With the change in scenario from the floor to the waiting room came a much-needed energy boost, as his stamina was immediately replenished. Not only that, but even a cloudiness of mind he didn’t even know was still there suddenly dissipated, making it much easier for him to think.
It took a couple of minutes for his body to understand he wasn’t in immediate danger anymore; he had barely avoided dying just a few seconds ago, and at the moment, his muscles were still all tensed up. He kept looking around for a while, expecting to find something coming to attack him, until his mind finally understood that it was over.
Finally having the presence of mind to check his notification—after taking a deep breath—Lucas saw it was as short as he expected:
Third floor completed. 10,000 points earned.
Current points: 40,500.
Considering the complete failure of a floor he had, Lucas wasn’t the slightest bit surprised by the lack of bonus objectives, but he was still disappointed.
Not bothering to check on the novelties the room brought this time around, he went straight to the bathtub and soaked under the warm water, thinking about everything that had happened.
While the third floor wasn’t nearly as physically demanding as the second, it had been much more emotionally draining, and he felt like a train had run over him. He felt especially bad because he had the lasting feeling that he had been toyed with by whoever designed the tower.
It was clear to him now that the third floor had been purposefully created to put people against each other, and it had clearly worked. But as Lucas began to think about what he could’ve done differently, he found that the answer wasn’t clear. Yes, perhaps he should have avoided the mushroom at all costs or kept his distance from Maria, but would that really have changed things? The way he saw it, much of the same things would still happen.
He hadn’t been wrong to feel distrustful towards others; he didn’t know them, and the two murderers hidden among the group were proof of it. Perhaps if he had trusted everyone, instead of a disappointing performance, he would be dead now.
However, despite the reasonable part of him agreeing with this assessment, he couldn’t help but feel bad about how everything went down, especially Maria’s death. Even if he didn’t trust her completely, he should’ve at least kept her around to guarantee she wouldn’t die before getting the whole story straight.
Lucas shook his head inside the bathtub; it was too late now to regret, and he had a feeling similar circumstances would happen again as long as he kept progressing in the tower. The challenge was a test not only for the body but for the mind, and he feared that if he got too stuck on his mistakes, it would only harm him in the long run. Nothing good would come out of it.
Besides, he had already thought a whole lot about morals and his stance in this new world; he knew who he was and what he was willing to do, even if he had lost himself there for a minute when attacking John, which he had stress to blame for.
Day after day, he risked his life, destroyed his body, and depleted his energies in search of more power, of overcoming his opponents, and this constant stress had clearly taken the better of him when it was triggered by Maria’s death, resulting in him almost losing himself while attacking John.
Calming down after a few minutes of meditation, Lucas tried to forget the most disturbing events that had transpired and focused on other aspects of the floor he hadn’t quite understood. There were three killers in that play: John, Cindy and the undead, as far as he knew. What he didn’t understand was how these three were connected.
Cindy and John were easy enough; they had a relationship, after all. But Lucas couldn’t figure out what they had to gain from all those deaths or what their relation with the undead was at all, and the more he thought about it, the more confused he became. The most baffling of all, however, was: What was an undead as powerful as that one doing in a forest, apparently all by himself?
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Not getting anywhere with those questions, Lucas decided to drop the matter for the time being. Hopefully Aysha would’ve made it this far and would be able to provide some explanations about the whole thing to him after he left the tower.
His performance this time around had been poor, and he had probably missed a lot of bonuses for not unveiling the truth or not helping the others survive, but his performance on the second floor more than made up for that slip-up, so he decided not to beat himself too much over it.
Thinking about his overall points later on, he couldn’t prevent a faint smile from appearing in his face as he realized he had finally surpassed Nicholas’ record. He couldn’t wait to see the look on that guy’s face when he got out.
…
Raising from the bathtub a couple of hours after getting in, Lucas stopped in front of the bathroom mirror and stared at the face of a stranger. After the initial surprise, he realized he was the same as always: shaved face, dark hair almost reaching his shoulders, and no sign of goatee (fortunately), but somehow he found it to be the face of a stranger.
The big reason behind this feeling, he realized soon after, was that he didn’t feel the same as before; so much had happened to him, but apart from his body being bulkier now, not much had changed about his general appearance. Frowning for a bit at the teenage face, he fetched a pair of scissors next to the sink and started to fix that problem.
A few minutes later, the reflection was much more to his liking. He still looked pretty young, but way more menacing than before, and it wouldn’t take long for his beard to grow. He had always been pretty much against any facial hair, but he felt like he could use a change, so he decided to let nature take its course this time around.
Feeling a lot better about himself, Lucas checked his time and realized he now had 46 hours to spare in the waiting room. He noticed it was a twelve-hour increase like the previous floor and wondered if this tendency would continue until the last floor.
Remembering that he hadn’t really paid much attention to the room upon arrival due to his mental state at the time, Lucas exited the bathroom, curious to see if there were any changes.
At first glance, the room looked the same as the previous times, but then his eyes landed on a device just beside the VCR that wasn’t there before. Rushing toward the equipment, Lucas got a faint impression of familiarity.
Where have I seen that before? After a couple of minutes of searching through his memories, Lucas found what he was looking for: the design of the device in front of him was pretty similar to an Atari console he had once seen in an antique store. Immediately after realizing this, Lucas glanced at the place he usually finds the tape with his name on and found that there were two smaller objects beside it.
That can’t actually be a cartridge, right? Is that really a freaking videogame?!
Quickly picking up the cartridges, Lucas saw that they also had tags with names written on them: Fortress and Exploration.
Returning to the retro device, he noticed there was also something inscribed on top of it, but it didn’t take long for him to see it wasn’t written in any characters he knew. It looked pretty sophisticated, however, and shifting his eyes to the VCR, he inspected it more closely and saw the same symbol inscribed on its side.
After studying the symbol for a few fruitless seconds trying to decipher it, Lucas fetched a pen and a piece of paper from his ring and quickly copied it down. He had no idea if it represented a person, a company, or something else entirely, but he hoped Alva, the librarian, might have some information about it. He was very much interested in finding out who made those devices.
For a moment, he even considered if they were somehow related to his past on Earth, given their resemblance to old Earth technology, at least when it came to the design. But that theory didn’t hold much water, and it was soon dropped.
Lucas had been a casual gamer and also enjoyed his fair share of movies, but VCRs and Atari were technologies from before his time, and his interaction with them had been limited. If these devices were meant to be connected to him, a DVD player or flash drive and a more modern console would make much more sense.
In fact, the appearance of these devices only served to strengthen his other theory: that they came from a civilization where design never caught up to technological advancements or that their design development followed a completely different path from Earth’s.
Intending to confirm his impression that it was indeed a console he was looking at, Lucas quickly searched through the drawer, fully expecting to find a joystick. Instead, beside the TV controller was a very simple pair of black gloves.
“Not entirely retro, I guess… unless you count Minority Report,” Lucas muttered, putting the gloves on. Brimming with excitement, it took him only a couple of seconds to properly place the cartridge in the correct spot. As soon as he did, he watched with shining eyes as the peculiar device seemed to come to life.
Theories aside, the feeling Lucas was experiencing as he gazed at his shiny new alien (supposedly) console was comparable to the time he was gifted one for Christmas when he was ten. He just wished he could take it with him once he left the tower, but he believed his chances weren’t great.
He had already tried to put the stuff from the waiting room in his ring before with no success, so if he wanted to take this console through Sultan’s method, he would really need to get creative. Is a console necklace a thing? Lucas wondered just when a colorful image appeared on the screen.