I followed Monique down a narrow staircase into the sublevel. Automatic lights lining the ceiling pulsed softly. A climate control system clicked on to fight against the slightest change in temperature brought on by our arrival. An electronic dial on the wall registered 12°C and 60% humidity.

The wine cellar was larger than I was expecting. More vault than cellar, actually. Antiseptic and ultramodern. Concrete, metal, and glass.

Four rows of tall, frosted glass wine walls proudly cocooned a dizzying array of bottles. Two of the racks were built into either side of the room, creating three walkable aisles between the collection. Large, pale square tiles lined the floor.

“Do you like it?”

It’s very nice. Is that a security camera in the corner?

“Yes, it is. And the answer to the question in your head is ‘no.’ I installed the camera after the first few break-ins, but the little fiend disabled it somehow. It’s smart.”

And no indication of how it is getting in?

I looked around and saw, besides the door at the top of the stairs, only miniscule vent holes for the climate system.

“That’s what you’re here for. Find a spot and get comfortable. After dark it is sure to appear, I guarantee it. The wicked thing just can’t get enough drink. Reminds me of some relations I once had.”

Uh. How long until it gets dark?

“Oh, I’d say five hours or so. But who’s to say if it won’t show its ugly head sooner? Either way, you should settle in and get ready to spring the trap, so to speak.”

I didn’t say anything. It would have been nice if I had invested in some sort of actual trap. All I had were my gun and my knife.

And five hours? I had no way of telling time. Maybe they sold timepieces at the Supply Depot. Although what would that even mean? Besides the ‘cycles,’ how would one measure time in The Commons, where it was perpetually dark? Even in this place, did the passage of time correlate to real time? Were there still 24 hours in a day?

“--if you need to.”

I’m sorry. What?

I had zoned out there for a moment.

“I said, I have plenty of food and drink if you need anything. And if you need to use the facilities, you’d best use them now.”

Facilities? I… no. I don’t need anything.

I could only assume by facilities she was referring to a bathroom. Did some people go so far as to replicate ALL aspects of the real world in the metaverse? It seemed that, for convenience sake, some functional necessities of our humanity could be edited out.

Or perhaps that was the point. Citizens were more fully human, while I was just some shell. Not even a full person. And I had apparently volunteered for this.

“Great. Then I’ll leave you to it. And please… try not to damage anything. I know these bottles aren’t real in the literal sense of the word, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t expensive.”

Right. I’ll do my best.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Maybe I shouldn't lead with firing my revolver...

I watched the lady of the house’s perfectly manicured feet pad up the narrow stairs. She shut the door behind her and at once the room was sealed in a sort of atmospheric cocoon. The cellar must have been soundproofed. Only the faint hum of the climate control and lighting broke the silence.

I slowly walked up and down the three aisles, looking for any clues that would suggest a point of entry or exit. I saw nothing. None of the fancy labels of the bottles meant anything to me either.

Five hours. I would be stuck down here for five hours, minimum, before this thing I didn’t even know if I could win against appeared. I decided to sit down at the foot of the stairs, back against a bare concrete wall, partially concealed behind one of the ends of the tall displays.

I would wait. It was all I could do.

Minutes passed. The automatic lights faded, bathing the cellar in a dim sheen. Midnight blue. I tried to remain perfectly still. I reminded myself that my breathing, the thudding of my heart, even the tics in my nervous system were not real. They were electronic signals. And if they were signals, I could control them.

Maybe. Maybe not. There had to be a real world correlation. Somebody once said, a lamp inside a video game uses real electricity. And as Monique Rossignol intimated, even things that weren’t real could still have a real cost. I wondered what the cost would be if I messed this up.

Sitting in the cool darkness, trying to attune my measly 10 Perception to any sound, my mind began to wander once more. I realized that I didn’t even know what year it was. That is to say, the year in the real world. Another piece of my memory that was lost. Dissociative amnesia as a reaction upon first entering The Collective, the Concierge had said. Yeah, but it still hadn’t come back. Not a crumb of personal memory.

Monique had shown me a bottle of wine from 1982. So it at least had to be after that year. There was no way the technology to create an immersive metaverse existed anytime close to that. Could I recall any historic events? Political leaders? Mikhail Gorbachev. Erich Honecker. Gustav Husak. Deng Xiaoping. Ho Chi Minh. Margaret Thatcher. Anything more recent? I strained, reaching for threads. Reaching for the secrets buried in the black box of my gray matter. The past… my past… it was like eels wriggling out of my grasp beneath the waters of a murky lake.

My thoughts continued like this for an unknowable spell. Suddenly, it occurred to me that I should ready myself.

With slow, subtle movements, so as not to set off the automatic lights, I materialized my Tincture of Fortune in one hand and my Push Dagger in the other. If I had a chance, any chance to kill this thing, I should at least try to maximize whatever rewards I could get. I would have 600 seconds from the time I drank it before the effects wore off.

More time passed. And more. An interminable empty stretch. Until…

Click.

A faint sound broke me from my fugue. I tensed.

Click clack.

I strained in the dark, not daring to move. At the end of the leftmost aisle, silhouetted in darkest blue, there was a form emerging from the ground. Something with right angles, like a title of the floor being raised, and a lumpy shadow crawling out from the depths below.

A system notification chirped.

[{rare} entity detected - Clurichaun]

My pulse quickened. With my left hand, I nervously popped the top of my tincture and raised it to my lips. I downed the oily liquid in a single gulp. It tasted of sandalwood, burning and tingling down my throat. I dematerialized the empty bottle and gripped my dagger.

600 seconds. 599 seconds. 598 seconds.

The creature’s movements hadn’t activated the automatic lights somehow. I could now see that it was fully emerged from beneath the floor, sliding the tile back into place. It walked with a strange waddling gait. It wore some sort of nightcap and apron, and small shoes with pointed toes as far as I could make out in the shadows.

It was grunting, and mumbling to itself, waddling over to the nearest display wall and fingering the necks of the bottles one by one.

Now. While it was distracted. I had to make my move.

I lunged forward with my dagger outstretched. The automatic lights kicked on, flooding the cellar.

The clurichaun’s outfit was reddish brown like coagulated blood. He - it was a he - appeared disheveled. Dirty.

As I charged, he swiveled his head in my direction. His face looked like a withered apple, with sunken, bloodshot eyes, a wiry unkempt beard, and burst capillaries spreading across his skin. His teeth were yellowed and chipped, his fingernails long and curled. His face twisted into a sinister sneer.

“Maróidh mé thú!”