[center][h3]Barney Rynsburger[/h3][/center]

As the others continued to regain their strength, Spindle sought to answer their follow-up questions as best she could. “Yeah, course there’s a way out,” she told Lorenzo as she crossed her arms, a hint of wryness visible in her encouraging smile. “Otherwise, tryin’ ta help folks would be a gosh-darn waste o’ time, ‘cause nobody can keep runnin’ and fightin’ forever. Lose yerself in here, and ya won’t be yerself for long. The Metaverse just ain’t where humans oughta be.” She cleared her throat, then looked between both Lorenzo and Jin and she hurriedly nodded. “But yeah, uh, focusin’ on the bright side, there’s a buncha ways out, in fact. Just gotta find ‘em, and get around anythin’ in the way. That’s my only mission right now.” 

Lorenzo, understandably, seemed interested in Personas, although he had the wrong idea about how to obtain one. “Heavens, no, ya can’t even fight a Warlord if ya don’t got one, really.” She ran her fingers through her hair, scratching a nagging itch. “More like…stand up for yourself, I guess? It’s a li’l different for everyone, but when yer nemesis pushes ya to the breakin’ point, ya just gotta keep it together, and you’ll come out stronger.” Unsatisfied, however, Lorenzo kept on asking questions, and the police girl didn’t have answers for all of them. Who [i]would[/i] they be fighting? “How the heck should I know? Nobody knows what you’re goin’ through better than you.”

The prevailing sentiment among the group seemed to be a strong aversion to any protracted campaign in the Metaverse, which Spindle regretted, but understood. It wasn’t easy to get by in this cognitive world even for a native, and she couldn’t imagine what was going through the minds of these poor people. As she looked around the spacious hotel lobby, she was glad at least to see that the food and drink left them feeling better. With all of them probably as good as they were going to get, she decided that there was no time like the present to proceed back out into the war-torn world. “Kay folks, now that we’ve had a good break, let’s get a move on before any unsavory types close in. C’mon!”

She took off toward the hotel’s double doors, situated on the north side, and Barney followed. Though he felt alright, all things considered, it was difficult for him to hide his concern for a couple of his new acquaintances. Several group members had elected to not eat or drink anything from the hotel, maybe from a sense of distrust or unwellness, and from the way the hobbled along he feared for them should they come into contact with more monsters. [i]Hopefully[/i], he thought, [i]Spindle can get us to the exit nice and quietly.[/i] Although the doors ahead were chained, the glass around them was broken, and a little careful maneuvering the escapees could get through.

On the other side, however, a dangerous landscape awaited them. Without a parking lot of any kind as a cushion between it and the rest of the city, the hotel stood directly on the edge of a sprawling avenue in a state of incredible disarray. To Barney it looked straight out of any one of the innumerable post-apocalyptic movies that portrayed the ruin of civilization, with gutted and burnt-out buildings sagging like dying plants over streets carved into ribbons by a network of large furrows. In addition to the cars and trucks one might expect of a modern metropolis, cannons, tanks and other weapons of war lay here and there, with arrows and medieval weapons sprouting up all over like rusty wildflowers. It would have been intimidating enough if abandoned, but Barney could see plenty of Shadows out and about, whether fighting, wandering, hiding, or merely languishing. The bearded man took a deep breath.

“Welcome to the trenches.” Spindle put her hands on her hips as she surveyed the warzone. “For most folks, life is a constant battle. Even if they ain’t strugglin’ to make ends meet, day by day and week by week, they’ve got other problems.”

Closer inspection only made Barney feel worse, for it revealed woeful details like the unmarked graves, the chains and barbed wire that kept certain Shadows stuck in place, and the broken locks that would have otherwise connected two or more shadows together. “I mean, that makes sense. But why a battleground? Most people’s lives aren’t violent.”

The police girl shrugged. “Maybe, but they’re still hurtin’. A whole lotta folks are so focused on their own problems that they don’t end up givin’ a hoot about anyone else’s, even if they don’t mean it. Askin’ for help can sometimes be even tougher than gettin’ it. If people don’t help each other, they’re left to fend for themselves. Everyone fightin’ their battles all on their own.”

Barney wanted to say that sounded a little pessimistic, but honestly, what did he know? Part of the whole reason why he ended up in this mess was the assumption that everyone had it worse than him–that he didn’t need to burden them with his problems, or need any help to deal with them himself. Too many thoughts swirled around in his head about mankind, leaving a dense, heavy knot deep inside him. [i]I need to focus on getting out here[/i], he reasoned, trying to center himself.

“We ain’t goin’ through there, at least,” Spindle was saying. “The Shadows don’t like anyone bustin’ through their territory. We could fight through for a while, but in the end we’d be stuck in the trenches just like the rest.” She pointed at the sidewalk that ran to the right of the hotel, then turned to act as a border between the trenches and the row of waterfront buildings that ran alongside the edge of the canal. “Once we get off the street, we’ll take the high road. Might seem shut-up and closed off, like ya can’t get through, but they’re all connected. If ya got the right connections, you can get anywhere. A li’l shelter and stability goes a long way, huh?”

She summoned Odradek and climbed aboard. “I’ll be yer eye in the sky. Once yer inside the buildin’s, head north along the river. We’re aimin’ for a park up a ways, right in front o’ the business sector. Now git!”

At her urging Barney began to move. He broke out of the safety of the hotel’s threshold and ran along the sidewalk, like an exposed mouse skirting the wall in search of its hole. Nearby, the shadows along the trenches began to stir, as if noticing a potential threat about to invade. Ignoring them, Barney made for the nearest apartment, summoned his wheel when he grew near, and smashed through the locked wrought-iron fence to run up the stars. The front door featured no lock of any kind, and in just another moment Barney was inside. He turned and held the door for everyone else to hurry inside.

As one might expect given everything thus far, the interior of the apartment was a little weird. It seemed to be a multi-floor labyrinth of rooms that fit together like blocks in a doll house, lacking any coherent aesthetic. No matter which doors he or the others tried, they opened without issue, giving the newcomers access to ever more living rooms, bathrooms, bedrooms, studies, laundry rooms, and so forth. Only the windows on the left that gave a view of the trenches and the windows to the right that offered glimpses at the canal (and sometimes Spindle as she flew by) gave any sense of forward progress.

There were shadows around, too. Murky and indistinct, they lounged on couches in front of TVs, lay in beds, picked away at scraps at the dinner table, or engaged in any number of other ordinary activities. A second glance revealed, however, that much of what was going on here wasn’t quite right. The shadows behaved in an disturbingly repetitive manner, doing things like opening and closing appliances, banging on surfaces, or dancing together in perfect sync. Some reacted to their unwelcome guests’ presence, but slowly, as if in a trance, and Barney deciding to leave them to their business. “This place is [i]creepy[/i],” he murmured, skirting around the shadows as best he could. Still, it wasn’t long before the group ran into a few shadows determined to bar their way.

A group of four child-sized shadows sat on the floor in front of a door that the team needed to get through, smashing toys into one another. When they caught sight of Barney and the others, however, each one began to throw a tantrum, and in quick succession each exploded into a demon. From two of them, [url=https://i.imgur.com/5uDQXF9.png]lucent Skyfish[/url] burst forth, while the other two became a scrawny, [url=https://i.imgur.com/xPJOlVX.png]kangaroo-sized devil[/url] and a [url=https://i.imgur.com/L9pS26A.png]beady-eyed gremlin[/url], respectively. [i]“Play with us, play with us!”[/i] they cried. Barney inhaled sharply and brought out his wheel, counting on those of his fellow sufferers with Personas to do the same.