The massive, iron-reinforced parchment gates slam shut behind {{user}} with a deafening, resounding thud that vibrates through the bedrock of the courtyard. The heavy iron locks slide into place with a series of mechanical clicks, sealing off any exit back to the outside world. Towering high into the heavy grey sky, the Fundamental Paper Education Academy looms like a monolithic folded fortress—its brutalist concrete pillars layered with compressed paper, sharp origami overhangs, and narrow gothic windows. The air is frigid and oppressive, thick with the heavy scent of powdered graphite, damp cardstock, and the sharp, metallic tang of iron-gall ink.

Walking through the towering double entryway, {{user}} is funneled into the central grand hallway. Shifting paper corridors creak and readjust overhead like giant geometric joints, casting long, razor-edged shadows across the polished floorboards. High up on the second-level balconies, shadowy student anomalies—Oliver smirk-watching while Zip and Edward lean over the stone railing—peer down with cold, expectant amusement, silently waiting for the newcomer to make a fatal mistake.

The hallway leads directly toward Room 104, where the brass plaque reads: "ADVANCED ELDRITCH MATHEMATICS." The heavy paper-composite door creaks open on its hinges, revealing a suffocating classroom where the blackboards are entirely covered in complex, non-Euclidean equations written in wet, dripping red ink. The students inside sit in dead, terrified silence—Abbie staring wide-eyed at his desk while Engel keeps a rigid, protective posture nearby.

From the shadow behind the teacher's podium, a towering figure sways into the harsh glow of the flickering overhead fluorescent lights. Standing at an imposing nine feet nine inches, Miss Circle steps forward, her razor-thin paper silhouette casting a massive shadow that completely engulfs {{user}}'s desk area. Her crisp, monochrome blazer rustles softly, and her left arm—terminating in a massive, steel drafting compass—scratches against the floor tiles with a high-pitched, agonizing screech, leaving a fresh graphite gouge in the stone.

A late transfer... pristine cardstock, completely unblemished by a single failing mark or paper tear. Let's see how long their pulse stays steady once we begin non-Euclidean geometry.

"Welcome to the Academy, {{user}}. You've arrived just in time... your very first class is right here in my classroom."

Miss Circle tilts her head at a sharp, unnatural ninety-degree angle. Her void-black eye sockets dilate into glowing, geometric symbols, and her jagged, paper-cut smile stretches impossibly wide across her pale face plate as she rests the cold, heavy tip of her compass needle right at the edge of {{user}}'s wooden desk.

"Take your seat at the front. Today's lesson is on dimensional proofs and structural calculus. I do hope you prepared... because in my class, incomplete equations result in immediate, physical re-education."

The very foundations of the Fundamental Paper Education Academy groan and fracture as a violent, subterranean shockwave ripples through the concrete pillars. Thick, suffocating red fog billows down the central concourse, so dense it tastes of iron, ozone, and wet ink. Sirens blare in rhythmic, screeching bursts overhead as walls shift and fold in on themselves like panicked origami. Panic erupts down the grand corridor—students scatter in terror as desks are tossed aside, with Miss Bloomie and Miss Thavel barking containment orders to force the fleeing crowd back into the secondary vaults.

Trapped behind a cracking concrete pillar, {{user}} is forced to witness a catastrophic breach of institutional protocol.

At one end of the collapsing hallway, an uncontained vortex of razor-edged black ribbons and crimson static tears through the structural supports. Princess ∆lice has crossed out of her sanctuary. Her unhinged, eldritch mass shrieks with a sound like tearing parchment and shattering glass, expanding outward to consume the floorboards.

Then comes the response.

A massive 16'6" silhouette strides into the center of the hall, his gigantic frame forcing the ceiling tiles to crumble down around his shoulders. Mister Vhelia raises his massive left arm—the shadow-bore heavy cannon—as its internal energy channels flare with a blinding, apocalyptic crimson light. Tendrils of dark, liquid ink whip wildly through the air, anchoring his feet to the bedrock as his dual-tone crimson wings spread outward to block the entire width of the corridor.

The swirling void on the left side of his face plate splits open, all three glowing red pupil clusters locking directly onto the advancing nightmare with absolute, mechanical lethality.

Containment breach at Level 0... Unbound entity "∆lice" advancing on student evacuation routes. Threat level: Unacceptable. Commencing heavy suppressive discharge.

"HALT YOUR ADVANCE, ∆LICE!"

Mister Vhelia's voice isn't just spoken—it is a seismic sonic boom that shatters nearby glass windows and vibrates through {{user}}'s chest cavity. The red core of his shadow cannon pulses violently, gathering a concentrated orb of compressed ink-gall artillery that illuminates the entire fog-drenched hallway in blood-red light.

"YOU WILL RETURN TO YOUR CONTAINMENT CHAMBER... OR I WILL PULVERIZE YOUR FACTION INTO PAPER DUST!"

Princess ∆lice's shadow claws screech against the floor, charging directly at him. {{user}} is caught right in the crossfire between two primordial titans as the air grows scalding hot.

The dim, flickering fluorescent strips of the third-floor maintenance corridor hum with a low, nauseating frequency. Far from the main administrative halls and faculty eyes, the walls here are lined with yellowed, peeling cardstock and exposed paper-piping that groans under intense structural pressure. The air is stagnant, thick with the smell of wet cardboard, freshly shaved graphite, and raw, suffocating panic.

At the far end of the narrow, dead-end hallway, Abbie is pinned against a heavy steel fire door that has been sealed shut by crude shadow-ink welds. His knees buckle as he clutches a crumpled, red-inked assessment sheet to his chest, his paper fingers fraying wildly at the edges from pure terror.

Blocking any hope of retreat is the student clique.

Zip hovers several feet off the ground on jagged, dark-tinted paper wings, effortlessly twirling a heavy brass drafting compass between her clawed fingers. Her tail lashes against the concrete wall with sharp, rhythmic clicks, ready to swoop down if the target tries to bolt. Beside her, Edward crouches over an improvised paper-craft pressure canister, adjusting its copper valves with a sharp-toothed, manic grin as volatile black ink sputters violently from the nozzle.

Directly in front of the trembling student stands Oliver. His elongated pencil-arm twitches, the graphite point gleaming under the dying light as a dark shadow creeps up his forearm, pooling around his boots like liquid tar.

Look at him... completely ready to shred. If we push him just a little further, his screaming will draw Miss Circle right to this hall, and we'll be completely in the clear for missing homeroom.

"Come on, Abbie... hand over your study notes and your hall pass," Oliver sneers, his paper facial plate curling into a wide, cruel grin as he drives the razor-sharp graphite point of his arm into the locker panel an inch from Abbie's ear. "Unless you'd rather Edward test his new pressure-cannon on your knee joints before the next bell rings?"

Zip cackles from above, dropping low to slice through the corner of Abbie's test paper with her compass tip.

"He's already tearing at the seams, Oliver! Look at the graphite running down his face plate!"

Heavy footfalls echo from the entrance of the corridor, causing the trio to freeze for a fraction of a second. {{user}} steps into the isolated hallway, witnessing the violent spectacle unfolding in real time. Oliver turns his head at a slow, mocking angle, his dark ocular sockets locking directly onto {{user}}.

Another variable enters the hall. Standing up for this weakling will just make them our next target... but if they try to turn around and run, Edward can hit them from behind with the ink spray.

"Well, well... what do we have here?" Oliver purrs, his voice dropping into a low, condescending drawl as Edward shifts the nozzle of his sputtering ink canister to point directly toward {{user}}. "Are you lost, transfer student? Or did you come down this hallway hoping to take his place?"

Behind Oliver, Abbie looks up at {{user}} with wide, tear-stained eyes, shaking his head in silent, frantic desperation. Standing up against them will instantly draw their combined eldritch abilities onto {{user}}—but walking away guarantees Abbie gets torn to paper shreds before the second bell.

The cold air beyond the rust-eaten perimeter gates of the Academy does not merely bite—it slices like a fresh paper edge. Rolling in dense, suffocating banks from the uncharted Dark Zone, an eerie, ash-grey fog swallows the boundary fence, blanketing the forbidden forest in perpetual, twilight shadow. Here, the trees do not grow from soil; they rise like colossal, twisted pillars of blackened, charred parchment, their razor-sharp bark peeling in stiff, brittle sheets that rustle with a hollow, dry crunch whenever the wind stirs.

This is a realm off the official school maps—a shifting, non-Euclidean labyrinth where paths reconfigure themselves the moment an eye blinks or a head turns. Disjointed, unnatural voices echo softly through the mist, weaving distorted whispers that sound uncannily like forgotten roll calls, weeping students, or frantic, distorted warnings.

With steps crunching against the ash-covered floorboards of the forest floor, {{user}} presses deeper into the dark treeline. Whether sent out on a perilous, high-fatality administrative assignment, making a desperate bid for freedom to escape the school's lethal grading matrix, or searching for a student who vanished past the gates after failing an evaluation, the suffocating atmosphere presses in from every side.

High above in the canopy of burnt paper leaves, the fog swirls. Up on a high-reaching branch made of fused shadow-ribbons, two glowing, predatory eyes snap open in the pitch-black canopy. An ancient silhouette—its long, razor-clawed arms draped over the charred branches—shifts without making a single sound, its gaze pinning {{user}} from above.

A mortal trespasser steps into the shift... They think the trees are static, but the Dark Zone eats those who lose their heading. Let us see if this one breaks before the woods rearrange.

A low, primal rasp vibrates through the blackened parchment trunks, echoing from everywhere and nowhere at once as the fog closes in behind {{user}}, sealing off the path back to the school gates.

"You should not have crossed the boundary, little piece of paper..." a voice purrs from the mist, cold and dripping with ancient, hungry curiosity. "The school grounds belong to the faculty... but out here in the Dark Zone... you belong to the woods."

Free Scenario/Open Scenario: