He checked the interactive map. “This leads to something called a ‘refectory.’ Maybe we’ll find a clue in there as to where the treasure is hidden.”
The intrepid explorers followed the passage at the bottom of the staircase into a stone-walled room with one glass wall looking out on the graveyard.
“Is this a room for eating or for reading?” Distan wondered as they cautiously let themselves out from behind the swinging bookcase. She clapped a hand over her mouth as her voice echoed off the stone walls.
“I don’t know,” Lecten replied in a near-whisper.
Froom strode confidently to the dining table, which was strewn with papers and books. “Start searching,” he told them. “I have a good feeling about this.”
Distan’s eyes were on the full-length oil-on-canvas portrait over the mantle. “This human was beautiful, whoever she was.” She continued to admire the details of the slender blonde woman’s portrait. “I wish I had a red dress like that.”
“I can’t imagine it would fit your real body,” Lecten commented. “What about her red eyes? You want them, too?”
Distan tiptoed to get a closer look, steadying her unaccustomed body shape by grasping the mantle with both hands. “Oh, yeah. That’s—” Her voice dropped off when the woman winked at her. “Um, guys?”
Froom and Lecten looked at Distan, who pointed at the portrait.
“She just moved,” she told them in a tremulous voice. “I think we should get out of here?”
They all scrutinized the portrait.
The woman’s demure smile transformed into the features every nonhuman dreaded seeing, and she emerged from the painting with her fangs on display.
“Fight!” Froom yelled, grabbing the candelabra he’d been using to read by.
“Would you look at that,” Bethany Anne commented as Gabrielle Mysted out of the life-sized portrait of the professor’s mother, her reformed body glowing with energy. “They didn’t freeze like I expected.”
The three players in the refectory reacted bravely, despite their obvious fear.
Michael smirked as the majority of the players scattered in the main hall before glancing at the screen Bethany Anne was watching with interest. “They’ve got more than the ghost of Gabrielle to contend with,” he replied as Eric’s shields came down over the exits.
The players began to fight back in earnest when they realized that they were trapped.
Bethany Anne was impressed by their teamwork in tipping the heavy table onto its side to use as cover to fire from behind. “I’m looking at their bios,” she told Michael. “We have three post-adolescent Yollins.”
“Ah, well. What do you expect from our Yollin friends?” Michael asked.
Gabrielle plucked single bullets from the air and flicked them back at the players. “That stings!” she complained when she was raked with automatic weapons fire by one of the remaining players.
“Take a deep breath, babe,” Eric told her as he stepped out of the shadows. He brought his shields in and cut the oxygen, and the three players who had Gabrielle pinned down collapsed unconscious to the floor.
Gabrielle stepped over the players on her way to the door.
Eric looked at the three players. “You’re gonna let them wake up?”
Gabrielle shrugged, a smile touching her blood-red lips. “I liked that they didn’t run screaming. Give them a chance.”
The three Yollins woke up after being knocked out by the ghost with the sharp teeth and scurried from the refectory before the horrifying specter came back to finish what she’d started.
Lecten waved the slip of paper he’d found just before the ghost appeared. “I got what we needed. It looks like it was torn from a diary.”
“What does it say?” Froom asked, leaning in to get a look at the tight cursive script. “I don’t read human so well.”
Distan snatched the paper and held it up to the light. “‘I am waiting,’” she read. “‘I have searched the tomb and found my impending death among the treasures.’”
“Treasures?” Froom repeated. “That’s what we’re looking for. What the ghost was trying to scare us away from. We have to go back into the refectory and keep searching.”
“Wait,” Distan told him. “There’s more. ‘My peers laughed at my interest in Methertang, but how can one let go of such a mystery? They will retract their falsehoods when I return to Stanley Manor with all that I have discovered. The crypt—'” She turned the piece of paper over and scowled. “That’s all there is.”
Froom zeroed in on the final sentence. “There’s a crypt. I’d bet the ship we’ll find the treasure in there.”
Lecten frowned. “But where is the crypt? It’s not marked on the map.” He scoured the in-menu map again in case he’d missed it the first time. “No, there’s nothing in the basement but the storage cellars.”
Froom brought up his map and searched the location tabs. “You’re right. Wait, what’s this area?” He highlighted a space where the dimensions didn’t appear to fit the reality. “We passed through here, remember? It wasn’t wide enough for us to walk side by side, but the map is showing a wide corridor.”
Distan’s eyes lit up. “Hey, maybe there’s a secret passage we missed?”
“That would make sense,” Lecten agreed.
“At least the other players can’t see us,” Froom called over his shoulder as they ran. “It would be just our luck to find the crypt and find out another group followed us.”
“This way, it doesn’t matter if we fail,” Distan agreed. “We can just come right back to wherever we get taken out.”
They rushed into the ground floor corridor and spread out to examine the area.
Froom pressed at the wall panels, tugged on the light fixtures, and turned the decorations on the mantelpiece, to no avail.
Lecten pulled books off the shelves of the case that filled a niche in the corridor.
“Watch it,” Distan told him. “We might miss the clue if we rush.” She picked up the books Lecten had discarded and flicked through them with care. “Haven’t any of you seen a human movie? They love hiding things in plain sight.”
A chill passed over the corridor, causing the three of them to pause in the search.
Froom voiced their fears. “Do you think it’s the ghost?”
Another howl split the night, putting the fear of ghosts firmly at the bottom of their lists.
“It can’t be,” Distan moaned through chattering teeth, although she knew she was wrong. “They wouldn’t let a Pricolici loose in here, would they?”
Froom joined Lecten at the bookcase and began pulling the books out. “Just hurry up. If we’re not here for a Pricolici to find, we can’t get eaten alive.”
He reached for the shelf above and pulled a series of thick leather-bound tomes out one by one. “Hey, this one is stuck.”
A sudden movement of the case startled them all. They jumped back as the bookcase swung inward, revealing the passage they had suspected was there.
Froom grinned. “Looks like we caught a break. Let’s go.”
They entered the passage and paused as the bookcase swung back to its original position.
“You sure you want to do this?” Distan asked after they were plunged into darkness.
Froom dipped into his inventory—a soft backpack each character wore—and pulled out a flashlight. “As sure as I’m ever gonna be. Come on, this passage has to go somewhere good.”
Bethany Anne followed the players’ progress around the haunted house with something approaching glee.
Michael had the crypt-cam up on the largest monitor. “Are we going to tell John and Nickie they have company coming?”
“No,” Bethany Anne replied with a grin. “The Ookens don’t announce their arrival, so we won’t be giving anyone a heads-up. Just make sure the players don’t miss the weapons cache. How are Tabitha and Peter getting on in the cemetery?”
Michael snickered. “I’m calling it the Garden of Wast
ed Lives. No one who has entered the graveyard has survived so far. We might need more players if they don’t wise up and move on.”
Bethany Anne chuckled as she leaned back in her chair to get a better view of the carnage among the grave markers. “Oh, well. If they want to keep going back there, who are we to argue?” She opened a video link to Sabine in Network Command. “Peter is having a little bit too much fun, and the players are dropping like flies. We need fresh meat. Suggestions?”
Sabine tapped her lips with a finger as she thought. “This event was oversubscribed. Want me to tell the first hundred who didn’t get in that they can play?”
Bethany Anne waved a finger in a circle at the screen. “Make it so.”
Sabine rolled her eyes as she signed off. “Of course, my Queen.”
Nickie watched John with barely concealed impatience. “Where the shiny fuck are all the players?” she bitched. “Seriously, I’m growing old waiting for the action.”
John met her stare with his usual impenetrable gaze. “They’ll be here. Just wait.”
Nickie growled and stalked off to check the corridors around the crypt. “You’re no fun, Grandad. I’m going to find Scott and Darryl.”
“Suit yourself,” he told her. “That leaves more for me when they get here.”
Nickie found them guarding the cemetery’s side entrance.
Darryl turned as she approached the open mausoleum doors, as did Scott. However, only one of them reacted before seeing who was there.
Nickie dodged the flame ball and sent out a wave of anger that filled both men to the core. “You know I can make you cry like a little girl, right?” she asked Scott as she reached their vantage point. “Watch where you’re flinging that shit, or I’m gonna do it.”
Scott chuckled. “I’d like to see you try, kiddo,” he told her amusedly.
Darryl stepped back from the door. “Shhh. A bunch of players finally took Pete out.”
Nickie rubbed her hands together. “Yeah? How many?”
Darryl’s eyes widened. “Ohhh, shit. Like, fifty, maybe?”
Scott grinned. “It’s about time we got to have some fun. Can you distract them for a minute, Nickie? I have an idea.”
Nickie flexed her cat claws and returned Scott’s grin. “Just point me at them.”
Scott pointed.
Nickie rolled her eyes. “Dumbass. C’mon, Black Frightening. Let’s show Jerry Lee Lewis here how it’s done.”
Scott shared a glance with Darryl as Nickie traipsed out of the mausoleum entrance. “How the fuck does she know that reference?”
“Try spending eight years without human contact on a ship with no Gate drive,” Nickie called. “The video archives will become your only escape from the monotony of travel. Are you coming, Darryl? Or do I have to do all the work myself?” Her laughter echoed eerily across the graveyard. “Damned old people. I’ll get you a walking stick if it hurries you the fuck up.”
Darryl seriously considered the pros and cons of a friendly fire incident for a second before setting off after her. “This is why I never had kids,” he commented to Scott.
“Mouthy little shits like Nickie are a good argument for getting the snip,” Scott agreed. “That young woman has entirely too much Grimes in her. Not all kids are trouble. I can’t fault Todd and Tina. They were good kids.”
“True,” Darryl agreed. He switched to comm as he left the mausoleum. “What’s your play here?”
Scott indicated the graveyard with a nod. “Herd the players to that empty spot between the angel and the bench. We’ll see how fireproof these avatars are, and Nickie will go back to annoying John in no time at all.”
Nickie’s laugh rang out again, complementing the screams of the players. “Don’t run! I thought you wanted to play?”
Darryl cast a bolt of lightning to add to the spooky atmosphere. “Play nice, Nickie,” he cautioned. “Stick to the plan.”
“Screw that,” she shot back in his ear. “I want my fun.”
Darryl shrugged. “Are you ever gonna figure out how to work with a team?”
“I work alone,” she intoned in a sing-song voice. “No man tells me what to— Oh. Hi, Aunt Tabbie.”
Darryl almost walked into Tabitha and Nickie. “Christ on a bicycle! Don’t come out of nowhere like that. I almost fried you both.”
Tabitha smirked. “Can’t get any hotter than I already am. Do your worst.”
Darryl groaned, putting his hands over his ears. “Take me now. I can’t handle this much snark in stereo.”
Down in the crypt, John’s patience was about to pay off.
He heard the prospective tomb raiders approaching from the hidden passageway in the house and rubbed his hands together in glee. “Get some, motherfuckers,” he murmured, a slow smile spreading as the shuffling footsteps and whispers got louder.
Three nervous-looking players emerged from the passage, each holding a glowing blade.
John could tell they were nonhuman by the slightly jerky way they moved. They were all clearly unused to operating a bipedal body. He melted into the shadows and made for his hiding place, meaning to allow them a moment of triumph before he snuffed them out.
“Hey, Froom, look at all this!” Distan breathed. “There’s got to be a million credits’ worth of gold in that one casket.”
“Concentrate on what you can carry,” Froom replied. “Lecten, put that crown down and look for something we can load up and wheel out of here.”
John grinned as he pushed the sarcophagus lid open a bare inch.
The two remaining players dropped everything at the sound of the heavy stone lid scraping across the top of the sarcophagus.
“Did you hear that?” Froom whispered.
Distan replied in the affirmative.
“I think it came from the casket,” Froom told her. “I think we should investigate.”
“What if it’s the curse?” Distan asked, hesitating before following their nominal leader over to the gold and jewel-encrusted plinth the sarcophagus was resting upon.
Froom knelt to chip one of the fist-sized rubies out of the side of the sarcophagus with his knife. “So what if there is? We still have all five lives intact. If some bandaged freak pops out of nowhere and takes us out, we just come back and finish the job.”
“Yeah,” Lecten agreed as he returned with a serving cart he’d found on the ground floor. “Let’s get this baby loaded up. We’ll get in a few trips before the other players figure out this is down here.”
Distan still kept her distance. “I don’t know. First there was that ghost, then we heard the Pricolici. What worse thing could be down here?”
John took that as his cue. He shoved the lid off and sat up to meet the players’ shocked stares with his eyes glowing red. “Boo.”
Froom scrabbled backward fruitlessly, trying to escape the beating terror that made its home in his heart. “J-j-j-j… John Grimes!”
Distan moaned, and Lecten screamed. The three stood frozen to the spot, unable to move.
Just then, Tabitha, Nickie, Darryl, and Scott ran in from the other passage with a mob of pissed-off, bloodthirsty players on their tails.
Gabrielle Mysted her and Eric through the ceiling right on time to take part in the free-for-all that erupted in the crypt. The players all had the glowing blades Bethany Anne had provided, and the Bitches and company weren’t too happy about being cut to ribbons.
Distan acted in the moment. She opened the game menu and sent out a message containing their game coordinates to every other player in the scenario.
We are getting slaughtered. Someone come help us kill the guards in Methertang’s tomb!
11
The Etheric
The fleet cut through the mists in strictly enforced silence.
Gödel worked to mute the metaphysical noise her ships broadcasted as they traversed the Etheric. The task of dampening their bow waves required nothing more than for her to monitor the system as she fed in the trickle of energ
y it took to operate it, leaving her open to introspection. The hive mind was at peace. Gödel’s adepts were in control, holding the minds of their charges tightly.
Pride pricked her consciousness as she continued her monitoring. Her fleet was a far cry from the single ship she had taken to her first meeting with the human she called Death. Her rise from the lowest of the low to the absolute ruler of the Seven, a Kurtherian deity capable of raising a fleet so fearsome it had to travel outside of reality to retain the element of surprise, had created a certain amount of hubris, which she reveled in when it was appropriate to do so.
Not that the human or the heretic residing within her and daring to call himself a pilot had known what was happening.
This was no time for such a dangerous indulgence. She was becoming aware of the risks that came with pride, a close cousin to emotion that was to be studiously avoided. Gödel repressed the memory before she triggered another headache. She had not escaped the encounter unscathed. For all the power she had gained, she had been contaminated as well.
The fleet came to a gradual halt as they reached the planned checkpoint.
Gödel opened a window onto reality and synchronized the navigation systems with the star points in her galaxy map. She received a request for attention from one of her newer adepts. “Speak,” she ordered.
“My captain has lost himself to the hive mind, Your Holiness,” the female reported. “He has sealed himself inside the bridge, and we cannot gain entry. The ship will be lost unless you help us regain control.”
Gödel entered the hive mind and found her Chosen’s consciousness there instead of on the ship he was supposed to be commanding. She recoiled at his decadence, the utter abandonment of his duty as he thrilled in the violent minds of her creations. This was why she did not admit just any adept to her Chosen. They had to be capable of removing all their personal desires. This Chosen had failed them all.
The Valkyrie Returns (The Kurtherian Endgame Book 7) Page 11