"Now then, allow us to explain." Xaawo continued. "Now that you know the prize of being one of us and you made it to the halfway point, we figured it's time to challenge you mentally, not just physically. So, this challenge is simple: try and figure out which player is secretly connected to us! You'll have about half an hour to explain who you think it is. Then you vote, and whoever gets the most votes loses!"
"And losing means death?" Evelyn asked.
"Yep." Xaawo nodded.
"So is this confirmation that the descendant is one of the five here?" Valerie asked.
"Well, five out of nine are here, so in terms of statistics it's more likely." Xaawo replied. "But nothing's stopping you from voting someone not currently playing. In that case, they don't die, but they are penalized."
"Define penalized." Evelyn asked, already sounding exasperated at the answer.
"Pshhh…dismemberment?" She asked Kwaku with a shrug. Kwaku nodded under the new terms, to him they were acceptable. "Look, if you vote off someone not here, then the next game is a double elimination."
Valerie perked up. If they vote off someone not here, then the next game's only mandatory players are the team of Tedros, Ramon, and Ines. Also Blair. one of which would be missing a limb or something. So in that case, at least one member of a remaining team of three would be dealt with, two if Blair knows what she's doing. The prospect was actually not too bad.
"So what are you doing here?" Elijah asked Xaawo.
"Consider us tiebreakers." She replied with a happy clap of her hands. "It's two on three, so Janet's group could vote off one of you and just end the game early. So you also have to convince us who should be voted off!"
"And do you know who the descendant is?" Leon asked.
"We know nothing." Xaawo replied with a sigh and a shrug.
"Sounds bullshit." Elijah muttered. "You ask me, you already know a candidate you're willing to cut off."
"Like I said, we know nothing. If you wanna be paranoid for half an hour, be my guess. But now that we know the rules…
Leon Chai!
Janet Felloni!
Evelyn Bryce!
Elijah Davis!
Valerie Wyatt!
let the discussion…begin!"
About a minute of silence went by, with the five all waiting for someone else to start the discussion that would later condemn someone. Xaawo's glances around the room were getting slightly more erratic, and she starting making hand signals to Kwaku that seemed to signal something. Or it was a scare tactic. Hard to tell with her. This continued until Valerie sighed and finally spoke out.
"Well, I think Ramon is an obvious answer." She started. "I mean, he was gone for almost half the games and just shows up one day? Seems kind of suspicious, don't you think?"
"Sorry, but I don't think Ramon is the traitor." Leon replied with a quick shake of his head. "I do think he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Plus he has a sister who I'm pretty sure are from the same parents, so those two are automatically excluded."
"Tedros had a sister too, didn't he?" Evelyn asked.
"Him too." Leon nodded. "So the descendant is almost certainly someone here."
"What about Blair?" Evelyn asked.
"What about her?" Elijah sneered.
"Guess you're right." Evelyn said with an eye roll.
"Well, if it's someone here, then there's someone I think we're overlooking." Valerie continued.
Evelyn looked at Valerie. She was trying to stay calm, but sweat was breaking out across her forehead. Her guess was that she was trying to save Elijah, but saving Leon was also a priority for her. Meaning she had two remaining targets…
"Janet." Valerie finished.
"Wait, what?" Janet asked.
"Look, if there's a descendant of a god here, it's probably you. You're the descendant of Lorenzo Felloni, the crime boss. Now, feel free to correct me, but he saw the industry early in the city's lifespan and the organized crime trade building up, and he came in with the plan of unifying them and taking a chunk of the profits, while claiming he'll clean up the city and stop the gang violence."
"That's more or less what happened, yeah." Janet nodded.
"So how did that work?" Valerie continued. "Getting a bunch of different waring gangs to just buddy buddy like they did and not causing any issues?"
"Well, there were gangs who didn't agree." Janet added with a shrug. "Thing is, they were made out to be enemies and turned into target practice. Allowed some gangs to get more territory and sweeten the non-aggression deal, ya feel me? That and backup against any future gangs that show up."
"My point is, how did Lorenzo figure all that out?" She asked. "He knew to go to a new city that would go on to be one of the most important in the world, knew his plan of uniting various gangs would just work out for him, and became known as an unofficial city founder? Look, Janet, can we say he didn't make some kind of…deal with the devil?"
Janet didn't respond. Behind her sunglasses she was probably staring at Valerie, processing the theory.
"Guess we can't." She said calmly.
"So it's possible to say you're the descendant! Look, the gods mentioned something about their boss being a woman, so it's a possibility she got knocked up by Lorenzo!"
"I mean, we are talking a century ago." Janet replied as she glanced at Xaawo. "Hey, do gods age?"
"Nope." Xaawo confirmed. "Whatever age we pass the tests to become gods is the age we stay forever. I've been around for almost five hundred years, but I'm stuck at age twenty six. Kwaku here, thirty-three." Kwaku nodded in acknowledgement.
"So if your bodies don't change, how does getting pregnant work, exactly?" Evelyn asked with a raised eyebrow. "Magical surrogacy, or something?"
"Well, I don't know the exact specifics." Xaawo confirmed. "My body doesn't seem to change no matter how many donuts I eat, but I'm assuming pregnancy just kinda works as it does for mortals."
"Wait." Elijah cut in, leaning in to talk to Xaawo. "So if pregnancy works for gods the same way it does for mortals, then so do genetics, right? Meaning the boss probably looks at least a little like one of the players."
"Hm, guess so." Xaawo nodded.
"So if you know what the boss looks like, you can at least make an educated guess!" Elijah yelled.
"Boss is the plainest looking person ever, to be completely honest." Xaawo replied with a sudden air of disinterest around her. "Whoever the descendant is, they got all the looks from the dad."
"I'm calling bullshit." Elijah muttered.
"Call what you want, you can't disprove it." Xaawo sneered back. "Anyway, fifteen minutes passed. So if you wanna discuss divine sex for the rest of the game, be my guest."
"I mean, Janet's the one with the most evidence, right?" Valerie asked.
"I mean, when you think about it, yeah." Janet agreed. "But like, you aren't voting for me."
"Yes, Janet." Valerie replied, trying to stay calm. "We are voting for you, because you just agreed you could be the descendant."
"I say we cut the crap and get to the two actual players at risk." She shrugged. "You're trying to convince Elijah to vote off someone who isn't Leon, and Leon's voting Elijah. We're voting with him, so that means this game is actually just convincing the gods to vote Leon or Elijah. So with that established…Leon, give 'em your evidence."
"Hm?" Leon asked. "Right, well…Elijah's dad allegedly died in a sudden accident. I think that's a little suspicious."
"Think I heard something about that." Evelyn confirmed. "Something about poison?"
"I think that was the official report, yeah." Leon nodded. "So uh, can gods be poisoned?" He asked Xaawo.
"I don't exactly go around poisoning myself to check." Xaawo replied, looking at Kwaku. He shook his head to indicate he also didn't know.
"Would have been around a year ago." Leon continued. "So, could be a chance he faked his death in order to stay in the shadows and plan this whole game out."
"But why would he put his own son in these?" Valerie asked. Her breathing was getting more intense, and she was looking at Elijah. He wasn't reacting.
"I don't know how gods operate." Leon said calmly.
"Okay, but like…the boss is a woman. I'm almost certain the boss is a woman."
"That is a possibility." Leon nodded. "But after his dad died, his mom left for some kind of vacation when Elijah turned eighteen. Seems a little convenient, no?"
"Nah…Elijah knows where his mom is." Valerie managed to spit out. "Right, Elijah?"
"She sent me a picture from Wonderation park yesterday." Elijah added.
"Can we see this picture?" Leon asked.
"Didn't bring my phone." Elijah replied.
"Valerie, you bring your phone?"
"Yeah." Valerie replied.
"Mind letting Elijah log into whatever account he got it from and show us?"
"Forgot the password." Elijah said. "And the account recovery bullshit would probably take too long. But I don't think it matters, because unlike someone here, it is actually my mom."
"Unlike who?" Janet asked, leaning in ever so slightly.
"Leon, surely." Evelyn replied, slightly confused. Janet just nodded to herself.
"Look, I hate to air this out, but Leon's an orphan. Tried tracking his parents down and couldn't do it, despite being the shining example of a history student used to looking at old documents or whatever. Some old lady adopted him and to be honest, I never got the vibe she wanted to do it."
"Ooh, go on." Xaawo asked, leaning in to hear the rest of the story. Elijah wanted to spin a tale of how the annoying fashion lady got her teeth smashed in, but continued.
"She kept going on about him wasting her life raising him whenever I came over, to the point we stopped going. Probably the time we started the Spades, come to think of it. And Leon was always shit talking this bitch. Then his house mysteriously burns down and kills her, and Leon just moves somewhere else like nothing ever happened."
"So what, you're saying the fire was some divine punishment to let Leon know it's time?" Evelyn asked, turning to Leon. He wasn't responding aside from looking mildly annoyed.
"Eh, she smoked constantly, so it was probably that." Elijah shrugged. "But still, my point that Leon has the most flags against him stands."
"Alright, those are all some good points!" Xaawo yelled as she stood up. "But we only have three minutes left, so unless Evelyn has a point to make, we can just skip to the vote!"
"My mind's made up." Evelyn muttered quietly as she looked away from the group.
"Well then, let's get voting!"