FINAL WEEK

[whimsicalism]

You have survived to the final week of this twisted tale.

Things are progressing quickly. The Storyteller has revealed some information about her machinations: she plans in keeping everyone here even if she uses the Queen's Glass Game to reset everything to the beginning. She didn't lie--since she didn't promise to return everyone back--but that means this week is likely the final week in the castle. If she's not defeated by the end of the trial there might never be another chance.

Such thoughts are likely going through your head as you wake up on Sunday. There are no new floors unlocked but the castle itself seems to changing slightly as if hurrying itself to the end of the Storyteller's Game. Even if the Audience Chamber itself is still flooded you can still yell at the Storyteller to get her attention here.

For good or for ill, things are probably coming to a close on this chapter of your life.
Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday

[Welcome to the final week of Castle Whimsical! It's been a fun ride but things are coming to a close. Each day of the week will be unlocked at midnight PST for some fun (for the players) final changes to the castle. Please post your final memory losses here. While there will be regains on Sunday as normal don't forget to post any threads you have left for the vending machine. Last but definitely not least, go check in at the final check in for info on the endgame.]

Comments

SUNDAY

[whimsicalism]

[When you wake up today, the beanstalk in the garden has overgrown most of garden with thorny vines. These vines are slowly growing into the library as well throughout the day. The garden is blocked off for good.]

Re: SUNDAY

[battlestations]

[Nigel observes the beanstalk from outside the library door and peering out windows. Sooo.... Does this thing still lash out at people. Because he kind of wants to satisfy his itchy trigger finger against this evil plant.]

[whimsicalism]

[It sure does. And it doesn't look like it's going to stay outside, either. By now it's already pushing it's way into the library.]

MONDAY

[whimsicalism]

[The beanstalk has finally overgrown the library and media room. It's now growing into the foyer.

Unfortunately, that's not the only trouble in the castle now. The cutout carnival workers from the festival stalls have all left their jobs and are now roaming around the castle and bringing whatever they can find back to the stalls to cook up. This means the dining hall's food is getting thin (luckily there are more places to get food) but also this means the workers will try to grab you as well. Don't get cornered!]

OPEN

[octopups]

a. What have you got there? "A SNAKE!" NO!

[Amdi's spent most of the time since the trial up in the treehouse area, except for his periodic visits with his mirror friend Molly.

But today, it looks like he's found a brand new friend right here in the jungle! All of Amdi are cavorting excitedly around a gigantic black python! Actually, not all of him are cavorting... some of him are snuggled all cozy in the snake's coils!]

Hey! Hey! Is this an Earth animal? It's really fun!

b. OH GOD THE CARNIES ARE HERE AND THEY ARE TRYING TO KIDNAP ALL OF AMDI AND HIS NEW SNAKE FRIEND TO COOK THEM ALIVE

[Exactly what it says on the tin.]

SAVE THE DOGS

[battlestations]

[Nigel is returning to the jungle area with some food he liberated and also a bag filled with his vending machine swag, when he hears these scared whines (and hisses?) - with the B.R.A.S.S. still wrapped around him, he charges over with an angry BWAAAAAARMMMMMM coming from the instrument.]

HANDS OFF MY FRIENDS, YOU CUT-RATE CANNIBAL CUTOUTS.

snek

[imozon]

[So this is Dark Dream arriving, and this is Dark Dream freezing in place and trying not to move. (And failing. She stands still all the time, but now that she's actually trying to she's suddenly really fidgety.)]

That's a snake. It's really dangerous.

...I think.

[battlestations]

bedrooms

[Curse you beanstalk... After putting his stealth skills to use, Nigel nevertheless makes it past the carnies to the bedrooms, specifically Nagisa's, to pick up the bracelet he returned that has become incredibly suspicious in retrospect. While he's in there you might catch him having emotions. Awful is what all of this is. If only they could have talked more about, well, literally any of this. He thought he finally found someone he was really in sync with, but that efficiency came from such a dark place, and if he had focused even just a little less on their work, maybe he would have noticed. Then again, the place they are in now is so dark, maybe it always would have been hard to see an individual's shadow within it.

Next, he goes into his room and collects the totally lame sousaphone he owned for some reason, but has now realized its true purpose. He takes the canned air he got from July's and gets to work on his best creation, connecting the two together with a makeshift trigger, then holding it up triumphantly and with, it must be said, absolute confidence. It would one day be recorded as thus in the book of KND:

Kids Next Door: B.R.A.S.S. - Blows Rapid Air Shots Sonorously ]

anywhere

[Wherever you are in the castle, you'll likely hear Nigel before you see him, and when you see him, he'll be wearing a goddamn sousaphone and blasting carnies away with rapid-fire bursts of air, amplified by the size of the instrument to a large force bullet size because Nigel said so. They also have some kind of chaotic melody going on. Don't think too hard about it.]

BATTLESTATIONS, PEOPLE! WE NEED FOOD AND FANS TO THE LODGE! CANNONS FOR THE SECOND LINE OF DEFENSE! THE CARNIE HORDE WILL NOT RELENT!

[this will be a lot of work but at least Nigel can cover them...]

let's say build-a-friend

[imozon]

Right! Food and--

[Wait what the fuck.]

Fans?

[ballooncaged]

[A separate wave of carnies realized that food came OUT of the vending machine so now Mizuki is racing in the next most open area, the pirate playground, and she has one arm curled around a treasure chest, which contains a lot of stuff, and the OTHER arm curled around the vending machine.]

WHAT IS WITH ALL OF THESE GUYS?

[xxxx_me]

[There's an alarmed yelp - one of the carnies grabbed Allen before the sound could blow them away - but he seems to have that handled well?? enough???? by taking the World Key from his pocket and stabbing frantically at it until it flies away properly, in tatters.]

Wh-what's going on?!

[ballooncaged]

[Naturally taking note of the beanstalk that was the demise of her friend, Mizuki became concerned that the dining hall, their incredibly generous source of food, would be next. She also had a lot of coins, and who knew the next time she'd be able to get something useful or sentimentally valuable out of the machine. But man, since her bounty contains some snacks, the horde is interested. Mizuki is basically kicking one cardboard away between every pull. Her kicks get faster and more nervous as the balloons rapidly disperse to the ceiling.]

This is getting old... guess the bearhugga has ammo.

[Almost done, though! What's this, second to the end?]

Alright, SCORE!!

[Tossing out the tuxedo cookies has successfully distracted the horde, because each member can individually observe a piece and conclude it's perfect for oreo batter dipped bananas. With a moment's peace and quiet, she rolls out the IV drip.]

Is this Alice's from in the hospital or something???? I hope nobody actually needs this, sheesh!!

[imozon]

[Dark Dream murders a cutout with her Manaka-chopping axe and shoves its hard-won cookie in her mouth. It's the circle of life.]

Mhhzhhkhh!

TUESDAY

[whimsicalism]

[The beanstalk has blocked off the flooded audience chamber and most of the foyer by now. The carnies have absconded with a lot of food, too. Though, they're still searching.

There's bigger problems now. Now the entire third area is flooded. Access to the entire floor is blocked. At least the elevator seems to be able to pass through this floor without too much trouble. That said, that doesn't mean other troubles are happening like... apparently the fish in the aquarium are carnivorous?

Since they are now floating in their little water bubbles throughout the other floors. They want to nibble, I promise. That's not the only, well, fishy thing happening. You can probably understand how paper cutouts or fish can fit in an elevator. What you probably can't understand is how large armored mermaid fit up and down it.

Or even where it came from. Whatever it is, it's now shrieking and rampaging through the castle. How many things in this castle wants you dead now? This is getting ridiculous.]

Monday night/Tuesday morning

[octopups]

Night-Tine Activities

[Man, Amdi's been keeping weird hours up in the jungle since last week. He sleeps a lot during the day, and it seems like he's been staying up as late as he can get away with every night and getting up before dawn every morning, but he spends all those dim hours just kinda hanging out in and around the treehouse.

At least four or five of him are always up on the treehouse balconies at these times, with a couple of their heads sticking way out between the banisters, and the rest are always down on the forest floor at various distances from the balcony members, and none of them seeming to be doing anything in particular.

There is a lot of that occasional faint super high-pitched chirruping he emits that only young kids can really hear, the extreme low end of his ultrasonic mindsounds. Come to think of it, sundown-to-sunup is exactly when that treehouse sound barrier is in effect. Huh. Weird. I'm sure it's nothing.]

Locked to Nigel: SECRET MISSION

[Speaking of the treehouse on Tuesday morning:]

Um... [shyly] Hey Nigel, could you help me... get something from my room?

Monday night

[ballooncaged]

[It's dawned on Mizuki that she doesn't actually know Amdi very well, so the decision to hole up in the lodge is a good catalyst to check on him. Once she finally sets eyes on some of his members taking watch all the way up in the treehouse, she's all the more determined. Like, way to be too serious, and also, she's wondering how any of his members even got up there.]

Hey Amdi! Is there anything else you want brought up there?

[battlestations]

[Nigel is just finishing up a net he's been working on made out of vines and such from the tree. Fish flop angrily around him as he's had to burst their bubbles to prevent them from chewing on him while he works... if only he remembered how to load them into the F.I.S.H.O.T.G.U.N.!]

Ah, good timing. I was just about to put a stop to those bubbles coming up the shaft. I can definitely accompany you on the way down.

[Just let him do a quick swap-out in the armory. He doesn't want to discombobulate Amdi again so he'll just be using a regular water gun to fight the paper demons on the way and trying not to think about Nagisa.]

Monday Night

[xxxx_me]

[Reaching over to pat one of them on the head, up on the balcony.]

WEDNESDAY

[whimsicalism]

[So, uh. It looks like the beanstalk is moving into the dining hall after consuming the foyer. Though, it looks like the fourth area.

Not only has the train decided to transform itself into a robot and attack people... there's some kind of minotaur roaming the floors now? It's clad in a football uniform.

Alas, it broke Molly's mirror, too.]

Re: WEDNESDAY

[imozon]

[This is too many monsters and Dark Dream is going to do something about it. She doesn't really remember... uh... any of her history of fighting, now, other than one really short fight that she'd rather not dwell on how it ended for her, but she knows it's something she can do.

So she's going to take that axe of hers and

FIGHT

THAT

ROBOT.]

[whimsicalism]

[The train almost seems to glare at her when she starts swinging the axe. It jumps out of the way and swings a metallic fist her way.]

THURSDAY

[whimsicalism]

[Today is the final day before the final trial. The castle is falling, metaphorically not literally, apart around you as many of the things you possibly enjoyed are taken away from you. The beanstalk has finally overtaken the dining hall completely.

It's a good thing that the lodge and tree house are sleeping areas. There's no go going back now. There's no new monsters today but this is only a temporary respite. Prepare yourselves for your final charge against the Storyteller.

Speaking of who, unless you called for her, has... anyone actually heard her make any announcements at all this week?? What has she been doing?]

[battlestations]

[Yesterday and today, Nigel has been busy finding the tools and getting ready to do what he is ultimately working on today, reactivating the bomb in Nagisa's bracelet. He's doing this inside the Lodge's storeroom where it's hopefully quieter and harder to get to from the outside. Still, even with the need for concentration, he knows there's a lot of potential emergencies all around them. The witch could wake up and break the net, the beanstalk could cause a cave-in of the lower floors, the paper men could breach the fans and they'd have to man the cannons, the bully could arrive on the fifth floor and charge. All of that is to say, Nigel is prepared to drop what he's doing at a moment's notice. On the soda bar counter, he's left an array of walkie talkies from July's and a crayon note saying where he is and that everyone can take one to contact him if he's needed. The leader is on call for anyone!!

Next to them, he's left the apple court book on the page showing the bully's profile, which reads:

This is a giant bull headed former football star. Bully is really scary when he roars really loudly.

He wants to be the best football player in the country.

He can run fast enough to catch you. He can throw anything really far. He can't see very well.

His stash of 2x4 tech is also laying around if anyone wants to figure out how to use them for themselves. The carnies make good target practice so why not knock yourself out.

Lastly, Nigel's girlfriend Aya is leaning against the lodge exterior, hugging Mr. Mew and chittering. His eerie vibe was starting to freak Nigel out... The creepy dolls deserve each other, don't you think?]

IT'S THE FINAL (day for) YARD SARD

[octopups]

[Having found a buttload of coins during his final visit to his room the other day, Amdi is taking advantage of the vending machine Mizuki rescued to see if he can get it to spit out something useful, with mixed results.

Notable pulls include: the shortbread cookies, tuxedo cookies and peanuts, which he has placed on the soda bar for community consumption; a real bow and five arrows, also placed on the counter because it's not like he can use 'em; a bottle with a note inside, of which he has managed to get the cork off but one of his members is now futilely trying to shake out the rolled up paper; a wooden sword, which another of his members has clenched in its jaws by the hilt and is trying out a couple of test swings; eight sets of tiny dog sneakers, which several of him have now tried on and he is not super sold on them yet; and one (1) angy butterfly.]

FINAL YARD SARD II

[xxxx_me]

[Allen is hanging around the lodge too, wearily surrounded by a slew of new items. He's reading Nagisa's journal in particular, although he eventually closes it, eyes shut and expression sad.]