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Inner Sanctum Exterior | ??? | ???
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wanted to care, because she''d been one of the few sources of actual comfort I''d had in the past decade, who seemed to understand the sort of coddling affection I''d desired. When dying of thirst, you don''t care for the composition or origin of water, only it''s sweetness. I''d accepted her kindness towards me in deliberate aversion to critical thinking, silencing every internal voice which pointed out her sometimes questionable traits.
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be at the guest house, at least alive. Right now, it felt like anything could happen.
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E n e r g y - N u l l i f y i n g - P r o j e c t i n g
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why he''d have something I understood as largely combat-specific on his scepter. Maybe there was a an application for it in Transmuation arcana I just didn''t know about.
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If there is a killer. He was really entertaining the idea of it being a suicide. It was certainly a possibility from the state and the position of the body, but I couldn''t imagine what reason she''d have to do something like that, let alone in such an intentionally awful and public way.
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That''s a silly thing to think, one of the grimmer parts of my brain pointed out. You yourself know how easy it is to hide what you''re thinking, and how bizarre what feels right can seem to someone who doesn''t know you.
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He doesn''t know what''s going on. That made sense. After all, if the Power was still working here, then all that would have changed would be the exterior lighting, and if they were indoors, that''d be easy to miss.
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She probably heard enough from the hall to realize something is amiss. "There''s an emergency. Linos wants me to send everyone downstairs."
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Weird."
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everything. I was trying my best, though. "And then...?"
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what?"
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Any of it." I put a hand to my face, covering one of my eyes as I hunched over in the chair. "From my perspective, we were outside against the glass, you left, I thought I saw something strange out in the sea... And then I suddenly woke up in some bedroom over in the other building with all my stuff. Right before I met up with Lilith and found the body."
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insane. It''s like something out of a cheap thriller." She rubbed her eyes. "I don''t even know how to process it."
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was shock. You hear some crazy stories about what happens to people''s memory when something traumatizing has happened."
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You''re just finding an excuse to dismiss that theory because you don''t like what it implies, a dark thought said, worming through my consciousness. After all, if it''d gone the way you wanted, you wouldn''t have reason to block it out, would you?
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that much, but the image was distinct in my mind.
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God, this idiot can''t read me at all, I thought uncharitably, and shook my head. "No, I... I''ll be okay for now, I think..."
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He''s not mentioning the possibility of the saboteur being in our group. Well, it was probably wise to leave that unspoken. The last thing we needed right now was internal conflict.
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Gods, Bard," Theo murmured.
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you havin'' any ideas."
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