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Flamel Parsons     Getting closer to the peak now.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr-SWzqNpM0

    Parsons is found somewhere near the top of the blown-out lab section that marks a point not too far from the peak now, peering from it upwards. From here to the peak, concentric circles of dizzyingly dangerous, decayed complexes ring the mountaintop. Flickering lights of soft orange and bright purple can be occasionally seen in them, as ancient equipment sparks and shudders. They're in an arrangement not unlike a spiral that finds its center right on the tip of Maslow Peak.

    Getting back up here is actually fairly easy. The climb has gotten easier, as if all the psychic energy was now concentrated at the peak. And teleporting up here remains an option. Parsons has warm and friendly greetings to those who arrive. "Hey! Watch the air up here, it might start getting a little thin. The weird red-headed phantom who has been haunting us is probably around here, every so often a bit of a storm passes by and I can feel her still kind of upset. Which is to say, uh... I guess whatever bits of us that she's drawing from still being upset. Truth be told, I can't really make heads or tails of it!" He leaps off and drifts down to the path on a soft motion of levitation. "I think we're going to find her on the way up. So, be ready, everyone! We might find more of those dangerous psychic animals, or more of those weird old mind-reflecting skeleton things, but I'm sure you guys can take care of them. Check around and figure things out about Project Mystic while we're up here too, if you have time!"

    His smile doesn't break in the least when he says, "Oh, and I'm sure this high up, we'll be exposed to more chemtrails from vague yet menacing global conspiracies and new world orders, so try to keep whatever focus you can!" No, that's wrong. But it is classic Flamel, at least. He's already on the way up through the structures, himself; they're missing entire chunks of the buildings, partially collapsed to create new walls and massive chasms to block the way forward, and just as he suggested, several dangerously telekinetic bears attempt grappling ambushes, pyrokinetic mountain lions blast heat, and mountain goats or bighorn sheep charge with powerful levitation abilities, attempting to knock climbers off as they ascend walls, traverse gaps, leap through crumbling buildings, or scour for clues.

    Many of the interiors here seem to have once held huge glassy tanks, many of which have been shattered, and some of which contain inhuman skeletal shapes made of purple bone. Huge headgear of mysterious design and purpose frequently dot labs. Massive cold-war-era reel-to-reel computers, whose reels glow a soft purple, show signs that psychic data was stored here in massive volume.

    Probably the most important aspect in general is the mess of red hair that has to be the Ghost of Maslow Peak, seen from behind; no matter how the group arranges itself, it will undoubtedly be August that finds the hunched-over, distraught figure, with her knees clutched to her legs, shuddering with equal parts rage and some sort of stress.
Staren     Staren beams down to the group from orbit. He's armored up, perhaps hoping that the extra weight will make him less susceptible to winds and telekinetic attacks. He'll happily pass out breathing gear to anyone who needs a way to deal with the thin air up here.

    Staren would prefer to avoid animals. When they try to mess with his climbing, he switches to flying by a combination of thrusters and energy wings, and stays out of range.

    There are computers here! Staren records everything he can about them and, unless they actually start up, takes the reels for later examination. It would be preferable to establish a base here and restore the computers, but that may not be an option. Especially with animals interrupting his investigations. "Why are you so aggressive?!" He'd prefer to stun them (or drive them off), grab reels, and leave rather than kill them -- unless persued into the air or someone else is in danger, he doesn't try to kill the local fauna.
August Kohler August isn't giving up on finding out what's going on in this peak. Before, it was for Flamel. It was to pay him back. But now it's entirely personal. He can learn what's going on with himself, get over his issues, or atleast, progress with them. The redhead's dressed in hiking clothes, a jacket for the presumed cold of being on a peak, and has a pistol and a knife at his sides.

"I'll fix things. Don't worry. Project Mystic stuff, didn't forget." August slightly forgot. The chemtrails comment doesn't get dignified with a response, which is probably just reinforcement for Flamel in a way. As they move forward, it's time for platforming. The minute August sees wildlife, he summons the Tin Soldier, who responds to a grappling bear by punching it hard in the face, and to pyrokinetic mountain lions by trying to not get hit and instead spray them with bullets. The mountain goats are dodged narrowly as August tries to climb, traversing gaps through the interiors. At one point, he almost falls off from one of the bighorns, barely catching himself.

And eventually, one redhead meets another. August looks down to the hunched-over Ghost, and one thought is to end this. Try and end her. But...that's not going to solve anything this time. George had a point, that together, they might be able to achieve breakthrough. August is slow to approach, quiet, as he tries to figure out what to say. He doesn't like her, mostly because she tried to set everyone on fire. But...they're the same person, aren't they? And if the little cells of the fish work together...they can achieve something great, can't they?

August kneels. He reaches his hand out to the Ghost of Maslow Peak, speaking. His tone isn't as confident as he'd like, and he's clearly nervous about screwing up. But it's an effort. "Hey...need a hand?"
Flamel Parsons     Stunning them and driving them off is definitely an option for Staren, but hardly one with a tactical advantage. They seem driven by willpower more than any biology, and willpower is just as much affected by stunning as it is by bullets and explosives; mentality and morale shape their "effective hitpoints" more than anything else. Parsons helps out! Leaping in and blasting with his own brain, he tries to give Staren some breathing room. "Oh, there's a lot of theories about why psychic animals can become so much more aggressive! Some people think that they finally get the ability to understand people, and so they find humanity really, really /revolting/ and try to kill us off. I think it's a mind-control-fuelled rebellion from secret lizard overlords. But a lot of animals can be really helpful too! Lots of psychic squirrels don't attack you, they just beam awful truths that they find out while spying on people into other people's brains."

    Helpful!

    Staren gets those tapes, though. While he can't access the data on them without full equipment, a basic, cursory scan indicates that most of the archives here appear to be neurological in nature; the magnetic tape is encoded with connectomes -- simplistic neurological maps of humans, almost a sort of cold-war-era, incomplete, non-functional brain-upload -- which wouldn't really be useful due to how basic and incomplete they are, but which give a good picture of what was going on here. Something to do with brains? Understanding information about them?
Kotone Yamakawa So here they were again at Maslow Peak, she wondered what madness would be inflicted on all who come this time? She was wearing heavy armor today rather than her normal stealth gear, as what good will it do against supernatural things that can likely detect your soul? So she was ae set as she could be. She looks at Flamel. "I'm not even sure how to being about your world sometimes."

It's all the tin foil hat theories are true world as far as she can tell. Well once more they go into the strange place and she looks at the massive old computers.

"Reel-to-reel?"

She gapes a little bit but goes to take a look.

"I wonder if there's any data left on these dinosaur computers, that might help? Anyone object if I try to take a look at them?"
Flamel Parsons     Blasting away at the animals, August manages to get to his alleged other self here; every step he takes closer seems to make the air pressure surge a little more. It's that feeling of barometric change, that inarticulable sensation of a storm coming that can be smelled on the air or felt in the bones. When she hears his voice -- even "aware" as she might be of him? -- her whole body goes tense, and her head snaps to one side, revealing one crimson eye. It's not just gleaming crimson, though. It certainly is, but... It's also red with dryness, like she's been crying.

    "You...!" Her voice is hoarse, strained and stressed. For a moment, she sounds hopeful, even relieved. Her body lights up, and the crimson in her eyes dies down a little, as he offers her a hand; there's a soft purple shimmer, and then... No, something in her hesitates. "I thought you wanted me /out of the way/." She says, her voice heavy and suspicious, scowling at him. "I thought you had it figured out, and you didn't need me. Isn't that right? You're going to go up there, no matter what, even without me, and--" Her momentum breaks down, anxiety and pain creeping into her voice. "D... Don't touch me." She's on her feet, and backing away from the offered hand, which seems to make that friendly glow subside, and that harsh crimson shine return.

    Parsons makes his way over there. "Hey!" He half-whispers telepathically. "I think that's the right way to go for it, keep trying!"
Orchid Orchid is not there.

     At least not in person. But she's sent a few of her spider-bots along, with their cameras. This lets her do two things: watch the backs of those there for threats they might not be aware of, and gives her the chance to check much larger databases for relevant information.
A2     Long before Flamel says anything, A2 has had her eyes out for that shock of red hair up here that so often equates to foreshadowing or imminent danger. On one level, it's only smart to keep a look out for that. On all others, the white-haired Android who looks only slightly less battered than the surrounding ruins has clearly already invested unusual time and effort in using words instead of violence with this entity and the object of its fixation. Twice now. Tied for a record.

    "It's not that complicated." she says to Parsons, with a voice that would normally indicate someone hadn't slept at all. "But don't expect much. We're already flipping a coin on if one person will be less crazy by the end of this. That thing will be upset for a long time if it still cares about anyone else."

    At no point did A2 start screwing around here, and furthermore at no point did she start 'getting soft' (i.e. calming down maybe a tiny bit). Telekinetic bears are promptly grappled and tossed off cliffs and walls like the first one, mountain lions are charged down before they even start flinging fire in some cases, and mountain rams are even less likely to incidentally survive the number of broken bones involved when A2 gets a hold of them. This close to the peak, she seems even less patient than usual, soaking up the odd burn or telekinetic slash with her odd pixel-y regeneration ability in order to rip horns from skulls or twist giant bear arms inside out, showing no hopeful signs of retaining animal empathy in lieu of human empathy.

    The facility itself interests her in a distant, borderline anthropological sense. Here and there, she can't help but run her fingers over dusty old consoles, push boot buttons on ancient computer terminals, turn mad science helmets over in her hands, and stop to read the odd, still-legible text. Her interest in the skeletons is exceedingly minimal, but there are clearly times where something other than dead, hateful indifference is going on behind her eyes when traipsing through these crumbling spaces where people worked and lived. Some of it does remain in the realm of practical, however, in slowly trying to piece together the pattern of decay, trying to figure out whether it'd just been abandoned and fallen to pieces naturally, or whether the facility had first been blown out by some catastrophic disaster before rotting away. She has plenty of reference for both cases. She also has plenty of practise platforming around them.

    When she spots the 'Ghost', she stops outright, keeping a back position so that she can ruse August into going out ahead of her where she can see the two interact. He'd almost made some kind of progress before, before jamming his foot down his throat, and what she'd said to him before in some bout of fey frustration had apparently done something or other, which she claims not to understand because human psychology. That much makes it more strange when she stops to fiddle with a more intact headset, and says to Flamel "Maybe the animals just learned what humans think of them as. It's not hard to want to kill when you realize just how little power you had."
Flamel Parsons     Kotone's stealth gear would actually probably work well enough, but it's not as though her heavy armor was a bad choice; it rather effectively keeps her free of the brutal damage of horrible mountain wildlife impacts, leaving her to deal mostly with the heat and such. She can keep the reel-to-reel stuff sorted like Staren has directed, and taking a look at them isn't hard when she has Orchid's computing power and proxy support to help out with matters. Her own familiarity -- as awful as it may be -- with early-stage brain upload tech may make this at first seem like a site of horribly unethical shenanigans. These connectomes are partial! There's only, what, a third of any individual human being here at any give time, tops!

    But no, these don't look like flashed rips, they look like... Echoes. Like they were just skimmed off the top of a cranium. What their purpose was is unclear, and what the intentions of their creators were is impossible to discern, but with a thorough investigation on her part using her keen wireless senses and abilities -- and, you know, the basic magnetic sensing equipment she undoubtedly has -- she can determine that brain-uploading wasn't the goal. But then, if it wasn't, what /was/? What use are connectomes if not the minds therein?
August Kohler The crimson eye has August cautious. He keeps his hands up, even if he wants to grab his gun. Well, looks like the Ghost is spurning him. As much as that makes him want to try plan B...this isn't a normal situation. This is /him/, isn't it? He needs to be direct. He needs to solve their problem.

"Yeah, I said that. I meant it at the time, too. But I've been thinking. You're me. You're a part of me, plain and simple. Our problems are the same, and honestly...I can't...solve them by myself." He's hesitant saying this, because it's something he's had trouble admitting for years. It's painful to get out, and he stumbles on it a bit. "We're in trouble. I think you know that. Our Shadow is planning terrible things. I don't think we want that."

It's slightly subtle, as August isn't...quite sure if they want that. He knows his Shadow wants it. Does the Ghost want it? He can't tell. He doesn't, he knows that much. "We need to work together. Two parts of a head are better than one. I'm going up there to solve this. Do you want to come with me?" His voice stutters a bit as he gets the courage to ask. Even if he might be having issues, August is trying genuinely to reunite with the Ghost. If it doesn't work this time, though, he's probably going to give up.

And then he realizes. This is goddamn therapy, isn't it?
Flamel Parsons     A2 can find the patterns of things. It doesn't look like a disaster happened -- or, no, a few did, but they were small, contained, nonlethal sorts of events -- but it does look like the humans here abandoned this over time, first gradually, and then very suddenly a few dozen years back. The naturally hostile environment is what reclaimed it so aggressively, not a natural disaster. There are even a few bits, here and there, of damage from the storms of Maslow Peak, where construction crews apparently were at work on fixing things.

    All the gear here is well-worn and well cared for. The skeletons were kept in tubes, but nothing human or human-like. A2 can even find things like bits of old office games. An incredibly old, still-functioning Nerf gun is under a rubble-covered desk, still loaded after all this time, ready for an office game of Nerf Assassins that never got to finish.

    Amid her efforts, she finds a... Guestbook. There's names of dozens of people who visited here, names that /sound/ classy. They have big, swoopy signatures of confident, successful people, happy to get the chance. The book seems meaningful and well-cared-for, maybe it'll be useful later.
Flamel Parsons     There's that feeling again. Like heavy rainclouds about to break into a pour. Like a drought about to snap into life-giving waters. August pushes the point forward, and the Ghost's eyes look wide, almost... Scared, in a way. Her hair flutters softly, in wind that seems entirely disassociated from the wind up here on Maslow Peak. "I..." She speaks with a voice that's softening a little bit. "I wanted to..." The crimson is dying down a lot, and that soft purple glow is rising again. August might feel a sensation like goosebumps, or like static electricity on the skin, and just a moment of something that feels like an idea, inspiration trying to work its way into his brain...

    Before the Ghost pulls away.

    "S-stop!" She says, sounding uncertain and anxious. "You-- Stay away! You're lying! You wanted me... Wanted me out of the way! Go away! Leave me alone!" And there's a radial rush of red light, and suddenly those "blueprint" lines are drawn through the air again, lashing across the little hall August had found her in, cutting off the easy, direct path to her -- though failing to cut off any longer paths around to chase her, or perhaps not holding up if he tries to blast through them!

    "--Woah, hey!" Parsons catches up to August. "That was close! You almost got her-- Quick! You gotta reach out for her, that was the best I've felt the storm's mood since we got here!"
Orchid      Orchid is looking through the files, letting the computers examine the data structures. She's not an expert on what it takes to make a full mind, but she's getting some ideas about what might have been the intent. Of course, as more data comes in, she's refining those ideas. The guestbook does kind of ruin that first plan. If they were making horror monsters, they wouldn't have let people take tours of the place. Wait. If the Guestbook has dates, Orchid will try to compare them to the timestamps on the files.

     On the scene, Orchid only has her spiders. She sends a few of the little guys to keep an eye on the running Ghost.
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone's armore still bears the XCOM markings and her old call sign on the collar of it. She takes a moment to helpe Staren with the Reel-to-Reel stuff. "This is just, stone knives and bear skins level here." She can't h elp it it really is to her in the end. "Orchid can you handle backing this stuff up if you can get anything off it?" She finishes up and moves to fall back in with the group.

<<Staren got any ideas on this?>>
August Kohler It's working. Something...August feels /something/, a spark. But it's pulled away, and the Ghost runs off...

And August is pretty frustrated. He was going to give up if she didn't accept. He actually stops, briefly, looking into his mirrored bracelet. He could solve this with violence. But what would that solve? How is that a solution? He fights her and the mountain explodes? It's Flamel's words that help the most. The solution, therefore, is to convince her as fast as possible. And to do that, August has to say some stuff he'd normally not vent.

"Persona." August summons the Tin Soldier. It's not to fight - it's to blow his way through the blueprints, whether or not that'll piss off the Ghost. The Tin Soldier moves to bodyslam through each of them as August follows behind it, trying to catch up to the part of him. He'll give her one last chance to stop being so melodramatic, he resolves. If not, he'll continue up the mountain without her. "Listen! If I didn't actually want your help, you /know/ I'd be up that mountain already! You know I wouldn't bother with you! I want to work together, damn it!" There's clear frusration in his voice as he shouts out to her, and suddenly leaps onto the Tin Soldier, hoping it'll be fast enough to catch up and cut her off. If he can get in front of her...

"Scary things are going on inside my head! Things I never wanted to admit. /Everyone/ is in danger if we don't solve this. And if you're at all me, you want to solve this. We were reaching a breakthrough. You had something to give me. Do it!" If August does manage to get in front of her, he reaches out his hand to her. Hopefully, she won't spurn it.
Staren     Staren gives a short chuckle as Kotone calls the tech stone age. "If they weren't trying to upload people... maybe the connectome just has important implications for how psychic powers work or something? Hmm... I feel like we're still missing a critical piece of this puzzle..." He looks for paper notes too. Where the heck did these people put their lab notes, he wonders?
Flamel Parsons     What timestamps can be found on the files with Kotone and Orchid's efforts -- these aren't organized for time, that's for sure -- match well with a few of the dates, at least approximately. Whoever came here, whoever got their connectomes scanned or however these were taken, they all signed in, and did so happily. A2 and Kotone have together determined that this seems to not just be a guestbook... But a list of volunteers!

    Orchid's scan of the names mostly turns up crank conspiracy internet sites, weird conspiracy zines, and at least one ADVENTURE COMIC, where the names in whole or in part get listed as secret agents of some kind, mostly active in late 30s to the early 60s, both before and after the dates. Or maybe not? These data sources are iffy at best and geocities at worst.
Flamel Parsons     August's pursuit is working.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_oEDGONSc4

    He blasts through the blueprints, sending thin, wireframe drawings of elaborate support structures flying into bits. Ahead, the girl is scampering in a distraught way. Strange machines sprout around her as she goes, thin, drawn designs for all manner of unusual hazards, inspiring pieces of mechanical power that are as fascinating as they are deadly.

    She's trying to deny hearing what he has to say, shouting "No! NO!" But with each word, that feeling on August's latent psychic sensitivity rises. "I wanted to help! I wanted to keep you away from the danger up there! I /wanted/ to help you! And you-- You said you wanted me gone! I'm-- I don't /have/ anywhere else! I can't /be/ anyone else!" Her voice is hoarse again. "You're the one who pushed me away and now I-- I can't even understand it!" Lacking her part of his mind has caused August enough woes, but lacking his part of /her/ mind has definitely left her without the ability to comprehend even what she's so worried about. The horrible metal hazards sprouting around from walls and platforms around August are starting to gush concentrated fire like giant awful robotic welders, thin beams of searing heat that are horrifyingly dangerous even to a pursuer who lacks the vulnerability.

    Chunks of Psitanium are beginning to "grow" in on the terrain as August pursues. It's uncanny, incomprehensible, and even hazardous; the spikey, glowing purple formations present a danger even to Orchid's following spiders, which keep a goal marker on the Ghost for August. Yet, each rush forward seems to make the sensation stronger, and the Ghost's willingness to run ever weaker. August could no doubt find it all the more easy with some help to smash apart those big machine-blueprint hazards on the way up.
Flamel Parsons     Staren's search turns up some writing, but not much. Paper notes are almost all decayed by heavy rain, aside from A2's recovered Guestbook. There's some things that are etched, though, which are easy enough to read still. The cases on the weird skeletal bodies: "MYSTIC-1951-01", "MYSTIC-1951-02", "MYSTIC-1951-03" and so on, for several rather horribly misshapen ones. "MYSTIC-1953-01" and so on for a few rather more humanoid-looking ones. By the time they get to "MYSTIC-1955-25" or so, they almost look like human skeletons, albeit with a fair bit of psychotronic additions.
August Kohler August keeps telling himself he should give up on her. That it's not worth it. But he remembers something he did years ago. What started all of this. He faced himself. He /accepted/ himself. And if he gives up now because it's too hard...he won't solve anything.

Hazards erupt with fire. August should turn back, but he doesn't. He steels himself to take the risky option. Riding the Tin Soldier, he rushes through the flames, trying toa void them where possible but allowing the heat to hit him, using the Tin Soldier to keep it off his body, even if the pain still triggers and causes him to scream out. He decides to shout out. "Could use some help here!" to the others, because...he said he can't do this alone. So he won't.

As the barriers form, the Tin Soldier raises its gun, and lets out a massive burst of fire at them. It's not going to be enough to do it alone, probably, but with the help of others, he should be able to break through his own barriers. He needs to be as direct as possible. He needs to let out all of his feelings to the Ghost. Maybe that'll help her understand.

If August manages to catch up to her, he's actually going to reach out and try and grab her. It's not hostile. "I've been pushing you away because I push everything away! We've been doing it for years, keeping people out for their own safety. Letting it all fester inside. But we can't run away! We can't keep running from everything that scares us! You don't need to protect me from the dangers, you need to help me conquer them! We need to face them /head-on/! So tell me what I'm missing! Let me know what I'm not understanding! What you and George and everyone keeps getting at!"

August makes a realization in the moment. It's important. "I don't want to keep hiding anymore, damn it! Not when it's hurting people!"
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa says "It's a real horror show when people who have no idea what they are doing about that. Ask Miho ans Saski about that." She notes to Staren. She looks for a moment to him. "Or was it an attempt to store just memories like we can do on my world."

She thinks abolut that for a moment, and with the files? Well there's a whole mess of them there. I takes a while but it comes to her.

"It doesn't look like they were snatching people for this, it looks like this is a volunteer list."

She takes a moment to consider this. as she looks to the rest of the party.

"We shouldn't leave August alone though."

She'll move to try and catch up right after she finishes speaking.
Orchid      While Orchid is looking through files, her spiders are looking around the base. Even as the risk increases they keep pace with August, jumping into the flames, taking the hits in ways timed to reduce the fire that August takes. There aren't many, and they don't last long, but it's all Orchid can do from where she is.

     Other spiders examine the sci-fi helmets. She doesn't know much about the technology, but she's getting an idea.
A2     Were this another time and place, the person that is A2, or at least the person that A2 is metaphorically 'based on', would find the state of the surroundings abstractly sad. Forlorn, even. As it is however, they seem to have more of a faintly fascinating impact on her, appealing to something inside of her as faded and dusty and near-forgotten as these halls, but not quite entirely burnt away. Here and there, she shows hints of genuine interest. Reflection. Highly sporadic uses of the imagination. Just from scouring old and boring office junk. A2 even picks up the Nerf gun, turning it over in her fingers, worn down to their glossy black inner layer. She points it at a calendar and pulls the trigger. Her aim is terrible.

    Cracking open the 'guestbook', she takes her time to memorize the names on her own, leaving the pages open for viewing almost incidentally. When she's done with it however, the book flickers and dissolves into a blocky collage of gold, grey, black and white squares, and converts into a little orb of pixellated distortion that flies into an abstract inventory. One more highly misgiving look goes towards one of the purple skeletons, before she continues after August. The fact that the confrontation hadn't immediately erupted into violence the instance he and the Ghost got close again is miracle enough. The fact that he appears to still be trying, when the latter breaks off, is miracle enough to be worth pushing.

    Since August is crashing through the hard way face first, A2 takes the 'long' route that the Ghost had left unprotected in a hurry, steadily accelerating up to superhuman speed which takes her flying over gaps, running along walls, leaping up and down floors, and doing hard, right angle turns and air jumps, to keep level pace with the two of them, but not get ahead, staying slightly behind August the entire time with her eyes locked on the back of his head, as if the rest of her body is on autopilot.

    Her slimmer Type-4O weapon materializes in a flash of digital static, and then whizzes across the intervening obstacles to join August's path, hovering at a distance around him and sporadically leaping out to cut down the odd encroaching hazard, simply floating alongside him at pace when it isn't absolutely necessary to defend him from immediate, chase-ending harm. It doesn't block anything, but doesn't stray far from its orbit around him, like a sort of abstractly iconic familiar.
Staren     "Maybe... maybe they were just trying various methods to copy the powers? Neurological..." he waves a hand at the computers, "genetic..." he waves a hand at the skeletons, "And who knows what else?"

    And now August needs help. Staren's unspoken words after wondering aloud if the ghost is August's anima -- is he crazy because he's missing a piece of himself? -- suggest that getting them back together would be a GOOD thing, so he heads off thataway to help August blast through barriers and even give him a lift if needed. "Come on!"
Flamel Parsons     August crashes through, slamming through blueprints and leaving a brutalized trail of what could be mistaken for abstract chalk graffiti or poorly-rendered 3D wireframes. The heat that has so often scarred him deters him frighteningly little. The machines and the fire only keep him at a distance, and yet... There's Parsons, rushing forward and blasting away with his own beams of psychic energy, and even trying to use telekinetic grabs to boost August around obstacles! "It's working! I think! Keep going! You got this!" He calls out, eagerly, hopefully. He hadn't expected Maslow Peak to give him an opportunity to do this, and yet he's so happy it did!

    And here's A2, too; smashing her way around the hallways, dizzying cliffs, and spiraling heights of these decaying labs, she manages to cut down much of the obstacles with her heavy Type-40, leaving flickering, convulsing, sparking chunks of machinery between August and the Ghost, rather than brutal hazards that August will suffer great and awful pain breaking through. Every step August takes -- and every barrier he breaks through -- come with that ever-increasing rush of sensation. It's more and more now, even exponential, like whatever rain is about to break is a big one. If A2 is really aware of how much of a mental breakthrough this might be for August, she sure is showing it the way she really knows how.

    And even Staren's joining in, rushing over to blast where he can; Parsons makes sure to distribute fire evenly with him, all making sure not to attack the Ghost. And the obstacles wear down in flakes of psitanium and weird imaginary figments until there's almost nothing between August and his Ghost. "You couldn't see /them/! You couldn't understand that they /your help/ -- not just help, /yours/! You were seeing the situation and not the people, the parts and not the complexity-- You needed... You needed--!" She starts, trying and failing to call out August's own inherent lacking emotional sensitivity, in a sense, the traditional dysfunctions of a displaced Anima. And that's when he gets his hand on her.

    It's like touching the cathode to the anode. That purple light rises and begins to flow. August's going to feel that momentary burst in the brain as the two connect entirely, and for a moment -- however temporary it may be -- his displaced cognitive apparatuses are shifted back where they ought to go. The Storm of Maslow Peak swirls above for a moment, and strikes the site with bolts that rip the ceiling from the structure he caught her in, leaving it wide and open, but leaving the pair unharmed.

    She seems more at ease now. "We don't... We can't see what other people see in us. What other people need from us. We can't see what they need, so we just give everything we have, and we hope it's going to work. When it doesn't, it hurts more than we can stand, and all we have becomes more and more poisoned. But it... It can be a little better than that. We want to face ourselves because then, maybe we could see what it is that we have to give other people. Maybe we could know what to give before any of the poison. Without any of the flaws." Chunks of the ceiling give out and let beams of sunlight directly into things.

    "We know we need to fight for the sake of others, to help the people who can't help themselves. And we don't know what all we can give to help, or where. And... If we could see..." The crimson in her eyes dies down, as does the glow and the rumbling. "August. I think we can understand the dangerous part of the top of Maslow Peak. I think we can figure out that riddle we got, about what we're supposed to be fighting. I... Will you really try to listen to me, will you really try to let me help you?" She lifts a scrawny arm to shove her red bangs out of her eyes and look at him without a look of indignant hostility for the first time.
August Kohler As August finally reaches the Ghost, he laughs a little. Not at her. At the fact he has such good allies, hell, Staren of all people is helping him forward. As he feels that rush, he finally makes contact...and everything is at ease. Briefly, his problems are nothing, and he has a second to think about who he is and what he wants. It's not long, but it helps him know how to go forward.

Staring at the Ghost, August listens to her intently, Once she finishes, he nods. She's right. He's never really observed what was needed from people, only the situation. He focused on how he could solve the problem, not what the problem was and what /exactly/ people needed. Sure, he'd listen and do what people wanted, but he only paid attention to the word, not the spirit.

And so, August needs to know what he can do to better move forward in life. To break the barriers. "Yeah, I will. Let's change all of this and actually move forward, instead of running in place and acting like that's progress. We can do this /together/."
Orchid      Orchid isn't able to do much, given how the storm knocked out her signal for a few minutes. But she can continue to work with that she does have. Mostly this involves tracking down information on the names from the Guestbook. How did these crackpot ideas get such traction? Did they engage in public service any other ways? Are any left alive? Sure, she may not get much, but it's worth checking the deep web.
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa just picks up speed now, to catch up with August and S2, she's a bit behind A2 and Staren. With her arrival she sees the ghost, she moves to bring up her weapon for a moment. She doe snot fire, however, she sees something else is happening she looks at the Ghost and at August. There is a moment where she listens, the ghost is calmer not trying to kill them. She looks to August for a moment.

"Sounds like a plan to me, Kohler."

She thinks she gets some of what's going on here, she'll move to fall in. She's followed along with August through so many things so far? So what's one more time, to her?

She took a deep breath and fell in, she's not sure what else she can say right now, but they may finally for the moment? Stop chasing their own tails here.
A2     Whether or not someone as catastrophically jaded and uniquely, violently shellshocked as A2 is capable of understanding August's feelings, or even capable of understanding human feelings in the first place, given what she is, can be left for speculation for those who care enough to pay attention.

    In her usual way, she has nothing to interject with when the reconciliation finally happens, or at least if she has something to say, it goes unsaid. When the Ghost of Maslow Peak makes no further breaks for the door, and shows no signs of immediately generating any more spontaneous psitanium death traps, A2's sword ceases its rotation and fizzles back out of reality, making a low, electric 'burning' sound when it turns back into YoRHa-coloured pixels, and leaving August alone with his distaff doppelganger for the time it takes for A2 to drop down and walk back to the pairing on foot, giving the two of them both a few moments of seclusion, and ample warning given how incredibly unsubtle her walking sounds are.

    "Do you feel like a mountain climber yet?" she asks. It's about the most asinine question one could picture at this point in time, but even in her perpetually exhausted tones of permanent simmering anger, the words manage to drip meaning, far from being a rhetorical question.
Staren     OH SHIT LIGHTNING IT TURNS OUT THIS WAS A BAD IDEA or maybe it's OK, it didn't get through the ceiling.

    Will this actually change August? Only time will tell. Staren waits to see what he'll do next. Now that he's caught/accepted the ghost... what remains, to fix the storm here? Does the ghost know?
Flamel Parsons     August's words seem to both satisfy and scare the Ghost of Maslow Peak. "I'm sorry. We've been fighting each other for a long time, August. Even before you got here. If you really... If you really do want to work together, then I can try. I can try. If you'll listen and let me help, I want to. I want you to know what these people want from you, and I want you to know how to give it. Even if it's hard for you to see, even hard for me to see, I know I can help you see it a little better." She wasn't holding onto his own hand before, but she does grip it a little more firmly. "First thing's first then." She says. "While you're still here, while I can still talk to you, we solve that riddle. He seemed to think that was the right way." With her free hand, she flares a palm out towards the newly opened space in this area. What is visible there now... Are the nodes. Those nodes of people August saw in the riddle before, when he got his Hint from the crazy old mountain man.

    "We're going to break any barrier we find. And that means we need to make sure we know where they are. In a better way." She says, sounding still hoarse but a lot less stressed and a lot more confident now. The nodes -- the people in the riddle from before -- are rearranging, swirling around in the air until they take an odd, familiar, hemispherical shape. "We were looking for something. The obstacle to fight, the impossible mind. It had something to do with the people in the organization, any organization, right?" The insight she's generating in August's mind is giving him more hints than he could pick up on from that encounter with the mad mountain man. The shape of these nodes and the interactions between them is hemispherical. Specifically, a little squashed, elongated... A lot like a brain.
Flamel Parsons     She also turns to the others, still holding on to August to keep that connection of sorts going, but sort of... Nods her head, awkwardly. "And... I'm sorry. About the fighting. And, about the traps. Also, the airplane. I can't pay for that, but I'm really sorry." She has the classic August awkwardness down at least. "I'll try to help you while you're still here. If I can. However I can. You needed it, and I... Have to help, at least." And there's his compulsion to assist too.
August Kohler August nods to the Ghost of Maslow Peak. "Let's do it, then. Solve this riddle." As the nodes manifest, and start to change in shape, August considers. "There's a chain of people dumping cancer into a lake. That was the gist of the riddle. What do you blame...why didn't I think of it? The nodes help." Seeing intimate shapes and connections, August starts to piece it together, and especially as they form a brain.

"You cut the chain. It's like cutting the wires to a brain. If you do that, it shuts down. But we're talking people, not brains. So you cut...the chain of communication. They're telling each other what to do next, until the last man does that. If you change how they communicate...does that solve the problem?" August hates riddles. But visual cues certainly help.
Flamel Parsons     Orchid's data is going to work out pretty well here. The conspiracies seem to have an abject lack of efforts for people to shut them down, and almost all have something to do with psychics. They tend to gain traction for a simple and rather surprising reason: Almost all of them seem to assume that the secret agents are good people. Some of the names are said to have been involved in stopping particular terrorist groups or warmongers. Others are said to have used mind control techniques to purge terrifying memetic hazards or mental dangers. Some are said to have stolen secrets suppressed by dangerous tyrants and released them to the public. It's all... Good, and so people feel better, thinking and hoping that these sorts of people are out there. A few are alive, though nearly impossible to find in any public database.
Flamel Parsons     "The chains of communication. The chains of enforcement. The chains of power. It's... The structure. It's the structure, not the people. The structure is the monster. It's a mind. An Impossible Mind. A stupid brain, running on smart cells. That's the thing we've been trying to fight. Hostile structure. At least, that's what he thought, in the riddle." The Ghost says, letting the nodes flick around. August's insight is pumping like a valve's been thrown open. Whether the Crimson Thought will take root or not is beside the point; at least now, with this brief connection, it should be comprehensible.

    "Even my side of you can't say for sure what other people think of you, but... I think that's what got people so tense. That we were always so focused on the parts, without seeing the complexity. We focused on the nerves, but not the brain. On the cells, and not the life. We didn't see the right barrier to break through. But if we can look for what they see, the barriers they recognize, I think we can see more of what they need from us. If we just..." She looks back to August, and seems a bit anxious, worried, hopeful yet concerned. "We just need to try to connect with what they see, and find their barriers to break down too. That lack of connection's another kind of obstacle to break through, right?"

    Whether that Crimson Thought takes root, the key part should: The greatest barrier August needs to work towards breaking down is between himself and the people around him.
August Kohler "The structure!" August feels like an idiot. Well, atleast his other part is way smarter than he is. The structure...August will need to talk to George to understand more what that means, but it makes sense. The system, the /structure/, that allows people to dump cancer in a lake should be cut in half.

"If I understand you right, we never connected with anyone. We never let them connect. We focused on action more than empathy, their words more than their desires. We pushed and pushed but it was aimless, a rough direction instead of a real goal. Breaking any barrier in our path without the barriers in mind. I think I know what I need to do. I have some people to talk to, after this. Thank you." And then, addressed to A2...

"I think I do feel like a mountain climber. We're going to reach the summit. Hopefully together."
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa is just ready to get a move on with things and she seems to accept the Ghost's apologies about what's happened so far.

"So we need to restore the lines of communication."

Even with all her experience in the Mirror Forest? She still has some issues with mental things, okay she has a lot still she's putting her best foot forward here. August always has made it hard to connect when Kotone thinks about it, mayhaps this is a step in the right direction. It's time to make for the mountain, and so she'll start moving.

"Well then lets go?"
Flamel Parsons     The Ghost smiles in a relieved way, though still with a tinge of nervousness. "Alright. I think I really believe you this time, August. If you're ready, then... Yeah. Let's do it." She takes a deep breath, and with her free hand, makes a broad gesture. Staren's question is answered when the Storm of Maslow Peak strikes again, and this time, sears through the ceiling, and then right through one of the walls nearby, blowing a hole open towards a passage heading up, leading further on, on up the peak.

    "I'll be with you ever step of the way."

    She lets go of August's hand for once, and the sensation in his mind lessens, the insight of his displaced anima reduces... But he can still feel enough to keep up his own psychological momentum. The Ghost is going to press forward, leading August as well, and Parsons following fast behind, giving Kotone a good place to start with her own pressing forward. Time to hit the summit!
Staren     "It sounds more like we need to _break_ some lines of communication." Staren replies to Kotone.

    And then... KABOOM!

    "Well... I guess we go that way? How do you feel, August?"
August Kohler As the ease fades away, August frowns slightly. It felt good...but he can't avoid his problems. That's part of this. As the Ghost presses forward, August sighs softly, and turns to Staren as he's addressed. "...Better, honestly. Weirdest therapy session ever, but atleast it was free. I'll need to talk to George later about all of this. Treating the structure as a monster..." August doesn't really understand it, but he's thoughtful. If a structure breaks down, it'd kill a problem, wouldn't it? May be useful to look into.

And then, the redhead moves to follow up to the summit. Mountain-climbing, ho!
Orchid      In order to celebrate August's emotional growth, Orchid pulls out a party blower, and gives it a toot. Ah, the things you can get away with when you're not in smacking range.
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa gets this oh face at Staren. "Oh well then good thing I have some explosives with me." She notes looking very sheepish, but she is moving on ahead it's time to get to the top.
Flamel Parsons     The trek to the summit will take hours and hours before it gets done. Somehow, Maslow Peak's last effort has more length to it than the rest combined; some of it hardly seems real, as if Maslow Peak itself is drawing memories out of August on the way up.

    The heavy, wooded area seems unrealistic to have at this height, and its hostile wildlife just as dangerous, but this time the crushing, hazardous death traps are replaced with all sorts of strange, almost fun contraptions to create temporary bridges, launch people over gaps, bounce people past hazards, or defy death at the hands of mutant predators. The Ghost of Maslow Peak shows up as often as August's own Persona; she's piloting some kind of physical blueprint of power armor, wielding a tremendous chainsaw-like sword, and generating those blueprints of traps to churn up monsters.

    The area past that is a heavy bit of underground tunnelwork, where those wandering Cold Readers menace again, but this time, with all due preparation, and a much less strained mindset, they're far less dangerous; the Ghost exercises her ability to possess them liberally, and she zaps between them as a bolt of human lightning, helping any effort to fight through, as well as to navigate the dangers of the spelunking effort, tearing up the platforming challenge and helping the others tear up the combat challenge.

    And the decayed near-central lab complex almost at the peak, where the lost and broken facility collapses underfoot and the broken architecture presents its own hazards liberally, but now the Storm forms what seems like solid clouds to facilitate real climbing and not free-climbing off breaking-down sheer vertical walls, and allows them to move between the wide, concentric circles of the spiral towards the peak, while between the Ghost and August, there's enough mobility in co-op mode to get them over things they couldn't have ever gotten through alone.

    After a while, all the obstacles are behind them. There's just the peak in sight, with a flag waving the Psychonaut logo on it to mark the very, very top, and the signs of a small entrance structure just below that. Once they reach that, the last stop on this before descending into the guts of Maslow Peak itself. But after many hours of ascent, the view from the top of this spiraling, twisted peak will be well, well worth it. One could swear they see the curvature of the Earth here. One could swear the problems they have at the base of Maslow Peak seem tiny here. Thin air or no, chilly or not, it's worth stopping to take the look before heading down into the depths of Maslow, and the entrance to the primary Project Mystic facility.

    "Well, at least the Flat-Earthers are wrong." Parsons says.
A2     "'don't have a point of reference." A2 says in response to August's assurance that this particularly tangle with psychology is a strange one. "Just be happy you can deal with it like this. With people and with goals and with a lesson to learn. If you can still feel that way, it means you aren't too far gone yet." She sounds . . . almost very slightly sad in saying that.

    "Now maybe we can get two damn feet without a tree falling on us or a spike pit opening up. You just have to promise not to lose your shit when we find whatever's still up there." says A2, glancing up at the crumbling summit of the mountain, now not very far away. "This was a giant pain in the ass, so don't make it a waste of time. Don't think this little healing moment finishes everything up. We still have something's ass to kick after."