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

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?]

[kandata]

[Well! It's a big bowl, and it's completely empty right now. The rim seems to be asking a question:

How many people would you be willing to sacrifice to save one person?

Cheery question, eh?]

[destage]

[...Mmm! Do not like this question! It startles Sayaka briefly, and it makes her think because her initial thought is none. It has to be, right? It has to be, she'd be a terrible person if she truly thought about killing someone.

But then her mind goes to Fray. To Argenti, to Soujuurou, to others. Could she really say that she wouldn't sacrifice someone to ensure their safety, if it came down to it? If she couldn't save them herself, if sacrifice was truly the only way...

...]

...I don't want to sacrifice people anymore.

[She says it softly, but truthfully. She genuinely doesn't think she could bring herself to do it, after nearly sacrificing everyone for her escape--and sacrificing so many girls to further her career. She can't. She can't.]

[kandata]

[Sayaka's response is very truthful. The cave rumbles a little, like it's acknowledging what she said, and there's a very low whisper of something that sounded like Kirumi, too soft to understand what that was, but...looks like spoken words don't affect anything with the bowl. Bummer!]

[destage]

[...

Sayaka feels her cheeks puff out indignantly. She bared her soul for a second and all she got was unintelligible whisper ASMR in return? The audacity! The nerve!

Is this more likely to do damage to her than it is to the bowl in question? Almost certainly. But Sayaka will give the bowl a swift kick (14) in indignant rage.

...And probably wince after, but hey!

She will go and investigate the bowl further like a good little dangan romper after that, though. Is there anything else that can be seen on the bowl, or is she gonna have to climb inside? Or maybe try another approach?]

[beautifulknight]

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

[kandata]

[Beautifully gaze at the machine, Argenti!

This cubical machine has a nice round button on the front. It's about the size of a coffee machine, and is made of black steel. There's an inscription to a side, and a nozzle underneath it:

Persons Dispenser. One person per second!

The rest of the machine is unblemished, without anything else. Still, it doesn't seem dangerous]

[beautifulknight]

[ Weird.

What happens if he presses the button- ]

[kandata]

[Plop plop plop.



Three paper dolls came out! The first one is labeled with a big fat zero, but the other two are just quaint depictions of everyday people.

Congratulations, Argenti! With the short time you pressed that button, you got granted a 'zero doll', and a total of two (2) persons]

[beautifulknight]

Ah! These little dolls are truly an image of Beauty!

[ Argenti hugs them close to him.

...

Anyway, anything else noteworthy about the machine while he's doing 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?]

[kandata]

[This cube of glass seems to be some sort of cubical jar, judging by the lid on the top. The lid is unlocked! Looking inside through the glass, you'll find...

Three little paper dolls. They're all labeled with the word 'MYSELF'.

There's something engraved on a side of the cube: 'watch out, you only get three in total!']

[moonshaded]

[Oh, that's...

She almost touches the glass - because it's hard to keep one's hands to oneself in a cavern of cursed objects - but pulls away at the last second. Was it that Kirumi had once hoped for a second chance? A third? She wonders.

Now, does one of those little paper dolls disappear when Argenti hits the button?]

[kandata]

[They don't! The general shape and design look pretty similar to the people Argenti got, though. Probably made from the same source, but yeah, no dolls identical to these ones popped from the machine. Looks like it's all serious when it says you only get three of these dolls as maximum!]

[moonshaded]

[Oh, there are so many little dolls. What a headache...

... Even if they are, she guesses, a little cute.

Do the ones in the case also look like Kirumi, or are they just labeled MYSELF? In the interest of getting a closer look at them, Kainé will look for a way to open the cube.]

[bloodweapon]

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

[kandata]

[It does! Open up this dumbwaiter, Fray, and find--

---nothing. It's empty. It's so anticlimactic when something turns out to be empty, blah]

[bloodweapon]

[Smh, doing all this investigation work for nothing?? Is that how the Danganronpas go these days???

Well, this must have been bolded for a reason, so are there any other buttons he can press to make the dumbwaiter go up or down to another floor?]

[kandata]

[The mechanisms of the dumbwaiter seem to be working well. The platform is ascending and descending properly. The moment Fray stops pressing them, though, the dumbwaiter descends to unknown depths, and then come back with a note]

'Hello! I'm on standby.'

[Okay, maybe it's not condescension, maybe it's politeness? It's hard to tell when you're getting little notes, instead of talking to a person directly]

[bloodweapon]

[...Huh. Okay, well what if he lets it descend back down again? Will he get another (possibly condescending) note??]

[finalmix]

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

[kandata]

[Ponder this bowl, Joshua.

The question is similar to Sayaka's, but at the same time, its importance seems to be...grander?

How many people would you be willing to sacrifice to save 15 persons?]

[finalmix]

[ looks at twewy. looks at his supposed character development here.

looks at the bowl.

he should have gotten sayaka's question instead that would have been easier-- ]

Next question.

[ i'm so sorry to nick for him being uncooperative so just feel free to do something funny ]

[kandata]

[Joshua's demand gets some Kirumi ASMR. It's whispering from her, and it's so low it's impossible to understand. Oh, welp.

The bowl doesn't change, though. Looks like that's a very important question, since it's etched on marble]