Elora

Another lapse in consciousness had plunged Elora into the obsidian expanse. The hollow sounds of machinery were among the few perceptions she could distinguish. In a daze, she slipped forward, fatalistically toed by the force of a figure unseen. Her hands clawed their way into a surface that smudged like wet clay. Digging into the mailable surface proved futile, however, as its sludgy consistency seemed to melt like wax between her fingertips. A series of stinging punctures slowly dappled their way across her body. Once again seized by a sinister paralysis, Elora could feel her skin become col

"The only way to convince her to do anything is to get her pissed off about the opposite." Elora couldn't help but nod in agreement. Quip had a remarkable way of directing, or, misdirecting her rage to accomplish surmountable feats. "I guess it's not just her that I'm worried about", she remarked between a bite of food, "Are you really alright with how things left off -- if this doesn't resolve itself?" Elora accepted a secondary plate of protein and the desired pastry from the bear of a man who brought it. "You seem like you're fine...", she added with a tone that suggested he shouldn't

Enthusiastic hands began to shift through items and submenus as soon as Miri had ushered them into a seated position. Without wasting any time, Elora summoned the ingredients to begin preparing her newest tea. Despite her efforts to remain concentrated on the task at hand, she soon became distracted with the subject of their conversation. "Let's just say that it was time to kick the angriest of angry birds out of the nest." Her elven ears twitched with a telltale curiosity. "That's not what I heard--", she blunty sputtered. Cerulean eyes quickly returned to their work as soon as her

Freyd seemed to be unnervingly calm about it all, or at least, if everything that Quip had told her really transpired. She stared at him blankly for a moment, then blinked. "Oh? Ummm", she lifted a lock of hair to twirl it between her fingers, "I don't think so. It's a lot longer than before, but I've been growing it out for awhile now." Elora was surprised to find that she enjoyed the change. Sure, her hair still got tangled within this simulation, but it's not like she couldn't just unfurl it with the push of a button. It was hardly an inconvenience compared to brushing out real-world wind a

Sparse rays of light trickled between patches of puffy clouds above as Elora moseyed her way through Floor 13's main settlement. She'd learned to take extra caution whilst traversing across Angel's Point's slippery cobblestone streets. It never ceased to entertain her just how exaggeratedly dreary this environment was compared to others, especially Floor 1. The entry-level stage felt much more welcoming to her, albeit more bland. Come to think of it, she still had yet to discover a place that was truely more suitable to her tastes. Her thoughts were curtailed by the sight of an easily-distingu

Awareness seeped into the spaces surrounding her, clotting them with a darkness that seemed to stretch on forever. Like a stale sponge that had been cast into a kitchen sink, her skin became saturated with a familiar sensation. Hairs standing on end alerted her to frigid air as her nostrils began to fill with the scent of...plastic? For as much as her mind mulled over each observation, her mouth couldn't seem to muster the speech to decipher it. An undetermined orientation made gaining her bearings all the more challenging. With a pointed will, she recruited her muscles to move. Seconds passed

"AHHHHHHHH! -- AHAHAH - HA! ORH, HEI! It's jerst another pleyher!", Elora's voice cracked and stammered as it abruptly shifted from screaming to broken Irish greeting. "Put that thing away. Save it for the things that want you dead." "S-serry, I was jerst --!", she turned to examine the wall behind her, but no excuse readily came to mind. An uncomfortable awareness wormed its way through her throat, then colored her cheeks a dark crimson. Oh no -- he's gonna realize that I'm lost! "If you're looking for a way out, you need only follow the line. It will lead you to the entrance.

Plhink! Rrrrrrrr PLHINK! Rrrrrrrr Borris seemed to find enjoyment from being hurled against the warped, wooden walls of her small studio apartment. Elora, on the other hand, could literally feel her eyes rolling further and further into the back of her skull with each cacophonous tumble. Under any other circumstance, she might appreciate how The Hummingbard Inn's character lent itself to such rustic reverberations from the ricocheting rocks. Today, however, it just made her want to puke. "I'M BORRRED!", she proclaimed after a pained and exasperated sigh, "Jesus, Borris -- isn't ther

Elora spared an appreciative glance toward Freyd before nodding in solemn agreement. "Yeah. Even if I don't feel all that much stronger, I do feel a bit more prepared to handle -- I don't know what you'd call it -- a crisis? Sticking together and keeping a level head seems to be the most important thing to survive." "It's oddly quite out here. It's kind of... unsettling.", remarked Katoka as the three of them began to encroach on a formation of stones. "No kidding", agreed Elora, "It's not really helping to take my mind off of what happened on Floor 7" A sudden and sharp constriction

Elora observed as Katoka and Freyd reviewed the details of the quest; she couldn't help but scoff at the mention of the game's tendency to spawn challenging enemies in seemingly innocuous areas. "You're right. It's best to stay on our guard", she agreed with Freyd, And I could probably stand to learn some restraint, she added internally. Before long, the trio found themselves striding along a sequence of dirt paths that crisscrossed expansive grasslands speckled by semi-sunken stones. Elora had to will herself to not pick out and select every stray pebble she happened upon as candidate f

"I love what you've done with your...", began Freyd after he'd bid her greeting. "My what?", Elora probed bluntly before Katoka called out from around a corner. "You two done flirting or do you need more alone time?" "Actually, I hadn't --", she started with a turn. "Wow Elora, Interesting wardrobe choice. Really accentuates the assets.", the small samurai added as she finished approaching the two of them. A potent blush quickly crept from chin to forehead as her flustered eyes flitted and looked away. "O-oh -- I --", she coughed awkwardly in an attempt to stifle the r

"It doesn't seem right.", she remarked to the tainted mirror's distorted reflection of her likeness, "What's the point of having gigantic sleeves if it doesn't even cover my chest?!" Her eyes glanced downwards and over to Borris, her familiar, as the tiny rock golem teetered and spun in confused circles between her feet. "I swear, people wear the weirdest sh*t in this game...I really should see if there's a way to get something more, well, 'me' made for me.", she paused for a moment before suggesting, "Maybe I should go back to that haunted cabin with all of the creepy mannequins?" The dull ru

"They don't actually have to cook the food since, you know, game. It just kind of spawns in after a time. They still make you wait though." Elora always found this and similarly superficial spectacles to be strange. It's like Kayaba wanted us to have some sense of normalcy during all of this, she mused, How kind of him to consider how comfortable we should be while we're trapped here... "I think that regardless of updates things will get harder, especially the higher we advance through the floors. It seems like this may have been more of a level equalizing thing, at least from what l

"I know what I'm getting, the buffalo chicken sandwich." "A buffalo -- what...?", stammered Elora as she tried to search the menu for the dish, "So it's got like, buffalo AND chicken in it? What does buffalo even taste like? -- And you'd better not say "chicken"!", she added with a narrowed stare before lowering her gaze to peruse the menu. "Let's see if they've got anything that isn't just a meat sandwich -- Oooh!", she let out a suppressed gasp, "How about boxty? That's not just meat or just boiled potatoes!" Elora eagerly scanned the sheets of pixels for her favorite Irish dish. To her

"Guess I should call you older sister eh?" "Please don't --", asserted Elora, "Anime has already ruined that trope --" Her resolve was quickly shattered by an unsuccessfully-suppressed laugh. "After getting bullied in middle school I just kind of, stopped interacting with people at school.", Kat continued the conversation of her aforementioned adolescence, "I had friends online that I played games with. That was my socializing, but she didn't see it that way." "Mm, yeah", acknowledged Elora, "My parents had a difficult time with understanding that about me as well, though they d

She couldn't suppress the smile that spread across her face as Freyd's hand reached up to cusp her chin. She did, however, resist the urge to kiss him so that he would have the opportunity to finish his sentences. But damn is he making this difficult, she huffed as he pulled her closer and rested his forehead against her own. S-stop thinking about it, just pay attention!, she tried to command herself. "I want to be the person you see in me. The one you said you want to be yourself. If we can each see it in the other, maybe, together, we can help each other see it in ourselves?" "I --

"It's fine, sometimes it's good to think about what you've left behind. I was in my final year of high school, I guess now I'm way past that point." She's younger than I thought, Elora considered, but not much younger than me. "I miss my family. My mom, my dad, my little sister. You remind me a lot of her actually." For a moment, Elora could feel her muscles tensing as her mind became defensive, LITTLE sister? Does she think I'm immature or something? Elora paused for a moment, reflecting on how her own reaction could only suggest that she was just that. An intentional sigh indi

“I answered honestly: he calls me Montjoy, though I am as much Freyd as we are both Takeshi.” It was as if, at that moment, Elora could feel all of her scattered thoughts sliding into place, like pieces of an intricate puzzle interlocking to construct a completed picture. She didn't know how to respond. Instead, she returned to the self-designated task of repairing Frey...Takashi... The name resonated with her in inexplicable sanctity. It feels like I've learned some sort of secret that I was never meant to know..., she began to assess the feelings of shame that followed the flushing of h

"This place has really good food, and despite the lack of effects, good alcohol as well." Elora laughed half-heartedly before muttering beneath her breath, "If only it were like the real world..." Shoving both hands into the pockets of her worn shorts, she began to speculate aloud, "What were things like for you, Kat? Before all of this happened? Did you finish high school or go to university?" An inexplicable sensation of of rising tension made her regret asking the question. "I'm sorry -- I didn't mean to just bring it up like that -- our lives on the outside, I mean...", Elora sighed,

"Oh dear, you've broken Humpty Dumpty, have you? I hope you brought some glue." Elora's aghast expression was curtailed by one of concern. Briefly, her eyes darted over to her weapon; it was too far away to conjure to her hand in only a moment's notice. Thousands of thoughts tremored through her mind in an instant. Who is that? Another player -- maybe one of the diseased that live on this floor -- or it could be -- A stranger, she decided as spinning heels firmly planted her to face the mysterious individual. “He calls me Montjoy,", he began to introduce himself as he scrutinized

Cobalt eyes followed the flick of Freyd's wrist, then the smooth stone that escaped it. She studied the ripples that spawned from its wake, barely able to prevent herself from becoming entranced and distracted by their mesmerizing movements. Her sights snapped back, followed by the occasional nod and stifled sighs that indicated she was still making an effort to listen intently; she was relived to hear that the other members of the guild had likely survived. "I'm... conflicted.", he pivoted somewhat abruptly. "About what?" "I have been for some time, which isn't like me at all,

"Shadow's...? Was that the name of...whatever caused all of this?", she managed to mutter as her weary conscience struggled to string the information together. "There was nothing I could do...We were barely holding on, ourselves...", he continued. She listened, absorbing his accounts as he carefully wiped the tear-streaks from her cheeks. He saw me...did he see them all? Everyone who was swallowed before them? He said that where they were was the last place to be submerged, does that mean...?" "I'm... so glad... that you're still here." She nearly brushed the sentiment off as wo

"You're here. You're safe." A sharp inhale wavered before Elora broke into dissonant sobbing. She collapsed into him, clutching the folds of his cowl between the knuckles of her trembling fingers. Shoulders fell and rose sporadically as uneven breaths coursed through her diaphragm, and she succumbed to despair. "I - I - I -- was s-so scared", choked Elora as best she could, "T-there was -- so many people d-died -- I didn't know what to do - I t-tried to help, but then I -- I was pulled under, a-and --" Burying her head face into Freyd's shoulder, she struggled to snuff out the sounds of

Elora gulped dryly, the lines of her lips flattening as she set her jaw into place. "Yeah", she vaguely agreed in response to all of her friend's observations. "Food sounds nice", she added after a prolonged stretch of silence, "And...actually...wasn't there a place that we were gonna go together? To see at some point?" The heels of her boots scrapped across the splintered floorboards of the inn as she shuffled and searched for the answer. Finally, she snapped -- or at least, she tried to through the thick fabric of her gloved hand. "Cherry blossoms! Didn't you mention that you got Hanami some

♪ Islands Under Eyelids ♪ Elora instinctually threw her arms up and into a defensive maneuver, suddenly sensing that Freyd might unwillingly strike her out of sheer surprise. A stupefied inquiry indicated that he'd at least partially been able to process that she was standing before him, and that an attack would no longer be warranted. "El... Elora?", she heard him speak her name and began to lower her guard. "I...", they both sputtered as crimson eyes met with irises flooded by a cobalt ocean. "You're alive!", he shouted. She bit her lip and turned away. "I'm sorry --", sh