The Fifteen Strangers Mods (
strangerpeople) wrote in
15strangers2020-02-16 01:20 am
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WEE͠K ̸́4͝
Within days dozens are confirmed infected, and you and your unexpected new scientist friend find yourselves trying to work on a cure. If not a cure, a stopgap of some kind. Anything to prevent this thing from destroying everything. It's hard work. It's not going very well. Really, it feels like with every step forward, you're taking ten steps back. Discouraging is an understatement, to say the least.
A week passes, and the death toll rises. It's really starting to look bleak. You constantly second-guess yourself, and even get into a fistfight with your new ally one night. It's getting to the point where you are working on fumes.
Then, unexpectedly, you get a phone call. It's been a long night, and the sun is beginning to rise above the mountains, when it happens.
You and the scientist are not the only ones looking for a cure. In fact, there are at least a dozen others-and they think they may be close to a breakthrough.
But-and you can't believe you're hearing this, after all of the failure you'd experienced throughout this blight-they need your help.]
[To say that the end of last week sucked would be an understatement. To say that no one knows what this week will bring is not even in question. Yet even as you wake, you feel a cloud lift from your mind, as one of the truths you've been living with since the beginning has suddenly changed.]

[But is it possible to abide by this new truth? The Hosts, and IT beyond, seem intent on making that impossible. And the rat...well. Obviously the rat's not an ally. Let's not kid ourselves.
There's only one way to find out if more deaths can truly be prevented-and that's to keep going, and hoping that the new floor that has opened up will offer something in the way of an opportunity.
In the meantime.
There are 11 strangers left in this place.]
no subject
Is IT what you called Camazots?
no subject
[Sorry, semantics, it's a thing he does sometimes.]
That's the planet IT originally ruled in my universe, and I suspect other universes like mine. A planet given to the darkness with many names.
Personally it wouldn't surprise me if they were working together in some way. Given what I've been told about the Incubators' goal, it would make sense that they would try and be on IT's side in some capacity. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions", after all.
no subject
Kurama was deeply concerned about the souls of the people who've been killed in the City, but souls seem like they're taking a lot of different shapes. There's the egg things, and the olive things...
[He's probably jumping topics a lot. But he wants to cover as much as he can. He'll get back to breaking the hosts free, he still hasn't gotten a solid answer on how to do that...]
no subject
[Welcome to Atop the Fourth Wa-]Eggs and olive souls...those must be special somehow. The olives sound like Greif Seeds, but otherwise I admit I don't know what IT might be doing with the dead. Probably nothing good.
no subject
I think that's what he called the olive souls, and it sounded like those are potentially real bad... The egg souls are from the incident in the mansion. The second time I reached you, there was a Rachel? Based on the video-things I watched....she was directly responsible for the events in the mansion. She, uh. I think she's working with IT willingly, no mind-control.
[He doesn't know how much of this Charles already knows. Good chance the answer is "all of it". But sharing some of what he already knows should put them more on the same page. Maybe it'll help, somehow.]
no subject
Rachel...yeah, that's not her real name. Just the name of the girl she's possessed. She's a Reaper like me and the person you're talking about, but her goals are completely different.
I'm not surprised she's working with IT, either.
no subject
[He's not sure if that description was specific to the movies. But Charles was in a mall game so he's a victim of the spores too, right? So he should know.]
no subject
...
When you say madness spores...what do you mean? Do you know what they do?
[He watches Arthur.]
no subject
They're why the same thing keeps happening, over and over again. The death games. Fifteen people, motives, murders, it's always the same. There was the Sapiarch for Eric's thing, then they got the lady who ran the mall, then the stupid woman inside the other woman, then the Stewards for us in the mansion, then the empress who ran the trains...
"Madness" and "tearing holes in spacetime" were the two things that kept coming up when I tried to put together everything I knew.
no subject
[It's clicking in his mind, it's pretty obvious.]
You're talking about the compulsion to run a game of murder. That's what we're calling it. No, you're right, it's a madness. I'd just never heard it compared to spores, but that's actually quite apt when I think of that. I shall have to tell everyone that one.
no subject
I can't tell if the Darkness, madness, and IT are all the same, different facets of the same thing, or....distinct entities working in tandem. Or if that distinction matters.
no subject
The madness is different, not from us, but...it doesn't matter. It helps to benefit IT, and so it helps to benefit the Echthroi's conquest.
no subject
You said there's a frequency that can fight them. What did you mean?
no subject
[Static starts to flicker into the bushes, and the boy's eyes widen.]
Oh no-listen, you have to get back.
no subject
I- I still don't know how to free the Hosts, or fight back, or-- will you be okay?
no subject
[A deep breath.]
You can fight back. Every survivor, no matter how many, has the power that IT doesn't have. We'll try to send you something, but trying to find me is a very bad idea from now on--
[The static spreads.]
You can do it. Resist and stand united, and IT won't stand much chance. Remember what hope is, and nothing's impossible. That's the start of it--
[The static starts to close in on Arthur.]
Hu̢r̛ŕỳ̴͢-!̨̛
[He quickly pushes Arthur, wings flaring, and then, the next thing Arthur finds himself where he was, back in the City, the air as oppressive as ever. More than that-barely seconds has passed.]