Soon everyone headed off to bed, exhausted. The situation was really starting to get to them, and the end was nowhere in sight.
Chapter 4
When they next awoke, people felt disoriented and confused. The ceiling above them was unfamiliar, and their beds were all rocking unsteadily. The metal walls around them creaked periodically. As they got up, they realised they'd been sleeping in bunk beds inside cramped cabins, shared with some of their fellow players. The cabin groups questioned each other, but everyone was equally confused. With no other options, they pushed open the heavy cabin doors and emerged into a corridor, seeing the remaining players emerge from similar doors spaced throughout it. "So. This is a ship." Faye stated.
There were no demons here to greet them, so the players began to explore the new location, staggering a little as the floor tipped back and forth. They found portholes in some of the walls, showing them an empty expanse of ocean outside.
The ship's layout was strange and labyrinthian. It also seemed to abruptly switch styles halfway through. While the players found various rooms as they searched, none of them seemed particularly useful.
Suddenly, a robotic male voice addressed them over the speakers. "Good morning, dipshits! This is your captain speaking. We'll be making harbour soon." Barely seconds passed before everything shook violently. "Okay! Much sooner than I thought! This is fine, nobody panic, I have everything under control! I just need you to, um, I just need, er-"
A metallic clang could be heard over the speakers, before a new voice took over. Robotic like the last, but female this time. "Nobody panic, but this ship has crashed and we're currently sinking. Please evacuate in an orderly manner, without panicking. I'll calmly direct you to the exit because I am a professional and I'm not freaking out!"
The players felt they couldn't exactly trust the intelligence of either of these voices, but they didn't have many alternatives at the moment. "I got some new feckers for my to-haunt list if I die here..." Caitlin muttered, as she and the others took off running along corridors as directed. Water began bursting out of walls around them, and the floor started to flood, slowing their progress. To the robot's credit, everyone probably would have gotten lost in the weird layout if they'd tried to find the way out themselves. Instead, they soon found themselves running up a sloping corridor towards a door clearly marked with an exit sign. Korrigan, ahead of the others, pushed it open and jumped through. Everyone else did the same, Hawk last as he was taking up the rear.
Quiet unexpectedly, the players all landed in a heap on a hot, sandy beach. Looking behind them, instead of the ship they'd expected, they saw a dilapidated building looming over them. Everyone picked themselves up and dusted themselves off, bewildered.
As they took a look around them, the players noticed a ship wrecking off in the distance. Is that where they'd just been? From the looks of things, the doorway had teleported them from the ship to a tropical island. It seems they were safe now, at least. From the outside, the players could see that the ship was in fact two halves of different ships grafted together. It had hit a fairly large and obvious rock, rupturing the hull. As they watched, the damage spread as the weight of the ship tore itself in two, roughly splitting it into the separate halves it had been constructed from.
Everyone turned away from the spectacle, still feeling shaken, and saw three figures approaching them. A strange, cloaked individual holding a mirror up to where its face should be led the trio. It was flanked on either side by two nearly-identical, cuboid robots with crowns on. One had a giant K printed on it, the other a Q.
[#spoiler=M]
[/spoiler]
[#spoiler=King and Queen]
[/spoiler]
"I am the Demon Lord of the Mirror Realm," the cloaked individual spoke up without preamble. It had a flat, monotonous voice.
"We call it 'M'!" the K robot added. He was the one who'd called himself the 'captain' earlier, presumably making him the one who crashed the ship into the big, obvious, shipwrecking rock.
"The Demon Lord is nameless," the other robot explained. She was the one who'd guided them to safety. "But that's silly, so we asked it for a name! It told us 'M'."
"M, for Mirror? Wow," Hella commented.
"That is correct," M confirmed humourlessly. The Demon Lord this time around didn't appear to have any sense of creativity, or a personality at all for that matter.
"As for me, I'm King!" the male robot interjected.
"And I'm Queen!" the other added.
"You will all be staying on this island in my Realm," M said. "You know the rules. The Game continues." And then, it simply wandered off.
"Yeah, M does that," King said, watching the demon leave before spinning back around to address the players. "But we'll give you dipshits the tour of this place instead!"
"We're good at tours!" Queen added.
"The best!"
The players gave a collective sigh. May as well get this over with.
[Island map:
i.imgur.com/ZwE7ema.png ]
[#spoiler=The Tour]
"See, the Mirror Realm doesn't have an identity of its own," Queen explained, as the two robots led the players.
"Yeah, so it composes itself out of scenes and concepts and stuff from other worlds instead!" King continued.
"M's kinda similar, like it has no soul or something. It just wants to further its weird agenda of expanding the Mirror Realm."
"Kinda creeps me out. Neither of us know what's behind its mirror! We've tried to see lots of times!"
The players were currently near the centre of the island. The door they'd emerged from was the entrance to a dilapidated prison, for some reason. When opened, they could see the floor behind it sloped downwards to water: it led back inside the ship, rather than inside the prison as would be assumed. Queen explained that space worked differently here, with doors leading to places elsewhere on or around the island.
Prison: As the door didn't lead inside, the players went through a massive hole in the damaged prison wall instead. The whole place was a wreck, with so many holes in the walls and multi-levelled ceilings that the interior was largely exposed to the elements. There were stairs leading upstairs, but there wasn't much to find here other than a second door. The robots led them through it.
Clock Tower: Judging by the giant clockwork in the room, the players had stepped into a clock tower. It was ruined like the prison, though less so, with a few small holes in the walls and ceiling that the players could peek through. The holes allowed sunlight and a gentle breeze to enter the cramped room. They could see ground far down below, confirming the room was in a tower. A spiral staircase led down to an open doorway on the ground level, which went outside. It seemed only the doorways with actual doors could 'teleport' people, while this empty frame did not. Outside, the players found they were still on the same island, some distance away from the prison.
Casino: It seems everything on the island was damaged. However, when the players checked inside the worn-down casino, they discovered that the machines were all still working. They'd all been imported, or perhaps copied from, the Game Realm, as they were Monokuma themed and the slot machines used Monobucks.
Cave: Next, the tour took the players to a foreboding cave. King and Queen were too scared to go inside, so the players explored it by themselves, Nico taking the lead. After following it for a while, they were suddenly attacked by a giant venus fly trap, squatting in the middle of a large cavern. They quickly fled, and agreed it was probably best to leave the area well alone.
Ferris Wheel: At odds with everything else, a large Ferris wheel loomed over one side of the island. While badly damaged, it was still functional.
Blimp: At the apex of the Ferris wheel, the players stepped out into a blimp that was tethered next to it. This was the only way to reach it. The blimp contained various living commodities, including the players' bedrooms from St. Hope's. The bedrooms all had doors for privacy, but these worked as normal, unlike the other doors on the island. (This meant there was no way to 'teleport' up to the blimp either.)
Beach: The tour ended at a particularly nice expanse of beach on an empty part of the island. There were a few beach huts, one of which was oddly labelled 'haiku', and a volleyball net had been set up. Whereas all the buildings had been damaged, this area was beautiful.
King blathered on about something as he showed everyone around the beach, straying close to the water as he did so. All of a sudden, a shark leapt out of the sea and bit down on him, before jumping back into the water with him in its mouth. The shark had long blond hair and a tie, for some reason. Queen screamed for him and ran out into the water, only to be obliterated by a buff, fishlike monster with a baby-pink ribbon on its head. The monster screeched triumphantly before returning to the sea.
Perhaps it was best to stay out of the water.
[/spoiler]