It’s not an exploit. Really. It’s not. If you think about it, I’m just doing what the whales do- using an established system to fully appreciate the game without the tedious necessity of grinding every last little thing.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
“Here’s your worms. And we got the battlefield cleaned up, which took some very careful moving around all the acid and other junk. There are a bunch of places and bodies we just couldn’t reach. We also dug those pits you wanted.” Marci looked fed up with me, but that was normal for her. She’d had time in the dorms, I reckon she’s doing okay.
The pits were nothing too fancy- just wide holes about one Toad deep. They would barely slow down other monsters, but I figured that any Toad that fell in would be basically stuck, and easy targets for Radz to drop a mortar on. Happy thoughts.
Mostly I just want them unable to get shots off, and to nerf the weapon-emplacement effect. Ice Toads can turn acid into explosive shrapnel all they want, so long as they do it in the nice, explosion absorbing pits. Ditto the fire Toads. Not many of them so far, but they were easily the most scary. Even without the boost from the acid, those jets of flames were enough to kill a few Awakened in one hit.
I really didn’t want to see what they could do to my walls if they actually landed a hit on an acid-sprayed section. Seemed like a bad time.
“How many Runed Bones did we get from this wave?”
“Six hundred, boss.” Marci shrugged. “Also got some bits and pieces for turning into armor, nothing very interesting. Only got one thing that you should see. And… uh… decide what to do with.”
She handed me a small box. Where she got it, I don’t know. It sure wasn’t on the monsters. I cracked it open, and saw a red fruit with faint green ridges rising out of it, like scales emerging from muscle. Fist size. Smelled faintly of- I gave it a couple of sniffs. Smelled faintly of air freshener over rotting meat.
I’d say… Glade Plugins Cashmere Woods. Definitely not something citrusy, absolutely not fresh linen. And it lacks that chemical tingle in the nose hair that proves you bought authentic Febreze.
Could it be Lysol? I licked my lips a couple of times, trying to detect a flavor but finding nothing. No, not Lysol. The smell had that waxy edge to it that I really associated with the scented oil diffusers. High confidence on Glade Plugins.
Sometimes you just want to change up how your house smells, you know? And it’s way better spraying air freshener than making yourself sick by soaking your clothes in so-called detergents. POISON, IN OTHER WORDS!
Think about it- real soap is made from oils and fats. But you can’t eat it because it’s also mixed with caustic ash from fires. They took actual food, and mixed it with actual poison, to kill off all the beneficial microbes that protect your body and your health.
Just one more way Unilever, Johnson and Johnson, and all those other conglomerate ghouls conspire to leave us dumber, poorer and sicker. I have spent countless hours on various Chans and Discord servers, become moderator for hundreds of subreddits, trying to wake the sheeple. Trying to open the eyes of the masses. And what do I get? Disrespect. Disrespect, and the mewling, bleating baaahs of the sheep happily marching off to get sheared.
There is a common scam where an attractive woman ‘accidentally’ texts you a picture of herself and a question. You strike up a conversation with her. She’s interesting, and interested in you. You develop a whole relationship over text, but it’s never more than that.
It’s not some one-off thing, you talk to this person for weeks and months. They become important to you. A real person in your life. Then they have an emergency, and really need your help. They have never asked for anything before. It’s really urgent, or they wouldn’t ask now.
It’s called a pig butchering scam. And every time I think of the broken, bored people sitting at home, watching their soap operas, getting all their human connection through their parasocial relationships with the people on the screen then buying the poison advertised as good for their health, every time I think of these people, I see the meathooks and the abattoir.
I poked the fruit. A tooltip popped up. Seed of Y’hth’Y- When placed in the vessel of suffering, it calls upon that who is only called, not named in truth. For their name is beyond and behind and never born into the-
“Nope” I closed the lid. “Any chance we can seal this box with, like, lead or something? Maybe wrap it in concrete?”
“Huh?” Marci looked like I was suddenly speaking Martian.
“Can we put something around this to make sure it never opens again?”
“Not that I know of, Boss. It’s a box. Boxes are meant to be opened.”
“Yeah, absolutely not. There are some boxes that need to be closed forever. I’m not even going to suggest dropping it into the Marianas Trench. Too much South Pacific, too much chance of Deep Ones or some chthonian entity finding it and doing something awful with it. And I know we don’t have rockets to launch it into the sun.”
“Huh?” The odd look intensified. I lightly shook my head. Marci was only Three Stars. Very, very smart for a Three Stars, very able to communicate. Maybe because her jobs required a lot of flexibility. But there was a limit, and I think we had found it.
“Never mind, I have a spot for it. I was going to head over there anyway.” This needed to be stashed somewhere as private and isolated as I could manage. Don’t think I didn’t notice that “vessel of suffering” wasn’t capitalized, Devs. Don’t think that one slipped past. This thing was going far, far away from anyone who might get careless with it.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
I headed back to my quarters. Past the sand dunes, into the little courtyard, past the strange, beehive shaped thing in the courtyard, and into my nice little house. With its… alarmingly Egyptian decoration, now that I think about it. Not necessarily something I want to stick next to Cthulu bait. Hell with it. It has shelves and nobody is allowed in here from what I can tell. I stuck the box up on a shelf and hopped into bed. Time for a good night’s sleep.
“Welcome… to your nightmare.”
“Thanks, Jackie! Always great to be back.” Jackie was looking her usual elegant self in a flapper dress and fascinator, green smoke pouring out of her skull and climbing in thin threads from her long cigarette.
“I think the intention of this place was to create a balance between pain and desire. You suffer horribly in your nightmares, but the lure of the Stele and its many rewards draw you back. How long can you endure before you spend all those hard won fragments of truth? How deep can you delve into your own nightmares to claim power?” She gestured languidly with her cigarette.
“A kind of eldritch marshmallow test, I guess.” I rolled my shoulders, trying to get loose before I went under. Logically, it made no difference. But since I was going into a land of dreams, who cares about logic?
“Marshmallow test?”
“Yeah, it was a psychological study they did. They brought in kids, like, elementary school age, and said that you can either have a marshmallow now, or if you wait for ten minutes, just leaving the marshmallow in front of you for ten minutes, you can have two marshmallows.”
“Was that supposed to be a good thing?”
“Marshmallows are little sweet treats that kids of all ages enjoy.”
“Hmm.” She looked thoughtful. “So it tested their patience and discipline.”
“Basically. Deferred gratification is the term they used.” I nodded.
“We don’t have any marshmallows. No treats, sweet or otherwise, to be found here.” She spoke with a mock gravity and a look that said she was joking but also not joking.
“The other thing it’s kind of like is the Jom Gabbar test. Which is where they stick your hand in a box and subject it to increasing levels of pain, but no physical damage is done. It’s entirely in your head. And if you yank your hand out of the box too soon, an old lady stabs you in the neck with a poison needle and ends you like livestock.”
“Oooh, that does sound like us.” She agreed. “I assume it’s a particularly lingering poison to intensify the pain and terror?”
“Unknown. But I get the impression that the old ladies are really more about chlorinating the gene pool than enjoying the show.” Not really a Dune guy, when you get right down to it. Not a single person goes “Sugoi!” in the whole book. I tossed it when I realized the sandworms didn’t have a cute girl growth stage. Absolute bait and switch cover with all those people standing in front of the gaping, fanged maw of a miles long beast. I mean, subtext, am I right?
“Hmm. Well. It’s something, but a bit disappointing nonetheless.”
See, Jackie gets it.
“But now, I think it is time for your nightmare. Unless you want to… eat your marshmallow?”
“Not remotely. Let’s do this!”
I was back in the hotel, but this time I was a bellhop pushing a large cart down the hall. On the top of the cart was a big silver serving dish, with a big silver dome over it. The handle on the dome was elegantly carved, but I couldn’t quite make out what it was.
My uniform was very fine. Red trousers with a black stripe down the seam, a matching red shirt and a black tie, and over top of it all a blinding white jacket with gold trim around the cuffs. I even had a white hat with matching gold trim! The only problem was my shoes. They were very shiny black leather, perfectly smooth soles, and at least one size too small. Not a shred of foam either.
My arches, hell my whole foot, was killing me. I need my foam. I need a soft support. But I had to deliver this dish to the banquet hall and serve it, and if the guests didn’t love it, I would be in big trouble. I don’t know what kind of trouble, but the thought of getting into trouble made me want to pass out and piss myself at the same time. I didn’t, of course. I steadily pushed my cart, just as I was taught.
The banquet hall opened and everyone was sitting around the table. I don’t know how many there were. Many. Even with the bright gas jets burning on the walls and the buttery yellow candles on the table, I couldn’t clearly see the diners. I could tell they were wearing masks, though. They only looked like they were wearing normal human faces. But I knew better. You could see how the reactions changed a few seconds after the muscles on their faces shifted, and where the skin was a slightly different texture.
They were talking to each other. No laughter, no loud voices, just the smooth conversation of elegant, wealthy people. Powerful people. I had to make them happy. They had to be happy with my presentation.
I wheeled the cart to the head of the table and waited for the guests to give me their attention. There should have been a table captain to cough, or ring a glass, or something, to announce the dish, but they weren’t there. So I had to wait. They ignored me. I waited a bit longer. But I didn’t dare wait too long. What if they got hungry and were unhappy with me? What if the dish got cold?
Hot and cold pins drove into my body. My stomach twisted and acid squirted out, consuming me. I could feel vomit trying to claw up my throat and ruin my beautiful white jacket, but I held it down. That would definitely upset the guests, and I couldn’t stand the thought. I couldn’t stand the consequences!
Action! It must be action. They know I am here but they are ignoring me because I haven’t signaled them. They are classy people. Of course they ignore the help!
I looked for a glass to ring, but there wasn’t one that wasn’t already full of wine. I looked for a bell, or a triangle or something. Nothing. It would have to be a cough. I tried to politely cough. I didn’t make a sound. I tried again and again, but no noise came out. Eventually, I had to rap the big serving spoon against the side of the dome. It sounded like a brassy gong, painfully loud, crude, ugly noise. Ruining the elegant feel of the dinner.
The guests all turned to look at me. I could feel their eyes boring in. Not angry, not even hostile. Alien. Indifferent. Waiting.
“Honored guests-” I didn’t dare say “Ladies and Gentlemen,” it seemed far too presumptuous. “I present to you the pièce de résistance!” I lifted away the big silver dome and presented the meal.
“The speciality of the hotel, the Driven Stag! Carefully raised in little boxes, the Stag never knows it’s bred for food. The only time it’s permitted out of the box is when we prepare it for slaughter. I’m sure you have seen our chasseur pursuing one through the hallways, the illusion of hope or the dream of escape adding so much richness and flavor to the final dish. And, naturally, we prepare and serve tableside.”
I was under the dome. I couldn’t make out the face, a deer head had been stitched to my shoulders, but I knew it was me. That I was under the deer head. I saw that incisions had been made at the top of the arms and slices made across the hamstrings. The limbs twitched uselessly. Helplessly. I tried to scream, but the voice came out like a screaming deer.
“I will carve. If you have a preferred cut, please don’t hesitate to let me know.” I theatrically honed a long slicing knife on a steel, then took the long fork and pinned an arm down. I knew just how to cut. I have been trained for this. I could present this beautifully.
“Dull.”
“Very dull.”
“Crude.”
“An interruption.”
“Stale.”
“Disappointing.” The murmurs started, rose, then finished with a single word.
“I… Honored Guests, if I could just-”
I felt something coming behind me, and I dove forward, scrambling around the table. A black shape waving a long spike with a barb in the end. It kept moving around the table. I kept running. Trying to keep the guests between me and the hook. I knew the doors were locked. I knew there wasn’t a window. There had to be a way. Had to be some way to escape.
The knife! I had a knife! I ran back for the cart, my hand stretched for the knife-
One of the guests stretched out their foot and tripped me. My white uniform was dyed red. It all went very badly. Before the end I started hating the Driven Stag. It had managed to bleed out on the serving tray long before they let me die.
“Welcome back. How was your dream?” Jackie leaned over me. Her voice mild and raspy as ever.
“Oof. Now that one was a doozy. The social anxiety really got to me.”
“Social anxiety?”
“Yeah, I don’t know why. So many other things were awful too, but that was the thing. Like, there was a chance it was going to work out. I could believe that if I just did it all perfectly, I could make it out alive-”
I stopped as the punchline caught up with me.