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]

....I dunno for sure, I'd thought they were......but I don't know them.

I do know the blue tunic Osomatsu found, the one that was all sticky, that's Link's - and it was sent here from outside. In other words, from the Hosts' perspective, it's probably "not supposed to be here".

[poorlovefool]

Not... supposed to be here?

[You didn't explain that yet, Arthur, he doesn't know what your quotes mean!]

[incendiarize]

Yeah. Like - they set up this whole city to keep us in and run this game, right? So everything here is something they allowed to be here.

Except for the static items, because those were sent in from outside, along with the imprinted Truths.

If the tunic is Link's, maybe the other sticky stuff is, too?

[poorlovefool]

Yeah... if they sent them from outside, yeah, that could be it!

Whoever the fuck they are.

[Eric ponders that for a second, but decides it doesn't matter, help is help.]

Has anyone just tried giving them back?

[relieable]

I was gonna give the tunic back... But I wanted to see what you guys thought first.

[he's a wuss]

[incendiarize]

That....might be it, actually. It has to be those items for a reason, right? Like.....reminders of who they really are, without IT taking advantage of their negativity.

[relieable]

So... should I just drop it off in his room? Give it to him personally?

[wasn't there a sword, too? and the hang glider?]

[incendiarize]

Maybe? They wore the stuff Eric gave them, how'd he give them the things?

[poorlovefool]

I just snuck it in their desks.

Careful though. They have the TV and the radio on.

[poorlovefool]

Well... I was able to free one of the cats by giving it a toy. That's why I tried to give them a present in the first place. [he pauses.] ...But the problem is, since the white cat is the last one left, it really wants to kill me. I don't think there's any more I can do.

Figure we've got a lot of Link's stuff so we could probably dump it all on him and have a good chance of it working, but then that'd make Hiyori harder to save. But I also think it's a problem if we leave them like that for too long while we try to find all the magical talismans and we don't even know how many there are.