text | un: k. jarrus

[blindrun]

The Mayor and I had a heart to heart in her office. Reporting on details:

-The Companions, the fake people, aren't controlled by her, but by the Sun. It's not just an advanced monitoring system - it's alive, and it's keeping everyone here hostage. Making everyone pretend to be the town we see. It's also behind replacing people with the Companions.

(Side Speculation: Could this be connected to the list of people? She might have been noting people that are drawing attention and getting on the Sun's bad side?)

-All of the Companions shutdown during my talk with her and they don't seem to be getting up again. She said it's because we've made the Sun mad. There's no way to communicate with the Sun. Either they make it happy or angry and they've been trying to stick with the former to stay alive.

(Side Note: The Sun could hear us the entire time and she spoke quieter and quieter through our talk. We need to be careful what we say aloud moving forward. It's listening to all of us.)

-She has no idea about the orb or where it might be. Really hoping it isn't the sun itself but it could be something connected to it.

-She wants the town to be free but she's afraid. All the people here are. But I don't think they want to keep taking it anymore and that's why they're acting out. We might be able to get them to cooperate with us if we break the pretenses about just being a bunch of new move ins.


Whatever is going down, we need to bring an end to it fast. We can't leave these people to suffer. This is just a mission for us, but it's their lives on the line.

[ ooc: this is a post relegating info from the npc thread -- feel free to use this as an open post to discuss and share other information! ]

Comments

[medicative]

I think fighting it isn't the angle to go from. Nothing in retrieving the orb requires us to fight. Rather, we should look at how to outthink it. An impossible, untouchable foe can still be outmanuevered.

For all the citizens live in fear, there are limits to its knowledge. Else we would already all be Companions. And if the sun is behind their transformation, then it needs to oversee the replacements. It got mad enough to stop supporting them, after all. If I was a more reckless woman, I would say we needed to stare into that massive eye, and will it to blink.

[softshoes]

Yes, you're right. If it's truly an orb, there's no sense trying to overpower it, anyway.

[It sounds like Emily's thought it through a lot; that's reassuring. But alsoooo...]

Well, Dr. Dyer, now might just be the time for recklessness. What would you suggest we do next?

[medicative]

[there's a pause that feels like a full sigh.]

In the chaos that is occurring, we need some people to look vulnerable. Kidnappable, really. If we can bait their capture, they could potentially break out of the Companion process and find the orb when they're close to the sun.

This is assuming the process can be broken out of at all, or that the sun will bother trying to replace us. I haven't the faintest clue how to make someone seem enticing enough to be replaced, other than having them loudly be proclaimed to be the source of the problems and pushed out into the open.

[softshoes]

Unfortunately, I'm not certain how much the sun is invested in the companions anymore, if the fact that they've all stopped functioning is any indication.

[Also, this plan is like. At the very limits of his own recklessness. He's not ready to risk any teammate's life if it isn't a sure thing.]

But getting its attention is still tantamount to getting what we want, I agree.