unknownseas | Week 2

Entry tags:

round 3,
week 2

Week 2

Good morning, New Rapture. A new day is dawning.

It's now been a week since you were all captured. Perhaps you've already settled in. Perhaps you're already confident that you'll make it out of New Rapture alive. How serious about this could Mayor Fontaine possibly be, really?

While there still may not be much to do in your little hotel bubble, you've at least been granted a little more now - some kind of mysterious room and a sizeable library of all things. And in all the places you've looked so far, you've found valuable information, and even learned some of the story of New Rapture along the way.

Make sure to keep talking to the others! You want to keep those regain coins flowing, don't you?

SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY

[ ooc: Welcome to the second week of Unknown Seas Round 3! Please make sure to mark any investigation toplevels accordingly, and you can reach either Mayor Fontaine or Eleanor for conversations! ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Guess even the simplest magic would go some way to getting out of here, one way or the other.

[He’s completely unfazed by the casual mention of magic because, like, c’mon. They’ve been here a week now.]

Me, I think there are way worse places to be kept hostage. Like prison. Glad we’re not in prison, and that we’ve got stuff. But I’m not convinced that dying of boredom isn’t going to be a risk here.

I think it's far more likely that someone would make a move first. I for one, am pretty patient.

[ read: it won't be him! ~~looks the motive directly in the eye~~. ]

That’s reassuring.

[And he means it!]

I don’t blame anyone for wanting to leave - but the more everyone gets riled up about it, the itchier their trigger finger’s gonna get. Of course, you say that, and everyone acts like you want everyone to start killing each other.

[ Oh. That gets Seo Dawon to flash Misfire a smile, bright and warm. ]

Some things need to be said even if no one wants to hear them. Even if it's taken poorly, the results matter more than anything else. [ There was a reason laid onto Hodoka so hard at the meeting even if he could have been way gentler. ]

And the best distractions are ones that don't appear to be. Few people like being told exactly what to do, but when it's necessary, it's necessary.

You’re a lot more suited to this than me. Most of the time I’d say ‘that’s not my problem’ except we’re all stuck in this together, so I guess it is.

[He sighs in frustration.]

Like, we’ve literally got a guy here who went through this before! I don’t know if they’re being naive, delusional, or just stupid - but there’s a point where it’s gonna hit the fan, and it’ll be way easier if we just stop pretending it won’t.

It is and it isn't. It really won't personally affect anyone if any one individual dies. But there's group morale to consider, and what pushing the envelope will actually bring forward. You won't see me protecting Jonathan from himself or anyone else, for example.

[ Hands folded behind his back in perfect businessman posture. ]

Scenario's tend to follow certain archetypes when you really get down to it. It's all about knowing and anticipating how things will progress.

[Misfire nods slowly, following along for the most part. Seo Dawon hasn’t lost him yet.]

…So, which archetypes are we dealing with?

Do you know what PVP is?

Conceptually, yes.

That makes this easier. PVP isn't new of course, the Romans had the coliseum, and duels to the death used to be a valid way to solve an argument. Either way, that's what this scenario aims to be, though it has a few more bells and whistles.

He wants us to murder each other, for reasons which I'm sure benefit him. Money, fame, maybe he needs materials from our deaths for a ritual, or maybe just plain entertainment. So far we've been a united front, since he's done nothing for us, and the promise of escape really doesn't hold much water without proof. But that's just one way he can move us, and there are plenty others.

All in all, there are many ways to play this scenario but there are two distinct ways of looking at it. The first: this is us versus him, PVE. The second: this is me versus everyone else, PVP. They each have their pros and cons, of course. But most people, including me, are far more familiar with PVE. It's human natured to band together and fight for survival, no matter the situation. Except...even if twenty-four of us decide to play PVE, if only one person decides to go PVP? It shakes everything up entirely, and it'll likely be a cascading effect after that.

Above all, it's important to know what kind of game you're playing.

Extends far beyond ‘human’ nature too.

[He adds, as a quick note, before letting the rest sink in.

He gets what Seo Dawon is saying and - well, he’s seen enough war to know what it looks like when these things change. It’s less when you decide to turn on others, and more when you decide to fight for yourself that the style of the game changes.]

Alright - so what kind of game are you playing?

I play to win, always.

[ As simply as it's said, it's clear that Seo Dawon is a man who makes it his business to never lose. ]

Er - obvs. Who plays to lose?

[Okay, some people play just to rain on others’ parades, but that’s different.]

I’m gonna go out on a limb guess winning for you isn’t about the friends you made along the way.

Friends have nothing to do with winning at all, do they?

[ Maybe that answers Misfire's question. ]

Woah, red flag much?

[Misfire doesn't seem alarmed. He just seems amused.]

This might come to bite me in the arse later, but you know what? I like you. I mean, what you just said? Proper sketch. But if you decided that blowing my brains out was the way to win, then at least I saw it coming. At that point, it's on me.

[You can just build a friendship on anything.]

Is it? I'm just being honest.

[ He smiles, red eyes bright. ]

Loyalty is something I value highly but... it's not automatically included in friendships, if you want to put it that way. If it was, Red Lotus, my guild, wouldn't have gotten anywhere in the rankings at all.

All that being said, it's appreciated. That's one thing I never get tired of hearing~

I get you. Loyalty is built, or earned, or...whatever.

[Do you build loyalty or earn it?? Oh, this is going to annoy him.]

And you're welcome.

[He thinks.]

...I feel like I'm missing some crucial context for this whole 'guild' and 'rankings' thing, though.

Either.

[ It's all fine!

Seo Dawon tilts his head, slowing down his pace a little. ]

What do you want to know?

What they are, I guess? Come to think of it, aside from the magic stuff, I don’t know anything about your world. Aside from everything you conveyed through hand gesture.

[ He laughs. ]

Well, I can give you a quick primer.

Imagine a world where a video game system was overlaid onto the regular world, without warning. In a nutshell, that's what my world is like. It's not the entire world mind, there's distinct sections which are affected by the Gate and which aren't—but it's not like powers or skills are virtual. There is a limit on who can access the Hub and that's determined by essentially what amounts to an aptitude test. If you're compatible you can become a User, and if not you get to live a life being jealous of those who could. Skill and spell use outside the Hub is heavily regulated by the government, but there's nothing functionally stopping me from teleporting from Korea to Morocco in two seconds flat, if I felt like it.

Just a lot of paperwork.

Of course with a system like that, it means the world order has had to adapt. The governments of the world work closely with the guilds of their respective countries for trade, assets, and protection... a typical bodyguard is nothing against an assassin who can literally go invisible and deafen his movements. I think you get the picture.

As far as ranking goes, Users and guilds are ranked by how successful they are using a system that takes into account money, assets, combat power, and dungeon explorations. Some guilds opt to specialize, like Master Workshop which makes most of the high end raiding consumables for the top guilds, potions, elixirs, battle tonics, and so on.

That's...

[...]

...A lot of words. I clocked out a sentence in. But I got 'video game world' and I think that's all the exposition I need.

[He can dish out the gratuitous summaries but he can't take them, clearly.]