Arc 5 | Dead Pacifica (Part 15)
DEAD PACIFICA
Part 15
SCENARIO 91
9:02 PM
10 Hours Until Dawn
4 Delvers remaining…
Simultaneously, a mechanical clunk echoed through the chamber as the hourglass on the pedestal flipped over, the golden sand beginning its slow descent to the other side. Corinne yelped and leapt into the air, clapping her hands like fangirl in a concert. “It’s starting! Yes! Finally, it’s starting! Ugh! That took you guys forever. Come on! Let’s get this show started!”
“I think I see a way out!” Harrison said.
He was peering into the yawning darkness beyond the Abominable Snowman’s door. He led the way, and the others followed, stumbling into what looked like a small, snow-dusted glade. A campfire crackled in the center, the orange flames licking at the underside of dozens of looming pines.
The three men entered the Reflection Chamber.
Past reflections of delvers had occupied this space before, and now four wax figures stood around the fire once again. Pascoe sat on the log with his arms crossed, Harrison stood leaning by a tree, Corinne sat cross-legged on the ground while Diaz sat on another log opposite of Pascoe. These wax figures were the perfect replica of them down to their clothes, their hair, and the pores on their skin. The three men moved toward their doubles with a fascinated dread, poking at the cool, lifeless skin of their own faces.
“I don’t think this is the exit,” Harrison mumbled.
“This is some weird shit,” Diaz mumbled. He turned and tried to walk toward the safety of the trees, but his head snapped back as he slammed into a hard, flat surface. “Shit! Ow! It’s a wall! The whole goddamn forest is a wall!”
Pascoe spun in a circle, searching for a seam, a door, a way out of this diorama. “I think Harrison is right. There’s no exit in here. Should we go back?”
Harrison was the one who quickly left the room. “Yup. Probably for the best.”
They retreated to the Selection Chamber, where Corinne stood waiting by the pedestal like a bored usher. She gestured toward the main doors they had entered through.
“I heard it click,” she said. “I think its open again.”
Pascoe and Diaz hung back, expecting some kind of trick, and none wanted to fall for it. Eventually, Harrison moved past them and walked toward the main door, pressing his ear against the surface.
“I don’t think I hear anything,” he said.
“They’re probably hiding and waiting to stab us. They were carrying weapons,” Pascoe said.
Corinne snorted. “They’re not going to do that! For one, they’re not the Hunter you guys chose. If they do, then the Antlered God will be super mad and we have another thing to worry about.”
Harrison heaved another sigh. “Ah, fuck it.”
Harrison swung the door open and waited for three seconds, but no one jumped out from the corner to stab him on the face. “I think it’s safe!” He said, and he stepped out into the clearing of the Core Tree. The others followed.
But the world had shifted.
The cultists may be gone, but in its place was a bone-deep chill that entered their bodies as a thick, heavy blanket of white covered everything. It was snowing, a heavy fall that had already buried the roots of the tree. They couldn’t pick up their jaws from the floor but Corinne was smiling from ear-to-ear.
“How?” Pascoe whispered. “We were only in there for like ten minutes. It looks like it’s been coming down for hours.”
With a little magic, obviously, I thought with a smirk.
Though I couldn’t interfere with the scenarios directly, The System allowed me to manipulate the weather and the environment right before a scenario officially begin. A minor loophole, really. With seconds to spare before Harrison opened the snowman’s door, I opened the menu screen to slow down time and cast my spell. Frosty, the Abominable Snowman, didn’t require the cold to do his hunting. Big Foot hunts wherever and whenever he pleases. But I wanted to mess with their minds a little, so I triggered [ Control Weather ] and sprinkled an inch of snow within a five-mile radius of the Core Tree. Luckily, the Dead Pacifica crew had already cleared out, heading back to town after a long day of renovations.
No one was going to interrupt tonight’s scenario.
| Control Weather II
| You can summon, shape, and manipulate the weather on both small and larger scales across a radius of two (2) hundred miles. You can also sense and manipulate changes in air pressure, temperature, and humidity, which enables you to control the intensity of the weather. Due to your planet’s weather cycle, you are able to control the wind, call lightning and thunder, and shape water. As a Death Core trait, this negates Resolve requirement. Cost: 10 Power. Duration: 1-36 Hours.
|