Daichi: Now, to make everything come together in the worst way possible for certain characters… there's only one thing to do.

BlackGatomon: Have you committed?

Verity: ...We only own roughly a dozen characters. Possibly. We didn't count.

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"Vines? Here?" Trixie sounded incredulous, and Ib couldn't blame her. She'd only had her path blocked by vines… twice, maybe? She couldn't clearly remember the end of her first visit. Probably for the best, given what she did remember. She didn't need any more nightmares.

"I think whatever's behind them is something important," She brought her lighter out of her pocket. "It's too convenient, that a side area would be blocked off like this without a reason to keep people out."

"Ib, are you sure you aren't just paranoid?" Trixie asked. She found that she couldn't entirely deny it, either.

"It's completely justified paranoia." Her response came quickly, although she didn't know if that made it any better. It still couldn't be any good for her, arguably justifiable or not. Of course, it wasn't like she could do anything about it, so she shoved those doubts aside for the time being.

"You do know how to use that thing, right?" She nodded. She wasn't exactly sure how truthful that was, but at least she was thinking clearly this time, which probably meant something.

The flames consumed the vines. Just the vines. She wouldn't be suffering any more burns for this. The path in front of her seemed to stretch on forever, but… It was just a feeling, yet she knew, in some part of her mind, that she just had to go in. So she did, and Trixie followed.

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Jade had not signed on for this. All she had wanted to do was pass art, and maybe find a way to annoy her parents. That was it. She had not signed up for running through an art gallery that supposedly wanted her dead. In fact, she didn't know anybody who would sign up for it. No one she knew was that stupid.

Well, okay, she could think of a few people. None that she would willingly associate with, but they were out there.

Still, intentions aside, she was there now, and currently chasing Lavender down. She wondered what could have made the other girl break down like that, but given that the other option was staying with a couple of paintings who clearly wanted her dead, she'd just run.

She was sure Lavender would slow down eventually, and then things could go on from there. She could hear footsteps behind her, and assumed they were her teacher or the paintings, or possibly those freaky mannequins. It didn't matter. She had to keep going.

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"Ib, don't worry so much," Trixie laughed, skipping ahead for a bit, before doubling back. "Honestly, it's not that big of a deal. We just find a vase like you said, and we'll be fine, right?"

"Trixie, it doesn't work that way," Ib sighed. "Besides the fact that you could easily die long before we find any vases, let alone one with water in it, we'd still be in danger afterwards." She wasn't quite sure what she had done to deserve this, at least not recently.

Less recently, sure, she had a few ideas. But nothing within the past six months or so. And for quite some time before that, very little that was intentional. Yet, of all the people to be stuck with, it had to be the one person that would never take anything seriously enough.

Which, admittedly, was kind of her fault for bringing Trixie along in the first place, but Ib really didn't trust her not to do something stupid and would rather be around to help with damage control. Something told her that might be important. And even if it wasn't, it was good to be prepared.

She filed those thoughts away as an argument for her paranoia, if it ever came up again. She was pretty sure it would, at some point, though that might have been said paranoia talking. At least, she certainly hoped so.

"That's no reason to be so serious all the time. You got out fine last time, didn't you?" Again, Ib realized that Trixie never seemed to listen to a word she said. And she never did say anything detailed about last time, because… well, too many bad memories. Even the few good ones had been tainted by the knowledge of what happened next.

"...I did." Now, most people, when the one they're talking to becomes quieter than usual, would realize that they were dealing with a delicate subject, and tread lightly. However, Ib was always an unusually quiet person, and nobody ever said Trixie specialized in common sense.

"So what's the problem?" At this point, Ib wondered if Trixie was deliberately trying to upset her. It was certainly working. She realized that, if the conversation kept going, it would only make things worse. Like she didn't have enough problems to deal with already.

"Trixie, stop. Just… just stop." Her fists clenched, and she forced herself to breathe evenly. She'd thought she was mostly over this, but… Clearly, she had been mistaken.

"Um… are you okay? Because you're kinda scaring me, here." She wanted to tell Trixie that she was all right, except she knew nobody would ever believe that. She'd learned how to lie well in covering up her issues, but some things just couldn't be convincingly done.

And, well, what was the point of trying to make it better for someone, when chances were it'd all just be forgotten, anyway? She certainly didn't see it.

"I… stop it. I don't want to talk about it." The mask she'd carefully constructed to hide her problems was falling apart, and she didn't know what to do about it. "Leave me alone." Ib realized that saying that was a bad idea immediately after she did.

"You said I should stick close to you, and you're normally pretty clingy… you're really not okay, are you?" She came off as clingy to people? That was news to her. Something to work on, she supposed, if she ever got out of there. But that was a pretty big if.

"I'm… I don't know. I just… I just need some time, that's all." She knew that just sitting down in the middle of open space was probably not the best idea, but there didn't seem to be anything around that would harm her. She figured she'd be fine after a few minutes.

Ib wasn't sure how long she actually sat there, although Trixie took to pacing the room, when any hope of being able to reconstruct her mask during this trip was destroyed entirely. Because standing in the door opposite of how they'd entered was an old friend that she'd thought she'd never see again.

"G-Garry…?"

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Daichi: And we'll take a break here, as it was getting kinda long.

Verity:... You have seen the extra chapters, right? The ones that take up at least twice as many pages as normal? You're just doing this to mess with people.

Daichi: Maybe.

Verity: I didn't know you had an evil side to you. I thought that was me. Well, congrats on growing a spine, I guess.