by Ramy Vance
Suzuki turned and spoke to Sandy. “Can you work on dissolving the illusion? You should have as much time as you need. I’m pretty sure if anyone opens one of these doors, they’ll just be sent into another version of this room.”
Sandy nodded and pulled out one of her massive tomes. She sat down on the couch and started to thumb through its pages.
While Sandy figured out how to dissolve whatever magic had been worked on the mansion, Suzuki fiddled with his SD upgrade. Before they had left the Red Lion, the Chipmaster had gifted them all repair kits for their HUDs, in case anything happened. She had stood over them like an overbearing older sister, shaking her head, saying, “Headshots are a dime a dozen out in the real world, ye lil’ whelps. One to the noggin, and presto, you’re knocked out to dream space and monsters get to have their ill-intentioned ways with ya. Ya know, in the most biblical of senses. Them fuckers loosen your noggin visor, and you won’t be seeing straight enough to give ‘em the good ol’ ultra-violence. So take one of these in case you get a little unseen head trauma.”
Suzuki had thought that it was overkill. He’d been hit in the head more than a couple of times, and his HUD had always been fine. Now, he was grateful the Horsemen had taken the Mundanes under their wing. Suzuki wondered how he could have been naïve enough to assume that every MERC was gifted with a piece of head armor that was nearly invincible.
Stew was standing by a bookcase with a sheet of paper, a pen, and a bottle of ink on it. He called Suzuki over to him.
The paper was crisp and cream-colored while the pen was an ornate feather piece. A single sentence was written on the paper.
Eat Me.
Suzuki picked up the paper and looked underneath it. There was nothing there. He didn’t know what it was that this paper was referring to, but he was fairly certain that he didn’t want anything to do with it. There could easily be a trap waiting.
Stew, on the other hand, had already dipped the tip of the quill pen in the ink. “What do you think it is?”
“A warning to leave it alone.”
Suzuki placed the paper back in its spot as neatly as he could. He tried to line up the edges perfectly so that it did not look as if it had been disturbed.
The paper had hardly touched the surface of the bookcase before Stew leaned over and scrawled something underneath the sentence on the paper. He wrote Alice in Wonderland.
“What the hell are you doing, Stew?”
Sandy looked up from her book, her eyebrows low and her eyes narrowed. She looked like a very irate librarian. “Will you two keep it down over there?” she hissed.
“Sorry,” they muttered.
When Sandy returned to her book, Stew leaned over the paper to get a better look at what was happening while Suzuki tried to pull him back. “We should not be fucking with this right now,” Suzuki growled as he tried to wrestle the pen out of Stew’s hand.
Stew fought back and stomped hard on Suzuki’s foot. “Fuck off, dude,” Stew said, “This is a fucking riddle. I love riddles.”
The ink on the paper disappeared. Then, slowly, a new sentence bled out onto the parchment: “Yuletide cruelty sets spirits to flight.”
Stew reached to pen his answer. “Don’t,” Suzuki interrupted. Stew didn’t listen, and he wrote down his reply: A Christmas Carol.
Even though Suzuki was extremely annoyed, he couldn’t help but look at the paper to see if the answer was accepted. The ink disappeared, and a new sentence appeared: “Finale: A building, a war, a flower.”
Stew delicately scratched his face as he stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth.
Suzuki noticed for the first time that Stew had a variety of different kinds of skin picking. He picked obsessively when he was nervous. But this one right here, barely touching his skin, was almost like an uncomfortable caress. Suzuki hadn’t seen this before. He had the rising suspicion that this was what Stew looked like when he was being thoughtful.
Finally, Stew sighed and turned around to call to Sandy, “Hey, babe! What’s that flower that your grandma uses with her blood thinners?”
Without looking up, Sandy shouted back, “Paris.”
Stew scrawled the answer onto the paper before Suzuki could even ask why he had never heard Sandy mention her grandmother.
The ink on the parchment disappeared. Another sentence appeared: Please collect your reward.
The bookcase shook as the books on the shelves started to lean back or fall forward, some of them moving to the side, the whole bookcase rearranging itself so there was an empty shelf with a small wooden box on it. Before Suzuki could say anything, Stew reached out and opened the box.
Three SD upgrades sat on the velvet lining.
Stew snatched them and raised them in the air as he danced and shouted, “I got three new SDs, bitches!”
Sandy, still glued to her book, replied, “No, you don’t. There are three of us. You have one SD upgrade. Don’t be a dick.”
“What? You guys didn’t even do anything.”
“I answered your question, so I deserve one. Not sharing with Suzuki when we both get an upgrade is just poor form.”
“Poor form?”
“A douche move.”
“Fine. Fine, let’s split them up.”
Suzuki motioned for Stew to follow him back to the couch, where he took a seat next to Sandy, who hardly noticed. Stew passed Suzuki the SD’s as Suzuki got to work repairing his HUD. The damage wasn’t too bad. The SD card that he used to mask his scent (recently he’d been using it as a form of different colognes) was only knocked out of place. It only took a few moments to reset the SD card and change his scent back to Forest Greenery. Then he looked at the new SD cards. The information for the cards displayed itself on Suzuki’s HUD.
Critical Hit: Displays enemies’ weak spots, allowing the user to better choose where to attack. Also increases damage when connecting a critical hit.
Clairvoyance: Allows user to open a small magical portal anywhere and another corresponding portal. The user may look through their portal and see out of the other portal, undetected by all but the strongest of magic users.
Spell Splitting: The user of this upgrade can effectively split a spell in two without consuming excessive mana. The spell will be split simply, such as casting a fireball that instantly doubles. Advanced casters may also use this ability to create spell hybrids, two spells cast simultaneously for the cost of the lowest mana-consuming spell.
Stew snatched the three SDs from Suzuki’s hand. “I call the Spell Splitting,” he said.
Sandy peeked up from her book for a second, her face showing she was already tired of this conversation. “Stew, you don’t even use magic,” she objected.
“Yeah, but this thing is gonna sell for so much money!”
“I’m taking the Spell Splitting.” Sandy fluttered her eyes and touched the neckline of her shirt suggestively.
“Wait, but I totes… Fine.”
“Which one do you want, Suzuki?”
“I don’t know. Clairvoyance sounds pretty useful. Might give me the edge on planning something.”
“Sounds good,” Sandy chirped. “Stew, you get Critical Hit.”
Stew threw his arms up in exasperation as he stood up from the couch. He looked like a child complaining that he never got his way. “That’s so boring,” he whined. “Both of your cards are sick.”
Sandy’s eyes darkened as she closed her book and stood up to confront Stew face-to-face. “Stop acting like a baby,” she raged. “You literally hit things with different sharp things. All you do is try to get critical hits. Why would you want a card that gives you magic upgrades when you don’t have magic? Or take an upgrade a Peeping Tom would want?”
“I don’t know. They sound kind of cool.”
Sandy stepped closer to Stew and wrapped her arms around his waist as she pulled him in. “Come on, baby, think of all the heads you can chop off. You can nickname it something cooler than Critical Hit. We’ll have Chip edit it
. Make it your own legendary SD.”
The affection worked. Stew’s irritation almost instantly left his face. He brightened up at the notion so quickly Suzuki would have thought Stew came up with the idea all on his own. “You’re right,” Stew relented. “I can make that shit so badass. Crit Hits every five—”
There was a crash of wood and falling furniture. Stew’s eyes went wide as a slender black hand wrapped around his neck. He reached out to grab Suzuki, but the black hand pulled, and it pulled hard. Stew was snapped back to the wall and pulled into a massive hole. Suzuki and Sandy ran to the hole, reaching after Stew. There was nothing but blackness beyond the hole. The only sound that could be heard was Stew screaming.
Chapter Sixteen
Suzuki was still staring into the black void that stretched beyond the confines of the hole in the wall. There was nothing. The blackness went on and on; there was no light to be seen. He felt the distinct sensation of falling. Even when he looked at his feet, which were still solidly on the ground, it felt as if he were flying through the blackness of that space. He backed away from the hole very slowly.
On the couch, Sandy was rapidly flipping through the pages of her book. She stopped at certain dog-eared pages, and finally pulled a piece of chalk and a small wand out of her robes. “Gimme a hand,” she told Suzuki as she started pushing the couch back.
Suzuki noticed that Sandy didn’t bother trying to levitate the couch. Before he could say anything, she raised the wand. “I’m out of mana,” she explained. “There’s not much I can do with my own body, but I can still perform rituals, and the wand will help with the in-between.”
Sandy knelt in the new space. She drew a series of circles on the ground, interweaving, interconnected orbs. Every couple of seconds, she would consult the book that was open by her side. She raised her wand once she was satisfied with the transcription. The tome that she was copying from floated up so that she could read from it. “There is that which is seen and that which is known,” she murmured. “Let that which is true forever be shown.”
A pulse of energy emanated from the circle in the middle of the floor. A blinding blue light flashed through the room, and Suzuki covered his eyes to shield himself. When he dropped his hands, he was still standing in the room with Sandy. “Did it work?” he asked.
Sandy raised her finger to her lips and shushed him. “Listen,” she whispered.
There was a steady pounding from behind the walls, the sound of heavy footsteps. It was the giant. Suzuki pulled up his HUD and made sure that his scent was still set to Forest Greenery. Then an idea popped into his head.
“Do you think you could find a buffer spell?” Suzuki asked. “Like something to take my status effect and apply it to the whole party?”
“Yeah, I know one,” Sandy replied as she started flipping through her book. She tossed it on the ground and started to draw a complicated network of runes. Even though she was rushing, Suzuki could see that she was well-practiced in the art. He wondered how long she’d been studying ritual work. It had never occurred to him to find out what other ways there were to perform magic. He guessed that was why Sandy had wanted to be a mage. It certainly looked like she had a knack for it.
Sandy stood up when she was done, the book floating up with her. She waved her wand, and the runes at her feet glowed an eerie green. “That which is within, let it be spread thick,” she murmured, her eyes rolling back as if she were in a trance, “That which is yours, let it be ours.”
Suzuki concentrated on his scent SD upgrade. He wasn’t sure that he needed to be focusing, but it made sense to him. Once the runes stopped glowing, he looked at Sandy through his HUD and scanned her for status effects. An icon above her head read Forest Greenery. “Fucking great,” Suzuki said as he scrolled through the infinite options for scents on his SD. Trying to conjure up the scent would be easier. He racked his brain for something that would slip past the giant undetected. “Change scent to vampire body odor,” he finally said.
“Suzuki, are you fucking serious? Now is not the time to be fucking around.”
“No, hear me out,” Suzuki said. “The undead don’t smell like us, but they don’t smell like rotting flesh either. Or at least not only rotting flesh. They smell like something between. If this giant’s been in here with these vampires for a while, it’s probably used to how they smell. This way we can sneak past him, and he won’t pick up on anything weird.”
“Okay. Gross, but it makes sense. Come on. We gotta go find Stew.”
Suzuki creaked the door open and peered down the hallway. Sandy’s Dispel illusion spell had worked. He was staring down a hallway he hadn’t seen since they’d started running through the mansion. The hallway was decorated with candles that cast an eerie light on the floor.
In the distance, Suzuki could see the giant turning the corner. “All right, we’re going the other way.”
A scream that sounded frighteningly like Stew’s echoed down the hall. It was followed by, “Holy shit! Get that thing the fuck away from me! Once I get down from here, I’m going to personally shove my sword up each and every one of your assholes.”
Suzuki and Sandy took off in the direction of Stew’s voice. Fuck being quiet, Suzuki thought to himself. It sounded like something horrifying was about to happen to Stew. If the giant heard them, that just meant that they were bringing a giant to the slaughter.
They turned a corner and stopped in their tracks. Two massive stone doors which stretched up to the ceiling stood before them. The doors were covered with stone etchings like what they had seen before, but there was a difference.
These doors didn’t tell any stories. There was only one scene. A creature of immense size and girth took up most of the upper section of the stone—the creature that was depicted in the altar at the front of the church. Its tentacles and feet combined and stretched toward the middle of the doors, where they trampled over thousands and thousands of bodies: elves, humans, orcs, and halflings.
The bottom of the door showed dead bodies, their blood forming a sort of structure near the base.
Stew’s screams rang out from behind the door again.
Suzuki pushed all his questions out of his mind. He desperately wanted to help Stew, but barging in wouldn’t help anyone. Helping Stew meant taking his time, planning this right. He only hoped the barbarian could hold his own for a few more seconds.
He pulled his HUD off, grabbed his tinker’s tool, and quickly installed his new SD card. There wasn’t enough time to do a proper installation, and, even then, it probably would have taken the Chipmaster to install the SD to work to its full potential. This quick install should work well enough, Suzuki thought. He placed his HUD back on.
The HUD read New SD card detected. New SD card activated. Cast Clairvoyance in that room, Fred, Suzuki ordered.
There is something foul in there, Fred said. Something old. Something far too old to be played with.
Whatever it is, it has Stew, which means it’s going to be more than played with. We’re going to fuck it up.
As you wish, human.
A portal slightly larger than Suzuki’s palm opened in front of him. He brought his face close to it. He could see into the other room, but only faintly. There were a few discernable figures, but none appeared to be vampires.
Suzuki instinctively moved his hand, and the portal on the other side of the room turned so that he could get a better look. From this point of view, he could see Stew. He was hanging over a cauldron.
Fuck it, we need to move. Help me with the door!
“Wait, Suzuki, hold on,” Sandy said. Change your scent to garlic.”
“What?”
“Change it to garlic and let me amplify the smell. If the lore is right, and Myrddin made sure to teach us as much of it as possible, vampires can’t stand that smell. It’ll keep them away from us long enough so we can get Stew.”
Suzuki mentally adjusted his scent to freshly-chopped garlic as Sandy knelt and covered the floor with
runes as fast as she could. She waved her wand, muttering the words of the spell, and the hallway was filled with the overpowering smell of garlic. “All right,” Suzuki said as he leaned against the door. “Let’s get in, grab Stew, and get out fast.”
They pushed against the stone doors until the doors finally started to budge. They were barely able to make an opening small enough for them to slip through, but they managed.
The main hall pulsed with magic, a kind of magic Suzuki had never come across before. Candles floated from the ceiling in elaborate patterns, and it seemed as if each flame had a face. The walls looked as if blood was running down them in steady streams. A row of seats circled the cauldron, which bubbled and emitted a foul-smelling odor as smoke wafted up toward Stew, who dangled from a chain that linked his wrists together. He was naked and covered in small cuts that dripped blood.
His eyes fluttered open when Sandy and Suzuki stepped into the room.
Stew fought the chains and they jangled loudly. “Get out of here, you guys,” he shouted. “Get the fuck out of here! She’s waiting for you!”
Suzuki looked around the room, trying to find whatever was causing Stew to freak out. His eyes didn’t catch anything. Then he noticed a small hunched figure sitting at the foot of the cauldron, covered in sackcloth, rocking back and forth.
“Sandy,” Stew shouted, “I told her I have a girlfriend! I promise! But she wants to give me the succ! I told her, Sandy. Get me down from here! I don’t want it! I don’t want her to give me the succ!”
Sandy couldn’t keep herself from laughing. “He goes from ‘get out of here’ to ‘save me’ real fast,” Sandy said. “Let’s kill this old bitch and get some clothes on this kid.”
Suzuki and Sandy stepped farther into the room. The mass of black rags looked in their direction. She did not have a face, only long black hair that hung over the blankness. A small slit ran from the top of her forehead down to where her mouth should have ended. She held small, bloody bones in her hand, and she tossed them to the ground as the two Mundanes approached her.