Another Town Meeting -- In Regards to Water Supply and Fountain Issues

[notabirdcostume]

WHO: Sam Wilson
WHERE: The Village and then Inn
WHEN: (backdate) September 15
OPEN TO: ALL
WARNINGS: Paranoia? IDK.
STATUS: Open and also VERY threadjack friendly. This can be as crazy as the last time they all got together to spout theories. Set up your own sub-threads for what discussions you want to happen. I figure we need a discussion about the fountain and Sam's plan to watch it, a discussion about the recently discovered spring's side effects, and possibly a talk about any new discoveries or progress that's been made since the last town meeting. Feel free to mingle and make friends.

---

Sam stood at the edge of town, feeling a little ridiculous. However, he felt bad for not trying to include the two mysterious arrivals that had sworn this was some kind of murder game before running off. He still didn't get that, but the girl he'd met had worried him and after he'd heard about the guy as well he'd started to put it together that the two were most likely from the same place.

That aside, they weren't going to earn their trust if they had meetings and looked like they weren't at least trying to extend a hand to two of the newer arrivals to the village. Sam had decided enough was enough and since it was time for another meeting of the village folk it was also time to extend a welcome to their neighbors in the woods. He'd heard enough people mention that they'd been spotted out there. It wasn't like he had a phone and he wasn't sure how much he trusted Peggy's little bird friends just yet.

This was going to be his best bet and even then he felt utterly ridiculous. Sam took a deep breath and then called out, "HEY! I KNOW THERE'S A COUPLE OF YOU HIDING OUT THERE!" He paused, waited, took another breath, "MEETING IN THE VILLAGE IN 15 MINUTES! WE GOTTA TALK ABOUT THE WATER AND WHAT WENT DOWN WITH MY PLAN TO WATCH THE FOUNTAIN."

He couldn't be sure if they'd heard him or not, so Sam leaned down towards the ground, and wrote a brief note in the dirt:

TRUCE. MEET AT INN. NEED TO TALK.

Sam added a happy face as a sign of good will and also drew an arrow pointing towards the inn. It was now time to get everyone else if they hadn't already heard him yelling at the trees.

---


After getting the word out to the rest of the village population, Sam made his way back to the Inn. There was still a lot of debris from the Earthquakes that had literally shaken things up a few days ago, but the cleaning process has begun. Unfortunately, the smell of the contaminated river still wafted through the village and made Sam's nose crinkle in disgust. Just one more problem on top of everything else.

Sam gets things set up, running through the topics in his mind. He needs to follow up on the fountain and what people had experienced during their watch. His timing had been poor, so he hadn't actually had the opportunity to see anyone arrive. He also wanted to see if anything new had been discovered beside that spring Emma and Margaery had found a few days ago. The water supply was important after all, they could survive without a lot but water wasn't one of them.

He hoped this went a little better than the last time a meeting like this had been called, though at least he didn't have to worry about people fighting over weapons this time.

Comments

[upinhisnest]

"You mind giving me a rundown of what happened with the ruins, Miss Kate?" Clint asks. "Since that was before I got here?"

The rest of it, though... he looks thoughtful.

"How far away from here has anyone gotten? If we can't get more than a certain distance away, it's possible we're actually in some sort of controlled environment. Which would make the things suddenly appearing when we need them make a lot more sense, because it's being changed for our benefit."

[fishermansweater]

"Appearing."

Finnick's leaning back against the door, one hand hovering near the zip of his backpack where one of the knives he'd stolen is carefully placed. When he speaks, the word is simply matter-of-fact. Because it's obvious to him. Everyone knows that when the tributes act in a way that makes things boring for the audience, the Gamemakers shake things up.

Or if they get too far away from the action. Or too close to the edge of the arena, at least since Haymithch Abernathy won the Second Quarter Quell.

"The Gamemakers are changing the environment to make us do what they want. It's what they do. Just like stopping us getting too close to the edges of the canyon."

He gives a grim flick of a smile. "That is, assuming everyone else found rockfalls and smooth surfaces and trees blocking their way any time they tried to explore above the waterfall."

[upinhisnest]

"Gamemakers?" Clint asks, zeroing in on this kid. He clearly knows something, or thinks he does, and even if he's off his rocker, he sounds like this sort of situation is familiar to him, and Clint wants to know all about it.

"Don't have those where I'm from, you mind explaining?"

[fishermansweater]

Finnick's clear green eyes focus on the guy who'd spoken.

Another person he doesn't know. Another person professing no knowledge of the Hunger Games despite a good build and an intent eye. Then Finnick looks around the rest of the room; he's in a perfect position to do it, his spot in the doorway chosen for just that reason. Nobody is showing any hint of recognition. Nobody's looking at him like everyone does when they see him for the first time -- is that Finnick Odair? It is, it's Finnick Odair!

If they're going to keep pretending, he's going to have to explain. And if they somehow, impossibly, don't know, then. They need to know what they could be in for.

"The people in charge of the Hunger Games. Get a group of tributes from different districts together, put them in an arena and crown the last one alive the victor. The Gamemakers are the people in charge of designing the arena. They like to shake things up when it gets boring. Drive the tributes together to force a confrontation. Force shortages so they have to fight for food and supplies."

He shrugs. "Sound familiar?"

[notabirdcostume]

Sam should have figured this would come up again. Unfortunately, while he wants to write off the idea that this could be some kind of Hunger Game competition -- not all of it fits. He's not sure if he's reassured by the fact that this could be something that is familiar to the guy who had been living out in the woods. He'd almost rather go back to Kol's "it's magic" theory.

"While I agree that there is definitely some group behind this, we don't have any proof this is some kind of murder game," Sam replied. He didn't want to admit that a lot of what the guy was saying made sense compared to the past three months of his experience, "We haven't had any contact from the people in charge commanding us to kill each other either -- so yeah, while there have been some problems there hasn't been any sign that they want us to try murdering each other over it. We also don't have different districts to deal with here, just different worlds."

[lastofthekellys]

"As much as I hate to say it, that ain't entirely true, Wilson."

And she does hate to say it. Hate to voice, raise it again, after she'd tried so hard in their other meeting to direct people away from thinking of the weapons as weapons.

But she'd listened to Mr Odair. Felt sick. And later, later she'll run all what he said, and how he said it, through her head and feel sick, she knows it.

Kate Kelly isn't a stranger to violence, though, or murderous intent. And she's not a stranger to trying to dilute it, dissipate it.

"To explain about the ruins... Miss Jo and Captain Jones found some ruined buildings were there'd been nought but plants before. Nothin' there, 'cept crates. Five crates, marked with the five colours. Or the five colours we had then, until Mr Barton and... our redheaded companion from the woods showed up in white."

At least, she thinks the young woman is wearing white.

"Inside the crates were weapons. Various sorts, but no guns or anythin' modern like. And mostly they were used or broken.

But," and here Kate lifts her chin, "we didn't fight over them. A heated argument about what to do with them, yes. But that's discussion. No blows, nothin' got used. We agreed to store 'em in a communal creche, so everyone who needs 'em for huntin' or gettin' firewood, they got access."

Unpsoken: and no one is hoarding anything except the knives.

Very much unspoken: but the knives-lust you people have is still bloody creepy.

"Even if that's what they want, we don't have to play. 'Sides which, as I said, the spring miraculously turnin' up just as we need it, made us all work together."

[thekittenqueen]

"That is to assume they want us to fight and argue over such things. Save for the weapons, we have had situations that draw us together, rather than tear us apart. The spring provides us with what we need, helping us to survive. The weapons could be explained as provoking fights, but perhaps it is also a means to help us survive."

She glanced at Kate apprehensively. This was a matter that was far outside of her understanding or experience. War wasn't a new concept to her, but this would be the first that she was in the middle of it, as a soldier herself.

"It wouldn't be wise to jump to conclusions. You are right, Kate. We have banded together as a community. We should be careful, as suspicions can easily turn us against each other."

[fishermansweater]

"You found crates of weapons? Sounds like a sign they want us to fight each other. The Gamemakers never tell the tributes what to do, but the smart ones work it out. Or die. Rockfalls mean don't try to climb the waterfall. Water running out means they want to force you together, force conflict."

Weapons mean they want you to start fighting. But what Hunger Games has there ever been when the tributes needed to be told to fight each other? It's about survival, and that's how to ensure it.

The people here aren't reacting like any group of tributes would. Tributes would set up traps at the water source, like Finnick and Annie have done around their camps. Tributes would turn their dependence on one water source into an ambush. There are so many ways a tribute could leverage this situation, and everyone's acting like Finnick and Annie are the only ones they've occurred to.

[dnr]

"Not to be blunt, but it ain't that hard to get people to try to kill each other. All you gotta do is convince 'em their neighbor's already trying to kill them."

It's probably not real comforting how Frank sounds like he knows exactly what he's talking about there, especially for the few among them who might actually know how he'd scared three gangs into a frenzy by hanging one of them from meat hooks, but the thing needs to be said, so he's saying it.

"If that was all they were after, I gotta think they'd be doing a better job." Just saying. "And Miss Kelly's right, even if that is what they want, we're not doing it."

Even if he still thinks keeping all their weapons in one place is a dangerously stupid idea.

"Some of this shit, though - the spring, sure, we'd all be dead by now if that hadn't turned up, but if they really did just make a goddamn spring for us out of thin air, who's to say they didn't contaminate the river to begin with? What the hell kind of game is that?"

[thekittenqueen]

"Why then would they contaminate the river and give us an alternative instead?" Margaery asked hesitantly. If there was a game being played here, the rules and moves were unclear. It wasn't like Westeros and she still wasn't certain about the right course to take. Sadly, in the case of water, they had to believe the spring was good.

And thus far, it had been a blessing.

"I swam in that spring, I drank from it. There has been no change, nothing save for my wounds being healed. If there was something wrong with it, it would have happened now."

[specialise]

All it took for the delinquents to turn on one another was a little girl murdering the son of the chancellor and letting another take the fall. She'd heard the stories from Finn, of how they'd all turned violently against Murphy and had signed their own warrants with his revenge attack that had left her disabled.

It doesn't take much to start a conflict. If the people in charge of this place wanted it, they didn't need to ply them with weapons to ignite it. She saw the sparks of that potential in the first meeting they had over the weapons. None of the people in this town seemed to have a hunger for murder.

She stands with her arms crossed against her chest, brows furrowed in thought. "They want us to trust them," she says. She unwraps an arm and rests her fingers beneath her chin. "We found weapons in a place that didn't exist before. Maybe we're meant to find something at the spring."

[treadswater]

Annie makes a small, frustrated sound. Despite herself. She's trying to be hidden, she's good at hidden, but she can't help it. Of course people don't need weapons to kill each other, but it makes it easier. Easier to do, easier to think about. Strangling someone is harder than hitting with a club. Or firing a bow. It lessens the distance.

She doesn't say that.

She can't. The one advantage she has is that she's small and dismissable and no one who looks at her remembers that she's from District Four. Here, they... They might not even know what being a tribute from District Four means, and she's desperate to keep it.

But silence is frustrating, and this time she can't quite help herself.

"Or they, um. Wanna see how we react."

It's quiet, though, her voice. Small. Hesitant. Easily able to not be heard at all.

[upinhisnest]

Clint, though, Clint's paying attention to her, and he hears. "Well sure," he says, louder than she does. "Red's right, they could be testing us, see how we react to different situations so they can try to better provoke violence later."

He doesn't like the idea, but he can't discount the possibility.

"But," he continues, "It could also be something else. I've run into my share of fucked up experiments people do on other people. We've got folks who have powers and stuff that are weaker than usual, there hasn't been any direct indication they want to kill us, we could be being used as an experimental group in some fucked up science project."

[articulatings]

He knows a lot, now, just from listening. The weapons are all in one place, for example--it's something that he's very good at not pretending he's heard.

It's the stupidest way to ensure they'll get stolen. But Boyd doesn't have to steal or lift all of them. He has to either snag one or convince a kind soul to pass a pistol. Simple enough.

He listens to the redhead, listens to the one next to her--they're obviously batshit crazy, but so is the situation, so he says nothing. Instead, he waits. He waits until the one with the rounded face speaks up, and that's when he clears his throat lightly--a subtle way of commanding attention before he speaks.

"If I may interject some," he states, all southern accent and broad smile, "I don't suppose these guns could be to protect ourselves from what's out there, rather than open firin' on each other?" Playing the optimist is very, very easy to do. "Ain't proper huntin' if the prey gets some sorta head start."

[lastofthekellys]

"No guns, Mr Crowder," Kate corrects. "Of course, given the state of what's around and what we've been given, I'm sure even if there had been, we'd be missin' the ammunition and the gunpowder. Or have it old.

And truthfully, not sure how useful it'd be for protection. The axe is gettin' blunt, most of the slingshots need repair..."

She shrugs.

"Of course in sayin' that, the wilds of Victoria ain't exactly full of big land predators. I'm used to kangaroos, not bears."

Although, she'd say that a big male roo can cause all kinds of damage, particularly if he gets it into his head that your hut might have some mighty nice grass in it.

On the other hand, that's when the rifle had come in handy and honestly, Kate's still proud of how much of that beast had lasted her and her younger siblings for months.

"But if we're attacked, 'course those weapons are goin' t'be used in defence. If nothin' else," and here she's all dry and wry, theatrically so to project over the crowd and lighten things, "I've put in too much effort tryin' to feed everyone here every day, to see any of you falter now."