DAY 00

[thecomputer]

[Good afternoon, Citizens!

Your consciousness blurrily returns as the transport tube your comatose body was stored in opens up, admitting you access to an unfamiliar room. One wall is covered by vertical tubes, one occasionally sliding open to admit another confused person. The wall across from you has a sign saying "PROCEED TO CENTRAL HUB", with an arrow pointing at a red doorway in the corner. The wall to your right contains an unlabeled, dusty, and poorly-lit hallway with blue walls, floor, and ceiling. You can't see the end from here.

Somewhere on your person, you will find a thin, smartphone-sized object that wasn't there before. One side of it is lit up with a red background and a number of disabled menu items. Most of the screen is taken up by another message saying "PROCEED TO CENTRAL HUB".

What is this place, anyway? And who are these people stumbling in through the transport tube array?]

[[Beyond the three prompts below, anyone may start their own prompts to mingle or go off and do their own thing or whatever else they want!]]

Comments

[staunton]

[ Well, that sure was fucked up and Knightley doesn't want anything to do with this team-building "exercise" of death but it was made clear to him that they don't really have a choice in the matter. So after the announcement he spends the next good while checking out the premises; if there are any flaws in this building that can be used to escape, he's going to find them.

You can find him around the personal unconscious areas, claiming one of the bedrooms for himself. It didn't take long for him to realize that there aren't enough bedrooms for twenty people so he's going to get this out of the way early.

Later he'll be in the food sector, with a few samples of FunFoods. He just looks at the "food" with a disgusted expression before taking a bite... and he immediately regrets his life decisions because this isn't worthy of being called food, it's edible disappointment and misery. ]

...What is this crap?

[ He doesn't particulary feel like eating more so he'll just take out the portable chessboard he had with him. Thank heavens his abductors at least let him keep this thing - Aristotle once said that chess will raise your spirits and be your counselor in war, so maybe it'll help him figure out what to do with their current situation.

Taking out the pieces, he sets up a problem to prompt his brain into thinking mode. ]

[absolutejustice]

[A passer-by has noticed your chessboard!]

What's that?

[staunton]

You've never seen a chessboard before?

[ Knightley will just be giving you a judgmental look because this is blasphemy ]

[absolutejustice]

Nope. Is it some kind of game?

[ She thinks she might have seen Esdeath with something kinda similar, but this one isn't ringing any bells. ]

[staunton]

Yeah. It's a strategy board game - the objective is to capture the opponent's king piece. [ He picks up the black king from the board as he explains, holding it between his fingers. ]

[absolutejustice]

Ahh, so it's like a war game.

[ Definitely something the Glorious Commander would've liked. ]

Do you think you could teach it to me? It's not like there's much else we can do in this place...

[staunton]

Sure, little miss. [ A newbie won't be able to provide a challenge but like hell he's going to let someone live their life without knowing how to play this beautiful game. ]

Sit down and I'll explain the rules.

SOME TIME LATER

[absolutejustice]

...Wait, why can't I castle here? You castled on this side just a minute ago!

[She's... picking up the rules, at least. No particular latent chess talents awakening, though.]

[schrodingers_man]

[ Yomiel's familiar with chess, but he's not enough of a fan to be familiar with the idea of chess problems instead of games. ]

Are you playing someone?

[ He knows enough to know you can play by mail, at least. ]

[staunton]

Nah, I'm just solving a chess problem. White to move and mate in three moves.

[schrodingers_man]

Just practice, huh? [ Points at the white bishop near the middle of the board ] ...This bishop can take the enemy queen.

[ Yes thank you for pointing out something very obvious and not actually thinking through the entire problem, good job, Yomiel. ]

[staunton]

That would leave the king free to take the white knight.

[ Said in a tone that indicates that he thinks this should be completely obvious already. ]

[schrodingers_man]

Black can take a piece no matter what you do, though, so isn't it best to remove the most dangerous piece?

[staunton]

The objective here is mate in three moves. The black king is in a position where moving him would put him in check, and allowing him to take the knight would let him out of the trap.

[schrodingers_man]

But if you move the knight so the king can't take it, that still lets him escape, so moving the knight isn't right, either. ...If the white king takes this pawn in front of it, that should keep the lid shut on your trap.

[murimurimuri]

[Wherever he goes, Simon is hovering nearby. He's not trying the food or engaging in much else aside from people-watching, though.]

[staunton]

[ Knightley's just gonna shake his head and poke at the food. ]

Not even Money would like this stuff....

[murimurimuri]

You didn't try any, did you? What if it's poisoned?

[staunton]

Simon, we were brought here to participate in their bullshit game. Poisoning us would defeat the purpose.

[murimurimuri]

You don't know that! You can't trust somebody who goes around kidnapping people!

[staunton]

I'm pretty sure they have the common sense to not discard their pieces before the game even starts.

[murimurimuri]

What if it's slow-acting? Or drugged? I'm not eating strange food that I don't know where it came from, nowaynoway!

food sector;

[harshwords]

... You know, I find it rather ridiculous that they didn't just simply give us food to cook.

[ The food is gross and thank goodness she doesn't eat breakfast which means that she has one less gross meal to eat. ]

[staunton]

Agreed. Nobody deserves to eat this... whatever the hell it is.

[ Okay, he'd wish this FunFood bs on Edgeworth but sshhhhhh. ]

[harshwords]

... I wouldn't know what it is, either. It just looks like slop to me, rather than food.