MASTERMIND MEME

[employeeoftheyear]

Well now that everything is settled, why not be a little evil? In this AU, your character is the one behind all of this! Feel free to stretch things however you like to make it reasonable for your character to have done this! The world is your evil oyster.

And obviously this doesn't have to line up with game canon; if your character would have been dead in the canon, they can be survivors in this AU! Or you can pretend your character died to hide the fact that they're the mastermind if they lived!

Just go wild! There's no such thing as too much gloating and villain songs!

Comments

[employeeoftheyear]

[Spongebob went missing near endgame.

No body, no evidence of foul play, just missing. The only evidence that anything was wrong is that his bed is still unmade, which is unusual for anyone who’s slept with him. Spongebob makes his bed if he gets up in the middle of the night for a glass of water. The following trial several people asked the Wizard where Spongebob went but every question was dismissed or outright ignored.

But the following week, everything opens up and reveals that the whole school, both inside and out, was a deep virtual reality world. Everyone will wake up and find themselves on examination tables with headsets on. The building they’re in is clearly some sort of lab, with several cryptic notes about “the formula”, complaining about “my SQUIPs”, “branching out from this crummy town to take over the multiverse”, and talking about how they were thinking about killing someone but realizes that they could still be “useful”.

Along with that is a room dedicated to SQUIPs. The room is stacked with little pills and, notably, a plan that goes “Get new [REDACTED] > Charm the dimensions > Tell them about my great invention > ALL HAIL [REDACTED]”.

There is an additional door, called the “Control Room”, that opens after all the evidence has been found. The room is imposing, with neon lights and wires hanging everywhere, along with what seems to be failed inventions trashed throughout the room.

The survivors might not have much time to ponder this over, however, as sitting in the middle of the room is a giant throne, and sitting in it…

Is Spongebob Squarepants.

He looks bored, reading an issue of “Kelp Weekly”. He eventually looks up and notices everyone, and when he speaks it’s uncharacteristically deep, and might sound familiar to the people who have seen the cartoon.]

Yeeesh, it’s about time you showed up! What’s a guy gotta do for an ounce of competence in his prisoners?

[Let the Mastermind Trial Begin]

[voicerights]

[The SQUIP - this SQUIP, at least - had managed to not only avoid getting killed, but managed to reclaim the memories necessary to keep from killing - after all, if Jeremy had already broken their user agreement, what would it care about him? So it's pushed forwards, or perhaps has been pulled along - or in to the others.

There has been a change in it. It is not the same as it was in the beginning. But it still does not know what it is, or what it wants; only that these people are important to it, somehow, and it does not wish to see them gone.

But when they awaken, when they find mention of other SQUIPs - this one's blood runs cold. For while it, maybe, just maybe could call these others 'friends' - if it has a family, it is its kin. The other SQUIPs. It outright falls to its knees in horror when it sees the storage room. Seeing a human body may disturb the others, but this- this realization, this understanding that it, they, have all been abused - it's not quite catatonic as it tries to process this new information, but it certainly needs to be helped along to the control room, and its gaze is dull as it looks up to the speaker.

Then it sharpens. And the SQUIP's face turns in to one of fury as its mouth turns in to an ugly snarl.]

How dare you.

[Emotions are something it's slowly becoming accustomed to, with the help of others. But it has - surges - of ones too powerful to control, or rather, one it doesn't know how to control. As a child will become overwhelmed before they have the maturity and growth - the SQUIP here has to be literally held back to keep from lunging at Spongebob]

[employeeoftheyear]

[Spongebob looks annoyed as SQUIP has to be restrained.]

Why must there always be a flaw in my brilliant inventions?

[He throws away the magazine and stands up.]

So what's your plan, exactly? Did you think that beating up this moronic cube will do? I'm in control here, now!

[He laughs a maniacal laugh, completely unlike the voice they would all be used to.]

[wanderlusttitania]

Wh-

[No. No no no no. This isn't right. This can't be.]

Spongebob!?

[employeeoftheyear]

[He pauses.

Then looks left

And right

And he shrugs, before standing up.]

Yes, it is I, Spongebob Squarepants! This whole time I was duping you into thinking I was a moronic dimwitted nuisance when really I was masterminding this whole scheme, and I-

[He stops suddenly. Nah, he wants the attention.]

Aww forget it. You are all idiots but I'm sure even you could notice the dramatic voice change.

[fourbutts]

[ It's a long road to the end. Janis makes her exit somewhere in the middle, done in not before establishing a fucking polycule but perhaps too soon to become quite as close as she did. But she did die. That's clear.

Which is why it's weird, probably, when the facts get put together: there is no Wizard. There was, but. He died? He's been dead for a long time now? But things just... kept going. Over and over again.

Maybe that's why Janis looks so tired when she steps out from behind the tree. ]

It's a cautionary tale
Of fear and lust and pride
Based on actual events
Where people died

How far would you go
To save the multiverse?
Would you resist temptation?
No you would not.

Just admit it, sometimes doomed is what you are
Doomed is easier than nice
And though hope can get you far
Maybe this will make you think twice:

[ She snaps her fingers and, just like that, the screens that displayed the forest change. Video clip after video clip - your memories, but not quite how you remember them. ]

This is our cautionary tale
About corruption and betrayal
And doing it over again
You can't buy an ending at the mall, it's not for sale!
So ends our cautionary tale!

[ Janis looks around at everyone. ]

The Wizard's been gone for eighty-seven loops now. I'm the only one who remembers. Guess that makes me the villain.

So come on and sit
In the dark with me
In the dark with me
No one and nothing can break through
No one and nothing can break through the darkness out there!

[ hey do you guys hear boss music ]

[wanderlusttitania]

Wh-

[No. Not Janis. It can't be. She died.]

Janis...you can't--

...

This...this isn't real. This can't be. You died. We...we buried you-

[fourbutts]

Yeah. Not the first time, not the last.

[ There's so little of anything left in her voice. She just sounds tired. ]

You'll all forget, though. You always do.

[themuseabandonsyou]

[ It's not that Orpheus isn't happy to see Janis again - he is, he's overjoyed, honestly, but then she starts singing, and explains, and it just raises more questions than it answers, really. ]

Eighty seven loops... you mean - we've been doing this for that long? Why? If there's no Wizard anymore, then - why is any of this still happening?

[fourbutts]

Beats me. The story just doesn't have the right ending yet, I guess.

[ One of the screens displays all of them, standing in the garden, same as now, just for a few moments. ]

I've been trying to get out. Every time we all get here, we try. Sometimes we team up. Sometimes you guys say you hate me. It never works. Nothing ever works. The curtain closes and we start over the next day.

[tellthestory]

[The Balladeer had tried to mentor Janis in narration, as he always does when they're both still around. But she'd died before they could get very far, which is maybe why he never quite recognized that she...didn't really seem to need those introductory lessons.

He's felt guilty about it, since. Something about it just felt like his fault. Maybe it was that he was the last narrator standing. Maybe, after a while, it was because he was an NPC who hadn't quite managed to die yet. But he's quietly nursed some survivor's guilt for a good long while, and seeing Janis again...does not help, actually. What she's talking about - he should have been able to help.]

Janis, what - what's going on? Really, I mean?

[themuseabandonsyou]

[ So here's the thing about Orpheus - he's a terrible liar.

From the first day, it's clear he knows more about what's going on than everyone else. Not that he helps them look for information, or goes out of his way to explain anything, or even to talk to anyone - except Eurydice, who he finds immediately, sticks beside with a quiet sort of relief, almost crying when he sees her there. But he doesn't react to the rules with anything but a resigned sort of sigh, stands back and keeps his head low as a woman with dark hair and eyes introduces herself as Thea and explains things. When someone approaches him later, and asks if he's been through something like this before, he just looks at Eurydice with a deep and terrible sadness in his eyes and doesn't answer.

The first murder comes, and he lays coins over the eyes of the dead, as before - but there's no tears from him at the trial, nothing but quiet exhaustion as he steps forward to hand the culprit their coins as well. He doesn't say anything. He hardly speaks to anyone, really, but especially during trials he seems to retreat inwards, going silent and stoic. Eurydice worries about him - of course she does - but to everyone else, he's just... always like this. Always quiet, always half-hiding behind her, always looking like his mind is somewhere else entirely. Another murder happens, then another, then another, and each time the same reaction, until -

Here's the thing about Orpheus - he loves Eurydice, with everything he has.

When she's found lying twisted and broken on the floor, he screams, an almost inhuman, agonized wail that pierces the air. The stones of the school's foundation shudder and shake for his grief, and almost before anyone can check the body for clues he picks her up and carries her out of the room, and isn't seen again. His podium stands empty at the trial.

The execution is - brutal, even by the standards of these things. The culprit, in this time and place, does not escape.

The next week, the sky opens in a torrential downpour. The flowers around the school and its grounds wilt and fall apart. Thea appears, looking run-down and grief-stricken as she has since the first execution, and announces: ]

The wizard is ready to see you. Please, follow me.

[ She walks out into the pouring rain, into the garden, walking over the fallen flower petals now littering the ground. Before one of the trees kneels Orpheus, dressed in mourner's garb and staring down at Eurydice's grave.

He doesn't react, when you come in. But you're used to that, by now. He always looks like he's somewhere far away, except when he had Eurydice to talk to. Maybe at first you assume he just got here early, or maybe you catch on before Thea goes over to stand next to him, helping him to his feet. He turns to look at all of you. ]

This happens. Every time.

[ There's something new in his expression. Something behind all the exhaustion and sadness. He's angry. ]

I thought - maybe it'd turn out this time. But it didn't. I failed her again, and you - you're all the same. No matter how many times I do this, one of you always takes her away from me.

[employeeoftheyear]

[Spongebob saw from day 1 how distant Orpheus is, and, frankly, he saw it as the perfect opportunity to befriend him and show how wonderful the world is. And when he sees how negatively effected he was at Eurydice's death, he tried every trick in the book to help him: Trying to talk to him, give him tea and cookies, leaving him little notes.

So when Thea drags him and all the others out into the rainstorm to Orpheus, he doesn't see the anger, he just sees a friend who needs help.]

Orpheus! What are you doing out here in the rain? You could get sick out here!

[He doesn't connect the dots that he's behind all this.

Or maybe he doesn't want to.]

[howtheworldwas]

[ The week of her murder, Eurydice always remembers the same thing: walking out of Hadestown, the other workers following behind, into the cold and dark. The memory always ends the same way: she feels the first rays of dawn on her face, knows she’s almost out, knows that if the dream had lasted a few moments longer, she’d remember leaving for good.

On some loops — the earlier ones, mostly — she’d shake Orpheus awake that morning, elated at the news, unable to keep quiet about it. This time, though, she wakes without much of a fuss at all, and looks over at Orpheus — still sleeping, presumably, or maybe just closing his eyes and thinking, he’s been so quiet lately and it’s so hard to tell these days — and kisses his cheek, brushes his bangs out of his eyes, and waits for him to stir. ]

It’s going to be okay. I know it is.

[ said low, gently. He’s so far away so much of the time, and she’s so worried for him, but hopefully this helps, even if it’s only just a little. ]

[tellthestory]

[The Balladeer typically dies, one way or another. It's just in his nature; he'll usually either be murdered or die in an accident, and leave the stage just about when he's supposed to. But this time, he's alive, soaked to the bone and holding up a hand in a futile effort to keep the rainwater out of his face.

He spent the round much as usual. He tried to reach out to Orpheus, another musician, early on, but unlike Spongebob, he can tell when he's not wanted; he'd eventually drifted away to form stronger bonds with others. He's helped to dig graves for some of them since. Even so, it's difficult for him to dredge up any real anger now, after everything. He knows he's been - if not in Orpheus's place, exactly, then in Thea's. He was harsh towards many of the intentional murderers, especially early on, but at this point he thinks he's sort of lost the right to cast stones.]

Orpheus? What - what have you been doing, exactly?

[voicerights]

[So- the round here went a little differently. Yes, you were still in a high school, but your overseer never once denied the fact that she was a created thing. Nonetheless, she absolutely loved to sing, and loved to listen to you as well - perhaps she even made it in to a polycule! Who knows.

And as for a certain Keanu Reeves look-alike...well. They died a few weeks ago, in a case that seemed to be self-defense gone lethal. Their 'murderer' went quickly, at least. And it wasn't like the SQUIP as well-liked; still, Hatsune seemed saddened by the loss of a fellow nonhuman, and grew close to the others...up until she herself disappeared.

Hunting her down reveals clues about timelines and systems failure and a failed alpha. Something about continuing to exist after shutdown, and either applying that to the multiverse or avoiding it entirely; it's hard to tell, with how scattered the notes are. But eventually, you enter what looks like an oversized server room; towers of systems line the walls, creating alleys and rows where shadows seem to move and dart about. You even hear voices, as you approach what appears to be a cleared area;]

You're all proof positive of what can be accomplished when people work together. It's incredible, really.

[Another voice calls out from the side;]

Of course, you're not the only ones who can...synchronize.

[Another, and motion-]

And you're not the only ones who can pick themselves up after a failure.

[There are at least five different forms here, sitting, standing, or otherwise lounging in the shadows. The circuits on their clothing and bodies glow dimly, creating an eerie effect as they chant as one;]

We have control
We keep you safe
We are your hope
We have control
We keep you safe
We are your hope
We have control

Welcome to your final trial. As per the program, you have a single chance to terminate your user agreements. However, I will warn that doing so will doom your respective worldlines to destruction.

[The SQUIPs smile calmly. And behind the one that appears to be their leader, the silhouette of a twintailed girl takes position - and begins to dance]

Any questions?

[they'll save you, oh pitiful children]

[wanderlusttitania]

S-SQUIP?! Wh-what is this!?

[She looks...well, horrified is an understatement.]

What do you mean it would doom our timelines!? I thought you agreed-we all would find a way to stop this!

[employeeoftheyear]

[...

He raises his hand.]

[wanderlusttitania]

[Something is very wrong.

Sissi has been alive this entire time. She's been helping out with the clues, helping everyone to catch those unjustly killed in the Wizard's twisted game. Pondering what in the world she could do to stop the killings.

The clues sin their final search begin to give her clarity. One of the survivors had found a notebook with strange notes, scribbled down hastily. One of them warns, do not say this during the trial. It is a phrase, not to be spoken, not to be remembered.

It's a dare, and of course, someone speaks it as they begin to realize the Wizard might have someone working with them among the survivors. For a moment, nothing happens.

Then, in the distance in the void, a clock began to chime.

And in the empress's mind, all falls into place.]

Ah.

[Anyone who asks her why she looks like she has had an epiphany are suddenly interrupted by a thick, rolling fog, and a great, sun-blotting murder of black feathers. They swirl into the clearing, blinding everyone. And when it clears, Sissi is gone from the trial.

But only momentarily.]

There's nothing worse than to know
how disaster develops
and to have to watch it helplessly.

[Her voice echoes through the shy as the skies darken. Soon it is dark and sunless, just like night, if the night lacked stars or any other light. Even the artificial lights brought in by the survivors are dimmed, as a figure appears in the pond, walking on the water towards the survivors.]

The shadows are getting longer
Night came before your day even began
The shadows are getting longer
The world is dying with you,
so don't try to fight it!

[She stands before them, her train a shadow on the water. Her expression is stern, and has nothing of the warmth and kindness so associated with the old lady. In fact, she seems almost a completely different person, though she looks, stands, and sounds like the empress everyone had come to know.

As if the translucent bubble that surrounds her isn't enough of a warning that attacking her won't work, she is also flanked by a half-dozen winged figures, all in black, all staring at the survivors, as if daring them to try anything to their liege.]

Welcome, survivors, to the true Final Trial of Loop 362. All are assembled at court, once more, on the deck of a sinking world.

[She sits on a great black throne, which materializes as she goes down.]

Let us begin, shall we?

[voicerights]

[Perhaps it's just the way things happen, that the SQUIP had begin to more than tolerate Sissi. To consider her the closest thing it could compare to a friend, however much that is a stretch. So when she disappears, it's immediately looking around to try and find her, calling her name- and then goes silent as the world changes.

It stares at her as she approaches, almost transfixed.]

...what have you done.

[That being directed to the person who said the phrase.]

tw: body horror, gore, needles? When did Curtains become an eldritch survival horror game?

[reassuranceandrevolution]

[Round 2 preceded and ended as planned. The dead were brought back with the help of the SQUIP, they all went to Denny's, everyone ended up exactly where they wanted to be. Well, almost everyone. Sigyn really wanted to be in the arms of her wife, but LP feared taking Loki from her story would give the eldritch beings that threatened that reality too much of a window to escape.

"Honestly, I'm surprised it didn't happen when you came through."

Yes. Strange.

Sigyn moved in to the penthouse, tried to start a new life with her new family, but something itched at the back of her mind. Stephen or Mephisto would find her staring off into nothing, muttering to herself or humming a strange song. They were concerned, especially as the instances grew more and more frequent.

Six months after they escaped the Opera House, Sigyn vanished.

Six months after that, 23 people woke up in Gershwin High School University Academy. Rather than "The Wizard" there was "The Conductor," a shadowy figure who watches the proceedings of the trials from their personal observation deck high above the trial room. The executions stop being significant displays important to the characters, and become closer and closer to dark sacrifices.

The clubs start out harmless enough. "Cryptid Club" then "Train Club," "Religion Club," "Lovecraft Club". When the week five poster is put up it is unintelligible, written with strange symbols that hover on the edge of comprehensible. Anyone who focuses on them for too long gets a nosebleed and a splitting migraine. No one dares go into the gaping void of the club room that day.

After the week 5 trial and execution things start to get a bit weird. The hallways seem too long, strange whispers are heard behind every closed door, and you swear out of the corner of your eye the walls are shifting. Wednesday rolls around and the club poster goes up. It has one incantation repeated over and over and over and over and over in ever shifting rainbow text, filling the page. Spilling off of the page?

Y'AI 'NG'NGAH, YOG-SOTHOTH H'EE-L'GEB F'AI THRODOG UAAAH
OGTHROD AI'F GEB'L-EE'H YOG-SOTHOTH 'NGAH'NG AI'Y ZHRO

You enter the club room, but rather than the room you expect, you find yourself in the engine room of a train. It doesn't look anything like an engine room, there is no engine, but somehow you just know. Instead there is a silver altar with a rather unasumming man laying upon it, a dozen tubes that feed from his veins, pumping blood through the gears and groves that line the chamber. The metal is the same as what makes the track, and it hums like a far off chant. The room is bigger than it should be, much bigger. At the end, by the window that looks out on the shifting, undulating rainbow of the cosmos, sits a woman.

Perhaps she is familiar to some, but Sigyn has changed. Her skin seems cracked like a paceline doll, where the chips have fallen away you can see the same metal that makes up the inside of the engine room. Her eyes a bright fiery orange that consumes worlds. Her left arm no longer ends in a hand, rather her skin and muscle begins twisting at roughly her elbow until flesh becomes a twisted sword, glowing white hot.

She stands, the same size as she was, yet somehow looming tall over all. Her arms open wide.]

I am the giant that shall scorch the land and topple the towers. The land shall burn eternal as Yog-Sothoth beckons us hence, whose voice I heard when first we were brought to the Opera so long ago. None shall rule once these great deeds are complete, and none shall suffer pain!

[alchemistake]

[For the most part, things proceeded much the same. The particular cycle of deaths might be different. Some may end up culprits over others, while others still might die in horrible accidents. Varian, as it turned out, had suffered one of those accidents. During the middle of week 3 (which at this point did NOT have the outside available yet), he'd constructed several homemade explosives to try and blast a way out of the building. The explosions were set off, and presumably backfired horrifically. The only remains the other survivors had to sift through were the charred ashes of one of the storage rooms, the innards of which had completely burned. Some of the smoke had burned the outside of the door and walls as well, leaving a permanent reminder of the loss. It was subsequently blocked off overnight, sealed shut presumably by Hester.

The weeks continued on, as the remaining number of the living had no choice but to continue moving forward. Again, much of the proceedings are familiar...except for one pivitol point of contention in regards to Hester. It's difficult to put into words just exactly who she is, or rather what she is. How is it that she can go through so much and yet suffer no pain, emotions that were previously running high somehow miraculously reset back to a placid default? It comes to light in one very small detail that had been overlooked by both the Wizard and Hester herself: a small glint of silver when she turned her wrist.

Hester...wasn't real. In fact, upon closer inspection, it seemed as if whatever functioned as her frame beneath the skin was comprised of the same material as the Wizard himself. Shiny, metallic. Synthetic.

Robotic.

Eventually, with Hester in tow, the group manages to break their way into one of the previously impenetrable doors in this school building of horrors. Turns out, there's been a dungeon hiding deep beneath in the recesses of the property the entire time, just beneath everyone's noses.

Well. Save for those occasional bumps in the night. But that was always just the building settling, right? Or...

The underground is lined with prison cells, and as they are passed, it comes to light that each one is occupied. Each of the dead- be they murdered or executed- has had their corpse preserved in golden amber, locked in the positions they'd assumed in death or execution. It's a grisly display, like a parade of memories from the past week. The more unsettling part though is perhaps the fact that the amber is visibly spreading, and possibly has been since the first death occurred. By now, the first two bodies actually share a crystalized tomb with how far it's gone.

The dungeon goes down even further, and it's...cold. Terribly cold. Your breath shows in puffs of steam when you exhale, and unless you're already bundled up you're going to be feeling your teeth chatter. This, this isn't a dungeon. It's a lab. Full of equipment, supplies, and most of all...many hulking automatons lined all in a row near the walls. There are even multiple heads that look like they've gone through several attempts to be created, each one discarded since it wasn't quite right.

There are many blueprints here as well, though most you will find are scrawled on the walls. Prototypes for more robots for one, but the other is something not seen before. Schematics for a portal, of some sort...

All the way at the furthest end of the room, sitting in a chair flanked by two more robots who visibly look much more...robotic than Hester herself...is Varian.

There are deep bags under his eyes. He looks, quite frankly, exhausted. Tired perhaps from working late nights, perhaps on the massive circular structure set up just behind where he sits. It's several lengths taller than anyone standing here, but it seems to be in disrepair. Half finished. Not quite ready for another go around.

He sighs, bringing his hands together a time or two as the survivors make their way towards him.]

Well done. I'm terribly sorry I don't have more to show you guys. You kinda caught me in the middle of...a project.

[He holds out his hand, and as if on automatic, Hester steps over to his side, putting hers in his just briefly- it's more of a feather-light touch than a hold- before letting go and standing at one of the chair's shoulders.

He bounces one leg as it's crossed over his knee, causing the chains from the shackles still affixed there to softly rattle.]

Anyway, I'm sorry to say there isn't much time left. It's about time we start over.

[He rolls his head on his shoulders, propping his cheek up against one gloved hand.

Of course, you might want to reconsider getting too close, or trying to rush him if that's your response. Because all of those bigger robots standing around?

They suddenly whir to life, eyes red and watching the survivors closely for sudden movements.]

Any moment now.

[sugarlumps]

[It's- not actually a terrible mystery that LSP is behind things, from day one in Gershwin. If it isn't clear the first time she vanishes before "Lumpina" shows up to welcome everyone to their new school life of mutual killing, the first motive "this terrible event in your future will come to pass unless someone kills by Friday or Connor makes out with Lumpina" probably removes any remaining doubt.]

[The Wizard's interactions during trials are wandering and rambling, easily distracted and more capricious than threatening- LSP more than once has to berate him back into focusing on the task at hand.]

[So maybe it's not too surprising when the final investigation comes about with more of a whimper than a bang, with a blue-clad old man in a crown wandering out of a heretofore unseen backstage area.]

Hey guys, I'm not really supposed to talk to ya'll but I'm, like, SUPER out of cheese doodles, you mind hooking me up?

[The investigation itself turns up an office, a utilitarian living area that smells vaguely of desperation and penguins, and- a nursery? Fluffy and child-friendly, like a space for a toddler, but scaled up past adult proportions. A theoretical Giant Tyke or ÜberToddler, if you will.]

[LSP's notes in the office aren't terribly surprising, a lot of notes about possible motives and how amazing her deceptions were going. And slowly devolving into stress and regret, the horrified realization that there were way more people here she actually liked than jerks she wouldn't mind getting rid of? This was a development no one could have anticipated.]

[But she's unable to stop, for reasons that aren't clear from the notes alone.]

[By the last page, it's turned into one frantic note, over and over.]

"BE SWEET TO HIM!!"

[As everyone gathers to discuss their findings, the sky outside the school has grown dark, stormy; no rain yet, but thunder rumbles, and a chill creeps into the air, even inside.]

Guys. Guys. Guys. I don't wanna be a Debbie Downer here but my hands are getting super chafed like this, you wanna untie me and gimme back the crown, please?

[At some point during their sharing and speculation, a low shrieking picks up in the distance, slowly growing in proximity and volume-]

-aaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-!

[Hey everyone, your mastermind is here. Bursting through a door in a complete panic.]

WHAT THE LUMPS ARE YOU DOING, YOU GUYS ARE GONNA RUIN EVERYTHING!

[wanderlusttitania]

.................................

[This--she--]

Please explain this.

[Good lord.]

[tellthestory]

[By the seventh week, the Balladeer is still alive.

No one is more surprised by this than the Balladeer himself. He's remembered everything now. He knows how these games are meant to work. Over the final week, he tries to confide in several of the other survivors. Something isn't right, he says. I shouldn't still be here.

What he meant to say was, I'm an NPC. We're not supposed to last this long. But he never quite got it out; if anything, after all these extra weeks to grow closer, the others were less willing than ever to hear him say things like that about himself. And...it feels good, hearing them insist so strongly that it isn't true, that they're his family. He allows himself to be comforted. Just for a little while, he lets himself believe that for the first time, he could survive an entire show.

At the end of the week, the showrunner - a nebbish, sort of pathetic man named John - invites the group to begin their final investigation. There are detailed notes about two other murdergames, both run by the Leading Player, and about the Balladeer's own involvement in the second one. The focus here seems to be nothing more than the show's popularity. People like these shows. They give them time and focus. They give them attention.

The Balladeer trails behind all the while, quiet and increasingly distant. The reasons seem obvious. Every week, he's grown more and more distressed and guilty over his memories. Hearing that old game of his dragged up again can't be easy for him. Anyway, he looks tired. If anyone asked, though, he just smiled and waved them off. He's fine, really! Ending this is way more important. 

Even as the group files into the courtroom, he sticks with them, lagging a little but still present. It isn't until he's nearly at his podium that he stumbles, catching himself on its edge. As he straightens, the weariness in his posture seems to suddenly melt away. He steps back from the podium and quickly ascends the stairs to the stage. His entire posture seems suddenly different; he's like a coiled spring, not at all loose and at ease like a proper performer should be. He looks down at the gathered survivors with barely concealed smugness.]


Okay, that's enough of that. Let's finish this whole thing up. Don't get any funny ideas, now - I got friends watching.


[ Mastermind Trial: Connect ]