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STAINED GLASS WINDOW — Backlit by the muted, watery glow of winter sunlight, the mother of humanism stands above you. She smiles down at you sorrowfully, her face framed by a veil of golden hair, perfectly unperturbed by the broken glass splitting her body.
YOU — As you look up at her you cannot help but feel subconsciously reprimanded for initially neglecting to properly inspect her mural in favor of investigating the shadowy rafters of the church. You are probably projecting, because all you got out of it was a vague, yet intolerable foreboding feeling that followed you even after you and Kim escaped the range of the unnatural silence.
PERCEPTION (Hearing) [Easy: Success] — It is more than just "a vague foreboding feeling." The world around you is muffled as though cotton has been stuffed into your ear canals.
STAINED GLASS WINDOW — Despite her beauty, Her Innocence Dolores Dei fails to distract you from the ever-growing sensation that something is not right with you. You cannot get your eyes to focus on her. Your vision is going pale and fuzzy around the edges.
YOU — You turn to the lieutenant, thinking to ask if he too is experiencing the same, but the words die on your tongue. You are, for some inexplicable reason, struck dumb by the sight of him standing there.
REACTION SPEED [Challenging: Failure] — But why? There is nothing in front of you right now that you haven't seen before.
PAIN THRESHOLD [Challenging: Failure] — Your head begins to pound. Something is very wrong.
KIM KITSURAGI — To your great consternation, the lieutenant does not seem to notice that you are about ten seconds away from having a seizure and falling dead on the floor.
INLAND EMPIRE [Formidable: Success] — You aren't about to have a seizure. Whatever it is, it will pass quickly. Just let it happen.
YOU — You blink, disoriented. You are back in the Whirling-in-Rags. You stand at top of the steps leading down into the lobby. Have you... somehow *teleported* to the hostel? Maybe that anomalous silence in the church bestowed upon you the gift of *supra-natural powers*?
LOGIC [Easy: Success] — Such things do not happen.
YOU — Still, you cannot be sure, and it *is* an explanation for the situation you have found yourself in. The important thing is, however, that Kim is not here, and if you really have teleported you have left him all alone in the church without any warning. You must get to him immediately. You hurry down the stairs, nearly tripping over your own feet in your haste.
WHIRLING-IN-RAGS LOBBY — At the foot of the staircase you come to a sudden stop. The lobby is empty. Not a single customer sits at any of the long tables. There is no music playing, no conversation. Garte is nowhere to be found. You can't even hear the background noise of Martinaise outside.
CONCEPTUALIZATION [Medium: Success] — Seeing it like this feels unnatural, like seeing a pond without ripples on a windy day.
WHIRLING-IN-RAGS LOBBY — Yes, everything is far too still. For all you know, you've just walked into a painting.
HALF LIGHT [Easy: Success] — You are suddenly, absolutely, and terrifyingly sure that this isn't *really* the lobby of the Whirling-in-Rags. All the hair on the back of your neck stands up.
COMPOSURE [Challenging: Failure] — Oh my god, you've finally lost it completely. You're *vividly* hallucinating. You've gone insane. You were standing in the Dolorian church just a few seconds ago! What happened to the stained glass window, the pinewood planks, the snowdrifts?!
VOLITION [Formidable: Success] — No. It's no use losing your head. Focus on what's in front of you.
YOU — You'd screwed your eyes shut from the spike of anxiety, as if your surroundings would magically resolve themselves and transform back into the church, but you bravely open them. Good for you.
PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Easy: Success] — The lobby is not *entirely* deserted. You'd be hard-pressed to miss the presence of the lieutenant. You have no idea how you didn't notice him straightaway.
LOGIC [Easy: Success] — Actually, you're pretty sure he wasn't there before.
KIM KITSURAGI — Dressed in his vibrant orange jacket, the lieutenant stands guard by the front door with his hands clasped neatly behind his back, exactly where he was when you first met him.
INLAND EMPIRE [Formidable: Success] — But rather than a first meeting, this feels more like a farewell.
KIM KITSURAGI — He is awash in sunlight, brighter than should be possible for Revachol in winter. He stands in the center of a column of white-gold brilliance that spills in through the glass doors, from the ceiling, from every direction. He draws the light to him like a magnet.
CONCEPTUALIZATION [Easy: Success] — No. He *is* the light. He is light itself, and he is the source of it. It pours out from him in rays. It envelops him like an aureole.
KIM KITSURAGI — The lieutenant says nothing, but you can tell he is watching you from across the room.
INLAND EMPIRE [Challenging: Success] — He is waiting for you, and only you. He will stay there, a sentinel by the threshold, an untouchable pillar of forbearance, until you come to him.
PAIN THRESHOLD [Impossible: Failure] — No. He *will* leave, now or eventually.
EMPATHY [Easy: Success] — Not unless you drive him away.
ESPRIT DE CORPS [Medium: Success] — And that would be quite a feat to pull off, even for you.
KIM KITSURAGI — Nothing changes about the lieutenant's posture, but somehow you get the feeling that he is waiting for you to get over yourself and go to him.
1. Walk towards Kim.
YOU — You walk towards the lieutenant.
PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Trivial: Success] — The heels of your snakeskin shoes click audibly against the tiled floor, interrupting the stillness with their noisy staccato racket.
INLAND EMPIRE [Challenging: Success] — Somehow, this doesn't feel right. You should be silent. Respectful. Isn't that what you thought when you first entered the church?
YOU — You toe off your shoes and abandon them on the middle of the floor. You make the rest of the way to the lieutenant in only your socks, your steps now mercifully much quieter, though not completely soundless. You are not graceful enough for that.
KIM KITSURAGI — His is light without heat; you worried that as you drew nearer the radiance emanating from him might burn you, but your fear was unfounded. Even so, your approach is not entirely without pain. This near, he's too bright to look at directly.
PAIN THRESHOLD [Impossible: Failure] — Your eyes sting and hot tears gather on your lower lashes. You wipe them away before they can fall.
INLAND EMPIRE [Trivial: Success] — You should kneel.
YOU — It's the same instinct you had when you first saw Dolores Dei in the stained glass window. But this time, you do not resist it. You have no desire to.
You fall to your knees like a marionette with its strings cut. As you hit the cold, unyielding floor, a spike of pain shoots up your femur, but it's all too easy to ignore. You pitch forward, feeling strands of your lank, greasy hair come untucked from behind your ears. The toes of the lieutenant's boots are right in front of your nose. You are close enough that you could press your lips to them to express your reverence.
CONCEPTUALIZATION [Easy: Success] — If you were religious, perhaps this is the posture you would assume to pray.
COMPOSURE [Legendary: Failure] — You can feel words rising up in your chest, like bile you can't swallow down. They are going to burn your throat and mouth as you spit them out. *What* are you intending to say to him?
1. "Please don't leave me."
YOU — "Please don't leave me," you beg. You get a sudden, intense feeling of déjà vu. You have said those four words many, many times before, whether or not anyone was listening. They are a mantra of helplessness, a well-worn groove you cannot help but slip into, the most comforting and familiar kind of pain.
KIM KITSURAGI — Above you, the lieutenant remains silent. But you can feel him looking at you with that dark, steady gaze of his.
INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] — It is with compassion.
YOU — You close your eyes. Hands trembling, you reach forward to try and touch his clothing.
THE BLACKNESS BEHIND YOUR EYELIDS — But where he should be standing, there is instead only cold, empty air. Your fingers close around nothingness.
1. Say his name.
YOU — You open your mouth, but nothing comes out.
PAIN THRESHOLD [Impossible: Failure] — He has already left you.
KIM KITSURAGI — He has not. You feel something impossibly soft and warm brush the side of your face, like a kiss; like a benediction. It's the lieutenant's glove, smelling of earth and leather conditioner and petrol, and curiously, of pinewood, like the old church. He slides his hand across your cheek, hooks his fingers underneath your chin, and tilts your head skyward with a gentleness that steals the breath from your lungs.
INLAND EMPIRE [Impossible: Success] — It feels like falling in love.
PAIN THRESHOLD [Impossible: Failure] — No, it doesn't. You should open your eyes.
YOU — Then all of this will end.
PAIN THRESHOLD — Open your eyes, Harry!
1. Open your eyes.
2. Open your eyes.
3. Open your eyes.
4. Open your eyes.
YOU — You open your eyes.
PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Trivial: Success] — You have not left the spot you were standing on. The walls of the old Dolorian church enclose you on all sides. Your feet, still in their snakeskin shoes, rest firmly upon the wooden floorboards, and you are upright. None of what you just saw, or did, took place in reality.
LOGIC [Formidable: Success] — If you were to hazard a guess, you'd say it had something to do with that strange preternatural silence you and Kim experienced at the back of the church. Whatever that was, it seemed to have induced some kind of vivid hallucination, like a waking dream.
INLAND EMPIRE [Formidable: Success] — It was not a dream. It was a forewarning. And one you had too early. This wasn't supposed to happen, not yet, and not in this way. But you are not unhappy about it, exactly.
COMPOSURE [Heroic: Failure] — Either way, it wasn't actually real, and yet your legs tingle insistently as if you *had* been kneeling and you've interrupted the blood flow there. Your breaths are coming shallow and rapid. Your hands, too, are still shaking.
STAINED GLASS WINDOW — Her Innocence gazes down upon you, heedless of your obvious distress. Her smiling visage, painstakingly crafted from finest glass and colorful paint, has not changed. You cannot glean what she thinks of your newfound veneration of the slight man standing just a few paces to your left. Speaking of which...
KIM KITSURAGI — "Lieutenant-yefreitor, you've stood there for over five minutes..." The lieutenant's calm voice echoes in the cold air of the church.
"What are you thinking of, if I may ask?"
YOU — You cannot help yourself. You stare at the lieutenant openly. The sky is overcast today, and not much sunlight makes it into this building, but the little of it that passes through the window before the two of you now catches upon the edges of his face. It suffuses the sharp lines of his cheekbones and his chin, limning him in a pale, multicolored halo.
CONCEPTUALIZATION [Challenging: Success] — Swathed in light though he may be, he is also rendered in flesh and blood. In that one thing, he is like you.
PAIN THRESHOLD [Impossible: Failure] — He is *nothing* like you.
VOLITION [Heroic: Success] — It takes every last atom of willpower in your body to not fall to the floor, like you did in your vision. You only manage this because you do not want to alarm the lieutenant. You do not want him to be displeased with you. At this moment, you cannot imagine a single thing in the *entire world* that you want less than that.
That is quite the statement, considering some of the unspeakably horrible things you have been through in your life, even if you may not remember them all.
COMPOSURE [Heroic: Failure] — Despite your resolve to stay standing, your knees weaken.
REACTION SPEED [Formidable: Failure] — You should probably respond to him. At least eight seconds have passed since he asked his question.
YOU — You lick your lips, but it doesn't help. Your mouth is as dry as sandpaper. When you speak, it's in a hoarse whisper.
"Kim..." That is all your vocal cords can muster.
EMPATHY [Challenging: Success] — As you continue to gape at the lieutenant, a shadow of genuine concern passes over his face. He is wondering, with some dismay, if you are going to start crying. He thinks that maybe seeing the window shook loose some bad memories.
COMPOSURE [Heroic: Failure] — You can only guess at the kind of expression that you are making right now. It's probably very, very bad.
KIM KITSURAGI — "Detective. Are you all right?"
YOU — "No. I mean, yes. Everything's fine. I mean—" You clutch at the front of your shirt. You can feel your heart making a valiant attempt to beat a hole right through your sternum. "Kim, I have to... you just..."
You are struggling to explain. Your stomach is twisting itself in knots and your tongue seems to have found itself in a similar predicament.
"Listen, I just *saw* something. I saw *you*."
KIM KITSURAGI — The lieutenant blinks. "Yes. Why is that surprising? I am standing in front of you, and you are looking at me."
YOU — "No, not like that. I mean you were..."
HALF LIGHT [Medium: Success] — Harry! Shut the fuck up! Do you really think that telling him what you just witnessed is a good idea?! He already thinks you're a nutcase!
EMPATHY [Medium: Success] — Recounting your vision to him would disturb him, and not just because he would seriously begin to worry that you were hallucinating. You have known each other for less than a week. *Think* about the nature of what you saw. He won't buy into it being some kind of supra-natural phenomenon unrelated to your actual thoughts about him.
INLAND EMPIRE [Legendary: Success] — Probably because it *wasn't* one-hundred percent unrelated to your actual thoughts about him.
AUTHORITY [Legendary: Failure] — Don't you yourself think it's a little strange how eager you were to become his supplicant?
YOU — You swallow nervously. "Never mind. It's nothing. I'm all right."
KIM KITSURAGI — The lieutenant considers you for a moment, then seems to make up his mind to accept your response at face value.
"Okay. If you say so."
He breaks eye contact to return his attention to the stained glass once more.
YOU — You, however, are unable to look away so easily.
INLAND EMPIRE [Legendary: Success] — You will never be able to forget the sight of him radiating that blazing light. As you watch him stand there with his hands folded behind his back, looking to the rest of the world like an ordinary man, you think you can just make out the outline of his lungs, glowing like twin embers underneath his orange jacket.