15strangers | W͜͏̶Ę͏E͝͠K͝͞ ̧1̵͟

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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh, yeah. It's not that I don't know how a library works. It's more that it freaked me out. But, now that I know what to expect, I could probably go back inside. Probably.

Oh, er... I meant that I have an extremely good memory and could find you the right section quickly.

Oh! Right.

[haha]

Well, thanks! If I think of anything I wanna check out, I'll let you know.

Not a problem. I didn't have access to a library growing up, so I took advantage of the one at school once I was accepted. Most of us read quite a bit there, though... being a school for arcane magic.

[aww. he nods]

See, I wasn't much of a reader... like, at all. Even when books were assigned to me in school, I didn't--

[a pause as he trails off. not his memories! not his memories!]

...I just don't read a lot. Haha...

Ah... well, those of us who got in on merits other than money tended to be... well. Nerds. So the selection of people was skewed.

[He grins a bit.]

We had a lot of assigned reading, but even the dry stuff was enjoyable for me and some of my classmates.

... At one point I thought I might be a teacher, but things didn't turn out that way.

[at least Osomatsu can admire that. a teacher sounds like it could be a fun job... also hard, but fun!]

What would you have taught?

Oh, there were many things... at the time, my specialty was Evocation magic.

[He makes a blue flame appear in his hand, and frost gathers a bit on his glove.]

Something like that, though this is a spell I'm unfamiliar with.

[whoa! cool! is that icy fire? Osomatsu's eyes are lit up like it's Christmas]

I bet you would've been a good teacher! Maybe, someday, you'll get the chance.

[He snuffs the flame out by closing his hand, and shakes his head.]

No. Unfortunately, the group that runs that academy is rotten to the core. They are extremely dangerous and powerful archmages who use others as their playthings and have as much if not more power as the King.

[ah. his smile fades. that's... too bad]

I see...

[those poor kids, though]

... Still, I do teach Nott a bit. She caught on very quickly... I was very proud of her when she cast her first spell.

[well, that's good, at least, that Caleb can still teach someone]

Who is Nott? You mentioned her when you were talkin' about your scams.

Nott the Brave. Sometimes there's a comma, sometimes there isn't. With two Ts, by the way.

She is... well, she looks like a goblin, but she is not. The details of that are her own business to tell. We have known each other for a year - six with the group we travel with, and six months before that. We broke out of prison together.

[we broke out of prison together.

nice]

Ah, I get it! So, she's like your partner-in-crime, huh? A good pal.

Absolutely. We've saved each other more than a few times. I tend to go down easily in fights, but I can also deal a lot of damage with a single spell. She is more precise usually, though.

[Osomatsu nods! Caleb is really interesting, fun to talk to]

She sounds fun.

[he wants to say that he hopes Caleb can get back to her, and his group but... he probably shouldn't]

She is. She really leaned into the whole pirate gunner thing when we ended up being pressed into Avantika's crew.

[???????]

Man, a pirate gunner! Badass! You've got a lot of great stories!

All that and an escape from an underwater temple, and killing demons, and winning a drinking contest against a team of halflings and dwarves, and helping to kill a dragon...

I have only been with these people half a year and all of this stuff has happened.

[dang]

That's pretty cool! You have an exciting life. My life isn't nearly that interesting.

[He just looks at Osomatsu and gestures to where they are.]

I think both of us have had exciting lives. Maybe different kinds of exciting, but...

[well, okay. but this is the kind of exciting Osomatsu could do without!

he chuckles anyway]

Well, I should try to figure out what to get Gerard for food. Maybe the hosts will let him eat something that doesn't taste like sand.

[not that he has any way of contacting the hosts, currently]

What does he normally eat, anyway?

He really likes fish.

[Osomatsu rubs his chin, thinking]

But I've seen him eat other things, too. Meats and fruits.

(no subject)

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