FOURTH WALL EVENT POST HELL YEAH

[buttpinched]

[Morning was a ritual of waking up, going to the dining area of the VIolet city inn, and waiting for everyone to arrive.

Family breakfast was important, even if your family was currently a little... Strange. Or at least it was for Lion. So every morning everyone got together (Will included of course) to do important things like speaking about how you slept, or what your plans for the day were.

This was of course, a Rule. Absolute serious business. At least if you knew what's good for your personal relationships including Lion.

And so, Lion waited for Will, who was taking surprisingly long to come down. Hopefully he wouldn't have gotten transported somehwere else (as if it weren't hard enough to keep track of him already). Because of course. there was no reason at all for Will to be running off to Goldenrod again, right?

At least not if he knew what's good for his backside.

The first one to go downstairs was Katharine, who looked like she was crying. She quickly ran towards Lion, jumping on Lion’s legs and blaming the hell out of it.]

EEEEESSSSPEEEONNN!!! OOOOOOON!!! WAAAAA!!!

[THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!!!!]

[Dlanor, who went down in the second place, proceeded to do some damage control. That means knocking the hell out of that Espeon. Ignoring that, Will decided to make an appearance. Only that this time it would be a bit different.



Usually, it would be normal to see him with the same face, but there’s something off about Will. Why does Will have tits to begin with? Diana, who is recording this, is even more surprised. Now we understand why Katharine was crying.]
… Hn. Don’t ask.

[Diana decides that it would be better to just, eat the pokegear to hide the evidence. So she calls Gerturde, the skitty for such job. Enjoy the last minutes of a Skitty nomming the gear until it shuts down.]

[OOC: two people logged in with the same google docs account can actually write at the same time, or so Kai and Miyu discovered while writing this Post featuring Willarda and Lion. Tags may and will come from both boobies Will and pretty much the same as always Lion. Also when we finished this post we were listening to Friday, so to would be best to keep out of this post.]

Comments

[isthedeadcat]

Having such a wonderful chef as we did may have spoiled us far too much, however.

I'm glad that you are feeling comfortable, Primo-san. I really enjoy having a nice chat over some tea, I'm sure that your story will be an interesting one and that is more than enough.

[promotedpawn]

Well, what other use has money if it's not to spoil oneself? Though it becomes troublesome when one is stuck in a situation like this.

So much faith in this mere traveler, I will try to live up to those expectations. But before starting, maybe I should clarify an important rule of that game, since that rule was vital for the final resolution of the story. I assume you have basic knowledge on how the gameboards work?

[There may be a chessboard with all its pieces appearing in the middle of the table, leaving space for the breakfast to be enjoyed (or maybe he just was carrying it with him and merely placed it there).]

[isthedeadcat]

You can use it to spoil others, of course. [Have a chuckle.] This situation is not really that bad, I have just traded club activities for part time jobs.

[Lion leans a little to see the chessboard, nodding.] I know a bit about gameboards, even when I haven't seen other than Beatrice's, so please explain this rule to me.

[promotedpawn]

Making others happy and spoiled is also a form of spoiling oneself, but that may just be my twisting sense of selfishness.

[He gestures to the chess pieces.]

In a normal game, and in Beatrice's games, the pieces involved in the game are retired at the end of it. And when a new game is opened they are repositioned, however, for effects of inside the gameboard, they are like brand new pieces. As if the ones used previously had been smashed and a new set had been acquired.

However, in the game I'm going to tell you about, due to circumstances that aren't worth explaining, the pieces are always the same ones. It's the very same set, just placed in a different board. In other words, the "souls" of the pieces were transfered to one kakera to the next one, as the games went on. So basically, a pawn in the seventh game, had the potential of remembering all the moves it had made ever since the start of the first game. This rule only applied to one side of the board, though, and because it gave such an unfair advantage over the other, only the king piece was allowed to remember completely.

[But that didn't deny the potential of the others, or blocked them from being able to use that potential.]

[isthedeadcat]

I see.

That's an interesting setup. A piece with enough knowledge could really change how things happen in a Fragment... Or maybe go even further and change how the game itself works.

But this means the others had the capacity of remembering partially, right? What controlled what a piece could or could not remember?

[promotedpawn]

[Primo smiles wickedly at Lion's question.]

Nothing. The witches didn't consider it necessary given the rule and the exception. Besides, unlike in Beatrice's game where Battler, Ange and other pieces are invited to the outside of the gameboard, in that one no piece was invited outside of it. None of them ever knew that they were trapped in a game played by witches. Since no one knew, not even the King piece, the witches assumed that the pieces would never be able to gain the capacity of remembering partially or not.

They were wrong though, after hundred of games, two pieces began to remember partially in a consistent manner. And that allowed the king piece to regain faith in being able to change the outcome of the game. Basically, the game was pretty simple, "avoid the checkmate". The king piece was allowed to remember all but the moment of its checkmate, so it wouldn't know "who" was the one who killed it or why.

Now, unless you're interested in cracking yourself the mystery of that ended game, I'll skip all the games in which the king piece was killed and just relate the story of the final gameboard if that's fine with you.

[isthedeadcat]

That was... A bit of a silly assumption.

It must be a really long story if hundreds of games happened... I'm not as practiced in mysteries or in these kind of games as Will-san, my companion, is. I wouldn't want to keep you waiting to continue with the explanation for that long.

Please feel free to move on.

[promotedpawn]

Silly is a polite way to call it in my opinion. But they still were able to be entertained for hundred of years so I don't think they can complain, I certainly don't.

It was a long story, in that aspect I admit that Beatrice's game is refreshing by the speed at which it moves. She is a formidable game-master in fact, all the games were different from each other. But back in that game, that wasn't the case, the gameboard wasn't carefully selected, so in fact many games ended being almost like repetitions. Specially when the king piece lost almost all hope to be able to win the game and stopped trying to change its outcome, or basically only made halfhearted attempts.

Honestly I think the mystery could be solved in six or seven games at most, if we were to carefully select which gameboards were seen. But it's still a long story, even if we do that the story basically covers four years at the very least, and it's far longer if we are to delve in the culprit's background and motivations.

[isthedeadcat]

When you put it that way, it sounds more like the Game Master made the game as a quick escape from boredom, and really didn't pay that much attention to it unless something important happened by itself.
Why would a game master who truly loves their work, or who wants to reach a conclusion with the game, just let it go with hundreds of almost identical scenarios?

Then again I could never really understand how witches think... And it's fine that way.

[promotedpawn]

Ah, well... The reason as to why the game started is something I don't know, I arrived when it was very advanced, so asking for those details was pointless. Besides it was clear the game had gone on for so long that maybe both witches playing it had forgot why it began. In fact, again Beatrice is a special witch in that aspect, her game wasn't made just to escape boredom. But indeed, most witches run away from it.

You see, boredom is a poison for them. It kills them, so they are always looking for ways to avoid it. Even if that means taking over someone else's game. As to why anyone would allow a game to go with hundreds of almost identical scenarios, the answer is simply. One of the players abandoned the game. The player controlling the side with the king piece that was being challenge, gave up on playing but not on the game, so the king piece was forced to control its own troops on its own, without being aware that it was trapped in a game of witches until several games had happened. You can imagine why several games ended being almost identical repetitions as the king piece tried to comprehend the situation it was in.

Why was it being killed? Who did it? How did it happen? Which pieces affected the outcome, which didn't. The kind piece also didn't even start with all the pieces on its side. It was missing the queen piece, and it didn't know who its knight or its bishop were even if they were in front of it in the gameboard. So many pieces ended being unused, many of them ended not appearing in the gameboard several times until the king piece learned how to trigger it. It also took a long time for the king piece to understand which was the mystery that it had to crack, and that it had to sacrifice some pieces in order to have the ones that would help it defeat the enemy. It's hard to imagine even for me, a wizard, how the king piece felt when it realized that it had to sacrifice so many pieces to be able to have a chance, that it even had to let its parents die... It's no wonder that piece turned such an emotionless monster.

[The last part, though spoken as if directed to Lion, sounded more as something told to himself as he stared intently at the king piece.]

[isthedeadcat]

I know that, and I also know that after living away from being human for so long, most witches don't see life in the same way we humans do.

But I still can't wrap my mind around such a mindset, that was my point... I have a difficult time trying to imagine how one could lead such a life. But that is only logical. Experiencing something like that would be the only real way of knowing exactly how it feels.

Say, Primo-san... You were closely involved with that gameboard or with someone in it, weren't you?

[promotedpawn]

That's quite true, and that's the difference between humans and witches. But honestly I think that's okay, there's nothing wrong in not understanding everything. There are things that are better left inside the cat box.

[Even when said cat box is open, what if there's a cat box inside that one? It may be better to leave it closed after all. If humans were meant to understand everything, they would be born as Gods to begin with.]

Ah, such a sharp observant, Lion-san. But it's not entirely correct, really, I only arrived to participate on it at the end of the previous to last game. Me and my companion were invited to the gameboard and allowed to control two pieces on it, one for each one of us. It was thanks to that that we gained so much knowledge and understanding on it despite being so late. Had we not participated it's probable that the game would still be going on even now. Though many could argue that to allow that game to go on eternally may have been the best for many others, all the witches involved on it moved on soon after it ended to find other games to play.

[Other pieces to torture. But that goes without saying.]

[isthedeadcat]

I see, that makes sense... But these games are as complex as ever, aren't they...?

Saving some people sometimes, may lead others to be sacrificed... Still, when doing something one has to always hope for the best results. There is no point in letting things stay as they are when someone is suffering.

[promotedpawn]

It wouldn't be "fun" if they weren't complex. And the happy ending would have no meaning if they were easy.

That's true, in fact, that game board was solved at the cost of many sacrifices by the king piece. Without those sacrifices, no matter how much help it received, there would have been no happy ending. Of course, after the end of that game, I checked the kakeras out of the witches game and found a way to avoid any sacrifices, but it was a way outside of the king's area of effect, it was something only a witch or a wizard could affect in.

But even with sacrifices, the happy ending was reached, not once but twice, though the first time it got denied, based in that only the main mystery had been cracked, but others had been left untouched. Even if the main premise of a game is solved, unless all the other minor problems are solved, there's always a chance for the witch to negate the happy ending because any of those apparently minor problems can grow and crush the game with its weight when the main one is solved.

[He hasn't watched Lion's game yet, but it's not a far cry from what happened there.]

So we played again and achieved a beautiful happy ending, that no witch had the power to negate. There were still a few bitter parts of it, but by the time I stopped watching, there was nothing of that left. Humans can have many problems, but without the interference of witches trying to create even more conflicts it's amazing how much the number of those lowers.