I looked at all the trees and didn’t know what to do.
A box made out of leaves.
What else was in the woods? A heart, closing. Nevertheless.Everyone needs a place. It shouldn’t be inside of someone else.
I kept my mind on the moon. Cold moon, long nights moon.From the landscape: a sense of scale.
From the dead: a sense of scale.I turned my back on the story. A sense of superiority.
Everything casts a shadow.Your body told me in a dream it’s never been afraid of anything.
-Detail of the Woods, Richard Siken
- Liza opens the game by breaking into Cora's sanctum with a snake, catching her while she was asleep. After some skeptical conversation about who she is and consulting her notes about who Liza was, she asks Liza to take her to this place that she resurrected the Architect at. Liza takes her through a side path using her snake- a tunnel reminiscent of Basilisk's burrow- and enters the labyrinth after exposing Cora to some truly rancid vibes1. They enter the mausoleum seed/core/heart of the labyrinth and find the open sarcophagus in which the Architect was interred, and the Architect makes her move. The mausoleum doors shut; guardian dryads made from insect and barbed wire emerge from the walls, and they drag Liza into the sarcophagus and force her inside, tearing at her with their barbs and crushing one of her hands in the process. Cora is brushed aside and is understandably panicked before the Architect finally enters the room and reintroduces herself to Cora. This would be a much messier conversation were Cora able to remember the Liza that was just interred in a sarcophagus, but instead she talks with the Architect and she assures Cora that she had a concussion, and gives her a faked and modified version of her notes about the people she knows. The Architect attempts to lead Cora to her office, but she slips away.
- Ovida broods some more in the Grotto and is joined by He, Death again. They talk more about her life and her growth and how she's afraid of losing the spring, but not sure if she still needs it, and how other people think something is wrong with her. The Headmaster is supportive, and Ovida turns the conversation to Jasper and Jade. He inquires about how Jasper is doing, and Ovida asks him to describe his relationship with Jade. He, Death invokes a Transition to do so and we read the quoted poem. When we return to them, they talk more about her nature and her relationship with Theremin and Mara, and Death speculates that they are not beyond her reach as she and the Academy are growing into each other. Ovida doesn't disagree, but is worried that she may lose herself in it if she did. She also considers introducing him to Pitohui. She also asks whether he has friends, and gives her thoughts on the topic:
"I know I'm something strange. I know people get annoyed with me—I don't know how to be any different than this, so I try to act like I don't notice, but I've learned how to tell—you know, how to tell when they wish I wasn't there. But you talk to me. And you talk with me—about things that are beautiful and terrible and painful, and things that are beautiful because they're terrible and painful. We talk about those vast and lonely things... and then we talk about things that are small and that we can hold close. We drink sangria, or whatever else I can find that we've never had before. I don't think there's anyone else besides Theremin and Mara who has seen so many different parts or versions of me—the shattered versions and the growing ones.
"—And also, it's because you didn't just let me come to the Academy—you let me leave, too; you didn't mind that there are things in the world that are too precious to me for me to not make them part of me. You're still always trying to teach me, but it's always been alright for me to learn something different from what you hoped I would.
"You didn't have to do any of that. You didn't have to always have a little table beneath a tree ready for me whenever I came. You didn't have to be kind or patient. I know a lot of people—maybe actually most of them?—have only ever seen you be cruel. Probably you didn't really have to be cruel so much either. Probably you're even worse at talking to regular people than I am, since I at least know I'm bad at it. But it still makes me really happy that you're kind to me. It's important for monsters to be here for each other, because of all the times when no one else will."
- Liza, currently trapped in a small dark stone box, panics and then gets angry, calling on her still extant ties to the principle of growth to use plants to fill in and replace functionality from her wounds. This works, but is still very uncomfortable for her since it doesn't technically fix anything.
- Cora, drawn by having just been traumatized, her notes, and for some reason not having been close enough to Valter2 for him to get caught in her curse. She tells him she's having memory problems and asks for her address, and he gives her several copies in case she loses or forgets any. Arriving at her own home for the first time in five or so days, she knocks, and is greeted by Yulia, who immediately hugs her and who she kisses back. Yulia pulls her inside and tells her her worries and what's been going on and reminds Cora of how she wasn't alone during all the horrible things that have been inflicted on her. Yulia makes her promise that she won't do something like this again. Eventually the two of them emotionally recover enough for Cora to call Aysu and ask her to get in touch with Ildrasteia. She says she will, but suspects they're already nearby- at which point they announce themself from one of Cora's chairs. Cora restrains herself from trying to kill them and calls them cruel; they do not deny it, but promise that they will hold their end of the deal- when she confronts the Headmaster directly, the faculty will not interfere (though there may be some skirmishes beforehand). Their curse broken, they leave, and Cora remembers what happened to Liza; she immediately takes off, and Yulia comes with her. They travel to the Grotto to find Ovida, and find her braiding snowdrops into He, Death's hair, at which point Cora realizes that Ovida told Death about her plans. Ovida assures her that she told him it as a secret, and he can keep a secret, but the urgency of the Liza affair overrides further argument. The three of them leave, leaving the Headmaster to his own devices. They then travel to Pitohui/Klyatva and Opal, interrupting a moment between the three of them, and attempt to leave, but Pitohui takes none of this and comes with them.
Under the labyrinth there is a vault and tomb, the place where the Architect stores her most precious treasures, suspended over deep and dark emptiness. It is a dead place, a still place, a silent place, and the four disturb it to break open the grave their friend is buried in.
This is not a place for the living, and dead gods stir. The corpse of a Mystery, a past and present love, uncoils. All that is sure dissolves to uncertainty. The floor gives out.
So they fall
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discussion is had regarding liza's sick snake tattoo that protects her from aspects of her wife, and how it is in some ways similar to a womb tattoo
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owner of the premier cafe in old molder. seriously cora, he keeps catering your assorted life events and parties and is friends with all your friends.