these_balls: (I WANNA BE THE VERY BEST)
Route 29: mods ([personal profile] these_balls) wrote in [community profile] route_10652013-10-25 12:32 am

NIGHTMARE PLOT: DAY ONE — DAYTIME

Who: Nightmare Plot participants!
Where: ???
When: Friday, October 25 — DAYTIME
Summary: A whole lot of people collectively wake up and rapidly come to the conclusion that their lives are objectively terrible. Also, a castle.
Rating: PG in general; please mark threads that go higher accordingly!
Log:



YOU ARE HERE. UNFORTUNATELY.


KEY:
RED areas are inaccessible regions of the castle! How they're inaccessible will vary from place to place (and from person to person), so players are encouraged to be creative in making up reasons why their characters can't get in to those areas if they try. For example, they might find the door to be locked or jammed; they might find a section of wall has collapsed and blocked off the corridor; they might just run into an invisible wall or a lingering patch of obscuring fog that ultimately deters them. They might even discover a rather unpleasant-looking monster hanging around and decide they'd rather not take the chance; the sky's the limit here, but the reasons for the same door being blocked can vary from person to person, and we encourage you to use this to add to the IC confusion if you so desire!

BROWN areas are secret passages! It won't be immediately obvious that these areas exist (naturally, being secret), but with some diligence and careful inspection, characters can find the opening and get inside. Whether it's from lifting a secret latch or just figuring out the wall is hollow and bashing the thing down, of course, is up to player discretion!

AREA A — the Spooky Garden. — ROOM CHANGES — 10/28/13
The obvious object of note here is the pretty fountain bubbling merrily away in the center of this odd little patch of indoor flora; it's made of white marble and is your standard three-tier affair, surrounded by a modest "courtyard" of grass and wildflowers. The animal sculptures are probably Pokemon you recognize...though on second glance they look more like something you're pretty sure you saw back home...and come to think of it, on third glance they're starting to get a little unsettling somehow. Strange! However, if you can stand the spooky company, it's a fairly quiet place to sit and unwind. Maybe you'll be generous and throw P10 into the waters? Or maybe you'll dig in there and retrieve other people's contributions for your own benefit. Either way, be careful when you look into the water; who knows what faces you might see reflected!

AREA B — the Grand Hall. — ROOM CHANGES — 10/28/13
This is where you and your fellow inmates visitors have woken up; everyone will originate here upon the start of the plot, but there's absolutely no restriction on how long you have to stay there, so feel free to take off running as soon as you like. If you decide to stay, though, you'll notice it's a fairly big room, generally rectangular, with walls of gray stone and a healthy coating of dust and cobwebs over most every surface. All things considered, there's not a lot actually in here: some scattered rubble, scraps of wood, tattered cloth, empty sconces on the wall. Poke around a bit and you might find a candle or some other helpful odds and ends, but by and large this seems to be a token Big Empty Room — not particularly helpful for anything but holding people, all things considered.

AREA C — the Overgrown Tower.
Watch your head as you enter this room; contrary to what you might expect from a tower room, the ceiling is surprisingly low, and the dangling vines might give you a fright if you walk into one without paying attention! There isn't much of note in this room, outside of the plants seeping through the cracks in the cold gray stone and the delicate scent of flowers lingering in the air; not much, that is, save for the wooden rocking horse standing stationary in the center of the room — what could that be doing there?

AREA D — the Wine Cellar.
Pretty self-explanatory, this one; this room is stocked full of creaky old wine casks and dusty bottles of what is presumably ridiculously well-aged alcohol, along with assorted bottling tools and the other odds and ends you might find in an old-school winery. Alas, no free shot at hitting the bottle for you, minors; characters who would not ordinarily be eligible to drink in Route will find that even if they crack one of these bottles open, the liquid inside turns to old water — or refuses to come out at all.

AREA E — the Kitchen. — ROOM CHANGES — 10/28/13
Like the Wine Cellar, this is also pretty self-explanatory; search the cupboards and you might find food. Whether or not you're willing to try eating it is entirely up to you — who knows what might be in it, or how long it's been there, after all — but no one's likely to starve; when characters aren't in the Kitchen, they won't find themselves to be particularly hungry, regardless of how long it's been since they've last eaten. When they go inside, hunger will set in, but if they'd rather not eat to remedy the problem, then alleviating it is as simple as just leaving the room.

AREA F — the Hall of Tapestries. — ROOM CHANGES — 10/28/13
A nice, long, intimidating hallway with a high arched ceiling and faded tapestries lining the walls. Visitors with a healthy sense of paranoia might notice that this room is a classic example of a "kill box"; there's only one exit on either end and nowhere to hide in the middle. But certainly there's no reason to be frightened while walking alone down this long, empty, echoing corridor — though depending on your nerves, it might be a reason to pick up your pace.

AREA G — the Decaying Library.
Though it doesn't seem to have seen a caretaker in quite some time, the library comes fully stocked with enough books to keep the literary-inclined busy for a while. There's at least some valid information to be found, most of it detailing a region that doesn't seem to be Johto or Kanto. Descriptions of Mount Coronet and the ruins of Celestic Town, as well as details about what appear to be the creation of the world can be found here, among other things — including the demented ramblings of a man who seems determined to destroy the world and remake it in his image, and the surely coincidental story of a tragedy that occurred in a large manor not entirely unlike the one you've awakened in...

AREA H — the Hidden Dungeon.
Hopefully you'll never have reason to visit here, but if you've taken up residence in a set of our finest wall manacles, well...enjoy your stay, we suppose. This room is only accessible through the secret passage designated in brown; in the event that your character suffers a critical injury during the course of this plot, after whiting out they will end up in this room, presumably in chains. Hopefully they've got a friend who can pick locks, or who'll otherwise come to spring them from their confinement! If not, it might be a loooooong wait until someone happens by.

AREA I — the Haunted Terrace.
This area is also accessible by secret passage, and if you happened to find it in the daytime, you might be a bit disappointed to discover that it's pretty much just a big empty patio that looks as though it ought to be outdoors (and the occasional breeze passing through would seem to support that conclusion), but it's so heavily ringed by thick fog that you can't see more than a foot or two past the boundaries of the edges.


~

☆ NOTES ☆


• Remember, all arrivals to the castle originate in AREA B — the Grand Hall, but you're free to move away from there as quickly or as slowly as you like! Feel free to handwave the arrival as you see fit.

• This log is for DAYTIME INTERACTIONS ON FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25 only! The Night One log is here, and other interactions throughout the course of the plot should be made in characters' own journals.

• If you have any questions, you can always ask us here at the INQUIRIES HOTLINE!

~

☆ QUICK LINKS ☆


AREA A — the Spooky Garden | AREA B — the Grand Hall | AREA C — the Overgrown Tower | AREA D — the Wine Cellar | AREA E — the Kitchen

AREA F — the Hall of Tapestries | AREA G — the Decaying Library | AREA H — the Hidden Dungeon | AREA I — the Haunted Terrace

GENERAL — Other Castle Locations
captainash: (neutral)

[personal profile] captainash 2013-10-27 01:12 am (UTC)(link)
Getting flattened by the ceiling or whatever else this hall might have planned can't possibly be as bad as burning alive due to human idiocy.

[And burning alive can't possibly be as bad as burning and being flattened. Poor Grandma.]
nostabbing: (WARY ⚡ teach me how to like stuff)

[personal profile] nostabbing 2013-10-27 01:16 am (UTC)(link)
...

[...]

What?
captainash: (stoic)

[personal profile] captainash 2013-10-27 01:26 am (UTC)(link)
Other than the windows, the only potential source of light I've found in the library is those big fancy candlesticks.

[He moves his arms in some sort of gesture that's supposed to mean 'big and fancy'.]

Sooner or later the room will get dark, someone will light the candles to read a little more, and then the whole room will be nothing but a fire hazard in the making. I'd rather be crushed by some sort of trapped stone instead, thank you very much.

[Or not die at all, but that might be too picky.]
nostabbing: (FOLDED ⚡ a stern letter of reproach)

[personal profile] nostabbing 2013-10-27 01:45 am (UTC)(link)
You think that's what you have to worry about in here? Like a big rock's gonna fall and crush you? That's what you're afraid of?

[She's just looking at him now.]
captainash: (embarrassed)

[personal profile] captainash 2013-10-27 01:58 am (UTC)(link)
[He actually looks a little embarrassed at that.]

Well, this is some sort of creepy castle that kinda looks like it should be haunted, right? Doesn't that sound more appropriate than airtight sealed doors, laser-triggered weapons, gassing attempts through the air vents or whatever other traps someone would normally expect?

[His knowledge of castles might or might not be based on movies and video games. Not many of them left in his time.]
nostabbing: (LECTURE ⚡ sit down and shut up)

[personal profile] nostabbing 2013-10-27 02:02 am (UTC)(link)
[She keeps looking at him, to the point where you can almost see her thoughts written across her forehead — that clearly educating this guy is going to be a public service, because wow has he ever missed the point.]

You realize there's no cover in this hallway, right? No alcoves, no vents, no exposed pillars. It's a long wide box with a door there, and a door there.

[She points to either end.]

You get guys like you in here looking at the tapestries, and all you have to do is close off there and there, and you're dead. You're trapped. You think you could make it to one of those doors before somebody could step in front of it with an axe? So what if the other place is a fire hazard; this one's the death trap.
captainash: (thinking)

[personal profile] captainash 2013-10-27 02:18 am (UTC)(link)
An axe? That's so archaic.

[Says the man in a castle who was considering trapped ceilings.]

Thing is, while there's no cover in here there's also no hidden passages at ground level either, as far as I can tell. It's only connected at both ends. Someone coming in personally to trap us would have to enter through the library or the corridor while holding an axe, which would definitely catch people's attention, or from a passage higher up the wall, which would leave them a sitting duck while they jumped down. ...Unless they also have a ranged weapon, in which case we're completely screwed.
nostabbing: (BORED ⚡ put the hope diamond back)

[personal profile] nostabbing 2013-10-27 02:20 am (UTC)(link)
...So you're taking your chances on "maybe they won't have a gun".
captainash: (neutral)

[personal profile] captainash 2013-10-27 02:25 am (UTC)(link)
Hey, if they have a gun that's better than those old pistols that could only hold one shot at the time, why not go all the way and install wall-mounted machine guns instead? Keeps them out of our range, offers more firepower. I wouldn't be that surprised by a maniac with a crossbow, though.

[Because that's obviously much safer.]