WEEK 1

[whimsicalism]

Well! That was some tea party, huh? You've finally seen the faces (or perhaps the singular is more proper here?) of your captors. A pair of creepy twins seem to fit the overall theme of the Castle at least. Why not have Twiddle Dee and Twiddle Dum, after all?

Regardless, it doesn't seem that they're changing their minds any time soon. The first floor of the Castle is still open up to you. The Audience Hall is still locked most of the time so perhaps you can meet the Alices there if you need to. There are plenty of things to occupy your time before the inevitable slow erosion of your memories. If this is a game, who will make the first move? You or the twins?

Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday

((OOC: Welcome to peace week! There will be no case this week so just have fun and explore. If you want to investigate please put Investigation in your top level. Don't forget to put threads in for regains or go to the Audience Hall to meet the Alices.

Also, if you want to keep up to date on things we now have a discord server!))

Comments

[ballooncaged]

Well, first off I want to thank Allen. As far as my observations can go, I think your information seems right for now.

What's scariest about that is... the Queen not knowing about Catarina and Lillie. Either the Cat hid them from her - or took her memories. And now we don't even have the Queen's word that Catarina and the others were revived after that torturefest. That makes it sound really bad for everyone else in the empty rooms too.

[So this is where it turns more into a question for Manaka...]

Are wishes supposed to be, like, real? Is there any way that the Cat could have just showed up and said she's granting Alice one but actually using some other crazy powers?

[imozon]

There's a rule like that about memories, right?

[battlestations]

There is, when it comes to our memories. If they can actually take them, it's even possible that they are our old comrades, and we've been here longer than we realized.

[imozon]

You mean some of us might have already died?!

[battlestations]

Unless what everyone said was a fabrication, we already know of two who died at the castle. I just think it's possible that they were in our group and they made us forget.

[strictura]

There's no space for extra portraits in the gallery, though, is there? So it seems unlikely that there was a time that all of them and all of us were playing the game together. Some of our current group may be replacements for them.

[battlestations]

True, but there's still more rooms than there are kids... maybe the portrait hallway just shrunk or whatever.

[That is a bit stubborn but on the other hand this IS a magical castle.]

[soverainty]

Um, wait a moment. There might be a way to check if there were always this many of us, or if there were replacements, or if the portraits were different... right?

Even if the memories are gone, they still left a lot of traces of themselves... [there’s a faintly melancholy note here, Niko looking to the side now that she’s realizing most of these previous inhabitants might be deceased... hm, bad] S-So what we need to do is find those traces, no matter when they were here?

[rhododendronhoney]

We should maybe see if we can find anything that mentions us, specifically? That would imply they knew us at some point...

[bizer0]

Or she means the clock. It’s what told those others that those two dead ones were together. [the “stupid“ is heavily implied. Be happy he didn’t feel the need to tack it on.] Whether we were all here at the same time or we replaced them, whoever set it up wouldn’t have left anything so easy to find behind.

[rhododendronhoney]

I know that. I was offering alternate options to look at. There was plenty left behind in all those empty rooms, after all.

[soverainty]

It's okay! The more ideas we have, the more we can do...

[Y'all don't catfight pls there are already too many animal people present for this to straight up turn into a zoo. Niko will just put on her best placating voice...]

We haven't seen anything about ourselves except the portrait gallery, so investigating that might be easier while we look for ways into the empty rooms.

Sakuraba-san and Allen-kun got something to appear by messing with the clock. So there are hidden clues, too.

[golden_king]

Maybe something like that.

[ Either way he seemed to be in agreement with finding those traces in whatever manner they will be. ]

And while we're on the subject, those people who died could've just been in an isolated 'game' before us, without any of us here being involved. Just a thought.

[immaculacies]

...Mm, I don't think that's what she meant. The Holy Grail grants the wish, not the Servant, and that means that if the Cat granted the Queen's wish just by being summoned, the Queen's wish was the Servant itself.

[ Which: relatable. Anyway, ]

As for the wish... The Holy Grail is supposed to make any wish possible, but doesn't that just scream that it's too good to be true? If Alice never won it, it might not matter, but still... I know that the Grail within my own world isn't the blessing it's supposed to be.

[xxxx_me]

[Oh. He ducks his head in a bit of an embarrassed acknowledgment of the thanks.]

I thought about it too. She said that she was pretty sure the Cheshire Cat couldn't take away her memories. But she also thought that the Cheshire Cat wouldn't...

I told her that maybe the Cheshire Cat made her forget about people dying because it would have made her sad, so she's going to ask the Cheshire Cat about it. But...

[There's literally nothing stopping the Cheshire Cat from just lying, so.]