Lucky Rabbit

Nox stood outside the office door, and as Pandy approached, he opened it for her. She didn’t have a chance to do a bunny-thanks, because the moment she slipped inside, he was gone, and she didn’t even see which way he went. She really needed to figure out how to raise his loyalty. Which, conveniently, was actually part of the reason she was here.

Hopping up into the desk chair, Pandy was glad to see that the books appeared even though she wasn’t currently humanoid. The tricky part came when she tried to hop up onto the desk itself, because the books almost immediately vanished again. She could have just used a few more seconds of Shifting Faces to grab the one she wanted, but someday she might need to do this in an emergency – honestly, she’d almost certainly have to do this in an emergency – and she didn’t want to have to figure it out then. Look at her, planning ahead!

Since she couldn’t reach around to pat herself on the back, Pandy just tried a few different things, eventually figuring out that if she could get at least a toe on the books before hopping up to the desktop, they would stay. Which was good not only because she needed to look at them, but also because it was really creepy when the Pit to Nothingness appeared beneath her paws, even though it didn’t seem to affect her at all.

When she finally found herself sitting atop the stack, Pandy paused again for a rare moment of self-congratulation, then attempted to gently slide the top book aside. Of course, she was still sitting on it, so she ended up losing contact with all of the books and falling off the desk, which was so embarrassing she was glad she was the only one there to see it.

Another round of attempts led to her sitting on the desk with one paw on the book she actually wanted, while the other two had poofed away after being knocked from the desk. That was fine. Probably. In any case, she used the skills she’d honed over many long nights of having nothing to do but read Thaniel’s books while Bunny, and used a delicate claw to flip open the cover, then turn a few pages, revealing the contents of the book. Which had changed.

NYSSA - Apparition

Condition: 62%

Cost to Repair: 3586 LF/179339 Mana/17933 CP

Loyalty: 84%

NOX - Apparition

Condition: 39%

Cost to Repair: 6071 LF/304863 Mana/30486 CP

Loyalty: 43%

Wait, what? No! Well, ‘No!’ and ‘Yes!’ Nyssa’s Condition had actually gone down by two percent, while her Loyalty grew by six percent. But why to both? As far as Pandy knew, nothing had happened to make Nyssa lose… Strength? Cohesion? Though the cost to ‘repair’ her hadn’t gone up an equivalent amount. In fact, Pandy was almost certain these numbers were smaller than the ones she’d first seen. Honestly, once she got hold of some paper, she should probably start writing these things down.

Glancing at Nox’s stats, she saw a possible answer to at least part of that. His Condition was unchanged, but his Loyalty had also gone up, though only by one percent. She was certain his repair cost had gone down as well, though. It had definitely been all round numbers before, and the Life Force requirement had been sixty-one hundred, which she remembered because that last hundred just really seemed like adding insult to injury.

So the more Loyal they were, the less it would cost to fix them? But if they were going to continue to degrade, wouldn’t that counter any savings from Loyalty? Pandy felt like she was looking at an advertisement offering her a price break for paying up front. Buy Now, Get Ten Free Gacha Spins!

Should Pandy just go glomp onto Empress Glory or Suzanne until she was as full of Corruption Points as a particularly rotund tick? Which actually didn’t sound like that bad of an idea, and she could probably even do it if she just switched to following Suzanne around the school, rather than Thaniel, never mind that Thaniel would be incredibly sad if she did that-

No! Focus, Pandy. There was no reasonable way she was going to get enough Corruption Points to feed the book. She could probably chop herself into bunny-bits for the Life Force, but she didn’t want to. That left Mana. Could she give the book just a little at a time, and slowly whittle down the total? That was actually what she was here to find out, and there was no time like the present to try. If she passed out or fell to pieces now, she would have time to recover before Thaniel expected her back, and no one would find her and be concerned about her, ah, ‘condition’.

Speaking of Conditions… Pandy placed a paw on Nyssa’s name, then thought, <Use Innate Magic. Give Nyssa five hundred Mana.> She was braced for either failure or System Snark, but got neither.

Innate Magic successful.

Five hundred Mana imbued.

‘Imbued’, huh? That was an interesting way to put it. But when she moved her paw so she could read Nyssa’s entry, she found that it reflected the change.

NYSSA - Apparition

Condition: 62.3%

Cost to Repair: 3586 LF/178839 Mana/17933 CP

Loyalty: 84%

Yes! Okay. Even in the semi-privacy of her own mind, Pandy hadn’t quite been willing to hope that helping the Apparition would also result in increased Loyalty, but she had to admit to a sense of disappointment when it didn’t happen. That was all right, though, because she was doing something right in that regard, at least as far as Nyssa was concerned. Now she just had to stay ahead and hope the price kept going down as Loyalty went up.

Unfortunately, that left Pandy with only three hundred seventy-five Mana to play with, and where she was about to go, she might well need all of that. Still, it had to be done, so she released the book and hopped off the desk, heading for the windows.

In the original game, once Clara picked up the contract, the event was over. Before she did that, however, she could click on a few things in the room: a bloodied letter opener, a frayed and knotted rope with bits stuck to it, and the statue of a gargoyle on the shelf closest to the windows. Touching the statue opened a secret panel containing a hidden staircase, which led to the also-secret rooms below. There, she and/or her companion could battle two more Apparitions in order to…

Oh.

Oh. Those Apparitions were probably Nox and Nyssa, weren’t they? One was smaller and weaker than the other, but the larger one fed off of it, using its strength to repair itself, so you had to take out the small one first. Was that why only Nyssa’s Condition had gone down? Was Nox taking her energy for himself? But then why wasn’t Nox at one hundred percent? Nyssa was certainly in much better shape than he was. Unless Nox chose not to drain his fellow Apparition entirely? That was something to think about, but not right now.

Closing her eyes, Pandy thought back to the battle against the Apparitions that were probably Nox and Nyssa. They were much more difficult to beat than the Apparition on the third floor of the school, probably because they were entirely optional. Even Pandy had to use all of her gacha luck in order to beat them, and they were generally considered a Pay to Win encounter. An average player would have to buy ten to twenty bonus spins just to have a chance. That meant most people never bothered, since what you got for winning wasn’t really worth spending real money for, especially since you could get the same thing at certain holiday sales for Direct Application of Funds.

But Pandy was already here, and hopefully she wouldn’t need to fight anyone, just deal with the mental damage of everything else down there. She could do it. Yep.

The gargoyle had become a small, porcelain statue of a rabbit with red-painted eyes, and Pandy had to Hop three times before she managed to land on the shelf next to it. Of course, that was possible because the previous two attempts had knocked some of the other rabbit-themed knick-knacks off, shattering at least one, so there was that.

Twisting one of the rabbit’s ears still produced the same effect as turning the gargoyle’s head, however, and the bookshelf shifted beneath her paws, then swung out, revealing a set of stairs so narrow and twisting that Eurydice’s generous proportions would probably just barely squeeze through. What happened if the head of the Avington family was a wee bit portly? Did they just have to stay out of the secret rooms, at least until their demise?

With that squicky thought taking up space in her mind, Pandy hopped down the steps, finding herself in a pitch-dark room. While the rest of the house had a low-level version of the same kind of indirect illumination that filled Falconet, there was nothing like that here. Was that because this was somehow separate from the main house as far as the magic running it was concerned? Or had someone just ‘turned the lights off’ for ambiance? When she got a chance, she really needed to bring the Big Book down here and see what it had to say.

This was an exploratory mission, however, and Pandy cast Spark, shedding light on the ten feet or so surrounding her. Swallowing hard, she took in the shelves and their contents, all covered in dust and neatly labeled. There were brains, hands, eyes, spleens, and other parts of Avingtons past, all in jars, floating peacefully. The last caught her attention, a vaguely oval squidgy bit, more purple than red, and she wondered what it did when it was inside a body where it belonged.

Nope, not going to be distracted by curiosity. All she knew was that the moment she figured out how to get rid of all of these, she was going to do so. Was there even a mausoleum or section of the graveyard for the Avington family, or were they all down here, pieced out like a DIY zombie garage sale?

Keeping her eyes stoically ahead, she moved past the flat stone-topped tables that had probably Seen Some Things, making her way to the open area in the middle of the large room. It was here that the Apparitions attacked Clara, and Pandy’s hop slowed as she approached, tensing up as she half-expected to be attacked. Nothing lashed out of the darkness at her except for the smell of chemicals, however, so she went on, finally finding the desk at the end of the room. Bookshelves flanked it, with another large book and a dried-up pot of ink sitting on the desktop.

This book wasn’t one of the many containing bits and snippets of lore in Gacha Love. No, besides the battle and the treasure there was nothing down here, and all of the jars and books were just window-dressing, the final jump-scare in a misplaced house of horrors. Why was there even a location like this in an otome game, hidden or otherwise? It had always been a mystery, with some fans believing it was the remnant of some unfinished game, thrown into Gacha Love for some extra content and an opportunity to get the users to spend more money.

Of course, real-life Pandy was going to have to deal with the real-life organ warehouse, but even that was no excuse for her to skip getting Avington House. Then if she did give it to Clara someday – something which she was finding less and less likely every time they met – the heroine wouldn’t have to deal with all of this herself.

Casting her fourth Spark, Pandy veered to the right, squinting at the very-obviously-coffins that lined the wall. One, two, three… Why was it always three? Wasn’t there a Rule of Three or something? Or was that the Rule of Thirds? In any case, she needed the third coffin, and as she approached it, she thought, <Spark. Cast Shifting Faces.>

Spark successful.

Shifting Faces successful.

00:08:46 remaining today

Up she went, almost hitting her most recent Spark and setting herself on fire – which would have been a particularly embarrassing way to burn the house down, because all these chemicals had to be extremely flammable, that was just how her luck worked. Once her field of view steadied, she reached out and set her fingers into the small groove in the lid-slash-door of the coffin. It opened easily, swinging on silver hinges to reveal a body.

She’d known to expect it, but still, it was strange to see General Avington standing there, as lifelike as if the statue in Golden Park had just stepped off its pedestal and strolled home. This looked more like the version of him she’d spoken to in the office, though she had a suspicion that that had actually been Nox, taking his former lord’s shape in order to test future applicants for the role of Lord or Lady Avington.

In any case, other than the distinct gray tinge to his flesh, the General Avington she was looking at could have been sleeping. Well, that or very recently deceased. This definitely wasn’t the corpse of someone who had been dead for almost two hundred years. But there, around his neck, was a heavy golden chain, the round pendant proudly displayed against his sunken chest.

Swallowing hard, Pandy stretched out her fingers for the pendant, then froze as Nox’s voice whispered from somewhere near her left ear. “Will yooouuuu steeaaalll from the deeeaaaad, laaaady?”