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

[katzenpfote]

He is a warlock, and as such is bound by a pact rather than simply devotion. Uk'otoa is a giant serpent with many eyes that was sealed deep within the Lucidian Ocean. It reached out to Fjord when he was drowning from a shipwreck, and I do not knwo that he was a willing party to the pact.

If Uk'otoa was set free, it would drown the world, leaving only ocean. Two of the three keys to its release have been put into place... and Fjord has the third. It is not all that happy about it, as you might imagine. And Fjord has no interest in ruling the world's waters, even though he is a sailor.

So their relationship is... strained, as you might imagine.

[unwittingking]

…oof. And I thought Pete was one of the worst celestial beings I could meet...

[He shakes his head a little bit. Now he almost feels ridiculous. Almost. He still hates that gryphon.]

And I'm assuming that keeping the key is more or less the only way to keep this Uk'otoa at bay...possibly literally? Or is there actually something else that could keep the guy from coming to power, even if he gets his...tentacles on the key?

[It's weird to talk about sea beings with natural phrases.]

[katzenpfote]

... Well it's a little hard to get the key without Fjord's consent or probably killing him. It is inside of him now.

I do not know what else could keep him down other than divine interference, which is very difficult to do directly since the Divine Gate was put in place to separate the gods from the Material Plane. ... But that doesn't mean their creations were sealed beyond it as well. Hence... this problem.

[unwittingking]

…I'm not going to ask and I'd appreciate it if you don't answer.

[Because he is really not sure how that could work...at all...especially with how low tech his world is...]

So basically, either play the world's most dangerous version of keep-away, or somehow get the attention of gods to fix the problem they made, which might be completely impossible with a magic barrier in the way preventing their intervention.

You have my sympathies for having to deal with all of this.

[And he means that. If he had to deal with everything Caleb's gone thru at this point, he might've gone completely insane.]

[katzenpfote]

Something like that. At least we got rid of the woman who was trying to release Uk'otoa, being another person bound by its pacts - though she seemed much more enthusiastic about the pact in general.

... And enthusiastic about Fjord when she found out he was bound to the same being. In the... eh... bumsen sense of enthusiastic. Much to Jester's dismay.

[unwittingking]

Yeah, some people are a bit more...fanatical about that sort of stuff. I think Pete made deals with about every animal in the forest to get free from his temple. When someone actually got the thing open, I think the poor guy more or less became prophet in their eyes, and he hates every minute of it.

[Poor, poor rabbit Zach.]

[katzenpfote]

Is he destructive, or... ?

[unwittingking]

Zach or Pete? Zach's pretty harmless. He apparently released Pete on accident after sneaking out of his house to hang out with some forest animals, and no matter how many times he says he isn't some prophet, they always call him 'The Opener of Ways' or something like that.

Pete, meanwhile, is the reason I'm more or less numb to a lot of the crazier things that can happen. Pretty much was trying use me as plaything for some game him and two others were playing, and when I refused, used about as many dirty tricks as he could think of to make me, until me and some others were able to get him and one of the others playing the game to lose. Now they're spending about sixty years as mortals for punishment of losing said game.

[So...both of them are easy to handle, at the moment.]

[katzenpfote]

The one with the temple, I meant. But I can see why you were taking a lot of things in stride. Not everything, but more than most.

[unwittingking]

Yeah, that’s Pete. The celestial jerk himself. Not inherently destructive, but manipulative as all Hell. He may want to destroy me, but he can’t really do that right now.

I’ve gone through a lot more than I ever expected to in my life. At this point I’m not sure if there’s much that can surprise me anymore.

[Everything on the trains has more or less amplified that feeling.]

[katzenpfote]

I don't know, maybe you should come along to my world after you spend time with your family. You might be surprised then.

[unwittingking]

Hard pass. I appreciate the offer, but if I go on one more adventure, voluntarily or not, I might have an aneurism from the stress or something.

[katzenpfote]

That's fair, I'll just have to change into a cat in front of you in your world.

[He's not even sure if it'd work, given the needed manipulations of the arcane weave, but.]

[unwittingking]

…can you actually do that? Just shapeshift casually?

[That'd be wild]

[katzenpfote]

Ja, I can. With spells, but they are not hard to do at this point.

[unwittingking]

Huh.

[Weird coincidences.]

Yeah, it might be interesting to have you around Babylon Gardens. It's been pretty calm since the cosmic game ended. You and Nott and the others could probably take a break there, after you get the whole waring kingdoms thing settled.

[Assuming they can shapeshift.]

[katzenpfote]

It would be nice... we need to figure out who is leaving these things weakening the walls between planes, but... we cannot run on empty forever, despite what some of us try to do.

[unwittingking]

Oh we will. And even if I'm not a fan of doing it, I'd prefer to get this stuff fixed before any more people gets sucked into these things.

But it's also nice to have time when we can just relax and not worry about stuff like that. Not lose all our hair from stress, you know?

[katzenpfote]

... Oh. I meant in my world. Someone is attempting to poke open holes to the Abyss.

[unwittingking]

…okay, how many worlds is this a problem in? Cause this is just getting ridiculous.

[Maybe Vita wasn't so off about the idea of a cult of horrible people doing weird stuff like this...]

[katzenpfote]

No idea, but I don't like that it's become a pattern.

[unwittingking]

Me neither, and at this point, if we somehow get the chance, I suggest we take a vacation in a dimension that's brand new or something. They just don't have anyone that would want to try something like that.

[katzenpfote]

Pick someone who has a clamer world. At this point even Charlotte's is looking like a good prospect.

[unwittingking]

Yeah. I'd take Dracula over this any day. At worst we'd just have to deal with a vampire.

[Stock up on stakes, holy water, crosses, and garlic...maybe a stake made out of a cross!]

[katzenpfote]

They don't like fire, do they? I can provide.