[b]Mittens![/b]

The cutesy pawprints on your underwear are just heaping insult on more insult. Sure, they’re adorable. Sure, this is exactly what an Askaian princess would wear (which you know from experience). But you were definitely not wearing these earlier and gosh darn it, Euphie really does like playing dress-up, doesn’t she? You’ll have to beat her at her own game. You huff and reach out for that beautiful, wonderful suit.

A sweater sleeve flops onto your wrist. It’s the smallest, most innocuous little movement. Your heart still stops and then does loop-de-loops as you open your mouth to scream and that’s when all the clothes jump off their hangers and dive on top of you knocking you on your butt just out of reach of the perfect suit while socks and blouses and dresses and floofy pants belly-flop on your face.

The thought strikes you as you tear a gorgeous grey evening gown off your face: they’re [i]jealous.[/i] Each and every piece of clothing in here wants desperately to be worn, and barring that, they’ll just bury you in a pile of satins and silks.

They’re still [i]clothes.[/i] They’re pathetically weak and it’s just that there’s so [i]many[/i] of them and the floors are tilting up and away from you, and it feels like you’re wading through quicksand, trying to avoid being dragged under, reaching desperately for the perfect suit just out of reach as socks and pant legs and scarves and sashes wrap around your limbs and add more weight.

Overcome and claim your prize, or else be dragged underneath.

***

[b]Adila![/b]

The bat nearly gets you anyway! It scrabbles a paw in the door after you, and then screeches and flaps away to sulk. Phew! Good time to catch your breath. Looks like this is a nice room, actually, open to the sky. Which is full of ominous black clouds, come to look at it. And... oh, gosh. You can see the whole of Eupheria’s labyrinth rising up above you, a second Argossa made out of the Bazaar. But at least this seems like a fountain room, where you can rest a moment.

“Eupheria!”

Or not?

It’s Juniper Blue! She looks frazzled and exhausted and she has one of the Devil Blades in her hand. Her eyes are spinning spirals like Eupheria’s, and her face is grit with determination.

“By the laws of the Bazaar,” she says, coming towards you with the blade held up in a guard stance, “you are under arrest for wickedness most foul, conspiracy to tyranny, and escape from prison.”

***

[b]Kathelia![/b]

“Leth me go!”
“You’ll be thorry!”
“Thorry, thorry!”

The ceiling of the greenhouse is actually pretty interesting to look at, since it’s been constructed in the Baroque Classical design of Iluminan architecture. That being said, you’d prefer not having to look at it as the Spriggans drag you along to the Burying Plots, where they’ve already got a hole dug just for you. They’ll tip you in feet-first and then pack soil all around you and leave you to stew.

You’d prefer to walk briskly away, of course, but they’ve wrapped a lot of prickly thorn vines all around you, which means you keep getting poked and prodded when you struggle. So you have to lie there, being dragged along the garden paths, having new and very unwelcome experiences in “places thorns can poke you.”

Every time you yell at them, they just start mimicking you until the air is full of your lisp. They only seem to have a rudimentary intelligence, which means it should be simplicity itself to fool them, if only you could figure out a way to do so. A distraction? Fertilizer? Ugh, stop prodding!!

And that’s when you ominously arrive at the Burying Plots. “Plant, plant, plant,” the Spriggans begin to chant, and if you’re going to somehow break free of the thorns, now’s your last chance!