Chapter 14: Scene 14 – Basilica Den

Having successfully repelled Mars, Amanda felt ecstatic. She sat on a throne of mirrored glass, carefully mulling over her next move. "So we have the [Pit of Love]. Being able to dig a pit would mean I could have a massive moat, and then nobody would bother me," Amanda spoke to herself, considering her options.

"I could stick a crocodile in the moat. Then, whenever two lovers sailed down my tunnels, I could have a quick snack. No, wait, what am I thinking?" Amanda shuddered. "Humans would taste terrible. I'll put this option on hold until I figure out a use for a big hole."

She dismissed that window and moved to the next skill she considered, the [Inevitable Drop]. "It would be nice to repair my roller coaster, but I don't see any guests willingly hopping onto the rickety thing. I'd have to have the infrastructure to make it worth the ride. I'll consider it when I have a few more attractions, but transportation is not my top priority."

Her next option was the [Funnel of Feasts]. This one held some promise, although not immediately. "I could build a food court and siphon kayempi that way. But I don't have many guests to siphon that energy from. What would they come for, to see my mirrors? Watch me juggle ice and chicken nuggets? I think we can put it to the side for now."

A number of these options felt limited by her lack of attractions. Of the five options, only two seemed to be able to generate traffic at all. "[Flood of Dammed] sounds evil. I think we can hardly pass that, so we're left with [Mass Cult]. Having minions sounds like a good way to keep Starkeepers off my back, and I could pair it with some of these other options down the line?"

That did it; Amanda was sold. She made her purchase and pressed confirm, letting the energy flow through her body. Magic within herself arced outwards and skipped across the ground, zooming towards the Customer Experience Center. Once a monument to false faces and service to spoiled customers, it would now form the foundation of a cathedral of found faces and guest service.

Not a particularly great change, but Amanda was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. The walls of the Customer Experience Center buckled, and elegant windows of mirrored glass began to form between buttresses and columns. Amanda allowed the building to wind and twist into its new shape, masks engraving themselves into murals of a Customer Experience Cathedral.

Spires shot upwards, spikes grown in defiance to the gods. Gaps in their cobble exterior formed, forcing Amanda to cannibalize another structure in the park. Parts of a merry-go-round were gobbled up, the consumed steel composing fantastical unicorns in the place of gargoyles and supporting the frame where it was weak. What was left behind was a work of art, a place of faith and worship.

"The Bascila Den," Amanda whispered. She leaped to her feet, excitedly making her way into the depths of her dungeon. The church was half-constructed; she could see gaps in the walls, and only half of the pews had been set. A beautiful statue made of steel and glass, an angel with the face of a television screen. "That must be the System," Amanda whispered, looking straight into her reflection.

Amanda could see only a modest and adorable girl pn the mirrored screen of the shrine. Indeed, this shrine was built so everyone could admire what made them cute! She sees no other reason why such a strange statue would be erected in the middle of her own church. Pushing aside admittedly uncomfortable thoughts to unpack never, she found her way to a stairwell and began her ascent.

Her strides were interrupted by gaps in the stone, stairwells far too unsafe to cross by human or machine. Thinking quickly, she let out a whistle. A reflecthive crawled through the stained glass mirrors that lined the wall, buzzing over to her outstretched claw. "I need you to go up that stairwell for me and show me what you see."

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After feeling it vibrate in confirmation, Amanda released the wasp, sending it up the stairwell. She closed the eyes of her dungeon avatar, focusing solely on the view from the drone as it wound its way up her steps. The rooms it passed through were barren, save for large hooks hanging from the ceiling and shelves for storage. One room was more interesting than the others.

Low-cut shelves seemed to serve as bedframes, and a stained bedspring sat on one of the shelves. Bottles and scraps of cardboard covered the floor, savings scraped together and stuffed into a duffel bag underneath piles of cloth and food plastic. These were someone's belongings, hard-earned and stashed next to the place they slept.

Amanda's eyes opened as she felt someone shaking her fence. It wasn't a Starkeeper; the aura was too faint for that. It would seem that the figure was a human; she was wandering deeper into Amanda's dungeon. How oblivious! Her eyes flicked back between the wasp's view and her sense of the intruder, and she pressed her palm into her fist.

"They must be unhoused. I thought the government made that illegal?" Sometime after they'd locked down all traffic in and out of America, they'd made it illegal not to rent a home. If they imprisoned those in society worst off, they wouldn't be targets for Malice recruitment; a foul system that Amanda couldn't approve of, but some weeds slipped through the cracks.

The intruder must be one of the few on the lam from law enforcement; nobody would think to check an abandoned theme park looking for people to arrest. Even the cops weren't suicidal enough to walk into someplace condemned like this.

A light bulb went off in Amanda's head. If they were going to treat the unhoused in her city poorly, then she'd just have to step up and do something about that, wouldn't she? Since they were so concerned about Malice recruiting them, maybe she should make their dreams come true and recruit them.

Karma, it's all karma. What goes around comes around; it's time to grab her first cultist.

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