[Player Log Start!]

[Log Holder: Michael Kapok]

[Level: 2]

If Michael wasn't focused on staying alive, he would have gasped. But being discovered was the worst-case scenario, so he clenched his jaw shut and forced himself to stay quiet.

There were people here. People unconnected to the Sub-Level Jared and the others had discovered. Most likely they were with the Developers. And they had infiltrated the squid society.

He watched the man extract himself from the robot, shaking himself slightly before going for a shelf near where Michael was hiding.

The sack wasn't fully hiding him, but if he were to readjust it now, then the movement would certainly grab his attention. So he had to stay still and hope. At least he had had a lot of practice on that front.

There was a clicking sound, and then a long, drawn-out beep, from whatever contraption the man had picked up. It sounded a lot like the Console used by Lucky.

Working on a whim, he nonverbally activated his Computer Affinity, and then using it to access a trick he hadn't needed in a while.

[Michael Kapok is using Computer Affinity]

[Inspect]

Stats flickered in front of his eyes, unseen to anyone else. He kept it short. To the point.

[Name: Braxton Gulf]

[Class: Apocalypse Harbinger]

[Level: 34]

Damn it. He was hideously outmatched and this person was confirmed to be working with the Developers. He should’ve spent more time trying to level up here.

On the plus side, at least he had some leads on how to begin brokering that deal between the two factions of animals they had been assigned.

He'd almost forgotten about that, amidst all the excitement of Verity's trial and the collapse of their Nest.

If their group could overthrow the humans here, and reveal to the squids and cephalopods that their leadership was a sham, maybe they would be more willing to trust factions they pointed out as safe.

And of course, he would have to do so because it was the correct thing to do. These creatures were being led into a war that was destroying their world, just for some sick game.

Whether or not it made him come closer to his goal was irrelevant. He wanted these Harbingers gone.

A few paces away from him, the Harbinger continued using their Console, though the audible striking of their nails against the screen was slowly becoming more and more spaced out.

Uncertainty? Or were they reading something?

"Huh. That's strange." They said. Three words that made Michael's blood run ice cold.

More tapping followed, along with the telltale chime of a Message being sent. Probably calling for backup, for whatever was so strange. Hopefully not the fact that he had so easily slipped the cell he had been put in.

Calling for backup was a fantastic idea, though. He was so used to the lack of telecommunications in Wayside that it was hard to adjust sometimes to the idea that he could just... send a message. To anyone he wanted to.

[Direct Message]

[To: Benedict Carrey]

[Message: hey it's me. the squid put me in lockup. I got out of lockup. Turns out that Harbingers are shadow puppeting them.]

All this was transcribed mentally, without him even twitching a finger. Discovery was the last thing he needed in this situation. Except for a leak.

The doors opened once more, and another human walked in, going past him and straight to the Harbinger with the Console.

"What's going on?" They asked Braxton.

"Look at this." He must show them the Console, because then he elaborated, "It's a scan of all active Harbinger Consoles."

Silence. And then, "Huh. Is that Burks' in the corner there? How did that reactivate?"

"That's what I thought!" Braxton burst out. Michael's thoughts had begun churning faster in his mind. Burks' Console had been taken by Lucky and somehow revitalized into a tool for good. How could it have reverted...?

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"You think he managed to wrest control back from those Mobs?" The unnamed human asked, sending Michael into even more of a panic.

"Maybe." Braxton replied, "He's not much of a Harbinger, but even the worst of us should outmatch those fuzz-brained NPCs."

That wasn't true. Verity was a Harbinger, and still she was on even keel with the rest of the team. Better at some things, but not everything. Also, Burks was in Tracklands, and the only way to travel dimensions had gone with Lucky, so Michael was reasonably certain that however it had reactivated, it had nothing to do with Burks.

Still, he let this misconception stand as the two continued their discussion, "Where is it, anyways?"

"Says here... L-38. Assigned name: Delica."

Silence hung over the pair, and then when they next spoke, it was... scared, "Isn't that Dr. P's containment realm?"

Oh, this was all kinds of bad. A man who needed a whole realm to be contained was not a man Michael looked to be fighting anytime soon.

"You don't think he could use it to get himself out of there, do you?" The human asked.

"Well, there are administrative restrictions in every Console, weaved tightly into the design, to stop blacklisted individuals from using the system." Braxton replied, "Except for the Harbingers. They have full authority over the System. It's our sandbox.”

“Dammit.” The human swore, “We need to have a talk with the big guys about restricting our access to certain things.”

“But that would imply that we’re not utterly trustworthy.” Braxton pointed out, “And we’re Harbingers. We live and die by the Developers’ command. And we need to clear this up for them before it becomes even more of an issue.”

How they were planning on doing that, Michael didn’t find out, as he was distracted by a reply to his message to Ben.

[Message: Oh, that’s good. We’ve regrouped too. Any way you can make a break for the surface in on of their squid suits?]

It was a good idea. And a cowardly one, too. But also the only course of action that would see him walking away safely. He decided to do just that, once these guys left.

“We should call for a reverse-summoning.” The human said, taking the Console from Braxton, “And send people out to check on the Tracklands. See how they’ve gone after they ousted the Harbingers from there.”

A reverse-summoning? It didn’t take a genius to take a stab at what they meant. Bring the Console, and whoever was attached to it, over here. He hadn’t realized that that was an option until now. But if they were right… he couldn’t allow the group to be caught in a trap like this. Should he stay to help the team, or follow Ben’s directions and come up for air?

He sent over a message, as brief and to the point as he could make it without confusing them further, waiting for better instructions.

The two humans left through the door he had come in through, their footsteps loud in the metal tunnel, and the door slamming shut a signal for Michael to finally take in a lungful of air.

Okay, there was a lot to contend with here. Plenty of ways to proceed if he played his cards right. Now which way to go? Hijack the octo-suits, and raise hell, or sneak around behind them using his Sorcery Ability?

Ben’s response to his message came back, obscuring his view of the octo-suit with the text: [Shit. We’ll have a better shot staging only one underwater rescue mission. Stay with them and help.]

Yeah, he figured. Good to have confirmation, though. The parameters of the Game were set, and now he could focus on reaching that objective. And with his eyes now on the octopus, he had a pretty good idea on how to go about doing that.

“Okay, work with me, here.” He climbed into the first one, feeling out the controls. There were levers and joysticks all around, but what led to where was impossible to understand. An octopus had eight arms, there was no way that all these levers were meant to be controlling each one individually, right?

That seemed to be the case. Dammit all. Learning how to navigate this was going to take time he didn’t have. Was there a quicker way to do that? Time to find out…

[Applying Computer Affinity…]

[Asset Classification: Sea-Worthy Animatronic]

Huh. That was an interesting way to classify this thing. Now if he could switch the controller for something he could make sense out of. He thought on it for a few seconds, before going for a trick in the library he’d meant to employ before this.

[Asset Mod: Controls Tutorial]

He stepped inside, watching light shift around him, giving him a rundown for every lever and control in sight. His instincts were right, each tentacle came with its own three controls. But there was a dial in the corner of the heads-up display that could switch the modes. One click to the right, and it announced the new mode to be Auto-Propellor. Now six of the octopus’ arms would automatically navigate where he directed it, leaving the other two free to be used to grab things.

“Cool.” He grinned, sitting down in the seat. There were more pedals on the ground, but the chair was designed for someone with much longer legs than him, because he would have to point his toes to reach them. Some readjustments were needed, but first, he needed to leave the Docking Bay before the Harbingers could realize he had gotten out of the holding cell.

The face shield of the octopus slid over him, locking Michael inside the darkness, with only the glow of the screens and levers to see by.

He pulled the robot off the Docking Bay, and into the watery hall. The display tilted wildly as he tried to stabilize himself. This wasn’t that different from the Submarine Simulator game he found in an arcade from Wayside, now that he was actually in the moment. It had the exact same type of nausea and everything!

Now that Michael knew what to look for, he could follow the bumps in the walls and ceilings that marked the tunnels the Harbingers were moving through. One strike was all it would take to flood the entire place, and flush them all. It was very tempting.

But he didn’t. If they had summoned the team to him, the water would drown them all, too. He didn’t want that on his shoulders.

Michael began drifting downwards, following the tracks of the tunnels for the rooms where they might potentially be hidden. The vision display settings were changed to heat, turning the world into layers of blues and greens. The ocean was incredibly cold this deep down. Except for two distinct blobs of red. Even through the walls, the Harbingers were glowing beacons compared to their surroundings.

That also meant there were no other humans in their vicinity. They hadn’t summoned his team yet. Which meant it would be so easy to wind a tentacle around the tunnel and squeeze-

A clicking noise buzzed over the speakers, and a mass of blue obscured the vision.

On the dashboard, there was a panel the tutorial called the ‘Translations Display’. Text was scrolling past it, probably a translation to what the octopus in front of him was saying.

“Hiya Barry! I noticed you weren’t at the meeting.”

[Player Log End]