It's a sad song - It's a sad tale

[musacal]

[ WELL THAT... HAPPENED, HUH. YO WHAT THE FUCK DISCORD THAT'S BALLER.

Good thing the Wizard's probably going to be occupied with THAT for a while longer because it looks like this long ass, nogood day isn't quite over yet as there's still one more incoming curve ball. In contrast to the smell of smoke from the auditorium there seems to be a... sweet, banana-y baked good smell coming from the cafeteria? But who could have been baking while you were all at the trial--

If you go in there or even just pass by at all, you'll find on one of the tables there's a plate with several warm and fresh banana muffins. Underneath the plate, just sticking out enough so that you can see a corner peeking out, is a folded up note:


You are not alone. I'm here to help.
I'll be waiting for everyone in the
girl's washroom on the first floor.

Come and find me.
-a friend

At the bottom of the note is a small, hand drawn banana. The handwriting and muffins might look familiar to two of you.

...soooooooo you up for a meeting after all that shit? ]

Comments

[brokeforgood]

[Farrah’s here, somehow, a weird mixture of pride and despair thrumming in her heart.]

Your—- boss?

At like… the pizza hut? [girl aren’t you too young for a job]

[barberic]

[Benjamin's here because Farrah is here, because neither are likely to want to let the other out of their sight for the moment.

He's not saying much, however, just kind of holding up a wall with his arms crossed over his chest.]

[brokeforgood]

[She’s helping him hold up the wall—- though she’s on the side of him that’s further from the door. She’s like a smaller, more chipper mirror of him—- her arms crossed against her chest, though sometimes, it shifts into more of her hugging herself.

Nope. Not letting him out of her sight. ]

[musacal]

Oh no. I mean from my troupe.

They call her the Leading Player.

[mcfife]

The Balladeer's friend?!

[Oh yeah, it's all coming together.]

[musacal]

Yes, that's right!

She actually saved us last time! That was when I decided to go with her.

[mcfife]

Then we were right. She can find us with her narration powers.

[Balladeer had no reason to worry. Today, Angus finally smiles. Chuckles. He laughs at himself.]

If I could go back in time and tell him that she had saved us before...! [But he can't look back in regret. Peregrine was right. He can't dwell on the "should haves."] And the others? Are they coming with you, too?

[musacal]

Oh, no um... it was just me.

I didn't tell the rest of you at the time because I didn't want you to worry too much about me but...

I left with LP after she saved us. No one else knows about it so um... it's just me sadly.

[mcfife]

I see...

[That's rather disappointing. And how Nana and he are considered to be missing.]

I feel that I would miss you if you disappeared after all that.

[musacal]

[ ........................ ]

I know I definitely missed you. And everyone else.

[sugarlumps]

...I've never seen you before in my life.

[Also there's an "S" in her name, jeez Nana.]

[brokeforgood]

Well, that’s a weird name.

[musacal]

[ Nana just kind of... laughs at that. ]

She's a bit of a weird person. We all just call her LP for short.

[ it can also stand for LESBIAN PRIME ]

[barberic]

Are you sure she can be trusted?

She was also the one who convinced the Balladeer to take part in one of these "shows" of her own devising. She recruited him specifically because of his experience with assassins in the past. Who's to say she's not using you - and us - for her own ends now?

[musacal]

[ ...

She's quiet for a moment, hand on her sword again as she thinks it over. ]

...You're right. She was the one that convinced to do that. She ran one of these before. [ twice even! ] And she's talked to me about it a lot. In all respects I shouldn't trust her.

...But she saved us last time. And kept saving a friend that was helping us from the outside as well. We've been together a whole year now, going around fixing things, and I... at this point I find it hard to believe she's not at least a little bit genuine about this.

[ Her eyes then narrow for a moment and her sword starts to rattle as her hand shakes. ]

More so than the Wizard at least. I don't feel quite as foolish talking to her as I did after the things that happened with him.

[barberic]

[Trust is not high on the list of things Benjamin is willing to feel right now. Sympathy and Empathy are also deep in the bottom of the barrel.

But this is also a young girl. And Maya is willing to vouch for her.

So because of that, a little bit of the sharpness in his tone gentles, when he asks:]

What do you mean, 'after the things that happened with him?'

[musacal]

[ Nana keeps her head down and the rattling persists persists for a while before she takes a deep breath and steadies herself. ]

...I told the others - the ones on the other side - I told them this already so there's no harm in saying it again but...

I've... for a long time I didn't have a family. I was always alone. I didn't even have friends until I went to high school... when I met Maya-chan and the others. All I had ever wanted was to matter to someone, for someone to actually care about me, and I finally had that with our friend group - our little school family.

I did... something stupid. Very, very stupid, in order to keep myself from losing that family. In order to keep experiencing the performance we put on together. This... may sound crazy but I had found a way to turn back time and I did it over and over and over again, until I convinced myself that I was doing something good by forcing the same year to repeat endlessly. One of our other friends put a stop to it for good and I saw the error of what I'd done but... I'm sure you're all intimately familiar with the fact we don't quite remember things right when we wake up in places like these. Like many of you, the loss of memories left me in a very vulnerable place.

At the beginning of the game I tried to reach out to our host - who at the time was pretending to be the Phantom of the Opera. I believe you all have a host as well... Hester, right? He was similar to her in that you could contact him, though only through letters. I wrote him one about my situation, scared that I was going to lose the only thing I ever had, even left him baked goods, and the reply I got back... it wasn't just the Phantom who responded.

[ She closes her eyes, the words on the paper still as vivid in her mind as the first time she read them. ]

"Things like that really shouldn't last forever. Don't you think it'll be better to see new things here?"

[ She reopens her eyes. ]

From there it was a back and forth. I would leave my baking for the Phantom and the one who actually took them was the Wizard. Sometimes my correspondence was from one and others times it was actually from the other. On my birthday I received a cupcake and a note - with my memories as they were it was the first time I could remember anyone doing that for me. Another time it was magically appearing hot chocolate and a note telling me to "keep moving forward" when most of us had already died. The Phantom at one point confirmed to me that the Wizard seemed to "genuinely care for me" but that even in spite of that he would "not spare my life" if things came to that.

...At one point one of us met him. And he said the Wizard claimed to have always wanted to be a father. And so I... for a moment I... there was a foolish moment where I thought if I could meet him I could talk sense to him and make him stop this.

"He is a sentimental man"
And I had always wanted to be... a daughter
That's why because of who I am
I projected onto him the image of... a father

[ But then she shakes her head, her earrings jostling about. ]

But he abandoned the Phantom, someone who also thought he cared for it, and was already long gone by the end of things. I exchanged a few text messages with him but... he seemed like a colder person than I had initially thought.

[ The sword rattling starts again. ]

...He manipulated our host. He's most likely manipulating yours. And I have... come to terms with the fact that he was also probably manipulating me.

[comeandfindme]

[ Taking advantage of the lonely and vulnerable. Manipulating them…caring, supposedly, but not enough to let them live. ]

That bastard… This can’t— he can’t keep doing this.

[mayavericks]

[Maya is silent for a long moment. It... isn't so surprising, really. Considering her memory, and with the help of Janis, she had put the pieces together. Nana had turned back time, again and again.]

I feared he had taken you. Especially after I remembered what you had done, the way you had turned back time, again and again. With all his talk of wanting to go back himself I... feared the worst.

It doesn't surprise me that he would use your situation to this degree. Nor does it surprise me that he would use Hester, either. We have to find a way through.

[She breathes in.]

And... in the meanwhile, I have a birthday party to plan.

[fourbutts]

... what a trash-humping, slime-coated, small-dick son of a bitch.

[ she said, in the tone of voice she has only ever used for Regina George ]

[feudalladyshandmaid]

[Cassandra... gets it. To some degree, more than she possibly knows, she gets it. To be wanted, but misused and tossed aside by someone who doesn't really care about you...]

"Things like that really shouldn't last forever. Don't you think it'll be better to see new things here?"

Huh. Sure sounds like someone wants this to keep going as long as possible.

[employeeoftheyear]

...

This guy really does think making people pointlessly suffer will help him out in the end, huh.

[mcfife]

And she now fights The Wizard, who copied her old tactics.

[A formerly evil person now fighting someone taking on her mantle...]

Nana. A question.

Were Maya, Farrah, the SQUIP and I brought here in revenge for escaping The Wizard's clutches previously?

[She and LP have to know. Everyone up there must; they remember more of what's happened.]

[musacal]

[ She shakes her head. ]

I wondered the same but... Boss said they don't control the cast lists. Or at least she couldn't, but she's pretty positive the Wizard can't either.

[ ... ]

Wait, how is Farrah-san...?

[ You, Maya and the SQUIP she gets but she has not put two and two together here yet. ]

[mcfife]

Riley was with us last time. So we're Claudine and Jeremy. Christim knew Jeremy frim home. They all escaped, didn't they? And Red was with us, too.