[b]Lucien![/b]

The flying stick (which, at this size, is more like a clacks pole, if we're being honest) slams into the monster's outstretched limb, knocking its aim aside. The retort of its discharge is deafening, and you are showered with fluttering bits of ruined spine and paper as it gouges a hole in the already ruined bookshelves. Boom, boom! You got to stare death in the face, haha! Isn't that moment when you realize you're still alive... isn't it exhilarating?

And if it's not, if you're trying not to curl up in a ball and cry, what's keeping you here in the fray, rather than running as far as you can and scraping your way back up to the surface?

***

[b]Coleman![/b]

Amalgamation! It is both a threat and a necessity. You've seen it yourself on the trains, when nails turn to brass and Engineers become more engine than man. The powers at play within the Heart are so vast that they impress themselves on the inhabitants like a pattern into wet clay. Each of you have your own defenses against it, if you're intelligent, though Ailee's defense is "I'm already claimed, suckers." She might even be able to do the opposite: to impress herself on King Dragon. If anybody could, it would be her.

Careful! Watch the claw!

You'll have to do that, too. To get Sasha to hatch properly in Terminus. It'll be much more, ah, equal than most cases. You'll become more like her; she'll awaken fully and become a little more like you. That's why you've been chosen for this honor. You won't flinch when you reach the end of the line.

As for something hidden? Ah, there it is! You've figured out the location of the Descent; a thin place, where you can lower yourself into a deeper region of the Heart. The problem is that it's down a side stairwell, one that the Wreck's cannons just blew open, and the smell of rot and decay's wafting up from it. You're going to have to dare the wrath of the Flood one more time... but it's not the end of the world! You've got options!

Speaking of options, the Wreck's hunkering down, withdrawing into its shell. The harder you attack, the more you risk setting off a very, very bad explosion. Putrid powder is scattered all around, and the slightest thing could set it off. Really, it's lucky Lucien didn't land that pie dead on.

***

[b]Ailee![/b]

"Well said, Miss Sundish! You always did have the pragmatic edge needed for [i]real[/i] work." Squeak, squeak, squeak. The saddest sight in the world comes ambling up to you, the slap of his oversized shoes on the puddles comical and distressing in equal measure. Professor Hamptonshire, your former advisor, lost to the Heart and his own obsessions.

He's clean-shaven for the first time in decades, the better for slathering on the face-paint. What little hair he has remaining has been fluffed up and curled in neon blue, and he wears the traditional armor of the Grail-Questant, smeared in the wicked paints of the Dark Carnival. His eyes are watery brown, floating in those sharp diamonds, and in his hand he has a nail-studded bat. "It's just a shame you never followed my arguments to their conclusion."

Hamptonshire's all consumed with death anxiety, see. The word [i]immortality[/i] hooked in his spine, making him ignore the counter-arguments to seeking the Grail: the Ship of Heaven (if you replace something piece by piece, when does it stop being the original?) and the fact that immortality in the depths of the Heart is worse than dying up above. The fool threw away the chance to pursue real power because he lost all the hair on top of his head and started needing to walk with a cane. And, to his credit, it looks like he hardly needs the cane anymore, not after pursuing the Fools' Mysteries all this time.

***

[b]Jackdaw![/b]

You never turned in your final paper on Comparative Alchemy in Hamptonshire's class, due to his suddenly closing his office and selling everything he owned in order to fund a descent into the Heart. But you've still got it in your collection, somewhere. You should make him grade it! But, then again, was it really worth grading in the first place? Surely you've learned more on the subject! Except that now that you're on the spot, your head's empty. Oh no! This is just like the nightmares!

Except for the hideous monster over there. Weirdly, that wasn't in the nightmares. Or, well, it might be more accurate to say it's not in your nightmares [i]yet![/i]