Kirumi Tojo's Palace | The Ultimate Maid's Failures

[kandata]

By now everyone may be used to find themselves in bizarre locations, between going into palaces and visiting Nekyia. It might not come as a surprise that it has happened again.

What might come as a surprise, though...is how empty this place is.

All around you there's nothing more than a large, gray, featureless expanse. In the distance there seem to be bars, curving upwards to gather so, so high above you, possibly hundreds of miles above, so high it’s hard to distinguish.

It’s a cage. So unfathomably large. You could escape, were you to get to the edges of the cage, but...it would take forever. No matter how you look at it, you're trapped. The atmosphere is so...hopeless. Devoid of anything even remotely positive.

Not that you want to hang around for long, do you? After all, this is someone's palace. Not a place to stick around at. What to do, though?

It’s all so...empty. Silent. Featureless. A flat expanse of hard gray tiles.

Gather together, everyone. Gather and choose a direction. North, East, West, South. All directions look completely identical, but could it affect your time in this place, somehow? Probably not. But all treks start with the first step. Perhaps, if you get moving, you'll progress?

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PHASE 0.5

[kandata]

Take a moment to gather and note who you're with, and your surroundings! Once you're ready, move in any direction.

You're also free to examine or perform actions if you wish. This is generally just to establish the arrival and current conditions of the palace!

[destage]

[Sayaka looks around this strange, featureless place and pauses; the people here are definitely ones she's comfortable with if nothing else, but this is definitely not what she's expecting.]

...I've got a bad feeling about this. I've never seen a place so...blank. Please keep your guard up, everyone.

[It's strange. It's really damn strange.

But with a small sword in it's sheath on Sayaka's back, she'll be going to the East to check out what's going on.]

[vogelfrei]

[ McGillis spends a moment looking around, though there is nothing much to see. Hm... ]

Mafuyu's palace was fairly featureless, but this has it beat.

[ Nothing personal. Nothing identifying. Just a feeling of being trapped.

He's going to join Sayaka in moving eastward. ]

[kandata]

[Featuereless indeed. This probably doesn't speak well of the owner of this palace.

Sayaka and McGillis move east. There's a faint breeze the farther they move. Nice and calming in any other circumstamces, here it only serves to remark how desolate everything is.

Oh! Wait. There's something small fluttering in the breeze. It's carried in the breeze, away from McGillis, Soujuurou and Sayaka -- but it's something. Seems to be a piece of paper? As if the palace itself felt such an object was felt, the breeze intensifies, trying to carry that away from the interlopers]

[emptyself]

[ soujuurou has had his rough set of past few days, so when he sees the nekiya as some barren wasteland, he’s barely shaken.

but he is concerned. ]

I’ll go with you guys.

[ safety in numbers and all! he’ll go eastward with them ]

[chimken]

[ Falin was very worried - Kirumi had sent that message that she was taking a break but she didn't think it had come to this...or she had hoped it wouldn't. She wanted to help her friend as best she could so she walks around with determination in her eyes, trying to find anything in the Gray, open space that could give them any information.

She seems almost buzzing with worried energy, as well, but she is trying to find something that could get them to Kirumi quickly. ]

[kandata]

[There doesn't seem to be anything at a first glance. The advantage of this being an open space is that it's easy to see far into the distance, and the air is so clear!

Thinking of Kirumi, though...is it her Palace? Is--

Oh. There's a vague shape in the distance. If Falin thought of Kirumi at any point, that shape was visible, but the moment she loses focus, it vanishes]

[finalmix]

[ well joshua is heading north! or, well. it should feel like north but it's so... empty. ]

It's such a blank slate.

Even the Higher Planes don't look this dull and they lean so much into the monochromatic look.

[kandata]

[Go North! Best of luck!

Walking to the north, the atmosphere turns foggy, hard to see through. Odd, since there had been no mist visible from anywhere before! The floor seems to turn from tiles into a dirt ground. Still very gray, but there's unmistakably dirt. Hm?

A portion of the dirt seems to be...a little raised. Curved upwards, a mound about the size of a person.

Ahead, a yard or two away from it, there's something in the fog. Joshua can see a silhouette of something big and wide, about chest-size for him, but it's hard to see what it is through the fog]

[bloodweapon]

[Huh... This certainly isn't what Fray was expecting of a palace. There's no time to waste, though, so he's heading south.]

[kandata]

[It takes a bit of time to encounter something to the south. When Fray does, though, he'll find...

...are you familiar with TVs by now, Fray? Because it sure is one. There's a TV in middle of the gray nothingness. Looks dusty, the screen has a crack.

It's turned off]

[moonshaded]

[The emptiness is oppressive - and all too familiar. As soon as they appear, Kainé briefly trails her arm through the air, as if testing that it's real and thin.]

... There's nothing. [Nobody.] These places aren't usually empty like this, right?

[It's weird, right? It's a brief moment of being unsettled that she quickly tries to downplay by moving on. She looks to the west, where it seems she intends to move. Already restless, she doesn't want to linger in the empty plane for too long.]

[kandata]

[To the west you go, Kainé!

To the west there's...there's something on the ground. It's a red marker. Not too far away, slowly sinking into the solid ground as if it's trying to phase through, there's a teddy bear, it seems. Hard to see its features when it's disappearing little by little!]

PHASE 0.5 --- Continuation

[kandata]

[Time to move northwest!

The floor has always been tiled, but the farther you go northwest, the more you find out the floor beneath you is...echoy. Even though the expanse around you is endless and empty, there's an echo as if you were indoors.

In the distance, though...something is there. Take a look. Once everyone comes closer, they'll find...

Twelve cameras on tripods. The tripods are very tall, the lenses of the cameras are pointing at different spots of the floor. Each tripod is separate from each other, ensuring none of them will interfere with each other.

Well then!

What will you do?]

[emptyself]

[ is there any indication that the cameras are turned on? ]

[beautifulknight]

[ ... ? ]

What is this? Why so many cameras?

[ Hello???

Should they destroy them, he wonders... ]

[moonshaded]

[Kainé pulls up short like a dog balking the lead.]

... Yeah, no thanks.

[She would really love it if there were a way to proceed in this without getting on camera and may need some coaxing.]

[strawsandals]

[ Okay, okay, fine, he'll step in front of a camera for evaluation. Well, let's see what happens. ]

[idealitas]

[ You know what, he's gone through screenings and stuff like this before for positions within the Nests (hate that). So Yi Sang can stand in front of an unoccupied camera rather calmly. ]

[emptyself]

[ well soujuurou isn’t really happy doing this but he’ll meekly stand in front of a camera. ]

[moonshaded]

[After some deliberation about smashing the cameras, she does finally get in front of one - maybe a little too close.]

It's Kainé. Open up already, or I'll bust you into scrap metal.

[moodwrecker]

[Kaine is so real, so Aubreh's just going to march up and mimic her honestly.]

My name is Aubrey. Hurry up and do your thing before I put this bat to use.

[bloodweapon]

[Since Fray has been here the whole time (don't worry about it), he may as well see what his score would be. After all, he's morbidly curious.

So he steps in front of one of the cameras, waiting on the response.]

[destage]

[Ohhhh, Sayaka does not like this. Her composure is already cracking to an extent that is not good. One of her hands goes into her hair, and she sees the cameras around and it feels like she's on the spot. It's not the first time, but she had certainly hoped that it'd be the last after...

...

Sayaka forces her own nervous ticks down. Plasters a smile that the people here will definitely realize is a little too practiced, a little too TV ready. She's done interviews. She's done TV commercials.

It's all the same. Keep calm, smile, and be polite. She bows politely to them.]

My name is Sayaka Maizono; a pleasure. If you do not mind my asking...

What is it that you intend for us?

[This place has at least heavily leaned into some suspicions she has about who this could be, and connected some dots; at least, Sayaka is hoping she's right. This is...very different than she expected, but she may as well used some long forgotten skills]

[imperiosity]

[Wow, this place is depressing?? It's a lot different from the other palaces he's seen so far, which were usually fairly elaborate.

Anyways, he'll inspect one of the cameras because he was always here shh.]