You're My Friend, They're My Friends (IC Intro)

[whimsicalism]

Whatever you were doing before, wherever you were before this moment it doesn't matter. The world seems to grow dark around you: an almost inaudible giggle floats to your year before you lose consciousness completely. Other it belonging to a child there's no defining characteristics of the voice. Maybe you just imagined it? Even if you did, one thing is clear when you wake up.

You're not where you were before. The bedroom you find yourself is plush and well decorated, almost like a fancy hotel or apartment. That might be little comfort considering that it's clear that you don't recognize it. Before you rush off to explore your surroundings there's a message pinned to the door to the hall.

From the desk of the Queen:

Hello, my friends dear.

I can only hope you enjoy your new life here. For those you stirring from sleep, this is my promise that I will keep: I will let you go if that is what you desire but the price for it will be quite dire.

For my rules are quite clear that I don't wish you to leave. Yet I will, if you can take the grief.

If you wish to know my name and the reasons to my game, meet in the audience hall for tea. Tea, yes, a grand tea party for my grand guests! Cake and sweets are what we need to meet. In an hour we both will be there, no peeking before!

Signed,

Instead of a signature, there's a small feline paw print underneath as well as some strange sort of heart crest?

There seems to be others moving outside your room. Perhaps it's time to explore, to see if anyone else knows what's going on. Don't slip on the playing card (an ace of hearts, with the heart shape replaced by the strange crest). That there's a scribbled phrase of 'dormez-vous? dormez-vous?' on the card but surely one of the others slipped it under your door.

This Castle seems like a strange place ot live in... yet for now it's quiet and peaceful, even if the Audience Hall is locked.

Comments

[golden_king]

It's hard to say.

[ ... though, he'll pause. Like he's considering something. ]

I think we should probably save trying to bolt for later, though. We're not even armed in case we got attacked or something...unless you managed to get your hands on a weapon.

[theawfulaccount]

There's no reason to think that, from what I can see. It would be very unusual for whoever put this together to have gone to all this trouble more than once.

[ You and I, of course, reader, are familiar with the concept of a "backstory round," but the basic logic of Violet's statement is solid at this time. ]

[battlestations]

I'd prefer not to comment on that...

[There's some things in his that are embarrassing and others that could technically be considered classified even though he doesn't make much of a secret of them. Still, it's the principle of the thing. He is a bit curious about her like of inventing and dislike of irresponsible adults, villains. She sounds like a decommissioned operative or something - typically it would be a bad idea to fraternize with those sorts, but she talked to him first, so.]

But I have to admit, I wonder who is this 'Count' your quote mentions. If there was more than one vampire in town, they should have been reported...

[theawfulaccount]

Couldn't we just imagine a key? If this is a dream. It seems easier.

[littlebratziska]

[Franziska has been poking around to explore, and finds another stranger muttering to herself in the dining hall.]

Does that really matter, if food is provided?

[She has never cooked even once in her life, beyond perhaps boiling water for tea, but usually the maid handled everything.]

[strictura]

Wha-- Monaca-chan is my friend and a fellow Warrior of Hope! I wouldn't ask her to do anything like that! A-anyway, she's a kid too, so they probably wouldn't think to go to her in the first place!

[ Even though she definitely has the resources, adults always underestimate kids.


(He also just really doesn't want them to go to her with this, because what if she said no?) ]

[xxxx_me]

Yeah...

[But not like they can do anything about that, so!]

Should we look around some more?

[xxxx_me]

[Opens mouth.

Closes mouth.

Why didn't he think of that?]

We can try it.

[caligulass]

Oh. That’s not on Zenith at all. I don’t know if it’s a different world from mine or if the nightmares have spread that far...

[littlebratziska]

I'm sure that, regardless of if we contact them or not, they'll find us soon enough. Missing children always make the police search harder than missing adults, and look at all the children who are here!

[She is ignoring a handful of portraits, like the duck, and the small pack of dogs, who were here for.... variety, maybe? Most of the portraits were of children, and she had seen several of the owners around.]

[littlebratziska]

Wha- why would I have asked what a mile was?

[this is going nowhere fast]

[theawfulaccount]

I'm honestly unsure if this is better or worse than where we were before.

[ On the one hand, encouragement towards murder is hardly pleasant, especially when one is freshly kidnapped. On the other, more overtly sinister hand, the very presence of Count Olaf. ]

If they are somewhere here, though, I will find them. We're historically very difficult to separate for long.

[undershadow]

... Yeah, actually, it kinda does. Sort of fits the whole fancy hotel vibe the indoors has going on, right? Like if you could turn a tacky painting into an actual place.

[ this is the thomas kincaid of gardens ]

[littlebratziska]

[She scowls at her now, and her hands twitch a little, missing her riding crop. She'd searched her room for it before having left it, but it had been nowhere to be found, and so much worse because this stranger was patronizing her and it would have done her good to be whipped with it, if only to show that Franziska was not someone to treat like an invalid.]

If they meant knocking out, then logically they would have said as much, would they not? If any part of this is real then the only reasonable assumption is it all is!

[Which, having said that, makes her go pale again, and after a moment she turns around and runs away.

Whoops?]

[strictura]

[ Different than their game, then. ]

Hm... I wonder how many of us have something like that in common. Where did yours take place?

[theawfulaccount]

[ Different genres come with different possibilities, after all. ]

Alright, I'll just... try very hard to use my imagination, I suppose.

[ And, feeling slightly foolish, Violet holds her hand out and attempts to focus on it. ]

I've never tried lucid dreaming, but it seems to me that it must be easier than this.

[immaculacies]

Hmm, I guess that's one way to put it... [ Manaka taps her chin, considering. ] Another way might be immature, or maybe just childish? It's like... A storybook castle, except that when you go into its library, all you find are actual storybooks.

[ And Zoobooks. What's up with that, she wonders. ]

[theawfulaccount]

Seems reasonable.

[ There is, if not quite a comfort, at least a familiarity in the insistence on secrecy, and sometimes a familiarity can be just as good for the mind as a proper comfort. ]

He's not really a count, at least I don't think so. Just a terrible man who wants to steal my family's fortune and commit arson.

[undershadow]

You said it, not me.

[ Ducktales is notorious for the ducks just referring to humanity, man's inhumanity to man, bog women, etc., so the word itself slides off Lena like water off... her back. She gestures with one feathery hand as she says this, technically obliging the initial request. ]

So you're, what, an advanced monkey?

[xxxx_me]

The nightmares are spreading?

[xxxx_me]

[He'll hold his hand out too, focusing very hard on a mental image of the World Key.

...

......

.........]

...Nothing. Maybe we aren't in control of the Dream?

I

[undershadow]

Okay, rude.

cw; child abuse

[byzer0]

What? Everyone has them until—ohhh I get it, you lost them when you were really young, and now you can't remember. It's a self defensive mechanism or something, right?

cw; child abuse but the asoue player didnt bring it up, wild

[theawfulaccount]

I... no? I can assure you that you are the first person with that sort of ears I have ever met, and I don't enjoy whatever it is you're implying.

[immaculacies]

Ah! It sounds really impressive, if you can reach other worlds so easily. How do you do that?

[ "war effort", whatever, that's just normal stuff, ]