Zero Escape: Zero Win Game

Hello, and welcome to Zero Win Game!

If you don’t know anything about Zero Escape titles but you still decided to check this quest out, thank you for giving it a chance! If you are familiar with Zero Escape, I hope you stick around! I’ve got some surprises in store! You’ve already seen two of them: the introduction of Maria, and the reintroduction of Aoi! Sibling dynamics are some of my favorite to write, and I hope I can write them well.

Now, this isn’t exactly a standard quest where you have total autonomy over what a character does and thinks throughout the story. If a normal quest is like a video game, where the audience controls the main character and explores a world that the QM’s created, this quest is closer to a visual novel.

Where a normal QM would write as they’re posting in accordance to the voter’s choices, this quest is being prewritten. 21 chapters out of a planned 9X have been completed thus far. That isn’t to say that you, the audience, has no say whatsoever in the writing process— I am very open to feedback and suggestions, and I’m constantly going back and editing chapters, changing plans, adding foreshadowing, removing unnecessary details.

There are plenty of choices to make, but it’s less about open-ended problem solving and more about “which of these choices will I make now, and which will I save for the future?” Quest exploration is open and non-linear, written to mimic the media I’m trying to reimagine, using the same mechanics to accomplish that goal.

(If you have no idea what that piece of cryptic bullshit means, don’t worry. You will.)

The first five chapters of this quest will be posted over the next four weeks, every Sunday afternoon. (Chapter 3 is very short and I don’t have a way to increase its length organically, so it will be posted alongside Chapter 4.) The first poll will be at the end of Chapter 4, which will be posted on May 15. After Chapter 5 (May 22), posting will shift to a bi-weekly schedule so I can keep ahead of my backlog.

Polls will run for a week, starting and ending on Sunday. Once I shift to a bi-weekly schedule, every Sunday after a poll ends, I’ll post a snippet of the next chapter, a little teaser to generate interest. I’ll also be available throughout the week to answer any questions and clear up any confusion readers might have about some aspect of the story.

(Please note: some confusion may be intended, and some questions may be answered with a smiley face.)

I hope you stick around, and if you do, please enjoy the Game!

Spoiler: “Patreon Plug”

These little plugs will pop up most weeks at the end of every poll and teaser.
If you join my Patreon, you’ll be entitled to a number of benefits, such as an extra vote on every poll for just $3! I’ll also thank you (in a little spoiler box like this one) at the start of every chapter, in every thread across all sites!
Join now to see next week’s chapter now for just $1! And for $5, you can see all three chapters of the Prologue— 36 Pages, 8.3k words! https://www.patreon.com/KayZero
Thank you for supporting me!

 

Hello everyone, this chapter has been posted ahead of schedule because it is a very short chapter, especially compared to the chapter that came before, and I didn’t want to give just this to you only to tell you that you have to wait an entire extra week for the voting to start! I’m impatient! I want action!

One thing to note: this quest will be separated into Fragments, as illustrated here. Each Fragment will consist of between two and four chapters each, with a single exception of a Fragment that has five. Once you have seen every chapter in a Fragment, you will be notified as you have been here that it has been Completed.

Some Fragments will be locked behind specific requirements, and some Fragments will contain locked chapters. But these locks are hidden, and so are the keys— you won’t know for sure if a Fragment is locked until you try to get past the lock, only to be stopped, or how to unlock it unless you stumble around the story!

(or, like, give me presents. I can’t exactly give you xp or extra voting power for writing omake or making art, so I’ll make you this offer instead: every time I get a present, I will reveal an associated lock or, if that lock is already revealed, one requirement to opening that lock)

See you on Sunday, in which the game, and the voting, will begin!

 

Akane
Age: 22
Height: 5’2”
Occupation: Crash Keys Executive, Operations
Appearance: Brown hair worn down, stuffed down the back of your sweater. Drab hoodie, black leggings, black sneakers— sleep clothes that could be worn outside but aren’t really meant to, y’know?
Physicality: Runner’s build. You’re fit enough, you could do some damage with the element of surprise. (Without it, though…? Probably better to run.)
Mentality: You’re fine! Probably! You have intrusive thoughts and nightmares, but who doesn’t? The main thing to watch out for is your unfortunate tendency to completely zone out, but that’s been happening less lately. Honestly, you’re pretty well off for having burned to death over and over and over and over—
Special Abilities: You’re a Shifter! You can Shift your consciousness from one timeline to another, which happens automatically when faced with lethal danger, which makes you effectively immortal! You also have a currently limited ability to retrieve information from other timelines, but it’s hard to do under pressure, which tends to be when you need it the most.
Personal Notes: It’s you! You’re the main character!
Additional Information:

Spoiler: Updated — 05/13/2022

This is where relevant information you obtain in the quest goes. If this hasn’t been updated in a while, feel free to poke me, okay?

Aoi
Age: 25
Height: 5’9”
Occupation: Crash Keys Executive, Personnel
Appearance: Short white hair styled upward in spikes. Grey eyes, fair skin. White sweater, blue jeans, white sneakers. Dressed to run, not that it mattered.
Physicality: Runner’s build. Faster and stronger than you, but less flexible. Also a worse shot with a pistol, despite having taught you.
Mentality: Pretty good when his survivor’s guilt is kept in check. Tends toward denial as a defense mechanism. Tends toward outrage when denial fails.
Special Abilities: Not a Shifter. He is a Receiver, though, and he’s mentally attuned to you, so if you really need to, you can send telepathic messages to him. He usually just gets impressions off you, though, status and emotions.
Personal Notes: It’s your brother! He’s a bit overprotective, and completely incapable of saying no to you.
Additional Information:

Spoiler: Updated — 05/13/2022

This is where relevant information you obtain in the quest goes. If this hasn’t been updated in a while, feel free to poke me, okay?

Junpei
Age: 22
Height: 5’9” (Probably. He’s the same height as Aoi, at least.)
Occupation: Detective Intern?
Appearance: Short brown hair, parted to the side, frames his face nicely. Brown eyes that somehow look wine-colored in the right lighting, you still don’t know how he does it. Normally tan skin darkened further by the Nevada sun. Black jacket, black shirt, black pants, black shoes? Something must have happened in the past year…
Physicality: Swimmer’s build? You think? His clothes are too baggy, you can’t get a good look at his frame, but his shoulders look wider than Aoi’s.
Mentality: Jaded and bitter. Not at all similar to the Jumpy you remember from your childhood, though you can see the intelligence and snark from the Junpei of last year.
Special Abilities: Receiver and Transmitter. Powerful enough to retrieve information from nine years in the past and send information back. Used this ability last year to mentally attune to you and rescue you from an incinerator. Has since been mentally unattuned from you. Maybe that was a mistake…
Personal Notes: The situation with Jumpy is… complicated.
Additional Information:

Spoiler: Updated — 05/13/2022

This is where relevant information you obtain in the quest goes. If this hasn’t been updated in a while, feel free to poke me, okay?

Sigma
Age: 22 (Physically. Apparently 67 mentally. You have a hard time grasping this information.)
Height: Too Damn Tall. Aoi sometimes comes up to his shoulders.
Occupation: Mechanical / Biological / Computer Engineer. Self-taught, somehow. (“It was a long 45 years.”)
Appearance: Cropped black hair. Hazel-green eyes. Tan skin. Blue polo, white khakis, wide sneakers.
Physicality: Bodybuilder physique. Built for power, probably to the detriment of maneuverability.
Mentality: Bit of a temper issue, but otherwise stable. Annoyingly so. The kind of stable that he can throw in your face like “I’m fine after 45 years of isolation, why are you having problems with your issues?” But he’s not nearly as outwardly infuriating, just silently smug, so you can’t even complain about his conduct. Ugh.
Special Abilities: Shifter. Powerful enough to transfer consciousness from 45 years in the future. Isn’t even the cool kind of future, either, he comes from an apocalypse. What a drag.
Personal Notes: Smug asshole knows too much about you. Says he has experience working alongside you, but if that was true, he wouldn’t piss you off nearly as much.
Additional Information:

Spoiler: Updated — 05/13/2022

This is where relevant information you obtain in the quest goes. If this hasn’t been updated in a while, feel free to poke me, okay?

Phi
Age: 21
Height: A head shorter than you, and therefore a tiny baby.
Occupation: College Dropout
Appearance: Short white hair. Silver eyes— Aoi says they’re bright the same way your eyes are sometimes, which is… alarming. Pale skin. White blouse, blue shorts, black shoes. Really cute silver fashion glasses.
Physicality: Slim build. Strong legs. Has repeatedly threatened to kick Aoi’s ass, has won every single time he took her up on it.
Mentality: Apathetic bordering on depressed, despite having proposed the plan to apparently prevent an apocalypse. Initially ascribed to a poker face, further observation has proven otherwise. Lost in her own thoughts a lot.
Special Abilities: Shifter, has traveled to and from the 2070s. Is either underplaying her Shifting strength, hiding additional Receiving capabilities, or is completely unaware that she keeps stopping suddenly and passing out at a concerning frequency.
Personal Notes: Aoi has adopted her as a second sister. Looks at you a lot.
Additional Information:

Spoiler: Updated — 05/13/2022

This is where relevant information you obtain in the quest goes. If this hasn’t been updated in a while, feel free to poke me, okay?

Diana
Age: Late 20s, minimum. NP Mastery programs take 2-4 years after earning a Bachelor’s, and she has some amount of experience.
Height: Probably a head and some taller than you. Slouches too much.
Occupation: Nurse Practitioner
Appearance: Long red hair. Deep blue eyes. Fair skin, dotted with freckles. Red sweater over a grey shirt, long black skirt.
Physicality: Unknown for the most part. Prefers baggy clothes with maximum coverage. Fills out that sweater well enough, though.
Mentality: Androphobic, stronger reaction to men with larger builds. Shy and withdrawn, seemingly scared of her own shadow. Complete 180 when in a position of medical authority, or when talking on a subject she’s knowledgeable of or passionate about.
Special Abilities: None apparent. Empathetic toward her patients, though that might just be a side-effect of her work. Personal Notes: Person of interest (Sigma).
Additional Information:

Spoiler: Updated — 05/13/2022

This is where relevant information you obtain in the quest goes. If this hasn’t been updated in a while, feel free to poke me, okay?

Mira
Age: Early to mid-20s.
Height: A head and some taller than you.
Occupation: Unmentioned
Appearance: Long brown hair. Vibrant green eyes. Healthy tan. Eye-catching red velvet jacket, left half-open to expose a black bralette top, ending just above black short shorts. (Distracting as all hell.)
Physicality: Built. Powerful-looking legs, visible abs. Always has sleeves on to hide her arms, always has her chest out to distract from that fact. (If you’re an ambush predator, she lures her prey.)
Mentality: Is a very convincing faker, would probably fool you if you didn’t know exactly what to look for in a liar. …Except she doesn’t seem like she’s lying? Her emotions are emphasized, but that could be due to backlash, someone in her past reacting poorly to emotionlessness.
Special Abilities: None apparent, none suggested.
Personal Notes: She is very pretty… and it’s not like you don’t empathize with her emotional issues.
Additional Information:

Spoiler: Updated — 05/13/2022

This is where relevant information you obtain in the quest goes. If this hasn’t been updated in a while, feel free to poke me, okay?

Carlos
Age: Mid to late 20s.
Height: Just a whisper shorter than Sigma.
Occupation: Firefighter
Appearance: Short blond hair styled into a wave. Pale blue eyes. Pale skin, probably burns rather than tan. Pink button-down over a white t-shirt on top of faded blue jeans.
Physicality: Jacked to hell and back. What little you know about the requirements needed to join Fire and Rescue matches his figure so well you wouldn’t be surprised if he was the poster boy.
Mentality: You know how some people are so happy and cheerful that you just feel like something nasty and vile is lurking underneath? Carlos takes that, pumps it up like it’s a balloon full of sunshine, and slips inside. You really hope it isn’t a facade.
Special Abilities: “Knows what door danger is behind,” whatever the hell that means. You think it might be latent Receiving potential, taking information from the Collective Unconscious and turning it into a danger sense.
Personal Notes: (Just as expected, cold steel slides into your back, piercing your heart and lung.) It’s nothing.
Additional Information:

Spoiler: Updated — 05/13/2022

This is where relevant information you obtain in the quest goes. If this hasn’t been updated in a while, feel free to poke me, okay?

Maria
Age: 18? That’s the listed minimum age to participate in the DCOM Project, at least. She looks so much younger…
Height: Short. Barely came up to your chest the few times you were both standing.
Occupation: Infirm (Amateur Artist?)
Appearance: Chin-length blond hair (dyed, black roots showing). Tanned skin (looks naturally dark, turned pale with her health issues). Very light brown eyes, amber, you think the shade is called? (They certainly don’t look related.) Yellow shirt underneath blue jean overalls.
Physicality: Tiny. Makes herself smaller. Arms look strong though, could probably catch an attacker off-guard.
Mentality: Quiet, placid. Often lost in thought. Afflicted with Reverie Syndrome, but not yet completely immobilized.
Special Abilities: Apparent Receiver, has displayed the ability to see other people’s dreams while she sleeps. Additionally, your current theory is that Reverie Syndrome might be the result of an Esper overextending their reach and getting lost in the Public Subconscious. That’s probably what happened to Ennea.
Personal Notes: Why do you have to actively try to not be intimidated by a child…?
Additional Information:

Spoiler: Updated — 05/13/2022

This is where relevant information you obtain in the quest goes. If this hasn’t been updated in a while, feel free to poke me, okay?