week 5, thursday

[reapertoire]

[ Between one blink and the next, Newt will suddenly find himself in a greenhouse. If he tries looking outside its glass windows, he'll notice that there is a strange haze that makes it impossible to tell the exact location, but the interior of the greenhouse is fairly bright, as if sunlight was shining through.

Everything in it seems fairly normal. There is a variety of plants, but primarily roses, as well as a small outside garden table. Still, strangely enough, there's also a... kotatsu? Well. Okay. ]

Comments

[rosemance]

That I don't actually know, I'd have to ask them.

[completelycrazy]

Right. Uh... Can you... I know you can't give me the specifications for how to win and save everyone. I get that. But is there anything you can tell me about it? Like, what's the nature of the criteria, exactly? Is it something we have to do or just... Understand, I guess? If it really is about just figuring out why this game is happening in the first place. And if that's the case, how many of us have to be in on it to clinch the win? If I, I don't know, magically figure out the criteria here and now, is it something I can pull off myself?

[rosemance]

I guess... in the beginning you were given a certain narrative. We need to see you all, together, work away from that narrative and find your own solution.

[completelycrazy]

But we were never outright lied to, right? This is more... We weren't given all the facts, but it wasn't necessarily deception.

[This game just got a hell of a lot harder if he's wrong.]

[rosemance]

The Reaper teams were lied to in the first week because we had to give them a reason to believe why they would be against other Reapers. It wouldn’t make any sense otherwise. We did put enough holes in our stories so that they would realize they weren’t given the whole truth. Some of the Reapers notices and questioned it, and others did not.

But other than that, no. We’ll give you bits of information little by little. If you had theories, we couldn’t flat out confirm or deny them, we could only attempt to steer you in the right direction with small hints. All of what I’m telling you now I would have been unable to last week.

[completelycrazy]

[Well, as long as he wasn't lied to...]

Good. At least we're close to solving this thing, I guess. [...] And thanks. For sharing all of this with me. I know it's, like, your job, but still. I appreciate it.

[And then he remembers something.]

...You decided to give me the hint for Jacopo, didn't you? That's what Max said. Why? And don't say because you knew I wanted to go after a Reaper. Jacopo was one of yours, wasn't he?

[rosemance]

Because we told you when Jacopo’s group of Reapers were revealed that, for the Players, all Reapers were the same. And it’s true—his group could have just as easily had the other one’s job. One was not “more good” than the other. And if I only gave you a name from the other group, that would have been going against that rule. So we picked from a hat to make it fair between the remaining ones.

As for why, when Chuuya and Caren successfully pulled off their erasure, they wanted that as a reward: for a trustworthy Player to receive the information.

[completelycrazy]

Picked from a hat. There's an upsetting amount of randomness to this game, y'know. Like, so I was just a random trustworthy Player?

[LAME...]

But that means you're ultimately the one in charge of the, uh, perks we get for pulling off an Erasure. That means it's within your power to send that message Hermann wanted to send. Can you... What do I have to do to convince you to do that for me? Outside of killing someone again. I can't do that. We have few enough remaining as it is, and no one here deserves getting murdered just because I screwed up the first time.