antumbrac | WEEK 6

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Five weeks. It's been five weeks, and twenty-seven has now dwindled down to eleven. And while only two passed this week, this trial may have been the most devastating in its own way, as threads of patience frayed and fragments of trust fractured. Nevertheless, if The Lady is to be believed, that may very well have been the final set of sacrifices that she was waiting for, so perhaps the end is in sight.

Of course, the fact that everyone is still stuck in Krakow means that it's not over yet, and who even knows what's happening over in the Twilight?

And so, some more changes are in store for this week, even if it may not be the same ones that you've gotten used to. For one thing, the fog stays put and no new areas of the city are revealed under the light of the lampposts. Secondly, The Lady is nowhere to be found in the city, with her bookstore office vacated and abandoned with nary a trace as to where she went. And third, the clock tower will no longer operate, which-- well. Actually that's not new at all, but it certainly may make it difficult to keep up with the facade of passing days. At least the moon still serves as a reminder of that, gibbous phase waxing into something fuller over the course of the week even if the color looks a bit off.

It may not be a fresh new start, but it's not time to give up yet, is it? After all, you are all Survivors.

[[Welcome to Week 6! Note that there are no new locations this week, but feel free to make top levels at your discretion, and remember to note it in your header if you plan on investigating any locations. As alluded above, The Lady will be unavailable, while Rembrandt will still be around on Monday and Tuesday before disappearing for the rest of the week.]]

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Naturally. You have nothing to fear from me if you take action on him. As far as I am concerned, this is just righting an error in the execution process.

[ Normally this would fall under vigilante justice and vigilante justice is bad, but... a) this place is a wreck and normal trials are a lifetime away and b) Mikami's apparently extrajudicially killed thousands himself, so who is he to judge.

They both know Ango is guilty. It doesn't matter how he comes to be punished now. ]

Good. I meant what I said at the trial, I don't plan to make it a pleasant or quick death at all.

[jesus christ, apparently he has lost any and all filter along with dist]

After everything he put all of us through, it's what he deserves. But I'm not going to claim that's why I'm doing this. I'm doing this because he made the mistake of choosing Dist.

[...But then he sighs, forcing it all out and shaking his head.]

I won't get distracted by that, however. The most important thing is to handle what we can on our side and to put an end to the Lady.

[ Mikami hadn't expected differently, but he is going to turn a blind eye to the selfish motivation here. One way or another, Ango deserves it.

And Mikami is coming to appreciate the cruel honesty of villains in general, as horrid as it is. ]

Yes. I've been focusing on re-examining the locations we know the Lady has worked at previously. I searched the entire hotel first floor today - and by entire, I mean that. I moved every furniture and checked even within the backs of picture frames.

If you have an idea for which building to take tomorrow, I am open to it.

[He's assuming this is the perks of being Cumore's bff, but hey, he'll take it!!]

Your eye for detail is certainly appreciated. Even if you didn't turn up anything there, that sort of work will surely yield some results. It's just a matter of looking in the right place.

[He considers that carefully, mentally running through all the places he examined verses the ones that the others mentioned before. He doesn't remember everything perfectly, of course, but...]

The opera house is some place that could likely hide clues we've missed in the past. I believe that's perhaps the most important building to examine thoroughly. I do believe we're missing some places as well - the "football field", I think? I don't recall anyone mentioning examining that.

Oh, that is true. As far as places go, this seemed so unassuming that I never gave it more than a cursory glance. I will rectify this tomorrow.

[ He's not sure what could possibly be going on with a football field but if they all die because he was too disbelieving of the power of sports.... Nope, not risking that. ]

I likewise assumed it would be a dead end, but we can't afford to dismiss any location as unimportant.

You have my thanks, Teru Mikami. Try not to overwork yourself too much, Cumore will worry.

[is he serious or is this a joke........]

[ On Saturday Iago may have failed to elicit much of a reaction, but this time he is in luck. Mikami is visibly thrown off by the comment! He drops eye contact for a second because what even! ]

I... at the very least I sincerely doubt that.

[ Before this morning he'd have thought the answer is a decided 'no' but who knows anymore. ]

[fluster teru mikami: check!!]

Oh? You only doubt that? I would have expected you to refuse it outright.

[now he is definitely teasing!!!]

It sounds as though you two are getting quite close.

It's...

[ Wait a second.

Wait just a goddamn second. ]

It was you. You talked to him about going to his world.

I'm sure the two of you will be very happy in Terca Lumireis.

[no, cumore hasn't told him this, he's just bullshitting.]

[ There's more freezing up here because what is that phrasing. Even Mikami realizes this sounds like he's getting congratulated on an engagement and that's.... certainly something that is not what this is. ]

You-- I do not recall asking you to intervene.

[ Why!! ]

[can't believe mikami and cumore are getting hitched so soon, gasp!!!]

Oh, you didn't. But if I didn't, no one would and the two of you would be woefully confused about it forever. Someone had to speed up the process a little.

[..........this has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he aggressively flirted with dist for weeks and only realized his feelings a day before dist died, shush.]

[ There's so much to unpack in this whole situation. This entire weekend has been too much. And Mikami does not want to do the stupid schoolgirl thing of asking about this, except apparently being a stupid schoolgirl is contagious in this world. ]

... I was not aware he was confused to begin with.

[Hmm... should he be nice here, or...]

He thinks you're a little weird. ["a little"] But he's mostly just confused.

So did he ask you to come with him once all this is over?

[welcome to the team girl squad, mikami. we lost a member so you're the replacement!!!]

[ Well, the weirdness part isn't news. Mikami is firmly aware Cumore thinks he's kind of nuts and, to be entirely fair, a lot of that is mutual. It's not really the issue anymore.

The confusion is... huh. Well, after this morning, he's beginning to believe it. Because that sure was a speech he got.

... and wait. Waiiiit. ]

You didn't even know.

[ Give him a moment to look irritated here, but okay, he'll keep going. ]

'Ask' is a fairly straight-forward term for what happened, but yes. He did.

You two are very cute.

[this is definitely "you guys are so dumb, it's adorable"........]

Ah, so he finally worked it out. I'm proud of him. [nodding!!] Do take good care of him; I'm sure the two of you will be very happy together.

[ He hates every part of this conversation and he should really be walking out on Iago now, except he is getting the nagging feeling that Iago knows more about what's going on in his social life than he does.

And that is... sure painting a picture. ]

Why are you phrasing it like this?

[ To be an ass, presumably, but still. ]

[it is his job to be a gossipy bitch, mikami!! gosh.]

Because I like flustering you. And whenever you talk to Cumore about this, it'll fluster him too, which will also be fun.

[cumore's going to want to punch him tonight, it's gonna be great.]

[ There is so much to unpack here about all the things Iago is implying about Cumore and he's not sure Iago is not just doing it to cause chaos. In which case, stop it. Because this has just the right degree of realism to it to make it really startling. ]

I didn't realize it was possible to fluster him.

[ That's. One thing to say to this. While he mentally sorts through the whole of this talk to find the eject button. ]

He gets angry when he's flustered. You've probably seen it already. Try flirting with him, that will do the trick.

[mikami could leave at any point and yet he keeps doing this to himself.]

[ This is the part where Mikami is starting to feel like he's going red in the face and he prays to whatever God may still have him that he's wrong about this. ]

Why would I?

[if teru mikami blushes, iago wins the game.]

"Why" instead of "I would never"? You really are interested.

[ Currently he mostly looks angry and maybe that is hiding the faint shades of red that embarrassment has brought to his cheecks. ]

I did not say this. I'm merely...

[ Ugh, okay, clearly he is digging his own grave by being subtle here so. ]

What did Cumore say to you?

[ If only Mikami knew he is echoing another conversation almost perfectly. ]

[teru mikami is so cute.........]

It wasn't necessarily what he said to me, simply what I've observed lately.

[So he'll actually drop the obnoxiousness a bit! Is this a good thing or a bad thing, though...]

During the trial you both were acting very strangely. Everyone was aware of it, and I suspect that's why so many ended up voting for that bastard instead.

[Because everyone expects certain things from Mikami and Cumore both, and that trial was none of that for either of them.]

He was having difficulties there, but he still managed to tell me to stop going after you. Cumore values his own life very highly; it was strange that he would want me to stop when there was a very real chance that he could be voted out instead.

...And then over this weekend he's been getting particularly prickly whenever I mention you. I like to think I've got a fairly good idea of how he works by now and he usually only gets that irritated when he doesn't like the direction a conversation is going.

[In other words, you are not the only victim of Iago's merciless teasing.]

[ Okay this is... a whole lot more content than he expected at this rate and it makes him less mad and more thoughtful. It's not as if he's unaware that things between him and Cumore have been... charged, lately. It's just that he cannot tell ideological charge from platonic charge from romantic charge from a straight-up existential crisis. And this may just cover all of those areas, to make matters worse.

He goes quiet for a bit. Time to look at all of those sludge containers we have here. ]

That's a lot of assumptions you're making.

[ Except it's not because Cumore verbally confirmed he finds Mikami attractive in front of everyone - a factoid he'd long decided was completely meaningless. ]

There's no denying that we have grown close as people, but you're taking this too far. Unless there is something specific that I should know about, I'd appreciate if you stopped obfuscicating a complicated situation even further.

WEEK 6

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