What should they do, indeed. 

This is a nifty hallucination. Your therapist would probably say it represents your anxieties about how your parents always loved your sisters more, or about how growing up felt like a series of challenges you couldn't quite face- but your therapist isn't here. Your therapist would say you're losing touch with reality, and indulging in a power fantasy won't solve your problems. Your therapist isn't here- and anyway, once you drained him dry, he never said that much again.

We should give her a visit.

What a wonderful idea! Any thoughts about how to deal with the pesky defenses on the door? There are so many layers of wards on it that I can't even see its eye. 

No, we should stay here. Remilia ordered us to stay here, so we're going to. Remember the last time we tried to escape?

Remi knows best! Staying here is what's best for all of us.

Is the door the only exit? We have wings and more strength than I know what to do with. 

We're very far underground. We could break a wall easily, but the ceiling would probably fall on us. Bad plan.

And I thought I was crazy. Break the wall, little girl. End this for all our sakes.

We could fly out! There's so much sky I don't know why we would bother staying in this dingy little cell all day.

Just breaking a wall and letting the stone do the rest might be the best way out for us.

But then we'd never get to see Remi ever again.

In case I need to remind the rest of you: Dying is bad.

Do it next time she comes to visit.

The last time she came to visit was fifty years ago.

But if she did... At least we'd be together.

What are you even saying? Hurt Remi?! Why?

Need I remind you that she's why we've been here for five hundred years?

Yes, because we're a danger to ourselves and everyone around us.

Dying is still to be avoided.

Dying was no fun the first time. Let's take a look at that door.

How do you know? Have you ever tried?

Dying is fun! I expect we'll die a lot.

The door is made of heavy iron, and there are runes written all across it. I think they're Patchouli's: Remilia wouldn't be able to deal with actually doing the work. I don't know what they mean.

What, these? These are easy. This one means 'fetter', and this one means 'obscure', and this one means 'forever', and this one means 'iron', and this bit is part of a binding circle to reinforce the steel...

Really? Cool! How does it work?

I'm not sure, but I can see its eye. Want me to break it?

That sounds like a terrible idea.

If the question of breaking arises, the answer is always yes.

Let me just -

You reach out, feeling for the disturbance in the air, the fracture point in the door's enchantments. Everything has one. You can see them clearly as the nose on your face. 

You take it in your palm. 

You squeeze, lightly. 

The door implodes.

Flying metal, dodge it.

Four guards. Enemies. Kill them. Find Remilia.

Yes, find Remilia.

We're breaking all the ruuuuuuuuuuules! Stop! Stop it!

It's been a while since I last saw this hallway. Narrow, cobblestone, torches on the walls. I don't need the torches, but the fairy servants do. They're nice, if a bit incompetent. I wonder if we'll meet Patchy or Meiling or anyone.

Fairies! Let's play with them!

...

Tell the fairies to handle the guards. We need to talk to Remi.

I think you mean kill Remi.

You're right. The guards are a distraction. We can outfly them. 

When did we last eat? We should stop for a snack.

We need to get as far away from here as possible, as fast as possible.

And not even say hello?

Remi says we should ask the fairies to fetch her if we escape.

Staying here is booooorrrrriiiiing. Let's go explore!

Today is going to be fun~

Tell the fairies to get Remi. Then kill her.

No, don't make it fast. We have time to play a little.

Okay, I'll tell them. Let's go with the nearest fairy.

"Um, would you mind telling Remilia that we've escaped?"

Why's she staring at us like that? We just want to be friends.

Hurt her for her insolence.

She's afraid. The other ones are already running. I can smell their sweat.

It's against the rules to hurt people!

Why would you even suggest that? I'm sure she'll come up with something to say eventually.

Tempting, but likely to only delay us finding Remi. 

Let's hurt her! I want to hear what noise she makes. 

Getawaygetawaygetawaygetaway-

Remi is far; the fairy is here. Make her scream.

-getawaygetawaygetawaygetawayGETAWAY!

Panic floods through you, and you blindly push the fairy away, taking flight with a snap of wings. By the time you calm down, you're somewhere else completely. 

Wow, there sure are lots of books here. Books so high you can't even climb to them, books as far as the eye can see. I'm glad I have wings.

I'm hungry.

...

I've gotten all turned around, but I know this has to be some part of Voile, Patchouli's library. If we fly for long enough around the edge, we should find an exit back to the rest of the mansion.

We should try to find our way back to the basement. 

That would make for a poor dream, indeed, if we merely turned around and went back to the basement! Come, let us explore. Drawing lines on the wall and talking to madmen can't be more entertaining than wandering around a mansion and talking to madmen.

Talking to madmen is cool, but flying out of here might be more fun. We should take a book with us.

I think we'll be talking to madmen regardless of what we choose to do. We're all mad, here.

Someone with some sense, for once... though you remind me a little of Indigo.

Exploring is fun! It's been forever since I've seen the outside world. I wonder what's changed since I've been gone.

Ooh, this looks like a section on magical theory! I wonder if any of these books say anything about eyes.

So we're just going to steal Patchy's books now?

It's not stealing if you ask! Maybe we should try to find Patchy. She probably knows how all this is organized.

Searching for Patchy is a waste of time. We still need to find Remi.

Borrowing without asking is borrowing too!

Patchy-Patchy-Patchy-Patchy-Patchy-Patchy-Patchy-Patchy-Patchy-...

... I suppose we can take a detour to catch up with Patchy.

Yay! Patchy!

And learning things!

I knew today was going to be a fun day!

What's she going to say when she finds out we've escaped? We're not supposed to be out of the basement!

Never mind that, let's see if we can find her anyway.

You flit up, up, up, waaaaay above the very tops of the shelves, and cast your gaze around for any hint of Patchouli. 

I don't see her anywhere.

I can smell her. She always smelled sickly: I don't know why you all seem to like her so much. Down the aisle, turn left.

There she is! Patchyyyy! What should we say what should we say?!

She doesn't seem to have noticed us yet. We should run while we still can.

Yaaaaaay~

Sneak up on her! Surprises!

She'll be surprised, alright.

She smells terrible. Not worth the effort.

Then we surprise her by... Fixing the smell!

Pouring water on her? Perfume? Something?

I think Patchy has a bigger problem than that. She always seems tired and cranky whenever we see her.

Have you ever stopped to consider that that might be our fault?

I wouldn't know where to find perfume anyway. ...Maybe Remi would have some?

Maybe the cleaning fairies would have perfume? Or Sakuya?

Let's just go talk to Patchy!

Maybe we could hide our nose and mouth under some of our clothing.

Maybe we could find a blanket to be a ghost under. Much more surprising - maybe, less recognizable - slightly, and stops smells some. Also then we could use the "see a ghost" joke.

Drown out the stench with blood. I've always found that particularly effective.

It's all in how you look at it! Just pretend she smells nice, then it's easy.

Do we truly care this much about how someone smells? Really? How astonishingly petty of us, I am disappointed in all of you.

I'm only talking about it because everyone else was.

How very uninspired of you.

Okay, we ignore the smell. But what do we say?

This is a colossal waste of time.

Let's ask her to teach us about eyes!

Maybe she knows where Remi is.

Maybe she can tell us where there's something interesting to see!

...Maybe she could help us.

I just said that!

She can help by telling us what to do. 

Another voice in this madhouse. Just what is required. Kill her and be done.

While I am loathe to agree with the murder voice, I find that I do. Do we wish to be some pet of this 'Patchy'? I say no. Never.

It would be easy. I can see her eye.

No, don't! What did Patchy ever do to us?

She helped Remi lock us away. We owe her for that.

- Did she not have something to do with the basement? ... Ah, yes, thank you. Someone agrees.

Have we ever broken a human's eye before? I can't remember.

Yes.

There's a very specific rule against it!

Rules are made to be broken. Like eyes.

Patchy put us there, why would we hurt her? She would put us back.

Talk to Patchy! Act good!

Foolish. Strength is the only path to respect.

Yes! Finally, someone who understands! If we follow the rules, we'll be alright. You people can't even kill someone properly!

I don't particularly care if we kill her or not, but I'll not support a return to the basement.

Ooh, it's been forever since I've had a proper spellcard duel.

Fighting Patchy would get us put back. If we talk to Patchy, we could learn, and then get stronger!

I wanna talk to Patchy!

In case the rest of you were too caught up in your argument to notice, Patchy just looked right at us.

Kill her quick, before the chance is lost.

You take hold of the eye-

No! Bad! No killing humans!

The eye slips through your hands. 

Umumumumum come up with something to say-

"Hi, Patchy!"

Patchouli blinks, and looks up at you. 

"... Flandre?"

Of course it's us, who else could it be?

Could have been... Many people!

Or us!

Do please spare us and our host the list. Instead, compliment her, say we're ever so pleased to be sane enough to be allowed the chance to see her incomparably lovely face. I doubt we've ever complimented her in such a way, being - what are we, twelve? Charming. Regardless, she should be caught off guard for whatever the rest of the menagerie of the mad wish to do.

Lay off on the poetry, just confess love- always gets them to blink first. Then we go in for the kill.

Now that's what I call a plan.

Just confess love? That's easy!

"I love you, Patchouli-samaaaaaa!~"

"Yes, Flandre, I know. How did you even get here?"

Ugh. I can't even tell if she's afraid beneath that awful smell.

Sigh.

Do you see now the value of poetry?

Maybe she smells bad because of her name? Or maybe she got her name because she smells bad!

That didn't work. Next time, listen to the suave one.

Um. That totally didn't surprise her. Quick, someone give me something else to say!

_{I guess Rumia could float here...}

Patchy! We kinda... Flew over the bookshelves?

Good behavior. But we require help to keep it up, it's so very difficult to act normal, could she be so kind as to help?

"Patchy! We kinda... Flew over the bookshelves?"

You look around again, and then everyone starts talking at once.

"Where are we, anyway? Where's Remi? What are you doing? Do you want to play with us? Why do you smell so bad? What's the name of your library demoness again? Can you maybe help us talk better or behave better? Are we asking too many questions?"

Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.

"Um. Could you slow down a little? I'm not sure where Lady Scarlet is, but it's the middle of the day so she's probably asleep. This is the basic magical theory section. And while I might like to play with you, I'm kind of busy doing research, along with Koakuma... Though I guess now I have other priorities. Did you meet any fairies on your way here?"

Okay, okay, slow down. Help me think here, please? And don't all fight over the voice?

Just let that one voice word things.

None of us want to go back.

Yes, do please all be silent as I talk our way out of this.

'Meet, no. I saw a few, but I stayed away from them. Whatever you're researching sounds much more interesting. What are you studying?'

Phooey! That's not what I said to word!

I doubt she'll give a satisfactory answer, and she looks eminently - what's the term for it... Ah, yes. Vulnerable to being nerd-sniped.

If you're not going to fight, then I don't care. Say what they said.

Poetry voice is right, talk nerdy to her.

Wow, it's been a while since I agreed on something like that.

"Meet, no. I saw a few, but I stayed away from them. Whatever you're researching sounds much more interesting. What are you studying?"

Patchouli blinks. "...Since when are you interested in magical theory, Flandre?"

Opportunity!~

Hmph. What else did she think I had time to do besides examine her wards, huh?

'I'm trying to do better. I thought focusing on something external would help.'

Now, as you say that - important distinction, everyone. Do we want to actually learn something or distract her into lecturing and take advantage of that?

If we're not using her for amusement, then we should at least wring what value we can out of her. Though I favor the latter.

Learning is good. Being with Patchy is good.

Not being thrown into the basement again is the best. Learning is not on the path to being thrown into the basement.

"Focussing on something external" is way too wordy, it doesn't sound like we should. If you insist on talking to her, at least try to keep up a facade of normalcy.

And so I must beat my silver tongue until it resembles a club. Very well. Do not say I do not rise to the challenges put before me.

'I'm trying to do better. I thought doing something besides talking to myself would help. Magic's interesting, right?'

Or we could just kill her and skip having to figure out how to phrase every single damn sentence.

Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

See what I have to work with?

It is the most direct solution. Alternately, we could torture her for information. Best of both worlds.

And how will we not attract anyone with the screams, hm?

I don't see why that matters.

No, she's being frieeendly.

Say 'The basement can be lonely. You like magical theory, so it can't be all bad.'

Sigh.

Say what I've offered or kill her, I care not which.

That's a stupid thing to say. You should stop offering suggestions. Follow the poetic's direction, if anything.

"It gets lonely down in the basement: I just really want to talk to someone. You like studying magic, so it must be at least a little interesting, right? And it'd be something to do together."

"... I'm not very good at teaching. But if you wanted to fetch books for me and maybe read over my shoulder, I guess that could be okay."

Does she not like us?

Fetching books? Booooo-ring.

We should go along with it: if we read over her shoulder for long enough she'll probably start talking to us just to seem sociable.

Reading is fine with me.

I still want to ask her about eyes.

She never cared about us. Always too occupied in her books. Our prison is like a pet project to her.

Reading over her shoulder means we will be behind her, yes? An excellent spot from which to attack.

You're welcome, you sniff, annoyed that your talents were not properly appreciated. Or utilized. What with the edited phrasing.

Oh dear sweet poet, whatever should we have done without your talents? Most assuredly, you are the keystone to our victory and we are all ever so grateful to you. Alas that you have no body I could express my gratitude to.

By ripping your tongue out.

My, from one such as you, those words are practically a lover's tender whispers. I'm flattered, but please, try to contain yourself. We're housed in a little girl. It would be quite inappropriate.

Tch. The intent was entirely platonic on my end. Though if such are your desires, I would be delighted to fulfill them.

Maybe later.

Ewwwwwww.

What the fuck.

You don't really say anything, these have been the most surreal five minutes of your life and you're still trying to understand what in the everliving—

Ripping out tongues is disgusting. Gagging would probably be better. But anyway I like poet and I don't want to do either of these things. 

The back is a nice place to be.

Are there any colorful books with diagrams? Reading is good too, though.

I'm curious about magic.

Let's fetch books for her. We can take a long time returning with it to look around if we want.

Um. Can I get some words, here? It's okay to take a little while to think but this is getting embarrassing.

Oh, I thought you were feeling creative. But very well, if it will earn our murderous companion's affection. I believe we all want her to either turn her back or teach us, both of which unfortunately require:

'Okay, I'll fetch books for you.'

You smile as best you can without showing your fangs too much.

"Okay, I'll fetch books for you."

"Um. Okay. Could you go fetch the 'Grimoire Arcanamacha'? Down the row, third aisle on the left, fourth shelf up about halfway along? The author is Dr. Cook, of Monte Suel." 

She's sending us away...

We need to remember that, how do we remember that?

Remember the book... Arachno-mocha! On left, third-fourth-middle. By the chef. Remember the silly way and fix it there!

Arachno-mocha, three-four!

Careful, you two. We might begin to resemble someone functional, and then expire of surprise on the spot.

Whatever would we do. Grimoire Arcanamacha, Dr. Cook. Here we are: it's a bit of a heavy one. Easy enough to return this to Patchy, though.

You flit back to Patchouli's side after your brief excursion down into the aisles.

Okay so. You're in a girl's head. Well, you've probably been trapped by some bizarre psion in a hallucination that looks a lot like you've been trapped in a girl's head but if they're that thorough there's little point in spending longer than you already have questioning the premise.

(The premise makes no sense, this is some vampire girl and who even are all these other people?)

Or, of course, it's also not terribly unlikely that you are in fact just a voice in a crazy girl's head and have been created very recently, with memories and all. In which case, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! But that's not very helpful.

What is our actual goal here? you finally ask.

Get revenge by killing Remilia, and everybody else who imprisoned us.

Be a good Flandre and stay out of the basement.

Find somebody to talk to.

Learn about things!

Have fun!

Survive.

Stay alive. Stay out of the basement. Become saner. Become happier. Understand what happened to us. Find allies. Confront Remi for what she did to us. In roughly ascending order. Good luck getting any of that done, though.

... I think they were asking about the book thing.

What's the difference?

... anyway. What exactly are we going to do now? Patchy doesn't seem to have noticed that we're back yet. 

I was not in fact asking about the book thing. Revenge sounds like a stupid idea, no one ends up better off. The other things sound good though. Who's 'we'? What's she likely to do when she finds out?

Did you not notice how many of us there are?

People ending up "better off" is not the point of revenge, new voice.

I was including ourselves when I said 'better off,' and yes I've noticed how many of us there are but as far as I know I'm not 'back' from anywhere so my question stands.

"We" presumably means the body we are in, I think? Also I agree with the new voice, 'revenge' just sounds petty and/or disgusting and not worth it, my thinking goes more along the lines of 'if they're gonna interfere prevent them from doing so, if they're not ignore them'. Not sure what new voice means by 'better off' there but still.

If this becomes a chorus of 'and let's live a long dull life of peaceful coexistence' I believe I will tire very quickly of this dream.

Poet, what do you mean 'this dream'?

What do I mean when I say anything, overspecific one? Perhaps I mean the dream of consciousness, this confused and unfair world we all find ourselves rudely thrust into.

Or perhaps not. Perhaps eventually you'll figure out the mystery, but for now, I think it more entertaining if I keep my own counsel.

I can't fail to notice that no one's answered my question, you point out.

You're in the mind of a madwoman, and you're surprised at unfair treatment?

Maybe try asking more interesting questions. Like how exactly we're going to kill Patchy. I favor a makeshift garrote, do we have anything to use for that?

What do we even gain from killing her? She's a potential asset, we could use her instead.

That sounds incredibly dull.

Oh, yes, because killing her isn't. At least if she isn't dead she'll do things, dead people just stay there, all dead.

One doesn't stay around afterwards. One moves on to the next victim. Really, it's as though you've put no thought into this at all.

How delightful, I'm rooming with a serial killer.

Let's just put the book down on her table. Murdervoice, just let us be patient. If there's murder to happen, being helpful helps regardless. We still have Remi and Sakuya to worry about. If Patchy won't attack us right now, that's good.

Ugh.

Look at this as an opportunity, dear butcher! You said you favored a makeshift garrote, perhaps patience will give you the chance to spot something that could be made into one.

You set the book down. 

Patchouli nods, and keeps reading her grimorie.

Whyyyyyyy is talking to people so haaaaaaaaaaaard?

Awwww, it's okay, we'll all- er, most of us will help you as much as we can!

I'm good at talking to people. ...I'm pretty sure. If I wasn't literally created a few minutes ago, in which case my memories aren't really reliable.

Oh good, it's a philosopher. No one cares about whatever asinine existential crisis you're currently experiencing. If you don't have a suggestion, be silent.

I think that whatever skill may or may not be brought to bear, the bookworm is not going to be very good conversation on her own merits. Perhaps discussing magical theory. It seems foolhardy to take any long silences from her as a failure, regardless.

I'll keep my existential crises to myself from now on, then. I'm agreed with the poet, however.

Can I ask about eyes? Can I? Can I?

Patchy said to just read over her shoulder. If the other voices want to argue, we can ask how she reads so much and hasn't had her eyes go blind.

Not that kind of eyes! The crushy ones.

Patchy is not an ally. We should avoid revealing the source of our power. Don't ask about the eyes, but see if there's any references to them in the books. And if we kill Patchy first, we can do that step in peace.

Patchy is not an enemy either. Can't you see that?

I don't see the relevance.

Well, we have people who ARE enemies hanging out, or at least much worse than Patchy. Bigger targets.

They are not here. Patchy is here.

They're like, maybe one or two rooms over? Time and space are all wibbly wobbly in here. Could always pick a fairy servant up if you HAVE to.

Not that I don't appreciate the endlessly riveting debate between directionless homicidal tendencies and practicality, but could we please do something more interesting than this?

Yeah, listening to you argue is booooring. I'm just gonna ask her.

Leaning in over Patchouli's shoulder, you smile brightly.

"Patchy-sama, do you know anything about magic eyes?"

"Mm. They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. Magic involving them is pretty common. Do you mean like the Satori's third eye, which reads people's minds? Or like the eyes of some moon rabbits, that can drive you crazy if you look into them?"

"No, I mean the eyes that everything has, and you can hold them in your hand and-"

Shutupshutupshutupshutup!

I was just about to get to the important part!

Patchy looks at you with a raised eyebrow. "And...?"

Notgoodnotgood. Just say like 'Images. Why would people draw eyes on things?'

I told you not to do it.

Yeah let's stay away from the whole 'eyes' topic why don't we?

I don't know, now I'm curious about it.

"Ahh, why- why would people draw eyes on things?" 

"...probably as some form of scrying sensor? But it's hardly common, that would be Western magic... Who on earth would be drawing eyes on the walls in the base..."

She looks at you again, and blinks. 

"Wait. Flandre, what are you doing up here? You know it's not safe for you to be out of the basement."

notinbasement breakingtherules breakingtherules

She's going to send us back! Kill her, kill her now, before she can call for help-

Basementisboring notgoingback!

Is that fear I smell? I think it is.

Don't! No hurting Patchy!

If we hurt her, we might never find out what eyes are.

...feels like a last chance, little voices. I don't know what to decide.

Eyes are sensory organs with cells that respond to light, different ways to different wavelengths or intensities depending on the cell, and send these responses up to the visual cortex, what are you even on about—tell her we were lonely and we didn't really understand why we were trapped in the basement.

Admitting weakness is tantamount to death. Kill her.

We're trying to be better here, we can just say something like that. Attacking her now when she's more alert is less likely to work. Free access around is not going into the basement.

The words stumble off your tongue.

"We're... trying to be better. Lonely down there, nobody to talk to..."

Patchouli nods slightly. 

"I don't really mind either way, so long as you keep quiet in the library and don't damage any of the books."

... Doesn't trust us. Can smell it on her.

...shouldn't we be able to smell it, too, if that were the case? 'Cause I don't smell anything.

I'm best at smelling, ask anyone.

Just like I'm the best at magic!

How can you be better at smelling than anyone inside the same literal physical body?

Others don't know how to properly pay attention.

Obviously. Equal access does not imply equal skill.

Yeah whatever, I'm not sure I'd trust us, her not trusting us sounds like an eminently reasonable decision.

Fair.

Probably for the best if we just casually wander away right now.

Won't she find that weird?

Only if we were to go about it incorrectly. If we excuse ourselves to look at the books and then wander off, it should be innocuous enough. Provided we wait until she's been lost again in her own book.