Week 8.

[trustfellows]

WEEK 8 Regardless of what you think of the most recent deaths, four more people have died this week. Milla Maxwell, Angel, Susan Ashworth, and Aligula are gone now, leaving you with about a quarter of your original number. Thirty-five down to twelve - this can't keep going for much longer, can it? Is there anything you can do? Saturday is given to regrouping and sleep; come Sunday morning, the clock chimes the hour at seven o'clock and there are no dead bodies to be found, so it can be assumed that all of you are safe for the time being. That said, you'll be feeling a little groggy when you wake up; it seems you've regained something that you didn't realize you'd lost... Unlike the previous weeks, however, it seems that either you've reached the end of the line or Jericho has decided to stop rewarding you for your effort; where there would usually be a stairwell to a new floor, you're met with nothing but solid wall. Perhaps it's distressing; perhaps it's a good sign. Only time will tell, and time isn't something you have a lot of around here. PARTICIPANTS REMAINING: 12

SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY
[OOC: Welcome to week eight of Trustfell! Feel free to make as many top levels as you'd like and tag out to other characters! This post is for all of your interactions this week... at least until the weekend. Don't forget to save those threads for coins and the activity check!

If you'd like to get in contact with the Coordinators, you can do so through private meetings with Hilda!]

Comments

[hesperos]

Good. Also, it looks like there's a set of instructions that comes with it. So I'll just pass it over to you when I'm done looking through it.

[ And then Yuri skims through it, before handing it over to Sayaka. ]

Here you go.

[hesperos]

[ Hey Luca--hmm, he thinks about that for a second. ]

How about we play a game of poker? I'd offer to play chess with you but I have no idea how that'll go.

[ Unless Luca teached him or something. ]

[chessturner]

...are you aware how little sense that makes?

[You're totally telling weird stuff nonchalantly to freak her out, aren't you, Elda?]

So those spirits inhabit the stuffed animal and...they move? Am I understanding this correctly?

[chessturner]

The library at least had the cat. That was worthwhile.

[Too bad there are no new weird mechanical animals this week]

[chessturner]

Don't tell me...are you dead too? That's a common experience a lot of people here seem to share.

[Are you joining the club?]

[notaccurate]

Poker is fine.

[But then he gets an idea.]

But how about we raise the stakes a bit, hmm? Whoever loses each hand has to tell the other something about themselves. Something that hasn't been told yet.

[notaccurate]

No, I haven't. Maybe...this is the end?

[Maybe this is their last week, and surviving this long means they get to leave.]

[notaccurate]

Checking on your...telegraph?

[That technology at least existed in some form in his time.]

It looks like you only have a receiver, though. How are you able to talk through it?

[bloodbiter]

I hope so. That would be an incredible relief, honestly...

[A small pause.]

Depending on what the end entails, I suppose.

1/2

[destage]

["You don't do love. You fall in love."

...Huh. That...gets her gears to turn a little more, and she thinks about that. It honestly gets her to the root of some of this stuff--when she started feeling the way she did. For Alex, it's...honestly easy to say it happened by accident. Idols don't fall in love out of fear of being rejected and shamed by the very industry they were brought into in the first place, and hell, that much is in her contract. It's why she doesn't really want a part in the business anymore, even if she still wants to do something with her voice...

For Elda? It's far more complicated. She thinks back to all of those weeks ago, and...she definitely just clung to the woman. She was afraid of what she could do to her, after she nearly managed to kill her. She appreciated the comfort that the woman brought her in times like this, even if she disdained her at the time. And it's exactly like Sayaka said; she's never had a mother, she's only seen them on TV, and...she doesn't actually know what it's like. But, if she clung for this long, then when did it start to change? Was it all just a fantasy? Or was the change real?

...Maybe that happened on accident too. Because by the time Jericho threatened to take the memories of someone important to her, Elda had already shot her way up to the tip top of the list, alongside Alex and Kimblee, and as someone she didn't want to lose. She's got no illusions of how the woman views humanity, and no illusions of how brash and brazen the woman can be. And...quite honestly, Sayaka knows she doesn't want Elda to change, or become someone different. This is her mom, and she wouldn't have it any other way.]

[bloodbiter]

What? No, I... That isn't it at all. On the contrary, I remembered waking up after sustaining a serious injury.

[bloodbiter]

It seems cruel to say, but... I wonder if that might be our best case scenario.

2/2

[destage]

[...All of that thought seems to be punctuated by Sayaka looking very genuinely contemplative, and probably having an almost blank look on her face while she does so. There isn't even a smile while she thinks, but...

It comes back, little by little. A smile finds it's way onto Sayaka's face, and she finds herself reaching out and running her fingers through Elda's hair a bit.]

...So, what you're saying is, they can happen despite the way the world seems.

[notaccurate]

Hopefully a 'congratulations, you're free to go' and nothing else.

[matchbreaker]

[ It's so odd to watch a girl Sayaka's age deal with this. But then... but then she had taken every shortcut, hasn't she? She believes all of what she's saying, but every important person in her life before this time, other than James - he needed to force his way into her heart past her loneliness and trauma - had been her blood. Henry was hers from the moment she laid eyes on him in that maternity room. Ren was hers from the moment she played with the infant. Karin was hers the moment she laid eyes on that spitting image of her. Anju was hers the moment she stroked her doll-like hair and saw a little bit of James in her eyes. It's a shortcut, in no way invalidating what she said, but it's... different, simpler. More primal.

And before that, a family who... well, they're dead now.

But... oh. ]

Yes. How the world seems, all of it's immaterial as compared to what is felt.

[bloodbiter]

I doubt they would offer congratulations. It seems a bit too kind for them.

[matchbreaker]

They can, yeah. Well, most of them can't move that much, unless they're particularly potent. Like her favorite doll has a serial killer in it and so he can actually talk and wave his arms around with impunity.

[matchbreaker]

Oh, but she's more fair than that - there would be a solution, but we'd need to have worked that out through some narrow escape.

[notaccurate]

Their 'congratulations' would not be out of kindness, of course, but rather to rub our survival in our faces.

[bloodisthicker]

I presumed so, given how Sundays have gone for me, at the very least. If you want to talk about it, I'll listen, but if you'd rather not, I'm not going to pry.

[bloodbiter]

[A nod.]

They would be mocking us if they offered it at all. [...] If I have any choice in the matter, I’m not leaving them alive when I depart.

[destage]

[Alright, she'll read over the instructions...seems simple enough. Try to hit ships where they hurt and sink them. Just like one of my DWRP murdergames!]

Okay, this looks simple enough! Shall we get the board set up?

[They're gonna need to hide their ships pretty well, aren't they? This'll be a nice competition...]

[bloodisthicker]

...oh.

So it's... a possessed radio of some kind, then.

[bloodisthicker]

Well, I would say I had some abilities sort of like it back when I could waterbend, but well... they weren't quite the same.

[liiine one up...]

It's similar enough that it's helpful with things like this, though.

[destage]

...It's odd. Not in the bad way, though.

[She seems almost fond when she says that much, and just kind of runs her hands through and gently twirls the strands in her fingers. It's...idly said, and...it's strange. It really is kind of strange, and...]

...I don't know if I understand it...entirely. I admit that much, but...I think I can understand a bit better? It... [Hmm. She tilts her head a bit, as if in thought.] It doesn't ring hollow in my head, at least. Love itself doesn't, and...what you feel, I think I understand it a bit better.