forum Be Our Guest // Currently Closed // Mature Themes // Stalkers Welcome

Started March 30, 2020 by @CasiCasino group

tune

Tori jumped at the shout, but stayed quiet under her table. She was shaking uncontrollably, but she stayed as still as she could.

Amyr blinked at the door boy's words as he walked out. 'Society?' 'Team up on me?' What the fuck? Why me? he thought. He sighed loudly and leaned back in a chair, his eyes trained on the ceiling above. He began thinking about what he could possibly do in future days to protect himself. He had only gotten lucky since the Musician had decided to spare him and that man in the black coat decided not to follow him upstairs. He was nearly certain that his luck was running out. But he had decided that he'd rather not think about it. The stress would ruin him when he had to leave the room at 3 PM and it would ruin his appetite for dinner too.

517 did not have much to be talked about except for the pistol that was inside the room. Of course, as the note would’ve said, this needed to be used with much care otherwise it won’t be as useful as it should be.

Jesse picked up the pistol, hastily grabbing it and hurrying out of the room and down the hall. He was not eager to be chased by something again, so he tried to get to the meeting room as fast as he could.

The book was… almost unreadable. A lot of the words were cryptic and some were hard to understand directly. Some pages didn’t really have words, they were just random scrambles of words. The book did have two hundred and seventy-nine pages so at least one of them might make sense.
”I did see one of my colleague come in the night before… he went down that aisle…” the Librarian walked past Taran, his hook dangling as he did. He pointed down an aisle were the lights were flickering. Well, one of the aisles where the lights were flickering, that is.
”Might be there…”

Taran closed the book. The weird symbols were swimming before her eyes, and when she closed her eyelids, they floated through her brain. She blinked, and they faded slightly. She stuck the book under her arm and pushed herself to her feet, glancing in the direction the Librarian had pointed in, to the aisle with the flickering lights.

She snorted. "Of course it would be flickering and creepy." She waved to the Librarian. "Thanks for your help!" With that, she turned and walked between the shelves, scanning the books for anything interesting.

(I’ll sneak one reply here real quick)

”Don’t be ridiculous. No one would be stupid enough to hide in our lab…” the shorter scientist mentioned as the taller one hissed aggressively before leaving the lab together. They can be seen going downstairs.

[ 3:00 PM ]

The hall Jesse went down had a fear he might not have been expecting. The feminine figure who stood outside the window of room 513 was standing in the hallway with her bloody blade in front of her. She gave Jesse a smile before raising her blade and charging at him. Even though she wasn’t as quick as some of the other members, her weapon was clearly more aggressive than most.

”You’re welcome…” the Librarian mentioned, continuing on his own business.

The shelves of books Taran would come across had books of all ages; ancient, old, new, ‘brand-new’ and so on. There was a small box in front of one of the books. It looked like a wooden box which was colored with some sort of orange color.

Tori took this chance to run out of the lab and rush to the fourth floor lab, being as silent as she could.

(Shame on you!)

Taran let her eyes flick over the other books, before she shook her head. The box caught her eye, and she knelt down to check it out. It was interesting. She had never seen wood that color before. She moved to lift the lid, setting down her heavy book on the ground to do so better.

“Oh hell no,” Jesse muttered under his breath, sprinting the other way. He had the pistol in his hand, but he didn’t want to use it just yet. He had to be strategic. It didn’t help that he’d only shot a gun once or twice before, so he wasn’t exactly the best choice to try and shoot one now. He just hoped that he could outrun the woman, maybe lose her in the maze of hallways. Or maybe she just wouldn’t follow him into the meeting room? That was probably just wishful thinking on his part.

The fourth floor’s lab was as empty as the one on the second floor… or so it seemed. Within the room, there was another person. He wore a lab coat, similar to what the two scientists had on earlier but… he was asleep. The sound of snores can be heard coming from him. He was sitting against the wall and slept just like that.
Beside him was a closed chest… with his hand on it.

Amyr looked down at his phone that he'd pulled out of his pocket. The time was 3 PM. He knew what he had to do. After all, it was in the note.

He got up, took the playing cards, knight, and note all up to the third floor with him. Though he was quite scared of what was awaiting him up there, so he took the chest with him, just in case he needed some sort of weapon. He walked in the bar and casino slowly, looking around at his surroundings.

With the size of the box, it could only be a number of things. What was inside, might have been off the list at first. A body. A dead body, was inside the box. The limps (arms and legs), the head, and the body were all cut and organized into the box, each part gently wrapped lightly with cloth.

The woman wasn’t able to follow Jesse. Not because he was fast, but because she got distracted when she saw the man with metallic claws. They stopped at the sight of each other and went their separate ways, none of them following Jesse down the hall.

Within the bar and the casino, two figures can be seen. Both were male.
One of them, possibly the easier to notice, was the Bartender. The other one was sitting at one of the tables with an empty chair across him.
The man gestured to the empty chair when Amyr entered, wanting him to sit across him.
There was jazz music playing and these two were clearly enjoying themselves.
The Bartender came to Amyr.
”Anything to drink, sir?”

After a bit more running, Jesse had to pause for breath and realized that no one was behind him as his adrenaline faded. With a few breaths and a sigh of relief, he headed for the meeting room, sitting down in a chair to just rest for a moment before working on one of the puzzles. He wondered if Tori had seen his note or not as he continued to clutch the pistol in his right hand.

The door boy came into the meeting room.
”You’ve been through a lot haven’t you?” he asked, pouring him a cup of tea.
”But hard work does deserve its reward. Your afternoon and evening missions were all completed. You can now either rest here or assist the others… if you choose the latter, I have the location as to where they are” the door boy mentioned. He gave Jesse a polite grin.
”Oh, right. Dinner will be served at 5, the menu was randomized but they’re all good” he recalled, eyeing the card that was faced down on the table in front of Jesse.

“Is there a way to know what the others are doing? It wouldn’t be helpful to pop in on someone who’s hiding and someone might need help more than the others,” Jesse replied, weary but also wanting to help. He studied the boy, unsure of anyone in this creepy mansion.

Amyr sat down in the empty chair across from the man as he was gestured to do, though scooted the chair back a few times. Once the bartender had asked him if he wanted anything to drink, he looked the worker in eye sternly and spoke. His voice was sharp and his words were quick. "Poison," he said.

"Oh, nice," Taran said, backing away and wrinkling her nose, dropping the arm she had unwrapped on the floor. The limbs smelled bad, but hadn't started to decay yet. She picked up the limb delicately and threw it back in the box, slamming it. She wasn't delicate or sensitive, but that was just gross. She was about to shut the lid when she had an idea.

What if there was something at the bottom? Making a face, she stuck her metal arm in the box, shoving aside pieces of the corpse, trying not to breathe in the horrible smell.

Tori froze. She had to get that chest. Inching forward towards the sleeping man, she held her breath. When she got close enough to grab it, she carefully reached out for it and closed her hands around it. She didn't dare move it, not yet.

”Amyr is playing at the bar and casino on the third floor, playing Bartender’s and Gambler’s mental game. Taran’s in the library, searching for her weapon. Tori’s in the second building out the backdoor, searching for her weapon in that building while escaping from the five scientists” he answered. Noticing Jesse’s reaction to him and sighed.
”Don’t worry, there are three people who are sane in this facility. Myself being one of them.” he reassured, needing Jesse to trust him at least for a little bit.

“I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m not entirely sure that I trust you on that,” Jesse responded. “Thank you for telling me what they’re doing though.” He gave the boy a slight smile, his face hardening a bit as he gazed at nothing, trying to decide who to help. He wasn’t always the best at mental games or escape rooms, but the as the saying went “two heads is better than one”. If he went to Tori, the scientists might see him and be alerted to their presence, or he might be bailing her out of an unfair fight by making it only slight less bad. Taran sounded safe enough at the moment, but every word that one of those people said felt like a mind game to Jesse.

The Bartender laughed a bit before going to the bar where he should be and brewing Amyr’s drink which was definitely not going to be poison.
”You enjoy riddles?” the man across Amyr asked before the Bartender returned with a nicely decorated glass of blue bubbling liquid.

As Taran thought, there was indeed something inside the box beside the corpse. That thing being… a key. That was it. Just a key.
”Found anything?” the Librarian asked from where he was and not poking his head up.

That sitting scientist started to move a bit, raising his hand which was blocking the small chest to rub his eyes. He was still tired it seemed as he started to move his hand down to where it was.

Taran gingerly picked up the key before slamming the lid of the box shut. She wrinkled her nose and wiped her arm and the key off with the hem of her sleeve. "A box of body parts and a key," she said, holding it up to show the Librarian. She pushed herself to her feet and picked up her book, eager to leave a place smelling so strongly of decay.

Amyr side-eyed the man across from him. "I don't really care about them too much, but why don't you spit out your riddle since I assume you'd give me one anyway," he said, looking back away and watching the Bartender over at the bar.

Tori pulled her hands back and tiptoed to the nearest table, under which she hid.

The door boy saw the uncertainty going on in Jesse’s head by instinct.
”Take your time” he added, pouring a cup of tea for himself and sipping.
”Ah, hot…” he muttered, burning his tongue a little.

”A key?” the Librarian asked. He didn’t seem to care about the body so much.
”There is a locker by the entrance of the library. Perhaps that is what that’s for” he guessed, setting down the books.
”Come on, follow me” he walked to Tori and past her, wanting to guide her to the locker.

”Smart boy” the man mentioned.
”I’ll give you five riddles, all ‘who or what am I’ riddles. Get at least four out of five correct, I’ll give you what you need” the man started…
”I have cities but no houses. I have mountains but no trees. I have waters but no fish. What am I?”

The man quickly went back to his slumber, his hand falling just beside the chest. That was a close call for Tori. What would happen if she’d stayed there? She wouldn’t know. And most likely, she didn’t want to know.

Tori let out a sigh of relief. She had no clue what to do, but at least she was alive. Tori crept out from under the table and noticed that the man's hand was next to the chest, not on top of it. Tiptoeing forward, she grabbed the chest, and ran as silently as she could out of the lab.

(Kun, seriously, get some sleep!)

Taran put the key in her pocket and followed the Librarian to the lockers. The smell of the dead still followed her as she walked, and she gagged. She needed to really wash off her metal arm. Scents tended to stick to it unless she washed it really well.