Archive of Our Own ^beta

L’appel du vide – The void beckons you. You are floating in a never-ending darkness, holding onto but the barest shreds of your own self.

Physical Instincts – You feel nothing.

1. Where am I?
2. (Remain as nothing.)

You – Where am I?

Ocular Survivor [Easy: Success] – Nowhere.

Dramaturge [Easy: Success] – Between plays. Your role awaits to be reprised.

1. [Memoir: Very Hard] My… role? Who am I? (Try to remember.)
2. (Remain awaiting.)

-1 Nowhere

-2 Feel nothing

Check Failure

Memoir – You’re nobody.

Wordplay [Trivial: Success] – A mere wanderer who’s wandered into a story too large for themself.

Memoir – You’ve been nobody for so long that you have forgotten your own name.

1. [Memoir - Impossible] My name? What? Surely, I can remember my own name. (Try to remember your name.)
2. (Return to nowhere.)

-9999 ????

Check Failure

Memoir – Nothing comes to mind. Nothing but the familiar emptiness.

L’appel du vide – The void takes all.

Morale damaged-1

Ocular Survivor – The void shifts and wanes with your failed remembrance.

Wordplay [Easy: Success] – Like water, or the moon.

You – Am I in the ocean?

Ocular Survivor – No.

Dramaturge – You’re in the midst of your failed roles. All the plays that ended far too sharply for the director’s taste.

You – What is my role?

Dramaturge [Legendary: Success] – Siffrin, the Rogue. A shifty character whose loyalty is proven again and again, but never fully loved by those around him.

Traveler’s Experience – A name you’ve picked up in Vaugarde.

Memoir [Medium: Success] – A variation of ‘Sisyphus’. A man condemned by the divine to an endless quest.

Dramaturge – An appropriate title for you.

1. What is this play you keep talking about?
2. [Ocular Survivor: Challenging] There’s got to be a way out of here. (Look around.)
3. Alright, that’s enough. (Remain as nothing.)

You – What is this play you keep talking about?

Dramaturge [Trivial: Success] – The tale of a party of heroes destroying a tyrant.

Memoir [Medium: Success] – Mirabelle the Housemaiden’s journey to defeat the King who’s freezing the country of Vaugarde in time. You’ve just arrived in the town of Dormont, where the King is holding onto its House of Change.

1. [Memoir: Impossible] Who is Mirabelle? (Try to picture her face.)

You – Who is Mirabelle?

-1 Nowhere

-2 Feel nothing

-5 Can’t remember your name

Check Failure

Memoir – You don’t know.

Ocular Survivor – An obscured face appears in front of you. No matter how you turn to look at it, no features become discernible.

L’appel du vide – The void takes with it her figure.

1. [Locked] Who is Mirabelle? (Try to picture her face.)
2. [Memoir – Hard] (Try to remember something else.)

-1 Nowhere

-2 Feel nothing

-5 Can’t remember your name

+2 Know Mirabelle’s name

Check Success

Memoir – The House of Dormont. You remember walking all around it, seeing every nook and cranny it had to offer. If you close your eye, you can nearly imagine yourself back in its halls, reaching a door.

Rogue's Speed - Muscle memory built over days and days and days of going over the same paths.

Dramaturge - Good actors memorize their lines.

Memoir [Trivial: Success] - Your companions did not remember what you did, and yet followed you, trusting that you'd bring them to safety.

Memoir - You failed them many times, but they saved you in the end.

1. [Memoir - Easy] Who is Mirabelle? (Try to picture her face.)
2. [Locked] (Try to remember something else.)

-1 Nowhere

-2 Feel nothing

-5 Can’t remember your name

+2 Know Mirabelle’s name

+5 Remembered the House

Check Success

You – Who is Mirabelle?

Memoir – The light. The one holding your little party together. She keeps going despite all the setbacks, despite all of her fears and anxieties.

Dramaturge – The one who would be the protagonist, had you not hijacked the role.

Memoir [Easy: Success] – You remember her hair, the way she tied those droplets under the round symbols of Change. Mirabelle carries a rapier, and is always far too kind to not heal anyone who needs it.

Familial Bond – She is your family.

Hand’s Craft [Very Hard: Success] – You feel something in your pockets.

Familial Bond – Take it out. Bring it out!

Hand’s Craft – You reach into the cloak’s pockets. Various knickknacks fall through your fingers, until you reach a little stack of papers.

Ocular Survivor – On top, there is a single photograph. You are the only one reflected in it.

1. [Familial Bond – Very Hard] (Try to see if you can see anything else in it.)
2. (Put it back in your pocket.)

-1 Nowhere

-2 Feel nothing

-5 Can’t remember your name

+2 Know Mirabelle’s name

+5 Remembered the House

+5 Feel the bond

Check Success

Familial Bond – There are four other people in this photograph. You know this.

Ocular Survivor [Trivial: Success] – There is only you in it.

Familial Bond [Legendary: Success] – Your family is here.

1. My family… (See your family.)

+15 Your family

Check Success

Ocular Survivor – Four other figures appear in the picture. Mirabelle, curious and somewhat startled, stands next to you, leaning into the mirror. Madam Odile is at the back, staring inquisitively. Isabeau grins widely, knowing what the apparatus was for. And Bonnie peeks from the bottom, closer to the glass surface than the rest of you.

Familial Bond – There they are. Your family.

Dramaturge [Easy: Success] – Your fellow actors.

Memoir - They are the ones who've traveled with you. Who made your days and nights less lonely, who accepted you as one of their own.

Memoir - They are the first people to make you a person.

Willpower - They are what keeps you going.

Morale healed+2

1. Where are they?
2. Do they know my name?
3. I have to find them. (Call out for your family.)

You – I have to find them.

Lung Capacity [Medium: Success] - You breathe in and out, accumulating as much oxygen you can inside you, before letting it all out in one, single, unified scream.

You - "MIRA! ISA! ODILE! BONNIE!"

L'appel du vide - The void recoils in response, but nothing answers.

L'appel du vide - You remain alone.

Willpower [Very Hard: Success] - You have to keep going. You have to find them.

Familial Bond - They won't abandon you. They promised.

L'appel du vide - The void wavers, as if saying it is futile.

1. [Willpower: Legendary] (Call out again.)

+15 Your family

+20 They made a promise

Check Success

Lung Capacity - Your lungs fill once more, before letting out their names again.

Ocular Survivor - You see a light in the edge of the void. It illuminates the never-ending darkness, making it nearly painful to behold, before it all dies down. A singular star falls, slowly, a few paces away from you.

Memoir - That is no star.

Physical Instincts [Easy: Success] - Flesh calls to flesh. Your body recognizes itself.

The Guide - Loop stands slowly, looking at their surroundings. It seems like a lifetime has passed before they finally turn to look at you.

The Guide - Their eyes widen.

The Guide - "Stardust?" They look panicked, now, grabbing their starry arm. "But- You aren't meant to be here!"

Memoir - Loop has never seemed this worried before.

Dramaturge [Easy: Success] - The actor and the sponsor are not meant to share a stage.

You - "Loop? What are you doing here?"

The Guide - Loop grabs your arm. They don't give you time to react before they're up in your face. "What. Did you do."

Rogue's Speed [Medium: Failure] - Uhhh...

1. "What?"
2. "Let go of me, Loop." (Shake off their hand.)

You - "What?"

The Guide - Loop blinks. Then, as if they'd seen something terrible, their eyes widen again. "No no no no no," they mumble.

Physical Instincts - Hairs rise on your arms. Shivers run down your back.

Traveler's Experience [Impossible: Failure] - You can't figure out why they're so panicked.

L'appel du vide - The void recoils. Thousands and thousands of lights appear, dotting the distance in uncountable little dots. Familiar, unnamed shapes are drawn upon it, and, slowly, hesitatingly, something else forms from them.

Deux Ex Astris - It is large, larger than you can see the edges of it, and formless. Despite it all, it extends one singular, warm hand towards you and Loop, covering you in tiny sparkly stars from head to toe.

Deux Ex Astris - It touches Loop, gently, and picks them up.

The Guide - Loop calms. Their panic dissolves, and they drop like a puppet with its strings cut. They turn to look at you, gaze indecipherable.

Ocular Survivor - It is a familiar sight to you.

Dramaturge [Godly: Success] - It is the gaze of a character's time to leave the stage. Their last bow, before they return to reality.

Deux Ex Astris - It touches Loop, and they fade away in starlight, leaving nothing behind but a last whisper.

Deux Ex Astris - It takes the whisper and strings it together, joining more and more until it creates a little jagged ball.

Memoir [?????: Success] - A star.

Deux Ex Astris - The star floats up and up and up, joining its siblings in the starry void. It turns its gaze to you.

1. Look away.
2. Look away.
3. Look away.
4. Look away.
5. Look away.
6. Look away.
7. Look away.
8. Look away.
9. Look away.
10. Look away.

Willpower [Impossible: Failure] - You can't.

Survivability - You have to.

1. [Willpower: Impossible] Look away.

-9999 Loop is gone

-9999 You can't look away

-9999 ?????

Check Failure

Ocular Survivor - Your eye remains fixated upon it.

Morale damaged-5

Health damaged-5

Survivability - Try again.

1. [Willpower: Impossible] Look away.

-9999 It hurts

-9999 Loop is gone

-9999 You can't look away

-9999 ?????

Check Failure

Deux Ex Astris - It touches you.

Hand's Craft [Impossible: Failure] - Your hand reacts before you can, shooting out an attack, but it merely passes through it like air.

Deux Ex Astris - It doesn't react.

Morale damaged-2

Deux Ex Astris - Slowly, it picks you up like it did Loop. You can't even fight it, your willpower suppressed. You can only watch the stars above you.

Deux Ex Astris - It whispers to you. In your mind's eye, you see lightless beaches and tall peaks, faces familiar and similar to yours, a language you'd once spoken. You wonder at it. You wish to stay in that moment forever.

L'appel du vide - In a moment, the darkness surrounds you.

L'appel du vide - You let it.

Moment of Sleep - You rest. Nothing but the moment matters.

Distant Voice - "...frin!"

Moment of Sleep - You turn again.

Ocular Survivor [Trivial: Success] - You shut your eye tighter.

Not-So-Distant Voice - "Frin!"

Moment of Sleep - Nothing can bother you in this perfect moment.

Moment of Sleep - Your nap will be perfect.

Right-On-Top-Of-You Voice - "Siffrin?"

Willpower - You groan.

1. (Go back to sleep.)
2. (Open your eye.)

You - You open your eye. Mirabelle stands behind you, inclined as to have her face looking at you.

Mirabelle - "Good morning, Siffrin!"