WEE͠K ̸́4͝

[strangerpeople]

W҉͘E͜͠͝E̕K̡̛͡ ̡͟4̸

[The blight is all-consuming.

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.]

Comments

[incendiarize]

Is IT the "madness spores", or are those something else?

[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.]

[15unknowns]

No...IT isn't a spore.

...

When you say madness spores...what do you mean? Do you know what they do?

[He watches Arthur.]

[incendiarize]

They were in the video things... I dunno where exactly they started, it sounded like the world with the Reality Spike getting blown up? But I'm not sure. But they....travel between world's and clusters, infecting people.

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.

[15unknowns]

...Oh! Of course! I understand now. The madness spores...

[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.

[incendiarize]

Yeah, that! It's been spreading like a plague across the universes, or at least it looked like it.

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.

[15unknowns]

...IT and the Darkness...IT is a part of the Enemy from my universal cluster. They go by a lot of names..the Black Thing, the Powers of Darkness, the Un-Namers, the end of civilization and the unmaking of light. I only learned before I came to the Mall, that their more proper name is the Echthroi.

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.

[incendiarize]

Echthroi....got it.

You said there's a frequency that can fight them. What did you mean?

[15unknowns]

It's about figuring out what IT doesn't have-

[Static starts to flicker into the bushes, and the boy's eyes widen.]

Oh no-listen, you have to get back.

[incendiarize]

[Ohhhh that is not good. Arthur still has questions-- But he'd thought it'd end like Charles sending something, not something actually reaching them...]

I- I still don't know how to free the Hosts, or fight back, or-- will you be okay?

[15unknowns]

I will be. I'm in a place where plenty of people can take on the Taboo Noise.

[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.]