15strangers | W͜͏̶Ę͏E͝͠K͝͞ ̧1̵͟

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[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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ja. I... we have to fight humanoids in our line of work sometimes, but it is a necessity to both keep ourselves safe and often to reach our goals. We try to not kill where it is not needed, though. And battle is different than something like that.

But it is... unfortunate that you had to go through that as well.

It's rather normal in my original world. Jonathan's world is a bit nicer in that regard where the lines are clearer and those that need to be killed are clearly evil and the average person doesn't see what he does to protect them. In my world the lines are more blurred and a terrible person could have good intentions and a good person's intentions could become warped into something terrible.

In places like this it's worse because you don't know who could betray, you can only hope that you aren't going to be their victim. All this distrust they are putting in our heads certainly doesn't help.

It does seem that way. Monsters are a bit more... openly known where I am from, from what I understand. And they're sometimes people, as well.

... I've dealt with magic putting things in someone's head before. I refuse to let it grab hold of me again.

Have you noticed that resisting seems easier with some people than others? It's easy to resist with Jonathan, I'd not have married a man I couldn't trust. Yet I can't resist it with someone I had reason to distrust before even coming here.

It is easier with King, somewhat easier with McBurn. I tend to be suspicious of people in general, but we cannot afford that here. So I am trying to at least dampen my natural suspicion.

I already knew McBurn so he's easier to trust because of previous knowledge. Same goes with Estelle, though I know her more by reputation. I just seems earlier to cling to evidence that they can be trusted or the lack of evidence for distrust.

I'm possibly the last person to talk to about trusting people. I was ready to walk away from my group many times. ... I am glad I did not, though. We may be stabbed in the back, but... we have to at least give people a chance.

[He holds a hand up before she can say anything.]

And I am not telling you that you must hug it out or something with Akira, or even like him. But we need to at least do our best to not get violent and at least listen to the information we all have. I am not saying that you will not, but he may have some information we need. If you don't like him, at least let him be useful.

It's not as easy as that. The Akira at the Base told us about how these games work based on his experience at the Mall and that we shouldn't fall for their motives and we should try to find a way to escape before anyone dies. He was useful and everyone trusted him and looked up to him as a leader with experience.

And then he's the first one to kill. I'd not even fault him for taking the motive, he had good intentions. It was his method for killing that was terrible and I know Jonathan was horrified by what he saw because he still has nightmares of it and reacts poorly if I'm not there when he wakes up. I know I'm broken and all these voices don't help when I can't deny what they say.

Maybe if we can break this control somehow I may be able to stay calmer around him? I think without the constant "don't trust him" voice I could do better.

... I see. I am... sorry for that. I should have asked for the circumstances first. ... If we can at least lessen the effect it may help... I will need to think through what I might have read about that kind of magic. It's been... a bit since I researched it.

I feel like we all might be a bit on edge even without that, given what we have been through, but this isn't helping.

No, it's fine. It's not a pleasant topic and hard to bring up with someone. Even Jonathan didn't ask until he realized he needed to know exactly what happened. The other thing that bothered me was how quick everyone was to defend him and insult me. To me there is something inherently wrong with him that causes him to become a monster when his loved ones are in danger. It's not the murder, it's how he did it.

... People act irrationally when they're protecting people they care about. I'm not the best person to judge what the appropriate reaction is, but I do try to stay objective where I can. I won't ask for the details because it sounds personal and painful for you to relive, so I will not make you.

Perhaps the best we can hope for is that none of us are placed in a situation where we have to make that decision or face someone making it for us.

And that when we we do, we can anchor each other.

That may be the harder part, but even I can admit I lack the experience the rest of you have to know how possible it is.

I was been surprised by the people in the train. I expect I might be surprised by the people here, too.

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