Collective Unconscious:People Palace

People Palace
Basic Info
Eidola	EffectNone
Events	Panic, Dungeon
Notable NPCs	Cecilia
Other
Connecting Areas	Portrait Forest Wooden Puppet Area LockedCondition🔐 Soulfire✨
BGM	maple-clock-16000 by maple (No. 43) maple-scorched (Dungeon) by maple (No. 44-2) maple-scorched (Panic) by maple (No. 44-3)
Map ID	0123, 0129
Version Added	0.1.0
Author	maple
Extras + YNOproject Badges Framed!

Map of People Palace

People Palace is an area accessible by going through the rightmost tunnel in Portrait Forest.

Features

Appropriately, People Palace is a spirit world that resembles the interior of a royal palace. A majority of its rooms are furnished with a combination of tall plants, tall chairs, and long dining tables. The walls of the palace are decorated with large, colorful faces, and the panoramic background fades between two checkerboard patterns: one features hearts and shields, while the other features diamonds and swords.

People Palace consists of a sprawling network of many rooms that are connected by transparent "tubes." When interacting with either end of a tube, Minnatsuki will transform into a small blue ball of light (the same that appears when using the Return function in the menu) and be sent to the other end of the tube. Each room is inhabited by varying numbers of NPCs who are uniformly tall, slender, and white in color, though none of these NPCs will initially respond to Minnatsuki's presence. While most NPCs - some with blank faces, and some wearing glasses - will wander around aimlessly, the NPCs wearing helmets simply remain in place, unmoving. The NPCs in People Palace respond to either the Soulfire eidolon or the small form of the Rodentia eidolon: the wandering NPCs will begin to panic and move at increased speeds, and the helmeted NPCs - now identifiable as palace guards - will become chasers that attempt to apprehend Minnatsuki and send them to the palace dungeon. All NPCs will immediately revert to their previous behaviors when the respective eidolon is unequipped.

A majority of the rooms in People Palace are functionally identical, and only two of the rooms are unique. One of these unique rooms is a throne room in the southwest corner of the map. This room features numerous palace guards, a large throne, and a monarch NPC wearing a crown and a cape. Though unique in appearance, the monarch is identical to the other wandering NPCs around the map. The guards in this room will only chase Minnatsuki for as long as Soulfire is equipped, meaning that it is possible (albeit difficult) to kill the monarch without consequence.

The second of the two unique rooms is a theater in the southeast corner of the map. Upon entering People Palace, the theater can be reached by taking the northwest tube in the first room, the northwest tube in the second room, the southeast tube in the third room, and the only other tube in the fourth room. Unlike the rest of the palace, the theater looks very ordinary, with a wooden floor and a large red curtain. When first entered, the theater will be dark, and Minnatsuki will emerge from the entrance tube behind the curtain. There are two switches behind the curtain; one toggles the world's background music while the other toggles the lights in the theater. When the lights are off, a spotlight will follow Minnatsuki when they walk out onto the theater's stage. There is a seating area on the south side of the theater with many chairs that will pan the game's camera to the stage when Minnatsuki sits in one. Finally, there are two doors in the theater. One is an entrance to Wooden Puppet Area that is initially locked, and the other leads to a small control room containing the worm-like Cecilia. When interacted with, a full-screen graphic of Cecilia will be displayed.

Panic Event

Killing Cecilia in the back room of the theater using the Soulfire eidolon will immediately begin the Panic event. During this event, the background music is replaced with a looping drone, and the floors and walls of the palace are grayed out, as is the world's panoramic background. All NPCs in People Palace will begin to function as though Soulfire is equipped (even if it isn't), meaning that the helmeted guards throughout the palace will chase Minnatsuki in an attempt to capture them. Getting caught by a guard will send Minnatsuki to the dungeon as normal.

The guards are not particularly quick, and it is possible to outmaneuver them in the palace's tight corridors at Minnatsuki's running speed. Evading capture and successfully escaping the palace through the front entrance provides access to Wooden Puppet Area. This location also becomes permanently accessible via the locked door in the theater, meaning that the Panic event does not need to be replayed whenever access to the location is desired.

Once the Panic event is activated, People Palace becomes entirely inaccessible for the remainder of the dream session. The entrance tunnel in Portrait Forest becomes a dead end, and the door to the theater in Wooden Puppet Area disappears.

Dungeon

The Dungeon is a location in People Palace that is seen only during a short cutscene whenever Minnatsuki is caught by a palace guard (whether during the Panic event or otherwise when Soulfire or small Rodentia is equipped). Minnatsuki will be led down a hallway by two guards behind another captive, an NPC with a bright yellow color. The yellow NPC is forced into a special tube with a large screen, and a large yellow face - identical to the faces seen on the wall throughout the palace - is shown on the screen as the NPC passes through. When coming out the other end of the tube, the NPC has changed appearance, and is now identical to the white NPCs seen throughout the palace. As this NPC wanders off, Minnatsuki is then forced into the tube, and a blown-up image of their face will appear on the screen shortly before they are forced awake, where they are seen lying collapsed on the floor of their room until a key is pressed.

Directions

Nexus → Pale Park → Portrait Forest → People Palace