The door creaked as Rosalind and Jasper pulled open the towering entrance to the weathered church. Stepping into the darkness inside, they closed the door behind them, Rosalind leading the way as they crunched on the rickety floorboards underneath them with their footsteps. Maneuvering down the central aisle flanked by pews, Rosalind took a hard left at the first row. She left room for Jasper to settle in beside her, their shadows briefly catching the dim light filtering in from nearby lampposts and homes that still had the odd light on past midnight via the insomniacs, human or NPC, in Alexandria.
They sat, Jasper taking particular interest in the faded yet still brilliant stained-glass murals that adorned the high walls of the church. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d stepped into a church. She couldn’t either.
He decided to interrupt the quiet nervousness with some small talk.
“So… in this super lovely, fun game that I’ve found myself trapped in - apparently now in World 2, Level 3, also known as Religion Land - ”
“This isn’t Mario.”
“That’s the only video game series I know so I’m gonna run with it… nonetheless, the actual question I wanted to ask… how much longer until this game is over?”
She thought for a moment. She had a rare, positive answer for him this time. “We’ve done everything right so far. If we keep it up, get all the drops we need to get, we should be able to close things out in just a few days.”
Jasper absorbed her words. “Not terrible! I mean, it’s all terrible, everything about this is terrible, but in the grand scheme of all of the terribleness, probably one of the less terrible things I’ve heard today,” he answered.
The creak of the church door echoed through the halls once more, this time accompanied by the crackle of a lantern's flame. Familiar footsteps entered the building, their sound reminiscent of the distinct steps that had echoed in Alexandria Inn’s dining hall. Jasper, with the slight turn of his head, and an over-leveraging of his peripheral vision, caught the familiar face of Murphy Cook standing in the entranceway, his stature and ill-fitting overcoat illuminated by the lantern. Murphy addressed the large church hall.
“A warning to those who are here for the purposes of evil, sabotage, destruction, selfishness, narcissism, and most important of all, standing in my way while I try to keep the world safe. If I spot you… I will destroy you.”
Murphy advanced into the hall, moving campfire-spotlight in tow, his footsteps causing the floorboards to squeak, a playback of the same sounds that had filled the church moments earlier.
“Destroy us?! Didn’t he ask us to come here?!” Jasper let out in a panicked whisper.
“Just trust me, we’re fine. Let him do his thing,” said Rosalind.
“He put narcissists on his list. We’re both doomed.”
Murphy strolled down the central aisle of the church interior, his all-knowing lantern light illuminating the back sections of the pews, the far ends of the church still shrouded in a thick darkness. Feeling the end approaching, Jasper scrunched into himself, contorting his back and arms into a strange tangle. Rosalind continued to sit like normal.
Each step more foreboding than the last, Murphy was finally parallel to the back row of seats. He was standing beside them, and Jasper, against every urge within him, lifted his eyes ever so slightly to catch the sight of it. Murphy looked vigilant, stern, paranoid - like a hunter well aware of where his prey had secured a hiding spot. They made eye contact - Jasper dying a little on the inside as they did - Murphy’s empty gaze too close for comfort. After a few seconds of the scariest staring contest ever, Murphy’s gaze lifted to further down the aisle. Then, turning his body completely, he shone his lantern down the right side of the aisles, completely away from the duo. Unaffected, he continued his search, stepping down the pathway between the pews deeper into the church.
“What?! But, wait, he just… what?!” Jasper started.
“So… Murphy isn’t programmed to notice anyone sitting in the back row of seats. Kind of a developer’s secret,” she said. She smiled softly watching Murphy obliviously continue his trek to the front of the church. “Gosh, he’s just got no idea. It’s adorable,” she said.
More morbid than adorable, Jasper thought to himself. But I suppose cute means different things to different people.
Step after step, they watched Murphy in his pre-determined, coded even, walk-cycle to his destination. Then, upon reaching the top of the church’s stage stairs, he stopped, turned around, and extinguished his lantern, killing the brief source of internal illumination in the hall. It was back to only brief flickers of light from the outside.
“Well done,” he spoke. “You passed the test. I wasn’t able to find you.”
“He literally stared at me for like 20 seconds,” whispered Jasper to an unresponsive Rosalind.
Murphy continued. “There’s something beautiful about this place,” he said, peering down from the stage like a spectral minister into the darkness of the seats. “Beyond the religious, the spiritual, the invisible, there lies a basic, fundamental truth that exists between these walls and these walls alone. A truth that states the following: If I'm unable to find you, it means you have nothing to hide.”
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“That… doesn’t make any sense,” muttered Jasper.
“Shhh,” Rosalind hushed.
The sermon continued. “The place where there is no darkness is not a room. It’s not a church, a temple, a steeple, a mansion, a basement, attic, cupboard, or some sort of well-illuminated closet. It has nothing to do with lightbulbs, spotlights, or… ten million fireflies, lighting up the world as I fall asleep. Rather, it’s the state of the heart, uncorrupted, unstoppable, filled with courage and non-treachery. A heart that is pure and true.”
Murphy rekindled the lantern, lifting it high. In that instant, the entire church blazed with light as if someone had hit the power switch and flipped on all the lights. A chime resounded, signaling the completion of a puzzle. The duo got up from their seat in the pews, advancing towards the center of the aisles as Murphy surveyed them from above.
“What the hell was any of that monologue?” Jasper whispered as they made their way.
“I’ll admit his dialogue can be a bit disjointed,” Rosalind responded. “He was kind of written by committee, and that committee had more than one Owl City fan.”
Rosalind and Jasper took their places in the middle of the church aisle, looking up at Murphy from a respectful distance. His eyes crinkled with his smile as he addressed the successful party.
“You did it. You knew where to find me. You solved the Riddles of the Elders that I’d left scattered all around town, assembled the answers in correct order as dictated by the Order of Alexandria: Phantom Edition book that my friend and colleague the Town Chancellor left stashed in the North Tower, and then translated them from Ancient Alexandrian Texts into modern english, all to reveal the location of this church.”
Jasper turned to Rosalind with confusion - we did all of that? She elbowed him.
“Yes! No totally, we absolutely did all of that.”
“Right!” agreed Jasper.
“We did that, because there’s no other way we would’ve found you otherwise, and now you’re here, and we’re here, and as you mentioned, you couldn’t spot us because we’re like really good people,” she continued.
“Just really good, selfless, empathetic people.”
“Totally! Like I actually am an empath.”
“Me too, yep, also an empath.”
“That’s right, Jasper’s… also an empath, we’re both empaths, and, I mean yeah, that’s basically it!”
Silence in the church.
“Wonderful,” responded Murphy, sincerely. He turned, strolling further onto the stage and towards a back room situated in the corner. He opened the door and walked in.
Eagerly trailing behind him were Rosalind and Jasper. Rosalind extended her fist for a fist-bump, but Jasper misinterpreted and offered a high-five. After a few awkward attempts to coordinate, they both gave up on the idea.
–
The church’s back room was filled with a varied assortment of portraits, plants, books on shelves, left-over sheets and crates haphazardly strewn about. As Rosalind and Jasper entered, Murphy was already in the midst of using his strong physique to push one of the larger crates. His lantern was carefully placed on the floor beside him.
“To the untrained eye, a quaint room like this holds no secrets,” Murphy said, his gruff, low-pitched voice strained with exertion. “But what the ignorant eye can’t see, the beating heart can.”
With that, he moved the crate to reveal a square-shaped hole in the concrete floor. A ladder protruded from it, leading down into the depths of the church’s underground.
“This path, should you choose to follow it, will take you down a rabbit hole filled with answers to questions you wished you never asked, revelations you’d want forever concealed, and… just lots and lots of dark, scary, horrifying darkness.”
“You’ve got some real wordsmiths at XPeriential,” Jasper muttered.
“Shut up, he’s supposed to be fun.”
“And while you might hear the voices of fear echoing in your ears, dissuading you from action…,” Murphy continued, before getting interrupted by Rosalind.
“—we, as citizens of Alexandria, have to be brave enough to face the darkness, as terrifying as it might all feel.”
Murphy pointed at her with a knowing, invigorated look. “You took the words right out of my mouth. Clearly, this isn’t your first adventure.”
Murphy, his gaze as intense as a lieutenant proud of his crew, began to descend the ladder into the depths. As he descended, his face disappearing from view, Rosalind smiled at Jasper.
“Pretty cool, hey?”
“I’m not a fan of all of your snobbery. All proud of yourself that you memorized some lines of that NPC’s word-salad.”
“Awe, you’ll get over it,” said Rosalind sarcastically, bending down to pick up a shiny object that had materialized next to the passage. She retrieved:
Half of the Crooked Knight Killer!
“Besides,” she continued, “We just fulfilled everything required to get one half of a legendary endgame item that’ll help us speedrun this sucker before it all goes to shit. So, you are very, very welcome.”
With that, she mimicked Murphy, carefully placing her feet on the rungs and starting her slow descent.
“Well, I’ll have you know that getting one half of a legendary weapon is nothing to be proud of!” Murphy shouted up from below as Rosalind made her way down.
“I’ll have the other half soon!” Rosalind called back as she continued her downward climb. “Now hurry up and follow us!”
Murphy stared at the opening, then begrudgingly began his move, gripping the ladder's rungs tightly.
“I don’t like tight spaces,” he mused.