#is it clear?

[thecircleisoverparty]

No wonder A.S. got lost in this place, I thought. Rooms within rooms within rooms.

Don't go there, you've gotten yourself out, with and without help. You have been fine. You will be fine.

The door to the next room opened. 

A dagger to my throat met me there. 

"Who are you?" The holder said. "Are you with The Circle? Have they employed you to come get me?"

What's wrong with her? "Well, the first answer is Kieran Smith. As for the other two, I know of The Circle but I would personally rather die than be employed by them."

She lowered the dagger. 

"Good." She half grunted. "For now."

So she doesn't trust me. It's fair. 

"Sit down," she said. "I don't know how many rooms you've been in but take a break."

"Probably the same amount as you, telling by how you're acting."

"Do you have experience?"

"I have enough. At least enough to notice some symptoms."

She stayed quiet after that. 

Maybe she’s processing all I’ve said. It's not like I didn’t just dump another problem onto her.

“Then why are you here?” she finally said. “Here in these rooms? What would drive you to stay?”

“I’m just here to revisit. Gather a few of my old friend’s notes that I haven’t yet, keep myself sharp. Besides, assuming we are both from the same period, I’m starting to find the outside bland. Everything’s predictable but challenging. ‘Tune the room to find the glyph, tune the glyph to find the door’, that’s what my friend wrote.”

“I think I’ve read that note. AS, was he?”

“Yes. As stubborn as he was, he was a good person.”

She stared at me. “You miss him.”

I nodded.

She smiled. “That makes two of us.”

“Who did the Null take from you?”

“My husband was employed by the Circle, and they fed him to it.”

“Hence the questions and the dagger?”

“Hence the questions.”

I stood up. The restlessness started to kick in. “How far did you get?”

“You’re that quick to move on?” She said, “Besides, I haven’t started.”

I wanted to roll my eyes. Why wouldn’t you start figuring out the puzzles?

Fortunately, muscle memory had helped.

"You really have been here before then,” she said.

“Would I really lie about this?”

“You might.”

“Then are you going to help me?”

We progressed through a number of rooms before I had enough control over my sample of Null.

“Are you doing well?” I asked her.

“As well as I will ever be.”

“Good, because I can get you out now.”

She stopped.

“You can do that?”

I nodded. “Just needed the strength to.”

I wrestled with the next door to get me to the cog room.

Always this hard to work with, aren't you.

She put one of my arms over her shoulders. “Come on. Don’t collapse on me now.”

“‘M not..”

“You’re about to.”

She leaned me against the central font.

“Thanks,” I groaned. “Now where do you want to go out there?”

She was busy looking over the edge at all of the machinery. “What is this place?”

“The cog room. From what I’ve seen, this is the heart of it all, what keeps the other rooms stable.”

“And it takes a lot of energy to get here?”

I shrugged and lifted myself up. “Depends on what the answer you want is. Passing through here doesn't take much energy at all. What takes a lot of energy is staying here.”

She continued to look over the edge.

“The offer still stands.” I said.

“What?” She said as she finally looked over at me.

“I can take you anywhere out of here. Just tell me where.”

“Waldegrave Manor. The outside of it.”

I nodded. “Only a few seconds..”

The null goop in the font shifted.

“Is that normal?” She said worriedly.

A door rattled into the doorway.

“It always is,” I said with a smile. I gestured toward the new door. “After you.”

She went to turn the handle but paused.

She looked at me. “Would you come with me?”

“I wouldn’t want to bother you.”

“You won’t. I’d like your company.”

You’d need someone to reason with, Kieran.

I walked over. “I think I will. It would be better than here.”

She opened the door and we both got out. 

Waldegrave Manor looked the same as it was in the papers.

“Oh!” she said.

“What happened?”

She shook her head “No, I just miss this place.”

“Did you stay here for a time?”

“This was my childhood home.”

“Right. I may have heard about you. I suppose you're Abigail Lockwood?”

“Yes,” she smiled.

[notastraykid]

According to the gentleman who is lying face down on the pavement off one of these side streets, throwing a paddy (tantrum) "there are no rules in a street fight."

To reiterate "there are no rules in a street fight."

[apollos-boyfriend]

i’m gonna cry it’s raining right now and i just passed by a family where both parents were without an umbrella but their kid who couldn’t have been older than like 3-4 was proudly holding this GIANT umbrella whose diameter was as tall (if not taller) as the kid. both the parents were getting absolutely drenched but u could tell the kid was just so happy to have an “adult” task and carry the umbrella themselves and i think that sacrifice is what love is all about

[many-sparrows]

I'm very tired of this "queer college students should stop supporting Palestine, they'd kill you there!" I watched a hijabi ask a trans man, "but what name do you want to go by?" A butch giving a woman their hoodie so that she could keep her hair covered after the cops took her scarf. Muslim girls making sure the lesbian couple got through the system together. Religious men making sure purple haired protestors got out safe. I don't want to hear it. Solidarity forever, free Palestine.

[starrytrees]

hi dungeon meshi fandom :]

[rennessillyarchive]

everytime dungeon meshi focuses on characters outside of the touden party you can really feel the looming horror of the dungeon,, only the touden party is having a silly fun time by virtue of eating the horrors

[burntblueberrywaffles]

[I.D. an edited version of the "is this a pigeon" meme. A man with glasses, captioned "my overstimulated ass" points at a butterfly, captioned "someone making an annoying noise". At the bottom of the image, a dialogue caption reads "is this a crime deserving the death sentence?" end I.D.]

[heartnosekid]

the venus girdle (cestum veneris) | aquatilis_expedition on ig

[william-snekspeare]

This is so real

[sadclowncentral]

my (very white, very middle european, very protestant christian, very sixty-year old) father just dropped an inshallah in casual conversation. without precedent or without any acknowledgement. "inshallah they will send us a new internet router" he said. didn't even stutter. what did he mean by this.

[valtsv]

i think it's so fun that "damn" is such a casual curse word now that it's basically become divorced completely from its original meaning. like oops i dropped my phone, time to invoke the wrath of god about it in the most mildly annoyed tone of voice imaginable.

[ato-dato]

Road help.

[sycamorality]

i am violently clear [emphasis on the violent]

[crabussy]

IM GOING TO PUNCH A HOLE IN SOMEONES CAR

[buggachat]

decided to subject you all to my mind. and my mind has a lot of feelings about adrien and plagg in real-cat!plagg au.

plagg adopted adrien, not the other way around

(sequel to this post)

[mo-mode]

Grover: Sir 🥺🥺 we’re so sorry but we have no idea what happened to our train cabin—

Percy and Annabeth: WHAT KIND OF STUPID ARE YOU, MR. TRAIN COP?! OOOH YOU THINK SOME TWELVE YEAR OLDS DID THIS?? SO WHAT YOU’RE GONNA ARREST US??? HUH???? POST UP