Audience: Harrowhark Nonagesimus

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Comments

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[she wants to say no but also, yeah, it kind of is. wild. so there's a sense of disbelief but also a little more calm.]

No, that's wrong. [shaking her head!] It's more like we knew you were coming but it's not like we went out and individually offered you a chance to get the power you were looking for and then brought you here. We learned about it, and then we got stuff ready around the base.

But...like I said, we did know that's what would happen if things progressed a certain way. And then they did. We all agreed to become Avatars, but some of us feel more strongly about what that means than others.

[bonetiddies]

[She's proud of you, Lust. Live your meannest life.]

Can we discuss how it's supposed to happen? We start killing - it generates fuel and food, from the dead? Was the end result for all of us to die?

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[no :(]

Probably. [she'll be honest about that.] Obviously that's not ideal, but given how it functions that's likely what the endgame was.

[bonetiddies]

How is that achieved? Was it going to be just. . . getting us to keep killing and executing until we're gone? Or is there another way we'll get killed?

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...do you remember Nathan?

[bonetiddies]

I never really spoke to them. They disappeared - supposedly for lack of indulgence?

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Right. There's a reason we kept encouraging you guys to keep indulging even while all of this was going on.

[don't indulge, you die faster.]

[bonetiddies]

But if we don't fail to indulge, and we also don't kill each other, what happens then?

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...it'd probably go the way things went last time, to be honest. It'd start showing up to encourage you to start picking each other off anyway and to indulge more. But since you guys started doing that on your own I have to wonder if that's why it took so long to show itself.

[bonetiddies]

Why doesn't it just kill us itself? Less fun, or is there a reason why it can't?

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Why go catch a fish yourself when you can go to a restaurant and have a sushi roll made for you?

[she just believes it really doesn't want to unless it has to.]

[bonetiddies]

Where does your win condition come in? If we're all devoured, you get your wishes granted and can leave?

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Supposedly. That's what we've been told, that it should be enough for us after that.

[bonetiddies]

[She considers this; her feelings are all a lot calmer now. She taps her hand against her cheek.]

Do we have a win condition, that you're aware of? Or are we fucked?

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Normally I'd say the latter. [which inspires a whole other mess of feelings that aren't pleasant.] But...this went differently than our time. If you're hearing from the dead and you're seeing this thing and you're learning stuff about it....that's more than we ever got.

[bonetiddies]

Okay.

[Good. A nod, a little rush of relief.]

It isn't as though I was going to say oh well, guess I'll die even if you said it was nothing. [Hmm.] What about you? If we're not fucked, are you then fucked? With the rate you've all been turning, I can't imagine you have all that much time left to see us all dead.

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Duh. [like. she knows? harrow does not seem like a person to roll over and die. but...hm!]

I don't know. [a swirl of unease.] I mean maybe. Depends on how much indulgence has been generated and what this thing's doing next.

[bonetiddies]

So you do actually believe if we indulge a lot we can find a way to stop it? Actually?

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Yeah. But what stopping it actually looks like, I have no idea.

[bonetiddies]

. . . The letters you received suggested some of you will keep trying to ensure we all die. Do you agree this is the case?

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Yeah. I think there are still some of us who are going to stick to the plan. Do you fault them for that?

[bonetiddies]

[Hmm. She considers this question a little thoughtfully.]

Yes, and no. I don't really expect any of you to lay down your lives or give up the things you want for us. And that's essentially what we'd be asking, with no promise it would even work. If I understand correctly, Pride and Despair are among those who want to stick to the plan. I don't particularly feel surprised or misled by that. [Neither of them ever suggested they were here to make friends? Honestly, Pride especially essentially told her not to believe she'd get out of here without a fight.]

But to me, this notion of a group sacrifice to fuel that thing is revolting. You know my personal history. I have had conversations with several of you about my personal history, and it is difficult to stomach that while I spoke of such things, this is what was happening.

[Her emotions about this really are just. Yikes. The trauma she has around this she doesn't talk about with anyone, but she did with some of them because they already knew. But she hasn't ever been able to see these tradeoffs, the way death has been used as a catalyst to grand wishes, as anything but another form of the same thing.]

I. . . the fact that I find it revolting does not mean I don't understand why it was tempting, or why it seemed like the only path. It's simply that it's difficult for me, to look at it unemotionally.

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Yeah, I know. [it's all she says at first, but her emotions say enough that words don't. she understands that it isn't pleasant, that this is a shock and that this isn't something harrow would have necessarily chosen herself.]

...when we were first given the offer to ascend to being avatars or whatever, it's not like we were told that we'd be hosting a bunch of you to kill off. It was either take the offer or give up. So we took the offer, and nearly a month later we learned you guys were coming. You guys were going to generate indulgence, and it would be enough. That was the supposed plan. It was the only path we had at the time.

So I'm not asking you not to be emotional about it, or to not be angry at those of us who're sticking to the idea. But I hope you can also understand why I'm not angry with them.

[bonetiddies]

That's not it at all.

[She presses down the ugly feeling, trying to stay calm.]

I'm not an idiot. Things never added up. I've understood for weeks now that all of you had a different agenda than ours, and I've been skeptical of whether we would really make it out of here alive.

[She chews on her nail a little.] If I learned all of this in a vacuum, I don't think I would care? That you would rather all of you have a chance than try to save a bunch of strangers - obviously. That you felt you had to lie to us so we'd continue to generate indulgence - sure. It makes sense. I don't feel particularly deceived. Not even by those of you who were friendly. I distrusted some of you a little, but I ought to have been more cautious, and that's my fault. I don't even feel, recalling all of these conversations, that I was encouraged to trust you. I just decided on my own that I could, which was spectacularly stupid.

So I wouldn't be angry, and especially not with those of you who've always said you weren't here to help us. I know what Pride is here for, and a little of what Despair is here for, and I don't exactly fault them for caring more about that.

But. [Just a swell of sadness here.] I don't do well when people I care for are treated carelessly. And I think the way some of us were encouraged to feel close to you was cruel. [She doesn't feel that way on her own behalf; she should have been smarter. But when she thinks of other people here. . . ]

At what point was Beauregard gone, and no one thought to tell him? Was the calculus that it wouldn't do any good, because he'd be dead soon enough, too? [Because that sucks. And it isn't the mean Avatars she's angry at for this.]

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You make it sound like--[...you know what. never mind. she just shuts up and lets harrow talk and effectively shuts down how she's feeling about the conversation. this is a business discussion.]

The "calculus" was that a lot of us didn't realize it right away because we don't always know what's going on with the dead, and even then it isn't a totally lost cause. We don't know how the wish thing works. Would you have rather we said there wasn't a chance in hell he could maybe use his wish to bring her back? That you were all absolutely definitely doomed from the start even though things are already going differently than when we were by ourselves? What would have been your solution to all of this, Harrowhark?