"I'm sorry," you state, not quite nailing the tone you'd hoped for and instead just kind of blurting it out awkwardly. "If... If I'd have known what it was going to be like I wouldn't have let you guys--"

"Don't apologize to me," Cici says bluntly. "I don't regret going out there. I regret taking Kate, but I don't regret going out there."

"I mean... you didn't really take her, if I recall it was her idea to begin with."

"Well," Cici says, "then I regret not stopping Kate. I had a pretty bad time but I learned a lot, and I'm fine with that. I started in my second form, with the size powers, so I know burning all your mana out doesn't send you backward. I burned out last night, I went out painlessly, I get to pick right back up where I left off, I'm fine. I'm fine. I just--

Kate--I couldn't--"

She stops, and breathes deeply.

You interrupt. "You didn't know what was going to happen any better than I did. If you're not gonna blame me then I'm sure as hell not going to blame you, and neither should Kate. We already knew we were in over our heads, it was a matter of time until we found out how far and now we... unfortunately, we fucking know. We have a real god damn good idea just out far out of our depth this is."

"That's it, though," Cici says after a moment's pause, "that's... that's just it. I had more mana last night than I did the first night I did the dream. I was faster, Plaire! I was tougher! And my blobby bird form's muuuch better than my egg form was. The longer we spend in there, the better we get at it--and I don't just mean because we're learning, I mean we're growing. I want to say it's like exercise, but the rate I'm getting stronger at in there is... insane."

"There's probably some kind of experience system working under the hood," you reply, not quite able to match Cici's enthusiasm about it. "I noticed I was improving, but I haven't had time to really evaluate it since we figured out how mana works. ...Did you notice a huge difference between you and Kate's abilities? You've both only done a night, but I'm pretty sure your night was more... active, which would mean more experience--that, plus the transforming--"

"There's deeefinitely a difference," she replies. "I don't think that's what's holdin' her back, though--she can't do what you were doing with her fire powers, and I don't think I've seen you do the stuff she's started figuring out. She got us through a good chunk of that mess by lighting herself on fire and shootin' around like a rocket, if it's really the SAME power then you're both only using half of it. We need more people in there--at the same time! Every night I don't go in I'm missing a chance to get stronger, and every night I do go in I'm robbing Kate of that. We all three need to be working with each other in the dream."

...Ohhhh. "That's what you meant by 'we need more people,' you meant like... accomplice slots, or demonshells or whatever. I thought you meant we needed, like, reserve members."

Cici shrugs. "I could take or leave more people in the group. If Kate needs a break then Kate needs a break, but me? Plaire, I have never been that helpless in my damn life. Everything that moved was faster than us, and walked through my best attacks like it was nothing. We were lucky that we lasted as long as we did trying to blink things away, there wasn't a single fight out there we could've won. The thing that ate Kate blew through my shield like it was a light show, and that thing wasn't special--it was the same sorta random garbage monster that'd been chasing us all night! I've changed once before, it made me tougher and it gave me new powers--I didn't feel it outside the bubble but I'm still confident I can change again, and so can Kate."

"And you're just... gonna grind until you can beat the outside's ass...?"

"Yeah," she says with a ferocity in her eye. "I watched that thing kill my friend and I'm not gonna do it twice. I don't want anything to be ABLE to do that to us! If we can close that power gap, we don't have to be afraid of anything. You said it exactly right: we know how out of our depth we are now. I'm about to start swimming, Plaire."

Jesus Christ. While she's not shaken like Kate is, you think it may be for the best that Cici also takes a break, lest she attempts to fistfight heaven and earth for bonus XP.

"I'm... not totally opposed to doing some beefing up in the dungeon, but right now I'm more worried about the bubble breaking. I have a theory that the heart countdown might actually represent the bubble's... shield integrity, or something, and if that's the case we should still have well over a week before the sky breaks and chaos reigns in the castle. The tradesman mentioning miasmatic wounds has had me thinking, too--maybe they're like fractures or leaks in the bubble, the word wound implies damage, right? Maybe there's some cheap, easy way to patch up the anti-diet-god shield, and then we can focus on our shōnen training montage bullshit. We should also ask the tradesman about it--if he knows about the wounds he might know about the bubble itself."

"Hold on, shonan..." Utter confusion on the face of Cici. "What?"

"You know," you motion blindly, "training in ten times gravity, weighted clothing, all that business. Have you watched no anime?"

Cici shakes her head. "Nope! Bebe likes to get high and watch the one with the hamsters, but other than that not really."

Dear god. You either have to or have to not show her anime and you're not sure which it is.

You shake your head. "At any rate, our best bet for getting more simultaneous accomplices might be outside the dungeon. We still don't really know how it does what it does, or what the shit a demonshell actually is. Franklin probably knows something..."

"And then there's the OLD library," Cici remarks. "And I'm starting to think that laundry room's hiding more than just the washer and dryer, too."

"Oh, shit--" It has been a long day already, you realize, "I haven't even told you everything I found out about the house. I... might have a plan for getting us into the laundry room."

And the attic.

Stop forgetting about the attic.

You commence explaining everything you read in the haunted house book, all the speculation about magic and games and killer cars over lunch, and everything Ezra said. Well, you mostly explain it, sloppily, because it's a lot to go over and you're kind of impatient to finish explaining it all so you can get Cici's thoughts on it (even if, paradoxically, spending less time explaining it may result in not getting an accurate impression of--

) oh shit and the business with the lady in the photo, too.

You take out your cell phone. It takes you a bit to navigate to your picture of the photo and a little bit longer to load it, but you eventually show Cici the picture.

She very gently takes the phone from you.

Stares at it.

Stares at it hard.

. . .

You can accurately pinpoint the moment she spots the wild-eyed witch.

. . .

But then she makes a face you don't quite get as good a read on.

"Do you... recognize her?"

"No," Cici says, "but my heart rate just went up big time."

She holds your phone out to you, and you take it back.

You ask, hesitantly, "what do you think it means...?"

Cici gives a big shrug.

You return the book about haunted houses, and while Cici does whatever it is that librarians do when a book gets returned, you pet Meatloaf (who is still just the tubbiest kitty oh my god) and update your notes. After getting Cici's permission (and thanking her for everything she found out), you fold her illustration of the dream and tape it to one of the pages of your notepad.

Hmm.

Fool's Rush.

Fool's Rush... Inn? You do have people sleeping at your house a lot.

Hag End.

Plaire's Home for Wayward Weirdos.

Fort... Butthole.

It's tough to compete with Casa del Salamandra, and you're not even sure that's a sensical combination of words. You could probably internet it, but then if you fuck it up you'll look even dumber being like well you see when I ran it through one of those often unreliable online translators--

"What if you... threw... a party," Cici finally says, slowly, like the idea's being telegraphed to her in real time.

"With all the money I have?," you ask with a sarcastic grin.

"Make it a potluck!," she replies. "Call it a housewarming party or something, maybe people'll bring furniture."

"I only know like six people," you state, "and the first time somebody passes out in that house the party's gonna take a dark turn."

"You know more people than that. AND you know Kate and Bebe," Cici adds, "and they know all kinds of people! And I don't wanna blow your mind, but there are parties where nobody's expected to pass out. It's a dang potluck, Plaire, not a kegger! Nobody'll be passing out, and if they do they're not invited to anymore parties. Besides, it's not like we won't all three be on the lookout for that sort of thing--we can wake somebody up. I can carry someone outside."

"...It would be a good opportunity to christen the house with a non-spooky name," you mutter. "Then everybody hears the name and it can start spreading. ...Hmm."

"I'm not doing a dang thing here, Plaire," Cici insists. "I can call Bebe right now and get you a full house."

"Well--wait--not tonight, tonight we have to train Marlow--"

"So we shoo everybody out before bedtime!," she interjects. "Plaire! We don't know how much living in the house it'll take to open up that laundry room but you could be livin' it up in that house tonight. What if it doesn't take that much? The secret to having two accomplices AT THE SAME TIME could be in that laundry room, Plaaaire!" She pauses. Takes a moment. "Look, if you don't feel like it I'm not gonna push it--"

"No," you interrupt. "I... I think you're right. Ezra himself even suggested throwing a party, this would have to at least put us significantly closer to our goal if not seriously alleviate the house's concerns. Or... fears, or whatever the house equivalent is. The more we learn, the better we can deal with it--and like, at a ridiculous exchange rate, because we're already leaps and bounds ahead of where we started. ...And now we've seen what happens when we don't have enough information, and how badly it can go; it would almost be irresponsible not to take what's an obvious, easy shortcut to make the house feel better and thus get access to the laundry room and the attic and whatever the sweet FUCK is hiding there so we can--"

"Wait," Cici begins with a slow blink, "there's an attic now?"

"The attic is much harder to remember," you tell her, "and might have some other weirder shit going on. I'm mostly going on secondhand knowledge from notes I don't remember writing, but... yeah. Attic." ... And yeah, saying that out loud it becomes clearer that you need to get this house-eating-memories situation sorted pronto or you're going to lose your fucking mind. You should not be getting comfortable or used to this.

You do have a couple different options for medicating now, if your anxiety does get out of control.

You heave a deep sigh. "I... I think I'm going to try to have a party tonight."