PCs with Subete

[shortforever]

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Week 0, post-trial

[shortforever]

[He's still blind as a fukken bat but he's going to go seeking someone out now. Hi Subete, come get dragged somewhere private.]

[allfornone]

Ah-- Nakahara-san? Did you need something...?

[He's been dragged all over the place by both Blind Stray Dogs today, he's not sure what he did to deserve this but he also can't say no to the hard-of-seeing and it might actually be more productive for people to drag him places so. Where are they going. When are they getting there.]

[shortforever]

[This is a quiet corner of the kitchen, farther away from the group. Because Chuuya has some words to say and he doesn't want to be overheard.]

This isn't going to be the end of this. You know that, right? They wouldn't drag us here to solve one murder and then leave.

[allfornone]

[Oh. He quiets his semi-flailing almost immediately — everything is still so surreal in the aftermath, even with Nikki left behind struggling and foaming in a birdcage, of all things. It probably won’t be real or make proper sense until tomorrow, with the execution. Maybe not even then.

But the words Chuuya is saying; those do make sense, in a different way.]

... I know. It says it in those house rules they’re so into: every week. I— don’t suppose we’ve figured out how many weeks that is?

[Great, he’s getting tired just thinking about it.]

[shortforever]

No clue. But if there's 34 of us, and one murderer and one victim each week, that could be months.

[Months of whittling people down and breaking the spirits of the living.]

But that girl, something was very wrong with her. We all lost our powers. Don't you think it's weird that she had powers when nobody else did?

[allfornone]

Not-- necessarily. Peach-san mentioned something... That while they would never consider Master Blue accessory to these murders, there could be accomplices in the cases.

It was a little hectic, so I didn't get the chance to ask her much more about it, but it means that it probably won't take that long. And that's...

[It's only assuming that they're meant to be wiped out, or very close to it. He's really not sure, after what they ran into today, that he wants to see what would happen with an actual accomplice to these murders. Especially if the rats didn't count. He quiets down a little more, taking a moment or two to think things over again.]

... Hmm. Pumpkin-san was very cagey when she was asked about those powers. Perhaps now that Nikki-san has been exposed, we'll be able to learn more. Is it a given that everyone has powers, though?

[shortforever]

I think so. I had powers, so did Dazai. And you said something about being able to see ghosts, right?

[See, he pays attention at trials.]

So the question is, did Nikki have rat powers before, or did she get those here?

[allfornone]

Haha... Yeah, it would be a lot more convenient if O'Connor-kun and I could both do that right now. I don't think the shadows that were following us around all last week counted for much. But -- not everyone I talked to mentioned powers, either.

[Head tilted thoughtfully, he takes out his notebook and flips through it a little. There's some notes on the profiles as well, but -- it goes without saying that not everyone would bother disclosing powers at first.]

We don't have any way of knowing when she received her power over rats. That might be something only the Master of the house would know for sure.

[Or the house itself. They're still not sure the house isn't Master Blue.]

[shortforever]

That's normal though, right? You're not supposed to talk about powers, since most people don't have them.

[He vaguely remembers rules like that from his world. He never followed those rules though, so.]

So maybe everyone here does have powers, and that's why we were brought here.

[allfornone]

Ah. Yes... I think that's pretty common if-- you know, we only take into account the world or the Earth we know. There are people here who don't seem to care about secrecy even among strangers like this. But at least where I come from... it's something regular people probably wouldn't recognize even if it was staring them in the face.

Not without a lot more explanation first, anyway.

[The top-secret life of a top-secret something or other for most of them, apparently...]

According to your theory, though, we were deliberately brought here only to have our abilities somehow cut off. Not only that, we're part of some kind of elaborate game-- [of Cloe] --that requires the even more convoluted step of giving us more and stranger abilities...

I can't say I really understand why anyone would go to such lengths.

[shortforever]

To fuck with us, obviously.

[Occam's razor, or some shit like that.]

That or 'Master Blue' has some bullshit power that means he has to take all the extra steps here.

[allfornone]

I feel like only someone really powerful and really bored or-- or a god or demon with a lot of free time would be up to that. Um, apart from Mammon-san, I guess.

[Is Mammon really a good example of a demon. There goes his image of demons...................]

Either way... Do you mean like some kind of ritual?

[shortforever]

[The mention of 'god' seems to make Chuuya slightly irritated, but he bites down on that as best as he can.]

I was thinking an ability-user, but there's people here like Mammon who are other things, right? So he could be something else. And I don't know enough about demons either.

Week 2, Saturday post-trial

[allfornone]

[It takes a while for Subete to come back in, and a little longer for him to be presentable (because we probably don't want him wandering around sweaty after all of the stripping and sniffing and crowding going on in the ballroom, do we), but once he's gotten things sorted out with himself and probably his room and...

Okay, it might take a while longer to sort things out with his roommates but that's neither here nor there. The important thing is that things seem to have gone according to plan for once even if everything else is still up in the air!!

So, he's got more of a spring in his step coming back down the hallway when he sees Chuuya about to step in and nods in greeting and-- also blinks and stops mid-nod because while he hasn't really made it a priority to see other people's rooms (especially with all the corpses that turn up in them)...]

Oh. Hello, Nakahara-kun. Your place looks a lot more exciting than mine, and we have three people in there.

[He tactfully does not say anything about events of the past day!! Or the last week!! Or ever!!]

[shortforever]

Ah?

[Chuuya blinks, and he peers into his own room. It takes a moment for him to figure out what Subete even means, because he's been sleeping in that blanket fort for a couple weeks now. It feels like a normal part of the setting now.

But after a couple moments he finally gets it, and he looks back to Subete.]

You mean the blanket fort in there? Akira and I couldn't agree on who would get the bed, so we made that as a compromise.

[allfornone]

[After the couple of minutes Subete looks considerably more amused because that was like the equivalent of calling someone out and then watching them figure out over a couple of minutes that it was themselves, after looking wildly around for alternatives. He's doing his best not to smile too much about it, though??]

Ah, that's probably a better compromise than what we were trying before. There's plenty of bedding, but only so many beds. I guess the staff are doing what they can...

[But on the bright side they probably found a solution that did not involve having another bed go through the stairs and almost brain people. Nice.]

I really didn't expect to see a blanket fort here, though.

[shortforever]

Yeah, and I didn't really want to share a bed. It's too close-ish to sleep in.

[But he'll hold the door open and nod his head towards the fort.]

You can come in and see, if you wanna get some ideas for your own room.

[allfornone]

I don't think any of my roommates are used to sharing a bed.

[He doesn't bother to elaborate on the fact that he isn't used to sharing a bed either -- his personal bubble is wide and distinguished enough that it might speak for itself. That being said, he'll take the invitation to join Chuuya in the room, moving this way and that to view the fort from different angles like he's never seen one before. It's hard to say.

Finally, he sits down on the floor just to get a view of the interior. It is a pretty impressive structure, in its own way.]

We have something like a nest on the floor, which none of us are used to either, but it's better than nothing. This is a little more sophisticated. [please don't call a pillow fort sophisticated??] This is your personal area, then?

[shortforever]

Yeah. That half over there is mine, and this half here is Akira's.

[If Subete looks closely enough, he'll see that there is a divide inside of the blanket fort. Chuuya and Akira aren't sharing blankets, they each made their own mini-beds from pillows and such on separate sides of the fort.]

Really, why didn't they just put smaller beds in the rooms? It'd be easier to sleep that way.

[allfornone]

[He'll lean forward and stop just short of poking his head in; there's such a thing as politeness, after all, and one does not just climb into other people's beds, even if they are only nominally bed-shaped and entirely on the floor.]

Ah, do you take turns, then? There is still a bed to use, at least... We have three in our room, so it's a bit of a struggle, but...

[He shakes his head and gives a helpless shrug.]

I don't think they were entirely prepared for everything about this little gathering. We were allowed to move around, and I think to move mattresses around, but otherwise it feels very... DIY?

[That was definitely him being polite. Let's not talk about their attempts at life hacking the bed situation here.]

[shortforever]

Eeh, sometimes. If someone wants the bed, they just claim it for the night. I'm used to sleeping on the floor, so it doesn't bug me.

[Subete might be right though, the house does seem unprepared for the number of guests. Hmm...]

Yeah, it's pretty slipshod. It has to be a last-moment thing. Though just having this many rooms means he was expecting guests anyway, so why is he not better prepared?

[He should be prepared, but he's not, basically.]