onceuponacomm | Prologue

PROLOGUE

The clink of glasses, the clatter of utensils upon plates and the soft murmur of conversation flows smoothly in the warmly lit dining hall. It's a dinner party, a rather vivacious one at that, with the food flowing freely. Savory and sweet, regional specialties, refined and rustic, there's something for everyone. Omurice, chiffon cake, kimchi, sizzling porterhouse steaks—it might be more apt to call it a buffet than anything else.

Do buffets usually serve such a unique smorgasbord of food? And actually, weren't you doing something else? A free meal is usually a good thing but is anything truly free? Who are these people around you? And where exactly are you?

Whatever thoughts are racing through your mind, they're abruptly cut off by a note, high pitched G-sharp from a woodwind. All your senses return to you, though they won't tell you much. Maybe not all of them actually, if you're used to feats of heroic strength or manipulating reality or numerous other abilities. There is one clue at least, a heavy weighted paper beneath your plate, an embossed note rather than a list of courses.

"Enjoy yourselves. I'll come see you when you've had your fill. And don't try to dine and dash, huh? There's something I have—something I can do for you, after all. Besides, you've already agreed to the terms anyway!"

Welcome to your Fairy Tale.

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ well hello, fellow explorer - considering that william is the one who's turned a corner and walked into the sect leader and his plate of food ]

... From behind that shelf.

[ vague hand gestures at the general direction he came from. ]

And you must have come from the dining hall?

[ A soft 'oh' escaped him at that.

At least he didn't spill the food! What a waste that would've been... ]

Yes, I did.

I thought it'd be good if I got to know where everything was? And then found myself in here.

[ the biggest tragedy, if all that food went to waste. ]

A solid plan. This place is much bigger than it looks.

[ more locations than expected! ]

Although you might have to hold onto that for a while, I'd wager. This library isn't quite the place for eating.

[ william hasn't seen a librarian around, but if it's anything like the university library, then, well. ]

[ He'll nod in agreement; at first he hadn't expected the place to be too big for them to be able to roam so freely, but...here they were. ]

Probably not, no. I wouldn't want to cause any trouble by making a mess of things.

[ He was going to just snack in here and look around because he did what he wanted but maybe that wasn't a good idea. ]

...What do you think it says about them that we've been given this amount of freedom to walk around?

[ it's saying something that while there was a big group of them at the dining hall earlier, where they've been given to explore is large enough that there's some modicum of privacy. ]

Especially if we haven't met our mysterious, nameless host.

[ alluding to the note they've all received. but his gaze is going to light up a little bit because he's a nerd who likes debating and discussing these kinds of hypothetical scenarios i'm sorry: ]

Probably that there's nowhere else for us to go. [ a small laugh ] Confine us in one place and I'm fairly certain that someone in our motley group would be making plans to break out of it, but to leave us to our own devices and give us the illusion of freedom?

I doubt there's very much of an escape path, but now there's less of an incentive compared to if we were confined to that fine dining hall we were in earlier.

[ What an interesting conclusion this man has made, Nie Huaisang thought. It's good that if he's going to be trapped that he'd be with smart people. It'd be rather an impossible situation to deal with otherwise.

Either way, he thought the response made sense. ]

...I didn't think of that.

Do you believe this person who kidnapped us has some experience doing this before, then? Or maybe they're just smart enough to think of that?

I'd probably wager a 60% probability of the former over the latter, perhaps. Although--

[ his smile is a little bit more bemused than normal because nothing quite makes complete logical sense here, doesn't it? ]

Strange, isn't it, that they would have such a large estate just at the ready for our arrival. Even my family's holdings can't possibly rival the size of this entire place.

[ The Jin Clan could've easily set aside a large estate like this for their arrival, but it evidently had no signs they were involved whatsoever. ]

You sound rather well-off. Well, not as well-off as our captors, I suppose.

But, you're right that it's strange. They must have been planning this for awhile...

[ the only people that william knows are rich enough to pull this off would be-- ]

It's also fairly possible that our hosts are royalty, that would be the only reason why they would be more well-off than nobility.

[ CHINHANDS. that's an interesting proposition. ]

Didn't the letter say that we made a deal of sorts?

[ he's only like 20% certain the letter is true but you never know. ]

They're the worst royalty, if they are!

[ And then he nodded, looking positively upset. ]

It did. But I bet it was just to try to trick us into doing something terrible for them! I never agreed to anything. You didn't either, right?

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