Nymphaea

The body this will projects still keeps the shape of a girl who died too young. Rotting hems, pale skin, eyes clouded with the shade of a former life, without a word, they tell of a past tangled up in sickness and suffering.

Unlocks at: Awakener Level 1

It is a souvenir Professor Dexter brought back from a trip to the Febvre coast.

Febvre has a mild, humid sea climate, and the century-old Sevada Sanatorium sits right on the shore; every year, countless travelers choose to spend their holidays there.

Inside this glass bottle, water-stained and tangled with seaweed, lies a little clear powder. It is not a message in a bottle from some shipwreck, nor one of the local sand trinkets. Professor Dexter noticed it at once: the bottle holds Silvercore powder, in other words, a will lodged inside it.

He says he bought it from a local fisherman, who told him, evasively, about the strange things that had been happening lately. A few days earlier, heading out at dawn, the fisherman ran into an odd swarm of fish. It was neither spawning season nor wintering season, and still the shoal gathered in one place and would not leave. When he hauled the heavy net up, he found a strange bottle in it. He thought it a curiosity, and at the same time felt faintly uneasy, as if the thing might curse him with bad luck. For days afterward, not a single fish could be caught in those waters.

Unlocks at: Affinity Level 3

She treats every person and every Awakener with great kindness, never showing any signs of aggression. Most of the time, she stays quietly in her room, gazing out the window. At her bedside, we discovered several well-worn classical novels, along with handwritten essays and poems on notepaper, written in a delicate, graceful hand.

"Compared to that Maiden, I am clearly the lucky one." She whispered to the shimmering campus pond, facing the setting sun.

She rarely takes part in outdoor activities, though rather than saying she is unwilling, it might be more accurate to say she simply doesn't know how. That Maiden-like Awakener seems to lack a great deal of common knowledge about everyday life.

On several occasions, we also witnessed her conversing with the fish in the fountain in a strange sound, like bubbles being exhaled, or the hoarse gurgle of someone drowning. Yet her expression remained calm and serene, as if she were exchanging comfort with a dear friend. In that moment, we all believed she had found true peace.

Unlocks at: Affinity Level 5

One step, then another, I walk slowly into the water. The nurses at the sanatorium never let me come this far. I hope the escape of a patient who will soon be unable to pay her fees does not earn her too much blame.

The last of the sunset lies on the sea. The tide comes in and lifts the hem of my dress, gently. The water is warm, warm as a mother's arms.

My body has never felt this light. There is a burnt-out volcano in my chest, and nothing moves in it now but the sea wind.

"Come home."

I hear the sea calling me in my parents' voices. They went to the far side of the ocean to earn the money for my treatment. If I had not been born with this unfortunate body, they would never have had to work so hard. If I could vanish into the sea some moonlit night, without a sound... I thought about it countless times, but the thought of their grieving faces always stopped me.

Then one day, on a moonlit night, the ship my parents were on vanished into the sea without a sound.

"Come home."

I put every bit of strength I have into walking faster. The sea has always taken in every suffering soul without complaint, and for me, wherever my parents are is home forever.

When the night closes in from every side, I breathe freely for the first time in my life.

Unlocks at: Affinity Level 7

I love the sea. The sea at Febvre. The Prussian-blue sea. The sea that sends up a warm, damp wind. The sea that looks like an oil painting through the window frames of the sanatorium. The sea that carries the sails home. The sea that mothers countless lives.

Now, at last, I have come back into the quiet water, back to before I was born, back into the womb, wrapped in my mother's waters. The currents gather up the unlucky pieces and put me together again among white bones and coral. Fish of the deep swim through me, listening to those sighs about fate and suffering.

Mother, if I could be born into the world one more time, could I be a little happier?

Unlocks at: Affinity Level 9