Game 8: The Unquiet Dead

And then there's the monsters. Oh, the dreaded, dreaded monsters.

Makoto has been forced to fight a strange winged creature inside the halls of the manor. He's learned a considerable amount of magic spells for use in a struggle such as this, but the magic is only useful for so long before the spirits and the monsters return to hound him.

“Leave me alone!” Makoto cried out.

“WE WANT YOUR SOUL,” the creature answered.

“Magic Art: Star Bright!” Makoto chanted, generating a large orb of light to scare off the creature. It worked, but only long enough for Makoto to try to make his escape.

Telemachus Manor was an absolute maze of winding corridors that seemed to simultaneously go everywhere and go nowhere. Makoto needed to figure out how these corridors work quickly before his remaining Lives were gone. Each time he thought he found the exit, it just led to another maze of corridors. Any attempt to retrace his own steps proved futile.

Fourteen days of constant, repeated failures was beginning to drive him insane.

The winged creature had somehow found him once again.

Somehow, it had even gotten ahead of him. And it was ready to strike.

•

Takeshi, Rita, and Proteus arrived at Innsbruck, having returned with the items that had been stolen from the villagers.

“Here it is!” Takeshi shouted. “We've found all your stolen loot!”

As the villagers celebrate, Mac poked fun at Rita for always bringing back a new person every time she returns from an adventure.

“Every time, Rita. Every time.”

“I can't help it,” Rita insisted. “But if we're being completely honest, this one was Takeshi's doing.”

“So what, you're delegating leadership of this party to him?” Mac asked her.

“It's not a party, and there's no leader, per se. We're just working together as a team.”

“I'm just wondering,” Mac continued. “You've been awful trusting of outsiders lately.”

“You trusted me when I was an outsider,” Rita responded. “The new guys just need time to grow into their archetypes. We all have one. I'm the adventurous mentor character. Takeshi is the foolhardy but inexperienced protagonist. Proteus? I'm sure he'll figure himself out.”

“Hey! What's going on?” Takeshi decided to insert himself into their conversation. “Foolhardy? What's that?”

“Never mind,” Rita told him.

“I do need a favor to ask you,” Mac told them. “You see, I finally got a raven back from Mossy Hills, that's a village due north of here. I'm expecting a shipment soon from there, but there's been some… unusual activity in that village that has prevented anything from getting out.”

“What kind of unusual activity?” Takeshi asked.

“There's rumors of ghosts in the area.”

“Ghosts.”

“Exactly.”

“We'll see what we can do,” Rita told him. “In the meantime, would you be able to look after Proteus here? He just needs some good people to keep him on the right track."

“Oh, of course!”

“If everything goes right, we'll be seeing you later!” Rita said as she and Takeshi left the village.

After saying his goodbyes, Mac turned to Proteus and asked, “So, what kind of skills have you got?”

“Well,” Proteus answered, “I can do this.” He then turned into a poodledoodle, immediately drawing the attention and awe of the entire village.

•

Thanks to their recent acquisition of the speeder, it did not take Takeshi and Rita long to arrive at the village of Mossy Hills. True to the village’s name, it was situated on a batch of small, bumpy hills covered in a mossy overgrowth. On the tallest hill, overlooking the rest of the village, was Telemachus Manor. It didn't take long for them to see a ghostly blue vapor encircling the estate.

“Something tells me we should check that place out,” Takeshi noted.

Rita simply nodded her head in agreement.

The route to the manor was quiet, interrupted only by the occasional sounds of locals hurriedly locking their doors or shuttering their windows.

“I guess the locals don't take too kindly to outsiders,” Takeshi noted.

Before long, they had arrived at the Manor. The doors, oddly enough, were wide open, almost as if the Manor itself was expecting them, welcoming them.

“Ladies first,” Takeshi told Rita.

“What? Don't tell me you're afraid of a few ghosts?” Rita teased.

“Nah,” Takeshi lied. “Just wanted to be polite.”

The inside of the Manor looked as if it was abruptly abandoned in the middle of the night: all the furniture was still perfectly in place, plates and silverware still neatly stacked in the kitchen, bedsheets nice and pressed. But not a single person inside, only the faint blue vapor they had spotted earlier.

It was only once they entered the master bedroom did they notice something was off. At the center of the bed was a massive pile of bedsheets, roughly mounted together.

“Your call,” Rita told Takeshi, referring to whether they see what's inside or not.

“On three,” Takeshi answered.

As soon as they started pulling away sheets, a man started screaming and waving a coat rack like it was a weapon.

“Magic Art: Star Bright!” the man shouted, releasing a giant orb of light into the room, nearly blinding all three people inside. He tried to jab Takeshi several times with the coat rack.

“Hey! Watch where you're pointing that thing!” Takeshi shouted back.

As soon as the light dissipated, the man realized he wasn't fighting the spirits again.

“You're… you're not one of them?” the man asked them.

“One of what?” Takeshi asked.

“The spirits,” the man answered. “Evil spirits reside in this house. I was tasked by the mayor to deal with them.”

“We were tasked by Mac to help you out with that,” Rita told the man. “He figured you might need the help.”

“You two know Mac?” the man asked them. “This is a pleasant surprise after all. Makoto.”

“Takeshi.”

“Rita.”

“Nice to meet you both,” Makoto told them. “Unfortunately, it seems the three of us are trapped in this house forever.”

“What do you mean trapped?” Rita asked him.

“What do you mean forever?” Takeshi asked him. “We just walked inside, surely we could just retrace our steps and -”

“It's no use,” Makoto told them. “The spirits, they must have put a hex on the place. I've been trapped in here for fifteen days now.”

“Fifteen days?” Takeshi asked him. “How are you still alive, trapped in a house for fifteen days with no food?”

“I was smart enough to pack a supply of Heart Cookies, just in case I found myself in an unwelcome predicament. Awful, awful things, but they do the trick.” Makoto then tapped his Life Counter, revealing he had just one Life left. “Unfortunately, I just ate my last Cookie yesterday.”

Rita immediately offered him one of her Heart Cookies.

“Thanks,” Makoto said. “I'll save it for later.”

“We are trapped,” a voice cried out in the distance. “Have pity on us, for we are trapped in the machine!”

“That's them,” Makoto explained. “Those spirits have been hounding me for two weeks, and that is all they say. That's all they ever say.”

“Trapped in the machine…” Takeshi said quietly. “Do you have any idea of what they might be or why they might be here?”

“I think… I think they might be the spirits of players who have been defeated in The Game. As for why they're here, I have no idea.”

“Please, please help us,” the voice returned. “Have pity on us.”

The plea of the spirits was answered by a tremendous roar. Whatever made that sound was clearly nearby.

“Oh no…” Makoto cried. “Here it comes.”

Out of nowhere, a six-legged monster charged at the three of them.

“WE WANT YOUR SOUL!”

“Now would be a good time to eat that cookie,” Takeshi told Makoto.

“Forget the cookie,” Rita told Takeshi. “Now would be a good time to RUN!”

Through long corridors, massive doors, and strange corners, the trio ran, only for the monster to keep pace with them.

“Ice Arrow!” Rita shouted, as she tried to slow the creature down.

“Cover your eyes!” Makoto warned. He turned around, and shouted “Magic Art: Holy Barrier!” A shining magic barrier now separated the monster from the humans.

The trio kept on running.

“There it is!” Takeshi told the others. “I think I see the exit!”

“Takeshi, no!” Makoto tried to warn him.

Takeshi tried to open the doors, but they would not budge.

“They're locked!”

The three of them were now stuck behind locked doors, with who knows what chasing after them. Makoto hurriedly swallowed the Heart Cookie in one gulp.

“You do this often?” Rita asked him.

“This has been my routine for the past two weeks,” Makoto explained. “Try to find an exit, get annoyed by the spirits, get chased by monsters, then they get me, I lose a Life, start over in the morning.”

The six-legged monster managed to find them.

“WE WANT YOUR SOUL!”

“What do you want my soul for?” Makoto tried to reason with the monster.

“ESSENTIAL ENERGY IS REQUIRED FOR THE MACHINE. YOU HAVE THE ENERGY WE NEED. YOU CANNOT RESIST. YOU SHALL PROVIDE US WITH SOULS!”

“Essential energy?” Takeshi asked himself.

Suddenly, the six-legged monster was joined by two others: a long, jellyfish-like monster and a large, slimy blob creature.

“WE WANT YOUR SOULS!”

“Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me!” Takeshi cried.

“Well, that's not happened before…” Makoto noted.