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Act 4 Loop 112
You ask the Head Housemaiden about wishcraft.
“Now that you know, now that I know, you can fix it!!!”
“… Fix it?”
Euphrasie grabs your face and leans down until her forehead touches yours.
You get a sinking feeling in your stomach. You want to pull away and run as far as you can. You want to shake her until she tells you that there is a way out, that you’re free.
You can’t do any of that. All you can do is stare as she continues talking through her tears.
“No. It’s too late, Siffrin. It’s always been too late.”
What? But… “But if you know about Wish Craft you must know how to—”
“Oh Siffrin…! It's true. All of Vaugarde wished to the Favor Tree, wished for us to be saved. We wished for a savior. A way for us to win against the King. And Wish Craft gave us the means to do it, didn't it? Made sure it'd work? Somehow, Wish Craft gave us a savior, able to use Time Craft... Able to retry, as many times as it took! So you could beat the King!!!”
But, surely… “Right! So—”
She interrupts again, “But... But something went wrong, didn't it?”
The sinking feeling grows all consuming.
“Something goes wrong, every time!!! If you're here now, asking about Wish Craft, then something must be wrong, isn't it? This isn't the first time you've gotten this far, isn't it?!? It shouldn't be like this... Why does time loop back, even though the King has been defeated?!? The only answer I can find... Is it's because we did it wrong.”
If she wasn’t holding you so tightly, you would have staggered back at these words. This—this can’t be it… can it?
“I don't know what happened! But we must've done it wrong!!!”
But, surely…? There must be…?
“None of us in Vaugarde knew the exact ritual, but-- But we must have done it so wrong, it broke, and it doesn't answer to us at all anymore!!!”
No.
“Or maybe-- Maybe someone wished for it, wished for our wish to fail!!! Wished for this!!!”
No, no, no.
“Something made our wish break, made it fail, made it rot!!!”
Please…
“O-Or maybe the wish can't come true anymore, somehow!!! Maybe the King wasn't defeated the right way-- It'll forever remain incomplete, and Wish Craft, the world, will not abide it!!!”
Oh.
You… You feel yourself at a crossroads. That one line… “Maybe the King wasn't defeated the right way.” It calls out to you. You want to take hold of this one last hope so badly, but…
“I don't know, I don't know, I don't know!!!”
Ah.
You can’t move.
You can’t breathe.
You get it now.
The wish is broken.
She can’t help you.
You’re stuck here forever.
You… just… have to learn to accept that.
You can accept that.
“If only... If only we had fought back against the King, instead! If only we didn't wish for such a thing!”
If you just let go of hope…
Yes, you get it now.
If you let go of hope, the horror goes away. All this running about through the House pretending there was an exit only hurt you more.
You just have to go through the loops over and over. Forever remembering there’s no hope.
There’s… something there, right?
“If only I knew this would happen, if I had noticed it sooner, I would never have let people wish at all!!!”
Your life is the eternal climb now. You’ll forever be sent back down to that field. Then, you’ll climb it all again.
This dark House surrounded by eternal night. You know every corner of it, and you’ll see it again and again and again.
See? Put like that doesn’t it sound… like enough?
And, and the actors! They aren’t really people anymore, but they’re there! You just have to… remember… that they’re not people now. Otherwise, you’ll begin to hope again…
“To know you'll be trapped for all eternity, Siffrin... I am so sorry!!!”
Eternity…
Loop won’t be happy. You’ll have to find a way to make sure they won’t interfere.
And… the Change God. They’ll get bored eventually. You’ll have to cut them out of the script. Can’t rely on them to always give you that knife.
The loops are a purely human affair, and you’re the only human here.
…
See! There’s still more to do! How exciting!
Then…
Once that’s done…
Eternity awaits.
“It's our fault, all of Vaugarde, that you have to suffer like this!!!”
How wonderful.
“I just hope that one day...”
You feel like your heart is going to burst.
“You might learn to forgive us!!!!!!”
You can’t tell if it’s of fullness or emptiness.
Act 5 Loop 113
You imagine it’s of fullness.