[Manwol squints as the lights and neon panels start flickering on, and raises a hand to shade her eyes (yeah ig she's wearing a witch hat to go along with her necromancer uniform, that's the only compromise ill take) as she listens to these voices, and takes the situation as it is exactly.
...
She decides to look at Rita, who she already knows is the smartest person in this group.]
[ the flashing hurts malik's eyes, and he's not sure if he prefers this over the unknown black abyss. somewhere in the back of his mind, he has a bad feeling about this slappin' bass. hm. anyway, after all is said and done: ]
This can't be too hard. I've been through half of what they've described already... And I'm good at games of chance.
[ he's pretty confident about this despite my roll luck ]
[rita leaps forward and grabs taichi's sleeve as he runs in, but as the room lights up, she lets him go, opting instead to take a defensive stance while the voices begin their explanation. she meets manwol's gaze...]
... Sounds similar to what some of the other groups went through. There's no way out, and there's a clue we'll get for finishing this. So...
[rita grabs his sleeve and it slows him down enough, but when she lets go he looks around the room and listens to the music and adjusts to the lights.]
Yeah. Our last trip was a bunch of trials, too, that we had to fight our way through. Guess that explains the weird costumes? [he shrugs, not entirely bothered just yet.]
...we'll have to play for it and keep each other as safe as possible. It's our only shot out. I'm ready if you guys are.
["Perfect!" says the first voice, which by the way is male, I should differentiate them somewhat. "Why don't we go ahead and get started with round one?"
"Oh, this'll be an exciting one," says the female voice.
The circular platform begins to lower, and as it drops down to about waist-height... you can all see that this is, in fact, a roulette wheel covered in different symbols. Across the room, a pair of floodlights switch on to illuminate a heavy stone door, with four dim red circular panels over it.
"This," says the male voice, "is the Wheel of Sacrifice. You just give it a spin, and you give up whatever it lands on. Now, of course you can refuse if you land on something you're not willing to give up, but you will incur a penalty for your reluctance."
The female voice adds, "After enough sacrifices have been completed, the door will open. Now, go ahead, why don't you give it a try?"]
[Manwol looks at each of the others in turn as they all basically say "let's do it", and then sighs. Her expression turns even more dark at the Wheel of Sacrifice because anything with the word of "sacrifice" is probably a bad time, but.
the others are right. there seems to be nothing else to do but go forward.]
If I get cursed...
[she mutters, and then she grabs hold of the wheel and spins it hard. it eventually ticks down to "backpack". her face is blank. SHE DOESN'T HAVE A BACKPACK??? but she'll step back so the others can spin next,]
["Oh, no, no curses here," says the female voice. "We run a completely above-ground game here, all of this is-- well, it's exactly what it says on the tin."
"And of course you can just take the penalty if you don't like it," adds the male one. "Now, what should we do for this one, this is just the first round."
"Don't go too hard on them, we don't want to discourage anyone."
"I think I've got it," he says, and then continues on.
"Manwol- for rolling to give up an object, I'd say that phone is sort of important, isn't it? Not that it's doing you much good right now, anyway, this is-- it should be a pretty easy call.
Malik, you landed on... oh, now this is a fun one. You get to give up something that happened in your past, and normally this one would mean just a fight, but how about your initiation, instead?
Rita... Rita, Rita, Rita. Don't look like that, we're not going to just kill you here, we do want you to succeed! Skull just means that, at some point during your stay in Wonderland, you'll suffer from some pretty nasty luck.
And Taichi-- well, this one's not really my favorite, we see this one a lot, honestly. I'm not going to take an eye from you, not in round one, but how about we just... reduce your vision? You might need a little help in here afterward, but I think all of these are a fairly small price to pay. What do you all say?"]
[Manwol immediately looks upset, because even though her roll is technically the least bad out of everyone else's... She thinks of her phone, and more importantly, all of the pictures that are on it. Damn.
...She shouldn't care this much, but it bothers her all the same. Her phone truly is silly in comparison to everyone else's -- and yet]
You don't get to decide what's easy or not.
[she snaps, taking her phone out and holding it out. it doesn't matter, because they all need to make enough sacrifices to move on.]
[ normally, this might be something that required a bit more thought - this is too easy, isn't it? and nothing comes from free. malik learned that the last time he went on a trip. and yet... ]
Go ahead and take it.
[ he almost seems? hyped about it? as hyped as a moody teenager can be. ]
["Oh, feisty, aren't we? Don't be like that, we're giving you an opportunity, here!" says the male voice.
Manwol and Rita won't really feel much different-- the wheel absorbs Manwol's phone, and Rita feels no different after accepting her bad luck. Malik will find himself recalling the memory he gave up before it fades, and... well, he might find it's not just that memory, as any later memories that rely on the one he sacrificed are now affected. They're much fuzzier, if not gone completely. Taichi will find his vision blurring, like he definitely needs glasses, and this bright and colorful flashing room probably just got a little more disorienting.
The four red panels over the door have lit up, one by one, as the four of them accept their sacrifices, and the door slides open!
Through it, everything is dark again, and if they step through they will be able to see just a single point of light ahead of them.]
[There's something like a surge of -- pride? affection? Satisfaction? At hearing everyone else's answers. Manwol might have thought entering the game was a bad idea from the start, but there's something about everyone's attitudes that bolsters her.
(they're all probably going to regret it later, but they can at least have this.)
Manwol doesn't hesitate, she'll step through first, and head towards that point of light]
[ malik is still-- hype? the adrenaline is still there, but as his memories degrade around the one that he lost, a more concerned feeling starts to take root. there's no time to worry about that now, however, as they have things to do.
[okay! cool! he can do this. this isn't so bad? so the world's a little blurry and the door is...
...that way?
he starts to walk, but it's definitely slower and a little more cautious as he strains his eyes to focus on rita instead. the lights are bouncing off the walls and throwing shadows around in a way that's redirecting his line of vision, but having the other three ahead helps. he doesn't move that slow though, and he'll follow rita through the door without wasting much time.]
"Opportunity" is a little bit of a stretch, isn't it...?
["Of course not. We're offering you quite a lot here."
The voice feels a little like it's coming from ahead of you, now? And as you approach the point of light, it resolves into an object. It's a podium, cylindrical, with two buttons on top of it. A screen around the width of the cylinder shows pixelized versions of all your faces, and it begins to spin rapidly.
"Let's see which one of you gets to play this next game!" says the female voice, and the spinning begins to slow, before... Manwol's face stops on the front of it.
"Manwol, how exciting! Now, please step up to the podium and we'll explain the rules of this game."
The buttons illuminate; one reads TRUST. One reads FORSAKE.
"Now, you aren't the only ones making your way through Wonderland right now. At this moment, in an identical chamber, another group is playing this very same game-- you can consider this something of a... competitive mode," the male voice says. "Beyond this room is a deadly challenge the four of you will have to overcome in order to proceed, but based on your decisions here, you can improve your fate in the next."
"These challenges aren't ones that most people can walk away from," adds the female voice. "They're designed to push you to your limits, to a breaking point. But, choose well, and you might not have to face it at all!"
"If both of you select Trust, each team faces the challenge as it was originally designed, which means one you may not survive... but not facing it is what the Forsake button is for. If you both get greedy and choose Forsake, though, you both get a more difficult version of the trial, and the resulting challenge will almost certainly kill you. If you choose Forsake and they choose Trust, on the other hand... that's the best outcome for you! You get to skip the challenge, and your opponents face a nearly impossible version instead."
"You can discuss this if you... really think you need to, I guess, but-- Manwol, you're the one making this particular call."
-- There's another group?! And you mention this to us now?!
[because the first thought Manwol thinks when she hears "another group" is that. another group. just like the way sieghart's group had spilled out of the forest moments after her own group had staggered out. is it like that? are they people from wiwaldi?
no -- they could be lying. her own adventure had nothing to do with sakyou's, and yet. her eyes flick to the others, her hand hovering over the space between both buttons.]
[ just because some of his other memories have been affected doesn't mean that malik is unaware of how this is going to come across, so before he can get yelled at, he explains: ]
We're going to face a difficult trial either way if both groups end up picking the same option, both described as deadly... That's a 50% chance of a lethal trial. 25% we get to skip it completely, and another 25%... I would assume if the roles were reversed - if we pick Trust and they choose Forsake - we get stuck with the impossible challenge. So we're looking at lethal odds regardless, but with a higher chance of failure if we pick Trust.
...[he considers this, squinting a little at the group. all of that sounds bad, but.]
There's no guarantee the other group is our friends. But I don't want to hit forsake on strangers either. There's four of us. If we're hit with a challenge, we can get through it. We just have to be smart about it. We don't even know what the challenge is.
[frowning though.] I'm not good with forsake, but...it's up to you, Manwol. You know our answers.
[...wait, he will yell at the disembodied voices.]
Hey! Can we get a confirmation that the same is true in reverse if we pick trust and they pick forsake?
["Oh, there are plenty of people here! Wonderland is a popular place for those bold enough to seek its rewards."
The female voice then adds, "But yes, that's correct. If you pick trust and you're forsaken by the other team... well. We don't think you're going to make it very far in here!"]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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...
She decides to look at Rita, who she already knows is the smartest person in this group.]
We're not actually doing this, are we?
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This can't be too hard. I've been through half of what they've described already... And I'm good at games of chance.
[ he's pretty confident about this despite my roll luck ]
I'm ready, even if you three aren't.
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... Sounds similar to what some of the other groups went through. There's no way out, and there's a clue we'll get for finishing this. So...
[she'll take a step forward.]
Whatever it is, we'll just have to win.
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Yeah. Our last trip was a bunch of trials, too, that we had to fight our way through. Guess that explains the weird costumes? [he shrugs, not entirely bothered just yet.]
...we'll have to play for it and keep each other as safe as possible. It's our only shot out. I'm ready if you guys are.
[bring it, game.]
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"Oh, this'll be an exciting one," says the female voice.
The circular platform begins to lower, and as it drops down to about waist-height... you can all see that this is, in fact, a roulette wheel covered in different symbols. Across the room, a pair of floodlights switch on to illuminate a heavy stone door, with four dim red circular panels over it.
"This," says the male voice, "is the Wheel of Sacrifice. You just give it a spin, and you give up whatever it lands on. Now, of course you can refuse if you land on something you're not willing to give up, but you will incur a penalty for your reluctance."
The female voice adds, "After enough sacrifices have been completed, the door will open. Now, go ahead, why don't you give it a try?"]
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the others are right. there seems to be nothing else to do but go forward.]
If I get cursed...
[she mutters, and then she grabs hold of the wheel and spins it hard. it eventually ticks down to "backpack". her face is blank. SHE DOESN'T HAVE A BACKPACK??? but she'll step back so the others can spin next,]
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Oh, so this is like a Shadow Game... Well, I guess we'll see what happens, now won't we?
[ he doesn't have a backpack either so he can't help you out there manwol, but he gives the wheel his best spin and it lands on swords. ]
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it's rita's turn, and she'll step right up and spin. the wheel lands on skull, and her expression darkens. that's some ominous shit.]
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[but he spins! and his lands on eye. considering who lost an eye on one of these, he looks extremely wary suddenly.]
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"And of course you can just take the penalty if you don't like it," adds the male one. "Now, what should we do for this one, this is just the first round."
"Don't go too hard on them, we don't want to discourage anyone."
"I think I've got it," he says, and then continues on.
"Manwol- for rolling to give up an object, I'd say that phone is sort of important, isn't it? Not that it's doing you much good right now, anyway, this is-- it should be a pretty easy call.
Malik, you landed on... oh, now this is a fun one. You get to give up something that happened in your past, and normally this one would mean just a fight, but how about your initiation, instead?
Rita... Rita, Rita, Rita. Don't look like that, we're not going to just kill you here, we do want you to succeed! Skull just means that, at some point during your stay in Wonderland, you'll suffer from some pretty nasty luck.
And Taichi-- well, this one's not really my favorite, we see this one a lot, honestly. I'm not going to take an eye from you, not in round one, but how about we just... reduce your vision? You might need a little help in here afterward, but I think all of these are a fairly small price to pay. What do you all say?"]
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...She shouldn't care this much, but it bothers her all the same. Her phone truly is silly in comparison to everyone else's -- and yet]
You don't get to decide what's easy or not.
[she snaps, taking her phone out and holding it out. it doesn't matter, because they all need to make enough sacrifices to move on.]
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Go ahead and take it.
[ he almost seems? hyped about it? as hyped as a moody teenager can be. ]
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Hmph. I'm not in the habit of relying on luck, and I'm not about to start.
Do what you want.
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How generous. [flatly. but he frowns in thought.] ...but okay. If it's just a reduction, I can probably still get around okay.
I guess we're all in agreement here.
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Manwol and Rita won't really feel much different-- the wheel absorbs Manwol's phone, and Rita feels no different after accepting her bad luck. Malik will find himself recalling the memory he gave up before it fades, and... well, he might find it's not just that memory, as any later memories that rely on the one he sacrificed are now affected. They're much fuzzier, if not gone completely. Taichi will find his vision blurring, like he definitely needs glasses, and this bright and colorful flashing room probably just got a little more disorienting.
The four red panels over the door have lit up, one by one, as the four of them accept their sacrifices, and the door slides open!
Through it, everything is dark again, and if they step through they will be able to see just a single point of light ahead of them.]
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(they're all probably going to regret it later, but they can at least have this.)
Manwol doesn't hesitate, she'll step through first, and head towards that point of light]
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he follows manwol through the door. ]
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rather than march forward, like she's inclined to, she'll wait a second and walk with him to the door and beyond.]
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...that way?
he starts to walk, but it's definitely slower and a little more cautious as he strains his eyes to focus on rita instead. the lights are bouncing off the walls and throwing shadows around in a way that's redirecting his line of vision, but having the other three ahead helps. he doesn't move that slow though, and he'll follow rita through the door without wasting much time.]
"Opportunity" is a little bit of a stretch, isn't it...?
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The voice feels a little like it's coming from ahead of you, now? And as you approach the point of light, it resolves into an object. It's a podium, cylindrical, with two buttons on top of it. A screen around the width of the cylinder shows pixelized versions of all your faces, and it begins to spin rapidly.
"Let's see which one of you gets to play this next game!" says the female voice, and the spinning begins to slow, before... Manwol's face stops on the front of it.
"Manwol, how exciting! Now, please step up to the podium and we'll explain the rules of this game."
The buttons illuminate; one reads TRUST. One reads FORSAKE.
"Now, you aren't the only ones making your way through Wonderland right now. At this moment, in an identical chamber, another group is playing this very same game-- you can consider this something of a... competitive mode," the male voice says. "Beyond this room is a deadly challenge the four of you will have to overcome in order to proceed, but based on your decisions here, you can improve your fate in the next."
"These challenges aren't ones that most people can walk away from," adds the female voice. "They're designed to push you to your limits, to a breaking point. But, choose well, and you might not have to face it at all!"
"If both of you select Trust, each team faces the challenge as it was originally designed, which means one you may not survive... but not facing it is what the Forsake button is for. If you both get greedy and choose Forsake, though, you both get a more difficult version of the trial, and the resulting challenge will almost certainly kill you. If you choose Forsake and they choose Trust, on the other hand... that's the best outcome for you! You get to skip the challenge, and your opponents face a nearly impossible version instead."
"You can discuss this if you... really think you need to, I guess, but-- Manwol, you're the one making this particular call."
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-- There's another group?! And you mention this to us now?!
[because the first thought Manwol thinks when she hears "another group" is that. another group. just like the way sieghart's group had spilled out of the forest moments after her own group had staggered out. is it like that? are they people from wiwaldi?
no -- they could be lying. her own adventure had nothing to do with sakyou's, and yet. her eyes flick to the others, her hand hovering over the space between both buttons.]
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[ just because some of his other memories have been affected doesn't mean that malik is unaware of how this is going to come across, so before he can get yelled at, he explains: ]
We're going to face a difficult trial either way if both groups end up picking the same option, both described as deadly... That's a 50% chance of a lethal trial. 25% we get to skip it completely, and another 25%... I would assume if the roles were reversed - if we pick Trust and they choose Forsake - we get stuck with the impossible challenge. So we're looking at lethal odds regardless, but with a higher chance of failure if we pick Trust.
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[yeah, rita's thinking the same as manwol. and she gives malik kind of a tired look.]
Those might be the odds if we were choosing blindly, but Malik, I think you're the only one here who's enough of an asshole to pick "Forsake."
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There's no guarantee the other group is our friends. But I don't want to hit forsake on strangers either. There's four of us. If we're hit with a challenge, we can get through it. We just have to be smart about it. We don't even know what the challenge is.
[frowning though.] I'm not good with forsake, but...it's up to you, Manwol. You know our answers.
[...wait, he will yell at the disembodied voices.]
Hey! Can we get a confirmation that the same is true in reverse if we pick trust and they pick forsake?
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The female voice then adds, "But yes, that's correct. If you pick trust and you're forsaken by the other team... well. We don't think you're going to make it very far in here!"]
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