The Manor Is Not Enough - Maid RPG

"Sounds like as good a plan as any there." says Junko. "Let me know if you find it I'd kinda like to have a look at it if there is such a thing back there."

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"Oh, yes," she said. "I think you'll want to take a look at this."

Almost without a doubt this was the control to the chessboard—well, barring some really crazy and illogical setup, and although this manor didn't appear to be lacking in craziness, it did follow its own very strange form of logic. Experimentally, she fiddled with the voice controls for her sunglasses, trying to activate the Trueseeing app, one hand dropping into her apron pocket to pick up the rook. Maybe if she could confirm if there were a sympathetic magic link between this board and the board outside, she might be able to interfere in some way.

Let's see if the magic works. Skill roll, 1d6x3+3 = 9...

"This has got to be linked to the big chessboard," she said to herself, thinking out loud. "If the white side is controlled by the people out there then the black side should be operated by a person here...wait."

Crumbs?

Given the high ratio of maids-to-floor-space, that seemed a little unusual—not to mention a definite no-no for maids to leave around.

"Uh, who do you know who knows their way around down here and has a sweet tooth?" she called to the outside.

The obvious thing to do would be to take over for the black player and move the pieces to move everyone over. But then again, this room appeared to have been occupied not long ago...

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.

"Really?" said Junko, "There enough room in there for the both of us?" at the question she gets a thoughtful look "No I really don't know enough about the locals here, and the person I'm most interested in finding...well is it made with liquor?"

F:41 S:0/30

Control Room (?)

Frustratingly, Elizabeth's scrutiny failed to uncover anything as convenient(ly gamed) as sympathetic magic. However, she had a notion that there was some clever mundane technology involved in controlling the giant chess pieces in the other room and providing feedback to the player if anyone did anything untoward, which might make things just as simple - assuming the game board in front of her wasn't biometrically keyed to a particular player and was still active. She probably wouldn't be able to close the sucking hole in time and space from here, but she could probably arrange an easy crossing for the other maids.

H:44F(8/30)S|G:19F(0/10)S

"Hold up, Miss Tammy," Jessie says. "It seems Miss Elizabeth and Miss Junko are on the case," the ghost adds as the other two check out the room beyond the door.

"Hey! Don't leave me nya!" Tammy exclaims as the other flesh and blood maids pass through the door. "Don't worry, Miss Tammy," Jessie replies. "You've got me, don't you?" Tammy's response to that is a blunt, "That's what I'm worried about nya," with her tail quickly swaying with a combination of anxiety and impatience. "Hey now, what is that supposed to mean!?" Jessie shouts, annoyed by the presumption of Tammy's insinuation, before seeing the cat girl staring to lean down, similar to a real cat getting ready to pounce.

"You may want to figure things out pronto!" Jessie calls toward the back room. "Miss Tammy appears serious about leaping across!"

TMINE:(T=F:17,S:0/10);(J=F:6,S:4/20)

"No liquor, I think—oh," said Elizabeth, suppressing the urge to say anything stronger at the news from the other side of the board. This was the kind of thing that could have kept her busy for hours on end, figuring out what connected to what and how the whole thing worked, but—well.

Tightening the white gloves around her hands, Elizabeth advanced to the chessboard and closed her fingers around a black pawn, and advanced it a step. Not exactly Kasparov-level play, but that wasn't the point here.

"Then again," she murmured, "What if this game went to completion?"

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.

"Right I hear ya." says Junko before leaning into the room with Elizabeth. "I'm sure you heard that but we've got an antsy catgirl out here and that never leads anywhere good." She takes a moment to look around the room. "One of these set ups huh? Fair enough..."

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"You've seen something like this before?" murmured Elizabeth, still fixated on the gameboard. From her pocket she retrieved the rook that had brought her across, comparing it to the pieces on the chessboard here—especially its size.

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.

Chess Room

A moment after Junko passed through the door at the other end of the room one of the black pawns gave signs of stirring. The knob at the top of the giant, shiny black chess piece actually seemed to compress down almost a foot - and then the pawn launched from its position, bounced off of the ceiling and came down on the space in front of it with a thunderous crack. Meanwhile, the clock at the other end of the room ticked back over to the white side.

Control Room

The rook Elizabeth had acquired from the other chess set was indeed similar in size and design to the remaining rook on the board in front of her, but strangely the piece's direct counterpart was nowhere to be seen. In the space she'd last occupied before moving off the board there was only an ominous scorch mark - in fact, there were several of these on the board, and the pawn she'd picked up had been quite light, while the rook in her hand was heavy enough to be made of stone or metal.

edited 15th Jan '15 8:23:53 AM by Alhazred23

H:44F(8/30)S|G:19F(0/10)S

"I've seen set ups that look a lot like it yeah, can't be sure if the nuts and bolts so to speak are the same." says Junko. "I doubt we've got time for me to take things apart and try to figure out how everything works. Or the patience for that matter, I think we all want to put this whole thing behind us. And by the way does it seem like there was a lot of noise out there all of the sudden?"

F:41 S:0/30

"Yes," said Elizabeth. In fact she was sure she could still hear the echoes of the crash reverberating through the stone corridors; grinning, she moved to poise her left hand over another pawn, hoping for white to move so she could try that again, only to catch herself before she could commit.

Ladylike, dammit. Ladylike. Ladies didn't cause noises loud enough to wake the Sleeper without a better excuse than "that was fun, let's try it again!"

With an audibly disappointed sigh she moved her hand back.

Never any fun.

Instead, she cast her eyes around the floor while she waited for White to make its move, and fixated on the pastry crumbs. Those were really out of place; Mum always had sharp words for her whenever she ran around with a piece of bread or cake, dropping pieces over the carpet—

Pieces. Of a whole.

Almost unconsciously the grin returned, this time more than a little mischievous, as she bent down and swept up the crumbs into a handkerchief.

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.

"Hmmm...I wonder if that's anything like the grin everyone tell me they feel nervous when I get." says Junko "Something occur to you?"

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Cunning check for...1d6x2=12. Oooh. Yup, she thought this one through.

"Oh yes," breathed Elizabeth. Out came the conductive pencil again; this time the pentagram was a fair bit rougher, quite a bit simpler—she was winging it somewhat, but she was sure this particular solution would work fine. "It's like, hmm, taking a sample of someone's blood and then using it to set them on fir—uh, I mean, taking a clipping of someone's fingernail and then using a curse to shrivel their han—" Elizabeth stopped abruptly, racking her brains for a less-creepy example. "It's magic," she said finally. "Basically, these crumbs used to be part of a biscuit, or a teacake, or something like that, right? With a bit of sympathetic magic I can trace where other parts of that biscuit are...including, in the stomach of whoever ate it, which, if that stomach is still attached to the person, would tell us where they are. Whoever they are."

Elizabeth thought back as she completed the theorem inscribing the pentagram more or less automatically: Berenice had mentioned that someone else's maids might have been this manor, and 'Cupcake' mentioned something about multiple parties trying to influence events, whatever those were. She might have been one of them, now that she thought about it.

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.

Tammy and Jessie are both surprised by the action of the Black Pawn. (Tammy rolls 6 x Will 1 = 6, while Jessie rolls 2 x Will 2 = 4, each in attempt to avoid freaking out.) "NYA!?!" Tammy flips backward on her space, while Jessie shouts "Terrible!" just before jumping further away from the chess floor, inadvertently turning invisible; Except her maid uniform, which now looks like it's floating in midair. "C- Can you not do that nya?" Tammy asks Jessie as the cat girl stands back up. "You're freaking me out more than that pawn did nya."

"I'm... terribly sorry..." Jessie says as she reappears. "So, think you can come this way now. You should be able to come off on your next turn." Tammy looks over the spaces between herself and Jessie's side, then at the White Knight piece still stuck to her left hand. "Right nya," the cat girl says as she makes the proper knight move closer toward Jessie.

Jessie then heads back to the door. "Okay, one more move and Miss Tammy should be able to join us!" she calls out, then adds a second later, "You may want to keep the piece you move close to the board. Oh, and whatever you do, don't capture the White Knight."

TMINE:(T=F:17,S:0/10);(J=F:6,S:4/20)

"I see." says Junko. "Neat, sounds damned useful. I've heard a few things about magic, most of the family is pretty firmly against it, not sure why...probably had to do with one of the uncle's we don't talk about." she shrugs "You kinda like curses and that kinda thing I take it?

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"Well, kind of, but they've always seemed a little too...sneaky," said Elizabeth, now fiddling with a cable leading to her phone; that took only a moment, and she got up. "And too easy to trace back. There was that time I tried out a harmless little milk-curdling jinx. How was I supposed to know Auntie Jenny had warded the milk carton and set the salami to become carnivorous if anyone tried to magic up the kitchen?"

Robo-arm moves the white knight?

Faintly she heard Jessie's calling from outside the door, and Elizabeth turned to face Junko. "Wonder what she meant by 'close to the board'?"

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.

Control Room

With a barely audible whirring sound the robot arm reached down to advance the remaining white knight one move closer to the end of the board. As it moved Junko and Elizabeth could see a faint red glow emanating from a ring of shallow pits around the 'wrist' joint of the arm. After the move was complete the arm paused for a moment, then returned to a ready position. Unsurprisingly, Elizabeth's tracking program indicates vaguely in in the direction of the hallway outside the room.

H:44F(8/30)S|G:19F(0/10)S

"Hmmm I see. Yeah that's why I usually stick to blowing things up, if the pieces are small enough you don't have to worry about being tracked." says Junko with a shrug, "Carnivorus salami huh? My mother once did something to a ham that ended with it nearly eating dad's face, they were having an argument. He blew up her favorite pair of shoes for that one, I spent the next couple of weeks putting that portable trench to good use...ahhh memories." she shakes her head "Sorry memory lane was kinda slick there. If I had to guess I'd say she means keep the piece in easy grabbing range so we can get it back on the board in a hurry." After the arm's done it's thing she scratches her head "The glowy bits seem a bit much don't they?"

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"Maybe the person who set this up really, really likes LEDs," said Elizabeth. She flexed her fingertips, and then moved a black knight to an unoccupied square, placing the piece with a flourish and a satisfying clash. "Right, this should do it."

edited 20th Jan '15 2:45:21 PM by SabresEdge

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.

"True there's something to be said for accesorizing I suppose." says Junko. "If your going to do something might as well do it with style, if you can pull it off, I've never quite gotten the hang of it." she says in reaction to Elizabeth's flourish.

edited 20th Jan '15 7:23:07 PM by Barzark

F:41 S:0/30

Chess Room

Having thus far seen pieces perform rocket-assisted and spring(?)-assisted jumps, Tammy and Jessie were perhaps less shocked to see the the sides of the remaining black knight open to reveal six long, spindly robotic legs - as well as two menacing-looking buzz-saw arms. The piece scuttled over to a new, relatively inoffensive location before settling down with an unnecessary clatter. It appeared the things were designed first and foremost to crush anything that was occupying the space they landed in, though they did not lack for other nasty surprises.

H:44F(8/30)S|G:19F(0/10)S

While not as surprised by the Black Knight's movement, Jessie is still taken aback by the sawblades protruding from the piece. Tammy not so much, after seeing a cyborg maid with them integrated into her arms, but is still irked about the implication of their use.

"That's it nya," Tammy says. "I'm getting off this thing before this round of Human Chess turns into a round of Hyper Slam Brothers, or worse nya." Jessie gives a confused look for a second before replying, "I'm not sure what you mean with the last part, Miss Tammy, but 'getting off this thing' sounds good to me."

Watching Tammy leap off the chess floor with the knight-like move, Jessie grabs the cat girl's arm as soon as she lands. "Come on, Miss Tammy. Let's join the others before any of these things decide to come for us anyway." Straightening back up to look at the ghost, Tammy responds, "Right nya," then starts running for the door, inadvertently dragging the ghost along the way.

TMINE:(T=F:17,S:0/10);(J=F:6,S:4/20)

Control Room

As Elizabeth and Junko scrutinized the chess board the robot arm suddenly jerked into motion again. Positioning itself above the white knight, it paused. Then a faint humming sound emitted from the arm and a brief flash of heat washed over the two maids. In an instant the chess piece was vaporized, leaving only another scorch mark on the chess board, and as the arm reset the maids could see the ring of red lights glowing even brighter this time.

edited 27th Jan '15 11:34:19 AM by Alhazred23

H:44F(8/30)S|G:19F(0/10)S

"Well that's one way to avoid having to put things back." says Junko. "Hmmm....red lights getting brighter...and how often does a red light mean anything good?"

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"Almost never," said Elizabeth, who'd flinched when the laser (?) incinerated the piece from the board. "Okay, that would explain the scorch marks." Talk about overkill.

There's no "wisdom"...hmm, time for a rare Affection roll = 8.

She pulled the rook out of her pocket and dangled it over the chessboard as she mentally tried to figure out the worst that could happen. Actually...potentially pretty bad. Despite all appearances she did have a job to do, and she wasn't here to wreak havoc at random, after all, no matter how much the results would or would not satisfy her curiosity.

After a moment or two of silent deliberation she slipped the rook back into her apron pocket. "Well, now that we got past that, what now? And at some point we have to cross back, too, so...I'm guessing we keep this setup in place instead of experimenting recklessly with it."

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.