Private - The Werewolves of Caylus Plains | Page 3

Megan blinked at @Gwyn ap Herne's words, "Put what to a vote exactly?"

 

It looked like she was no longer the prime suspect now that it had been pointed out that a werewolf wouldn't need to be a Caenis to have claws and fangs during a full moon, but that still left the question of who was the actual killer. Mizuki frowned as she realized that with several people expressing disgust at the state of the room but with her walking in like she didn't really care she might have given people more reason to suspect her. The fight on the East Wall had left her a good deal less squeamish as lots of bloody and nasty things had happened up there, but that didn't remove the fact that one could reason that the person who wasn't bothered by all the blood might also be more inclined towards causing a bloodbath than someone who reacts with nausea or even vomiting.

"So we'll be voting someone to the gallows in the hope that whoever we vote for ends up being the killer? We don't have a lot of evidence so far, unless you'd just start with anyone who knew the guy and who might have had a grudge... Unless of course the murder was completely random in which case you might as well draw a name out of a hat."

Mizuki stepped out of the room, wiping her feet beforehand. She didn't like where this was going, since this felt like it would quickly turn into a witch hunt. Except instead of witches the target was... a werewolf, apparently. "I didn't even know there were werewolves in Terra. The closest thing I've seen so far were those Lunatics on the East Wall who turned themselves into wolf monster." She folded her arms. "I'd suggest trying to contact Verity to see if he respawned but given the circumstances we're probably shut off."

Looking around her eyes came to a rest on the noose, her eyebrows lowering as this whole situation was getting on her nerves. She didn't feel frightened exactly, but she did feel... wary? Uncomfortable. The current situation was very creepy and worrying, and if it wasn't for the invasion hardening her she'd probably have been very nervous. As it was she couldn't hide the fur on her tail bristling as she glared at the noose before shaking her head and looking at the others. "I don't really know any of you that well, so unless any of you have a suggestion of who should die first I'm just going to vote at random."

 

Magi was pretty sure even with all the strangeness both around and inside herself that there was some kind of magic or something in control here. There was no other explanation to making everyone feel so merciless! It was a odd sense of intuition really. One of the weirder moments for the young magical girl wannabe. Or was she no longer a wannabe? Was she the real thing? It was pretty painful to not be able to fully remember things before awakening in this little town, but also somewhat of a relief. Magi had this sinking feeling that the truth was a lot worse than even this was. It was why she had not completely broken down over the murder and everyone wanting to kill eachother here now.

At this point. These horrors were becoming normalcy. Not that she had to like it of course. Everyone kept commenting on the rope or... noose as they called it. Magi refused to even look at it. She kept her eyes off of the blood soaked room. Gee whiz she barely could look at any of them either.

"I don't know what's wrong with everyone... I feel sick. I refuse to vote on anything. I'm going back to the place I woke up. M-maybe I'll wake up somewhere else. I will not play this! This k-k-killing game thing!"

Magi turned and returned to the cabin she had been given by someone. Who, she didn't know. She didn't know anything! She was so tired of grief. So very tired....when would Magi Heart be able to just stop this craziness? If only she could find something to fight to accomplish what she sought. Regardless somehow Magi felt that for some reason it was too late for her to do anything in this place or anywhere else for that matter.

Abstains from voting and leaves discussion for the day.

 

The dark-haired knight roughly massaged her temple, her eyes watching as one of the women decided to abstain and leave the room. It wasn’t a bad idea. The others were right, they had no evidence to go on, nothing that would point a blood finger in the direction of the killer. Anyone could be it and by arbitrarily voting, there was a 50/50 chance they would get the werewolf or they’d kill an innocent person.

With the war fresh on her mind, the thought of someone hanging from that noose that didn’t deserve it made her feel physically ill. Sure, she didn’t know these people, but that wasn’t enough of a reason to sentence one of them to die for a crime they might not have committed.

I…can’t agree to this either, she finally said with a sigh, her head shaking back and forth. We have no evidence. I can’t, in good conscious, vote on someone to die.​

 

Seeing @Megan Tritor blink away the confusion in her midst, Harveste shivered slightly before responding to the question, as if it was her duty to make sense of the scenario. "I think she means... A vote on who to do away with. Who we think the killer is. If it really is a werewolf, it means the killer is among us... But I mean, they probably don't even know it's them..."

The words held a great trembling as she spoke. Would anyone really know they were a werewolf? Sure, in a game it was possible to know, but those were games! This wasn't like that Town of Salem game she played as a teenager on the net. It wasn't like those games of 'Werewolf' they played when in school, either.

"Actually... Isn't this just like that game though?" She sputtered, shocked as she realized it. "But... It really is too soon to know who it could be. I don't want anyone else to die, but... I-I mean... Just killing someone with no evidence... That's just as wrong..."

She was terrified. In a case like this, she could be just as guilty as anyone here if no one knew the truth- but just the same, in a world like this, couldn't anyone know they were a werewolf? It was like a death affliction, perhaps. Or, perhaps, this was all just a nightmare after all...

"I... I don't know. I don't think I can vote like this. I just... I don't know anyone here well enough, but I don't think anyone here would purposely kill someone without a reason unless they don't know... and if they don't know, how would we know...?"

 

With three of the others saying that they refused to vote, with the little girl being the most adamantly against it of them all, Mizuki clacked her tongue, her tail going up in irritation as she narrowed her eyes. "I don't like it either but if it's like that game we're not going anywhere until either the murderers or the innocent people are all dead." She herself hadn't had that many opportunities to play the game since she hadn't been the type to attend a lot of parties when she was younger, but she did know the rules of the game. "Also, we're all still inside Terra, or at least inside VR with our Terra avatars. This place looks and feels a lot like a location you'd find inside Terra even if I don't recognize it, but there's few VR programs around which create a setting as detailed and immersive as Terra."

She looked over at the noose, then at their surroundings. Creepy as it was it did share the realistic traits of Terra. "Unless I'm mistaken all of us are PCs, which means that while this is a really disturbing situation being killed won't actually mean you die permanently. I know that doesn't make dying any more pleasant and the penalties make it worse, but if this is really that game we'd be better off trying to finish it quickly so we can put it behind us. Besides..." Another glance towards the noose, her ears twitching as she suppressed the urge to shiver. "I feel like no matter what we choose someone is going to die, which I'd personally take as motivation to try and win the game since there's no way to prevent anyone dying."

The words had hardly left her mouth before she reconsidered them, putting one hand to her chin and grabbing her upper arm with the other hand as she thought of the situation. So far she'd acted under the assumption that everything here was inevitably heading towards one path, where they'd try to figure out who the killer or killers were and hang them, while the killers tried to finish everyone off before they were found. However they could try cheating the system... "...We could try all sleeping in the same cabin tonight and sleep in shifts. Or I'm reading the situation wrong and the game would reward us refusing to play along. I... am not really confident that there's any option but to do as expected, and personally I'd think it's better to just try to finish this game as quickly as possible. But if the majority really opposes voting someone to the gallows we could see if abstaining from voting today actually does anything, although even then we'd still need to figure out how to get out."

 

"Then we don't vote. We'll see if the game forces someone to the noose or not. Hopefully, we won't all regret tempting that." She paused to gesture toward the noose. "I doubt it will let us camp out together and even if it did, we don't have equipment with us. We're helpless to the wolf. Or to a pack."

 

"Someone will die whether or not we make a choice I'm sure. These sort of a things don't just randomly stop happening. And since there's no evidence on who murdered Verity..." she glanced in Gwyn's direction, a bit disappointed the Captain couldn't make a choice for them. Her suspicions pointed towards the Caenis, the race she saw viciously tear apart innocent men; rational thought clashed with this opinion seeing as any decent potion could turn a common player into a blood-crazed monster. Though Comet desired making a choice of out random - so long as it wasn't her - luck wasn't on her side and she didn't have much power over the rest, anyways.

"I also can't bring myself to randomly pick. Let's all wait out the night, cross our fingers, and see what happens in the morning. Hopefully then we'll be able to narrow down the killer... or killers."

 

"Does the game have anything it expects of us in general? I mean overall, it's a game, but... From what I've seen since I started playing, it's kind of strange just how... uh... advanced the AI can be."

Still, that didn't matter. They'd at least all agreed that trying to make a decision on day one, with no clues, wasn't a good idea. "I'd feel safer if I could snuggle up with everyone, but I wouldn't know what to do anyway if we slept in shifts. What would we do if the one whose turn was the killer? Or that person died during their shift? It might be even more complicated to try..."

She opted to shut up not long after rambling about that idea. If someone died again, and somehow she was sure they would, she'd just have to pray she wasn't the cause. "Hopefully with a proper sleep now that we know what's generally going on... We'll think of a way to find proper clues. This way... Maybe we can figure out the killer without extra deaths. It'd be nice to think it's possible, at least..."

 

The small crowd was begging to simmer and Megan could hear the heated words being thrown back and forth between the various players of the supposed game. "So...this...is just a killing game?" She said with a less than an innocent smile, before dramatically lowering the brim of her hat to hide her eyes,"Fu~ Fu~ Fu~ If this is indeed a killing game, then our roles have already been decided. We're either the victims or the killer themselves, as I haven't heard anyone declare to be anything in-between. This means there is a simple fact." With a single finger, the witch pushed her hat up to reveal a dangerous gleam in her eyes,

"If we do nothing we all die."

Megan let the words sink into the crowd, hoping she didn't have to explain but a few confused looks spurred her too anyway. "It's simple we only have the ability to hang on the person a day, meaning only have one chance a day to catch the killer or killers. As our numbers dwindle, this will only increase the difficulty of performing the task. Our best chance of survival is to simply choose someone, even at random, to lynch. That said I don't see any reason to rely on odds."

With a sudden flurry of movment, Megan thrust her staff at Gwyn. "There are no others more to benefit from taking charge than the killers themselves, and if they are working as a team, two or more conspirators could have easily declared their compatriots as someone worthy of the title..... and then there's the fact that you first brought up the vote, before dismissing it entirely. You're building a case to your own victory, I won't have it. I vote you...whateveryournameis."

Vote: @Gwyn ap Herne ​

 

They're all watching you. Strangers. That's what they are to you, and you are to them. But to a mob, what is a stranger, an unknown? Not so different from a monster, is it not?

Indeed. And look at those who are most innocent. Childish. Naive. What better face to hide the most grotesque of monsters?

Such voices played in Alkaid's head, as she felt an increasing malice in the air.

Watching the great trepidation her peers faced, Alkaid couldn't help but begin to feel empty. Perhaps it was the chill, the strange, unwanted thoughts, or perhaps it was simply depths of herself that she normally wouldn't admit it. But connections were being formed in her mind, and she'd ended up coming a conclusion she wasn't sure about voicing, although the Caenis had come close.

"Hmmm. It's easy to think of this as personal, an attack on ourselves, but it's not. This is a game. It's easy to forget, with how real it feels. But it is. A game. A very, very realistic one. But a game all the same. Which means morality has nothing to do with our choices."

"As objectionable as this all is, I'd say the real horror is bearing witness to it all. Hell, I thought myself unlucky being here with strangers who would likely have me killed, but here we are."

She didn't want to say it, but she had to give kudos to whatever sadistic pervert put them there for his enjoyment by putting people who know each other in this situation.

"The longer we're here, though, the more painful it is. And after hearing the girl from earlier, I don't want to see her experience that."

Vote: @Magi Heart

Hidden

Damn that stream of posts. XD

Also lol, dat chuuni laugh :P

​

 

She'd just gotten to believe they could get out of this without killing anyone- and yet, somehow, there was a sudden slew of votes to slaughter once more. They had a point, this might be the best way to get out of this game in the first place- but she'd died in the game before, and she couldn't quite believe it possible that dying again wouldn't have a recourse like the last time.

She didn't need death to help scare her out of her mind.

Realizing that she hadn't yet abstained from voting with a proper reaction or just plain leaving for the day, she tried to take more of what was said into consideration.

That was when someone caught her attention. Something inside her made her feel that person had some blame, even if she knew it was likely just the adrenaline of the situation at hand talking. "Miss... uh..." What was her name? It was the girl she'd had to explain the vote to in the first place, she knew that much.

"Gwyn didn't choose the role by choice. In fact, I pushed her into it... In a way, by your methodology, doesn't your trying to lynch the captain that was forced to be the captain by others a bit... I don't know... Suspicious? And you did sleep a fair amount more than the rest of us... In a situation like this, even I'm energetic from the fear, and I'm usually always tired."

Alright, so now she was grasping at straws. "I like puzzles, so perhaps that's why I was avoiding it, but... Since the point's been made, and something is stirring my blood... I can hate myself in the morning if- or when- I'm wrong."

She struggled to raise her hand to push her vote properly into the stream of decisions. If she was lucky, it wouldn't really come to fruition anyway. If nothing else... She was trying to help. Even if helping meant pushing an innocent fellow into a noose. A person who could be as innocent or guilty as she might be herself. Having made her point and feeling a bit uncomfortable already with herself, she fled before she could change her mind. She'd be safer in a cabin than in her own head, and if she stayed here, her head would consume her.

Vote: @Megan Tritor​

 

Gwyn stared back for a moment, eyebrows furrowed at the little witch that decided to break with the assumed peace to see what would happen if they stayed their hands. She could see the reason behind the accusation. She waved a hand dismissively as @Harveste spoke. Made her point for her at that. She should be more bothered by the thought of that noose claiming her, but... well, she'd died worse ways in the game so far. It'd be another in a list of misery.

But she couldn't just leave things half done, to hand herself over to it. Not while leaving familiar faces behind to suffer in her absence. Corvella was strong, she'd seen that in the prison, but Harveste? The ranger remembered a tight grip on her and Ashiore, fears of the cave, and worries even in the presence of more powerful players. And then there was Magi, wilting and confused. The poisonous look she shot @Alkaid Zexis for her suggestion could have boiled blood. She hated that the stranger had a point. Hated, even more, that she didn't disagree.

"So much for the peaceful option. If we are going to vote, I won't stop it. The reason I even bothered bringing it up is because we all damn well know what's expected- what's required of us. And, personally, I think Megan's right about one thing. It's one or all." She looked over the others before her gaze went back to @Megan Tritor. "I'm not the type to go after people for going after me first, but I won't turn down a challenge and there's no way- come hell or high water- that I'm leaving those three by themselves in this situation. Not willingly."

The archer crossed her arms and waited for the others to say their part.

 

"Harveste, wait." But Magdalyn's hurried murmur went unheard, as the girl had already fled the common space. Mags' shoulders rose and fell with a sigh that was barely audible, yet still felt like a thunderclap in the still of the room. The tension was palpable here, and incredible uncomfortable even though the blue-haired player had remained quiet throughout most of the discussion. Always content to observe, this was not altogether unusual for Mags. But with each passing hour, the mounting anxiety forced her into silence out of fear, rather than mere curiosity.

In theory, a game like this should be nothing more than innocent fun. As they all appeared to be players, based on their conversations, no one could actually die. It was no different than the many board games she played off-line, often throwing her friends under the bus to accomplish some goal. It was all in good fun. Or, at least, that was how someone without Magdalyn's bleeding heart might have seen it.

She, on the other hand, found herself struggling to play the game as it was intended. Mags had abstained from the voting, and allowed the more talkative in the group to take the lead. This was in large part due to the simple fact she had nothing to say. There was nothing to provide to a discussion on who to lynch, as the notion of condemning anyone made her feel sick. It was a game, it was fake, but the uncertainty was as real as anything that existed outside of Terrasphere. She could not point fingers, or even bring herself to suspect, given the circumstances. While there was some comfort to be had in the fact that many others felt the same way, that did little to free them from the demonic little game.

The woman moved to chase after Harveste, but hesitated when the expectant silence fell. They were waiting for something. Or, more aptly, someone. But what could she say? Mags glanced first at their captain, a woman she had never met, but someone who appeared to have Harveste's trust. And though Comet had not been so open about it, Mags got the sense that she, too, trusted Gwyn. Or, at the very least, respected her. If her two best friend within the game believed in the blonde, perhaps she could too.

Licking her lips, she took a moment to collect her thoughts. "Like the others, I would have a very difficult time voting. This game would be hard enough if I had any real suspicions, and considering that I don't yet, I would just be randomly pinning blame on someone. That doesn't sit well with me. I'd also like to give it one more night. Maybe this time, whoever is behind this will slip up. Make a mistake, and leave a clue behind that will make me feel a little better about all of this." Assuming that no one she cared about died in the darkness. Comet and Harveste flashed through her mind, and she grit her teeth against what it was she had just said. Her voice softened, some of her confidence leaving her as she concluded with, "If that's really possible."

@Harveste @Comet @Gwyn ap Herne