Chapter Text
"One of the walls looks normal, but if you check it carefully, it'll reveal the secret library's entrance," the librarian in Dormont explains to you, looking around warily as if afraid someone is eavesdropping. "Technically, only the librarians know about it. But you ARE trying to save Vaugarde, so. Don't snitch on me? And don't lose tomorrow?"
Well, that's good information to have. You reassure them and wave goodbye, leaving the building.
Even though the library in Dormont proved to be basically useless again, with the books not providing you with any good intel, at least the librarian was kind enough to give you some information.
"Second floor, secret library," you hum to yourself, trying to recall the layout of the second floor of the House. The library was… on the left wing at the farthest part of the floor, and, supposedly, there's a well-hidden entrance that leads to a secret library.
As you hop over to the north of the village, you think again about how grateful you are to be able to travel back and forth in time. None of you were fully prepared for what was inside the House at all, and the King is even more dangerous than any of you were expecting. But it's fine! One way or another, you'll be able to survive his strongest attack, and you'll defeat him, and you'll save Vaugarde!
The banana peel still feels a little intimidating as you approach it, but you swallow down all your anxiety. You already died once via slipping on it and cracking your skull open, and it… wasn't the best experience, but your mind didn't really register the pain.
It did kind of smell like banana when you came to in the House, but the smell quickly faded as you moved forward, so it was fine.
Well then. You take a deep breath and casually step forward, your foot landing on the peel and—!
You don't know if you'll get used to the sudden rush of this moment as your feet slip up from under you and you close your eyes and ready yourself for the impact—
—except, it doesn't come. Well, at least not as fast as it did the first time.
As you fall, you suddenly feel wind rush through your hair and you quickly get ahold of your hat, feeling it almost fall off your head. Something bends all around you, and for a moment, you thought you fell into a body of water instead of falling to the ground. But it doesn't make sense, the river is several meters away, so the ground must have given way under you, but—!!
It feels wrong, as if the rules of reality itself are being rewritten and you can't help but be fully aware of it all, with whatever physics existed before not mattering now at all. Everything shifts and twists, and none of it makes ANY SENSE!
You yelp as you finally hit the ground, your eyes shut tightly, preparing for pain that would surely come after falling for what felt like eternity.
But… it all comes to a slow crawl. Suddenly, as if it never happened at all, everything feels normal. The air is no longer bending, and the ground below you feels solid enough, and not as if it were about to cave in under you.
And… there's pain, but not as bad as you thought it'd be. Really, all you felt was the impact of falling, and it was as if you rolled over in your sleep and simply fell off a mattress.
As you lie there on your back, trying to catch your breath and stop your heart from beating so blinding hard, you slowly become attuned to the world around you.
It feels like carpet under you, there's loud buzzing from somewhere above you, and it smells really moldy. You scrunch up your nose in disgust and finally open your eyes, moving to sit up.
It takes a while to register, but the first thing you actually notice is… the shades.
Whatever place you are in, everything is… weird. Unnatural. Not as it should be. The shades are all so odd and impossible, and you can't recognize them, and your mind seems to make no sense of them.
In your confusion, you barely register a ring in your mind, but you snap yourself out of it enough to curl up your hand in a shape you're slowly becoming familiar with and put it up against your head as you stare ahead.
"Stardust? Can you hear me?" Loop's voice, albeit a bit weak, reaches your ear as you answer their call. The sound is muted, as if they're on the other side of a thick wall.
Even with the familiarity of their voice, you don't feel safe.
(Just like back then, even with the stars above your head, when you——)
You groan. The light from above hurts your eye and you rub at it with the back of your other hand. "Y… yeah, I can," you finally answer.
"Okay, good!"
As you inhale, more of that sour, weird smell enters your airway. Eugh. You open your eye again, shielding it from the harsh light with the brim of your hat.
"So… I don't think you actually looped, right?" You nod and hum. "Because, one, I really can't see you anywhere, neither in Dormont nor in the House, and two, everything seems to go on as normal, as if you didn't loop."
"You… don't know what happened?"
A beat passes. "Nope, I'm unfortunately as much in the dark as you are. I'll try to see if I can find you, give me a second…"
If even Loop doesn't know…
…
Slowly, while you wait, you try to take in your surroundings again. Your mind still can't get a hold of the weird shades, but you try not to care about that too much.
A carpet seems to cover the entire floor. It looks… moldy. Maybe that's a good way of describing this particular shade.
There's some kind of wallpaper on the walls, and up above on the ceiling, there are weird, long beams of light that kinda make your eye hurt. When you focus enough, you realize that the buzzing sounds seem to come from those.
Stars, this is so weird.
"Hmm," you hear Loop again as you touch one of the walls. The wall feels… like a wall. "I can kinda see you, but it's all so blinding fuzzy. I can't make out where you are at all."
"Oh."
"What does it look like where you are?"
"Well," you start, attempting to comprehend it yourself. "I'm in… a room? It's really big, and it's in a lot of weird shades."
"Weird shades?"
You don't think you can even begin to describe those. "Yeah?? It's… I don't know, they're weird, I can't really describe them. It just looks kinda… moldy, I guess."
"Moldy shades…" They sound as if they're mulling over that fact. "Sure! Well, what else? I see some light sources…"
"Oh, it's from… like, long light beams, I don't know what those are."
"Mhm."
"And… there's a bunch of hallways." They all look different from each other, with some empty doorways taller or shorter than the others. "A carpet is covering the whole floor, too… and that's it, I think."
There's nothing from the other line for a moment before Loop snickers. "Well, this is interesting! It's a shame I don't know anything about what is going on, BUT all I know is that you're most likely not going to progress at all while in there, so… maybe go look around and find some way to loop back? There's gotta be something."
You really don't like how unsure they sound. "Do you actually not know anything about this?"
"Awh, don't worry, Stardust, I'm sure you can figure things out on your own! You always have, this is hardly different."
Urgh. Didn't even actually answer your question.
"I'll keep an eye on you, but I need to hang up— there's some interference, and it's hard to focus on anything. Just call me whenever you're feeling lonely, 'kayyy?"
You also don't like the idea of them hanging up on you, but you swallow down your protests. It's fine, they're right, you can figure this out. Just look around and find a way to loop back. Easy. "Yeah, okay. Bye, Loop."
"Talk to you later! Beep," they make a silly noise and hang up. As soon as the connection is severed, you suddenly become more aware of your surroundings. Whoa.
You didn't really notice it before, but your mind felt… fuzzy, which made it harder to think when talking to Loop just now. That… usually doesn't happen.
…
You don't know if you should worry about it or not.