Flandre's Quest (Touhou) World - (Madness Quest)

[X] Stay until Mami and Kyouko reach some kind of agreement.
- [X] Go see how easily Remilia is winning.


"Well, sit down, Kyouko. Neither of you are leaving until you sort things out." They both glower at you, and Kyouko crosses her arms.

"I don't work for you yet, Missy - but as it turns out, we already did sort things out. We don't need to talk." Even if Mami hadn't blinked in surprise you would be skeptical, but as it is you just turn to the dumplings and shake your wings.

"It was less an order and more a statement of fact, Kyouko - neither of you are leaving this room until you have some sort of agreement that will reduce your blatant hostility to a level that won't bother Madoka. Frankly, if you get it over with now it will be less troublesome than my dragging the two of you to Patchouli and having her force you to make up somehow. Because I will be following up with Madoka tomorrow, and if she isn't convinced that you're being genuine, I will force you." You turn enough to look back at them. "Now, you don't have to speak - you can use your telepathy, or draw pictures, or whatever you want - but you will do something." Kyouko glares more fiercely at you - something she'd better not do once she does start working here - but Mami looks down at the table.

"S-Sakura-san …." Her voice dies down as Kyouko stiffens, but when she turns to look at the blonde, her tension fades - the spear vanishes, her shoulders slump, and she gingerly sits down across from the older girl. For a long time, neither of them say anything; it isn't until Satsuki takes the first plate of dumplings to them that they move at all, in fact. Kyouko stares nervously at them, then looks up at the cheerfully-smiling Satsuki - and then starts ravenously shoving the dumplings into her mouth, seemingly barely bothering to chew before swallowing. She eats all but one of the dumplings, one taken by Mami … and when Mami holds it out for her, she instead bolts across the counter and tackles Mami to the floor. Satsuki looks at you, surprised and nervous, and you motion for her to step away from them as you hear sniffling.

"I thought you didn't like wasting food." Quiet, but not quite quiet enough for you to be unable to hear.

"Didn't waste it. It landed on my back. It's still good." Equally quiet, a little petulant, and punctuated by sniffling, and Mami responds with a quiet chuckle. You and Satsuki prepare the second set of dumplings, then carefully and quietly clean up. Despite trying to not listen in, you can't help but catch enough of the girls' conversation to follow along - they're both afraid, not just for each other, but of being alone, which forms a large portion of Kyouko's rationale for staying here, as anything that can make her be alone is something that would likely kill her with ease. Mami, too, fears solitude, but her perceived duty to help people overrules that. Kyouko starts to raise her voice - asks her to "at least try!" - and is answered by a long silence. Eventually the two rise, Kyouko nibbling on the dumpling, and the evidence of tears is clear on both their faces.

"I … I will talk to your sister tomorrow morning, about … certain matters. Kyouko will come with me. Depending on how that goes …." She trails off, and they look away from each other.

"Will you two at least be able to sit next to each other without making everyone uncomfortable?" You take the second plate of dumplings to the counter they'd been sitting at and step back. Tears well up in Mami's eyes and she rubs her face with her sleeve.

"I - I don't …." Sobs and broken breaths replace words.

"We'll try," Kyouko murmurs, clutching Mami's hand, and after a moment you nod. It's not what you want, probably won't be sufficient to please Madoka for the rest of their time here … but given their current state, you won't get anything else tonight.

"Alright. If you don't finish the dumplings, would you mind putting them in that cabinet?" Kyouko follows your gesture and nods, and you curtsy. "Then I hope the rest of your night goes well. Until tomorrow." You withdraw from the kitchen, leaving the door slightly open, and recall your clones. Over an hour since you brought them together … Lulu and Ilya are almost certainly in bed by now. Unless they fell asleep in the bath, but in that case Sella and Leysritt probably took care of them. You stretch and glance at Satsuki, walking dutifully behind and to your left.

"Yes, Flandre-sama?" You smile.

"Do you still have that map that lets you know where people are?" She nods and takes it out from - somewhere. You don't see any pockets that could be hiding space, and she's not a magician or even a mage. Something like a Device, perhaps?

"Do you want to find Remilia-sama?" You nod and she smiles happily, then puts the map away after a moment. "Please follow me, Flandre-sama." She moves ahead of you, setting a quick pace for you to follow, and guides you to a second-floor room near the Mid-Childans' rooms. You nod gratefully and step inside - Remilia, Fate, Nanoha, Megane, and Zest are all sitting around a large table, with several screens projected in front of each of them. Patchouli is sitting at a desk, reading, and looks up as you enter, and Vita and Koakuma are both looking up at a large map projected on the wall, and you narrow your eyes at the familiar's odd outfit - a very short skirt, a 'shirt' that's little more than a vest, and large collections of threads and tassels carried in her hands. Sakuya bows, and Satsuki slips in to stand on the other side of the door.

"Ah, Flandre. Come in, things are going well." You walk to your sister's side and lean against her shoulder, and her wing cups around you supportively. You study her screens; from what you can tell, her relatively small area of control is quite prosperous, although many of the notations and symbols don't make immediate sense.

"Yes, your rascally sister is currently the score leader, although that doesn't necessarily mean she'll win." You look at the screen, at the large map, at the others' places. Remilia's territory, of course, is a deep red; Megane's somewhat larger territory is a light blue; Fate's golden territory is a little smaller than Remilia's and surrounded by several shadowy colors; next to Megane's is Zest's, dark green and sprawling, the largest territory; and Nanoha's is one of the two territories bordering Remilia's, a large white region. Remilia leans against you and taps something on one of her screens.

"We do not directly control what goes on in our territories - it would take several turns before I could start to get out of this feudal aristocratic monarchy, for example, if I wanted to. Of course, that would probably cancel the protection pact I have with my neighbor there against the expansionist republican empire." She chuckles and breathes deeply. "You are all too reactionary. Even Zest is reacting to events rather than following a determined plan." Fate frowns at her.

"You can't be cheating -" Remilia clicks her tongue against her teeth loudly and her other wing flares in irritation.

"Of course I am not cheating, but I am still on the same path I decided for myself at the beginning of this match. Where you have all divulged from prior plans - and those have been, by and large, recognizable - I have kept to only a single goal, occasionally diverting resources if necessary to survive." Megane holds up a hand amicably, and Fate bows her head.

"What is your goal, if you don't mind telling us?" Remilia looks at Nanoha and smiles.

"Why, to drive off the Belkan Invasion, of course." Vita starts coughing very loudly, and Koakuma pats her back. "In perhaps … six more turns, I should have enough resources to begin proper preparations for their arrival." Nanoha and Fate stare at her, and Megane shakes her head.

"Fourteen turns isn't long enough to set up anything that can stop that," she says, and Remilia titters.

"Of course it is not. One hundred turns is, however, and I have a fortunate location. And, as always, I have faith in my people; together, we shall break our foe." You snake your arm around your sister's waist and squeeze her gently. Now, do you keep watching from her point of view, and see if you can figure out what she's going to do before she does it, or do you watch from someone else's screen and see if they can slow her down at all …?


What do you do?

[ ] Keep watching your sister's position.

[ ] Watch from
- [ ] Nanoha's position.
- [ ] Fate's position.
- [ ] Megane's position.
- [ ] Zest's position.

[ ] Go to the big map and ask Koakuma and Vita how the game has progressed.

[ ] Other?

[X] Go to the big map and ask Koakuma and Vita how the game has progressed.


After a moment's consideration, you withdraw your arm. Remilia looks at you, and you nod to the big map; she smiles and pats your head, and you slip off the chair and head over to Koakuma and Vita. Koakuma gives you a strained smile as you obviously consider her costume. "Well, I am a cheerleader …," she begins, but sighs and slumps over as you raise an eyebrow. You look up at the map and try to figure out how the game probably progressed - but without a starting point, that's more than a little difficult.

"So how does this whole thing work? How did it get like this?" Vita gives you a look, then shrugs.

"It's basically a giant strategy game. You start with some amount of territory, and there are a few ways to 'win' the game: set up a multi-factional government that controls two-thirds of the map, have three-fourths of the map's economy, and just straight-up conquer everyone. If the game progresses to turn one hundred, you get the Belkan Invasion event, and most games just end there because you pretty much have to be the winner by some other method to stand a chance of surviving against them, much less beating them." She shakes her head, obviously considering your sister overly optimistic about her chances, but you chuckle.

"If you want, after this is over I can beat you in a game of Kriegsspiel, whichever rules you want to use." She frowns at you, then shakes her head. Koakuma clears her throat and shakes her tassel-balls.

"Um, anyway! Like Vita said, the game starts with each player having some amount of territory and some knowledge of the surrounding regions." She smiles at Vita, who sighs and taps at something at the base of the map. A small portion of the bottom changes to a smaller zoomed-out view of the map, with only the 'known' areas visible. "These were their starting positions - Megane and Zest right next to each other, and everyone else separated."

"Players don't directly control what goes on, not on the grand scale, anyway. The most that you can do is tell the game what sort of ideals to go for - more personal freedom, more military, more economic growth, things like that - and it handles the busy work of putting those into place. Of course, changes aren't immediate, and too many changes, or too abrupt ones, can make people unhappy, which means you have to deal with them or risk losing a lot of time to government disruption." The smaller map changes abruptly, and Vita taps Zest's already-expanding territory. "There are special events, certain advantages that different regions and locations have, and some other things like that. For example, Zest actually runs a hyper-aggressive expansionist regime, but Megane's capital has a Lost Logia that makes it difficult to capture, so if his state tried attacking hers, she would probably be able to knock out his capital and disrupt his organization before he managed to conquer her worlds. So they're really in a sort of 'cold' war where they haven't ever let their guards down."

"And Lady Remilia has been consolidating her hold on her territories and only expanding when asked by the people she's trading with. Cultural and economic domination rather than military conquest. And since she's been selecting for ethical and pragmatic rulers, the people love their monarch!" A screen pops up, showing a sickly-looking young boy, and Koakuma swoons. "Oh, he's so cute, and he does his best to help the people, too!" Vita snorts, and you chuckle.

"So for the first thirty turns or so, only Megane and Zest had contact with another human player, but only Fate expanded to the limits of her ability. Her area is actually blocked from easy travel through the dimensional sea, so she can't expand past that without a lot of trouble. Of course, it also makes her territory very difficult to invade. But she's managed to build up a self-sufficient, technologically and magically advanced state that's pretty much the best place to live in the game." She shrugs and you nod - when you only have a little to focus on, you can devote much more of your time to those things. Her territory would either be great or a hellhole, and she's not the sort of person to keep her territory a hellhole if she had anything to say about it.

"At turn forty, though, Nanoha had a major setback when one of the game-controlled players attacked her. She lost her initial capital and a lot of her forces destroying them, and now she has to work with a more violent nation than she started with, and she still hasn't been able to get them calmed down. So she's been expanding toward Lady Remilia's position, but since the protection pact was already in place her nation wasn't foolish enough to invade, and talks between the three of them have had a good influence on Nanoha's people." Vita scowls.

"One of the things about not directly controlling everything is that there's no specific things that you can use to learn about the players - not until the end of the game when you can look at the information directly. For example, the player that attacked Nanoha had the fastest ships - not because of their engines or technology, or even their magic, but because something in the design uses a quirk of the dimensional sea to increase their speed. So you can't just steal technology or information, and watching things from the outside like this only tells you some things. Other things you can find out by talking with the other players, or by viewing diplomatic events." You nod and cock your head as the small map advances once again.

"So Zest has been steadily conquering that whole corner, and Megane has been building up her own power and trying to be friendly with his state, right? Fate's stuck, and Nanoha's been expanding, just more rapidly since she was attacked. What about Remilia?" Koakuma shrugs, smiling.

"Well, we aren't really sure. Happy people, good advances in technology and magic, excellent economy, effective diplomats. Her military seems a little low, but without any immediate major threats it doesn't need to be that big, and the standing units seem to be pretty powerful." Vita nods suspiciously.

"Yeah, it's one of those 'totally perfect' states you read about in stories, where it turns out there's some dark secret behind everything and things are actually awful and horrible. We just don't know what her secret is, yet." You laugh and tap your lips. Hmm ….

"What information is available on the different states?" The large map flashes once and a countdown appears in the top center - fifteen turns until the Belkan invasion, so one more before Remilia starts preparing in earnest. Vita shakes her head.

"All the 'public' declarations, mainly. What the state has published about anything, which is how the economic factors get handled in-game, as well as its public diplomatic declarations and agreements. Tourist attractions. There's so much stuff that you can't really figure out what you want unless you luck into a specific example and can track related announcement. Players can figure things out a bit more easily, since they can look at military estimates and things their spies and diplomats report back, but they're also pretty busy, you know, running their own states." You take a step back and look up at the larger map. Nanoha's territory expanded 'eastward', on the 'northern' side, opposite her connection with Remilia and her ally, and your sister's territory expanded along her southern hemisphere ….

"Are these flat territories?" Vita blinks, then chuckles and shakes her head.

"No, but it doesn't matter for almost anything. The only thing it does matter for is that it's possible for worlds to be stacked vertically - which can matter for trade and diplomacy - but since you don't actually have lines between places dictating the flow of materials and such, it doesn't mean much. In fact, players don't actually control the areas they have on the map - they just control the different worlds, and the colored areas represent spheres of influence." You nod and tap your lips. Whatever your sister has been doing, it's something either very low-key, or absolutely secret, if no one's caught it yet. Certainly, if the other actors don't think they can defeat a Belkan Invasion, there isn't an obvious reason why Remilia could ….


What do you do?

[ ] Stay at the big map and watch the fireworks.

[ ] Go back to Remilia and watch her fight.

[ ] Watch from someone else's point of view:
- [ ] Nanoha.
- [ ] Fate.
- [ ] Megane.
- [ ] Zest.

[ ] Other?