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?

Comments

[prozaic]

[Brains, scrambled? Perhaps. But that's not something you can really notice or tell, can you? Or even if someone is suffering from certain other problems. Unfortunately Shalem's issues are sometimes a bit too subtle to be detected, even by himself-- because these are simply parts of his personality, and not some outside force.]

I found a memory... and this. [He pulls out a black band.]

Some cultures wear this on their arm to signify mourning.

Or perhaps it didn't appreciate music.

[moonshaded]

[Kainé glances down at the ruined remains of the guitar that Shadow Ai dropped on the floor. Yeah.......]

Maybe it didn't like you messing with its grief. Or maybe it was just bait put there by that jackass. [So far, it seems the bear's running the show. Still no sign of Kirumi... just a bunch of death.

She jerks her head toward the other side of the entrance hall.] I'm gonna go see who's gone down that way. The sooner we get out of this crap, the better. I wouldn't trust anyone who didn't come in with us if I were you.

[prozaic]

You believe that bear or that girl was Kirumi's Shadow? No... I don't believe that.

[He thinks it's a red herring. A figment of the girl's imagination that's keeping them occupied, or attempting to expel them by any means necessary.]

[moodwrecker]

There can be normal Shadows around, too. I don't think that was Kirumi's Shadow.

[prozaic]

That's exactly what I mean. [Except not, not entirely. Have they ever seen another Shadow before this? No.

He suspects these are all just filler.]

[moonshaded]

Not like that. But it's different from the rest. [From what she's seen and what she's heard, getting attacked by a decoy that looks like one of the other Chosen is a whole different level of messing with them. There's little she likes less.

But the mourning, she thinks, might truly belong to Kirumi.]

... Still, a Shadow's just a Shadow.

[prozaic]

Clearly fueled by her memories. [But, then, what's the reason for the person attacking him being so... lifeless?

Is the construct incapable of that sort of nuance?]