I'm going to post the pieces that I've finished in sporadic bursts of three, probably. Sporadic so as to give myself some time to continue writing in between.
Enjoy?
When Arden had gotten about halfway through the book an hour later, she heard a noise. She crept up to the window and watched as Garry passed, looking down at the pretty blue rose in his left hand. She then heard the sound of breaking glass, and took that as incentive to burst out of the room. She quickly jumped the two stairs, saw that the 'Lady in Blue' had come off the wall, and. without hesitation, grabbed Garry's left hand, which seemingly no longer held his precious rose.
"Wha-?" Garry began as Arden harshly dragged him along.
"Where's your rose?" she asked, pulling him into the room and tightly shutting the door, releasing her hold on his hand. Garry shook out his hand, clearly pained by her unnecessarily tight grip.
"I don't- KYAH!" he yelped as the painted lady scrabbled at the door.
"Don't worry about it, the paintings can't open doors by themselves. They'll follow you to the ends of the earth, but they can't get past a door, unless you decide to open it. So don't. Now, where's your goddamn flower?"
Garry flinched at her words, "Why does it matter?"
Arden groaned, with her head in her hand she said "Clearly you lack attentive abilities. Did you not read the damn posters?! That rose is your lifeblood. When all its petals are gone, so are you, you massive idiot." She scolded him "All the humans from the gallery should have one." She stated matter-of-factly, drawing back the eaves of her cloak, exposing her rose and a couple (actually an unnecessary amount of) pens. Though she knew having a rose didn't mean much, considering that Mary had a rose too...
"What does that mean?" He inquired.
"What do you mean what does that mean?! The rose represents your life, the embodiment of your spir-"
"Yeah, no, I got that. I mean your shirt. Is that some obscure teenage reference?"
Arden's eyes trailed down to look at her t-shirt. True to the form of Res, she was wearing an Elder Scrolls t-shirt with a matching Imperial pendant.
"I'm not even a te- never mind that! Your rose!" she exclaimed urgently, flapping her hands
Garry was getting paler by the second, his face twisted in a grimace. "...hurts..." he managed to gasp out as he collapsed.
Arden cursed quietly. "I'll be right back," she clipped out, and ran out the door. The 'Lady in Blue' was in the corner, plucking petals off Garry's rose merrily. Arden approached, none too quietly, making the lady look up.
Her eyes set on a new human, she abandoned the rose in favor of pursuing Arden.
Carefully, but quickly, Arden backed off and the painting followed. She sidestepped, slightly scraping her leg on the frame, and sprinted to the corner. Down on one knee, she grasped the wilted rose, its thorns biting at her harshly, and the painting swiped at her. 3 petals fell off her rose, drifting to the ground, the pain was sharpened and acutely targeted at that same place in the pit of her stomach. Drops of blood welled up where the thorns dug into her hand.
This time as Arden sidestepped, the painting predicted it and matched her, managing to get in another swipe at her. Thinking quickly, Arden backed up, ran forward, jumped up, and, using the frame as a boost, sailed over the haughty woman-painting-creature.
She then raced out into the hall again, replenishing the blue rose in the blue vase before adding hers in. The pain in her stomach dissipated slowly, dulling until it was nothing, and Arden braced herself for another psuedo-battle of wits with a pretty painting.
Luck was on her side, it appeared, as the 'Lady in Blue' was facing away from her, about as far away as she could be, pacing up and down the stairs where she'd been playing with Garry's rose.
Arden raced to the room that held Garry, and opened and shut the door [tightly xP] in a flash. The painted lady scarce had time to turn around. Panting, Arden held out the healthy-looking blue rose.
"...Mmm..." Garry moaned. He raised his head and propped himself up on his elbow, "What... the pain's gone..."
He rose to his full height, even taller than Arden herself, who had the exceptional height of 5'11".
She again held out the rose, which Garry took from her.
"I thought I was a goner back there, thanks for getting it."
"Mmh." Arden grunted.
"I mean, I'm glad to know I'm not alone in here."
"I bet." Quoting a page from a book in the fabricated world, Arden said "One can be lonely, two a relief. Three..." she trailed off.
"...Should I know that from somewhere..?" Garry inquired, probably thinking that it was another "obscure teenage reference" or something.
"Never mind. Let's just go. But this time, can you try to go a bit slower? I love love love having to drag you by the wrist." she said in a dramatically-sweet voice. "Next time get some rollerblades and hold onto my sleeve, we don't have all day." her tone bitter now.
Garry paled again as Arden began to push open the door. "Wh-where are you-"
Arden cut him off. "C'mon, you don't wanna get caught by the 'Lady in Blue' do you? Or.. do you? Maybe you're into that stuff. I don't judge. She certainly enjoyed the game of 'Loves me, Loves me not' she had with your rose there. Just don't lead her on, mm-kay? She's my best friend, and I don't want her feelings hurt."
She pushed open the door, not bothering to see if Garry was following, and dashed to the exit.
Apparently, though, he thought it best to follow the mean, scary, cloaked lady, as, just before the door fell shut behind her, he burst out, letting it close with a bang.
"Was... that... really... necessary?" he gasped out, breathing hard.
Arden pulled up her oversized hood to cover a smirk that started forming, "Man, aren't you fit. Not even winded after that whole three feet you ran."
Her purposeful stride was cut off when Garry said "Ah, I just realized, I still haven't asked your name. Well, I'm-"
"Garry. I know." Arden continued walking
He appeared perplexed. "How do yo-"
"Also, watch out for the spit." She warned, moments before Garry nearly stepped in the damaging liquid.
She was a bit disappointed she did get to watch Garry jump, but she knew there would be plenty of that later. "Arro, by the way." she said, giving her alias she'd used as an assassin. Not at all obvious she was an archer, no?
"Hmm, that's a strange name. So, how-" Arden stopped suddenly, making her hood fall back, and Garry run into her, who clearly was not expecting the abrupt stop.
"How long do you intend to speak?" she bit out harshly. A tendril of regret coiled in her stomach as Garry flinched yet again, looking dejected.
She didn't apologize though. That was just her way. She never apologized. She just kept walking, offhandedly noticing the fact that Garry followed farther behind than he was before.
They moved past the mannequin she'd pushed out of her way previously, through the room with the paintings, and into the next room. Arden turned to the left, and as she expected, eyes popped up from small slits in the ground.
Garry exclaimed something about the disembodied eyes (which she ignored) as Arden strolled up to the eye that appeared "congested", the pupil shrunken and the whites reddened, and held steady eye contact for a solid ten seconds.
Garry seemed like he wanted to say something, but held his tongue, this time knowing better. Finally, Arden rose, and went over to the room that she knew contained the eyedrops.
She carefully pushed around all the stools, thinking two steps ahead, but when Garry had the bright idea of pushing one, it got stuck, unable to be moved back.
Garry apologized profusely, which Arden tuned out rather than interrupting.
"Don't mention it," Arden sighed, though she was annoyed that it was all messed up, she figured she owed it to him. She had gone the wrong way anyway, but that wasn't imperative for him to know.
She started again, this time going left, and eventually reached the eyedrops.
She seized them with a victorious smirk, and strode back out, Garry trailing behind. She made her way through the sea of blinking eyeballs, and knelt down next to the congested one. Arden smiled and squeezed out the eyedrops, placing the nearly emptied bottle in one of her pockets.
The eye blinked, the redness and congestion fading away. It shone happily, to which Arden responded with a grin. Garry stood off to the side, looking mildly confused.
The eye went back into the ground, and the slit moved over to the mouth of the hallway at the other end. It stared intently at the wall, which Arden noticed had a slight discoloration. "Thanks," She said and nodded her appreciation to it as the eye slid into the ground, still shining joyfully.
"I wonder..." Arden knocked in several different places on the wall, concluding that it was hollow. One of the places she hit was a disguised panel, which caused the wall to slide back loudly as it grinded against the floor.
"A secret passage, eh?" She said curiously. They went into the small passage, and Arden knelt down to pick up the red glass ball that sat at the end.
"Obviously, this was placed here purposefully. Someone set this whole thing up." Arden commented. "That white snake painting I saw, it had a hole in the eye. That must be what this glass ball is for. Obviously the congested eye didn't do this all itself..."
"You mean, this whole puzzle... it's some sort of game?" Garry asked, sounding slightly timid, as if he feared getting hit or something. Again, Arden felt a pang of regret, a feeling she was not accustomed to.
"Maybe, we've got to find the gamemaster," Arden suggested. At the very least, she had to. She was not 100% happy with Res at the moment. She supposed if she was the new Ib, Res could have made himself Guertena. Not all that unlikely.
She tucked the glass ball in a pocket, and they exited. When they got to the snake painting, Arden pulled it out, her hand hovering in front of the hole. "Here goes nothing."
She pushed the ball into the hole, and not a moment later, the painting next to it fell down. The text on the back read "behind the tree"
"...What tree?" Garry asked.
"Let's find out," Arden responded, knowing full well exactly what tree it was. She went down to the room they previously ignored, and opened the door.
"A maze…?"
She and Garry made their way along, choosing to take the leftmost path. There were splotches of red paint on the floor everywhere. When they made the next turn, there was a headless statue.
And another.
And another.
Only one had focused on them and decided to give chase, but Arden figured this wasn't the time to be doing ninja jumps, so they lead it away, and sprinted past. They got to the northwestern corner of the maze, and found a poster that said to "finish a maze, hug the right side, and you'll get out eventually." Frowning, Arden lead the way back to the entrance, this time taking the rightmost path.
On an easel at the end, it read "south of the red paint"
"Huh? There's red paint everywhere!" Garry groaned.
"True enough, but the question is, which one would put us in the most danger?" Arden asked rhetorically, returning to the one where the three mannequins would have the easiest time converging on them.
"Right then, which way is south?" Garry asked, his voice slightly panicked as two mannequins began to make their way towards them.
I would say "woo, chapter two" if it were much of an accomplishment, but I literally wrote this in June of 2015, so... yeah. I did read over these and edited quite a bit, so I hope it is much improved from my first draft. Unfortunately, I haven't actually played Ib in ages, so this is counting on what I wrote from back then. If I ever hope to finish this, I'll either have to watch gameplay, or pick the game back up.