[Video]

[sacred_flamer]

[It's a very unsure and uneasy Luke that appears on the network today, keeping a firm grip on his stupid helmet so people could see his face. He squirmed uncomfortably, not used to this sort of thing.]

H-hey... guys? I wanna say something.

[He swallowed hard, trying to think. C'mon, Luke, you're supposed to be an ambassador of Kimlasca. It's about time you started acting like it. Just... what would Natalia say in a situation like this? She'd probably be really honest about what's happening... and try to be encouraging. It was hard to be encouraging when the situation was so overwhelming, but...]

The monsters aren't dropping candy anymore, and I haven't been able to find any around the Tower either. I think Ruana changed the rules again... I think the only candy that's in the Tower is what's in our buckets, which means she wants us to fight against each other to survive.

[He paused for a breath, before trying to look as determined as he could.]

But that doesn't mean we have to give in to what she wants! If we work together, we should be able to find a way to survive.

Those of us that are still alive... we need to get together, pool our resources as best we can. The ones that were lucky enough not to end up in a costume should help too; I know you might feel that you don't need to, but we all need to work together to survive in this place.

[He held up a fist, trying to look pumped despite how much his stomach was doing flip-flops.]

I'm confident we can get through this if we can all work together. We should all meet up... the cafeteria would be a good place. Let's get together and brainstorm how we're going to get through this, together.

[Luke let out a breath, before cutting the video. Did that sound like something a leader would say? He wasn't sure... he hoped so.]

Comments

[sacred_flamer]

[Luke fell quiet at that.]

I hate to say it, but we'll need to look for baskets of people that have already passed on. This way we should be able to better prepare for everyone.

[mostremaining]

Yeah... that's what I figured. We can't really help those who already met a nasty end and are being turned into monsters by their costumes. All we can do is keep the living from being corrupted, too.

[sacred_flamer]

Yeah, exactly.

We... need to find enough for everyone.

[He doesn't want to make people make a choice... he really wouldn't be able to handle that.]

[mostremaining]

That's going to be tough, though... we're going to have to search for people who are on their way or who are guaranteed to not get enough candy. That last group is gonna be tough, though... I mean, we can't really trust people to be pessimists and give up even if they're clearly not gonna make it, right?

[sacred_flamer]

I...

[Luke stomach folded in on itself.]

...I don't want to have to ask people to make that choice. We should exercise every other option first.

[mostremaining]

But how many more other options do we have? Think about it this way. Let's say we don't move because not enough people are about to die and no one wants to surrender their candy. Then more people die overall because the amount of people who can't meet their quotas will be larger. We're going to have to make some sacrifices. Hey, it's not like death's permanent here... right? But I guess we do have to take into account the fact that people are going to come back morphed by their costumes...

[sacred_flamer]

It... I...

[Luke can't help but look horrified. How could he do something like that? Ask someone to give up their life because someone "more important" needed to live?]

H-how can you even keep something like that fair? And it doesn't matter if death isn't permanent here... it's still dying.

[mostremaining]

I don't know. It's probably never going to be fair. We're kind of stuck, aren't we? If we don't do anything, people will die. If we do anything, people will die. It's just a matter of whether we're actively manipulating who dies when or not, I guess.

...Sorry. I've got a bit of a weird relationship with death. Maybe I've been away from it for too long, or something. [This much is true; aside from the numerous "small" resurrections a nation experiences that are associated with normal deaths, Gilbert avoided being killed when he had his country ripped out from under him. His relationship with death was weird by default.]

[sacred_flamer]

[Luke just... shook his head after a moment.]

No, it's all right. A... friend from my home world would say I'm a civilian, that I'm supposed to think about saving others before killing them. I can understand, sort of.

[mostremaining]

A civilian, huh? I guess I can understand that label. I've been a soldier for most of my life. We had to make plenty of sacrifices in my day. Lots of people have died for me. [Both as a country and as a person.]