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

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

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?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[At the other side of the gym there's a stage. Soujuurou's perception will allow him to notice a trapdoor behind a podium, even though the trapdoor is very well camouflaged.

Onto non-perception stuff, one of the stage's red curtains seem to be draped over something unidentifiable. All one can tell is that it's enormous!

There's the podium itself, too, and to a side of the stage, you'll find what seems to be a a tape player.

Plenty of stuff for two people!]

[ soujuurou will try to push the trap door. does it open? ]

[Nope! It's tremendously heavy, turns out. Abnormally so. Soujuurou can't open the trap door]

[ rude.

if he pulls the curtain, can hr see what it is draped over (13)? ]

[You can! Look at that, Soujuurou, this is...

It's one of these big boys!

And honestly, he getting a good rolls means I can't spook him with it, alas. In addition to that, he'll see the cockpit area is unlocked, and it sure is big enough for a human to enter.

Soujuurou has found a tiny mecha, in other words. It may be bigger than a human being, but also it probably is insignificant compared to the mechas McGillis over there pilots

I edit to wonder why that image is for ants. I can't fix that, but yeah]

Edited 2024-10-01 20:16 (UTC)

What is that?

[ see, soujuurou would have called it a fridge, but he rolled a 19 so he can recognize that he has no idea what the fuck this is. ]

McGillis, do you know what this is?

[ Well, McGillis is over in a flash and... ]

That's a mobile suit. I didn't think her world had these...

[ Could he get into the cockpit? Or is it tall-man-phobic?? ]

A suit? It doesn’t look like the one I wear to school though.

[ he tilts his head, observing it like if it were an object from outer space. ]

It looks more like a fridge.

It's a 'suit' only in so far as that you can get in it and make it move. It's a robot that you pilot.

[ ........... don't call it a fridge ever again. What kind of fridge do you have. ]

I see.

[ and i’m genuinely surprised that mcgillis didn’t foresee the following question— ]

What’s a robot?

A robot is...

[ WHY DOES HE ALWAYS NEED TO START FROM THE BASICS WITH THIS GUY... ]

It's a mechanical body. Some of them move autonomously with a computer program controlling them, others are controlled by people. Let me see if I can show you...

[ And he's going to start cramming himself into the worst cockpit ever in the other subthread. ]

[It totally is tall-man-phobic. The general user tends to be a bear that's, like, thigh-tall for a teenager. McGillis sure isn't thigh-tall for Soujuurou.

But he can get in, if he really crams himself in there. I'm all for him getting to be in there, but also I can't not go for the funny factor of him having to pack himself like a sardine in this.

Still, it'll be functional! And intuitive to use, too, he'd have no problem in the slightest. A teenager with no experience at all can use those, so of course, a man who has experience with mechas will find it a walk in the park]

[ Okay. He's gonna do it. He's gonna do it even if that means his back will hurt for the rest of the palace. Let's curl up in the near-fetal-position to try and hop in here. It's fine. He can probably not even close the hatch right, with his size but...

Hey, this is easy to boot up and make move. Can he make it walk and use its arms etc properly? Or will there be problems during testing? ]

[ holy shit. ]

[Your poor old man back, McGillis...

No problems during testing! It's pretty clunky when moving, though -- this thing is so heavy the mechanisms need to move slowly. McGillis can move and use the arms properly.

Congrats, McGillis. You are now enabled to use excessive strength if you ever need it]

[ Neat!!

Despite the shrimp position kind of killing his back, he's honestly enjoying playing around with this thing and comparing the controls to what he knows...

... so yeah, he's just doing finesse tests on the arms here. Even though there is absolutely a trap-door here he could open with this mecha. Soujuurou... does this come to mind for you.. ]

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[ McGillis, nosy as he is, will be examining the tape player! ]

[McGillis can take the tape player. Nothing horrible pops up to take it from him.

Oh! There's a tape in here. It's labeled 'opening speech closing' in chickenscratch.

Play it? Ignore it? Take it with you?]

[ Play it! ]

[Augh, it's that bear's voice.

It's not alone, though. There are many distressed teenagers' voices sounding too, and none of them sounded like Kirumi. That said, it's likely she was there when this all happened. This is her palace, based on her mindscape. This must be an exact memory]

Talk about tasteless...

[ The whole killing game situation still feels bizarre to him. He's seen a lot of messed up things in his lifetime, but it's so... frivolous in its violence.

McGillis is going to pocket the tape, just in case. And then he'll check out the podium - but not with any particular amount of Having Eyes (9). ]

[McGillis looks at the podium with his eyes closed. Since he failed the roll, all he'll see is...

...a check! Written to Kirumi Tojo. Ten thousand dollars for a single day of work!

Doesn't seem like it's a trap of some kind]

... she wasn't kidding when she said she's in demand.

[ Does the check say what kind of work she did? He'll pick it up and look it over carefully. ]

[When McGillis picks up the check, once he looks up, he sees Kirumi and another teenager standing nearby

They're having a conversation, and both McGillis and Soujuurou can see it. Once the conversation is over, they both vanish into thin air.

On the back of the check, there's something written in Kirumi's handwriting.

'I am not in this for money. All I want is see those I serve reach the potential I see in them.']

Edited 2024-10-01 21:29 (UTC)

Tojo’s always been a kind, trustworthy person.

[ soujuurou nods, feeling a sense of warmth upon seeing that memory. ]

It seems that she really dedicates her life to her job. She must be very passionate about it.