Week 5

[airlockedmods]

[As with the weeks before, life in the Fantasy Sweet returns to something resembling normalcy with shocking efficiency. The second floor rest area and Adventure Zone Death Orb Room are spotless again, the demon glitter has been vacuumed, the deflated orbs have been replaced. It's like none of it ever happened, like three more friends aren't dead and stored away in the guest house morgue.

There's a new floor to explore, their "reward" for a job well done.]

Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday



[ooc: Don't forget to to turn in your activity for week 4, submit your memory regains and put in your threads for the Benefactors!]

Comments

[desperateprayer]

...Fair enough.

[ Well, he got her to smile a bit. ]

...You doing... As well as you can?

[scourgingstars]

I'm as well as I'm going to be.

[desperateprayer]

...I was scared, yesterday. I tried to call PAL out on the rules, but... ...He threatened to kill me, too.

[ ...Just so you know, Ardyn. More fuel to the fire. ]

[scourgingstars]

I'm hardly surprised.

[it's also difficult to get much more angry than he already is, calm as he might look.]

We have to be cautious in how we challenge him from here. He's unstable, and while that makes him more dangerous it also marks his vulnerability.

[desperateprayer]

...Ardyn? ...I don't know technology as well as you, but... Why is he above the rules? Nothing exempts him. It... Confuses me... I don't understand. Even Riliane... Wasn't exempt. She faced revolution when she tried to break them, and her kingdom was taken from her.

[scourgingstars]

It's quite simple--you need not know technology, but politics. He places himself above the rules because he believes they simply need not apply to him. We number more than he does, but lack the power to enact a full-scale revolution; if there are no apparent consequences for acting against his own laws, there is no reason to hold himself to them.

[desperateprayer]

...But doesn't he have rules he has to follow?

[scourgingstars]

Clarith, I have read every single rule he's so far presented to us countless times. There is essentially nothing in the letter of any of them which applies strictly to PAL's actions themselves.

[desperateprayer]

...There has to be something we can do. To get ourselves free. Otherwise, this won't end until PAL has killed every single one of us.

[scourgingstars]

That would be a terrible anticlimax to thi-...

[Ardyn stopped midsentence like something had just occurred to him, lapsing into a sudden and thoughtful silence.]

[desperateprayer]

Ardyn?

[ ...What's going on? ]

[scourgingstars]

...You've just presented a very interesting concept to me, Clarith. Perhaps if we can't easily bend his rules, we can approach the matter from another angle entirely.

[desperateprayer]

...I'm not sure I understand.

[ ...This sounds potentially crazy and dangerous. ]

[scourgingstars]

[y'all aren't the people he's looking to genocide, chill]

We can't fight him directly. Perhaps we can challenge him with loopholes in his own rules, but what's the thing that our dear overlord abhors above all else?

He detests being bored.

[desperateprayer]

[ It's not genocide she's worried bout, Ardyn. ]

...But if we bore him... He might just kill us all...

[scourgingstars]

I never said we should. In fact, I think the exact opposite is in order.

[He glanced out of the corner of his eye for just a second to the nearest camera, flashing a sharp smirk that could only mean trouble.]

...It's not all that wise to discuss strategy within earshot of the enemy, don't you think? So, I'll just have to ask: do you trust me?

[desperateprayer]

[ ...Oh gods, Ardyn has a plan and she's not sure this is going to go well but they have nothing else to try. ]

...Yes. Of course.

[scourgingstars]

...That's probably not a wise choice.

But we'll see how well that pays off for the rest of you.

[desperateprayer]

...It may not be. ...But it's still a choice I'm willing to make. We have to trust each other, or PAL will find ways to split us apart.