Chapter Fifty-Six: The Servants

We began moving away from the light of the wishing well. There was something deep inside me that truly did not want to leave the light. The darkness ahead of us was surely safer than the darkness behind us but it was still darkness.

Nicholas kept looking behind us as we walked, his eyes appeared to be focused on the glittering gold beneath the bucket. I didn’t know what if anything would happen if he tried to take it. If there was an enemy trope associated with it, I should be able to see its presence even if I couldn’t identify what it actually was. The same thing had been true about the pumpkin displays in The Final Straw II.

At the end of the day, when you find treasure in the same cave as a dead eldritch deity, it’s best not to take it.

The Off-Screen light was still misbehaving, though not as bad as it had before. It flicked on every few seconds.

As we moved forward I could have sworn I heard a clicking sound ahead.

“Stop walking,” I said quietly.

Everyone stood still and listened. Sure enough, the clicking continued.

We looked in the direction we thought the sound was coming from. Nothing appeared on the red wallpaper which meant that it wasn’t likely to be the deity from before. Spotting enemies on the red wallpaper generally requires getting a visual. The deity had been an exception, probably because of its aura.

All of us had flashlights except for Corey who had lost his. Up until that point we’d been hesitant to shine them into the distance out of fear that we might somehow have gotten turned around and that we were facing the Unknowable Host again.

Slowly, Anna raised her light further and further out across the water.

Twenty yards ahead of us, we saw the source of the noise.

It was a woman.

She was wearing a threadbare nightgown and holding one of those old heavy-duty metal flashlights. The bulb had burned out, but still, she clicked it off and on.

As soon as she came into view, she appeared on the red wallpaper.

Martha Hesper (Possessed). Plot Armor: 3.

She had the exact same tropes that Corey did, though she was further along in her infection. She didn’t react when the light shined on her.

Not hard to guess who this was. Gerald Hesper’s wife had befallen some tragedy around 30 years ago according to Corey’s rant earlier. Thanks to her Immortal Servant trope, she was alive. In fact, if she weren’t so pale and gaunt, I would almost say that she looked like she was still in her early 30s, the same age she presumably was when she got here.

Every instinct told me to run away. The problem was we couldn’t go off of instinct alone. Our characters would probably be very spooked by this woman, but how certain would they be that she was an enemy? That was the question. Could we run from her or did we have to feign concern? More importantly, what was the best decision for the story?

As I considered this, Anna decided for me.

“Hello,” she said. She began walking toward the woman. Anna was a very kind and considerate person. I hoped that that wouldn’t come back to bite us.

We followed her along. Martha Hesper did not move. As we got closer, I could see her more clearly. Her wrists must have been bound with rope when she was brought here. It had been so long that the rope had frayed and rotted. Her hands were no longer bound but the ropes still hung limply from her wrists.

The Off-Screen still flickered.

“That can’t be,” Nicholas said. “No…”

Looked like Nicholas finally figured out who we were walking toward.

“What?” I asked. I could guess what he was talking about but we had to let the audience know somehow.

“That looks like…” he started to say. “But it can’t be she…”

He recognized her as his mother.

“It’s Martha Hesper,” Corey said. He had a strange blank smile on his face. There was very little left of the anxious paranoid man that had entered the cave. Only a small sliver of his personality was still there.

“No,” Nicholas said. “Her plane went down when I was a baby.”

“Well, this is one reason to seal up the mines,” Dina said.

“It looks like…” Nicholas started to say. He pulled his wallet from his pocket and flipped through it to find a small photograph. He stared at it in disbelief. “This can’t be real. That can’t be her.”

Through all of this, Martha Hesper didn’t respond to anything. She had stopped clicking her flashlight though.

“Tell us exactly what your father’s relationship is with this mine,” Anna said.

Nicholas furrowed his brow. He was having a very difficult time figuring out what was going on.

“Dad found the mine when he was digging for gravel. He thought he might be able to turn his luck around. Took a couple of years to get the mine set up properly to get the equipment needed for this type of operation. Gravel is a lot simpler. He didn’t really have to go underground.

“Couple years later he starts finding gold and jewels. The mine is worth millions. But he has a bad run of luck. One of the banks where he kept his money collapsed. Come to think of it one of his other mines collapsed too. A factory he owned burned down.

“Between that plus the cost of equipment and the price of labor after his workers unionized, he ended up going bankrupt. Couldn’t catch a break. He showed me one of his old accounting books. After pulling up hundreds of thousands of dollars in jewels and just over a million in gold, he didn’t make a dime.

“Then my mother. Then she…” He looked up at Martha Hesper. “Dad was devastated. He sealed up the mine and let the company go bankrupt. It got bought by some other holding group. We were just able to buy it back with some investor funds. It was our big project.”

He turned away from us and ran his fingers through his hair.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Martha had begun clicking the flashlight again.

“What do we do?” Corey asked.

“We find a way-“Anna began answering, but just as she did, she was interrupted.

“He doesn’t speak,” Martha said.

“Why doesn’t he speak?” Corey said.

They both started to breathe in and out quickly.

“What are his commands?” they both asked. “We must wait. We must wait.”

“Corey?” Dina asked.

She looked at us. “He must have hit his head on something. He’s acting funny.”

He was. His infection was taking hold.

Sometime during this conversation, Second Blood was struck. I still wasn’t certain what First Blood was, but I hoped it wasn’t Kimberly.

We went Off-Screen for real–no flickering.

“There we go,” Dina said.

“What is going on with the camera?” Kimberly asked.

I had a theory, but I wasn’t ready to say just yet.

“Maybe we took the wrong path somewhere,” Anna suggested.

“So, the servants are just waiting for orders, but their master is dead?” Dina asked.

“That’s my take,” I said. The Unknowable Host was still acquiring servants passively even though it was dead. I wondered what else it could do while dead.

“Mine too,” Anna added.

“Did anyone swallow that water?” Camden asked. “I can’t remember if I did.”

“I think we’d already know if you did,” I answered. “Do you feel the desire to gaze upon Carousel-Cthulhu?”

“Definitely not.”

“Then I think we’re fi-“

“It’s gotta be nuclear waste,” Corey said. “That’s all it could be. Just nuclear waste. I’m already dying. Drifting away.”

“Hmm?” Dina said.

Corey stood still. I shined my flashlight over at him. He didn’t react. A tear fell down his cheek into his beard.

“When is it over?” Corey asked. “Is it over soon?”

No one answered for a moment.

“Yes,” Anna answered. “It’s over soon.”

In response, Corey gently sobbed, though most of his face stayed wooden.

We all looked at each other.

“It was nuclear waste. That’s how it ends. Nuclear waste. That’s what Hesper’s hiding down here. That’s all. Maybe it’s just radiation? I took a picture. Barrels of sickly green nuclear waste. Report him to the government. That can be it? That can be it? Right? Next time?”

“What the fuck?” Dina said.

“Is he…” Anna said. “Is he talking to us?”

I had no idea who he was talking to. He was losing it. Not just within the story.

In an instant, Corey’s expression changed from one of horror and confusion back to a gaunt blank look the same as Martha’s.

“How can that be my mother?” Nicholas asked. “She’s my age.”

“And how long has she been your age?” I asked. “You see those restraints on her wrists. I don’t think she came in here willingly. Those things have rotted off.”

Nicholas was clearly having a very difficult time coming to terms with what he was seeing.

Meanwhile, Martha’s clicking got faster and faster.

Anna took notice of her. She shined her flashlight over at Martha. I only just noticed that Martha had her broken flashlight pointed behind us. She clicked faster and faster.

Was she trying to show us something?

We turned slowly and lifted our lights to the water behind us.

Hundreds, thousands of bright green eyes reflected back at us. They came in all sizes. Small, barely sticking out of the water. Large hovering above the water.

I squinted to try to see what we were looking at.

Deer (Possessed)

Plot Armor: 3

Tropes

Teeth of the Host

This creature will eat for the enemy.

Hive Mind

This creature’s mind is linked to that of similar creatures.

Immortal Servant

This creature will not die of natural causes

Gradual Infection

After this creature is infected, it can take several scenes for them to completely turn.

A possessed deer stood closest to us. It might have been a hundred yards away. Behind it, were dozens of other deer. Dozens of wolves. Hundreds of squirrels, rabbits, and every manner of woodland creature. They weren’t moving. Some of the small creatures simply floated on the top of the water. Others had sunk down into the water but still didn’t seem too bothered by it.

Anna, Dina, Kimberly, and Camden each got a boost in Savvy and Grit.

My Cinema Seer ability was activated by us finding Martha and the animals.

Martha and Corey had a trope called Eyes of the Host that made them scouts for the eldritch entity.

The animals were the Teeth of the Host. Their job sounded a little scarier.

“I guess we know what happened to all the missing animals Corey was monologuing about earlier,” I said.

With the Unknowable Host dead, was it possible that his servants would not attack us? Truthfully if I didn’t know any better, I would say that they were all wondering that exact same question.

Martha had tried to warn us they were over here. It appeared to be some sort of subconscious message from the woman still trapped inside. She wouldn’t have done that if we were perfectly safe.

The animals didn’t move.

I shined my flashlight at Martha.

“Where’s the way out?” I asked. She didn’t respond.

“Nicholas,” Anna said. “You have to ask her. I think she knows who you are.”

Nicholas was frozen as he watched the animals slowly move toward us. He turned his head slowly toward his mother. He was struggling to find words.

“Which way?” He managed to get out. “If you are who they say you are. Please.”

For a moment she did nothing.

Then she slowly moved her flashlight pointing it in a direction opposite the animals and to the right a bit. She started to click her flashlight again.

“Thank you,” he said. “Come with us.”

She didn’t respond in any meaningful way. She stood still and stopped clicking her flashlight. Corey stayed with her.

We started to move in the direction she had pointed.

“What’s going on?” Kimberly asked as we waded through the water.

After a moment, I realized she was looking at me.

“I think we’re behind the scenes somehow,” I said. “Those animals are just standing by. Something went wrong.”

This part of the cavern grew narrow and the water started to get more shallow as we moved forward.

I could see what she was calling the exit. There was a steep incline ahead of us, not quite as steep as the one that we had entered through. We would be able to climb it.

We started the climb. Rocks cascaded beneath our feet with every step. This area was not natural. These rocks looked like they had been chipped away by human tools. This was the result of the mine.

At the top of the steep incline, there was a small crevice just big enough for us to squeeze through.

We each climbed up into the area above.

On-Screen. This time, there was no flickering.

As soon as I got through the crevice, I went to stand up and knocked my hard hat against the ceiling. This area was under five feet high. We would have to crouch if we were going to move through this tunnel.

I shined my flashlight back and forth. We were in a small tunnel with minecart tracks.

Sitting in front of us, was an empty minecart. Except it wasn’t an ordinary minecart. This was a handcart. It had a handbrake and one of those double-sided handles where two people would grab a hold of each side and take turns pushing it down in order to make the minecart move along the tracks. The metal had been painted industrial yellow but had mostly been worn off from use.

There were two shovels and a pickaxe in the cart.

We started hearing haunting howls behind us. The animals had woken up.

A sign was hung on the outside of the handcart: “Use With Caution.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Dina said when she saw it.

It was clear what we were meant to do here. We were back in the script it seemed. The tunnel was too short for us to run through. We were meant to ride out.

We piled into the mine cart. Camden operated the brake. Kimberly and I took turns pumping the handles to make the mine cart move forward. After 30 years you’d think something like this wouldn’t be in working order. This one, however, came to life with a loud creak. Grease dripped down the mechanism as we pumped it. It almost looked like the handcart had been maintained recently. A white hard hat was laying on the floor of the cart.

This device was used to get miners from one side of the mine to the other quickly without having to dig a tunnel large enough for a man to walk through.

It wasn’t designed to be faster than a possessed wolf.

Luckily, after we got started, it turned out that the direction we were moving was downhill. The cart started to move faster.

Camden was ready with the break preventing us from getting too much speed built up. We started racing along the tracks. Eventually, we left the short tunnel behind but by that point in time we were going so fast that we couldn’t exit the cart.

We broke out of the tunnel into a larger cavern. The tracks curved around the side of the cavern.

The animals followed us, snarling and snapping anytime they managed to get close.

Anna, Dina, and Nicholas held the shovels and pickaxe. They smacked any animal that got near us.

The tracks were designed by a madman. They went in large circles around caverns, even hairpin turns that we barely made around. To add problems to this, we could barely see where we were going. All we had were our flashlights. The lights in the mine were not on.

It wasn’t exactly a roller coaster, but I got the feeling it was meant to be for our entertainment, not the audience’s. It was like an amusement park dark ride.

Perhaps this is what Chris meant when he said that it was fun, but I was still skeptical. On balance, I would say that this hardly made up for the dead entity that made me question whether my life was worth living.

Of course, I wasn’t sure we were actually supposed to have encountered the dead god. I think that was where things went wrong.

Anna smashed her shovel against the head of a wolf as it snipped at her.

“Look,” she said, pointing beside us.

I looked. It was Martha Hesper standing beside the tracks as we passed. She had left the cavern. She just stood there. She didn’t attack. It was like she was only there to be a jump scare.

After more distance, we saw Corey doing the same. Then we saw the foreman who had worn the white hat earlier that day. He must have gotten infected at some point in time. He was bloody and covered in bite marks.

There were more. Miners mostly. They were spread out throughout the ride looking gaunt and pale and ghostlike. We hadn’t seen them in the cavern below, though we had not explored it fully.

The human enemies only showed up for glimpses and then disappeared. None of them attacked.

“Over there,” Dina said, pointing across the cavern. “I know where we are. That sign. That’s the air shaft where Corey and I entered.”

Camden pulled the brakes as we got close. A high-pitched squeal echoed through the cavern.

The animals were hot on our trail. We had to move quickly.

The air shaft was steep, but it was so narrow that you could put your arms to the side and help yourself climb to the top.

Soon, we emerged from the mines. Judging from my surroundings coming up and the directions we had taken underground, I would have to say that we were in the wilderness refuge.

As we exited the air vent, Dina and Camden moved a large metal grate over the opening. The animals would be able to move it if enough of them could get to it, but with the narrow shaft, that seemed unlikely.

That was the Finale. The End would come soon, but it wasn’t here yet.

The minecart chase was closer to the tone I was expecting from this storyline than the Unknowable Host was. The question was: why had we been forced to take that detour?

That couldn’t have been in the script.

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