The Dating Sim: Remastered

Arcadia shrugs, still shaken by the incident but notably recovered from her previous state. "Yeah, I'm good for now. Shit still sucked, but that just means I gotta be more focused next time. Can't have everyone worryin' about the rookie all the time, y'know? Thanks for the concern 'n all, though. Maybe you're not so bad, Kiran. Maybe." Arcadia flicks Kiran's hand off her shoulder, stretching her arms about now that she's free. "But can we get out now? The others already left. DAMN, it feels good to get out of that web crap..."

Kiran pulls his hand back with feigned offense. "Just a bit longer, alright? I'm almost done down here. Speaking of which... Here ya go." Kiran hands her half of the threads he's pulled off. "I think we can probably use these to make some new armor or weapons or something. But don't tell Tai, alright?" He gives you a sly wink. "If he's gonna cut you out of the spoils, we can play him the same way, yeah? He didn't do any of the work getting tangled in this stuff or getting it off ya."

Received Sticky Web x5!

He pulls one last glob off of her. "...Alright, I'm done. We should get out of here. Wanna look for a way through these paths? Or follow the crowd?"

He suddenly feels like he's being watched. A distant skittering noise comes from down one of the paths, but the echo makes it impossible to tell which one. But it is definitely drawing closer.

Arcadia stiffens at the noise. "The paths... I really don't want to run into whatever that is, but we need to try one. How about, uh... that one?" Arcadia points at the path opposite the tunnel.

"Alright! I hate to leave the others, but I guess we can't really do anything for them from here!" Kiran takes off for the door, only for a huge spider to come crashing through. It's brown, huge, sharp-fanged, massive, two-horned, and very large. It barely fits through the tunnel. Kiran stops in his tracks and slides to a stop. "Nope, not that door!

"Clack-clack-clack..." It clicks its mandibles together.

"Run, just... Run!" Kiran yells.

"S***! Another path!" Arcadia runs away from the spider and tries another path.

(A) Follow Arcadia!
(B) Take the other door!
(C) Down the secret tunnel!
(D) I'm gonna fight this thing!
(E) (Try to trip Arcadia to be bait)

Arcadia turns and runs through the door to the left. The path turns sharply left and slopes downward. Behind the pair is the spider, quickly dashing after them. So they can only keep going. Fortunately, a portal appears directly ahead of them. With the monster in hot pursuit, they dive in.

Kiran ends up in a small cave right behind Arcadia. It's lit only by the portal. A small pool of water is the only potential exit.

You see Tai. In his underwear. Dripping. Crouching down beside Natsumi and Leia. Leia's trapped underneath Natsumi and they're both covered in webbing. Both of them are in their swimsuits. And both have obviously been crying. Leia seems to be unconscious. Natsumi slowly turns to look at you with cold, dead eyes.

(A) "What happened!?"
(B) "What did you do!?"
(C) (FACEPUNCH)
(D) "Are they... OK?"

Nope let's not punch the Emo without assessing the situation D but, maybe cut to the chase and drop the elipcises

I'm fine with C if it screws with Digi. I'm feeling spiteful today.

"Great, what is it now? As you can see I'm dealing with two emotionally and mentally scarred teenage girls. You can swim to the surface of the beach through the pool over there if one of you wants to go get help. I'm still working of these knots. Dammit! Why won't this come apart already!" Tai yells. He starts clawing at the webbing.

Arcadia unsure how to react. "Y-You guys don't look great, but you're alive. That's all that matters. I-I'm not gonna bother with questions now, or leave you three! I'm gonna help you for once! Let's just get 'em out of that web!" Arcadia tries helping pick Nat and Leia's webbing off them.

"Are they OK?" Kiran asks. He joins in with the webbing-removal team.

Once Natsumi is mostly free, she blinks and takes a sharp breath. "What? Where... Leia? What... What happened!? Where... Why are you naked?" She looks from Tai to Arcadia. "Who is... The spider! The... portal... What happened to Leia!? Why is she stuck to me? Why is..."

"Leia was passed out when I got here. Natsumi went brain dead after I swam to look for a way out. I came back to free them. Now, the question is how the f*** do we get Leia to the surface when she's passed out?" Tai starts putting his clothes back on. "Natty, you feeling better?"

Natsumi pulls herself off Leia. Then scoops Leia up, sits against the wall, and holds her. "No. No, I'm... really not."

"Well... f***. I'm sorry." Tai rubs the back of his head. "Just try and rest, everything is gonna be fine now."

Arcadia ignores all this. "Sorry, but I'm going for help first. I'll be back." She dives into the water.

"As much as we should probably rush her out of here, I'm not sure about trying to swim her out. It's probably safer to just wait for low tide," Kiran suggests as Arcadia dives into the water. "It should be around... 5 today? About 2 hours?"

He turns to Kiran. "Yeah, sure. That sounds a Hell of a lot easier. 2 hours, though? Guess we better get comfortable." Tai sits down on the other side of Leia.

Natsumi stares down sadly at Leia as she rubs her head.

(A) ..."I'm gonna follow Arcadia."
(B) (Snuggle up beside Natsumi)
(C) "This is boring. I'm going to a night swim!"
(D) "So, about dividing up that loot..."
(E) "Nat? What's wrong? C'mon, don't clam up. Talk to me."

Just like...give her a hug or something.

Natsumi doesn't seem to be aware of Tai at all. Maybe if it weren't so dark in here, but as it is she just sits there, sadly staring at Leia and rubbing her head.

Kiran sits down beside Natsumi and wraps an arm around her. Natsumi leans into the awkward hug and sniffles.

A bright flashlight starts flooding the cave from under the water. A strange masked man suddenly breaches the surface of the water, then another. "There they are! Don't worry, kids. You're gonna be just fine."

They take Leia first, working together to ferry her out with a spare face mask. When she's gone, Kiran grabs Natsumi and pulls her into his lap, giving her a big hug. She whimpers and throws herself into it.

The two divers come back, taking Natsumi next.

Kiran arrives next, just in time to see an the ambulance leaving. Then Tai shows up.

A familiar officer is standing among all the others, tapping her foot impatiently.

"...Hi, Ms. Somnis' Mom..." Kiran mutters.

"What were you kids doing out here at this time of night!?" Ms. Somnis' Mom demands of no one in particular.

"So umm Ms. Mother Somnis its so nice to meet you. I am a foreign exchange student and new to the area. I asked Somnis to show me the area around here. We got do lost on the way and we were trying to find our way home. Please don't be mad at Somnis it was my fault for dragging her into this. I pushed her into giving me a tour of the city and she was being a good friend. Arrest me if you must arrest someone," Morgan pleads.

"A tour. That ended at 3AM. On the beach. Because Somnis got lost, despite all the times Kiran's dragged her here." She's clearly not buying it.

"Tom left his beach chair here and he didn't realize it until now," Levi technically-not-a-lies. "Grant's sleeping over and we were going to help Tom get things. I don't know why that girl was in the cave or who the girl that told us about it is."

Grant? Kiran notices a new kid with short brown hair and a brown T-shirt, green-dyed jeans, green eyes... Where did he even come from?

(A) "Actually it was my fault, Ms. E. I threw a beach party, we explored the caves, got stuck when the tide rolled in, that one girl freaked out..."
(B) (Be quiet and watch)
(C) "Somnis did it!"
(D) "See, we had to go to the otherworld to get some fish eyes..."
(E) **** it! "SCATTER!"

...Just don't talk, Kiran. Please don't talk. B

Somnis' mom continues to glare at Levi for a moment, then moves to the others.

She doesn't even know what to make of Tai's bullshit.

Mattea steps up. "Um, have we, like, done anything wrong?"

"Have you?" Momnis asks.

"No. Unless you're, like accusing us of anything?"

"There was an unconscious girl in an underwater cave."

"And most of us didn't even know about it until Ms. Skulls-for-Brains told us about it," Mattea says, shoving Arcadia under the bus. "But, like, do you see any booze or drugs or anything? And I bet you won't find any with them, either. So, like, are we free to go?"

"...Except for those of you who were in the cave. Kiran. You two." She points to Tai and Arcadia. "And Somnis. The rest of you, go straight home. It's a school night."

Mattea struts off, giving Tai a wink and a wave before leaving.

Somnis' mom pulls you aside. "So. Tell me what happened to that young lady. I want to know everything."

Somnis sits in the sand beside you. Tia, since she lives with Kiran, also sticks around and joins her.

"I'm afraid that this is my fault ma'am. You see, I'm writing a play to be performed by the Drama Club in the coming weeks and I wanted some help with ideas and rehearsal. So I tricked a lot of these kids into coming here through some very convoluted deception in order to help me think of ideas and gauge some possible actors for the play. I realize this may sound like utter bulls***, but I get very into my projects ma'am and am sad to say that some of them do involve some less-than-moral practices."

Tai sighs, tapping his foot overdramaticly.

"I don't expect you to understand officer, non-artists rarely do. Most of these kids didn't even realize I was tricking them, so please don't fault them for my artistic extremism.

"This was another part of my writing project. I had set things up so Somnis would try and give some friends a tour and then get lost, with things going south from there. I had things work so that we'd get split up. Basically, Kiran, Arcadia, Leia, Natsumi, and I got lost in some underground cave system that I discovered when exploring the town the other day. This was an essential part of my project. I needed to be able to study the rest of the group during a stressful situation. I thought I knew what I was doing but the cave system was much... larger than expected. I, the only one knowing about the entire trick, also got lost. At that point I let the rest of my group know."

Tai takes a breath.

"It didn't go over well. Anyways, there were some spiders and scorpions in the caves and unbeknownst to me, Leia has anxiety issues. So, basically, this entire situation is a result of my selfish, careless, and reckless artistic pursuit."

Tai looks tired...

(A) Yes. That is exactly what happened.
(B) What the f*** are you talking about?