlovefool]

Right, I'll just... ask one of them, then. [possibly at a later time since he's still made note of the hostilities between the Base Dwellers and the Mall Rats]

God. It's so fucked up how all of these situations are basically random other than the really specific murder setup. I thought my lot was crazy, but meeting everyone here... it almost feels like some cosmic joke. Or a trick, or some other bullshit like that.

[illusionarymelody]

I think there may be more in common than just the specific murder setup. Each group seems to have some threads in common whether it be what worlds people are from, specifics about the location, what happened to the dead, and so on. There are many factors that 2-3 groups have in common, even if not all do. One thing that keeps coming up is us finding out people we knew from home were among other groups.

[poorlovefool]

Oh... I guess that's like how Akane's brother showed up in the version of the Depths that Linkara was in... Sorry, you don't know any of those people, right?

If anyone knows Mira though, please let me know. I'm sure it'd be another Mira, since my angel was with me the entire time, but it's still my job to protect her if we're both involved in this!

[there's glittering white light in the air around him as he makes this declaration. it's very bright]

[illusionarymelody]

[Vita is a bit confused and trying not to giggle. Well, there are all sorts.]

Sorry, all of my mira was missing when I woke up on the plane.

[Whoops, she mistook it for mira as in money. She's just not heard of that being a name before so her first thought is her world's currency.]

[poorlovefool]

Wh- Ohhhh. You're from Fie's world, aren't you. [he's just going to namedrop really casually since we're already testing this theory that everyone knows everyone else.]

[illusionarymelody]

Fie Claussel? Yes, she's from my original world and so are McBurn and Estelle. I live in Jonathan's now, but still go back to visit at times.