Purgatory: The Devil's Game

by M. A. Carlson

  I was lost in thought when I bumped into the old man. He had stopped in the middle of a circular room. I didn’t even notice when we entered the room. I looked around and didn’t see where we had entered the room either.

  “Watch where you’re going,” the old man snapped, pushing me angrily.

  “Sorry, I . . . I was lost in thought,” I apologized.

  “I don’t care,” the old man snapped back. “Now pick a door so I can be done with you.”

  “What’s behind each door?” I asked.

  The old man shrugged. “Don’t know. Now pick one already.”

  I frowned as I looked at the doors, trying to see if there was anything obvious. The room was circular, and the doors were spaced equally around the room. There were no identifying features. Nothing that marked what might be on the other side of the door. For all I knew, there would be a demon waiting on the other side of one of these doors.

  “Stop dawdling and pick one already,” the old man complained.

  I glanced at the red bar, it now read 44/60. Nope, not in any rush to pick a door. Not until that bar was full again. Preferably not until that white bar was full again as well. If it were a shield of some kind, it would be stupid to do anything before it was fully restored. No, I was going to take my time. Hopefully, I could pay enough attention to those bars to see how long the interval was between each regeneration.

  I walked up to one of the doors at random and looked at it closely. I checked the wooden door handle over. I looked at the frame of the door. The edges of the frame. I even laid on the floor and tried to look under the door. I didn’t expect any of it to bear any fruit, least of all, laying on the floor. But there it was, the smallest sliver of blackness and a feeling of cold. I sensed there was something on the other side of that door I wanted absolutely nothing to do with.

  I stood and backed away from the door, shuddering. “Not that door,” I said, my voice shaking slightly.

  The old man raised a single eyebrow, almost as if he were surprised. Though the flat mouth and vacant look in his eyes suggested it was more impatience than surprise. He said, “Don’t care which door, just pick one.”

  I moved on to the next door, this time I started with trying to look under the door but there was nothing there. Nothing at all. No hint of darkness to be found. I blew out a frustrated puff of air from my nose. Just because I didn’t see anything this time didn’t mean there wasn’t something there. Instead, I went through the routine from the previous door. I checked the frame. I checked the door. I checked the wooden door handle . . . and there it was again. A wisp, barely visible around the door handle, this time a blackish red. I had the impression that if I even touched that door handle, I would burn. I would burn horribly.

  I didn’t say anything this time to the old man or even for myself. I moved on to the next door. Sickly green from the frame. The next door gave off another black whisp but from the door handle, the next door . . . I don’t know what that whisp of black, red, blue, and green was supposed to tell me, but I had a feeling that it was probably the worst choice of the bunch.

  One door after another until I found a door with a hint of gray smoke. It felt . . . neutral. It wouldn’t hurt me. A way out? I left that door and kept going. I wanted to check the other doors, just to be safe. If that gray were the only one that felt safe, I could come back to it. Or maybe I was being greedy and thought that just maybe, one of these doors would hold something of greater value. After the way that stairway treated me, I kind of felt like I was entitled to some form of recompense.

  The old man groaned in irritation as I moved on from the gray door. At least I think it was irritation. It could have been frustration. Or it could have been gas. Old people make strange sounds at times, I knew that only too well from my ex-wife’s grandparents, sweet old couple though they were.

  I kept checking doors. Purple that felt like there would be a lot of pain. Orange that I thought might melt me. Red again, black, green, and so on. About two doors from where I started there was something new. Gold. It felt warm and welcoming.

  I was about to open that door when I stopped myself. Something felt . . . wrong. Like if I opened that door . . . it would erase me . . . or absorb me. I shook my head and backed away. The other two doors were dark and fiery. Neither ideal.

  “You’ve inspected every door, can you please choose one,” the old man complained. My red and white bars had both fully recovered already, long since in fact. Unfortunately, I hadn’t been paying attention to it, so I had no idea how long between intervals. There was nothing stopping me from taking that gray door and leaving. Except that was what the old codger wanted me to do. Maybe it was petty . . . no, I was sure it was petty. I supposed I was petty in life as well. I never minded getting a little revenge every now and again.

  “Nah, I’m just not sure,” I said, rubbing at my chin. “I should probably check them all again.”

  The old man grumbled under his breath and one of his eyes twitched slightly, bringing a pleased grin to my face, not that I let the old man see it. I went back to the doors and repeated the process . . . only much slower this time.

  When I got back to the odd door that had whisps of black, red, blue, and green, I saw something of interest. On the door frame, there was a symbol. I didn’t know what language it was in or if it even was a language. It could have been Egyptian hieroglyphs, or a kind of ancient Mesopotamian cuneiform, not that it really mattered all that much. But what made it different was that it emitted a subtle, barely perceptible white whisp. Without thinking, I brushed my thumb across the symbol and felt more than heard something click inside the door.

  When I looked back at the original source of the whisps, only red, blue, and green remained. The black was gone. I grinned. Maybe there was something more to be found here.

  I scoured that door, looking for more symbols like the one I had already found. I almost missed the next one. It was on top of the door frame. Another subtle, barely visible white whisp. I brushed my thumb over it and there was another click.

  Grinning, I worked feverishly to solve the puzzle. I just knew that it would lead a treasure or prize on the other side of that door if I could disarm the traps. I just needed to find two more of them. A few minutes later I had found them. The door now only had a white wisp in place of the previously multicolored.

  “This is the door,” I said cheekily.

  “Then open it already,” the old man complained.

  So, I did and then the world turned into white light, burning fire, and unimaginable pain.

  I sat up gasping in familiar surroundings. I was back where I started, back in that stone room surrounded by stone slabs. And once again, it took me a minute to regain my breath.

  A voice behind me scared me half to death. “Close.”

  I turned swiftly to see the old man sitting on the stone slab that was directly behind me.

  “What do you mean close?” I asked.

  “I mean you were close to disarming that door,” the old man answered. “But . . . you got impatient,” he said with a sigh. “If you’d checked that door over one more time you would have found the last seal to fully disarm the door. Still, you’re the closest in the long time to get even that far. Tells me you have a decent Fortune score. If only the rest of your Soul attributes were so high. Anyway, your testing is complete. Here is your full readout,” he said holding out what looked like an absolutely ancient scroll. “Don’t lose that, you’ll need it going forward.”

  I took the scroll, still feeling confused. “What happened to me? Did I . . . die . . . again?”

  The old man nodded. “Most people die immediately in that room. Once in a great while, someone will get extremely lucky and find the neutral door. It is even more rare anyone ever figures out those traps can be disarmed. Rarer still that anyone disarms one. I think you’re maybe the third person I’ve ever seen get that far with that specific door.”

  “What’s on the other side?” I asked. There w
as more I needed to ask, but I just needed to know. Was it a treasure? A free pass to heaven? What was it?

  Except, the old man just shrugged. “Who knows. No one has ever opened it.”

  “Can I try again?” I asked hopefully. I could get it if I were given a second chance, I knew I could.

  The old man shook his head. “Only one evaluation per inmate.”

  “Inmate?” I asked, confused.

  “Inmate, prisoner, detainee, convict, call it what you want, you now belong to Purgatory,” the old man elaborated.

  “Okay, then what about my dying again? Why am I alive . . . undead . . . what . . . what do I even call what I am?” I asked, unable to put into words exactly what I thought I was.

  The old man shrugged again. “You’re alive . . . more or less. It’s simpler to just say you’re alive or you’re dead. As for dying again, yeah, you can do that. In this place, you can die all you want, you’ll come back. Once you leave this place . . . well, don’t die out there.”

  “What is this place?” I asked.

  The old man cackled then asked, “Purgatory, or weren’t you paying attention? No, but really, this is the evaluation. Everyone that comes to Purgatory goes through it once so they can get that little piece of paper,” he explained, pointing to the still rolled up scroll I held in my hand. “Above you, you will find your own, personal, Purgatory. You’ll need to fight your way through it and if you come out the other side, you’ll be given the choice to continue fighting against the demons and the souls of the damned or move on to eternal peace in the Silver City. You can die as many times as it takes while you’re in there, but if you die outside, your soul is gone. If you do not attempt to fight through Purgatory at least once per week, your soul is gone. Oh, and one last thing about dying in Purgatory, death has a cost. Anything you find and any experience you gain during the excursion that led to your death is lost.”

  Okay, those seemed to be straight forward rules. I could live with that.

  “Behind me,” the old man said, pointing a thumb over his shoulder, “is the exit and the entrance to Sinner’s City. Out there, you’ll find the training you were promised, food, and shelter. You’ll also find those who covet what you’ve got, so guard yourself and your things carefully and keep anything you deem as important, like that scroll, in your inventory. Just . . . be aware, it will cost you Spirit Energy every time you open and close it, 5 points each time. That means you have enough energy to open it once and close it once before you need to let your SE recover.”

  “SE?” I asked.

  “Spirit Energy,” the old man answered. “EP is Energy Points, every time you do a physical action, you are drawing on those points. And finally, HP is your life force or in layman’s terms, your Hit Points. If you get hit enough times, those points will not last.”

  HP was standard gamers fair. SE and EP were slightly different though. EP would equate to Stamina in most games. Which meant SE was most akin to Mana in most games. I nodded my understanding.

  “Good, now, before you go up into Sinner’s City, why don’t you look at that scroll I gave you? Once you’ve had a good long look, I’ll teach you how to open your inventory. Then you’re on your own,” the old man said.

  I frowned and unfurled the scroll, slightly worried about what I would see.

  Name: Victor Goodspeed

  Highest Floor Cleared: 0

  Experience Earned: 0

  Hierarchy: 4th

  Rank: 12th

  Title: Sinner

  HP: 60/60

  EP: 70/70

  SE: 10/10

  Body

  Experience to Next Point: 100

  Unused Points: 0

  Strength:

  8

  Reflex:

  6

  Constitution:

  7

  Recovery:

  4

  Soul

  Experience to Next Point: 100

  Unused Points: 0

  Faith:

  1

  Spirituality:

  2

  Righteousness:

  2

  Fortune:

  8

  Applied Statistics

  Health Regeneration

  6

  Energy Regeneration

  4

  Spirit Regeneration

  2

  Attack Power

  16

  Divine Power

  2

  Speed

  3

  Accuracy

  50.60%

  Perception

  3

  Critical Strike Chance

  0.40%

  Demonic Resistance

  1

  Luck

  0.01%

  There was something disheartening about seeing everything about you quantified into a raw number value.

  The old man had said my Strength, Reflex, and Constitution weren’t bad and I really hoped that was true as those were my highest stats, save for Fortune, whatever that was. Those three were at least self-explanatory as was Recovery. Compared to what he referred to as my Soul stats, it really wasn’t that bad. I supposed time would tell.

  Then there were the Soul stats. Abysmal though mine might be, I needed to know what those were.

  “What is Faith?” I asked.

  “Faith is faith,” the old man answered.

  “Like faith in God?” I asked.

  The old man shrugged unhelpfully. “Faith can be a great many things. Faith in your fellow man. Faith in an ideal you uphold above all others. And yeah, sure, faith in God. The more Faith you have, the more divine power you possess. It also impacts your total spirit energy.”

  I read a whopping ‘2’ next to divine power when I reviewed down the stat list. If I only had one point in faith and my divine power was a ‘2’ then the easy math said I would gain two points of divine power for each point of faith.

  “And Spirituality?” I asked. The old man didn’t seem to be in any kind of a rush and was taking time to answer my questions. I figured I should take advantage.

  Thankfully, the old man answered, “That’s both your connection to your Soul and the strength of your Soul. The higher your Spirituality, the higher your potential for more SE and SE Regeneration.”

  Mentioning regeneration, I needed to ask, “What is the interval for regeneration?”

  “Per minute, I hoped you would have figured that out on your own already,” the old man said with a chortle.

  “I had other things on my mind at the time,” I said. “Okay, next is Righteousness. What does that mean exactly?”

  “Some call it, confidence, others call it virtue, and still others call it morality. Basically, it means doing the right thing and knowing it was the right thing,” the old man explained, which pretty much explained why my score was so low. I was not the most Righteous of people, at least not until my death apparently. “It plays a role in recovering your SE but more importantly, it is a big factor in your ability to resist demonic influences. Something you’re going to need if you continue on as a Soldier . . . assuming you even make it through Purgatory.”

  Did he really need to continue reminding me that I might not make it out of Purgatory? “Okay, so what about Fortune, it’s my highest Stat in Soul.”

  “Fortune is about . . . how do I put this . . . it is your ability to see an opportunity and capitalize on it. It affects your Perception and obviously, Luck,” the old man answered. “Listen, I know it’s a lot to take in. It is going to take you some time to get used to all this. The only thing I can suggest is to pay attention to the numbers. They are all following a specific formula.”

  “And what is that formula?” I asked.

  The old man shook his head. “Sorry, you’ll need to figure that out on your own or find another inmate who is willing to generously share that information with you. Just be careful. They aren’t all as helpful as me.”

  The way he referred to the others in Purgatory like they were prison convicts was
. . . disconcerting to say the least.

  “Now, on to your Inventory,” the old man changed the subject. “It’s pretty simple. Repeat after me, ‘Open Inventory’. When you get more comfortable with it, you’ll be able to open it with a thought.”

  “Open Inventory?” I repeated in confusion until a four-by-four grid appeared in the air in front of me.

  “Now, just press that Scroll of Body and Soul into one of the empty squares,” the old man instructed me, his voice condescending.

  I touched the rolled-up scroll to one of the blank boxes and it disappeared. The grid now had one square showing the image of a rolled-up scroll.

  “Good job. Last step, say, ‘Close Inventory’.” The old man instructed, just as condescending as before.

  “Close Inventory,” I said, watching the grid vanish. “Is that all I’ll ever get, sixteen inventory slots?”

  The old man shrugged unhelpfully.

  I groaned. I missed the helpful old man. Why did the cantankerous old man need to come back? “I suppose I should be going then.”

  The old man nodded. “Oh, one last bit of advice. Guard the scroll as best you can. If anyone steels it, they could do a world of hurt to you. Spend your experience in ways that do nothing to help you, only hurt you. More than one poor soul has ended up a slave to unscrupulous masters.”

  As I was moving to leave, a stray thought struck me. I paused and turned to the old man to ask, “Do I need any kind of voucher for the training?”