Novel Bin Chapter Fourteen: The Code in the Lights
Chapter Fourteen: The Code in the Lights
“Now if you excuse me, I need to go check on my other guests,” The Astralist said. He walked over to the part of the basement that held his bed and laid down. With a flicker, I saw his spirit disappear from his body. It was some form of astral projection, no doubt.Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m nov𝒆lb(i)n.c(o)m
The needle on the plot cycle had already hit Second Blood with the death of Judy. Now we were in the initial stages of the Finale. To my understanding, we should have a small amount of time before he struck again—just enough for my friends to prepare an assault. The question was: could I help them?
I tried to push past the fear that clouded my mind and worked the problem. I needed to get out of that chair, but I was strapped in. I examined the leather that was used to bind my hands and realized that the sleeve of my sweatshirt was inside of my restraint.
I had an idea.
I could see on the red wallpaper my status change. The word Planning lit up.
It seemed to me that even though the restraint was tight, part of the reason it was so snug was that my sweatshirt was taking up space. Not much, sure, but maybe enough that if I were to pull up my sleeve, I would be able to get my hand out. After all, I didn't need that much room and I was definitely willing to hurt myself to be free.
I leaned over and grabbed my sleeve with my teeth and pulled, straining my neck to get some movement on the sleeve. The restraint was tight, and it took some effort to get the fabric rolled up but as I tugged it on one side and then the other and I pulled and I struggled, eventually I managed to get my sleeve out from inside of the restraint.
Now all I had to do was use what little room that maneuver had granted me to remove my hand from the restraint and free myself.
I pulled with all my might. The leather strap was definitely looser now that I had a slight amount more room, but it wasn't easy to get my hand out. I felt the side of the leather cutting into my skin and I seriously thought I was going to break a bone.
but I pulled…
and pulled…
and twisted…
and then I was free.
One hand down, three limbs to go. Luckily, there was no lock on the other straps. I just had to unstrap them with my free hand.
Success.
With a bloody hand, I ran across the room to Kimberly. She sat there with a terrified look upon her face. I can't imagine what it must have been like to have been right next to Judy when her life force was literally stripped from her.
“It's okay, I'm here,” I said. I tried to be as gentle as possible in the way I spoke.
I quickly unlashed her hands and legs, and she jumped out of the metal chair like it was on fire.
“We have to leave,” she said.
I agreed, but I didn't actually know how to leave. I couldn't even say which direction the cellar was in or if there was a connection between the two rooms that we could use to get back into the castle.
“Did you see what direction he came from when he brought me in?” I asked.
“Over there,” she said, pointing to what looked to be a solid wall.
We ran over and tried banging and pushing on it but to no avail. I didn't know whether the wall was kept shut by a lever or simply by some plot device that I was unable to see. It's possible that Kimberly and I combined simply did not have a high enough Mettle stat to be able to push the door open.
I surveyed the basement. The Astralist’s body still rested in his bed.
Did we dare try to kill him right there? Would that even work?
I decided that now that I had some time, I would try to see his tropes. It might give me some idea of how to proceed, so I quickly looked to the red wallpaper in hopes that proximity to his unconscious body would be enough.
It was.
I could see all of The Astralist’s tropes.
Humanizing Monologue: In the final battle, the villain will attempt to gain sympathy by revealing his back story or motives. Players who are not resilient to this will receive debuffs. Buff’s villain’s Moxie.
Jekyll and Hyde: The villain has multiple forms: Ghost: +3 Mettle, +5 Hustle, Comatose, and Possessed +2 Mettle, +2 Grit.
Anticlimax Antidote: The villain cannot be killed in his Comatose form until the final battle.
Invulnerable Form: The villain cannot be affected by tropes or attacks in his Ghost form. Except: Ghost Bane.
The Parting Shot: Though the villain is defeated, he has one final trick up his sleeve—a backup plan that will terrorize the players in his absence.
Hostage Taker: The villain will not outright kill the player in combat until the final battle but will instead attempt to take them hostage for his specific purpose.
Always Watching: The villain can obtain a visual of the players at any time.
Home Lair Advantage: The villain can travel freely, unnoticed due to their knowledge of the setting and its pathways and secret passages.
Silver Bullet: This monster has a weakness specific to them that renders them dead or vulnerable.
I reviewed his tropes. The Jekyll and Hyde trope was not surprising. So far, I had seen this villain in all three forms. The first was his ghostly form. Now was his Comatose form and the final form was the merging of the two, when I saw him seemingly possessing his own body. His ghost form was invulnerable and had a trope mentioning as much.
The Anticlimax Antidote was the sort of thing I expected to see. It would be far too easy to simply kill his body now that his spirit was gone. No, that wouldn’t be allowed. I didn’t know what would happen if we attacked his helpless body, but I didn’t want to risk it.
What concerned me the most was the trope titled “The Parting Shot” which told me that even if we were to find victory, something else would be waiting for us.
I didn't know what his Silver Bullet was, but I hoped that Camden would be figuring out that information at that very moment.
“We have to get a message to the others,” I said “They obviously can't hear us or else they would have heard Judy screaming earlier.”
“What do we do?” Kimberly asked. “Shouldn't we just destroy this machine?” She had a tenor of panic in her voice.
“We can't,” I said. “It has a trope that makes it indestructible. That would be too easy, I guess. We also can't kill him. We have to beat him in the final battle.”
I continued, “I have an idea but I’m going to need your help.”
She eyed me quizzically.
“You can do something that I can't do and I need you to figure out what that is but I think I can only tell you a hint.”
She nodded, “Okay...”
Kimberly had an amazing trope called Convenient Backstory. So far, she hadn't used it but if my understanding of what it could do was correct, then it was exactly what we needed. It gave her the ability to buff herself and learn skills in the middle of a storyline simply by referencing something that happened in her past.
Have you ever seen a movie where a woman that was 5 foot 4 manages to beat up a bunch of bad guys and then she quips about how she knew how to fight because she grew up with six brothers? How about a character who could suddenly pick a lock because they wrote a book about thieves years ago or they had a rough life on the streets back in their past?
The Convenient Backstory was one of the strongest tropes that any of us had, but in order for it to work it, had to be convincing. You couldn't just say something and make it true. The story had to make sense. So if my plan was going to work, I couldn't just tell her what to do, she had to figure it out on her own and what's more she had to tell the story all on her own.
Don't get me wrong, Kimberly was far from dim-witted—she was actually very smart with things she cared about--but she had never really engaged with the concept of playing the Game at Carousel, not the way I had or Camden had. Anna and Antoine understood what was going on here and they were willing to play their roles to the best of their ability as well, but Kimberly had resisted. We could barely drag her up to the castle.
“Kimberly, every time someone turns on a light in the castle, all of the other lights in the building flicker. Did you notice that? When I was with Anna, she turned on the light to the cellar, it made all the lights turn off and back on and just now whenever he turned on the light to that section of the basement the lights flickered again.
Kimberly nodded, seemingly unsure of what I was getting at.
“There's a book upstairs on Morse code. I think that if we were to flick the light in a pattern, we could communicate with our friends upstairs. We'd have to do it long enough so that they would notice it and so that Camden would have time to go to the book and interpret what we're saying but…”
I looked her in the eye and I talked slowly “One of us needs to know Morse code for that to happen and I didn’t learn it growing up.”
For a moment she didn't speak but then I saw a glint of recognition in her eye. “Lucky for you,” she said, “My dad took me sailing every summer growing up. He made sure I knew Morse code so that I could signal for help if we ever got in trouble.”
In an instant Kimberly’s Savvy stat and Plot Armor shot up three points.
“Did it work?” I asked.
“Let’s see,” she said.
We ran over to the light switch and Kimberly reached toward the switch, her hands shaking as she grabbed the switch.
“What do I say?” she asked.
“IN CELLAR,” I said. At the end of the day, the most important information for them to know was where we were. Nothing else I could tell them was more important than that. Anna and Camden had been in the cellar they would probably make the same realization that I had, that the room was far too small for a castle. Between the three of them, they had to be able to find a way to get down here.
Kimberly started flicking the light in a smooth rhythmic motion:
.. -. / -.-. . .-.. .-.. .- .-.
“It's working! she said. “I don't know how I’m doing it, but I just am!”
I couldn't understand Morse code myself, but it looked exactly like I had seen it done in the movies. The lights flickered in a dot and dash pattern that must have meant “In cellar.”
Now all we could do was wait and see who got to us first: our friends or The Astralist.