Week 4

[bathymetric]

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

Sunday arrives ahead of schedule again, bringing with it the creeping dread that this is just how this is going to go. Welcome to the murdergame cycle.

At least there's another section of the city available to you! This one even has some things to do without you having to make your own fun. Which also means there's more to find about this place.

There's still over 20 of you alive... maybe that's something to celebrate? It could be worse! But... at least one of you is an attempted killer, apparently. Either way, better keep talking if you want regains!



SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY

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

Comments

[buriedstar]

[ ........ ]

Really? I didn't think you could go lower than fake hostages, but this— [ He lets out a breath and then does a golf clap for good measure. ]

Congratulations.

[specialyellthing]

This is your definition of lower than hostages?

[buriedstar]

Whatever power is in these syringes has to be at least 95% lower than my actual skills, or this place would be destroyed the second someone accepts this ridiculous offer. There are far better deals even in the Black Market, where it's common to put up your actual person as collateral. So yes, it's the most insulting thing I've heard in a long while, even with the cute reminder he gave us last week with the radios.

[ ... ]

The hostages are lower because they were fake. This is very much real, or his plan would fall apart the second [ Jason's probably jamming one into his arm in the bg- ] someone decided they had a brain smaller than a worm.

The difference is important.

[honeyedtea]

Since when had we decided that those hostages were faked?

[buriedstar]

I discussed it with Rossiu at our last meeting. Think what you like, but it makes far more sense if they were, and it's not like there's a lack of methods to achieve it.

[honeyedtea]

[ . . .

Just this face. ]

[buriedstar]

[ It takes a second, but then he smiles. ]

There's also something else to consider, if you entertain this line of thought. If he went through the effort to take them, would he really just put them back? I don't think you could seriously argue that his word means much, can you?

But think whatever you like, Mielle.

[specialyellthing]

I don't take his word-- but we're all here.

I'm not willin to bet on them bein' faked, though. I take lives a bit more seriously than superpowers.

[honeyedtea]

[ . . .

She gives him a tight, cooly polite smile in return. ]

It's actually "Lady Roscent". If you don't mind.

[allatonce]

Can't believe you're literally here because a guy kidnapped you and you think he would just fake hostages when it's cheaper and easier to just kidnap people.

[buriedstar]

Projections and illusions are something a mid-level mage could do? You don't even need an elixir to meet the stat requirements unless you're literally level one.

[ #justMMO things. ]

[sastruga]

...I think that's a rather narrow minded perspective of you, Seo Dawon-san.

I'm a little disappointed.

[buriedstar]

[ There's a slight pause, and you might expect him to be as insulted as he was at the motive, or don a smile. Instead there's a complete lack of emotion on his face entirely.

He says the following quietly, low enough that no one else would be able to hear. ]

Entertaining the alternatives is dangerous, Asahina. For all of us.

[sastruga]

[She's quiet, a moment, as if considering it. But she shakes her head afterwards.]

...I think assuming one's own perspective is the only correct one is far more dangerous.

That's why people have been dying.

[allatonce]

Sustained? At all hours of the day for multiple days? Come on now.

[buriedstar]

Disregarding magic, it could be done with a simple hologram too. But I'm not sure why you find it so far fetched if you come from a world where time can be rewritten? Time manipulation is far more resource heavy than illusions, but I think Penelope would have been the best to speak of that.

[ ...man it kind of sucks not having another mage around. ]

[allatonce]

I don't find the idea far-fetched. It's possible, but you already said it: it's resource heavy to do what you're describing.

[Occam's Razor, Seo. Besides, she would have known if it was a hologram.]

Programming and perfecting holograms or paying mages to create illusions for several days is incredibly stupid when you could use the technology you already have to kidnap people to just... kidnap people. Even what he offered was just a extension of the technology he already has that can pull people from massively different time periods and put them back where they came from. It's not time travel, in the sense you're talking about. It's dimensional travel.

[sastruga]

Just how are you defining "lower" here?

[buriedstar]

[ For her he attempts to dial back his bloodlust since. She does not deserve this. ]

This is far more insulting.

It's the difference in promising someone a top of the line luxury car and luring them with the trust that you'll fulfill it. Compared to actually handing someone the keys to a barely functional pile of scrap with wheels.

[vholran]

Whatever to satisfy his little 'experiment'.

[ Probably not as enthused-looking at the promise of power. Maybe because he's feeling insulted right about now... ]

[buriedstar]

I'm not even sure this actually qualifies as a "whatever"?

[ His standards and his entire self are just. Aghast at all of this smh. ]

[vholran]

[ He does not blame him at all. ]

Maybe I was far too generous.

[buriedstar]

[ Huff. ]

An offer like this is like consenting to be a test subject to an alchemist without receiving even a meager wage. Even for an actual slave the terms are worse than I would offer...

[vholran]

[ ...What a way of saying it. But not very wrong either. ]

Someone will take up on his offer.

[ He'll begin to turn away. ]

Don't waste your time too much with those beneath you. They're hardly worth it.

[ He knows who he means. Lingering here is not putting him in a very sunny mood, though, so he will cleanly make his exit! ]

[buriedstar]

[ Oh, isn't this some type of nostalgia. The echo tickles back to this weekend and even further back then that, but it does the trick. ]

...of course not. [ He watches Vhloran leave and departs on his own soon after. There's a lot he has to think about. ]