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

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...]

[incendiarize]

It's a soul. Don't eat it.

[a r t h u r.]

[poorlovefool]

Why would we EAT it?!

[unwittingking]

Eric, I think you are asking a question we do not want the answer to.

[poorlovefool]

Oh. Sorry!

[incendiarize]

Desperation.

[It was why they'd eaten them in the mansion.]

Especially don't eat this one, but if anything that looks kinda like it shows up it's probably still a soul so don't. They also come in blue, purple, and white with angel wings.

[poorlovefool]

All right... then what are you gonna do with this one? You can't just keep a soul in a jar like it's a pet, can you?

[unwittingking]

…got it.

[They...did ask. He's just not gonna ask about why it's got a physical form.]

[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...

[illusionarymelody]

I'll start with the plane since that seems to be where the repeats are.

Jonathan's is the Double, that came from the base. Atsushi is the one who got his old title, the Techno. Our Hosts, Hiyori and Link are the Approach and the Component, respectively. The other one from the Base is the Glow. My current title is the same as the one I had on the plane.

The other titles from the plane are the Ursa, Taskmaster, Dawn and Dusk, Shining, Obtuse, Outcast, Cuckoo, Future, and Destroyer. I don't know all their powers, but I do know Outcast can summon a familiar, that was Beatrice's.

The other Base titles are The Hungry, Swap, Snow, Coat, Sputnik, Kragle, Survivor, Puppet, Confounded, and Drunk.

[incendiarize]

Ursa and Obtuse were in the mansion with us, those were Akko and Krone.

[illusionarymelody]

[She remembers Arthur mentioning Krone in relation to Eric.]

Definitely interesting. I didn't find out what those powers did though to be able to confirm if the power is the same. The Ursa was actually in the room next to mine and named Zelos. He was a suspect for the murder, but innocent. The Obtuse was a dog named Ace, who was killed by Akira's double, Ren.

[Now it's starting to come out why she's a bit distrustful of Akira. Though she wishes she could have been lucky and not remembered dying like Ace and Satania.]

[incendiarize]

We should probably try and find out if the powers are consistent....so, if the Noodles can turn her hair into bladed whips, or something. Then we'd know, right?

[beguiledcard]

[ Quietly: ]

... Akko...

[unwittingking]

…Atsushi was there?

[Yeah, uh, sorry Vita! The corgi you don't like is worried again about one of the people you knew.]

[illusionarymelody]

Yes and he went home with my brother in law, Yurick.

[poorlovefool]

Oh... I do, then. Four of those are Depths powers.

[there was a flicker of guilt as she read off a few of those, in fact. Most of them, really.]

I think I might know what's going on here. It would mean this is even more of a mess than we thought, but ... it reminds me a lot of something that happened there, the titles jumping around and all. Want to hear it?

[illusionarymelody]

I'd be interested in hearing it. I think everyone here has potential insights to share about all the common threads between groups. If you want to know more about who had which I'll give what I know.

[byanyother_name]

[It takes a moment, and Kurama's lips are pressed thin, but he finally speaks quietly.]

The Future, the Chance, and the Bad Luck were also mall titles. Yuuri Katsuki, a victim, Croix Meridies, working with the game runners until the last week, and Chariot du Nord or Ursula Callistis.

[illusionarymelody]

[She's not too pleased either, and especially when she's not going to be able to avoid a certain topic because The Future was Akira's double.]

The Future I know was a teleportation power for us on the plane. It belonged to your friend's double. In our case, The Puppet was the one working with the game runners.

[And she's just going to try to attempt to evade speaking of what her power does. She'll do better speaking of it to someone more neutral than someone she is actively just trying to be civil towards.]

[touchsensors]

Oh, I'm the Chance-lun. [Everyone knows that, Lala.] Apparently this time it doesn't include a power-lun.

[katzenpfote]

None of those overlap with ours.