V2Ch57-To Hell...

“Proctor!” Mina called out.

Leo looked at her, surprised and weary. “What do you think that’s going to do?” he asked.

Then a figure appeared behind him.

Mina was no longer surprised to see the colorful image of the proctor step out of thin air. She felt angry, tired, and impatient.

[You summoned me?]

The proctor’s tone conveyed a hint of pique. A reminder to Mina that there were still things to be afraid of here, even if the Wendigos never came back. There was the proctor, and there were her fellow humans, who she had never trusted very much anyway, and much less now that some of them had literally turned into monsters.

“I did,” Mina said. “I have questions that only you can answer, a request or two, and a demand.”

[A demand? Well, go ahead and say what you must. I have the sense that it was a long night for the human population.]

She sounded more amused than annoyed now, which pissed Mina off. But she kept her anger in hand.

“Did you know that our team contained Wendigos?” Mina asked.

[I keep track of all life forms in this Orientation. I know what everyone and everything is.]

“You didn’t tell us about them, even when people directly questioned you about the murders earlier. Is the System hostile to human life? Were you trying to feed us to the monsters?”

Leo looked alarmed at this question. He put a hand on her shoulder and tried to whisper in Mina’s ear. “Hey, do we really want to upset the proc—”

But Mina shook him off. She wouldn’t be silent. Even if the proctor could squash her like a bug.

[The System has a role to play in your universe. It is indifferent to the survival of human life in particular, but it operates to the benefit of all sentient species. There are rules that constrain even the behavior of System administrators. I could not acknowledge the presence of Wendigos until you discovered it for yourself and identified their leader. Congratulations on accomplishing that objective. It will be taken into account in scoring your results in this Orientation.]

The proctor seemed to think this should satisfy her. A confirmation, if Mina needed one, that the System’s representatives were not human, had no affinity for humanity, and enjoyed little understanding of their species.

“Now that we’ve discovered them, can you tell me if there are any Wendigos remaining in the settlement?” This was Mina’s most important question. The one that would let her sleep easy at night, or possibly force her to take some form of extreme action.

[There are no Wendigos remaining in the human-populated region. They departed just before the storm began to let up.]

Mina allowed herself to sigh in relief. Then she resumed her questions.

“There are apparently rules we don’t know about in this Orientation. What do we have to do to get out of this place? Are there hidden conditions? Some way to end this early?”

The proctor looked at her with what Mina took to be a curious posture for a long few moments. It was frustratingly hard to read her mood with the mask covering her face. Finally, she answered. Her voice was surprisingly soft.

[You have already accomplished half of the objective. Malsumis, one of the deities sponsoring this Orientation, is satisfied that his goals have been accomplished. One of the other deities has accepted that her goals will not be achieved here. If someone satisfies the wishes of the third deity sponsoring this Orientation, it would likely end early. This could be the ‘hidden condition’ you are alluding to.]

“What wishes? Which deity?” Mina asked.

But the proctor only shook her head.

[Were those all your questions?]

“I still have requests and a demand,” Mina replied. “First, given that the Wendigos prey upon humans, I request that they be disallowed from entering the human settlement in future.”

[I must convey this request to Lord Malsumis.]

The proctor stood perfectly still for a few seconds, and it felt as if Mina had just witnessed the figure’s soul leave her body. Mina and Leo just stared at her for a moment. Then they glanced around at the open space surrounding them. With the proctor no longer responding conversationally, Mina finally noticed that a number of people had stopped to gawk openly. Some of them had drawn fairly close by and could certainly hear the substance of the conversation. The surrounding area was quiet as people waited for answers from the proctor.

I guess I didn’t notice them because I’m tired, she thought. I need to sleep so badly, but I still have a few more things to do…

The proctor suddenly resumed motion in the corner of Mina’s vision, and Mina turned back to face her.

[Lord Malsumis has given his word that his creatures will not enter the human settlement again. He further adds that his Chosen One does not wish to return to the settlement, and he wanted you personally to know that this Orientation has exceeded his expectations.]

Malsumis is an awfully nasty god, Mina thought. What kind of an ugly soul could be happy with this result? Not for the first time, she considered the possibility that the gods of this universe were all evil. If that was true, then what would be required to satisfy the third sponsor? For that matter, what would have pleased the second?

“Related to that, I would like the Wendigos removed from our teams for the forthcoming challenges,” Mina said.

Have to deal with every detail. Have to prevent the threat from resurfacing before I’m strong enough to face it. Even with her newly unlocked Skills, she still didn’t feel confident that she could survive another encounter with Cara or her minions.

[The Wendigos have already voluntarily removed themselves.]

“Oh.” That was a surprise. I guess Cara really meant what she said earlier. It made it that much more frustrating that the Warrior had allowed herself to become this monster in the first place. “Then I have another question, and my demand. The question: is it possible for everyone to be on one team for the remainder of the Orientation?”

The proctor’s body language shifted subtly. Mina thought she could almost see the figure smiling behind her mask.

[That is permitted at this point. The purpose of the division has vanished. If all of the humans agree to it, the remaining challenges can be configured so that you succeed or fail as a group.]

Mina turned to Leo. “I’ll have to ask you to take care of that,” she said. “You’re better with people than me anyway. I hope you slept a little last night.”

He nodded.

“I think that would prevent any future infighting,” she said. She raised her voice slightly so that the people still gathered around could hear. “We live or die together. That’s how human beings should behave in a place like this. We’re a social species. There’s no reason we should let an outside force pit us against each other.”

[Was there anything further?]

She turned back to the proctor. “Yes. I want my baby back.”

Mina’s reason, common sense, and instincts were all singing one tune. The major danger of this place had passed. It was time that she reunited with her baby.

When the proctor reached into thin air, pulled little James out of nowhere, and returned him to Mina’s waiting arms, a little cheer went up. Mina turned her head and realized a small crowd had gathered, significantly more people than she’d noticed before.

Word of the conversation she’d had with the proctor would spread, then. And people would discuss among themselves whether they were willing to be part of an all-humans team. Mina was glad to think that she wouldn’t have to tell the story of what had happened herself.

Her eyes fixed on baby James. All she wanted now was to feed him and sleep.

There would be time to solve the other mysteries of this place later.

[Farewell, then.]

The proctor departed with no emotion in her voice.

Mina excused herself from the unexpected gathering of people and took James inside. Leo remained to deal with the crowd and, he said, to try to achieve the goal Mina had just set, of putting all the remaining humans of the settlement on a single team.

Mina, Yulia, and baby James went upstairs. Mina fed James. She chewed Yulia out a little bit for her disappearance the previous night, although not nearly as harshly as Mina had imagined herself doing. Then the three of them collapsed into bed together and slept the sleep of the just.

Mina had been in bed for hours, dead to the world, when she felt a sudden jolt of motion.

The movement immediately woke her up. Just in time to catch herself before her body fell to the ground. She found herself on a rough surface, with plant roots and hard-packed earth under her hands and knees. A forest floor? Definitely outdoors, but it was hard to make out, because it was quite dark.

“Congratulations on surviving thus far,” an unfamiliar voice barked out.

Mina looked around her on the ground, resisting the urge to glance up at the source of the voice. Where was her baby?

She stopped searching when she realized that Yulia wasn’t next to her either. Something strange had happened, and she had one good guess as to what it was.

“As you humans have now formed a single team, you will all share a single fate in this final challenge.” the gruff voice continued.

So we’re in the final challenge?

She looked up and looked around. There were a number of human beings on the ground, scattered across a large area. Some of them were blocked from view by trees. They appeared to be in a dark forest. It was hard to get a good estimate of the number of people with the darkness and the trees, but she could see enough dark shapes that she guessed there were at least hundreds of humanoid figures in the darkness.

It’s the whole population, isn’t it?

“Do you have a name?” called Leo’s voice some distance away in the dark. It was clearly aimed at the entity speaking.

“I certainly do,” the voice replied.

“We’d like to get your name and see you, then!” Leo replied. “Where are we?”

“Very well,” the voice replied.

Mina heard it mutter a phrase to itself, and then she saw a strange pattern of light appear in the darkness. The lights were shaped like letters in a foreign alphabet. Not the cyrillic alphabet, or she would recognize it. Maybe something older.

Then the forest burst into sudden flames all around them.

People began to scream.

“Run!”

“Everything’s on fire!”

“Someone help!”

Mina turned her head. Every tree as far as the eye could see was ablaze, slowly burning from the treetops down. People began to panic and run away.

“I hope the visibility is more to your liking now,” the voice said in an ironic tone. Mina turned her head back and finally saw the speaker. The forest was quite bright now, lit as it was with orange flames. The voice had come from a large black hound, roughly the size of a horse. Curved horns adorned the proud head. Its body was covered in the glowing orange letters she’d noticed before, though the lights began to fade as she looked at it. “To answer your questions, I am called Charon, and you have come to the in-between space. The land between the living world and the underworld.”

Mina instinctively used Investigate on the hound, but she almost regretted it.

Charon, Mystic Chthonic Hound Lv. 80

The hound was apparently sickeningly powerful. Lighting the forest on fire was clearly just a parlor trick it engaged in to amuse itself. If it wanted to just burn them all to death, it could do so. Beside it were two much smaller hounds. It was hard to tell how old they were in the firelight, but they didn’t come up to Charon’s kneecaps.

She Investigated them as well, and breathed a sigh of relief.

Baby Chthonic Hound, Lv. 3

Baby Chthonic Hound, Lv. 3

The other two hounds were apparently just there for appearances. Or to get experience from killing off people the Mystic Chthonic Hound didn’t finish itself, assuming these creatures were there to kill them. Or for some symbolic purpose.

Three is a magic number. Was this a magic-based challenge? Was the trio of dogs, two of which were level 3, a coincidence? Did it have some other meaning?

She didn’t have much time to contemplate the questions running through her mind.

As she looked around, she recognized that some of the flames surrounded the humans in a large circle, and it drew closer as she watched. Those who had tried to run hadn’t gotten far, but a few of them had made it to the edges of the ring of fire. They were the first to be touched by fire as the flames crept in tighter. Mina smelled the odor of burning hair and skin.

“Are you going to burn people to death before we even begin the challenge?!” she demanded loudly, glaring up at Charon.

The hound looked down at her. His eyes gleamed a brilliant yellow, flames streaking from their corners like tears.

“You have a point, dear girl,” he murmured. The symbols on his sides glowed once more, a gentler yellow this time, and the flames began to subside. Where the trees burned, the flames remained in place like they were growing from the branches. The ring of fire stopped moving in closer, and the people who had begun to burn were able to retreat further back. Mina saw green healing being used out of the corners of her eyes, but she remained focused on Charon.

“Whether they live or die,” he said softly, “may come down to you.”