“Well... Now what?”

After cycling a fair distance down the outside of the massive sky-piercing mega-prison, we’ve found ourselves in an awkward position. Buried knee-deep into the outer walls of the Spire with three bunched-up prisoners and a tree clinging desperately to my stuck body, Mei-Mei poses a great question to which the answer apparently isn’t ‘let’s climb to the top and do it again’.

“Wanna just jump into the lake then?” I ask. “It’s not that far down. We could probably make it.”

“Hmm... See those jagged edges near the base?” Mei-Mei points down below. “It’s too risky. Not to mention, even if we did make it to the lake, I’d say we’re somewhere between floors five to ten right now, which means Bran would probably die from the impact with the water anyway. Let’s save it as a plan B.”

“I’m grateful for your consideration of my well-being, but please put my potential death further down your list of plans!”

Even in a situation like this, Bran will always find a way to complain about something!

“Want me to try breaking through the wall then? We can get back into the Spire and go back to climbing down the normal way.”

“Is breaking through this wall something you can do without any of us falling off?”

“... Maybe!”

“Let’s just sit on that idea for the time being then...”

“H-how about up there?” Biscuit chimes in and I crane my neck as best I can from my uncomfortable position to see what she’s pointing to.

A little ways up and across from us, thin red wisps can be seen trailing up into the air before being scattered towards the sky by the wind.

“Hm? An opening? That could work," Mei-Mei says. "Pepper, do you think you could make the climb over to it?”

“Yes!”

“Without any of us falling off?”

“... Maybe!”

There are three prisoners and a tree, and Pepper Black is a woman who only has two hands! Unfortunately, I haven’t yet figured out a way to combat said lack of hands with brute strength and muscle power alone. Yet!

“I-I think I can do it,” Biscuit says. “I could p-probably carry big sis Mei-Mei on my back too.”

Palming the wall and flexing her fingers against the black metal, she gives a short self-assuring nod.

“Oh? Alright, let’s go with that then.” With no small amount of difficulty, Mei-Mei navigates her way around my body and onto Biscuit’s back. Now that Mei-Mei’s back to her original size after the Peeler’s legs were smeared into a chunky paste across the Spire’s walls, carrying the tiny dwarf around shouldn’t be very difficult, even for somebody as short as Biscuit.

"Biscuit and I will lead the way. Gorilla, you take the tree and the deadweight and follow behind. If we start falling off the wall... Well, I'm sure you'll figure something out with those unreasonable reflexes of yours."

“Wait, why am I the deadweight and the tree isn’t?!”

“Because we can at least use the tree as a weapon.”

“That’s...! I can’t argue with that...”

With Mei-Mei on her back, Biscuit pushes her fingers against the wall again and—taking a step off my back—begins nimbly shuffling her way up the side of the Spire. Despite the wind blowing her tail and dress around wildly, she seems to be making the climb with relative ease. Like some kind of skilled assassin or something.

Following her lead, I rip my legs out of the wall and start clawing my way after her. With Bran clinging tightly to my back and the branches of the tree held between my teeth, I dig my fingers into the metal as I make my way up. Unlike the careful and delicate placement of Biscuit’s fingers and toes, mine seem to be leaving glaring pockmarks in the Spire along my trail for some reason...

Eventually, the source of the red mist trailing up into the sky comes into view. A large gash in the Spire's wall leads back inside the prison. The edges of the opening are warped and shredded as if the wall was torn open by sharp, searing blades. Directly above it, clawed marks carved deep into the black metal trail back up the Spire’s outer wall.

This must be the reason Wrath was coming back up the Spire after we left him behind on a higher floor. Lust must’ve launched him outside, and this must’ve been where he ground to a stop and clawed his way back in.

Making our climb over to it, Biscuit hoists herself up and into the opening of the wall and I follow her in. Unsurprisingly, we’ve found ourselves in another prison wing that looks just as gory and busted up as every other floor we’ve been on so far. A thin red mist hangs against the ceiling—sleeping gas—but most of it seems to be getting sucked out of the gash in the wall and into the outside air before it can be any kind of issue.

A number on the wall marks our current progress down the Spire.

“Floor eight, huh?” Mei-Mei says, straightening out her white coat after dropping herself back on the floor. “Well, that’s about what I expected. It doesn’t matter either way since we’ll be travelling through the hidden passages again.”

Leading the way to a nondescript section of the wall, she nods over at me while jerking a thumb towards it. With a grin on my face, I approach the wall and slam my foot against it. It instantly crumples forward, revealing the familiar wide tunnel of blinking red lights on the other side.

Shortly after stepping back into the Spire’s inner tunnels...

“See? Found it,” Mei-Mei announces smugly. “The layout is the same so it was pretty simple to find again.”

With Mei-Mei leading us through the prison’s hidden passages that run between the walls and beneath the floor, we quickly arrive back at the ladder that supposedly leads down through every level of the Spire—a maintenance shaft, she called it.

“I still think you’re just winging it...” Bran comments, clearly not amused by the dwarf's smug attitude.

With the tree held at my side, I sling Mei-Mei atop my shoulders and lead the climb down with my one free hand. Biscuit follows after me, and Bran takes the rear.

“I’m slipping, you idiot! Keep your head down!” Mei-Mei complains from above, pushing on my head and forcing my eyes back to the shaft below.

While we descend down the Spire’s hidden passages, the fact that Biscuit is directly above me and I’m not allowed to look up her dress into her hidden passages without Mei-Mei falling off my shoulders is pretty frustrating, to say the least.

Clacking and pattering our way down the ladder, Mei-Mei suddenly stops us as we approach the floor of another level.

“This should be the first floor,” she says. “Let’s get off here.”

“Fweh? You sure?” I ask, peering down into the shaft below me. “It keeps going down though. We’re not at the bottom yet.”

“Yes, I’m sure. I don't know what's down there, and I’d like to delve deeper into the Spire’s secrets and find out, but... We can’t spend any more time in this place. This is the first floor. We should get off here.”

Trusting her judgment, we all hop off the ladder and Mei-Mei slides back to the floor. Leading the way through the inner tunnels once again, eventually, she comes to a stop and points up towards the roof.

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“Up here,” she says. “The panel above us should lead directly to the exit. All that’s left is to charge out the gate and find a boat to take us out of here. If there are any left...”

Nodding, I climb up to the ceiling and force it open. Hoisting myself up and over the ledge, I reach down and pull everybody else up with me.

Taking a look around...

“This isn’t the exit. This is clearly an office,” Bran says.

Climbing up from the floor, we suddenly find ourselves in some kind of office. There’s a large desk and chair to one side and the rest of the room is filled with neatly organized shelves of books and papers.

“W-well, that’s because...” Mei-Mei averts her eyes, the smug attitude from before no longer present in her tone. “I, uh... I thought arriving directly at the exit was too risky. It’s much safer to come out in an empty office instead, don’t you think? This was all part of the plan.”

“... Sure,” Bran responds, rolling his eyes at Mei-Mei’s blatant attempt to cover up her mistake. “Are we even on the first floor?”

“We’re definitely on the first floor,” she replies. “I’m one hundred percent confident in that at least...”

Looking around the office, something in the corner of the room immediately grabs my attention. Something red and eight-sided...

“Fwah! My pentagram!” I exclaim, holding up the STOP sign that was taken from me yesterday by the Warden and his guards.

“It’s an oct—! Actually, I don’t care anymore. Call it what you want...” Mei-Mei mumbles to herself for some reason.

If my STOP sign is here, that must mean this room is...

“Oh, it’s the Warden’s office!” Bran says as he instantly makes his way over to the desk and begins opening and rummaging through all the drawers.

“Look, we don’t have time for—” Mei-Mei begins but is instantly cut off by me and Biscuit rushing over to the desk to join Bran in going through the Warden’s personal belongings.

“Ah! It’s volume nine! I haven’t read this one yet!” Bran exclaims, finally reunited with his confiscated dragon maid books after finding them in one of the Warden’s drawers.

“Fweh? This is my letter to Mom! They never sent it!”

Inside another drawer is a letter I had written to my Mom with the help of Mei-Mei. I had asked the guards back at the Curse Ward to send it for me and they told me they’d pass it on to the Warden. It looks like the Warden never sent it though...

“I told you to put an address on it, idiot. How is the Warden supposed to know where to send it without an address?”

Fweh? Why does the Warden need one of my dresses to deliver a letter? Ah, I guess it’s so he can sniff it and follow my scent back to where I live. That makes sense.

Leaving the letter on the desk, I continue to rummage through the Warden’s stuff.

“We need to go!” Mei-Mei complains. “Leave that desk alone and let’s get out of here!”

“We can’t,” Bran responds. “Not until we trigger some kind of flashback or something.”

“What? What does that even—? Actually, don’t answer. I don’t care what it means. We don’t have time for your nonsense.”

“It means that...” Bran continues, ignoring the audible groan from the dwarf who knows she accidentally set off another one of Bran’s nonsensical ramblings. “We need to trigger some kind of memory that wraps up the Warden’s role as the main antagonist of our time at the Spire before we have our final confrontation with him. The way things have been going up until now, you just know he’s somehow already waiting for us at the exit, right? We won’t be able to move on from this prison if we don’t trigger that memory event first. That’s just how these things go, you know?”

No. I don’t know. Like usual, I don’t understand Bran or his weird Curse but I’m perfectly happy to keep digging through the Warden’s things if that’s what he’s suggesting we do.

“Bran, i-is this the thing you mean?” Pulling something from the Warden’s desk, Biscuit holds out some kind of worn-out journal to him. Handwritten on the front is a name. ‘Grave E. Stakes’. She passes it to Bran and we all gather around to see what’s inside. Opening it up to the first page, Bran begins to read aloud.

“My anger management counsellor has suggested I keep a diary to record any events that made me feel angry, why they made me feel that way, and what steps I took to resolve those feelings. She believes this will serve as an outlet for my negative emotions and help me to understand myself better.”

“B-Bran, this feels really personal. Maybe we shouldn’t read this after all...” Biscuit voices her concerns about this blatant invasion of privacy.

“No, no. There’s bound to be something useful in here...” Bran flips to a random page and continues to read aloud. “Entry 14. Recently I noticed somebody had been using the bathroom in my office. I was frustrated at first because it felt like my personal space was being taken from me. Instead of lashing out, I chose to talk to my subordinates about it calmly. From remaining calm and talking through my feelings, I learnt that there were no other bathrooms along a certain patrol route. Once I made a change to their route to include more, everybody was much happier and the issue hasn’t occurred since then.”

“Bran... This is kind of weird. There’s no reason for us to be reading this...”

“N-no, there’s definitely some kind of trigger in here. I’m sure of it...” Ignoring Mei-Mei’s concerns, he flips to another page and continues reading. “Entry 62. The new cook I hired refuses to make anything but pudding. This upset me because it made me feel like I was being disrespected as both a boss and a person. In the end... No, this isn’t it. Next one...”

Bran continues flipping through pages, sweating under the disapproving stares of those around him.

“Entry 128. It frustrates me when Ginger argues with me in front of other people. It makes me feel like she’s undermining my authority as the warden and I’m being emasculated in front of my male peers... This is, uh... Next one...”

Bran keeps desperately flipping pages until he finds one that catches his attention.

“Ah! Here we go!... Entry 267. Today one of the new prisoners was smiling at me when I walked in. I asked what they found so amusing and they replied that they had never seen a dog wearing clothes before. This comment was deeply upsetting to me, and I ended up succumbing to my negative emotions in a way that hurt both me and the ones around me. It’s rare to see a prisoner act out in my presence, so this was a valuable learning experience for me about keeping my emotions in check during unexpected incidents.”

Everybody in the room turns to stare at me for some reason. I don’t know why...

“Huh... Surely he didn’t write anything about me, right?” Bran asks, flipping back a page. “Entry 266. I learnt one of the new prisoners was caught trying to assassinate Lady Kokoro, our beloved Queen. If Ginger wasn’t there to stop me, I would have immediately ripped out his throat where he stood. If I ever see that prisoner again, I feel as though I might strangle him to death. I’ve sent him to floor ninety-nine so I’ll never have to.”

Bran closes the diary and promptly slams it against the floor.

“Why?!” he complains, stomping his foot against it. “This diary was useless! The only significant flashback it triggered was my own flashback to being almost choked to death! The only thing here that was triggered was my PTSD!”

Deciding that this was all just a waste of time, we prepare to leave the Warden’s office. With the tree slung over one shoulder, and my STOP sign slung over the other, the others wait behind me as I stand in front of the door.

“Everyone ready?” I ask.

The others nod in response.

“Fwahaha! Let’s finally leave this place then!”

I kick the door down and begin my sprint through the hallway on the other side, the others following close behind.

“Hey! Why are there prisoners in—!?”

Bonk bonk bonk.

Charging ahead, I bonk the startled guards who are standing in our way aside with my metal sign.

Bzzzzz—! BONK.

The buzzing drill of a metal bunny is immediately silenced as I slam the creature into the floor with a single downward swing of the tree. Leaping over it, I continue my sprint down the corridors of the first floor.

Several bonks later, we eventually find ourselves running into a massive room. I remember being in this room when I first arrived at the Spire. It was the one with all the elevators, swarming with hundreds of guards. Except now...

Several parts of the roof had caved in, leaving gaping holes along the ceiling, along with the entire system of elevators which is now just a twisted mountain of rubble stretched across the room. An ankle-deep pool of blood covers the entirety of the floor, trickling down from the openings in the ceiling like rain, and seeping out from the hundreds of unrecognizable corpses strewn and scattered across the ground.

At the end of the room, in the far distance, is the exit. Sunlight beams out from the huge gate, lighting a glittery path that reaches out to us against the glistening gore. Our path to freedom. However, on that path to freedom stands two figures, locked in mortal combat. Sensing our approach, they immediately break apart and turn their heads our way.

“Tch. Filthy creature...” the wolfman hisses through snarling teeth, a raging hellfire burning across both of his arms.

“Gyahaha! Pepper Black, the Sturdy and Unwavering!” the dark, hulking woman laughs with a wide grin plastered across her bloodied face. “You are most welcome to join us in this battle to the death! ‘Twould be an honour to have you!”

Unslinging both the tree and STOP sign from each shoulder, I come to a halt in front of the two legends—Mei-Mei and the others waiting anxiously at my back.

“Fwahaha!” I laugh right back, readying my two weapons. “I truly must be blessed!”