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

So it starts off with a young boy who lost most of his family and from the horrors he saw he had completely broken. His caretaker tried everything to help him, but he just wouldn't respond. The caretaker was very desperate and then he met a wizard. He didn't know the wizard was a terrible man, but he was desperate so he agreed to the wizard's offer to help the boy in exchange for aiding the wizard.

The wizard used something on the boy, it is called the Sacred Mark. It is a truly hideous technique that takes away all free will from the victim and makes him stronger. The boy was very young at the time, just over 10. He as turned into a deadly assassin that could feel no fear and could kill without remorse.

He was sent on a mission to kill a very powerful man. This was the first time he was defeated in battle. The man felt sorry for the boy and took him in as his own child to be raised alongside his daughter who was about his age.

The boy grew fond of the girl and eventually they grew up and started working for themselves. During this work, they ended up foiling the plans of the wizard. The wizard didn't care though, he had gotten what he needed and he made sure the boy remembered just what he was. He left the girl after that.

Eventually he came to fight the wizard, but the wizard was definitely not going to allow himself to be defeated. He took advantage of what he did to the boy previously and took over his will. He tried to make the boy kill the girl he'd grown up with and loved more than anyone else. Luckily for the girl, the boy expected the wizard would do this and had prepared something to allow him to break the control. The wizard was defeated and the control broken for good.

Sadly, I cannot say I know the technique used to break the control, that is a secret of the Church's. What it does say is that no control, no matter how powerful, is perfect. It has a weakness and we have to find it and get Hiyori and Link back to their real selves. We also shouldn't agree to their offer because the wizard got the boy under his control by convincing the boy to accept of his own free will by making it sound like something desirable. There is a lot that mirrors our situation even if it isn't exactly the same so I feel it is worth someone knowing about.

[He listens and remains silent for a long few moments, both trying to take in the information and also keep down the bile that rises in his throat.]

... I've seen mind control like that, though not with the same methods. I have no intention of agreeing to any of their bargains. There's nothing they have that I need, and though I know my group at home would not judge me if someone were in danger, they're not going to deliver anyway.

I'll have to think about whether I see any weaknesses. I dislike talking to them, though. They... ah... creep me out. And remind me of some people I once knew.