World Tree MUSH

It's early evening, very close to the time posted on the mysterious fliers that have been circulating around. In what is now the nation of Slovakia, dangerously close to the dangerous robots in Berlin, the ruins of a centuries-old castle are... no longer ruins. The castle stands, fully restored, atop a wooded hill.

Surely there is nothing dangerous or suspicious about this at all. Right?

Kerberos is here, although he couldn't say why.

There is a man of adult age walking towards the gathering. He's wearing ragged black jeans, beat-up sneakers, a grey hoodie, and earbuds of some kind. Right now the earbuds are blasting the twang of American blues rock, the twang of a lap steel slide guitar. The hood's bobbing in time to the beat.

The hood lifts to inspect the area every so often, though, and when it does, there is a crescent of glowing red iris visible in the shadows; a snatch of dusky skin; of short, windtossed black hair. And... is he sniffing as he walks? He is... because something just doesn't add up, here.

Oh, and that dude with the hoodie and the music, he absolutely reeks of... magic, or divinity, or something not normal.

    It's kind of a crapsack world, but to an adventurer, that just means... well, adventure! Lots of it. And possibly good pay. And probably not a lot of paperwork! That last part is extra-attractive to Hyouka Kiyama. Someone'll probably pay her for this, and even if they don't, she has no paperwork to care about. "Huh, so that's a real European castle, is it," she remarks idly as she approaches, coming out of the treeline with a backpack over one shoulder. "Hyouka, I'm certain I don't need to tell you, but a castle restoring itself like this usually means that fairly powerful magic is involved. Castles carry a great deal of symbolic strength." The voice comes from somewhere in the neighborhood of her collarbone, and is definitely someone else's.

    Hyouka just kind of nods her head a little. "Right, of course." She doesn't sound like she really gets it at all. "I'm sure it'll be fine, DARGN. I brought fire this time. I'm definitely ready for a fight."

    Emily regards it, wearing her 'daughter of Sparda' appearance -- the one where she has silver hair like Dante, a green trench coat and a bandeau bikini top, and combat boots. With the addition of a glowing white lunar tear flower in her hair. Oh, and she would also be the only proverbial child of Sparda with glowing purple eyes and four arms.

    "I wonder if whoever sent out those flyers was prepared for someone who can open dimensional fields," she says, smiling her usual amused and faintly smug smile. "Hello, Hyouka."

    She raises her eyebrows at the sight of the man in the hoodie. "Well, now," she says, her smile widening. "Even I can sense that, whatever it is."

    ... Seems like tonight, she's keeping it together better than she has been lately.

    Europe is hardly a place Yahiko is familiar with, but he's gotten to learn a lot of that in the last year or so of wandering the Tree. The young samurai trudges along, but he's experienced enough now that seeing what would be very odd people clustering together tells him it isn't enemies, but likely others curious about what's going on.

    "Hello," he greets the nearest person with a quick nod. "Um, pardon my asking, but aren't castles common in this region?"

The castle gates are closed. But now is the time on the flier, so... it's strange, isn't it? 

As soon as the clock ticks over, however, the ground near the gates suddenly vanishes, dropping those standing around down, down into darkness!

While it might feel like falling for quite some time, when the ground finally comes, it's somewhat softened, as if gravity was reset at ceiling-height. As soon as the first person makes contact with the floor, the lights turn on and a short fanfare sounds, showing a fully enclosed room with stone walls, floor, and ceiling. Water drips from a few places on the wall, but if one were to pay very close attention, the sound of dropping water is entirely artificial, as if playing from invisible speakers.

and speaking of invisible speakers, a female voice suddenly rings out, loud and clear and coming from every direction at once. "Welcome, all my little piglets! Welcome to Castle Csejte! I'm sure you've all come today hoping for the fabulous prize I promised... and I applaud all of you on your bravery in the face of such odds!" There's a pause as the owner of the voice claps a few times. "Now then, let's begin! The rules are simple... you gotta figure them out for yourselves, though~!"

As her voice cuts off after a short giggle, two pedestals rise up from the ground, each made of colored plastic: one red and one blue. A large button rests atop each. And on one of the far walls, the outlines of two previously invisible doors glow with similar red and blue light.

The hood perks up and tilts distinctly at the sound of nearby voices. Then it lifts a little before drooping in an obvious sigh from the person wearing it. The figure turns around, hands in pockets, and shuffles over to Hyouka and Emily Nyx.

'It' very definitely has glowing red eyes. The man lifts his head, and more features are visible: Stubble over his jaw; a few points where it's almost a goatee, spiky bangs of awfully fluffy-looking black hair fallen across his face.

"'It' can hear you." His tone is resigned, too listless for actual exasperation. "Something doesn't smell right. I have nothing better to do, so I want to find out."

"Anyway..." He looks up towards the castle again, reaching up to tug the earbuds out of his ears. "Guess we should find out wh--"

There goes the ground. The man howls, hood flapping wildly as his limbs flail much the same. But why does his shadow look like a big dog? With three heads?

OOF. The hoodie-wearer picks himself up with a cough, reaching up to tug his hood back into place and turning to face the voice.

Those glowing red irises blink somewhat owlishly under the hood. He looks at the pedestals and the doors, and then he looks at the others.

The scruffy hooded man shrugs.

    Yahiko eyes Cerberus, but doesn't comment on him. No, he's just listening for anything odd. Which... this qualifies. "Huh, that sounds- WOAH!"

    Unlike some, Yahiko doesn't have anything but natural agility to break his fall with. Good thing he has that in spades, landing with a thud and breaking the fall with bending knees and a palm on the ground. He tenses, ready for attack... only to find that this is some kind of riddle instead.

    Answering the shrug, Yahiko shrugs back! "I guess... the obvious would be the buttons open each door, but how do we know which one to take? Or just try both at the same time?"

    A familiar voice speaks up, and Hyouka's face lights up warmly. "Well, if it isn't Emily. It's good to see you too." She plants her hands on her hips and turns to look at the hooded man. "I don't really have any magic sense, but if you say it's a pretty big sense, it must be." Hyouka turns to glance up at the castle, then over to Yahiko. "They are, but this one was in ruins up until very recently, and apparently there were no construction crews. And there was a mysterious flyer going around, about some kind of deadly gaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-"

    Down they go.

    Hyouka is dumped unceremoniously on her rear, and takes a moment or so to get up. "Owowow... well, that was kind of an abrupt start-" Oh, a mystery voice. And... wow those rules are definitely unfair. "...I'm gonna hit the red one," she decides simply, already headed towards the pedestal.

    Emily rolls her eyes. "I meant your aura, dude," she says. "Or your ... atmosphere. Whatever the hell it is." She looks up to the castle ...

    The ground opens up underneath her, but she stays there in midair, staring at the castle. Then she glances down, blinks a couple of times with a cartoonish 'blink blink' noise that sounds like it's coming from a low-quality speaker, then shrugs and falls, her acceleration happening with unnatural slowness, and lands on her feet like a video game character whose physics movement was just cancelled.

    She's abusing the hell out of her inertial manipulation ability.

    She smiles up at the voice. "Iiiiinteresting!" she says. "Releasing capacitor seals three and two." She's surrounded by three distinct auras, one golden, one silver, and one pearlescent; the first two shatter, and the third one fades away, before she's surrounded by a swirl of what appears to be silvery glitter, and she's suddenly wearing a black trench coat and a wide-brimmed hat which casts her face into unnatural shadows, and her hair is only a shade lighter than the coat. There's also a large falchion sword on her back.

    She nods to Hyouka as she expresses the intention of messing with the pedestal, and with exaggerated movements, she sidles up to the blue door. "I wonder," she says, "what's on the other side!" She presses her ear against the door, pauses, raps it a few times, and then pauses again.

    "... I have no idea how to tell what's on the other side," she says finally.

There's enough of a magical barrier around the room, set within the walls, that sensing anything outside is next to impossible. It's fairly quiet, at least, save for the strange dripping sound that doesn't quite match the actual water on the walls.

Fairness was never advertised in the flier, but at least there seems to be no penalty for touching the walls or taking time to think. That's totally fair!

If the scruffy guy in the hoodie notices anybody else looking at him funny, he doesn't really acknowledge it. He dusts off the sleeves of his hoodie, which looks pretty threadbare, and stuffs his hands back into his pockets, lifting his gaze to survey the room and its pedestals again, just in case he missed anything the first time.

Shrugging, he trails after the others, looking briefly between the doors as his hood swings back and forth.

Hmmmmmm.

He abruptly turns and trails after Hyouka, following her towards the red door. His head tilts this way and that as he listens to the dripping, frowning as glowing red irises lift to the water on the walls. That's not matched right.

"Oh." This, to Hyouka. "You'll be wanting a name. I am... Cerberus." Power rings in his words, despite his languid voice. He lifts his chin to indicate further down the hall; red irises sliding towards Hyouka. "...Just in case you need our help up ahead... this place smells wrong."

    "Yahiko, Myojin Yahiko," the boy with the sword says absently in greeting. Cerberus is more of a western thing, and he doesn't have the education in that part of the world to pick it up immediately. Maybe his docter friend would, but not him.

    The idea of fretting forever isn't appealing to him either, so when Hyouka suggests that, he strolls up with her, hand on his hilt but only to eye the room. Also ready to press the blue button if needed. "Sure, if we don't have any other clues then what does it matter which one we press?"

    "Hyouka Kiyama," the cyborg replies to Cerberus, turning to give a Japanese-style bow almost on sheer reflex. "It's nice to meet you."

    But it seems no one's stopping her from hitting the red button. So she hits the red button. "Everyone's on edge about this whole thing, but it's not like we'll get anywhere just by standing around. We at least know ahead of time she wants to try and kill us, or says she does."

>> SUMMARY[Hyouka Kiyama] >> Hyouka is the kind of adventurer DMs love to torment.

    "And I am Emily Nyx, a eudaemon of the world known as the halcyon remnant," says Emily. She nods to Yahiko. "Long time no see, by the way, Mr. Myojin," she adds; she last met him the first time she left her homeworld, and he was basically the one who gave her the name 'Emily'.

    She watches Hyouka press the button, maintaining that amused and faintly smug smile. Then she frowns for a second and tips up the side of her hat; in another swirl of silvery nanomachines, the glowing white flower disappears, then rematerializes on the hat. Her smile returns.

When the button is pressed, it goes 'boop~!' Not a sound effect, but rather the voice from earlier just saying 'boop~!' comes from the pedestal. Both of them sink into the ground, and the blue outline disappears from the wall. The lights in the room slowly begin to dim, darker and darker, until only the red outline is remaining, then that winks out as well, leaving the entire room in pitch black silence.

Then the lights pop back up again and confetti shoots from... somewhere. A triumphant chime plays, and the red outline glows more brightly until the wall within it disappears, leaving an opening.

"Correct choice~! Now continue on to the next room!" The voice pauses a moment. "ah? But someone doesn't want to wait. You'll have to contend with him first, then~!"

A low growl sounds, then a softer one, then a hiss... and a large chimera springs into the room through the opened doorway, all three mouths opening to fire blasts of magical fire, ice, and acid.

The scruffy guy in the hood tilts his head away, studying Hyouka from the corner of a glowing iris, expression relaxed. Either he wasn't expecting the bow and he's looking at her a little funny, or he's just studying her. It's tough to say; his expression doesn't change too much. Languid. Relaxed. Almost but not quite world-weary, or maybe just lazy.

At Hyouka's commentary, he just sighs a sigh of profound exasperation. It is a very long sigh. "I very much doubt she can kill us. If she can, we're getting careless..."

He doesn't clarify to whom he's referring with his plural statements, but there's definite meaning to them. What a weird guy.

The pedestal goes boop.

Cerberus blinks, owlishly, frowning under his hood. He doesn't look affably lazy any more; he looks exasperated and a little annoyed. Eventually he just sighs, turning and trudging forward toward the opening. He's mid-step when there comes the sound of a low growl, and every line of his body immediately snaps into unmistakable tension.

Heaving an exasperated sigh, the scruffy guy ducks and turns, a sinuous movement; black, sulphurous smoke lit from within obscures him for a heartbeat, and the sudden ripple of mana is a bit like a dam bursting. And then, an enormous black dog crouches where the scruffy guy was standing. It's a big mastiff with a long nose and the same glowing red irises, ears swept back and hackles spiking upright along his shoulders.

A deep snarl bubbles up from his throat as he launches himself at the central head of the chimera, snapping and snarling.

There are way too many fangs in that mouth for a regular dog. And it moves too fast and hits too hard. Definitely Not Normal.

    "Oh? Oooh?!" Correct choice! Hyouka claps her hands together happily. "Alright, let's go... huh?" Someone doesn't want to wait? Contend? What-

    ICE! Oh god ice!

    The blast bowls Hyouka over, and her internal HUD immediately starts reading damage to her systems - nothing concerning, but she should definitely not be taking more of those head on. Fortunately, she has a way to counter at least one of those three elements. "Fisto, ON!!"

    With a snapping and a clacking, a clanking and a thunking, her forearms split apart, deploying more and more machinery and plates, until the massive twin gauntlets of the FISTEAU system have replaced everything from the elbow down. Along each fist, lines of energy light up in orange-red, and a noticeable heat begins to radiate; when she suddenly charges in to hurl a great big haymaker at the ice-spewing head, it's enveloped in a corona of elemental fire mana, making for quite a sight.

    Emily shoots into the air, out of the way of the attack. "Well, that escalated fast!" she says. She holds her upper right hand out to the side, and then seems to melt into the shadows.

    Or to be more precise, her form seems to melt, and becomes a roiling mass of grainy shadows, mostly hidden in the darkness, which sweeps around the chimera before Emily suddenly leaps out of it in a burst of nanomachines, holding two falchion swords at the ready and slashing at its side.

    If Yahiko had seen more movies he might complain about the special effects, but instead he just looks startled, scratches his head, and starts to shrug. "Fine with me I guess..." At least, that's the idea.

    Unfortunately there's a chimera to contend with. "Where did THAT come from?!" He shouts loudly, completely surprised by this. But his 'surprise' is a swordsman's surprise, and the boy's sword is out, dull edge and all, in an instant. He's dashing to the side, fast enough he goes several steps up the wall, using it as a springboard to try leaping over and doing a quick strike from an odd angle, hopefully without getting frozen or burned or something.

The bad news: the chimera's magic blasts are extremely strong, no matter the element, and are capable of doing a lot of damage!

The good news: it has very little defense. With the teeth and the swords and the fire fist and the other swords, it doesn't take long at all for the beast to be overpowered. It roars out as it's struck, then starts to fade away, dissolving into nothing but some dust. Soon enough, even that dust evaporates. Even though the fight was over so quickly, it somehow almost feels like it was a lot more effort than it actually was... "Oooh, that was faster than expected~!" calls the voice from before. "You're all stronger than I expected! Maybe you have a chance after all... better hurry, though~!" 

As she says that, spikes pop out of the far wall, which starts to slowly close in. The only way out is that red door! Through the door is another room, not too different from the first.

Except this time there are three pillars: blue, red, and green, with similar glowing door outlines on the wall.

    While they seem to have managed to down the chimera, Hyouka keeps her FISTEAU deployed; this has officially become a 'could have to fight for their lives any time' situation. She does stop just inside the door, though, to make sure everyone comes through, and when she notes one missing, she's briefly confused. "Wait, what about that Cerberus guy-" It's about this moment that her eyes land on the mastiff that just helped her fight a monster. And the coin drops. "...oh. Oh."

    Hyouka scratches the back of her head, embarrassed, and decides to focus on something else instead.

    Namely, more buttons! "Alright, let's see. So the red one was the right one last time. There's another red one here, but I guess it's not likely to be the red one again, so I can't just hit that one... well, unless that's what she wants us to think. It could be like one of those teachers that sets all the answers to 'B' or something. ...unless she went with the same color scheme just to throw is off, knowing we'd expect it to be different this time..."

    DARGN says, "Hyouka, please."

    "Not now, I'm thinking," Hyouka replies distractedly.

>> SUMMARY[Hyouka Kiyama] >> Now Hyouka is the kind of adventurer that drives DMs up the wall.

The black dog backs away from the defeated chimera, grimacing and spitting and generally looking like it bit into or swallowed something terrible. It is the universal look of 'BLEAGH, GROSS.' Turning, the head jerks toward the sound of the voice, ears pricking forward.

The movement elicits a tiny rattling sound, and the gleam of a chain is visible around the black dog's neck; a thick iron collar, fitted with a short length of broken chain. But why does his shadow have three heads...?

The dog half-crouches and shakes itself, the chain jangling wildly as he plops down on his haunches to scratch behind his jaw.

The head turns around to Hyouka as she wonders what happened to the scruffy guy in the hoodie... and the jaw falls open into a doggy grin.

I'm right here.

The voice is the same; it's just coming from the dog. Which isn't moving its mouth at all. Upright ears swivel forward.

I like red, Cerberus offers helpfully, to Hyouka. Of course he likes red; says the dog with the glowing red eyes. Does that help make her red-or-blue decision any easier??

    Emily chuckles. "You only just now made the connection?" she answers Hyouka, grinning as she looks over the dog's three-headed shadow. She has the same voice in all forms, too. "Hmm. I'm pretty sure you're overthinking this, too." She regards the pillars for just a moment. "... and, wait, no, I'm overthinking it too."

    She holds her hand upward and turns her gaze skyward, as if trying to see through the ceiling above them. "I think, in an emergency, I might be able to bail us out," she says. "I'm not sure I want to risk peeking through the doors by the same means, however. It's not clear to me how thick they are before they 'open'. What little sensors I have ... are being blocked."

    "There sure are some weird things in this world," Yahiko opines. "I think this is the same one with Sakamoto's wife. And Kiyohime. And giant spiders..." He shudders, but that's why he isn't too shocked by Cerberus's appearance turning to that of a dog. It does still have him eying the canine for a while, but he's more interested in making sure he didn't get any injuries that last fight that would hamper him.

    The debate is... well. "Okay well, I'd give it even odds that she wants us to use the same color throughout, or if she wants a pattern, that means that the red would be one third chance. So um... it's probably red. I think." He walks toward it, perhaps buoyed by the idea that Emily claims she might be able to get them out of this, and promptly gives a sharp kick to the red pillar unless one of the others stops him. "Let's see what comes out this time."

When the pillar is kicked, it seems pretty solid. Perhaps not as solid as the rock floor, but more like hard plastic. "Hey, no abusing the puzzles!" comes the voice from nowhere. "Cute little piglets should behave and play the game the right way!"

When the button is pressed, however, a gong suddenly sounds. "Buubuu~!" The red pillar sinks into the ground, and a brief, but powerful, electric shock runs across the floor. "Better be careful, or it might be worse next time~!" The voice giggles before fading out again, and only the blue and green pillars remain.

    "I was pretty sure it wasn't the red one," Hyouka says, tapping her chin thoughtfully.

    "Were you." DARGN deadpans.

    "Mhm. I was just about convinced I should try the blue one. And now that the red one has been eliminated, since there was a 67% chance I was wrong, that means there's a 67% chance it's the green one."

    There's a brief pause.

    "Hyouka, how does someone like you know the Monty Hall Problem?" DARGN finally asks.

Another ripple of smoke, and the dog evapourates in another wash of billowing smoke, scented faintly of sulphur. He's replaced by the scruffy guy in the hoodie from earlier, who reaches up to adjust the hood back into place, pop the earbuds back into his ears, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

His hooded head tilts.

He settles for standing near the group, hands in pockets, just away from the red pedestal as Yahiko activates it.

Oh. Look at that. The voice scolds them from above, and the hood lifts, as Cerberus lifts red irises to the ceiling. He can't actually see the voice, but he's listening.

One hand produces a toothpick from a pocket, and he chews boredly on the end. He heaves a long sigh, reaching up to fiddle the toothpick into the right spot. And then there comes a tiny snap as the shock races through the floor, causing him to clench up and break the toothpick in half between his teeth. Sourly, he reaches into his pocket and produces another one, looking between the blue pillar and the green pillar.

"Green?"

He's just guessing, honestly.

    "GYAH!" Yahiko jumps with a jolt, stumbling back and dancing on the ground. Good thing he's wearing wooden sandals or that could have been pretty bad. As it is he's left with tingly legs, a bit of mild burns, and a serious hit to his pride. Which he needs to recover FAST now!

    "Monty Hall problem?" Huff. "Oh, I know this. Is that the one where we have to worry about the horrible man-eating rabbit and need a special divine bomb to take care of it? I don't see how that's relevant."

    Emily lets out an electronic-sounding squawk as the ground gets shocked; a single silvery crack appears on her left foot. "Okay, okay," she says, rising off the ground. "Not touching the floor anymore."

    She narrows her eyes at Hyouka. "I don't think it works like that," she says. "You're committing the mind-projection fallacy. Your own certainty has no material effect on the correct outcome. The odds of both of the remaining ones are now, as far as I can tell, fifty-fifty." She pauses. "Monty Hall, Yahiko, not Monty Python."

    Nevertheless, without hesitation, she pounds on the green button unless stopped.

"Green! I heard someone say green~!" When the green button is touched, the blue pillar sinks into the ground. The room briefly goes dark, and a sudden surge of very brief but very sharp pain strikes all in the room. Those who are magic sensitive may notice that some magical energy was drained as well.

A soft gasp echoes through the room, "Wh..whoops, guess I set that one up wrong. Sorry! ...ahem-hem. Onward anyway, you're doing great~!"

The scruffy guy in the hoodie shakes his head as though to clear it again, and when he moves his head far enough to one side, the same metal band is around his neck, with its short length of snapped-off chain. He's still twitching a little, but at least he doesn't snap the second toothpick this time. His hands slide back into his pockets but the square set of his shoulders suggests a certain discomfort. The floor's not gonna shock him again, is it!?

He stops listening to the others, tuning them out. He's a dog. This kind of stuff is not his thing. So he just stands there with his hands on his pockets, until the green button is pressed.

He crouches a little, red irises turned up to the ceiling, flitting this way and that, as though expecting something unpleasant to happen.

Ughhhhhhh. That is unpleasant. The scruffy guy in the hoodie snarls. It's a preternaturally deep sound that bubbles up from deep within his chest, and it is Inhuman.

The voice is ushering them on, though. Hades' guard hound sighs and chews on his toothpick.

What was that mortal saying?

"Onward and upward," Cerberus deadpans, trudging forward.

    "Ghk-!" The electrical shock was bad, but easy enough to shrug off. That sudden jolt of pain at the green button, though, that's enough to stagger Hyouka a little. "Ow...! What kind of demented..." She trails off, developing a faint frown. "...well, I guess I kinda signed up for a demented game show, didn't I." DARGN speaks up, her voice more serious, "Hyouka. We have suffered a brief mana drain." Hyouka blinks, then stares at her gauntleted fingers, flexing them as she walks. "Was it bad?" The AI snorts softly. "Hardly. The DraCor Engine produces enough mana that was barely even a dent. Levels are already back to normal."

    Well, that's good, at least. But Cerberus over there is making some slightly concerning sounds. "Y-yeah, let's keep moving."

    Emily clutches her chest, and she sinks several inches in the air. "Gah!" She stays that way for a moment, glancing uncertainly at Cerberus and Hyouka; then takes a deep breath (even though she's a robot) and rises upward again. "Yeah, wasn't too bad for me, either," she says. "It was merely ..." She tips up her hat, revealing her glowing purple eyes, and a pair of sunglasses materialize over them. "... shocking."

    She smirks up at the voice. "Ah, I'm starting to see see why the probability of survival is so low," she says cheerfully, as she glides into the next room. "It's the host's fault."

    Unlike all the others, Yahiko has very little mana. He flinches, clutching his chest, but does recover quickly. "What was that?" More confused than the others, without a source of mana of his own. True he has the ambiguous 'swordsman's spirit' or whatever, but he's not a mage of any kind, so that probably just puts him above the average pleb.

    Still, the whole affair has left him sulking and grumpy, questioning his even being here. "I'm not even here for the reward, I just want to know what's going on, and this world keeps having crazy threats show up trying to eat people."

"It's not my fault!" Seems she overheard the comment. "Just for that, I'm making this next on extra hard~!"

In the middle of the next room are three more pillars: cyan, magenta, and yellow. On the far wall is a countdown timer, already ticking down from 9... 8... 7... 6...

And buzzing in everyone's head is a whispered voice... a different whispered voice for each.

Cerberus hears: press the magenta one first and you'll win, but everyone else will lose~

Hyouka hears: press the yellow one first and you will die, but everyone else will live~

Emily hears: press the cyan one first and you, but only you, get double prizes~

Yahiko hears: press the hidden white button beneath the clock to get rid of them all~

5... 4... 3....

Swatting his hoodie down as though there were stray shocks of pain he could swat away, Cerberus glowers in Hyouka and DARGN's direction, and Emily's. So they felt it, too. Heonly nods his head, hood dipping briefly. Yup. He felt it, too.

"Who goes through all this trouble, anyway?" The scruffy guy in the hoodie sounds just a little bit grumbly. "What's the point of all this?"

He sighs and trudges after the others, though, but not without a concerned look to Yahiko. I don't know." He shakes his head. "There are reasons for that, but I do not know them in full. I am of this world, though..." He pauses, lifting his face until his nose protrudes from the hood, just slightly, sniffing. "Not this place. I don't know this place."

There's a countdown.

Why is there a countdown?

His shoes squeak on the floor as he turns abruptly, looking to see where the others are going. He's also pacing to the magenta switch as he does, frowning. "Magenta...?"

He hasn't touched it. Yet.

    "Huh? The yellow one-?" Hyouka stops, muttering in surprise and looking upward, as if to address the source of the voice. There's a countdown. It's supposed to be harder. They've already been attacked by a chimera, and hurt by a misbuilt trap. She only has seconds to decide whether it's a trick or not, and she has ample evidence this mystery girl is, in fact, willing to kill them. Or at least put them in mortal terror.

    3... 2...

    "Tch-!" Gut instinct makes the call first; the cyborg rushes forward with all the superhuman speed she has, and doesn't just hit the yellow button - she slams it, smashing it with her full strength and huge gauntlet. Then, she immediately whips around and drops into a 'come at me' stance, yelling at the ceiling. "Well c'mon, if you think you can just kill me-!"

>> SUMMARY[Hyouka Kiyama] >> Knee-jerk reaction: Heroism.

    Yahiko may have been misjudged. Immediately upon hearing what he hears, the boy dashes over to the clock, spins around... and puts a hand on his sword hilt as if ready to fight any of the others. "Not an option." Seems he doesn't want to just get rid of the others, even if he's complaining a bit. Then again his sword IS blunt-edged, maybe their mysterious host hasn't realized he's largely a pacifist.

    So he's here to keep anyone ELSE from pressing that button.

    Emily's smirk doesn't waver. "Yeah, I meant for you to hear that," she says.

    And then the appearance of the clock wipes that smug look off her face. For two seconds. She launches herself towards the magenta button, comes to a sudden stop when she sees Hyouka's sudden intensity and Yahiko's conviction -- she knows what that look in someone's eyes means. Immediately, the answer springs to mind: they all heard something different, not just in terms of which button they were ordered to press, but the actual content.

    She grins nastily, and positions herself in front of Hyouka, facing forward and looking up. "Add me to the defense team," she says.

>> SUMMARY[Emily Nyx] >> Definitely not a hero here, nuh-uh, no sirree

The yellow button gets pressed, and no others. 

2... and it stops.

"...awwww, you guys are so boring! I thought it'd work on at least one of you! Hmph..." There's a clicking sound of fingernails drumming on a tabletop. "I guess there's nothing to do for it. I did promise a one in a thousand chance to win..."

The countdown timer siddenly slips wider, showing a big negative sign in front: -2.

"Which of course means you all lose~!" There's the sound of a button press with some cheerful giggling, and the floor slides away in panels, dropping everyone... about two inches down.

"..hee hee hee--wait, what?" There's a pause, and the same voice is heard as if further away from the microphone. "Why did I put the spikes in the blue room! They were supposed to go in the green room! Ah-- that's still on, huh...."

Another pause, a slight cough, then the voice comes back with a sweet demeanor, "I suppose that means everybody won, then. You're all so lucky!" A door on the far side of the room slides open. "Come on to the next room to get your prize!"

    "I came here to have some fun with a weird situation, and maybe see if I could stop some crazy person for a local adventuring bounty or something," Hyouka replies, crossing her arms. Well, trying to. The FISTEAU make it awkward. "I'm not gonna just save my own hide if it means climbing over someone else to do it."

    Wait. -2?

    "Huh-?"

    The floor slides out from under her. "WHOA-!"

    Thump. THUD.

    Thud? Yes, thud. The two-inch drop and having the floor slide out from under her is surprising enough to Hyouka that she completely loses her balance and falls on her rear end. Thud. "...she just tried to kill us, didn't she," Hyouka grouses. "Indeed," DARGN confirms. The elflike cyborg climbs to her feet and stomps towards the door, grumbling. "...gonna give her a piece of my mind."

    The minute the words "you all lose" are uttered, Emily springs into action, remaining above the ground. There's a swirl of silvery nanomachines, and she transforms into a strange hovering device with a purple LED on top and three extendable arms, which all shoot towards the others --

    And they stop in midair as the complete lack of a spike pit is revealed.

    The device laughs in Emily's voice, the light flickering in time to it. "Foolishness giveth, foolish taketh away," she says, and in another swirl of nanomachines, she's now in the form of a lavender-skinned demoness with hair so black it looks like a graphical glitch or a rip in space, wearing a neon-pink crop top bearing the text "I'll Stop Wearing Pink When They Invent A Darker Color" and bright red booty shorts with some evil AI's rant about hating humanity printed on the backside.

    And she has four falchion swords, one in each of her four hands. She's gripping them very tightly, too. "Yeah, I'm with you there, Hyouka," she says, striding forward towards the door.

>> SUMMARY[Emily Nyx] >> The booty shorts in question: https://64.media.tumblr.com/4b34d60303e4051e9e6d7e95f15288a7/tumblr_inline_pn678lrUSC1ruc1l6_1280.png

    Stare. What is WITH these outfits? Yahiko is lucky he can read what Emily's shirt says, but now kind of wishes he hadn't. The boy grumbles, picking himself up from the ground and rubbing his rear, then sheathing the blade. "Not sure I trust what the treasure is anyway," he mumbles.

    It hasn't escaped him what happened though. "So we all had the option to mess with the others or something?" He frowns, "I haven't had a loyalty test like that since I was a kid." He's a little grumpy because he's been drained, shocked, frozen, and now has that minor but intended-deadly drop under his belt too.

The hellhound looks up to the ceiling when that voice starts talking again, frowning slightly around his toothpick. Who exactly is the master of this place? What a weird castle. What are humans doing, building things like this, anyway? All the builders needed to worry about in /his/ realm was the glorious columns of the temples to the gods...

He huffs a breath, just in time to look down--

"--Oh Hades not agaaaaiiiin--!"

--and the hellhound is sent tumbling down... two inches.

Splat.

He lands on his rump, glaring up... and then looking at everyone else. "I don't think that was supposed to happen." To Hyouka, he frowns. "I think the better explanation is, 'she tried to kill us and botched it.' What a strange mortal."

He picks himself up, shaking off, the chain of his collar jangling. "What do you think the prize is? Is it getting to teach her a lesson? I'd be okay with that." Smoke shimmers again, and where the scruffy guy in the hoodie was, there's that giant mastiff. It looks like the kinds of statues found in Greek and Roman statues; a very specific sort of mastiff, with a long snout and upright ears. It's also very, very big.

Cerberus swivels his ears back, and in his shadow, all three heads back their ears.

I don't know. But I grow weary of being a gamepiece. Cerberus is back to grumbling. Heracles got to play his little game. That was enough for me for one lifetime.

He turns, quick as smoke, loping for the newest room.

His ears are still back, though. Grumpy mutt is grumpy.

The next room is much more well-lit and no longer has a motif of dank stonework. It's much more modern in appearance, with soft carpet on the floor and ribbons and banners hanging from the walls. On either side of the doorway is a velvet rope, leading the way forward with just enough space for a single file line. Oddly enough, despite it just being a velvet rope, it's impossible to jump the line. There's no pain or backlash, just... it's as if the room ends past the rope and there's nowhere to go, even if it looks empty.

Down the end of the walkway is a booth decorated with more ribbons, angled in such a way that it's impossible to see who's in it until getting right in front. A voice calls from the booth, the same one as before, but apparently not through speakers, "Okay~! Come on up, one at a time, and you'll get your prize. I did promise, after all~!"

    "Mine said I could hit the button and I would be the only one to die," Hyouka replies to Yahiko. "Figured I'd rather take my chances on mine. My body's pretty tough."

    She's relatively quiet the entire way through the more well-lit, 'cushy' area of the castle, not even trying to jump the velvet rope; it just doesn't even occur to her, really. "We really ought to go up all at once, since 'time' apparently counts up to zero from the negatives here," she remarks, her voice a bit dry. Regardless, she's trudging her way right up to the booth. "Hyouka, you really should prepare for one last ambush," DARGN murmurs. Hyouka grunts an affirmative.

The black hound lops into the room, and when it becomes clear there aren't any monsters ready to pop out, another swirl of black smoke and the faint scent of brimstone bring back the scruffy guy in the hoodie. He swishes the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other, glowing red irises settling thoughtfully on the velvet rope.

Well, that's different.

The toothpick rolls back and forth a few times. Cerberus raises his head, head bobbing as though he were testing his nose under the hood. He finally shrugs, shaking his head, content to trail the others. "Mine said, 'Press the magenta one first and you'll win, but everyone else will lose~'" He even manages that little warble at the end, although it sounds kind of dog-ish.

Shrug. He's content to file after Hyouka. "I agree." This, to DARGN. "The master of this place doesn't seem exactly......"

He lets that one trail off.

    Yahiko shares his, "There was a button under the clock that would get rid of all of you. I think she misread me, because I don't really like killing." An understatement. "Even my enemies, and none of you have done anything to make me an enemy." He glances over his shoulder. "I've met Emily before, and Cerberus seems pretty okay. A lot less uh... scary than Kiyohime."

    He nods, "Yeah, let's all go together. She seems a little um..." He doesn't trail off for long, knowing she may be listening. "Carefree in ways that could be dangerous."

    Emily shrugs. "Mine was cyan for double points," she says. She hmms, and pokes at the 'empty space.' "Okay, I'm intrigued," she says. "There are some amazing dimensional properties around here. Almost seems like the physics are different, as if we were entering another Blossom, but we seem to be in the same one."

    She simply follows behind the others. Still, she doesn't let go of her swords.

As the first one in line, Hyouka, approaches, she can finally see the face that goes along with the voice. It's a girl in her teenage years, dressed in frills, with crimson horns growing from her head. Her fingers may initially look to have long red nails, but on a closer inspection, those actually are her fingers. 

The girl reaches out to take Hyouka's hand in both of her own, and gives it a shake, her tail swishing behind her. Despite her thin arms, there's some strength in her grip, though she doesn't really squeeze very hard. "Next~!"

Wait, that was it?

The hood glances over to Yahiko, but the light from inside suggests the hellhound is squinting one eye shut. He manages a too-deep, too-low sound rather like 'gruh?' at Yahiko when the swordsman makes his comment. "I don't mean you any ill, if that's what you're asking." He shrugs, rolling the toothpick to the other side of his mouth. Wonders, briefly, if Hades would let him have toothpicks when things get fixed up. How useful. "But I don't care one way or another." He sighs. "Good grief. Mortal souls are a pain, sometimes..."

He eyes Yahiko, both eyes opening again. ""Hmmmmm..." A thoughtful sound. "Carefree? Not what I was thinking..." He sighs that beleaguered sigh. "I guess it'll do."

He turns, hood tilting to eye Emily next. Definitely not a mortal, and therefore somewhat interesting. He rolls the toothpick back and forth a bit. "Dunno." He offers this, to Emily; he might be a Divine BEast, but that doesn't mean he knows thaumaturgy. He might know basics gleaned from listening to mortal souls on their way into the Underworld, but not much more than that. "We'll find out, maybe..."

"Oi. Hyouka." Cerberus lifts his head; hood perking up a little. "What's going on up there--?"

    Hyouka is just about winding herself up to start giving the malicious demon in charge of this event a dressing down, when she gets there and- ...what? Huh? That's... that's a young girl, isn't it? And- wait huh? What just- blink blink. Without even thinking about it, in sheer confusion, Hyouka gives the idol one brief, careful shake, then turns around to step aside. It's probably a hilarious size mismatch with the FISTEAU equipped.

    "...did I just do a handshake event without realizing it?"

    "Yeah I didn't think you did," Yahiko agrees with Cerberus. "I'm getting used to strange creatures, and being from this messed up world - uh, no offense - makes sense." He shrugs, then stares up at what's going on... and sighs, "Or maybe she just has a bit of an ego."

    He won't really resist doing the whole thing either though, even if it's really awkward and weird for him.

    Emily probably registers as just plain weird to anyone who takes a good supernatural look at her. A machine with a soul and magic -- and one made out of three quintillion smaller machines at that, imitating a solid form. Not remotely divine, but still with a measure of power. Perhaps not 'immortal' by whatever technical definition this world has, but definitely ageless by any reasonable dictionary definition.

    She smiles, puts her swords on her back, and shakes Elizabeth's hand. And then a metal plate materializes on her forehead in a miniature swirl of nanomachines, and she attempts to grasp firmly on it Elizabeth's wrist, and yank her forward at high speeds for a headbutt.

One by one, everyone gets a handshake! Just beyond the booth is an open door, which seems to lead back outside. "Thank you for coming~! It was nice meeting you~! I'll be holding a concert as soon as I can get a proper stage set, so make sure to come listen and cheer~!"

And then it's Emily's turn. The handshape proceeds as normal, but then another hand grasps her wrist. "Weh?" While she is quite strong, she also doesn't weigh very much, so she's easily pulled forward.

Clong!

"Uwaa~!" As she staggers back, eyes swirly, Elizabeth brings one hand up to cover her forehead. "That's no way to treat an idol!"

"I don't." Cerberus shrugs, the gesture nonchalant. "My job is to guard the gates. I have no involvement beyond that..." He sighs. "But this world is pretty messed up. I can't argue with that." His expression sours. "I'm travelling around to find out what happened, and to try and fix it before anything really important breaks."

A hand is offered for Elizabeth to shake when he's filed on through. His hand is warm and dry; the pads of his fingers rough, like paw pads, and darker than the skin around them. If she can see under that hood, his face looks human, but his eyes are very much not -- pupil and sclera both black but for the red ring of the iris, glowing softly.

He siiiighs, and permits this small girl to shake his hand. Or is it a paw? It's awful rough without looking too bizarrely inhuman... but one could get he sense that this appearance is a sham; that it doesn't mesh with the monstrous aura of him.

Cerberus, for his part, just looks really puzzled. Like he's not really sure what just happened actually happened.

Mostly because he's not. Actually sure what just happened.

"I am very confused," the hellhound murmurs.

    Emily smirks back at Elizabeth. "I treat everyone equally, 'idol' or otherwise," she says. "Unless you provoke my ire. And playing with people's lives for your amusement? Definitely a 'bad guy' thing to do." She sounds so cheerful about all this.

    She turns to face the others, her face that amused and faintly smug smile. The metal plate dematerializes, and the glowing flower returns to her Vantablack hair. "All sorts of worlds have trouble," she says nonchalantly. "At least the halcyon remnant of the world where I'm from is dead enough that the 'trouble' amounts to the same thing as 'zero'. I might have to drop by here again, if I find trouble which is entertaining enough for me to try to help resolve it. I'm no hero." ... Didn't she just enthusiastically throw herself directly into Hyouka's defense a moment ago, though?

    "Honestly, I'm not even grumpy about the playing-with-our-lives thing," Hyouka says to Emily, finally finding some semblance of her footing. "We did kind of sign up for that." She takes a half-step forward and adds in Elizabeth's direction, "But changing the rules and not playing fair is really not nice of you to do. If you're going to throw us into a death game, don't pretend to give us a chance and then pull the rug out from under us at the last moment." One huge mechanical finger is pointed at Liz. "You at least have to stick to the rules you lay out if you want people to respect you."

    Is... is she... lecturing the dragon idol girl?

Still rubbing her forehead, Liz looks up and pouts. Pouts! "You all knew the odds when you came here, you know. It was totally fair!" Her tail lashes behind her in annoyance. "Isn't trying to blame me when you knew your chances just being grumpy about things not going your way?" 

Arms crossing, she turns her head to the side and lets out a huff. "I did say one in a thousand, you know! It's written right on there!"

"I don't care one way or the other." Cerberus shrugs, broad shoulders squaring momentarily. He's solidly built as a humanoid, that much is obvious even through the hoodie and shirt he's wearing. "To be honest, I don't know if she has enough power to affect me very much. If she does, I'd be surprised..."

Again that brief sensation of a monstrous aura, just beneath the lid of the odd-looking man. He tils his head one way, cracking his neck; tilts it the other way, again, this time to let it crack on the other side.

He still looks a little puzzled. The hellhound siiiighs, rolling the toothpick to the other side of his mouth again and frowning around it as he eyes Elizabeth. Red irises glow softly under the shadow of the hood.

"...Actually," Cerberus ventures, "it sounds like things didn't go your way..."

    Emily chuckles, and nods to Cerberus. "I think he's right," she tells Elizabeth. "You are a bastard, whatever your name is. I know because I am one, and it takes one to know one." She waggles a finger. "Just giving you a fair warning! The consequences of doing bad guy things is a pain to deal with. And you are now part of a multiverse which is full of people who are more than capable of responding to your doing bad guy things ..." She cracks her knuckles. Which is to say, her knuckles play a cracking sound effect. "... by doing good guy things."

    She turns away. "I did have fun, though!" she says, tilting her head at an unnatural angle and smiling over her shoulder. "We should play again some other time. I am Emily Nyx, or Nyx-model Eudaemon MLE0. What's your name?"

"Hmph! You shouldn't go talking bad about idols, you know!" Grump grump pout. She does eventually uncross her arms and let out a sigh, though. At least sh egot some magic out of the day.

"Weh?" The dragon makes a surprised sound as Emily looks back. "Oh, um. Elizabeth. Elizabeth Bathory. And if you had fun here, you definitely need to come to my next live concert! It'll be a blast~!" Probably not literally. Probably.

Cerberus sticks his hands deeper into his pockets, hood tilting as he studies Elizabeth for a moment or two. Her words about idols mostly makes his eyes gloss over. In fact, so does a lot of the rest of it. He sighs around his toothpick.

He glances sidelong as Emily offers her introductions to Elizabeth. Oh, are we making introductions again? The hellhound's expression droops a little further, and he tilts his head further. Really?

"...I'm Kerberos." Well, that jives with the monstrous aura. A divine beast. Still, there's one aspect that doesn't make sense. The head twists to face Elizabeth again.

"...Why?" The hellhound shrugs, elabourately. Whether he's asking why he should go to the concert or why Elizabeth went to all this trouble, he doesn't clarify.

    Emily chuckles, and shifts back into the black-trench-coat form. "I'll have to do that," she says. A staticky portal opens in front of her, and turns black in the process. "Be seeing you!" she says, although she pauses before stepping through, because she's honestly also curious about the answer to Cerberus's question.

Blinking once, Liz tilts her head toward Cerberus. "Why?" She taps one long finger against her cheek. "Because an idol exists to bring love and joy to the world, and everyone here needs to smile more!" Despite anything she has done already today, her reply does seem genuine.