Alarm...
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Looking for someone to Beta, message me if you're interested
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Jin opened his eyes his bleary eyes to a room of more than a dozen people. He sat up trying to make sense of it all, blinking to adjust to the low-light.
There was a window letting in the pale moonlight. Once his eyes had adjusted he noticed there were two people in military fatigues standing off to the side holding guns.
Jin sat up and surveyed his surroundings, as the people started to stir, two minutes after a pop-up showed up.
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Main Mission: Survive
Difficulty: Low C 11
World: Marvel Universe
Time Limit: One Month
Side Missions:
1. ?
2. ?
3. ?
4. ….
Points: Pending
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Everyone looked confused and the people holding guns didn’t really help.
Then they spoke up, “Alright, newbies we’re going to say this once, if you don’t want to die, then pay attention.”
He drew attention to his gun. We knew what he wasn’t saying.
“The Game Master has brought all of you here, after you answered yes to the Question. None of whom we’ve asked remember what the Question is, so there’s no point in asking. Perhaps if you all survive long enough you’ll find out what it was.”
We all took a moment to digest this, I could tell some people were barely holding themselves from lashing out. These guys might as well have been speaking another language.
Game Master? Question? Survive? None what they were saying was making any remote sense. The only thing that stopped the (newbies?) was the aura of terror those guns produced. You couldn’t look at a gun and not think of your death, and it wasn't as if the two looked like they wanted hugs. Their entire body language screamed 'We'd rather shoot you all', and we didn't want to risk setting them off.
The pale moonlight shone through the clouds and lit up the room, and we noted their grim faces, they almost looked dead.
‘What happened for them, to make an expression like that?’
“If you guys survive until the end you’ll be taken to the Lobby where you can exchange your points for stats, skills, genetic mutations or items, we both have a genetic mutation and this gun you see here. The last setting we were in was the Movie Jaws, and there were twenty of us at the start. "
If they shone any brighter Jin might’ve gone blind from the two rays of happiness, though given what they said it was sort of-
Side Mission: Tutorial for New Players – Now Locked
What?
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Main Mission: Survive or Kill the Escaped Experiment
Difficulty: Low C 11
World: Marvel Universe
Time Limit: One Month
Side Missions:
1. Tutorial for New Players – Now Locked
2. ?
3. ?
4. ?
5. ….
Points: Pending
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Was this like an RPG? A sick twisted RPG. Then where were the basic weapons and skills one got? Or did we get any at all? By the fact, they were holding AKs meant we could get guns but from where? The Lobby they said but where was that?
There were more questions than answers, and the two didn’t exactly exude a friendly enough aura where people felt safe in asking them questions. Jin decided it didn’t matter, all he had to do was focus on figuring out where he was and being cautious. People didn't bring weapons to picnics...except maybe his dad.
Jin looked behind him noting the large moon illuminating the yard, and realized exactly where they were.
The giant word was standing in reverse and partially hidden by the large skyscraper in the yard middle of the crescent shape the building they were in took, but there’s no way he didn’t recognize them.
Oscorp.
What.
No way.
Jin almost denied what he was seeing. Maybe he this was a dream. Maybe he was drinking. Maybe, maybe maybe.
Were they really in another place?
It didn't make much sense for all of this to be an elaborate prank.
It would be an incredible waste of time and money. Then again people were also incredibly stupid.
However, if they were really in the Marvel Universe, it would be best to remember what he could. Jin recalled everything he knew about Oscorp and then looked at their mission. His brain connected the dots. And the constellation was not looking pretty.
Much of what he recalled about this place was pretty bad, at least when Spidey wasn't around. It was a spawning ground for evil and none of it was remotely normal or weak. Most of the time some bizarre experiment escaped or someone stole some tech and went on a rampage. That was was the mild stuff. He wasn’t going to jinx himself or be stupid enough to be optimistic in such an unfamiliar environment.
Jin wanted to believe he was just having a bad dream, but his dreams were never this coherent. It was possible he was kidnapped as a trial experiment for beta Virtual Reality testing. Pinching his skin, he knew it was unlikely, no matter how much research people had been doing they wouldn’t be able to get the world in such detail, at least not this early.
Perhaps this really was an elaborate tv game show? If it was it certainly wasn't legal, he doubted he would ever accept being on tv.
He calmed himself down and took note of what was important.
Game Master, Lobby, Marvel Universe, Points, RPG shop, Side Missions.
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
And their Mission; Survive The Escaped Science Experiment. There was so much he wanted to say to that ridiculous statement, that he didn’t know where to begin. You don't survive Escaped Experiment scenarios by choice, you need plot armour for that. He was no protagonist as far as he knew, though he did have some training, those kinds of characters did tend to have a high survival rate.
He felt around in his pocket and pulled out a pen and pocket notebook and wrote it all down. He’d rather have it written down then forget something important. Because it looked like he was going to be busy worrying about surviving the next few hours to even think about recalling all this in future was unlikely.
When Jin looked up the two veterans had left. He had expected it…but it was still disappointing. People predictably started to freak out.
He decided to speak up, albeit reluctantly, they needed to work together to survive this pseudo-horror story.
Jin: “Okay, has anyone heard of Oscorp?”
They all looked at him like he was nuts. He returned the look. How had they never heard of-
Jin looked at their attire, most of them in business suits and dresses with the exception of two who wore normal street clothes but they all looked to be in their 20-40s.
Right, old people.
He internally sighed and accepted that excuse as flimsy as it was.
Jin then tried to explain in as much detail as he could remember, which wasn’t much. This turned out to be a good thing as he realized he could improvise and lead them into thinking certain things, and perhaps skip the entire denial and breaking of the group. Knowing how annoying it was when people were in denial Jin played it off like this was the real world which he still half believed was true and he had no idea how we got here, which was true.
All he knew of was that this was research facility that pioneered in the carious fields of science; biology, and chemistry as the main focus, true.
He then mentioned there were reports of bio-weaponry and experimentation on humans, and raised the subject that this was what was happening at the moment. They were kidnapped and were being forced to play this game which was basically a way for them to gather data, or it was for some rich guy's perverse entertainment which probably wasn’t too off the mark.
Oh.
Jin realized he might’ve done-goofed. They didn't look like they believed him, and a few looked a lot more scared now, some slightly more calm none of it was what he had intended.
He hadn't said anything especially out there, so they should've believed him.
Not good with leading groups he tried to think of a way to calm them down when someone asked how he knew this. Jin bluffed and said he watched the news and the fact their company logo was outside the window might be another clue.
They decided not to believe him, not that it would help as most were civilians and none of them looked to have any combat or any life-and-death training at all.
Jin who hadn’t seen any visible proof of anything was a paranoid individual and decided it wasn’t worth the risk if they were inside a death experiment. He simply suggested they find a way out of this building or at least find a more secure location. It was a normal office, with scattered papers and some lab equipment. He didn't really want to be in here if they sent some pseudo Terminator after them.
None of them seemed that eager to move, for some stupid reason. He then told them they might be caught for tresspassing and the best thing to do was leave quietly and forget all this happened.
Somehow they accepted it and they decided to leave as fast as possible and get on with their lives.
Jin strangely enough was used waking up in strange places thanks to his dad's 'Training', there was no way this was that, but from the training he had learnt to scan his surroundings and felt something off.
He couldn't pinpoint what was making him feel like that, however he did know to trust his instincts. He found a fire axe behind a glass case and thought best to take it with him, he might need a weapon later, 'Best Overkill than Dead'. He covered his fist with his clothes and broke the glass quietly and took the axe with him.
As he ventured out with everyone, and found the facility quieter than a graveyard, all the lights off with one or two on though they seemed empty. He remembered what the translucent window had said, ‘Marvel Universe’.
How would a death game work out here? Would the 'experiment', as they termed, have bulletproof armour?
Death games usually had the players at a serious disadvantage, from what he remembered from the books he read.
Alternatively, if this was real. How did the experiment get loose in the first place? Did some wack-job scientist work late into the night and fall asleep, and accidently hit the release button? He really didn’t want to die because someone hadn’t bought some coffee to keep themselves awake.
Another thing that Jin still felt should’ve been addressed was the fact they were in the Marvel Universe, was it really? How did they even get here? Were they actually here or was this all an experiment, maybe closer to a VR session then anything. Then he remembered what happened to characters that said these lines in horror movies. They were usually the first to die.
Jin gazed into the flickering abyss.
The blinking lights played havoc on my fears.
He decided it was best not to think this was where the 'blue window' said they were.
Using caution he went down the list of villains and concluded he was going to face someone along the lines of Spidey’s Rogue gallery. EIther as a parody and some killer wearing Goblin's costume might walk down the hallways with an axe and riot gear, or the person might come after them in an actual glider, throwing bombs at them.
If it was the later then he had no chance of winning since almost all of his villain were already stronger than Spidey who could easily lift thousands of kilograms.
Jin would take on the Joker over escaped experiment any day, especially since they could never be beat with a gun or a good RPG to the face. He just kept hoping that if this did become dangerous at least it would be kept to something human. Because the more he thought about it, the more he realized this axe was going to be useless if he faced something like that. He hoped it wasn’t something impervious to bullets like the Rhino.
Going through the mental list of villains, he felt his heartbeat pump a little faster, he had managed to narrow down who they were going to face, even if the fear was held at bay momentarily. Jin didn’t know whether or not talk or not because if something dangerous truly was out there… he couldn’t stop his hands from shaking at the thought of actually facing someone that powerful. Walking down this moonlight hallway with the shadows covering the floor, scared him more than he wanted to admit he was going to be jumping at his own shadow if he somehow survived this.
Please be nothing, please tell me I'm nothing but a tin-foil nutjob.
“So, does anyone have a gun, or some sort of weapon?”
Everyone jumped slightly startled by the noise, even if he kept it just barely above silence. No one responded, he just sighed and kept going, “Not even a taser? Ladies? Pepper Spray?"
They all looked like they wanted to strangle him. Jin felt his heart subside, annoying people was very therapeutic for him but he didn't really like the fact none of them had anything resembling a weapon.
A loud bang echoed throughout the building.
In the dark silence, it sounded like an explosion. The lack of fire and destruction told us otherwise. Getting fed up one of the businessmen walked forward impatiently his shoes clacking loudly.
Jin said, "Err, maybe walk a bit quieter?" as he shifted his eyes around and kept a grip on the fire axe.
The impatient businessman said, "I don’t have time for this I have a meeting tomorrow. I need to find the exit and leave this place before we get arrested and thrown in jail. Honestly would’ve written all of this off as a bad dream if it wasn’t for the smell."
"Smell?"
Business said annoyed, "Yes, it smells like when snakes shed their skin. If I didn’t know any better, I would say a large snake had escaped-"
At that point Jin stopped listening. There was perhaps one villain that stood out as one of the many Dr. Jekyll and Hyde copy cats of the series. The Lizard. A seven-foot-tall humanoid reptile that was deadly as it was intelligent depending on what version we were looking at. The fact this was Oscorp and the fact the mission parameter had used to term ‘escaped experiment’ it was probably safe to say it was probably Curt Conner who was experimenting on this probably late into the night and because he had either been sleep deprieved or was drunkand had done the stupid thing by testing it on himself.
He was usually taken down by the cold or our friendly neighborhood hero cured him with an antidote, before he turned again and killed a bunch of people...again. However, none of them would survive against that monster. Everything exceeded normal human strength, the only weakness he had was the cold. This wasn't the land of Maple Syrup and Polar Bears, unfortunately.
He knew that if he tried to get the people to listen to him they wouldn't believe him and would stop taking his opinions seriously when he didn't believe it himself, the only proof he had supporting him was that floating window and that could be replicated by a floating mirror. Even if Jin explained who they were likely to face and given the context it was likely it was The Lizard.
Then again he was just operating under the assumption that this was real and he would rather be paranoid and cautious than risk actually facing all this without preparing himself beforehand. He honestly wanted to be wrong, the text window, those two men, and the fact he had no memory of being kidnapped or any actual smell of chemicals being used on him made it hard to think otherwise. He also hadn’t found any cameras that showed they were being spied on. His extensive knowledge of hidden cameras, he bitterly remembered, all learned from his military-esque dad.
Jin suddenly stopped when noticed something on the side of the wall.
"What wrong?" Jin heard someone whisper.
"Try not to freak out," Jin played it out, "but I think we have a large reptile on the loose."
Unsurpringly they looked on in disbelief.
"Something the size of a Komodo Dragon judging by the claw marks, they were most likely using them for experiments."
Showing them the marks had them believe me.
For an instant.
They muttered something about kids with overactive imaginations trying to bely the fact that a large animal might crawl out of the darkness and devour them.
They walked away and Jin sighed and went to follow when he noticed the light in one of the labs was on. He called out to them about this but they continued walking wanting to get out as quickly as possible. Jin decided there was no more wasting time and opened the door, it was curious to why this room had its light on when the rest of the building had the lights closed.
With the sudden silence, he heard the sounds of a clock break it, and found it to his right reading 4:57. Almost an hour till daylight which by then all the office workers would be in the building and they would have to explain themselves or be trying to survive the lizard alongside them. It wasn’t like he knew exactly how strong the lizard was this time around, he knew for certain it would outclass them, but by how much was the variable in this equation.