Chương 100: Arc 5 | Dead Pacifica (Part 15)

DEAD PACIFICA Part 15 SCENARIO 91 9: 02 PM 10 Hours Until Dawn 4 Delvers remaining… Simultaneously, a mechanical clunk echoed through the chamber as the hourglass on the pedestal flipped over, the golden sand beginning its slow descent to the other side. Corinne yelped and leapt into the air, clapping her hands like fangirl in a concert.

"It's starting! Yes! Finally, it's starting! Ugh! That took you guys forever. Come on! Let's get this show started!"

"I think I see a way out!" Harrison said. He was peering into the yawning darkness beyond the Abominable Snowman's door. He led the way, and the others followed, stumbling into what looked like a small, snow-dusted glade. A campfire crackled in the center, the orange flames licking at the underside of dozens of looming pines. The three men entered the Reflection Chamber. Past reflections of delvers had occupied this space before, and now four wax figures stood around the fire once again.

Pascoe sat on the log with his arms crossed, Harrison stood leaning by a tree, Corinne sat cross-legged on the ground while Diaz sat on another log opposite of Pascoe. These wax figures were the perfect replica of them down to their clothes, their hair, and the pores on their skin. The three men moved toward their doubles with a fascinated dread, poking at the cool, lifeless skin of their own faces.

"I don't think this is the exit," Harrison mumbled.

"This is some weird shit," Diaz mumbled. He turned and tried to walk toward the safety of the trees, but his head snapped back as he slammed into a hard, flat surface.

"Shit! Ow! It's a wall! The whole goddamn forest is a wall!" Pascoe spun in a circle, searching for a seam, a door, a way out of this diorama.

"I think Harrison is right. There's no exit in here. Should we go back?" Harrison was the one who quickly left the room.

"Yup. Probably for the best." They retreated to the Selection Chamber, where Corinne stood waiting by the pedestal like a bored usher. She gestured toward the main doors they had entered through.

"I heard it click," she said.

"I think its open again." Pascoe and Diaz hung back, expecting some kind of trick, and none wanted to fall for it. Eventually, Harrison moved past them and walked toward the main door, pressing his ear against the surface.

"I don't think I hear anything," he said.

"They're probably hiding and waiting to stab us. They were carrying weapons," Pascoe said. Corinne snorted.

"They're not going to do that! For one, they're not the Hunter you guys chose. If they do, then the Antlered God will be super mad and we have another thing to worry about." Harrison heaved another sigh.

"Ah, fuck it." Harrison swung the door open and waited for three seconds, but no one jumped out from the corner to stab him on the face.

"I think it's safe!" He said, and he stepped out into the clearing of the Core Tree. The others followed. But the world had shifted. The cultists may be gone, but in its place was a bone-deep chill that entered their bodies as a thick, heavy blanket of white covered everything. It was snowing, a heavy fall that had already buried the roots of the tree. They couldn't pick up their jaws from the floor but Corinne was smiling from ear-to-ear.

"How?" Pascoe whispered.

"We were only in there for like ten minutes. It looks like it's been coming down for hours." With a little magic, obviously, I thought with a smirk. Though I couldn't interfere with the scenarios directly, The System allowed me to manipulate the weather and the environment right before a scenario officially begin. A minor loophole, really. With seconds to spare before Harrison opened the snowman's door, I opened the menu screen to slow down time and cast my spell.

Frosty, the Abominable Snowman, didn't require the cold to do his hunting. Big Foot hunts wherever and whenever he pleases. But I wanted to mess with their minds a little, so I triggered [Control Weather] and sprinkled an inch of snow within a five-mile radius of the Core Tree. Luckily, the Dead Pacifica crew had already cleared out, heading back to town after a long day of renovations. No one was going to interrupt tonight's scenario.

Control Weather II You can summon, shape, and manipulate the weather on both small and larger scales across a radius of two (2) hundred miles. You can also sense and manipulate changes in air pressure, temperature, and humidity, which enables you to control the intensity of the weather. Due to your planet's weather cycle, you are able to control the wind, call lightning and thunder, and shape water. As a Death Core trait, this negates Resolve requirement. Cost: 10 Power. Duration: 1-36 Hours.

[Power: 50/60] I sequestered this area of the forest as the delving zone for tonight, sparing Point Hope from an unnecessary game of horrors and bloodshed. It'd be super awkward if everyone in town suddenly woke up to monsters breaking into their homes in the middle of the night and eating them. With the stage set, the delvers were in place.

"Where did everyone go?" Diaz asked.

"They're not allowed to be around a delve," Corinne explained.

"Delve? I heard those guys say that before. Is this what it is?" Corinne nodded.

"And now the fun begins." Diaz rolled his eyes and turned to Harrison.

"So what's the plan, boss?"

"We keep moving," Harrison answered.

"In the dark? We don't have any light. How are we supposed to know where we're going?"

"We can use one of the torches around the glade? I think we can pull them out, right?" Pascoe suggested.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Go and grab it then," Diaz hissed. Pascoe rushed toward a couple of the torches and ran back, handing them out to Harrison and Diaz.

"Hopefully this thing is afraid of fire like the ghouls," he said, though he didn't sound like he believed it.

"Where to, sir?" Harrison looked toward the edge of the clearing, where the darkness swallowed the pines.

"We head East. If we keep the mountain to our backs, we'll hit the road eventually." He turned to Corinne, the torchlight casting long, flickering shadows across his face.

"You're gonna show us the way. You know these parts, right?" Corinne nodded.

"This is our temple."

"From the sounds of it, you also want to survive. You want to be rewarded, to 'ascend' or whatever you call it?" Corinne nodded again.

"Then, don't do anything funny. Don't do anything that will endanger all of us. And in return, I promise I'll keep you alive. Sounds good?" Corinne paused for a second, then a slow, thin smile spread across her face.

"Sounds good." FROSTY, THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN Dread Score: 4/10 Creature Type: Monstrosity Cooldown: 1 week Special Traits Blood of the Yeti I This archetype now has an ancient & prehistoric bloodline tag and are naturally large. Its species' survival over the eons makes them adept hunters and are resilient to most diseases, poisons, and acids. As Yetis, they have minor magical resistance against illusion and mind-altering spells. The archetype has fur and turns white during winter and brown during summer.

With the Yeti trait, this archetype has a Special Ability: Greater Infrared/Thermal Vision. They can detect heat signatures of delvers and other animals, heat trails, and other thermal sources of up to 500 feet. Juggernaut I The archetype has increased their size from large to huge, increased twice their brute strength, and improved their musculoskeletal system. They are able to knock down walls, survive a high fall, and crush a car with their weight, among other examples. This is in the expense of their agility.

You may select two (2) body parts to modify from the Core market (Selected: Claws, Legs). The archetype gains Obsidian Claws. They now ignore 50% of armor with their powerful strikes. Note that these attacks can increase the likelihood of severed limbs and premature deaths. The archetype gains High Jump. They can jump to a height of fifty feet. Venomous Carnivore I The bite and scratches of this archetype is a (Selected: paralytic).

The venom will remain inside a delver's system for two (2) minutes unless extracted by physical or magical means. Delvers who consumed a paralytic antidote beforehand is immune to this effect. The duration can be improved by purchasing higher levels of this trait. Swallow Whole I The archetype can unhinge their jaw to consume a low Resolve delver whole. The gullet will keep the delver alive until the last moment, fully aware as the digestive juices slowly consume them.

A swallowed delver cannot escape from the inside. Only spells to counter it and when damaged to half its health will the delver inside be regurgitated (survival not guaranteed). When a delver is killed, it will increase the Dread effects of the archetype for one (1) hour within one hundred (100) feet per delver. If two or more delvers are in the gullet, the archetype is incapacitated and sluggish until the delvers have been digested fully.

Other delvers aware and can still hear their companions will lower their Resolve by one degree, and will lower every five minutes if still within the vicinity. The archetype can swallow a maximum of two (2) delvers at a time. They walked for an hour under the falling snow, which I increased in frequency. Pascoe's teeth were clicking together, and his skin had gone a lightly bruised shade of lavender.

Diaz wasn't doing much better; he kept blowing on his hands, his movements getting heavy and clumsy, usually the first sign that the cold was starting to win over his body. Another hour or more, then they were at a severe risk of hypothermia.

"We've been walking forever, man," Diaz rasped, his breath a thick plume of gray in the torchlight.

"We should've hit the road by now. My feet... I can't feel my goddamn feet, Harrison."

"Just keep moving," Harrison said, though the confidence in his voice was starting to fray.

"Just another ten minutes. We're close."

"Are you sure?"

"I am! Is it this way?" Corinne nodded.

"Yeah. Almost." She wasn't faring better either, and a thought occurred to her that maybe Xavier should have picked someone else instead. She hated winter. She'd rather be on a beach somewhere else. Harrison turned around to face Diaz.

"See?" Diaz said nothing. He was wrong. The road was miles away and the darkness was already playing tricks, disorienting them. They had already crossed the same frozen creek twice, walking in a wide, desperate circle that led nowhere. Their shoes were soggy and wet. Snow had gotten to every crevice of their thin clothing. They were miserable. They trusted Corinne because there was nothing else to do but hope she was on their side.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. But something had already picked up their trail. A mile back, Frosty had picked up their scent and moved through the snowdrifts in silence, keeping enough distance that the delvers weren't aware they were being followed. His massive, matted white frame blending perfectly into the blanket of snow.

He stayed in the shadows of the pines, his breath not even misting in the air, watching his prey wear themselves out as he bide his time. He switched between his normal and thermal vision so that he could keep track of where they were. Finally, the trees broke away.

"What the fuck? That's the junkyard," Pascoe said, pointing ahead. The same place where, a month ago, had turned into a slaughterhouse for their friends. Harrison felt a cold lump settle in his throat as the torch light hit the twisted remains of a chain-link fence. He could almost hear the echoes of the gunfire, the screams of the soldiers who had been chewed up and spat out by those things in these woods. If he had only died that day, would he consider it a mercy?

"This is not the road. She brought us here to kill us!" Diaz seethed.

"Look! The trail's over there, idiot! It will lead us to the cabin and then to the road," Corinne quickly tried to explain, stepping away from Diaz.

"I remember that trail," Pascoe said.

"This makes it easier to reorient ourselves. Should we check out the junkyard? See if they have weapons or better clothes?"

"No," Harrison said, stepping back.

"We keep going."

"To where?" Pascoe snapped, turning on him.

"For crying out loud, look at us, Harrison! I'm about to go into shock, and I'm pretty sure Diaz's toes are gonna snap off like icicles. There's a building in there, last time I remember. A repair shop. Maybe it has a landline. Maybe a truck that still works."

"Or it might be a trap," Harrison hissed.

"And there could be weapons that the others left behind," Pascoe added.

"Don't you think they'd clean that up by now?" Harrison said. Pascoe looked away.

"Better than to freeze to death, man. It's getting colder and we're not dressed for this kind of weather."

"Whatever entity is hunting us, I'd rather have a wall at my back and a roof over my head," Diaz said. Harrison looked at Corinne. She was standing perfectly still, chin held high to the falling snow, looking like she was enjoying a light spring rain. She offered no help at all. Harrison sighed.

"Fine. But we stick together. No wandering off."

"Not planning on it," Diaz said. They walked over toward the junkyard. The gate itself was chained up but there was enough space for a grown man to squeeze through the gap, even if it was a very tight fit. Harrison was the first to go through, making sure he didn't make any sound just in case there was some monster sleeping under the stack of cars. No, h couldn't risk it.

The others were not as stealthy, too focused on trying to get warm and get the hell out of the cold, and Harrison cringed every time their clothes snagged or brush over the fence. Corinne was the last, and when she about to go through the gap, Diaz spotted something by the tree line.

"Wait. Hold on a sec. I think I saw something move over there," Diaz whispered, afraid he'd catch its attention.

"Now's not the time to be funny," Pascoe said.

"I'm not kidding, man. I saw something." And that something emerged from the darkness. He was a mountain of matted, ivory-colored filth, standing nearly thirteen feet tall, broad-shouldered and built like a tractor with curling horns from its pig-like head. It reminded me if a giant ground sloth with the head of a pig and a Na'vi from Avatar had a baby. Its fur wasn't as pristine as they were in the cartoons; it was the color of gutter slush, stained with old urine, dirt, and the dark rust of blood.

Its face was a sinewy, primitive mask of bone and pudgy muscle, dominated by sunken eye sockets that pooled around two milky, dead-white orbs that seemed to drink the torchlight, reflecting nothing but the void. As it exhaled, a cloud of steam billowed from a mouth filled with rows of shark-like teeth. From afar, it looked like Frosty was smiling. Always smiling. It lumbered toward the junkyard.

"What the fuck is that?!" Pascoe screeched. Diaz gasped.

"Is that Big Foot?"

"What are you talking about? A yeti? Those things don't exist!" Pascoe said.

"No, that's a fucking yeti, man! I swear!"

"Corinne, get in here! Move!" Harrison screamed, reaching back through the gap, his fingers straining toward her. But Corinne wasn't listening, frozen in fear but also with shocked reverence. She often wondered herself what she would do if in the presence of the Antlered God's disciples. She turned toward the looming shape, a serene, terrifying smile spreading across her face. She felt a surge of fanatical pride, a sick certainty that her status as a child of the Antlered God acted like a suit of armor.

These men behind her would surely die and truly believed she would rise as a survivor like Cassie, Gordon, and Rachel. To her, this wasn't just an ordinary monster but a fellow servant of the divine she also worshipped. To her, they were as one. Wasn't Frosty's goal to make her worthy? I am worthy! She cried out in her head. Make me worthy. So, she put on a brave face as this monstrosity approached, willing her Resolve to improve even with his Dread effects.

"It's okay," she said to Harrison, her voice airy and delusional.

"I am worthy. I am. He will hurt me, but he will not kill me because I am strong." She knew she was not fast enough to squeeze through the gap with the Hunter too close, and even if she did, her panic would surely plummet her Resolve. She didn't want that happen. She refused to become just a body count tonight. She pictured her friends watching her emerged from the forest, glowing and self-assured after enduring the horrors the Antlered God threw at her.

She would smile as she bragged about her reward, wielder of magic that even Cassie didn't have, and they'd praise her for being tenacious and such a badass, and she would become Xavier's favorite like Cassie was.

"I am worthy!" She said, standing straight.

"I am ready!" Corinne expected to get hit, maybe even thrown around a bit. The Hunter had sharp claws so she was willing to get injured all for the sake of being worthy. Wasn't that the Hunter's job? To make her endure all of these hits and make her a survivor in the end? So, she braced herself from Frosty's coming strike, and once she get hit, she would crawl toward the woods and let the Hunter kill the others one-by-one. She had a perfect hiding spot in mind already.

Though the summer camp was the lair of Goliath, Corinne considered herself an expert at hide-and-seek. Out of all Hunters, Goliath was the easiest to evade." I am ready!" She bellowed once again. Frosty paused mere ten feet away, curious by the display.

"Fuck this!" Pascoe didn't wait to see what would happen next. He spun on his heel and bolted into the labyrinth of rusted cars, his torch bobbing frantically as he vanished toward the mechanic shop at the center of the yard. He made a wrong turn through the maze, but with Frosty busy with his possible first victim, Pascoe would eventually get to that building. Corinne continued to stand proud before the beast.

"I am marked. I am brave. I am chosen for a greater purpose." Wasn't this how you survive a dungeon? She thought. By being brave? By being a final girl? She was confident her Resolve didn't take a hit even though she was shaking like a leaf from all the adrenaline pumping into her veins.

"Get back here! What the fuck are you doing?" Harrison cried out.

"Let's go, man! She's screwed! She made her choice!" Diaz insisted and grabbed Harrison by the arm, but the other man pulled away.

"Suit yourself!" He started running after Pascoe. Frosty looked at Harrison then down at Corinne, its milky eyes widening, the black slits of its nostrils flared to catch the scent of her sweat. Corinne smiled as she gazed up at him.

"May He enlighten me and my Resolve never deplete—" Frosty didn't let her finish. In one fluid motion, his meaty claw reached down and palmed the top of her skull. His obsidian, hook-like nails dug deep into her hairline. There was a wet, heavy riiippp followed by a truncated shriek that died in a spray of hot red blood as Frosty scalped the woman clean.

Corinne screamed and slumped to her knees, her strength vanishing as the freezing air hit her exposed skull, her hands coming up to clutch at her face quickly covered by her own cascading blood. The Abominable Snowman didn't even look at the trophy in his hand. He dropped the wet patch of scalp and black hair into the snow and in another swift motion, grabbed Corinne by both shoulders, opened his jaw, and clamped down on Corinne's head. Harrison screeched.

"What the fuck?!" With a sickening crunch of vertebrae echoing through the yard, Frosty yanked back and decapitated her with his own teeth. He swallowed the head in a single gulp, his throat working the mass down into his belly. He tossed the twitching, headless remains to the side like a discarded wrapper and turned his gaze toward Harrison, who ran away screaming. [You have gained 500 Faith Points: Corinne Glover] [You have gained 1, 000 crystals] [You have gained 100 venerations]"Damn! That was fast!"

I exclaimed. I was taken aback by how quickly Corinne was killed. Duke Henry, Lord Zal, Demon Bolton, and Mother Gertrude, who were now watching the delve with me and crowding around Oracle's monitors, agreed.

"Ah. It seems like your flock are quite easy pickings, my lord," Duke Henry said and took a sip of his red wine.

"I doubt I ever saw her Resolve go up to orange."

"A Dungeon Core's cultists always start at a red Resolve? That's sweet! I can possess how many I want on the first go!"

"It's not much fun, though," Duke Henry said.

"It's the highlight of my night when I break them down and make them cry."

"I agree with the duke," Lord Zal said.

"It is hilarious when they run away screaming from you."

"I also got venerations, whatever that is," I said. It was the first time I had ever received one. Lord Zal and Mother Gertrude nodded respectfully, though they didn't make a comment what it was about. Taking a quick Look over the menu tab, venerations were like essences. They were points that I could use to purchase divine abilities for my Pantheon persona.

Under my Antlered God persona, I already had [Divine Visions] that I could cast not only to my flock but to other people within my dungeon's sphere of influence. But if I accumulated a thousand Veneration Points (VPs for short), I could purchase a new divine ability. With ten thousand VPs, I could influence the world to create a new persona for me, one that I might be able to sculpt under a more favorable image (and not from a murder cult). Unfortunately, it was also very expensive.

I decided to put a pin on scrolling through the various divine abilities I could get until I had enough points to purchase them in the future. But what I was more surprised by was that Corinne didn't drop an essence when she was killed, but instead, I got more crystals and Faith Points from her death. A thousand FP converted to one essence, so I basically accumulated half of that from this kill alone and in exchange for a lot more crystals.

Not once did Corinne's Resolve improved in the past hour since they left the Selection Chamber. Ever since the scenario began, her aura was already at red— the lowest level and a death sentence. Was it always like that for the rest of the cult? It seemed like her devotion to me and her pride was her undoing. Perhaps if another cultist would have played tonight, things might turn out differently. I doubted Rachel or Melissa's Resolve would stay at red at the first hour.

This reminded me of what Mother Gertrude said earlier: A Death Core's followers are like cattle. I now realized what she truly meant by that. My followers were like fast food, I thought. If I am in need of crystals, I know where to go. I could imagine having thousands of followers in the future and only sacrificing ten followers to net me ten thousand crystals. What a wonderful sight that would be! And I probably wouldn't need the guild, but they also wouldn't be too happy about that.

Maybe I could use it to negotiate my contract in five years.

"Look! Frosty's moving in," Lord Zal said excitedly. Frosty climbed over the fence and stalked the junkyard. The three men were already panicking inside the machine shop, trying to barricade themselves inside. However, their dwindling Resolve was going to be a problem, and it looked like Frosty would wipe them out in an hour.

"Something's definitely wrong with this mountain, man! What did Milford get us into?" Diaz said as he was pacing the room.

"Be quiet and grab that table over there, and help me move it against the door," Harrison said.

"I don't think that's gonna help," Diaz said.

"There's a fucking yeti outside!"

"Ghosts, vampires, werewolves, demons, and ghouls. Those are the only entities that exist in our world," Pascoe insisted.

"None of these headless horsemen, yetis, giant spiders, and flying dragon bullshit! They're not supposed to be real. Why are they here? It doesn't make any sense."

"It's magic, man! Wake up! We're so screwed!" Diaz exclaimed.

"Will you two shut the fuck up and help me with this table?" Harrison hissed as he pushed the metal table against the door all by himself.

"You guys are useless."

"What if we find the source and destroy it? What if it'll make them all go away? What if we do that?" Pascoe suggested.

"And how do you do that, Pascoe? You got a plan? Do you know where it is? And even if we do find it, do tou think it's gonna be easy with just the three of us idiots? What we need is to get the hell out of here and nuke this place. That will stop whatever this is. I'm sure the boss has a direct line to the White House to make that happen." Yeah, good luck with that, I thought.

As the three men continued to panic and were losing their minds, I hadn't received an update yet from The System what benefit (or consequences) I would get from combining my cult's ritual with the scenarios, but that would probably happen after the scenario was over.

"Let's take bets, shall we?" Demon Bolton said.

"Who do you think will die next?" The whole manor erupted into a cacophony of arguments as the archetypes got riled up by Bolton's suggestion, much to the demon's amusement. I even threw my own lot that Pascoe, the coward, would be the next to die. None of the three men had their Resolve dropped to crimson yet, so there was still time for Frosty to chip away their armor.

Unlike the other archetypes, Frosty was intelligent yet a pure animalistic powerhouse that relied on savagery to put fear on his prey like an unstoppable polar bear. He'd eat anything, and yes, even have the ability to swallow his victims whole and eat them alive—a most cruel fate. The arguments lasted for five minutes while the delvers were screaming, running, and fighting back against Frosty's attacks and attempts to break into the shop on the screen.

I could open my many-eyes in the junkyard and see the chaos and carnage firsthand, but it was nice to enjoy the "watch party" happening at the duke's manor. Even the vampire spawns joined in, throwing popcorn at the TV screen Oracle created and screaming and shouting every time the delvers made a mistake.

"Don't go through that door—!" Screamed William.

"Aw, shit! Well, too late! What an idiot."

"Watch. Frosty's gonna take his arm off," Wendy commented right before Frosty grabbed Diaz's arm through the window and cut it down to the elbow. Diaz screeched and fell to the ground while Pascoe and Harrison dragged him down another hallway.

"Now didn't you leave a truck in that machine shop, my lord?" Mother Gertrude asked.

"Oh. Yeah! I forgot I added that in. It only had like a very small amount of gas in the tank, so it wouldn't get them far," I said.

"I think they'd have to find the keys first," Demon Bolton said.

"They don't have the time for that before—ohh shitttt!" On the screen, Frosty burst through the corrugated roof of the building, landing on Diaz and breaking his spine. A plethora of groans and cheers erupted across the living room. Frosty then picked up Diaz and threw him across the room like a rag doll. He skidded across the floor until he jammed beneath the heavy iron legs of a car lift. Above him, a 70's Chevy Impala with missing tires sat perched on the hydraulics.

The impact must have sheared a valve, because the lift shrieked as the hydraulic fluid sprayed in a fine, amber mist, and two tons of steel dropped on top of the poor bastard. The car slammed home, pinning Diaz from the waist down. Miraculously, the man was still alive. His mouth was open in a silent O, blood pouring at the sides and through his nose. Pascoe and Harrison scurried away to the other room, and he watched his friends abandon him with the beast. There was no escape, and Diaz knew that.

I gave him props for staring right at Frosty and shouting as blood still seeped out of the side of his lips, "Come on, motherfucker! What you got, huh? You think I'm scared?! You think I'm scared?! You think I'm— aahhhh!!!" It didn't take long for his Resolve to plummet for Frosty to be on top of him a second later, using those obsidian-hooked claws to peel Diaz open, splattering blood everywhere, and tearing through cloth, torso, and face until the man was unrecognizable and Frosty was caked with his blood.

The monster let out a roar that shook the building.

"I won!" Mother Gertrude exclaimed, cackling and clapping. She looked over at Zal and Demon Bolton with a predatory glint in her eyes.

"How do the kids say it these days? Pay up, motherfuckers!" She said proudly. She was the only one who betted that Diaz was going to die next, and so the others handed her twenty dollar bills that my archetypes didn't really need. I handed her a twenty dollar bill. [You have gained 1 essence: Marco Diaz] [You have gained 150 crystals]"Only two delvers left," Lord Zal said as Harrison and Pascoe fled the junkyard for the woods, and heading south.

If they continued for half a mile, they'd break through my weather magic, and they would no longer be surrounded by snow.

"At least they got a weapon." I frowned. Harrison carried a crowbar but I didn't think that would help them in the long run. Frosty burst out of the machine shop's door in hot pursuit, and fortunately for the delvers, he had the speed of a gorilla. Still fast but not too fast as the juggernaut trait was slowing him down. And the delvers were making good time too, gaining a wide distance from the Hunter, reached the edges of the snow dome (much to their shock), and never dared to stop.

Unfortunately, without the snow reflecting some light, it was almost pitch-black navigating through the woods. They left their torches back at the junkyard, and it didn't take long for them to get bogged down, get lost again, and get separated. Harrison used his military training and gut instinct on where to go, but Pascoe was severely lagging behind. And then the classic thing happened. Pascoe made a wrong turn and he tripped over a protruding root of a tree.

He stumbled forward over the edge of a slope, but it was too late to course-correct to save his balance. He went down hard, rolling down the slope like a pinball, hit a rock with his ribs, slammed his head against a log, and then landed face first into the thorny bushes below. For a long minute, the only sound was the wind and his agonizing wheezes. Then, the shock began to wear off, replaced by a white-hot, throbbing pain in his lower left leg. It was broken.

He cried out for Harrison to save him like he's a wailing puppy crying for its momma. Harrison heard him, but he knew that if he doubled back, he'd end up dead like Diaz and Corinne. There was no choice but to leave Pascoe behind. Then a prompt from The System appeared, flicker of neon-blue light cut through my vision, pulsing at the corner of my periphery. [Warning. Potential delver approaching.]"Uh… what?" I muttered.

I followed the ping from the mini map toward the south section of my domain, closer to the main road and the highway. From above, Through the winding road, I caught the twin yellow stabs of headlights cutting through the dark, driving past the old gas station. Garth Sawyer, who was manning the booth behind the gas station, saw the car drove past through his windows and quickly sent Duke Henry and his brothers a text that someone was entering the dungeon. Duke Henry's phone chimed.

"Wait. Something's happening," Duke Henry shushed everyone across the living room as he read Garth's text. He then turned to me for confirmation. I nodded.

"There might be another delver entering the dungeon," I said. That got everyone's attention. They sat up, leaning toward me, their eyes bright with the prospect of another fresh meat on the board. I opened one of my many-eyes from within the car's cabin, on the passenger seat… And found myself staring at the face of the driver. Leo Grady.