PALACE GAME: Round 1

[cultfavorite]

You open your eyes—

You're standing in the vast lobby of a corporate building, facing the reception desk, where a Team Galactic Grunt is stationed—she's currently on the phone, though, and occupied. A few other grunts move through the lobby, looking as if they're on their way to their next assignment. All of them look identical. And if you watch their paths for a while, none of them actually end up leaving the room.

The walls are a bright, metallic, sterile blue with white, and the floor is made up of gleaming silver metal tiles emblazoned here and there with a gold logo. The reception desk is slightly to your right, and to the left of that there are three doors in the far wall in front of you.

To the right of the reception desk, there's a little area with a vending machine, a large ottoman to sit on, a potted plant, and . . . a dotaku? With a face? It's sitting resting on the floor next to the vending machine, and it's staring right at you with those red eyes.

Directly to your right, closer to the front door, there is a glowing green circle on the floor with a sign on the wall next to it.

What will you d—

Wait. Your phone is buzzing. Whether or not you had it with you back in the prison, you do now, whether in your pocket, in your hand, whatever. It's on your person, and it's vibrating demandingly for attention. If you choose to ignore it, a mechanical voice emanating from it begins literally saying the word buzz! buzzzzzz! buuuzzzzzz! in an increasingly irritated tone.

Check your phone?

Comments

TEAM GALACTIC HQ LOBBY

[cultfavorite]

Maybe you don't check your phone. That's legal. It's going to keep hassling you for a while, but you're free to explore the lobby without caving in to technological peer pressure. Where to?

If you do take out your phone, you'll find that there's a new app on it, represented by this icon:



Don't worry about opening the app. It helpfully opens itself as soon as you're looking at the screen, bringing up a screen that displays that same face from the icon, and it begins to speak to you:

Greetingzzzzz, User! Took you long enough! Pah. I'm Rotoron, your new personal assistant and granter of wise advice. If you choose to listen to it, that is. I don't get an ounce of respect around this place. All my genius, wasted on these youths!

The voice does sound somewhat like someone ran an old man's voice through a Vocaloid type program. It continues:

But no matter. Maybe you've got a good head on your shoulders! Please select from the following options:

A menu appears on the screen. Rotoron also reads these options out loud, and will repeat them if asked or if they're tapped. The same applies to any text that appears on the app throughout the Palace:

Pokedex Information
Battle Basics
Exploration Advice

[derailer]

...

[There's a lot to look at here, but the phone is what is demanding his attention. He will BLINDLY ASSUME he understands how battles work without checking, skipping straight to:]

"Exploration Advice"?

[cultfavorite]

The device croaks out a mechanical chuckle at you.

Seeking advice from this old man already? Get off your duff and start looking around already! There's my advice. Oh, but those Grunts are useless. You won't get anything good out of them. After all, they're the ones who were stupid enough to stay with Saturn instead of making their own way in the world with me!

[derailer]

[with some amusement,]

Would you happen to be the illustrious Rotom researcher?

[But, after asking this, he starts exploring anyway, going over to Bronzong and bowing slightly.]

Greetings! Are you doing all right?

[fanstheflames]

[ Wow. This phone is sassy. She likes it. ]

Mm... what about "Pokedex Information"?

[cultfavorite]

Whatever you say, little missy!

It does not say this in an unfriendly tone. Just an annoying one. The app brings up a grid, which currently displays only one icon, of your own face. Huh. There's an arrow indicating it can be tapped.

[fanstheflames]

[ She taps the icon. ]

I'm not a Pokemon...

[messianic]

[ oh this is the cult, isn't it.



Before he can think about that too hard, he has to tug out his phone to peer at it. Hmmm... ]

Sorry for being slow. I'll pick something now.

[ > Battle Basics ]

[cultfavorite]

There's a good lad!

Your phone approves, evidently. The display it brings up is an explanation of type advantages. It's not as in-depth as this article, but it is more in-depth that I want to write or you want to read. Thankfully, Rotoron is here to help:

Well? Any questions?

[messianic]

Er... no, I'm good, thanks.

[ he has Played A Pokemon Game.

Next........

> Pokedex Information ]

[cosplayed_out]

Oh! It's got attitude! I plain love it!

[hitting exploration advice]

[cultfavorite]

The device croaks out a mechanical chuckle at you.

Seeking advice from this old man already? Get off your duff and start looking around already! There's my advice. Oh, but those Grunts are useless. You won't get anything good out of them. After all, they're the ones who were stupid enough to stay with Saturn instead of making their own way in the world with me!

[cosplayed_out]

R-Right! I've got to make my own way in the world!

[Battle basics?]

THE PATH OF WISDOM: TEAM GALACTIC VEILSTONE BUILDING

[cultfavorite]

The door slides open for you, and you step through it into . . .

Nothing exciting. It's a hallway in the same building you were just in; there's no incongruity at all. As if you really are just going about your day in the life of a corporate lab worker. The vibe here is the same metallic, futuristic, sterile vibe the lobby had, with its white, blue, and silver theme and its gold Team Galactic logo tiles here and there on the floor.

This is a very small wing, though: in this hallway, there is one door to your left, one door to your right, and at the end of the hallway in front of you, a yellow glowing circle of light installed in the floor. There's a sign posted on the wall next to that circle, and a sensor next to it on the wall.

[cosplayed_out]

Oh, oops. I should've guessed it'd be all clinical-y. Well, that's fine. This is just Saturn's research.

[she'll try the door on the left first.]

[cultfavorite]

The door opens into a kitchen nightmare.

This is a modern kitchen, equipped with the latest tech and no different aesthetically from the rest of the futuristic building—but rather than looking clean and sterile, it's the exact opposite situation here. It would seem no one in Team Galactic knows how to clean up after themselves. The tables to eat at are scattered with crumbs and drips of unidentifiable substances; the refrigerator is stained; the sink is full of dishes. Hey, at least you can say this place is definitely lived in! In fact, the only area that seems untouched by human hands is the open cabinet under the sink with the cleaning supplies. Wonder why that might be.

[cosplayed_out]

Time to embrace my inner shoujo heroine!

[she'll start cleaning like a pokemon Honda Tohru.]

THE PATH OF EMOTION: HEARTHOME CITY

[cultfavorite]

The door slides open for you, and you step through it into . . .

A city, as if you just stepped out of the building and onto the street. But it's hard to imagine the building you just walked out of existing in a town like this. This is no corporate hub: the buildings are homey and inviting, even the businesses, and the paths are lined with greenery. The people navigating the streets look overwhelmingly content and well-to-do. Young couples walk holding hands; grandmothers push strollers with happy babies nestled inside; schoolchildren dart here and there with their Pokemon companions scampering after them. The sun is shining, the sky is cloudless, the air and walkways are clean and refreshing. It's a picture-perfect family town.

If you turn around, the Team Galactic HQ is gone entirely, replaced by a gate out of the city, which is blocked at the moment by construction workers fixing some cobbles. Guess there's no way to go but forward!

To the northeast, there's a small but busy little building that looks like it might have once been a large house, but now has been repurposed into some kind of quaint boutique. In the center of town there's a huge domed amphitheater, and further to the north, beyond that, you can see the gates to a large, lovely park.

[messianic]

[ huh....... he does glance over his shoulder, but it's gone, so... forward it is! this place is incredibly pleasant, so much so that he's kind of like... not sure what to expect. This is a Palace, right?



Anyway he catches sight of the boutique first, so that's where he's going, hands tucked into his pockets. ]

[cultfavorite]

You approach a homey, green-roofed building with big front windows; the closer you get to it, the more it both looks and smells like it's probably a bakery. There are displays of what look like filled buns in the windows, and the people who pass by out front stop to ooh and aah and drool over them. A few even go inside! When they do, there's the quaint little ding of an old-fashioned shop bell. What a cute little place.

[derailer]

[This is so—novel, and nostalgic, at the same time. He's glad he has his memories for this, or else he might get caught up in the sensation of being in the modern world. As it is he can appreciate the subtle differences between Sinnoh and Unova, and the differences between Sinnoh and Hisui.]

Excadrill, take care not to come uncoupled from me!

[The amphitheater seems most dramatic, so he is going to investigate that first.]

[cultfavorite]

The amphitheater is impressive yet inviting, with an elegant and simple design meant to draw crowds. And it is doing just that: families with their children and Pokemon are heading up the stone walkway to push through the doors and into the building, chattering excitedly. You can make out snippets of conversation about ribbons and performances and beautiful.

???: VEILSTONE CITY

[cultfavorite]

You leave the Team Galactic HQ.

The building you just walked out of sits on a rocky plateau in the far north of the city, overlooking several other rocky plateaus like it, home to other various buildings both residential and commercial. There's a strange quality to this place: the streets winding between the plateaus were carved out of the rock, and there are far more sheer, cool faces of solid rock than you'd expect to see in a big city. But it is a big city all the same. Just one with a chilly, inorganic air about it, for reasons that have nothing to do with the tall modern buildings and big city lights. The air is cool and smells crisp.

It's dusk, and people trickle through the streets on the way to wherever they're going. Some are going home; the residential area here looks shuttered and quiet, uninviting to an outsider. But there are a couple of bustling commercial centers that look more alive with people out for a night on the town. There's the Veilstone Department Store to the west, rising high above most of the city's other buildings, attracting hordes of eager shoppers. To the south, there's the Veilstone Game Corner, which is a pretty euphemistic name for what is clearly a casino that people are merrily streaming in and out of.

[fanstheflames]

... Gambling just gives me bad vibes... [ TO THE DEPARTMENT STORE. ]

[cultfavorite]

You head down the road to the west, among people and buildings that look dreamlike and unfinished; only the shopping center stands out like a beacon, with its bright lights and many floors.

But occasionally you get the sensation that you've just caught something strange out of the corner of your eye. A person you know and love passing in the other direction, but when you look it's only a stranger; a reflection in the glass window of a closed shop that doesn't seem to reflect the sight it should; the shadow of a cloud passing overhead on a perfectly clear evening.

Well, anyway! That's the sliding glass door of the department store you're approaching!