(PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE CONTINUE READING AFTER THE BASIC INFORMATION, IT’LL BE FUN, I SWEAR IT)

𝙽𝚊𝚖𝚎

Kana

𝚂𝚞𝚛𝚗𝚊𝚖𝚎

Agriche

𝙰𝚐𝚎

18 years

𝙷𝚎𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝

166 cm

𝚆𝚎𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝

49 kg

𝙷𝚊𝚒𝚛 𝚌𝚘𝚕𝚘𝚛

Black

𝙴𝚢𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚕𝚘𝚛

Green

𝚁𝚊𝚌𝚎

Human

𝙲𝚘𝚕𝚘𝚛

#5C091A

𝙿𝚛𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜 𝙲𝚑𝚞𝚖𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚕𝚎

cynicalCouturier

𝙲𝚞𝚛𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝙲𝚑𝚞𝚖𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚕𝚎

gothicStrategist

𝚃𝚒𝚝𝚕𝚎

Witch of Light

𝙼𝚘𝚘𝚗

Derse

𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛

Female

𝚂𝚝𝚛𝚒𝚏𝚎 𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚌𝚒𝚋𝚞𝚜

Umbrellakind

𝙵𝚎𝚝𝚌𝚑 𝚖𝚘𝚍𝚞𝚜

”Arcanum”

To retrieve the item, Kana must perform a mini-ritual - pulling three “Arcana Cards” (inside the module interface). Each card is with a symbol, archetype, or abstract phrase. She must interpret their meaning - as in tarot or prophetic divination. Only one of the choices correctly points to the desired object. The others are temptations. If she has chosen correctly, the object appears in her hands, wrapped in a light haze and the rustle of a scroll. If wrong, the wrong item appears, while the desired item is temporarily “sealed” with a curse

━━━ • ✙ • ━━━

A young woman stands in her room.

It just so happens that today, the 9th of February, is the eighteenth birthday of this young lady.

Though it was eighteen years ago she was given life, it is only today she will be given a proper introduction.

What is the name of this radiant, razor-witted, emotionally haunted, intellectually dangerous girl?

==> Enter name.

“BARONESS EMOPHELIA VON SADGASP.”

It’s a miracle your keyboard withstood such sheer drama.

==> Try again.

“KANA AGRICHE.”

Yes. There it is. A name you wear like a crown of iron thorns—sharp, poised, and vaguely concerning to people around.

Let’s take a look at her.

Your name is KANA AGRICHE.

You are 18 years old, but often feel 108. You are known to possess an UNHOLY COMBINATION of logic and emotion, which means no one ever wins an argument with you and everyone feels weird about it afterward. Including you.

You keep a journal you swear isn't poetry, even though it objectively is. You adore stories, especially the ones that end badly. You are a lover of rituals, symbols, fashion, and silence—but only the kind that makes people uncomfortable.

Your room is a cross between a witch’s study, a library in a cathedral, and a crime scene.

There are books stacked like spires. There are artifacts with no explanation. There is a zoned-out plush rabbit with buttons for eyes that you're pretty sure watches you when you’re not looking.

You have COMPLICATED FEELINGS about your parents. Especially your mother.

But today is not about them.

Today is about the GAME.

The one that arrived in the mail in a box that was both unmarked and slightly humming. You didn’t order it. You knew it would come anyway.

You’ve been waiting.

==> Kana: Begin.

Your room sits like a cathedral in decay.

Dim violet light slithers through thick velvet curtains, casting long shadows that move just slightly off-sync with your body. The walls are a patchwork of oil-darkened wood and cracked plaster. A crow feather lies forgotten on your pillow. The air hums faintly, as if the house itself is thinking.

About you.

Probably.

On your desk: a collection of dried roses, several ink-stained notebooks, one taxidermy bat named Phil, and a mirror you do not look into past 11 PM.

A subtle, pulsing dread blooms in your chest.

You sense something is coming. A ripple in the current.

A fate to be accepted—or rejected.

You lean in close to a faintly glowing glyph on your bookshelf. You reach out, trembling fingers brushing the sigils that may or may not be older than language itself.

And then—

You abruptly turn and walk across the room to scoop up your cat, TIMA.

He meows in protest, because he’s Tima and has zero respect for the moment.

His fur is dark-gray, soft as whispered secrets. His purring is instantaneous and thunderous.

You hold him up like an ancient idol.

You whisper.

“Do you feel the shift in the aether, Tima?”

He sneezes directly into your face.

==> Kana: Observe your surroundings.

You set Tima down onto the window sill, where he begins his daily ritual of judging ersby with contempt. He is very talented.

You scan your room like a prophet reviewing sacred grounds.

There’s your tarot wall, currently displaying The Moon, The Tower, and a card you made yourself called The Parenthesis.

There’s your wardrobe, a monstrous antique thing full of black dresses, distressed denim, and one sequined blazer that you absolutely didn’t steal from a thrift store’s Halloween rack.

There’s a large framed photo of you and Dad Agriche. He is mid-lecture, waving a wrench at the camera. You are smiling faintly, wearing welding goggles.

The photo smells faintly of ozone and unethical science.

==> Kana: Interact with Dad.

You open the door.

"KANA," your father bellows from the garage-lab-kitchen hybrid downstairs, "WHERE IS THE HYDROPHASE CORE? TELL ME YOU DIDN’T FEED IT TO THE CAT AGAIN."

“I never did that. Once,” you mutter.

You descend halfway down the stairs and peer around the corner.

There stands your father, Dr. Agriche, wearing a lab coat over pajamas, welding mask flipped up, holding two sparking cables like he’s mid-necromantic resurrection.

"YOU HAVEN’T SEEN A GLOWING ORB HOVERING IN THE FRIDGE, HAVE YOU?"

“Yes,” you say. “I labeled it as 'Definitely Not Yogurt.'”

He pauses, nodding approvingly.

"GOOD. I KNEW I COULD COUNT ON YOU. THE OTHERS CALLED ME MAD—"

“They still do.”

"—BUT YOU UNDERSTAND. NOW GO. YOUR DESKTOP HUMS WITH COSMIC INTENT."

You sigh, roll your eyes with the affection of a child raised on entropy and metaphors, and head back upstairs.

==> Kana: Approach your laptop.

It sits like an altar. Like a gateway.

The screen flickers. The SBURB logo spins in silence, pulsing with promise.

You reach for the mouse.

To install… or to delay fate for one last breath.

==> Kana: Postpone destiny with unnecessary, brooding elegance.

You stare at the screen.

It stares back.

SBURB blinks, expectant.

But the moment isn't right.

You feel it in your bones, and also in your incredible talent for procrastination.

You minimize the window.

Fate can wait. You have rituals to attend.

==> Kana: Brew something dramatic.

You drift into the corner of your room where your brewing station stands. Some call it a “tea shelf,” but those people have no vision.

You run your fingers along the tiny glass jars.

Dried chamomile. Crushed rosemary.

Something labeled "Mortal Dread, Lightly Toasted."

(You think it’s just black licorice and sage.)

You pick the Dark Petal Elixir blend — your own mixture. Floral, smoky, just a little bitter, like your thoughts about your future.

Tima twines around your legs, meowing with the persistence of a spirit trying to warn you not to enter the haunted mirror realm again. Or maybe he just wants treats.

==> Kana: Light the incense.

You strike a match.

It sputters, catches.

The scent of burnt herbs and distant thunderstorms fills the room.

You place the incense in your skull-shaped holder, which you made in 6th grade ceramics class.

The art teacher called it “deeply concerning.”

You called it “Harold.”

You take a seat near the window. Sip your tea.

The outside world groans under overcast skies. Crows wheel in slow spirals. Your neighbor is trying to get reception on his phone by standing on a rake.

All is as it should be.

==> Kana: Open the drawer. You know the one.

You hesitate.

Not out of fear.

Out of tradition.

The drawer hums faintly. It's the kind of hum that implies it might know your secrets.

Or at least what happened to your missing gel pens.

You open it.

Inside: Your dream journal, half-filled and cryptic.

An old letter from someone who may or may not exist.

A tiny glass orb that glows when you’re upset.

And a worn, folded photo of you and Dad, tinkering with a radio antenna that later exploded and summoned bees. You were twelve. It was a good day.

==> Kana: Write in your journal. Just a little.

”2/9. My birthday. 18 candles, not that I lit any. I don’t like fire unless I’m holding it.

SBURB sits on my screen like a mirror. Not sure what it reflects yet. I think it knows me. Or maybe it’s just a program and I’m asg meaning again. Wouldn’t be the first time.

Tima bit me today. That’s how he says “I love you.” Probably. Dad says love isn’t always soft. I’m still figuring out if I agree.”

You pause.

Tap your pen on the desk.

”I’m starting to feel like something’s about to begin.

But that also sounds like something a main character says before they get obliterated.

…That’d be dramatic, though. Hm. Worth it?”

You close the journal.

==> Kana: Launch the game already. Seriously.

You sit down.

The light of the screen reflects in your eyes with the solemn gravity of destiny.

You hover your mouse over the icon.

Click.

...

No.

You pause. Just for a moment.

Your browser is still open.

A familiar tab waits.

You click on it.

And there he is.

The emotionally unstable literary criminal, known for throwing chandeliers with all the poise of a man composing poetry in blood.

A haunted soul in a mask, his eyes twin stormclouds of tragedy and lust.

He dropped that chandelier with no remorse.

It was art.

It was murder.

It was love.

You exhale through your nose, already spiraling.

You're no longer in your room. You're standing at the edge of a candlelit stage, surrounded by velvet and doom.

You imagine a scene.

He takes your hand.

He says something so unhinged, it breaks three laws of ethics and one of thermodynamics.

Your face flushes.

There’s lace.

There’s violence.

There’s implication.

Stop. STOP.

You slam the laptop just a little too hard.

What are you doing?

You have a cosmic apocalypse simulation to initiate.

Swooning over a fictional man with a God complex, a cape, and multiple felonies on record is not part of the plan.

Well.

Not the primary plan.

You rub your temples.

Your to-do list looks something like this:

• Save the world

• Confront existential terror

• Feed Tima

• Fantasize about tragic opera boy

• Reevaluate life choices

• Launch the game???

It’s all very logical.

In the same way a spiral galaxy is "just a very big fidget spinner" if you squint hard enough and believe in lies.

==> Kana: Actually do the thing now.

Or maybe… one more detour?

Tima just made a weird noise.

You should definitely investigate.

Not like the end of the world’s on a timer or anything.

==> Kana: Investigate suspicious feline noises.

You rise from your chair with all the urgency of someone whose beloved pet might be in peril, or worse — might have touched something gross.

The noise came from the corner. You approach it cautiously, like a gothic heroine approaching a cursed mirror.

Tima sits there.

Staring.

Menacingly.

A shapeless blob of unknown origin made of saliva and fur lies before him.

It jiggles.

It is moist.

You freeze.

What is that.

WHAT IS THAT.

Is that a hairball? Is that a biohazard? Is your cat experimenting with wet alchemy in your room again? Is this his latest grotesque art installation??

Tima blinks. Innocently.

You blink. Horrified.

Your body goes rigid as your entire immune system collectively screams.

You back away as if confronted by a philosophical paradox made of mucus.

You need gloves.

You need tongs.

You need a cleansing ritual.

You point at the abomination with your umbrella — the elegant one with the sharp tip and subtle embroidery — and poke it from the farthest safe distance allowed by physics.

The blob squishes.

You gag audibly.

This is it.

This is your personal Armageddon.

The game can wait.

This must be sanitized.

This must be purged.

==> Kana: Initiate Phase One of Operation "Sanitary Reckoning".

This is it.

You thought the world might end with fire. Or with shadowy apocalyptic prophecies delivered through a cursed video game.

But no.

It ends with a moist, semi-digested fur torpedo on your rug.

You spring into action like a Victorian surgeon performing a haunted lobotomy.

Gloves.

You rip open the emergency sanitation drawer (yes, you have one — who wouldn’t?) and equip your latex gauntlets like a paladin equipping divine relics.

Tongs.

You retrieve your beautiful silver-plated artifact of clawed elegance — not the kitchen ones. The special ones. The ones for things you never wanted to know existed.

Sanitizing spray.

You grab the lavender-and-pine death elixir known only as THE MIST.

You spritz the horror from a distance. It hisses back at you. Maybe figuratively. You don't care. You’ve already declared war.

Your cat watches with the indifference of an ancient god who’s witnessed civilizations crumble and isn’t impressed by your minor domestic battle.

You inhale deeply. Mistake. You immediately gag and almost perish.

With one smooth motion, you pluck the abomination from your floor. It wobbles. It jiggles. You swear it shifts form. Is this fur or eldritch jam?

You don’t want to know. You seal it inside a triple-bagged containment unit (also known as a bag-within-a-bag-within-a-bag). Then you douse the rug with half a bottle of spray, whispering something between a curse and a prayer.

Mission complete.

You collapse onto your bed like a war hero post-battle, staring at the ceiling and questioning why life is a never-ending barrage of sensory assault and damp betrayal.

Tima leaps onto your stomach and purrs.

You forgive him instantly.

But you never forget.

==> Kana: Install SBURB.

The icon on your screen pulses with a soft, ominous glow. You click it, because your curiosity outweighs your self-preservation instincts by a very uncomfortable margin.

The world shifts.

==> Kana: Look outside.

The sky is darkening in a way that weather shouldn’t be allowed to do.

Clouds swirl like anxious brushstrokes across a dead poet’s unfinished canvas. You can hear something. Not thunder. Not wind.

Something deeper. Hungrier.

==> Kana: Begin prototyping.

SBURB yells at you to throw something into the SPRITE. You mutter something profane about game design and slap your hand around the desk looking for something suitably ironic.

Your fingers land on a book. Of course. A book you keep for reference. For mockery. For regret.

"THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS" by SIGMUND FREUD.

”gothicStrategist (GS): Oh you’ve got to be kidding me.”

You hurl it into the kernel. It glows, then twitches. You shudder. It’s like watching your unconscious mind get digested in real time.

==> Kana: Panic slightly. Then this is your future mentor, and panic internally instead.

The SPRITE flickers. It starts forming a vague humanoid shape, muttering in strange Freudian mutterings about desire and metaphorical fathers.

You're already regretting this.

==> Kana: Try to balance it out with some CULTURE, dammit.

Your hand lands on a small figurine of Beethoven. A gift from someone who thought you were more highbrow than you actually are. You yeet it into the kernel.

PROTOTYPING COMPLETE.

==> Meet: freudhovenSPRITE

It hovers. Glitches. Moans like a Victorian ghost caught in the middle of a psychoanalytic crisis.

Its form is vaguely humanoid, with the distorted half-face of an old composer on one side and the accusatory scowl of an outdated psychologist on the other. It wrings its hands constantly and hums broken sonatas between unsolicited theories about your inner turmoil.

freudhovenSPRITE: It is clear that your self-destructive tendencies stem from unresolved paternal tension.

freudhovenSPRITE: Also, your taste in harmonics suggests a suppressed desire for emotional grandeur.

GS: Do you come with a mute button.

freudhovenSPRITE: Do you come with a coherent ego structure.

GS: Rude.

==> Kana: Enter the Medium.

With your sprite glitching behind you like a therapy session from hell, you stand beneath the cloudy, warping sky. Your SERVER PLAYER completes the final pre-entry protocols. You don’t bother asking what they’re doing.

The house shudders. The ground shatters.

Your room rockets skyward as meteors carve the earth into meaningless ash.

Welcome to the Medium, KANA AGRICHE.

==> Kana: Observe your surroundings.

You blink once, twice. The air smells like ozone, ink, and damp pages left in a mausoleum too long.

You’re not in your room anymore. Not really. You're in the distorted shadow of it — an echo that’s tried its best to the shape of familiarity and failed spectacularly.

The architecture twists up around you like baroque nightmares. Stained-glass windows depict scenes you definitely didn’t commission: faceless figures tangled in red thread, a woman with her mouth sewn shut, and something that might be you, reading a book that looks back.

The sky? Ha. You mean the yawning void above, stitched with starless seams and the occasional flutter of something winged, enormous, and uninterested in your existence.

==> Kana: Name your Land.

You stumble over uneven, cracked marble steps, the only solid ground in this ink-splattered dreamspace. Your lips part on instinct.

"Land of Velvet and Chiaroscuro."

LOVAC.

It tastes like something old, something dramatic, something theatrical and suffocating. Of course. Your Land is as Extra as you are.

==> Kana: Interact with your sprite.

freudhovenSPRITE hums a few discordant bars of Symphony No. 7, then interrupts himself with a sigh that drips with smug psychoanalysis.

freudhovenSPRITE: This realm mirrors the shadowplay of your subconscious. A veritable theatre of repression and displaced longing.

freudhovenSPRITE: That pillar to your left? Definitely your inferiority complex.

freudhovenSPRITE: But exquisitely sculpted.

GS: Please. I haven’t even had breakfast.

freudhovenSPRITE: You never do. I would know.

You ignore him and step forward into the Land proper, your boots clicking on surfaces that seem to stretch and contract like breathing lungs beneath your feet.

==> Kana: Attempt to locate your Quest Bed. Fail artistically.

You try to follow the path toward the rising spire at the heart of LOVAC — it glows faintly with bioluminescent text you can’t read yet but will someday wish you hadn’t.

The way is blocked by a massive locked gate, styled like the backstage doors of an abandoned opera house. Naturally. A sign hangs above:

"NO ITTANCE WITHOUT THE SCRIPT."

You don’t have the script.

You will need to write the script.

Oh no.

You feel like you’re not quite ready. Damn procrastination!

==> Kana: Thirst over sociopathic opera boy just one more time.

You pause at the edge of the velvet canyon. The consorts are whispering something about "destiny" and "threaded choices" and "don't eat the fog, Kana, please," but you're far too occupied.

You ran back into your room with drama behavior of a main heroine of some gothic novel, who just rejected the marriage proposal from the man she despises with all her heart. You grab your laptop and slide open your TAB window. Third from the left. The one labeled "Definitely Not Phantom-related."

There he is.

A poorly compressed PNG of your favorite emotionally unstable opera enthusiast, mid-sneer, chandelier in the background like a halo of theatrical vengeance. You sigh, dramatically.

freudhovenSPRITE watches you with visible disappointment. Not that he has eyelids. He just plays a ive-aggressive note on an imaginary piano.

freudhovenSPRITE: Again?

GS: Don't psychoanalyze me. He’s ionate.

freudhovenSPRITE: He’s unhinged.

GS: He wears a mask. That’s, like, layers. Symbolism.

You zoom in on the screenshot. A dangerous sparkle in his eye. A hint of a cape fluttering in unholy wind. You begin mentally composing another scene where you both swordfight in a crypt and then kiss over a pipe organ on fire.

Somewhere in the code of the session, the game itself rolls its eyes.

freudhovenSPRITE sighs in C minor.