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JK didn't know where he was, how he'd gotten here, or what he was supposed to do. There was a many-limbed thing where the White Queen had been, and he got the feeling that he was supposed to fight the thing, but had no idea how. Whenever he got close to it, he felt weird. He couldn't concentrate, and memories just popped up out of the blue. Worse, they projected themselves outside his body, like movie reels.

This memory took him quickly.

What was outside the family grounds? Johan stared out of the study window, out past the garden, out over the top of the wall encircling their property. He could see some trees, but there were trees inside the walls, too, so it was unlikely the wall had been put up to keep those out.

He was young, though he would have proudly told anyone that he was sixandahalfgoingonseven. If anyone new ever visited his home. He was tired of studying, it was a horrible day out (naturally the best time to be out), and Johan wanted to explore. He knew the inside of the house. He knew the grounds inside the wall. Familiarity with them bred boredom. And boredom bred temptation.

He wasn't allowed outside. But that didn't mean he wasn't capable of going outside. There was a spray of sturdy vines he could climb up, if he was quick, and didn't let Mother catch him.

Just for a few minutes.

So, Johan sneaked out of the study, sneaked out of the manor, and sneaked over to the wall. The vines wouldn't have held a grown person, but they held a little one just fine, and up, up, up he went. He looked over the top of the wall.

Okay, so there weren't just a few trees out there. Turned out there was a whole forest! With a path running through it. Johan looked back at the manor, then swung himself over the top of the wall, and tumbled to the grass on the other side.

Time to explore.

[ 0 Damage ]



Helmut stared in awe as she bore witness to Xavier's memories. It was interesting to see them from someone else, and she thought - stupidly - that his memories were very him. Because what else would his memories be?

When she attempted to attack the Queen herself, she was surprised to be slapped with a memory of her own:

**

Helmut was sitting on the floor in the pantry, surrounding by bitten open cans and bags, their contents either completely empty or close to. She ate and ate and ate, trying to fill her endless pit of a stomach, in total heaven to be surrounded by so much food.

"Helmut Anna-Lee Purge!" Uh oh. It was that tone again. She was in trouble! The small ghoul flinched and peeked over her shoulder, peering at the wide stance of her frail-looking Mother, watching as the bony-looking woman put her skeletal thin hands on prominently angled hips. "Bad, bad ghoul! You know better!"

"But Mama---!" She wailed, wiping her face with the back of her hand, which only smeared the chocolate further.

"No 'but's, young lady! That food is for the guests!"

"BUT MAMA---"

It seemed the onslaught of his own memories being pulled from him had come to an end, but the ordeal was far from completion. All around him, images were being played out as though projected on to multiple cinema screens, and Finn found himself watching for a few brief seconds before tearing his gaze away.

These were memories of people he knew. This was sick. He couldn't watch this.

But then one memory caught his attention, and held it. Riveted him in place, his gaze locked on what he was seeing, until finally he couldn't make himself watch it anymore, couldn't see what his friend had to do, had to endure. Finn had been lucky, in retrospect, that the queen hadn't demanded worse.

But that memory, and the others, at least confirmed one thing. He wasn't alone here, in the darkness. There were others. Friends he would call them.

Stumbling towards the last image he encountered, he called out a single name, deciding to find him first.

"Ripley!"

It took a monumental amount of effort for Joy to keep moving. Her body was growing colder with each passing second and she couldn't think of a way to stop it. It also didn't help how other players' memories were just colliding into each other and her brain was having a hard enough time with the whole turning-to-stone thing.

Grand adventures, violent fight (Joy lingered on that, far longer than she should, really), breaking and broken people. Yes, yes, people who took on different forms because, because they had such incredibly vivid imaginations and were leaps and bounds more creative than Joy could ever hope to be.

She purposely blunted Occam's razor, because Joy would be losing her s**t otherwise. Somehow, with agonizing slowness, she managed to catch up to David. He was with another player, their conversation overshadowed by all the yelling and memories fighting for attention.

"S-sorry to barge in," she croaked, "Spare a girl some healing? My cards aren't working for some reason and I-" it was getting harder to talk now. She strained and struggled before finally managing to show her stone hands to them.

...She never wanted to see this memory. She remembered seeing her friends, so hopelessly in love, it was... extremely embarrassing. She was glad she had never fallen in love before-- too trivial, no one ever caught her attention. And she didn't expect anyone to either-- she was still too young, for her standards.

But she knew too much for her age. Too much. Oh god, she didn't want to remember that part... She covered her eyes, sighing, trying to push it away. No more. She couldn't...

Abbi's Hermit

As she had seen his, Leslie saw Abbi's memory, nervous and fearful, terror running through him like a drug in his vein, and by the time he gets to her his touch is brief, a hand against her shoulder, squeezing, smiling with some humanity in his eyes and without the bite to back it up. "He was being a punkass b***h," he said, sure of himself. "You're an okay girl, Abbi."

He doesn't stay long, cleaver out to launch himself at the Queen. He might be meaner, later, when the walls are back up, but for now, he is kind.

[The Devil - Temptation]

Feng pressed his face to the glass and sighed in wonder. There was a new marine zoology book on display, and he desperately wanted it. The problem was, it cost his entire allowance. His parents always looked disappointed when he saw that he'd spent his whole allowance on one thing.

But it was a book, so that wasn't bad right?

He whined quietly to himself and turned away. He could resist. He was totally able to walk away...

He couldn't resist. He zoomed into the store and picked up a copy of the text. In less than five minutes his allowance was gone and he had a huge biology book in arms. He was broke, but happy.

[Wheel of fortune]

Feng stumbled out of the pod and nearly fell on his face. It was sheer luck and shock that kept him upright, really.

"I've got another over here!" someone called.

Feng looked up with wide eyes and a cheery looking woman with short cropped hair and an eyepatch. "Hey sweetheart. How you feeling?"

"Uh. Faint."

"That's normal. You've been in the pod a while." She leaned over and wrote something down - it looked like a serial number - and then cross referenced it with a list. "Feng Wu?"

"Y-yeah."

"You'll be okay sweetie. We've got a lot to tell you though, so off to the trainee meeting with you."

She shooed him off with a swat of her keyboard, and Feng followed the rest of the dazed looking men and women like sheep being herded.