"Well looks like we're finally moving." says Junko, "Let's hope there's no more surprises to this....You know in hindsight saying that out loud was probably really stupid..."
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Chess Room
When Elizabeth stepped off of the chess board the rook finally slid off of her fingers. The game apparently took this as the black side's 'move,' for the black timer stopped and the white timer started, but otherwise nothing else happened. Elizabeth could now reach the exit to the room. The door is unlocked, but the hallway beyond is dark. H:44F(8/30)S|G:19F(0/10)S
"Nice move, Miss Elizabeth," Jessie says, offering a hand up for a high-five as the shades-clad maid approaches her.
"What about us nya?" Tammy asks the Drolphy maids, then looks over toward Junko, who's closer to Jessie and Elizabeth's side than the cat girl herself is. "It'll take me a couple of turns to join you, Junko. Think you can join the others off the board this turn nya?"
TMINE:(T=F:17,S:0/10);(J=F:6,S:4/20)
"Hmmmm...I'm pretty sure I could." says Junko. "Shall I just go for it?"
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"Please do nya," Tammy says with a nod of her head. "That way, at least one of us will be able to continue searching for Hitsugi in this place nya."
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"Right." says Junko, "Let's see here....If I remember my movement restrictions..." after a taking a brief moment to double check her route she makes her move heading off the board while mutter"Why just once can't on of these things be based on golf I'm actually good at that..chess what a cliche..."
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Show an affirming flame
"Thank you," said Elizabeth automatically, but there was a delay before she responded to the high-five with another hard shake of her head; clearly she was still trying to get herself out of her daze.
"Okay," she said, reaching for the handle of the door to give it a twist. "This chessboard. Do any of you know anything about it? Like, was it always here? Because it's going to be a real pain if we have to traverse this room often."
Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.
"Well hopefully it can be turned off, we used to have a lot of stuff like this back where I grew up most of it had an off switch." says Junko, "Course half the time nobody bothered, getting a drink at night was an adventure."
edited 25th Dec '14 6:36:01 PM by barzark
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Chess Room
After a bit of wavering to remember the move pattern of the knight Junko managed to exit the board and the timer switched back to the black side. Since only Tammy remained the maids had to wait for their opponent to go before the catgirl could choose a new piece. Seconds stretched into minutes as they watched the clock...edited 26th Dec '14 7:49:39 PM by alhazred23
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"Well...anyone got a deck of cards? I think we might be here a while." said Junko. "Oh well it beats laundry detail I suppose, that hasn't been fun since I was banned for trying to improve the machines."
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Jessie turns to face Tammy. "While we're waiting, I've been meaning to ask, Miss Tammy: Was your mother a cat girl, too?" Tammy sarcastically answers, "No, she's a human who always wore a cat-eared headband and tail belt nya." Seeing Jessie giving a confused look, Tammy then snaps, "Of course she's a cat girl nya!"
"Seriously though," Tammy then asks, "What do you think will happen if the Black-side times out nya? Can we even deal with this 'Doctor' we've heard about when we encounter him nya? And how can I explain to Hitsugi why I'm dressed like this nya?"
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"Well if I can interject Tammy, I don't know, we're going to find out and frankly the way she was behaving last time we saw her, and the state the booze room earlier was in I'm not sure if we can count on her being sober enough to even notice what your wearing." says Junko with a shrug, "And even if she is she's adorable when she's flustered I could use a little pick me up." there's a slight pause then she groans. "I said that bit out loud didn't I?"
edited 30th Dec '14 7:38:30 PM by barzark
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Show an affirming flame
"Uh, yes," said Elizabeth a little absently. "Hmmm. Nobody's at the black controls..."
Elizabeth tossed the rook and caught it, experimentally. "Maybe I can make a move. Then, uh, Tammy can come over here, and I move back." She glanced around. "Of course, I'd need a chessboard to move with."
Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.
"Whoops...oh well, not like that's the first time I said more then I wanted to." says Junko with a shrug. "And yeah other then the obvious that sounds like as good a plan as any, we've been improvising this long might as well see how far it's take us."
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Chess Room
After another minute or so it was evident to all that the black side wasn't going to move without... assistance. Still, unless Elizabeth or Jessie wanted to go back to the other side of the room and join the game again, there did not appear to be any way to 'help' - or nothing on this side of the door, at least. The exit to the chess room remained closed, but a little jiggling of the doorknob had indicated that it wasn't locked. (Elizabeth and Jessie - Cunning or Luck, beat 6 to read:) As you listen to the monotonous ticking of the round clock above your head, you notice what sounds like a faint echo of the ticking coming from somewhere beyond the door...edited 5th Jan '15 8:22:46 AM by alhazred23
H:44F(8/30)S|G:19F(0/10)S
Show an affirming flame
Cunning = 1d6x2 = 4x2 = 8.
Elizabeth frowned, tapping her feet slightly. That echo...oh, that was where it came from. She turned her attention to the door again. Locked, presumably, but it was still wooden. She decided against using anything too unusual; it seemed unlikely that the door would be, say, booby-trapped with explosives or warded sorcerously or anything like that, meaning that a simple blast would probably rip it from its locking mechanism.
Then again, ladylike. Right.
"If nobody has the keys to this door, would there be any objections if I opened it...permanently, let's say?" she asked. "I think the key to the chess puzzle lies behind it."
A true lady did not break down people's doors without asking first.
Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.
"Well not really my place to say but a good boom tends to fix most problems." says Junko with a shrug. "And it's fun."
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Show an affirming flame
Elizabeth grinned, somewhat alarmingly.
"I like that way of thinking," she said. She didn't need to blow the door off its hinges or anything; she just had to heat-weaken the lock, or separate it from the door. And she knew just what to do for either case, extending a hand, all five fingers pointed forward.
In theory she was supposed to follow a long complicated procedure with hotkeyed commands and computer assistance; in practice, she was quite practiced enough to run through the math and run the very familiar geometry visualizations in her head: gate here, curve there, channel constraints defined. The gate was to channel the information burst through the nerves of her left arm and out of her body as coherent light, striking the door where the wood met the metal lock...
Will: 1d6x4 = 12.
Whump!
Elizabeth shook her forearm to get rid of the pins-and-needles tingle.
Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.
Chess Room
As the doorknob was blasted inward the rest of the cheap pressboard door swung back toward Elizabeth - presumably due to pressure equalization, as the air pressure inside the room was probably lower than it was in the nearby rooms due to the magical black hole under the floor. Fortunately, there was no corresponding blast from a well-placed claymore mine behind the door as Elizabeth had half-expected. note Instead, Elizabeth was greeted by another dark, empty hallway. Once her eyes had adjusted she was able to pick out a vertical sliver of light about five meters down on the right side that looked not unlike the crack of a door.edited 5th Jan '15 9:10:19 PM by alhazred23
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"I like your approach to things." says Junko grinning at Elizabeth. "Anything interesting behind the door?"
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Jessie is stunned by Elizabeth's blowing open the door, but not so much that she doesn't notice Tammy becoming impatient by way of her tail quickly swaying. "That's all fine and good nya," the cat girl says, "But it still doesn't tell us how to get me across if the Black side is not going to move nya."
(Jessie rolls 4 x Cunning 2 = 8 for examining the layout between herself and Tammy.) Glancing over the area, Jessie says, "I know I've talked about legal moves before; But unless someone wants to try anything else, you may have to leap for it, Miss Tammy." Tammy appears to be keen to the idea, but still interjects, "That's a long jump to make nya; And the moment my foot lands on another square, that underground vacuum is sure to pull me in again nya."
"Well, how about your feet not touching the squares?" Jessie asks. "Just look between us, Miss Tammy. You could try using the scattered pawns as stepping stones." Jessie then turns to face Junko and Elizabeth to ask, "What do you two think about this?"
edited 6th Jan '15 7:40:02 AM by 1jimbo10
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"Hmmm using the pawns as stepping stones?" says Junko with a thoughtful look. "It's possible...wouldn't be easy though. There's also the chance our host might have thought of that and done something to make that difficult depending on how paranoid he is, and I haven't met someone of our, and it's rare you find someone in the alternative research field that isn't a little paranoid, course he might also be stuck up enough to think nobody will think of trying something like that..better check to make sure before we try anything."
edited 6th Jan '15 7:43:44 PM by barzark
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Show an affirming flame
"There's another door back here," said Elizabeth, still trying to restore feeling to her forearm. This is why they usually use pigeon's feet, she thought. "I think I heard a ticking noise back here. Like it's the server for that big chess game...I mean, I can try to close that gate generating the suction but, well, it could be messy." Actually, she wasn't sure if she could exorcise the gate at all, let alone do it safely.
Advancing a few steps down the corridor, she tried the handle on the side door. "With any luck," she said over her shoulder to Jessie, "we can find the miniature gameboard that controls the big one, and turn it off or delink it or something."
edited 6th Jan '15 8:36:16 PM by SabresEdge
Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.
Darkened hallway beyond the Chess Room
When Elizabeth felt around for where the door handle should have been she discovered that there wasn't one. In fact, from tracing along the sharp edge of the door she suspected that in better light it would be the same color and material as the surrounding wall, and meant to sit completely flush when closed; a hidden door, then. The only reason she'd noticed it was that it was very slightly open, allowing a bit of light to leak out of the room beyond - and also allowing her to get a grip on the edge to open it further.The room on the other side is well-lit and relatively spartan. The bare concrete walls are unadorned except for a pair of clocks mounted in the front wall that closely resemble the round clocks in the chess room. The 'black side' clock is ticking down. There is indeed a small chess set in this room matching the one at the front of the chess room. On the 'white side' there is a robotic arm mounted in the floor, while on the 'black side' there is a chair - an unoccupied chair. Closer inspection would reveal... crumbs of some sort on the floor around the chair, and the cushion is still warm.
H:44F(8/30)S|G:19F(0/10)S
For a moment Elizabeth stood frozen, her eyes fixed on the chess piece, oblivious to the world around her, until she was belatedly aware that the platform had stopped moving. She shook her head to extract herself from her daze and stepped off the platform, still gripping the chess piece.
"Okay Google," she muttered, doing her best to keep her shock under wraps and struggling to remember the needed vocal instructions to take a series of pictures of the rook. Especially the circuitry at the bottom. After a moment of hesitation she dropped the rook in her apron pocket before taking a few steps away from the chessboard.
She remembered the occasional rumors about a certain "Case Broccoli Goldeneye" that Elizabeth had thought for sure were exaggerated. Now she wasn't so sure.
Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.