Demian

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,”

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.

his blade came down heavy, slicing the creature down the pupil, splitting it in two. gently, its petals unfurled, and the form of the thing slunk down onto the boards. where he could see its health bar, demian registered it as empty. behind him, night had collapsed. almost immediately, he sunk the tip of his blade into the floor and wheeled around. he’d kept his word, hadn’t he? and she could keep up with day. he was sure she wouldn’t have had a matter with this, beyond the consequential existential terror, but what about her player? it was impossible for night to have understoo

demian had only begun to take his first few steps out of his recovery before there was a different scream that stole away from his inward focus. “—night!” the man near collapsed a stack of sandbags as he pushed forward to find the player. it had been her voice, hadn’t it, that distress call? to know, upon his re-entry to their exchange that the tides had shifted so much, had concerned him greatly — because despite the large gap between their positions, night was seen clutching her head, too. demian thought that for once, these strange effects, nuisances, hadn’t been targeted solely t

the creature had shuddered upon stumbling forward, registering its miss. and night wasn’t saying anything. rather, she quickly drew a sword the moment the — the thing — came rushing forward, and night swung her sword, and she hit it hard. just not enough to take it down. demian only registered this by the sounds occurring above his vision. there was this overwhelming feeling — unease, terror, a choking feeling that had him set a hand to the floor to hold himself up. all at once, it was as though his instincts were telling him to LEAVE. IMMEDIATELY. the eye he’d hid underneath h

he held his breath on the fifth. the presence was definitely tangible, now. that damned buzzing wouldn’t stop, and it was as though he could hear his heart beat loud in his ears. artificial. demian’s gaze first settled on the layout of the room before he saw the entity they’d been chasing — and the moment he’d saw it, it squeaked, backing up. it threw the makeshift barricades of the room into a mess. he held his head in a shot of pain; this time, it was more manageable than the last. night pointed past him. “it slipped through to the back!” so demian cleared the way gingerl

when he arrived at the clocktower’s doorstep, there was a bright blue puddle on the road by the front, the only saturated color against the dark and dull around them. a dry liquid in the same hue coated the wood of the door. that wasn’t for him to notice — his tell was the sounds of adjunct chaos coming up from above, the scampering sound accompanied by clicks and squeaks. nonetheless, he barged through, the door giving way to his shoulder. demian collapsed as that shriek came through again; this time, it was louder. they were on the right track then. he had a hand set to his t

closer to the docks, there was no one there. … no. there was definitely someone there, demian had thought. on their walk through the settlement, the village had seemed completely still. and yet, he’d imagined there was a louder shrill that sought to pierce his earbuds through the dampeners, now. something present that was watching their every move. just as night was about to take a turn towards what he believed would lead them closer to their objective, he stopped her. “do you hear that?” he had asked. “hear what?” so she didn’t. but he wasn’t certain he was wrong abou

he watched night listless, and then watched her fold herself back into her regular composure. at every turn, knowing it was an unspoken wish of their shared associate, he’d looked at night through her eyes. came to the same conclusions that she did, even if the results hadn’t changed his mind any. in every other version of this scenario occurring, he would’ve said this: “look,” he started again, shifting. “as difficult as it is to believe, we both have reasons why we don’t want this secret to be out in public. between the two of us, there is an information broker that we are both acq

ID242518 | ld2+5 = 7 | astragalus anathema is running. ID242517 | ld6+1 = 7 | demian caught him. he hated playing with these cards. night wouldn’t look at him in the face. “we’re going to have to operate with a level of trust here if we want to do this together,” he prefaced. “she didn’t tell me anything. just told me to be here for you in her stead.” his gaze swept the empty, the derelict, despondent afterlands, and he decided to feign insight. “she trusts me with her secret.” demian hesitated, wondering if he should’ve mentioned the player’s own. “i just connected the

ID242515 | ld4+1 | -> n/a. she turned to stare at him, his silhouette shadowed through the fog. for a moment, he pulled out something lodged in his ear — a flood of noise but poured forth and flooded his senses when he did. scrambling his capabilities for a response. he plugged it back in, knowing not what was the result of it, simply that he needed it. when he was ready, demian shambled forth like a ghost, a zombie, shooting night that half-lidded stare she was used to fronting, too. but that didn’t stop the player from grabbing the collar of his coat, thickened to ward against t

Demian | L30. | HP: 600/600 | EN: 93/93 | DMG: 19 | ACC: 4 | EVA: 3 | MIT: 81 | BH: 30 | LD: 1 | AA they often talked, and then went on their separate ways. the day callisto had been slain, it had been no different. it was only a matter of time to the constructs to realize when the new floor was open, and that would signal the 'retainer's' return home. in the meanwhile, they had been playing cards. 'cheat' was the multifaceted game they'd both agreed upon playing, for neither had a mechanical advantage over the other. that made every theoretically

demian was the one who found them first. "day," he regarded. and her player stilled in anger ahead of him, but demian wasn't really into paying attention to her. he gestured to the road behind him after day had turned to face him. "demian." "the attendant you're seeking is that way." a clenched fist, down on the table with a completed game of gyan chauper. it was a miracle the table hadn't shuddered as much as it should've, what with the apparent rage boiling behind night's eyes. what vitriol became apparent quickly in her words, however. "i'm right here, you know." de

demian: i'll just grab them on everyone's behalf. -> 100 flower petals from night.