The two walked along the hallways, both just as lost as one another. What Tanner just said was a bit more worrying, “Fuck, the site map is down.” Silas turned to face Tanner, with his mouth dropped, and Tanner just repeated what he said, “The site map is down, fuck you want me to do?”
Silas just sighed as a door opened. Neither of them did that, and they both looked down their sights to find a terrible statue standing across from them. The statue was made of concrete and was about the perfect height to snap their necks.
[System Message: Hey, It’s SCP-173!]
[Anomalous Properties: When not being actively being stared upon, the statue can move at such an obscenely fast speed; crossing gaps of ~15 meters in the blink of an eye and snapping the target’s neck. The user is recommended to proceed with caution and to keep an eye on this thing.]
The door’s screeched to a stop as it stood open, and Silas waited for Tanner to react as well. The two were staring down the stone statue. “Damn it, I told them to go for a site that could actually handle this…”
Silas nodded as he pointed the pistol at the beast. It felt alive; not as unconscious as one may think at first, and the System was telling him what it was capable of. This meant the System wanted him to live, right?
Tanner gave him a signal he was blinking via the word being yelled out. “Damn it, dude, do you have to shout that?” Silas flinched and almost got them both killed with almost blinking himself with how the scenario was going.
[Quest Created; Recontain SCP-173]
[Time Limit: 2 Hours]
[Reward: 1 Dungeon Reward, SCP-173 immunity granted!]
[Punishment for Failure: Forced automatic use of SCP-1622-ARC]
“Sorry!” Tanner yelled back out, and Silas told Tanner more calmly than Tanner told him that he was blinking. He would hide the fact that he had such an odd quest now. “Hey, do you know SCP-1622-ARC?”
“You mean the hole in the wall?” Tanner responded, the two began to back up in tandem now. Tanner turned around to open the damned button door.
“I guess?” Silas looked at the notification some more, and saw that the structure of it was entirely to screw him over. He had 2 hours to do this, and they were a 5 hour flight from any nearby site in his original world.
Which meant he had to do it without the help of whatever Mobile Task Force the people outside may send in to help the situation, even if they did nothing. The System wasn’t telling him what SCP-1622-ARC was, and damnit he was just a janitor!
[SCP-1622-ARC]
[A hole in the wall that’s large enough for someone to stick their hand into.]
[Anomalous Properties: Upon reaching in, it automatically takes something from the user’s inventory or bags and gives the user an item with a personal connection to them instead.]
“Okay, so I gotta recontain that shit in two hours then…” Silas muttered as Tanner finally got the door open. Tanner pulled Silas away and closed the door behind the pair.
“What are you talking about?” Tanner’s response was immediate as the two once again began backing away carefully from the door, passing by a testing chamber that required a keycard to open. “That is way above either of our paygrades.”
“Well, not above the System’s.” Silas’s answer was swift and was designed to cut down further argument, since the System was practically 343 but more malevolent and didn’t have a physical form to put in a damned box.
“Oh fuckin hell, the reason they locked you up is real?” Tanner’s shock in his face was made clear as they made it further away. The hallways didn’t reopen so Tanner took a moment to breath in the threeway hall.
“Yeah, and now the System wants me to recontain that thing or I’m gonna be forced to use SCP-1622-ARC.” Silas looked around the hallway, with no defining features. And then another quest loaded.
[Quest Created; Help a Guy Out]
[Condition: Escape the Facility at least Once.]
[Time Limit: 24 Hours]
[Reward: 10 Levels, 10 Legendary Skills, 10 Legendary Traits, 5 Mythical Skills, 5 Mythical Traits, System Does Not Infect This World]
[Punishment for Failure: System employs the ‘Infection’.]
[SYSTEM MESSAGE: Your freedom will be guaranteed through Power. The System will ensure you are not recontained after you escape.]
He took a step back at the new quest, Silas was staring at the amount of power that only the people running this place could only dream of. And here it was being offered as just a quest reward.
Just a random quest reward. And now he had the power, the ability to use this at such a high level, at such a supreme pinnacle. Of course it was still an if, if he managed to get out of this damned facility, but now he wanted to be free so much more.
It was engraved in his every fiber, engraved in every motivation. “Hey, Tanner… Remember that test room?” Silas looked over at his teammate and only friend in this facility. He was lost in the idea of whatever the hell he was going to do.
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“Yeah, what about it?”
“I’ve got an idea to recontain the bastard concrete doll,” Silas begins to lay out his plan for Tanner, and it doesn’t look pretty to the guard. “It doesn’t specify how long it stays contained.”
“It has no way to open keycard rooms, and the system does offer me some good rewards for this shit.” Silas pleads with Tanner to go along with it, looking through the yellow ballistic visor into his friend’s eyes.
“Ugh, fine… Just walk me through this one more time…”
******
The guard was now watching the Senior Janitor climb up the vent in the test room. “Seriously dude, your plan is to manually seal the vent to prevent its escape that way?” The guard’s voice echoed into the void Silas was already halfway in.
There was luckily a keycard inside from a scientist that left it in the observation room, what Tanner was guarding to ensure that damn concrete bastard didn’t get in. “Yeah. And then we shut the metal door to the windows, this may be a new arrangement, but I still had to clean every goddamned inch to this site more than once or twice.”
He finally clambered into the vent, kicking the ladder down with a light curse to whatever god trapped him here. Silas from within the vent finnicked around with the vent, knowing the manual switch was somewhere up here… He just had to find it.
There was one within the observation room, but if what Tanner said about 079 being here; the System gave him the faint idea that it’d get mad if he used the non-physical method. And with how 173 seemed to be everywhere all at once, it seemed to be using the vents.
His goal for now though wasn’t to seal that vent, it was to get out of that room first without getting sawed in two pieces. “So the Site Mapping is down huh?” Silas simply yelled down back into the vents, and no response came back. Tanner was still there, but the vents didn’t allow sound to pass through too well. They weren’t made for that shit.
He crawled around for minutes on end, allowing the very stable metal to pass under him, and he pushed down the vent to find Tanner sitting on his ass trying to fix his S-Nav. If only Silas was given one.
The vent cover fell and Tanner jumped like 10 feet in the air… Silas laughed, feeling the air leave his lungs and the dust enter. It kind of hurt; but he was sure it was regular dust. At least he could be kinda sure.
[-2 Health]
The laughter ended quickly when he saw his health bar drop a teensy tiny bit. Oh fuck you too system. He crawled back to the main test chamber as he now used a four way turn to turn around. It felt like he was one of those cave divers and he found himself in Germany’s Personal Cloaca with a 0% survival chance.
And now, here he was staring back into the metal tiles now certain he’d have to break the vent a little bit to force it to close. He remembered cleaning it and being told to be extra careful, these things were designed to close with enough force to cut through solid bone if the emergency system activated.
His hand reached to the gun at his hip as he came up with a brilliant idea. He shot a single time, and the vent was certainly fuckin loud when it closed. Silas jumped for a second and crawled back the way he came to the observation room.
The vents were definitely not a fun time, and he landed back down onto the floor. “Alright, so now that it was closed, I don’t think 173’ll manage to break nice and through.” Silas said as he took the semi-tough landing. He wasn’t as athletic as he thought, and his HP was also down from 100% so it sucked extra.
“Yeah, but also according to the clock on my S-nav, you also lost an hour and a half; so we may need to finish this quick, unless you wanna lose your gun.” Tanner’s speech was calm. Much calmer than a man should be when they were about to recontain one of the euclid fuckers. Probably because Tanner knew exactly who was going to be bait, and it wasn’t him.
Now, Tanner was going to find the SCP while Silas waited in the hallway besides with just his keycard, a Level 2 one too; a nice and lucky find for a random observation table. Tanner shot a single time, the signal for Silas to pay attention.
Tanner finally got back to the proper hallway, and Silas opened the hallway to the testing chamber he was stuck in not even 5 hours ago. The way it slid open gave him the idea the System changed some things about the wiring to help him out in this strategy.
The SCP stood across from him in the hallway, and Tanner made a run for it to the observation room. That would allow the both of them to look at SCP-173 once within the room. But before then, it was just Silas for a moment, as it was Tanner for a minute.
Silas blinked, and now the concrete statue was right up next to him. He almost flinched back from the wind produced; but caught himself before the fatal mistake was made. He finally walked back into the room, made sure to feel the wall behind him before blinking one more time.
He tried to open his eyes as fast as he could, but the SCP was right up next to him, leaving him feeling kind of trapped. He knew this thing would easily tear through the glass, which was why the plan was to keep it in this room for a minute, then close the blast door over the glass and the door at the same-ish time.
Silas dove to the right as Tanner signalled he had his eye on the statue. The signal was hardly visible in the periphery, but he had to focus. Silas’s life was on the line, and it wasn’t in a silly way either; it felt dangerous to be here.
He didn’t make a mad dash to the door however, feeling his heart beat in his chest in a funky way. He still had 15 bullets after all. He didn’t need to panic. He had plenty of ammunition for escaping; especially since there were armories between here and the exit, right?
The blast doors began to close as Silas’s signal to run and close the door. He managed to close the door right as he blinked, and he saw just the painted face of the concrete statue before it sealed.
He collapsed down for a moment, as the System gave him the reward. His life had never been in true danger like that before. His hands were shaking as the system granted him the reward.
[Dungeon Reward: Uncommon]
[Uncommon Equipment Acquired; Steel Longsword]
Silas felt tears climb up to his eyes, as the final quest reward was gifted to him and him alone. He felt his body adapt; shift slightly as if in space but his vision didn’t move whatsoever. He was shaking still, terrified of what was going on.
Footsteps followed into the room, and he couldn’t help but cry as he collapsed onto the floor, the adaptation fully finished. His body felt wrong, like something was under his skin, crawling along it.
He was terrified, and shaking deeply in his core. Tears just kept rolling out of his eyes as Tanner’s voice was audible. “Dude, are you okay?” Silas looked up into Tanner’s eyes, and Tanner’s immediate wince in response was enough for Tanner.
The guard didn’t need an answer before he patted the Janitor on the back. The Janitor was not designed for this situation, and now his timer was even shorter. He only had 22 hours left to escape this damned place, but this place would scar him.
He’d never be free.
[Name: Silas]
[Class: Ranger]
[Level: 1]
[Stats:
POWER: 5
AGILITY: 5
CONSTITUTION: 5
MAGIC: 5]
[Health: 48/50
Mana: 500/500
Movement Speed: 10
Evasion: 14
Reaction Speed: 1]
