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

[The visual helps a lot, and Arthur runs through it slowly a couple of times before trying it fast. It's....better? Somewhat?]

Is this the kind of thing having actual muscles helps with?

Little bit, yeah, but it's really more about speed than brute force. Try sort of flicking your wrist on the downswing?

[After all, it's physics, not punching stuff.]

I'm not all that fast, either...

[Arthur has been regaining weight quickly since his arrival, but he's never been very athletic in any way. The wrist flick helps when he tries again...]

Geez, it looks so easy when someone else does it!

Isn't that just how everything goes, though? You watch somebody do something they've practiced a lot, and it looks like it should be easy....

Maybe... I guess I'm just used to the Library, even our top scholars and field leaders screw up way more than they succeed! But maybe it's different, with science.