Play of Shadows

2.8: X Marks the Spot

The Gallery was not a contained space. It sprawled indefinitely no matter the direction a player chose to follow, spawning artful horrors as it crept ever outward. There was no puzzle to solve or maze to navigate. The way out was in Ann's painting and that painting was the central piece of an exhibit that pulled itself out of a hat wherever it pleased. The players were not meant to find Ann; Ann was meant to find them.

"How many left?" Ann asked.

An instance boss was fettered until certain conditions were met. Ann felt the restrictions keenly – the thorn-studded vine wound around her throat like a living noose was hard to miss. It tightened in warning whenever she peered in on the players. Reaching out to grab K by the collar had cost her a necklace of bruises. Even so, she could only bring the man so far into the painting. He remained out of her direct sight and she, out of his.

The single candle burning on the captain's desk flickered as the ship swayed. Ann's shadow fluttered against the back wall, blooming outward before bowing back into something resembling a human silhouette.

"Three, provided the group remains together," K's disembodied voice floated through the open cabin window. "More if they split up."

Ann frowned. The players better stick together, after all the effort she'd put in herding those damned rabbits.

She must have muttered at least part of that out loud, because K laughed and said, "There were easier ways to go about it. I do applaud the ingenuity, however."

Ann knew the man was talking about the giant, slobbering dogs shepherding herds in various media around the gallery. They had given her the idea to scare the players back together in the first place. They'd sure scared Ann into fleeing the other way.

She huffed and decisively turned the conversation back to the problem at hand.

"They've been forced to lose a player in order to advance at every stage so far," Ann said, and very consciously didn't think about the possible real-world repercussions for the fallen players. "Is this the glitch at play?"

"No," K said.

Ann frowned. "That doesn't make sense." The attrition rate was forced and much too steep for an instance that was not structured as a battle royale.

"Would you like to buy a clue?" K asked brightly.

Ann glared out the cabin's black window. She couldn't see K's face, but she could imagine the man's smug expression just fine. A small part of her was glad to have the man back to his very unique brand of normal. The rest was fighting the urge to say something crass.

"I thought you were on our side," she said instead.

K hummed noncommittally. Ann ground her teeth.

"What do you want," she bit out.

"Look after someone for me from here on out," K said.

Ann thought briefly, then said, decisive, "Mr. Glasses."

K barked out a laugh. "You must be willing to keep him, if you've already named him."

Ann pursed her lips, cheeks reddening at the slip of tongue. "He's the other person on your list, isn't he?" she asked, blustering through the embarrassment, "You got your brother to pull the two of us into the rescue mission. Why?"

"Alexander told you," K said after a quiet moment.

Ann shifted uneasily at the sudden flatness of the man's voice. "As I said, we're playing on the same side."

"And which side is that?" K asked.

Ann let out a grunt of frustration. Talking with the man when he decided to be stubborn was worse than talking to a wall! At least the wall wouldn't talk back!