[b]Jackdaw![/b]

The [b]Tyrian Spire[/b] was [i]extruded[/i] in order to be a [i]lure.[/i] Those are the words rising up inside you, darling. You look up at these books and know that they were grown here for the purpose of bringing people just like you here. It is... difficult, right now, to say whether it is a lure of the Flood or for the Flood. It would make a terrible sense that the Flood would churn it up out of her waters, hide her knowledge inside it, and bring poor doomed fools right to her banks. But that doesn't quite fit the brief image you gained of her. It's just as likely, really, that something even more potent than she made this place so that she would coalesce herself around it and try to drag it down into her. To bring all those books (perhaps poisoned?) down into her deeps.

The books here are dangerous, dear. If you stuffed them in a bag, you'd be able to use them later, but you must not let yourself believe that doing so would be [i]safe.[/i] They are quietly inviting, suggesting that you should read them, that what you want to know is inside, perhaps on the next shelf, or in the next chapter. Really, it's fortunate that you were touched by the Flood. Otherwise, maybe Ailee would have victoriously brought down that Wreck and then turned around and found you gone, scampered off into the stacks. As it is, looking too closely at the titles makes you sick to your stomach. Who knows how much time the clown spent here already? Perhaps you have saved him by stumbling across him.

As for fixing it? You would have to talk to the entity that caused it to [i]be[/i], in order to address or alter its fundamental purpose. Which would either be the Flood, or, perhaps...

Do you believe in the Shadow King, Jackdaw?

([i]They say he lives below Terminus. They say he is the first being who lived, or the last. They say he grows the Heart like a bonzai tree. They say he is the warden of the caged gods. They say all sorts of nonsense. But every story has its seed.[/i])

***

[b]Team Sasha![/b]

You now are being guided by an elderly professor-turned-clown who is carefully holding onto a woefully face-painted donkey, perched upon Sasha's shoulder. "Climbing up was harder than going down will be, I think. The Flood likes things to be down and stay down, but Little Lightfoot here kept her footing, didn't she?"

The walls are clammy and water drips up and down, both ways, almost as if the tides were rolling in and out. The roar grows louder and louder as you make your way down upon Sasha. It's a very tight squeeze, and slow going, which means you all have a little bit of time to stress out about what you're going to find down at the bottom.