Noelle placed her hand on Susie's, trying to conceptualize her thoughts, to no avail. Berdly fiddled with his visor, the gears in his brain slowly turning: "So... why did it say—"
"I don't... I don't know," Susie bluntly cut him off, holding onto Noelle's hand as they stood up together, "but we have to find it again. If ABAC can't help us, then we should find the Fountain and seal it as fast as we can."
Berdly stood up, raising his eyebrow. "How exactly do we do that?"
Susie stared at him, annoyed that this what was concerned the bluebird right now. "I thought I told you already. Kris can use their SOUL to—"
Berdly stretched his wings out, as if emphasizing the empty space around them. Noelle's eyes widened, recognizing his intent shortly before Susie did. She felt her heart skip a beat.
"Oh, shit."
Take any other day, any other week, and Berdly wouldn't think twice about suddenly finding himself in a fantastical world where he and his friends had unique magical powers and where the natives revered them all as heroes. He'd be packing his bags before you had time to finish your sentence. Even now, his curiosity about this world filled him with enthusiasm, were it not for the possibility of being trapped in it.
Quietly observing her girlfriend spiraling in on herself, Noelle took the lead. "It... it was there in the room with us. When the Fountain was made... Maybe we should look for, um—" She turned around, trying find an objective for them to reach. "A... giant cage? What would it even look like in here?" Some distance further down the path, she could see a clearing, though it was hard to tell through the thick fog.
Susie's tumbling thoughts briefly paused, as she clung onto something she could comprehend. A question she could answer, a way forward in the mess she found herself in. She steadied herself, looking into the eddies swirling on the ground. "I'm— not sure. For a darkner to have a form, it— they have to have some sort of connection to a lightner." She stepped forward, the ground on the next panel lighting up in swirls of dark purple. "A chair could be a giant monster, hellbent on crushing everyone that's ever sat on it, or a wooden lion with dreams of being a stool, that gives you, like— the key to the Oak Lands if you destroy his backrest in under ten seconds."
Noelle and Berdly quickly followed her, listening intently. "Sometimes it just ends up being a really big chair." Though he was never a patient gamer, the urge to summon his weapon slowly began to dwindle. Learning the rules of this world, however inconsistent they are, clearly made him calm down a little. "But if you are the creator, Susie— Can't you tell us anything about what we might find here?"
Susie's steps grew still, staring into the rainbow waves that emanated from her feet. "I... I don't know. I didn't even think of ABAC then, I only wanted to— ugh.
I wanted to know where Kris was."
Noelle put her hand on her shoulder, trying to avoid the spikes on her armband. "Th-There's still a chance though, right?"
Susie could only shrug, stepping forward once again, marching down the path with her friends. She found herself trapped in her own Dark World, without a way out, nor a guide to tell her what to do, but despite her perceived incompetence, she held more knowledge about this realm than anyone else. Perhaps, she thought, this is how Ralsei felt back then. Susie breathed in and out, steadying her steps, as a clearing began to emerge in their path. "Look. No matter what happens, we have to keep moving forward. We should try to avoid fighting when we can, just stay out of the way of any...
...enemies?"
