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 2

[kandata]

[This indeed is a cavern. Yes, it’s a big enough cavern for McGillis to pilot the Exisal in there. There are plenty of stalactites and stalagmites, but none of them get in the way of the mecha.

It’s a very damp passageway. Feels like the humidity is dialed to 110% in here. There’s droplets from the ceiling fixtures – somehow, there are elegant chandeliers lining the way.

There’s more sound than the noise of your steps and that of the Exisal walking. There’s…what sounds like muted crying around you. Doesn’t sound like Kirumi, though, it sounds like voices you don’t know. Among them, though, a few of you may have good enough ears to distinguish the cries of one Kaede and one Shuichi among them. Is this based on reality? Or is it something Kirumi’s mindscape conjured? No perception rolls needed anymore!

Very rarely, the word ‘traitor’ seems to pop up, clear as day, by one of the voices. Whatever the intent of the ambiance is, it’s not a good sign of Kirumi’s feelings on the matter. Before now, Kirumi had shown signs of guilt. That guilt, here in the depths of her palace, seems to be repressed unsuccessfully.

Soon, everyone reaches a very large chamber in this cave. To your left, you’ll see there’s a pedestal some distance away. To your right, you’ll see several big stone bowls. And to the center, on a table with a nice tablecloth, there’s several plates of gimbap and tteoboki, enough for everyone. There’s a handwritten note from Kirumi there.
‘Your request has been fulfilled’.

Watch out, everyone. Things will get grim from here on. After all, you’re in the sinner’s hell]

—---------------
Characters are free to go to the left or to the right. There’s plenty for several people to deal with things on both sides, so there’s no limit of how many can go. That said, try to keep it generally balanced, yup!

Freel free to reply to this post to talk among yourselves, maybe eat some food, and state where you're going. I'll have toplevels for each side once some people have gone to each side, yup.

[emptyself]

This is…

[ a little unsettling. this is kirumi’s mind?

feeling sorry for the girl, soujuurou heads to the left. ]

[vogelfrei]

It's weighing heavily on her, it seems.

[ 'It' being what she did to survive in here, which McGillis clearly has a good idea of but won't elaborate on.

He'll come with Soujuurou to the left, because the dice decided this. ]

[moonshaded]

[If she'd known there would be food here, she wouldn't have ruined her appetite with floor sandwich...

Luckily, Kainé is actually a rather voracious eater. If they stop for some of the meal, she'll have some, especially given the note from Kirumi. But...the atmosphere here is really enough to dim her appetite. The cries seem to bother her; she can't quite shake their impact off, and they interrupt her eating every now and then.]

Looks like we're splitting up again. [Who's coming to the right with her?]

[destage]

[Sayaka will gladly tag along with Kainé; she too has eaten the meal provided (you do not waste food in this house!!), but this places feels...

...Well, it feels like how her head felt for a while, so Sayaka's eyes are softened in sympathy.]

Let's be careful; we don't know what could get thrown at us next.

[What do these bowls hold, I wonder...]

[moonshaded]

[Mm. Yeah, it's really impossible to anticipate. Everything so far has been so wild and confusing, a mix of desolate and insane. It feels a little familiar to her.]

That smug jackass is probably gonna take another swing at us.

[It's probably not the best mindset; she already just kind of sees Monokuma as a sentient thing and not part of the fabric of the palace itself. Anger directed at something that can't sponge it. Blame, too.]

If people care about her like they do the others, they won't turn so easily.

[moodwrecker]

[Aubrey isn't eating, but she'll follow Kainé.]

[moonshaded]

Not hungry?

[The floor sandwich made her feel physically great... so this is her way, kind of obliquely, of asking how she's holding up.]

Left Side

[kandata]

[This is the left side, fellow!

This side of the chamber seems relatively sparse. Look at this. There's a pedestal, and there's an object currently in the pedestal.

Further back, there's something hooked to the wall, beside the closed door of a dumbwaiter. A painting of some sort.

Guess the depths of some sort of hell aren't furnished with loads and loads of things, huh]

[vogelfrei]

[ Being a dramatic bitch, McGillis is drawn to the pedestal. What do we have here? ]

[kandata]

[Going straight to the heart of things, eh? Gaze upon what's on the pedestal, McGillis:



It's a GENERIC VASE. Looks so generic you could even think it's 3D printed.

This vase is sitting nice and comfy on the center of the pedestal. The pedestal itself looks rather nice, but still, this vase does not belong on such a pedestal. It's clashing so much...]

[emptyself]

[ let’s see if soujuurou knows how to appreciate art by taking a look at the painting! ]

[idealitas]

[ Joining soujuurou to appreciate art too, I guess? ]

[kandata]

[This painting is very utilitarian! Should be easy to decipher:

It's showing a cute pixel depiction of Kirumi while the flashlight you all assembled during Phase 0 shines on her. Kirumi seems happy.

Well that's a bit out of left field, since this painting seems entirely unrelated to everything else here. Guess it's completely meaningless and unrelated and insignificant and non-relevant and unneeded and unnecessary and can be dismissed as having nothing to do with anything without a second thought, right?]

[imperiosity]

[He's like. So sideeying the fact that McGillis is literally running around investigating while in this mecha but this is the life they're living, apparently.

Anyways, let's go for the dumbwaiter! Anything fun in there? Are there little dolls packed in there waiting to lose at trivia.]

[strawsandals]

[ Hello Aaron, Yoon will join in on this investigation! He's here to peek also... ]

Right Side

[kandata]

[As mentioned, there are stone bowls over here! And they're really big and deep -- think jacuzzi size. They're all embedded into the ground. The inside of each bowl is smooth, apparently made of gray marble.

In total...three bowls. Each one, with a different inscription on the rim. You'll have to specify which one you'll go for!

In addition to that, to a side of this area of the cavern, there's a cubical machine with a shiny green button, and a cube of glass with something inside.

Finally, on the far end, a closed dumbwaiter. This side sure has more objects in it than the left side, eh?]

[destage]

[Oh, there is a lot going here--Sayaka's a little confused by it all, but the bowls caught her eye first. She'll go check out the first bowl! What's going on here?]

[beautifulknight]

[ Let's ~beautifully~ check out the cubical machine! What's happening with that? ]

[moonshaded]

[Well, those bowls are a lot bigger than she thought they were from the other side of the cabin. Looks can be deceiving, can't they?

Despite their size and dominance on this side of the chamber, it's the cube of glass that gets her attention first. It's see-through, right? What's suspended inside?]

[bloodweapon]

[Huh... Well, Fray's going to check out the dumbwaiter; this looks interesting. Does it have a button to open it?]

[finalmix]

[ he'll take the centre bowl - what does it say on that one! ]

continue

[kandata]

[The passageway still is wide enough for an Exisal, Luna!

Gone are the fancy chandeliers on the ceiling of the cave. Now there are candles and torches, giving the cave a gloomier, sinister aura. The air is silent, too, deadly silent. On the ground, the dampness feels different, more...concentrated.

Being here feels filthy, in a way. Ugly. The atmosphere is foreboding.

One half of you found Kirumi's mindset. The other half found her motive video. Given what you know about the killing game, perhaps you can suspect what may come now?]

[destage]

[Sayaka's admittedly a little more subdued by the time they're walking down here, and this place...well, it's certainly doing it's best to let one wallow in despair. Whatever comes next, it's not going to be fun.

At the very least, though, Sayaka will share her findings.]

...Those bowls over there asked questions about sacrifices. About what one would sacrifice for one person, or potentially even millions. Tojo-san herself, she...when one of those weird little paper people was put into the bowl, it burned it up, and apparently that counted as an answer to the question in the bowl.

Tojo-san...she wanted to believe that there were ways to save people, without sacrificing anyone. She really hoped she could hold onto that sort of thought process, in a game like this...

[It's a painfully familiar reminder.]

[kandata]

[It doesn't take a long time to reach a dead end. The only tunnel available ends up to a wall.

The tunnel isn't empty, though. Everyone arriving to this dead end would see some ominous things.

One: a cognition. In the light of the torches, everyone can see it's the cognition of a boy. Doesn't look like anyone anybody has seen or met before. He's kneeling down like he's trying to pick up something from the ground, facing directly away from everyone.

Two: Well this sure is a machine! Functional, judging by how the lights are flashing and it looks so well maintained.

Welcome, one and all]