WEEK 6

[whimsicalism]

Only one of your group died last week but the castle feels empty somehow. Whatever your thoughts on Alice were she did seem to curb the Cat's--no, the Storyteller's--impulses somewhat. Even if the Storyteller gave an end date for the game there seems to be a sinister air around the castle now. There's an area for the adventurous, at least?

Still, it likely won't help heal the wounds from last week... though, apparently, the Storyteller has decided to refill the library.

Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday

[Hello to week six, the last normal week before endgame! Don't forget to lose a memory. There's no AC this week! You can find the Storyteller at the audience chamber if you really want. As always you can turn in your threads for fabulous prizes!]

Comments

WEDNESDAY

[whimsicalism]

[seventhlittlemonster]

1. Lion Cove

[Where the water met the ground, Seven clutched a glass bottle to his chest as he whispered to himself, too quiet for any passerby to hear. In the bottle, it had a rolled-up piece of paper and it was sealed with a cork.

Crouching onto the ground, he placed the bottle in the tide so it would float away to the beyond that no one here could reach.]

2. Build-a-Friend

[He had never explored the city section before, but he seemed to be attached to the place where all the stuffed animals were.

It made him forget what was going to happen to his family's memory, but not for long...

He looked down at Mr. Stripey-Pants and began expositing his woes.]

What do I do...? Oh, what do I do at a time like this? The Storyteller couldn't possibly be bluffing, could they...? [He hugged Mr. Stripey-Pants tightly, trying not to cry.]

3. Zoo

[This new area was so strange... He looked over at all the stuffed animals just moving on their own, free and reveling as babes.

To no one in particular, he spoke aloud,] I wonder if Mr. Stripey-Pants can come alive here. Hmm...

4. Library

[At the end of the day, he retreated to the library with Mr. Stripey-Pants and opened up a book he had been afraid to tackle for its sheer volume in size. The Divine Comedy. He's read only some of Inferno, but never Purgatorio or Paradiso.]

O-Oh good gosh- [He looked away at one of the passages, squinting hard to try to get whatever mental image was implanted in there.]

build-a-friend

[octopups]

[For all the time Amdi has spent in the mirror hall chatting with Molly, he hasn't really ventured into the rest of this floor much yet. So, sometime before (or after!) the meeting, Amdi wanders around a bit and ends up in the Build-A-Friend.

... And comes through the door right as Seven is talking to his Mr. Stripey-Pants. Amdi stops, looks around shyly, trying to decide if he should go up to Seven or let him be alone.]

Re: build-a-friend

[seventhlittlemonster]

Oh? [He turned around, almost surprised.] It's... good to see you all again.

[octopups]

[Well, Seven seems okay with him being here, so Amdi's gonna trot in and nuzzle a couple of little heads against his big legs.]

Hi, Seven. Are you feeling any better?

Library

[xxxx_me]

[Hello fellow library fren, you look kind of freaked out?]

Are you alright?

[He's got a storybook in his lap.]

Re: Library

[seventhlittlemonster]

This book is scary, that's- that's all I wanna say. Though, I assume you're more predisposed to disturbing imagery than I am... You wouldn't mind reading it with me, would you? [Everything was less scary with friends,,]

Re: Library

[xxxx_me]

Um...

[Is he more used to it, now? Huh.]

...Sure. I don't mind reading it with you. [It's a book! Therefore it is time to read.]

MEETING

[battlestations]

[Nigel calls the meeting at July's food court again because he likes routine. Once everyone is gathered, with whatever food they care to eat at such a place, he's quick to get into it.]

Thank you for gathering here today. As we all know, the Storyteller has finally revealed her plot to be one of punishment and revenge. We can no longer expect her to honor concessions made by the late Alice... with tyranny looming far greater than it has before, I urge you all to not get distracted. Now, more than ever, we must be there for each other. As teams, and as fellow kids. If you've made it this far, I honestly want to trust in you.

[He hopes he doesn't regret saying that, cause he is actually being truthful... he said from the beginning he'd feel better about cooperation if there were no teens, and even if he didn't exactly want it to happen like this... it's still kinda true.]

Now then. What can we do, having fulfilled the condition of the Glass Game but with a Storyteller who refuses to activate it? I believe we are just at the edge of a breakthrough. I've found more information about Closetland, which I'll share in a moment, and Amdi received some about the creature that killed Oriko. Let's put our discoveries together to end this twisted tale.

CLUE DISCUSSION

[battlestations]

[battlestations]

On to the information about Closetland. It's detailed in this book I found in the treehouse... I worry a lot about the kids who wrote it. It's their records to profile the monsters of Closetland, who live off fear and appear to be transformed from people or animals that were originally normal. Supposedly there's something all of them hate, but that part's been... ahem. Redacted.

[He's got the book with them so he'll show the unceremonious tear in the page.]

It seems originally they couldn't take teens to Closetland, but now they can. The book mentioned a "Bloody Mary The Prom Queen" who they trapped in a mirror. One of the kids wrote that she used to be her sister, and she thinks her real sister is stuck in Closetland. A problem if true. We might have been replaced with doppelgangers or something... there were also some symptoms of people who were about to turn into monsters, mostly seeming like a sickness.

[WHICH IS CONCERNING TO HIM FROM A CANON PERSPECTIVE BUT... He'll just... move on.]

Now the most interesting part is the book says there are spirits in Closetland who are helpful. They're called the Blue Angel, the Light-Man, and Mother. Light-Man can get rid of monsters in the dark, the Angel appears to help turn the tides in a losing battle, and Mother can find paths.

They also knew who Nursery Rhyme was, but they didn't seem to know much beyond that... she's new here.

[strictura]

[ Oh, this is definitely interesting... he'll take the book when he can and page through it.

..."Live off fear", huh? ]

How did she end up in possession of this if they barely knew about her, I wonder?

[seventhlittlemonster]

[...]

W-We've been fearing all the time here, haven't we?

[xxxx_me]

There was a bunch of stuff in the Hunting Lodge's storage room. Most if it was broken, but there were initials like "DO" and "MA" on them.

...

It felt kind of sad.

[imozon]

[Dark Dream suddenly perks up.]

What's that about a prom queen in a mirror?

[strictura]

The last two drawings from Anna Sasaki's room that I hadn't been able to place before are both of places on this floor. The snowstorm picture is the distant view from the observation tower, and the bizarre hallway of mismatched doors is hidden in some rock on the far wall of the canyon opposite the elevator.

There's a suspicious door rusted shut at the end of that hallway that I think would be worth trying to get into, but the rest of the doors... they're apparently linked to different areas of the castle. Or, specifically, containers in different areas. One is linked to one of the barrels on the pirate ship, for instance -- the room was too small to really go into, but I tried throwing something inside of it, and then when I checked the barrels on the ship later, I found the item I'd thrown in there.

Other doors appear to be linked to the vending machines, a cabinet somewhere... I made a key on the back of Sasaki's drawing, actually, in case we need to reference it for any reason.

[ And he's got it here. ]

[octopups]

Uh-um...!

[Amdi is a bit nervous. He's never had something important to say at a meeting before!!]

Um, so, last week I went into the hall with all the mirrors in it and I found a mirror that's, um, kind of a window to another place. Or, well, it's still a mirror, because everything is reflected around the vertical axis like you'd expect, but it's like our reflections are swapped, and our side is reflecting the other room, and the other room is reflecting here? It's—

[He suddenly realizes he's off topic, shakes a couple of heads and carries on.]

A-anyway, on the other side, there's a little human girl named Molly. I can never see her face real good for some reason, but we can write notes to each other. She says she's still in her own house, but one day she woke up and her house is in a different place now she thinks, and there was a big snowstorm outside and she couldn't go out. When the snowstorm got less bad she said she saw a castle a little ways away, and I drew a picture of Alice's castle and she said that was it. I-I think she's somewhere in Closetland now, like us.

Anyway, um, at first we just talked about stuff, you know? When she was awake, that is, she sleeps a lot. I told her that I woke up in a new place too with some new people, and I told her about my world and she told me a little about hers. She used to live with her papa but he disappeared even before she came to where she is now. Her planet has pokemon like Lillie's and Cori's did, but she said she doesn't know either of them.

But a couple days ago, after the trial, I ended up mentioning the creature we saw at the trial, a-and she knew what it was! Apparently it's a legendary creature from her world, and also she's pretty sure it's her papa??

A-and I'm not sure she's wrong, either! Her papa was a famous researcher who studied legends and stories and... well, that's what this place is all about, right?

[xxxx_me]

I found a bloody combat knife in the hunting lodge. After messing around with the clock, I saw what happened when Kirika killed Alice. They were the last two left and they went on the elevator... but then Kirika attacked. Alice got the knife and managed to stab her back, but Kirika rammed her head against the door over and over, so...

[That's that's fun.]

Kirika was upset she forgot Oriko, and she was convinced Alice was the Storyteller. ...Both of them must have died around the same time.

[...]

Last week, I also noticed something in the Build a Friend store. There was some fabric there that matched a pouch Yuniko got. I guess someone's been sewing? There was fabric for Queen Alice's dresses there, too.

Re: CLUE DISCUSSION

[imozon]

I don't know if it's really a clue, but the zoo animals are dangerous. They look like stuffed animals or fairies, but they have sharp teeth and they try to attack people. And it seems like they bleed jelly for some reason.

[She presents the monkey head, which by now is probably really gross. Not that it wasn't gross to begin with.]

They're not very strong, though.

FREE DISCUSSION

[battlestations]

[strictura]

She did give us an end date, at least, during the last investigation... though it was while she was doing those voice impersonations, so it was easy to focus more on that than on what she was saying. Next Friday, the 20th -- she said there'd be another trial that day and then she'd use it.

I didn't think it made much sense for her to allow us that extra time to potentially find her soul and destroy it, but she says there's something else she's getting from us in the meantime, and that she wants to keep getting it as long as she can. ...Negative emotions or something, it sounded like.

[battlestations]

Another thing I wanted to bring up is there are a couple of designated sleeping areas in the new floor that I think would be good to use as a base to meet up as teams and room together in.

Personally, I'm used to operating my sector out of a treehouse, as it's KND tradition. I'd like to move in there if anyone else is game. The Hunting Lodge is also free. Seems like it could be a good precaution to take.

[strictura]

[ He'd fallen behind on it last week, but this morning, Nagisa is at the entrance to the dining hall catching up on updating the calendar on the wall in advance of the week's meeting. He fills in the last two deaths, including Alice, and writes in "LAST DAY (?)" on the 20th, the deadline the Storyteller had given them before the last trial.

Once all the updates are in, he stands back and frowns thoughtfully at it. They don't have that much time left, and yet all they've really been able to do this week is wait.


Sometime in the afternoon after the meeting and some reading, he's back in the dining hall again to put the few coins he has right now into the vending machine. The popcorn and game are fine but not particularly interesting; but he stops for a moment when he gets to a familiar handmade booklet... before tucking it under his arm and collecting the rest of his things to go.


And at night, for a while before he goes to bed, he can be heard through the door of room 6 practicing his guitar again. He really doesn't have any actual talent at this, but he's been working hard to learn anyway (because he works hard at learning everything, and because he doesn't want to disappoint Mizuki), and by this point he's gotten enough chords figured out to at least produce something that sounds like music (a little like the chorus part here but much slower and more awkward). It's a nice distraction from his nerves, in any case. ]

[xxxx_me]

[Peeking into his room as he plays.]

You play music?

[strictura]

[ He stops and looks to the door, face turning slightly red. ]

Ah-- was it that loud?

[ He shakes his head. ]

No, I never did before this... it's hardly a talent of mine, as you can probably tell. Okiura just gave this to me with a lesson book as a gift a while back, so I didn't want to let her down if she thought I could do it.