linkingup | IZOU'S PALACE

IZOU'S PALACE

KYOTO BAKUMATSU PALACE
You find yourself in historical Kyoto at night. The city is shadowy and beautiful, elegant but hostile. It's a sophisticated city, but you don't belong there and it knows it. Everyone knows it. You are being watched.

Worst of all, a terrible demon haunts the streets of this powerful capital city.

Eli Walsh, Kirumi Tojo, Still Sunrise, Argenti, Yi Sang, Celeste, Mafuyu Asahina, and McGillis Fareed, do you dare journey into hell?

♪♪♪

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[The locations are;

Main Room: Yi Sang & Sunrise
Crushing Hell: Eli, Kirumi, Celeste
Great Burning: Mafuyu + White Men

CRUSHING HELL: It is still full of rocks, though as Eli, Kirumi, and Celeste enter, a rock will fall, rolling right in front of them, ALMOST crushing them. And where the rock was, is another piece of paper;

Then to hell in iron bound, he burns his feet upon the ground

GREAT BURNING HELL: Mafuyu, Argenti, and McGillis are confronted by HORRIBLE DEMONS painted on the wall. The seem to have eyes that follow the viewer. The whole room is aflame and hooked ropes hang from the ceiling that they will have to take care to avoid in order to collect the scrap of paper hanging from one;

Seventh quick he must take care, the traps his kin have left in there

Shadow Izou does not appear in either room!]

( ...

hm!!! poem time, and then- )

Let's go. I'd rather not stay.

[ ......

Yeah, this is... ]

...Yes, let's.

[ WE'RE OUTTA HERE, FAM ]

[ Eli walks into the room and...... is nearly crushed by a boulder, wow. He leaps back with a shout. ]

Hey! Shit, he was serious about this being about crushing?!

[ Sunrise told you about the rocks, Eli, omg. ]

[!!! Also jumping back!]

Sunrise said there were rocks--

[But she didn't say they were falling as yet...]

But that poem scrap must be the Reviving room.

[Kirumi actually gasps, greatly startled by the boulder! Her hand curls, and she has to take a deep breath to calm down]

Perhaps we should have guessed something like this could happen. Let's not spend any more time here.

[It's the Crushing Hell, after all. Let's take that poem scrap and leave, to the central place, where we're less likely to be crushed]

...y-yeah.

[ Full retreat, we out. ]

( offering the poem scrap to whoever's collecting them. )

It was on fire, covered in paintings of demons who's gaze follows you, with and hooked ropes hung from the ceiling.

[Since they've been getting passed around anyway, Celeste will take them, sitting on the ground to lay out the pieces - the ones with orders clearly marked in one column, with space left for what should go there, and the others in a second column, so they can reorder as needed.]

The demon flits between the hells, where he goes this rhyme can tell...
"First along the shadow's edge, the demon follows somber threads" Does seem to be referring to the black thread hell, but since he wasn't found there first, that must mean he didn't start at the beginning.

[Goddamn it, Izou.]

"Third he twists all upside-down, over the chasm voices sound" Must be endless, and
"Fourth now darting two and fro, avoiding boulders crushing foe" is crushing. We have yet to run into him in either place, but at least the poem tells us their order.

"Seventh quick he must take care, the traps his kin have left in there" could be the room you were just in - he believes himself to be a demon, after all, and the hooks... [Great Burning, for our reference, since he's not mentioning it by name here.]

[And over to the other row--]

"Next chasing distant screams, amidst the fires panic seems" must be screaming, though we didn't run into him.

"Now spies upon turning pyre, charred flesh no sinner will desire" [Pointed Look up at Yi Sang - Burning Hell]

And "Then to hell in iron bound, he burns his feet upon the ground" Is where he started, in Reviving.

It would seem we're missing the line referencing the snake room, which would be two after this one.

[ Argenti takes pause...

You know isn't this a complex game of hide and seek when you think about it- ]

...Do we have an idea of where he'd be right now in the meanwhile?

It would be the eighth and final line.

[ Yi Sang has a notebook to write these all down, along with the order and where/when they saw Izou.

He tears the page out so it's easier for people to read. Here's also a direct image link just in case, because imgur is dead to me. ]

...Something like this?

Edited 2024-09-06 03:23 (UTC)

I think so. We could finish this quickly if we prepare enough, I think...

...That sounds accurate to me.

...I don't get how this tells us where he is.

[ don't even have to roll for stupidity this time, he is le confused ]

[ Not even upset. ]

Izou changes rooms based on the poem order. Not all of these lines are numbered, but I kept track of when we found them, and it makes a sufficient order for the poem.

However, he didn't start in the Black Thread room that corresponds with the first significant line of the poem. He started in the Reviving room that aligns with the sixth line, which we mistook for the first line of the poem when we encountered him at the beginning. After the eight line, he starts from the beginning.

The order he went through the rooms was: Reviving, Great Burning, Great Screaming, then Black Thread. The next room he'll be in is the Screaming Hell room.

Does that make sense?

[ LA if you wanna roll for the first part I won't even be mad. I think the last sentence is straightforward enough, hopefully. ]

Edited 2024-09-06 04:16 (UTC)

You mean he isn't even following the rules of his own damn poem?! That jackass!

[ Okay, he understood enough to be angry at Izou again (did he ever stop who even knows). ]

[ HELLO, he is here and he is still bleeding from the injury he sustained in his epic solo standoff against the demon that happened entirely off screen. It was so cool, trust me on this.

Mafuyu gave him a heal and he's also casting a heal on himself, but the injury is deep and he's still gonna need to get this cleaned when all is said and done. For now, it's the kind of thing he can tough out.

He seems to be... having fun, even? He's grinning a little. ]

I'll go to Screaming, then. Best finish what I started quickly, before he has time to recover.

Who else?

I think we could set up an ambush in the room to come after, actually... We have multiple long range fighters, after all. This gives us time to position ourselves.