Book and Price Tag were making their way over to the Hotel.
CloudYAY were in quite a bit of a pickle. It wasn't that they lost the last challenge; failure and misery are an inevitable part of life, and they had learned over the years to just accept it and stop trying to reverse the trend. No, the problem was *when* they lost.
If there's anything the Battle for Dream Island *loves* to do, it's throwing all sorts of curveballs and twists that knock *everyone* off-guard just as they think they're safe and sound. They'd been going smoothly for a little while, then an algebralian descends from the heavens and splits the show in twain. Then the one with the *least* votes was eliminated, instead of the most. Then *two* contestants were eliminated at a time, each from an unlucky team. And now, *two* contestants from the *same* team were getting the boot.
It was already a terrible enough feeling to stomach, knowing that one of your most trusted allies, or perhaps even yourself, or Pillow, could disappear just like that. The sentiments were amplified when the chances of failure were doubled. Just as they had gotten used to the feeling of existential dread and anticipation of the inevitable, it became significantly worse, far worse than they were ever equipped to handle. Which of them were gonna get eliminated? What was going to happen to them afterwards? How bad was the damage going to be for the remaining team members? The questions repeatedly circled around their heads, racking them with pain and dealing untold amounts of pain and suffering at nearly all waking hours.
Now, what does *any* of that have to do with Book and Price Tag, who were in a completely different team? In an ideal world, absolutely nothing at all. Whenever the Battle for Dream Island isn't giving everyone an unexpected punch to the face, it was worsening relations and deepening schisms both between and within teams. Only *one* can win Dream Island, or the BFDI, or The Power of Two, or whatever was up for grabs after all. But the universe, random and capricious as it was, found ways to overcome the odds. Even in an environment as tumultuous and chaotic as this, friendship *somehow* still finds a way to bloom. If Needle and Pen, two characters that have *never* interacted before and have zero working chemistry, could somehow contrive a friendship out of nothing, then perhaps an extension of an olive branch between two teams wasn't out of the question.
And so, the two made their way through the Hotel.
"Uh... Why are we here again?" Book asked. "Weren't you *paying* attention?" Price Tag answered. Indeed, she wasn't; before all this, the collection of pages was busy sulking over something or other when the discerner of value dragged her along to this little venture. "Yellow Face and I have a little gig going; I think you know that much. We're gonna be selling the things I don't need for a *ton* of money."
"Yeah, I knew that." The one with the cover nodded. "But what does any of that have to do with me?" "Well, you're a book containing all sorts of stuff, right?" Taggy asked. "I haven't exactly been keeping tabs on everything; I just collect whatever I think is cool. Perhaps *something* within your pages could tell us a little bit more about what I got, if it has any more value than I think of it. Y'know, an appraiser."
Eventually, the two arrived at Price Tag's room. As they opened the lights, the sheer size and scale of their collection came into view; pretty much every square inch of the walls, as well as whatever nook and cranny was out of the way, was stuffed with whatever items and trinkets the tag was able to acquire throughout their life.
Book had been in there a couple of times, and she could assess that the place was somehow more *and* less cluttered than when she last saw it. More in the sense that the floors were now messy, with all sorts of thingamajigs and whatchamacallits strewn about, and less in the sense that plenty of piles had been boxed up and shipped over to Yellow Face's warehouse.
