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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[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.]

[moodwrecker]

...But that stupid bear forced you into situations where you'd kill each other.

[Fuck that stupid plush.]

[destage]

Yes, it did. I...can't imagine that she took it well, when everything became clear.

[strawsandals]

This all feels so senseless. Why were you and Kirumi made to endure all of this...

[ He's getting pretty upset, not gonna lie. ]

[destage]

...Neither of us deserved this.

[It's shaky when she says it, but for once in her life, she's including herself in this. Because fuck that bear.]

She should have been able to keep living her life--this should have never happened at all. All of this senseless death, just for despair...it's...

[strawsandals]

It's sickening.

We'll save her - and you both won't need to go back to that wretched place.

[ He refuses to believe Sayaka is dead. She's here, tangible, and very much alive as far as he knows. He agrees, neither of them deserve that. No one does, really, but knowing they had to endure that leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. ]

[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]

[strawsandals]

[ Yoon is going to examine the machine. He's not a tech person, but what can he gather at a first glance? Any text, imagery...? ]

[kandata]

[The top part of the machine shines with 'MONOMONO MACHINE'. Inside, Yoon can see gacha capsules. How quaint! It'd be cute if it wasn't for how this is obviously something from a killing game!

A smaller screen on the front, is displaying a message, and an arrow pointing to a microphone:]

'Ask for a blunt weapon of your choice'.

[Yikes]

[strawsandals]

[ b...bruh... Mister Pacifist here doesn't want a weapon?!?!

But for the sake of science or something... ]

...A hammer?

[kandata]

[Yoon will see a gacha ball descend down the spiral ramp, until it exits the machine. If he doesn't catch the capsule, it'll crash against the ground. Regardless of how the capsule is opened, he'll obtain...

...a perfectly usable hammer! Shiny and new. Very deadly, if used in certain ways]

[imperiosity]

[wow, how ominous?? he’d be more confused about the physics-defying logic in keeping a bunch of weapons in a bunch of tiny capsules, but he accepts that this is a palace and it has its own rules.

either way, he’s curious about how far they can stretch the definition of blunt weapon, so:]

A stripper pole.

[kandata]

[There comes the gacha capsule!

When Aaron opens the capsule, he gets a smooth pole with a special material for increased grip onto it. It's accompanied by a note:

'What's wrong with you.'

Very rich, coming from something that's related to Monokuma in some way]

[beautifulknight]

...A flashlight!

[ Anything is a blunt weapon if you think hard enough! ]

[kandata]

[That's true, really!

When the capsule opens, there's a flashlight, although it seems to be made of flimsy plastic. Apparently the monomono machine doesn't put much stock on the possibility of using a flashlight as a blunt weapon.

The flashlight isn't working. There's something taped on it:

'Smear with blood to make it functional']

[vogelfrei]

[ Examining the cognition with the Exisal's heat monitor, does it give off heat? Or is it merely a 'ghost' to us? ]

[kandata]

[It's...it's giving a strange thermal reading. It seems to be warm, but not in a way a living being would give. It's not a living person, it seems to be something similar to wax.

That would have been impossible to tell from sight, from outside of the Exisal]

[vogelfrei]

[ Wax.... He's going to use the Exisal's speakers to pass that info on to everyone else, yay! ]

That person isn't human. He's physically here, in as much as anything inside a palace is, and giving off a heat signal, but... If I had to compare it to anything, it would be warm wax and not a person.

[destage]

...Is this where Naegi-kun was getting all of those gifts...?

[guess who absolutely never touched a monomono machine in her life--

Still, Sayaka will at least go over and see if she can talk to the boy.]

Ah, excuse me--are you looking for something?

[kandata]

[The boy doesn't move. Doesn't react. Not a twitch, nothing except faint breathing.

...in fact, when Sayaka gets close, she can see the face is completely unfocused, staring at a spot on the floor, hand reaching as if he was frozen in the middle of picking something up. There's nothing in front of him]

[destage]

[...That is concerning. She's been wrong genre savvy this entire investigation (which is completely hilarious for a dangan ronpa character--), but he's...breathing, so surely this means something's wrong.

...If she tries to tap him on the shoulder, will anything happen? Is she gonna get set on fire again]

[prozaic]

[He'll approach the machine! Hey, if it gives free weapons, why turn them down?]

[kandata]

[Welcome to the Monomono machine! What's your order, Shalem?

The screen still asks for blunt weapons, the arrow pointing at the microphone]

[prozaic]

A crowbar. [Let's get something that's multi-use, shall we? Better in many situations than his staff.]