2nd Event: Choices We Make

[upcyclingmod]

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Arrival


Not all characters (known as Wickie, singular or Wickies, plural) arrive at the same time, surprisingly enough! That’s life for you. Some Wickies find their way to the island at a pivotal (or very mundane) point in their life, or even after or during their death.

Wickies who were standing or walking often find themselves entering the town South Sister, located on Lighthouse Isle, through an open doorway. Those that were laying down, or sleeping, tend to be found lying prone in beds, bathtubs, showers, couches, and similar places within the cottages on Cottage Row. There’s no rhyme or reason to it all! To Wickies familiar with the era, they will realize that everything looks as if it’s come from the ‘90s.

The house which a Wickie finds themselves within could already be occupied. This includes walking into a fellow Wicke, waking up in the same location, or accidentally scaring a room full of people with their sudden appearance.

Oops.

C-C-Changes

Thankfully the fog has gone down to what it was before, a slow creeping crawl over the ground. And too, the monsters of before are gone, leaving the town much like it was before. Well...close to what it was before.

For now the season's have changed, from a lingering summer to a cooler fall.

There’s new foods to try, even if some things like lattes cause people to slip into warm boots and tie up their hair, and soups make people curl up under blankets on the couch. And it also means decorations of all sorts, made of the leaves from the forest, orange, yellow and red things and...we can not forget...

Pumpkin overflow

Pumpkins! They're everywhere. Wickies will find pumpkins infused into all sorts of things, like coffee, ice cream, even spaghetti options! It's wild.

There’s also many jack o'lanterns. They have been placed everywhere in town, outside homes, and even small ones have been made into table decorations. The Jack o lanterns have very cheerful faces, and seem to watch Wickies every single move.

That is, until a Wickie bashes or otherwise abuses a pumpkin. That's when it changes- there seem to be more of them. Their expressions change to that of anger, sadness and disgust. None of them attack- yet. But their faces become more and more horrifying, as they follow the Wickie more and more- outside of the bathroom perhaps, or found on top of them as the Wickie wakes up in the middle of the night.

It shouldn't matter right? They're only pumpkins.

What a ride

Funny enough, with the pumpkin invasion, there also comes a dull colored horse wandering about the island. Its head is drooped, and it looks depressed and lonely. The horse is tame on approach and will accept pats and treats, even from those who are obviously not human.

But it also wants something, for all that it seems to be begging for attention. It wants someone to ride them, seems to even be begging for it with its big eyes. The horse will help Wickies to figure out how to mount; it will even stand beside the Town Center benches, rocks, or even go down in order to make it possible for the Wickie to get onto the horse’s back.

That’s when it changes. The Wickie is immediately wrapped in chains from their barrel to the Wickie’s waist. The horse turns a coal black and the Wickie’s clothing changes into that of a soldier's uniform, with a hand either holding a whip modeled after a human spine, or a jack o'lantern.

The Wickie cannot get off the horse on their own, no matter how much they struggle. As the horse moves throughout the town, they will go anywhere from a walk to a full canter, seemingly impervious to any magic or physical attacks. The same cannot be said for their unfortunate rider.

If the rider is hit, or simply in pain, the Wickie will feel an impulse that grows and grows until they scream a name of someone in town, someone they know.

And the named will drop, paralyzed. Paralyzed wickie are likely to die within minutes, more so if they are too close to horse and rider. The horse will happily trample anyone on the ground to death.

Even without the impulse, should the Wickie rider use anyone’s name, that person will drop, paralyzed, and unable to breathe.

There is only one way to possibly save the rider: scatter golden objects in their path. The horse will shriek, and promptly buck the rider off, before running away. Just make sure to catch the rider, or at least cushion their fall: they have no way of saving themselves until they hit the ground.

Heart game: confession

Current residents of the island may remember this particular beeping alert, and how it doesn’t go away, no matter what they do! That is, unless they open up the Heart Game, and answer the question.

Welcome back everyone! It’s so good to see you again! Now let’s play that game, Confession! And the question isssssss…

How do you celebrate the changing seasons! Don't be shy!

Comments

[keichan]

alright, here are three choices. only one of them is actually how we observe the change of seasons where in the village where i'm from!

1: we have a festival called watanagashi where we rip cotton out of old furniture to represent our sins and float it down the river
2: tossing roasted soybeans out our front doors to represent expelling demons and bad luck
3: decorating our front doors with wreaths made out of gourds and and nuts to ensure a plentiful harvest

[ One of these, of course, is something that they actually do in his village, but not to observe the changing of the seasons. He's tricky like that. ]

[measuringdistance]

[Upon failing to imagine how a wreath made out of gourds would work, Chikai dismisses #3 right away and, correctly or not, focuses on #1 and #2.

#1 sounded pretty unique, and even had a name. Hard to imagine the kid just made it up on the spot... but doesn’t that make it kinda suspicious? It’s just too obvious, right? He’s the one who proposed the game, after all, would he really tip his hand like that? Hm...]

Okay, I'm gonna go with 2. Who doesn’t do setsubun?

[keichan]

[ So, maybe he shouldn't have gone with such an easy one, but truth be told, he hasn't lived in Hinamizawa long enough to know if it has any particular traditions for the changing of the seasons. He hasn't even been through one yet.

But this does mean that there are other people from Japan here, at least. Unless some other place figured out setsubun all by itself. ]

good catch. the first one's a real festival, but it takes place in the middle of the summer, and the third one's a foreign tradition, not something we do in our village.

looks like it's your turn, then.

[measuringdistance]

[Chikai sure is feeling pleased with himself for winning against a teenager! It’d be pretty easy to cheat at a game like this, but hey, he’s already in the lead, right? No need to mess around with low-hanging fruit.]

You got it. Let’s see here... I don’t pay much attention to seasons these days, but one of these is something I used to do when I was a brat.
1. I’d take my little sis out hunting for falling leaves and chestnuts and shit in the fall.
2. I’d go to the opening game of the J-League with my buddies in the spring.
3. I’d try out new and exciting ways to make cold soba in the summer.

[keichan]

[ Hmm. This is tougher than what Keiichi gave him, since he was going over general traditions, but these are more specific personal observations. He's clearly not up against someone simple, though.

The first one stands out because he specifically mentions a sister. That could be a trap, because maybe it's true, but he has a brother instead of a sister. Or no siblings at all. So, it looks like a battle between two and three... but that doesn't mean that he can just rule it out. ]

wow, you made it tough for me, didn't ya? well, i'll just have to take a wild guess.

i'm gonna go with number 3, but only because i'm hungry.

[measuringdistance]

Guess you owe your stomach a 'thanks' then, dude. I don't got a sister, and soccer tickets are pricey as hell.

[Damn. That's what he gets for taking a gamble with fair play. But it might not be over yet...]

Which leaves us with a tie. Dunno if I can say that's really satisfying - how 'bout you?

[keichan]

that was a lucky guess. i thought about using the same trick once i saw the choice, and i don't even have any siblings.

[ Unfortunately, seasonal traditions are something he and his family are a bit lax on. Blame it on his dad's hectic work schedule and his lack of interest in such things. So, he'll have to come up with some other way for them to break the tie. ]

why don't we change things up a bit? i can share three facts about myself, and one of them will be a lie. you can do the same. if this ends up as a tie again, then we'll have to start getting other people involved.

[measuringdistance]

Ha, well if worst comes to worst, we can always flip a coin to settle it.
But sure, I'm game for that~ Hit me with your best shot.

[keichan]

there's an idea. we could always get an impartial mediator involved. i'd volunteer one of my friends, but i think she'd probably rule against me on principle.

alright, are you ready? two truths, one lie.

1: the school i went to back home is so small that all the students are in one class regardless of age. i usually end up having to teach two girls who are older than me so that the teacher can focus on the younger students.
2: i've been shot at before, but i managed to dodge the bullet while it was in midair.
3: an entire village showed up to get drunk and celebrate because they thought i was getting married, and it isn't my fault.

[measuringdistance]

[Huh, definitely a tougher call than the last one. Number 2 sounds extremely fake, so obviously it had to be bait. Maybe the kid was using wordplay - like, he was shot at with a toy gun and dodged that? That'd track.

So it was between 1 and 3. Hm...]

I'm gonna go with number one for the lie.
If your school's really that small, wouldn't one of your upperclassmen be teaching you, not the other way 'round?

[keichan]

you'd think that, wouldn't you? but you're technically right. i only have one upperclassman, but i do have to teach her if she's gonna have any chance of making it into a good school like she wants to.

i guess that means it's your turn.

[measuringdistance]

Ha, sounds tough. But at least you can take pride in what a reliable student you are~

Okay, here goes:
1. I once got a tattoo that took up my entire back. Took days to finish, don't recommend it.
2. I pierced my own ears when I was in high school, and wound up setting off a fad of it with my friends.
3. I've eaten at least one lollipop a day for about the last four years.

[keichan]

[ His first inclination is to reject number three outright. He knows what it's like to have a favorite food that he could eat every day, and lollipops are small enough that it wouldn't take very long at all to eat one. But it's possible he could have missed a single day, so he can't rule it out quite yet.

As for the second one, there are also multiple points of failure there. Maybe he pierced them back in middle school, or maybe someone else did it for him, or maybe there was no fad.

The first one... well, several days sounds about right for a tattoo that large, though the only people he knows with tattoos that large are yakuza types. Still, there's not much to pick apart for that one. ]

alright, that's a pretty tough one. i don't have any frame of reference, so i'm gonna have to go with number two. i'm gonna guess that you definitely got your ears pierced, but either someone else did it for you, or everybody else chickened out.

[ He doesn't expect to win, since his odds aren't that good, but he'll shoot his shot and see where it lands. ]

[measuringdistance]

Motherfucker

[...Wait, shit, there goes his chance to lie. But he really thought he had the kid with that round!]

Yeah, you got it. I was a lone wolf in that decision.
Guess we're gonna have to figure out some other kind of tiebreaker, we're both just too good at this game.

[keichan]

[ He was actually expecting to get that one wrong. Damn, he's better at this than he thought. ]

either that, or we're both really bad liars. it could be either one.at this point.

maybe we should start trying this against other people and see who can trick the most people. i don't know, i feel like any tiebreaker would just keep this thing going for longer and longer at this point.

[measuringdistance]

[He's a little annoyed at being called a bad liar. Never mind that it's his own fault for not trying harder, it's the principle of the matter!]

Yeah, that sounds like it could take a while. And we could still wind up tying again.
We need something that definitely only one of us can win. Like, who can throw a rock further or knock one of those pumpkins off a wall first.

[keichan]

[ To be fair, Keiichi doesn't actually think that they're both bad liars, just that they're both playing by the rules of the game and making logical guesses. He's a pretty good liar, at least under normal circumstances, and given that all of this guy's responses have been believable, there's no genuine criticism to be had. ]

i kind of like the pumpkin idea, now that you mention it. those things give me the creeps... they're not like normal pumpkins.

[measuringdistance]

[It's just as well, since now they can agree on a much more deserving target for his irritation: those goddamn pumpkins.]

Right?? Whoever carved 'em has way too much free time on their hands.
Besides, they're everywhere. No one's gonna care if we just use one for a target.