15strangers | (no subject)

W̡͜E̶EK ̵̕2̕͠

[The blight would not stop.

The world's leading experts have been trying to find a cure, to no avail. Th blight keeps changing, keeps foiling all attempts at being fully understood. It's almost sentient, or at least more sentient than any disease that's been encountered before. People fear the disease jumping from what's left of the grapes into other plants, into animals, or even humans.

You can only watch as entire economies and ecosystems collapse. You can only bury your head in your hands as your own business comes to its end. The destruction of the clusters of grapes has not simply destroyed the wine industry, either-other businesses are being destroyed by the plague. Food, transport, retail, nothing is untouched.

You look on your own vineyard, its yield almost entirely blackened and dead.

This can't keep going on.

-

A week has passed since everyone's arrival. No one has died, yet. But surely no one is holding their breath to see if they would survive this unscathed. They are veterans of the game, and they must know that whoever it is that is in charge demands their pound of flesh. The question is when it will happen.

It is the second week, after all-and when the second week of the game comes, death is not far behind. Not even when you wake up, feeling something different in your mind as you remember the truths you originally woke up with, deep in your mind. You feel...lighter, somehow, when you realize there is a change.

Even so, there are 15 strangers left in this place.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sounds like absolute madness.

[She winces a little.]

It's not as if circles of mages don't exist in my world, but they're smaller. Less... tyrannical.

More like salons for discussion of magical theory.

No, they're highly organized and very dangerous. Not much for hierarchy though, since they all think they're better than each other. Still, they're functional enough to keep things running, and running well.

[He grips his right forearm, wincing slightly.]

...something the matter, Caleb?

[ She's seen the wincing and the arm-gripping; it's not that hard. ]

... Some people here already know, so I might as well... how to put this.

The training for being one of those assassins involves some insertion of crystals into the arms by the archmage in charge of the... 'program'. And not everyone passes. Some trip at the finish line, so to speak.

And the price of failure can be dire, I'd imagine.

It would not be the first time I heard of such abominations. Not specifically with crystals, but...

... I imagine it would be, had I returned to him.

[Caleb knows he's being vague, but he doesn't like discussing the Sanatorium directly.]

It is an awful sort of practice. There are other ways of proving loyalty.

I knew a fellow mage from one of the Undercities of my world. They'd already had his family killed as the price for their dissidence against the Church.

They were going to turn him into some sort of half-spider abomination, by his own admission.

[He swallows hard. Should he tell her?]

[Oh, hell. A bunch of people already know. It's not like she can hold it against him even more than he holds it against himself.]

Ja, that sounds awful. A... what is it, a drider? I believe I read about those.

No, the final test, at least for our group, was our memories being modified without our knowledge to hear our parents scheming against the Empire. Of course, being nearly completely trained Imperial assassins...

[She can figure out the rest.]

[ There is silence.

And then a deep, pained sigh. ]

Bastards.

I could hardly imagine.

[ She really can't. It's the sort of thing her own father would have probably approved of, but let's leave off the fact that she helped orchestrate his demise for now. ]

[He fidgets with his bandages awkwardly.]

Ja, some... do not make it. They fuck it up just at the finish line. Either they cannot do it, or they just... break.

[He doesn't meet her eyes, just stares down at his arms.]

And then you wake up and suddenly you're in a sanatorium and eleven years have passed.

I'm sorry.

[ This is. Super awkward. ]

I... I can't say I've had the misfortune of something like that myself.

[ She's had plenty of misfortunes but not that, holy fuck. ]

Good. You shouldn't. No one should be. And with a little work, I do not think anyone will be, again.

...just be careful, whatever it is you wish to do.

I've my own mistakes to correct.

... I want to fix things. And I want to make sure that the sickness is cut out from the Assembly.

A worthwhile goal, to be sure. If I could lift the curse placed upon my daughters and stop the abyssal incursion...

Well.

There's still so much I want to do, but that would be a start.

... A curse?

[Hm.]