idolpro | Betrayal - avante en garde

[ You spill out of the elevator onto a balcony— the elevator is gone when you look back.
Flavor text.

You enter the Balcony. It's expansive. A pool drained dry suffocates in the night air; an engine that's meant to be circulating the water instead heaves and sputters but refuses to die. Dim lights meant for an ambient glow outline the crags of an artificial waterfall, now just jagged rocks. Lounge chairs and patio furniture circle the pool, cushioned to extend an invitation— stay.

Looking to the pool fills you with a sense of dread, but more than that, a gut-wrenching fascination. Though it isn't filled with water anymore, you know - somehow, you know - that was, is, the gravesite of the last person here before you. The knowledge is a thick feeling in the back of your throat like pressure from holding your breath underwater, and maybe you are holding your breath after all. At least, you're definitely aware of how your chest rises and falls, how easily it could stop doing that, how it feels like your heart could burst from oxygen deprivation at any moment. It's a dull feeling, vague; like something you crammed for on a test and aren't positive of it, it's tentative— you need to reach for it. In other words, easy to ignore while you have your wits about you, but an almost-uncomfortable presence that threatens to overwhelm you if you lose your sanity, or if you acquire enough damage.

Besides the empty pool sits a spear, pulsing with power. Exael's hologram twines her fingers through her pigtails, twisting them absently nearby as she watches you. If you have questions and she's not busy with hosting or another unit, she'll appear here to answer them.

A readout on your phone tells you the rules and displays the sanity goal (explore rooms) and your traitor goal (drown someone) as well as the item that you've been given (spear). It looks like nothing is stopping you from committing the traitor goal even while you're sane, if you wish to.

There is one exit: North. ]