#axe puzzle room 1

[hd-junglebook]

Can I Help You

Part 1 - Word Count 3136

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This is a little shorter than I wanted it to be, but here is my first ever Luke Hughes series. message me to be added to the tag list. Enjoy!

Luke sat in the chilly office, his fingers nervously tapping on the worn textbook in front of him. His father's anger was palpable to put it lightly, the tension he left in the room thick enough to cut with a knife.

The threat of losing his hockey privileges forever loomed over him like a dark cloud, but Luke's mind kept drifting to the upcoming game. It was all he could think about, consuming his every thought.

He needed to make it to that game, not just for himself, but for his father, his teammates, and the sheer love of the sport that coursed through his veins.

This was his last chance to prove himself, to show everyone that he wasn't a lost cause. But no matter how hard he tried, academics remained an enigma, a puzzle he couldn't quite solve.

The worst part was that it wasn’t just the pressure from his dad, but his coach, worst of all. The memory was fresh in his mind, the words still ringing in his head.

"Luke, you're one of our star players, but I can't keep you on the team if your grades don't improve. This is your last chance. Get a tutor, get your act together, or you're benched for the season."

Lost in his thoughts, Luke almost jumped out of his skin when a sudden knock at the door pierced the silence. His eyes darted away from the textbook, heart racing in his chest.

"Who's there?" Luke muttered, his voice barely above a whisper. Seconds ticked by, each one feeling like an eternity. Then, a familiar feminine voice broke through the stillness, sending a shiver down his spine.

"It's me, Luke. Can I come in?" The voice was like honey, smooth and sweet, and Luke's mind instantly lit up with recognition.

It was her, the girl of his dreams, the one he had been secretly pining for. The hottest girl in school, and the one he had been assigned to work with.

In a flash, Luke leapt to his feet, nearly tripping over himself in his haste to reach the door. Energy surged through his body, a sudden burst of adrenaline that made his heart race and his palms sweat. He took a deep breath, trying to compose himself before turning the handle.

As the door swung open, Luke found himself face to face with her, his breath catching in his throat.

"Hey," he managed to stutter out, his voice cracking slightly. He could feel the heat rising in his cheeks, a blush spreading across his face as he tried to play it cool, leaning casually against the doorframe.

But inside, his heart was pounding, his mind racing with a thousand thoughts and possibilities, all centered around the stunning girl standing before him.

Her dark hair was pulled into a bun, her glasses resting on her nose as she looked Luke up and down. "You know what day it is Luke?" The girl says playfully as she enters the room.

Luke immediately blushes, as he was already aware of why she was in his room today. "Uh, yeah" he replies quickly, not wanting to give off the idea he didn't know.

She smiles, a devilish grin that just made Luke melt even more. "Good, then let's get started," she said softly, as she sat down next to him.

Luke sat next to her, the tension in the room was thick, could cut it with an axe. Luke was a nervous wreck, every word he said left an awkward pause before she would reply, and she always had the perfect response on standby.

He started to sweat, realizing how lucky he was to be in this position, she was the hottest girl in school, but still just another person. He kept going over in his head, what do I say next?

"Are you paying attention?' she probed with a smile.

"Oh yeah, definitely, I'm sorry I was uh, just thinking about something I'll try a little harder from now on" Luke's blushing and nervousness increases and his tone becomes shaky as he speaks. The girl giggles a little to herself, knowing the effect she has on him.

It was midway through their lesson when Luke finally worked up the courage to speak. "Hey, I know it's pretty out of nowhere, but..." he hesitates, not knowing how to finish the sentence.

The girl looks at him, waiting for him to finish, and he quickly composes himself "My frat is hosting a party on Saturday, and um... I was wondering if you would come and... uh... you know..."

Her eyebrow arched slightly as she considered Luke's invitation, a playful smile tugging at the corners of her lips. "Are you asking me to be your date to the party, Luke?" she asked, her voice tinged with amusement.

Luke felt his cheeks burn, his heart pounding in his chest as he struggled to find the right words. "Well, I mean... yeah, I guess I am," he stammered, rubbing the back of his neck nervously.

"I just thought it could be fun, you know? We could hang out, maybe dance a little..."

She leaned back in her chair, studying him with those piercing eyes that seemed to see right through him. "I don't know, Luke," she said, her tone teasing. "I'm not sure if you can handle me on the dance floor."

Luke's eyes widened, his mouth going dry at the thought of dancing with her, feeling her body moving against his. "Oh, I can handle it," he blurted out, immediately regretting his words as he saw the glint of mischief in her eyes.

She laughed, a sound that made Luke's heart skip a beat. "Alright then, you're on," she said, reaching out to poke his chest playfully. "But I have to warn you, I've got some moves that might make you blush."

Luke grinned, feeling a surge of confidence at her acceptance. "I'm not afraid of a little challenge."

She smirked, leaning in closer until her face was just inches from his. "We'll see about that," she whispered, her breath hot against his skin.

With that, she pulled back, turning her attention back to the textbook in front of them as if nothing had happened. But Luke could still feel the electricity crackling between them, the promise of something more hanging in the air.

…

She stepped out of the car, the crisp winter air cut through the bustling campus of the University of Michigan, carrying with it the promise of snow.

As she walked across the bustling campus, her breath forming small clouds in front of her, Y/N's mind drifted to the mountain of homework waiting for her back at the dorm.

y/n sighed, adjusting the heavy bag on her shoulder.

Before long, she arrived at her dorm building, the sound of laughter and chatter spilling out from the open windows. She climbed the stairs to her third-floor room, the noise growing louder with each step.

y/n opened the door, she was greeted by a familiar sight - her two roommates, Emma and Clarke, engaged in a fierce battle of Wii Sports. Emma shouted, swinging her controller wildly as her Mii slammed a tennis ball across the virtual court.

"Oh, it's on!" Clarke yelled back, her tongue poking out in concentration as she returned the shot. Y/N couldn't help but laugh at their antics, shaking her head as she closed the door behind her. "I'm home, nerds!" she called out over the din of the game.

"Hey, look who it is!" Emma exclaimed, not taking her eyes off the screen. Her voice carried a teasing lilt, the corners of her lips tugging into a mischievous grin.

"How's the new boy?" Clarke added, grunting as she lunged to make a particularly difficult shot. "Did you make any progress on turning jocks to geniuses today?"

Y/N rolled her eyes, flopping down on the fluffy beige couch. "Ha ha, very funny. For your information, Luke will be making great progress. He might even pass his classes this semester if he follows my advice."

"Ooh, first name basis, huh?" Emma waggled her eyebrows suggestively, her playful tone punctuated by the sound of button mashing. "Sounds like someone's got a crush on the hockey hottie!"

Y/N threw a pillow at her, laughing. "Shut up! It's not like that. I don't date students, remember?" Her voice was light, masking the faint flutter in her chest.

"Yeah, yeah, we know," Clarke said, finally tearing her eyes away from the game as it ended in her victory. "But you've got to admit, he's pretty cute.

For a jock, anyway." She smirked, her gaze flicking towards Y/N as if daring her to disagree. Y/N hid her smile behind a stray pillow, the warmth of her cheeks betraying her amusement.

As she cracked open her textbook, her mind couldn't help but wander to her previous relationship. Y/n didn’t necessarily lie to Luke, she didn’t date students but that wasn’t the reason she declined Lukes’s offer.

Mark was the star quarterback of the football team. They had started dating in their sophomore year after a tutoring session, drawn together by their shared drive and passion for success.

At first, things were great. They were the power couple of the campus, turning heads wherever they went. But as time went on, the cracks started to show.

Mark became possessive, jealous of any time Y/N spent with anyone else. He demanded constant attention, even when Y/N needed to focus on her studies.

Their fights were explosive, echoing through the halls of the dorm. Y/N knew it wasn't healthy, but she was in too deep. She loved Mark, or at least she thought she did.

It all came to a head one night when Mark showed up at her dorm, drunk and angry. He accused her of cheating on him, of putting her studies before their relationship.

Y/N tried to reason with him, but he would not listen. In a fit of rage, he put his fist through the wall, inches from her face.

That was the final straw. Y/N ended things then and there, despite Mark's pleas and promises to change. She knew she deserved better, and she wasn't going to let anyone, no matter how much she cared for them, derail her future.

But Mark couldn't seem to let go. He still texted her late at night, telling her how much he missed her, how he was going to make things right.

He'd corner her on campus, pleading for another chance. Y/N was firm in her resolve, but a small part of her couldn't help but wonder what might have been.

She shook her head, trying to focus on the words in front of her. That was the past, and she had moved on. She had her studies, her friends, and a bright future ahead of her. No boy, no matter how charming or persistent, was going to change that.

…

Y/N stepped onto the ice, the cold air rushing over her skin as she took a deep breath. She adjusted her headphones, making sure they were securely in place, before reaching up to tighten her ponytail. Her hair was pulled back, the silky strands glinting under the bright lights of the rink.

With a final tug on her gloves, Y/N began to skate, her blades gliding smoothly over the glossy surface. She moved with purpose, her strides long and powerful as she built up speed.

The music in her ears was soft at first, a gentle melody that seemed to float through the air around her.

the opening notes of "After Hours" began to play, Y/N closed her eyes for a moment, letting the music wash over her. She could feel it in her bones, the rhythm pulsing through her veins like a heartbeat.

With a deep breath, she opened her eyes, her gaze focused and determined.

Thought I almost died in my dream again

Y/N struck a pose, her arms extended gracefully and her back arched. She held the position for a moment, her muscles taut and her expression serene. Then, with a sudden burst of energy, she pushed off, her blades cutting through the ice like a knife through butter.

Fightin' for my life, I couldn't breathe again

She glided backwards, her arms sweeping through the air in a fluid motion. Her hips swayed to the beat of the music, her body moving with a natural grace that was both sensual and athletic.

As the tempo increased, Y/N picked up speed, her legs pumping and her heart racing in her chest.

I'm fallin' in too deep

Without you, don't wanna sleep

With a sudden twist of her hips, Y/N launched herself into a spin, her arms tucked in close to her body. She rotated faster, her ponytail whipping around her face and her eyes closed in concentration. The world blurred around her, the colors and lights melting together into a dizzying kaleidoscope.

Unbeknownst to Y/N, Luke had just entered the rink through the locker room door. He paused for a moment, his hand still on the handle, as he caught sight of her on the ice. His eyes widened, his mouth falling open slightly as he watched her move.

Cause my heart belongs to you

I'll risk it all for you

I want you next to me

This time, I'll never leave

She was a vision, her body moving with a fluidity and grace that was almost otherworldly. Luke couldn't tear his gaze away, his heart pounding in his chest as he watched her spin and leap. He had never seen her like this before, so completely lost in the moment, so utterly free.

Quietly, Luke made his way over to the bleachers, his footsteps muffled by the thick rubber mats. He sat down heavily, his elbows resting on his knees as he leaned forward, his eyes never leaving Y/N's form. He could feel the heat rising in his cheeks, his palms growing damp with sweat as he watched her move.

Y/N was oblivious to his presence, her focus entirely on the music and the movement of her body. She glided across the ice, her blades flashing in the light as she picked up speed. Her arms were extended, her fingers graceful and delicate as they traced patterns in the air.

I'm fallin' in too deep, oh

Without you, I can't sleep

Insomnia relieve

Talk to me, without you I can't breathe

As the song reached its climax, Y/N's movements became more intense, more passionate. She launched herself into a series of jumps, her body twisting and turning in mid-air as she defied gravity. Luke's breath caught in his throat, his eyes wide with wonder as he watched her soar.

And I said, baby, I'll treat you better than I did before

I'll hold you down and not let you go

This time I won't break your heart, your heart, no

Finally, as the last notes of the song faded away, Y/N struck her final pose, her chest heaving and a triumphant smile on her face. Luke couldn't help himself - he burst into applause, startling Y/N out of her reverie.

She spun around, her eyes wide with surprise as she spotted Luke sitting in the bleachers. For a moment, they just stared at each other, the air crackling with tension and unspoken emotions. Then, slowly, Y/N skated over to the edge of the rink, her gaze never leaving Luke's.

"How long have you been watching?" she asked, her voice soft and slightly breathless.

Luke swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly dry. "Long enough to know that you're amazing," he said, his voice low and filled with admiration. "I had no idea you could skate like that."

Y/N ducked her head, a blush spreading across her cheeks. "It's just something I do for fun," she said, shrugging slightly. "I never thought anyone would see me."

Luke stood up, making his way down to the edge of the rink. "Well, I'm glad I did," he said, his eyes intense and filled with an emotion Y/N couldn't quite place.

"You're incredible, Y/N. Truly incredible." For a long moment, they just stared at each other, the air between them electric with possibility.

Then, slowly, Y/N reached out her hand, her fingers brushing against Luke's. "Skate with me?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

Luke hesitated for only a second before taking her hand, allowing her to pull him out onto the ice. He skated up to Y/N, a playful grin on his face as he reached out to take her hand. "Wow," he said, his voice slightly breathless.

"You weren't kidding when you said you had some moves. I'm definitely going to have to bring my A-game on Saturday if I want to keep up with you."

Y/N laughed, her eyes sparkling with mischief as she squeezed his hand. "I told you," she teased, her voice low and flirtatious. "I've got skills on and off the ice. You better be ready to dance your heart out."

Luke raised an eyebrow, his grin widening. "Oh, I'm ready," he said, his voice filled with confidence. "I may not be able to do all those fancy spins and jumps like you can, but I can definitely hold my own on the dance floor."

Y/N smirked, her free hand coming up to rest on his chest. "Is that so?" she asked, her fingers toying with the collar of his shirt. "Well then, I guess we'll just have to see who can outlast the other. Think you can handle a little friendly competition?"

Luke's heart raced at her touch, his skin tingling where her fingers brushed against him.

"With you? Always," he said, his voice low and husky. "I'm not afraid of a challenge, especially when the reward is getting to dance with the most beautiful girl in school."

Y/N's cheeks flushed pink, her eyes widening slightly at his words. "Flattery will get you everywhere, Luke," she said, her voice slightly breathless. "But don't think that means I'm going to go easy on you. I play to win, on and off the ice."

Luke chuckled, his thumb rubbing small circles on the back of her hand. "I wouldn't expect anything less," he said, his eyes locked on hers.

"But just remember, I've got a few tricks up my sleeve too. And I'm not afraid to use them to get what I want."

Y/N's breath hitched slightly, her body swaying closer to his. "And what exactly is it that you want, Luke?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

Luke's gaze dropped to her lips, his heart pounding in his chest. "You," he said simply, his voice rough with emotion. "I want you, Y/N. And I'm not going to stop until I make you mine."

…

[damn-stark]

Chapter 15 The start of something new

Chapter 15 of Sugar

A/N- Two of the strongest sorcerers make jokes about dicks and boobs 😗

Warning- Swearing, angst!!, FLUFF!! Talks of death, violence and blood, spoilers, long chapter.

Pairing- Choso x fem!reader, Suguru Geto x Gojo!fem-reader

Takes place during- Before 2x06

(Let me know if you want to be tagged)

————

*1 YEAR LATER. 2018*

From Unknown: Y/N Gojo, we will grant you and your allies who were a part of the Night Parade last year, a complete pardon from all crimes if you execute the vessel of Ryomen Sukuna, Yuji Itadori.

“What happens when this gets in the way, huh?” You tease Mimiko as you move strands of her long bangs over her eyes.

Mimiko chuckles, and you proceed to give her a gentle but pressing reminder. “Remember to put it up when you’re out on missions, okay? As long as it doesn’t go with your technique it can just get in the way.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Mimiko brushes you off, letting you let her go to walk to her sister standing across from her. “Now you, remember what I told you.”

Nanako sighs and steps back before shifting her feet to get into her fighting stance. “Distance,” she mutters.

You nod. “And quick on your feet,” you remind her and nudge her foot forward with yours so she can get in the proper position. “You lag when you have to use your technique, so quick thinking okay?”

Nanako nods in comprehension, and you step to the side to watch them both. “Weapons up,” you tell them as you rest your hands on your hips.

“This is heavy,” Nanako complains as she lets her blade falter in her hand.

“It’s an extension of your arm,” you tell her. “And it’s for your benefit. For the both of yours. My friend Mei-Mei’s technique also isn’t ideal for fighting, but that’s why she learned to swing her axe, and she’s the best at it. She’s a grade 1 sorcerer because of how skilled she is. You guys are almost there, just a bit more. So arms up, light on your feet,” you advise them and feel your cursed worm spirit wrap around your neck as it crawls down from the branch. “Firm grip, but not too—”

“Tight,” Nanako groans, making you smile.

“Oh, you got it?” You chuckle. “So why am I seeing your knuckles whiten?” You rebuttal with a smirk that the worm on your shoulders mimics. Meanwhile, Nanako glances down at her hand and huffs before she loosens her fingers around the handle of her blade.

“Okay,” you breathe out as you notice that their stances are good to start another round of sparring.

Nevertheless, just as you part your lips again to tell them, a sweet voice calls out for you. “Mama!”

“Oh no,” Nanako grumbles.

You blink and glance over to see where Satori’s voice came from, and much to your surprise you see your brother grabbing Satori upside down by her ankle.

And of course, your daughter is amused by your brother's crazy antics and laughing her little head off.

“Look what I found on the way here!” Satoru shouts as he points to Satori with a beaming grin that matches your daughter's smile.

He’s not supposed to be here, he’s supposed to be out on a weekend-long mission. So the question begs to be answered, what is he doing here, and why didn’t he give you a heads up?

Is this about the message you got a few days ago?

It has to be.

“Why does he keep walking in the house unannounced?” Mimiko asks as she moves over to stand beside her twin sister.

You sigh. “Trust me I’ve been asking myself that same thing for years,” you mention as you watch your brother approach you and your girls. “He would barge in my room like that when we lived together.”

Satoru finally reaches you under the vibrant tree and grabs Satori’s hand to lift her and hang her around his shoulders instead.

“Brother,” you greet with a puzzled look. “What are you doing here? You didn’t call or text.”

Satoru shrugs and holds onto Satori’s hands as she hooks them under his chin and rests her cheek on the top of his head. “I thought I’d surprise you guys, you know? I finished my mission early since it was easier than expected and I wanted to come visit.” He smiles and looks up at your daughter. “Like the surprise?”

“I love it,” she of course agrees because she loves the man. They’re inseparable when he’s over, or when you’re hanging out with him. And he acts like how you imagined, a man child, they’re like best friends.

Then again it’s a good thing that he has fun with her, he seemed to help her through her grief. And she helped him relax from all the stress he’s put through. Or so you like to see it that way.

“Oh! And he brought me a gift!” Satori shares enthusiastically. “And he brought one for Nana and Mimi too!” She adds and lifts her head to look at her sisters. You follow her line of gaze and see the girls avoid eye contact so as to not look at your brother or acknowledge him.

“They’re inside,” Satoru tries to talk to them. “I’m sure Satori can show you. So why don’t you, Sugar?”

You stiffen and swallow thickly at the sound of the nickname he calls her. Out of so many he could’ve come up with, he chose that one after it started off as some joke when he told Satori about how you would call Suguru that in your youth. He found it fitting for Satori, or maybe it’s a way to be closer to the best friend he lost, but he’s called her that ever since that day.

And you can’t say that it bothers you in a bad way, because it doesn’t, it just reminds you of him so you don’t feel upset that he calls her that. It’s sweet really. it just always catches you off guard when Satoru calls your daughter Sugar. You half expect to see Suguru…

“Really? Okay!” Satori obeys and lets Satoru help her off his shoulders. When her feet hit the ground she grabs Mimiko's hands. “Come on, come on!”

“Nanako, Mimiko,” you call out sternly.

The twins know what you mean by your voice alone and sigh before they peer back. “Thanks,” they both grumble at your brother before they follow Satori back inside the house.

“I’ll win them over soon enough,” Satoru interjects as you both watch the girls retreating figures.

You huff out softly and turn around to face your brother and change the subject. “So are you going to tell me what’s up, or what? You sent Satori off so I’m sure this isn’t some leisure visit.”

Satoru watches Satori for a moment longer before he slowly turns and faces you with a sly smile. “Aren’t you smart? And why do you keep lugging that thing around?” He points at the worm around your neck.

You shoot him a glare and caress the cursed worm's chin. “He’s my son,” you tell him again. “I’m so serious.” You laugh softly.

“It’s…off-putting,” he grumbles and you see his nose scrunch in disgust.

You roll your eyes and glare at him. “You’re off-putting,” you sass him.

“Whatever,” your brother mutters before he points at the path towards the lake. “Walk with me.”

This is about the message, isn’t it? It has to be. He’s being too serious, and too mysterious.

“Is everything okay?” You can’t help but probe as Satoru begins to get ahead.

Satoru shrugs lazily. “Depends on your definition of okay. I’m sure you’ve heard about the recent rise in curses and accidents at the school.”

You keep your pace behind him and respond honestly. “I haven’t been following up on recent news if I’m honest.”

Satoru peers back and you see his eyebrows knit together behind his eye cover. “You haven’t talked to Hakari or Kirara?”

You nod. “Yeah, I have. I was just with them this morning, but we didn’t talk about that. At least it hasn’t been brought up. All I know is that another one of your students was supposed to be killed but wasn’t. You had a hand in that?” You ask kind of rhetorically since you know the answer.

“Yep,” Satoru agrees with pride. “Actually that’s why I’m here.”

Wait! Does he want you to train another student?

You’ll gladly do that again, Hakari and Kirara turned out to be a blessing in disguise if you’re honest. They’re like your kids—no they are your kids. It hasn’t been a year since you met them, but they never made it hard to get along with, they actually accepted you pretty quickly. Of course, they had their suspicions, but you bonded quickly. Even if they knew that you had a hand in what they call the Night parade.

“Need me to take in another problem child?” You ask kind of hopeful.

Satoru scoffs softly. “No. It’s not exactly like that, it’s more of a job really. I…need your help.”

You blink in disbelief and stop in your tracks, Satoru hears you and stops to turn and face you with a frown

“Don’t make it a big deal,” he mutters as he sees how fast your mind is beginning to churn.

“You need my help?” You ask for clarification as a smirk tugs on your face.

Satoru sighs. “I do,” he admits quietly. “These higher-ups have been busting my balls trying to undermine me to kill this kid,” he explains and turns to continue, causing you to do a little jog to reach his side now—“recently they had the kids from Kyoto try and kill him at a school event.” You exhale deeply and he lifts his hand to swipe his eye cover off as he brushes his hair back.

“They didn’t manage to hurt him, but they got close before these smart curses working with some mole interrupted,” he adds, piquing your interest more than you thought possible.

Then again why should you be surprised?

“Sounds like you’ve all been busy,” you comment lightheartedly. “Is everyone okay?”

Satoru nods. “Some destruction, but everyone’s okay, they just went in to steal three of the nine cursed wombs and other cursed objects.”

Your smile falls and you watch your brother with concern at the mention of those Cursed Wombs. But it passes quickly and you grow smug. “You should’ve let me take them when I had them,” you remark.

Satoru feigns a laugh. “Funny. Anyway! With this mole, with the higher-ups wanting to kill this kid, and with trouble brewing, I need your help,” he says again, making your cockiness fade and a soft smile tug on your lips.

“The kid is strong, but I can’t put anything at risk anymore with what's unfolding. I wanted you to watch over him, be like a shadow. You won’t help him in missions unless some serious threat cuts in, or you see that it’s actually dangerous. So you’ll be like a glorified assistant manager, and with more responsibility,” he continues as you reach the lakeshore.

“What about Nanami?” You bring up and watch your brother sit on the bench facing the lake. “Can’t he help?”

Satoru sighs. “He mentored the kid for a bit, but this is different. I don’t need him, I need you.”

You stay on your feet beside him and scoff softly. “I’m a retired sorcerer now Satoru. This,” you say and steal a glimpse at your community. “This is me now. I don’t do that now.”

“You’re semi-retired,” he points out. “You still go out on missions.”

“Yes!” You quickly argue. “But that’s to train Hakari, Kirara, and the twins. I’m not…” you trail off and drop your head. “I’m not who you’re looking for. Not anymore,” you whisper and think about Suguru.

“Whether you like it or not, who I’m looking for is still there,” Satoru says softly as he picks a pebble off the ground. “You help people, y/n, they need your help, so don’t do this for me. Do this for them, for your own future. What’s happening beyond these walls might just put in danger all you’ve built.”

You pull the cursed worm off your shoulders and hug him against you. “Does this threat have to do with Sukuna and his vessel Yuji Itadori?”

Satoru skips the pebble across the body of water before he shifts around and meets your gaze with a perplexed look. “Yes…exactly, how did you guess?”

You feign a laugh and pull your phone out to show him the message you were sent recently.

“They found me,” you tell him. “I don’t know how, but they did.” You scoff and shake your head in disapproval. “They really think I’m going to be at their beck-and-call.”

Satoru hums and drifts his eyes to you. “What did you say?” He asks almost hesitantly as if he doesn’t want to hear the answer.

Yet when you lean over you begin to grin, so he pushes his doubt aside and leans close to you as you point at your clever response that consists of, “(.)(.) boobies.”.

Satoru then turns his whole body to meet your gaze seriously, but that only lasts a few seconds because you both then burst out laughing like immature teens.

That shared moment lasts for a few minutes, and when your laughter dies down you both proceed to look out at the lake, and you watch a pair of swans land on the water.

“I won’t force you to help,” Satoru says seriously once again. “I mean you have your life here and your job out there, I’m glad that you do, so I won’t force you to disrupt what you have going on. Not after what happened.”

“Not even with the power I hold?” You quiere.

Satoru nods softly. “Not even with that,” he whispers. “Not after what you’ve been through, I owe you that much at least, don’t I?”

You snap your eyes away from the swans to watch your brother with a soft and watery gaze.

Ever since you’ve reunited, the topic about the day he broke your heart hasn’t come up. It’s been a thorn in your sides that holds a tension between the both of you. Not letting you try to mend what’s clearly broken.

“What will you do with the kid?” You have to ask.

Satoru sighs. “Feed him all of Sukuna’s fingers and then execute him…unless there’s some other way to keep him alive and still kill the curse inside him.”

“Risky,” you mutter. “But you can’t shoot down an idea until you’ve exhausted all other options.”

Satoru nods in agreement before he adds. “He deserves a chance anyway.”

“Yeah,” you add without even knowing the kid. All you know is that he’s young and he’s…one of the people you told yourself you wanted to help so many years ago. But even now that dream of helping young and old sorcerers is still very much alive. That hasn’t changed even through everything.

Besides, doesn’t your brother deserve to be helped? He’s not one to ask, not as soft-spoken or as serious as he is now. So doesn’t he deserve to be helped even if he’s hurt you, and you’ve hurt him?

“And…” you begin to lean towards your answer. “Do you think I’ll be well received back in Jujutsu Society? I am a wanted criminal no? You have orders to kill me?”

Satoru smirks. “Yeah, so what? I’ve had them for a year and never lifted a finger. Nor will I. You’re my sister through it all. I can't protect you if you’re dead now can I?”

Your throat begins to sting as tears well in your eyes. Hearing him say that after all that has happened is surprising. It’s relieving to hear too.

“But if you accept,” he says. “I wouldn’t worry about it. They won’t dare and touch you, you’re too strong, they need you. The message they sent proves it. You’ll be okay. It’ll all be okay. I know it.”

There’s those special words, “it’ll all be okay,” so simple yet they hold so much power because there are times when those words are uttered and everything is the complete opposite. That’s why you hate those words. They don’t ease you anymore, they actually make your breathing a bit deeper as you’re struck with uncertainty.

But you don’t share that negativity, you just hum and walk around your brother to sit beside him on the bench. Silence proceeds to fall over you, causing the worm curse to drape back around your shoulders.

You should really debate about what he wants from you, it can be dangerous. This isn’t some ordinary kid, he’s carrying Sukuna, the worst curse of them all, the famous and legendary King of Curses. But how can you say no to your brother?

“Okay, I’ll help,” you assure your brother.

Satoru glances at you and protests. “There’ll be risks. Not only with Yuji, but with the other curses I’m sure, I mean—”

“You can explain it all to me later,” you cut him off. “I’m sure there’s a lot to tell, and there’s shit I need to catch up on.”

“Y/N.”

“Satoru,” you brush him off. “I know the risks. Being a sorcerer is about risks. Besides, this—no, accepting your offer is to follow my dream. He’d be upset if I didn’t. And I want my kids to see that. All five of them,” you laugh softly and look over at your brother to meet his gaze. “I need them to see me fighting for what I believe in so they can continue to do the same.”

The corner of Satoru’s lips tug to a soft smile before he grins. “You’re crazy.”

“Huh?”

He shakes his head. “It’s just crazy hearing you say all this. I knew you’ve always been the kinder one out of us, but I don’t know,” he shrugs. “It's weird—You’ve grown up. I’m proud.” He says and touches his chest as he feigns a sad look

You roll your eyes lightheartedly and nudge him to the side with your shoulder. Satoru laughs and you both continue to smile softly.

“I’ll say this before I bore you with what’s happened,” Satoru interjects. “Be nice to Yuji Itadori, I think he’s a fan of yours.”

You snort. “Why do you say?”

“Well not so long ago, we were out, and uh,” Satoru laughs. “We passed by this magazine stand, right? He stops and picks up this fashion magazine and points you out. I will not repeat what he told his friends,” he grumbles with slight disgust, making you chuckle.

“But!” He continues. “He knew you, he’s a fan, so be nice.”

You shoot him a pointed look. “I’m always nice,” you counter. “You’re the annoying one.”

Satoru smirks and mumbles. “They don’t know you’re a sorcerer or my sister so it’ll be a great surprise. I’ll definitely earn some cool points.”

You hum softly. “I’m sure,” you whisper happily while you look back at the pair of swans with a soft smile, and watch them swimming towards each other from across the lake with growing relief in your heart over this sweet moment that you shared with your brother.

——

*THE NEXT DAY*

Breathe, breathe, after all, you've already done the hard part, you walked through the school barrier, you’ve walked up those hundreds of steps, and you’re on school grounds. You’ve done the hard part, so now all you need to do is continue moving down the path of haunting memories. You need to move on and brush the pain away that threatens to paralyze you. You need to stop thinking about the moment you lost him. You need to continue being strong.

Just…breathe.

You let out a deep breath and look up from the ground to look at the building ahead. There’s someone you need to talk to before you meet Yuji Itadori and the rest of his first-year class. Albeit you’re nervous to talk to her, with every step you take towards the med-bay your heart races a bit faster, and your throat feels like it’s closing up.

She’s going to be upset. It’s been 11 years since you last talked to her. Eleven years!

You would turn back and avoid Ieiri Shoko—Dr. Ieiri Shoko, but now with this new job you’ve taken for your brother, you’ll be at school often so you’ll run into her, and if you don’t then you’ll just be thinking about her. So it’s better now. Plus, you’ve been meaning to talk to Shoko, you’ve just been nervous.

But it all ends now! You just need to walk into her medbay and talk to her!

Alas, when you reach the door, you hesitate. What if she hates you and doesn’t want to try and be friends again? What if she can’t get past her disappointment?

But you also miss her, you miss gossiping with her, you miss your inside jokes. No one—not even Yuki has been able to take her place throughout the years, Shoko has always been your best friend and you miss her, so you need to just grow some balls and walk inside.

Hence after a deep breath, you slide the door open and take a confident step inside. And luckily the moment you walk in the medbay, you see her with her back turned to the door, with her long brown hair neatly draped over her doctor's coat and a mug in her hand.

“Take a seat, I'll be with you in just a moment.”

Her voice has changed since the last time you saw her, and compared to those videos you have of her and you on your phone from your youth. It’s a lot more soothing now, she seems to have managed that for her patients and students.

“I hope you can pencil me in,” you break your silence and walk over to the bed, noticing her shoulders tense and her pen stop moving—“it seems that I’ve stopped eating my apples.”

You hear a soft scoff before she drops her pen and sits up. You sit on the edge of the bed and put the present you brought her next to you.

“It’s been a while, Gojo,” she addresses you nonchalantly.

You scoff. “Last name bases? Come on, we’re closer than that,” you tease.

Shoko lets out a feigned laugh and spins her chair around to face you now, letting you see that she's grown into quite a beauty. Albeit she also seems to have grown more exhausted, her eyebags are visible and concerning.

“We were,” Shoko quips. “You stopped talking to me for 11 years, so it begs the question, what are you doing here?”

You grab onto the edge of the bed and shrug. “I came to see a friend,” you mutter. “And I told you I’ve stopped eating my apples.”

Shoko rolls her eyes.

You smile. “It was funny,” you refer to your joke.

“Ehh, I’d hardly call it a joke,” she counters. “But it’s passable, I guess.”

You smile wider, but it quickly falls into an apologetic frown. “I know it’s been a while,” you get right to the matter. “I know I should’ve called or texted. I did want to, trust me I did, but I was scared of how you’d react.”

Shoko’s eyes narrow to a puzzled look and she doesn’t hesitate to probe. “Why would that matter?”

You drop your gaze and shrug. “Because you’re my best friend. I mean I had the others, but your opinion mattered the most, you were my person…that’s why it mattered—it matters.”

You slowly lift your eyes and see her studying you with a small frown.

“Sounds more like you’re in love with me,” she retorts.

You snort and chuckle. “Hilarious. You wish I was. Too bad I’m too much into dick, or else I definitely would’ve married you.”

A sly smirk tugs on her face, but then that expression tugs to a scowl. “You know, I understand why you kept your distance. You were let down, you probably just wanted to distance yourself from it all, and I admired you for that, but then I came to find out that you and Mei-Mei have been talking!”

Your jaw drops and you quickly explain yourself. “Listen, listen it was not on purpose, she ran into me, okay? And I guess after that, I don’t know, we would hang out occasionally. She was my source in some way. And!” You add and slide off the bed. “I told you it wasn’t easy talking to you. I couldn’t handle your disappointment.”

Shoko draws in a deep breath and averts her gaze to exhale and drop her faint scowl. “Why would I be disappointed?” She asks.

“For leaving with Suguru after what he did, and for what I did all those years after.”

She hums and stays quiet for a moment. You step back and lean against the bed as you wait patiently, as you watch her thoughts churn behind her dark eyes.

“Nah,” she says. “Did I think it was stupid? Sure, but I was never disappointed. I was hurt, you know? When I found out you had a kid, and when I found out you got married, I guess it hurt not hearing that from you. That’s all, but I was never disappointed or mad at that.”

A shaky breath escapes past your lips and you nod softly as you take in what she said, and as her words hurt your heart. “I’m sorry,” you whisper and cross your arms over your chest. “I should’ve told you, I wanted to but I was scared, and I’m sorry. And I could say how much I wish that I could take it all back, that I wish you could’ve been there for all those things, but what’s the point in dwelling in the past? We can’t,” you sigh deeply. “Turn back time no matter how much we want to. So I’ll just tell you that I want you to be in my life from now on. I miss you. No one has ever been able to take your place. No one.”

Shoko holds your gaze gleaming with tears and stays quiet for a moment before she offers you a teasing smile. “So you are in love with me,” she teases.

You chuckle.

“I,” she continues more seriously. “Missed you too. I mean I would see you all the time on magazines, screens outside stores, and you know, runways, but it was never the same. You were unreachable.”

The corner of your lips tug to a soft smile and you can’t help but fill with bliss.

“But I’m glad you’re back now,” she says and finally gets out of her chair. “Utahime works in Kyoto, so it’s boring here.”

You giggle and run over to throw your arms around her. Shoko seems caught off guard, but she doesn’t fail to gently return your embrace.

“Let’s never do that again,” you coo. “I really did miss you.”

“I missed you too, y/n.”

You grin and pull back but grab her shoulders. “You need to sleep more,” you point out and study her face from up close. “And eat more.”

Shoko laughs softly. “Are you mothering me? I kinda like it, it's hot.”

You flash her a smirk and step back. “I assume Satoru told you then?” You probe.

Shoko nods. “Yeah,” she says. “That’s all he talks about when he can. He’s like an old grandfather with those pictures in his wallet. He talks about how they have matching slippers, and what games they play.”

You beam at her and nod. “Yeah, they’re pretty inseparable,” you muse. “He’s good to her.“

“Not surprising considering he’s a man-child,” she disses your brother.

You hum in agreement and she then reaches over and grabs your shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she says in a soft and sorrowful voice. “For what happened. And I’m sorry I didn’t go help you through your grief after. I’m sorry.”

You swallow thickly, and don’t dwell in that grief…you can’t. So you draw out a deep breath and take in what she offers with sincerity. “Thank you, Ieiri. I’m…okay now. Thank you.” You sigh shakily and step back towards the bed to pick up the gift bag. “This is for you, Doc. Just something small that I hope you like.”

You step forward again and you’re about to hand Shoko her gift, but your phone buzzes so you take your phone out in case it’s one of your kids. However, you see that it’s actually your brother.

Satoru: Where are you? We’re waiting for you!!!

So many exclamation marks. Tsk.

You: I’m here and on my way now :)

You proceed to sigh as you put your phone away and hand Shoko the gift with an apologetic smile. “I need to go,” you let her know. “I'm late to meet the students, but! Let’s hang out. Let’s go for a drink tomorrow night, yeah? We can catch up and have some fun!”

Shoko smirks and doesn’t hesitate to agree. “As long as you pay.”

You scoff softly and nod. “You bet,” you say and hug her one more time before you head to the door. “I’ll see you later, okay? My number is in the bag.”

“The gift is not just your number, is it? I’d chuck something sharp at you if it was,” she remarks.

You snicker and shake your head. “No?” You tease. “Maybe. Find out.” You laugh mischievously and quickly walk out of the room. Once you’re down the hall you can’t help but smile with relief.

Finally! After a decade you’re finally talking to your best friend again. It feels amazing after so much gloom. So now you can continue with your day and meet this kid with a more upbeat attitude and not so much worry that you’ll face some awkward and tense situation.

Hopefully, he doesn’t hate you after what you did last year. He might’ve not been here last year, but the word spreads so here’s hoping he doesn’t have any odd feelings about it. Hakari and Kirara didn’t, but this kid could be different.

Regardless, when you start approaching the courtyard where you’re meant to meet up, you begin to hear voices travel up the hill. They’re loud and you mostly only hear a girl and boy arguing, whilst your brother's voice interjects.

When you make it up the hill, not one out of the three students notices you right away, your brother does though. “You’re late,” he complains.

You shrug. “I was catching up with Shoko,” you brush him off.

Finally, the students stop arguing and look over at you to see who has caught their teacher's attention. And the moment their eyes land on you, the girl with short ginger hair grabs onto the tall guy with pink hair and begins to shake him gently.

Your brother had described who they were so you can place a name to a face right away; the girl shaking the boy is Nobara Kugisaki, and the boy with pink hair is the guy you’re here for, Yuji Itadori. And lastly, the tall skinny guy lurking behind them both is none other than Megumi Fushiguro. You know about him the most, he's Toji Zen’in’s son.

They look identical—except for the hair actually, Toji had oily flat hair, and this kid looks like he has a sea urchin on his head.

“Hello!” You greet the students warmly and offer them a small wave.

“You’re late!” Satoru repeats.

You hum in agreement and just ignore him as you strut over to reach the students.

“She’s coming over here,” you hear Yuji Itadori whisper before he snaps his head to the side and whispers sharply at the girl. “Stop stabbing your nails into me!”

“Stop talking,” Nobara Kugisaki hisses.

You stop before them and offer them a wider smile. “Hi, I’m Y/N Geto,” you introduce yourself without thinking about what you said, you just smile and bow.

“Yes,” Yuji says breathlessly as his eyes grow wider and stick on you. “You are.”

Nobara pushes him aside and bows quickly before she throws her hand out. “I’m Nobara Kugisaki, call me Nobara, huge fan since your first ever feature in the vogue magazine!”

You shake her hand and flash her a sweeter grin. “Thank you, that’s very cool. That was a long time ago, you make me feel old.” You laugh softly.

Nobara drops her hand and her eyes widen with panic. “Well, you don’t look it. You look great! You look amazing.”

You snicker. “I was just pulling your leg. It’s okay,” you assure her.

Nobara lets out a nervous laugh before her eyes roam your long-sleeved denim coat you wear as a mini dress, and then fall on your expensive knee-high brown boots that coordinate with your purse from Prada.

“I love your whole look,” she muses. “It’s amazing.”

You shoot her a beaming smile. “Thank you so much. You’re sweet.”

One of the guys behind her snorts, and she slowly twists her head around and shoots them a glare before looking back at you. “You look pretty.”

“And old,” Satoru cuts in with a teasing look.

You glare at him and snap back. “Says you. Anyway,” you sigh and step towards Yuji. “You must be Yuji Itadori, nice to meet you.”

The boy blinks repeatedly before he bows. “I’m Yuji Itadori! It’s very nice to meet you too!” He proceeds to stand up straight and you study his face for a moment before you move to Fushiguro before you can dive in and study Itadori harder.

“And you…god,” you gasp in disbelief. “You look just like him.”

“Right!” Your brother agrees with you.

“Hello,” the boy mutters nonchalantly. “I’m Megumi Fushiguro. You must be Gojo’s sister.”

You smile and nod. “Yeah. So he did tell you about me, good. He sucks at explaining shit,” you say before you flash Fushiguro a smile. “It’s nice to meet you, I’ve heard a lot about you too.”

Fushiguro glances at Satoru, and your brother simply smirks.

“Wait, wait,” Nobara cuts in and steps in front of Fushiguro. “You’re his sister. There’s no way!” She laughs.

“Yeah, I know—”

“You’re too cool to be his sister,” Nobara cuts Satoru off, causing him to scoff, and you to smirk proudly.

“Hey!”

“Yeah well don’t I know that,” you play along and step back to face all four of them better. “Well, can I just say I’m honored to meet you all. My brother has only said great things. Uh,” you breathe out. “I’m sure there’s questions, but let me ask mine first. Itadori, can I take a closer look at you?”

The boy doesn’t hesitate to nod his head, letting you get closer and narrow your gaze to take a closer look at the slits under his eyes.

“So he just lives inside you,” you ask, hoping you’ll get some reaction from the famous Sukuna that you’ve only read from history books in your family home, and heard about from different sorcerers. “That’s…so cool. Weird, but cool. I am sorry it happened though, it must be annoying.”

“Yeah, he’s just there talking all the time,” Itadori shares. “He’s super annoying.”

You hum and step to the side to face Itadori directly, causing his cheeks to slowly grow a pink tint on them as he holds your gaze with a widened look.

“It’s okay,” you assure him. “I won’t hurt you. Just curious. My husband would’ve gotten a kick from your situation.” Your smile falters, but you don’t show your sorrow, you just step back and smile at Itadori. “Amazing, truly, I can’t wait to get to know you more.”

Itadori’s cheeks grow redder before he quietly mumbles, “Likewise—”

“Wimp!” A sixth voice cuts him that's a lot deeper and huskier than what you’ve heard anyone have here, so you know who it is right away.

“Was that him?” You probe in awe.

Itadori covers his cheek and nods stiffly. “Yep, like I said, he’s annoying.”

“Why don’t you step closer you jezebel,” the voice cuts in again, and this time you see a mouth growing on the back of Itadori’s hand. “I’ll give you something real to look at.”

It's strange, odd even though you find yourself charmed and allured by the sound of his voice; even if he just insulted you with some old derogatory word.

You still gasp in disbelief though, and feel slightly offended by what he just called you, whilst Satoru chuckles like he's heard the funniest thing in the world.

“That’s not funny,” you grumble at Satoru. “He’s an asshole, I—”

“Whore.”

Your jaw drops but this time you spat back right away. “Dickhead at least I have a body of my own and don’t rely on a child to stay alive. Prick.”

“Do you want to say that again?” Sukuna snaps.

You part your lips, but Satoru walks over and pats your back. “Just leave it alone, he’ll be relentless.”

He turns you around and you grumble. “I’d like to see him come out.” You then peer back and don’t see Sukuna peek out anymore, so you drop your shoulders and focus on the kids instead. “So questions? I hope Satoru let you know why I’m here.”

“I did.”

“Yes he did, he said you’d be helping me until the special grade curses are exorcized,” Itadori says as the three of them begin to follow you down the hill to finally head out and do what Satoru had planned. Which should worry you because he’s being ominous about what you’re going to do. He did make a promise about doing what you want to do to bond with the students, but he’s him, he likes to butt in and be inconvenient.

“But,” Itadori adds. “When he said sister, I never thought it’d be you, Mrs Geto.”

A smile twitches on your lips at the sound of that title being used for you. Yet no matter how much you like it, it hurts to hear it when it’s not coming from Suguru’s own lips, when he’s not whispering it in your ear as he tries to seduce you or make you smile. It slips from your own lips, but it’s when you’re not thinking, it hurts later on when you think about it.

Plus, Mrs Geto is too formal, especially because Itadori is not your student or anything. And he and his friends might feel more comfortable if it’s just your first name. “Just y/n, please.”

“Oh. Really?”

You look back and nod softly

Itadori flashes you a bright smile that causes you to be hit with a sweet deja vu. However, it’s not him that flashes in your head like if you’ve lived this already, no, you actually see…Haibara. Seeing Itadoris smile felt like seeing Haibara show off that sweet and charming smile of his again. It feels so surreal.

“Okay, thanks, y/n!”

You offer Itadori a soft smile and let your gaze linger on him for a moment longer as you keep seeing your friend in him.

“Can I ask,” Nobara interjects, making you slide your eyes to her now—“What are you doing here? You’re a famous celebrity, so why are you here? I know I wouldn't be here if I had your fame.”

You hum softly and answer honestly. “Well, modeling is more of a hobby really. Something I set myself to do,” you share proudly. “It was always a dream so I went out and tried it. Plus I knew it’d piss my parents off that I was everywhere so that’s another reason why I pursued that career, but, it’s not really my job, I help sorcerers, like yourselves. That’s why I’m here, I’m helping. You can do both, you know.”

“Cool,” Nobara whispers.

“I guess,” Satoru grumbles.

“Uh, Gojo, mentioned what you do in a short and terrible way,” Fushiguro interjects, “so could you explain it? I’d like to know before we get sent out on whatever mission Gojo has up his sleeve.”

Mission? He never said anything about any mission.

“Well I have an elemental manipulation cursed technique,” you share and turn around to walk back so you can roll your sleeve up and show them the dragon mark on your arm. “I can create flames using my cursed energy,” you continue and tap into your fire, making the dragon glow red-orange before the flames travel to your fingers and make the veins and flesh under your fingertips glow before flames bask them.

Nobara and Itadori gasp in awe while Fushiguro stays nonchalant.

“And I can also manipulate it,” you add. “Just like air, water, and the earth, but I can’t make any of that, just fire. That’s pretty much the gist of it.”

“That’s what I said,” Satoru rebuttals.

You make the flames disappear before you spin around to face ahead as you continue walking.

“You just said she was like a real-life avatar,” Fushiguro counters, causing Satoru to pout.

“Well it’s true,” he whispers.

You giggle and as you’re nearing a crossroads you come to a sudden halt and feel your eyes widen, and a bright grin spreads on your face as you catch Nanami walking over.

“Kenny!” You exclaim as if you hadn’t talked to him just last night.

Said man stops walking and lifts his head, and before he knows it you run over and wrap him in an embrace.

“What are you doing here?!” You ask excitedly and pull back to face your best friend.

“Now that I am here,” he says nonchalantly. “I’m having a terrible feeling. Your brother called me and said it was an emergency.”

You scoff and walk around him to slide your arm around his shoulders and face the others now around you two.

“You know her too, Nanamin?” Itadori interjects as he points at you, causing you to scoff with amusement as you hear the nickname he used.

“How come you didn’t say anything?!” Itadori demands to know.

You rest your chin on Nanami’s other shoulder and smile as you glance at him as he retorts. “Was I supposed to?”

“Yes! She’s famous!”

Nanami shrugs. “Well, here she is. Y/N is my best friend. Y/N, I hope your brother introduced them.”

You nod. “We’ve all introduced ourselves. But anyway, Kenny and I were classmates,” you share without shame. “We were in the same year. I’ve known him since his emo phase.”

“Stop.”

Itadori and Nobara grow curious and you grow enthusiastic. “He had bangs and long hair,” you giggle. “And he was always so moody and angsty…”

“Stop.”

“I think I have a picture. Do you have one Satoru?”

Your brother nods eagerly and you both reach for your phones, but before you can get them, Nanami steps away from you and he interrupts louder. “What is this about? Why did you call me, Gojo?”

Satoru smirks and keeps his hands in his pockets. “I told you already just some fun bonding stuff. I wanted y/n’s return to be a surprise, but it seems you already know—”

“Told him the moment you left,” you interject proudly.

Satoru hums with discontent. “Well you ruined it but anyway. My plan is still going to happen, so Nanami, please put on a smile, we're not high schoolers anymore.”

You snort and Nanami snaps at him. “I’ll punch you.”

“Gojo!” A familiar voice suddenly calls out.

You look back and see Yaga walking over to your brother, and he doesn’t take long to spot you amongst the crowd.

“Girl Gojo?” He mutters with disbelief.

You shoot him a pointed look and press on that with smugness. “I still hate that.”

“What are you doing here? Satoru explain this right now—”

“I hear you’re the principal of this school now,” you cut Yaga off whilst you continue walking to the car. “No wonder it still looks like shit.”

Yaga’s lips curl to a scowl, and you simply smirk before you look away and lean toward Nanami to whisper, “Satoru didn’t tell them I was coming did he?”

“Based on that reaction, no. Somethings never change.”

You hum in agreement and don’t wait for Satoru to catch up, you end up reaching the car and you run into another friend.

“Ijichi, my man!” You greet excitedly as you let the students climb to the back of the car first.

Ijichi’s face grows red and he gapes like a fish.

“Maybe this surprise thing was worth it,” you tease the man before you climb in the car to sit behind the driver seat, while Nanami sits beside you behind the passenger seat.

“Y/N,” Ijichi mutters as he gets in the driver's seat. “What are you doing here?”

“Hey, you know each other too?” Itadori cuts in as he leans forward.

You cross your leg over the other and nod. “Yeah, he was a first year when Nanami and I were second years. We’d all hang out.”

Itadori hums. “I would’ve thought Ijichi was older,” he says.

You laugh softly. “Satoru stresses him out, huh?”

“Well,” Ijichi parts his lips. Yet before he can continue Satoru appears, making Ijichi go quiet as you watch your brother jog to the car to catch up.

“Hey,” you add curiosily and lean forward to grab Ijichi’s shoulder. “Do you still have a crush on Ieiri?”

“Y/N,” Nanami warns.

You brush your friend off and nudge Ijichi. “Aw come on, we all knew. So tell me are you still in love with her?” You laugh, and from the corner of your eyes, you see the door open as your brother gets in.

“He totally is,” he quickly butts in. “He blushes like crazy when she talks to him.”

You giggle, and Ijichi grips onto the steering wheel.

“How’d you even hear?” Ijichi mumbles to Satoru.

“Uh, Nanami’s window is open,” Satoru points back as he closes his door.

Ijichi sighs and starts the car with a long and worried frown on his face.

“Hey, do you kids like boba?” You ask as you start planning where to go and eat. “I think I’m feeling some boba.”

“I love boba,” Nobara and Itadori both exclaim.

You smile and sit back. “Maybe some ramen after some leisure activities? We could go to that ramen place we like to go to that has that nice old lady cook, Ken?” You ask.

“Yeah,” Nanami agrees. “That place is good. Not sure how she’d feel when you walk in without Satori,” he points out.

The car starts moving, and you hum. “Yeah, that’s true, but oh well. We can go back with her another time.” You then look back over your seat to speak to the students. “Do you guys like ramen? I was thinking maybe we could get some lunch after we do what I have planned. Unless you guys want something else.”

Itadori and Nobara look at each other with disbelief so Fushiguro cuts in for them. “Ramen is good, miss.”

You giggle at the title but nod in comprehension. “Cool, now, Satoru, did you bring your wallet? I forgot mine at home.” You lie as you look at him and put on your seatbelt.

“No, I’m not paying for anything, you waste too much money,” Satoru quickly rebuttals.

You gasp and lean forward. “Huh? Come on, it’s my birthday month, you owe me! Ten years worth of presents.”

“No.”

“Come on,” you try to bribe your brother. “Just today. Plus it's not just for me, it’s for all the students and me,” you add with a small smile. “And Satori. And the twins.”

Satoru hums before he deadpans, “no.”

You cross your arms over your chest and grumble under your breath. “Suguru would never do this to me.”

You proceed to look out the window and watch the passing cars, you lift your eyes and see the cloud-littered sky rolling in grey and thicker clouds as rain begins to approach. You then glance at the people around you and you can’t help but smile down at your lap as you feel nostalgic.

Being in a car like this, being driven by someone in a business suit, and having your friend and your brother riding with you reminds you of your days as a student. And it should be bad, it should make you sad since in that time both Suguru and Haibara were alive, but when you look back at that time now, when you ignore the bad parts, you can’t help but feel all warm and happy when you get hit with past memories.

“I’m surprised the twins didn’t come along,” Nanami breaks the silence.

You look away from your lap and meet his gaze behind his goggles. “They’re with Larue today. Plus, they don’t like Satoru, so they avoid spending time with me when he’s with me.”

Nanami hums and then follows with another question. “And Satori?”

“Well,” you roll out and check the time on your phone. “Right now she’s supposed to be with the horses, so she should be taking care of that pony she was gifted,” you direct a bit spitefully at your brother.

Satoru hears your tone and quickly rebuttals. “She said she wanted a pony, so I got her one. And you have horses on the farm, so what’s the big deal?”

You lick your lips and explain as patiently as you can. “The deal is that you didn’t ask if you could get her a pony. You came with the pony.”

“I said. ‘I’m buying a big gift. Is it okay?’ You said yes,” he argues.

You sigh deeply and maintain your cool. “No, no. You didn’t specify. I thought you were going to get her a bike, or rollerblades. Not a pony, come on, Nanamin, back me up.”

“No, I'm staying out of it.”

You groan and continue nonetheless. “All I’m trying to say is that you have to let me know when you want to do that kind of stuff, okay? That’s all I’m trying to say.”

Satoru draws in a deep breath, and just as he breathes out to respond, Itadori cuts in with a question.

“You have a farm and horses?”

You peer back and nod softly. “Yeah, I have a community for sorcerers,” you let him know and notice the curiosity glimmering in his eyes. “It’s not big, we’re fifty people strong, but they have their own homes. We try to be as sustainable as possible without relying on non-sorcerers. We grow our crops, we have a greenhouse.” You add with a soft smile. “We have a farm with chickens, goats, cows, and horses.”

“Oh, that’s so cool! I want to ride a horse,” Itadori says as he leans forward.

“Maybe you and your friends can come over one day and go horseback riding, you can see the community for yourselves. Now I might be a bit biased, but our community is really beautiful and nice, so I’ll definitely arrange dinner or something so you can all see it!”

Itadori hums and blinks before he probes. “Is that why you hardly answer questions about yourself in interviews?”

You chuckle and nod. “Yeah for the most part. The other part is that I just don’t like non-sorcerers.”

Itadori laughs but you don’t mirror him, you stay with a serious expression on your face, so he quickly realizes you’re not joking.

“Is that what you mean by not relying on non-sorcerers?” Nobara cuts in as she catches that you’re being serious too.

You don’t back down and try to downplay your emotions for their sakes, you simply nod and give them your harsh truth. “Yeah, that's exactly it. Sure there’s still things they make that we use, you know, like my clothes. I’m not as strict as my husband was with that.”

“Can I ask,” Itadori says in a serious way now and with a perplexed look on his face. “Why is it that you have indifferences with non-sorcerers.”

“Itadori,” Fuhisguro warns quietly.

You shake your head and spare him a glance. “It’s fine. I don’t mind,” you assure him and look back at the pink-haired boy. “I have bad experiences with non-sorcerers. I think that they’re the reason curses are born, they're why—they’re the root of this plague we have to take out, that we risk our lives for, and that we lose our lives for. Perhaps they’re not all bad people, but I can never find it in me to care for them again, it’s that simple.”

Itadori’s lips part, and his eyes furrow slightly as he takes in what you said. As this image of you probably breaks the person you really are comes out and burns away that illusion.

Perhaps this is why they say you should never meet your idols.

“I’m sorry if that ruins any illusions of me,” you try to comfort him. “And I know that nothing I say will make my views any better, but just know that I would risk my life for people like you, and you,” you point at Nobara, and then look and point at Fushiguro. “And you. I fight for sorcerers, I built my community for sorcerers so they can find a home in this mess, so they can find help where there is none because people fear them. That’s my truth.”

Itadori’s eyes slowly drift down as he stays quiet and thinks, letting you sigh softly and take one last look at all of them processing your words before you turn back around and continue to look out the window.

This time instead of feeling nostalgic as you reminisce about your youth, you feel your heart ache as you think back to that group mission, the one where Suguru found you beaten and disheveled by that non-sorcerer. He saved you that day, he was your light in that void of darkness. And he’s gone now, he can never be that source of comfort to you ever again.

You sigh deeply and look at your left finger for comfort, for a piece of him, but you remember now as you look at your naked ring finger, that you took your rings off after you couldn't handle the deep ache that you felt every time you looked at them.

They’re safely tucked away in your jewelry box now. And his ring…is with him forever…

“Y/N,” you hear Nanami call out, so you lift your head and meet his gaze. He’s wearing his goggles so you can’t see what he feels, you only see a simple and faint frown, so you take that as concern and offer him a soft and assuring smile.

When you glance out the window again to see if you’re close, you notice that Ijichi passed the exit you need to take to get to the shopping center you wanted to go to.

“Wait!” You interject and sit up straighter as best as you can. “We missed the exit. We’re supposed to go to the shopping center.”

“What?” Ijichi asks worryingly. “But Gojo said we’re going to the mission.”

You snap your eyes to your brother looking out the window with a shit-eating grin on his face, and at that moment you know that he’s been lying. He was never going to take you shopping, or let you bond in a good way with the students, he’s taking you on a mission!

“You!” You growl and slam your finger down to unbuckle yourself and jump over behind his seat to slap your hands over his eyes. “You liar! I’ll burn your eyes out!”

Satoru cackles and grabs your wrists. “I never said we’d go shopping.”

“You could’ve said!” You sneer. “I am not dressed for a mission. Liar!”

“Please, sit down,” Ijichi quietly tries to cut in,

“We’re going to crash,” you hear Fushiguro mutter before Nanami interjects too.

“You’re embarrassing yourself y/n.”

“Only person who's going to be embarrassed Is Satoru when he can no longer use those six eyes of his!” You snap and press his head back, making him laugh harder before he suddenly goes quiet and you feel something wet and squishy on your hand.

“What?” You gasp but stop as you realize it was your brother's tongue that touched you. “Ew! Oh my gosh, ew!” You shout and sit back down but keep your hand out as you feel his saliva on your palm. “That’s so gross!”

You turn to try and wipe your hand on Nanami, but he catches your wrist and shakes his head. “Don’t you dare.”

Your disgust grows, and Satoru laughs menacingly from the front.

“Nanami, it’s drying,” you whine. “It’s drying on my hand!”

“You’re being dramatic.”

You gag and squirm your hand away and turn, making Nobara lean away, and causing a laughing Itadori to lean towards Fushiguro so you wouldn’t touch them either.

“I need hand sanitizer!”

“Here,” Fushiguro says in his nonchalant voice and reaches into his pocket to take out a small hand sanitizer.

You lean over and he squirts some on your palm, letting you rub your hands together rapidly so you can get rid of your brother's saliva before it becomes a part of you or something.

“Thanks, kid, you’re a lifesaver,” you tell him and sit back down.

“You’re almost 28 years old,” Nanami points out.

You shoot him a narrowed look and shrug. “So? That’s still gross and they’d understand if they have siblings. Do you guys?”

“No,” Nobara and Itadori share.

“Yeah,” Fushiguro is the only one that shares that similarity.

“Older or younger?” You ask.

“Older sister. But we don’t get along like that.”

You hum and muse, “yeah, because she’s your sister. An older sister would’ve been nice. Instead, I’m stuck with this rare case.”

“I am a rare case, I’m special,” Satoru says,

You scoff under your breath and nod. “That you are my dear brother. That you are,” you say sarcastically.

——

*LATER*

Abandoned amusement park? Does he actually want to accomplish your death sentence and kill you?

“Is this your idea of a joke?” You sneer. “You should’ve told me.”

A smirk twitches on his lips. “It was a surprise. Surprise.”

You narrow your gaze on him and he lifts his hand to lower a veil.

“Bond with them,” he says and steps back to lean against the car. “We can go wherever you want after. I’ll even let you use my card.”

You huff out and keep your eyes on him until the veil lowers and you can no longer hear him.

“There’s no point dwelling on it any longer,” Nanami says over his shoulder as he follows after the eager students. “You should’ve seen this coming too.”

You flip your brother off before you swiftly turn on your heels and storm after Nanami.

“I'm not changed for this,” you complain, “nor did I pack clothes or the right shoes for this.”

“When are you ever wearing the right shoes?” Nanami quips, making you roll your eyes over to him and groan dramatically.

Nanami drifts his eyes to you and a faint teasing smile tugs on his lips.

“I hate you both,” you grumble and pick up your pace to get past the entrance of this ugly and desolate park. “You kids need to be careful. It’s too quiet here so either the curses are hiding, or they’re waiting to attack. Eyes peeled and stances ready.”

You proceed to reach into your pocket and pull out a small and rolled-up worm curse. He figures out you need him without needing to be told and unrolls himself into his given size, letting you drape him around your neck and scratch his chin thereafter.

“So do you guys have any more questions?” You ask the students.

Itadori slows down and slowly peers back, he parts his lips but when his eyes land on what’s around your neck his eyes widen and he shouts. “Hey! Watch out, around your neck!”

Both Nobara and Fushiguro look back and they look just as confused, but you look at them nonchalantly.

“This?” You point to the worm. “He’s okay. He’s mine. His name is Worm.” You smile and scratch the top of his head, causing it to lean towards your touch, and making the students look at it disgusted.

“He’s very cool and convenient. Suguru took him in a decade ago, and after he died we bonded,” you let them know and walk past them as they stand there in bewilderment. “Now he’s with me all the time. If he’s not on me, he’s in my pocket.”

“That’s so gross—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” you cut Fushiguro off. “He’s helpful. He’s very helpful.” Plus why is he being so judgy? His father owned the worm before Suguru and you did.

“Don’t listen to them,” you tell the worm. “They just don't know you yet. You helped a lot in Egypt.” You smirk and give it one last pet before you sigh and glance around at the abandoned rides invaded by greenery, and ugly-looking by all the rust build-up.

Chills run up your spine as you spot a clown ride hidden between the tall golden grass. “Ew, if we run into a clown cursed spirit I will burn Satoru’s eyes out of his skull.”

“Whatever it is,” Nanami interjects. “It’s big so you might just have to do that regardless.”

Your friend falls beside you and keeps an eye out for any curses while you lean over and whisper. “Don’t you think Satoru relies a little bit too much on his students? He or you could’ve come to do this mission alone. I mean they couldn't identify what grade the curse lurking here was.”

“I suppose he trusts you with them,” Nanami says, making you avert your gaze. “But sometimes, yes I do. But…it’s his way of teaching. He’ll never let anything happen to them that’s for sure.”

You hum and mumble with disappointment in yourself. “I wouldn't know really.” You’ve only seen him interact with your daughters, and he’s nice with them, but you don’t really know what he’s like with his students. It’s a consequence of being apart for so long.

“He wouldn't let anything happen to them,” Nanami reassures his statement.

You hum again as you nod.

“Hey!” Nobara interrupts from behind. “What are you two talking about over there?!”

You peer back and quickly throw something out. “Taxes?”

“You suck,” Namami whispers.

“It’s October,” Fushiguro points out.

You shrug. “I’m a millionaire, I have to start somewhere.”

“Tax evasion,” Nanami says, pulling your attention back to him. “Add that to your list of crimes.”

You feign a laugh and push him to the side. Nanami smiles again, and this time you hear gasps coming from behind you as they see that rare gesture on a serious man.

“I can list my crimes,” you joke.

Nanami scoffs. “It’s nothing to show off actually. So focus, or…maybe that clown curse will sneak up on you.” The corner of his lips tug wider as he walks ahead, and you fake more laughter.

“Can I ask,” you hear Nobara say as she walks up to you. “Why did you defect from the school? Was it for that husband of yours?”

You laugh softly and shake your head. “No, he helped me leave, but no…” you exhale deeply and glance at Nanami. “I decided to leave after I failed to save my friend. It was on a mission, but I failed to save him. I failed my own goal of helping my friends, so it was my last straw. Some things happened after but that’s why I left. I knew I wouldn't be happy if I stayed at school, I couldn't be who I wanted to be so I defected and never looked back. I’m better because of it.”

Nobara ponders for a moment before she quietly brings up something. “But you’re a special grade.”

You nod softly. “Yeah, I always have been. But that’s because of my technique and its potential. I unfortunately had a lot to learn about myself,” you share with her. “I wasn’t naturally skilled like my brother, my technique took a while to really grasp and control. The elements…” you pause and lift pieces of dirt off the ground and spin them around on your palm with the wind, so she can see.

“…Are hard to control,” you continue. “They’re alive, they’re strong, so I struggled, but I learned. I’m still learning, but I’m strong now,” you say and drop the dirt and let the wind go. “Just like you will be too.”

Nobara meets your gaze with disbelief and you nod confidently.

“I’ll tell you something,” you whisper so she could be the only one to hear. “As a woman, many people like to doubt us and our power. They see us and even if we’re special grade or first, they see weakness. That’s why we can gain the upper hand and show off how strong we are. Never let anyone tell you that you can either be strong or a woman. You can be both. Be both and beat their ass.”

Nobara grins and nods eagerly. “Nicely put, I like that!”

You smile and when you meet her gaze your smile falters. “You’re not freaked out? By my views I mean? I understood if you were.”

Nobara looks away. “Well I can’t say I agree with you, or that I ever will,” she says. “I can’t see you the same as before, but I like to think I'm a good judge of character. If you were bad you wouldn't be here risking your life for Itadori. Besides, Gojo talks about you all the time. He might be weird, but if you were bad he wouldn’t trust you with his students.”

Your eyes widen with shock, and you have to quickly pick on that matter. “Really? What does he say?”

It’s probably just about Satori though.

“Well,” she says. “He likes to talk about what you’d do as kids. He’d talk about the things he’d teach you, and that you were always his best student…”

Your eyes begin to sting and a smile tugs on your lips.

“He mentions your uh, years in high school. He really likes to tell stories about his youth with you and his friends. I just never thought it’d be you. He never said your name, and even if he did I never pieced it together. And he likes to mention that we can have lives outside of being sorcerers, just like you.”

She’s a first-year, so you can't know if he’s talked about you to his other students before, you’ve never asked Hakari or Kirara. But now that Nobara has mentioned it, it just seems unbelievable; he’s never mean towards you when he’s at your house or when you spend time together because of Satori, but deep inside you always think that he is mad over the things you’ve done, over the life you chose to live.

The doubt is still pretty much a lively thing. You feel it poisoning your mind every time you see him or talk to him. It just repeats itself over and over again. He’s still mad at you. He's still mad at you…

He’ll never forgive you or look at you the same.

It’s a pesky thing really.

“Hm, well how nice of him,” you muse nonchalantly. “I wish he’d follow his own advice and live a life for himself.” You look ahead and notice a tent ahead so you aim for that to check for any curses. “Now, do you think Itadori will…talk to me again?” You look back and see him walking beside Fushiguro. “He’s been quiet since I’ve talked about my views in life.”

Nobara follows your line of gaze and shrugs. “Yeah once he sees you’re not bad, he’ll warm up again. Just give him time.”

You stretch your arms out and share a comprehensive hum before you sneak over to the tent.

You don’t sense any cursed energy, but you have to make sure so they don’t get a jump on you.

Nevertheless, when you open the flap and peek inside you just see trash.

“Nothing,” you let everyone know before you look at the three students walking over to try and take a peek too. “Do you guys sense anything?” You question them and step aside.

The three of them pop their heads inside and stay quiet as their eyes roam the inside.

“No,” Fushiguro answers for all of them.

You nod. “Good. Always keep your guard up. When there are strong curses they hide. And then they attack when they see your back turned,” you give them some friendly advice before you step out.

“Another thing,” you add. “Clothes. This will apply once you’re out of school mostly. If you decide to stay as a sorcerer that is then clothes matter. Right now your uniforms help, but once you’re out you’ll find something that helps you with your technique, or just simply when you’re fighting. For example, I have two outfits, my jumpsuit, and a dress.”

“A dress?” Itadori questions.

You nod. “It's a light dress that helps me feel the flow of the wind,” you explain right away so they don’t think you’re weird for fighting in a dress. “It helps me also with the flow of my cursed energy, and transferring it to the elements around me. Of course,” you say smugly. “If you see me wearing my dress you should run the other way. I only ever wear it when I mean business. When the fight is extreme. So mostly against another sorcerer.”

“So,” Itadori interjects and walks forward. “Do you change mid-battle, or how does that work?”

“Uh, I burn off my jumpsuit. I wear my dress under my things. Or I use it over the jumpsuit, I just fix it you know so it’s not obvious and it looks like a part of the jumpsuit. It’s cool.”

“You burn it off? Nice.”

You smirk and nod. “Except that I have to carry extra clothes with me everywhere, but!” You exclaim and pet the worm's head. “That’s why I have him, he keeps everything for me.”

The worm smiles and you beam at it, getting weirded-out reactions from the kids.

“Y/N,” Nanami calls out and pulls your attention to him—“there. Pay attention.”

You follow where he points to and see a closed-off roller rink. Before you can reach the entrance you all come to a stop and search for any sign of a curse.

And right away when you focus, you sense a big amount of cursed energy that makes you think it might be a first-grade curse.

So it’s dangerous. For the students.

“Itadori and I will go around the back, you, Fushiguro, and Nobara take the front. Let’s do it like we did in the old times, yeah?” You ask with a small smile.

Nanami sighs but nods in agreement. “Sure. Be careful.”

You nod and then point ahead before you lead the way around the back of the roller rink.

“What do you mean like old times?” Itadori queries.

You smile over at him. “We’d surround the curses,” you reminisce. “Try and get a jump on it and just coordinate our fights so we could work as a team. It’d work all the time…” you trail off and frown as you think back to the one time and the last time it didn't work in your favor.

“We’ll do that again,” you brush off the sorrow. “You take the right, I’ll take the left. Meet up in the middle and jump it. If it gets too bad you take your friends and wait for Nanami and me outside though, understand?”

Itadori narrows his eyes and seems to want to argue but he sighs and nods stiffly. “Fine,” he mutters.

You scoff in amusement and look at the back door you’re approaching. And just before you can reach it, you think of getting out a blade and reach for the worm.

Without any hesitation, the worm opens its mouth and pushes out your blade that you pull out without thought.

“Oh, what?!” Itadori freaks out. “How did it do that?”

You narrow your eyes on the doorknob and slowly wrap your hand around it as you answer. “That’s his skill. He can keep stuff inside without changing size, something as big as a car and down to a penny without ever losing it,” you whisper as you open the door. “That’s why he’s a good companion.”

The worm turns his head to look at Itadori beside you, and from the corner of your eyes, you see Itadori reach for the worm's mouth.

“No,” you stop his attempts. “It doesn’t work that way. He only works with whom it’s bonded to—or serving if you want simpler terms. You’ll just get swallowed or a handful of sticky saliva.”

“Ew.”

“Yeah, but it’s cool.” You smirk and the worm smirks too.

Itadori nods even if you see that he looks creeped out by the worm and you with matching expressions. “Yeah,” he mumbles. “It actually is.”

You proceed to reach for the worm's mouth again, and this time you pull out two daggers. “Here,” you nudge Itadori. “Use them. Just in case. If you don’t need to use your cursed energy, don't waste it, be resourceful, your life may depend on it. Or if that’s not your case, then it’s always just good to carry something extra just in case.”

“Oh,” he mouths and gently grabs the weapons. “Thank you…they’re sticky.”

You glance at him and nod. “Yeah, you get used to it.”

You then tap into your fire and summon flames to your palm to bask the length of the blade in flames so you can see through the darkness that invades the roller rink.

“I’ll go right, you go left,” you remind him a bit quieter. “You get into any trouble, shout, or text me,” you pause and reach for the worm’s mouth to pull out a card. “Here.”

His eyebrows raise in disbelief and he whispers loudly. “For me?”

You nod. “We’ll be working together a lot so it’s better to be friends than acquaintances.”

Itadori meets your gaze and nods with a look of surprise on his face. You offer him a tiny smile before you begin to move towards the right side.

The roller rink is quiet so you make sure to step quietly to keep it that way and double-check the rooms you pass so there aren't any curses hiding around.

And for the most part, the ghost is clear except for when you reach a bathroom door and follow a blood trail to the end of the bathroom. Only a curse isn't lurking there eating a person, there’s only a person bleeding out from his side.

“Help,” he says hoarsely as he slowly looks up at you. “Please something attacked me—oh, I know you. You’re famous, yeah?”

You study the bleeding man and don’t sense any high levels of cursed energy so it means he’s a non-sorcerer.

“What attacked you,” you ask as you come to a stop a few feet away.

The man clutches onto his side and begins to cry, making your face slowly twist with disgust.

“I don’t know,” he cries, “my friend was attacked by something invisible, and it tried to get me too but I managed to run away! Please help me. Please.”

You slowly lower the blade in your hand and lower your chin to express feigned pity and concern.

“I will,” you lie and slowly stride to him as the flames that basked your blade dies and leaves the bathroom dark. When you step on a pool of his blood a smirk tugs on your lips and a menacing look paints in your gaze. You proceed to reach for his hand, but before you can touch him you swing the blade and slice his throat.

“Time for lunch,” you mutter nonchalantly to your worm as the man falls limp on the cold ground. “Come find me when you’re done,” you let your worm know as you pull him off your neck and put him down by the dead man.

One thing you doubt will ever change throughout your life is your hatred for non-sorcerers. You can’t exactly find any easier way to rid this world of them without the help of Suguru, so you’ve put that dream on hold. But that hatred will never change.

Nevertheless, you walk out of the bathroom and ignite the blade again. Before you can walk out of the hall and come across the rink, you hear a creepy cackle, meaning they’ve found the curse. Great.

It better not be some clown or a large spider-like curse. Please, please no.

You reach the double doors and let out a deep breath before you slowly push the door open. As you peek through the crack you groan as you see a large body with a ridiculous dull clown costume, and bright red hair sticking out the sides.

Really? Really?! A fucking clown?

Clowns are fucking scary…

“You’ll pay for this Satoru,” you whisper and drift your eyes past the clown curse and spot Nanami in front of it with his blade out, but you can't see Nobara and Fushiguro, nor can you see Itadori around.

Which is good. No matter how much you should teach them, why should they be on the front lines facing something above their grade if you’re here?

As long as you can, you’ll protect people like you. Even if you hardly know them.

Which is why you tiptoe out before the students get angsty, and quietly watch Nanami kick the clown in the rink.

The clown quickly tries to swing its claw for hands at your friend, but Nanami dodges and slides past it. When he lands behind the clown curse he spots you walking out the back doors, so you hastily point your eyes to the side so the clown won’t see you so you can catch it by surprise.

Nanami nods stiffly as he reads what you want without being told, and pulls the clown's attention to the side, letting you continue to quietly maneuver past turned-over tables and broken wooden chairs. When the clown turns abruptly you quickly go down and hide behind a table.

And as you do you spot Itadori at your far left side hiding behind a booth with greenery growing around it. His brown eyes find you and he steps forward to help his mentor, but you put your hand out and he stops. You don’t want to give out your presence so you mouth to him.

“Wait.”

Itadori quirks one eyebrow up in confusion, causing you to sigh deeply before you close your hand to signal him to hold.

He understands now so he mouths, “oh,” before he nods once in agreement.

You scoff in amusement and continue to move on ahead in your crouched position. When you reach the rink you finally spot Megumi and Nobara on metal vents above ground. So it means Nanami is actually following along with your old plans.

It’s surprising that he is. Even if you agreed to it moments before you still can’t help but be surprised since it’s been so long since you’ve worked together. It makes you happy and eager honestly.

Regardless, you step into the rink and before the clown can see you, you scurry over, and when you get close enough you change your pace to a sprint before you hop off your feet. As gravity pulls you back down you pull the blade up, and just as you get close you rapidly swing down with force and slice down the clown's back, making it cry out and try to swing its arm back.

Yet before he can touch you, you push yourself off his back to land on the floor swiftly and slide back.

The clown's eyes land on you, and it begins to growl, showing sharp black teeth. It then tries to turn completely, but you use your technique and trap its feet using pieces of the ground. Nanami then follows by swinging his blade across its chest.

And the power of his swing is so strong that the clown goes flying back. Albeit just before you can see it hit the ground, a large brown bird shikigami appears from nowhere and grabs the clown with its talons. It then takes it across the rink and slams it against a wall to zap it with purple electricity before it lets it go and disappears through the shadows.

The wall behind the clown crumbles, welcoming in natural light from the outside, while the clown itself tumbles down.

You know it’s not done yet though, it got weakened, but it’s done fighting. However, Nanami and you still approach it cautiously. And just as predicted the clown suddenly throws its hands out and they suddenly stretch out towards Nanami and you.

You get ready to attack, but then in a blink of an eye, you’re surprised by how fast Itadori slams his body against the clown’s arms before he wraps his own

arms around one and pushes it towards the other. When the arms are pressing against each other a dozen nails impale both arms.

Nobara lands before Nanami and you, and with a simple snap the nails implode and blow both arms to pieces.

“Wow,” you gasp through the silence with a proud smile. “Satoru once again has an impressive bunch here.”

“He owes us for lying though,” Nanami mutters.

“Yeah, he’ll pay,” you agree and listen to the clown begin to cackle again. “Careful,” you warn the kids. “It’ll probably heal its arms back.”

Megumi jumps off the vents and lands beside Nanami, while you narrow your eyes on the clown and begin to walk towards it. The clown then suddenly goes quiet, and before you know it the clown throws its body out as it enlarges so big its head hits the ceiling. It then reaches for a flower on its chest and when he presses it water shoots and aims at Nobara, so you change your pace to a run.

However, when you get close to her you slide forward on your feet, and then lift two fingers to use your technique and split the water in half before it could touch Nobara or you.

The clown cries out at its failure, and you flash it a cocky grin while you also manipulate the water to travel around Nobara and you.

“Cool,” Nobara muses before you shoot the clown's own prank water at its eyes.

The moment water hits the clown's eyes, you see steam rising and watch the clown try and grab its eyes as the water seems to melt away his eyes.

“Well,” you joke to lighten the mood. “Good thing we didn’t get splashed by that huh?”

Nobara scoffs, and Itadori uses this time while it’s distracted to run over and throw it a strong right hook that hurls the clown to the side. And rather than stumbling, you see Megumi meet it with a punch that sends it back to the left.

You take advantage of this moment and sprint forward before you hop and impale the curse through the jaw.

The clown begins to laugh menacingly, but before it can attack, both Megumi and Itadori come at it from the sides and use the daggers you had handed Itadori to impale the clown's eyes.

With that last move, the clown goes limp and you pull your blade out and let yourself fall to the ground. When Megumi and Itadori land on their feet, the clown's corpse begins to disappear, bringing an end to this fight.

“It's over,” you assure them and let out a deep and relieved breath. “Good job.”

“Save it until we see if the veil fell,” Nanami counters you and walks past you to walk to the gap left on the wall.

You quickly follow after him and push yourself past his side to poke your head out. Luckily rather than seeing a dim sky you can’t help but smile as you see the vivid blue sky and fluffy grey clouds.

“See,” you nudge Nanami. “Over!” You spin around on your heels and shoot the kids a grin. “Great job everyone, you all did amazing. Great teamwork, and great quick thinking!”

They all seem to look a bit surprised by your compliment but they smile softly and take your compliment with a sweet thank you.

Your worm curse finally shows up and the moment he sees you he drags himself as fast as he can to reach you.

“Why don’t we get out, huh?” You suggest. “Maybe get some well-deserved boba.”

When the worm reaches your feet you pick him up and hang him around your neck before you put away your blade and step outside through the gap.

“Y/N,” you hear Itadori call out before he falls beside you.

“Hm?” You hum and look at him with a curious look.

Itadori holds the daggers out and offers you a faint half-smile. “Thanks for letting me use them, they came in handy.”

“Oh,” you say and smile. “No problem.”

Instead of grabbing them, you offer him an assuring nod, and he grins and tucks the daggers in the worm.

“Sick,” he laughs.

You smile softly at him in admiration as you see a flash of Haibara again. They also have the same sweet look in their eyes, that warm kindness and bright glimmer even after they’ve seen the worst thing imaginable.

“Look,” you interject softly. “I’m not sorry for the way I think. I have my reasons, I won’t preach my views to you either, I just hope,” you sigh and earn his undivided attention. “That we can look past our indifferences. At least while we work together. It’d be very awkward if we had tension.”

Itadori drifts his eyes away and looks ahead before he responds in a kind voice. “I don’t agree with the way you think, but I’ve gotten to know your world and I can say that it isn’t easy, and I can never know what happened that made you think the way you do,” he says in such a deep and wise manner even though he's only fifteen years old.

“But I do respect you,” he continues, catching you by surprise. “You helped fight this curse today. You didn’t have to. You helped Nobara and you didn’t have to. For that I respect you. Besides, Nanami and Gojo trust you too, and I trust their judgment, so I trust you too. Plus you’re so much cooler now that I’ve seen you in action.”

You laugh softly.

“I’m looking forward to working with you, y/n,” he finishes saying, making your smile soften.

“I’m looking forward to working with you too,” you mirror sweetly.

Itadori offers you a tiny smile, making you pat his shoulder and give him another compliment. “You did good kid. Now, do you want to see some pictures of Nanami when he was in high school? I have videos saved here too.”

“Oh, can I?!” He exclaims.

“Y/N, don’t you dare!” Nanami shouts.

You peer back and pull your phone out in a taunting manner. Your friend glares at you and you turn your phone on and unlock it before you go to your camera roll.

“You never change,” he mutters.

You smirk. “You’re so annoying,” you mock him by saying what he’d tell you all the time when you were students yourselves.

“You’re almost 28.”

“You’re almost 28,” you mimic him, making his lip curl to a soft scowl. “Anyway!” You laugh and click on the folder where you have the old pictures. “This is us. And that’s him.”

Itadori takes your phone away from you and laughs. “Whoa! Nanamin your hair!”

You giggle and see Nanami clench his jaw.

“I want to see!” Nobara exclaims before she runs over and pushes Itadori slightly as she holds the phone to look too.

“You can scroll through that folder,” you assure them. “You’ll find Ieiri and Satoru there too.”

“Hey, look, it's Master Gojo!” Itadori shouts excitedly, making Fushiguro quietly walk over to look at the pictures with his friends too. You, on the other hand, slow down to catch up to Nanami.

“Reminds me of us,” you muse softly.

“Except neither of them is a spoiled rich girl,” he tries to get back at you for revealing pictures of his youth.

“Your hair is pink and super short!” Nobara points out.

“It was a phase!” You counter.

“A mistake,” Nanami corrects you and laughs quietly. “I told him it was too light.”

You giggle. “He got the measurements all wrong. He wasn’t good at math.”

Nanami shakes his head in agreement with your comment. “No. No, he was not.”

You sigh deeply and your smile fades. “You think everything’s going to be okay?” You ask quietly as you watch Nobara, Itadori, and Fushiguro talking and smiling as they look through the pictures and watch the videos you have saved—“they deserve better than what we had.”

Nanami lets out a deep breath and nods stiffly. “They do, but there’s no way of knowing,” he doesn’t hide the truth.

You’re thankful for that even if it gives you a bad feeling in your gut.

“All we can do is hope and fight for them to get better, right?” You add another question to feel some comfort through the bad feeling forming like a storm.

“Yeah,” Nanami whispers. “That’s right.”

You hum softly in comprehension and continue to watch them with admiration and a soft smile even though the storm continues to brew within you.

.

.

.

.

.

A/N- Let’s enjoy these moments :/….

Tagged- @deniseabad1928 @secondary-character-25 @starlightanyaaa @notsaelty @d4rno @moonnime @kodzukein @yozora7154

[dragon-communion]

I'm bored and the acquisition of the legendary armaments bothers me so let's do something about that.

1. Dark Moon Greatsword- flawless, no notes, ideal wedding present.

2. Bolt of Gransax- flawless presentation. However, it feels weirdly easy to acquire, especially since it's been sitting in the middle of Leyndell for a few hundred years minimum. I don't know how I'd fix this.

3. Grafted Blade Greatsword- it's a gimmick blade and I really hate that I have to take it seriously. The weak stapled-on lore is a decent attempt at making it remotely relevant, and I like the fact that the Misbegotten stole it. I feel like there could be better presentation though, especially since it's a clans' worth of swords. Make me fight a coordinated clan of Misbegotten for it or something, drill in that theme of unity and revenge. Or ride the blatant reference and involve a dragon somehow. A fucked up grafted-scion style dragon maybe? That'd be fun. Why don't I have to fight a grafted enemy to get this thing?

4. Devourer's Scepter- It's just really weird that I can get this in Limgrave by killing a friendly NPC. If Bernahl's that important to Volcano Manor, maybe make him less vulnerable to our merchant-killing impulses? Give us a motivation to not instantly wreck his face for having bad stock, y'know. Some compelling dialogue. Maybe the ability to teleport out if we get him to half health. I don't know how I'd fix this but I want to at minimum have to work for a legendary armament rather than accidentally step on it. I didn't even know the scepter was supposedly special, I just went "huh cool" and shoved it in my chest.

5. Sword of Night and Flame- Speaking of accidentally stepping on weapons! Considering this one is pretty famous in PVP (and why aren't Moonveil and RoB on this list anyway???) I find it weird I can just trip on this sword. I don't even have to kill a guy for it. Give it to Moongrum or something, at least. Hide it behind a cool wizard puzzle, maybe add some kind of fun lock involving throwing an ice pot and a fire pot at a wall or something. I can respect having it in a chest. What I cannot respect is the utter lack of security. Make me use a braincell please.

6. Ruins Greatsword- I like that it's in Caelid, home of Gravity Fuckery and also Dragons. I think more could be done with that. Put it in some kind of research facility in Sellia, maybe earn it from Gurranq somehow, or even have it as an optional challenge for crazy bastards who want to continue Radahn's funerary games. I guess I don't mind collecting it from a Crucible Knight, or even that it's a missable item, but I just feel like it could be positioned somewhere better than Radahn's yard.

7. Marais Executioner's Sword- I approve of this. Am I entirely sure why the executioner's sword is legendary, and Godfrey's axe or Marika's hammer aren't? No. But in terms of acquisition, ripping it from the cold dead hands of the last guy slated for execution is pretty cool. The Shaded Castle is a cool setting too.

8. Golden Order Greatsword- It's lore-significant, looks incredible, and is directly involved with one of the endgame bosses. So please explain why I find Radagon's personal sword that he modified himself in a random cave. I don't care how cool the cave looks, did he drop it off a cliff after Marika accused him of cheating or something? The fact that we don't get this weapon in some sort of setting associated with Radagon is insane to me. Stick it in a fort behind a couple of guards at least. Y'know what would give this sword more impact? Receiving it as a quest reward from Miriel. Radagon's messy divorce sword, a traditional Carian betrothal gift twisted into a monument to Golden Order ideology- receiving it from Miriel, or showing it to Miriel, would be fascinating for character exploration. I wish we could've done more with the turtle pope in terms of exploring and investigating Radagon. Failing that, stick it in some kind of secret room in a library or study in Leyndell. Show me Radagon's office where he pored over Golden Order Fundamentalism and stick this thing behind a bookshelf somewhere like he's ashamed to own it.

9. Eclipse Shotel- I like the setting where we get it actually. I wish it wasn't five seconds away from a very angry ghost so I could appreciate the setting more, but the Church of the Eclipse definitely sets the tone. It could set more of a tone, but at least it's something. I want to know more about Castle Sol and this eclipse, because the ghosts are delightfully spooky and set the ambiance and I enjoy fucked up necromancy, but we don't really get much information. I would've put some sort of death blight enemy next to it, like one of those giant more priestly Wormfaces, along with some sort of astrologically significant structure for getting an eyeful of the moon. Make me believe they're doing weird celestial rituals up there. Who used the shotel, how, and for what? Human sacrifice? Back scratching? I am willing to forgive them for just leaving it on a table, since there's an exposition ghost nearby, but I can't quite figure out the relevance of the shotel in the grand scheme of everything else going on. Is it for killing the sun???

[luna--flare]

Zero Escape? I think you'll find I escape plenty

Inspired by this post, I decided to count how many times throughout the series characters actually escape from a situation, including both escape rooms and the Nonary Games as a whole. There's obviously going to have to be some judgement calls about how to count things, so you might not agree with the final number I come up with. Spoilers for the whole Zero Escape series below.

9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors

For this, we'll be going off the DS version, counting each route from the start of the game, since that's what Akane actually experienced through Junpei's eyes. The Nonary Game starts with each participant escaping from an individual room, presumably excluding Akane and Aoi. So that's 7 escapes per route. Things then diverge into 2 at the first door. For the second door choice, if Junpei enters door 3, nobody else does an escape room at this or the next stage - we'll say this happens once for Submarine Ending. For the other routes, the group splits into two again, and then one final time for two escape rooms back to back. So.

Knife Ending

Third Class Cabin - 7 escapes

Door 4/5 - 2 escapes

Door 7/8 - 2 escapes

Door 1/6 - 4 escapes

Submarine Ending

Third Class Cabin - 7 escapes

Door 4/5 - 2 escapes

Door 3 - 1 escape

Door 2 - 2 escapes

Axe Ending

Third Class Cabin - 7 escapes

Door 4/5 - 2 escapes

Door 7/8 - 2 escapes

Door 1/6 - 4 escapes

The true routes add a bit more because we also go through Door 9, of course. In the Safe ending, while Junpei doesn't go through an escape room, we can presume Ace and Lotus do, and of course in the True Ending Junpei does go through the Library and Study. The puzzle in the incinerator is also presented with a "Seek a way out!" introduction. For the Coffin Ending, we're assuming that Junpei already knows the code from the Safe Ending and goes straight onto the True Ending without replaying, to get a lowball estimate.

Safe Ending

Third Class Cabin - 7 escapes

Door 4/5- 2 escapes

Door 7/8 - 2 escapes

Door 1/6 - 4 escapes

Door 9 - 2 escapes

True Ending

Third Class Cabin - 7 escapes

Door 4/5 - 2 escapes

Door 7/8 - 2 escapes

Door 1/6 - 4 escapes

Door 9 - 2 escapes

Incinerator - 1 escape

Finally, there's the matter of the escape from the Nonary Game overall, which is achieved both in the True Ending, and an escape from the First Nonary Game 9 years prior. We don't know the details of the puzzles in that game, so we can't accurately count how many escape rooms were escaped within it, so we'll just add 1 for the overall escape.

999 Total: 79

Virtue's Last Reward

VLR has a fundamentally different structure to 999 - the player and Sigma only visit each escape room once each, because they jump around the timeline rather than restarting from the beginning. However, bad endings frequently feature people escaping from the Nonary Game, so we do still have more counting to do. Additionally, the number of other players alive to enter other escape rooms varies depending on the route. Let's start at the top and go down the flowchart left to right. I'm using this excellent flowchart by @drailholsac for reference, and it might help you follow along too.

Magenta Door

There are 6 AB rooms escaped from at the start of the game. No matter which of the three Chromatic Doors Sigma chooses to enter, the Lounge, Crew Quarters and Infirmary are each escaped, so that's 9. Going through the Magenta and then Green Door, the Gaulem Bay, Pantry and Rec Room are escaped, so 3 more. If Sigma then allies with Luna, he and Phi escape the Security Room while Dio and K escape the Director's Office - everyone else is dead so that's only 2. Finally, in Luna's Ending, Phi and Quark escape the Nonary Game. Alternatively, in the corresponding bad ending, Luna helps Quark escape. That's 2 more. Quark also escapes if Luna is betrayed earlier, for 1 more.

Total for this paragraph: 23.

Yellow Door

If Sigma instead enters the Blue Door after Magenta, the Rec Room, Treatment Center and Pantry are escaped for 3 more. If he allies with K, then K escapes, but if he betrays, then no one does. That's 1 more. Finally, if Sigma goes through the Red Door second, the Pantry, PEC and Treatment Center are escaped for 3 more. If Sigma allies with Clover, then Phi and Dio escape, but if he betrays her, he joins them. That's 2 more escapes.

Total for this paragraph: 9

Going all the way back to the top, if Sigma instead goes through the Yellow Door and then Blue, the PEC, Laboratory and an unknown room are escaped for 3 more. If Sigma then allies with Tenmyouji, the Director's Office, Q Room and Security Room are escaped for another 3. If Sigma then allies with Tenmyouji and Quark, they escape with Clover, otherwise Clover escapes alone - 2 more. Clover also escapes alone if Sigma betrays Tenmyouji earlier, for 1 more.

Total for this paragraph: 9

Cyan Door

If Sigma instead goes through the Red Door after Yellow, the Laboratory and two unknown rooms are escaped for another 3. If he then allies with Dio, he and Quark escape, while otherwise K escapes alone. That's another 2. Finally, through the Green Door, the Treatment Center, PEC and Pantry are escaped for 3 more. If Sigma allies with Quark, everyone dies and no one escapes, but if he betrays Quark for Clover, then she escapes, so that's only 1 more.

Total for this paragraph: 9

Finally, if Sigma goes through the Cyan Door and then Blue, the B. Garden, Laboratory and Treatment Center are escaped for yet another 3. No further escape rooms nor game escapes occur on Alice's route. Through the Green Door, the Archives, B. Garden and Pantry are escaped for another 3. If Sigma allies with Tenmyouji, everyone dies, but if he betrays, he gets knocked out and wakes up with everyone gone, so we can assume they escaped for 1 more.

Total for this paragraph: 7

VLR Total: 65

And now through the Red Door we get the True Route. The Control Room, Archives, and B. Garden are escaped for 3 more. If Sigma betrays Phi, he opens the door but does not get out, so no one can escape. If he instead allies with Phi, the Q Room, Security Room and Director's Office are escaped for 3 more. At this stage, Sigma and Phi jump into the past and escape the AB Room a separate time earlier than they "initially" did to save Akane, so that's 1 more escape. And after that, everyone escapes the Nonary Game for 1 more, even if they go back inside afterwards.

Total for this paragraph: 8

Zero Time Dilemma

Similar to VLR, we can assume each escape room is only experienced once - decisions split the timeline only after they're escaped. Unlike VLR, other escape rooms aren't even going on simultaneously off-screen, so counting that should be relatively easy. However, there are also escapes from the Decision Game to account for. Notably, it's questionable whether some escape rooms, like the Control Room, actually count as escapes, since the players don't necessarily get to leave the room alive - however we'll say that the game going "You Found It" is enough to call an escape room completed.

Escape Rooms

Biolab

Control

Healing Room

Infirmary

Locker Room

Manufacturing

Pantry

Pod Room

Power Room

Rec Room

Study

Transporter Room

Trash Disposal Room

Total: 13

Decision Game Escapes

Coincide: Carlos wins the coin-flip (we won't count shifting to this timeline later as a separate escape)

Apocalypse: Carlos uses the transporter to go back in time and break Junpei and Akane out of the facility.

Triangle: Sean kills Eric, and Mira escapes with him.

Triangle: Sean tries to kill Mira but Eric takes the shot, and Mira escapes alone.

Triangle: Sean refuses to kill anyone. Eric kills him and escapes with Mira.

Outbreak: D-Team use the bomb from Manufacturing to break through the X-Door.

Ambidex: If Junpei betrays Carlos, it's very likely he escapes with Akane.

Anthropic Principle: If C-Team fail the dice roll, it's likely that Phi escapes alone.

Monty Hall: If Carlos successfully finds the oxygen mask and saves Akane, she later escapes.

First Come, First Saved: Each team has a timeline where they press the button and escape (though Carlos, Sean and Diana each stay behind), for a total of 3.

Suppression: Mira kills most of the players. Diana enters the X-Passes to open the X-Door, but Mira kills her and escapes alone.

These are mostly taken from a list of game overs and endings, and not every escape happens in an ending (for example, First Come, First Saved: C), so this is the place I'm most likely to have missed something. Nonetheless, the tentative count here is 13.

ZTD Total: 26

Total Escape Count: 170

Resources used

Let's Play 999, by Dragonatrix

Let's Play VLR, by Fedule

Let's Play ZTD, by DKII

VLR Detailed Flowchart, by @drailholsac

Zero Escape Wiki (I really wish there was a better option than the FANDOM wiki though...)

[undertale-museum]

Fanfiction Page 1

Page 1 — Page 2 — Page 3

^here

[Updated 15Jan24]

+18 used as shorthand for s3x

*** aka Dead dove do not eat as shorthand for dark themes, kink and/or rough s3x

——————————-

[1] So I think You've Got the Wrong Number

By WhatteauYouDoing (97k)

November 28th, 2015 - June 2016

_Incomplete

Reader, Gaster, Toriel, Sans

~Magi reader pulls Gaster from void~

.

[2] learn to live [series]. (+18 ***)

By I_Write_Sanses_Not_Tragedies

61k words

April 14, 2016 - November 2018

_incomplete

Blue, Stretch, Red

R*pe recovery, domestic

.

.

.

[3] AVA

By Inyahs (356k)

December 17, 2016 - Jan 2024

_incomplete

Anomaly OC, bittybones oc, UTMV ensemble

~ Wise crack hermit goes on adventure with grumpy insomniac bitty~

Note: plot up to Sciencetale lab, lacks character development after

.

[4] sticks & stones (+18)

By oneType (163k)

March 14, 2016 - May 14, 2019

_complete

Stretch, Red, Edge, Underfell Ensemble, Underswap Ensemble

~Stretch gets stuck in Underfell~

TW: discussion of attempted s**cide prior go story

.

[5] Good food, Good friends, Bad laughs

By shyviolet77 (431k)

April 19, 2016 - July 11, 2019

_incomplete

Sans, Frisk, Papyrus

1930s mobtale, Neutral Party Frisk

.

[6] A Puzzle Just For Me (+18)

By neroli9 (696k)

May 7, 2016 - January 13, 2024

_incomplete

Sans, Reader, Muffet, OC ensemble

Mobtale 1930s, exiled royal

Note: very kinky, RACK

.

[7] KR Trilogy (+18, ***)

By Mercy_Run (203k)

October 10, 2023 - Feb 2, 2023

_incomplete

Sans, Red, Edge

idk an sfw way to tag this~ guide

Note: skip wedding, smut from beginning

.

[8] Skeleton Games

By poetax (279k)

November 30, 2016 - Jan 1, 2023

_incomplete

Red, Edge, Reader, Muffet

Feuding neighbors, vampire reader

.

[9] Little Red

By Spectroscope (53k)

@spectascopes

April 15th 2017 - April 14, 2022

_complete

Human!SwapPaps, Human!SwapSans, OC monster

Bittybones, trauma recovery

Note: Stan (H!SS) is trans-masc,

.

.

.

Broken Bones Multiverse [series]

By Lady_kit  (339k)

21 April 17 - Nov 23

[10] Broken Bones

_complete

Stretch, Edge, Blue, Red

Papyrus centric, spicyhoney

- - -

[11] Bone Shards

_discontinued

Stretch, Edge, Blue, Red

drabbles

- - -

[12] Compound Fracture

_2023 Nov

Stretch, Edge, Blue, Red, Slim (Swapfell Papyrus) , Razz (Swapfell Sans)

Papyrus centric, spicyhoney

.

.

.

[13] Ain’t this the life [series] ***

By nilchance (524k)

Date

_discontinued

Sans, Red, Edge

Uptight asshole x shameless tumblr sexy man

(series contains 39 works) -->first

.

 that space pirates AU [series] ***

by nilchance _ 2021 (116k) dddne

- - -

[14] Killing the moon

Red, Papyrus

Brain washing recovery

- - -

[15] starry eyed

Sans, Red, Edge, Stretch, Gaster (AI)

Prison recovery, soulmates, domestic

.

.

.

[16] Doom and Gloom All Up in Your Room

by TrashCollector (95k)

____ - Dec 2023

_

Y/N (room owner), Dust, Horror

Domestic reverse harem

.

[17] Firsts and Seconds

by Skerb (103k)

__ - 2023

_incomplete

Sticks (Farmtale Sans), Bitey/Buddy (Horrortale Sans)

Injury recovery, strangers to lovers

.

[18] Sea of Hope

By Aylish91 (26k)

2021 - 2023 March

Y/N (runaway skeleton), Axe (Horror),

Piratetale, Y/N x Axe

.

[19] Poor Little Meow Meow

By Mystique, TallDumbass (58k)

2022 - October 2023

Y/N (vet), Killer

Fluff and Angst

.

[20] A Lovely House of Bones

By Green_Heart88 (37k)

@greenheartart

2023 - Dec 2023

(Y/N) host, Sans, Paps, Blue, Stretch, Edge, Red

Domestic living + recovery

[tdciago]

Fargo: To Wit(t)...

(Originally posted as a reply on Reddit on 1/16/24)

I was also puzzled over how boring Witt seemed in comparison to other characters. So I went back and looked at his official character description.

"'North Dakota Deputy Witt Farr,' portrayed by Lamorne Morris, is the guy when you look up the word 'reliable' in the dictionary, you see his picture. He splits the check down to the cent, not because he’s cheap but because he’s fair. He’s dogged, earnest and Minnesota Nice."

A couple of things stand out. First, the dictionary definition of "reliable," along with the term "Minnesota Nice."

Witt isn't even from Minnesota, as far as we know, but this season began with a dictionary definition of Minnesota Nice. We also had a narrator introduced briefly in episode 5 (Chapter 5), then that idea was dropped immediately. If the word "reliable" is referring to a "reliable narrator," this may be suggesting that Witt is telling this story. That's not my favorite theory, and in fact the narrator has been quite unreliable, because the story has been filled with inconsistencies. But this may be something to consider in the finale.

The part about splitting the check down to the cent, as I've mentioned before, seems to be directly connected to the argument between Gaear and Carl in Fargo the movie. Carl wants to take the tan Ciera, but Gaear insists that they split it evenly.

Carl asks how you split a car - with a chainsaw? - and Gaear replies that one of them pays the other for half. When Carl refuses, that's when he gets the axe.

If we go back to the first episode, we see that Witt had a partner, which seems unusual for a trooper. We haven't seen him with one since, even though he was injured and shouldn't have been on patrol duty alone.

The patrol car is evenly split, in the following sense. Witt Farr means White Bull and his partner is "Iron" Mike Ox. So we've got a bull on one side and an ox on the other. The word FARRier comes from the Latin word for "iron," so there's an iron reference on both sides as well.

Munch, like Gaear, is extemely concerned with fair compensation. It's not even necessarily about money, but what is fair, such as a trade for protection in exchange for room and board. So we have an echo of the movie that relates to Witt and Munch. Munch even shoots Witt in the leg, a callback to Gaear getting shot in the leg by Marge Gunderson.

Witt also represents the answer to the Sphinx's riddle, which Oedipus answered. What creature walks on 4 legs in the morning, then 2 legs at midday, then 3 legs in the evening? The answer is man, who crawls, then walks, then uses a cane. We've seen Witt on crutches (4 legs), walking without aid (2 legs), and with a cane (3 legs).

Since a FARRier shoes horses, I have to wonder if Witt is the upside-down horseshoe with Gator's name on it that brings bad luck to Gator.

I also wonder about a couple of football expressions. Lorraine says no daughter of hers is going down on the one-yard line. Gator tells Witt that someone who looked like Witt blindsided him and tackled him when he was playing high school football. Will Witt make that move in the finale?

[burnwater13]

Boba Fett speaking with Fennec Shand (out of frame) on Tatooine, near the site of the Sarlacc pit. Image from The Book of Boba Fett, Season 1, Episode 4, The Gathering Storm. Calendar from DataWorks.

“Boss! I have the data you asked for…” Fennec Shand called out as she entered the Daimyo’s throne room. 

She always liked this room. It’s size. It’s shape. The multiple mechanisms that could be used to drop the unsuspecting into the razor’s den. Of course they didn’t do things like that. Jabba had been a menace with his constant escalation of tensions and never settling on a fixed price for the outcome he wanted. The Daimyo wasn’t like that, which was very satisfying. 

Of course the Daimyo still had his little quirks. His affection for the rancor being number one among them. The throne room was empty, which meant just one thing. Boba Fett was spending his precious time with the rancor trainer Machete and the huge creature the kid had nicknamed ‘Ranky’. 

It was a silly name but it was also accurate. No matter how many baths that critter was given it still smelled… unpleasant. It was one of the few times Fennec regretted that the Modifier hadn’t made a modification to her sense of smell. 

She laughed out loud. A short harsh laugh. Sometimes the kid got pretty stinky too after spending a day with the Daimyo and the rancor. The two of them seemed to have a lot in common. Their childhoods hadn’t been exactly traditional. They had skills at a young age that no should have. People chased them across the galaxy. And somehow, Fennec just didn’t understand how, they managed to survive it all with a sense of humor and good will intact. It seemed absurd.

Of course not as absurd as having a Mandalorian bounty hunter for an adoptive father. That still took top prize. Fennec had never met anyone less likely to successfully raise a child than Din Djarin. He didn’t think about their needs at all. The kid didn’t even have a change of clothes before he met the Daimyo and who thought rations were food that hadn’t been left to die in the desert for three days before finding them? He barely called the kid by his proper name. Of course Grogu wasn’t the prettiest name Fennec had ever heard, but then Din Djarin wasn’t much of name either. 

She couldn’t even tell which name was his first name and which was his second name. The other Mandalorians she had known, few though there were, handled that more like Bo-Katan Kryze and Axe Woves. But according to the kid he was now being called ‘Din Grogu’, like ‘Din’ was a last name. Even Paz Vizsla had his name in the standard order and he was the least standard Mando Fennec had ever met. 

Whatever. Mandalorians liked their mysteries and Fennec wasn’t interested in them. She solved puzzles. They were logical and typically profitable. Mysteries dragged you all over the place and who paid you in the end? No one. She didn’t like to waste her time that way.

But of course that’s what she was doing now. Wasting her time looking for Boba Fett so she could give him the data he’d asked for about the stability of Tatooine’s cooperative government model. 

Fennec had to admit, at least to herself, that the kids had surprised her. The Daimyo’s posse of modified youngsters who actually cared that Tatooine be run like a responsible planet. As if a planet could be an adult with responsibilities and duties. Imagining Tatooine like that had made her laugh more than once, but those ‘young people Fennec, don’t call them kids is disrespectful’ were eager to take on those burdens.

The Daimyo was equally eager to lay some of his down. Bounty hunters had a different solution to people who failed to live up to their end of any bargain. To borrow from the kid’s father, folks could always be brought in cold. Very cold. That was Fennec’s preference anyway. She didn’t like to use her skills to run an administration that had such a modest profit margin. The day was going to come when she, and probably Fett as well, would want out. They’d want to spend a month or year on Cantonica doing nothing but swimming in the ocean and making new friends and influencing people. They would need funds for that and not the kind that you paid yourself as the modest leader of a newly non-corrupt government entity. No dividends there. 

“Hey Boss! I’ve got that data you asked for!”

She had finally reached the outside rancor training pen. Boba was sitting in the saddle that the Mandalorian had located for the rancor (wherever the hell that came from) smiling like a little kid. It was a nice scene. She’d have to keep that one in mind the next time she wanted something. 

“Very good, Fennec. Update my data pad and then take some time off. It’s a beautiful day. You should enjoy it.”

“Good idea. I haven’t been down to the range lately. I can get some target practice in.”

She smiled as she thought about that. She had a new scope to site and hadn’t found the time to do it properly. Now was a perfect time for that. 

“Good. Just take it easy on the Gamorreans. They don’t fit in the bacta tank you know.”

“Whatever you say, Boss. Whatever you say.”

Fennec Shand speaking with Boba Fett (out of frame) on Tatooine, near the Sarlacc pit. Image from The Book of Boba Fett, Season 1, Episode 4, The Gathering Storm.

[constant-mason24]

The Fall of Raccoon City- Prologue (Leon Kennedy x Reader AU)

Chapt 1

Months before Leon S. Kennedy was meant to start his job as an officer in the RPD, another officer uncovered a dark secret, outing Chief Irons as a wicked man involved in a deep conspiracy with a pharmaceutical company. As both the RPD and the Umbrella Corporation begin to recover from the stains on their reputations, Leon struggles to settle down in a job that's as much of a mess as he is. As he slowly begins to befriend his fellow officers and learns more about what transpired before his arrival, Leon begins to realize all too late that this battle has only just begun, and the officer who caught his eye may very well be in danger…

♠♥♣♦

It's been a long night, but (Y/n) was content with the results. The puzzle was left on the rookie's desk, the sign hanging over the office welcoming him in, and the snacks she had ready to go in the break room. Some of her fellow officers said it might have been too much, but (Y/n) thought it would be best to welcome the new recruit in a big, friendly way.

"He's not even part of your unit, West." Elliot laughed, watching as she nearly fell off the ladder trying to hang up the decor.

"Hey, I've only been out of the unit for, like, two months!" She huffed in defense, agitated he didn't even move to catch her as she wobbled from the height. "Besides, I feel guilty that this guy is walking into a complete shitshow."

"Eh," the officer on the floor grunted, looking down into his near-empty coffee mug. "It's not that bad. Marvin is more than ready to step up to the plate, and everyone else is settling down now. Things will be back to normal soon."

"I don't think it's gonna be that easy." The woman huffed as she lowered herself off the ladder. "Wesker's been up my ass about this case so bad, I can't take a breath without being reminded."

"That sounds like a 'you' problem, little miss hero." He shakes his head. "You should've expected that before agreeing to join S.T.A.R.S."

"One does not just turn down the chance to join S.T.A.R.S." She smirked at Elliot. "And I felt like I couldn't really say no anyway. Not with everything that happened."

"Yeah, how's that hip, by the way?" The man asked, moving to sit down at his desk.

"Oh." (Y/n) gently put her hand on the front left side of her hip, where her thigh met her abdomen. "It doesn't bother me when I'm not actively thinking about it."

"Probably just PTSD more than anything else."

"I don't have PTSD." She rolled her eyes, taking the ladder down to return it to the closet. "I got shot. Big fucking deal. Don't see me cryin about it." 

"Now, look at this, (L/n)! This is beautiful!"

Before Elliot could retort, Marvin Branagh came into the west office. He looked up at the sign (Y/n) had just hung from the ceiling, a bright smile on his face.

"Thank you! I thought it'd be nice to welcome our newbie with something special. I also gave him a puzzle." She explained.

"A puzzle?"

"Yeah, to unlock his desk, he has to get the initials of his unit members and input them into the locks. It's like an icebreaker game."

"That's cute." Marvin nodded his approval, causing (Y/n) to beam. "Well, I'm sure the new guy will feel right at home, but it's getting late. You're expected back here earlier tomorrow, so I'm officially sending you home for some sleep."

"Alright." She didn't put up a fight, sighing softly and she put the ladder into a closet and moved to grab her bag. 

"Oh, and (Y/n)?"

"Yes, sir?"

"The word 'welcome' only has one 'L.'"

Branagh laughed as the woman groaned.

♦♣♥♠

The steady humming of the car wasn't enough to ease the headache still pounding through Leon's skull. The music was set at a volume much lower than usual, in hopes it would help keep the pain at bay. His head still felt like an ax had cracked into it anyway. Still, he'd choose this headache now over being sober last night.

Taking a deep breath that sounded more like a sigh, he looked to his right at a road sign rapidly approaching on the horizon. Ahh, Raccoon city was just ahead. Perfect. Looking over at his gas meter, Leon hummed as he realized he should probably fill up soon. Tapping gently against the steering wheel, he slowly veered to the right, exiting the highway to make his way to the gas station just outside of town. 

It was dark out, a gentle rain starting to gear up into a downpour. He parked the car next to a gas pump, jumped out, and all but jogged into the store to avoid the rain. The first thing he noticed was eerie darkness throughout the small station as if the power was out completely. With a frown, stepped further into the room, letting the headlights of his own car flood the store with some kind of visibility. 

"Hello?" He called out, looking around for any living soul. This was the second thing he noticed: the store was completely empty beside him. Maybe they had gone into the back room? 

Leon found himself hesitating as he took a step toward the storeroom door. He raised a hand to the knob just as someone pushed it open from the other side and nearly hit him. He jumped back with a small yell, just as the man on the other side of the door yelled out as well.

"Jesus Christ, son! Scared the living daylights outta me." The man huffed, leaning over and resting his hands on his knees. "You trying to give an old man a heart attack, boy?" 

"N-no sir," Leon stuttered, recovering from his own scare. "Just didn't know if anyone was here."

"Yeah, I'm here." The old man groaned as he stood straight, stretching out his back."power just went out. Think a fuse blew. Gimme a second to get it up and runnin' again."

Leon nodded, moving to look over the shelves as the man went into the back room again. Within just a minute, the lights flickered back on, and Leon could now see the bags of chips and cookies before him clearly. He picked up a bag of salt and vinegar chips, flipping it over before deciding on that and a soda to take with him. 

When he made his way to the counter, the old man was standing at the register, checking to make sure everything was ready to go. 

"Can I get fifteen on pump three?" Leon asked softly, setting his prizes on the counter. The man nodded with a grunt, ringing up the snacks as well as Leon awkwardly looked out the window of the store. 

"Twenty-two, fifty." The man grumbled, and Leon fished his wallet out to pay. He glances out at his car parked by the pump, hoping this job would turn out to be just what he needed…

[sandybrett]

WOE.BEGONE Episode Summaries, Season 7

Major spoilers for seasons 1-6 and vague spoilers for season 7.

Ep. 73: August The Mikes travel back to Montana on the date of the 357A attack to issue a correction, with some unexpected help from a local bartender.

Ep. 74: Symbiosis In the Flinchite compound, Ty Betteridge's experiments continue. A Mikey attempts to get a message to the Edgar he has been observing, knowing his every attempt to resist will likely be corrected.

Ep. 75: Interview An Anne of uncertain provenance interviews Mikey about the future death of Hunter Hartley--and about a new thorn in Base's side called Mustardseed.

Ep. 76: Mustardseed With messages from the mysterious Mustardseed increasingly driving a wedge between Mikey and the rest of base, he does his own investigations, leading to a painful phone call with Matt.

Ep. 77: Oubliette Mikey travels to the Latvia apartment to get away from Base. Mike and Michael attempt to reassure him, with limited success. They are then awoken at 2am by noises in the wall.

Ep. 78: Axe A correction gone wrong leads to nine Mikes in the same room. One is covered in blood, and won't say why.

Ep. 79: Mutiny The latest escalation from Mustardseed leads Base to come up with a new plan. Edgar takes creative measures to ensure OverMike and OvEdgar follow orders.

Ep. 80: Sunday Michael has been hiding ever since the incident with the axe, but Mike finally convinces him to come to Base for a Sunday of shooting beer cans and watching westerns.

Ep. 81: Partners Ty shows Michael the surveillance technology the Flinchites are developing and will use to track down Mustardseed. All he asks in return are a few left pinky fingers. And Michael's hat.

Ep. 82: Digging Mike and Mikey ask around, trying to figure out where Michael went. They find no leads from any of their usual contacts, although Matt has made an unrelated, puzzling discovery.

Ep. 83: Ride August finally gives Mike and Mikey the clues they need to rescue Michael. He insists on joining them.

Ep. 84: Panther Mike, Mikey, and August prepare to break into the compound. Matt tracks down a pair of rogue Mike and Edgar iterations with embarrassing nicknames. Mustardseed tells all.

[lena-cant]

Signalis Review

Content Warning: ommetaphobia, unreality, description of violence

Signalis is a classic-style survival horror game in the same vein as the original Resident Evil games. It hit digital storefronts a little less than a month ago after being published by Humble Games. The game is a classic survival horror game in its truest sense, inheriting design decisions that most AAA horror games have abandoned decades ago and refining the formula to near-perfection.

[Image ID: Signalis’ title screen, featuring a blue eye which follows the cursor, as well as options for “continue,” “settings,” “credits,” and “quit.”]

1: Resident Evil walked...

Am I really about to say that Signalis is straight-up better than any survival horror game of old? Well, maybe, but stay with me on this.

Signalis’ gameplay is most comparable to the original Resident Evil games. You navigate Elster, the main character, through a series of cramped areas with limited resources and ammunition, with the goal of collecting all of the items and information you need to complete the next puzzle at-hand. Later in the game, a lot of the puzzles get very non-linear, in such a way that you are spending a lot of time going to various places around the map, scouring every area for items and documents that you have no way of knowing if they’ll actually help you progress. On your way to solve these puzzles you’ll have to figure out a way to avoid, or, all other options failing, fight your way through these enemies.

[Image ID: A screenshot of Signalis.Elster points a pistol at a gaunt humanoid in a dark room. On the edge of the screen, a large-looking man is pointing a weapon with a laser sight at Elster. On the ground behind Elster are the dead corpses of other enemies, including one that appears to have a large sweater sleeve instead of a head.]

The enemy design is pretty typical, but there are some unique highlights. They’re all zombie-like creatures with static-y visages and a want for your death, but not all of them are created equal. There are some with shields, some that are really good at rushing you, and some of them are silly little guys with one comically long sweater sleeve instead of a head (you can see one lying on the ground in the screenshot above.) Most enemies, especially in the early game, can be run around no problem, but this isn’t without its own consequences (put a pin in that.)

Combat generally feels good, but its not without issue. Unlike classic Resident Evil, I don’t feel like I’m fighting the controls just to move around or perform simple game actions like “shoot a man.” However, later in the game where there are higher-intensity encounters with more enemies, the limitations of the control scheme definitely show up. For me, anyway, this added to the experience. Signalis’ controls operate on a nice middle ground where they’re perfectly usable until the exact moment where you need them to work well the most, which is a great vibe for a survival horror game.

Throughout the game, the game rates you on two axes: Overclustered vs. Fragmented and Hypersensitive vs. Catatonic, conveniently displayed at all times on your status menu. These ratings are for, respectively, how much killing you do and how much damage you take. If you kill more enemies, you’re more Fragmented, if you take more damage, you’re more Hypersensitive, and vice versa for the other to ends of each respective axis. This rating has no direct gameplay impact but it does have impact on a few story-related things later in the game. Other than that, it’s a neat way to get a sense of what your Signalis playstyle is. Personally I ended up hovering around Overclustered, Catatonic for most of the game, but towards the end I started shifting towards Hypersensitive instead.

[Image ID: A 2-axis chart in the shape of a hexagon labelled “Diagnostics”. The X axis is Overclustered vs. Fragmented. The Y axis is Hypersensitive vs. Catatonic. The current rating is all the way towards Fragmented, with a slight lean towards Hypersensitive.]

I found the game to be relatively easy all things considered. I only died a total of five times in my playthrough, and three of those were to barbed wire fence that I couldn’t see properly because I didn’t bring my flashlight (long story). If you’re experienced at survival horror games or other similar games I’d recommend tuning the difficulty up a notch from “normal” to “survival” mode.

Puzzle design is probably the standout feature of Signalis’ gameplay. What starts out as a series of pretty by-the-numbers keyhunting puzzles morphs over time into a series of mind-boggling sequences that were genuinely very difficult for me to keep track of, with series upon series of sub-puzzle building up to one ultimate puzzle (honestly usually its just a locked door that needs 6 keys or something) for each area. Often times, you’ll be presented with a puzzle and hints but you’ll need to backtrack through all of the other areas in order to find items that will actually help you complete it. And of course, this backtracking is another opportunity for the enemies to sink their teeth into you. My favorite one of these is one in the middle of the game where you find a hand embedded into the wall, and have to place rings on its fingers based on a series of obscure clues. The rings themselves are scattered all over the level, usually locked behind other puzzles that you have to solve. Nothing in the game is so complicated that you’d really get stuck, but they’re hard enough that they make you feel clever for figuring them out. They aren’t really hand-holdy either. There’s a puzzle early on in the game where you’re given a cipher for a safe’s keypad, but not all of the digits. As far as I can tell, the only way to progress is to brute-force the keycode, which luckily isn’t hard as there’s only one character missing from the cipher that we care about.

One of my favorite aspects of the game’s puzzle design is the radio receiver. This is an item that you receive early on that allows you to tune into different frequencies. Initially, you only use it for simple things like intercepting a radio broadcast with the key code to a safe, but later on you start using it for much more involved puzzles and it feels really gratifying whenever you end up using it. There are also enemies in the game which are caught in feedback loops, with copies of copies, roaming the area. You can only defeat them by tuning into their frequency and determining the origin of the loop, and destroying that one, which is a really neat way to integrate the radio into combat.

[Image ID: Four enemies outlined in red circles face down Elster. Visual glitches appear on the screen, like static and the word “VIDEO” in large bold in the upper left. Elster is tuned into radio frequency 202.000 Khz in an attempt to determine the origin of the feedback loop.]

One thing that does detract from the puzzle gameplay is the limited inventory space. I understand that in games like these, inventory space is limited to disincentivize the player from hoarding resources, but I think that Signalis ends up taking it a step too far. You are given 6 total inventory slots, each of which can hold one item or a stack of a few consumable items. If you want to carry a healing item, a weapon, ammo for the weapon, and the flashlight (and trust me you do want to carry the flashlight), you’re left with two inventory slots for key items or anything else you pick up on the way. There were multiple points in which I went to unlock a new area and had to backtrack all the way back to my safe room to put items back in the box because there was more than one item in the locked room that I needed. You do learn to live with it though, and by end-game I started taking riskier setups (just a gun with no backup ammo, no healing items, etc.) in order to make the full use out of the inventory space that I had. This inventory system also shines during boss fights, where managing your inventory space can become a fun little minigame in its own right. This is especially true for the final boss.

[Image ID: An inventory screen that looks like it’s running on a CRT monitor. 4 of 6 slots are taken up by Repair Spray, a Flashlight, a Pistol, and Pistol Ammo. The flashlight module is highlighted, and a readout reads “A shoulder-mounted flashlight module. Powered by internal Replika power supply when installed.]

All of the gameplay comes together to produce a really solid whole for a survival horror game. Combat is challenging, especially later on, but never so frustrating that I felt like I wanted to give up or take a break. Puzzle design was good and made me feel clever for figuring out all the solutions. There’s enough to love in the combat and puzzle design that you could probably go through the game with just those, but Signalis adds a cherry on top of the gameplay with an incredible and distinct visual style.

2: New/Old 2D/3D Style

Signalis has a pretty unique art style, comprising mostly of a pixel art aesthetic with limited 3D in the gameplay overworld, with pixellated CGs and PS1-looking 3D for story and puzzle sequences. The visuals were immediately striking to me, with a distinctly grimy feel that brings out its retro-scifi aesthetic.

[Image ID: Elster stands in a room lit by a single green bulb above. There is a closed cryogenic pod, connected to a series of pipes in the background. 4 CRT monitors output unreadable information. On the right, there is a pennant with a Penrose triangle, with the phrase “Penrose | 512″ written on it.]

One of my favorite aspects of this game’s visual design in moment-to-moment gameplay is how thin the distinction between 2D and 3D assets are. For most of the game, it’s pretty difficult to tell if something is rendered in 2D or 3D. I think that all of the characters are 3D models, but honestly if I was told that they were 2D sprites I would totally believe them. The filtering on the 3D elements of this game is done superbly, to the point where most of those elements just look like 2D spritework in their own right. The visuals give everything an atmosphere that you can just bite into, which brings out the best in the game’s ability to invoke tense situations.

[Image ID: Elster points a gun at a humanoid figure, which is chopping meat at a kitchen counter. There is only one light source, which illuminates only part of the room in a dingy yellow light. Counters around the room are all covered in blood and meat.]

Outside of the moment-to-moment gameplay, several areas that require finer interaction are rendered in a 3D first-person perspective. These also look wonderful, as the PSX looking 3D is a great counterbalance to the dingy pixel art of the sections where you can free roam. I don’t have much to say in words here so I’m gonna let the visuals speak for themselves a little.

[Image ID: A first-person perspective of the cockpit of a spaceship, with three monitors and hundreds of buttons. The ship appears to be crashed in a snowy wasteland. A pop-up on screen shows a polaroid photograph of a woman with white hair, and text reads “Pick up Photograph?”]

[Image ID: A first-person perspective of two arms, jutting out from a wall. One is clasped over an opening in said wall, while the other holds out the back of its hand towards you.]

[Image ID: A first-person perspective of a CRT screen, which shows a keycard embedded in what appears to be a skull. Text at the top of the screen reads “BILDM ROEN - OBJ D” and on the right there is a control panel with arrow keys which has wires jutting out of the top.]

The 3D visuals captivate me in a way that I can’t really describe. Maybe I just love the PSX horror aesthetic that this game nails so well in these moments.

In cutscenes, the game uses a combination of 3D animation and prerendered 2D CGs which are usually striking. The pixel art in the CGs is gorgeous and brings across the emotions of the characters incredibly well.

[Image ID: A close-up of Elster’s left eye. It’s bright blue and stares off into the middle distance.]

The 3D animation in these cutscenes bring across a similar vibe to the first-person puzzle environments, a crunchy PSX horror feel that really brings out the most of the game’s setting.

[Image ID: A spaceship crashed in a snowy wasteland, rendered in 3D. Its wing features an insignia with a compass, three stars, and a wreath of wheat, evocative of the flag of East Germany during the Cold War.

As far as visual options go, there are a few. The game defaults to 50 hz, likely because the developers are European and that was the standard in Europe during the era of gaming that they’re borrowing their aesthetic from. It also features a CRT filter and a film grain filter. The film grain filter is just intrusive in my opinon, it doesn’t really add much to the experience. The CRT filter is very cool and looks good, but it also makes some (admittedly mostly superfluous) text unreadable, which is a definite drawback.

[Image ID: The same cryo-pod room as earlier, but with the CRT filter turned on.]

Overall I have absolutely no issues with this game’s visuals. It’s got a striking style and really knows what it wants to be. There is a slight amount of dissonance between the various aesthetics of the Anime-style CGs, the 2D overworld, and the 3D first person segments, but I think that dissonance adds, rather than detracts from the overall experience. This aesthetic is only enhanced by the sound design, which is phenomenal. I have little to say beyond that for the sound effects, but I would be loathe not to mention the soundtrack.

The music that plays during combat is heavy and grimy, adding to the frantic and tense atmosphere that the game so carefully builds up. The game also features several classical compositions by various composers, which add immensely to the artful feel of much of the story content. The game makes heavy use of Rachimaniov’s The Isle of the Dead Op. 29 as well as Chopin’s Preludes, Op.28 - No. 15 “Raindrops”, along with a few other pieces which are listed in the game’s credits. These classical compositions really add emotional weight to the scenes, as well as giving them deeper meaning.

3: A Dream About Dreaming

(This description of the game’s story contains no major spoilers, although it does relay some information learned early in the game.)

Signalis is described by its creators as “A Cold-War Eurasian Retrotech-Sci-Fi take on Cosmic Horror,” and that just about sums it up. The game takes inspiration from Robert Chambers’ “The King and Yellow” and Lovecraft’s “The Festival” to deliver a lethal dose of cosmic horror bullshit that I just loved playing through.

The setting of the game is... a little weird. It takes place in a spacefaring nation of some kind, which doesn’t have a name mentioned anywhere I could find. I have taken to calling them “Space East Germany,” because, well. Look at their flag.

[Image ID: A feminine figure in a black and orange jumpsuit stands holding a flag featuring a compass, three stars, and a wreath of wheat embossed on a black, red, and yellow horizontal tricolor. Text above reads “WUNDERWAFFEN UNSERER NATION” (Superweapons of our Nation)]

Most text found in the game world is written in either German, Chinese, or Japanese, with a few bits of English sprinkled in there (as a treat) (don’t worry, the game provides a translation for all of the important bits). This aspect of the setting has little impact on the game as a whole, mostly just bringing across the aforementioned “Cold-War Eurasion Retrotech Sci-Fi” aesthetic. The meat of the games setting (sometimes literally) comes when exploring the game on a deeper level (also sometimes literally). The vast majority of the game takes place on a mining colony called Sierpinski in the outer reaches of a solar system that is implied to be out own.

The main character, Elster (German for Magpie), is a Replika. The game doesn’t go into great detail as to what this means, so I’ll tell you what I know. In the setting there are two types of people: Gestalts, and Replikas. Gestalts are, as far as I can tell, normal biological humans, while Replikas seem to be human consciousnesses repurposed in artificial bodies to perform specific tasks, which varies from model to model. Most Replikas are made to forget their human selves, though its shown that some can come to remember their pasts. Effectively they are humans who have been repurposed into slave labor for the government. If this strikes you as very Blade Runner, I think it’s supposed to.

Elster arrives at the aforementioned mining facility in search of a Gestalt friend (they were roommates) named Alina. Or was it Ariane? You’re not sure. She made a promise to that Gestalt and she hopes to fulfill it. Unfortunately, much of the facility has gone offline due to a breakout in a new kind of disease. This disease initially only infected the Replika security captain, Falke (Falcon), but it has since spread to most residents of the mining colony. Infected Replikas are turned into aggressive, barely-real, mindless zombies, while infected Gestalts seem to merely have been killed. This doesn’t stop you of course. You need to find her. You remember your promise. You need to fulfill it.

[Image ID: Block text which reads “GREAT HOLES SECRETLY ARE DIGGED WHERE EARTHS PORES OUGHT TO SUFFICE, AND THINGS HAVE LEARNT TO WALK THAT OUGHT TO CRAWL.” in all capitals.]

[Image ID: A young woman with dark, braided hair is bent over her left hand, staring at it. In her right hand she holds a kitchen knife. Tears streak her face.]

[Image ID: Block text which reads “REMEMBER OUR PROMISE”]

[Image ID: A pale, slender young woman with long white hair and red eyes. Chromatic aberration around her gives her a sense of unreality.]

If you can’t tell from the above Lovecraft quote, the game wears its influences on its sleeve. A copy of Chambers’ “The King in Yellow” is even a major macguffin later in the story. This isn’t a bad thing though. Signalis has enough of its own identity that it can easily flaunt the things it references without letting people mistake its influence for imitation.

Over the course of the story, you meet a cast of Replikas and Gestalts who are all just as confused as you about the events on Sierpinski. Many of the Replikas are fighting against the the disease, trying to remain connected to what humanity they still have. A gestalt named Isa searches for another named Erika - her sister. As you cross each of these characters’ paths, a web of relations and interactions begins to form. Each of them is an essential piece of this mystery, just like you are, Elster.

[Image ID: A dark-haired young woman who carries a knife hides behind a pillar from a man wearing body armor and a shotgun. Text at the bottom reads: “Adler: I’ve done this countless times before.”]

As Elster descends deeper into Sierpinski, she faces greater horrors, as the rules of reality themselves seem to break down around her. The walls start to feel alive and the monsters she fights get even more deformed and unreal than they already were. She starts seeing visions, of places and people far removed from her current location. A radio tower in the snow. A grim isle where a lone boat waits.

[Image ID: Jagged rock formations close around the shore of an island with a lone boat and lantern sitting at its edge, and tall evergreen trees just beyond the shore.]

[Image ID: The Painting Isle of the Dead by Arnold Böcklin. Jagged rock formations close around the shore of an island with a lone boat and lantern sitting at its edge, and tall evergreen trees just beyond the shore.]

Yeah it’s uh. This kind of game.

It’s also worth noting that the game has quite a few endings. Three of them are unlocked based on your Diagnostics score by the end of the game, while a fourth, secret ending is unlocked by going through a long sidequest throughout the game. All of the endings are, in their own ways, perfect caps to the beautifully tragic tale of Signalis.

4: Conclusions

[Image ID: Block text which reads “HAB KEINE ANGST.” (Be not afraid.)]

Signalis is a stunning and evocative piece of cosmic horror media that will leave you considering the world around you. Along with that, it’s an incredible love letter to classic survival horror games like Resident Evil and Alone in the Dark. If you’re at all a fan of these old games, or survival horror or cosmic horror in general, you owe it to yourself to check it out. Even if you’re not a horror fan, there’s a lot to love in Signalis and it makes itself accessible to people with all levels of skill.

What criticisms I have of the game are washed away by how immaculately it comes together. The interplay between the gameplay, visuals, and storytelling works so well that its impossible for me not to enjoy it.

It’s deeply moving, a little terrifying, and gave me a lot to think about, and that’s really all I want from a game.

And remember: when you think you beat the game: no you didn’t. It’s that kind of game.

Good night, Elster. Good night, Ariane.

[Image ID: A close-up of Elster’s face, with barely-readable diagnostic visuals in German and Chinese all around her. Her face is segmented, giving her a robotic look.

You can buy Signalis on the following storefronts:

Steam | Humble | PlayStation 4/5 | Xbox | Switch

Signalis is also available on Xbox Gamepass and Humble’s Choice subscription.

[agentldiddy]

The Leviathan Company: Session 6

This was an eventful session, to say the least

The party gets to a new city. It's on fire and being attacked by angels. Why are angels attacking? One of them just kept telling people "You are impure, you must be cleansed" so they may just be genocidal.

After killing two of them (with the third one escaping), Dar uses an axe of extinguishing to put out the fires, and planned to meet the rest of the party in the town square afterwards. Once that happens, the rest of the angels peace out, and the party is now in a lifeless city. So, they go searching for ANY signs of life. Then, they did.

They found an aasimar with a shop who is sheltering citizens from the attack. We chatted with him, bought 6 sending stones, and asked if he knew why the attack happened. He had no clue. So, Ivan started communing directly to Emotep in the Grand Brunch Table in the sky, and he had no clue either. Before they hung up on eachother, Emotep gave one last command: "Don't forget to kill some angels for me, those guys are assholes."

Among the survivors they found, there was a cleric of Emotep named Doctor Ned, who had dreams of creating a hospital. They recruited Doc for his healing skills, promising 1/6 of their profits so he could fulfill his dream one day. They also gave him the 6th sending stone.

Later, they set up camp for the night, and Zeta accidentally reads Dar's diary, and think Dar is just an upcoming writer. Anakiir, meanwhile, takes the diary while Dar was completely drunk and reads it.

At the camp, Lily brings up mention of reviving the slave girl she bought, but Doc regretfully informs her that he cannot do that with his current power. So, they give her a proper Emotepean funeral. Afterwards, Lily secretly reburies her with the magic stone that I forgot to mention they got after the Tree Mech fight.

Come morning, Dar confronts Anakiir for reading his diary. They kerfuffle for a bit, but the fight is eventually broken up.

We then continued following the Helm of Commune, reaching a small island in a lake that had a giant pillar on it. The pillar had a slot, perfectly shaped to hold something like the stone (which Lily buried) in it. Luckily, they had another one that was green. I forgot where we got this one, tbh. When they slotted in the stone, a staircase suddenly appeared, which they started descending into they reached a large chamber with 3 corridors.

They made a plan of travel. Lily, as the rogue, would go down the middle hallway. Ivan and Dar go down the left. Anakiir and Zeta go down the right. They would keep their sending stones primed and ready to discuss what they see.

Lily found a map in her room and everyone regrouped, entering a room full of vraks. After surviving that room, they entered the SKELETON ROOM. Dar killed the first skelly, then Lily noticed a Naga lurking around. After a long fight, Anakiir electrocuted the Naga as Zeta finished the skeletons, then Ivan finished the naga with a burst of tri-colored holy light from his smite. Once done, the group pondered about turning the whole dungeon into an emotepean temple after they finish exploring.

Then a few things happened. We got to spell scrolls, solved a puzzle, found 5 magic staves, killed a mimic, then proceeded into a large room. When they got into a side room, there was a gelatinous cube that they fed to Marvin. After picking up a spellscroll, they got to the final room, and touched a lizard pillar. This caused a young green dragon to emerge, and he said "You are impure. you must be cleansed." After a long fight with the dragon (including Zeta using a cool infinite javelin he got and Anakiir using lightning bolt) The dragon was reduced to dust by Dar.

Then the second pillar brought in a monkey. Just a monkey. Its immediate first action was to break Anakiir's nose with a rock. Then he and lily shocked the monkey, Ivan and Dar attacked it, Zeta tried to hit it with his greatsword, got his mother insulted by the monkey, then the monkey accidentally killed itself with the rock.

The party then went to the last pillar, and Dar pressed it. Activating it opened a door, releasing a vampire lady. Then a chest came out and the party got a few magic items, including a Giant Shield and Peace Keeper's gate. We left, hoping the vampire lady wouldn't become a problem. What fools we were.

[parasite-core]

This week in pathfinder, our group explored the depths of the Dancing Hut and met a guardian of the strands of fate itself.

@scarlet-the-girl

We started the session by grappling Aenland and forcing him to take his medicine so he’d no longer be suffering from the dexterity drain he’d taken from the fossil golem last session. Calio was MORE than happy to stuff a spoon full of strange magic soup down his throat unwillingly while Nestian held him in place. Aenland told Calio he blames him if he gets cataracts or something from eating weird hair-and-plague-mask filled soups.

Afterwards they talked to Zorka and Ratibor and found that they were in Ioberia—the place Xanthadon had said she would meet Aenland. However they couldn’t exit the hut as there was currently no exit—the hut was in emergency lockdown mode, and we’d need to meet the three oracle ravens and pass their trials to get the key to revealing the door.

Greta, as we were no longer in Whitethrone, was in full Winter Wolf form. We decided based on the size of the stairs leading to the door that there would likely be places she wouldn’t be able to easily squeeze through, and asked her to stay behind with Zorka and Ratibor. She offered to spend her time enchanting our weapons for us if we had anything we wanted made +1 or frost. Many of us took her up on this.

The party plus Nadya went deeper into the Dancing Hut and found the Knotted Hallway—a seemingly infinite twisting hall that stretched in both directions and twisted in strange ways. Nestian surmised based on his knowledge of dungeons that his hall looped in on itself and either way we went, we’d end up back here.

However we saw one door almost directly in front of us, so we decided to check that out first. It had the symbol of the setting sun on it.

We entered and met the first of the three ravens: Moc. Moc gave us a riddle: Born twins, they live not, yet they grow until death. Their fates are often tied, ever crescent as the moon, symbols of the warriors pride. We were told to bring him the answer from the room beyond.

Nestian led the way, and was therefore the first one to meet…cocaine bear. A giant dire bear so hopped up on cocaine that he had a poisonous cocaine breath attack and an adrenaline rush that powered him up—and ferocity, so he didn’t go unconscious until he was dead-dead.

Calio sent Levi to attack Cocaine Bear, Aenland shot arrows into the vicious drugged murder machine, and Nestian reluctantly finished the job with his axe—but not before nearly being gored to death by the creature’s unnatural tusks.

We considered the riddle, and Nestian removed said tusks to bring to the raven. Then we hurried away as the bear was said to respawn after a set amount of time. All but Aenland, who was convinced he still needed to figure out the riddle and stayed in the hall puzzling over it until the bear respawned and he retreated—only to find us already preparing to leave to the next raven.

We gave the tusks to Moc, who gave us an amulet that we had Edeya hold onto. Then he gave us a hint about our overall objective: “the key is where time catches up to us all”. After the he refused to engage any of us.

Until Aenland was the last to leave. Before he exited Moc said: “Wait, elf. For some the call can be resisted for some the call can be rescinded.”

We went back to the initial room for Nestian to get some soup to heal his injuries, then we decided where to go next. Calio made an executive decision when no one else was and said left, so we went to the left. We walked for what felt like a really long time but was really only moments, and came upon another door, this one with the symbol of dawn. This one was locked.

Aenland called into the door and asked if there were any ravens inside and if they could open the door because we were here trying to help Baba Yaga. The raven inside said that was a very sweet thing, but that we still needed to come back with the key. Aenland told her that we had a necklace from another raven. She told us that was *a* key but not the key to this door. Then she realized just how much she was saying and shut up.

We continued forward through the twisting hallway for an ungodly amount of time that was actually not long at all, until we came upon the third door: this one with the symbol of night. This one unlocked as we approached with the amulet Moc had given us.

Inside was a white raven with red eyes named Rosum. He asked if we had beaten his brother’s challenge or slain his brother and stolen the amulet. Calio assured him that we cleared the challenge, and Rosum believed him. He gave us the next riddle: “I mark night’s coming/I will mark your end/I run not in fear/I have not a friend.” They were once again told to find an object that corresponded with the riddle.

The party entered the next chamber, and found themselves on a small outcropping surrounded by water. A number of alcoves hidden by magical darkness surrounded us. Corresponding with each alcove was a chalice of red wine.

Edeya translated a handful of the symbols on the chalices, but two remained a mystery. We had an apple, a key, and a dagger. None of these seemed like the answer to the riddle, so we figured it had to be one of the other two.

Calio was curious what was in the alcoves and if it might help them decide on a chalice. He didn’t want to get into the water though, so he was about to cast a fly scroll on himself. Aenland stopped him, informing him that there was a powerful dispelling effect on the room that would stop attempts to magically cross.

The party decided to try mundane means to cross instead. Aenland shot a rope across and Calio began climbing across.

Halfway across he saw the faces of spirits in the water, and felt the terrifyingly familiar sensation of the Suffocation spell cast on him. With a Hero Point he managed to stay conscious, then he retreated back to solid ground to wait off the effects—not wanting to risk falling unconscious over the water.

He managed to stay on his feet this time, but the party learned their lesson. Don’t try to climb across.

Aenland decided to just try grabbing one of the chalices. He chose the one right in front of them—corresponding with the alcove Calio had been trying to reach. The darkness effect was dispelled, and they saw an hourglass within the alcove.

We determined this was the answer to the riddle: time. So Aenland drank from the chalice, and when he did rocks rose from the waters below. He quickly leapt across, using the rope to steady himself, and grabbed the hourglass, with no suffocation effect being triggered.

The party returned to Rosum, who gave them a second amulet which was taken by Nestian, and a second hint for their goals: “the changeling holds what you desire.”

Aenland made sure he was the last one out of the room again, and Rosum said: “Wait, elf. Three journeys it will take. For you to meet your fate.”

The party left and continued onward, through a tight single file switch back hallway that went on for an ungodly long time, and led them back to the beginning. Then they returned to the dawn room, which unlocked as they approached this time.

Within was the third raven: Trvya. She immediately gave us her test: “Each night it visits/Sometimes horror/Sometimes wonder/Sometimes prophet/When dawn wakes it flees”, and we were told to discover what the creature in the next room wanted and then slay it. It would not remain dead unless we discovered its desire first.

Seeing as this would likely involve talking, Calio nominated himself to handle this. Nestian still insisted he go in first just incase it was dangerous, to which Calio readily agreed as he wasn’t one to risk his own skin unnecessarily.

In the next room was an animate dream that had taken on the form of a former queen of Irrisen: the queen before Elvana, Queen Yelizaveta.

She was not immediately hostile, so Calio spoke to her. “My queen, what are you doing here?”

“Is it not immediately obvious? I was brought here at the end of my reign by my mother—Baba Yaga.”

Edeya imbued Calio with some luck, which helped him to keep her from realizing they had the intention to slay her when they were done speaking.

“What keeps you here?”

“Again—Baba Yaga.”

Aenland suggested we ask if she wants to kill Baba Yaga, while Nestian thought it was unlikely the riddle made by Baba Yaga would lead that way and wanted to ask if the other 12 queens before her were also here.

Calio took Nestian’s advice and asked about the previous queens.

Queen Yelizaveta got a strange look on her face, and said “There are 14 chairs”

That didn’t really answer anything, so Calio asked Aenland’s question next.

The animate dream grew agitated and yelled “Of course I want to kill Baba Yaga!”

We felt from the Geass in our chest that we’d clear d the riddle—now all that was left was the slay the Animate Dream.

Calio drained part of her soul with a new ability he’d acquired—Soul Siphon, weakening her. Nestian and Nadya went in with their usual attacks despite her being incorporeal. Edeya hit her with a snowball. Aenland finished the job with a flurry of arrows that destroyed her incorporeal form.

We returned to Trvya, who seeing we were alive knew we had passed the test. She gave Calio the final key, and told us the final hint: “So be it. Seek now the sisters three who are one: mother, maiden, crone”

As they left Aenland once more left last, and received a final cryptic message: “Wait, elf. Hope that you are first or the maiden will not be alone.”

With all said and done, the party left and returned to the living area of the Dancing Hut. Zorka and Greta were playing chess—until Greta just slapped over all of the pieces with her big wolf paw in frustration. Ratibor was watching the fire—within which he saw a strange alien game called “football”. Aenland joined him.

With the amulet Calio had received, a book in the nearby bookshelf began glowing. Nestian removed it, and a passage was revealed. Aenland—after being pulled away from the football game—felt vindicated, as he’d predicted that the door out was behind the bookcase, just not how to get to it.

The party left down the hallway, but before they exited the Dancing Hut they noticed a trap door within a nearby fountain. It was locked. Aenland suggested Calio put his new amulet to good use and unlock it, so he did, and then Nestian heaved the trap door open.

Even though we’d just gone down a flight of stairs, it somehow led back to the room where we’d just left—and water poured out on Ratibor’s head. Zorka and Ratibor summoned a ladder and climbed up to join us. They explained that the trapdoors of the Dancing Hut could lead to any other place in the hut—including secret places impossible to access by any other means—if you knew how to use them.

For now we left them be to look outside at Ioberia.

Only to find that Ioberia had been completely overrun by demons. The land was a wasteland and demon hordes had overtaken everything. Our Geass shriveled, feeing that what we needed was no longer here. Zorka quickly shut the door and ushered us back into the central room of the hut. This wasn’t meant to be. Ioberia shouldn’t be overrun by demons!

Nestian mentioned that Zorka had told us that the hut travelled through space AND time, and asked if we could go back in time to a point before the demons overran everything. Zorka perked up, agreeing that this was a good idea. She told us to rest for now while she prepared things. Each of us had personalized rooms which we rested in (and leveled up). After we slept, we returned to the central room to find that Zorka had prepared an alarm clock, which she tossed into the soup.

The lights of the hut went out. Then red auxiliary lights came on. Zorka said that shouldn’t happen. Nestian was completely unable to stir the soup—it was frozen in place. Aenland suggested throwing in the keys from before, which Zorka agreed was a good idea. Still nothing happened.

Zorka came to the conclusion that something was wrong with the core of the hut. We would need to journey to the center of the Dancing Hut, find the hut’s power source, and give it a good whack.

We agreed, and went down another trap door. We walked down a hallway, until we came to a door.

When we entered, we were in a supermarket called Glargonargs. Here we could buy anything in the book that we could afford. This was a running joke from a previous campaign.

Once we finished shopping, we left through the other exit and continued deeper into the hut, until we came to The Grandmother’s Cauldron—an enormous impossibly ancient tree that was home to a nirn guardian named Vigliv.

Vigliv was surprised to see us. She consulted her strands of fate, and found some tangled. She was concerned, saying we shouldn’t be here yet. We were doing this out of order. Something had happened to change fate from its proper course.

As she tried to find the point in time that fate had twisted, she told us that she was willing to answer any questions we may have—so long as we promised not to push if she said she couldn’t answer as it would unravel our fate.

Aenland went first. He asked about Xanthadon, if she was behind this. Vigliv said no. She pulled out a necrotic looking thread and said Xanthadon was in Ioberia, and we would meet her, but not in the way we expect.

Aenland didn’t feel comfortable toying with fate—he’d apparently been down that path before and saw no good come of it. He asked to not be a part of this. Vigliv agreed, and gave Aenland some leaves that would block out all sound if he wished to not hear.

As she spoke, she revealed some other threads—Aenland’s, which had a mysterious blue section, Edeya’s, which had a strange optical illusion effect that caused you to see it doubled after a certain point, and Calio’s, which looked normal up until a year ago—then it looked badly frayed as if it were partially severed, and from there on it looked deeply necrotic.

Calio took some time to ask his questions as he was distracted by what he’d just seen.

Nestian asked how he knew the Sylph we’d fought, who came back, and seemed to bear him a grudge. Vigliv said that she saw herself as a rival of sorts to him, and believed he had taken everything from her. She was currently weakened from reincarnating, but we would see her again.

Nestian also asked why his people had left Irrisen. Vigliv said it was because Queen Elvana had ordered them gone. Nestian said that Vigliv had shown us the others’ threads but not his. He wanted to see his thread. Vigliv said she would show him, but she couldn’t answer any questions about it because it would unravel his fate. She showed him a thread that for much of his life was tightly corded with the fates of the other bears of his tribe, until he went off on his own.

Except it also started as a single thread, going off before then, and cutting off sharply rather than fading out gently at the beginning like the other threads. This is what Vigliv could not explain to him without unravelling his fate.

Finally, Nestian asked why he ‘can’t see people’. Vigliv assured Nestian that there was nothing wrong with him, no curse or twist of fate, there were merely some people who had difficulty telling faces apart—prosopagnosia. Nestian felt a little better having a word for his face blindness.

Calio asked Vigliv what he’s been seeking all along—what happened during the year he lost. As he predicted, she couldn’t tell him much, but she said she could tell him one thing: what happened at the moment it began. Calio agreed to even this little bit of information. Vigliv took him aside to share this information, as it was a bit more personal. As it was a whisper and Calio hasn’t shared this information I’m going to keep it vague here. He learned something that shook him deeply. He came back looking paler than usual, and was quieter than usual for a bit. He was too shaken to ask any further questions. She did show him his thread again, and he saw this time that there was a very subtle thin thread wrapped around it not long after the spot where it frayed—then it left, and came back to wrap around his thread again recently. Vigliv confirmed this was Keisuke’s thread—with some clear distain.

Edeya asked two questions. One we didn’t hear, but the answer was ‘of course’. The other question was what she should do about her family. Vigliv showed her her own thread and pointed out the strange doubles section. She explained that this meant her fate was not yet set in stone. She had a very vital choice in the near future that would completely change the course of her life—and neither choice was the wrong answer. It was entirely up to her how she chose to proceed. Edeya took comfort in the idea that no choice she made in this situation would be the wrong one.

Nadya only asked after her children, and was told that they would eventually face hardships, but that it wouldn’t be until they were at least in their 20’s. Nadya was relieved—that was a better assurance than most people in Irrisen had. She had no further questions.

Aenland asked if he could have the threads of his family members who had been slain by Treerazor. Vigliv agreed, and as if she already had them prepared for him presented the threads.

Aenland restrung his bow with the threads of his family.

As Vigliv found the thread that was the root of the problem—of course it was Queen Elvana’s—we heard a noise from the water behind us. Three fungal creatures rose from the water. Vigliv, as this happened, saw a vision of the fourteen chairs from Elvana’s fate and was stunned.

The party dispatched the creatures with little trouble, with us killing the boss and one of the minions, and Vigliv cutting the final minion’s thread of fate once she was no longer stunned.

Vigliv apologized. Normally this place was safe, but sometimes things slipped in if she wasn’t vigilant. They were after one thread of fate in particular. The thread she protected most dearly—that of someone Baba Yaga had taken from her to keep her bound to this spot.

She gifted the thread to the party to help them follow in her friend’s footsteps and find the center of the hut.

A whirlpool started up in the water nearby, and another trapdoor opened. Aenland told Calio he’d race him, then didn’t wait for a reply. Calio ran after him, not willing to be outdone just because Aenland got a head start.

Nestian told Edeya he’d have something he wanted to talk to all of them about later. Then they followed after the terrible duo.

The party found themselves in a silent cave, in front of a large tent. They decided to approach the tent and look inside.

Inside were the bodies of many slain Divs. And an unbelievable amount of gold in the form of jewelry. Someone had killed these creatures for some reason other than loot, as they’d left a veritable horde behind.

We left off pondering the implications.

[undeadorion]

I've been playing Resident Evil 4 (the og version, not the remake) and I am both relieved and frustrated that I didn't buy the full version.

Without even looking into it, I can see that Something happened in the making of the game. Probably some executive demands or a dramatic change in the writing team.

There was some absurd nonsense in the first 3 games, but it all made some sort of sense. There were mazes and puzzles and "you must acquire an object to get through this door" that's pretty standard video game stuff. But it was blended into the world. So you didn't see a maze, you saw a police station that was absolutely wrecked so some paths were blocked. Or a substation overgrown by some vile thing that created artificial walls. Keycards to get into secure areas. Those keycards being found in logical places like on dead staff members or in an office.

Then there's the castle in RE4. Blade swinging puzzles. A "key" that's a stone disc hidden away at the end of mine cart ride that you have to jump off of at top speed to avoid plummeting to your death. The sewer exit blocked by a series of massive swinging axe blades. A character falling into a "trap" that planned on a character resting against a wide, completely flat wall at the exact right spot. A mounted turret gun INSIDE the castle. Mind you up until now it was borderline medieval weaponry, crossbows and axes and catapults.

Then there's the giant mechanical statue of the old man child. At first it moves its hands to act as intermittent bridges. Which you shift with a single off-center switch on its back to move in a different pattern. The ONLY reason that exists is so the player can access a switch to raise a bridge from the water. But then the statue suddenly starts chasing you down the hallway. Are intruders such an issue they had to build a massive attack statue deep in the castle past the grinder and the slicer and the pounder traps?!

THEN! there's monsters that are absurdly difficult to fight. Unless you bought the one-time use rocket launcher. Which you can keep buying so long as you have the money. All the giants you'd fought up until the castle were straight forward. Shoot them a bunch, they drop to their knees and you shoot the parasite on their back when it pops out. Then you're given 2. You can drop 1 of them into a lava pit. But then the machine locks up and you're left with 1. There's a zip line across the top. So it seems like you use the zip line to quickly cross the room so you have time enough to shoot the other giant and make it drop. But no. I unloaded over 150 bullets and only got it to kneel twice. But then I reloaded my save and bought the rocket launcher. And that took it out in ONE HIT. The same with Salazar's monster form. I kept dying over and over. Until I got the rocket launcher. Shoot the eye of the thing to expose Salazar, and a rocket launcher to the face ends the fight.

One of the coolest moments in RE3 was the big badass gun moment. Because it felt earned. After fighting Nemesis over and over and barely escaping, and now he's the size of a goddamn room, after scrambling to charge up the gun, you finally fire it into his mouth and kill him for good. You didn't just buy the gun with coins you found lying around from a shady merchant stalking you through the castle.

Then there's the whole reason Leon is even IN the castle. There's no fucking reason for it. They just kept moving the pickup point and for some reason decided he needed to go through the castle for it and all the while with the person he's supposed to be rescuing getting kidnapped multiple times. They could have kept the whole castle thing and still had him make the first pickup point. Only he hands off Ashley and says someone needs to stop these people. It's that simple. Then it's not a long, drawn out fucking ESCORT MISSION.

Finally, when you get to the island after the castle, they remembered they were making a Resident Evil game and it make sense again. But it feels like a completely different game, now. Before all the enemies were either masked cult members or random villagers. Now it's all soldiers and dudes in gas masks and naked bald dudes without a sign of a villager or cult member anywhere. It's so bizarre.

I hear the remake made some of the combat parts better, and added stealth options and the ability to block and removed most of the QTEs. But if the story's the same, I would have regretted dropping $30 on it.

[abominationvault]

Session 26: Sat 24 Feb 2024

Baldur’s Gate 3!!!! It’s great. Don't worry, me and the DM weren’t playing D&D without anyone, we were just using the Discord to talk while we fight our way across the Sword Coast.

So we found a Wand of Clench? Well, someone did. No, Quench, that was it. Jorg’ath finds a workshop - Nadia wants a go. She looks around for stuff to take with her. 16 Perception - Mostly repair materials for the upkeep of books. She does find two 2nd level scrolls of mending and one of Hypercognition. (Instantly use up to 6 recall knowledge rolls.) She offers them around. Sprocket and Skabb take the Mending scrolls but no-one can use the hypercognition one. Nadia tucks the last away, we will sell it.

More doors. For the sake of completeness, we go back on ourselves and open the one on the southern end of the corridor. A friend!

This is Jarelle Kaldrian. She is a ghost, and appears to be binding books. There is also a skeleton here in light blue robes, slumped in a corner. Jorg’ath backs out slowly. Hartvig points at the skeleton and addresses the ghost. “Hey lady! Was that you?”

She looks annoyed, but then turns sad and nods. What’s she doing?

“Binding books,” he is told.

Ghost books?

Visitors are rough with the books! If the mistress comes for a book and it’s damaged… She shakes her head. Clearly the consequences are unspeakable.

She appears to be going through the motions rather than actually working. Has the mistress been down lately, we ask her?

"Last time was a long time before my unfortunate accident." Speaking of which… this seems like a fairly low risk job, how does one… die, while binding books? Hartvig makes a Diplomacy check, already accumulating dust around his feet. 17, after a Hero point. When the mistress didn’t return, her colleagues became monstrous. Rather than become like them, she barricaded herself in here and helped herself to the arsenic.

Is arsenic a nice way to die, Skabb wonders.

Agonising, she is told. The dose has to be perfect otherwise you don’t die, but just sick it back up but it does irreversible damage.

... Yikes.

Is there a way to help her chuff off to whatever comes next? Jorg’ath suggests some axe work, but Skabb doesn’t think that will work on your incorporeals. Hartvig asks her what her job satisfaction is like. She doesn’t seem to understand. He thinks, before re-wording his question.

Why you still putting around, Skabb interrupts? Jarelle repeats her initial statement about looking after the books.

Not your responsibility any more, surely? Skabb asks. Don’t you want to go on to the next life? (Diplomacy - 20.)

Jarelle seems puzzled. "You mean I don’t need to be here?"

"Let the books rot," Skabb tells her. And just like that, she disappears.

“I thought we had a rapport, but whatever,” says Hartvig. He seems put out. What sort of books are they in here? He finds a key on the skeleton. The books are all sorts, none especially interesting. He finds a gold paperweight and a crafter’s eyepiece. It is etched with square patterns. While worn, you get a +1 item bonus to crafting checks. Nadia wants it. “Gimmegimmegimmegimme!” Hartvig hands it over, and she puts it on straight away.

We find more books for Augustus to carry as well, so we do some book tetris to get them all in. (Well; we put the books in his tummy and he jumps up and down a bit to settle them.)

There’s a conversation about goblin piss, which I will not document.

(Nadia squints at Skabb through her eyepiece to see if she looks any different; an error message pops up: “Unfixable”)

Hartvig grumbles about Skabb banishing the ghost lady before he could get her number. She has been trying to come up with a new title for herself, and immediately one comes to mind: “Blocker of Cocks!”

We move on and find another room. Luna, and only Luna, can hear laughter.

It sounds like it’s coming from the other side of the door at the other end of a short corridor, that Jorg’ath has opened. The laughter is mean-spirited, like a naughty child.

Skabb pings for magic - the chandelier pings back. She sends Grabby Cat for a - gentle! - poke around up there. There is an ever-burning torch up there. Grabby Cat tries to get it down. Nat 20 for a 24! Skabb adds it to her inventory. (Will it shine through her bag, she asks? She can deactivate it. It will never run out of fuel, she is told.)

This room is full of comfy furniture, more books, a fountain, and this fella:

(Hartvig: “Who’s this prick?”)

It is giggling, and annotating a book as it does so. Luna wants to catch and eat it. “ekekekekekkekekekekek,” she says involuntarily, pupils wide, tail swishing.

Jorg’ath admires the carpet. “I may be a big lizard, but I have exquisite taste,” he announces.

Luna jumps on the - thing? Lurker - and tries to snatch it. “I want to cram it into my mouth.” 20 Athletics! And… Initiative, though the rest of us are reluctant to get in the way of her fun.

The Lurker goes first, and casts Mote of Light, dealing 7 Force damage. Now she is affected by Lurker’s Glow:

“I don’t mind him being able to see me while I eat him,” says Luna. It claws her face.

Skabb, who speaks Sylvan, hears it say a number of disgusting things about how he’s going to rip Luna’s eyes out and peel off her skin. It uses its last action to make an escape attempt, but has a -6 penalty: it fails miserably, and she manages to hold on to it. She does want us to help her kill it after all, however, as it’s done significant damage with its claws.

She stabs twice but the second one misses even though she rolls a 20. And it’s flat footed as well so she technically rolled a 22 and it still missed.

Uhhhhh… we might be fucked.

Should she drop it and run away? If she dies she won’t be any use to anyone. It might hit her as she runs away though…? There is some discussion about attacks of opportunity. (Can it do that? Luna wonders. You'll find out when you run away, Sprocket tells her.)

“…No, fuck it, I’m going to hold on to him,” she decides. Her third attack misses by a country mile.

Sprocket casts Draw Ire, forcing a Will save. It rolls a 26. “… Fuckbiscuits.”

Save the day, Ash-man! He does Needle dart and crits! (Someone’s found his mojo.) 18 damage! Wait - he did a crit, so that’s double damage AND persistent bleeding. Woof. Wouldn’t want to be that guy. Oh wait again, the 18 WAS the crit damage. Hartvig’ll take it.

“Do I know what kind of creature this is?” Skabb asks.

“A dickhead,” Jorg’ath tells her.

She sends Grabby in to see what the light source is in here. She thinks the thing will be hurt by the dark, so she wants Grabby to put the light out or steal it.

GC rolls too low to grab it, so Skabb gives her two more actions to try again - wait, can she do that? No she can’t, balls. GRabby’ll just have a little sit on the chandelier. Skabb does Slashing Gust instead, for 16 damage.

Jorg’ath does a big Godzilla roar as he Rages and will "bash him up with a Great Axe". 12 damage, including 4 acid.

Nadia sticks it to the floor with a glue bullet, yeah. It’s stuck for six rounds! (Sprocket wants her to find a revolver, and get a feat he will call “empty the chamber”. Nadia: “I cast ‘Uzi’!”)

Luna has earned a Hero Point for roleplaying seamlessly as a cat, which is poor consolation as she’s dead when the Lurker hits her. Then it disappears, muttering about how it’s going to skin every last one of us… Uh oh. (Nadia is outraged that it escaped her glue bullet. It used Dimension Door. She's happy to find out that it is still stuck to itself, wherever it went.) Hartvig Heals Luna for 27 hit points.

“Did I eat him?” she asks as she awakens.

Someone does recall knowledge - the Lurker is fey, and evil. They sometimes hide their wings, and like to murder things for fun. They hate noble humans, and especially hate gnomes. (Jorg’ath: “Me too.”)

We look at the book it was reading; it’s in Sylvan. Skabb sighs.

There is a picture of someone being skinned alive. The annotations say things like “This looks like fun, must try that one".

Jorg’ath makes a Perception check. He spots another key between two of the chairs; it’s iron, with a symbol of Aradin (?). More books, about hauntings I think? Jorg’ath takes that one, as he’s a big fan of Derek Acorath. (Ha-cha-cha.)

Luna makes a grab for the other ever burning torch, on direction from Grabby Cat.

Jorg’ath finds a rubber ducky and is inordinately excited about it. It is in a suspiciously clean bathroom.

(He has found a book about how to create poltergeists and ghostly weapons! He gives it to Sprocket. It’s called Ineffable Hauntings.)

More doors, quick! Skabb finds some stairs that go down, and we are briefly paralysed with indecision. Skabb asks if she can send Grabby downstairs to scout, as she can be re-summoned if she dies? The DM hasn’t done the map for that layer yet, so no.

Jorg’ath finds another suspiciously clean bathroom, and then a pile of cultists and the Light Lurker - oh shit!

Initiative, and we all call for Augie…

Does 33 hit Jorg’ath? Yeah, he would say it does. In fact it is more than ten over his AC which makes it a crit - it does 24 damage to him with Mote of Light, and Lurker’s Glow.

“Help…?” he asks.

Sprocket. (“This room is a real shithouse,” Jorg’ath remarks, earning himself a Hero Point.) Augustus strides in and smashes a ghoul for 8 damage, and casts Shield on himself.

Skabb casts Disrupt Undead, and the ghoul fails its save. “Hah.” She then pours a Minor Elixir of Life down Jorg’ath’s throat.

Nadia rushes in and throws a Holy Water at a cultist and hits! She then glues him to the floor with a crit and a glue bullet. Then she spots how many ghouls are in this room. “Uhhhhhhhhh…”

Augie also rushes in and starts biting, and does it so good we start chanting his name. MVP!

The Cultist casts Phantom Pain. On whom…? Can the DM get a Will save from Nadia? (Ah shit. That's me.) She rolls an 18; she needed a 20. She takes 7 damage, and 2 Persistent. He then tries to get out of the glue; he rolls Acrobatics 24 and frees himself.

Luna is up. She moves up and takes aim at one of the ghouls. Can she hide first? She’s not in the room yet, so yes. She crits with her shortbow - and then crits her damage roll for 25! She’s one-shotted a ghoul, yeah.

Jorg’ath would like to, if possible, move in and scoop Nadia up and throw her out of the room. He succeeds his Strength check (Strength? Rude) and flings her back out into the corridor. He crits with his greatsword for 13 damage. Howdydoodis! "Uh, I run in, throwing tieflings all over the place, and bisect a ghoul."

A ghoul claws Augustus, who is Sickened 1, apparently (no-one's quite sure how), 22 hits him for 4 slashing damage. 13 misses. Another slashes at Jorg’ath, and another at Augie.

Hartvig Heals Sprocket, so that Augustus is also healed. He does a 1 actioner - wait… no, a 2 actioner. 16 plus 9 back for Augustus.

The Lurker takes his turn to do Searing Light… 40 damage to Augie.

Noooooo! He then slashes him for 12 damage, but he’s still up! Yeahhhhhhhhh. (We weren't supposed to roll good enough to have Augie come with us, and the DM has been trying his hardest to kill him off ever since.)

Sprocket casts Boost Eidolon on Augustus, and Augustus has a ‘chuntering run’ toward a ghoul, and thumps some understanding into him - well, he tries, and misses.

Skabb will Magic Missile… something. I miss what.

Nadia glues Jorg’ath’s ghoul to the floor to make it easier to hit, then misses with Bluebird. Augie kills something and then eats its flesh to heal himself. (Even though he’s bitten heads off, he STILL doesn’t get a Hero point. Unfair.)

Luna is next, and I think she’s going for that little winged shit. We hear her growling from her hiding place. 30 to hit, and it’s green! she rolls minimum on her damage roll, and does “just a measly 25”, getting the howdy doodis! She pins him to the wall like a butterfly, so she can come over later and cham his wings off.

Inspired by the cat, Jorg’ath goes into a rage. 29 and it’s also green! 26 damage plus four acid and the ghoul is dead. He goes for the next one and hits, it hits back and misses all three of its attacks.

Hartvig is out of scrolls, so he has to use his own actual spell slots now, just so we all know the sacrifices he makes. (He hardly ever gets to flense anything.) 14 hp back for Jorg’ath. He could use his last action to Guide Augie, but he hardly needs it. He casts it on Augustus instead.

Sprocket and Augustus - Sprocket Boosts him, and Augustus will move… and… “give this guy a bit of a bonkin’.” Howdy doodis! Double fist slam into the ground so he makes a horrible greasy puddle for Augie to snack on. A ghoul bisque, if you will.

Augie yoms it up, and we’re out of initiative. Skabb wants to carve the eyes out of the Lurker, one for her and one for Luna, because it said it was going to do that to them. She gives one to Nadia to make a necklace for Luna. Nadia flubs it, even with her new eyepiece AND a Hero point, and hangs on to the eye for another go later.

The DM has good news for two of us - Sprocket has ghoul fever! Skabb has contracted blue blisters from eating offal, and is developing blisters on her skin and gums.

… we’ll deal with that next week.

Well, we went another week without the DM managing to kill Augie, and we are all extremely relieved. If he ever does die, the funeral's going to be half a session at least. Until he rises again as Augie the White...

"Augie the Grey, that's what they used to call me..."

[booksandwords]

Puzzle Me This by Eli Easton

Read time: 1 Days Rating: 4/5 Stars

The Quote: “Do you always talk this much when you’re falling asleep? You’re practically snoring between words.” “I talk in my sleep too. So it never ends really.” — Alex and Luke

Warnings: Suicide mention and depression. There is an unethical sexual relationship in Alex's past. He wasn't groomed but something is very, very wrong with it.

I actually appreciate many of the plot points in this. Mostly the important use of a counsellor and the use of the disability as the point of anxiety. It was a very natural stressor on the relationship to my eyes it's exploiting inbuilt ableism to a degree though in Lukes's case combines with a horrendous family story. I need to say that I think most humans have a degree of ableism built-in on some kind of base level. I can't judge it but I like that it takes something to get over it. BTW for those new to me, I'm epileptic, and my family did not take it well. It is invisible but it is still a disability, still impacts my day-to-day life, and it is still there. I honestly mean no offence to anyone with my comments.

Main characters Alex and Luke are both likeable enough. Alex feels quite young in his endless optimism playful nature and minimal history. His romantic history is designed to make a reader angry. Luke is what I call a dumb intelligent man, if you have ever been around that kind of man you'll know. They both have scars and compatible interests. Honestly, they are one of the better couples I've read about in a while when it comes to chemistry and compatibility. They have a great meeting and introduction too. One of them is "1 across – Two can play _ _ _ _ 10 down – Made it up _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 11 across – Axe to grind _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 20 down – Blue-eyed _____ _ _ _ _ _ 31 across – ___ as a button _ _ _ _ 32 down – Greeting _ _ _ _ _ [game designer woodsman blond cute hello]"

I saw at least one editing error. Though it wasn't just a name it feels like the whole sentence structure and language is wrong for the character it is supposed to be. I do recommend this, it is well written (even with the editing issue) and will ask the reader to think about their own prejudices. It just feels modern in the way it works through its issues and in the ending. It is HEA but that doesn't always feel like a given and I appreciate that.

Some comments and quotes. • What he was sitting in just didn’t seem to matter much to Luke’s body. Or his heart. — This is such a basic quote it feels like it should be obvious but that is part of the point of the book. It isn't always that clear so many of us have inbuilt ableism to contend with. (Luke)

• Alex was so happy he couldn’t sit still. He put on some music and danced his chair in the open spot in his living room, jerking the wheels back and forth like a DJ scrubbing a record, doing tight spins, and banging his head to the music. He was so freaking happy he felt ready to burst out of his skin. — This whole moment made me smile. It's just so freaking adorable. Alex is adorable. (Alex)

• “See, if I put a clue like that in one of my games, I’d be driven from the industry with whips and scourges.” “That’s because video gamers have no patience. Crossword puzzlers love to be stumped. And they like to learn ridiculous things that no one in their right mind would possibly know, just so they have something to say at cocktail parties.” Luke rolled his eyes. “Yeah, the anoa thing would make a hell of a pickup line.” “It would for female buffalos.” Luke laughed. “God, you’re as nerdy as I am.” Alex pretended to be offended. “Oh, hell no, California boy. I’ve got you beat there by a mile.” — (Luke and Alex)

• Seeing those hands at work so competently, Luke had to force himself not to think about what they’d feel like on his body. — Oh, that I get. Competency kink is something more authors need to write. (Luke)

• “It doesn’t suck,” Alex agreed. “Not too humid, thankfully. Though it might rain later.” “Stop! Don’t say rain. Do you have a musical preference for our totally sunny drive today?” — This just reminds me of a quote from The Night Shift about the Q word in the Emergency Room, ditto applies to retail. (Alex and Luke)

• Luke and Alex's sisters are used to effect. One playing the voice of reason and protective older sister. The other is a point of contrast and a safe harbour in a storm.

• “Before you left San Francisco, you told me how important it was to you to find a more meaningful relationship. That was part of why you moved back to Pennsylvania. And it sounds like you found what you were looking for.” Luke leaned forward, head in his hands. “Alex is so great. He’s the best person I’ve ever met. It’s so easy to be with him.” Gordon made a thoughtful noise. “When you talk about Alex, you light up in a way I’ve never seen in you before.” Luke knew that was true. Something deep inside of him just freaking loved Alex. — I need to say that I appreciate the use of a counsellor, Gordon, in sorting out the anxiety involved. It is such a modern and important take on romance. (Gordon and Luke)

• Con people were cool people. And probably horror con people were his people, though Luke was not gonna admit that out loud. — One of the plot points is The Philadelphia Horror Con. All the conversations and moments at the con are reasonable. Certainly enough to indicate Eli has been to them, been surrounded by them and enjoyed them. (Luke)

• I adore Marco. I just didn't expect him. A six-foot-one gay Japanese-American computer programmer.

• This is an August-December romance, with some decent time skips involved.

[elyendrya]

D&D puzzle idea:

There is a room split into quarters, and in the center of each is a hopper with a lever with four settings. When you put something into a hopper, it goes to one of four boxes by the exit. Each quarter has several objects and a tool that cannot be removed from the area. One quarter has a variety of trees, oak, maple, polar, yew, birch, pine, etc. and an axe. One quarter has piles of raw material; metal, wood, glass, mulch, etc. Next has a table with different dinosaurs, T-rex, triceratops, ankylosaur, plesiosaur, and a claw grabber. Then a quarter has a pen and paper, with instructions to finish your polite request to the door.

Slot 1 requires wood, then yew, then plesiosaur, then something like “open”. I’m going to try it this week to see how long it takes my players.