?I wouldn't say it's not good, exactly.?
?I mean, it's not good.?
?But also it's not not good.?
"That's— fuck, Charlotte. You're seeing this too?" You nod. "Fuck! This is such an Ell—"
She slams her mouth shut mid-sentence. "—such a— whatever. Shut the fuck up, Charlotte. Don't say a fucking word."
"Such an Ell what?" you say. It's relieving to have a distraction.
Madrigal glares.
"Such an Ellery thing, you meant?"
"I'm—" Madrigal turns her glare to the gaping not-wall. "We're not talking about this."
"Why would it be an Ellery thing? Does he have a history of…" What did you just do? Don't answer that, Richard. "…that kind of thing?"
"He'd be a lot fucking better at this than you are," she hisses.
"So? You brought me."
She side-eyes you.
"Also, you wouldn't be here if not for me."
Her gaze flickers between you and the not-wall. Contemplating suplexing you through it?
"So that's a stupid thing to say!" you finish triumphantly.
"It's not." Madrigal's switched to handsign. Ha! Trying to a disguise a quaver? If so, she's doing a bad job— it's just transferred to her wrists. "He'd know what to do."
You laugh. "No he wouldn't."
"Fuck you. Fine, he wouldn't know. But he'd do something. We're just fucking standing here." She kicks the ground. "Fuckin'— sitting ducks."
"We should go," you say sagely.
"Yeah."
"We should go… down?"
"Yeah, whatever. As long as we go. And never—" Madrigal jerks a thumb over her shoulder, towards the war. "—never speak of that again."
At last, she talks sense! You offer your pinky. "Very well. I swear."
Madrigal gives you an "are you shitting me?" look, but upon seeing your solemn countenance sighs and extends her own pinky. "Yeah."
You shake and seal a sacred bond.
?Very moving. You realize the wall's harmless, Charlie.?
?It's just an empty buffer between here and there. It's sterile by design.?
?Charlie.?
Nope. You're not thinking about it. You're thinking positive. Positive thoughts, positive thoughts!
?Don't be stubborn, Charlie; it's not attractive.?
Nope. You're just going to scramble down this tunnel— it runs at a steep incline. The ceiling has gotten lower, but (thank God) you don't yet have to stoop. The right wall is stone. The left is, the left is—
The left is peeling off, because your life can't be easy. There's blackness behind it. "Madrigal," you call, but she's already up to a brisk walk. The peeling speeds apace. "Madrigal!" She's jogging. You're jogging. You're not quite sure why. The skin of the left wall curls like old paint. It's outstripped you. You bump into Madrigal, who's stopped dead watching the wall.
"Ow," you say. You would very much like to say something else, but you don't break pinkie swears so easily.
"Might as well keep going," Madrigal says grimly. "Unless you see any other fucking options. Just don't touch it."
?You should tell her it's sterile.?
You're not doing that. The tunnel is becoming cramped now, and the floor uneven— you wonder if something else came in here and dug it up, since a borehole ought to be smooth. Dead roots brush your hair. A crunch-squish is the only indication of a snail underfoot.
It is quite cramped. Your footsteps are echoing, which usually doesn't happen. Is it the water? You have no idea.
?Hold on.?
Hold on indeed: for the second time, you bonk straight into Madrigal. She seizes your shoulder and presses her hand flat against your lips.
Nothing.
She takes her hand off your shoulder and presses it to her lips. A warning. She then removes the hand from your mouth (you resist the urge to sputter) and takes a single heavy step backwards. It echoes. It echoes a moment too late.
Your eyes widen. "Someone's following us," Madrigal signs. "I thought it was off, but I wanted— someone's following us. Charlotte. Charlotte."
"There," you sign, pointing behind you, "or there?" To the wall. Which you didn't speak of, on a technical level, so you're in the clear.
"I don't…" Madrigal closes her eyes. "I think there. From the sounds of it. Something's in there."
?Behind there.?
"Behind," you say. "And I suppose you have an illustrious gameplan...?"
You don't get a response. Madrigal isn't looking at you. The algae lantern flickers portentously in your fingers. She's looking at the wall.
The wall— the blackness, you mean, there's no actual wall there— the wall is bulging.
?I retract all previous statements.?
>[1] RUN! RUN AWAY! [Roll.]
>[2] STAB! STAB THE WALL! [Roll.]
>[3] SHOVE MADRIGAL AND THEN RUN!
>[4] DIVE INTO THE WALL! (It's the… it's the element of surprise?)
>[5] WRITE-IN!
>RUN!: 78, 49, 11 vs. DC 55 — Mitigated Success
You do the only thing you can think to do: you shove past Madrigal and sprint headlong down the tunnel. She yelps and stumbles, and you think for a moment that's it, she's gone, oh well, what can you do— but she scrambles to her feet and launches after you, and that's about all you can see before the lantern gives one last gasp and gutters out at the worst possible moment.
"God!", you hiss (you can't get much more out at this pace), and toss the lantern aside. It probably hits the floor, but you have no way of knowing— you can't see anything. Er, that's wrong— you can see the feeble glow of your map, stuck in the side pocket of your backpack. So you know you exist.
Everything else… everything else is up for grabs. Madrigal is behind you, probably, but those footsteps could be yours or your echo's or— the thing's. Richard is, er... does he ever exist? Should he count?
?I certainly exist, Charlie; I'm just not real.?
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?Significant difference.?
Well, he's there, anyhow. The tunnel floor certainly exists. Whether the ceiling and right wall do so is an open question. You could— you could take the time to touch them, but that's time you don't have, and so you'll just have to assume they don't.
The left wall doesn't exist, per se, but you lied back there: you can see it, too. It's the same exact black as everything else, but it's richer— there's more in it, or something. What you can't see is whatever's following you. If it's following you. Is it following you? What are you running for? Maybe it was just a natural thing, like steam off a hydrothermal vent. Maybe you should just stop. You'd like to stop. Your lungs and legs are burning.
You should stop. Or slow down. You should…
?For what it's worth, I believe you're in danger.?
…You should just stop going quite so fast. Can you imagine if you blundered into something in the dark? Or, worse, fell? (The tunnel had plateaued, but it's inclining again.) Embarrassing. Unthinkable. If you just caught your breath for a second…
?If you want, I can take care of things.?
?But you don't want.?
?So get a move on, and I won't have to.?
You'd like to. (You need to. You're screaming at yourself that you need to.) But it's dark, and you haven't any idea where you're going, and, look, Richard, if things may or may not exist, there's really no pressing—
?You're difficult for the sake of it, Charlotte.?
>[-1 ID: 2/11]
You nearly trip at the shock up your spine, just barely managing to catch yourself— but your fingers brush the rubble-strewn floor, and that's where the trouble starts. The darkness abruptly contracts. It's not that it's not dark, because it is… but you can feel the earth close around and above you, and you know you're in a tunnel.
?There. I hope you're happy.?
You're not. You linger in a crouch. Above you lies— a thousand thousand crushed shells. Above that— ruins. Wisps of cold, strange people. Below you— earth and earth and earth and earth and
?Back up, Charlie. You don't belong down there.?
And earth and earth and earth and— you're back, unfazed. You can handle this. Behind you lies— Madrigal, or at least Madrigal's footprints. How far? Far. She stopped a long while back. If you try, if you really scratch up against the stone, you can… see outlines, or vibrations, or… something. She's kicking rhythmically. She's— there's a hand over her mouth.
You take your hand off the ground, and the darkness expands. It doesn't seem real, what you saw. It probably wasn't. But if you strain, if you really strain to listen—
You can hear muffled yelling down the tunnel.
(Pick ONE primary motivation.)
>[A1] SAVE MADRIGAL… so she'll owe you later.
>[A2] SAVE MADRIGAL… because she did earlier. (Well, she tried to.) You'll be square after.
>[A3] SAVE MADRIGAL… because you don't want to have to explain where she went to everyone, you know?
>[A4] SAVE MADRIGAL… because that's what a heroine is supposed to do.
>[A5] SAVE MADRIGAL… because you might care. Not a lot. A little tiny bit. But you might.
>[A6] SAVE MADRIGAL… for a different reason. [Write-in.]
or
>[B1] DITCH MADRIGAL. Your reasons are your own.
and/or, optional:
>[C1] Get some light in here. Your only real option for this is Richard, unfortunately.
>[C2] Write-in some kind of plan? It'll help.
>[C3] Write-in.
You hesitate. And then you think backwards, upwards, to you and Madrigal and the quicksand. She had tried to save you. (Though you weren't in danger, so it doesn't really count, but— it's about the principle of the thing.) Meaning that if you left her, and she died, she'd die a better person than you. And if she lived— imagine the trouble she'd cause. She already (unjustly) called you a "psycho"!
The conclusion is obvious. The only way to resolve this discrepancy (for it is a discrepancy— she's a criminal, for God's sake; she has short hair; she shows cleavage she doesn't even have— she's not better than you) is by saving her back.
Or, well, appearing to make the effort to save her back. Whatever's most expedient.
?If you absolutely must.?
You absolutely must. And you would, if only it weren't so dark. Have you gotten turned around? You can barely hear Madrigal, she's so faint.
?Just use a light, Charlie.?
You don't have a light, genius.
?You always have a light.?
That sounds like a stupid metaphor. Is it a metaphor? Is it, like, "the real light is in your heart—"
?No.?
Then what? Because you definitely do not have a light. Your light broke. And then broke again.
?Charlotte.?
?Just stick your damn hand in your pocket.?
Why didn't he just say so? You stick your hand in your coat pocket and come up empty. Other side— empty. (Didn't you have things in them? You don't remember.) Slacks pockets— empty, empty, empty… ah. You retrieve something rectangular from your sixth empty pocket. It takes a full minute, or a few seconds, to figure out it's a lighter, open the lighter, and flick the lighter on.
Light! Quite bad light, dim and flickery, but light all the same. Also, flame, but you've long since given up trying to make sense of it. You suspect it's not real, if only because that's Richard's answer for everything. The tunnel, which is definitely 100% real, closes in on you.
(The lighter is brass. It is shaped like a snake, as if you needed any clues to who the owner is.)
?There. You're welcome.?
You scrunch your face. "My thumb hurts." It does. The flint wheel is digging into it. "Do you have a lantern, or—"
?No.?
?I have a lighter.?
?It's very expensive, and beggars should not be choosy.?
Well— could you not just ditch the light altogether? And just use your, um, magyckal earth powers to navigate— does Richard know what's up with that? I mean, really, what? You didn't think you had earth magyck in your veins, but you wouldn't say no to earth magyck in your…
?Do I know what's up with that.?
Yeah. And, you mean, he gave you this whole spiel about how he wasn't going around granting you new powers, or anything like that, so clearly you must have some kind of latent magyck, which is very exciting, you have to admit, but if he's got any clarification that'd be, er...
There is a withering sort of feeling coming from your ponytail region.
?Do I know what's up with that.?
?Do I know what's up with that thing, which I did.?
?Let's sit down and have a long think about this.?
You are sensing… he does know what's up with that.
?You like to raise my hopes then dash them all over the floor, don't you.?
?I don't know, Charlie. Let's consider what's more likely. One, you have latent earth ma-
…Two?
?Shockingly, yes.?
?I altered you. We've been over this.?
Have we?
?It is no different from an improved finger-grip. I granted you a minor form of heightened awareness. Are you claiming that it hasn't been useful.?
No? It's been... obviously it's been useful, Richard, but couldn't he lie and tell you it's special? That he's granting you snake magyck? You could wrap your head around snake magyck, even if it doesn't make a lot of sense. What do snakes have anything to do with the earth? Don't they swim? Richard doesn't go around in the dirt. God! Is he tricking you? You feel tricked. He always does this.
?What would I be tricking you about. You are the one inventing fictitious 'ma-gicks'. I am the one saving your life.?
?But sure, Charlie. Go ahead and ma-gick your way out of this. I'm sure you'll be able to save her while rooted to the ground. Very wise.?
Can't you walk and...?
?Don't be ridiculous.?
Fine! You didn't want to use his stupid snake magyck, anyways. (It probably isn't even snake magyck. That makes no sense.) Rousing yourself from your half-crouch, you hurry back up the corridor, lighter in hand.
Five minutes (thirty seconds? two hours? time chokes itself to death in the dark) uphill, Madrigal has Madrigal pinned against the blackness of the left "wall." What? No, that's right. Being pinned: Madrigal. Doing the pinning: …well, okay, kind of. Maybe not. The second Madrigal is certainly Madrigal, having the same height and hair and features and so on, except for the things that are wrong. For instance, Madrigal has a thin scar on her face, not a massive blotchy birthmark-looking thing. Madrigal's teeth are not copper. Madrigal's clothes are not fused indistinctly to her skin (though with how thin the fabric is, and the water, you understand how the mistake could be made, just saying). Just because Madrigal occasionally holds a spear in her hand does not mean that her left arm is, in fact, the spear. But not even just the spear, that'd be too easy— the spear, which gradually morphs into a copper pipe as it reaches the tip of the haft. As the arm.
You have made the decision that the second Madrigal is, in fact, Certainly Not Madrigal.
As you'd been processing this, though (your dawning comprehension had kept being interrupted with muffled yells, which irritated you), Certainly Not Madrigal presses Madrigal perilously close to the boundary. Your hand goes to your shortsword. Certainly Not Madrigal presses Madrigal into the boundary. ("MPMPH!", Madrigal says.) You realize, perhaps a smidge too late, that this fraction of a second is the point of no return.