HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME

[unstill_life]

[ you have been here long enough

no torches light the way, but the gold lights that your vision swims in illuminates the darkness today. how did you not realize it before? the way to the exit. . .

all you needed to do was follow the Carnelian cobblestones, that lead down from the overgrown saffron portrait to the maze-like second level. you're almost there, the golden door that bars you from the exit is right before you ]

Comments

[witheyesofgold]

[HOW DID I NEVER REALIZE?? walking—no, running as he gets closer to the door!]

[unstill_life]

[ the door won't open—

you need a wish to grant. A wish. You should make your wish, that will open the door ]

[witheyesofgold]

[door pls don't be so difficult]

Open up and let everyone go!

[unstill_life]

[ nope still not opening. door doesn't like your wish!! ]

[witheyesofgold]

Ah, is that so? Hmm, perhaps...

[let me try in my Baskerville voice]

I wish that you let everyone go home.

Except Elliot, he is not allowed to go back to our world, just send him elsewhere instead.

[unstill_life]

[ DOOR IS NOT IMPRESSED LEO.

EVEN IF YOUR BASKERVILLE VOICE IS PRETTY COOL

but make a better wish door refuses to be impressed with that one ]

[witheyesofgold]

[:T :T :T]

What about releasing only the people from that painting? You can keep me, if you like. But let them go.

[unstill_life]

[ refuses to budge!!

this place will not change, it only changes other things. otherwise you'd be like, messing with a key part of the wish-granting process or something. not that the door voices of any of this aloud, but its continual stony rejection of these desires may as well voice it. ]

[witheyesofgold]

. . .


Keep Elliot alive as he is now. Send him to a different world, if you must, one that is safe and where he will have another chance at happiness.

Just let him live, please.

[unstill_life]

[ the door swings open.

the room revealed inside is dimly lit, and Leo can just barely see in the dark the shapes of tables set up. In the center there's a pedestal, lit with gold glowing lights. A book lies shut on it, and though the cover looks like the cover to the first of the Holy Knight series. . . it must be more than that. Otherwise it wouldn't be here. ]

[witheyesofgold]

[whoa that actually worked??

steps inside the room, slowly, though once he recognizes the cover of the book he moves to take it without thinking]

[unstill_life]

[ the book glows in his hands, a pulse of energy. opening the book, looking through pages. . . memories not gotten back from aather, skills lost to the Library on arrival are gotten back flipping through. It's not like the usual regain, the reliving and replay, but as if they'd been there all along, not overwhelming but slotting comfortably back into place ]

[witheyesofgold]

[WELP THIS IS TOTALLY NOT HOW HOLY KNIGHT GOES

but... oh.

okay then.]

[unstill_life]

[ Leo is nearing the end of the book, only a few pages left— your wish, it's in here too. It's telling a story, yours, and that's how your time here is going to end, with that wish. You're so, so close— ]

[ HEY LEO TIME TO WAKE UP APPARENTLY YOU WEREN'T THAT CLOSE

and it might be something to be written off as a frustrating dream, but his fingers are smudged with ink, and the skills and memories are still in place. the memories of the dream are vivid, and even though there's no carnelian stones to mark the path. . . he does remember the way to that corridor and golden door.

the book with your wish in it is still in that room. ]

[witheyesofgold]

[which means I am desperately going to try and get to it again y/y]