[Endgame: rise or DROWN]

[warpweft]

[How long have you been exploring Nessa's palace now? You've met her family, viewed her memories, learned how to fight as a witch and tried to find the source of her power and the Treasure of her palace: the Voidheart. And along the way, you've tired your best, with mixed success, to avoid the incarnation of her eldest cousin and the representation of her trauma and fear, the Nightmare of Esmau.]

[Wherever you are in the Palace right now, you feel the ground briefly shake under your feet. Little shakes here and there haven't been out of the ordinary - Esmau is trying to blow the place down to the studs, after all. But that felt different. That felt....worse.]

[Your phone beeps as you receive a message.]

Comments

SHADOW NESSA

[warpweft]

[Shadow Nessa looks absolutely stunned that Dimitri showed up and that everything ISN'T falling apart. Between that and everybody's refusal to leave.]

You...

[She brings a hand up to her face.]

You idiots...!

Oh god, Agnis, don't start crying, that's gonna make me start too...

[Too late. The waterworks have started for her, too. But...she manages to smile anyway.]

All of you...you'd better survive this, god dammit.

You know Nessa wouldn't be able to forgive herself if you didn't.

[cosplayed_out]

...Either we die and perish, or we win and remember your display of emotion. I'd call that a win-win.

[warpweft]

Pffffuh. You...really are incorrigible.

....Tsumugi.

You don't need me to tell you what choice to make.

Nessa doesn't consider you a villain. She considers you a friend.

I'm just her Shadow, but. I think she'll understand, no matter what you do.

[cosplayed_out]

No one likes the villain. ...Except creeps and weirdos.

But if Nessa is one of those, that's fine.

Re: SHADOW NESSA

[velluminous]

[ you get a handkerchief, too. she's pulling them out of her sleeves like a... well, like a magician. ]

If warden could not kill us in any way that matters, neither will this bitter old hag. I promise you that.

Re: SHADOW NESSA

[warpweft]

[She takes it and dabs at her eyes.]

In this place, Lilith is about as close to both God and the Devil as it gets, especially when she has the Voidheart.

I don't know what you got up to while you were asleep, but...if it's anything like what I think it might be. You might have seen what kind of hold she had over Nessa and her cousins. In this place, that control and that fear she wielded...will make her close to invincible.

But if anybody can stop her...

Well. If your bonds managed to ward off Typhon's influence for this long. Maybe it's not impossible.

Re: SHADOW NESSA

[velluminous]

It will not be. I will break her myself if I have to.

You—whatever version of you that you are—are my disciple, and I will not fail.