Demian

DAY OF FLOOR TWENTY NINE FLOOR BOSS FIGHT, TWENTY SIX MINUTES BEFORE FLOOR BOSS COMBAT WAS INITIATED. demian scanned his messages beyond solving day’s ciphers. bistro had left him a message prior as well, and he simply hadn’t responded. he chose to continue that trend as he drifted around, familiarizing himself with his newfound location. cardinal had chosen to place him atop the lighthouse. the same one he had shuddered over thinking about the man in the cage, and the same one he left with night only several weeks ago. but the dates were now different, and so must’ve been his object

demian eyed his uptime. “that’s not funny,” he scowled, tracking the spawn points of the great flood. there was no reason to target bistro upon her entrance to the twenty-ninth, so he figured, and that was what annoyed him the most from the ordeal. for he had deduced the radius of which their enemies had spawned from, and hence drawn the conclusion of an area of effect. this wasn’t a warning. this was the game trying to kill her by overwhelm, and this was demian’s way of fighting against the change in the rulebook. because the last time something this severe had gone wrong, the world

Demian | L30. | HP: 600/600 | EN: 93/93 | DMG: 19 | ACC: 4 | EVA: 3 | MIT: 36 | BH: 30 | LD: 1 | AA DAY OF FLOOR TWENTY NINE FLOOR BOSS FIGHT, THIRTY MINUTES BEFORE FLOOR BOSS COMBAT WAS INITIATED. demian woke up with a terrible start. it must’ve been late. the sky was of a dark pitch, and he hadn’t packed up his food cart for the day yet. something registered in him. demian had never once passed out. it took him a moment to realize that where he had been positioned, he’d been slumped against the glass walls of a

unfortunately, he wasn’t. "enough," demian replied, still. he was liken to play the scenario by ear, and had thought of his compadre the same. there was time to regurgitate the details on the way there, he decided, if need be. "though my lot is about two players in particular. if there were more — well. i'm not entirely responsible to be accountable for them." his eyes flicked over to ikeno. "we should still be helping them, however." demian hadn’t missed a beat. he kept close to the player, two faune unremarkable that joined the tide of others easing into the gardens

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

“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

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

“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

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’

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

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

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,”