Taking Responsibility.

[kingmakereffect]

And a while after that strange, dark floor is accessed, after you've had time to look things over and get some idea of what's happening...well. There won't be any sort of official announcement to tell you to get downstairs, nor will there be a personal invitation for you to do so. Instead, the doors at the end of the corridor (were they there before? You find that you don't remember. It doesn't matter anymore, though-) slide open, as they always do, and the elevator ride to the courtroom is probably the first familiar thing that's happened all day. It's smooth and quick, though it seems to take a bit longer than it usually does. And when the doors open at the end of the line, the courtroom looks different. The dark, weirdly cylindrical room is largely the same in and of itself, but the usual twenty-seven podium circle is gone; instead, there's a smaller setup in the center of the room - ten podiums total, and you'll likely find the way your spots have been distributed to be very familiar indeed. Of further notice is the balcony - there's a structure that wasn't there before in view of the courtroom, situated high above, barred-in by a railing that'd probably be at about waist-height on your average person; there's no one up there just yet, however. There are so few of you now. It seems that today there are no speeches to give; maybe the Kingmaker is absent, maybe he just doesn' have anything to say. Either way, however, the implication in the fact that you're here at all is clear. For one last time, make the guilty take responsibility.

Comments

[garudynamic]

[He gives her shoulder an hard squeeze on his way to his podium.]

We got this. If one of us can't keep it up, the others will cover. Don't worry about it.

[ 'If he tosses our loved ones at us, or anything else, we'll protect you, Sigrun']

[cherryblooded]

Like a city - tall buildings, people going about their business. There weren't anything besides humans in it, so I think we can at least rule out Colress's world if nothing else.

[amygdalae]

[Bruce here, to give the report on what their group found.]

The most effective way to summarize what we found in our room is essentially records of previous games similar to this one. Gabriel found a book with some details over who we presume were previous winners, and there was a room further within that had thirteen folders regarding previous participants, judging from the adjectives given to each of them.

[As he says that he taps the stack of folders at his podium, then starts to pass them around for everyone to see.]

The folders themselves have nothing much beyond photographs of each participant attached to them. The only thing of note is the fact that three of them - Visionary, Persevering and Reticent - were explicitly singled out and put aside from the rest of them.

In addition, Stan found what we believe to be the personal items of these previous participants - the parasol, at least, is a match with the one in Regal's picture.

That should be able it, unless Gabriel or Stan has anything to add.

[pokexplorer]

[Even though Colress has his Pokemon out with him, there's still a sense of intimidating pressure in the room...probably because a lot of Shit is going to go down.

He looks over to Cherryblod..]

That sounds like everything! Excellent summary, Cherryblod.

The additional vault rooms and broadcasting message are certainly the most eyecatching parts. It truly was strange that none of those rooms contained people. And there were plenty of them.

[cherryblooded]

Holograms usually can't kill people.

[Not that he doubts Mouri, of course.]

[goodforsomething]

Not a bad plan. They can see where the other murder guys went wrong, if they do. And not on purpose like this.

[It seems obvious that the Kingmaker meant for them to end up here, for whatever reason.]

[sleepingkogoro]

I suppose it is like...a base to build what actually kills us. At least the two I saw being activated tried to murder us, like it was programmed to do it.

I never thought I'd see myself trying to shoot anyone - much less me - with a clear intention to kill. It was weird.

[cherryblooded]

...But it didn't actually hurt anyone? It was just the image.

[notjustawriter]

I also found this.

[He lays a smart phone on his podium.]

It has folders number 1 through 27, but every one of them is blank. Whoever used it before wiped the information.

[.....]

The book's hand-written, too. It's not typed or anything like that.

[goodforsomething]

Yeah, most of this stuff seems like it could be from anyplace...some of it might be identifiable. Anyone know what this is?

[He holds up a Pokedex.]

We've also got a - [He squints at what appears to be a figure of an anime catgirl.] - "Mew Mew Kissy Cutie" toy? And this big anchor thing.

[He is wearing the Mega Anchor around his neck, because of course he is.]

[isafraid]

I'll say, standing atop a place you can look down on all of us...

[Maybe the view's nice up there? But god does this place need some color already.]

Maybe if you got up there you could shove the kingmaker down here when he shows up.

[cherryblooded]

We were investigating after the klaxons went off - most of us leave our rooms and get out and about at that time, but there are sometimes stragglers.

[isafraid]

Nothing in particular stood out about it, eh?

[garudynamic]

...maybe it was to plan out the executions? Or hell... for all we know the people being punished were holograms too- there's that bit of black where we can never see what happens after all.

But after Aiden I'm not so sure about that.

[captainobnoxious]

The screen was a way to talk to Glory... herself? Really? Glory's a girl?

[Huh. Okay.]

Well, that doesn't matter, really, because whatever you saw was fake.

Glory was made to help out the Kingmaker every game. An... artificial intelligence, I think it was? They're made up of the memories of other people, basically, and... created a personality to talk to us all.

[Someone's clearly hit by this. Three for three, guys! Three for three, working with the Kingmaker.]

There's, uh, a lot of info we got from them, too, but... I'll actually let Black handle that, since I had him take notes for me. But we learned about three topics specifically: about the game, about Glory, and about our situation.

That's the three topics they'd answer without fail, since Glory can't help us win the game.

[cherryblooded]

Looked like any other city. Sorry.

[sleepingkogoro]

Only thirteen people? Could it be possible you didn't find all of the folders?

[He doesn't see Glory, there is no Ambitious...]

[isafraid]

Nope. Didn't leave a single wound. Seemed to just play out however the person might attack.

[....We're not gonna mention how he heroically tackled Mouri out of the way of a holographic gun. Someone else do that.]

[cherryblooded]

[...Since she's right there next to him, Cherryblod's going to set a hand on her shoulder.

He's sorry this keeps happening to her.]

[garudynamic]

'Mew Mew Kissy'? It's a figma, but I've never heard of it... erm... it's not really my kinda show though so. [Shrug]

[pokexplorer]

[...Man, if it weren't for the context and horribleness of it all, Colress would find this to be so cool.]

Weren't we just discussing holograms recently, Mr. Mouri? What a coincidence!

But yes, it is possible that they were used to run tests on how they would play out without causing any actual damage. You didn't find the physical forms, though?

[cherryblooded]

It seems like it'd be hard to shoot holograms...

Did you try getting two of them at once? Maybe they're both holograms.

[goodforsomething]

[Stan shrugs.]

I wouldn't know if it was from my world or not. Mabel doesn't watch anything like that.

[cherryblooded]

Hm. That's strange.

So something else is what actually kills them...

[captainobnoxious]

[It's appreciated, even if forces a small smile with a wave of her hand.]

Hey, at this point, I'm kinda used to it. I'm like a hound with how often I sniff people like that out.

[By befriending them.]

Pretty damn useful.