Chapter Thirty-two - Oops

Thaniel gaped, but the boy who had spent the last few weeks pretending to be a pirate had no chance of resisting the pull of a dark, hidden space. He moved forward, having to crouch only slightly to enter the small passage. The wooden stairs creaked softly in protest, making Thaniel pause and swallow hard, but he took the next step, and then the next.

The stairs descended in a curve that was so tight Pandy wasn’t sure an adult would have been able to take them without sitting on their rear and bumping down one after another. Fortunately, Thaniel was only a small boy, so he didn’t have to gather too much more courage to make it the rest of the way. Unfortunately, he wasn’t quite brave enough to close the door behind him, so it stood open, letting in light as well as making it very obvious that someone had gone somewhere they weren’t supposed to.

Soon enough, Thaniel and Pandy found themselves facing another wall, this one blank and almost as dusty as the steps. Two rectangles stood out against the gray-brown surface, and Thaniel set Pandy down while whispering - very loudly - for her to stay still and be silent. She immediately sneezed as dust tickled her nose, but compared to Thaniel’s ‘whisper’, the sound was all but inaudible. Probably.

“What is this place?” Thaniel murmured aloud as he reached up to touch the rectangle that sat flush against the wall just below the ceiling of the small space. It shifted beneath his fingers, and he jerked them back, only to immediately reach out and touch it again. A few tentative wiggles made the rectangle slide to the side, allowing a tiny shaft of light to enter through a small hole. Thaniel pressed his eye to the hole and gasped.

“It’s another hall, just like mine. Are those the girl’s rooms? I wonder if Ellie is here,” he said as he stepped back, blinking and rubbing dust from his eye. The eye began to water, and Pandy eyed the drops thoughtfully. Did those count as tears? Perhaps she just needed to find something Thaniel was mildly allergic to in order to farm CP. That had to be better than hoping he’d stub his toe in the dark when he woke up in the morning.

The other rectangle was at the bottom of the wall, and Pandy waited for Thaniel to investigate it as well, but he’d placed his other eye to the peephole and was staring around, apparently enthralled. She perked up her ears, wondering if he was actually watching someone, but heard nothing, so she hopped over to the little box.

In the game, you simply selected ‘Open Passage’ or ‘Close Passage’ while touching the spot, but obviously that wasn’t going to work here. Given her luck, it would probably cost CP somehow and she’d end up going to Hell for opening a door. So she sniffed at the rectangle, her sensitive nose feeling a small ridge on top of it. With a claw, she pushed on it, and something clicked. Loudly.

Thaniel jerked back, now rubbing both eyes with dusty fists, which smeared dirt all over his cheeks. Tear-tracks soon cut through the dirt, and Pandy licked at a droplet that landed on the floor nearby, trying to ignore the fuzzy, slightly fungus-tinged taste of dust.

+1 Corruption Point for Drinking the Tears of the Innocent

Damp hands scooped her up again, and she managed to gain a few more CP before Thaniel knelt down and examined the rectangle. It had sunk into the wall ever so slightly, and he pushed forward several times before finding that down was the correct direction. The rectangle slid into the wall, and the panel swung open, revealing a hallway identical to the one above.

Thaniel grinned. “Wait ‘till Geri and Ellie see this. We won’t have to go to any supervister whenever we want to talk.” His eyes lit up. “We can have sleepovers!”

Whoa. Pandy thought he was getting a bit ahead of himself, since the hall supervisor did check on the students periodically throughout the night, but she supposed he would have to find out for himself. Hopefully without revealing this very handy secret passage.

Thaniel was so distracted by his surroundings that his grip had loosened. Pandy took advantage of this, slipping from his grasp to the floor. She hopped forward, deftly dodging Thaniel’s hands. Her increased Agility really was amazing, and she needed to work on leveling Hop to get it even higher. Eventually, she might be able to leap over buildings in a single bound! Or maybe two. She didn’t want to get too far ahead of herself. Two bounds would be fine.

Down the hall, toward the last of the student’s rooms, Pandy raced. So far, Falconet was just like Condor, but this time she wasn’t after a secret hidden in the structure itself, but something the player received after completing a tour of the school grounds. Once these halls were filled with students and staff, it was unlikely she’d be able to do what she needed to without being caught. And of course she had to go to the girl’s hall, since that was where Clara’s room was.

Past door after door she ran, barely daring to look up as Thaniel came running after her. He didn’t seem to be trying to catch her this time, however, and didn’t call after her the way he had the first time she ran off. Did she dare hope he’d closed at least this end of the hidden passage behind him?

And there it was. A statue sat nestled between two large plants, hands cupped beneath a small orb of light that hovered with no obvious means of support. This was Ismara, the goddess of Light, and the primary god of the pantheon worshipped in West Altheric, and most nearby countries.

Pandy slowed just enough to let Thaniel get close, then thought, <Hop!> sending her small body flying in an arch no real rabbit would have been able to manage. She landed on the table in front of the statue, back legs scrambling, then catching on the huge doily beneath the statue, making the stone figure tilt ominously. A little hand caught it while another supported Pandy’s bottom, pushing her up.

She twisted, barely daring to look at Thaniel. Would he be angry? Possibly frightened to see his pet doing very un-Bunnylike things? But no, the big blue eyes were filled with excitement and trust. He smiled, dimples flashing in both cheeks, and nodded to her.

Pandy took back every thought she’d ever had about being unlucky. Yes, she might have struggled in her past life, and, yes, she might have come into this life at a bit of a disadvantage – apparently being an undead rabbit wasn’t going to be easily accepted by anyone – but she had Thaniel, and she would do whatever she had to do to make sure that didn’t change.

Standing on her hind legs, Pandy placed her front paws on Ismara’s cold stone ones and thought hard. Not in the same way she talked to the System, or the idiot god, or whatever it was, but as if she was talking to something else entirely.

Um, hello? You probably don’t know me, since I’m not from here, but my name is Pandy. Pandora. I, um, played a… No, you don’t want to… I should probably… Oh, I’m not doing this very well, but I’m trying to protect Thaniel, and it would be a lot easier if you would give me your blessing, please and thank you very much. Um, Amen?

In the game, the next part was both immediate and guaranteed, and Pandy felt her stomach drop as nothing happened. Then, slowly, the ball of light hanging above Ismara’s hand began to expand, covering first Pandy’s paws, then the rest of her body. There was a brilliant flash, and a series of messages filled her vision.

You have received Ismara’s Blessing I. Your Inventory has been expanded by five slots. Stack quantities vary by item.

-99 LF

Your body has sustained significant damage. You will be unable to move until it has been reassembled.

That…probably wasn’t good. She’d gotten what she was after, but there was no way Thaniel was going to be able to ignore this. Why hadn’t she just waited? Surely she could have snuck down after dark. Yes, she would have had to leave Thaniel alone, but what could have happened to him in a few minutes? Surely he wouldn’t have smothered himself with his pillow, or fallen out of bed and broken his neck, no matter how many times those scenarios and other, similar ones, played out in her mind in the long hours of the night.

The brilliant light had changed to utter darkness, and Pandy tried to open her eyes so she could figure out just how bad this was going to be. The darkness remained absolute, and with rising nausea, Pandy wondered just what ‘significant damage’ meant. Had she actually been blown into Pandy-pieces? If so, then why didn’t it hurt?

Still, it was only ninety-nine points. Five Minor Heals, and she’d be right as rain. Even if Thaniel had run away – and who could blame him? – she had more than enough CP to pay for it. This wasn’t the purpose to which she’d intended to put that CP, but she would earn it back. Somehow. Even if Thaniel hated her now.

<Minor Heal. Minor Heal. Min->

Minor Heal cannot restore more than 15% of total body mass.

Your body has sustained significant damage. You will be unable to move until it has been reassembled.

That was an unexpectedly precise answer. Now what should she do? Was she going to have to lie there in pieces until someone threw her out with the trash?

Some part of her moved. Not because of anything she did, but she could tell nonetheless. Part of her grew closer to another part, and then something very unpleasant happened and she could suddenly see again. Not well, but a little bit. She couldn’t actually move her eyes – eye? – to see what was happening, but there was motion, shadow against foggy light, and something that probably should have been inside her but wasn’t squelched, and she found that she could hear again.

What she could hear were quiet sniffles interspersed between words. It was Thaniel, and he was pushing the Pandy-puzzle back together as he cried. “Please be all right, Bunny. I promise I won’t ask any more questions about what you are.” Sniff. “Daddy made you to be my friend, and I really, really wanna still be friends, so please, please be all right.”

A strange warmth was beginning to seep into Pandy as Thaniel placed each part of her as close to the right spot as a little boy could manage. If there was a spleen where her heart was supposed to be, well, she was fairly certain she didn’t actually need either of those anyway. She would be rather sad if she couldn’t eat any more, but if she could just stay with Thaniel and protect him, she would even give up carrots.

Nathaniel Conroy used Dark Restoration on you.

Nathaniel Conroy used Dark Restoration on you.

Nathaniel Conroy used Dark Restoration on you.

…

Again and again the words scrolled across her vision, at first the only thing she could see clearly, but soon the rest of the world came into focus until one final message appeared. 

Damage restored. You may now move freely.

Pandy took a quick glance at her stats.

Name: Pandy

Race: Rabbit? (Deceased)

Age: 23

LF: 0/1

Mana: 10/10

Stats

• Strength: 3

• Intelligence: 12

• Agility: 15

Skills

• Hop: Lv.15 (38.22%)

• Bite: Lv. 5 (20%)

• Scratch: Lv. 7

• Minor Heal: Lv. 11 (89.42%)

• Wings of Glory: Lv.1

Boons

• Ismara’s Blessing I

Corruption Points: 89

She noticed the addition of Ismara’s Blessing, but her attention was really caught by something else. Always before, her Life Force wouldn’t move higher than zero, even if she used Minor Heal on herself. Now, however, she had one LF. Or at least it looked like she did. <Minor Heal,> she thought, then checked again, paying attention only to the first part of her stat block.

Name: Pandy

Race: Rabbit? (Deceased)

Age: 23

LF: 1/1

Mana: 0/10

One! She had one LF! But how? Was it a result of Ismara’s Blessing, or had Thaniel somehow done it? What did it mean?

She was pulled from her thoughts as Thaniel gave a small, sobbing groan, and she felt him sway. Quickly, Pandy rolled over, finding that she was once again covered in gore. Why was this world so determined to hurt her? The worst injury she’d ever had as a human was…well, probably when she was run over by a truck, but before that, it was when she dropped a jar of mayonnaise on her toe and broke it. The toe, not the jar, which was unusually lucky for her, because after she paid the emergency room bill she’d had to live on mayo sandwiches until her next paycheck.

<Thaniel!> Pandy shouted, trying ineffectually to prop the boy up. Why, oh why, hadn’t she found a way to raise her Strength stat?

Thaniel’s eyes opened, and he blinked owlishly. “Bunny?” he asked.

Oh no. This was definitely Exhaustion. Not exhaustion such as anyone might experience after working hard, but Exhaustion, as if he’d used up all of his Stamina and then some. In Gacha Love, if Clara tried to use a skill when she didn’t have enough Stamina left, it almost always failed, and did always leave her ‘sick’ for an entire day afterwards.

Pandy’s eyes swept back down the hall, seeing the open panel leading into the hidden passage. If she could just get Thaniel there, he could rest and recover, at least until someone found the huge mess that…wasn’t there.

She stared up at the gently smiling face of the statue, which wasn’t spattered with blood, and the floor, which wasn’t covered in gore and Pandy-parts. Had Thaniel’s spell put her back together so perfectly that it left nothing behind to incriminate them?

Well, Pandy wasn’t a rabbit to question her good fortune, especially when she had so little of it, so she leaned against Thaniel’s side, thinking, <You have to get up, Thaniel. Please. If you’re caught in the girl’s hall, they might kick you out.> It was true, too. At least at Condor, the rules keeping boys and girls out of each others’ halls was strictly enforced. Being caught in the wrong hall at the wrong time was one of the ways to fail and get Clara sent home, forcing the player to reset to their last save.

She still couldn’t tell if Thaniel could really hear her, but he did manage to get to his feet, staggering back down the hallway. He left small, smudged prints on the wall each time he caught himself against it, but that was a relatively minor problem compared to the much larger ones facing them. Pandy could only watch helplessly, urging him on with all her might as he all but fell through the passage, sprawling up the first few steps.

Pandy gave the panel a gentle kick, then darted through before it shut completely, not quite bumping into Thaniel’s toes. The little peephole was still open, but surely no one would notice, and it would give Thaniel a little light.

Quickly, she hopped up the steps, soon finding herself in the empty boys’ hall, where she repeated her actions with the door, hearing it click behind her, dropping her into darkness. The game ignored this short period of gloom, and she tried to do the same as she returned to Thaniel. With great difficulty, she managed to wriggle beneath his head, providing him with a soft Pandy-pillow rather than the hard edge of a step to rest on. Then, just in case, she tried using Minor Heal, but it didn’t work because neither of them was physically injured.

<That’s all right, Thaniel,> she thought as she settled against the sharp edge of the step. <I’ll do better from now on. I promise.> She licked his cheek, but the tears had already dried to a crust of salt.