Tour of the Palace

[Altino]

A TOUR OF THE PALACE






In preparation for the abdication of Neo Kervoskia and subsequent coronation of Syberis, you get yourself dressed to the nines. They're giving a tour of the palace today. Not that you couldn't tour the palace on any day, but on this day in particular there are no guides, there is no supervision, no guards barring entrance to offices. The palace is just open for visitors to roam as they please. You don't know whose idea it was to just let ambassadors and citizens wander around the palace without supervision, but you're certainly not going to complain about it. You're more curious than you've ever been. What secrets would the glorious Osiran Palace be hiding?



RULES:

All you have to do is write what is in your room. Limit one room per post. You can't do anything that will affect any rooms before or after you (i.e. no making something impossible in the next room. You can bring puppies or items with you into the next room if you want, but you can't control how or if the next poster uses it). No double posting. No skipping rooms (we'll keep count). You can only move forward, can't revisit old rooms. Make sure that you start your post with the room number that you're in! (I'll start with the first floor).

First Room:

You stand outside of the palace for a moment and glance nervously around for a bit before you finally duck inside. It's quiet, still the morning time, and the crowds that you're sure will later cluster into the palace to tour on their own haven't arrived yet. It's strange to see the place so empty. A dull roar of guards, palace workers, and guests usually echoed off of the high ceilings and made the place feel more like a painting than a location. You stop to take a moment and take in the room around you. This room isn't what you're here for - every Osiran has visited the palace and knows this room well - but you feel compelled to appreciate it, as you always do. Great murals of Pharaohs past line the walls, not only of this era, but going back all the way to Orisis' first Pharoah, Zaolat. You run your hands along the hieroglyphs which tell their story and snort a little. Hieroglyphs were a fine aesthetic touch, you think, and perhaps a great way to put historians to work, since they're the only one who can read hieroglyphs anymore. You don't know what any of this says. You try to guess from the pictures, and wonder if the stories you imagined are any comparison to the real thing.

Shrugging, you walk toward the center of the room and superstitiously toss a Cash coin into the fountain. As you're walking by, you notice a piece of paper floating in the water and stoop down to pick it up. You open the soggy envelope and find 20 Cash inside of it. Sweet! That was a quick return. You stuff the bill in your pocket, only vaguely realizing that this probably belongs to someone, and march toward a familiar door leading into the interior of the palace. You hear hurried footsteps behind you and notice a palace worker pacing around the room, seeming preoccupied. You nod at her nervously, though she doesn't seem to notice, and make your way to the door, onto the next room.

[Badger]

Second Room:

You excitedly walk down the hall. Just because no one else is at the palace doesn't mean that you aren't going to get a good tour in. Perhaps you will see things you have never noticed before. As you walk down the hall, you immediately see an open entrance that usually is....not there. In fact in all of your time being at the palace, as far as you could remember this was a wall. "OOOOOOh! Secrets! I knew this was going to be a good day!"

You step into the room. There are windows open! "Windows, that's odd" you think to yourself as you walk further into the room. The first thing you notice is the stench. It smells like spilt liquor and cheap fast food. "No wonder the windows are open."

There is a table in the center of the room. A closer examination shows that empty booze bottles and fast food wrappers....from Hardees. "Gross!" you say out loud, "there must have been a lot of poor choices made in here in the recent past".

On the table you noticed that someone carved with a knife into the table top, "Fedele wuz here". Now it is starting to make sense. Empty booze bottles, a room you haven't seen open in a while...This must be Scardino's old office! You remember seeing him around just the other day. Now it all makes sense. But why the Hardee's wrappers?

At the back of the room you see a very ornate bottle. The Pharaoh's own fine bourbon. Now the room is starting to make sense. Hardee's wrappers, the Pharoah's bourbon, secret doors open.... Suddenly you see two feet sticking out from behind the settee in the back. Suddenly a bit of panic fills you. Is it foul play? You cautiously walk to the settee and peer around it.

Scardino! He groggily rolls over clutching another bottle of the Pharaoh's bourbon. "Hey there old friend let me help you up." You get him to the settee and put a blanket on him. "NK was here all last night, we had a great time catching up on Legion stories of old. Man, I'm going to miss that guy." He mumbles while offering you a pull off the bottle.

"Now it all makes sense!" You recall hearing of the Pharaoh's love of Hardees. "Hmmmm" You chuckle to yourself.

Assessing the situation, you figure it is best to leave and let the General sleep this one off. Walking out of the room. You reminisce about the stories you heard about the glorious Legion and their many conquests. You also smile fondly thinking of Fedele and his work in this great region.

You exit the room and think to yourself, "this is going to be a great day!"

[Altino]

3rd Room:

You step through the nearest door, deeper into this yet unexplored wing of the castle, curiosity and contentment edging you forward, and take a look around you. There is some dull music playing from speakers you can't see, but it's quiet enough that you can't hear what it's saying, just that it sounds rather solemn. You take a few steps toward the center of the room, and as you walk the music gets a little louder. Is that Johnny Cash...? The music keeps growing louder, almost entirely covering up the sudden hissing from beneath your feet, but not quite. You flinch and jolt backward as Johnny Cash comes screaming through the air in a minor key "and it burns, burns, burns, the ring of fire," and an enormous wall of flames come to life where you had only just been standing. There's a mechanical whirring and you see through the grates beneath your feet the incinerators move from a little closer to you, so you take a few steps back to escape the burn. Cash screeches through the speakers right as the hissing of gas begins every time the flames flash upward, and you keep backing up, until you're eventually pressed against the door that you entered through, struggling to open it again. It won't budge.

This is Cash in the worst way. You were expecting a much cheerier experience when you ran into whatever stokes the Cash obsession in Osiris... nothing about this is cheery. You hear the now familiar hiss over Cash's screaming and skip forward into the middle of the room, praying that this is indeed a ring of fire, and not a circle of it, then let out a breath of relief when the flames flash behind you and you remain.. not on fire. The mechanical whir moves the incinerators back in your direction, and you run across the room to the door on the other side, hoping that it's open. You time your run with Cash's screams and the growing flames, and smack into the wall on the opposite side of the room. You grab the door handle in a panic as you hear a hiss behind you once again and the door easily flies open. You step through to the other side unscathed, but more than a little shaken, and breathe deeply. Alright... next room.