by Skyler Grant
Frostbite
Her unnaturally chilly demeanor and general lack of body temperature—was White a vampire? You would think this is the sort of thing that might have come up during our time together. I felt my blood growing thick and it chilled, my skin taking on a bluish tint.
“I know you’re used to playing with fire, but really. You should have given ice more of a chance. You might have been a little bit prepared,” White said, and shoved me away.
I think the frozen blood was doing me some favors. Until then Charming’s poison had continued to flow through me, but now my flesh had a chance to take a moment free of it.
White was already starting to turn away when I stood, although she must have felt the heat of Intemperance. As I aimed the sword at her she turned back around.
Frostfall
The floor in front of me turned slick and I jumped to avoid the patch before I might fall on my face. It wound up being the hilt of Intemperance that I bashed into her face and White dropped to the ground.
It’s strange, considering how many people I’d slaughtered, but despite the grudge match I didn’t want to kill someone that I knew so intimately. Somehow, it being personal made it harder.
Charming came crashing over a desk and bounced a few times on the floor to crash against White. He too seemed to be breathing.
“You get sentimental too at the last moment?” I asked.
“Yeah. Little bit. Is that weird? It’s weird isn’t it?” Yve asked.
“If so, it’s weirdness we share together,” I said.
“Still kind of want to throw him out of the window though,” Yve said, after a moment.
“Second floor?” I asked. It sounded like fun. I’d like to throw White out one too.
“Let’s make it the third,” Yve said.
I was strong enough to carry both, one slung over each shoulder.
Falling from the third floor probably broke a few more bones, but nothing they couldn’t heal.
Walt thought we were insane, of course. That was okay, we didn’t expect him to understand.
“Think they’ll be back for more?” I asked.
“Not if they’re smart. Accounting next?” Yve asked.
“Yeah. Ashley will be there. Think it’s time to give her all of her memories back?”
“We aren’t ready for a run on Veros yet,” Yve said.
We healed up and headed in. Like Sales, Accounting was almost empty with only two figures waiting for us. One I didn’t recognize, a bearded man in a tasteful suit. The other I recognized.
Ashley in leather armor and with daggers at her hips.
Chapter 24
“Liam, Yve, Walt. It’s like a new hire reunion,” Ashley said, twirling her daggers.
“Ashley. You’re looking a little murderous,” I said.
“You’re one to talk,” Ashley said.
I guess we did look a sight. Yve’s heavy plate was in tattered shreds after all the fighting we’d been through. My armor was doing better, although stained dark with blood and the soot of explosions.
“You, I don’t know,” I said to the man.
“You can call me Mr. Wolf. Head of Security. Mr. Veros would like to pass on his congratulations for making such a mess. You’re done though, kids. Time to get on board and play ball,” Wolf said.
I was watching Ashley during this little speech to see if the name Veros got any reaction from her. It didn’t.
“And just why is a junior accountant here?” I asked.
Ashley said, “You know, there is just something about being a corporate employee that makes me really want to stab someone. Wolf here appreciates a woman with that sort of drive.” She pressed a hungered kiss to Wolf’s lips. Well, that was new.
“First it was Bull, now Wolf—what does she have for guys named after animals?” I asked.
“Just be glad we didn’t have her with us earlier when we met the Flounder,” Yve said.
“What are they talking about?” Ashley asked.
“I think they’re insulting you, babe,” Wolf said. He pulled away from the kiss to roll his shoulders.
“Then I think I’m going to stab them,” Ashley said.
“Last chance to come quietly. Avoid all the unpleasantness that comes with a fight. Trust me sheep, you aren’t going to like a fight,” Wolf said.
“You good with three versus two this time,” Walt asked.
“Totally,” I said.
I checked out Wolf’s stats.
Wolf
Big and Bad
Legendary
Level 50: Type: Monster HP: 5000/5000
Wolf is a monster of incredible power. For centuries he lived out a tale where he was endlessly butchered, and where some might have been crippled by the experience Wolf grew strong. Possessing incredible strength, speed, and regenerative abilities he is the stuff of nightmares.
Well. Crap.
Wolf knew I was checking his stats, he was waiting for it, a cocky grin towards our group. “You sure about this? We’ll do it the hard way, if that’s what you want.”
He didn’t even need Ashley to help him out, if those stats were true. Perhaps they actually were dating and she wasn’t still under some kind of brain-washing?
“Check his stats,” I said.
There was a pause while the other two did so. Both were little more disturbed afterwards.
“It could be a deception,” Yve said.
“Oh, you know better than that. You know exactly what they say about me and it’s all true,” Wolf said, with another feral grin.
I wasn’t against a fight, we’d fought some big foes before and were planning on fighting a God. I was only against a fight this big without a plan.
I couldn’t think of any weapons we had on us that could stop him. Ashley would have both the magic carpet and the lamp in her inventory, if we could get access to them. The carpet might help us drop Wolf out a window. I didn’t care how good his regenerative abilities were, a drop from this height would take him out of the fight for awhile.
The Lamp on the other hand would let us get a wish out of Gina and we could teleport him away somewhere far and distant. No wish was ever risk-free, but I think we could minimize the dangers.
Then I had it. If we could pull it off, I had it.
“Do you have a waterskin?” I asked Yve.
“We’re in a corporate office complex. No, I don’t have a waterskin,” Yve said.
“There is a water cooler over there,” Wolf said, clearly not fearing us at all and curious about what we had in mind.
“Good. Because water helps. You see, I know that Atlantia is still there in Ashley’s head. I bet she can hear me right now,” I said.
“Why is he trying to talk to the voices in my head?” Ashley asked.
“He’s trying to be clever,” Wolf said.
“You know the Gods can’t really go one-on-one,” Yve said.
“I’m not asking Atlantia to punch him. I’m hoping she could use that water over there as a portal and send Mellaise for a visit,” I said.
The water cooler pretty much exploded. A puddle of water formed on the floor out of which stepped Mellaise, her voice raised in song.
I wasn’t completely sure if I’d be immune to it now or not. I’d seemed to be resistant to most of those sorts of mental effects since becoming King of the Twelfth Moon—but then, I’d not tested it against a fresh dose.
I felt for just a moment the blind, irrational and absolute love I’d once had for her, a taste almost wistful.
Her singing faded and Mellaise beamed a smile around. “Liam, pathetic has been divinity Liam keeps around, Walt, Ashley, tall dark and sexy.”
Wolf sauntered up to Mellaise, looking her over. He reached out an arm to wrap around her waist and her lips parted for a kiss. It didn’t come. With a powerful heave he threw her towards one of the windows. It exploded on impact. Mellaise’s shrieking as she fell thirty stories was far less melodic.
“Nice tri
ck with the Siren, don’t see many of those. Better swimmers than flyers. What else have you got?” Wolf asked.
Yve made her way over to the window and stared down. With a look back she shook her head. That was unfortunate.
“You’re immune to Sirens,” I said.
“Either that, or not bothered by throwing those I love outside of windows. Now, are you coming quietly or do I start tearing pieces off you?” Wolf asked.
“Let’s do it the hard way,” I said.
“Works for me,” Wolf said, and leapt across the room.
Wolf really was terrifying in action. Yve went flying through the air with blood spraying as she was torn open from his claws. I wasn’t even aware he had claws until this moment.
Ashley was trying to stab me and was amusingly bad at it. Her memories must not have come back and without them her combat skills simply weren’t there. That worked for me. I punched her as softly as I could and sent her collapsing unconscious to the floor.
Fist of the Unliving
Walt delivered a series of blows to Wolf’s face with the Death-Hand glowing a spectral blue. Wolf growled in response and picked Walt up to send him crashing through the wall.
Firewall
Flames sprang up around Wolf and he turned his face away with a grimace. Right. Wolves didn’t like fire. Yve saw it too.
Pillar of Fire: Path of Flames
Around Wolf explosions of flame kept driving him back a step. His HP flickered, but rarely seemed to go down very much. That was okay. Yve wasn’t trying to kill Wolf—she was trying to herd him.
I waited for precisely the right moment and then threw Intemperance with all the strength I could muster. The flaming sword caught Wolf through his mouth, the blade shoving cleanly through his head and wreathing his skull in flames as the force of it sent him stumbling backwards.
Even monsters get put back a step when a sword gets driven through their skull. Wolf lost his balance and went toppling out the window.
Fireball
Yve raced over and threw a fireball down after him, the bolt reaching his body halfway to the ground and causing a massive orange-tinted bloom before he crashed in flames onto the earth.
I called Intemperance back to me and a moment later the sword was again at my side.
“We’re starting to make a habit of defenestration,” Yve said with a pant.
“I know for a fact you didn’t used to be a dictionary. Stop pretending,” I said.
“It’s throwing someone out of windows. Don’t hate on vocabulary,” Walt said, staggering up, keeping his insides in with one hand.
We really were a wreck. Yve’s armor had more or less given up any attempt to hold together at this point and she was getting a bit of the plate mail bikini treatment without even trying for it.
“How long do you think it will take him to get back up?” I asked.
“Not as much as we’d like. Let’s drag Ashley somewhere else and you can do that thing you do,” Yve said.
“We’re not ready to take on Veros,” I said.
“Then we’ll tie her up first. The last thing we need though is her on Wolf’s side again when he does show back up,” Yve said.
That was fair. We dragged her out of Accounting and into a break room.
Then I reached out for her mind and around me the world went black. I wondered what I’d see in her skull.
Chapter 25
When I materialized I was in the parlor of a home, although one that looked long abandoned. The furniture had a thick layer of dust and cobwebs covering almost every surface. Looking outside it was dark, the interior only faintly lit by moonlight.
I tried the front door, but it was locked. Okay. This must be yet another locked room puzzle. All of the ones restoring someone’s memory so far had been like this.
I searched around. On the mantle over a fireplace a candelabra had a faint glow. It must be an item of interest. Getting closer revealed a book of matches that was the same.
Perhaps I was supposed to light the place up? It could certainly use some illumination, although I was reluctant to get the candles burning before I really needed them.
I turned back to look around the room further and my heart nearly froze in my chest. A figure dressed in tattered black robes and wearing a featureless, white mask had snuck up behind me, a curved dagger raised high.
A flicker of movement and they were gone into the shadows of the room faster than I could follow. My heart started working again, racing really, and I fumbled for the matchbook—which had just two matches inside—and lit one of the candles.
I now understood this game a little more. I was inside Ashley’s mind and Ashley, good and dear friend though she might be, was a deranged and murderous maniac. It made a certain amount of sense that I was trapped in a mansion with a killer.
If I was going to get her memories back I had to find a way to open the door and let the killer back out into the world—before they killed me, of course.
I’d played this sort of game before, enough to have a basic idea of what was going on. I’d be safe so long as I could keep some sort of light going, but if I let things get dark the killer would try to kill me. There was the one match remaining in the matchbook and three more candles on the candelabra.
That meant I’d want to make sure I lit the next candle from the existing flame, saving my last match if I could. It was possible I’d find more candles and more matches, but I’d prefer it if I didn’t need to. I wanted to solve this puzzle fast.
The kitchen was just off the parlor. Rusted appliances rotted away. My ability to see items of value was proving useful. In the pantry I found what seemed to be the hand and foot of a dummy, the cooler contained a head. The dummy was made of sewn fabric and filled with maybe beans, like a huge stuffed doll, not a plastic mannequin.
I was looking for missing body parts then. It was creepy, but at least it was a theme.
The search exhausted one of my candles and before the last of it burned out I made certain to use it to light the next. That required careful awareness, I didn’t want to light the last one too soon and waste some precious candle, but leave it too late and I’d have to use the match.
I moved on from the kitchen. The downstairs just had one more room, a small library, although a rickety-looking staircase promised more rooms upstairs.
The library didn’t yield anything of interest, none of the books having that tell-tale glow I now associated with a useful object. The titles drew my eye though, mostly for how dark they were.
Death, and the Delivery Thereof
Murder for Noobs
Application of Vengeance
Advanced Looting
Knives, Knives, Knives
I knew Ashley had more depth to her than just the murder and the loot, although I suppose these were the sides of her that were getting the most use lately. I dreaded to think what a library inside my own head might show.
Looking through the books I glimpsed a glow behind one and pulled it free to reveal a dagger. It was ornately worked and on the bottom of the hilt had a picture of Walt’s face above his name. I quickly trashed the rest of the library, pulling all the other books off the shelves, finding two more daggers. One bore Ashley’s face and name, the other depicted me—but not my name. Maybe the dagger-making budget ran out?
While I pondered why my dagger didn’t rate a name-plate the candle burned out. I fumbled for the matchbook—and dropped it when a knife was plunged into my back.
I whirled around to see the white-masked figure driving the blade down on me again and again. I raised an arm to fend off the blows.
My free hand fumbled for the matchbook and I managed to strike the match. The flame of light sent the figure shambling back and away, and before it could return I lit my last candle.
I was losing a lot of blood and I tore my shirt into makeshift bandages to help staunch the flow. I didn’t seem to have either my greater strength or regeneration in this game world. I still thought my
best bet was to get upstairs and solve whatever puzzles I could find. I hoped I would find more candles there or some other source of light.
The stairs creaked as I made my way up and a gust threatened to put out my candle. I took a moment to wonder where the wind was coming from, I’d seen no open windows.
Perhaps the killer moved through hidden passages of some kind? Although, if those led outside, there wouldn’t be any need to open the house to free the killer at all.
Upstairs there were two bedrooms and a bath. In the first bedroom was what looked to be a murder scene, the bedsheets were dark with the stains of dried blood and more dummy parts of a body were laid out. I added the body pieces I’d found earlier in the kitchen. It looked like I was just missing one more hand.
Nothing else in this room was interesting, so I moved on to the second bedroom. In the dresser drawers I found a jewelry box with spinning dials on the lid. Four of them, each revealing a letter of the alphabet. I didn’t think I had enough to solve this yet. Under the bed there was a small oil lamp. I tucked it away. I’d get a lot more sustained light out of that than my candle.
I still had to make sure to not let the candle go out before I used it to light the oil lamp.
There was one room left and that was the bath. Nothing here glowed, although the tub was filled with blood. I could take a guess why I wasn’t seeing the missing hand, and reluctantly I reached into the tub.
I found a jagged shard of glass before I found the hand—the tub seemed filled with them. Instead of continuing to probe blindly I found the drain and pulled it.
This would take some time, so I lit the oil lamp and waited. When the blood had finally drained it revealed I’d gotten off lucky. The bottom of the tub was filled with broken glass, sharp needles, even an open bear trap. Amongst all of them was the blood-sodden hand I was looking for, and I carefully extracted it.
I made my way back to the first bedroom and placed the hand with the rest of the body. I now had a complete fake corpse. Nothing magical happened. I don’t know what I’d expected.
