WINTER COMMON ROOM - WEEK 3

[dormheads]

common room.

Similar to the rest of the architecture, the common room in the Winter Dorm is almost more reminiscent of a tea room or parlor that you would find in a manor. A chandelier hangs above, everything in the room glistening in the light that is both welcoming and just a tinge cold. Seating is available for a number of people to gather, adjusting each week to seemingly accommodate a little bit over the number of people assigned to the dorm. A piano doesn't sit too far, and sometimes when the room isn't too full, it's almost like a beautiful classical melody will begin to play itself to make up for the empty space.

Or... is that a showtune...?

Who can say?

This week, we're getting into the holiday spirit! So pop some bubbly, be a little sweet - it's that time of year.

specialty room.

However on the first floor, there's an oddity amidst the serene architecture. One of the rooms opens to a Gaming Lounge, complete with screens that stretch across the entirety of one wall length-wise. Incredible comfortable chairs and couches sit opposite the screen, comfortable enough to steal you away from the outside world for hours upon hours. A series of gaming systems are hooked up to the screens, and a small tower of handhelds sit on a bookcase nearby. Every game you can think of is downloaded and programmed onto each device, though every time you start one up it seems to immediately pull up an otome game or farming simulator. The lighting system changes between a rainbow of colors, and one wall is lined with snacks that are a little less decadent but still just as delicious. The room will adjust based on the needs of the game you play, a wall spinning out to roll out DDR dance pads, virtual reality goggles, or whatever you could need for the ultimate gaming experience.

No, it isn't incredibly reminiscent of Dude Perfect's Game Time Lounge. You're imagining it. (But really, click the link for a better idea of what the room looks like.)

---

Please use this as an open post for members of Winter Dorm. You may post top-levels whenever you'd like and go wild. A new post will go up at the start of each week.

Comments

[supercatty]

[why indeed!!]

[shifts so she's sitting on the edge of the piano now, mostly so she's not putting weight on her still-injured leg]

Not much. She introduced herself, and asked if Kon or Crow had any new information on our "enemies."

[. . .]

I told her about Leo's cast list, but that's when the coupon wore off.

[refate]

[ nvm i'm tagging this instead ]

I mean, not especially, unless people want to flip through my notes and see if I'm missing something that isn't listed in it.

But it's good to know that it works. I'll talk to her today about how much my rewrite would cost, on top of - everything else.

[supercatty]

Yeah. I told her we didn't have anything, but I wanted to try less for information and more to make sure it'd work.

[. . .]

Does Manwol still have her own "mind control" coupon?

[refate]

Knowing that it does opens the door to more information. How'd you wind up using it?

[ he does pull his phone out with that question, sitting back and thumbing through his convo history. ]

I can ask, but she probably hasn't used it yet.

[supercatty]

I traded it in for a coupon that could "restore Viola's lost or rewritten memories." Worked like a charm once it came through.

[leans back on one hand, though notably it's the one on the arm that wasn't injured]

Ask her if she'd be willing to try the same thing on one of the other dorm heads. I'd suggest Sally, since I haven't heard about anyone being able to break through to her yet.

[though that could just be because she hasn't spoken to a Summer her told her about it yet]

[refate]

[ he taps his thumb on his screen, and then starts typing as catra describes it, nodding. ]

I haven't, either. It's been the other three - from experience and word of mouth - but I don't have as much information coming out of Sally's dorm as I do the other ones.

[ gonna work on that... ]

[supercatty]

. . . I'll talk to Summer. See what I can get from them.

[she should've done it last week but I, an innocent Al, forgot]

And I'll try talking to Sally herself, too. Even though I don't know how far that'll get me.

[disreguarded]

Enemies. Gods. That's a pretty vicious word, I like it.

[...] Hm. I guess that's a start?

[supercatty]

[her mouth curves into a grin of her own, which shows off her sharp kitty fangies]

I called Viola soft, but honestly? Iris is anything but.

[and she likes it!!]

It's a start, yeah. It's proof that we can restore their memories period, we just need something that's way more permanent.

[disreguarded]

Hah. I can see it.

But - uh. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Hey, look, there's this spell called Greater Restoration that we have back home. It does this sort of thing, actually. Like, we actually just got done dealing with a bunch of people who lost their memories, so I know it works.

Maybe we can all save up to get it, see what happens.

[supercatty]

[her ears flick forward immediately at that, chin lifted]

It's worth a try. Even if Kon's thing works, we'll definitely need more than one method to restore those lost memories, since there are four dorm heads.

[and they can't just fix Viola, they have to fix Sally and Chad and Luke too!]

[disreguarded]

[nodding!]

I don't know if I'd be able to use it, either, because I'm not a cleric, but - worth a shot, like you said. We gotta make sure all of them aren't stuck like this.

[steelo]

I'm glad it worked, that's awesome.

[ even if it was just for a little bit!!! iris, you're out there...

this reminds him, too, so actually - ]

I asked Vi a little yesterday about learning information. She said we can get something new from them like the cast list and the script once a week with vouchers, but it has to be a different person who asks for it each week. We've been really good about it so far, but it'll be good to set up a system - and I think it might be good to coordinate with the other dorms, too.

She said it's always gonna be three vouchers, too. [ he holds up three fingers!! ]

I also talked to her a little bit about getting stuff to help us do better at trials, and got advice on that, too.

[supercatty]

Yeah; we should definitely coordinate with the other dorms. I want to see if we can restore Luke, Chad and Sally's lost memories, too.

[alas she only had one coupon :(]

What did she say about trials?

[steelo]

A couple things.

The first thing she said was what we really need is to focus on creating systems - things like Beau's truth punch [ nodding at her ] that we can do more than once, or ask for more than once. And, we need to create systems that work together, too, so we can be more reliable in general and waste less time at trials as a whole.

The second thing was... while we were talking about solutions, she said "Here, we are only limited by the scope of our imagination and creativity." It was kind of part of a pep talk, but... she meant it super literally. It took me a second, but I caught on.

I came up with two items that might help us out. Something to help us find a piece of evidence that was missing - I said either a dowsing rod, or like, a dog with a really good nose [ i sisi am personally hoping for the second one ], or a magic eight ball that we can ask a question of.

A magic eight ball - you basically ask it a question, shake it, and it gives you an answer. Sometimes it's a smartass answer, but I think in this case it would just be a "yes or no". I just came up with them off the top of my head, and Vi-chan said she could make either one happen, no problem. I have enough vouchers to afford it, but I gotta pick, cause I can only have one at a time.

But, Vi-chan also said that I can get it again, once it's gone, though. So if we get one this week and use it, I could just trade in vouchers to get another one, if we liked it. But I can only pick one. I dunno if that means maybe one of you guys can get the other, or not... or if you guys have any ideas for similar stuff that might help out.

[ addressing the room as a whole. ] What do you guys think? If we gotta pick one, what should we get?

[disreguarded]

Any of those seem like a good idea. What we get stuck on the most I feel like is hitting dead ends with the evidence we've got, though. Maybe something that tells us what the most relevant piece is?

[steelo]

[ :THINKING: ]

Yeah. She said something about that, even. What could that be, though? We've got to come up with the object, not just the idea. Maybe like...a pair of goggles, or something?

[refate]

I think if we manage to get a combination of things we can use - Beau's ki, my memory pulls, items like you've suggested - we can definitely get somewhere during trials. The same as we're making checks routine, having a system set up and making that routine will help a lot.

But getting those things cost us, so we need to start doing as much extra credit as possible and setting up a system to help one another out with that, too. Like, obviously it won't count if you just go around talking about it - but we all have specialties, and helping each other means we get it done faster. Sometimes we can't tap in, depending on the extra credit - like needing to talk to someone you don't know as well, or an extra credit we shouldn't do - but if we can... why not?

[ he's put that out there, so now he'll just. sit back and think on the item, tapping his phone to his chin. ]

I do like both, and the idea of goggles, or whatever we decide on for that kind of thing. Being able to see the connection or importance... [ muttering: ] Be nice if we could trap places before curfew, leave evidence on a killer, but we can't guarantee where people wind up or go...

Maybe the magic eight ball for the first shot? I doubt we could ask a complicated question with it, but sometimes a yes or a no is enough.

[steelo]

A trap? I mean, is there anywhere that's been used every time?

[ thinking.... ]

What about the cafeteria? I dunno what the hell we'd set up... but it'd be cool to straight up Detective Conan this bitch, for once.

[commandertoolbelt]

[ casually elbows kon and taps on his arm ]

[chevaliered]

[ he shrugs. ]

I'm not sure we know who the "enemy" is right now, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were producing or observing most of this in some way or another. Which means we have to start looking for things "behind the scenes", I'd say.

[supercatty]

[haha. she flicks her ears a bit at Crow, because. yeah. she agrees]

It makes trusting the things we're just being given kind of hard, doesn't it?

[chevaliered]

[ he shrugs ]

There’s the difficulty of it. We don’t have anything else to go off of, but we can’t trust the potential source of our info anyway.

[supercatty]

[a true catch-22! which she'd say aloud if she knew what that meant]

We can't stop buying these things, because we need the information. But the thought of just playing a part in some kind of "script" is--

[well. her ears flatten, because it pisses her off!]

[chevaliered]

Maybe buy it and pay attention to it but take it with a pinch of salt until we can piece together things ourselves?