by T. K. Kato
The map, if it could even be called that, seemed almost more maddening than the room itself, for it offered no linear path which I could follow. In fact, the more I stared at it, the more my head began to throb from trying to parse the instructions. The diagram appeared to be instructional, but written by a lunatic or a genius. Maybe both.
Poring over it, my eyes lost focus, and even the diagram itself seemed to shift and move. I blinked and jerked away, then rubbed my eyes. Hell, I was probably just sleep-deprived at this point. Certainly I needed some rest, but the game … I just had to know how it ended. I had to get that damn gate open.
So, the book. It was a two-dimensional surface trying to depict a four-dimensional space. Meaning it had to be relying on optical illusions just like Escher’s works, right? Maybe, then, I was meant to let my eyes lose their focus and perceive it differently. Trying not to think, I leaned back over the pages. As I scanned them, the image again began to shift, unfolding in a hint of four-dimensional space that defied anything I knew of logic and yet made a strange kind of sense. Like a realization I should have always known.
+1 Lore
-3 Sanity
The messages barely registered, and I stood, captivated by the book. Or by the hyperspatial model it seemed to build in my mind’s eye. Holding it out in front of me—and making an effort not to fall back on logic or my own perceptions for even a moment—I walked out onto one of the paths. The book marked out a clear trail toward the center of the maze, guiding me ever onward to reach the eldritch understanding required for the gate.
And the way before me was laid plain.
The winding paths culminated in a single route that led me inside the center of the sphere and somehow deeper, as if traversing a space beyond perception. The walls fell away, leaving nothing but inky blackness all around me, this broken only by a spiraling iridescent cloud that arced around the walkway like a corkscrew.
-1 Sanity
Finding I no longer needed the book to navigate, I stowed it back on my belt and pressed on. This walkway seemed to stretch on across a vast expanse of space until finally culminating in another circular gateway.
Passing through this door, I stepped into a library that itself was twisting around in a spiral. Books lined every surface except the walkway itself, a path that arced and split such that I could draw any volume I desired. Given that the library seemed to stretch on farther than I could see, I imagined the knowledge contained here must be vast.
On a whim, I knelt, drew a tome from the floor and flipped it open. As with the last book, alien text inside slowly rearranged itself into something resembling English. Barely resembling, in this case, as it appeared to be discussing aspects of higher math and quantum physics that vastly exceeded my limited knowledge—or interest—on the subject.
I let the book drop, and it snapped shut and drifted back into its slot of its own accord. After everything else I’d seen in the lighthouse, such a thing hardly surprised me. I doubted much would surprise me anymore.
Gazing this way and that, I drifted onward, following the paths. Not only did the shelves—if you could call them that—spiral around the library, but the path itself gradually twisted around like a rotini noodle. What possible reason would builders have to make a place that way? The only answer I could think of was simple: because they could.
Just off the main path, a golden-trimmed book sparkled, drawing my eye. While it rested in the shelves like any other, someone had clearly intended me to find this book. It drew me to it with a pull almost like gravity, and before I even realized it, I had knelt and taken the book up.
Its cover bore gold encrustations in a design of an underwater city. Flipping this open, I scanned a few pages. As expected, it was written in the Deep One language, a tongue that slowly cleared up before me.
The book discussed numerous Deep One cities beneath the ocean, hidden from the eyes of man, but focused on one that apparently lay nearby, beyond or under Devil Reef. Y’ha-nthlei, the book called the city.
Beyond the Gate to Eternity lies the paradise of the deep, wherein the deathless pass eons whilst ever awaiting the awakening.
So if I opened the Cthulhu door, I could reach Y’ha-nthlei—no doubt my final objective in Cthulhu World. A Deep One city where they worshipped Cthulhu, dead but dreaming, and waiting to wake from his death. And the Deep Ones were immortal, so they could afford to wait quite a long time, right? As the book said, they’d wait eons if they had to.
Yeah, and I was going to see this wondrous city.
When I dropped this book, it too drifted back into place as if on an invisible conveyer belt, sliding home with a slight thunk. This place had removed any doubt as to my goal here in Innsmouth. And surely one of these gems—seals, as the other book called them—lay within this lighthouse.
I started to rise, but the tip of my shoe caught on something loose in the floor, sending my knee smacking into the floor. This sent a jolt of electric pain surging through me. It didn’t take off any HP, at least. For a moment, I sat there rubbing my knee. Not quite as bad as hitting my funny bone, but still less than amusing.
After the pain faded, I spun around on my ass to see what I’d tripped on. The path along the floor—as least as much as the word “floor” even had meaning here—was made from stone. I’d taken it for a single enormous chunk of stone, but now that I was closer, I realized it was actually composed of uncountable stone slabs, each a good four feet across, and all locked together so tight their seals were almost imperceptible.
Except for the one I’d just tripped over, of course. This one jutted up a half inch or so, just enough to catch the foot of an especially clumsy oaf. Like I apparently was.
But … hard to believe anything in Innsmouth was the way it was by chance or poor design. Everything here had been placed here, arranged as a path that would invariably lead down toward the Deep One city. Even a loose floor panel.
Something underneath, maybe?
I tugged on the slab, but could barely get any purchase with my fingers. There just wasn’t enough of a lip to grab on to. So I sat there, rolling my tongue around in my mouth, staring at the stupid slab. Did I need a power I hadn’t gained yet? I thought I’d followed the gems in a logical order, but sometimes you did have to double back over old locations.
But after all I’d gone through to get here, I didn’t really want to return. Forcing a player to go through the lighthouse twice: sadism trope.
There had to be a way down using what I had now … I crawled around to the opposite side, then pushed on the part of the slab already slightly recessed. It lurched a little, making a grating sound.
I needed more force. I could jump up and down on top of it? Of course I stood to look monumentally stupid if the thing actually did break away while I was standing on it. Like Wile E. Coyote kind of stupid.
Instead, I climbed to my feet and stared down at the slab. How to move it? If I had a crowbar or a lever, maybe … Or if I hadn’t lost my hammer an age ago.
Or …
A thrust of my palm sent a telekinetic blast into the slab. The force of it cracked the stone and sent the recessed side of it spinning downward. The opposite side shot up as if the slab was on an axle. Then the grating sound of stone scraping over stone rang out as the entire slab began to slip down. The panel jerked free and crashed through the opening I’d just created.
Well, that worked.
I shone my flashlight down into the new opening. Maybe eight feet down was a dark hallway running almost perpendicular to the path of the library. A secret exit.
And no doubt the route to my prize.
I knelt by it, then lowered my legs and hung from the side for a brief moment. Then I dropped down into this new route.
The hall I dropped into ended in a dead end not far from where I landed, offering me only one direction forward. This I followed for forty or fifty feet before it opened up into a chamber, in the middle of which lay numerous blocks made from some shiny blue materia
l. Each block was maybe two feet on a side.
I clucked my tongue in irritation. Seriously? After all that madness … a block puzzle? Talk about design motifs I was sick of.
Trope: Waste the player’s time.
These things may have worked in the first 3D games, but these days, I hated block puzzles.
Still, better to just get it over with, right? I strolled the perimeter of the chamber looking for clues as to what I had to do with the stupid blocks. The only one I saw was a diagram of a sphere engraved into the back wall. How exactly anyone expected me to make a sphere out of cubes, I had no idea.
And to be honest, in any game I wasn’t being paid to test, this would’ve been the part where I Googled how to get past the stupid puzzle. It was definitely going in my report as something to cut. Shaking my head, I continued to pace around the room.
“I don’t have time for this shit …”
How heavy were these things, anyway? I gave one a shove and it slid several inches. Hollow? And the blocks themselves had a texture like hard rubber.
Interesting. So I could push them around. Of course, no matter how you push around, what … nine cubes … you were still never going to make a damn sphere out of them. On the other hand, I could make a Rubik’s Cube, I supposed.
Wrapping both arms around one of the blocks, I heaved it up and deposited it onto another. I pushed others until they lined up, then repeated the process until I was left with a big blue pile of blocks. There. That accomplished something.
I rolled my eyes. As I did so, for an instant, a side of the larger cube I’d created looked jagged, as if parts of it jutted out at irregular angles, though I had certainly pressed all the blocks in tightly. What the hell? I paced around the big cube. Nothing but smooth sides all around.
Fatigue?
Or another optical illusion. I squinted and narrowed my vision while continuing my walk. Sure enough, if I looked at the individual cubes just right, they seemed to bend and curve along certain planes. All except for one. The center one?
I shook my head to clear the pain building in my brow from staring cross-eyed at the puzzle. And all right, yeah, I never saw a puzzle quite like this one. Maybe I didn’t have to tell them to cut it. Maybe.
Watching the pieces with narrowed vision, sometimes having to look at them from the corner of my eye, I rearranged them all once again, finally forming a sphere. The moment I pushed the last piece into place, I fell into the globe I’d just created, like it was suddenly down.
-1 Sanity
I landed in an enclosed slide of the same blue rubbery material and immediately shot forward. Desperate to slow my descent into God knew what, I jerked my hands onto the sides. The rubber was slick, but still I managed to stop myself from sliding any further.
Which left me halfway down a big blue slide.
Kind of accomplishing nothing, actually.
I eased off the pressure and let myself continue down, albeit a little slower. The slide carried me down into another chamber, dropping right out of the wall. The moment I fell into this room, a wave of pressure struck me and made my ears pop. A sound like a howling hurricane filled the room, though no wind tugged at my clothes.
As I stood, the source of the sound became clear. Twenty feet away from me, the floor dropped away. In its place lay a gap into some kind of maelstrom in space. It was a spiraling abyss that looked like pictures I’d seen of black holes—or the accretion disk around one, anyway.
-1 Sanity
I swallowed hard, staring at that pit. It had to be twenty feet across, so even if I was feeling bold—or insane—I never could have jumped it. Across this gap lay another landing upon which stood a statue of a giant tentacle, on the end of which rested a green gem. My goal, if only I could find a way past the Pit of Doom.
Admittedly, I took a faltering step back away from it, then slowly turned around, taking in the landing where I stood. Other than the shiny blue opening I’d dropped out of, there was nothing here except unadorned stone walls, slate gray and boring.
Not really expecting it to work, I stretched out my hand, palm up, and tried to telekinetically lift the gem. Neither it nor the statue moved. Either they were attached to the floor or else the gem was shielded against my powers to stop me from cheesing my way to victory.
Fair enough.
I tried squinting my eyes and looking around at odd angles, but no weird hyperspatial shapes came into view. What about relative gravity? I walked over to one wall and put a foot against it. My foot didn’t seem to cling to it, but it was worth a try, right? I stepped onto the wall. Or at least I tried.
The moment I took my other foot off the floor, I fell and smacked my ass on cold, hard stone.
Uh huh. Pretty much what you’d expect to happen anywhere else but here.
Grumbling, I rose and took another look around the room. There was just … nothing. No way across. Unless … a secret door? Trailing a hand along the wall, I walked the perimeter. I felt and saw absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.
All right, Bobby. Try banging your head against the wall next. Maybe that’ll open something up.
Finally, I sat down and pulled out the book, then skipped to the lighthouse section. It mentioned all the challenges I’d faced so far, so I just skimmed over that shit. Until:
Beyond the abyss of madness lies the truth. Only in breaking with one’s fragile perceptions of reality does one find sanctity.
Meaning what? The hole was clearly the “abyss of madness,” but how was I supposed to cross that? Lose my mind? Did the author mean to take a leap of faith and just try to walk across it? A few games had featured invisible bridges in them, true. Can’t say I ever much liked crossing those damn things though.
And how would I even know where to start? It wasn’t like I had a bag of sand handy to sprinkle in front of me.
Still, I got up and trod back over to the edge. You know what, screw it. I was getting that gem, no matter what.
I stepped off the ledge.
And I fell. Currents caught me, buffeting me like high winds, washing over me in a swirl of colors that echoed in discordant melodies. Insane cackling rang out inside my head as I was spun around and around. Bile scorched my throat and what little I had in my stomach retched up, caught in the winds, and came back around to cake my clothes and face.
And a vision sprang into my mind. A cop standing in my doorway, telling me my world had ended. Telling me Zoe and Grace had died in a car crash. Asking me to identify the bodies …
And I fell, then slammed hard into a stone floor.
-5 HP
-10 Sanity
The blow knocked all wind from my lungs and stole all thought from my head. I lay there, groaning. That day playing over and over in my mind. When I finally managed to rise, I coughed, and—tasting actual puke—spit it out, then wiped my mouth.
+1 Max HP
What the hell was that?
I looked up. I was back in the same room, like I’d fallen out of the ceiling. And landed right back where I started, near that blue-ass motherfucking slide.
Tears blurred my vision and I shuddered. Screw this shit. I jerked the headset off and tossed it aside. Then I slumped and let my head fall into my hands. I sat there like that a long time, my emotions a pitiful jumble.
This was all supposed to help me forget … help me … Not see that moment …
Damn it.
Finally, I rose and cleaned myself off.
I was standing in an empty room. Where the slide had been was just a doorway. Across from me was a long, wide open space, and then a closed door.
A shuddering breath shook my chest, and I took an unsteady step forward. Then I paused. Was I going to walk away from this after so much? Walk away and just demand my money even though I hadn’t finished? And never know what the hell lay in that underwater city?
Groaning, I snatched up the stupid headset. I had it halfway back on when I stopped. Like this, the room was empty. No pit—no aptly-named abys
s of madness. Just a straight path. And there had been no way forward in the game.
Feeling dirty about it, I walked across the room until I reached the opposite wall. There was no way this was the plan, right? When I put the headset back on, I indeed stood across the gap, right beside the tentacle statue.
Yeah. So that had … worked?
I grabbed the gem, and a green glow sprang up inside of it.
+2 Lore
-2 Sanity
Eldritch Power Acquired
A quick check of my status menu revealed the new power as “Camouflage.”
Oh hell yeah. Hell yeah. Seemed like I was definitely gonna be a stealth character now. I waved my hands around, trying to turn it on. Nothing happened. I ducked down like I meant to hide.
Still nada.
“Camo,” I said.
Nope.
“Camouflage.”
Didn’t work.
On a whim, I tapped my chest with my palm. My clothes and body suddenly turned translucent, Predator-style. Which, not gonna lie, was pretty awesome.
Standing up, I tapped my chest again and the effect wore off. Probably best not to leave it on, since I couldn’t be sure if it would drain Sanity like my telekinesis powers did. I had to assume it would.
After stepping around the statue, I found a door had opened here, maybe triggered by the gem. Despite myself, I cast a glance back at that abyss. Was this … the actual solution to the puzzle?
As in, was literally the only way to solve the game to cheat?
Talk about a mindfuck.
The doorway led me up a steep slope into a cave, the mouth of which opened out beneath the bluff. The narrow rock ledge left me nowhere to go but up—unless I wanted to dive in the ocean—but fortunately numerous rock outcroppings gave me something to climb. Sea spray made them every bit as slick as the rocks in the gorge had been, and I was not eager to come crashing back down.
I took it slow, inching my way up the cliff. Climbing it made it seem a lot higher than it really was. After breaking into a sweat, I finally crested the rise a few hundred feet from the lighthouse.
