Private - The Werewolves of Caylus Plains | Page 7

Three more were found dead. Megan, Gwyn, and Savannah. Might be because she knew it was inevitable, that she no longer felt surprise. Every one of them went into the cabin to sleep, and might not wake up the next day. She accepted that, even Gwyn's strange circumstances of death. At least with the Caenis girl inheriting the captain authority, she can relax for now.

Hearing @Seigi boasting her majestic protagonist power, Corvella asked with an interest "Gwyn was a werewolf? Do you also know anyone else who might've not been a werewolf?" If someone has the ability to differentiate werewolf from normal person, that might be a key to getting out here alive. Of course, if the person speaking was telling the truth. There's also the possibility there's undetectable werewolf.

Another thought came to Corvella's head. One more werewolf she said. What if we failed to hang the right one today, and her announcement makes the werewolf target Seigi?

 

Alkaid could only count her blessings that in this virtual game, an event's "day" might not have been an actual full day in real time. Left in the wake of Magi's death, the question rose about whether her decision had really been her own, or merely the pull of mental suggestion. A maddening question, were the days and nights full ones.

But even in mercy, this game was unmerciful. Days and nights passed quickly, an endless surge by a thing that demanded only death, and so when Alkaid woke to find three corpses, she could not help but wonder whether this was the thing's new toll.

Seigi's initial reaction to Gwyn's corpse elicited a lifted brow from her, but she listened closely to the woman's speech. It was almost enough to convince her, even give her a giggle at the reference of "protagonist powers" as those of a Seer, if not for the circumstances. "I want to believe you, because it'd be nice to know we're closer to this game's end. That we're not just whittling time away as something that could be inside any of us without our knowing goes undetected."

"But as much as knowing for a fact that a Werewolf is dead and chances are drastically in Villager favor would please me, I have to agree and also ask if you've kept a list or something of who you've checked?"

Alkaid took a deep breath, waiting. Confirmation that someone killed was a Werewolf and this was actually a game she thought it was would be nice. That she hadn't sent a girl, or a virtual representation of one, to her death over the fact that this appeared like a game she was familiar with, and not a different, entirely sick one altogether.

Hidden: OOC note on absence

Sorry to everyone playing if post quality is a bit down / for lack of replies. Router went kaput over the weekend.

 

For once, her laughter wasn't from anxiety and social tension. She was doubled over, trying desperately not to crack up hearing @Seigi's rather elaborate explanation of how she knew Gwyn was a werewolf. Some of her laughter lead to tears at the realization she'd been too confident that her friend would be spared such an unusual fate.

Gwyn was her friend, wasn't she? She'd have to pray for her later.

"I'm sorry... I really didn't know at all... I-I'm the one who pushed for Gwyn to take the role of leading in the first place..." Though she felt the pang in her chest as strong as an electric shock (and she knew how that felt, having had them before!), Harveste found herself oddly smiling.

At least Gwyn seemed peaceful, despite the bloody mess made in her cabin. And that meant one less killer on the loose. Surely, Gwyn wouldn't want to live with that.

Turning to Seigi, she let her smile dim just enough to not seem overly cruel or teasing. She didn't want to be rude- but somehow, she was just too giddy for a moment. This girl was likely, in her own way, saving Harveste's life from her own self. "Say... Seigi, was it? If you're the protagonist... do you know who the author of this horror tale is? I'm a writer by trade and I often talk to my characters... Is that how you knew? Did you get to speak to the maestro of this mess at all? And if so... What else did they tell you?"

 

It seemed like they believed here, good. Alas, with how neither of them knew who was innocent pretty much meant that yesterday when the hero defended Megan, they didn't listen. Or just did not take Seigi serious? But the girl had way too much of a big heart to really mind that and instead, gave @Corvella and @Alkaid Zexis a simple answer. "Harveste and Megan are innocent!" Though, in the latter case, did it still even matter?

Turning to @Harveste, the kung-fu girl seemed confused for a second. Author of this Horror Tale? But Seigi was simply... "Well... this is my Nightmare, my lucid dream! I know it is hard to believe but what other explanation is there?! I'd be weirded out if someone told me I'm just a dream resident, too!" Yup. That was a fact. A reality. Seigi's reality! How else could it be? "I'm surprised my fiance isn't here though." Seeing him getting killed was a sinister thought, but one that pleased her quite a lot. "Or anyone else I actually know really well, for that matter! ... except for Wendy." Now, thinking about it, Seigi actually looked like her self in Terrasphere. Boy did she spend too much time with the game if she started dreaming about it?

Nonetheless, as things were standing, it would soon be night-time again in this weird time distorted place. And while Seigi really didn't want to spill any more blood, there was still a Wolfy under them.

Considering Seigi survived the night despite telling people she was the Seer Protagonist last night, and she survived, clearly meant the baddies had underestimated her power! "YOU!" Seigi pointed at @Ueno Mizuki. The person the now dead Werewolf declared as a leader. For what reason? "This is your chance at redemption, fluffy Wolfy! Admit you're Gwyn's partner in crime, and things might still turn around! Lying is bad, you know!"

 

"I'm sorry, but I think that assumption is wrong, Seigi." Corvella intervened. "Unless Gwyn, if she was a werewolf, wanted to kill another werewolf." It doesn't seem that @Seigi is lying, because everything that she confirmed until now is what Corvella had been suspecting, except the last part which won't make any sense. "Let me explain. @Ueno Mizuki was supposed to die in the second night, by the werewolves." She pointed out.

"Second, would a werewolf pass their captain authority to another werewolf? That would make their friend werewolf highly suspicious and they wouldn't want that." That's right, she's doing this for everyone. Should they pick wrong, Seigi might be the revenge object for the remaining wolf. They must be careful with every evidence presented.

 

"She was supposed to die the second night?" Seigi asked confused as she got stopped in her tracks as her finger stopped pointing at the Caenis.

Trying to recall tidbits about that day. It wasn't even that long ago. "Oh, right! There was a Werewolf repellent vial!" In the end, nobody ever found out what the contents of the small bottle were and it ended up a guessing game, did it not? The only people with some superior smelling senses, or knowledge, weren't able to, either.

Also, didn't that vial look similar to the one in Gwyn's house? "But how do you know, just with that vial, that the fluffy Wolf was supposed to die, @Corvella?!"

 

Mizuki was somewhat surprised at how, after a night where nobody had died, suddenly there were three corpses. It wasn't surprising that at least one person wouldn't be lucky this time around, but the other two were unexpected... especially since one of them definitely didn't die from a werewolf attack. The Caenis studied the corpse of Gwyn, and the bottle that was found in front of her cabin. Considering how the first time around the vial had been buried, was this meant to be a message or did the one who used the contents no longer believe it worth the trouble of hiding the used object, since people would find it anyway but weren't able to identify the owner?

"All the bloodshed is beginning to get on my nerves..." She semi-muttered. She wasn't easily bothered by carnage given the experience of the invasion, but she still had to admit that in this situation it was difficult to remain completely calm. In fact she had already shown herself to be more irritable than usual, even if she had been holding herself back on doing something she would almost certainly regret when she was being insulted for other people being overeager to lynch someone.

Being chosen as captain was odd though.

Upon being accused Mizuki blinked, listening to the enthusiastic protagonist's shouting with increasing annoyance. Things might still around? Redemption? She got the urge to snap at @Seigi harshly until @Corvella stepped in to her defence. Mizuki once again looked surprised, this time even more so and perhaps a bit shocked as well. She didn't have any proof, of course, but if Corvella was speaking the truth that had still been a close call. Taking a deep breath Mizuki shook her head.

"I'll have to thank you for saving my life then, since I assume you know they tried to kill me because you prevented it. That said I'm not a werewolf and have actively been trying to figure out how to get us out of this place, and the blonde woman also has a point that it's more likely that the previous captain would have chosen a non-werewolf as her successor to draw attention away from the actual killer." She looked at the others. "If possible I'd like for us to try seeing what happens when nobody votes to lynch anyone else, and during the night she can use her 'Protagonist Powers' on me. If she dies I'm almost certainly guilty, but if she lives she can confirm or refute whether I'm guilty. And even if she dies there's enough people left that I'd get lynched, so the only real risk is that one more person might die while we make sure we're lynching the right person, and if we lynch the wrong people it'll just make things easier for the killers."

 

"OBJECTION!" Now, Seigi actually pointed her finger at @Ueno Mizuki, once again. The girl hasn't played much of these Dangan Ronpa things BUT there was this other video-game series about a lawyer person. The kung-fu girl always wanted to do this!

"Another Werewolf being in the position of a Captain is only an upside. Nobody, except the Great Witch Megan on the first day, expected Gwyn to be a baddie! And why should they? She was in a trustworthy leadership position! I... already mentioned I have super protagonist powers the day before this one, yet, here I still am. Super awesomely alive. So clearly, I was underestimated! HMPF." The girl puffed her chest saying this. That's what the baddies got! Though if she were to die the dream would end anyways... no?

"I can't have another night with innocent people dying. Actually, voting for nobody is just as terrible as voting for someone! There was a super fancy word for it that the adults used! Bystander syndrome or so?" The word was kinda fancy, all that mattered?! "And... I feel like abstaining to vote completely turns out really bad... don't you feel it?! This weird... dream power!? The very same dream power that stops me, us, from not questioning your leadership position in the first place and just pick a new Captain!"

Yes, Seigi was totally one-hundred percent convinced. And nobody could stop the girl once she put something in her head! "SO STOP LYING! Maybe, as your punishment, if you stop the killing, I shall simply fluff your tail for an entire day."

Vote: @Ueno Mizuki ​

 

Looks like Seigi's attention shifted to her. Now, if Corvella could do her part just right to convince her. She inhales deeply, before trying to speak without hesitation "Every night, I wake up to death screams. As nobody mentioned it, apparently I was the only one who can hear it. Like Megan's death last night." She proceeds to take another deep breath before continuing "The first night I ignored it. The second night I went out by myself."

Corvella stopped her monologue to walk into Gwyn's bed, taking the vial with her "Yes, this is mine. Both of those are mine, " Opening her cards like this, it was a big risk for her too. It was like she essentially made herself another target with Seigi. But she believe that today, the madness ends. She looked at @Ueno Mizuki after the latter expressed gratitude "I'm sorry, I didn't actually save you. You were already dead when I arrived, but the first vial... put you together again." Her eyes shifted back to Seigi "That's it, I revealed everything because I believe today the werewolf would be caught, like you did. I admit being a cold-blooded murderer that poisoned Gwyn, but what you are doing is only making my effort bringing an innocent back futile." Her emerald eyes sharpened.

She spoke back to Mizuki, almost shouting "No! This ends today! No more meaningless death." One can see that she almost broke down crying, maybe borderline. She raised her hand and pointing in the direction of @Magdalyn and @Alkaid Zexis "Since you mentioned Harveste is innocent, I want to hear from you two."

 

Mizuki's expression entered the territory of blank stares, that of someone who was trying to keep everything reasonable but who was having difficulty handling all the chaos and madness around her. It was different from the urge to just hit something. At this point she just was wondering why she was even bothering in the first place. Seigi aggressively resuming her accusation wasn't even the biggest issue: it was more the fact that, once again, she wasn't given the opportunity to see what would happen if nobody voted to lynch anyone else. By this point she wanted to see it happen as much to finally get it over with as to actually learn something about this place.

"Whether you revived or prevented my death, either way I'm still standing here thanks to you so I'm still grateful... Although I'm somewhat surprised that I wouldn't remember being ripped apart... Actually, if the werewolves killed me wouldn't the cabin have been covered in blood like with the other times? Did that blood just disappear once I got revived?"

She brought the palm of her hand to her face. "I highly doubt we have the information needed to end this today, so even if I don't want anyone dying either I'd rather have one person die, even if it's myself, over having everyone die because the wrong person was hanged." She looked at @Corvella. "Of course the point is moot now."

She turned back to @Seigi. "From day one the witch had been drawing attention to the captain. If the captain knew the witch would also die last night before being poisoned by our friend here she'd have known that people would take it as confirmation that she was actually a werewolf, and because of that anyone she chose as her successor would be suspect. Even if she didn't know the witch would die the witch still had gone through great pains to make her a potential suspect so she'd still be wary of whoever was her successor being voted to be lynched. Being captain only means you're the tiebreaker. It doesn't save you from being lynched if half the group turns on you because you're the most likely suspect. It does little to choose another werewolf as the next captain if the odds of that werewolf being lynched are too high, but on the other hand it IS very beneficial if, even after dying, one of the werewolves still manages to trick the rest of the group into hanging another innocent so the remaining werewolves have a better chance of winning."

 

At this point in time, Seigi was already a lost cause. The lots of words didn't help her cause either. Why couldn't just everybody be honest?! "But... I... urm... " She had nothing else to go off, did she? Seigi had made her choice. No regrets. Never. Even if it defied logic! The hero would go on! "You are... the Werewolf...! Yeah... ." She murmured, a lot weaker than before.

Damn this Nightmare really took a toll on her! Once she woke up from it, she was sure to NEVER drink AGAIN.

 

Mizuki glared at Seigi some more for putting them in this situation, then just muttered and let loose a long sigh before looking around. How the voting here worked... She didn't actually understand it, but there was a feeling that once you voted it was definite. Which meant that Mizuki now had to either face getting hanged because of Seigi's vote (if no-one else added their vote), or someone else would be condemned. Which was exactly what she didn't want to happen, so it put her in a difficult position and a bad mood.

"I'd ask if maybe someone would like to leave this place as soon as possible so we could vote for them, but by this point I'm not sure we can afford mercy kills... But even if I'm not happy about being stuck here I'd still rather not get killed off like this." She folded her arms and muttered some more. "Does anyone have a suggestion on what we could do?"

 

She had been unable to watch the masses hang her best friend in Terrasphere. Still, Magdalyn's imagination, so vivid in its presentation, had conjured the worst sort of images. Though she had turned her back to the procession, closing her eyes and gritting her teeth against the injustice, she had still seen Comet's body plunging, then snapping with the impact of reaching the rope's end. Magdalyn was done.

So she eyed the discussion through a cool stare, her arms crossed against her chest, her lips drawn in a tight line. She had wanted to share introductions, as meeting others had been her sole purpose for joining the game. Besides, Gwyn had seemed like such an interesting woman, and Harveste had joined in on the name exchange as well. But at the moment, Mags could not even stomach looking at the faerin, who she had once called her friend. How dare she vote against Comet? Regardless of whether or not she was friends with the Green Team member, she had to have known Magdalyn was. Did Harveste trust Mags so little, and have so little respect for her wishes? Mags fought to hide the sneer from her lips.

When Corvella addressed her, Magdalyn's blue eyebrows rose. She glanced Alkaid, unsure what the woman meant by her comment. In all honesty, were she in a better mood, Mags might have proceeded with more caution. But as it was, her patience was shredded, and the arguments of the other players only made things worse. "I never said Harveste was innocent," Magdalyn stated blandly, leveling a look at the faerin that suggested she was now considering arguing the opposite. "I simply said I knew her."

Her hand dug into her arm, the nails digging into the thin fabric of her tunic. "If I'm going to be entirely honest with you, I don't know why there isn't more focus on that one." She nodded toward Seigi. "She's playing recklessly. She's throwing accusations around as if none of this really matters, which I'm starting to get more than a little annoyed with. Her 'protagonist' rationale is losing its charm, and frankly, I can't follow her line of thinking. She is the one insisting that players are innocent with no real explanation. And she's voting for people with so little thought. That's dangerous." The words flowed from her, water freed from a dam, with little consideration as to their consequences. She had remained quiet, and it had resulted in the death of her friend. If she were to paint a giant target on her own back in this... well, at least she could be rid of the damned game. And the other players would be left to regret the fact that they had killed a mere player. "I've never played this before," she concluded, her blue eyes narrowing to mere slits, "but haphazard votes hidden behind ridiculous theatrics doesn't seem like the way to go."

@Corvella @Harveste @Seigi

 

Watching the events unfold answered some questions, only to sprout new ones. Some revelations, new possibilities. "If you're adamant on trying to circumvent the system, we could try seeing what an unbroken tie does. Although that is a bit risky. It could result in no death, one death, or both parties dying."

"At this point it would be best to try to think ahead and lay our options on the table, then pick one. If she is telling the truth about her powers, then it is likely that the Werewolf is one of us two. I'm not sure on whether our last Captain was a Werewolf, but unless this version of the game allows infighting it does not seem like our curremt one would be the Werewolf. Even then it would be disadvantageous to attack an ally with enemies all around."

Uncertainty crawling in her throat, Alkaid continued. "There is also the possibility that her claims of power could be a rouse to seem useful to us and coax us. I don't believe she is lying. Yet, I also don't believe anyone here could knowingly effectively PK so gruesomely every night. Instead, the monster could be hiding within us, wearing a mask and trying to influence our thoughts like that damn noose. Thus, unlike a normal game where we observe behavior, this one is part deduction, part chance."

"Assuming we believe her, the game should end if one of us two die. Assuming we don't, it seems possible two Werewolves are still on the loose, and she could only be one. No option is comfortable, though."