Kristoffer Pauly
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MADMAN APOCALYPSE - Chapter -141
🕑 Added 2024-11-09 21:52:40 +0000 UTC-Previous chapter-
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Chapter -141
I wiped the blood and viscera off my hands, then turned around to give a thumbs-up to Steve.
“Good job, buddy! You were actually useful for once!”
“Imagine that power in the hands of a villain,” Panda muttered.
“Fairly sure he was heading in that direction, given how he was collecting his own little harem before running into us at the mall,” I replied.
Steve’s disturbing brainwash ability had worn off, and the people that’d moved to the other end of the chamber looked around in confusion, disgust, and fear. Chris broke from their group and came over to where Tina and I was standing. Steve joined us as well.
“Why did you kill those people?” Chris asked, sounding less concerned about them and more focused on what he could do to avoid their fate.
“They were Skinstealers,” I told him. His eye twitched slightly, but he didn’t say anything back.
“Tell him about the Soul Compass,” Panda urged.
“Oh, right.” I went through my inventory and brought out the Soul Compass. “You can borrow this.”
Chris grabbed the wooden box. “Inspect,” he said.
His eyes widened as he looked through the information, then he lifted the compass up to his mouth and said, “James Anderson.”
The Soul Compass immediately started spinning, before locking in on a direction. Without a word, Chris immediately found the nearest exit out of the chamber.
“Let’s go,” I told the others, and we quickly followed after him.
“Don’t you think there’s a reason they were all hiding here?” Steve asked, worried.
“Given that the previous two areas had monsters in them, it’s all but certain there’s something here too,” Panda replied. “Perhaps the chamber everyone landed in was safe and that’s why they stayed, but who knows?”
“What about that weird thing with the hands and red face?” he continued.
“I blew up the door, so it can’t follow us here,” I told him.
“Blew up the door?”
“Yeah, I doubt it’ll be a permanent roadblock,” Panda remarked negatively.
“I like tickles,” Tina said.
We followed after Chris, as the Soul Compass led him to his brother, moving through corridors with the same mustard-yellow wallpaper and soggy carpeted floors. Each of our steps produced a disgusting squelch and the nasty liquid was soaking into my Schmonic Boots, which had already had a thorough soaking in the Metro Train’s blood.
Corridors led to chambers, which then branched into five different new corridors, which themselves led to new chambers, and so on. Weirdly though, no matter how many corridors and chambers we entered, there were always minor differences. A few corridors were narrow, some were maze-like with false ends, and others had pillars down the middle. The chambers were sometimes large like the first one we’d arrived in, some had big pillars spaced evenly throughout, others had square holes in the floor that led to an impenetrable darkness below, and several were shaped like horseshoes or half-moons.
“I swear I’ve seen this place before,” Steve kept muttering.
Although I hated to agree with him, I felt the same way. There was just something eerily-familiar about the place. The fact that there were no windows, doors, or furniture, also just unsettled me in a way I hadn’t really experienced before. Somehow, it reminded me of the Pool Rooms, although perhaps that was just because my feet were wet.
We came to a large hallway chamber which stretched out in front of us for what looked like two miles, with darkness down at the far end. There were pillars running along the sides near to the walls, which was odd. There were also two people leaning against the pillars, as though waiting for us.
“I don’t see him…” Chris muttered. The Compass in his hands was pointing down to the end of the long hallway.
“Why are there people here?” Steve asked.
“They aren’t people,” Tina said seriously.
I pulled out my Looking Glass and scanned them.
“Yep, they’re Skinstealers as well.”
Before either Tina or me could move a muscle, Steve immediately ran forward. He pointed a finger at Johan and yelled, “Birthday Piñata!”
The guy, who’d been leaning against one of the pillars, immediately became all wrapped-up in colorful papier-mâché. At the same time, a metal bat appeared in Steve’s hand and he pulled it back behind his head, while thundering forward with a shout.
Clonk!
As his bat struck the wrapped-up Johan, his head detached from his neck and flew several feet away, while spilling out various types of candy, some of which seemed similar to what Bee and I had looted from the Scion.
“Damn, didn’t know he had it in him,” I muttered.
Then Lisa, who was standing nearby, unzipped down the middle to reveal a mouth full of teeth. Before she could lunge at the unawares Steve, Chris appeared in the air above her, landing with both his daggers into her back, before pulling them down and tearing open huge gouges.
I was moving towards them at the same time, but Tina was faster, flinging her arm out to send a neon serpent into the front of Not-Lisa, pumping her full of poison while Chris repeatedly stabbed her in the back.
“He’s living up to his Class title,” Panda remarked drily.
By the time I was even close enough to do anything, Steve had beaten the human piñata into something that barely resembled a human shape and scattered candy everywhere, while Chris had finished off the Skinstealer.
“Have these things been hanging around all this time?” Chris asked, as he wiped the blood off his weapons.
“Since before the Great Game even,” I told him.
Tina nodded, while Steve just shook his head.
“Can I have one of those blue candies?” Panda asked.
Steve bent down to pick one up, before handing it to the plushie.
Chris stared at the interaction with his mouth hanging open.
“What?” I asked him.
“Since when was there a talking teddy-bear on your shoulder? And how is it eating??”
“Uh oh, he’s one of us now,” Steve remarked. “We really need to find some Sanity Pills…”
“I just got an achievement,” he announced. “‘Oh God the Voices, Make Them Stop!’ it’s called…”
Steve patted him on the shoulder, as though to say “Welcome to the club”.
“Insanity gain from exposure to Skinstealers is no joke,” Panda noted. “Although, if we’re being real here, it’s really all Gambit’s fault for using the Whistle.”
I snatched the Soul Compass out of Chris’ hands and saw that it still pointed down towards the end of the long hallway. “Come on. We’ve wasted enough time down here.”
TICKLE…
“Ah shit. Let’s go!”
The four of us ran down towards the dark end, while the sound of laughter echoed across the corridors and chambers we’d already passed through.
“All those other Players are screwed, right?” Chris asked. He wasn’t laughing this time, but he was smiling, as were the rest of us.
At the end of the long hallway, the compass suddenly pointed to the left and I turned to see another door standing there in-between two pillars. The frame was painted baby-blue.
“Another door!?” Steve exclaimed.
“Don’t be dramatic, let’s just go through before Mr. Hands catches us,” Panda told him.
I cringed at the reference, but then took the initiative and pulled open the door. Beyond it was an off-white room with a single bed inside, upon which lay a sleeping blonde-haired boy.
“James!” Chris exclaimed and ran through.
I followed right after him.
As we came into the room, a wind brushed my hair and face, before Chris was cut in half in front of my eyes. I immediately crouched to trigger SPRING_HEEL and shoot myself backwards, just as the massive glass blade that’d cut the Backstabber slashed for my neck.
I slid along the floor on my back and saw my attacker as he loped towards me like a beast.
It was Logan.
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Comments
M0och
Thanks!
Kristoffer Pauly
There will be an appraisal screen as a reminder at the start of the next chapter.
Kristoffer Pauly
Logan Maximillian, the guy who Gambit put a manhunt out for, and whose sister he and Bee killed in the first event.
M0och
Who is Logan again?
