WEEK 4.

[trustwellness]

WEEK 4 Three more have died this past week. Milla Maxwell was killed for breaking a rule, Chiyuki was murdered, and you all had a hand in executing Yoshikage Kira. It seems like this isn't going to stop any time soon. How many more will join them this week? Saturday is given to regrouping and rest; on Sunday morning the clock chimes as it always has, but at least there are no bodies to find today. It seems you're safe for now. The night before wasn't necessarily a peaceful one, however; you'll probably feel a bit groggy when you wake up, and it seems you've regained something that you didn't realize you'd lost... Despite the Wordsmith's reaction to the last trial, it seems as though you've been rewarded once again for a job that was...well, it was done, even if he didn't explicitly say it was well-done. Another door has opened in that stairway, it seems, leading you further down into the building; once again, there are more rooms down there, more things to occupy yourselves with. Or perhaps just more means to get creative with regards to how you take initiative with your fellow Apprentices. APPRENTICES REMAINING: 23 APPRENTICES REMAINING: 22 APPRENTICES REMAINING: 20

SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY

[OOC: Welcome to week four 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 Wordsmith, you can do so through letters or the switchboard!]

Comments

[oyashiromama]

[There are multiple questions, but-] ...Like yours. Phi, Sigma. They're like...the Greek Alphabet.

[plentyfriendly]

But that was just a coincidence. The weirder thing was that I knew his name before he'd told me what it was.

[That was a clue something odd was afoot, even then.]

After the two of us solved some arbitrary puzzles in the elevator, we got out through the top, which opened up into a warehouse. Soon, we'd be joined by seven other people, two of which had gotten out before we did. None of those seven were named Greek letters.

[oyashiromama]

So you two were the odd ones out. How- how did you know his name, if you don't mind my asking? Did you know how you knew?

[plentyfriendly]

At the time, I had no explanation.

But those people had been gathered for the Nonary Game, as it was presented to us. Unlike here, the MC had a face - kind of rabbit-ish, although I always called it a rat to its face. Called itself "Zero III".

Anyway, the rules were simple. Everyone had three points, and if you got mine you could leave.

[oyashiromama]

The...Nonary Game? [She hasn't asked about this particular subject.] I...I'm sorry, I'm unfamiliar with it. Is that...anything like what we're stuck in here?

[plentyfriendly]

A little bit, although gaining points didn't require killing anyone.

To gain points, we played a short "AB Game" against one or two of the other people. You and your opponents would choose to ally or betray, and each gained or lost points depending on what they picked. Two each if you both allied, no change if you both betrayed. If one allied and the other betrayed, the team that betrayed got three and the team the allied lost two.

If you couldn't input a vote before the deadline, you automatically allied.

[oyashiromama]

So...you are encouraged...to betray one another, in other words. [Yikes.] What does "betray" mean? What happens to the other person?

[plentyfriendly]

Outside of the loss of points, absolutely nothing.

[Yay?]

...Unless they have no points left, in which case their bracelet fills them with muscle relaxant and they die. That part I just knew without a reason, too.

[oh.]

[oyashiromama]

...How did you escape with your life? Especially...if you had that thing you used on you? [The syringe.] Was that here?

[plentyfriendly]

Oh, I wasn't stuck with that needle back then. It comes a lot later.

Eight of us got out mostly because Sigma and I were collecting information from a bunch of different timelines.

[Here's why:]

Dio was a terrorist. He planted bombs throughout the facility, and we got the passwords to disarm the bombs. Well, that and the fact that he was a terrorist in the first place.

[oyashiromama]

["This horrible thing didn't happen then, it happened later" AWESOME GREAT TO KNOW]

You were stuck there with...a terrorist...but because you had information from- from other versions of reality, other fragments, you could figure it out and get the rest of you safely out alive?

[...wow that. sounds like a dream, really.]

[plentyfriendly]

More or less.

The whole thing was a setup to get my and Sigma's consciousnesses back to 2028, though, since it was also 2074 and neither of us knew it.

[Remember that horror story? Guess who that was about!]

That was the "AB Project". Akane and... well, I suppose from my perspective now, Sigma's past self... set it up.

[oyashiromama]

[what the hell is zero escape]

I-I... There's some I don't follow. I don't understand...how were you both able to live so long...? Or was it not the same body, in a different time? I initially assumed that, but... How could his past self...?

[She's trying to grasp a lot, but it's hard.]

[plentyfriendly]

Okay, do you have paper? This might work better with a diagram.

[...well. paper that's not written on already, of course.]

[oyashiromama]

[She does indeed have some paper! ...That she's taken from the mail room. She passes it to Phi.]

[plentyfriendly]

All right, so it works kind of like this. When I got attacked with that white smoke, my consciousness was catapulted from 2028 to 2074, when the Nonary Game happened.

[Phi draws a diagram that looks like this on the paper, the major difference being that "Nevada Test Site" is replaced with "Dcom".]

In short, from point A to B.

[oyashiromama]

[Studies and nods, slowly.]

I...think I understand. Alright. What's next?

[plentyfriendly]

The time period between B and C was around 36 hours in real time, but because Sigma and I were jumping between different possible realities, sometimes together and sometimes separate, it was a lot longer between them for us than that.

Then at C, Akane explains all this, then jumps at Sigma and I to get our psyches back to 2029, at point D. I get put into cold sleep so I'm still young on the moon, and Sigma spends half a century becoming a multidisciplinary scientist so that project can actually be run.

[oyashiromama]

...So...you were in your same body, but the same age. And he just aged normally...but it was his young self in his older self's body.

[plentyfriendly]

Right.

Then when we reach B after all that real time we jump back to A and get into Dcom, where all the experiment participants except one got put into the Decision Game.

[oyashiromama]

The Decision Game? A-another one of those twisted experiments?

[plentyfriendly]

A twisted something, that's for sure. Whether it's an experiment or not I couldn't say.

Zero took eight of us from Dcom - myself, Sigma, Diana, Akane, Junpei, Carlos, Eric, and Mira - and some mystery person he just called Q, and locked us all in an underground bomb shelter.

[oyashiromama]

[...]

What...did you have to do there?

[plentyfriendly]

Some... different things.

We were divided into three teams, each in a different section of the shelter.

C-team was Carlos, Junpei, and Akane.
Q-team was Q, Eric, and Mira.
D-team was Diana, myself, and Sigma.

The first thing Zero told us was that the way out of the shelter was through the X-Door in each lounge.

[oyashiromama]

[She nods and gestures for Phi to continue.]

But there was...a trick to opening it, was there not? [she's starting to get how this works]