graveyard part 2

[gamehead]

hunter's game the graveyard You wake up in an unfamiliar cabin. At first, it almost seems like you're in an entirely different place and that everything had been just a dream. The interior of the cabin looks nothing like the run-down, old-timey shacks that you had been living in before. Everything in here is sleek and modern, from the enormous flat-screen TV mounted on the wall to the fridge and mini-bars stocked with all your favorite foods. There aren't any individual rooms in here, just a common area large enough to house everyone comfortably, no matter how many more people join you...and there will be plenty more people joining you before the week is over. Because if you look outside the window, it quickly becomes clear that not only are you still in Prayer's Pass, but that you are no longer among the realm of the living. Judging from the tombstones directly outside, you're now in what had been the abandoned broken-down cabin in the graveyard. The cabin's not all that changed; the world outside has gone completely grey and everything you see appears to be faded and blurry. The only things that remain sharp and in color are what's inside the cabin, including your fellow ghosts. Occasionally, people who are still alive may enter, but it's clear that what they're seeing is completely different from what you're seeing. The door's unlocked; however, a mysterious force prevents you from stepping beyond the threshold, no matter how hard you may try. After all, this cabin is a cage for the dead - a gilded one, perhaps, but a cage nonetheless. On the flat-screen TV plays everything that is currently happening in the town. It will shut off once night starts...and something else will appear instead.

Comments

[glowing_skye]

... Uh, there wasn't any remaining confusion on that point.

[This is kind of awkward.]

[speakveryclearly]

Joshua and Charles weren't sure it was him.

[glowing_skye]

Oh. Then I suppose there was.

I kind of assumed it was him when he was a frontrunner and ended up actually being a hunter. But I guess that assumption isn't being held across the board.

[Awkward pause.]

You deserved better. I'm pretty sure the game would be going a lot more smoothly with you there.

[speakveryclearly]

Charles is very conservative; he didn't leap to conclusions about who had whose shadow. He was even cautious about the sword-wielding of the scavenger.

[A dark heh.]

There wouldn't have been a tie today, I can tell you that much. I'm ashamed I didn't live long enough to extend the circle I'd formed with Ciel and Kyouko to you. If all four of us were alive the game might be going much more smoothly indeed, but it's just the two of them now - not to mention one's probably been werewolved.

[glowing_skye]

For what it's worth, it took yours and Edward's deaths to shake me into motion. I really wasn't worth much the first couple of days.

But you're right. If the four of us were still alive and allied, we wouldn't be losing like we are. Now either Ciel or Kyouko is probably on her own, and those are rough odds, scientifically speaking

[speakveryclearly]

At least Kyouko has the other Hope's Peak students... and Ciel has Charles and Joshua. The best defense all three of them have is each other - I wonder how much that will fracture if they're reduced to two.

[glowing_skye]

I'm curious, too. They were all in Mayfield with me, but I didn't know any of them well. I knew Joshua the best, but only because he associated with the man I was assigned to live with.

[And that's a good reason not to trust him, honestly.]

I hope they pull it together.

[speakveryclearly]

I'm worried one of them might be killed this very night. Especially if one of the others has been converted... our front line's numbers are dwindling.

[glowing_skye]

And our ability to stop that is limited, now that we're here.

[So much for 'I hope we lose.']

Although I suppose we could hope that the hunters make a critical mistake.

[speakveryclearly]

They've been doing that less than us. The only one of their number lynched so far was Bruce and I had to die at his hand after voting for him to make that happen. And with another member bitten by the werewolf, presumably one of our best? It's the hunters' game.

[glowing_skye]

I didn't say it was a good plan. But since it is the hunter's game, it feels like it's theirs to lose--not ours to win.

[speakveryclearly]

It feels like we're the underbarkfiends... but the only thing that really limits us is our maintained morality and collective reluctance to lynch. The hunters are of similar moral composition and smaller numbers; they're just all apparently taking this game seriously.

[glowing_skye]

"Underbarkfiends"? What are those?

And I wonder why that is. I imagine the overt coersion plays a role; they've alluded to their hands being forced. Whereas I suppose survival instinct isn't enough to rouse the prey.

[speakveryclearly]

Uh... I'm sorry. I meant underdogs.

Anyway, every single hunter we've heard so far has implied the stakes are very high and the results of defection would be even worse. And whatever this stake is, it seems to be enough to make even quite pure-hearted people perfectly willing to kill.

But the prey have no such stake. They're free to focus on fantasies like everybody coming back to life or escaping from here. It wouldn't surprise me if the difficult situations those like Ciel and Kyouko have been through, like I have, encouraged the virtue of resignation to inescapability.

[glowing_skye]

That's very possible, although not every person Kyouko arrived with has been quite as on-board as she has. Personality has a lot to do with it, too.

[F r o w n.]

I just really hope that tomorrow brings good news for the prety.

[She will be very disappointed when tomorrow comes.]

[speakveryclearly]

That's the worst thing. We've figured out personality has nothing to do with assignment of roles. But it has to do with their execution. Bruce Wayne was by everyone's testimony an extremely principled man; there's no doubt he would be abstaining like the Doctor were he prey. But the hunter's incentive, whatever it was, made him break that. So that means the really pure of pumpbiscuit among the prey - the herbivorous as I wrote - are essentially dead weight in this game. And that keeps them alive, too, poor things.

[glowing_skye]

Yeah. Without that push--whatever it is--the prey can afford to be affected by their personal moral compasses.

It's another way the game's stacked against the prey, really.

[speakveryclearly]

That "compass" is the only thing standing in our side's way. The fear of voting. By definition, until when the wolf pack defeats us - and at this point I frankly do think it's a when - we outnumber them. Critter can't possibly approve of so much damned abstention ruining that advantage meant to counteract our inability to guarantee the one we kill is an enemy as the pack can by knowing each other.