Castle Prom 2020

[indigo_league]

After arriving in Cerulean City and riding in one of a fleet of Cerulean Cape Shuckle Shuttle buses for an hour or so, the trees break and the road snakes along sea cliffs. In the distance, all can see a grand building rising up into sight, and excitement bubbles up within each and every heart as this year's mysterious, grandiose Prom location draws ever closer...




Welcome to the castle!

Their duo of hosts stand ready to welcome the characters when they arrive, assuring them that their luggage will be taken care of, and inviting them for a special tour of the castle, or would they rather first see their rooms, or perhaps even have a bite to eat? The choice is up to them.

THE CASTLE SIGHTS The Outer Courtyard For those wishing to get a breath of fresh air or looking for a place to perhaps engage in a little battling, look no further than the courtyard. Nestled safely within castle walls, the courtyard has been given a thorough renovation. The stones gleam like they have never gleamed before; a large fountain (certainly too new to have belonged to the original castle) stands at the center of the courtyard, the water gently cascading down over the marble figures of two nondescript and crowned humans, one holding a sword, the other a shield; wide-open doors welcome characters further into the castle. The Stables To the west lie the stables. Anyone interested in taking a ride along the cliff trails (or guests who just wants to see the horse Pokemon) is welcome to enter. The comforting smell of hay and wood hangs in the air, though any persons expecting to find familiar faces like Rapidash, Mudbray or Zebstrika is going to come off rather surprised. Instead what they will find are snow-white, proud-looking equines. Their long, pastel-colored manes and tails have been brushed to perfection, occasionally adorned with braids and white flowers. Long, violet colored horns jut out from their foreheads, a spiralling pure white groove running along their length. Long fetlocks drift along the ground, rather like delicate pink clouds, almost giving the Pokemon the appearance of being stabled on air rather than something so common as hay. Yes, anyone who has not yet had the pleasure of being able to admire the beauty and grace of the Galar Rapidash can look and ride their fill here. While the stable hands cannot allow anyone to actually keep one of the magnificent horses themselves no matter how much a guest is willing to pay, whenever their bosses aren’t looking, they certainly prove willing to provide characters with a Galarian Ponyta egg for a small price. (Limited to one per character) The Kitchens To the east lie the kitchens, and what kitchens they are! At all hours, characters will be able to smell the delicious aroma of a variety of sumptuous meals being prepared. In the mornings, the scent of fresh bread and breakfast fills the air, changing to the scent of pastries and later on more filling dishes as the day continues on, and fresh pots of tea are always on hand. Officially, the guests are asked not to enter the kitchen, as to not to disturb the many cooks working there. Unofficially, there are not exactly any guards, so if you really wanted to sneak in, you probably won’t get stopped. The Dining Room Adjacent to the kitchens awaits a large dining room. Tables have been set up in long rows with plenty of room for all with some to spare, and once someone sits down, almost as if by magic, they will soon find one of the waitstaff at their side, presenting them with an extensive menu. Order as much (or as little) as you like! The chefs will have it ready for you in a flash. The Ball Room The old castle ballroom has been done up to the nines, reflecting nothing but glory and splendor. Some delicate little tables and chairs stand at the sides of the room, for anyone who needs a quick break for their feet, but most of the polished marble floor is intended for dancing. There is a small chamber orchestra playing in a corner to provide everybody with only the classiest of tunes (though they do take requests for more modern music) and neatly dressed waitstaff with an uncanny ability to tell who is and isn't underaged flit through the crowd like black butterflies, making sure no glass goes unfilled. The Inner Courtyard The doors of the ballroom open wide onto a second, smaller courtyard at the back of the castle. Unlike the Outer courtyard, which was all stone, this smaller, Inner Courtyard is dominated by plants. The gardeners have done their very best to dress up the inner courtyard with plants and flowers of any kind - so many plants, in fact, that there is no room for battling out here. But if you wanted to take a breath of fresh air, wander around and look at the plants, or perhaps even try and find some of the small, secluded nooks created by the plant cover, you are more than welcome. In between the lovely smelling blooms, characters will also be able to find bushes and small trees laden with unfamiliar berries! Small cards in the soil will explain exactly what kinds of berries they are and what effect they have, and characters are invited to pluck a few berries if they want. Just don’t get too greedy! The new available berries are: Apicot, Salac, Ganlon, Petaya, Liechi, Lansat, Custap The Library Situated on the second floor is the castle's splendid library, a welcome respite for those less inclined to dance and frolic. Whatever books originally filled these weighty shelves are long gone, but their hosts have spared no effort in making reading material available to their guests. Among the shelves, guests will be able to find many books on the Galar region's history and myths. Some of these tales are already known over in this region (Who doesn't know the tale of the wise King Arthur and his oval table?) but there are also many more obscure and unknown fables and tales; the truly inquisitive may even be able to find some material on the two crowned fellows depicted in the main courtyard's fountain. It's almost as if Prom's esteemed hosts shipped over their whole personal library. They may, in fact, have shipped over their whole personal library. Pull up one of the plush armchairs, grab a book, and make yourself comfortable by the roaring fire! There's more to read here than you can finish in a lifetime! The Bedrooms Upstairs, guests will find all manner of bedrooms to choose from, from smaller rooms meant for a single person, to large ones for couples, to even larger ones for characters that would like to spend the night with a few friends. One thing holds true for them all: these rooms are seriously extravagant. Decked out in the finest of antique furniture like large canopy beds, solid wooden chairs, tapestries, and rugs, the decor brings to mind bygone centuries. There are even hearths in every room that can be used to light a small fire; while the rooms are all wired for electricity, unfortunately, central heating was a bit outside of the realm of possibility. The Tower Not all of the towers have undergone restoration, but the grandest, largest of them has. It will take some real stamina to climb all these stairs, but if they do, characters will be rewarded with two things: First of all, their two hosts have seen fit to create a small miniature museum inside the Tower’s chambers. Paintings, tapestries, and artefacts have been brought over from the Galar region to be put on display. All the artefacts brought over depict moments from Galar’s rich history, including paintings of ancient kings and queens, an actual knight’s armour, chalices, swords tucked in velvet under lock and key, and richly woven tapestries that for some reason seem to depict knights battling giant Slugma. If you still have energy after the climb to get here, you can continue on to the very top of the tower. From the tower’s high vantage point, it seems the entire Kanto region is on display in the incredible view. The ocean stretches out along the horizon, but closer to home, characters will be able to behold wild forests and cliffs, the green lush routes of Cerulean Cape itself and at night, millions and millions of stars twinkling up overhead. And all the rest... Beyond those sparkling rooms and done up corridors lies... the rest of the castle. The parts of the castle not quite done with their renovations are roped off, but nothing is stopping guests from exploring if they so wish - especially if they are interested in finding those rumored lost treasures or traps. While the rest of the castle shines, these parts of the castle feel almost haunted. Dust and derelict dominates the rooms, old broken furniture covered in dingy white sheets and creaking doors adding to the atmosphere. Did the eyes of that painting just move? Why is there a weird draft coming from that wall? What was that strange ominous creak coming from behind you? Are there any dungeons? Wait, did you just hear someone crying in a far off room? Jeez, no wonder they say this place is haunted. The Rocky Beach The main attraction outside of the castle, besides the hiking and riding paths, is a small stretch of rocky shoreline accessible just outside the main courtyard and down a surprisingly sturdy set of stone stairs. While it's a crummy place to lay out and get some sun, it is littered with bits of detritus from the sea. Shells, whole or broken, peek out between smooth pebbles and the rare piece of sea glass, and at low tide clumps of seaweed lay draped over the craggier outcroppings. Nothing is stopping you from fishing or poking around in the shallows for Pokemon, but you're more likely to find an interesting souvenir than a new friend...

---

AVAILABLE POKEMON Naturally, this wouldn't be a Pokemon Prom without some Pokemon to catch! All catchable Pokemon range between the levels of 10 to 30. The Pokemon in the castle mostly haunt the unfinished section, but feel free to have the occasional encounter in the renovated sections too! Castle Impidimp; Gastly; Haunter; Litwick; Lampent; Duskull; Shuppet; Sinistea; Misdreavus; Honedge; Doublade**; Dusclops**; Polteageist***; Gengar***; Courtyard Butterfree; Cutiefly; Ribombee; Beautiful; Vivillion; Rocky Shore Binacle; Staryu; Wimpod; Frillish; Krabby; Kingler**; Jellicent**; Slowking***; During the characters' stay, they might suddenly find their room a mess, as if a small tornado went through their luggage. They might even find themselves missing some incidental items or articles of clothing, nothing necessarily valuable or significant, but it sure is weird. This is... probably the work of the castle's Pokemon, right?

---

TREASURE HUNTING While your shuttle bus slowly trundles towards the castle, the driver will regale his riders with local stories and legends, chief among those the legend of the castle itself. You see, the castle was built by a relative of Bill (you know, the Pokemon storage system inventor?), but no one has lived in it for years and years because it is haunted. No, not haunted by Ghost types. That would be rather common and hardly worthy of note, wouldn't it? No, the castle is haunted by the ghost of Bill's great-great-great-uncle, and rumor has it that he is so possessive of the castle and its contents that he will kill all who enter. You see, even when he was alive, this man's enormous hoard of wealth was only outmatched by his enormous amount of paranoia. He was so paranoid that others would come to steal his wealth that he built his castle high upon the cliffs where no one could approach it undetected. But that wasn't enough to settle his fears! He started to hide his multitude of treasures all around the castle, and he built many traps and secret passages to protect them. It's said he was so fiercely protective of his money that he refused to leave the property even after his death, and his spirit still haunts the castle to this day. Many who have tried to find his treasures have disappeared. That is what the rumors say, at least. In any case, feel free to explore those abandoned halls and ruins for these supposed long-lost treasures. Better check for hidden rooms and passages behind old bookcases, trap doors covered by thick dust-riddled carpets, and perhaps even a hidden vault or two in the castle basements. Players are free to go absolutely wild in coming up with secret passages and hidden secrets for their characters to find. Now, as for the treasures characters can find during these explorations, they can broadly be divided up into two categories. The first category of treasures are common treasures. These are small, fairly common items that can be sold after prom for a small amount of Pokedollars each (think 100-200p), or they can be kept as a memento. Generally, these are small items that could easily fit inside a character's pocket and won't necessarily be well hidden. Characters are allowed to find as many of these common treasures as they want. Examples of common treasures would be items like pieces of antique silverware, broken mirrors, small figurines, old books damaged by the passage of time (but perhaps still readable in some places), or parts of worn and threadbare tapestry. The second category of treasures are rare treasures. These are properly hidden items that can either sell for quite a bit of Pokedollars after prom (think 5000-6000p), or can be used in-game. In order to allow of an element of surprise, every character that wants to participate in finding some rare treasure is allowed to comment once to a special RNG comment to find out exactly what they will find. Each treasure will consist out of somewhere between two and four items, the exact number of which will be left up to chance. For any questions, please refer back to the previous OOC post.

Comments

[uber_marionettist]

....

It's not really that Dirk was expecting a bigger reaction. He wasn't.

It's that the parcity is so familiar, so void of material to 'read' that he can't 'read' her at all. It makes him feel like a powerless teenager. In more ways than one. And he really hates it.

"...."

In the absence of a cue--or even a clue--Dirk lapses into the tense silence of hyper-awareness and (increasingly) personal discomfort. He forces himself not to hold his jaw tight, to hold his shoulders square but not too square, not to close his hands into fists. After another unreadable second, he moves himself out of the doorway--by a couple of steps only, enough to see the view she's overlooking a little more clearly.

"So... taking in the view. That's. Cool, I guess. Am I interrupting something? Is this an inopportune time for me to be initiating a tête-à-tête, or--?"

[conniemaheswaran]

.

..

...

....

Connie waits there for half a minute after Dirk says his peace, not even looking at him. Just staring at the beautiful night sky.

But before he can leave, she turns around, expression perfectly neutral. "Carly said we should talk. So let's talk."

[uber_marionettist]

"No," he snaps back quickly, his tone harder than he fully realised until it was already out of his mouth. He hurries into the next sentence, trying to level it out while still sounding detached and calm.

"I'm not doing this for Carly."

Then he has to slow down before he says anything else, or he's going to sound like he's in a rush. He forces himself to wait exactly one second.

"This isn't about her."

[conniemaheswaran]

"Then who is this about, Dirk?"

Phone tags, hope the html works

[uber_marionettist]

Maybe it's just him (he knows it's just him, knows he's too aware, now, too on edge) but her response feels too convenient. He feels like he's reacting to lines he wrote himself--to a rote response, like she's reading a script. Or repeating one. Which shouldn't be a problem. It should be fine. That's. 'Normal.'

He's overthinking this. Right. He just--

"I'm getting to that. There's a 'what' in here that you're skipping, and I want to be extra clear about that or nothing else is going to make any fucking sense."

He really fucking wishes she wouldn't use his name like that.

"There's a lot more of me in this than there is you."

Who is he impressing here?

"Or. There are</> a lot more of me, I guess."

Fuck.

"And..."

Fuck.

"I lost control of that."

[conniemaheswaran]

Connie doesn't give an inch. She just stares at Dirk, intent impossible to discern. There's a small nod, though, an invitation for him to continue.

Aw beans I did break the html

[uber_marionettist]

"The shadow on the cave wall might look like one man, and why wouldn't you believe your senses? Besides, humans love a good story. It was only reasonable that you'd come up with one to fit." Pause.

"But I fucked up."

His jaw sets, the tension in his chest rising like bile.

"I was too busy watching that shadow. Making sure it fit. Paying too much attention to the picture, and not enough to which hands I was using and when or how."

[conniemaheswaran]

"How many people are you, Dirk?"

[uber_marionettist]

"'How many is the ocean?'"

Dirk's face doesn't emote for two or three seconds, counted in real time. He knows she wants a real answer. But he also knows that answers like that don't exist--there's only one answer to the question of 'Dirk Strider.'

In the interest of accountability, he can at least try to explain that.

He manages something of a lopsided grimace with one side of his mouth, which breaks the stoicism enough to shows his teeth.

"Bad question. On the one hand, you could say I'm one person. A blueprint on which each and every individual splinter of me is mapped. On the other, I could draw you a diagram, tell you some names, some histories... but with a couple of exceptions, none of those data points are real or rational numbers, let alone counted in the singular. Paradox space is infinite. So am I."

[conniemaheswaran]

"You're really fond of puppetry motifs," Connie blurts after a moment of considering Dirk's words. "You couldn't even resist mixing that extremely basic rendition of Plato's allegory of the cave with references to it. You're you. The puppeteer, the one pulling the strings.

"But... puppets pull back sometimes, right? Skilled marionettists don't need to think about pulling the strings when they manipulate the puppets because it's instinct to them. Yet if those instincts are associated with the puppet they're moving, isn't the puppet, in an unconscious way, manipulating them?

"Or... you. In this case. When you were puppeting that shadow play, that 'data point' was puppeting you back. Right?"

[uber_marionettist]

There's a tangible beat of silence. Dirk blinks a couple of times, eventually reaching up with one calloused hand to rub the back of his neck.

".... that's right."

There's no effort to clarify which statement he's confirming--the penchant for puppetry, the puppeteer, or the puppetted.

[conniemaheswaran]

After a frozen moment, Connie walks up to Dirk, expression unreadable.

Then she hugs him.

"I missed you. I'm sorry."

[uber_marionettist]

There is a time in Dirk's life when he would have frozen completely under the pressure (physical, emotional, psychological) of a hug.

He is proud (perhaps inappropriately so) to be able to say that is no longer the case.

Not to say he doesn't go totally still before he reacts to it, or that he isn't sweating (strictly proverbial) bullets when he finally does (just a second or two late!), but Connie receives a STRONG one-armed bro-hug that is only a little bit awkward, considering the circumstances.

For a performance achieved through the traditional Strider method of combination strict repetition and emergency improv...

"I'd actually say your aim was pretty good."

[conniemaheswaran]

When Dirk first stumbled upon her, Connie didn't know what to feel. Regret? Fear? Anger? Sadness? Hope? All of the above mixed into one big mess of feelings? Definitely the latter. It was all she could do to stay calm—perhaps inappropriately so, in retrospect—and look him in the eye as he fumbled through the conversation.

Slowly, hope began pulling ahead of all the other emotions roiling in the pit of Connie's gut, tied with dawning horror and understanding as Dirk explained his unique... condition. Suddenly everything about him made- well, not sense, but close enough that Connie could follow it. Trace a parallel path without the additional dimension Dirk was zig-zagging through and arrive at the same conclusion, just like when they spun some major bullshit during late-night philosophy talks.

Connie is never going to understand Dirk Strider, not fully. But the Dirk in front of her, the one who's making an effort and trying so hard to apologize and explain through an avenue that was clearly alien to the way he thought, that's the Dirk she's friends with.

So she went up to him and hugged him.

Connie gives him one more squeeze before letting go, socking him in the arm where she didn't injure him while laughing. "I'd say shut up, but I'm pretty sure you'd start monologuing in your head instead and the expression on your face when you do that is absolutely insufferable."

[uber_marionettist]

Dirk nearly opens his mouth to protest this, but instead his brows furrow--what does she mean, 'the look on his face.' She can see him--? No, she can't. He doesn't wear that shit on his face. No fucking way.

"Wait, that's it?" he protests, taking the sock to his arm without flinching. It could be argued he's missing the point entirely, but that was probably inevitable when he has no clue how he got to this point, let alone what or where the point actually is. One second he was staring her down, bracing for whatever fallout was going to drop out of the fucking sky, and now she's got her arms around him like he's her long-lost brother--

"I just told you I got fucked up in the infinite expansion of my own manifold consciousness, that my ultimate self's splintered persona ran amok, and you slander my impregnable physiognomy and act like everything's fine?"

[conniemaheswaran]

Connie rolls her eyes. "For being the aggregate of what I assume are an infinite number of Dirk Striders, all of whom I can only guess take great pleasure in showing off how insufferably smart they are, you can be real dense sometimes." Look, if Connie isn't ribbing Dirk at every opportunity, are they really friend again? She thinks not.

"It's not fine, Dirk. It's really fucked up. But what happened is just as much my fault as it is yours, and I say 'yours' only because it's technically true that your 'data points' are all a different part of you. If I stopped being friends with everybody that I screwed up with or the other way around, well, I would've had even less friends back home."

[uber_marionettist]

She's got him stopped long enough to sigh at her dig, but he doesn't complain... nor does he refute it.

And when she continues, he tips his head to the side once--just once, just for a second, the way you might tip a cup to empty a single ice cube into the palm of your hand.

"Oh, yeah. Carly implied some kind of fucked up shit about that." It is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a sensitive way to broach the topic. And Dirk is not generally the person you go to for innate sensitivity in your personal matters.

So he fully understands why she might not want to take the bait on that one.

[conniemaheswaran]

"I mean, to start off, my swords master projected her millennia-long screwed up crush on my best friend's mom on me and almost killed me through human-unfriendly training several times so I could 'properly protect' Universe even though her fighting style revolved around being functionally immortal and I wasn't, but that's-

"Oh, right, and there was that one time when Universe kicked me off a space ship and into the ocean even when he promised we'd fight against Homeworld together and for all I knew he was dead for a little while. Then there's that time I almost drowned when I first met him.

"Also when all the Gems got mind controlled by White Diamond and I hesitated fighting Pearl for a moment and my swords master took me hostage.

"I think that just about covers it? There might be stuff I'm forgetting and/or repressing, though."

Holy shit, Connie.

"I figure as long as it's emotional honesty hour, I might as well match you tit for tat. Only seems fair."

[uber_marionettist]

"The problem here is I don't know what half of you just said means, in plain English or otherwise. Like. Universe, you mean Greg? Balding, fat, married to a Troll sized bubblegum woman?" He is aware that he hasn't told Connie what a Troll is but he also knows the word existed prior to her fishy witchiness and she'll figure it out just fine.

"This sounds like halfway familiar to the postapocalypse I know and the rest is a find-and-replace mashup with at least two different--"

Fuck.

His mouth snaps shut and his brows inch together, the head-on shinkansen with stationary object collision narrowly averted by one (1) fucking second.

[conniemaheswaran]

"His son, actually. My best friend back home. Also the inheritor of an intergalactic totalitarian empire that he's only just started talking down from constant planetary xenocide. And he has the corpse of his mom stuffed inside his bellybutton." Beat. "Don't worry, said corpse is just a fist-sized pink diamond."

As soon as Dirk clamps his mouth shut, Connie smirks, emphatically shaking her head. "Nice try, buster. I've officially declared emotional honesty hour, you can't back out now."

[uber_marionettist]

But he launched himself into the void of space for the next few years so he could do literally anything but that.

He shakes his head.

They're not having that conversation. They're just not.

"Nah. It's not that. It's more like... spoilers." That's not a lie. It's actually a lot of truths--a whole payload of truth bombs, sitting cosy and snug under their official top secret federal issue tarps, undetonated. Not giving her the nuclear code isn't fucking dishonest. It's common sense.

"I have experience with intergalactic totalitarian empires engaged in constant planetary genocide, s'all. So if you wanna talk about it, go ahead. You obviously had something going there, don't let me stop you now. The floor's all yours. My part ain't relevant to this supplementary interlocution."

[conniemaheswaran]

"..."

Connie just fixes Dirk with a stare.

Then she snaps her fingers, and who knows where her swords were before but now they're barring the exit from the tower.

And in case Dirk was thinking of a more dramatic exit, he can most definitely hear the flapping of a Dragonite's wings beneath the tower.

Connie doesn't say a word. She just keeps staring.

[uber_marionettist]

It may not be Connie's intent, but to Dirk, the variables in this equation add up to a threat.

He's no stranger to blocking a door to prevent the other party from exiting a conversation. Usually bodily, but sometimes with a battlebot, or even a sword. He and Jake particularly have used similar means to trap one another in proximity more times than either conscience or pride care to recollect.

The windows were usually an option, but the dignity and loss of face required meant they never were, not really.

But Connie isn't leaving him that false route.

Which means--

He tenses almost invisibly, his hands closing silently into fists at his side and his right foot shifting to widen his stance as he braces for battle (again.)

He doesn't know why, but he doesn't need to. The trail of breadcrumbs leads him easily to the part where he fucked up, the endpoint of her narrative clearer now, the preamble not an explanation but a trap.

A trap he walked himself blindly into, because he cannot, does not know how to keep himself out of it. He's been here before, a hundred times, a thousand. Many of those times he scripted himself.

He can take it.

So he doesn't say anything. Watching. Waiting.

He knows how this goes. How it has to go.

He's the antagonist.

She goes first.

White always moves first.

[conniemaheswaran]

Oh.

Oh, she's screwed up.

And now she feels bad and shit she does not want to make things worse-

"Dirk, I am not going to fucking fight you, holy shit. Hurting you is the last thing I want to do after hurting you that bad! I know this is a bit dramatic but I also know you will go to literally any lengths to avoid talking about feelings, oh my god! The fact that you immediately assume that I pulled you into an elaborate setup to get you to let your guard down just proves my point.

"I'm sorry, for what it's worth."

Dirk: make ONE LAST BID to not talk about feelings (rolls a 1 and says a swear)

[uber_marionettist]

......

Uhhhh.

He doesn't quite relax, but he unclenches his fists, re-clenches them before shifting his weight back, just slightly.

".... okay, you don't need to go that far." Apologising for... what? Which part? Does it matter?

It doesn't. He realises that, just like he realises that he has now made this significantly worse, weirder, warped than ever. He breathes out, lets it from his lungs more heavily than intended--it sounds like a sigh.

"It's fine. We don't need to talk about my feelings. They're fine. You... had something you were saying. Let's just talk about that."