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

[soverainty]

[Still ominous... Still ominous... And possibly also curiouser and curiouser.

Well, there's no way for her to glean all that much more information just now with these little objects, so she's going to tuck everything back into the pouch. She'll have to deal with this stuff later. For the moment: she's going to try putting the set-aside VHS tapes into the VCR player.

How much of them were watched?]

[battlestations]

Hm...

[But the KND is a global organization...]

It's more like I would only know about it if their victims are kids. They'd never send me to deal with incidents between adults.

[and it truly is the adults' problem!!]

room 5

[byzer0]

Man you smell worse than Soubi does. Worry about a bath before you worry about a bed, stinky.

[ His nose is all scrunched up which would probably be a cute expression if he hadn't opened his mouth. ]

[nothingposh]

I never sat for no "photographs" either, whatever that is. [Photographs were invented after he died.] Suppose they could've used one of Grantaire's sketches, though.

[nothingposh]

Awful choice in kidnapping, then. Nobody'd pay ransom for me. Be much easier to kidnap Marius. His grandfather'd pay up.

[soverainty]

[She looks pleased that her offerings were accepted, regardless of how smug he seems to be -- this girl seems to make a skill out of responding to and accommodating the moods of those she's speaking to, but perhaps that's just her upbringing.

There's certainly nothing kingly about her, but she seems to be doing her best to hold it together.]

Thank you for saying that, too. I'm glad... Ah, that's wrong. I'm not glad other people might be in the same situation, but I'm glad that we can work together even if it's difficult...

Did you just get here too?

[soverainty]

Oh! That sounds like something I've seen before... I think. Like the boundaries in a game. That's what the paper said too, right?

[This bizarre loop-de-loop actually seems to reassure her??

Sometimes videogame logic is Good, Actually. Maybe. Niko looks like she's busy rethinking a bunch of things in light of this new information...]

Someone's imagination -- I guess you could say that, too.

[Videogames are fiction, ergo imagined, ergo, this totally works??]

[soverainty]

Ah, it just seems like a bad idea to break something like this, especially when I don't know who owns it... and it looks like it's supposed to be shared.

[That's not the problem here?? Are they even supposed to be here in the first place. What are her priorities, who knows.]

But you don't use this sort of stuff either?

[She perks up just a little because the tech level has varied so wildly so far that finding someone who knows what a VCR is within reason is just. It's good. Nobody here is an otaku or a robot so we're good. Probably.]

[soverainty]

Y-You really startled me... I still don't know what's going on, or where Chestnut Street is, but. You're looking for help, right?

[She dithers a little bit because this is still waaaay above what she knows how to deal with, but even if she dawdles here the monster(?) and his head are entirely blocking the hallway and there really isn't anything else to do but to take care of the traffic jam.

Like, she could run screaming in the opposite direction but they're all in this Confused Castle Crowdsourcing together, for the moment. Niko hesitantly starts moving towards the head, carefully making sure it isn't bleeding everywhere or anything gross.]

This is the first time I've seen somebody who could... throw their head away...

[whimsicalism]

[Some very basic things like for some reason the medieval castle behind you is... uh, missing most things that makes it a castle.

Like a roof, or higher walls than a single story, or floors... Basically it doesn't look like anything you can live in.]

[littlebratziska]

So they can't be black and white? Then why bring it up at all?

[whimsicalism]

[Well, now that they're out of their cases two things will become clear:

1. Either someone watched these quite a lot or that they're old. Aside from what I'm about to describe, there's a lot of natural wear and tear.

2. Uh. Remember those bits Dark Dream found? You found the VHS tapes they were part of. Someone really went to town on them for some reason.]

[littlebratziska]

Why would I have one? I understand English, and French as well, already. And, am I correct in assuming you heard more Japanese when you tried to speak English a moment ago? I heard German when I spoke that.

[soverainty]

Oh... Someone really didn't like the source material for this...

[She kind of. Gently pokes the remnants of the tapes.

Like, damn, these things are history where she comes from but these are history. Just going to... do her best to tuck them back into their cases without losing any more bits. Before that, though: what does the destruction look like? Smashed? Crushed? Chewed on? Dumped in the toilet? (please no)]

[rhododendronhoney]

[Um. Okay, if she climbs down, does it still look like it's missing those bits?]

[soverainty]

[Look, she literally comes from a video-game centric canon, it's just inevitable that video game metaphors are going to Happen sooner or later. Just at the moment, though, Niko is brightening at the idea that someone at least is closer to her own level of technology and reality than the pre-Internet age.

It's kind of reassuring, in its own way.]

I... guess? Virtual reality is the medium for games, but the game itself might be in its own virtual... server? I think that's what you'd call it.

[She's totally hedging because look, she's a player, not a maker.]

Um, Alice in Wonderland was the theme I was thinking of. But it's still a little early to be sure.

[soverainty]

Right! I think you can call Alice in Wonderland a fairytale.

[She brightens up a little bit when it seems like they're sort of getting somewhere, though they're only theoretically closer to a breakthrough.

There's a flick of her pigtails as she nods enthusiastically.]

I don't remember the last time I met a Cheshire Cat...? But I think I can still help. Maybe we'll even find a way to leave and go home.

[That's pure optimism, but look. They have to motivate themselves somehow.]

[soverainty]

Okay... I understand now! Sorry, everything's a little bit mixed up here.

[That's like, the understatement of the year.]

I think some people probably do that with their clock overlays...? Are you trying to tell the time, or something else?

The letter mentioned time...

[Why was it so insistent about the accuracy of the clock, though.......]

[whimsicalism]

[Maybe Dark Dream can revive the tape now. Maybe not. Probably not.

One (a knock off Alice in Wonderland from the nineties??) looks like it's been, well, smashed. You can't tell how it's been smashed but judging by how some of the pieces of the clear plastic seem to point inward the damage seemed to come from above.

Two copies (one the Tim Burton movie and the other is Burton's Through the Looking Glass) have been cut? Maybe sliced is a better term for it, both are kind of sadly are in halves.

The final, the Disney is... stabbed. At least, maybe, that's why it has a hole in the middle? Judging by the flecks of blood on the debris, someone else might have been hurt as well.

Well, thankfully there will be no more Alices in this murdergame, nope.]

[immaculacies]

...U-um, that's...! [ Abruptly, Manaka stops. She yanks her hand back and goes rigid, face flushing pink. ] It's a place I've never seen in person, but, ah... It's really romantic, so...

[ Or, more specifically: it makes her think of Saber, so it's romantic by proxy. ]

[immaculacies]

[ Manaka hums. ]

I think I get it. It sounds a little bit like something I got involved with, too, but... Well, no one would have described that as a game.

[ballooncaged]

Actually, yeah. The direct victims were all adults.

[Kind of weird to think of it that way.......

Oh. Something else.]

Send you in? Are you part of some investigation organization?

[whimsicalism]

[It does! If she turned around while inspecting the gardens she might have noticed then but just from the tree it became more obvious that the castle seems, well, a bit shabby.]

outside rooms

[prescience]

[Oriko emerges from the vicinity of the next door Room 25, attention immediately drawn to the child sitting on the floor after all that commotion next door. Suspicion flares in her, immediate and brief, as she takes in the setting-appropriate outfit and the youthful appearance.

Oh, but she does seem just as confused as everyone else, doesn't she? She'll observe a little longer.

She leans forward, offering a hand.] Are you all right? It seems you took quite a fall.

[theawfulaccount]

Perhaps. I admit I don't know much about financial management beyond what I've been told about my parents' will.