The Cabin Is Always Hungry

LAST RESORT

Part 2

Even though I had only been a Dungeon Core for five days, I was beginning to find my groove in this new yet strange existence.

There is an art to it, I mused to myself.

For a scenario to be successful, it took meticulous planning for the execution to pay off. And Death Cores needed a lot of planning.

Running an impromptu scenario was not ideal, but I’ll have to work with what I got. One thing I learned was that Resolve never went away. Think of it as part of any mortal’s body. It could even be an invisible organ. I liked to imagine that the Resolve’s aura reflected a delver’s soul. That’s just me personally. Outside a scenario, Resolve was hidden from me, but when the game was up, they would all ignite beautifully in a multitude of tastes and colors.

It surprised me how I missed it, like a drug addict searching for the next high.

Resolve was always active, always changing, and always switching, even when the delvers were outside a dungeon. Happy, sad, anxious, calm, shame, lust, fear—a plethora of complex human emotions reflected in a gradient of hues.

In theory, Dungeon Cores could still manipulate a delver’s Resolve outside our borders before they crossed the threshold into our domains. It might be harder without the help of our Dread effects (and visualizing the auras), but it’s doable, especially for me. And besides, what was a Death Core very good at?

Creating tension.

Causing drama.

Drawing bloodshed.

Resolve was always on.

Suppose I wanted a group of delvers already scared, distrustful, or paranoid (or giving them the heebie-jeebies) before they stepped foot into my cabin. In that case, I’d make spooky stuff happen on their way here the day before, shedding their Resolve. Even a tiny slide down the gradient mattered.

Divide and fucking conquer, motherfuckers.

In theory, this should work. And I am going to test this theory on these cultists.

Imagine it, like seasoning the vegetables or marinating the meat hours before it sizzled on the grill. And fear was my secret sauce. It was the most basic emotion to impose on a human, ingrained into our instincts when we were still climbing trees and had tails. Fear was simple.

Fear was absolute.

I called this phase of the scenario simply Act One, or the pre-game. It involved setting up the scene, throwing down the hook, preparing the flesh, and letting fear seep into a delver’s skin and take hold of them.

A hundred miles away, Allie Collins stepped on stage and began Act One.

I could tell from the camera feed that Allie was already growing anxious. She was constantly checking on her phone, biting her fingernails, shaking her right knee, and had left multiple voice messages to her boss, Jonas (The rat fuck was already dead), but he hadn’t answered her for almost a day. She’d be waiting for a long, long time.

She might think, “Oh, this is so unlike him.” Based on his response to her previous calls, texts, or emails over the past three years, Jonas usually answered her within ten minutes. Seeing that gave me hope that she was the right person to question the cult, which called itself The Havashar Society. Allie had known Jonas for three years, so she was bound to hear something important. If not, then she’s just incompetent. ṜÄΝőBÈṠ

Or worse, an idiot.

Another good news was that Jonas slept with his secretaries over the years. I might have said that wrong. Good news in a sense that Allie’s likelihood of discovering things she wasn’t meant to see or hear increased exponentially.

His computer saved up a lot of photos of exotic trips with his former secretaries and other younger women in scantily-clad clothing and several videos saved of past—let’s just say—happy encounters I’d rather not watch. Jonas and Allie were no exception. He had been seeing her romantically for the past year or so, taking her to expensive dinner dates around the city and buying her gifts. It was also clear that Allie was attracted to him from the flirtatious glances she gave him, seen by all the cameras around the office building, and from the texts and unprompted risque selfies she sent him. Never mind that she had a boyfriend at the time, and it seemed the break up was not too long ago when Jonas started getting serious. I didn’t want to delve deep into how grossly inappropriate such a dynamic was, especially when Jonas was old enough to be her father.

Give or take, I’d put her Resolve to a dull yellow. Probably ticking down every few minutes as her worries grew. But it might hover there for a long while until she boarded the plane. This was harder than I thought. I was so used to seeing their aura that it just didn’t feel right. I didn’t know how far (or little) I should push her buttons.

“Are you ready?” I asked Oracle.

Oracle gave me a thumbs-up on the screen.

“Are you ready, Goliath?” I asked Goliath in the teleportation chamber I hastily built in the tunnels.

Goliath also gave me a confident thumbs up. He stood waiting next to the teleportation pedestal, ready to knock out any cultist who teleported through it with the butt of his axe.

The pedestal was a flat, spherical platform made from basalt and stone. I was expecting something more elaborately designed, or with fancy archways, or that it magically glowed with a specific color. Still, it’s just a slab of rock that would blend perfectly into someone’s backyard. Carved on the edges were simple runic words that my Core quickly translated as: Step forth, but beware. What departs may not return.

I clapped my non-existent hands together. “Okay, showtime.”

The private charter terminal lounge, or the VIP lounge, was a lot nicer and plushier than what the commoners enjoyed, forced to survive amongst other irritated passengers. But here, they had a bar, a private kitchen with a chef, free Wi-Fi, cozy music, a good view of the airport and Mount Hood outside, and excellent service from the staff. It looked more like a glorified hotel lobby. They even had a bath, spa, and shower for the guests while they waited for their flight.

Another woman approached Allie and sat down beside her in a huff, clearly annoyed by what was happening. The two women already knew each other very well.

“Ugh, they don’t have lox bagels on their menu, and they forgot to remove whipped cream in my coffee. I specifically told them no. Fucking. Whip.” She took a sip of the coffee and cringed. “Bleh, I also think they burnt it. Must be a new barista.”

Allie put down her phone, unaware I was listening through it. “So, how was your afternoon, Jessica?”

“Don’t even start with me, girl. I forgot to pack my toiletries because we got out of the apartment in such a hurry. And now we’re here waiting for the plane to get ready. We could’ve spared another twenty minutes, but noooo, Brandon said we had to go. I even forgot my favorite perfume.”

Allie pursed her lips. “Um, where’s your boyfriend anyway?”

“Brandon went for number two.”

“Oh.”

“You look super pale, girl. Have you had anything to eat all day?”

“No. Not really,” Allie said sheepishly.

“Do you want to order?”

“I’m fine, Jess.”

“I got you.” Jessica handed her a bag of mixed nuts and dried raspberries. “At least have a few bites. You look like an anorexic ghost.”

“Jessica Pruitt. She’s part of the list,” I said to Siren and Old Growth watching behind me.

Jessica was half a decade older than Allie and had a longer history with the cult by several years. However, her position in the cult stagnated, and she became more of a glorified middle manager to the rest of the organization. Based on her file on the hacked server, she had little to no magical talent (the cult’s words, not mine). She was the type of woman who encapsulated her personality in beige, pumpkin spice aesthetics, thinking she was the first person to emulate it. From her social media posts, everything had to be perfect and aesthetically geometric, as if she were living in a Wes Anderson movie.

That’s good for me, though. She lived and breathed social media, practically an extra limb that slammed her with dopamine high every few minutes. Also proudly telling her followers how she has an awesome boyfriend even though she was emotionally abusing him behind the scenes when things didn’t get her way. So it was very easy to form a compiled psychological profile about her: She’s basic.

Her boyfriend, Brandon Satcher, was also the same. Not obsessed with beige tones, but with gym-bro life and flannel shirts, meat lover and grilling, and Oakley glasses and interior truck selfies. Also proudly not telling the long list of women he matched within the dating apps that he already has a girlfriend, and gaslighted Jessica when Stacey Lip Piercing texted him she had fun last night.

They’re both trash.

Also, they were both members of the Vancouver Sect for at least four years now, and though their crimes didn’t revolve around murdering people (like Hodge and his followers did), their sect extorted, blackmailed, and threatened several political figures in Portland and Vancouver to allocate large amounts of money for the cult. Jessica was a damn good lawyer who kept the cult away from the law, especially their murdering ways. I mean, if you gotta be the queen bitch, she found her true calling. On the other hand, Brandon was a poor excuse for an accountant laundering the Havashar Society’s money. They might be trash, but both were essential cogs in the Society's infernal machine.

And I will break them.

The fourth man on my list was Conrad Crespo, a balding, pot-bellied man in his mid-forties with a fake tan, who was busy shouting at his frustrated wife over the phone several feet away from where Allie and Jessica were sitting. When the order was sent out, the cultists could not bring their families with them (even the fake ones for their cover), promising that this was only temporary and that they were having an emergency assembly. They should expect to return to their everyday lives in a week or so. The twenty-seven people I was watching through Oracle were all members of the Pacific Northwest coalition of The Havashar Society. It was a lot smaller than I imagined, and I had no idea how many members there were in the south or around the east coast. Many of the cultists had left their families behind with the excuse of a “business meeting” out in the East.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Conrad’s wife was obviously distraught, and they had been talking on the phone for almost half an hour now. Conrad tried to calm his wife down, but she had a right to be upset. They were going to celebrate their ten-year anniversary, and then he canceled their evening and left without even saying goodbye except through text. Of course, he gave the excuse that he was going to an emergency business meeting in New York, that it was very important, and that he’d be right back. His wife could see through the lie. Oracle gave her access to Conrad’s email address, password, and the confirmation email for his plane ticket. Stamped clearly on it, in big letters, was HEATHROW AIRPORT, LONDON. She accused him of cheating and lying to her and hung up the call.

Conrad had been trying to get a hold of her ever since. For extra icing on the cake, Oracle also sent his wife access to his cloud (and the pictures of multiple selfies of scantily-clad women) and access to his Tinder account. His wife sent him just one picture: A screenshot of his account on the app, catfishing as a dude-bro twenty-five-year-old hunk to lure younger women for their pictures, and Conrad knew he was truly fucked.

Oracle’s scary sometimes, I chuckled.

Conrad was the cult’s parcel messenger, transporting artifacts to and from their Portland location to another chamber across the country. Next to Allie, he’s the second-best man to question how the cult was organized outside of Oregon.

Conrad strode toward Jessica, sweating. “Um, Jess, is it okay if I catch the next flight? I just got to see my wife—”

“Do you not see that plane, Conrad? That little plane over there? Yeah, we’re supposed to get in that.” Jessica pointed out the window. “It’s already in the taxi. We’ll board soon; besides, it’s a chartered flight. I was given orders to bring everyone, so I’m bringing everyone, including you.”

“Look, it’s only going to be a day. Unlike you, I don’t mind riding at the back of the plane.”

“Wow. How cool of you to be so humble in this economy,” Jessica said sarcastically. “Well, we don’t know what’s going on and why we’ve been summoned, okay? For all I know, we’re in a fucking shit show, and it’s the end of the world. It’s very strange for The Seat to summon us like this. They’ve never done that. Allie, have you experienced anything like this?”

Allie looked like she desperately wanted the ground to swallow her. “No….”

Jessica smirked. “Right? Conrad? Have you ever experienced the Seat summoning us like this?”

“Uh, no?”

“Neither do I. Neither does Allie. So, I suggest you stay put and shut up over there.”

“But my wife—”

“I don’t give an F about your wife, okay? She’ll survive without you. Leave me alone. I already have a headache.” She took another sip of her coffee.

Conrad ignored Jessica and turned to Allie. “Did Jonas say anything, Allie?”

Allie shook her head. “I’m still trying to reach him.”

“Did you hear anything at all? Maybe from Hodge?” He pressed on.

“No…”

Jessica scoffed. “Clearly, Hodge fucked up. That guy was a ticking time bomb, and I’m surprised it took this long. We haven’t heard from them for hours now, and it’s enough to make The Seat nervous. If I were you, Conrad, I’d board that plane if you know what’s good for you.” Jessica stood up while massaging her temples. “I need an Advil, and I’m gonna get my boyfriend. Can you hold my stuff, pretty please?” She handed Allie her cup of coffee and bagels before stomping off toward the bathroom.

Conrad glared at her back as she walked away. “What a bitch.”@@novelbin@@

“Hey, I heard that,” Allie said, glaring back at him. “Asshole.” She turned around to put the bagel and the cup of coffee on the table beside her.

“It should be Jonas calling the shots around here. Have you seriously tried--?”

“You think I didn’t? Why don’t you call him instead—” Allie whirled around, annoyed and pissed off, but when she was about to hand him her phone, he was no longer standing there. “Uh, Conrad?”

I could feel the gears turning inside her head. No one was that fast. She barely looked away for two seconds, and—

Allie shook her head. She must be imagining it. I could tell from the dark circles under her eyes (and from her Health tracker on her phone) that she barely had any sleep last night, waiting for Jonas. She asked another man wearing a Transformers shirt (another cultist) sitting a few seats down if he saw where Conrad went, but he was watching a YouTube video with his headphones on and didn’t notice him walk by. Allie was afraid that she was losing it. No one around her noticed he disappeared.

At the periphery of my vision, I lost five hundred crystals.

Then, her phone rang.

Allie almost jumped when she saw the caller’s ID: Jonas. She quickly answered it. “Hello? Jonas? Are you okay?”

“Hello? Allie? Yeah, it’s me,” I said, but Jonas’s voice came through the other line. “Are you at the airport?”

“Yeah, we’re all already here. Where are you? Are you coming?”

Well, she’s convinced. “Damn, that’s quite good,” I complimented Oracle, careful not to speak directly to Allie. Oracle grabbed every audio file he could, from voicemails to videos of Jonas, and matched his cadence, tone, and manner of speech perfectly.

“Listen, Allie. You have to get out of there,” I said.

“What? Why? What’s going on?”

“Whatever you do, do not board that plane.”

“But the others, they—”

“Don’t tell the others! Get out of the airport now.”

“What’s this about?”

“I’ll explain everything once you’re out of there. I’m waiting outside. Grab your bags. Hurry.”

“Um, okay, okay. I’m going.” Allie grabbed her purse and walked away from the VIP lounge area.

“Turn left,” I said.

She paused. “Uh, what? Can you see me?”

“Wave to the camera.”

Allie looked around and spotted the security camera at the corner above a clothing store. She nodded and pivoted to the right, heading toward the escalator.

“Take the escalator.”

“And then what?”

“You’ll be at the West Wing terminal. Try to head towards Gate 5.”

“Got it.”

I waited for at least three minutes, watching her wade through the crowd of commuters. Finally, she walked past Gate 4. “Turn right.”

Allie did as I told her. She stopped in her tracks. “Um, this is a staff door, Jonas. Why...”

“You’ll have to go through there. Safer this way.”

“But it needs a key card, and I don’t want to get in trouble with the TSA.”

The key card access panel next to the door instantly turned red to green. “Go,” I said sternly.

Allie froze, astonished. “How’d you do that?”

“Just get inside, Allie. We don’t have much time.”

“Look, this is seriously freaking me out.”

“I know, I know. Just trust me. Walk past that door, turn left for a hundred feet, get down a flight of stairs, then turn left again. You’d see an emergency exit door. I’m right outside, okay? It’ll all be over soon.”

Allie reluctantly went inside. Like a lost lamb to the slaughter. There was a security guard wandering the hallway by the bottom of the stairs, but Oracle found the quickest way to neutralize him: he overloaded the taser gun clamped on his belt, and the guard quickly fell to the ground and pissed himself unconscious.

“We have a problem,” Siren sang. She pointed at the other camera feed, which showed the same man in the Transformers shirt following Allie.

What was his name again? Andre? I checked Oracle’s list again and found him at the top, though his picture was a decade older. Andre Brunelle, a French transplant, was an entrepreneur (mostly tech) who had lavishly used the cult’s money to grow his security company around Seattle. In return, he gave the cult the networking list he had accumulated over the years, thereby spreading the Havashar Society’s influence within the tech industry.

Obviously, he overheard the conversation earlier. He was too quick than I thought, and he managed to reach the staff door before it closed, slipped inside, and continued following Allie’s trail.

“Oh my god, I think I see a body,” Allie shrieked after she climbed down the stairs.

“Ignore it. Just keep going,” I said. “You’re almost there. See that access hallway? Turn left there.”

“I don’t like this, Jonas.” Panic swelled in her voice. Good.

“Almost there.”

“Wait…I think I see the emergency door,” Allie said as she entered the long hallway.

“Great! I’m on the other side waiting. I’ll start the car.”

Allie picked up her speed toward the emergency exit door; heels clacked against the concrete floor, echoing across the long hallway. I made a quick check around the surrounding area to make sure that she was alone. Except for Andre. He was just climbing down the metal staircase, hot on her heels.

“Find anything to stop him?”

> NO. SEARCHING…

Oracle had already tried calling to distract him earlier, but he ignored the unknown number. He also made it look like his mother was calling, but Andre ignored it anyway, rolling his eyes and clearly irritated by the interruption. However, he did stop in his tracks when he saw the unconscious guard lying on the ground and went over to check on his pulse; the guard was still alive.

That should give me an extra minute or so

Allie finally reached the emergency door and pushed it open. It didn’t budge. “I…I can’t get the door open.”

“What?”

She tried pushing on the egress bar again. “Shit. It’s locked or something.”

“It’s an emergency door. It opens when you push on them, Allie.”

“I’m doing that right now! It’s not opening, okay?!” She put her entire body weight to push the door open, but it didn’t budge an inch. She slammed her fist on the door. “God damn it!”

“Do you know what type of door that is, Allie?”

Allie let out a huff. “What?” She snipped.

“The door.”

“What are you on about?” She asked in frustration.

“That door has an electromagnetic lock, and I just disabled the authorized push button. No matter how hard you push, that door won’t open. You’d have to manually do it through the bypass switch, which you won’t have access to with the little time you have left.”

It dawned on her now: the quivering hitch in her breath, the way her mouth hung slightly open, her gaze staring blankly at the door, her hands shaking slightly. Adrenaline coursed through her veins, sending multiple signals to flee or fight.

“You’re not Jonas,” she said, her voice trembling.

“Smart girl,” I said, chuckling. “You watch horror movies, right, Allie? Do you know what happens to the dumb characters who wander off on their own? Well, this is the part when you run.”

Allie didn’t wait for a beat. She quickly pivoted her heels and ran down the long hallway, and in her mad dash, she lost her grip on her purse. Behind her, the overhead lights shut off, plunging that section of the hallway into darkness. The shadows chased after her. Just an extra touch, I thought. You couldn’t go wrong with the classic hallway horror cliche. Lights turning off one by one. Echoing bass drops with each plunge into the shadows. The glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, the way to safety.

And yet, the shadows continue creeping in from the periphery of the screen until it swallows it completely.

“Allie!” Andre shouted, catching her by the arm and shoulder as she leaped out of the hallway. She screamed. “Hey, hey! Calm down! What’s going on? What were you doing here?”

“Let go of me! Let go of me!” Allie shrieked, trying to wriggle out of Andre’s grasp.

I’d bet all my crystals what her Resolve was about now.

Satisfied, I triggered the teleportation pedestal.

Allie disappeared within a single frame from the camera feed, vanishing in the blink of an eye.

What I didn’t count was for Andre Brunelle to teleport with her.

In hindsight, I didn’t know much about teleportation or how they worked at a base level. This was my first time using it, so I was bound to make some mistakes. As it turned out, there were a few disclaimers when casting such powerful divination spells. Most importantly, the target must not be close to another creature when teleporting them (like touching someone). Six feet apart was the golden rule. If you didn’t follow that particular rule, you’d end up with a big fucking mess.

And I wasn’t ready for all the blood.

A loud popping sound set off on the pedestal when Allie materialized on it safely. She was a bit dizzy and confused, looking like her knees were about to buckle. Andre appeared on the pedestal, too…for about four seconds. He managed to utter two sentences.

The first sentence was, “What the—?” Andre gasped, eyes darting around the circular teleportation chamber until his gaze landed on the prone and unconscious bodies of Conrad, Jessica, and Brandon off to the corner. Allie followed where he was looking at.

The second sentence was: “Where are we—?”

He didn’t get to finish it.

It was so sudden I half thought I was the one in big trouble. It frightened me so much that I yelped loudly, making Siren and Oldie jump in surprise, too. By the time I realized what was going on, well, to be honest, it made me pause for a second. Andre’s lower half exploded, blood, bone, and chunks of flesh splattering everywhere. Goliath was not safe either, drenched in Andre’s blood and gore from head to toe. The force knocked Allie off her feet and sent her rolling down on her stomach. Andre landed next to her a split second later in a wet, squelching thud.

Now, Andre was still alive and conscious. So was Allie, although shocked and frightened. Who wouldn’t be when you just witnessed someone burst into a pulp? Andre still had enough strength to prop himself up by his elbows and looked down, screaming, when he realized he was missing the other lower half of his body.

With my many-eyes, I saw everything. I could go back, replay, and see every fucking nanosecond of it. I could slow it down in my brain and watch as the explosion originated inside Andre’s kneecaps. The way the patella crackled like a popcorn kernel under heat and pressure. The way it split the skin folds of his knees, splintered outward and shattered as if he had just stepped foot onto a landmine, obliterating flesh, sinew, and bone. The end result made it look like Andre’s legs burst and went through a blender.

And the blood was just everywhere.

“My legs…my legs!” Andre screeched, face quickly draining of color.

Allie just sobbed, struggling to breathe from all the screaming she made, trying to wipe the blood off her face with her bare hands. Her Resolve dipped to a deep orange.

Perfect.

As for Andre…

Goliath could sense how many seconds Andre had left before the adrenaline wore off and he passed out. He stepped forward. It was the first time Allie and Andre noticed another person in the room with them. They heard Goliath’s heavy footsteps first, then the glint of the axe raised in the gloom. Andre looked up to Goliath looming over him, axe raised over his head, and with one fell swoop, brought the axe cleanly through Andre’s forehead, splitting his skull.

Andre immediately went limp, and Allie screamed.

Goliath let out an exasperated sigh. He crouched beside her and then punched her square in the face. Allie went out cold, a reddening spot under her left eye.

[ You have gained 1 essence: Andre Brunelle ]

[ You have gained 150 crystals ]

Huh. That must be some record. Andre was the fastest delver to enter my domain and drop red instantly. Also, this was the fastest run in which I collected essence and crystals. Seventeen seconds. Not bad.

Are you enjoying this? I mused, looking off to the side to the invisible watchers, probably enjoying this brief bout of sudden violence. I bet you are.

I ignored the thought of hundreds (maybe thousands) of administrators watching me like creepy voyeurs. I needed to focus, and there was more work to do.

One down, twenty-six more to go.