“I already told you, I’m fine.” Gladiolus-wreathed Queen grumbled, full, bottom lip jutting out in a pronounced pout.

Lucian chuckled shortly. “Save your breath. By the looks of it, Cardinal’s not going to listen anytime soon.”

The honey blonde rolled her eyes, an exasperated look overtaking her features even as she winced. “Who’s fault is that, hmmm? And dammit, Cardinal, not so hard, please.”

The white-haired waif glanced up as her handle was uttered. Taking a second to register what was said, she tutted disapprovingly before refocusing on Gladiolus-wreathed Queen's bared back and started from where she left off.

“I did tell you not to move, didn’t I? It’s already hard enough that I only remember bits and pieces of my first aid training, so please don’t make it any more difficult for me.” She said plaintively while resuming her bandaging efforts.

“Best listen to her, Queen.” He offered, a slight, amused smirk tugging at his lips. “You know what they say: don’t piss off the medic.”

“I’ve haven’t heard that one before, so stuff it.” Gladiolus-wreathed Queen retorted sharply, before her lips tilted downwards. “At least… I don’t think I have. Damn these missing memories.”

Lucian winced empathetically and dropped the topic, knowing full well how she felt. Instead of restarting the conversation, he idly swept his eyes over the nearby area, trying to find something else to do besides stare at the two women like a creep. The serpentine ebony monstrosity, limply splayed across one of the nearby tables, sparked an idea to life.

Unlike the two times before, when the emotionless voice had readily provided information on any slain creature, it had remained surprisingly silent on the bare-boned monstrosity. Don't get him wrong. He would have triggered his Knowledge implant on it earlier, but Transient Cardinal's insistence on attending to Gladiolus-wreathed Queen's unseen injuries had diverted his attention completely.

The raven-haired man immediately acted on his thoughts. Walking over to the creature’s corpse, he dropped his end table next to its far larger hardwood counterpart; the echo of wood impacting against tiles momentarily breaking the quiet lull blanketing the hallway's confines.

He hesitated for a brief moment, fingers flexing in uncertainty, before shaking off the emotion and tapping the pitch black spine just before triggering the Knowledge implant.

Name: Shadowborn Skullker.

Descriptor: A defeated foe scourged of all its flesh before its skull and spine were bathed in condensed, liquid shadows.

Remarks: If you didn’t have ophidiophobia before…

While the narrated Descriptor was a disturbingly macabre one, Lucian was far more focused on mulling over the mellifluous voice's cavalier Remark. The raven-haired man had no bloody clue what ophidiophobia was, but a pattern seemed to be emerging vis-à-vis the Knowledge implant's more recent Remarks. Though the emotionless timbre and mechanical cadence hadn’t changed, the contents had become noticeably cheekier.

Shaking his head to dismiss such meaningless, idle speculations, he turned his eyes onto the two pieces of loot that had popped up sometime after the Shadowborn Skullker's demise. While one was downright unsettling, the other was simple and inconspicuous.

He tapped the dry surface of the solitary ebony vertebra before scooping up the plain grey drawstring pouch; Knowledge implant triggered while enacting the consecutive actions.

Name: Hollow Vertebra.

Descriptor: A shockingly durable bone, one bathed in, and imbued with, the shadows.

Remarks: One won't prove to be all that useful, unfortunately.

Name: Shadow-imbued Bonedust.

Descriptor: A pouch containing approximately five pinches of finely ground bone.

Remarks: Sugar, spice, and everything nice~… but perhaps a little pinch of something extra, too?

Lucian’s eyes flickered over to Transient Cardinal and Gladiolus-wreathed Queen before focusing back on the two looted items, wondering how to best distribute them. Things should be as fair as possible, after all.

Soft footsteps approaching from behind drew him out of his contemplations. Moments later, a silky waterfall of white and a dishevelled cascade of honey blonde appeared on his right and left, respectively; Transient Cardinal evidently finished with bandaging up Gladiolus-wreathed Queen's unseen abrasions.

“Found anything interesting?” The former asked, hair swaying to the right as she skewed her head slightly. From the interested look on the latter's face, it was clear she wanted to know, too.

“I just appraised the loot and the creature, is all.” Lucian answered, before rattling off all the information he had just acquired before either could ask.

“Ewww! Both of those sound disgusting.” Gladiolus-wreathed Queen declared, her scrunched up button nose only accentuating her clear tone of disgust

After a beat of silence, Transient Cardinal added in her own opinion; a faraway look clouding her pale blue eyes. “I’m sure they’ll prove useful at some point later on. Loot from mobs always do, eventually.”

“My Perception implant does agree with you, but still. Ewww!”

At the mentioning of the Perception implant, Lucian's mind flashed back to an earlier conversation.

…

Though an odd coincidence, the three had somehow selected the entire range of options available after overcoming their ‘first trial’.

While Lucian and Transient Cardinal’s implants were easy enough to explain, Gladiolus-wreathed Queen’s was a tad bit more… complicated.

Depending on whether an item in her field of view was usable right at that moment, dangerous, or of significance at some point down the line – distinct, blinking symbols would conspicuously hover above them, each glowing with varying intensities.

An emerald green ‘!’ for the first; a shining golden-yellow ‘?’ for the third; and a scarlet red skull for the second – something that obviously screamed, 'danger ahead!'.

In essence, a summarisation of the Perception implant, as Transient Cardinal put it, was to view it through the lens of a traditional video game – where the three symbols functioned as quest markers cum in-universe hints.

…

Lucian shook his head clear of such thoughts, having momentarily blocked out the ongoing conversation while lost in the recesses of his mind.

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Tuning back into the rapid-fire back and forth, he decided to interject after listening in for a moment; the discussion having, somehow, veered off into exchanging whatever pieces of general knowledge either could draw on.

“Sorry to interrupt, but maybe let’s get moving? Oh and, Cardinal, you can have first dibs on one of the items the Shadowborn Skullker left behind.”

Immediately bringing a halt to the conversation with Gladiolus-wreathed Queen, aforenamed young woman glided back over and delicately plucked the drawstring pouch right out of his hand after flashing him a slight, appreciative smile.

“Don’t mind if I do.”

Even while speaking, the white-haired waif was storing away the little pouch of bonedust in one of her coat’s—previously unknown—inner pockets. Unlike Transient Cardinal, Gladiolus-wreathed Queen stood back and remained silent; not feeling like she deserved a stake in either item.

Shooting a look over at the honey blonde and seeing that she wasn't interested, Lucian quickly stored away the Hollow Vertebra in one of his backpack's larger compartments—while grimacing all the while—before retaking his end table and gesturing out at the main floor.

“Sorry to keep y’all waiting. Let’s get moving, yeah? It’s time to see what Nightmares Unlimited has in store.”

“Yup~!”

“Indeed. Let me show you what I've found so far.”

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

And so, Gladiolus-wreathed Queen brought the other two on a whirlwind tour of the building's upper floors.

Having awakened on the fifth floor, she had only explored aforementioned floor, the fourth, and the mezzanine balcony right in between.

Unlike the fifth floor, which solely comprised four curving hallways leading to doorless doorways blocked up by piles of rubble, the fourth was a bit… different.

Where three of the hallways—including the one Lucian and Transient Cardinal had come out from—led to a similar setup, the fourth boasted an expansive walk-in closet at the end.

And when the buxom beauty said it was expansive, she hadn’t been exaggerating.

Not in the slightest.

While they had only briefly poked their heads in to get a look-see at the space, the fact that they were unable to see the ends of the room, let alone the seemingly endless racks upon racks upon racks of clothing—which were both identical and looked a lot like uniforms—supported her claim.

They hadn’t actually attempted to explore the space for real, however.

After all, all three of them had a clear and intimately personal understanding of the threat either a Closet Horror or an Eye around the Corner posed.

As such, with the many hiding spots rife throughout the expansive walk-in closet, none of them were willing to risk it – at least, without being sufficiently prepared.

And disregarding all that, it wasn’t like Transient Cardinal would have been willing to linger for the length of time it would take to properly explore, anyway.

During the time when the trio had taken shelter in the hallway’s depths, it seemed like others had finally escaped their own locked rooms.

Unlike the trio, whose injuries ranged from non-existent to minor, many of those now in the open were suffering from injuries more severe.

None of them were fatal, thankfully.

It was obvious, from the first moment that Transient Cardinal saw the handful of wounded people, that she wanted to go over and offer them her aid.

Gladiolus-wreathed Queen managed to temporarily ward off her desire, however, eventually convincing her to hold off until she was done giving them a tour.

It, unfortunately, proved to be the sole concession she managed to wrangle.

From the titbits of niche knowledge swimming about in the white-haired waif’s mind and her natural instincts, it was safe to say she had been involved in a medical-related field.

Lucian glanced over his shoulder as the thought crossed his mind, fairly amused by it as he observed the triage centre the uppermost mezzanine balcony had been transformed into at Transient Cardinal’s surprisingly forceful direction.

Turning his gaze back forward, he warily swept them from left to right while watching the pair of curving staircases to either side.

Unlike Gladiolus-wreathed Queen, who voiced her desire to mix and mingle with the handful of people present, he had handed over his razor-sharp glass shards to Transient Cardinal; helping with her self-assigned task in the only way he could.

Furthermore, instead of staying out of the way and remaining completely idle, he took up the duties of a guard and signpost; just in case another Shadowborn Skullker decided to take umbrage while acting as a pseudo-lighthouse for any stragglers who were looking for other people.

Lucian tried to keep fully alert—he really did—but his eyes kept wandering back to the ground foyer’s floor. Something about the tiled mosaic kept on scratching at the back of his mind, as if there was something there that he just wasn’t seeing. While yes, the interwoven colours—a fiery scarlet and the deepest of blacks—were extremely eye-catching, he wasn’t sure why it drew his attention so insistently.

…

…

…

The longer he stared, however, the more something seemed to pop out at him. Until finally, after what felt like an age, a lightbulb lit up in his mind.

Lucian mentally traced the fiery tiles, consciously forcing his brain to ignore the ebony ones whenever they broke up the pattern he was sketching. He was so distracted, even, that he didn’t notice when Gladiolus-wreathed Queen padded up right next to him. Luckily for the raven-haired man, the buxom beauty noticed his intense state of focus and remained silent.

N… O… R… T… H…?

It was odd, to say the least, for such a simple, solitary word to be concealed in such a perplexing manner. Lucian wasn’t sure what ‘North’ exactly referred to, but luckily he had an easy way to check its importance.

Escaping his thoughts, Lucian intended to looked for Gladiolus-wreathed Queen but almost immediately flinched back; coming eye to eye with the clearly amused verdant gaze of the exact woman he was looking for.

He spent a moment regathering himself, heartbeat settling back down to a more normal tempo. “Damn girl. How long have you been there?”

“I've been here for awhile. Sorry for giving you such a fright. And congrats, for finding the mosaic as well.”

Her words might have been an apology, but the laughter dancing in her sparkling emerald eyes gave her true emotions away.

Instead of fixating on that, however, Lucian latched on to the latter part of her sentence.

“I guess your Perception implant already told you something about it?”

“Yes it is. Remember the symbols I described to you and Cardinal?”

Quickly going over the three symbols and their associated meanings mentally, Lucian nodded, prompting her to continue.

“There’s a brightly shining golden question mark hanging right above the mosaic, so I’ve known it’s important for quite some time.” She finished.

Lucian hummed thoughtfully, happy to get a confirmation but wondering why the direction was hidden in such a paradoxical manner – sort of obscure, yet right out in the open if examined closely.

Speaking of which…

“I’m not sure if you’ve figured it out, but it spells out North—”

“Yes, I know.”

“—oh okay, that’s great! So anyway, I have no idea what ‘North’ is referring to in this case, but my best guess is that it’s directions of some sort?”

Lucian hurriedly switched tracks, glad that Gladiolus-wreathed Queen had spotted what he had.

She absently fiddled with the table leg in her hand while looking down at the mosaic, firelight from above glinting off the shards of glass haphazardly poking out from strips of white canvas tightly wrapped around the other end.

While mildly curious about how she had managed to construct such a dangerous looking weapon, he wasn’t curious enough to ask about it right now.

“It’s… possible.” She admitted after some moments spent in thought. “Problem is, I have no idea which way is North, considering the storm clouds outside.”

As if the mere mention of the storm clouds had drawn their attention, a single, loud clap of thunder rolled through the building, somewhat muffled by the lack of windows on the main floor.

The two exchanged incredulous looks, the same disbelieving thought seemingly plastered across their faces.

Did that seriously just happen?

…

Shaking off his disbelief first, Lucian decided to shove the incident to the deepest, darkest recesses of his mind; unwilling to think about the far too suspicious timing.

Much like himself, it took a moment for Gladiolus-wreathed Queen to regather herself. He only continued the conversation once it was clear she was done doing so.

“Well, there’s that whole saying, right? Where danger lies, so does opportunity. Maybe we can go and find the red skull marks and see where they lead.”

Honestly, he thought his idea was a good one. Judging from the incredulous, deadpan look Gladiolus-wreathed Queen sent him, however, it was clear she vehemently disagreed.

In response to her wordless judgement, he raised his bandaged hand and waved it from side to side in a placating manner. “Hear me out. We both know that the Dormitories, whatever its actual origins, belongs to a game of some sort.”

Her full lips briefly twitched upwards, before flattening back out. “… Go on.”

Surprised—but grateful—that she didn't immediately dismiss his opinion, he quickly wrangled his thoughts into a semblance of order before continuing on.

“There’s the on the nose acronym, for one, whenever I get a short blurb on people, and the rather… ominous implications of being called a Player, for another.”

She lightly combed her fingers through her honey blonde curls, a motion that would have made her seem absentminded if not for the thoughtful expression plastered across her lightly suntanned visage. “You’re… not wrong.”

“Specific memories about who I am and about my past might be missing for now, but I’m damn sure I used to play video games – too much general knowledge about that kind of thing is swimming around in my head for it to be otherwise.”

“And one common feature of any good video game, ever, is that the more dangerous the location, the better the rewards are after it’s conquered.”

“So relying on that logic, my hopes is that the red skulls from your implant will be a lighthouse on the path, and lead us ‘North’ eventually.”

Ending his monologue, Lucian swallowed down some saliva to moisten his dry throat, patiently waiting to hear Gladiolus-wreathed Queen’s reply. Because judging from her heavily furrowed brows and the clouded look in her green eyes, it seemed like he would have to wait for a bit.

Leaving her to it, he turned around—while making sure to keep the two winding staircases in his peripherals—and watched Transient Cardinal’s ongoing efforts – having ignored them for a while now.

It looked like the white-haired waif had acquired a helper, of a sort, to assist with tending to the people’s injuries.

And what a helper he was.

Even from a distance, the solidly built man stood at least a head taller than him, meaning that he veritably towered over Transient Cardinal’s comparatively diminutive stature. Lumbering behind her like a particularly out of place shadow, the man seemed to have been reduced to a glorified porter; multiple rolls of sliced dust sheets cradled in hairy arms bulging with well-defined musculature.

While the scene was a hilarious one—and Lucian really, really, wanted to laugh—the pair of end tables, tied to the man’s wrists by dust sheets twisted into ropes, gave the man an air of gravitas his actions tried—and failed—to diminish.

Lucian’s observations were cut short when Gladiolus-wreathed Queen, silent for the last minute or so, finally spoke up.

“Your reasoning seems sound, but let’s get more people on board before tackling any possible dangers head-on, alright?” An odd emotion coloured her voice and darkened her eyes significantly; like a forested canopy cast in shadows.

“That's fine with me.” He swept his arms out in a grand gesture, wordlessly signalling Gladiolus-wreathed Queen to take the lead while purposely ignoring her show of emotion; not willing to touch on it at the moment. “After you.”