Will

(shia pls) Ethel's eyes open to find he was in a void of darkness. "Oh, great. Fantastic, still in this beautiful place." Ethel tries to look for his flashlight, but it seems it has disappeared. "Welp, there goes being able to see clearly. Maybe my book can help with this..." Ethel tries to look at the pages in the tome, but it is too dark. He can barely see that the tome is open. "Okay, guess I'm just going to have to walk slowly or something."

(Ethel came to understand that he has to find balance with the three states of being, which are light, dark, and neutral. He uses all three to defeat what happens if he goes too far in any direction.)

(It's the first one. Both of us are bogged with finals. Source: We go to school together.)

"It did... nothing!" Black pours out of Ethel's wound, but Ethel grabs the hilt of his doppelganger's sword. "If you think I'm going to just let you kill me here, you're wrong." Ethel kicks the doppelganger away, and removes the sword from his chest. "The time is now!" Ethel's dark and neutral silhouettes appear at his side, all wielding their weapon. "It's time to end this!"

Ethel dodges backwards, and charges forward. Just before he can strike, he is wracked with pain once again. His form rapidly changes, as his silhouette becomes pure white, and he takes on a smoother version of his gray silhouette. He is now weaponless. However, as the pain ended, Ethel felt a surge of strength gravitating toward his hands. "This new power... I will use it well!" Ethel leaps upwards, and sends a wave of pure light energy at the doppelganger. "Behold my power!"

Ethel ponders over what the dark being stated. Confront my sins... what have I done wrong so far? I don't think I've done anything wrong yet... There's nothing to worry about. Why? 'Cause I'm gonna kill you! "HOLY F**K!" Ethel finds himself suddenly in a small circle of light, jumping backwards as a sword swings in front of him. The owner steps into the light... for it to be Ethel. "W-what- Who are you?! Why do you look like me!?" "Let's dance!" Ethel quickly draws his tome, and tries to grab his spear only for it to not be there. "S**t, I'll have to improvise. These completely useless spikes look sharp." Ethel shouts an incantation, sending a cloud of darkness toward his imposter. The doppelganger draws his own tome, and counters the dark magic with pure light. "Tsk-tsk, no magic! That's cheating!" The doppelganger charges forward, sword swinging wildly. Ethel quickly puts the tome away in between sidesteps. "Crap, I guess its time for the spikes to work!" Ethel slashes at the doppelganger with his spikes, emptying his blood onto the ground. As Ethel did so, he began to feel weaker, but he ignored it.

Ethel instinctively goes for his book, and is relieved to find it there. Ethel opens it up, and a flash of light only he could see is emitted. Ethel finds himself suddenly able to see, but only in a radius small enough to see himself. He was a completely gray form of himself, with no visible features. He had no visible mouth, but he could somehow talk. Ethel had no visible eyes, but he could somehow see. He had no visible nostrils, but he could breathe. He had no visible ear holes, but he could hear. "What on earth... I look like a gray silhouette. How does this represent my sins or whatever?" Just as Ethel finished his sentence, his form began to change. The colour of his silhouette darkened considerably, almost matching that of the dark world. Ethel doubled down in pain as his form grew more menacing, with pointless spikes growing all over his body. His chin narrowed, and his ears pointed. Large, dead-white eyes appeared on his head. "Wha-what's going... it hurts..."

Ethel slowly opens his eyes, until he hears the mysterious voice. His eyes jolt open. Ethel remembers his dream, as well as the voice from the forest. "I know that voice... who are you? What do you want me?"

"What's going on... get... inside..." Ethel takes a few wobbly steps, before falling to his knees. "No... keep going..." Ethel falls to his side, unable to keep himself upright. "I can't.... go on...."

Ethel makes his way to where he saw the glint, and bent down to pick it up. "Man, I feel like this is Zelda in real life or something."

"Sounds like a plan." Ethel throws his apple core into the fire, and exits the inn. He tries to see if there are any parts in his immediate vision.

"Well, he's useless in this condition. Any ideas, guys? Where do we go from here?"

"Okay, so it works... Where are we? And what happened to the people of this village?" Ethel quickly looks around for something to write on in case the machine's audio sensors had been taken as well.

Ethel quickly places the mysterious girl on the bed, and then runs out to get the machine. He drags Turner through the door, and lays it down in the middle of the floor. "Alright, so this is what we got from those creatures. It looked pretty important." Ethel looks around the inn for some food, until he grabbed an apple from a fruit basket. "I think it's some sort of robot. If we can get it working again, we might learn something. Hopefully those things didn't take too much from it..." Ethel squats down to look at Turner, until he finds an on switch. "Ah, here we go." Ethel flips the switch, and backs up slightly.

Ethel nods, and assists Holly in lifting the strange girl. "More and more people keep showing up here. Is everyone coming here or something?"