we_meet_again | Phone inbox

[nods]

This ability sounds like a big responsibility. Does this sort of thing happen often? You said it's rare out-of-game, but what if we count games too?

Unfortunately, some of the games force us to hurt each other, even when we don't want to. Most people will do their absolute best not to hurt others if they can help it, but there's often some amount of non-preventable violence.

So far, anyone who has died in a game has been revived at the end. The exception is people who either kill themselves or allow themselves to be killed in an attempt to avoid playing -- they get sent to Lilith. Our current understanding of what, exactly, counts as "avoiding the game" is kinda shaky, so a lot of people will play along and pretend they're playing harder than they actually are, so if they do die, they won't be punished. Does that make sense?

More or less. How do you pretend to be playing hard without doing it? Is it like putting an act for the cameras?

Pretty much. For example, instead of fighting, just play-fighting in a way that looks convincing but where nobody actually gets hurt. Or being prepared to sacrifice yourself but never openly admitting it. Anything that gives you plausible deniability when it comes to whether or not you were trying to throw a game.

I don't know if it actually works, but it's worth a shot.

I - heard words count.

You... don't actually have to really do anything for them to decide you're trying to throw a game, Dawn. I - my second game I was by myself, and we had to... oh, it was ridiculous. It was a murder mystery, except the body wasn't real. Just a plastic skeleton in a dress. But we had to decide what units had killed her - it - and if we got that right then the 'killers' would die, and if we didn't, the 'detectives' would. It was four units or eight - seven, and because I was alone... I said they should pick us as killers. So fewer people had to die. Well... it didn't work.

[She sighs. Shakes her head.]

I got a friend killed instead. She died so - so they wouldn't say I was a suicide, and I wouldn't have to go to Lilith. And a lot of people warned me, but only after I'd spoken up... and that was all I did, but a lot of people think it would have been enough.

We don't know for sure if words count, which is why everyone is erring on the side of caution. One person was sent to Lilith after he died by accident in a game. Presumably if that counts as suicide, expressing a desire to die and then dying might count, too. We just don't know at this point. So please do be careful.

Any more questions about this topic before we move on?

[shakes her head, listening quietly for now]

Okay, cool.

The next thing we need to talk about is pep!pep!'s revival policy, which requires a little bit of backstory to properly explain.

[he takes a drink of his tea]

For whatever reason, our whole unit showed up more than a month after everyone else. Before we arrived, there weren't any units with the power to revive people. Nobody knew about Lilith back then, either.

On our second day here, there was a bad game where a couple people died in a bad way and everyone was really angry about it. Everyone started threatening each other and words like "blood feud" started getting thrown around as whole units threatened to murder and counter-murder each other. It was really stressful!

Fortunately, everyone chilled out eventually and nothing happened. But we were all really worried that people would use our presence - and our ability - as an excuse to kill each other, since suddenly now death could be "fixed."

Now, most of the people in pep!pep! tend to be young and... pretty gentle folks, and having a bunch of people slaughter each other and expect us to fix it would have been really hard on us, psychologically. And, obviously, it would have been really bad for sensitIV, too. And the whole community in general!

So we started brainstorming ways to discourage something like this from happening. SensitIV has its own way of discouraging people from abusing their healing powers: they charge people 300 points to perform healing. That way there's at least SOME cost involved, to remind people not to just use them for any random reason. To try and keep themselves from being used as an excuse to hurt people.

Oh, by the way, this is also why it's a good idea to try to keep at least 300 points in your account for emergencies. But if you are ever in a pinch, just call me and I'll help.

I-I'll save, I'll definitely save!

How does our unit discourage people from, er, killing others?

Well... we made a policy...

[hands her this paper]

About a month after we arrived, there was the first out-of-game murder. It happened during a Live, so everyone saw it, and right before the murderer killed the victim, he said "they're going to put you back together anyway, so I might as well get some satisfaction out of this." And then he killed the victim in... a really bad way. A really bad way.

Of course, this was our nightmare scenario -- that someone would do this level of violence because they expected us to fix it. We were furious. In our anger, we drafted this policy and announced to everyone that we'd be charging 1500 points per revival, and that we wouldn't revive anyone from the murderer's unit until it was paid. The idea there would be that murdering people would create an inconvenience for both the murderer and their unitmates, to keep it from being too easy.

Once we cooled our jets, we took another pass at the policy and decided some of it was no good. So we changed it.

[reads...]

Is this how things are currently being handled by our unit?

Theoretically.

We're not doing the parts where we refuse to revive anyone in the murderer's unit any more. At most, we may refuse to revive the murderer themself if they don't pay the fee, if we choose to exercise that option. However, this has never really come up so far, because none of us have charged even a single point for a revival before. There's never been a fee to pay in the first place.

After that first murder, we made a big announcement about the policy. Then we changed it on the downlow, which most people don't know about. It's not a secret or anything, so you're welcome to talk about it with anyone who asks. But we thought it would probably be a bad idea to publicly announce that we had chosen to be more lenient about murders, you know?

Edited 2019-03-30 08:25 (UTC)

Mm. But then... It's like what you said about the games? We're pretending to charge to discourage people from killing others, but it's only for show?

Edited 2019-04-02 20:00 (UTC)

I - you know, I'm glad it's just for show. I don't think I could charge someone for... something like this. Wouldn't it be really risky to make a murderer pay for a revive, anyway? If they decided not to because they wanted to... to force the victim to go to Lilith, and then we didn't do anything because they hadn't paid...

[She doesn't want to think on it.

[Wednesday stares back down at the paper instead, and even that makes more comfortable reading. Never mind that there's a lot to take in here.]

Um... is it okay if I take a picture of this with my phone? Just until I get it all straight in my head?

I mean, it's not necessarily just for show? You're still allowed to charge people for revivals if you feel like it's the right thing to do. We've let the community know that they should be prepared to expect that from us, but the few people in our unit who have done revivals so far have made the personal decision not to exercise a fee for those specific revivals. That's their choice!

Also, in case it isn't clear at first glance: the way the fee works is that we don't charge the murderer to revive the victim. One way or another, we will revive the victim if we can. But if the murderer wants us to revive them in the future, they need to pay the fee we ask for. Otherwise a murderer who dies can ask Lilith for a revival, instead.

Honestly? This is your power. You have the right to use it the way you want, and nobody gets to tell you what to do with it. It is my hope that we can use it to help and not harm, but you're never obligated to revive anyone, nor are you obligated NOT to revive anyone. The most important thing is to act with integrity and make decisions you feel like you can stand by.

The policy isn't binding or anything. Its purpose is to try and protect both the community and the members of pep!pep!, and this is the best solution we were able to come up with so far. The main takeaway is that this is an option available to you, but it's up to you do decide how you want to use it.

You can take a picture, if you like! You're also welcome to just hang onto this copy. You can put it back in the podium when you're done.

I'm not sure I'd charge people for it. It'd depend on whether the people involved take things seriously or not...

[grabs her own head]

Aaaah, I still think this can't be real! I'm not used to magic, so I don't think I'll be able to really understand it until I see it with my own eyes. But even though I said that, I don't want to see it.

Hopefully you won't have to! Fortunately, this kind of emergency is pretty rare.

What you do about the policy is up to you! I just wanted you to be aware of it in case it comes up.

Setting aside the stuff about fees, the part at the end is still important, about "what to do when a call comes in." The main takeaway is to treat the injuries first before reviving. Taking a friend along has been helpful in the past, too. And I would strongly discourage reviving people in the middle of a bad game when there's a chance they could get killed again.

There's a lot left up to chance, but I suppose that's how it is...

All we can do is our best!

Do you have any other questions about anything?

[shakes her head no and glances at Wednesday]

Um... no. No, I don't think so. I'll let you know if I think of anything else.

Oh, um... I'm quite good friends with someone on sensitIV. Levi. Do you think it would be worth letting him know I... might need his help sometime? I know he knows how to heal. So, since we - like one another already... just so he knows if anything were to come up?

That's perfectly fine! None of this is a secret or anything. You can tell whoever you want.

Leviathan is a good kid. I like him a lot.

Oh, so do I...!

[Is she blushing? She's probably blushing--]

Um... Dawn, if you ever need any help, and you aren't sure who else you can ask... I'm sure he'll be glad to help you, too. He's got blue eyes and silver hair, and - well, you'll know him when you see him. He's the one with the dragon hand.

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