RP: Zero Escape - Friend or Fame [Group Iota] (No puzzle)

[Broocevelt]

Spoiler : Evangeline :

Just a junction room like the one she came from... There were three doors: the one Evangeline had come from, one on the right and one in front of her.

[Singidava]

"I didn't think this would happen but... Looks like we're the only ones here." Evangeline began when he reached back to Gemini and Trip. "Either we are the first ones here or then everyone else has already passed that door. Well, more likely the former since I can't find any way to open it." At this point she realised the others probably had hard time following her. "Ah, sorry. On left there is a big door with number 2 painted on it blocking our way, so unless we find some way to open it this is a dead end. There aren't any booths either so I wonder if we're supposed to go back to the first room... Did anyone see if the door we came from is locked?"

[Gumpei]

"A door with a 2 on it...?" Bizarre. Trip didn't know what to make of it. "I'd guess that we're the first ones here. According to the map, all of the rooms lead here, so I suppose we'll have to wait..."

Trip was curious about the door with the 2 on it, but Evangeline's question was the one that begged a more immediate answer. "I'll go check and see if it's locked."

Trip marched back the way they came to see the state of the door they exited the hangar from.

[Broocevelt]

Luckily for the team, the door the exited the hangar through was still unlocked. It quickly opened as Trip got closed. The only other ways she could see were the door through which they entered the puzzle, and... Nothing more.

[Gumpei]

Trip made her way back to the group, "It's unlocked. Almost definitely means we'll be heading back to the booth room after this. So I suppose now we just have to wait for the others."

Trip stared up at the ceiling momentarily, but didn't really look at it, if that made sense. It was more of an excuse to not look directly into the eyes of the other two. The wait could take minutes... it could take hours. She didn't want to sit there awkwardly staring at the other two, and she wasn't sure if she could possibly maintain a conversation with them. Staring at the ceiling was a good out of things.

Suddenly, her stomach growled.

The noise caused Trip's eyes to flutter back down to the floor. Wow, she hadn't even noticed how hungry she was. How long had it been since she last ate? Trip had often gone days without food. Not by choice; she merely didn't give food much regular thought in her life. Once, she had even fainted simply from forgetting to eat for too long. For her to actually take notice of her hunger... not a good sign.

Trip knew the other two would be staring at her when she looked back up at them, and realized she had to get off the subject. What was worthy of discussion? Well...

"Ahem... I think we need to give the next Fame Game some thought."

Trip coughed, "I don't know whether you two trust me. Gemini has reason to be wary of you and I, Evangeline. But it seems that trust is going to be... necessary, in this game. And it seems the only real way for ALL of us to escape this mess is going to be for everyone to trust each other. That's not going to be easy, and it definitely won't be fast."

She continued, "For what it's worth, I'm willing to put what faith I have in you two. You can choose whether or not to do the same for me. But... if we at the very least want to ensure our own personal safety, I think it would be best for us to form a pact to vote together in the Fame Games. And, well... Evangeline, you seemed to become fairly fast acquaintances with... Equus, was it? If you could convince him to vote with us, that would give us at least four votes. It would almost guarantee more FP for us. Nothing short of the other five people voting together would top it."

A bit hesitant, Trip kept on, "...The obvious elephant in the room would be who we would vote for. I'll be honest; I barely remember the names of the other people. I've never been good with names, and I hadn't gotten much of a chance to communicate with them. So... I have no idea who we would vote for. Likely someone with 6 FP, who wouldn't take as great of a hit as one with 5. But remember that this pact is just a formality until we can gain the trust of everyone in order to get us all enough FP to escape."

Trip silently wondered whether she was being too optimistic about their situation. Would it be possible to gain the trust of everyone in this game? It seemed unlikely, and yet... it was the only way. They had to know that.

[Singidava]

"Convince... him?" Evangeline's face distorted in distaste. "Sure, he helped me but..." Memories of their little argument were still fresh in her mind. "I don't think we're getting along that well at all." Equus had hurt her pride and she wasn't going to forgive him that easily. Honestly, Evangeline had expected this question to come up but it had also been the one she had dreaded the most. It took a long silence for her to talk again. "Fine. I'll talk to him, even though we'll probably end up fighting..." She tried not to look too defeated. Maybe it would go just fine. She knew that even without Trip coaxing her into it she would've probably done it anyway.

"Regarding the topic of who are we going to vote for... I think it would be the fairest if we just voted for the person that has the highest number of the group who comes back last. Well, unless it's him." Evangeline took a deep breath before explaining her logic. "In the event of someone being late they vote for himself. In such a case, they automatically waste their vote by voting themselves. If we just want to keep the waste to minimum, it would be most logical for everyone else vote them as well. Of course, most likely everyone makes it in time but this is as fair as we can get without actually knowing the people we're voting for too well."

[GuardianDreamer]

Gemini's expression became more serious as Trip spoke. Right. This had been on her mind as well... It was probably inevitable that either Trip, Evangeline, or herself would have had to begin this conversation. It wasn't something that she wanted to think about, but she knew that it was important to discuss. Well... She needed to give some kind of response.

"... Honestly, I don't know whether to be optimistic or not about all of this. I definitely don't want to be pessimistic, but too much optimism can be a bad thing too. Still... I'm willing to agree to this pact. I think I can trust both of you, at least. It's better than not doing anything and just hoping that people don't vote for me... Wait, that sounded too cynical, didn't it? Sorry about that..." Gemini said. She doubted that she needed to remind anyone that currently she was the closest one to dying. That meant that refusing this pact would probably be an extremely poor move. True, Evangeline and Trip had voted for her before, but that was before any of them knew about what would happen.

"Anyway, I agree with Evangeline's idea. It seems fair to me. Though I really wish there was some other way... I know I just said that we shouldn't be too optimistic, but maybe there's some way to stop this experiment. I'm not going to get my hopes up, though."

[Singidava]

"Yes, I'll trust you two as well, so I'll vote for the person we are going to choose together." Evangeline promised with a slight smile on her face. She had made allies who could save her in the case this came to the worst. "Next there is the issue of secrecy. I think we should get as many people to vote for the person we choose so the total of the whole group rises as much as possible. That's why I think we should tell the people beforehand who we are going to vote for. However, it might be better to keep this... pact of ours secret as long as we can. Does that sound alright?"

After a brief moment of thought she also asked the question that would come up sooner or later. "By the way Trip, didn't you see everyone's bracelets after we voted? Could you tell who were the ones with number 6?"

[Gumpei]

Trip raised an eyebrow at Evangeline's surprising memory. Trip had, indeed, checked the bracelets immediately after everyone had voted. Her snooping was apparently much more obvious than she thought it had been.

"...Yes, I did... as I said, I don't remember their names. Aside of you and I, it was... well, I do remember one name. Equus... had 6. The other two were... the brunette boys. Not the one with the glasses, though. The other two. Fairly positive that was it."

[Singidava]

Evangeline smiled. If there was one thing she was good at it was remembering names and faces. She would've made a good secretary. "If I'm not completely mistaken the brunette boys were called Storm and Solar. The one with the black coat is Storm. So this means if Storm comes out first we'll vote for Solar and vice versa."

"By the way, to be able to see who comes out first, I think we all should move to the junction room between the other groups. Besides, I don't think it would do any good to us to let them meet up and form alliances behind our backs either. After all, we still don't have the majority." Evangeline knew this sounded cruel but it was neccessary to survive. If they didn't want to get voted it would be neccessary to be there when bonds between people started forming. That was how social interaction worked.

[Gumpei]

"That sounds sensible. I just hope the wait won't be too unbearable..." Trip started off toward the junction room, assuming Gemini and Evangeline would follow in her stead.

She stopped briefly for a moment. "By the way..." Trip turned her head while continuing her walk towards the junction room, "Do you mind if I call you 'Eva' from now on?"

[Singidava]

Evangeline joined Trip to the junction room. She was a bit annoyed by her question but didn't let it show. If she wanted to be called Eva wouldn't she have chosen that as her codename? However, she didn't want to ruin the mood so all that came from her mouth was polite: "Of course you can."

[Broocevelt]

Gemini quietly followed the rest of the team to the next Junction room. It was exactly like the one they had previously been in, except this one had three doors: the one they came from, one further ahead, and one on the right. However, the team decided to wait until the rest of the teams would appear.

[Broocevelt]

♫ Desperation

Time slowly moved on as the team was waiting. Probably fifteen minutes had passed while Trip and Evangeline were sitting on the floor and Gemini was resting against the wall. Now is when they noticed how tiny these rooms actually were, barely four or five people could fit in such a restricted space. Even though it was more than noticeable that they barely had enough room for everyone, the main problem was something different. They had all been silent for a long time... It probably was a good opportunity to think about... things, but uncomfortableness had already settled in. What would they talk about? They had already discussed the Fame Game, there was nothing else to talk about right then. Waiting... that is the only thing they had to do right now...

Spoiler : OoC :

You don't actually need to respond to this unless you feel like it, this is just so there's not a gap of half an hour when reading later

[Broocevelt]

About twenty-five minutes had passed since Team Iota had decided to wait for the other teams. Still no one was appearing... Had they been way too quick? Had they been too slow and the other two teams were already back in the poll room? That probably was not the case, no one had started any voting, and no one had come to look for them by then. It was all too calm... but suddenly, a slow sound of metal screeching could be heard behind the door on the right.