[Welcome to Limbo!
This Game is sponsored by Dresel, Dresel, good for your teeth!
Goal: Survive 23 hours, 49 minutes, and 37 seconds.
Event A: All players are scheduled for smiting in the next 5 hours, 49 minutes, 37 seconds. For each Actgonian or Player killed, a random member on your team will be marked exempt from smiting.
Event B: Safe Zones have been activated across the map. Monsters cannot reach you in safe Zones. All players can access and use Safe Zones.]
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Conveying what she saw to the group was easy enough, and so was convincing them to head right for the closest Safe Zone. After all its one defining feature was being the place Hell’s monsters couldn’t reach, and after seeing what the Actogonian had done to Phillip, Ade doubted that even on her best day she could have convinced the three to stay away from a Zone.
Now came the hard part however, which was the trek. Hell was hot as anyone with a bit of imagination might have guessed, and she could feel that heat seep up from the scorched rock and lick the bottom of her feet with each step.
Then there was the sweat, it got everywhere, in her face, in her hair and worst of all in her fucking eyes. She hated it, hated that this was the method that evolution had decided upon in inducing homeostasis. She could think of a hundred different ways to maintain internal stability better than this while she was drunk, and none of them would be as crude as ejecting salty liquid from her pores.
What am I even doing? Considering all the ways evolution could be less shit while I have ‘Smiting’ to worry about. She scolded herself and put her mind to more pressing issues, she had time on her hands and a lot of questions to be answered.
“Dima.” She began, turning to the man behind her. “What language am I speaking?”
The big man looked at her as if she were mad. “What are you, trying to brag about your Russian, girl?”
His response didn’t surprise her in the slightest and she turned to Basma. “Arabic yes?”
“Yes…” The woman replied, eyes widening fractionally as she seemed to be catching on.
She didn’t even need to turn to Chaghatai before he answered. “Khalkha Mongolian.”
“I see, I see.” Ade mused. “Ah, yes, the answer actually is English and Yoruba in case you were wondering. I was switching between the two languages to see if any of you caught it, but it appears we can communicate fluently no matter which language the other person’s speaking.”
“How?” Basma asked, curiosity sparking in her own eyes.
“I don’t know but it’s on my list of things to figure out.” Ade replied. Dima seemed to be barely listening and Chaghatai looked completely unmoved by the revelation.
Had he figured it out before I did?
She had had her hypotheses earlier on but was far too busy trying not to get eaten to tinker with them. Now though, they had been all but confirmed, like all good mysteries however it raised more questions than it answered. How did one go about making such a thing work? Their lips moved exactly in accordance with whatever they were saying.
Don’t get sidetracked Ade, there are still a lot of questions left to answer and only two hours before you get to the Safe Zone. “Alright,” she began speaking quickly, moving onto the next thing of import. “Bullet to the head.”
They all looked at her as if she had spoken gibberish and for a moment she thought whatever was translating their words to each other had stopped. “Bullet to the head, that’s how I died, anyone wanna go next?” She repeated, quickly.
“Ah,” recognition congealed in Dima’s eyes. He seemed to be imagining it and then he chuckled. “Yes, yes, I could see that happening to you.”
Ade sighed. “Care to go next?” She repeated.
Dima’s eyes darkened, a seriousness overcoming him like a dark cloud during a sunny day. “Steel mill accident, someone did something they shouldn’t, the whole place went up in flames…I uh.” He inhaled. “I tried to help everyone I could but, uh, I guess I didn’t make it out in the process.”
Ade for the first time in a while found herself not wanting to punch Dima in the face, and not just because he wouldn’t feel it. “I’m sorry.” She said, voice soft. “You did a great thing.”
“Can’t have been great enough.” He scoffed, looking around. “Else I wouldn’t be here.”
“Actually, about that, I’m not so sure we’re in Hell.” Ade began, feeling the grin form along her lips.
Basma interrupted her before she could continue. “You still hold to godlessness?” She asked, seeming genuinely perplexed. “Even now, even here?”
“Oh, no, no, believe me, having my brains blown out and waking up surrounded by lakes of magma has shaken several of my previously held beliefs about existence to their very core but that doesn’t change the fact that this isn’t Hell.” Ade countered.
“What do you mean?” Basma asked.
“Oh I’m not a lecturer Basma, I’m a conversationalist, think about it.” She waved a dismissive hand at the question.
The woman seemed taken aback for a moment and then she took on the challenge with the frown of a person eager to prove her wrong. She began hotly “Look at the world around you.”
“Blah.” Ade interrupted.
Basma’s frown only deepened before she continued. “It runs with lava, horned-”
“Blah, blah.”
“Horned demons lurk in the shadows, we all died and awoke here.”
“Blah, blah, blah.”
“Stop interrupting me!” The woman snapped.
“Stop being boring.” Ade asked nicely. From the fury written about Basma’s features, Ade was certain that if her skin had been any lighter instead of brown she’d have been red in the cheek. People made such funny faces when angry. “Oh relax I’m just having fun.”
“Is there anything fun about where we are?” Basma snarled.
Ade let her grin vanish if only for just a moment. “Oh no, not at all, in fact I’m quite petrified, terrified, quaking in my fucking boots because less than an hour ago I was moments away from death. But reality has made it rather clear that it couldn’t care less about how I feel so I might as well feel however is most pleasant for me.”
Ade could practically hear the woman run through several responses in her head and find each and every one of them lacking. All except one. “Go on.” She breathed finally, looking just as displeased.
“Abandon all hope ye who enter here.” Ade said and she could see the face’s of all three of her allies stiffen at the words. “Ah, so you remember that, how couldn’t you, by my guess it was the first thing you all heard upon arriving here, good, keep paying attention, 'cause this is the part where I show off.” Ade grinned wider.
Finally, she began.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“In the fourteenth century, an Italian writer known as Dante Alighieri wrote a book of fiction, or rather a narrative poem, known as ‘The Divine Comedy’. It follows the story of Dante in his journey through Hell, Purgatory and Heaven.”
“He wrote a fictional book about himself?” Basma asked with the look of a person who just found out what self inserts were and rightfully disliked them.
“Yes,” Ade replied. “He was a, uh, narcissist.”
“Seems like you and him have something in common.” Chaghatai mused.
Ade chuckled. “The important part here is that despite being written centuries after the Bible or the Quran and taking massive influences from both it was banned by the catholic church.”
“Why?” Basma asked, interest visibly growing.
“Well for blasphemy silly, the book said and implied a lot of things that simply contradicted biblical canon, and the fourteenth century catholics hated blasphemy as much as they loved fucking kids… Which is a lot if you hadn’t guessed .” Ade explained sweetly. “Here’s an example, do you know what Dante and Virgil saw on the gates of Hell when they arrived.”
“Abandon all hope ye who enter here.” It was Bama who responded again, voice low this time like she’d just seen a ghost. Well, they might all have been ghosts.
It wasn’t just her eyes keenly on Ade now but the other two’s, each of them silently, wordlessly, urging her to keep on talking, and in her infinite kindness, she granted their wish. “Correct.” She nodded at Basma. “That’s actually a rather popular phrase, most people don’t even know where it’s from, Dante’s work influenced a lot of our contemporary understandings and imagery of Hell, some academics and scholars call it the greatest work of literature in the world, and I call them people who need to pick up a non-western book.”
“Back on topic.” Dima urged impatiently and Ade flashed him a smile.
“Fine, fine, if you insist,” She sighed, half glaring at the boring man. “Dante’s work also introduced the idea of there being several levels of Hell, the first one being Limbo.”
“That’s where the screen says we are now” Dima realised.
“Correct again.” Ade nodded.
“So this Dante guy, you’re saying he was right about Hell?” Chaghatai asked.
“Well you would think so, but that’d be making this far too easy for me wouldn’t it,” Ade replied with a wince. “You see I’ve read Dante’s Divine Comedy, all three parts of it, four times, and I can tell you two things.” She raised a finger. “One, it didn’t have any jokes, two,” She raised another. “it doesn’t describe Limbo as having rivers of lava, a bright red cloudless sky or fucking Minotaurs in it.”
“So where are we then?” Dima asked.
“Well, I can’t give you all the answers then, that’d be cheating.” Ade said, because saying ‘I have no fucking idea,’ wouldn’t exactly inspire the confidence she was aiming to impart into her allies. They seemed to get the message well enough despite her efforts to obscure it, and Ade saw as much in the way their eyes fell.
She spoke quickly to remedy things. “But I can tell you we’re not in Hell, none that fits in with any Abrahamic religion or any theology that I can think of for that matter.”
Her words didn’t change their demeanour, and it took Ade a moment to understand that they hadn’t gotten her meaning. “What I’m trying to imply here,” She began, softening her eyes and warming up her smile. “Is that whatever rules you’ve ascribed to people who end up in Hell, don’t necessarily hold truth.”
That meant an eternity of torture and- she supposed what was likely on the minds of all three- the implication that they’d ended up where they were by being horrible people.
Ade didn’t need such assurances. No, this, if anything was exactly where she was supposed to be.
Basma warmed up to the idea first with a spring to her step and her head held high, Ade figured it made sense, she seemed to be the most religious of the three.
“I see.” she breathed.
Dima followed suit next and his declaration of it came with a question. “How do you know all this, girl?”
Ade raised an eyebrow. “Like I said, I read the book four times.”
Dima shook his head, eyes narrowing as if trying to peer into her very soul. “No, you know what I mean, how do you know the things you say, we’re barely several moments here and you’re already predicting what comes next…”
Ade grinned. She loved compliments, they made her feel all giddy inside, in fact she often wondered if the whole world would be much better if every interaction concluded with someone complimenting her.
Finally, she shrugged. “I don’t know.” Ade replied. “What’s two plus two?” She asked the man.
Dima frowned in confusion before answering. “Four, why?”
“Did you add the numbers in your head, take the time to to do the arithmetics or did you just know?” She asked,.
Dima laughed in realisation, then playfully shoved her forwards. “God, you’re a cunt.”
Ade was too busy stumbling and trying not to fall on her face for her to properly laugh back. She’d been clipped by a car, once, and found herself sent with less force than by Dima. Finally her hand caught a rock and she regained her balance. She half glared at the Russian behind her. “Well this Cunt is the reason you’re all going to make it out of this alive.”
She found Basma and Dima smiling back, and Chaghatai with his characteristic non-committal expression that he’d half convinced her was a permanent feature of his face.
All in all, things were going well, even after Phillip’s death her efforts to win their trust seemed to be working, albeit slowly. She hadn’t lied for the most part, her genius did come to her in ways that were instantaneous and as effortless as breathing, she just left out the part where much of it had also included work, studying and hours of mental labour to get herself so knowledgeable.
One didn’t know the exact birth date and city of origin of Niel Amstrong just by being quick.
August 5, 1930. Wapakoneta.
For whatever reason however, it wasn’t as impressive when people found out one worked for something rather than simply being born with it. And that was her goal, wasn’t it? To be impressive, to dazzle them with facts, figures and theories that kept them useful.
Doesn’t make me feel any less like a piece of shit though. She thought. But it was a net positive, after all, they were all so busy thinking about all the questions and possibilities she’d presented them with that they didn’t think to ask the most dangerous question of them all.
Would killing your teammate mark someone exempted from Smiting? Even in her head she voiced the question as a whisper for the chill it sent through her.
It likely could, she decided, if your teammates were Players, then killing them should trigger an exemption. Even if it didn’t, if you were to kill the last of your teammates, it would automatically mean whatever exemptions you’d already won would default to you.
Whoever had set this game up was a sadistic, dribbling imbecile. Too sadistic not to have left in a clause like that, and Ade was certain the odds of her newfound team turning on itself would be high if they considered it.
After all, why fight a Minotaur when you could just kill a scrawny biologist with one punch?
It was for that reason that Ade knew she would be the first to die if a fight broke out, crushed by Dima’s fist or punctured by Chaghatai’s spear, maybe even strangled by Basma of all people. She’d always been weak, even for a woman. And it was for that same reason she was deathly keen on making sure their minds did not stray that far.
She continued the walk with a mix of jokes and facts, Dima was the most responsive, he didn’t say anything of import save from making fun of her for being physically weaker than the body builder boulder he was, and when she brought up the fact that she didn’t need to be physically fit as her job majorly included lab work he simply repeated her words back to her in a high nasally tone as if that obliterated her entire argument.
The bastard.
All levity vanished for a moment when they saw an Actagonian in the distance. They crouched behind a rock in the hopes that it hadn’t seen them and to their luck- if they had any at all-, they weren’t spotted. It wandered off.
Basma was fine, timid but inquisitive, she latched onto every word Ade threw, and she could practically feel the woman turning them over in her head and examining them from various angles. She had a mind on her, that one.
Finally there was Chaghatai, he was the one that worried her the most, he seemed the most combat capable of the three and it just so happened she couldn’t get a proper read on the man. Sometimes he seemed mildly surprised at things she said, and other times completely unbothered.
Having him around was like feeling the Minotaur’s breath against the nape of her neck again. If he came for her she wouldn’t be able to stop him, but that wasn’t the scary part. Most women lived knowing most men could kill them, and Ade lived knowing that most women could manage the same against her. What worried her here, what had her feeling like ice crystals were sinking into her heart, was the fact that if he’d decided to kill her, she doubted she’d even see it coming. She doubted she’d be given the privilege of even attempting to think her way out of it.
“We’re almost there!” Dima called, dragging Ade out of her thoughts.
She looked ahead to see he was right, just beyond them was the Safe Zone. Much like the tattoo on Basma’s hand, it was a red thing seemingly etched into the ground itself and it released a soft, translucent glow from its surface.
There were four people in this one, and though Ade couldn’t see their expressions from this distance, she doubted they were faring much better than her group.
“Let me do the talking.” She told the group, quickening her pace.
Once she was close enough she could see all four of them, faces worn, bodies haggard and eyes hard. They were strangers, yes, but he recognised every bit of the dismay, horror and hopelessness across their faces.Of course she did, they were the very same ones her teammates had worn upon meeting her.
Ade was just about to take a step into the safe zone when one spoke with a voice of venom and a gaze hotter than the lava beneath them. “Cross that line and I’ll put this blade in your throat.”