UnwillingEldritchHorrorofFortune
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Chapter 182: Taking the Offensive
🕑 Added 2024-08-26 04:44:04 +0000 UTCI used the last few minutes double checking the terrain and the composition of the enemy before Greta came back and hurriedly warned me that time was almost up. True to her words, she came back with a large thermos filled with coffee, and two smaller bottles of juice for the kids. I could tell that Alice and Toby wanted to stay for a lot longer, what with their play time interrupted so abruptly, but I think they understood the severity of the situation from my expression.
“We’ll be back soon,” I promised the kids, “But let’s leave Rupert and her mother alone for now.”
“Okay…” Alice pouted, “We’ll see you later!”
We left the small, homely hut, and I was surprised to see an old man - well, he was grossly misshapen, much like all the other villagers sans Greta - waiting for us at the entrance of the old woman’s abode.
“That’s Laurence,” Greta said, “He’s in charge of guarding the Northern settlement; I thought it best for you to have a guide, it’s very easy to get lost in this village, especially when a shift is imminent.”
“Thank you,” I answered, “And a guide would most certainly be welcome.”
“A pleasure to meet you,” Laurence hissed, his voice seemed to be emanating from every direction, quite disorienting to be honest, “Are you to go to the Northern gate where the outsiders are?”
“Yes, if you would.”
“Follow me, please.”
“Please take care, Dr. Walter,” Greta said with a wave, “We’ve lost enough people here, and I’d hate to see you hurt.”
“Come back soon!” Rupert shouted, “We’s still gotta finish the shirt!”
“Come now,” Laurence said, “Time is of the essence.”
I nodded and followed the strange, snake-like man out of Greta’s property and back onto the winding dirt paths and twisting vegetation. It was true, getting anywhere fast without a guide would have been a hopeless endeavour, and I swore that some of the trees were moving around when I wasn’t looking. Without any kind of landmark, I wasn’t sure how Laurence was getting around at all.
Half way through the journey, Laurence made us pause. We were deep in the undergrowth of the forest, so I couldn’t get a good look at the moon, but from the rolling fog that came from nowhere, the shift must have been occurring. The warm, comforting ruby glow - something that I had gotten so used to that I had halfway forgotten what the world had looked like - dimmed and disappeared, and the ominous, unsettling atmosphere reappeared. Laurence’s monstrous form changed back into a diminutive old man, almost a clone of Filbert now that I thought about it, and the kids became translucent and ghostly once again.
I made sure to follow suit and change back to my old Walter form. A message from the Trash Matrix assaulted my eyes the second the moon was fully out of view.
NOTIFICATION TO ALL ASPIRANTS
Congratulations for surviving the first Blood Moon! Make sure you use the fleeting time between cycles wisely, for this world is a dangerous one when the Moon is out.
To ensure that Aspirants are motivated to improve themselves, new objectives will be given out after each full cycle of the Moon. Note that each mission must be completed before the time limit, and failure to do so will result in severe consequences.
Mission 1: Investigate the Village. Aspirants may not leave the Village’s perimeter once inside.
Time Limit: 2 hours
…
Congratulations, Aspirant Walter. You have completed the assigned mission.
Mission 2: [ERROR 1041 ASPIRANT DATA CORRUPT] [ERROR 1113 ASPIRANT OFF COURSE] PLEASE STAND BY-
Noe, what’s with those error messages?
“That is due to my interference, my Host,” she explained, “These early stage Trials are mostly automated and are set in a way that railroads the Aspirants into a set path, but I have corrupted your data so that you are free from these constraints. You may ignore the missions going forth.”
Got it, thanks Noe.
“The shift is never pleasant,” the old man said, his voice still raspy but at least the sound was clearly coming from his mouth this time. He shook his head and sighed. “But they are becoming more regular as time passes. We best get going, the outsiders will make their way into the village soon.”
The outsiders certainly were coming now unless they want to suffer “severe consequences”.
“You seem to know a lot,” I said as we continued our journey, “do the outsiders always behave this way?”
Laurence nodded. “Every time, as if every set of outsiders come from the same order. Our best guess is that they follow a corrupt god that dictates their horrid actions.”
That was one way to view the Trash Matrix. For people like him and the other dimensions that the Trash Matrix has invaded, it must look like insane cultists coming in at regular intervals to plague the natives with their ridiculous actions and antics. It was a lose-lose situation for everyone involved save Central and its allies.
“I see,” I muttered, “Sorry, just a quick question.”
“Yes?”
“You have the same role as Filbert, right? I haven’t seen any other villagers around when the fog is in and the moon is hidden.”
He nodded again. “I do. My role is to monitor and greet them.”
“But… what’s the point in it? Wouldn’t it be easier to just let the outsiders get lost in the woods until the next shift? The only thing Filbert told me when he first saw me was that I wasn’t welcome. Aren’t you afraid that they’d simply attack you?”
“I apologize for the rude welcome,” he began, “But that is the sad state of affairs that we see ourselves in now. And as for why I risk my life to “greet” these monsters? It is my lot in life, my curse.” He shook his head slowly and looked at the dilapidated village. “Someone has to remain in each segment of the village when the outsiders first come, and that is my responsibility this year.”
“So you don’t have a choice?”
“I do,” he replied, “Insomuch as I volunteered for this position, because there must be four people to fill the gatekeeper role each year.”
“Ah… so what are you supposed to do as the gatekeeper?”
He laughed bitterly. “It’s as the title says, to keep the gates to the heart of our village and the ritual grounds secure. We rarely succeed, the outsiders always inevitably invade even our most hallowed places.”
“Then you, what? Fight them?”
“If their numbers are few, then previous gatekeepers have done so,” Laurence continued, “Others have tried to waste the outsider’s time until a shift occurs, while a growing number of others have simply given up. I fear Filbert was one of those people. We do what we can as the first line of defense, but it is a token gesture. In truth, we are simply sacrifices, few gatekeepers survive. Worse, the curse forces us to take them into the ritual ground should they complete trivial tasks and survive the second shift.”
I frowned. How this place survived for so long must have been a miracle, and I began to wonder what this place would have looked like at its peak, before the Trash Matrix invaded. I felt even worse for Greta and the others, just imagining living year after year as they watched more and more of their friends and loved ones die. I needed to do something about this situation, and it wasn’t enough for me to just clear this Trial.
“Hold on a second,” I said, “You give out tasks?”
“It is nothing more than a time waster,” he explained, “Something to pass the hours until the Moon rises once more and we can act.”
“But you get to choose what those tasks are, right?”
He nodded. “Yes, but there is very little that I can do to harm the outsiders when the fog is in.”
“What did you have in mind for this set of outsiders?”
He frowned, unsure what I was getting at. “They’re to simply find some small baubles hidden in some of the disused homes.”
“I see…” I muttered, “Do you think you can make some small changes to that task?”
He shrugged. “I don’t see why not, it should still take the outsiders another hour or so before they make it there, so if it’s a small change, then it is certainly possible.”
I grinned. “Perfect, I need you to trust me, but there’s something I need to do.”
“You have already earned the trust of the village, I will do my best to assist you in any way I can.”
We quickly made our way to the northern Village, and I quickly sat down with Laurence to get the necessary changes I needed. With just a bit under an hour to work with, I had to cut some corners, but the gist of what I wanted to do was complete. With everything set, I was hoping to do some significant damage to the Aspirants before the shift, during this time of relative peace.
The core of my idea is to split the huge group into manageable bite-sized pieces. Laurence wouldn’t have been able to do much damage while the moon was hidden, but that didn’t apply to me or the two kids, and I planned to use that to my advantage. Now, with close to 50 people, it would be impossible for me, or even ghost-Alice and Toby to fight all at once, but if they went in groups of around 5? Much more doable. But that was just the first part of my plot.
The second half was to replace the baubles with something a bit more substantial. I still wanted to use Noe’s ability to fuck with the Trash Matrix’s automated messages, especially in Greta’s little garden, but that meant I had to somehow trick people into going there willingly. Originally, I wanted to somehow use the emotional manipulation abilities to trick them into following me there, or even convince them to go if I could somehow infiltrate their number, but that idea was convoluted and prone to failure. That’s also not to mention that I only had a few hundred Luck Charges to work with after helping Filbert and his peers.
Instead, the much easier method was to abuse the nature of the Trials themselves. For the Aspirants that were lucky enough to avoid Toby, Alice or me, I had drawn (technically Noe did all the drawing) a map of the village with some cryptic writing on it that suggested that there was a hidden reward that could be found in the middle of the village. I hid these little maps, some cut up in pieces to increase authenticity, all over the places that the Aspirants would be guided to.
Of course, I couldn’t just straight out state that, as that would be much too suspicious, so I wrote it in a cipher using some Luck to ensure that it wouldn’t be too hard or too easy for whoever viewed them to solve. I’ve seen Noe’s abilities at work, and once I saw my Luck Charges fall when I wrote the instructions, I was all but certain that someone would be falling for my little ruse. To ensure Greta’s tiny home wouldn’t be overrun with crazed Aspirants, I made sure to hint that only the first 10 people would be able to receive the rewards.
I wasn’t sure how the Aspirants themselves would be divided, so I just went overboard and made half a dozen copies of the maps. With some slight emotional manipulation off the start to heighten distrust and greed, I was willing to bet that any group that did find these scattered maps would decide to keep that information to themselves, and go get those rewards for themselves when no one was watching. Even if they did share the information with the others, there was no way that such a disorganized group would go about things logically. Someone was bound to betray their peers for the prospect of power. The only thing I was worried about was too many groups finding the map, but that’s certainly not the worst thing that could happen for me.
Once everything was set, I hid in an abandoned house near Laurence and instructed the kids to go to their assigned spots. They thought it a game so I wasn’t worried about them doing what’s needed, it wasn’t like this would be their first time dealing with Aspirants. All that’s left was for me to fiddle with their emotions, and then run off to my own spot. The scene was set.
