Chapter 7: Chapter 6 – A Spectrum Of Responses

Vivian Russel

 

Vivian watched as the slumbering wounded were moved to the couches at her direction. The redhead had departed to take her friend to their own room. To Vivian’s frustration, the archer hadn’t known the room numbers for the others. The common area couches will have to do, she frowned. Those potions seem to do their trick and now they just need rest.

The idea of the miraculous potion brought her eyes to her blood-stained hands. It was painful to observe those useless hands. To heal by will alone had always been something she coveted. Raising her siblings had nourished that trait of hers into the strongest quality at Vivan’s core, to protect, and if not protect, soothe away the pain. That childhood for what it was, had set her on the path to becoming a nurse. To a profession that more than fulfilled her. Terrifying as waking in this Hall had been, the promise of a new way to heal was thrilling enough to calm the worry for now.  

She had begun to read the book, that grimoire that would open the way to healing magic. This place, this mysterious and haunted place, had harmed her fellows before she had been able to grasp that precious magic. A damnable harm beyond her skill. Vivian needed that power now.

The furies danced around her pupils as she glared at those hands that couldn’t cure, could only stabilize. Only heal the long way. Vivian’s heartbeat ran faster and inside her mind, she roared. For a moment, something gathered in her palms. A tingling, but nothing more. 

A venomous grimace as the protective woman tried to replicate the effect. Nothing concrete, but the sensation of brushing at the edge of something. Vivian envisioned the experience like she was skipping along and missed a step.

Prowling to her side, her companion Kai looked to her hands and then without hesitation grabbed them. He claimed Vivian’s attention with a predator’s grin and strangely soft eyes. It was a lovely face that evoked warmth in her chest and visions of the jungle in Southeast Asia. An old friend met anew in this strange place. Though so far they had had little time together, Vivian already thought of Kai as hers again.

With a rumbling voice, Kai said, “They’ve all been comfortably settled. I have encouraged several to preserve their peaceful sleep. For now, I believe the others of the sixty will hold their curiosity at bay until our friends have recovered.”

“They better,” threatened Vivian. “I will not allow those in my care to be disturbed.”

A fox’s grin as Kai teased, “ Now, who exactly put them in your charge? Should you really claim that?”

Frowning and pulling her hands free, she replied with hands on her hips, “They are in my care, Kai! It isn’t in my nature to allow this to be done any other way than properly. I am in charge of this... and anyway, I’m a nurse. Who else would be better?”

“I’m not sure.” Kai tapped his lips thoughtfully. “Perhaps, there’s a Doctor we don’t know about. Most are still strangers to us.”

“A Doctor… if there is, then, well they weren’t here and I was!” declared Vivian with a snarl. “Unlikely they could do any more than me without supplies anyways.”

“Uhf, I believe I have poked the bear enough,” decided Kai with a muted smile. Stealing her hands back he continued, “I tease, but you are too open to the wounds. What weighs on you?”

“I... I only took charge after Clarissa did the hard work,” explained Vivian with downcast eyes. “Without any equipment or understanding of the nature of their wounds… what good was I beyond a pair of hands trying to hold back blood? Healing… true blue healing magic is possible here Kai! I have read about it in that book. The understanding of anatomy I have, but that leap to magic and spells… it is beyond me…”

“You expect the miraculous of yourself, Vivian,” lulled Kai. “We have only been here hours, and you expected magic to be just yours to claim? There is no doubt in my mind that you will earn this in time. It isn’t your nature to fail in your pursuit.” The grin returned and Kai drew her attention to the bloodstains. “This blood shouldn’t remind you of being useless, but that even without supplies you’ll still do your best. They live and there is still time to learn how to perform miracles.”

“How much time though Kai?” pressed Vivian with a strained voice. “I can fill it in my bones, this place… it offers so much, but the price… I think it’s going to try to kill us all. No pulled punches… I mean we’re expected to die… Look at the Commandments Kai! We’re expected to die… more than once even?!”

“I have taken it as a challenge,” remarked Kai smugly. “And should I die, well apparently its permanence is avoidable. It will be an interesting experience.”

“Kai… you’re a dumb ass, a fool,” bluntly stated Vivian. “Death shouldn't be treated like a game. It isn’t pleasant… and…” She fell silent as her anger was smoldered by too many memories of the dying. 

The cocky smile faded as Kai searched her face. There was a certainty and gloom in her face that his pride couldn’t weather unharmed. “... I did say interesting, not pleasant…”

“I hope you never have to see the truth of it,” wished Vivian. “You’ll help me protect them, won’t you?”

“Protect who?” asked Kai

“Everyone.”

“Of course.”

 

Soren Hill

 

Laughter echoed in the small room that he had chosen. It was the dry laugh of a man who worries that the punchline might be on him. His eyes, however, were serious, and they studied what he had received from the screens.

By the simplest definition, you could call the red object a gun, but it was so unlike that word that Soren hesitated to call it such. A toy pop-gun seemed somewhat accurate to the item in his hand. Or at least that was what his mind whispered as he tried to categorize it. Though in the end, this too failed to fit as there was no cork, nor did it seem to have a mechanism to fire anything at all. Instead, it was a red crystal carved like soapwood into a gun-like shape with a glass orb where the chamber would be. Crystal tendrils carved like ivy held the orb to the gun and gave it the appearance of an alien-inspired water gun.

Since awakening, Soren had been all over the spectrum of emotions. Starting with a confusing mix of panic, underlined with what he could only describe as expectant relief. Shepherded into waiting in a line to pick a path had him filled with an indignance. He was a little too prideful to show that since it did make good sense. The picking of a path had been a stressful train of thought until the screens. The choices Malachi had presented had felt lackluster, but he had been willing to accept them seeing how they must be some kind of base class.

Instead of having to stressfully deliberate over which path he might want, the screens had offered a surprise. To Soren’s excitement, something unique had been highlighted as a suggested path. His skills and natural talents had unlocked a secret path. The Gunman path flashed there for the taking and he didn’t waste any time before picking it. Now he was sitting in his room wondering what such a class really meant in a fantasy world. Especially since figuring out how to even fire the thing was a chore.

His attention zeroed in on the glass orb. Something drew him to look past the strong, but fragile-looking crystal ivy. There was an impression of a vacuum in the space contained within the orb. Soren wasn't sure why, but there was a quiet certainty that he had what would fill it. Only the how was a mere guess to him at the moment. 

Gripping the dormant weapon like he was planning to fire it, he tried to give the crystal gun what it wanted. A red glow pulsed through the gun and sparks of light flickered inside. The light grew with the draining feeling that began at his hands. With gritted teeth, Soren concentrated on what was being drained. It was ethereal like warmth, but he felt no colder as the aspiring gunman tried to push more into the brightening light. 

Diminished might be the word for how I am feeling, thought Soren.  I don’t feel weaker, just lessened somehow. 

His focus was narrowing on the growing light within the orb. It had started like a dying lightbulb, but now was flirting into becoming lightning in a bottle. He imagined directing the energy towards his hands and into the gun. The ruby crystal drank deeply of what he offered and the orb gleamed as a crimson storm. From the gun, he received a sensation of coming to the cusp of what it could contain.

Soren had become entranced by the sensations of fueling the strange artifact. It was leaving him with the feeling of fading and a growing lightheadedness. It distracted him enough that he almost didn’t react when the energy cycling within the orb demanded release. The gunman snapped out of it and lambasted himself for the reckless testing of his weapon in this small stone room. While mentally holding the energy in the orb, he considered departing but wasn’t sure where he would go. Plus other people could get hurt as he had no idea how this crystal gun worked.

The grimace turned into a wild grin as Soren pointed the gun at the far wall. Well, I fucked up, but... might as well try it out, he thought. 

At his best guess, this wall had nothing behind it. Taking his metaphorical thumb out of the hole in the dike, he let the energy release. The scarlet storm pulsed in the orb and energy surged forth. A red beam shuddered and struck with an unfocus pattering against the wall. The rock scorched black, but seemed unharmed. Curious, Soren encouraged a stronger flow through the gun and concentrated on steadying the beam. The laser grew stable and began to burn a pit into the rock. He cut the flow off. The prospect of having to deal with molten rock encouraged Soren to end the experiment. 

Once the energy in the gun disappeared, he felt at the crystal to find it cool to the touch. Even the orb. The wall however was quite hot where the laser had touched. Wisely, he didn’t quite dare to test how hot the pit he had created was.

Stroking the stubble on his chin, the gunman decided to find somewhere better to train. It would be strange for there not to be somewhere around here to train and test things out, thought Soren. I’m willing to bet that other hallway leads to something. Likely be good to know either way. I’m guessing this place has more surprises in store, no doubt. 

From the bed, he grabbed the waiting duster and flipped it onto his back. Made of leather, the duster made him feel both cool under the weight and embarrassed at the idea of how others might see him in it. He still didn’t take it off. The worry wasn’t enough to deny the cool of wearing it.

He left the room and briefly looked at the wall to his right. Soren had picked room 30 on the left somewhat at random, though also because three was a number he liked. This bare wall that denoted the end of the left hall, and he also imaged the right was the same. There was something fascinating about this wall. It was another puzzle to this place. It struck him because it was the only wall without any artwork. Also, it was visibly newer stone as there was a lack of aging to the multi-ton stone blocks that were used to seal the end of the hall. He couldn’t help, but wonder why the hall was capped at all; and what was there. 

Intellectually, the gunman knew that whatever was back there was probably just more rooms that hadn’t been needed for the sixty of them. That logic though just didn’t seem enough in the face of the extraordinary things they had already seen here in the space of a day. Less than really. For all they knew, all the answers could be found on the other side of that stone. He looked down at the gun in his holster and thought of the pit he had carved into the wall.

With patience he thought, Not yet, not good enough yet.

Continuing to speculate what was beyond the door, the gunman went in search of a place for him to get familiarized with the crystal gun.

 

Evelyn Merrit

 

Daggers twirled through the air as Evelyn scowled and wished for many things. For more than two daggers so she could call it juggling was one. For the world to make some damn sense was another. It would also be nice if she was anywhere else than this dark fucking cave. Most of all, for the fools she was stuck with to stop being thrilled with the prospect of acting out their dreams.

“This isn’t a gods’ damn game,” she growled and snatched her daggers out the air ready to stab something. “They don’t know how bad this is going to get…”

“How bad is it going to get?” asked her fellow dour companion, Ameilia. The other woman laid half asleep on the bed of the room the three of them had gathered in. Her spear was propped up on the wall, noticeably in reach. Her long frame stretched across the bed that just barely fit the woman, but not the room. 

Briefly, Evelyn thought of how her own bed had fit the room just fine. Curse the oddities of this place, burned the dagger user. The strangeness never ends and its benevolence is creepy.

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“Do you know somehow? I would say it has already been terrible.”

Frowning uncertainly, Evelyn answered, “I don’t know the details, but… my gut… my gut is fucking telling me we’re going to be screwed.”

“We are screwed,” corrected Amelia, her haunted eyes now open. “We wake in an unknown place with altered bodies and are told to fight monsters.”

“It is simply so, we have been screwed,” stated Marceline wispily. The third of them sat on the floor with her head resting on the bed while a finger played the edge of her blade. There was an impression of porcelain to the tiny figure of the final woman. “All of this may be a dream, afterlife, or virtual illusion… still we are being used or meddled with.”

  “The Commandments have no promises of kindness, only one for purpose,” dryly added Amelia who had gone back to checking her eyelids.

“That promise...” cursed Evelyn. “Purpose, ugh, is there a more cursed word in human thought? We have nothing to measure or evaluate how that word was used on that baleful wall.” She stared between her two companions waiting for responses. Completely unsure herself whether she hoped they would prove those concerns false or just agree. Seeing how the three of them had come together because they were part of the few that had felt dread rather than rejoiced at the revelations of Malachi, Evelyn was a little bitter to be confident in their response. 

After all, we are going to be screwed, Evelyn asserted again.

“Purpose drives you insane,” offered Ameilia. “We all want it and celebrate whoever offers it to us. Most of the sixty aren’t showing enough caution. The fools only see that they are chosen and their  pride leads them to see that as a good thing.” The woman on the bed then added like a curse, “Glory seekers.”

“Historically, the chosen rarely have a good time in the end,” lectured Marceline as she admired the blade in hand. “In myths, heroes die tragically… in many, even the gods fall or are destined to do so. The Israelites suffered often, gruesomely even, because, and despite being, Yahweh’s chosen people. Purpose, chosen… we have been selected for death or worse.” Turning to the other two for the first time, Marceline grind absently as she adds, “It’s been interesting though.” 

“Now you sound like the fools,” accused Ameilia. “This isn’t going to be fun.”

“I didn’t say it would be fun,” disagreed Marceline with a pout. “I said interesting. Life is pain and suffering anyways. I never thought death would be any different.”

“We are dead?” questioned the spear user thoughtfully.

“We aren’t dead yet,” answered Evelyn. “The Commandments promise death and all of us will die. Not yet though, not yet. It’s never that easy.”

“In that case, I am glad to be alive,” decided Ameilia. “Alive means good times are available.”

“Can’t prove we didn’t die to come here,” argued the blade user. “This place is like a dream.”

“I feel I can dream better than this,” countered Ameilia sleepily. 

Evelyn frowned at the two bickering. This wouldn’t do them in any good to stay here and whine. They needed to figure out what to do. She racked her brain for a solution, but they just didn’t know enough yet. Sighing, she interrupted the other two, “We’re going to have to play along with the fools.”

“What?” said Amelia as Marceline said, “You said what?”

“All of this is terrible, but we’re going to have to do as the Commandments want,” Evelyn explained sourly. “We don’t know enough yet to break the tracks that the sixty of us are being railroaded on. The three of us have an idea of what to do from games and books, but unlike the others, we’ll be expecting it to go sideways. We three just need to get strong enough so we can go break the fucking face of the one who brought us here.”

“Break their face!” declared a roused spear rattler.

“Their face is going to be so broken when we are done with ‘em,” smirked Marceline

“So planner and seer of us three,” began Amelia. “Where do we begin?”

“Practice, we’ll need to know how to fight before the food runs out and so we can do better than the first fools to enter the dungeon,” grinned Evelyn. “We three are going to break this game!”

 

Roseline Jones

 

After the chaos caused by the return of the scouting group, Roseline did not choose to return to her room nor watch over the recovering braves. Instead, she had wandered to the center of the Hall to stare at the painted sky. It had been a feeling in her mind since the moment she had seen the haunting art. Like a moment in time stolen and converted to paints. Most of the sixty had proposed that it had been the work of a master, or even a team of them. With blue eyes so pale they could almost be called white, Roseline believed they didn’t understand the half of it.

The wondrous sky in this dim realm was not the work of one master, nor even many masters. It could not be that simple. The answer was generations as Roseline stared at that perfect sky, the blend of a thousand colors to create a snapshot of reality. This was the word that came to mind, generations. It was her knowing belief that generations had touched upon this sky with their dreams and their memories to create a piece of what was out of reach. A painted sky so filled with hope, that it was sorrowful.

The pale-eyed girl laid down again upon the stone floor of the Hall and wondered about moments. Such as moments that led to sixty sleepers awakening in darkness and how the moments to come would play out. Roseline smiled, It will be interesting I think. Tragedy and Victory, Hope and Despair, Glory and Death. And the sky shall guide us upwards.

 

John Harken

 

He wept. 

On his knees, the man envisioned the Commandments. Those words, like the stone in the hall, had been carved into him. There was no effort to bring forth every line for him to contemplate. To wonder over and analyze repeatedly. Harken strove to interpret the message and sleuth for hidden meanings. 

Something miraculous had happened to the sixty and Harken accepted it warmly. This was a place of purpose. Some were convinced that this was all a dream or some kind of full dive game. Such was nonsense in his opinion. Beliefs born by weakness and hope that their lives could be returned to them. Harken didn’t care if this was the afterlife or another world, but he knew there wouldn’t be any returning to their old lives.

“The Hall is our new home,” whispered Harken. He bowed and kissed the stone floor in his room. He had left the Commandments to escape the noise of the others and quietly examine the words. Reverently, he turned to the book he had gotten from choosing the Acolyte path. Such a choosing had only seemed right as he began this journey of faith. Feverishly he said, “More words for us to consider in our pursuit of the purpose.”

More tears of joy streamed down his cheeks as he applauded the simplicity of their new lives. The sixty were very much blessed to know what was expected of them and that their actions would be meaningful. This was guaranteed. Truly this place was holy. Zealously John Harken read the text. He sought to better serve the purpose through new understanding.

In Harken’s eyes a miracle had happened.

Damian Franklin

 

The obsidian man closed the book, staring thoughtfully forward. A small smile formed as Damian considered the implications of what was in the book. The possibilities are endless, he thought. The author is brilliant. I almost… I almost understand. I shall read it again... and then again.

He opened the book to start over before pausing. Damian reached through himself and felt the extra vibration that lay within his body. This sensation was new since his waking in the Hall. It wasn’t certain to him whether the newness made it easier to detect, or if he just had a talent for it. 

Remembering the instructions from the book, he excited the energy, the vibration, the Mana. Carefully he encouraged it to pool in his palm. Almost a whisper, the obsidian man chanted, 

 

“O’ Star of mine, 

Brighten my sight, 

Shine divine, 

Starlight.”

 

A violet light rose from his palm like illuminated dust that swirled at a point a few inches above his hand. Damian briefly grinned and nodded with the impression that it had gone as planned. He closed his hand and the violet light cut off. 

Immediately the obsidian man’s attention returned to the book in his lap. A few breaths later he was completely engrossed in his reading. There was so much to get down first before it got to the extraordinary. So much to be understood before he could work wonders.

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