WEEK 2

[whimsicalism]

The first week at the castle passes without any (recent) murders. Mysteries were found, questions asked, bonds formed, and Halloween celebrated. Now as Sunday 'dawns', you might feel your mind a little lighter as your first memories fade. Will this be just a week celebrating the (questionably) best thing about October or will more sinister things be afoot?

Either way, it looks like the Alices will continue their game.

Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday

[Hello, and welcome to week 2! Don't forget to submit your memory losses here and your activity here. If you want to ask or annoy the twins you can do so here. As always, don't forget to turn your threads in for 'fabulous prizes.]

Comments

SUNDAY

[whimsicalism]

PUNISHMENT: How Curiouser (1/2)

[whimsicalism]

[Throughout your week-long stay in the castle one thing has been constant. The audience hall's grand doors were almost always closed. Even during the introduction to the Alices, they were only briefly open to let everyone in and if anyone wanted access they had to be asked first.

It might seem natural to try to get in anyway you could. For Ib this Sunday morning seems to be the perfect time to do so. One of the doors are slightly ajar, after all. While everyone else is busy this morning, Ib slips into the audience hall uninvited.

What happens could only be described as mayhem. The audience hall door suddenly slams and locks behind Ib. A loud inhuman roar rumbles throughout the castle. Both Alices start talking at once.

If Ib's saying anything, the roar drowns her out as the Alices speak magically.]

H-huh? What is it--

Looks like we have an intruder, Alice--go back to sleep. I'll handle it, you? You go back outside we can finish later.

Hm... bye-bye, I guess.

[With that, silence overtakes the audience hall once more as the large doors swing open. Queen Alice is rubbing her eyes on the throne while the Cat Alice, in human form, is holding Ib's arm. Her voice is angry when she speaks.]

We can't have tattlers in our castle, you know. Time for you to wake up. [Ib opens her mouth to say something but can only yawn. In a daze she wanders out towards the foyer as if to speak her discoveries. As soon as she leaves the audience hall Ib collapses and the doors slam shut once more behind her.

She almost seems asleep as she lays on the floor. Her breathing is stable then it becomes slower and slower even as people start swarming into the foyer to see what happened. Ib, the Embodiment of Spirit, is dead.]

How Curiouser (2/2)

[whimsicalism]

[The voice of the cat Alice rings out a few minutes later.]

Let this be a lesson to those with curious minds. No one is more curious than Alice but no skipping to the final chapter, alright?

[She will... take care of Ib's body when everyone leaves the room.]

[rhododendronhoney]

[Cori doesn't move at first, simply confused, until she sees Ib's breathing start to slow. She immediately rushes forwards, trying to call on what medical training she does have. Of course, it's all useless.]

No no no...what do you mean "wake up"???

[undershadow]

[ Lena comes running in at the sound of this commotion, carrying, uh, a combat knife. ]

What did you do?

[strictura]

[ What...? This shouldn't be happening. ]

What rules did she break, specifically? They say we can explore the castle, don't they?

[scratchitti]

[Neku arrives with everyone else, letting Cori try to revive her... but once it's clear she can not he wheels around on the Alices through the door]

You... you little bitches-!

[WOW LANGAUGE, EVEN IN CANON YOU GOT CUT OFF BEFORE ACTUALLY SAYING IT NEKU, GEEZE]

[battlestations]

[lowkey freaking out here, but he finally gains enough composure after the new rule is added]

Now that it's been established that the two of you are in disagreement on this matter. This IS your game, isn't it, Queen? If you can really bring people back from death, now would be a great time to prove it. If you won't, then I demand an explanation.

Re: How Curiouser (2/2)

[seventhlittlemonster]

Ah... A-Ahh...! [He couldn't even scream. One of the group, dead in front of them all...]

This... this isn't real... this has to be a dream... It... [He held onto his head, turning around, his fingers almost digging into his flesh.]

[imozon]

[Dark Dream stands in stunned silence. That... really just happened??]

[xxxx_me]

[Allen is pale, walking over to poor Ib's body to check it.

Not that there's much to check, of course. She's dead. She looks like she should be asleep, but...

She's dead. He knows that. But...

Why?]

[littlebratziska]

[Death was not wholly unfamiliar to Franziska - immediately before being brought here she had been investigating a double homicide, where one man had been stabbed and another shot - but this... wasn't like that. Neither of them had died in front of her, and moreover they - and every other corpse she'd ever seen - had been part of an investigation, where the horror of the act was lessened in the quest to find the perpetrator. It became a puzzle that needed to be solved.

There was no puzzle here, and consequently she did not know how to behave.]

W-why bother trying to make us kill each other if you are content to do as much yourself??

[She speaks to the door, hands clenched so they don't shake, mind racing, because it seemed a very open and shut case. The snarls had brought Franziska out from breakfast, so she knew quite well where she'd come from, and how she'd collapsed, and now....]

Hasn't there been enough death for you here already?

[golden_king]

Eh...?

Well, that's just disappointing. Then again, it's just the type of thing I'd expect, really.

[ He'll listen to the others' conversations, though, seeming disinterested in holding a chat with the girls or anyone else as he walked away after he thought he had heard enough. ]

[octopups]

[Amdi is in his room when the roar sounds out and the Alices speak, and he doesn't know what's happening but he has a terrible, terrible feeling. He sees the rules on the walls change as he runs down portrait gallery and towards the dining hall, and he hears the their last proclamation and his hearts sink into his guts. "Let this be a lesson". Just like Lord Steel.

His paws skid on the slick marble as all of him at once come careening into the foyer, and then he stops. He stares. And slowly, with the tiny taps of dozens of claws, all of him walk forward.

Amdi isn't unfamiliar with death. He'd been in the castle yard when Mr. Steel's worker collective attacked the whitejackets. He saw Pham's ruined body being taken out of the starship after Countermeasure. He'd heard Blueshell's screams through his voder as he burned, though he and Jefri didn't know what those horrible sounds meant at the time. But all those were people he didn't know, or had only barely met. This...

He hadn't really known Ib well. He'd spoken to her a little bit a couple of times, and he thought she was nice, and he'd been thinking about asking her about math because her portrait said she liked math, but he was worried he'd sound like a show-off and had never worked up the courage. But now... now....

Amdi lays bellies-down on the floor around and near Ib, stretching out his long necks towards her, and all of him make a sound that will be wholly unfamiliar to everyone else in the castle. It's a kind of soft, keening, breathy whistle, and it is the first sound he has made in this place that has actually come out of his mouths. And at the same time, his members' eyes are uniformly growing glossy and wet around the rims. It's not a hard picture to interpret.]

1/2

[ballooncaged]

[Kids were rushing out of the dining hall in a specific direction. At first, it was hard to see what the half-dozen bodies were crowding around, whether the Alices' voices were emanating from this side of the door at all.

Ib, the youngest in an age that wasn't alien in some way, a distinct silhouette in red clothes regularly. Mizuki had never spoken with her directly. And now, she thinks, she never will.]

No... You can't...

2/2

[ballooncaged]

[Mizuki's sight clears up in that moment. Her hands form fists. She sees obstacles to get around in dramatic leaps and lunges, taking large bounds, forming a roundhouse kick towards the door—but at the last moment, her final jump doesn't go anywhere as far as the others, just a few inches above the ground, standing there harming nothing.]

What is this?

[...]

This JUNK?

[She sweeps her disheveled ponytail back over her shoulder and puts her hand on her hip, pointing the other finger straight at the twins' voices.]

As soon as we don't have to be afraid of your little tricks anymore, it's on sight! Braid your hair and put on your lip gloss first, because when you come out after that, it's on! On SIGHT!!

[She turns her back on them, cooling down her gaze and softening her muscles.]

[strictura]

[ A few hours after the unwelcome commotion Sunday morning, Nagisa gathers the other sector leaders for a small meeting in room 6, though the door is open for the sake of transparency if anyone else wants to listen in or contribute.

His room is neat as would be expected, aside from a stack of books piled up on the floor by the side table, and a few items on the desk that he hasn't decided what to do with yet. The view outside the window is much more unique than anything inside.

...Ib's room had been next door. ]

Given what happened this morning, I thought it would be a good idea to check in and share what else we've learned since the last major meeting, so we can get our information in order as much as possible before presenting it to everyone else.


[ Later on, he'll be in the library with a notebook and some gel pens. He's pulled out three sheets of paper and is using the edge of the notebook cover as a straight edge to map out calendars for October, November, and December.

He's drawn X's through the boxes for October 1st through the 10th, and there's a small question mark in the corner of the box for the 23rd. ]

[battlestations]

I've found out a few more things since the last one.

[Emphasis is on few, despite the fact that he has an overflowing notebook. Cough]

These are personal, don't mind them. We did get some submissions for the rest of the rooms, as well as, well. SOME indication that the Queen Alice can be reasoned with. She promised there wouldn't be another conviction as frivolous as Lillie's, though her wording was still vague enough I'm sure the butter boys would face the consequences if anything happened. She's also starting to doubt herself in her role... I'd say the sooner we get her away from her 'servant' the better. She believes they are parts of a whole, but I don't think that makes any sense considering they weren't always together.

[there's also that meltdown she had when pressed with the reality of war but he won't believe that did any good until he sees results!! rich aggro teenagers have no rights]

[ballooncaged]

I'm not surprised that you're writing stuff down. The main actual experience I have to report since our last meeting... is that memory loss is real. [She looks at Nagisa's window, hands in her lap.] I can't remember all the times that I went to the place I see in my window. [Oh well!!]

It's making me take everyone more seriously when they say this place isn't part of reality. The way that Ib was murdered... [voice had wavered, picking back up] seems completely magical too.

Especially if we accept that the Alices did this on short notice. I mean, there's no hope reasoning with them if they lied about something so big, and the Queen sounded serious about her promise with Nigel. It really seems to me like they're earnest about letting us explore and kill each other, and some kind of monster - that moves around - is what Ib saw. That's why there wasn't a problem for so long before.

If this were all an illusion the Caster controls, it could explain why she says she can bring us back - that's just one possibility, though. But does anyone have any ideas how we can use this weird place to our advantage?

[xxxx_me]

[Peering inside!]

...I found... something that might help a little with the memories.

[strictura]

[ Raises his hand in a wave; it's okay to come in. ]

You did? What is it?

room 6

[scratchitti]

[Guess who is also listening in, and after Allen talks:]

I learned a little about the memory stuff too. It's the Castle itself that drains them- she called it the 'Nameless Forest'... and she said that if she wasn't holding back it's effects we'd all be 'gone' almost instantly.

Just blank slates. Still, the Nameless Forest is something she created- makes me think she doesn't really have full control over her power to make things.

[strictura]

[ Glances at Nigel... sorry about the teen invasion. ]

I remember they mentioned a forest during their introductions, and that it had something to do with memories, but... the castle and the forest are the same thing, you mean?

room 6;

[golden_king]

[ Gilgamesh was listening in like the nosy brat he was, and coincidentally he noticed that one of those items were his.

...He'll casually just wait until some information had been exchanged, but in the midst of more discussions with others poking in or whatnot, Gil will finally waltzed in, heading to the desk to reach for his amulet. ]

Thanks for holding onto this for me, Nagisa. I was kind of getting concerned I wouldn't ever see it again, since we have a pair of thieves around here, apparently.

[strictura]

[ Blinks... ]

Ah, that's yours?

[ It's debatable whether he was even aware that things belonging to the kids here would show up in the machine yet. ]

You're welcome to it, then.

[ He says after Gil's already grabbed it. Kind of a shame since that had been the most interesting thing he'd gotten out of the machine, but. ]