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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Done

[kandata]

[Everything stops.

Everyone finds himself in shallow water, surrounded by bones.

There are twelve spider threads hanging from very, very high above.

No way out...except upwards. Luckily, all threads are close enough to each other so they can support each other.

Best of luck. It's a difficult climb. Try not to die along the way!]

[moodwrecker]

[It's frustrating, watching Kirumi lie and cheat and flee, cowardly, strategic moves to the end, but-

Honestly? Even now, she has no regrets.]

Pretty sure we already figured that one out for ourselves.

[Obviously Kirumi had gone through with it - that's precisely why Aubrey didn't want to.

If Kirumi herself was fine playing along, then that's that. But Aubrey isn't, and won't.]

...So? What now?

[beautifulknight]

[ Argenti remains remarkably silent through all of that, his eyes watching what happen with an indescribable emotion, before he turns towards Aubrey. ]

...We make our own way forward.

[ However that looks like, but the spider's threads are right before them. ]

[moodwrecker]

...That's the only thing we can do, huh.

[imperiosity]

[His eyes follow the threads, trying to determine what’s actually above them. But after a while he gives up and starts glancing around to see if there’s anything else useful besides bones.]

Tch. If I knew this was gonna happen, I woulda asked for rope.

[emptyself]

You put her in a situation where people have to kill each other or else die and… you’re asking us to blame her for trying to survive?

[ honestly, this bear is a weird one for sure. soujuurou looks at the shallow water and the bones, and then looks up at the spider’s thread. ]

The spider’s thread… I think I read this in school.

[moonshaded]

What about it?

[She doesn't look down at the bones, but she is studying those threads, head tilted back and expression sour.]

[idealitas]

As in a story?

[ Yi Sang isn't allowed to know this one if only because it's written by Akutagawa, who wrote Hell Screen, whose main characters are the basis for fellow coworker Ryoshu.

...And yet Agatha Christie books exist. Anyways. He's not going to act surprised at this outcome, but who knows. ]

[prozaic]

[Goodbye, his crowbars... At least he still has his staff, his tail is the strongest part of his body. But he's also quite disappointed in this gaggle of pacifists. smh

He turns away from the group to start checking how they can leave, and tugs on the spider threads. And makes a face. One thread for each person would have been the logical choice but... Also. Is there any guarantee that they would hold for the entire journey?]

[vogelfrei]

[ McGillis watches all these flashes with a thin smile on his face - he likes this side of Kirumi. He likes the Kirumi who would do anything to achieve her aims, for herself, and for what she perceives to be her cause.

And of course it sends her to hell, and them along with her. Of course both God and the spiders are laughing at them. ]

Her Persona must really be weighing on her.

[idealitas]

Braphine's words about the nature of our Personas is perhaps coming to mind here.

MECHANICS

[kandata]

Alright, everyone! The final stretch!

There are four legs, so to speak. The default is that everyone will be able to ascend their spider thread, despite the many differences in physical skill ando/r endurance. That said, if you want someone to have trouble or to interact with other characters to be able to climb at the start, by all means, go ahead! The floor is yours, do what you want!

Every time a character makes a move to ascend, I'll roll the die. 1-10 means you'll have trouble ascending because, as you may guess, Monokuma would rather you to die than to get to the top. You'll see what kind of trouble it'll be. At that point, you roll die to see how well you're faring, again with 1-10 being a failure and 11-20 a success. Rolling 11-20 when ascending means you're fine.

If you're being accosted by obstacles, feel free to play out how that goes, any way you want! You want your character to overcome it by themselves while having injuries? Go ahead! You want your character to need someone else nearby to assist? Certainly, that's fine! You want them to accidentally let go of the thread and almost perish but someone else saves their life? Fun, do that! You have a lot of freedom there.

Using your Personas is fair game, as long as what you do isn't, like, clinging to the Persona and flying all the way to the top or using it to ascend a section. Play fair!

As mentioned, it's four legs, so that's four times you need to ascend. Good luck.

............

Also, the instant McGillis gets out of the Exisal, the Exisal just floats away as if it was a balloon made of helium or something, vanishing up to whatever's at the end of the spider threads.

[idealitas]

[ Alright, time to attempt the climb out of hell.

(10...)

Yi Sang makes a good effort, but slips up his grip I guess. ]

[moodwrecker]

[Gripping a thread and beginning to climb! ...We aren't off to a good start, fam (7)]

[emptyself]

[ bro we cannot climb SHIT in this house because he got a (6) ]

[bloodweapon]

[Alright, well, looks like it's time to ascend! Fray's luck holds out (for now?) so he should be find to ascend the first leg (14).]

[vogelfrei]

[ HIS ROBOT.... Welp. Here go his chances of using the Exisal's strength to brute force climb up the cave walls instead...

McGillis just kind of looks down at his arms for a moment. His right arm is still... not good. It works fine in general life, but it gets shaky when he tries to grip something tightly and he has trouble raising it above his head. Surely that is... great for climbing.

And nevertheless. An attempt to ascend is being made. ]

[moonshaded]

[Kainé will chronologically wait until Yoon and Sayaka and some of the others have made it past the initial leg of the climb. She wants to fight a skeleton if one appears, ok, and that's her total reasoning.

After the kids are loaded up on their threads, Kainé will begin her ascent.Nick's nat 1 already went to McGillis so how bad could it be?]

[prozaic]

[Well, no two ways about it. He might as well start climbing (11)... This is going to suck, he's a terrestrial snake, not an arboreal one.]

[imperiosity]

[Like Kainé, he'll wait a little for the others so he can help kick some ass(bones), but he's not going to sit around forever. So here he is, climbing this thread with a 17 and a stripper pole strapped to his back.]

[strawsandals]

[ He may not be physically as strong as others but my god his survival instincts go hard. 15. ]

MECHANICS ADDITION

[kandata]

After two failures, ascending is automatic success. That should prevent any stalemates or being unable to continue, but that'll still be very rough for your character.

[finalmix]

[ crashes in here late with a vitamin c drink because guess who fell sick fam

attempting to climb out of hell, he's just going to be in a foul mood the whole way because physical activity,,, (11) ]

[beautifulknight]

[ Argenti is not the type of person to hesitate when it comes to a decision.

That remains true even now.

So, he'll try to ascend. ]

[kandata]

[Ah, thank you to Avrae for giving a failure roll right away, so I can demonstrate with Argenti.

Argenti will begin to try to ascend. He's in the first leg. He's not too high yet; a fall would hurt but it wouldn't kill him.

As if the bones sensed there's people trying to escape the depths of hell, they move. Some levitate, others start connecting to each other, forming a long chain. A clawed hand, formed with jagged, splintered bones, form at the end of the chain, and, dripping wet, it bolts upwards to cling onto Argenti's back, grabbing at the armor with surprising strength.

The hand tugs from Argenti, trying to rip him off the thread. Other bones begin uniting, already preparing backup. All for the sake of dragging people down!]