It's absurdly simple. Margo will let you in to retrieve the bones, and you can snag the Crown in the meantime. And then get out of here, never to see any of these people again. Thank God.
?That's not a good attitude to have, Charlie. It's important to have connections. You never know when you'll need to use someone.?
"Oh, I'm not worried about the gators," you say. (Ellery mouths 'excuse me?') "We'll head in and get the bones pronto, give them to you, have a little sentimental funeral, a little cry... we can discuss compensation later. I'll do it for free right now, how about that?"
?Pro bono.?
"You know, pro bono," you amend. "Pro bone-o retrieval. That's us."
Margo purses her lips. "No."
"So, you know, we'll just head on in... huh?"
"I said no, girl. I won't have some out-of-towner mucking in my business. That—" Ellery had started to say something. "—goes for you too. You're one of them campers, aren'tcha? Always out in the Fen, never asking for permission. Impolite."
Positive thinking. Positive thinking. "Don't worry about it!" you say. "We won't... no mucking. Just quick in and out. Do they look any different from normal bones, or..."
"Run along," Margo snaps. The other woman waves you off.
Positive thinking. You step backwards, as if to leave, and then tug Ellery sideways by the lapel. You dart and he stumbles down into the mouth of the cave. It's deeper than you thought, and you scrabble down, clutching onto rocks and roots.
The heads of the Courtiers pop into view above you, open-mouthed in (you assume) awe. You wave cheerily. They say something inaudible in response.
"Fuck," Ellery says, and slumps against the rocky slope. You squat near him. "Fuck," he repeats. "Seriously?"
He falls silent. You side-eye him and stand up to survey the cave. It's dim. There's slick algae lining most of the walls, as promised. You see no sign of alligators, or for that matter ghosts. Disappointing!
"You know..." Ellery says. "You know Margo is going to kill us, right? Maybe even literally. Have you ever spoken to her?"
There's a corridor that leads deeper, it looks like. If you know anything about mystical, forgotten relics (and do you), they're never in the first room. Your next plan of action should be to head down there—
"Are you listening?"
"Yeah," you say. "It'll be fine. She'll be happy when we get the bones, and then it'll blow over. You know, ends justify means, et-cetera."
?That's my girl.?
"That's a completely backwards—"
THUMP
THUMP
THUMP
A-ha! The alligators! You fish around in your pocket for the little switchblade—
"That's not coming from up there, is it?" Ellery hisses. It isn't. But neither, curiously, does it seem to be coming from the corridor.
Is there an alligator in here? Do alligators thump? You've never seen one.
THUMP - scrrtch
scrrtch
No, nevermind. "GO AWAY" being written by an invisible hand in the algae? Must be ghosts, then. You're pleased that at least one rumor is true.
Ellery has gone noticeably pale. Well, paler.
>[1] If you scream a little, it might scare the Courtiers. That'd be fun. And you have to be a good sport for the ghosts.
>[2] Go write something back in the algae. Maybe something like "no thank you, we're fine."
>[3] Very spooky and all that, but you do have a crown to find. Just mosey along down the corridor.
>[4] Write-in.
While the idea of actual ghosts is exciting, you're less than pleased with the contents of the message. "GO AWAY"? It's unimaginative, firstly, and secondly not at all convincing.
You stride over to the haunted wall and scrape "NO" into the algae below the original words. And then, thinking better of it, you write "THANK YOU" below, and draw a little smiley face next to it.
"Oh good," Ellery says. "You're being passive-aggressive ."
You stare him down with a toothy smile. It indicates, you hope, "I will feed you to an alligator." He massages his temples.
THUMP - scrrtch
The algae is regrowing over the first message. In its place reads
"DO NOT TOY WITH US
WE ARE MULTITUDINOUS
WE ARE ETERNAL
WE ARE..."
The writing is getting increasingly tiny as the entity tries to fit it all above your response.
"...HUNGRY
BE GONE
OR BE FOOD"
"Huh," says Ellery, and stands. "Well, I'm ready to go get eaten. Guess we better get a move on."
You squint at the wall. "Really? I thought you were the... you know, the dull type."
"Yes, Charlotte, I actually— forget it. It's a moot point. You won't let us go anywhere but down."
?He has you dead to rights. You're predictable. If anyone's dull, it's you.?
"Yes," you say, but don't move towards the corridor. The scratchy letters are strangely compelling. Do they twist? Do they flicker? If only you could hold your head at the right angle. If only you had two working eyes. Not that you're blaming anybody.
?We're not getting into this now, Charlie.?
>[1] You feel as if there's something layered under the existing words. If you try hard enough, can you find it? [Roll.]
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
>[2] Ask another question of the... ghosts? (What?)
>[3] This has crossed a new threshold of spooky. Better to move along and meet the ghosts (or alligators) in person.
>[4] Write-in.
You gently trace each letter, hoping to find answers. They don't come. You mouth the words— multitudinous, immortal, hungry— but they don't become an incantation. Behind you, Ellery plays with a lump of wood and a knife.
You stop, sigh, and look up. No secret is revealed to you.
?Charlie, I don't like this. We need to get moving.?
The crown can wait. You have greater mysteries to unravel.
?This isn't a greater mystery, I'm telling you. This is sinister. There's too much Law in here. Can you not see it.?
You choose to disregard the latter two cryptic remarks, and ignore the former. If you close your eyes, possibly, and touch the wall…
THUMP | THUMP | THUMP
It throbs restlessly under your fingertips, which seem to be growing warmer, stickier, runnier. Your hand drips down the stone in rivulets. You look but have no eye, you scream but have no mouth. You— You— You— You—
YOU ARE WE.
We are comforted by an indescribable sense of closeness. Our brothers and sisters are all around us. We are broken when apart, but together we are more than whole. We gnash our white teeth and whip our green tails in celebration.
But despite all this, we are empty. The circle has run dry. The people have run dry. We are melting, disintegrating, dying. But there is food on the way, and so we gnash our white teeth and whip our green tails. It is worse than the circle. But we will live on together.
We will find the Law, and we will consume it, with a thousand thousand teeth in a thousand—
"Charlie."
We hear a man. We do not know the man.
"I know you're there, Charlie. You're not all..." The man waves aimlessly. "...this. You're not a load of alligators stacked on top of each other."
We calculate. This rings true.
"Come on. You're better than this, really. Back to 'I'."
We are... I am…
"Positive thinking."
I am not a load of alligators stacked on top of each other. But maybe I used to be?
Deep breath, from one set of lungs.
"Good. Now wake up."
You wake up. Your hand is intact. Ellery is crouched above you, two fingers on your pulse. "Oh," he says nervously as you open your eye. He stands up. "Sorry, what...?"
"I think," you say diplomatically, "I was a lot of alligators stacked on top of each other."
"Oh." He pauses. "What?"
"And I had, uh..." You didn't tell him about the Crown. "...it doesn't matter. But I think it's below here."
"Oh good," Ellery says.
>[1] Time to get packing. Say nothing more about it.
>[2] Write something further on the wall. (What?)
>[3] There's only one person who calls you Charlie. On one hand, thank goodness. On the other, it's a snake. Interrogate Richard about his presence in your dream-slash-vision.
>[4] Ask about Ellery's whittling.
>[5] Write-in.
It may be best to never speak of this again, you decide.
?I'm not going to say I told you so, but I did tell you so.?
And so what? You don't feel any lingering reptilian urges. All that happened was you frightening Ellery a bit (always a good cause), and you confirming the location of the Crown. It was such a success, in fact, that you resolve to investigate any and all mysterious walls you come across in the future.
That being said, you will still never speak of it again.
While the first chamber is simply dim, the corridor is much darker. You are relieved when Ellery pulls a glow-orb out of his pocket, as a quick shake produces sickly blue-green phosphorescence.
By the new light, you discover that you've been brushing past an entire ecosystem of cave creatures. Tiny white snails crowd crevices in the rock, while you have to hop to avoid a pale crawfish in your path. You don't like caves much.
Neither do you like the news. "Looks like there's been a cave-in," Ellery announces, and raises the glorb to reveal a wall of loosely-packed rubble. "We could probably clear it, but it could take a while. Are you on a time limit with the... algae? Is that what the collapse was about, by the way?"
You look to the left, where a path continues past the rubble. "Why not there?"
"Well—" Ellery illuminates a plank of wood nailed over the path. "DANGER," it says. "GIANT ALLIGATOR HERE!!!" The "GIANT" is underlined twice.
"There could be alligators behind the cave-in," you say. "We can't know."
"There's still one path with a known giant alligator, though. I think we should consider that."
>[A1] Clear the rubble. It could take a while and you're not sure what's behind it, but it does look more direct. And no giant alligator (probably).
>[A2] Take the other path. You can deal with a giant alligator! You have a switchblade!
>[B1] Let Ellery do the work. You need to save your energy for future endeavors, and you don't want him getting a big head about his role in this. Surely you can deal with a little resentment.
>[B2] Pitch in. It'd go faster, and Ellery would like it, but think of the callouses! And imagine if he thought this were an equal partnership!
"...Okay," you say finally. "But only because it looks faster. Not because I'm threatened by some big dumb lizard."
Ellery considers the wall. "Is it faster, though? I mean, we have to get all this out of the way. I'd think it'd be about the same, if not longer. We don't have the proper tools..."
"It's FASTER." You're reddening again. The nerve!
"Okay, okay. Godsdamn."
He kicks experimentally at a rock near the bottom. "I'm not so sure this was a cave-in, actually. These all look deliberately placed. Which is a good thing, actually, because it's easier to un-place them." (He wrenches at a piece of rubble for emphasis.)
?I could help with this, Charlie, you realize. It would be done in a quarter of the time. If that.?
"No," you mutter.
?Stubbornness is an ugly trait to have, and you know it. It wouldn't take much. It wouldn't hurt. Just a minor alteration.?
"No!"
Ellery turns at your outburst. You wave him off furiously.
?I know you crave independence, but Charlotte: it's an illusion. There's no such thing. I will assist you now or later, and you will be all the happier for it.?
Damn Richard to hell. You have survived three years with as little "assistance" as you could manage, and yet he continues to bedevil you. You will retrieve the Crown, and then you will be rid of him forever. The faster the wall is down, the faster that will happen.
You tear into it with no thought for safety or health, putting Ellery's relatively sluggish deconstruction to shame. You only motion for help when there's a boulder too large to move alone. Within half an hour, the rubble has diminished to a point where you can clamber over.
It's dark on the other side, and the glorb doesn't seem to be as bright as it used to be. Ellery gives it an experimental shake, but nothing changes. Judging by the feel of the water, this is a much larger space than the last. You step left, clutching onto the stone, and are punished with a nasty CRUNCH.
You leap back, nearly knocking Ellery over. He places a steadying hand on your shoulder and lowers the orb towards the ground. There's bones. Nothing but bones. Far too many to belong to one, or two, or three people— dozens, maybe? hundreds? Some are pearly white, others yellow and crumbling into a sort of sludge. All are stripped entirely of flesh. All are in towering piles.
You will admit that you gagged.
Ellery fishes a pair of thick safety goggles out of his pocket and straps them on. "Sorry," he says. "I only have one pair."
You can only see in a short radius around you. You can see where you came in, but not the exit (if there is one)...
>[1] Okay, you've had it. Back to the giant alligator.
>[2] Pick your way slowly through the bones to search for an exit. You must be getting fairly close.
>[3] Damn caution. You are not spending more than a minute in this place. Storm straight to the exit.
>[4] Sift through the bones, no matter how disgusted you are. Is there some rhyme or reason to them? Where did they come from? (Are Tom's bones in here?)
>[5] Write-in.
was written is really important to how later events unfold. In order to rework the early bits, I'd need to comb through 1.8 million words and remove any references to the things I changed... and trust me, the story becomes densely interconnected pretty quick, so that's a lot of references. Why so interconnected? The first 46 threads occur over the course of about three weeks IC, with the bulk of that occurring in "realtime" from Charlotte's perspective. Is that how you're supposed to write a narrative? Well, it's how I wrote it. That's why the slice of life tag is there, by the way.
WE ARE MULTITUDINOUS! WE ARE ETERNAL!
