Chapter Text
Death Corridor defeated! The boulder fell, yes - but NOT on your head! You are not a crepe!
You are nailing this time loop. "Trap taken care of!" You chirp.
Odile's pale and got a tight hold of Bonnie's shoulder, but she's the first to cobble together a sentence. "I-I suppose it is?"
"Hmf..!" Bonnie crosses their arms and shakes off Odile's hand. Despite that, they're standing closer to Odile than usual. "That was scary!"
The danger's over, thankfully.
No more fear from now on.
Oh - before you forget..
"Any more 'Death Corridors', Mira?"
""Death corridor"...? — Um, no! That's the only one, I promise!"
Great!
You carry on.
You bounce back. So do your allies! You're alright and you're here and you are feeling ready to kill the King!
When you first joined, you honestly didn't have anything better to do. You especially weren't feeling hopeful about their quest - but you figured that it'll be more interesting to either succeed or fail than to keep wandering aimlessly like an untethered ghost. If you lost, at least you can think that you did something good. You were something good.
You were something.
Your foot catches on something —
It's a tripwire, you realise in that instant, but you aren't focused on that.
Behind, someone screams. And you think, stars, not again. But there's no boulder.
It's arrows. Arrows that shoot in from either side — Bonnie's fine, they're too short. Mirabelle ducks. You dart away but you feel something hit the tip of your hat.
One arrow strikes Isabeau right in the side of his neck, and keeps going, sinking a few inches into his flesh, and also ruining any chance that it had of plugging the bleeding. The spray of blood hits even you.
Isabeau gasps and stumbles, one hand going for his neck, the other out for balance, which Mirabelle grabs. Odile takes his shoulder and intercepts his hand, which was instinctually going to pull the arrow out. Together, they drag him away - even though the arrows have stopped - and lower him to the floor while Bonnie rummages for some tonics.
And you are useless. Trap Master you are. Trap Master, aren't you supposed to protect them from traps?
Isabeau's weak. You don't want to think about why. He's lying on his back and Mirabelle and Bonnie are crouched around the wound.
You weakly pat Isabeau's hand.
It's like touching a dead stray, back when you cleaned streets in Poteria. And you look up into his face, and
<<<<<<<<<<<<
"I.. I didn't know."
You stare at Loop.
You don't remember what you said to Isa. You think you just rambled about dead stray dogs.
You're so overly emotional. Despite that, you can't muster up more than your current expression for Loop.
"I thought that the only trap in that House was the boulder!" Loop says. Then glances to the side. Then they're bright and fake and loud saying just don't get hit by arrows next~!
You don't mind if you get hit, you think. But anyone but them. You'd get struck by a hundred arrows if it meant that none of them were grazed.
Before you leave, Loop pipes up again.
"Your Researcher.."
Odile? What about her?
"..... If she was injured, but someone else was worse, she might keep her's a secret."
And you leave. And you don't think about how Odile never turned her back in the last loop.
And you plan.
>>>>
"The thing I have to tell you
is
that,"
Isabeau's eyes flit around your face. His mouth is open.. then he shuts it.
Guess you're never finding out so early.
"I......... Did you really used to live in Poteria-"
You're so thankful for Bonnie throwing that pillow, this go around.
>>>>>>
Perhaps you did scare Isabeau this morning by watching him so closely, but you had to. You had to verify that he was still breathing.
And he was! So Everything is okay, you are okay, and your quest to defeat the King is super duper okay.
You glance at Odile as she changes her shirt.
Back intact. She's fine. And you're all fine and you are all going to travel up the House, fine and okay!
Bonk.
Boulder.
Stand back!
There's a tripwire!
The arrows harmlessly hit the opposing walls, and you bow to the applause.
You are nailing this time loop.
"Two traps," Isabeau says, behind. "Are there going to be more?"
"Uhm, uh, I-I knew about the boulder!"
"Perhaps the secrecy was to prevent any information leak to attackers."
"The House doesn't get attacked! Well, except for right now! And all for others..... I'm not sure."
"Don't sweat it, Mira! With Sif leading, we'll all be safe!"
And you still feel blood on your face as you gesture a thumbs-up over your shoulder.
That's when you hear it - a scrape of a tile that has lowered upon being stepped on. It was on your left side, you didn't notice —
Isabeau tries to grab her, but he's too late. The floor opens up and Mira falls.
You hear a wet crunch
<<
That's when you hear it - a scrape of a tile that has lowered upon being stepped on. You throw your arms out and grab Mirabelle by her belt, slowing her just enough for Isabeau to get a more secure hold of her -
And nobody falls to their death in the death pit.
Mirabelle looks
<<<<<<<
"The House doesn't get attacked! Well, except for right now! And all for others..... I'm not sure."
"Don't sweat it, Mira! With Sif leading, we'll all be safe!"
And you prove this by dashing ahead, triggering the trap, and rolling to safety, just as the pit opens.
Looking down it but without the threat of death, you see the walls are smooth, and the bottom is a black hole of nothingness. Nothing to grab a hold on.
Stars, you let Mirabelle almost fall into there. Go on, Trap Master, keep thinking you're useful when you've failed to noticed a trap for the third time by now.
You're so stupid. You're so useless and stupid. If you weren't looping, you and Bonnie would be the only ones alive, and you might even fail them, too.
..
This peach is nice.
>>
You make it to the second floor. You choose the Beauty Alliance and you're doing well. Not enough to make up for your failures, of course, but everyone's okay, and you've disarmed two more tripwire traps since then.
You reach to open the south door, awaiting the key inside –
But turns out, that was a trap, also.
There's a clunk from above. Multiple, actually. And swinging out of some slots are large, rusty axes, with threadbare rope that you aren't lucky enough to have break.. instead, they cause their descending arcs to be unpredictable.
The blades are sharp, you could tell that from your distance.
Nobody can escape fast enough.
Their reactions are almost fascinating.
Isabeau, close to Mirabelle, his first instinct is to draw himself up and turn into a sort of human shield. Unfortunate for him, then, that there's an axe coming from the side also. It gets him in the side on the downswing and Mirabelle in the neck on the upswing.
You hear an impact of a body against solid ground, and for a moment you thought it was echoing from a long pitfall, but it was just Bonnie falling over, from where Odile shoved them out of danger. Odile used her dominant hand for that, she can't use any craft now.
You think Odile was looking at you, but the axe strikes her in the face before anything.
You think your heart is splitting apart alongside them.
<<
"Sif? You gonna.."
You rip your hand away from the knob and frantically gesture everyone to take several, large steps back.
The axes hit nobody.
You breathe out.
Isabeau asks if you're okay.
Odile looks at you funny.
You're okay. She's okay. He's okay. She's okay. They're okay. Everyone's okay.
You take a breath.
It tries to lodge inside your throat, somehow growing quills, but you force it down. And up. And down. It's like sandpaper to your lungs, and yet you also feel cold.
Oh, a book about the Death Corridor trap.
..........
<<
You take a breath.
It tries to lodge inside your throat, somehow growing quills, but you force it down. And up. And down. It's like sandpaper to your lungs, and yet you also feel cold.
You turn and leave, key in hand. Ears ringing.
>>
Trap Master, won't you protect us all?
The Head Housemaiden's office is a mess to search through. At least you can hear Mirabelle talk. You don't care about what she's talking about, but you cling to the the fact that she can, because it means that she's alive.
[...]
Shut up. And oh, what's that?
You find a key underneath the desk.
It doesn't feel good at all.
You don't feel like celebrating.
You float two feet above your body when you do.
[There's a key here, Stardust. The Key To A Meaningful Change, far end, against the wall.]
..
You head straight for the key. No need for other distractions. You need to get to the top.
Behind, you hear the slide of a book.
You whip your head around. Odile has her hand on a book on a high shelf. You'd have to jump to get it yourself.
The book stalls and she lets go, surprised.
There's a clunk and a burn of fast-moving ropes.
The bookshelf crushes her.
And you are.. still here.
WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?
WHY DON'T YOU CARE?
Mirabelle jumped into action, checking Bonnie's head - they were hit by a corner, and Bonnie struggles against her, trying to get to Odile.
Odile, who's completely still under that bookshelf. Eerily still. Like the stray dog which starved to death, which you buried yourself after your shift, not wanting to leave it to the landfill.
Isabeau steadies the shelf and calls to her, and those fingers don't even twitch. She's long dead. She's been dead for ages.
[Stardust. Feel your surroundings.]
And you don't care, do you? You never cared. Because caring is how you get hurt. It's how you feel lonely and sad and small and scared, but you don't care you don't are about any of them, their deaths don't affect you. You're fine and they're irrelevant. The Researcher is just a hand and some loose hair underneath a bookshelf. The Defender is just a spray of warm water, a waterfall from a hot springs.
[Stardust?]
The Housemaiden is just a sound, a crinkle a crunch a splat, the Kid is just screams and screams and screams and you're made of clay. You are carved from wood, your breath is the shift of wind and your teeth are chunks of ice. And you aren't real and they aren't real. And why aren't you real????????
And you scramble for another fake book. You crawl up, dig your claws into it and yank.
The bookshelf falls onto you, too.
<<<<<<<
The floor sticks beneath your feet as if there's still spilt blood.
"Odile, have you ever heard of boobytrapped bookshelves?"
Who's blood is it?
"Haha. Booby."
"You know Bonbon, there's a bird called a booby!"
You don't know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"Gems alive, kids. But no, Siffrin. Why, do you see anything?"
"That book feels off.."
It feels like crushed bones and hot blood. Odile nods, staring analytically at the fake book. "We better not touch it, then. Good catch."
Well!
Your allies are dying around you at an alarming rate. Not good.
[Bad, even.]
But! You've been learning. You haven't been caught out by a tripwire or a false tile or a doorknob or a false book ever since then. And that's great!
[Not bad, even.]
Kill yourself, Loop.
.....
That shut them up. Good, you can't afford anymore distractions.
You dodge Isabeau's questions and Mirabelle's concern and Bonnie's extra food and Odile's suspicion. You're going to get to the top.
>>
The door refuses to open.
Huh?
You jostle the key. You remove and reinsert it. You jostle it again. You tilt your head left, right.
What's that sound?
Is that..... dripping water?
The Defender looks around wildly. You follow. You see water pouring into this room from all four top corners.
Ah.
The Defender and the Researcher take your place at the door. Meanwhile, the Housemaiden puts the Kid on her shoulders. The water is already at your hip.
The Defender's wrists crack, it's toothy and you feel it in your jaw. The water is at your chest. The Researcher looks at the Kid and points towards a crack in the wall. It's the Kid's only chance.
You watch the Housemaiden say something to the Kid and shove them into the crack. You feel them try and encourage you through, too.
You know how painful it is to drown, but for you it was the ocean. This is clear water.
You catch up to the Kid. You think about mercy killing them. You feel something as the tunnel goes up towards a patch of safety, and the Kid climbs onto dry land.
You wonder what the others are doing. You wonder
<<
if any of them would think about mercy killing, too, but you suppose that the water touching a tear, and freezing anyone who was touching the water, was mercy enough, as you prop open the door. You're in and out with the key in seconds.
You grip the crest until you know for sure that your hand is attached to your arm is attached to your chest is filled with a beating heart.
You chew on your malanga fritters.
You think about anything that's ahead.
You open your mouth and speak.
"Stay close."
You are.. misheard.
They think that you want to travel together after defeating the King.
And they.... agree? They agree. They all want to travel together. That's nice. You want to trigger this conversation every time. It takes some of the sting out of it.
[.....]
You take a deep breath.
Let's go, Trap Master.