Story Thread - 8/17

[Aquinas]

First topic message reminder :

A memory (cw: hydrophobia):

You awake with a start to the sound of your alarm. It was only a dream.

You roll over with a groan and force your bleary eyes to make out the numbers on your clock. 8:30. The last Tuesday for a while that you'll get to sleep that late.

You go about your morning routine - shower, breakfast, switch on the TV. You're disturbed by the news - still no sign of Mikayla Li. Her mothers are begging anyone who knows anything to come forward. The details of the dream are already starting to fade in your mind, but you think Mikayla was in it. You decide you've been watching the news too close to bedtime.

You check your email. Vice Principal wants to see you today when you get in. You've seen her a few times at various meetings in the last few weeks, but you haven't had the chance to talk to her one-on-one yet. Good, now you'll get the opportunity.

You hop in your car, or on a bike, or on a bus. The town rolls past you - the bars of Dear Bellam are tossing out the garbage and putting up their breakfast menus for last night's patrons with this morning's hangovers. Someone's working on fixing the skylight on the roof of the art museum - it must have taken a beating in that hailstorm last month. The joggers in Meadows U shirts are out in force in Syme Park, a few of them stopping for a water break around the theater troupe's stage. There's a long drive-thru line at Big Bang Burger, but what else is new.

Finally, you roll up to Barton High School.

The facade hasn't changed much since the 50's - and that gives it a certain charm, you think. Today the charm is accentuated by the flowers out front, pink and white and yellow, which Mr. LeFleur has spent all summer cultivating to bloom in a pattern that spells out

WELCOME BACK CRUSADERS
WE'VE MISSED YA

Robbie's out front now, trimming his masterpiece - he gives you a wave as you pull up. As you wave back, you're still running over your day in your head - you need to finish setting up your room for tomorrow, but first you need to swing by and see Vice Principal Hunt. And that's when you notice the others, heading down the lawn beside you towards the front doors.

It seems the four of you arrived at exactly the same time.

[GM_3826]

"You're a mess. Then again, I don't know who isn't after that." Naomi slowly walks over to Nicus, lifts up his chin, and takes his glasses. "I feel much better now that I'm in normal clothes again, thanks. Although, I really ought to get back home and rest... maybe get some work done." Naomi rubs off the glasses on the sleeves of her shirt and gently places them back on Nicus's face before turning to Betty.

"I'm not sure if you realize it by now, but it bears repeating that that wasn't a dream. Pinch yourself if you don't believe me." It's at this point as Naomi turns her head to the rest of the group that they are likely to notice how exhausted she looks. Her eyelids were drooping, there were bags underneath, and she was as pale as a ghost. "Isn't that the stereotype? Oh, whatever." Naomi sighs.

[[VIOLET]]

Castillo's voice was hoarse, or hollow, as he tried to stammer out a response--as if he couldn't quite find the spot in his throat where his voice had just been coming out before. His head shook vaguely in the motion of a 'no,' though it could just as easily have been a shiver. "N-no, I... I see. I... think, anyway."

His body felt so heavy. And the stiffness in all his joints seemed to all twist back into being at once, a coordinated attack that sent him leaning right back into his cane--thank goodness it just happened to be there as soon as he walked back out, or else he would have collapsed right into the ground with Nicus. While he stumbled, the lingering adrenaline from the heat that nearly singed his back got him to reorient himself quickly. Maybe he reached into his sleeve to pinch himself at Naomi's suggestion, or, maybe he didn't. It was a subdued motion, like the part of a magic trick meant to be kept well out of sight.

"It... may take me some time... to get it," he continued slowly, "please, be patient with me... in the meantime."

His eyes avoided the others as he caught his breath--and then he turned his gaze through the wire fence, towards the parking lot.

After a short beat, he continued again.

"Nicus, I have a question..." He kept his stormy eyes fixed on the empty, liminal, barely-illuminated midnight lot. "You said something to the effect of... how you had a feeling Ms. Li might have fallen in there, somehow. I can see there is a place she could be--but..."

He continued not to look at anyone as weariness began to sink over his expression again.

"It's been... more than three weeks--a little over a month..? And there's a giant, fiery sphere demon," (demon, demon encapsulated it pretty well) "that chases people out if they... what, don't belong there. Not only that but..."

Castillo's weakened voice hovered delicately over the gravel in his throat. "...it must be so hot over there. We could feel the heat even from the other side of the bridge, I... can't imagine what it must be like inside those walls."

He brought up both hands to fix his glasses--which were already perfectly balanced on his nose, and certainly not unsteady enough that he would need to hold them there for the entire long moment it took for any of his teammates to respond.

"So... what exactly is the point, here?" As his voice took on a harsh--if not sinister--edge, one of his hands came back down to sit inside his coat pocket. "Let's say we do get our ticket in--what are we looking for, and what are we risking? You and the orb called us Knights--but what the shit does that mean with regards to what we can do about this?"

"I'm not enabling a fucking suicide mission again. If that's our angle here, whatever greater entity who 'chose' all the 'ones' clearly was low on options. 'Oh, we're Champions, so we can access this place through water at will! Cool, I needed a better place to hide my body,' because that sounds like the best thing I can do there besides get cooked like it's the early nineteen-forties! Jesus Christ..."

Now it was his turn to dig into his pocket for a cigarette. Fucks fucking fuck, at midnight, of all the times... most likely, before anyone (much less Alexander, to whom Castillo made no effort to even show interest in helping up) could answer, a cheap Marlboro would be lit up between his lips--the speck of crimson at its end near-incomparable to the sight they had just left behind.

[Aquinas]

"Thank you, Naomi," said Nicus, taking his glasses back with a grateful half-smile. He placed them back on his face, a funny contrast to his still mud-covered face, and rose to his feet on shaky legs - it still took him some time to get used to them again whenever he returned.

He stood like a guilty child, shivering in the cold and wet, as Castillo laid in to him. He didn't reply for several seconds, instead taking a moment to uselessly try and wipe the mud from his coat. No one could tell what was happening in his eyes, but for the first time that night, his movements didn't seem nervous.

"It does seem - hopeless, I'll..." His teeth were chattering. "Mikayla has been in there for a long time. I'm worried about her safety. I don't know... exactly what we're supposed to do in there, or even what it will look like. I don't know how we're supposed to find the Page, I can only assume I'll be able to sense it like I did with the rest of you, and even if we do, and we get inside, and we find Mikayla, I don't... I don't know... what we'll find. But..."

He took the glasses off to wipe the mud from his face, revealing his eyes. The last remnants of light in the pools of rainwater below reflected in their pale glass as he spoke.

"But, you're her teachers. How can you not at least try?"

[GM_3826]

Naomi wipes the sweat off her brow. She was honestly thinking of asking the same question, and is not satisfied by that response.

"How can we not at least try? Nicus, humor me for a moment and think about what happens if we fail this rescue. Who's going to be there to protect the other students? If we're the only ones who are aware of the psychotic dream realm outside our mysterious new VP who asked us to sign a pact disguised as a contract, no one else is going to be there to step in and keep students who fall in by accident from getting captured or hurt after we die. If we don't have any idea of how exactly we are to defeat whatever that thing that chased us out is, it's not reasonable to stake our lives and that of our other students on it."

Naomi grimaces after saying that. It clearly pains her. "I want to save her, but unless by some miracle we discover why exactly your subconscious is telling you we have a chance before it's too late..." She pauses.  "Maybe it would be best to just investigate and do our best to hightail it out of there if it looks like we're going to get hurt." She is still visibly reluctant to express herself after that outburst, but feels like she has to say something else, so she continues. "This is a really unbelievable situation, and I honestly don't know what we can really do. We're not Champions, or anything like that. Not as far as we know. We're people. So, for now we just have to handle this situation the way a person would, even if we must take responsibility. For the good of our students."

[Aquinas]

Nicus recoiled at the brusqueness of Naomi's tone. "I-I'm not advocating that we rush in blindly, I... Of course, some more investigation is necessary first. Find this Page, first and foremost, and try to find some more information about what that place really is... I don't want to die, any more than you do." Still shivering, he wrapped his coat a little tighter. "But it's reasonable to expect more from me, that I understand... I've dropped quite a bit on you all tonight, and I apologize for that. For the time being, we may want to, brr, call it a night, and, er, allow tensions to cool..."

[GM_3826]

Naomi glared at Nicus as a tear fell down her eye. She says, clearly stammering to put the words out there, "Yes, that's what I was thinking..." She glances around at the rest of the group once more before turning her head away from everyone. She did not want to be seen like this. She can't.

[Mirkwood]

Joshua had stumbled a bit while exiting the portal, suddenly feeling heavier than before. It was a strange sensation, but one that he quickly became re-accustomed to. Nicus had gone facefirst on the ground, probably due to the whole being a snake thing. Joshua was still catching his breath as Shimizu wiped off Nicus' glasses before he stood back up.

Castillo reasoned that even if Mikayla had gotten trapped there, it wasn't exactly a safe place to exist. And the heat...  It seemed to Joshua that his clothes would've caught fire if he hadn't left so quickly. It reminded him of when he had stood to close to the campfire on a camping trip with his family, and he ended up getting a little singed, even without touching the fire. It hurt for a couple days after, but wasn't too bad. He imagined that getting too close to the orb demon would have had more disastrous results. If Mikayla was somehow still alive in there...

Did Castillo say a suicide mission again...? What had he gone through on his... Navy assignment...? Joshua really didn't know a lot about the math teacher, besides that he was generally grumpy, and not particularly talkative, but he had seen somewhere that the man had been some sort of sailor, and he didn't seem like the type to work on a cruise ship or fishing boat.

Nicus gave a bit of a response, perhaps a bit inspiring. It was strange, that he seemed so certain about all this, so determined to try. He had always seemed jittery, and to see him so calm, despite the hopelessness of such a mission... It was impressive. It was true, they all were teachers at the school. And just that morning they had pledged to take responsibility for the students. Although all of this wasn't exactly what that would typically mean.

Shimizu, despite looking quite distressed, put forward a good plan. Do some more investigation, but hightail out of any serious danger. They did need to survive, at least... Joshua tried to move off the thought of his possible death quickly, by considering how Shimizu looked... Tired. Really tired. Joshua supposed they all looked pretty tired, with how late it was, and the terrifying situation they just escaped. But Shimizu always seemed so calm, and put together... Ever since he had met her back during the faculty orientation meetings a few years ago, she was never one to seem upset, or really, emotional at all, even when dealing with difficult students or the occasional bad news. This really had to be something serious to get her like that.
Tch. Who was he kidding, nobody would be in a great place after seeing what went on tonight.

With Nicus' suggestion to call it a night, Joshua suddenly felt the late night catch up to him. It was past midnight, and the adrenaline wasn't going to keep him up much longer. He had better get home soon enough to get some attempt at sleep before the proper school day.

"...One thing, before we go-- We had better get a time and place to talk about all this, again. Somewhere away from others, where we won't be disturbed, preferably...  I don't exactly think conversation about fire demons through a portal will go over well in the teachers lounge at lunch."

[Sharks]

Betty was...

Betty was.

Coming out of the portal, back into her twenty nine year-old body, with all her clothes, all her tattoos, all her self, hair falling in front of her face as she bent down, panting, feeling the edges of her denim sleeves rub against her wrists, breathing in that cool summer night air, fists curled inside her pockets around her mace-knuckles, feeling her heart beat wildly, pounding viciously against the bars of her rib cage in a futile effort to escape her body entirely, she felt like she truly existed for the first time since, perhaps, that ill-fated contract-signing session. It made her nauseous. Everything was catching up with her at once - how crazy everything was, the fact that she almost just died, she was - she was supposed to fight that thing?

There was one of those things that corresponded to her?

It made her - scared, terrified, but she'd show that on her face when she was dead. The cat was a little out of the bag with her panicked mad dash to get the hell away from that thing, but as long as she bounced back fast it would be fine. Her next instinct was dread - not for herself, but for Mikayla. Could she already be...?

No. No, fuck that, that didn't happen in stories like this one. She wouldn't let it. If she was wrong... she'd burn that bridge when she came to it.

Each of those emotions denied any purchase in her, she turned to that age-old friend of hers called fury. It was almost second nature to her - the drive to lash out, to hide her actual feelings behind a rictus of rage. The urge toward violence had been wrung out of her bones ages ago, but she had a vocabulary and she knew how to use it. She was dully aware that people around her were talking - Naomi said that it wasn't a dream again, which made her brain stutter to a halt for a moment, re-disassociating as she contemplated whether that woman was psychic or something (her eventual conclusion, at this point, was Sure, why the hell not).

So as the others talked about... going back in there, suicide missions, Pages, meetings, her anger waxed and waned in fits and starts as her fraying mind stumbled over the conversation. They couldn't just - give up. There were deaths that are more important than the literal kind, and becoming the sort of coward or calloused fuck who would abandon someone in need for sake of fear or pragmatism was one of them. They needed to know how to fight in the dream world, but to Betty, saving Mikayla soon was way more important than being one hundred percent prepared. If they didn't go back in there tomorrow she would fucking kill somebody. Castillo had better watch his fuckin' ass. She wanted to yell at someone, but Alex looked way too much like a kicked puppy for comfort, and... seeing Naomi like this felt wrong, even if they hadn't known each-other long in the grand scheme of things.

So she sucked it up, mostly, but she couldn't help but give a certain edge to her voice.

"Pages are apprenticed to Knights. I don't think we have four new co-workers this year, so apprentices in the sense of "new teachers" probably isn't right. Maybe I'm wrong, but... if fate, destiny, whatever, wants us to bring more children to that place? That's not fucking happening. We'll find another way. There's probably a teen-me with a weapon somewhere out there, I'll turn into that one next time." It was ridiculous, of course - there was no weapon she'd ever carried in her delinquent days that could put a dent in something like the Red King. Not normally. But... if it was sort of a dream realm, then... maybe that didn't matter. Maybe, if she put enough willpower behind her strikes, she could make that thing hurt.

She'd just... have to become the sort of person who could face a monster like that without flinching.

Easy peasy.

[GM_3826]

Naomi is a bit on edge still, so she's more cognizant of what the people around her are thinking and feeling than she would otherwise be. Most of that was social anxiety, and she filters it out, but Betty is nowhere near as good as concealing her emotions as she thinks she is.

"I... I honestly don't know what you're thinking," she pleads, fighting off a personal instinct, "but if it's that it's as simple as just willing it into existence... It can't be. You tried to do that multiple times there. There's some sort of switch, or at least a mental block, and we have no idea what it is. I want to just as much as you do. I'm just not sure it's possible, and that's what scares me, because I'm still holding out hope we can."

[[VIOLET]]

While the others got their bearings, Castillo wandered off about twelve paces so he could smoke without a stray breeze blowing it into anyone's face at full blast. After a couple of deep draws, finally, a vague sense of... if not calm, then normalcy, finally returned to his head like dots of rain falling on a windshield. Slowly, but surely, it would lower him back into a languid lull--like a piece of paper sinking to the bottom of the sea.

Noting Joshua's suggestion, he exhaled a misty ribbon of smoke.

"I'm not dealing with this." He angled his face away: while his decisive words came out suddenly, they also seemed to lack the scathing edge his voice possessed earlier. "You three enjoy coming up with fantastical, Arthurian bullshit to justify to yourselves that you're willing to deal with the consequences for diving into crap you don't understand... and, what the hell. Why not knock back a few shots at Bellam's while you're at it? Maybe it'll help your funny ideas start at least sounding a little more entertaining."

He directed a particularly cutting glare--through the corner of one eye--towards Betty. He had directed many similar glances her way in the past year (all differentiated by subtle notes of exasperation, incredulousness, perhaps occasional but only ever fleeting hurt, and frustration), however, this one...

...seemed to carry a sharpened, momentous, and special kind of malice.

It was gone in an instant when he turned fully towards the parking lot and started hobbling away.

"Good night." While he said it softly, he armed each word with curt punctuation. "I'm sorry I can't be of any help."

[Sharks]

Betty heaved in a deep breath as Naomi spoke, schooling her expression further, shuffling her stance into something more confident. "Of course it's not that simple. But for all we know, that "switch" is only going to be accessible in Wonderland, not outside of it. If we can't even muster up enough conviction to go over there to try..." Her fists tightened, knuckles whitening, and she looked away, almost whispering. "How the hell are we ever going to face something like the Red King?" It's not as if she wasn't terrified... but acknowledging that part of her, giving it any ground whatsoever, could lead to Mikayla's death. She had no room in her heart for doubt; with every pulse of blood through her veins, with every expansion of her lungs, she filled herself with a whole-body resolution - or tried to, anyway. Whether it was real or not... she didn't know.

She'd gotten too good at lying to herself, over the years.

And then Castillo opened his stupid fucking mouth.

Her hackles had raised themselves before the first syllable had left his lips - a supernatural sense for dickshittery, perhaps. But honestly, it doesn't take a psychic to guess what flavor of bullshit is gonna spill out of that guy's mouth. With every word, she was reminded that, oh right, she hated this guy for a reason. It was bad enough seeing him disregard his students' feelings when it was his job and responsibility to do right by them - but now, he was disregarding his duty, his responsibility as an adult human being, to protect the life of a child.

When he met Betty's eyes...

Betty wasn't typically a hateful person. She could be frustrated, yes, angry, hurt, occasionally even furious. But hatred - at least hatred of others - didn't come naturally to her. At most, perhaps a deep sense of disgust and disappointment, and even that was rare; toward her father, certainly, and most of the near-strangers she'd met at Gabe's funeral, and perhaps very occasionally her mother, although it was always tempered by a certain sense of resigned pity. Various less-memorable others over the years, generally encountered briefly and never seen again. Castillo, in those moments she was reminded he was actually a dick, and not in a fun, banter-y kind of way.

Hatred...

Her grandparents, all of them. Gabe's parents. Anybody who'd ever tried slipping something in a friend's drink. A few other friends' parents, although she'd generally never met any of them in person - just seen pictures, heard stories, felt out the holes in their childrens' hearts where trust and affection ought to have gone. Birds of a feather, or something like that.

And, in that place, in that moment in time...

When their eyes met, perhaps Jean-Paul Castillo would be surprised to find the venom in his gaze returned in full. The steel-gray windows to Betty's soul were as cold then as they had ever been, heavy as axe-heads, flashing like thunderclouds, sharp and pointed like no Earthly thing could be.

It was possible Castillo had borne the brunt of such gazes before; it was unlikely he'd met any belonging to a face, or a person, less suited to them. The effect was more eerie than humorous.

I see who you are, now.

Not especially long after he'd begun walking away, Betty's posture relaxed itself. She was more certain in that moment than she'd been all day.

"Coward."

She wasn't speaking to him, really, because there wouldn't be any point; the comment was made to herself, and perhaps the other teachers. A punctuation mark, appended firmly to the end of the story of Castillo's life up to that point. It would reach his ears nonetheless; she hadn't been whispering.

"We'll meet at the pool or some shit, I don't know. I'm going the fuck to sleep."

Her piece being said, she began her trek off of school property. She hadn't parked in the parking lot, having been filled to the brim with righteous paranoia, and she was thankful for it - there was no way she was even looking in Cas's direction for the foreseeable future.

[[VIOLET]]

off:

[Mirkwood]

Joshua stared out into the night, as he drove down the empty streets towards his home.

He had left after Castillo and Bright had begun walking off. He offered some attempt at an apology and mention that pool after school would be their best bet for a meeting to Nicus and Shimizu, before walking slowly toward his car in the parking lot.

He had a bit of time to think, on the way home. There was somehow a fantasy world that he and the other teachers had access to. It didn't really make much sense, and almost could have been a hallucination the whole time, except that everything was too consistent to be primarily random firings in the brain. They had all talked, coherently, and had seen the same thing. And his sense of body was different, younger, more fit. And then the heat... He had never heard of a hallucinogen that could cause such a reaction. It was possible, he supposed, but again, this was too consistent.

So now what? They had to find a 'page'. At least Nicus said he would take care of it... But what was he himself to do? Once they found the page, they would all have to somehow save Mikayla from the giant crimson demon. And based on what had happened back on the field, they would do it without Castillo. Could he convince Castillo to come with them? It would be a slim chance for him to do anything. He was decent at talking, but not particularly persuasive. Certainly not persuasive enough to convince Castillo of all people. He was stubborn enough when it came to being stuck in his way of doing things, most often for his own comfort. This, though, was dealing with his life and possible death.

And what about his own life? He had things to do, although it wouldn't be quite as difficult at the beginning of the semester, but soon enough, he would be swamped with grading assignments, where he didn't exactly have many long hours to explore a deadly castle in another dimension. And still, they had to at least try to hurry. Leaving Mikayla in there for longer than was possible to get her out was... A distressing thought, to say the least. Perhaps someone would have a good idea, or some more info, by the time they met back up at the pool tomorrow. With how little sleep he expected they all would get, that might be a little too hopeful.

As he tried to shake off this train of thought, he noticed a light emanating from the front room, probably from the TV. It was probably Carter, watching another few episodes of one of his cartoons that he seemed to like. Joshua hadn't bothered watching much of them, especially since he always seemed to be watching them late at night. Hopefully Carter wouldn't ask too much about what he had been doing. He had snuck out pretty quickly earlier...

Exiting the car, and getting to the door, Joshua took a breath. He could hear Carter laughing loudly at whatever comedic scene was happening. Slowly, Joshua opened up the door.
The sound from the TV was heard briefly before stopping, paused. "Hey, Joshua. You're out late. Were you having a night out on the town?"
"Mm. Something like that."
"I hope you weren't driving drunk, I don't think Kyle would bail you out if you drove your car off the road at one in the morning," Carter chuckled at his joke. He knew that Joshua wasn't always the most responsible, but he certainly wasn't stupid. After a few drinks, though, it could certainly happen.
"I wasn't. Just driving tired. Everything's fine."
"Yeah, yeah. Don't you have to teach in the morning? Probably not a great time to go out, unless... Was it some sort of date?" Carter raised his eyebrows, with a cheesy smile. Joshua was too tired to deal with Carter's ribbing.
"No."
"Ah, come on, you gotta find someone sooner or later, or you're gonna end up one of those cranky old men who never talk to anyone and rarely see the light of day," Carter said, still grinning like a madman.
"I imagine that I'll still be teaching, so it won't be too bad. Goodnight."
"Alright, alright, goodnight!"

If Joshua wasn't tired before, he sure was now. Carter's talkativeness was tiring even when he hadn't been awake for something like 19 hours straight. He slowly lumbered up the stairs to his bedroom as the TV resumed playing, tossing his jacket and plaid button up onto the floor and collapsed on his bed, which gave off a wheeze before grumbling into a stable configuration.

[Aquinas]

Alexander watched helplessly as the group departed, stalking off one by one into the night. This had not been what he'd wanted. He'd been supposed to bring them together, as a team. This was...

He looked at Naomi, and absorbed the look in her eyes. It made him shrink into himself. He tried to stammer an apology, but he couldn't settle on what to say, and the words were still caught on the way to his throat by the time Naomi had turned and left him under the bleachers. As she disappeared into the darkness, the last glimmer of light from the other world faded, as if she had taken it with her.

Nicus just stood there under the bleachers, wet and shivering. He felt like crying, but couldn't. Perhaps he really was a snake.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Your eyes open, but you do not awaken. Sleep still pours from your eyes like sand. Your movements are sluggish. But you're back.

You're seated in a chair around a round table. You look around. It's a familiar cathedral, bathed in soft blue light, one you've seen once before (have seen a thousand times, in a thousand forgotten dreams). The chair is the one you felt drawn to on your last visit, but somehow it feels different now - more comfortable. There have been no visible alterations, but now it feels like it was built for your exact specifications - like you could sit here, presiding, enthroned, forever.

Three of the other four chairs are occupied now. The forms in them are hazy, indistinct. Shadows. The grandest seat remains empty. For some reason, this is a relief.

The man with the nose is here again, and so are his ethereal companions.

"Ah... welcome back, dear Champions, to the Velvet Room."

Victoria gives you a toothy grin. Robert's eyes sparkle.

"You've had an eventful evening," Igor says, one hand curled upwards in the air. "You have all glimpsed the darkness yet to come. There will be many perilous days ahead, but they will be a turning point in your destiny, and the destinies of your charges. Yes, I do look forward to seeing it all unfold..."

Robert steps forward, fingers flipping through a thick leather tome with barely contained excitement. "As your chronicler," he says, "I could not agree more with Igor. In particular, I look forward to seeing the development of your bonds. With each other, and with those most dear to you." As he speaks, he drops the tome on the table, where it lands with a striking thud that nearly wakes you - you think you see the waking world briefly flash before your eyes. The book slides towards you, moving of its own accord, and you see, at the top of the page...

THE KNIGHT OF [YOUR SUIT]

And below it, a list of... something else.

ACE OF [YOUR SUIT] - ____________

TWO OF [YOUR SUIT] - ____________

"This is the record of your bonds," says Robert, gesturing theatrically at the page. "The Champion's ability is the power to control one's own heart, and the heart is strengthened by bonds. As you form bonds by becoming involved with others, your own Social Links will gradually develop. The power of these Social Links is what will determine your Persona's abilities."

"Psst, bro!" Victoria whispers frantically. She cups her hand around her mouth in a way which does not at all disguise her speech, and speaks in a whisper that does not at all reduce her volume. "They haven't awakened their Personas yet!"

"Oh, my goodness, how dreadfully forward of me," Robert says, flushing. "Well, that will all become clear soon enough."

You can see the first part of each line clearly, but the other half is strangely smudged. It continues like this for fourteen lines...

"I'm afraid those won't come in to focus until you've affirmed your bond for the first time." Igor's smooth voice reasserts itself, falling like honey on your ears. "Seek out opportunities to deepen them. You may find them in the most unlikely of places..."

You feel the stir of something stirring your consciousness... a persistent sound, ringing from far away....

"Ah, our time is far too short... It is time to face your futures with resolve. Do return again soon, dear Champion..."

You feel yourself return to the sea of souls...

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