Chapter 22: Powering The Dead

Effectively trapped in the gloomy basement by a couple zombies, one pounding on the door, the other walking around aimlessly behind the door. And they were in a hallway – our only exit out of here – filled with poison gas. It was a good thing our flashlight batteries would outlast us.

Yet the room we were trapped in was gloomy. And not the good kind of gloomy, with atmosphere, but the horror-movie kind.

“Here’s the plan: we’ll split up. You take the door at the far end, I’ll rush into the one right here.”

Marci rolled her eyes. “No, not a chance. As far as I’m concerned, we’re cojoined twins.”

“Sorry, bad joke.” We were standing in front of what we guessed was the security room, mainly because “SECURITY” was written above it. “I’ll have my sword ready, you open the door.” All three doors accessed from this room were locked, but we had the master keys from the management floor.

“Ready?” Marci tried a key, didn’t fit. Tried another, wouldn’t go in all the way. Tried another, went in all the way, wouldn’t turn. “Shit, this is stupid. Why wouldn’t they just have one master key?”

“I bet they have one master keycard, but the electricity isn’t on.”

The next one slid in and moved with a click. “Got it! Ready?” She turned the handle, pulling the door open.

The sword was less bright over here, away from the hallway we’d entered from, and I needed the flashlight to see. I shone it across and around the room. Cheap cement walls, lines running along them where the wooden supports held it together during the pouring, metal desks lining the far wall of perhaps twenty large monitors. A row of clothes hooks along the back. “This is definitely the security room”

“Yup.” Her eyes took it in, then she bumped my arm, gesturing to the elvish sword I was holding, “Why isn’t your sword glowing as much here?”

“I don’t know. Wearing down the battery?”

“Ha! Is there a charging port in the handle?” She walked past me, into the room, flashlight moving here and there, outlining the not-comfortable looking chairs, tower computers under the desk with actual wires attached to keyboards, and so on. “This is really old school, hey?”

Lifting the sword up, I actually checked. “No charge port.”

“Right.”

“I am a bit dumb. Just, like, a bit.”

Suddenly, her shoulders curled inward, hands on her stomach, body bowed forward, making the universal human sound for feeling nauseous.

“Marci! What’s wrong?” I rushed over, holding her shoulder, other hand gently on her back.

“I suddenly feel awful. Like something is pressing on me. It’s worse if I go forward.”

“Back up then, sit down. I’ll check for traps. All around.”

“Yeah.”

I helped her move toward the door, pulled a chair over and set her on it. She breathed more easily and deeply and nodded at me.

Glad for that, I entered further into the room, moving the flashlight beam along the floor, up, along the corners, and then I passed the point where she’d been standing. A chill ran up my spine, the hair on the back of my neck rising. On the furthest desk, stood a wooden house-like structure about one meter high. An octagram hung from its ceiling, two of the points facing up, main point facing down. No, I realized, that could only be seven points. A heptagram. Beside it, two pale yellow candles hanging upside down and burning, flames falling downward like a waterfall, smoke heavy and heading toward the ground, where it gathered thick and darkly grey, billowing and swirling.

I didn’t hear her footsteps as she approached, putting her hand on my shoulder, leaning on me, “I’m managing. Got a hold of myself. What is that thing?”

“I think it’s a shrine. But I’ve never seen anything like that. Look at the flames! Burning downward. And that strange heavy smoke. I . . . I think this is making you sick. We should get out of here.”

“It’s disgusting. Shameful. We need to destroy it.”

“Shameful?”

She didn’t answer but looked around the room. “Here!” Marci picked up a large, red fire extinguisher and passed it to me. “Put those candles out, then break it apart.”

“What’s gotten into you?”

Her face tensed up, fists clenched, “It’s an affront to nature!”

I took it, saying, “Just, just wait here. Please?”

She crossed her arms, “Yeah.”

The closer I got to the shrine, the greater the unease seeping into me. It was oily and thick and smelled like tobacco smoke and burnt insects. Within a meter, the world spun a bit, and my body felt like dirt was coursing through my veins instead of blood.

Holding my breath, I took aim, shot foam over the candles, seven-pointed star, wooden frame, and then reversed the extinguisher, bringing it down hard on the shrine again and again, wood splintering off, the candles broken and falling. I kept hitting and hitting it until it was smashed to bits and then a familiar tone rang.

NEW QUEST: DESTROY THE NECROMANTIC ALTARS AND CLEANSE THE HOTEL: ONE DOWN, TWO TO GO

The extinguisher hit the floor with a metal bang, I sighed, walked over to Marci, rolled my eyes. “This stupid game.”

Walking into me, she wrapped her arms around me, “I feel so much better! Thank you.”

Lightly, I put my arms around her, her lean muscles tense through the light metallic fabric, then squeezed harder, feeling nothing but relief. Her little body pressing into mine, both of us still alive, yet unharmed.

When she backed up, hands on my waist, she said, “I guess, well, that tells us how to get rid of the zombies in this hotel. And why they’re here. These, uh, evil shrines.”

“This is literally crazy.”

“But it’s got a game logic to it. The zombies are here because of the shrines. Necromantic shrines, the game said. We destroy them, the hotel is purged.”

“And then we take over the hotel and open for business?”

Dropping her hands and rolling her hands, Marci said, “Probably, the next quest would be finding out who put them here, then finding that person. Or monster or whatever.”

“Not sure I want to go to all that trouble. We just need to learn what happened when the nanotech attacked.”

“Not sure we have a choice.”

I looked at her for a bit, trying to see the changes. Marci’s blue eyes were deepening in color, a more pure blue. Her hair seemed more golden than before, eyebrows thinner. I found myself reaching up, running my hand along her face and she smiled, taking my hand in hers.

Yet I worried. Who we were, us, our bodies, being altered, perhaps irrevocably.

After a while, looking once again at the security stations, all the monitors on the wall, I said, “There’s nothing else in here. But this is where we want to be once we turn the power back on. Hopefully, one of the other rooms has the generators.”

“Hey, one thing is bothering me. The traps. The zombies. Now these altars.”

“How so?”

“They’re all part of the game, right? And we’re inside a giant cavern. So, we know this hotel was repurposed as a dungeon. Once we turn on the generators, if we can do so, where will the exhaust go?”

“Oh, shit. Why don’t we check the exhaust pipes, see if they’re blocked?”

“I don’t think so.” Marci wiped her forehead. “We don’t have the tools to do so. Like, a snake or something to move down the exhaust pipe. We could find them outside, see if they’re free of debris, but we’d have to leave the hotel for that, and we don’t know what’s out there. It might be dangerous. Also, even if they are unhindered, we might be using up the oxygen in the cavern.”

“It’s a huge cavern though. If the exhaust is vented outside the hotel, we’ll be fine for a good, long time. And if the exhaust isn’t vented, we’d know pretty soon.”

“As long as we don’t pass out. And,” she looked past my shoulder, “as long as it doesn’t produce the same vile smoke that altar did.”

“I wonder if we can find a canary. Place it inside, wait and see what happens.” I shrugged, “I’m kidding. We’ll smell the fumes. It’ll be obvious, and we’ll just have to turn them off. It’s either diesel or kerosene, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s keep moving and check the next door.”

“Wait. That wasn’t there before. Or maybe I didn’t see it before.”

I turned around, following her gaze. “What wasn’t? Oh!” A leather backpack, oil polished, sitting under the desk by the shrine. “Stay here.” Though the stench was decreasing, I held my breath while fetching the pack, which had somehow escaped the extinguisher foam, then brought it back over to the entrance, where Marci was standing. “It’s the same leather as my sword. Must have belonged to that elf.”

“I think . . . I think this is treasure. Like a reward. For defeating the shrine.” She looked from me to the bag, began undoing the straps. “Game logic. Let’s see what’s inside.” Marci pulled out a little red vial, much like our healing potions, two blue vials, a leather-bound book, large metal container that looked suspiciously like a lunch box, a smaller, green-tarnished metal container, and coiled up rope.

“Huh. What do you think the blue vials are for?”

“I hope something good.” Marci picked up the book, opened it. “It’s Elvish again. Uh, it details this person’s descent into the dungeon. She’s after a necromancer who stole children from her village.”

“Necromancer? That sounds fun.”

“She’s got a map of the dungeon. Only, look, it’s been corrected up to where we are now. She’s got notes about the entrance, the hotel, but not further.”

“Maybe she was following an outdated map? That’s interesting, maybe it’ll help us out.”

“I think so. Updating it as she went.”

“Ok, wait.” My brain finally started working and I felt annoyed at being manipulated by the nanotech, “Jesus H. Christ. Marci, this is more game stuff. It’s backstory for the dungeon quest we’re in.”

Marci looked from it to me, closing the book. A little shake of her head, “Right. Sorry, not important now.”

Picking up the metal lunch box, I asked, feeling a touch guilty for perhaps overreacting, “Well, does it say anything about the blue vials?”

“Just a sec.” Re-opening the book, her eyes moved across the pages as she flipped them one by one.

Undoing its latch, I lifted the top on its hinges, slamming it shut immediately as the rotten food stench hit. “Yuck.” Put that one aside and picked up the smaller one. I cautiously opened this one, no stench came out, so I pushed open the lid. Cloths, a flat stone, and a metal tube. Picking up the tube, the wooden cork was shiny with oil. “I think this is a kit for maintaining weapons. Yeah, looks similar to a gun cleaning kit.”

“Cure disease potions.” She moved her finger slowly under a line. “These are to use if the zombies manage to bite us.”

“Huh. That’ll come in handy.”

She gave me a look, “I’d rather not get bitten,” and shut the book.

“Why don’t you take the backpack? It goes with your armor set. Once we get back with our team, if we can find a break, we can go through that journal more.”

“You think it’s better than ours? Ours are higher tech.”

“But not magical.”

“True,” she said, lifting the new backpack. “I’ll call it my nanotech pack.”

“Shall we try the next door?”

Marci took a breath. Looked at the ruined altar, then at the open door. “I hope there’s no nasty zombies in the next room. And it’d be nice if all the altars were down here.”