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

MONDAY

[strangerpeople]

INVESTIGATION

[strangerpeople]

TUESDAY

[strangerpeople]

WEDNESDAY

[strangerpeople]

THURSDAY

[strangerpeople]

FRIDAY

[strangerpeople]

SATURDAY

[strangerpeople]

[backuphero]

[Well, Jonathan's staying with his wife, in her less messed up house. The layout is the same as the one he woke up in, pretty much. (Don't think it's identical, don't, that is a fast train to crazy -) Walking through, looking closely at the way the building is constructed... do the dimensions of House 12's interior actually add up?]

[strangerpeople]

[The dimensions of House 12 look to be exactly the same as his house, down to the layout and materials used for construction.

Jonathan might notice something about the houses if he's savvy about house architecture of his approximate time, though!]

Library

[beguiledcard]

[ He's hitting the library today, but not to read.

Instead, he's here to very thoroughly examine the walls, first.

. . . Also, any chance he can do something like Scanning? ]

[strangerpeople]

[He can scan, but when he does, he doesn't see any thoughts.

All he sees is ticking static around him.]

MEETING TIME

[katzenpfote]

[After all of... that... Caleb had just tried to focus. Everyone seemed to have had a similar experience, so they might as well get questions out of the way now.]

[Especially for those who seemed to recognize their ‘hosts’.]

[So after consulting Nanaki, everyone wakes up to a small scrap of paper shoved under their door, written in a careful hand.]

‘Meet at noon in house 14.

[Caleb sits there near the sleepy bird man and gestures for everyone to shuffle in and close the door.]

The Games

[katzenpfote]

We should discuss things. Everyone here has been through an event with trials and murders, correct? Where was it located?

I was with the train group.

[byanyother_name]

[Kurama is rarely ever far from Akira and honestly is in complete agreement on looking for things that might be hidden. So he's helping Akira check the walls, and also examining bookshelves in case someone wanted to live the cliche.]

I'm wondering if this place has some equivalent to the UG. I haven't tried retuning yet but I'm considering it.

[unwittingking]

[Hey, look who actually came to a meeting this time!]

Also from the train group.

[Said while raising a hand. Some people already know this by now, but he should probably say it for those that don't.]

[beguiledcard]

Mall.

[ He's sitting as much in a corner as he can get away with. And also leaving his answer at that. ]

[touchsensors]

I was in a space house-lun.

[This obviously requires no further elaboration.]

[incendiarize]

Mansion of madness. [And very grumpy about it!]

But I think I saw something about trains? And a woman I couldn't see. Not like she was invisible, she just wouldn't... Like, I forgot the second I wasn't looking at her.

[illusionarymelody]

Base and airplane. Same applies for Jonathan.

[beguiledcard]

[ He's frowning at Kurama, pausing from looking closely at everything just to take his boyfriend's hand. Sorry to include mushy romantic gestures in an investigation thread, mods. ]

Whatever you do, be careful.

[ But back to Scanning ticking... static... Sigh, he'd be weirded out or fazed if not for his entire life's Everything. What happens if he focuses on the static? Anything else he can note about it? ]

[byanyother_name]

[Kurama is sitting near Akira, one hand rubbing at his wrist.]

I'm from the mall.

[illusionarymelody]

Oh so now denying having been at the Base as well?

[She's definitely glaring at him. Someone is clearly quite bitter with him for some reason.]

Barrier

[illusionarymelody]

[Vita will be looking into the barriers some more. Since she's familiar with a few different sorts she wants to get some more information and see if there is anything that can be done to break them. Even without her powers she has experience working with both magical and technologically sourced barriers and first wants to get an idea of what may be powering this one. Anything she can figure out?]

cold warps

[touchsensors]

When I try to go somewhere other than these houses and the main building, everything gets cold and then I get warped back to the house I started in-lun. Is that happening for everyone else-lun?

[backuphero]

[So it's really, truly identical. Great. But that wasn't quite what he was looking at - based on the size of the place seen from outside, does the interior seem... off?

Well, he's no tradesman, but the fact that these seem to all be built of metal is weird. Beyond that, though... he's not really one to notice architecture that much if it isn't actively hostile. Is it something that'd be noticeable to someone with no idea what Le Corbusier means, or are we really talking detail here?]