by T. K. Kato
“Iä! Iä! Cthulhu fhtagn! Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah-nagl fhtagn!”
I shuddered. With one hand on the door to steady it and—hopefully—suppress any sound, I eased it open, then slipped through the crack out into the night.
+1 Stealth
At least my character was learning something, right? I glanced around. No sign of any more crazy cultists. A fog had risen up off the bay, though, obscuring the town. Maybe that would work in my favor, granting me cover amid prying eyes.
I headed for the green. Across that lay the hotel, but that might well be the first place they’d look for me. I needed somewhere to lay low until I could solve the rest of the game.
The green was too open. Anyone could spot me from any building here. I changed course, instead heading deeper into the town. The more buildings around, the more alleys to take cover in.
A shout went up from the church I’d just left. Not words, at least not words in any human language, but rather croaks in the Deep One’s grating speech.
Guess they knew I was loose.
Choosing an alley at random, I made a break for it.
A group of three cultists hopped and shambled by the alley I’d just ducked in. I crouched deeper into the shadows, hiding behind an empty rotting crate until they’d gone well past. In the distance, other patrols shouted to one another in their croaking speech.
It was like the whole town was suddenly out now, with ten times as many people searching for me in the night as I’d ever seen in the whole town earlier. Patrols would no doubt be everywhere, actively hunting me.
It wasn’t exactly one of those mandatory stealth missions I so loathed. I mean, I could engage any patrol I wanted. I sure as hell didn’t think getting spotted meant the game would force me to respawn at some checkpoint or any other such bullshit. On the flip side, though, I’d already had my ass kicked by cultists once today, and I still didn’t have many HP left.
One fight might be the end of me, even if reinforcements didn’t show up.
Huh.
Actually, hadn’t I been planning to quit this whole damn game after it had knocked me out? Funny, but in the thrill of escaping the church, I’d entirely forgotten my annoyance. So yeah, all right, the game had pulled me in and wouldn’t let go.
I could take off the headset, go back to the hotel, and tell Elise I was done with it.
But I just … didn’t want to. No matter how indignant I’d felt, having my heart pound like this was … enthralling. Intoxicating, even.
So then, what next? The game obviously wasn’t going to let me just get some sleep at the hotel, though I was tired. It expected me to play through, no rest for the wicked and all. That meant I needed to light those other Cthulhu gems and get that big ass door open.
I was already near the crossroads that led down to the wharves or up to the refinery. Since both were locations mentioned on the map, both probably corresponded to a gem. As near as I could tell, I was allowed to take on the challenges in any order. Like any Metroidvania, though, I might meet an obstacle in one place that required a power from another location.
And getting more powers was never bad.
I crept up to the edge of the alley, glanced both ways, then trotted down the street, toward the crossroads. The town was big enough I wasn’t sure of the way, and I had to stop to pull up the map. It flashed translucent to fill my screen.
It looked like I needed to follow this street until the next intersection and then—
More croaking up ahead.
I waved a hand to shrink the map and made a beeline for the nearest house. No convenient alley to duck into. Instead, I was left with a tiny open space separating this house from its neighbor. A foot of clearance, at most. I slipped into the space and crouched down as another hopping patrol bypassed my location.
+1 Stealth
Navigating the rest of the town was going to prove a challenge with cultists coming through every time I turned around. I left the mini-map open.
What I needed to do was keep to the shadows while following the general course of the main roads. The map didn’t show these houses clearly, but it did indicate my location just off the street.
So could I advance down these narrow passages and still reach my destination? Lacking a better plan, I squeezed through the gap between the houses and then turned parallel to the street I wanted. More houses were tightly clustered together, most all boarded up. A few had fallen down completely, leaving nothing but rubble above foundations.
Glancing at the map after every turn, I made my way forward until my path intersected with yet another road. On this one, a patrol of a half dozen of those creeps ambled by, making a swift circuit of the town while grunting and carrying on in a horrid manner all the while.
The bright side of all that commotion was it covered any sound I might have made. I waited for them to pass.
No Stealth increase scrolled past my eyes. Idly, I wondered how the game calculated when to give a skill boost. Did it track uses like an Elder Scrolls game? Did it roll randomly with each use, maybe with the chance of an increase decreasing as skill rose? Some combination?
Under other circumstances, I’d have been fascinated to determine the advancement mechanic they’d used for Cthulhu World. Maybe if I won the game, I could have a chat with the creators.
At the moment though, I’d only managed to light one of six gems. Thoughts of victory were premature.
I pushed on, until I reached the crossroads. Several different groups of cultists passed through this way, apparently searching all the roads.
I remained in the shadows until all had passed, then dashed across the open street as quickly as I could manage. If they even once spotted me using those narrow spaces between the houses, I might lose that hiding place. Across the street the land was undeveloped, just dead bushes and sedge grass. I skidded to a stop over there and ducked down behind the underbrush, waiting.
A minute.
Another minute.
More cultists came up from the road to the wharves, then turned to head back to the main town.
If most of the townsfolk lived and worked around the wharves district, if they met the Deep Ones there, that seemed the more dangerous route. Rather than risk that, I began to make my way uphill, toward the refinery, flanking the road as I went.
The land rose steeply as I neared the refinery, culminating in a ridge before dropping down to a slightly lower level where the building rested. Atop that ridge, I lay on my stomach, peering down at my target. A rusted metal sign proclaimed it the “Marsh Refinery.” Below this, suspended by chain links, hung another sign: “No Trespassing!”
That brought a half grin to my face. A no trespassing sign in a video game was pretty much an open invitation. They may as well have read: “Look Inside for Loot.”
Nevertheless, a pair of guards patrolled the entire perimeter of the refinery. As I lay there watching, I counted. It took them about three minutes to make the circuit and come back around to the main gate. That left plenty of time for me to scramble down the incline and slip inside.
Assuming things went according to plan. Which they rarely did, but whatever.
I waited for the patrol to pass around the edge of the building, then pushed myself up and skidded down the slope as quickly as I could while remaining silent. Gravel crunched under my feet as I leveled out and headed for the building, but I didn’t see any good way to keep that quiet.
I tried the door. Locked. Should have known.
I pulled the picks from my belt and knelt in front of the lock. My pulse had increased again. If that patrol came around the corner and saw me at this … heh. Well, there’d be no pretending to be a cultist at that point.
The picks clicked, but the door wouldn’t give.
Failure
The text scrolled up past my eyes.
Huh.
Not good.
I resumed fiddling with it.
Failure
Failure
>
Failure
The message just kept popping up. Damn it. Either I didn’t have the skill to pick this one … or the game was programmed not to allow retries. Fail once and you have to find another way? I’d played more tabletop RPGs like that than I had video games, but it stood to reason this might roll that way.
Grumbling under my breath, I stood and looked around. The patrol would return any moment now. All right, so … I could search around for another entrance … but there was a good chance one of those guards would have the key. I mean, they should, right?
I dashed for the side of the building where they’d gone last, slipped around the corner and pressed myself against the wall. Slowly, I dared to peek back toward the main door. Sure enough, the two were ambling their way around the opposite corner, muttering to each other in their alien language.
I pressed flatter against the wall, heart pounding fast as ever.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
I had to do this fast. Like, really fast. If either got a shout out, I was screwed. I had no weapon … except my power and my fists.
Gravel crunched under their feet as they hopped and shuffled in my direction. Closer. Closer.
When it sounded a few feet away, I stepped back around the corner, raising my hand in the same motion. I thrust it forward and a telekinetic blast rippled through the air, crashing into both of them.
12 Damage
12 Damage
Both cultists flew backward a couple of feet and hit the ground hard. I thrust my hand forward again, this time angled down. The blast impacted the ground, sending up a hail of gravel around my victims and crushing them straight into the dust.
12 Damage
12 Damage
-1 Sanity
Both bodies suddenly evaporated, turning into particles that flew off into the air and vanished. Dead, then. All right, well, one less patrol. Where they had lain now rested a bronze key.
Yeah, it’s true—I did the arm pump. Sue me.
I snatched up the key and scrambled forward, back toward the main door. My telekinetic attack itself didn’t make a sound, but the guards had groaned and the ground had issued a solid thud when hit. I doubted anyone more than a few feet away would have caught wind of it, but still—best to not stick around the scene of the crime.
The key fit the lock and I flung open the door to the refinery.
And I gaped.
The level was a massive factory, all gunmetal gray, with balconies and catwalks both rimming and crossing a large main floor. About this main floor I spotted several enormous cauldrons, each at least ten feet tall. I couldn’t see inside, of course, but I did see a crate filled with glittering metal being hauled up by a chain pulley.
The glitter came from more of that alien jewelry, like gold, only with a slightly off luster, and each piece carved in reliefs like an undersea nightmare—a coral reef maybe, if a reef twisted in on itself and depicted alien monsters in its recesses.
The workers paid me no mind, perhaps didn’t even notice the door opening over the clamor of the grinding gears. On the balcony, though, I saw what looked like yet another patrol, one that would soon turn toward me.
To avoid them, I dashed behind one of the massive cauldrons, close enough I could feel the heat smoldering within it.
Numerous voices rang out here, but those too were muffled by the noise of the machinery at work. It would make it that much harder to track and avoid patrols in here.
This place would be … interesting.
Crouched low, I crept around the main refinery floor. Dodging the pair of guards patrolling on the ground was hard enough, but the two up on the balcony added an even trickier aspect to the whole thing. Their higher vantage meant they might easily see me even when I was concealed from the lower goons.
Hidden behind a cauldron, I flipped open the map. It showed my current location, but not that of the guards. No, that would have been too easy. I dismissed it with a wave, then rubbed my palms together in anticipation. Last I’d seen, the upper patrol was about to pass around this cauldron. When they came around the bend, they could see me just by looking down.
I needed to move, but if I moved too early, they’d spot me making a break for the next cauldron. I peered out behind me, as close as I could get to the cauldron without touching it. Given these pots were filled with molten gold, pressing right up against them didn’t seem too safe. There—up on the balcony, the patrol was ambling along, almost to the bend.
I would need to … wait. Was that … ? Yeah, the nearest guard definitely had a pistol strapped to his hip. Its barrel was overlong, the whole thing looking clunky and old-fashioned like something out of a World War I movie. But it would no doubt do its job.
The guards had guns.
The guards had guns.
I felt a little sick at the thought of getting shot. An ignominious end to my quest for certain.
And if I didn’t want that to happen, I had to move—I sure as hell couldn’t stay here. I slunk toward the opposite side of the cauldron and then snuck a peek around it. The ground patrol was heading in this direction, but they were across the floor, and other cauldrons separated them from me. So I needed to move when they passed behind one cauldron, make my way to the corner of the next one, and slip around it as they passed.
It sure felt like a mandatory stealth mission.
Wait for it … wait for it … Now.
Staying low, I half-crawled, half-ran across the open floor, skidding to a stop just before the next hiding place.
+1 Stealth
From here, I couldn’t catch sight of either patrol, but the one on the ground would spot me if I remained here too long or moved too quickly. Without being able to see them, I was basically relying on dumb luck to get the timing right.
And no retries, right? No, instead I’d catch a bullet and God only knew what kind of biofeedback from that. My palms were drenched with sweat, my heart racing. I could barely control my breath.
Okay … okay. I could do this.
I scrambled around the side of the cauldron only to catch a glimpse of the ground patrol passing by their own. Fortunately, they watched ahead of themselves and then to the sides, not behind them.
Good.
Okay. Against that back wall there were stairs leading up to the balcony. All I’d seen up there were offices and men with guns, though. There had to be another gem here I could light. So would it be in an office?
Maybe. I didn’t have any better ideas, though sneaking about on the catwalks was probably going to be even harder. If there weren’t two of the guys up there, maybe I could have tried another stealth takedown. As it was, though, I didn’t see how I could deal with them without getting shot or letting them alert the other patrol and then getting shot.
I glanced over my shoulder. The upper patrol was coming around, and if I didn’t get to the opposite side of my hiding place, they’d have a good chance of spotting me here.
I scrambled forward, more worried about keeping low than making noise. No one would hear me move over the refinery’s inherent racket. I reached the side of the last cauldron then slipped around it, grateful the guards ahead still hadn’t turned around. As long as they kept making a circuit of the perimeter, I’d be fine. If not—well, there was nothing between me and them but a long breezeway now.
+1 Stealth
Nice. It seemed I was building a stealth character after all. I reached the far wall, pressed up against it, and followed its course under the balcony, toward the stairs. As I drew near, however, an opening in the floor came into view. Adjacent to the stairs going up to the balcony, another staircase ran down underground.
Where do crazy cultists hide their magic gems? Underground, of course.
I scrambled over there, glanced around, and then slunk down the stairs. Like those above, these were metal, not so much built into the building as attached to it by a few bars driven into the walls. Trying not to clank on the stairs, I had to go
slowly. I should be safe down here, anyway. It wasn’t like either patrol could see me here.
While the main floor above was well lit, down here, no one had turned on the lights. At the bottom, the shadows were so deep I couldn’t make out much. Almost blind, I patted around on the nearest wall, searching for a switch. Eventually my fingers brushed over one, but I hesitated.
Sooner or later, that lower patrol would cross this way again. Lights down here might alert them to someone’s presence. On the other hand, the focused beam of my flashlight might not carry off far in the opposite direction. At least I hoped not as I flipped that on.
The basement stretched away farther than my flashlight could illuminate, maybe reaching across the whole of the refinery. Massive columns supported the level above like some parking garage, except these columns were irregular in size and shape, and carved with reliefs that reminded me of an underwater world, like pillars of coral.
I made my way between these pillars until the flashlight reflected of something against a far wall. A momentary purple glint shone in the darkness. I swung the beam back around and headed that way until the source of it became clear. A dull purple gem had reflected the light, this held between the webbed hands of a statue.
A chill ran through me as I swept my flashlight over the statue to inspect it. The creature was man-shaped, roughly, as if someone had combined a fish, a frog, and a human. A long, ridged spine jutted from its back, contrasted by its smooth-looking underside. Its hands and feet ended in claws. None of that compared to the grotesque look of its face, though, with bulging, lidless eyes and a shark-like maw filled with pointed teeth.
A Deep One.
Looking even at a statue of this disgusting creature filled me with the same unease Lovecraft had always tried to evoke. Yeah, I’d read about them. I’d seen drawings of them. But seeing this life-sized, incredibly detailed depiction of one of these creatures made it a little too easy to imagine them as real. Much as I had enjoyed reading Lovecraft—or made myself enjoy it for Elise’s sake—the idea that anything he wrote about might actually exist was as abhorrent as he’d no doubt intended.
