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thread closing. NIGHT + 6764 xp | (470 * 16 * 0.7) + 1500 + 2514 col | (xp * 0.15) + 1500 DEMIAN + 2487 xp | (470 * 3 * 0.7) + 1500 + 1900 col | 1500 + 400

“why does it rhyme?” night queried aloud. demian but rolled the answer in place, jiggling at the padlock and hoping it would give. it wouldn’t. given the lack of their final number, all he had to do was run through the digits from 1 to 9 until it would give way. the entire time, night had murmured the riddle under her breath. twice, and he had made it to ‘4’. no luck. on ‘5’ — “i’ve got it.” demian moved aside, handing her the lock as she drew in close. he hadn’t seen her answer, but he must’ve been close, he figured, if night had taken only seconds to get the hatch open. the wo

the lantern room here was nothing like the one she’d visited in the zero. there was a proper lens, for one, and a catwalk where there was a door to exit from one of the sides of the building. the glass provided an explicit view of the void that laid before them; the ever hungry sea, maw of the deep, tide after tide lapping hungrily at the surfaces, efforts futile. she checked the distance for shadows. demian, who stood beside her as she spent her time gawking but turned his head upwards, before taking a couple of steps backwards. night only turned to look when he started to read the sente

“so about earlier…” he had stopped. then, he kept climbing. “what about earlier?” “the man — er, creature, we fought. what do you think that was?” bile filled his mouth. the grip around his neck tightened. “does it matter? … it’s just an enemy.” “cardinal has done many things in creating its enemies,” night said, and demian could feel her glare upon his figure, “but none, so far, like that.” “what’s so different about it then?” “it swapped me,” she continued. “my consciousness, to where it was.” demian stopped again. “no enemy’s ever done that

they were still missing the last number. “we haven’t gone up the stairs at the entrance hall,” night piped up, once they’d verified nothing else could be reaped from the rooms they had ventured into. for each the other had explored separately, so too did their counterpart thereafter — they found a number of knickknacks, tchotchkes and toys. but no puzzles, and certainly less answers. “the last place we look,” he calmly agreed with a nod, before taking the lead on their expedition upwards, just as prior. it was here, then, in that familiarity of their setting that night found it in h

he gave her no reply after that. perhaps the one he was working on – which seemed like a prose – would prove to be of more help. he checked off the letters as he guessed at the probability of each word that could appear within the fields. and at the end — “ah…!” he turned his head to the side. towards night, what he saw was a puzzle completed, the empty gaps scratched in with a makeshift number, and the result was… “demian,” she started, the expression on her face deadpanned, “i don’t think this is a picture.” “so it isn’t,” he conceded. and yet he jotted down her results o

she toiled away at the puzzle, shading in the cells lightly where she thought the shapes were supposed to go. first, she expected an animal. then, a symbol of some kind, one undecipherable. when she was finally done, she showed it to demian to the backdrop of a distant rumble. the man hummed. “that’s what i thought i’d end up with, too.” “how?” said night, withdrawing the sketchbook to look over the puzzle herself. “you hadn’t even marked anything in here.” demian’s dismissive silence was all it took for her to examine the numbers involved. three empty boxes lined the sides

“a nonogram,” he stated, pulling himself away from his instructional guesses. he had in mind to have a duplicate of the puzzle, undone, stored in his memory just in case his theory for tackling it would fail, but beyond that, he looked over to night’s puzzle. the expression on her face told him she had no idea completely what they were trying to achieve. “the numbers on both the rows and columns indicate filled spaces that exist in the corresponding tiles. it’s usually a picture of some sort.” he hadn’t checked the other pages of the sketchbook, but it made sense that other examples appea

she followed the haunting song tentatively, jumping at the loud thud that ended it, and was only relieved after she found demian sitting on the couch, fixated on a sketchbook. a second pencil was in his hand, tapping at his cheek as he mulled over the puzzle. “i found another one,” night offered, handing him the bundle of newspapers. he glanced up from the past time, passing out the sketchbook towards her. “oh, good.” night tilted her head reflexively. “i was getting stuck on this one. here, you try it.” he took the newspaper, right as night took the seat beside him, t

he stayed not in the bedroom. the moment he had regathered himself, he took towards the living room; they had passed through here moments prior, not giving it a second look. perhaps, if night had taken to the other halls, then he should put himself to work here as well. he took the notepad with him, alongside its pencil. couched the latter upon his ear as he circled the room. the time was fixed at an odd hour; he had figured it meant the evening, but the passage of time lacking in the lighthouse was something worth investigating. demian jotted it down on the open page; if he had time, he’

somewhere in the tower was a study, wall to wall with shelves full of books, in that square room carved out of its circumference. unlike the room demian had temporarily inhabited, this one seemed discerningly tidied, clean; favourable to conditions facilitating focus. that left the upset cup on the table in the center of the room further emphasized in its oddity. night picked it up, setting it upright. then her eyes were led, following the spill stained on the desk towards the newspaper left wrinkled to soak it, a puzzle left unfinished. she ruffled through the papers. found nothing of no

she had, at least, waited until he was done with his own cipher, before asking a question. “so what did you find out?” he looked over his own clues — the first word had been rainbow. the next few, a similar nature, and he compared his list with the one he drafted from night’s recipe book. he noticed the pattern. “is there a combination lock anywhere?” “huh?” night faltered outside of his vision. “a combination lock. like one that uses numbers?” “and bring me any other puzzles you find,” he added, cutting off night’s train of thought. demian felt her burning stare leave his

night burst into the room. “hey,” she said, to demian’s apparent chagrin, “can you make anything of this?” she showed him the book. he was only halfway through the hurricane. “all i can tell at a glance is the picture of a camel, and the word ‘cyclops’ misspelled.” demian hummed, shaking his head. he took a glance at her, before his eyes fell to the puzzle. the words he muttered under his breath were nigh inaudible, the roar of the thunder outdoors masking his voice. in swift strokes, he added his findings to the side of the page he was working on — then, he took the book’s

he didn’t really need a fire. still, the bedroom was a decent guess as to where a hearth might be located. he trundled into the room after knocking upon the door twice, hearing silence, and then turning the knob, tentative. every so often, he guessed that there would be some horror, akin to what had happened to the blossoming man, awaiting him behind one of these turns, his vision momentarily obscured. there was nothing in the bedroom, only all manners of children’s toys, and he thumbed over the petal of the dried flower as he took his time, scanning the room for clues. ‘not here’ wa

she took the hat in turn. the duo wandered about — they had split up, in search of warmth. night took to the kitchen first, because that’s where she felt the safest, most familiar, despite the ancient memories that haunted her in times prior. her fingers drifted along the surface of its countertops; dust accumulated upon them, staining her skin white, and as the drifting particles were beheld in her gaze, the light from outside poured from the window down onto the pages of a book long lost of a time before their own. cardinal played the dramatic. once she picked up the book, the fire

any discomfort, he pushed out of his mind. the objective had them looking for the keeper of the lighthouse. one person amidst the entire tower. there was nowhere else to go, so he thought, though he couldn’t keep the feeling of something amiss out of his thoughts. the only way they could go around the building was up. so he shrug off his coat and left it up to dry. took night’s offer of a towel refreshed from cardinal’s hold – (“it’s dry now.” / “thanks.”) — and brushed at his hair, eyeing the corners of the entrance hall, before he meant to drag them around the home. “hold on,”

she stumbled into the lighthouse. her back hit the wall once the interface pulled itself open — a set of instructions. her hand shifted, palm pressing down against an eye, and she shuddered against her heavy clothes, teeth gritted. the thunder outside mirrored the one in her head, and she tossed caution to the wind in accepting that cardinal request — because that was what was expected of her upon her return, either way. better it was out of her sight so she could pull up her inventory and lose the tracksuit. she buried herself in towels — night sunk to the floor, her face down in them, g

She felt herself flinch again. This time it was from the mention of her engagement, not from Night yelling. She was right, it wasn't fair that it had happened to her. It was also not fair that the wound, however healed it might have been, was still raw. Katoka closed her eyes and took a deep breath, holding it for a few seconds before letting it out slowly. She turned back around to face the dark haired woman, "I don't know what I was looking for to be quite honest." she shook her head and looked passed Night, into the grey clouds in the distance. "I just... Didn't want to leave it at that. It

Demian | L30. | HP: 600/600 | EN: 93/93 | DMG: 19 | ACC: 4 | EVA: 3 | MIT: 81 | BH: 30 | LD: 1 | AA rough waves carried them over the sea towards the lighthouse; the trip was nothing short of a bumpy ride. despite demian’s expertise, summoned forth from a well of secrets within, their brush against the shore was amidst great effort, for one wrong breach upon the coast at the wrong velocity could send them crashing into the lighthouse itself. he’d suffered from a sea sickness thereafter. wasn’t even aware he could experience such cruelty of the system.

quest. | (2/2) WARNING: Within this thread contains spoiler details regarding the Quest 'To Shine A Light'. Viewer Discretion is advised. | NIGHT | Lv. 154 >> P. 120, Lv. 34 | Status: // Notes: // she tried scooping some of the residue into a vial that demian had carried. nothing worked to contain it. they had to carry on. … following bistro’s instructions, they returned to the docks. demian, ever skilled, figured he could sail o