END GAME: THE COUNTDOWN STARTS

[sailmods]

[the prisoners wake up on cold, hard floors.

the lights are bright, glaring, a sterile cell with sterile bars facing a sterile hall. the prisoners with you, across from you, and no one else. no rocking of a ship in waves, nothing. just the prisoner and their prison.

time passes, one assumes. the rhythmic click of Friday’s heels down the hall. it’s almost like the ticking of a clock.]

Comments

[decohere]

Heh, gottem.

[tucks Fio protectively against her side, glancing down at the toy...]

Jenny. We didn't leave you behind on the island. Because Friday loved you too much to let you go. So now you get to help us rescue her from whatever that colonizing [covers Fio's ears] bitch [uncovers] is going to do with her.

[teethoftherisk]

Yes. You may die later, but for now, you will come with us for Friday's sake.

[And like before, Siffleur approaches the door, rears up on his hind legs and pushes on the door handle with a front paw.]

[sabigoe]

[ A little tiredly: ]

...You're coming with us. I want you and Miss Friday to be together again. I want you two to be happy too.

[ Fio leans into Ava. Doesn't even squirm or move much in the brief moment her ears are covered. She appears a little drained, but she remains alert, staring straight ahead at the door as Siffleur opens it. ]

[sailmods]

[just imagine Jenny is mumbling horrific curses under her breath this entire time. it's fine. she's friendly.

the next room they enter is clearly some sort of... control room? a security office? there is a wall of screens showing every angle of the deck, and one screen showing one of Jenny's brothers sorta trashing some kind of storage room? weirdly, none of the screens show the cells.

on the desk, there are a lot of switches, and three buttons. one red, one blue, one green.]

[decohere]

[hm. stares intently at the screens, immediately drawn to the action in the storage room. that doesn't look good.

reaches for a button and is immediately stopped by 6.]

Well does anyone have any better ideas?

[prince_of_beasts]

[ Dimitri's totally been here all along. He showed up when Fio did. Don't worry about it. ]

Coatrischie?! What -- what happened to his eyes?

[ Not gonna be thinking about eye replacement any more than absolutely necessary thanks. Dimitri wrenches his attention to the dashboard. ]

Leaving these unlabelled seems like a poor design choice ... Jenny? Is this familiar to you?

[stormpirate]

Well, red usually kills you.

[that's it that's the extent of her knowledge of the subject.]

That bitch is like the Captain, except she just steals magic from the dead instead of being a nerd and learning it.

[decohere]

What, she kill Neil Gaiman? [because as Dimitri points out, those button eyes sure are giving Other Mother.]

... So if not red. Blue? I like blue. [this feels like an escape room but with less clues. there doesn't seem to be any obvious connection to what the colors might represent... which makes her tempted to press all three at once. but that feels even more disastrous lbr.

curiously wiggles one of the other switches on the control panel instead. sorry it's just her nature.]

[prince_of_beasts]

[ Bewildered: ] What does a man's sexuality have to do with anything?

[configuration_birdwatcher]

[ Bastion arrives a little later than Fio, because the ceiling on their capacity for rushing around is pretty low right now. Dimitri and Okie probably helped them get over here as fast as they did. ]

// Why not blue. I doubt there are any instructions here.

[teethoftherisk]

[To Dimitri-] April said Malin seems like the type to enjoy hate crimes.

[He comes over to study the buttons and nods.] No labels, so likely no instructions either. She must know what they all do. And we should move quickly, before she or her crew notice the escape underway.

[Perhaps another person would wait and take a vote from everyone, leave things up for debate, but Siffleur feels very confident in his actions here. He slaps his paw down on the blue button, eyes on the monitors to see if he spots a change.]

[sabigoe]

[ ...Pouting. Not because they didn't wait for her vote. Blue was her choice as well.

She just wanted to push the fun pressy button. ]

[sailmods]

[nothing appears to have happened.]

[teethoftherisk]

[Hmm. Siffleur considers pressing it again. He looks at the sliders instead and after a moment of thought, he shoves them all upwards. Maybe the effect was small since the sliders weren't at the extreme end.

He also notices Fio looking sad, and gives her a gentle nudge towards the control panel. Her turn.]

[sabigoe]

[ Fio lights up, shuffling (a little excitedly...) forward to the control panel. ]

Hm. [ Is it broken? Siffleur seems to have made a few adjustments with the sliders, so... ] Let's try pressing it again!

[ Again, she pushes the blue button and doesn't remove her palm. A brief glance back, as if making sure everyone's watching her like she just did something very impressive... then back up at the monitors. Any changes now? ]

[sailmods]

[nothing appears to have happened.]

[sabigoe]

...Huh. [ Drops one arm to the side, swaying it lightly. Her other is still wrapped around the toy ship, by the way! As much as she wants to press the buttons again... ] Does anyone else want a turn?

[ Because it's polite to take turns! ]

[tempingainteasy]

[April can only watch for so long before saying something:]

-hhhHHEY maybe we should quit touching those until we know exactly what they do, yeah??

[Yes for anyone just tuning in, that's Siffleur's paper hat talking.]

[decohere]

There's no way to know what they do until we f-[cuts off] around and find out.

[pokes the green button?]

[tempingainteasy]

Yeah but - [grimace as the button is pushed. nothing explodes or starts screaming but April won't apologize for it anyway.] - how do we know for sure nothing's happened? How many of us have eyes on these monitors, we could be looking for a door or a change in lights or-

[a crinkle as she squints at the monitors to double check, look for any differences as she mutters.]

God, I hate Observation Duty... FNAF... All that low effort horror game- Wait, hold up. Where are the cells on here?

[prince_of_beasts]

They're not, [ Dimitri is doing his best to remain calm and professional, but his voice has gone faintly shrill, ] are we sure that there is no way to identify what these do before we press the button that kills everyone?

[tempingainteasy]

... We could start by checking what's happened so far?

[To the ants:] Hey Vic, get us a status report, please? Oh, and tell Flan it's like that time when we were on night shift again.

[is the in-joke going to survive the journey? Maybe not but it's been twenty minutes since she last riffed with Flan and she is, if you'll forgive her, getting antsy.]

...

[Unfortunately, the answer comes back quick in the form of Victor informing them the way they came through is broken which, um.

Listen, she's been camping on the cougar's head the past bit, it's not like she's had a huge field of view here.]

... Ah, fuck it then. Hey, did we do the red one already?

[decohere]

Fuck it. [goes back to the control board switches

up up down down left right left right B A

and slams all three colored buttons at once.]

[sailmods]

[nothing appears to happen.]

[decohere]

[shrugs]

Well I'm out of ideas.