[b]Handmaidens![/b]

I do regret to inform you that, given your circumstances, you'll be able to freeze all of the Rootwalkers in the room, but if you don't do it from outside the room (say, inside the tearoom where Injimo is having [i]so[/i] much fun), then you'll end up freezing yourselves, too. (This isn't fatal, thankfully; can you believe that in Yukisworld, people [i]can't[/i] survive being frozen in an ice crystal if you have warm blankets and tea ready after the crystal's shattered? It truly is a bleak place.)

But it would be best practices to clamber down into the tearoom, pump the room [i]full[/i] of ice essence, and in the process seal the door shut with more ice. Then you'll only have to handle the assassin, catch the Architect-Knight, and enter the Stacks by another route! Simplicity itself.

[hr]
[b]Yuki![/b]

"[i]Don't[/i] use your name," Walking Elm says from behind you, her voice still high and cheerful. As sweet as poisoned honey. "That's not information they need yet~!"

Aria clutches at her throat. For a moment, it's illuminated from within; starlight flecks her lips like blood. Things that are not muscles shift under her skin. Then she draws her lips back into a crazed smile, all for you.

"You are brave. A [i]knight.[/i] I used to have knights like you." Her voice is a hoarse whisper, the roar gone. She pushes her starglasses back up her face, hunches down low. Her tail drags across the floor. "Heroes! I [b][i]hate[/i][/b] heroes." That word there, it reverberated with a second voice, one that is slick with mud and hate.

She comes at you like a comet. You sidestep, flick your axe out, and she slams into it, keeps coming. She catches you by the throat, smashes through the thin wooden wall of the cafe. You wrench free and careen into tables, smashing abandoned plates and teacups on your way down. But she doesn't press her advantage, she doesn't leap on you and give you a bad end, all claws and teeth and the sweet smell of death. She clutches at her face and [i]cackles[/i], hair spilling out between her fingers.

"What do they call you? The Rootfelling Knight? The Lumberjack-Knight? All the [i]great[/i] knights have a title. Oh, what I would have made of you back then!"

Take a String on her; she imagines you among her court and its chains on her heart stir. (She thought she could inhabit a role and avoid contamination by the world, as if it would not enclose itself around her- right, Yana?) She is also giving you what she thinks you want: honorable combat between a knight and a monster.

Your throat aches. You are lying in broken porcelain. Take a Condition, too. You are facing [i]Aria Thendragon,[/i] though you haven't gotten her name yet. You are fighting the champion of a Fallen Star, a dragon of rotting wood and light and command. Fighting her, in any context, is a very good way to pile up Conditions.

[hr]
[b]Cutie![/b]

See, even I remembered this time!

Anyway, Yuki just got bull-rushed through the cafe window by that scary lady. No read on which of them is getting out of there. You'd really hope for it to be Yuki, but...

Alcideo doesn't say a word. He does do a duelist's salute with his heartblade (you never asked him if he could fight, did you), and he puts his trust in you.

Take a String on Alcideo. Go ahead. It's yours for the taking.

The snake-princess starts slithering in the other direction, heading upwards, just because the whole press of people is going down- and then she's stopped by a hammer slamming down onto the stairs, and a sudden wall bursting up out of the floor underneath that hammer, and then, oh, and then?

Cousin It from your Addams Family comes crashing down on top of the wall, except she's got bare arms, both of which grab the hammer and heft it up.

[i]Dear damosel / death-delighting;
invasion I incited, / an influx of idiots
wood-worked / without will,
but bitches / my back do break.[/i]

"The [i]Handmaidens harry[/i] me [i]hence[/i], [i]hard[/i]-treating me. [i]Come, carry[/i] this [i]callow[/i]--" She breaks off, swings the hammer, shatters a heart-arrow the size of a bloody ballista-bolt (see, now she's got me doing it). On the other stair of the Chrysanthemum's helix, Yaz nocks another arrow. The Chrysanthemum is not helpless.

"So much violence, Hazel~" Walking Elm is following you, arms outstretched welcomingly. "What a [i]fuss~[/i] Why don't you come with me and I'll make sure both of these knights fix [i]everything[/i] they've broken!" She smiles and it's radiant and perfect and you're holding your breath, aren't you?

"...ugh, my head," the Nagi princess groans, holding one wrist up to it. Her breath is coming hot and quick and her cheeks are flushed. You can feel the warmth in her shifting scales. You [i]are[/i] holding your breath and not getting turned on at an unfortunate moment, aren't you? "What... are you... doing...?"

"Finding a happy solution for everybody," Walking Elm says, and the sun is behind her now, throwing her face into shadow. Above the two of you, another one of Yaz's shafts splinters into jagged shards of magic which fade away harmlessly. "I don't want to have to hurt anyone, believe me!"

And it sounds so much like she means it. She's a very good actress, after all.

[hr]
[b]Eclair![/b]

"Everyone," one of the chefs says, banging on a pot with a ladle in order to get attention, and it's just misfortune that you're the closer one to that noise, isn't it? "We've just received word that we need to evacuate the building! The stairwells are unsafe, so if you'll all follow me through the staff entrance?"

Mayzie looks from the chef to you and then back to the chef and then back to you. "Come on," she hisses, standing up. "Now's our chance to get away from this mess, Miss Logic!" She's still got your notebook, and in this moment she's split as to whether to stay or to go whether you will or no.

If you had a String on her, you could pull it. But there are ways and means to get that sort of String in a moment like this, aren't there?

The floor beneath all of you trembles. Somewhere down below, there is yelling and the sound of smashed tableware. The sort of thing that every member of the Order instantly attunes to and itches to [i]fix,[/i] isn't that right?