Chapter III - Beyond the Door

"So... Uh..."

Wymare sighed. Try as he might to think of something to say so as to defuse the strange standoff he and the girl in his room were having, it was no use; he couldn't think of anything to say to shift the conversation in a direction that would make things any better. It didn't help that she was still pressed against the far wall with a fearful look in her eyes, and her apparent terror made him feel uncomfortable with the idea of simply disregarding her and walking in. He couldn't just stand there forever, though, and so he took in and let out a deep breath to refresh his thoughts before making eye contact with the girl again.

"Listen, what say we try that again?" Wymare proposed, making an effort to maintain an unimposing tone of voice as he walked into the room and set down his uniform on the left-hand side bed. "I'm not the best at conversation, I admit, but if we're to share a room then I'd at least like to be able to talk openly."

"I..." the girl mumbled. Her body was still tense, but as Wymare sat down on the bed next to his folded-up uniform and looked at her expectantly, a bit of the edge was taken off her initial shock and her eyes looked less afraid. "O-Okay. I'm sorry for screaming..."

"No need for that. Tell me, what's your name?"

"M-my name?" At this, the black-haired girl seemed to turn her gaze off to the side, seeming bothered by something in Wymare's question. "Um... I'm Yselt..."

"I see. Well, it's nice to meet you, Yselt," Wymare responded, taking note of the fact that she hadn't said her last name. "My name is Wymare. What brings you to the labor unit?"

"Well, I... To be honest, I was made to join by someone who was already here," Yselt answered. "I didn't really want to be a part of it... But it's not like I had a say in the matter."

"I know what you mean," Wymare nodded. "I wound up here through similar means. You said you were invited by a laborer, though? I didn't know they were able to do that."

"It's... not like that, but..." Yselt trailed off, reaching one arm across her midsection to hold her other arm at the elbow as she stared at the hard, gray floor. Both from her body language and the sound of her voice, Wymare could tell that whatever her reason for being here was, it was a painful subject for her to deliberate on. There was a weakness to her tone that he recognized; a surrender to the turn of fate that had brought her here.

"It's okay. You don't need to explain," Wymare said, catching Yselt by surprise as he stood up from the bed. "The supervisor told me that we're meant to be touring the castle for a while. Want to come with me once I've changed?"

For a moment, Yselt didn't answer. Her soft lavender eyes stared into Wymare's faded red eyes, and he couldn't help but feel strange as he waited for an answer to his invitation from his new unmoving roommate. There was still a slight hint of sadness in her face and her gaze, but now it was mixed with another emotion that was harder to put a name to. The best he could come up with was confusion, but even that didn't feel quite right.

"Um... Are you sure?" Yselt finally asked. Her question puzzled Wymare before she continued, "You just got here, after all... And I-I don't think you should be seen around me... The others might target you."

"The others? You mean the Scadarah laborers?"

Yselt nodded, visibly hesitant to talk about what her reason for believing that was. Seeing this, Wymare decided not to press the issue, but something in the way she'd presented her worries only strengthened his resolve to go along with his suggestion. She wasn't making an excuse so she wouldn't have to go out; it seemed like her concern for his wellbeing amongst their fellow laborers was genuine.

"Well, I think it's fine," he responded, causing Yselt to blink in surprise. "I have no reason to be afraid of them. Even if you're right, I'd rather get along with my roommate than avoid potential problems with strangers. So, what do you say?"

"...A-Alright... If you insist," Yselt answered after a moment's pause. She felt baffled by the idea that the rust-haired boy that she had cowered in fear of minutes earlier seemed to be so open to being around her. He seemed honest enough, though, and the idea of his company didn't sound bad either.

Wymare smiled, hopeful that he was getting somewhere in bridging the gap between him and his new roommate. "Sounds good then," he said, turning and starting to unfold his uniform so he could change according to Clerebold's earlier instruction. "I'll just change quickly, and then we can be off."

Yselt turned around to face the other wall, nervous about having a boy changing clothes behind her, but Wymare wasn't fazed; he'd grown up used to changing clothes and preparing for a day's activities amongst the ever-shifting population of the Colkirk orphanage. He had no issue sliding out of the ragged attire he'd worn from the orphanage and into the surprisingly well-made Scadarah uniform. His was comprised of buttoned leather shoes, ankle-length sackcloth pants over worn-down, knee-length braies, a scruffy off-white undershirt, and a front-button sackcloth jacket to go over it. The Brilanian Royal Academy's seal was displayed on the right breast of the jacket, mirroring its left-side placement on the girls' uniform that Yselt was wearing.

"Gad, this outfit!" Wymare complained once he had finished buttoning up his jacket. He wasn't a stranger to wearing old or poorly-made clothes in the past, but as the sackcloth material rubbed its coarse texture up and down his skin he could not help but protest aloud.

"It's very unpleasant at first," Yselt noted, "B-But it's not so bad once you get used to it."

"I hope you're right," Wymare remarked, stretching his arms and legs to get more comfortable in the uniform. "Well, shall we go?"

Yselt turned around now that Wymare was apparently done changing and nodded curtly. "S-Sure... Where should we go first?"

"Well, the board by the stairwell has job assignments on it. We could reference that and explore the places on it."

"That sounds like it should work... Let's go, then."

The two exited their room, shutting the door behind them and walking down the hall side by side to the job board. Thankfully, it seemed as though Clerebold was elsewhere for the moment, so Wymare was secure in his hope that he wouldn't get chewed out by his new supervisor much more today. However, as he passed by some other rooms that were occupied with Scadarah labor unit members, he noticed some glares being cast in his direction - or perhaps, in Yselt's direction. She didn't meet a single gaze on their way to the corkboard, but she appeared to be aware that they were indeed on her. She walked with a frown creased across her face, her hands held in front of her and her head turned down in a sort of defensive posture.

Wymare took notice of this, due in large part to Yselt's prediction that other laborers wouldn't take kindly to her being in someone else's company very kindly apparently being proven by the stares of those around them. With the question of whether or not her assertion was true having been answered, his thoughts turned to why that was the case, but it didn't strike him as appropriate or safe to ask such a question around the very people who seemed to look upon her with such abhorrence.

Spurred by the glaring laborers in their midst, the two made haste to the assignment board and looked upon the papers tacked to it. As Wymare had seen before, the papers with "Today's Unit Assignments" written on the top were filled with many entries of locations, tasks, and groups of names, and Wymare took notice of the fact that Yselt's name was not printed in any of the job listings, leading him to presume that, like him, she had only just arrived earlier that day.

"Let's see..." Yselt murmured, looking up to the papers and reading over the locations listed for the assignments. "Mailroom... stables... Godhalls... the kitchen... Guild wing? Could that mean the Mage's Guild?"

"Seems likely," Wymare nodded. "My wagoner mentioned getting back to the castle after she was done with us."

"Your... wagoner?" Yselt repeated. "H-Hold a moment. Your wagoner was a caster?"

"Yeah, she was. Let's not stand around here talking, though. Should we survey there first?"

"W-Well, the job listing says it's just corridor cleanup there," Yselt noted, tracing a finger along the paper as she talked. "I doubt it will take us long to inspect it for such a task, so that ought to be fine to start."

"Sure. Do you know how to get there?"

"I-I, umm... N-Not really..." Yselt stammered, her gaze returning to the floor and her face flushing with shame.

"Hey, i-it's fine," Wymare assured, surprised by how little it had taken for her composure to break in such a way. "We'll just try to follow signage or people in casters' robes."

"Right, of course..." Yselt agreed in a hushed voice, keeping her head down as she hurried past Wymare and started up the stairwell. Wymare hadn't expected her to move so fast, and so he made his way up the stairs behind her, drawing yet more sideways glares from more official-looking people that he passed during the ascent.

When he made it back to the main lobby of the castle, he swiveled his head around for a moment in search of Yselt before he saw her from behind. She was standing in place, looking from left to right with her hands still clasped in front of her as if to block out her bustling surroundings. Moving to get to her before some high-caste individual got offended by her presence, Wymare ran up to her.

"Yselt!" he called out, arriving next to her as she turned to acknowledge her name being called. "Hahh... God, you run fast... Why'd you flee like that?"

"S-Sorry..." Yselt apologized, looking all the more downtrodden now that she had inconvenienced Wymare. "I don't... When someone asks me about something I don't know, or to do something I can't do, I... I don't handle it very well..."

Yselt sniffled reflexively as she finished talking, and Wymare, not wanting her to break down in such an open space, reached out and put a firm hand on her shoulder, snapping her out of her downward spiral and drawing her attention to him. It was a bold move, but his gut had told him that it was a necessary one.

"There's no need to be so distressed, alright?" Wymare said, looking Yselt directly in the eyes. "I'm not going to get angry or leave. Just breathe, and then we can go about doing what we need to do. Alright?"

"...Right," Yselt answered after a moment's pause, raising her arm to wipe what few tears had welled up in her eyes away with her sleeve. "Sorry again... I'll do my best."

Wymare smiled now that it seemed that disaster had been averted. He was glad his words had managed to reach Yselt; he still only roughly understood her thought process and state of mind, so he had fallen back on advice he'd given himself over his many years in Colkirk, and it seemed to have helped her at least somewhat.

"I'm glad to hear it," Wymare said, retracting his hand and looking around. Nobody seemed to have taken notice of their conversation in the main hall, which came as a relief to him, and so he turned back to Yselt, who seemed to have collected herself once more. "We'll look for the Guild wing together. Are you ready?"

"Y-Yes, I am prepared," Yselt answered, allowing a quick sigh to purge the last of her anxious worries. "If you don't mind, while we're looking... I-I'd like to know more about your transport wagoner."

"Sure, but there's not much to tell," Wymare complied, putting a hand to his chin as he and Yselt began to walk over to one of the staircases that led up and into the castle's interior. "An old squatter ambushed the Dämian guards and made a dash for the forest, but she blew him down with some sort of lightning spell."

"Oh my!" Yselt gasped. "Was he okay afterward? That seems a bit excessive for one old man on the run..."

"Well, he had assaulted Brilanian soldiers," Wymare shrugged, "And it seemed she had a particular disdain for Scadarah. Gave the rest of us an earful and shared a laugh about it with the entry point guard after the fact."

"Well, I suppose that's true... But still, doesn't a lightning spell sound like more than she needed to use?" Yselt posed as they climbed the stairs and looked for indicators of what direction the Guild would be in. "I doubt he would have resisted that strongly even after a weaker spell..."

"I hear you, but it's what he brought on himself," Wymare said, shaking his head with a twinge of sadness. "To bite the hand that would feed you as a member of the Scadarah caste merely invites punishment. The wagoner said as much herself. And I know that to be true."

As Yselt regarded him with something of a dejected look, Wymare bit the inside of his lip. Less than a day ago, he might have believed the words he was saying, but now it felt as though he was attempting to convince himself of their veracity more than anything else. The image of Igor, flanked on both sides by Archibald and Phoebe in the Velvet Room, sat clearly in his mind's eye, sowing doubt in the assumptions he'd held about the place of a Scadarah like him in the social order.

"...You sound like my brother," Yselt sighed after not saying anything for a bit, grabbing Wymare's attention back from his muddled thoughts.

"Hm? Your brother?" Wymare echoed, intrigued by her mention of a family member.

"O-Oh, umm, n-nothing!" Yselt flailed for a moment before taking a breath to steady herself. "It's just... He's also very adamant about the significance of a person's caste. Especially in the case of Scadarah..."

Wymare only nodded in response, sensing Yselt's pained feelings when lingering on the subject matter. There was a spell of silence between them as Yselt looked off to the side with a forlorn air about her, and so Wymare refocused his attention on locating the Guild wing. In so doing, Wymare noticed several robed individuals making their way around a corner further down the hall straight ahead from their place at the top of the stairs.

"Look there," Wymare pointed, inviting Yselt to follow his gaze. "Those look like casters to me. Let's follow them and see if they'll lead us to the correct general area."

"Ah, yes," Yselt agreed, happy to leave behind the discussion of her brother. She took off in a steady walk after the robed figures, and Wymare was quick to follow just behind her. The multitude of sharply dressed men and women that populated the halls regarded the two with little more than passing glances but seemed to refrain from speaking up, a pattern that Wymare attributed to the uniforms signifying their place as Scadarah labor unit members. Little attention was better than negative attention, he figured, so he acknowledged his gratitude for the uniforms' function while cursing their rough feeling on his arms and legs as he followed Yselt's lead.

The further down the branching halls they went, the more robed people they started to see traveling up and down the carpeted corridors. Some of them held books in their arms; others bore rolled-up papyrus and glass beakers of bubbling liquids. They were often engaged in fierce dialogue with one another as they passed Wymare and Yselt, and though neither could follow even a nominal amount of their discourse, they took the multiple clues as solid enough confirmation that they had indeed found the Guild's wing of Castle Gornemant.

"Well, we're definitely in the right area," Wymare mused.

"Yes, I'd say we are," Yselt concurred. "Now that we're here, though... I suppose we're simply to familiarize ourselves with the layout? They likely don't want us getting in the way of any casters on our first day here."

"Yeah, you're right. Let's just explore for a while and then head elsewhere."

Yselt nodded quietly and proceeded down the hall, Wymare following at her side. The Guild wing of the castle was far more lavishly furnished than their own residence floor, with three-pronged candelabra lighting the walls and the floors lined with fancy, floral-patterned red rugs. The further into the wing they ventured, the more rooms they passed that were full of magic seminars, potions labs, and experimentation halls lined with archives of stacked bookshelves. Soon, they had reached the far depths of the Guild wing, as evidenced by the fact that windows along the walls that offered looks out over Rìo Ghaile beyond the perimeter of the castle grounds.

"I wonder what sort of cleanup they have us do around here," Wymare wondered as he walked a step or two behind Yselt down the hall closest to the outer wall. "Broken vials, maybe?"

"Well, I imagine that doesn't happen often," Yselt replied. "The Guild would have a much higher turnover rate if the average caster-in-training dropped enough vials to warrant a cleanup crew. Still, though... Isn't the study of the magical arts so endlessly intriguing?"

"I've never had reason to give it much thought. The caster profession is certainly interesting, though."

"W-Well, I've always been fascinated by it," Yselt admitted with a smile. "There was even a time where I would beg my parents to permit me to take more prerequisite courses for the more intense magical studies! They... never did, though."

"Your parents could afford schooling for you two?" Wymare noted with curiosity. "Between being Scadarah and raising two kids, I can't imagine how they would have managed that."

"Oh... Well, um..." Yselt seemed to grow nervous all of a sudden, her pale face turning red as she looked down at the rug. "P-Please don't go about spreading this, o-okay?"

"Of course," Wymare nodded, simultaneously happy that she seemed to be growing more comfortable around him and intrigued by what she was about to say.

"...M-My family... wasn't always of the Scadarah caste. I was... actually born a Dämian."

At Yselt's secret, Wymare regarded her with a wide-eyed look and a slight tilt of the head. "Really?" he asked, his mind already fluttering with questions at this revelation.

"Yes... M-My parents were members of the Brilanian Army," Yselt affirmed, sadness creeping further into her tone as she continued. "We weren't the wealthiest, but we had more than enough to be happy... My mother and father cared for my brother and me very much."

"...And I take it something happened?" Wymare asked softly, not wanting to upset Yselt more than she already was by the memories she was reliving during her explanation.

"...S-Sorry," Yselt sniffled. "It's j-just that... My brother is the only family I have anymore... But he d-doesn't seem to want much to do with me now. I don't know why... I j-just want him to talk to me...!"

The more she talked, the more Yselt seemed like she was about to start crying, her lip trembling and her eyes watering with tears. Wymare could not help but frown as his sympathy with her circumstances drove him to feel her pain, and in the interest of keeping his roommate's brimming sadness out of sight from others who might react strongly to Scadarah lingering in the halls, he led her by the shoulder into a side hallway with nobody else around. Two doors lined the sides of the small, dead-end corridor, and Wymare could only hope that nobody would come out and make Yselt's condition worse.

"Hey... It's okay," Wymare said. Although he tried his best to be reassuring, he found some back corner of his mind wondering how many times he'd have to do something like this in one day.

"I'm s-so sorry, Wymare... You m-must *hic* think me a soft, fragile thing," Yselt sighed, still trying her best to hold in her emotions. "I suppose I'm still not over everything that's happened, but... I-It's just too much for me to-"

"Don't apologize, Yselt," Wymare insisted. "You're not a bother for letting your feelings out."

For the third time that morning, Yselt looked at Wymare with confusion and sadness. It didn't make sense to her that this boy she'd only just met was acting in such a way toward her sorrow, treating her with patience and consideration that she hadn't experienced in some time.

"You're... very strange," Yselt whispered, swallowing the lump in her throat as she spoke, "But thank you. It's been some time since I've told anyone about my family situation... So it still hurts to think about much of it. Especially my brother."

"Sounds like you still care for him," Wymare thought aloud.

"Well, of course... He is still my brother, after all. When we were still of the Dämian caste, he was happy and caring... always looking out for me. That didn't change after we became Scadarah, but then he left for some time, and now... he's changed so much..."

"Changed how?"

"He won't speak to me, as I said before. I was so glad to see him when I arrived in the labor unit, but... he spurned me, declaring us strangers and fixating on my caste. I was excited to see him again, and now... Why? What made him become like this...?"

Yselt seemed to have exhausted her will to cry, instead hanging her head and frowning in submissive despondency as she trailed off after her question. Her sadness was palpable just from being in her presence, and Wymare almost felt guilty for inviting her out of their room and inadvertently dredging up so many of her pent-up troubles. As he dwelled on her words, the lingering conflict over Igor's words returned to mind as well - if the caste system was so oppressive that it could tear families like his and Yselt's apart, then surely it was a system that warranted being challenged. But the question remained: how was that possible?

"I... am... thou..."

Wymare gasped and snapped to attention as a strange voice that sounded ominously similar to his own whispered in his mind, accompanied by a slight dizziness that made him feel momentarily lightheaded. His jaw clenched and his hand flew up to his forehead to nurse the throbbing ache, and as his head moved just a bit to the left, something appeared in the periphery of his vision that made him turn and stare down the hall he and Yselt had moved to.

Fixed to the end of the hall where there had previously been nothing but the wall's grey stone foundation was a door of wooden planks, surrounded by an outline of misshapen grey rocks that didn't match the rest of the wall. At a glance, the door itself was unassuming, with little distinguishing it from many of the other wood doors of the Guild wing that they had passed by. However, affixed to the front of the door was a gold plaque with nothing engraved on it, its sheen drawing Wymare's focus and triggering a memory not unlike his first arrival at Castle Gornemant: the door was perfectly identical to the one he had seen in his visions after being visited by the blue butterfly.

As Wymare faced the door with a slack jaw and wide eyes, Yselt looked up, wondering why he was being so silent and regarding him with a puzzled glance. "Um... Wymare? What are you looking at?"

"That door... The one with the plaque. Was it always there?" Wymare responded, not taking his eyes off the door as if it would up and disappear were he to look away.

"Um... A-Are you feeling well?" Yselt asked with a concerned tone. "There's no such door down there..."

Blinking in rapid succession multiple times did nothing to change what Wymare was seeing, even with Yselt's answer giving him a sense that he may have been suffering from a hallucination. Despite the confusion that plagued his mind, he felt compelled to approach the source of his bewilderment. Thus, he began a slow walk to the end of the hall and toward the door, leaving Yselt to stand in place and stare at him with a baffled, yet troubled, look.

Once the mysterious door was within his reach, Wymare extended his left hand and touched the edge of the golden plaque, the cool, smooth metal sending a shiver across his fingertips. Almost as soon as he touched it, he heard Yselt gasp from behind him and hurry over to his side.

"Wh-What!?" Yselt stammered. "The door; I-I see it now! What in the world...?"

"I... don't know..." Wymare breathed, "But... I've seen it before."

"Eh!? What do you mean, you've seen it before!? H-How is that possible?" Yselt exclaimed, flustered with panic at the strange events playing out in front of her.

Before Wymare could think of an answer, the gold plate on the door shimmered, drawing both his and Yselt's attention as letters began to be carved into its metal face. The pace and appearance of the carvings were rough and fraught with sharp edges, giving the appearance of a message slashed into the back of a bench by a wayward knife, and once it was finished the plaque read 'PRISON CAMP'.

"Prison... Camp?" Yselt read, short of breath as the shock of what she was witnessing caused her to forget to breathe.

Seconds after the carving of the words on the plaque ceased, the door's handle clicked and opened on its own, creaking open just slightly. Wymare and Yselt exchanged looks before Wymare grasped its golden handle with his right hand, bracing himself, and pulling it open in one swift movement. Wymare and Yselt looked through its open frame and balked at an unexpected sight: the hallway behind them.

Its layout seemed to be reflected on the other side of the door, from the placement of the doors on the side of the hall to the rug on the floor and the candelabra on the walls. However, despite the glaring similarities, Wymare felt his skin bristle as he looked into the inverted castle corridor. There was a strange air to the place that set his nerves alight, firing on all cylinders to fill his mind and body with instinctive urges to turn around and run like hell.

"What in the...? I-Isn't this the hall we just came through?" Yselt wondered, tense and racked by paranoia. "But... why is it all inverted?"

"I don't know," Wymare replied, "But something about it feels... off." As he finished speaking, he took his first step through the open door and into the reversed hallway, determined to see what was going on despite the immediate feeling of extreme unease that took root in his stomach.

"Ahh! Wait, no; don't go in!" cried Yselt. "W-We don't know what's in there! And besides, it's... I..." Her words were caught in her throat as she attempted to protest, overcome with panic.

"Sorry, but... I need to do this," Wymare insisted with a shake of his head. "Something's been bothering me since I arrived in Rìo Ghaile. And I don't know why, but I think I'll find the answer to that in here. Stay if you want, but... I'm going in."

"But I... You...! Oh, fine!" Yselt caved, forcing her legs to move and carry her through the entryway to the inverted corridor before she could second-guess her choice. Once they were both in the parallel hallway, Wymare pulled the door closed behind them and took a long, hard look at the new area they had stumbled upon.

"Is this... another wing of the castle?" Yselt pondered, attempting to rationalize her way through what she was experiencing. "No, that can't be... I mean, the windows looked out over the capital, so there's no way there could have been further expanses beyond it... Right?"

"Let's check the windows," Wymare decided. "If we're still in the castle, it should show us the same view as before."

"Oh! Yes, good idea!" Yselt agreed, hurrying ahead and making a right at the end of the short hall to find a window. Her words and steps were spurred with an anxious fervor, desperate to apply logic to the illogical nature of what was going on.

As Wymare walked up the hall, he took careful notice of his surroundings, analyzing the details of everything to find any hint as to where the door had led them to. For the most part, it seemed identical; the candles still flickered and burned in the mounted candelabra and the walls were still made of the same grey stones. When Wymare went to try the doors on the sides of the hall, he found them to be stuck shut with no amount of pulling or pushing making a difference. This puzzled him; surely rooms of the Guild wing would be open so that casters and trainees could come and go from them as they needed.

That thought led him to make his first major realization: where there had at least been a low mumble of chatter in the castle corridors on the other side of the mysterious door, there were now no voices to be heard at all. The wing was silent, devoid of voices and most sounds save for a low murmur off in the distance that seemed to follow Wymare as he walked. No matter which way he went, the rumbling did not grow any louder or quieter, leaving him clueless as to its point of origin.

His search for the source of the whispers was cut short when he heard Yselt let out a high-pitched scream, driving him to take off running in her direction. He found her at a corner near a wall with a window with her hands clasped over her nose and mouth, evidently having fallen on her rear in a fit of terror.

"Yselt! What happened?" Wymare asked. The only answer he received was her shaking arm pointing to the window, leading him to step over and look through it. He saw Rìo Ghaile's familiar cityscape towering around the castle grounds, but it was heavily distorted in ways that made his heart race. Not only were the buildings all cast in an eerie black silhouette, but the sky itself had lost its usual bright blue color. What few mid-morning clouds there were now floated beneath a sickly green sky, the sun nowhere to be seen.

"What in the...?" Wymare exhaled, in awe and disbelief at what he was seeing.

"T-T-There's no way this is real!" stammered Yselt, assuming a fetal position on the floor by wrapping her arms around her knees and pulling her legs to her chest. "W-We have to be dreaming! Or hallucinating! O-Or-"

Yselt's rambling attempt at rationalizing the state of the capital beyond the castle was cut short by the sound of someone stepping into the corridor a short way away. Wymare and Yselt both turned to look, and they saw a figure draped in caster's robes, clutching a stack of scrolls and facing away from them while standing between them and the hall containing the door with the golden plaque.

"Where did they...?" Wymare asked.

"Oh, thank Bahamut!" Yselt exclaimed, her voice quivering with joy as relief washed over her. "Someone else is here! Now we can get out of-"

"Hold on, Yselt," Wymare ordered, stepping away from the window and facing the cloaked figure. "Something's not right."

The two stared at the person's back for a moment, waiting for any kind of reaction to their presence. Although it spoke no words, it did respond by slowly tilting its head back to look at the ceiling. At first, Wymare and Yselt were confused, but that confusion rapidly gave way to terror as the figure continued to bend over backward, its spine folding in half at an angle that should have been impossible for any human to achieve. Cracks and snaps could be heard as the humanoid entity finally bent over far enough to lock eyes with the two, revealing that the only thing in place of its face beneath its cloak's hood were two glowing, unblinking red eyes.

"In... truders... must... die."

The human-shaped creature's entire body collapsed into a puddle swirling of black and red sludge on the floor after it uttered those few words in a distorted, guttural voice. Wymare and Yselt's faces were white as a sheet as they looked in, paralyzed by the horror that filled their bodies as they watched the monster's remains begin to bubble and spew before erupting in a shower of shadowy fog and bile. From the spray emerged a single demonic figure, a pair of red eyes still glowing from a pumpkin-headed face dressed in a witch hat and a black cloak. From the folds of its cloak, a flame-bearing lantern was clutched at the handle by a single gloved hand, its light glowing more intense as the flame burned brighter before the monster thrust it forward and unleashed a fireball that flew toward Wymare and Yselt.

Wymare acted quickly, grabbing Yselt from her place on the floor and pulling her down the other hall that the corner led to in time for the monster's attack to explode against the wall. "Run!" he shouted, helping her onto her feet before taking off in a sprint away from the pumpkin-headed entity.

"W-Where are we going!?" Yselt yelled, following Wymare's lead and running after him.

"The labor unit floor! We'll try to lose them down there!" Wymare responded.

The two continued to run away from the demon chasing them, their fleeing made only more strenuous and frightful as the doors of the Guild wing flew open behind them and unleashed more red-eyed human-like creatures that transformed into yet more lantern-bearing monsters. Blasts of fire flew around the halls as the growing horde of demonic creatures chased Wymare and Yselt through the Guild wing of the castle, chasing them all the way out to the main hall that was deserted in a similar manner to the rest of the parallel castle. With a swarm of pursuers on their tails, Wymare and Yselt wasted no time ducking into the stairwell that led down to the Scadarah labor unit's chambers, managing to lose their attackers as their massive numbers and oversized heads prevented them from squeezing down the stairs all at once.

"Hahh... Damn..." Wymare panted, his hands on his knees as he gasped for breath outside of the entrance to the labor unit's chambers. "That was... too close..."

"What in the world... were those things...?" Yselt asked from her seat on the stairs, similarly out of breath.

"I don't know, but... we'll need to stay here for the time being. With any luck, they'll give up and disperse before long..."

"I hope you're right... I knew we shouldn't have g-gone through that door..."

Wymare let out a deep exhale as he shook his head. He knew Yselt was right; entering through the mysterious door had caused them nothing but panic and life-threatening danger. However, he could not resist the feeling in his chest that he needed to be in this place. There was a lingering sentiment that there was something he needed to do, but he could not place a name to it.

"...Well, let's go to our room for now," Wymare said. "Who knows - maybe we'll find someone here who doesn't want to turn us to ash."

"D-Don't even joke about that!" Yselt protested as she stood up. "I thought I was going to die..."

"R-Right, sorry," Wymare apologized, rubbing the back of his head with one hand in shame.

Yselt crossed her arms and huffed at him, pouting as she walked past him and toward their floor entrance. Wymare followed behind her, but both of them stopped almost as soon as they passed through the entryway as shock seized them.

In the place of the usual corner space with the assignment corkboard on the wall that branched off into the hallways lined with Scadarah laborers' dwellings, the entrance led them to a large, open wing of a prison, with two floors of containment cells lining the left and right walls and steel platforms serving as paths up to the second floor of cells. The floor was filthy and covered in what seemed to be blood, as were the walls surrounding the cells, and the room generally seemed to be in a state of decrepit, rotting decay. Inhabiting the long-stretching room's many cells were scrawny shadow creatures dressed mostly in rags, all of them chained to the walls and clutching tools of labor that they uselessly attempted to swing at thin air.

"What...?" Yselt breathed, slowly walking further in and looking from cell to cell on the left side in utter disbelief.

"What in the hell is going on here...?" Wymare pondered as he surveyed the right wall. None of the demented humanoids locked in the cells seemed to pay him any mind as he walked by, their beady red eyes transfixed on their imaginary tasks.

"What are you miscreants doing, wandering about without your restraints and neglecting your labor?" a harsh, echoing voice demanded from above. Startled by the sound, Wymare and Yselt turned away from the cells and looked around for who was speaking. Wymare saw nothing from his side of the room, but Yselt looked up to the second floor above him and froze, her face draining of color and her mouth hanging open.

"B... Brother!?" Yselt cried, appalled by what she was seeing.

Wymare quickly crossed the room to stand by her and look up to the second floor. Standing up there was a man standing tall with his arms crossed, dressed in what seemed to be a prison warden's attire combined with the robes of a king. The suit's vest was studded with badges and glistening gemstones, and attached to the back of the man's shoulders flowed an impressive cape that boasted a spotted fur trim. His head was topped by an old-fashioned white wig, his boots were glistening like freshly cleaned glass, and a gold monocle sat in front of his left eye, adding a flash of sophistication to his otherwise uninviting expression.

Wymare's eyes went wide and his jaw fell open at the sight of the man. His opulent attire and glowing yellow eyes were distinguished, but there was no mistaking that face, the irritated sneer of cold command taking Wymare back to that morning's events after arriving at Castle Gornemant. His mind became clouded with the image of the familiar man's face and, unable to think of anything else, Wymare simply spoke his name with the same stupefaction as Yselt.

"C-Clerebold...!?"