Berkeley's Phantasmagoria

[Serela]

All 196 updates have been backed up. *sigh*

[Hello Purvis]

>Have some din-dins.
>"So...where did Lufie come from? I mean, I know a little bit about the forest, your town, and Veronica's town. But what else is there out there that you know of?"

[MysTeariousYukari]

> "Please note that a lot of things from your world are new and un-usual here, including ghosts and spirits being visable. I also live with my mother who is rather depressed over some certain business, so her seeing you could be odd... please try to avoid being seen by anyone other then me while your here... if you can that is. If you get seen it's not a problem, but it would be odd, so lets try to avoid that."

[Serela]

>Have some din-dins.
>"So...where did Lufie come from? I mean, I know a little bit about the forest, your town, and Veronica's town. But what else is there out there that you know of?"

>You start eating the spaghetti. Mmm, delicious~
>"I... well, I don't really know. I never left Wintervale much, at least, not very far from the town. I'd never heard anything about any kind of person living outside of the town, except for the fairies. I know that there's the Ice Palace north of Wintervale, though."

> "Please note that a lot of things from your world are new and un-usual here, including ghosts and spirits being visable. I also live with my mother who is rather depressed over some certain business, so her seeing you could be odd... please try to avoid being seen by anyone other then me while your here... if you can that is. If you get seen it's not a problem, but it would be odd, so lets try to avoid that."

>"I wonder why that's different here? Maybe it has something to do with how people in your world can't usually use magic. And okay; I'll try to make sure no one sees me. I think it would freak out most people even in my world, but if there isn't magic in yours... it'd probably be a lot worse."

[Hello Purvis]

>"Well, if I explained it to them first, they'd probably be okay. I mean, the concept of a spirit person exists. Just no one believes in it, since we have no magic. So if there's someone you really want to meet with, let me know and I'll introduce you. Anyways, tell me about the Ice Palace?

>_

[Serela]

>"Well, if I explained it to them first, they'd probably be okay. I mean, the concept of a spirit person exists. Just no one believes in it, since we have no magic. So if there's someone you really want to meet with, let me know and I'll introduce you. Anyways, tell me about the Ice Palace?

>_

>"Well, I don't know anyone from this world anyway, except for you! The people who lived in the Village might have heard of people from here, though; I suppose most of the victims of Estelle's Game visted the Village before they, you know... disappeared."
>"The Ice Palace? It's this big fancy palace coming out of the Frozen Cliffs; huge cliffs no one has seen the top of before. It's kinda like the northern end of the world. Anyway, the Ice Palace is said to be the source of the everlasting winter that's usually kept away from Wintervale with magical barriers. People say there's some Ice Queen who lives there."

[Hello Purvis]

>"I wonder if Estelle's given her a hard time?"
>Make a mental note not to confuse Estelle and Stella (anymore)

[Serela]

>"I wonder if Estelle's given her a hard time?"
>Make a mental note not to confuse Estelle and Stella (anymore)

>"Well, no one has ever seen her, as far as I know, and Estelle only came up recently. Err... right? Come to think of it, no ones ever really gone to the other side of the forest from Wintervale; we've got no idea how long she's been there."
>Stella is the cute little pink/white girl, Estelle is the _expletive^expletive_expletive. You reinforce this in your mind, and hope you won't forget!

[Hello Purvis]

>Sketch a quick map, show it to Rinoa and ask for here input.

[MysTeariousYukari]

> "I assume your knowledge about the Ice Palace is just stories and such, correct? What do you know about the Ice Queen? Do people think she is mean, nice, or maybe she keeps to herself? I may end up having to visit her at some point, so it's best if I learn what I can quickly."
> "Even if you don't know to much more then me, thanks a lot for everything so far, you've been a great help. Thank you."

[Serela]

>Sketch a quick map, show it to Rinoa and ask for here input.

>You sketch a quick map on your notepad. You know the locations of these places

-Abandoned Shrine (Links to Jigen's Transdimension)
-Village
-Forest
-Wintervale
-Ice Palace~Icy Cliffs

>You know about other places, but not quite sure where they are, including
-Estelle's Mansion
-Faerie Forest
-Azalea's House

>You're sure there are other at least semi-significant places, too.

>You show the sketch to Rinoa. "Looks about right to me!"

> "I assume your knowledge about the Ice Palace is just stories and such, correct? What do you know about the Ice Queen? Do people think she is mean, nice, or maybe she keeps to herself? I may end up having to visit her at some point, so it's best if I learn what I can quickly."
> "Even if you don't know to much more then me, thanks a lot for everything so far, you've been a great help. Thank you."

>"There isn't really anything about the Ice Queen herself; just that she's there. The fact that no one has ever seen her, though... I mean, she may not exist. No one's gotten into the Palace before, so we can't see if the stories are true."
>"You're welcome, Berkeley... I really hope you manage to beat Estelle. I don't know if the other players of her game were like you, but I don't want you to disappear like they all did!" She sniffs a bit.

[Hello Purvis]

>"Don't worry, I've got the best help around, I'm certain."
>Presuming Rinoa has nothing of significance to add, enjoy the rest of the night, then get some shuts eye.

[Serela]

>"Don't worry, I've got the best help around, I'm certain."
>Presuming Rinoa has nothing of significance to add, enjoy the rest of the night, then get some shuts eye.

>"You do have the help of several people already, and that number will grow tomorrow, I'm sure of it! And... well, there's a lot of things going on that we don't know anything about. But maybe, if you get a bunch of bits and pieces of information from different people, you'll be able to see the big picture of all this?"
>After that, the two of you make insignificant idle chatter for a while, before going off to sleep. In the morning, maybe you'll have a bunch of cool ideas to pick from, for your blank spellcard...
>You wake up... and you are THE GIRL whose unknown name is not Berkeley!...again!
>You're still in the bare room. You shiver a bit as you remember that terrible nightmare you had in your sleep.

[Hello Purvis]

>Look under the rug.

[Serela]

>Look under the rug.

>In the nightmare, you had... yes. That's got to be it. You go to the corner of the room where you had put the key in the nightmare. You find the rug lifts up easily, and underneath it is the key.
>You've obtained THE KEY!

[Hello Purvis]

>Try not to break down into deliriums from the overwhelming sense of...what's the opposite of doom? That thing.
>Once sufficiently in control of self, go apply the key to the door.

[Serela]

>Try not to break down into deliriums from the overwhelming sense of...what's the opposite of doom? That thing.
>Once sufficiently in control of self, go apply the key to the door.

>Oh god yes. You've got the key. You can get out of this room. You can escape.
>You walk over to the door, push the key into the doorknob, and it bounces off. You realize there isn't a keyhole on the doorknob. Not on this side, at least. But... there's got to be a way out of this room.

[Hello Purvis]

>Try not to fall into deliriums of all too-familiar-doom.
>Examine key. Consider its viability as a weapon when placed between knuckles.
>Look around for anything that resembles a keyhole.

[Serela]

>Try not to fall into deliriums of all too-familiar-doom.
>Examine key. Consider its viability as a weapon when placed between knuckles.
>Look around for anything that resembles a keyhole.

>You're trying! There has to be a way out of this room...!
>The key is silver, with some kind of design etched into it. Stuck in between your knuckles, a bit of the end sticks out. If you punched someone like that, you think it'd hurt them a good bit more then normal.
>There doesn't seem to be any keyholes in the room, although you look around thoroughly. The walls are completely bare, there isn't anything under the rug, and the water bottles underneath the bed don't have any keyholes. The ceiling is only a bit higher then your head and can be easily reached, but no keyhole.

[Kasu]

> Check the bed.
> If nothing, thrust the key into the air and see if anything happens.

[Serela]

> Check the bed.
> If nothing, thrust the key into the air and see if anything happens.

>Your search yields no new findings.
>You thrust the key into the air! Unfortunately, due to the low ceiling, a better way to describe this action would be "you punched the ceiling".
>Actually, nevermind... that wasn't unfortunate at all! A square section of the ceiling you hit comes right up; a hidden panel, apparently. It was so well hidden, you'd never have noticed if you didn't feel the ceiling itself.

[Kasu]

> Check the panel for a keyhole.

[Serela]

> Check the panel for a keyhole.

>The secret panel of the ceiling seems to have been made to not come down into the room. You can, however, push it up and out of the way, revealing an open space above the room.

[Kasu]

> Head into the space.
> Crawl to wherever it leads.

[Serela]

> Head into the space.
> Crawl to wherever it leads.

>You grab onto the sides of the opening, and hoist yourself into it.
>You are now in a dark space. You see it leads in one direction, though, and you crawl for a little bit, before you reach a point where there the path starts to incline down. If you go any farther, you'll likely end up sliding down, and be unable to return.

[Hello Purvis]

>Is there any light at all? If so, try to peer ahead.
>As well, hold still for a bit and listen, both for things ahead and things outside the ducts or crawlspace.

[Serela]

>Is there any light at all? If so, try to peer ahead.
>As well, hold still for a bit and listen, both for things ahead and things outside the ducts or crawlspace.

>Nope. You could only tell the incline started because you felt it with your hands as your crawled.
>You don't hear anything but your own breathing.

[COPIRIGHTO]

>"HELLO?"

[Hello Purvis]

>"HELLO?"

>Not this. We're trying to escape, not get caught.
>If there are no sounds of whirring death machinery, head onwards. Try to position self to slide well and not hit something face first at the end. And be ready to try and break.

[Serela]

>"HELLO?"

>Not this. We're trying to escape, not get caught.
>If there are no sounds of whirring death machinery, head onwards. Try to position self to slide well and not hit something face first at the end. And be ready to try and break.

>Yeah; you really don't want to be found by the people in this place. If you remember right, you overheard instructions to bring you to someone, or if they couldn't, then to simply kill you. And that would just ruin your whole day rest of your likely shortened life.
>You move forward and begin sliding down. You hold out your hands so as to keep yourself from smashing into something facefirst, and after a moment, they push open a square panel similar to the one you used to enter the passage; you find yourself dumped into a hallway. The panel closes behind you, and you doubt you could open it again from this side.
>The hallway you're now in looks rather fancy-ish. It has a luxurious red rug covering the floor, and on the walls are some kind of ovular objects giving light. To your right, you see a door; likely the door to the room you were in. You note there is indeed a keyhole on this side, so you would be able to reenter the room if you so desired.
>Thankfully, there does not seem to be anyone else in the hallway. Obvious paths out of here are to the left of the door and to the right of the door.