[Fin] The Murder-Free Hotel

[Kennifer]

Alexis has finished her meal now, and is cleaning the dishes before looking for something else to do.

[wahoothis]

Ranma gives a stretch and looked around. "So uh. . . how do we get rooms here? Where's the shower And another thing, when can we leave, or if we can even leave here."

[wingedcatgirl]

Vivi pulls a cap out of somewhere to cover her ears, then heads over to Ranma to answer his questions. "Room keys are at the front desk, sometimes the host hands them out and sometimes you can just grab them; something keeps track of how many people are in the hotel so there's always free rooms. Each room has its own bathroom. And... I believe the host only intends to let us out after she's gathered enough power to destroy TM Awe."

[Florien]

You say "physically impossible", I say challenge accepted. Oh! Oh, so wait, you have some control over this demiplane, you're not a glowing pink figure, what's up with that? Does this second host person just delegate out control of demiplanes, are you an employee of hers, are you her in a cunning disguise, is she you in a cunning disguise, basically, explain your system of governance to me, I'm curious. Also, uhh... no yeah that's about it for now. I'll bring further questions if I think of them.

[wahoothis]

"I have no idea what any of that last stuff is about, but whatever. Thanks I guess." With that, Ranma turned to grab a roomkey, before heading to his room to take a much needed shower. He hadn't had one for about a week, so finally being able to take one was a refresher.

[wingedcatgirl]

"The host, the glowing pink woman," Vivi says, addressing Kellensea once more, "she's the one in control of this... 'demiplane' is a good enough word, I suppose. And this pink smoke is her power, given physical form, which she has shackled me to... for reasons I cannot imagine." That last phrase has the distinct tone of something said less to convey information and more to convince oneself.

[Caret]

Bow walks out from her room; having slept for a while. She then overhears the current conversation.

"And who is this "TM Awe" figure? The host back at the campus mentioned something about things far worse then herself, so I wounder if TM Awe is one of those... things."

[wingedcatgirl]

Vivi nods to Bow. "She was definitely referring specifically to TM Awe. Dunno why she was cagey about that if she was sending you here, surely she'd expect one of us to spill the beans immediately..."

[Florien]

Wait wait wait, this is all some kind of scheme to destroy a hyper powerful being with the power of harvested memories?... and this pink person didn't even think to just hire an adventuring party just starting out their careers? Or... they have demiplanes, why not fill one entirely with computronium and set it to simulate trillions of minds all being tortured forever and create endless reserves of negative memories?... I mean, that's my idea. I didn't tell them that because bargaining chip, but I think it's a really good one, so I don't care anymore... though that's only advanced magical theory. You'd need to have a grasp of computronium or some weaker pseudocomputronium at very least. But I'm sure if you can scour the inter-hyperplanar-network rifts for people, you can find at least a couple who would be willing to help make pseudocomputronium and torture it forever. Actually, Vels is supposedly searching for people to make pseudocomputronium back home. She talks about it... not infrequently. Though she'd use it to automate support networks or something. Torture really isn't an optimal way to fuel divinity, not since she upended the market by not including a torture plane in her cosmology.

Kellensea's weird tangent at the end and lack of explanation of what the fuck she's talking about somehow doesn't downplay the fact that she's just said some stuff that based on the "trillions of minds being tortured forever" thing, is presumably at least somewhat horrifying.

But yeah, what's preventing you from creating life? Like, in the past, that hasn't ever really been an option. Haven't met a deity yet who really understood all they needed to to do it, and wizards can't do that normally either, but like... oh, I guess that's the bottleneck in my idea. You'd need machines to automate the process of making better machines which could try to make life and at that point you're just asking for one of them to come out sapient and an adventurer, and then, you'd need adventurers to shut your whole project down, and you'd have to start over a bunch and by then you'd probably be dead.

She sounds slightly disappointed, before abruptly falling silent for a few seconds, before her monotone comes back.

Anyway, yeah, everyone else here is really weird and I hope they realize how weird they are instead of just deciding "we outvote the adventurer therefore we aren't weird." Which, I guess in theory that's how weirdness works. Also, an adventuring party is a far more optimal solution than this retaliatory dark lord route, but I'm sure sunk costs and all will be the thing preventing switching to the responsible solution, as always.

[wingedcatgirl]

"Well, she's super paranoid," Vivi says, "so... if an adventuring party has any chance of being traced back to her before killing TM Awe, that'll be her reasoning not to do it. As for creating life... well, I haven't seen her do that. Maybe she can't." She doesn't even touch the computronium-torture subject, since she has no the fuck idea what Kellensea's talking about and she seems to have decided that it wouldn't work anyway.

[wahoothis]

Taking a satisfied sigh of relief as Ranma finishes his warm shower, squeezing his once again tied pigtail to get water out. He leaves the room, wearing a blue variant of his usual get-up. As he passes back the room they arrived in, he can only guess he missed another long-winded "me good, everyone else stupid" speech from everyone's begrudging adventurer. The martial artist just grumbled, both from his mouth and his stomach. Given that Kellensea had a habit of poisoning their supplies, he'd been hesitant to actually eat something at the base. Now, with the no murder rule implemented here, he can actually eat something! The martial artist makes his way into the kitchen, puts on an apron, and started cooking something to eat, chopping up meats and other ingredients with his quick speed.

[Mr. Lee Hammer]

Gary Busey watches in amazement over Ranma's quick cooking.

Wow.... you ever worked at any of those sushi restaurants? All those Japanese chefs do that fancy handwork too, but yours happens to be even faster than them. You could give them a run for their money.

[Despair's Archon of Memes]

Monika ponders a quick question to Vivi:

Wait... Hold on... What vendetta does The Host have against this "TM Awe" guy in the first place? Did he kill her in a past life or something?

[Kennifer]

As it turns out, Alexis has decided to head to the pool to swim some laps, as she hasn't had a chance to do so in some time.

[artsyGeek]

[And then there's Haruka! She's... Not dead, but she just did the flop.]

"..ow."

[wingedcatgirl]

Vivi nods to Monika. "As I recall, he got her killed in a murdergame."

Can you believe Vivi still doesn't know that the host has run murdergames of her own? Or a game and a half, I guess, MU2 was mostly run by the second host.

[Caret]

"The strange thing is that instead of directly running the game herself, the host had another figure run the game for her. I don't really understand the reasoning behind this. Is it paranoia or what?

Sevreal theories are cycling within Bow's mind right now.

[Florien]

Ah, yeah, guess that makes sense. Especially with this dark lord thing. Like, Azhi got off lucky with mostly relying on fanatic adventurers or dragonhorders. The other kinds have a pretty decent chance of turning on their employer afterwards when their employer exhibits those behaviors. And adventurer employers do usually take on a decent amount of risk to themselves anyway. Often it turns into a rewardless retaliation-fest until both the threat and the employer are long dead. And hell, Azhi has her reincarnation coven. She tries to hide their identities, but seriously, we all know she has the coven. Like, become a lich, there's nothing wrong with it, there isn't even a rule you can't still govern as one, but seriously? Reincarnation coven? That's so transparently an attempt to get around old regulations that no one cares about and you could repeal anyway that it's actually kind of sad.

Kellensea pauses.

But yes, tangent aside, I can see how a self-preservation interested individual would be reluctant to hire adventurers for a job. It's quite often a very risky proposal. I suppose she can keep up the whole dark lord thing. But she should recognize that if she goes even a LITTLE too far with it without building up connections with some newbie adventurers, there's a very real risk that she'll end up on some party's hit-list, and once someone's on that list? It takes a lot of work to survive. Vels, even powerful deities struggle with it often, if they end up on an up-and-coming party's hitlist. That's why even the so called "omnipotent" and "all the others are fake" ones keep around some paladins. You sometimes need a party on hand to protect you, because the only thing that's ever consistently stopped adventurers is other adventurers. Ugh. Paladins. The worst. Even the causal ones are, at best, virulently unpleasant.

[wahoothis]

Hearing Busey's comments, Ranma juggled some ingredients and spice in the pan while holding it over the stove's top. "Uh, no. Growing up, whenever I had the time to, I had to teach myself how to cook just incase a situation arises where my old man was gone. Although that fatso is more likely to steal my food, or sell me off in an arraigned marriage just for an okonomiyaki cart. . ." Is that bitterness in his voice? That's bitterness in his voice. "Although, I did work in some restaurants, like a maid café and this one restaurant my. . . "childhood friend" owns."

[wingedcatgirl]

"Well, TM Awe has certainly gotten himself on a few adventurers' hitlists," Vivi says, "Me, for one. My brother. ... Probably anyone who was in his murdergames and counts as an adventurer, really. Aside from Hydroxyl and Jones, anyway. Though after what happened to Hydroxyl, maybe he blames TM Awe for it on some level and could be persuaded to join us..." She shakes her head. "Not that anyone would ever actually consider it."

[Caret]

Bow has meanwhile gone off to explore the endless hallways of the hotel, hoping to find something interesting along the way.

[Florien]

Jones? That's an unusual name. Like, Hydroxyl, that's a name, but JONES? It sounds so... old. Like, pre-civilization old. Like, "Lives in caves, doesn't farm" old, not just "birthright to the throne is a legitimate thing" old. Like, one syllable names, those all sound so... archaic. Even the ones still around sound old... Ah, pointless tangent, but either way, you say there's plenty of adventurers who'd have this person on their hitlist? That gives me confidence they'll be toppled, especially if they don't have their own adventurers.

[wingedcatgirl]

Vivi ponders that. "Hmm. He is capable of delegating, according to what Robin said. He hired Sendri to run murdergames for him. I don't know if he has adventurers, though."

[wahoothis]

"Ah yes! Because "Kellensea" is such a common and ordinary name. But Jones is the strangest name someone can have." Ranma yelled from the kitchen, having heard bits and pieces while cooking. Given his hunger, he probably made more food than he really needed. He ended up making more food than he really needed to make. The martial artist made motsunabe, tonkatsu pork cutlet and, mostly out of slight nostalgia, some okonomiyaki. Ranma wipes his forehead with his arm before taking what he can. Got to live by the Saotome code after all: eat while you can, because you may never know when you may be able to again. As he sits down, he does leave some of the food still warm on the stove and countertop, so anyone who may want some may come by and grab a plate.

[Florien]

Delegation. Lovely. I'd have to check up on this Sendri person to tell if there are adventurers, but generally delegation isn't enough, it just gives you someone to walk through on your way up the command chain. After all, S.A.P. is find some street toughs, kill them, find their leader, bam, then you work your way up the command chain. Though in my case, it was mostly against military forces, so the hierarchy was actually known. Alternately, this Sendri person could be a useful traitor to this target... In fact, delegation... that could be an actual weakness. Give practice and preparation to the ideal newbie adventurer league going for this target. Yeah, this could work... I mean, I'd expect large consultation fees and a hell of a lot more power to actually help coordinate this operation... but I do think this is feasible, if you get the right types of adventurers. Like, training is important, but you do need to get the right sort of behavior in the party. Like, you can't have anti-fanatical dragonhoarders or detached hollows for this sort of thing. You'd wouldn't need to custom-build the entire team, I'd think, standard T.P.A.L. or P.E.F.A. fare should work, though you'd probably need to shop around a bit.

Kellensea shouts back at Ranma, though seemingly she's more focused on what would be needed for this theoretical operation.

Yeah, actually, it's a pretty common name. Like, not Myron or Sailsiss/Sailsos/Sailsahz common, but common-ish! Anyway yeah I'd need more information to determine the ideal team, but it would be procurable, and you probably wouldn't even need a G.A. setup to collect them.