Chapter 25: Chicken Soup For The Living Souls

I sat on the dirty carpet of the restaurant they’d barricaded, against the wall, staring at nothing in particular. Fred lay on the floor, breathing more normally. Ave had lifted his head into her lap and was stroking his black hair. Bent patted him on the chest and then went and got a chair, put it beside me, sat. Marci and Dylan had gone into the kitchen and had yet to return.

Grime dropped off my hands and arms. A tooth fell off my sleeve, bounced, settled. That was gross. I picked it up, tossed it out of the restaurant.

“What do you think we’re going to get for XP for killing all these?” Bent broke me out of my state. His brown pants and grey shirt were cleaner, but they contrasted unusually with his robe, even with the hood down.

“What? Fuck, I don’t know.”

“You can sit on a chair, you know. We have no end of chairs.”

“I’m fine. I just want to sit against the wall. And I might fall over.”

He leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees, getting closer, “They’re more comfortable but suit yourself. What happened with you guys? We were worried the zombies had gotten you when you got cut off.”

I waved my hand in the air. Guess that was it, the time allotted to me to mope. “Uh, we escaped down the elevator shaft, found the generator, turned it on.”

“Ah, so that’s why we have lights. It’s not prettier in the light, that’s for sure. The outside bar is nicer.”

“And you guys?”

“We managed to barricade ourselves. It held for a while. But, it was primitive and they attacked it, pulling it apart. We were in danger of being overrun before you got to us and distracted them.”

“You didn’t create a funnel to kill them?”

“Not at first. We madly piled furniture up, pushing them back when we could, destroying them when we couldn’t, but they-”

“Destroying? Is that the word for killing them?”

“Yeah. You don’t kill the dead, you destroy them.”

“Ah.”

“Anyways, the zombies created the funnel themselves. Just by tearing at the barricade. While it held, we were using it to attack them to good effect. Those things aren’t very bright, they just want to eat us. It would have been easier with guns, but, well, you must have discovered too, bullets do nothing to these guys.”

“Yeah. You don’t by chance know why?”

“I have a guess. I might be wrong, but I don’t think it’s because they’re zombies. I mean, our regular weapons destroy them. It’s that our guns aren’t from this planet, and so not part of the game world.”

“But they killed the bandits and trogs easily enough. Like guns do.” My skin was getting itchy and I was strongly thinking to find a sink and some soap before passing out.

“Yeah. Here’s where I’m not sure if I’m right. I think our regular weapons, the weapons of our class or whatever, they are effective against creatures within our level range and below. Our guns, though, don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

He sat back up, waving his left hand, “Look, this may not be correct. What I mean is, the guns don’t level up with us. So, they can only work on low level creatures.”

“Seriously?”

“It’s my best guess.”

“That means we have the world’s most effective pest control weapons. Centipedes and scorpions look out!”

“Actually, it means a couple things. First-”

Coming out of the kitchens, Marci said, “Who wants hot soup? I’ve a large pot all hot and ready to eat!” Almost as if because she said it, the smell of chicken and pepper wafted into the room, making everything feel just a little better.

Dylan quickly followed her, then ran around in front of her, “But hot water to wash up first! I even found some orange peel soap!”

***

“Holy shit,” Ave said, sipping on hot chicken noodle soup, “this is the best food I’ve had ever. Like, ever-ever.”

“It’s great, isn’t it? Pepper’s the secret ingredient. Dylan and I found a five-pepper mill back there. Five different peppercorns! Red, green, black, white and, uh, smaller black ones I think. And some basil, parsley. Gives the soup a nice flavor.”

“An hour ago I was thinking about eating human brains. But this, oh my god,” Fred put the bowl up to his lips and drank.

“Human . . . brains?” asked Dylan. “I’m glad we found you some soup.”

The wizard brushed his thick hair back, “How many, uh, cure disease potions do we have left?”

“Just one, Bent. We have to be cautious. Fred, you were really thinking about eating us?”

Tucking his chin down, and looking up at us, the big barbarian said, “Only . . . a little.”

“Damn.”

Setting his spoon into his bowl, Fred said, “I wasn’t about to try, though, not without salt.”

“So, Boss,” said Marci with a smile in her eyes, “what are you thinking? Destroy the evil altars, then go for the security footage?”

“Uhm . . .”

Bentley leaned forward, chicken chunk poised on his spoon, “Evil altars? Do tell.”

“It’s just more game stuff.” He was looking at me eagerly. They all were. “Ok, alright. When we exited the elevators . . .” I sighed, then gave a run down on everything we encountered: the dead elf-source of Marci’s armor and backpack, my sword, the poison gas trap, zombies we killed, generators, and evil security room and altar. But not necessarily in that order.

“Wow, ok. That makes sense,” said Bent.

“So that’s where you got your armor,” said Avery. “I’d like some better armor.”

“How so?” asked Dylan. “None of that makes sense! If you wanted an evil hotel, why make a relatively easy way of defeating the evil hotel?”

“Because, we’re in a quest. And quests have solutions. They’re solvable.” Bent put the entire bowl up to his mouth, and tipped what remained in.

I couldn’t help myself, “That is seriously stupid.” I waved my hands in the air, “This whole thing is stupid! Why would anyone design a nanotech apocalyptic attack around forcing us all to live in an RPG?!?”

“It certainly ensures that the surviving population doesn’t get off the planet,” said Marci. “It’s ingenious, as it focuses everyone’s attention from anything but space travel and expanding one’s civilization.”

Ave pointed her spoon at Marci, “That’s a solid hypothesis. I certainly haven’t thought about space travel recently.”

“The hotel,” said Dylan, shaking his head. “How on Earth are we supposed to find the remaining two altars? This hotel is huge, searching room by room is going to get us killed if there are lots of zombies. They’ll wear us down. We need food and sleep and they don’t.”

Marci continued, “What if there’s only one way to make an evil hotel?” Marci shrugged, “A zombie hotel. To, uh, animate the dead. Altars are the control points. Let’s say, for example, they emit a necromantic energy field, not unlike an EM field. It would weaken the further you got from the source. Maybe that’s why we were able to defeat these zombies – we destroyed the nearby altar, so they weren’t so tough.”

“I don’t know,” said Ave, chewing. “We didn’t know how to fight them at first. But they always attack in the same manner. Going for the bite. It’s easy to kill them after you understand that.”

“Ok, maybe I’m wrong about that part. But let’s say I’m right about the fields losing strength from their location. Where would you put the altars?”

“Oh!” said Bentley. “One at the bottom, one in the middle, one at the top! That makes perfect sense. There’s twenty-six floors in this hotel so-”

“The second altar is on the thirteen floor. Next one is in the penthouse.” Marci looked at me, lifting her eyebrows as if asking me to say something.

I decided to. “Ok, but why? Why would someone create an evil hotel so they could have zombies?”

“It’s a game world,” said Dylan. “So we could have fun fighting zombies?”

Bent looked at him, patted his knee, “No, I think it’s for power. If someone set these up, if there’s an individual behind it rather than, say, a sentient dungeon-”

“Do those exist?”

“I don’t know. But if they don’t, then this hotel is clearly a necromancer’s lair. Or something that uses necromancy for its own purposes. Like, a minor demon or a vampire or something. And you guys just wiped out one third of their defenses. They probably know we’re coming.”

“Fuck,” said Fred. “Unless they’re easy to kill. Then, great!”

A bit shocked, I asked, “You seriously think someone set up this hotel to . . . be a necromancer?”

Bent answered, “Either the game did it and quests are just quests, where we have to do something to complete them, or this was done by one or more, uh, sentient beings. We don’t know enough about the game world to determine which. Perhaps setting up an evil hotel, or lair, is one way a necromancer gains power.”

“Or maybe,” said Dylan, “a sentient undead creature. And we just killed its friends.”

“Ok, ok, we can speculate all day long, but we now have a hypothesis to test,” said Marci. “If the second altar is on the thirteenth floor, then we know the third is on the top floor. I say we go for it. At the least, we’d be ridding this hotel of danger.”

“And getting XP,” Fred smiled at the thought.

Ave jumped in with, “I second that!”

“Hey, Bent,” I said, “earlier you were about to say that our guns not working on these zombies meant a couple things. What were you about to say?”

“Oh, right. Uh, our guns don’t level up with us. Yeah, it means that we could use them to farm low level creatures. You know, use them for XP before they’re worthless. And, once we level past them, we could just leave them with the villagers. Probably the threats they’ll be facing won’t be very high level, so the guns would continue to help them.”

“Huh. We’ll have to think about that. They’ve never used guns before. Well, not in this new life they have.”

“But you have a holster on your side. Empty, but it tells us that guns are definitely in this game.”

“Right!” I patted the smooth leather, “I’d forgotten about it.”

“Maybe it’ll come at a higher level. Or maybe you have to design it yourself.”

“Myself?”

“Yeah, if this game has crafting in it.”

Oh, I was getting tired of talking about game mechanics. I wanted to shout at them, ‘this isn’t what we’re here for!’ but tried not to scowl instead. “Crafting.”

“Probably something we’ll find out when we get to a city.”

“I sure hope we make it to a city,” said Marci, her soft voice sounding small.

Dylan set his bowl down, looking at her, “We’ll make it out. If we can take out those altars, this hotel will be a secure staging area, from which we can explore more of the dungeon. If we want to. If we don’t find the core here.”

“Alright,” I said, not a little bit annoyed that I had to make this decision, that it was me who did, “we’ll destroy the altars. And after that, we’re going to look at the security footage.”

“What security footage? And, why do we need to see it?” asked Fred.

“I’ll explain that in a moment. Or Marci can.” I stood up, “Right now, I think it’s time we got some rest. We’ve been going nonstop for hours now. Let’s build the barricade back up, tie some cans and bottles to it so we know if a zombie comes. Then, get some sleep.”

“I second that,” said Bentley.

“You know what?” Marci stood up, too, gathering the empty soup bowls, “I’m going to fill those large sinks with hot water and take a sponge bath. We can all take turns.”

Dylan said, “You know, the dishwasher area has a long hose with a spray nozzle. It’d be almost like having a shower. And we don’t have to care about getting the floor wet. There’s a drainage pipe.”

Marci brushed her sweaty bangs away, “That’s the nicest news I’ve heard all day.”

***

By the time we’d rebuilt the barricades, tied cans to them and ran cords across the hallway for extra impediment, most of the restaurant was cleared of tables and chairs. Except for the six chairs and two tables we used, it was a wide-open space.

Fred was feeling much better. Walking around, bantering, he put most of the barricade up. After Ave and him cleaned the gore off themselves, and Ave sprayed off her hammers, which led to a very gross floor I had to clean up before I could have my own shower, such as it was, they lay down next to each other near the entrance. If anything hit that barricade, those two would be the first to respond.

I took a place further back, against the wall. Plopped a stolen cushion down, rested my head into it and felt extremely tired suddenly.

A pillow dropped in front of me, jolting me awake. I sat up, “What’s that?”

“Mind if I join you?” asked Marci. Now clean, her skin seemed to take on a golden tinge in this light, young and smooth. With her strange metal-fabric armor and its sun arcing across the sky as she moved, she was the cleanest here among us.

“Please do. I think I was sleeping.”

“Oh! Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.” She sat down in front of me, “It’s just that, well, I got used to us sharing a bedroom. And all the others are . . .”

I looked past her, Bent and Dylan over by the kitchen entrance, Dylan standing by the light switch. “Alright, team, I’m turning this down a bit. Try not to snore and bring the dead.” He shut off most of the lights before returning to Bent’s side.

I lay down. “For sure. Thank you, Marci.”

She lay down, facing the other way, then backed up into me. “Are you ok?”

“Yeah.”

Marci took my arm and draped it over her body. “Good. River, sleep well.”

“Good night.”

As tired as I was, my mind wouldn’t stop. Maybe Bent was right, and she was interested in me. But, my insecurities said, only because I’m the other single member of our team. ‘So what?’ the cynical part of me said. I didn’t really know what to do here. Like, yeah, she really seemed into me, making the insecure voice incorrect and the cynical one meaningless.

But what worried me the most was the nanotech and how it was changing her. Was this really my Marci? Was she making these choices of her own free will? Was I?

Yet, I was the only person who couldn’t fully access the game. My character sheet, hidden from me. Information the others seemed to get, denied. And I didn’t care one bit about this damned game. It wasn’t important! We had entire worlds to save – not that we could necessarily, or even possibly, beat nanotech. But we could learn more about what happened here, somehow transmit the information to the Victoria when she returns, and do our part for our civilization.

I liked Marci, too. Cute. Brilliant. Driven. She was all of these, and more. But it didn’t seem moral to engage in a relationship where one’s choices are made for them. And it wasn’t professional for the team leader to date a subordinate. Though, on this front at least, I was really only acting team leader and for no special reason other than Takao died.

And if I gave into this, it’d be like giving into the nanotech. A part of me wondered if that, then, would fix my game access.