"...Hmm," you ponder out loud.

"Gonna find a room to fade in?," Cici asks.

You shake your head.

"No. ...We're gonna find that god damn triangle. Tonight."

"Heck yeah!"

You head back up the stairs to B1, turning left into the corner room with all the barrels. You take another drop of yellow wine to drink--but this time, you try to block the damage and not just the pain.

. . .

Huh. You cannot.

Like trying to copy Cici's powers, it's like you don't even feel the option to. You can't... catch hold of a thing to focus on, or a concept to shove the mana in. The vein burning and nausea just... happen, regardless. You can still block the sensation of it just fine, though your steady mana drain over time is now even faster than before. If you plotted the increases in your drain from staving off this suffering, you don't think it would be a straight line--it seems to be escalating a bit.

It's still not a huge detriment, though--the drain is faster, but it isn't fast. And, once again, your mana is fully restored from a single drop.

"I can't block the damage from drinking the wine," you inform Cici, "only the pain."

"What's that mean?," she asks.

You ...

shrug. And kind of hold it there for a second. "We might not be able to block certain types of damage, which is something to watch out for in the future--bosses might start doing Yellow Attacks or whatever that bypass our universal defenses. It might be normal damage but a specific case coded out of the system to keep us from exploiting it--I mean, if you could drink with NO repercussions, you could stay in the dream forever. ...Or."

You pause, mulling over the third possibility.

"Drinking the yellow wine might not hurt this me. It might be hurting... me-me. The me still sleeping at my house. Real me. ...So nothing in the dream itself can stop it, it's not dream damage but actual damage. ...I really don't know, though, I'm just spitballing here."

"I really don't like that wine," Cici establishes. "I know you want to make the most of each night, but... you did not look well after you took that first drink! You're gonna wake up with jaundice or something."

"Pfft, why jaundice?"

"It makes you turn yellow!," she replies.

You and Cici take turns trying to transfer mana to each other--mentally, by touch, by permission, none of it seems to have any effect. Cici confirms that adding a whooshing noise to her gestures does not make the process work, either.

Since Cici IS low on mana, you don't want to rely on her to boat you around; so, you use the screwdriver to unhinge yet another door. You slide your new raft down the stairs to B2, and you and Cici take off.

Naturally, you avoid taking the glass pipe back, and instead make your way to the gauntlet room, then to the tunnel where Cici left the burning bodies so you can travel through the vent.

You continue to cover your bases as you paddle your third door past pumps and pipes. "You didn't see any exits on your way around the south end, right? No triangle signs, no maps, no other chests...? No switches? Vents? Grates?"

"Nope!," confirms Cici. "Nope and nope. It all even LOOKED kinda boring! Very samey."

"Fucking sewer levels," you mutter. "I hate... haaate sewer levels."

"What else do you hate?," Cici inquires. "That MIGHT be important if we have to fight all your pet peeves."

"Oh... geez..." you smirk a bit to yourself, "I... hate a lot of things. I hate ludicrous coincidences. ...I hate Alice in Wonderland, there's way too many versions of it and everybody's determined to make it darker and edgier. Nobody just DOES Alice in Wonderland anymore, it's always like... what if Alice was crazy, or what if Alice in Wonderland but sex. I hate..."

You mull it over a bit more.

"...I hate 3D fighting games. I hate wasps. I hate when I find a song I like, but later find out it's from some anime I'm never going to watch or worse, it's from an anime I actively hate. I hate a long list of anime. I hate it when people won't pick a fucking side, as though staying on the fence and not committing to anything makes them a fucking genius above the entire situation. I also hate people who habitually commit to one side, though--like, that fucking team sports mentality, where side A is always right and side B is always wrong even if shit changes. Like--subs vs dubs! One isn't inherently better than the other, it depends on the quality of the dub! You have to take it on a case by case basis, but you also have to be able to admit when one is definitely the superior option."

... There's a brief silence before Cici concludes, fighting back a small laugh,

"Plaire, THIS is why your castle's so damn big."

You arrive at your destination, crawl through the twisting ventilation shaft to the heart room, where you still have an open can of yellow soda sitting around. You step out into the L shaped room...

and take a deep breath as you eye the east door.

"Do you think accomplice evolution might be based on personal shit?," you wonder aloud.

"Dunno. What do you mean?"

"Well..." You switch your old sword to your right hand, and your torch to your messed up left hand. You don't know what to expect from the next room, but you anticipate a fight; you're technically right handed, but you also don't know jack about sword fighting so it's kind of a wash. "The place we're in is based on my trauma and etcetera etcetera. Your class... tarot thing probably ties into who you are--like, you're real upbeat, you might be described as having a sunny disposition. You're the Sun. Kate's a rebel with a... uh... devil-may-care attitude, hence, the Devil. You like birds. You're a bird."

"Everybody likes birds," Cici interjects.

"Maybe separating from me was supposed to represent like... you leaving the nest? And that triggered a transformation...?"

Cici squints. "It better not ALL be based on word play! What would the other one have been, then? When I was blockin' all that lightning...?"

You

give a big shrug. "Uhhh... maybe a tern? Because you..." and you say this in the driest way possible, "really terned the tide of that battle?"

Cici groans, shakes her head (?), and proceeds to flutter toward the east door. You follow.

As the two of you stroll into the next area--a long hallway with tall vertical pipes dotting the sides--"Or maybe a dodo, since you were FUCK" an arrow comes flying at your face. Cici immediately swells up, manifesting a huge shield and blocking the shot.

You hustle for cover, taking refuge behind the nearest of said vertical pipes.

"Aren't you wasting mana by getting big?!," you yell.

"It's cheaper to make big shields this way!," Cici shouts back. ...Huh. Alright. She blocks another arrow before firing back her own volley to cover her as she moves; she shrinks back to her normal size, joining you behind the pipe.

"There's two of 'em," Cici informs you. "Those worm guys with the bows, using the pipes for cover. Well, one's using a pipe, the other's using the corner--"

Another arrow goes flying past your hiding spot.

"...Why a dodo?," Cici hesitantly asks.

"Oh, yeah--" you pick up where you left off, "--because you were dodofending yourself."

"Ohhhhh Plaire, no," she laughs in spite of her efforts not to. "That pun hurt and I can't mana it away."

You peek out from behind your pipe, just in time to almost get hit by an arrow. The two tumorous corpses are doing an admirable job, both of utilizing cover and alternating their attacks; one reloads while the other fires. B1 introduced the enemy, the beginning of B2 gave them bows... now they're whipping out corridor tactics and shit. It's a pretty standard way to teach a player without literally giving them a tutorial--to slowly add onto the complexity and danger of a mechanic or enemy, one step at a time.

...But it's also really dumb because you can't imagine a cadaver full of worms being smart enough to pull this kind of bullshit.

"Can you narrow the spread of your arrows?," you ask Cici.

"If you mean aim better, no, and I've definitely tried!," she replies. "Can you fireball those guys?"

"The pipes'll block most of it," you huff. ...You take another quick peek down the hall. "I don't know if I've fired one that far yet, either. My aim sucks, too, I just compensate by having huge fuck-off sized blasts. ...This is not a good hallway for us. Can you shield up and walk me toward them?"

"I can, but," Cici flutters out, sneaking another careful glance of her own. Another arrows flies by. "I'm a real slow walker and flying while big is expensive. If you stay low, maybe I can protect you with a regular sized shield? ...They have to run out of arrows EVENTUALLY, right? Maybe we could wait 'em out!"

"I mean..." you chuckle dryly, and shrug. "Probably? Just standing here costs mana, though."

"That's a good point!," she replies. "Damn!" You're pretty sure you burn through some mana just thinking about this. Shooters were never really your forte, and the (artificial?) intelligence level of these guys is somewhere in the range of too high.

... Hm.

Carefully--since you're juggling a pointy and flaming object, respectively--you remove your helmet. It takes you a moment to get all your shit in order, but you have a few quick questions to fill the awkward seconds. "Can you shrink?"

Cici tries... but then motions to the negative. "Nope. I tried earlier, too, but I was hoping somethin' might've changed."

You follow up with another question. "Are you heavier when you're bigger, or the same weight?"

"Definitely heavier," she says, "but it fluctuates when I'm flying! I think flying costs more mana because I'm heavier, though--you know, like it takes more effort to get into the air."

"Yeah."

. . .

"Okay," you begin, "when I say now, I want you to go out and small shield so I can run to the next pipe. Try to block my legs; if an arrow hits my upper body or head I can split the difference between my armor and stopping the damage with mana. I don't know if a motorcycle helmet can stop an arrow, but I know that polearm I was using earlier took way more abuse than it should have, so, FUCK IT."

Cici nods. "Yeah!"

You listen carefully, but it's hard to hear exactly what the monsters are doing--whether loading arrows or taking aim or just fidgeting in place, it all just sounds like gross shuffling and flowing pipes.

You poke your empty helmet out at about head height from behind your cover, then jerk it back. An arrow comes flying past--

"NOW!"

Cici lunges out to stall between the pipes, a glowing shield between her and the second shooter's aim--and just above the surface of the water to protect your legs. You rush out after her, behind Cici and her shield, keeping as low as you can as you practically dive for the next vertical pipe (while also fighting to put your helmet back on with one hand).

The monsters are definitely getting smarter, or at least, better at this kind of bullshit.

The single arrow that arrives to intercept sails above Cici's shield entirely. You hear it whizzing toward your chest as you run for cover, and in that instant

that fragment of a moment

you sort of panic.

The bad news: you spend... not a huge chunk of mana, but a little more mana than you would prefer.

The good news: you've discovered something hilarious, hilarious enough that you're half gasping and half cackling by the time you actually get behind the second pipe in the hallway.

Also, your armor (and by extension, your body) is unharmed. The arrow right bounced off.

Cici joins you behind the second pipe. "What? ...What the heck did I miss?"

You finish adjusting your helmet, leaning back against the wall. "Y'know what's cheaper than blocking damage with my body? ...Blocking damage with my fucking armor."

She gives you a puzzled expression.

You straighten up, inhale deeply, and continue. "I can mana block my armor. I was probably doing it with the halberd, too--it's cheaper than stopping damage the normal way, but not as cheap for me as stopping pain. It's cheap enough, though, armor fucking rules."

"Why's that so funny, though?," she asks, now chuckling a little herself just at... you.

"Because," you reply, "I'm the Fool. I get slight discounts to using gear, apparently. ...It's prop comedy."

Cici snorts, rolls her eyes, and laughs a little bit. "That's terrible. ...Hold up, can't you just turn your clothes into armor, then? Just mana your jeans!"

Hmm.

... With the handle of your sword, you roughly jab yourself in the helmet, then in your fightball pads, then in the thigh. You do your best to strike with the exact same force each time.

"Helmet's cheaper than pads, pads are cheaper than denim," you inform her. "I guess it gets cheaper the more like actual armor it is. ...If the dungeon doesn't fully understand the exact logistics of shit like bullet proof vests, this could be very broken."

"Make a mental note," Cici declares, "we got other stuff to think about right now!"

You smirk, and nod in return. "You go out first again--small shield--but I want you to charge straight at the farther guy, the one around the corner. Start low, then try to swoop or bounce or whatever up to whatever height you need to kick his ass. That should buy me enough cover to reach the closer guy. ... I guess I need to do the helmet thing again."

You start to take the helmet off, but Cici instead tosses the toolbox out into the open--and swings back to grab a torch from the wall as an arrow comes soaring past. Cici rushes out and you follow, her golden shield lighting the way--and you somehow manage to avoid tripping over the toolbox. With a huge flap and a deep breath Cici swoops from flying low to flying high, barely catching two arrows with her shield as she changes heights. You rush the nearer corpse, and Cici continues past to the farther of the two archers.

Your opponent--the larger of the two bodies--drops his bow as you run up on him. He takes a wide swing with his big, tumorous arms, but you keep your distance... baiting a second swing before you strike with your sword and torch.

The sword is... very dull. It's more like bludgeoning the monster than it is slashing it.

The torch, however, is still a torch. The creature reels, seeming to hesitate upon first being burned--

and then tries to power through it, charging you with outstretched arms. Worms rapidly begin to emerge from the nests in its limbs, all poising to strike as their host closes the distance. You shove the torch in front of you, and some of the worms recoil--but they collectively push the corpse full steam ahead. As you roughly dive/roll/stumble out of the monster's path, you take a swing with your rusted sword, whacking your opponent in the knees.

It slows the worm zombie down for a second, which at least buys you some safer distance. The acidic worms continue to randomly rise from openings in the body, lashing out at you, but mostly steering clear of your outstretched torch; for a few moments, you manage to avoid getting grabbed or hit by the host just by staying out from in front of it, instead circling tight around its side and forcing it to try and catch you. You continue swinging at its knees, clubbing it in the legs over and over, until eventually--

the body overcommits to a broad, desperate swing, puts too much weight on its hurt leg, and topples over. You proceed to finish it with the torch, stomping any worms you see escaping with immense prejudice. Even in defeat, the worms seem to be leaving the corpse just to make a last ditch run at you--the aggression is definitely dialing up as you head deeper into the dungeon.

Once the zombie has stopped moving, and you are confident no worms are secretly climbing you at this very instant, you glance toward Cici--

...who is just returning from around the corner.

"You alright?," she asks.

"Yeah," you breathe heavily. "You?"

"I cleared the rest of the hall," she says.

... Fuck. "You are getting damn good at this part, Cici."

She can't smile, but you can tell she would be if she didn't have a tiny beak. "It's the new form! I am BEAST MODE right now! Come on, I don't have much time left!"

You follow her through the rest of the L-shaped hallway, past three more very dead worm zombie archers. Two appear to be burnt to death, one with the torch still sticking out of him--the last one's head (and most of his torso) has been crushed between the wall and what you assume was a glowing golden mace or hammer.

"Oh, wait-- the toolbox! One sec." Cici flutters back to grab the toolbox from the beginning of the hall while you wait at the other end, by the exit.

. . .

You cautiously push the door open, sneaking a peek at what lies ahead.

The first thing you notice in the room that follows is a huge metal door--easily big enough to conceal a staircase. However, the door is shut tight, and you see no obvious method of opening it. Scratched into the door is a message.

The room is mostly empty, but there are... metal monster heads protruding from the walls. In their mouths are small portholes, each barely large enough to fit an arm into.

Three to your left, embedded in the north wall...

and three to your right, built into the south wall.

You don't see any other doors, grates, or anything. Just six metal mouths, a big locked door, identical pipes and shallow sewage.

You step the rest of the way into the room.

You examine the door... and the little metal monster heads.

You hold the torch up to one of the portholes, but it's too narrow and runs too deep for you to see very far.

... Four strokes.

Each of the heads has a marking scratched into its chin. The clue probably means four strokes, like, lines--like strokes of a paintbrush. ...Well, even if these lines were made with a blade, it could still be both meanings of the--

Yeah.

You probably just have to "kill" the ones whose markings are made with four lines.

You wander up to the middle head on the left wall, the one that looks like a little fence.

You insert your sword into it.

...The sword goes in pretty deep before hitting something.

Nothing happens.

You withdraw the sword, and take a closer look at the hole. You could try shooting a fireball into it, but your blasts are huge and this hole is... just big enough for an arm.

You sigh. You know what you have to do, or at least, what it wants you to do.

Hesitantly. Slowly. Carefully.

You plunge your arm into the metal mouth.

Into the unknown.

A mystery hole in a nightmare sewer.

You start with your already burnt, slightly arrow'd hand first, of course. You're not a horror film aficionado but you've seen enough to know where this is going.

You feel a switch at the back of the hole.

You grip it.

You hesitate, and you brace yourself.

You flip the switch.

The lights in the head's eyes go out.

. . .

You do not lose the arm.

You pull your hand out, and breathe a sigh of relief. That's one down.

You take a few steps right, to the head with double Xs on its chin.

You insert your hand again. You grab the switch.

It feels a little rusted this time--

"I leave you alone for ONE minute!," Cici yells from the doorway, prompting you to nearly jump out of your fucking body. You rapidly withdraw your hand, switch quite unpulled.

"Jesus FUCK Cici, I'm gonna have to mana off a heart attack. You took too long! I was curious!"

"I was lookin' inside the toolbox!," she shouts. "...Did you know we have a knife in there? I didn't remember us finding a knife."

Pfffftgoddammit

It takes a couple tries, but you eventually explain the puzzle to Cici.

"Ohhhh," she concludes. "Yeah, that makes sense!"

You were sort of hoping she'd help confirm or deny your theory about the answer, but she seems to just accept that you've solved the case. That should boost your confidence, but in fact it does not.

You take a big breath

and put your hand back in the double X monster mouth hole.

You grip the switch.

It's a little stiff, but you flip it. The eyes go out.

... Nothing happens. Arm intact. Sigh of relief.

The backwards HI was clearly made in four strokes, but that head's already off--so you reason that you should leave it alone. Instead, you step up to the head marked by a square.

On the one hand: that style of square could easily be made with one line, never taking the pen off the paper. ...If you were drawing it with a pen. On the other hand: no other markings you can see come as close to fitting the "four strokes" rule, and even if you made that square with a knife, you would still need four "strokes". Unless you're some kind of geometry samurai, nobody's cutting perfect corners with a single stroke. The puzzle appears extremely easy, to you, but it would be even easier for you to overthink it and lose an arm to anxiety.

That might be what the puzzle's really pushing for. Or you just kick ass at puzzles, whatever.

You stick your hand inside.

You grip the switch.

. . .

It is very tough to pull.

You give it a little more oomph.

. . .

The eyes go out.

You hear a click.

The big metal door slides upward and open, revealing a staircase down.

You heave the biggest sigh, and it is a sigh of relief. You withdraw your arm for the last time.

"That was fucking TENSE," you immediately blurt out.

"Naaah," Cici replies. "I knew you had it right!"

You're eager, but now is exactly the time not to drop your guard. If you fucking blow it right before you reach the triangle you're going to hate yourself forever.

Your heart is pounding as you begin to descend the steps. Cici stays at your side, slightly ahead of you, ready to toss up a shield at a moment's notice.

Torch in your left hand. Sword in your right.

The walk down into B3 is dead silent.

Slow.

You're expecting the worst at the bottom.

You're holding your breath.

You don't know what to expect at the bottom.

You don't make it to the bottom.

In the total silence, it's easy to hear the gentle twang beneath your foot.

Your attention snaps in an instant to the tripwire.

The tripwire attached to the grenade, hidden on the steps.

The grenade.

The fucking grenade.

The fucking military green, pineapple style modern military surplus store ass motherfucking ACTUAL GOD DAMN GRENADE in your dungeon,

tucked into a little burrito of yellow police tape

reading the words "DO NOT RESET."

You have a complicated relationship with God.

You know the Bible back to front. You know its history, too. Church school didn't teach you that second part--that was independent research. They didn't teach you that, either. You know how the Holy Bible was put together... how it was assembled, why some chapters were included and why some were left out, which historical figures in the ancient church hierarchy made those decisions...

and why they made them.

Those decisions were made for all sorts of reasons. Some of the apocryphal books list the names of numerous angels, and the church was afraid if the angels were personified too much, the public would start to worship angels instead of God. That sort of thing. Religious reasons, political reasons, cultural reasons.

Often questionable reasons.

That's not even getting into the translation errors and the history involved with the translation process, or the fact that new "books of the Bible" are discovered all the time but no one considers adding any of them to the main book regardless of archeologically confirmed validity, or the way the book is taught which is just, fucking wrong, the point is

if you can't trust the Bible, the whole thing falls apart.

...At the same time, though

You have experienced things.

Seen things. Felt them.

Things you can't explain.

(You're experiencing some now!)

You don't believe in God, but you have to believe something

but any something you call out to will be conceptually indistinguishable from God. It'd just be God by a different name. God without the trimmings. Non-canon God. Your original character, God II, do not steal.

Humorously, you've considered getting into new age pagan stuff. Multiple gods and all that. It never really took for some reason. Maybe you burned out on trying to have faith. Maybe you just lacked a good teacher, living in the middle of a toxic redneck shithole. Little did you know, there were legit witches just upstate! Ha ha, if you could only go back in time.

Ah.

Fuck.

You don't know who you pray to, but you pray to someone. Anyone.

Whoever's listening, you're sure there's gotta be a few hanging around outside the sky dome.

You pray that you're right.

Just this once.

You're not right as often as you'd like to be, but you really need it this time.

Please let Drillga do what you think it does.

You grab Cici, and you hug her tight as the grenade goes off.

She screams. You scream.

You're blown against the wall.

The floor crumbles beneath you in a well contained blastwave.

You're falling.

You're

You're not dead.

You fall for a while.

You are, it turns out, immune to explosions thank to Drillga.

You are not, however, immune to falling damage, and the last thing you experience before waking up is your helmet shattering against a solid floor at full speed.

You wake up feeling like you have fallen two stories and slammed your entire body into a stone floor.

It's about 4:43 am.

You're barely conscious for, at most, two seconds. You pass back out.

You sit up with a gasp. Choking. Sputtering. Nearly vomit.

"OH MY GOD IT WORKED," Cici yells. "Itworkeditworkeditworked!"

She hops around. Hops. Bird Cici.

Dungeon.

Hurt. Spend mana.

"What the fuck," you blurt out. Mouth is dry. Helmet's gone. "Where am I? Am I dead?"

"I DID CPR!," Cici shouts, doing a little round bird dance. "I CAN DO CPR ON PEOPLE! I can do CPR with a beak! I can do CPR in the dream! I AM THE BEST!"

Holy shit.

Holy fucking shit.

You can't even laugh, it hurts too much.

"I fucking died!," you finally manage to force out in the weirdest, chokiest half-dead laughing voice to ever grace these dungeon halls. "Cici, I woke up! You fucking... unkilled me."

"Ohhh that's awesome!," she exclaims. "You need help gettin' up?"

. . .

"Yes."

Cici helps pull you to your feet. She's breathing heavily, which means she isn't just mana-ing the exhaustion away. She has to be low. Low-low.

You're not in great shape either, mana-wise. You did manage to put a chunk into not getting pancaked, though that apparently wasn't enough to keep the fall from killing you.

"...Where the fuck are we?"

It's dark. It looks kind of like... B1, but

not.

B1 but broken.

"I had to drag you," Cici says. "You were fadin' in and out and there were monsters, and then in the next room there was more monsters, and all the monsters down here are WAY different than--"

"Cici."

She moves. She points a tiny wing to a cell door across the hall, easily in limping distance just ahead of y--

Oh.

Oh, shit. Oh shit oh shit.

"Cici..." you mutter, wiping some of the liquids from your face. "You really are the best. You're the god damn... hero of this fucking run, Cici."

You stumble forward. Cici follows in case you collapse.

It hurts everywhere.

Takes a moment for you to catch up on the pain blocking.

The impairment blocking.

Mana drain is multiplying fast.

It's a struggle just to get to the door, but someone god damn GRENADED YOU and you want

fucking answers.

That wasn't a dungeon trap, that was a human trap. That was motherfucking PVP.

By the time you reach the triangle door, you're walking more or less normally. You muster the strength to shove the door open without hesitation.