ph_logs | March/April Event - By Order of the King

─ A Proclamation ─

By order of His Infernal Majesty, Eligos Rex, Dominus Altum of the Regnum Infernalis, Lord of the Court of Treason, the Indomitable King of Hell

y order of King Eligos, let it be known throughout the Realm of Demonkind that all current denizens of the Isle of Marrow shall be detained and relocated to the Palace Infernal, where they shall be put to trial for their crimes against our people. His Majesty names these trespasses thus:

Deliberate Interference with the Unholy Rite of Succession
Conspiracy to Fraudulently Coronate a King of Their Choosing
Two Counts of Principicide, Murder of His Majesty's Sons
Conspiracy with the Dynasty of Holy Mothers
Conspiracy with the Dynasty of Red Butterflies
Conspiracy with the Dynasty of Elder Gods
Disruption of the Machinations of His Infernal Majesty

All parties residing on the Isle of Marrow have been preemptively found guilty of at least one of these charges, either directly or as an accessory. The guilty have been captured by His Majesty's Royal Guard, dragged from their beds by force, and brought to the Palace Infernal, beyond the safety of the Great Barrier that We graciously constructed to conceal them from the eyes of Death. Here, they will be given Trial, where they will either emerge absolved, or perish entirely in their guilt without our Barrier to restore them.

The Guilty Must Atone.

Details to follow.

The Dungeon

Those deemed to have the ability to supply His Majesty's Court with the desired resources have been placed in the palace's dungeons in groups, where they must decide amongst themselves whose blood will be used to pay the island's penance, and who will move on to a greater duty.

{Be aware that beyond lies inevitable pain, mutilation, and death. Proceed?}

The room is dark. Not too dark to see by, but dim. The appearance of a castle dungeon is visible, at least, by the low and menacing flicker of torch light, tall shadows catching on the surfaces of imposing stone block walls and the dirty and uneven slate floor.

You are not alone here. There is at least one other, if not more, and there is the strange sensation of being watched. Each room is laid out a bit differently, perhaps set up with some kind of bondage holding its residents in place or some strange, unbelievable apparatus that serves no other purpose than an elaborate and dangerous trap. However, each room does share one thing--- a parchment hung to the wall in reading distance, starting with the proclamation above, and followed by the details of your entrapment, along with the conditions of escape. And while those terms vary as well, the one thing they all have in common is that not everyone is meant to survive, even if the text itself doesn't make that immediately clear.

Designed to feed the Court of Betrayal, each trap is designed with a test of trust and loyalty involved. Whether it's testing how much you value a new friendship, which of your loved ones you are truly the most loyal to, or how selfish you really are when it comes down to it--- or if it's just meant to make you betray yourself and your own values. Some will end quietly, others gruesomely, but someone must die in order to move forward, with the understanding that the barrier isn't here to save you. You're in the realm of demons now. There is nothing to stop your soul from leaving you for good. Not even Mortanne can reach you here. And there is no option to take no action--- the consequences of this are that everyone dies, and the reward for proceeding is the opportunity to try and help everyone go home.

Those who survive will find that the way out opens for them, where they may encounter others in the same position. The halls outside your cell may hold any number of trials, whether they be demonic guards, traps, or winding corridors designed to make you lose your way. Or maybe your own way forward is suspiciously clear… There may even be creature comforts provided to reward you for the ill deed you did to get where you are. You may also discover along your journey a heavy stone door labeled "catacombs" that will not open for you. But will it open from the other side?

But no, that's preposterous. Only the dead can be found in catacombs. Right?

The Senate Room

Alongside those in conspiracy to delay or interrupt His Infernal Majesty's plans for today, those ignorant of the truth of their nature and how it guides their fate or who were deemed inadequate fodder for the Court of Betrayal's dungeons have been placed in His Majesty's Senate Room, where his Court and the heads of others meet to discuss matters of the realm. They must rely on each other for information if they wish to leave, testing their mettle at courtly shrewdness, their ability to trust one another, and their understanding of the self.

{Be aware that beyond lies a complex and tense game of information-gathering, with the potential for death upon failure, and the possibility of unexpected violence. Proceed?}

Dark cloth sacks removed from your faces all at once, you are seated in a polished, official-looking meeting space, gathered around an ornate table of oak and marble. Around you are others--- quite a few, in fact. And in front of you, an envelope, with something written in tight, looping font on the front.

We are nothing but our nature. We do only what we were made to do. In this way, we are no different. In this envelope lies your passage forward to duty and destiny, but to open it, you must be able to speak the name of your nature. Do so before you are able, and perish. You are in the infernal realm. The barrier is not here to protect you. Best of luck.

Looking around, you can see words floating over the heads of those around you. They are not particularly flattering words. A descriptor, assigned to that person, presumably intended to define their nature. Above your own head, you see nothing. The game becomes clear. Predictably, if you try to speak the words you can see, or anything too similar that might give it away too easily, your throat tightens and your words are stolen from you.

Game on.

The Catacombs

Those who die in the fiery embrace of the Infernal Realm will not be saved by the Barrier. Lady Winter cannot save them, so their souls will remain here and their bodies will rest in our crypts.

{Be aware that beyond lies dangerous traps, monsters, and the remains of the dead. Proceed?}

You died.

This wouldn't be the first time. After all, that's how you got into this situation to begin with. But this time, it was made very clear to you that it would be permanent. You're outside the barrier, and with nothing to catch your soul at the border of reality and sling it back at you the next morning, it should be lost to whatever afterlife might find you here.

Unless, of course, you're not outside the barrier.

Whatever the case may be, you can't stay here. You have no idea how long it's been, and there are people somewhere who think you're dead. Surrounded by the ancient, dusty corpses of long-dead demons, it's difficult to confirm you're not. Perhaps you're in just as much of a hurry to convince yourself.

Down here, you will need to conquer physical obstacles, solve puzzles, and get past monsters to escape the catacombs. There are a number of stone doors that only open from the crypt side out, leading back up to the dungeon halls where the living are trying to escape the castle. You can encounter other "dead," or reach the dungeon to find other survivors. Perhaps if you're particularly persistent, you can reach the end of the maze entirely…

The Ceremonial Hall

Marrow Isle residents who do not capture the interest of His Infernal Majesty what so ever or whose usefulness to the Court of Treason is expended will be granted to His Infernal Highness Prince Aster of the Dark Feast, to use as indentured servants for a time, that they might be given worth elsewhere. They are not the concern of His Majesty, and he will bear them no mind.

{Be aware that beyond lies the alteration of memory. Proceed?}

Welcome to your first day at your new job! As an employee of the Infernal Royal Family, you've been tasked with preparing the castle's ceremonial hall for a coronation. After a great deal of ado, the Rite of Succession is finally nearing its end, and King Eligos is finally preparing to turn over his kingdom to his heir--- his middle son, Prince Aster. Shame about Prince Mendel and Prince Efrain, dead as they are, but that's how succession goes in the infernal realm.

What do you mean, you don't remember taking this job? Of course you did! There's nowhere more illustrious to work, nor a better time to have this job. You're making history, after all! So what if you don't remember the details of the application or interview? You know that this is your job. You remember coming to work. You know that you are supposed to be here, and that you chose to be here, and that you aren't going to leave. That's what's important, isn't it?

The hall is constructed of black marble primarily, and covered in red decorations that haven't been taken down since Eligos was coronated several hundred years ago. They're quite dusty. You'll need to take them down and replace them with the blue and gold ones intended for Crown Prince Aster. You'll also need to polish the throne, scrub the floors, set up the dining tables, prepare the food, dust everything, prepare the place settings… there's so much to do, so you had better get to work!

You'll be supervised by a Noble of Aster's Court, Duchess Claunthe. She can't be everywhere at once, of course, but she can be very, very strict when she wants to be. Take care not to get caught slacking off, even if it's tempting. This is a lot of work, after all, and there's demons coming and going who have no qualms about swapping courtly secrets and gossip in front of the help. Whenever you can catch a moment away, your coworkers would love to hear this.

Yes, this is definitely your job. (It's not.) You absolutely, definitely signed up for this. (You didn't.) It'd be absolutely preposterous to think otherwise. (You know you don't belong here. Run.) After all, this job pays so well, which you really need right now, don't you? (It doesn't. Even if it did, you have universal basic income, for the Mothers' sake. Please listen to me. Get out, now!) Besides, even if you didn't take this job, and this was all some grand trick---- where would you even go?

Get back to work.

The Waiting Room

A room is to be prepared for our Most Esteemed Guest, Father Francis Mulcahy. She is not a prisoner, but an ally to the Court of Woman Scorned led by Prince Dahlia, bringer of deliverance to a new era of Demonkind. Ensure that she is comfortable, and make room for any who might attend her, and prepare a line of communication. The King wishes for an audience.

{Be aware that beyond lies a terrible duty, and one inevitable death. Proceed?}

A round room, at the end of everything. It's strange, that particular detail is so clear despite the fact that it's impossible to see beyond it. Black walls bedecked neon red curtains, despite the lack of windows. Not blood red like Nyarlathotep prefers, but the red of malice. It's unclear how you can tell the difference, but you can. Plush curved sofas encircle the room, with gaps for tables at regular intervals that have lamps, statues, and the like sitting on them. The one in the center has a candlestick phone that rings when the first guest arrives.

If you manage to make your way through the catacombs or the dungeon, whatever route you take, you can end up here as well. But at first, it's just the one. Once the door closes on the final guest, and Eligos is ready for his audience, it opens back up, now leading somewhere else.

It's time. We all know what happens now.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ashley is, frankly, sick of getting kidnapped. This time was just as inevitable as the first, her normalgirl strength no match for the supernatural forces that had brought her here.

She comes to on a cold stone pedestal, groaning in pain as she rolls over and sits up. In her hands is a long, golden scepter that she can barely lift, and there's a heavy crown next to her.

Then she looks over and sees Leon, her heart skipping a beat at the sight of him on top of a white marble horse.

"Leon!" she calls, and tries to step off of her platform. As she tries to step off of her square, however, the one she's headed for slams up toward the ceiling with a loud crash, fast enough to make her yelp and stumble back. She looks around, taking in all the non-Leon things in the area, and says: "I-I think it wants us to play chess!"

"Looks like it," Leon agrees, sounding exhausted in spirit if not in terms of the adrenaline-fueled energy thrumming through him, especially after watching Ashley nearly get slammed into the ceiling by the board. "Why do these things always have to be so whimsical?"

He swears, if he ever finds the CEO of that contractor that built the sewers under Raccoon City he's gonna have some words for him. Ugh.

"I don't see one of those turn timers, at least. Let's try to think this through. You wouldn't happen to have chess club as one of your extracurriculars, would you? Because, uh." He nods towards the rules on the wall, sparse as they are. "I don't like the sound of that last one."

What does that mean? They can't be outside the barrier, can they?

"Mortanne cannot help you here," Ashley reads aloud, then frowns. She's been told that death isn't the same here, but the only time she's come close to testing it turned out to be a dream, so death generally feels just as final as it always has.

"Yeah, that's probably not good," she agrees. "I've played some with my dad before... But I'm not like, a master or anything."

"Yeah, that's about the level I'm at," Leon says, frowning and glancing up at the ceiling to get a bird's-eye view of the board again. There's a handful of pieces on the black side - including the king, a tall hooded figure with an oddly carapace-like crown and glinting silver eyes - but they seem to be the only white ones left. "Well. We'll get you back home for another round with him soon. I think whatever's going on here, it's something big. Those guards that came to get us - they looked like demons, to me."

Not that he's had a lot of contact with those, but between Efrain's swan-song and Mendel's stupid freakshow and Aster's casino he thinks he's got a general sense for them. Even if he's wrong about that, though, this seems like bad news.

"I think I'm in position to take out a pawn, and you look like you've got some more options, assuming you're the queen. What do you think?"

Ashley, meanwhile, glances behind them to make sure that their King isn't in check, and sees a stone crown on a smashed pedestal.

"Um... Well, I guess we don't have to worry about our king," she says, then looks at the board. "If you take that pawn, the bishop can get you," she says, pointing up at the mirror on the ceiling. "If I move to uhh..." she doesn't remember the numbers. "That square, then that puts the king in check."

Leon follows her gaze over to what's left of the white king, frowning. "Yeah. I guess this isn't exactly a regulation match. Anyway, you're right. If you move there, their king'll have to move out of the way to avoid being taken, which means..."

He frowns, staring up at the mirror as he thinks over the possible moves. "You won't be in danger from that rook despite being in its path, since that'll be black's turn. You wanna go for it?"

It doesn't feel good asking Ashley to move into danger, given the shattered state of the statues surrounding them and the assumptions he can draw from that, but it is the smart move, tactically. And if - if the demons are playing fair, that means it's the only move to make.

Ashley, with the same eagerness as she showed helping Leon on the island, nods.

"Yeah, I got it!" she says, then starts trying to figure out how to move without leaving her pedestal. "Um, Queen... That way!" she exclaims, pointing with the scepter. It's silly, but after a second there's a grating sound of stone moving on stone, and she flails as she tries not to lose her balance when her pedestal starts moving. "Okay stop!" she adds, as soon as she hits the square she was aiming for.

"That's check," Leon announces, once he's sure Ashley's pedestal has come to a stop. There's a seconds-long pause where nothing happens, after, that drags long enough to make him wonder if they'd somehow misunderstood the puzzle, before another rumble of stone against stone starts up and the black king trundles off to the side, out of Ashley's range.

Leon exhales, slowly. "So far so good," he says, eyeing the state of the board again. "What's next? Think it's gotta be your move again."

He gestures at the black rook, positioned to take her if she doesn't, but also within her range in turn.

March/April Event - By Order of the King

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