novel-bin Arc 4 | Last Resort (3)
Arc 4 | Last Resort (3)
Arc 4 | Last Resort (3)
LAST RESORT
Part 3
Allie and the others wouldn’t wake up any time soon. I made sure of that. All it took was a little sprinkle of the cheapest purple pixie dust (purple for charmed effects like sleep, which cost me five crystals per packet for one use), knocking them out for the next two hours.
And two hours are good enough for me.
While the delvers were asleep, I had more time to prepare them for Act Two: The rising tension. The Lure. Baiting them toward their eventual doom. The part when the fear builds to a bloody crescendo until, eventually, the delvers start screaming, groveling, and running, picked off one by one.
And, of course, the introduction of the main villain.
“The Administrators are watching us, my lord, eyes flickering with glee...” The Siren reminded me.
Of course, they are, I sighed. “Can you see them?”
The Siren shook her head. “Blood is in the water, joyful sounds of slaughter...”
Right. I triggered a scenario, and the crows came flocking, ready to witness a maddening feast. Should I make this a proper scenario? These are cultists, after all. Technically, I could kill them quickly once I got the answers I was looking for. But the administrators might find that boring.
I rolled my eyes. Why do I care? I’m not here to please them. I will still get ten thousand crystals by the end of it. Elvis did mention the watchers could give me other things, too, like more bonus crystals. Can they also give me other rewards? I wondered.
No, focus! I told myself.
I turned to Goliath. “Have you applied all the pixie dust on them?”
Goliath nodded.
“Good. Keep an eye on them. This shouldn’t take me more than ten minutes.”
Building a dungeon room under the cabin was that simple and fast when magic was involved. It would take longer if I had to change, bulldoze, manipulate the terrain, or build something more complex and meticulous.
But all I needed for now was a simple room and a simpler contraption.
When I opened the Core Menu screen by just thinking about it, time stopped, like pausing in the middle of a video game. The outside world didn’t literally pause per se but slowed down to milliseconds, giving me enough time to do plenty of things. Out of the corner of my eyes, Goliath was sloooowlyyy scratching his jaw.
CORE
DUNGEONS@@@@
MONSTERS
TRAPS
QUESTS
RUMORS
The bottom two were new additions to the menu. It appeared after I completed my first official scenario with the full blessing of an administrator. [ Quests ] was pretty self-explanatory. I only had two things in there: the quest to eradicate the Cult of Astaroth and the second one was to collect four-hundred and sixty-seven essences to create my second dungeon. Ṛa????o͍bΕṣ
Four-hundred and sixty-six now. I looked down at Andre’s corpse dragged off to a corner, away from the others.
On the other hand, [Rumors] was something I didn’t quite understand yet. I opened it to read the messages that had popped up several hours ago.
[North Cedar Lake has earned the Modern Folklore perk. Denizens nearby know the macabre stories of your dungeon and the creatures that dwell inside. You have five empty myths. Creating a myth increases a dungeon and an archetype’s Dread effects. ]
[ Error: no myths created yet. Would you like to do that now? ]
I told the prompt to go away for now. I reckoned that would take too long, even several days of writing and planning. It didn’t seem like something I should rush over, especially when it could magically implant false memories in the people around me.
Next to the teleportation chamber, I built a hexagonal room about forty feet wide with a flat, circular platform at the center where my contraption stood. Four very uncomfortable metallic chairs faced each other, and in the middle was a tube with a self-loading crossbow on top that could rotate a hundred and sixty degrees.
But something is still missing, I thought. Well, I still have six minutes left.
I looked at the bare walls, and they needed a little more pizzazz—something enticing to bring the room together. An idea formed, and I smiled. I went over my options, and I decided to go for a more industrial-looking aesthetic.
Like a warehouse!
I carved through the floor and plunged the room another twenty feet to add narrow catwalks, ladders, and air vents. Of course, the exit was right by the highest catwalk next to the “engineering room.” Inside was a console table with random buttons that didn’t work.
Hissing steam from the heating pipes covered the walls, and I even added a protruding cylindrical vat with a greenish acidic substance floating inside.
Random chains hang from the ceiling and at the ends, glinting with sharp hooks and dried blood.
The floors were caked with grime, oily puddles, and soot.
And, of course, I couldn’t forget about the smell. Iron, sulfur, decaying organic matter, and various odd chemicals suffused the chamber.
I also raised the temperature to ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit. I wanted it to feel like the sweltering heat of summer, sweat sticking to your shirt and skin, which accidentally also increased the moisture in the room, creating a hazy fog.
And last, the furnace itself. Fire burning, crackling with anger. Engines whistled and wheezed as the machine breathed.
Freddy Krueger will be right at home.
Once the chamber was complete, Goliath dragged all the cultists and secured them on the metallic seats.
“Do you think I went overboard?” I asked Goliath about the Furnace Chamber.
Goliath looked around, nodding with approval. He threw me two thumbs up.
“Oh, so you like it?”
Goliath rests the palm of his hand on his chest.
Aw, he didn’t like it. He loved it. I smiled. “Oh, good! Ready to give them a show?”
Goliath raised his eyebrows and pointed at himself reluctantly.
“Yeah, yeah. You’ll play first. Oldie will be in the tunnels in case they get that far. If they get extremely lucky, Demon and Siren will watch the woods and the lake.”
Goliath gave me the “okay” symbol, tilted his head questioningly, went up the ladder again, and returned to the teleportation chamber. He dragged Andre’s body to the Furnace Chamber. Once he reached the catwalk, Goliath didn’t feel like carrying him down the ladder; he just threw him over the railing, and his body fell thirty feet below.
The pixie dust still had an hour left, and I watched Goliath work his magic. He cut, chopped, dissected, and violated Andre’s corpse. He slowly propped the limbs around the crossbow tube. I had no idea what he was going for, but I told him this was his show, so I didn’t interfere. Once he was done, I realized what he was going for: a snowman made from Andre’s body parts. He chopped off the man’s split head and placed it on the flat surface just above the crossbow section. He forced open Andre’s intact right eye, ensuring he was making eye contact with whomever the crossbow was aiming at.
And just to add an extra creep factor, Goliath sliced through Andre’s cheeks to make him smile from ear to ear. He stepped back and admired his grotesque work.
“Jesus, Goliath,” I said. “That’s, um, a lot.”
Goliath smiled and raised his hands into tiger claws. Meant to be scary, he would say.
“Well, it’s scary and fucked up, alright.”
He proudly tapped on his chest again, loving it.
“It’s your show, big man. Give them a good scare.”
Allie was the last person to wake up from Jessica screaming from seeing Andre’s brutalized corpse. They were all annoyingly shouting and crying out for help in the past five minutes. They tried to escape from their bonds, but their wrists were secured on the chair’s armrests, and their ankles locked to the chair’s legs. Only Goliath could release them by pulling the lever at the platform’s edge.
I let them sit there for a good ten minutes, sweating, swearing, and crying. Letting them ruminate in their thoughts, let the fear of the unknown simmer deep inside until it boiled over.
“Hello?! Is anybody there?!” Brandon shouted. Goliath was kind enough to put his pants back on when we teleported him from the toilet.
“Ahh! It’s no use!” Conrad said. “No one’s gonna help us.”
“Brandon, where are we?” Jessica sobbed. “What do they want with us?”
“I don’t know, baby. But once I’m out of this fucking chair, I swear, I’m gonna fuck them up!”
“That’s not helping, Brandon,” Allie said. “We don’t even know who they are. And Andre...”
Conrad caught the glint in her eye. “What? You know something? Because last time I remember, I was talking to you, and then I was in this dark room, and something hit me on the back of the head.”
“Same for me,” Brandon and Jessica said at the same time.
“I got a call,” Allie said.
“What call?” Jessica asked.
“From Jonas. But it wasn’t Jonas. The man on the other line said he was...” Allie paused.
“Well? He was what?” Conrad asked impatiently.
Allie tried to hold back her tears. “He said he’s dead. He...he led me out of the terminal. And I was being so stupid that I thought it was him. It sounded exactly like him. I ran...I grabbed Andre...and then one thing I know, we were on this platform, and Andre just...he just...exploded!” Her Resolve dropped to orange as she recollected the memory.
All of their Resolve hovered between yellow and orange, and Goliath didn’t even do anything yet.
“So we all saw the platform,” Brandon said. “We were all at the airport, and now we ended up here in a blink of an eye. It’s gotta be some kind of teleportation magic. Does this sound like divination magic to any of you? Conrad, do you know any divination artifacts like this?”
I frowned. “Liar.”
Thwack!
The crossbow shot out, and the bolt slammed into Conrad’s shoulder. He howled like a wounded beast, shaking and trembling as he gaped at the bolt lodged deep into his flesh just under the collarbone. “Fuuuccck!!!!” He screamed.
Everyone’s Resolve wavered dangerously close to the brink when they realized there was no escape from this contraption, not until they gave me names. Still, their loyalty to the cult and to Astaroth was greater. I’ll change their tune soon, I thought.
The crossbow swiveled around and pointed at Jessica.
“No! No, no, no!” Jessica begged. “Please, no!”
“If you dare fucking touch her...” Brandon glowered at Goliath.
“Or what?” I asked. “What will you do, Brandon? You are stuck in that chair like everyone else. What are you planning to do?”
“I’ll... I’ll kill you.”
I grinned. “I highly doubt that, but whatever makes you feel better. Anyway, Jessica, you know what to give me.”
Jessica sobbed. “But I don’t know anything. I swear!”
The orb was still red. Jessica realized it, too, and watched in horror as the crossbow lowered its angle and shot her.
Thwack!
The bolt embedded itself just above her right knee, and Jessica shrieked as pain coursed up her body.
“You motherfucker!” Brandon shouted. “I’ll kill you!”
The crossbow swiveled again to face Allie.
“Allie, don’t fucking give him anything. That’s what he wants! He’s still going to kill us!”
Allie had been holding back her tears since she saw Jonas get split in half by the elevator, but then she saw the blood pouring out of Conrad’s and Jessica’s wounds. Something primal took hold of her. She tried to slip the cuffs off her wrists until they bruised red. No matter what she did, she couldn’t get out of that chair.
“I’m not gonna tell you shit!” Allie shouted. “Never!”
Thwack!
The crossbow bolt slammed right under her right breast; blood quickly seeped out and ran down her blouse. “Ahhh!” She tried to kick the pain away as adrenaline surged across her body.
It was Brandon’s turn.
“I don’t know shit! No names, no nothing! That’s the truth! If you want to torture me before you kill me, just do it already—” Brandon paused, mouth agape.
The orb glowed green, reflecting its colors across Brandon’s face.
“Huh, will you look at that,” I said to Oracle. “One truth on the first round. We’re making progress.”
> HE DOES NOT KNOW THE NAMES. WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH HIM?
“Keep him on that chair for now. He may be useful once I get to Jessica.”
Was that relief I saw on Brandon’s face? It brought his Resolve a little higher, but not enough. Not when his girlfriend was still on the chopping block across from him. He cared for her genuinely, I realized. If Justin and Melanie could find love while murdering people, I reckoned Brandon and Jessica could as well.
I turned the crossbow toward Conrad again, and his eyes widened.
“Oh, fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck...” he stammered, squirming in his seat.
“You know what to do, Conrad.”
“But I don’t know! That thing must be broken or something!”
“Wrong answer.”
“No, please—!”
Thwack!
The bolt smacked into his stomach and pierced right through his liver. Conrad buckled over, bile bubbled up his throat, and he retched what he ate for breakfast all over himself.
The crossbow swiveled again. Jessica squirmed like Conrad did, and like Conrad, she refused to tell me The Seat’s names. Another bolt hit her below the stomach. Allie managed to evade the bolt by leaning quickly to the side, although she didn’t get that far enough, and the bolt slammed onto her right upper arm instead.
It was Brandon’s turn again.
“I already told you. I know nothing!”
“I know. But this question is meant for Jessica. Unlike you, she does. She knew a name, at least. And she will give it to me in exchange for your life.”
“W—What?” Jessica faltered.
“A name, Ms. Pruitt. A name for Brandon’s life.”
“But you don’t know what you’re asking me to do.”
“Why? Do you fear The Seat more than me? After all, I’ve shown you?”
“You don’t understand.”
I lowered my voice. “Then, enlighten me.”
“Look, they are powerful people. I’ve seen what they can do. They are chosen by Astaroth himself as his heralds. It’s...I can’t! I can’t do it!”
I was not impressed. Not one bit. I raised the angle of the crossbow, aiming for Brandon’s face. The contraption clicked into place, making him jump from fright.
“Shit! Jess! Just...”
“Baby...” Jessica whimpered.
Brandon watched in horror as the bolt was loaded onto the crossbow. There was no stopping it. No tears or amount of begging could stop this. Not even his girlfriend. Panic crossed his face. His own sweat drenched him. He desperately wanted to stand his ground. To say nothing and stick it up my ass. But this...this was something else. A primal fear he had never experienced before. An accountant rarely handled the blade and cut flesh, not like Hodge and his followers. No, Brandon Satcher was a desk pusher who masqueraded as a tough guy, built his muscles for show, and pretended to be a blue-collared guy when he was nothing but a rich prick. When death glared at you in the face, you had no choice but to run, hide, or fight. That’s just human nature.
“Tell him...” Brandon said softly.
“I...I...what?”
“Jess, tell him!”
“But, Brandon—”
“—Just. Fucking. Tell. Him!”
“I can’t! I’m sorry! I can’t!”
“Jessica! Please!”
“I’m so sorry...”
“Oh, fuck...” It dawned on him like a barreling truck. “Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck! Get me out of here!”
“Oh, shit, I can’t look,” Conrad said and looked away, forcing his eyes shut.
Brandon thrashed on his seat, waiting for the bolt to fire. He tried calculating his timing to see if he could duck just in time for the bolt to miss him.
The first bolt did miss him--by an inch. It hit the headrest with a loud thump, clipping him on his right earlobe and pinning him on the chair. Brandon screamed as he pulled his head back, tearing his earlobe off to free himself.
But the crossbow was already loaded with the second bolt, and I didn’t give him enough time to collect himself before it fired.
Thwack!
The bolt slammed through his left eye. Brandon let out a stifled, high-pitched croak as if a stone had lodged in his throat. He was still alive, turning his head left and right as if he could see where the bolt had landed, not knowing it was already embedded inside his skull. Then, his other eye forcibly glided to the side, the nerves losing their signals, his vision blurring.
“I...I, Jess...” He tried to speak, but he couldn’t find the words.
Suddenly, the weight of his skull was too much, and he leaned forward, hoping that would help alleviate the pressure pounding at the back of his head. He stayed there forever, blood trickling out of his nostrils and his mouth. He let out one final strangled choke, an exhaled breath, and then silence.
Except for everyone’s screams—Jessica’s, in particular.
[ You have gained 1 essence: Brandon Satcher ]
[ You have gained 150 crystals ]
The crossbow swiveled again toward Conrad.
And Conrad sang like a sweet fucking bird. They all did, eventually.