Frances turned around swinging.
The shadow man was a step faster, moving out of reach as Frances punched at empty air. Instead of attacking, he nonchalantly fell back on his heels, hands in the pockets of his trousers.
"Quite the arm," he whistled.
Frances stared, the rush of adrenaline subsiding as he took stock of the scene. "Why is it you?" he asked, bewildered.
Across from him, a familiar man smiled placidly. "Why can't it be me?"
Frances narrowed his eyes. The butler of Cicada Manor had struck him as a singularly irritating NPC, but one of known purpose and therefore easy to dismiss. He was now hit with the sour suspicion that he had missed something of crucial importance by overlooking the man.
"You are the master of Cicada Manor?" Frances asked.
"Not at all," the butler said.
Frances glared at the man, then at the photograph that had until recently featured an unhappy couple. Only the woman in red remained in the picture.
"I don't believe you," he said.
"As well you shouldn't," the butler agreed. "Just as you should not pick up random items and attempt to fix what was destroyed for a reason."
Frances frowned. His eyes strayed to the photo again. If the butler was telling the truth and he was not the master of the manor, then where had the faceless man in the photograph gone?
"That's just right," the butler said. "Do you know how close you came to losing your head, dear guest?"
Frances ground his teeth at the familiar address. He had the strange feeling that the NPC was goading him on purpose. "Am I supposed to thank you for not killing me?"
The butler let out a surprised laugh. "Yes, in fact. But in this case, it is not me you should be worried about."
The creature that crawled out of the photograph was not the butler. Not at first. The missing piece of the photograph had been hidden for a reason. Players who brought items out of the fantasy version of Cicada Manor into what passed as reality in the game could expect a swift demise for their efforts.
The man spoke around a smug grin, enjoying the process of laying out Frances' failure. Frances listened expressionlessly and had only one question at the end.
"Who are you?"
The butler's smile widened. "Your friendly neighborhood mod. I have momentarily suspended the scene you triggered, but the game will revert to course in due time. Better hurry, Mr. Hound."
The door at Frances' back flew open. An invisible force gripped Frances and pulled him over the blackened threshold before he could attempt a struggle. The butler waved at him jovially as the door slammed shut between them.
Frances beat at the door once, questions burning in his throat. How did the butler know of his game moniker? It was not knowledge Frances thought reasonable for VR NPC to possess. There was neither a key nor a door handle to rattle. The door had molded into the wall so entirely it appeared a part of it, impossible to open. The butler did not reappear no matter how Frances shouted.
He found himself in a dank stairwell. A peeling staircase led up into the dark, made of metal and twisted in a tight spiral. The path forward was obvious. Frances considered the rusted frame with great doubt. The thin steps whined like an injured dog under his feet when he chanced a step. He did not fear heights, but tracking the same cramped, circular path left him light-headed and disorientated. One faulty move, and he would be threading on air.
At last, the staircase winded up to a landing. The last step slipped away just as Frances stepped off. It clattered into the dark stairwell, falling for some time before it struck the floor with a sharp cry. Had Frances been a moment slower, he would have likely followed it down.
Frances breathed through an instinctual flare of panic. He wondered how his father would greet the news of losing his only son to a fall off illusionary stairs. Not the best PR for the CEO of a gaming giant.
The absent thought fled as Frances examined his surroundings. The charred remains of room after room lay before him, the walls stripped to bare planks where fire had eaten through. Soot stained every corner. It rose from the floor in bursts as Frances walked, covering him in gray dust as if laying claim.
Frances rummaged through piles of ruined objects. Cases of strange liquids, the bottles broken or the contents gone brown with age; shelves of trinkets carved with symbols of the occult; collapsed bookcases, the books themselves badly burned but the contents still at times legible enough to discern texts about everything from medicine to human anatomy to pagan rituals.
Among the ruins, an item stood out. A woven basket sat on a high table in an inner room. It was filled with yarn and thread, as well as several half-finished felt dolls. Neither the basket nor its contents looked like they had suffered through a fire. The vivid colors were startling in a sea of monochrome.
Frances ruffled through the basket. He found a small, wooden box buried under the yarn. Bizarrely, it looked just big enough to fit one of the unfinished dolls.
[DING! Special item found! Discover the third truth to open.]
A short note was stuck to the underside of the box. It read, [Eyes are windows to the soul]. A symbol of an eye atop and upside-down pyramid was sketched in faded ink beneath the loping writing.
[Clue 1/4 collected! Collect all four clues to discover the f̸͎̈́͛̈̈i̷̧̖̦͖̮̯̟̹̳̲͔̞͍̼͚̓ň̶̛͚͉̫̪̠̗͚͕͈̺͕͎̗̜͊͑̾̂̾̀͋̍́̆̐͊͝ͅa̸̭̱͙̣̻̮̤̼̥̠͇͉̠͐̋̾̈̀̇̆͗̈́͒l̷̢̡̨̫̖̝͓̮̬͔̤̩̉͘ͅ truth.]
The system's announcement sounded like a kicked can rolling down a flight of stairs. Frances winced through it, then tucked the box away and returned to one of the demolished bookcases. One of the surviving texts featured a drawing much like the one included in the note. It was unlikely to be a coincidence.
The search took longer than Frances preferred, but it paid off in the end. He located the drawing of an eye sitting atop an inverted pyramid in a pseudo-medical text. It seemed to concern itself with the quest for immortality, as most such things did. References to the transmigration of the soul filled the few preserved pages. At the very bottom of one, there was another note, scribbled in the same hurried hand:
[won't help
they cannot wait any longer
pray for our souls]
The page was burned and only parts of the note survived. Frances was able to make three distinct thoughts, but nothing more.
[Clue 2/4 collected! Keep up the great work!]
The message would have been a lot more encouraging, had it not been delivered quite so flatly.
Frances worked methodically. The third floor of Cicada Manor was not small and the fire had left it ravaged, a disaster zone filled with rubble that could be hiding the last two precious cluse Frances needed to complete the nightmare of an instance. The fact that the Lord of Cicada Manor had used the space to store his various collections did not help matters. Frances found yet more questionable artifacts and stuffed animals, and an entire room filled with empty aquariums. The third clue was in one of the tanks – naturally, the one precisely in the middle of the glass minefield. Frances picked his way through by stepping into the tanks, as they were stacked next to each other with no empty floor space to navigate.
The note was longer than the last. [I came to at the bottom of the stairs. My legs were badly hurt. The doctor had to remove them entirely, to prevent infection. That was a few months ago. I am only now well enough to write.
I do not remember what happened. I must have slipped. He said I did.
I was not really going to leave. I only said that because – oh, it does not matter. Nothing matters. My children are sick and the doctor says that they will not get better. And now I am like this.
What good am I as a mother?]
The note was stained with tears.
[Clue 3/4 collected!]
Frances left the glass room. He was aware of the passage of time as he had never before in a game. His body was heavy. The arm that was coated in cement in the instance hung almost nerveless at his side, slow to respond to commands. The soot burned his eyes and coated his throat, making every swallow painful.
The final clue could be hidden anywhere. Fortunately, the game was still very much that, and it wanted to be solved despite its glitches. Frances passed heaps of rubble, seeking instead something significant, something inherent to the world of the game and its story.
He found a mirror.
It was hung on the last bit of wall remaining in a room facing the rose garden. The roof had collapsed overhead. The rectangular mirror gleamed against the ink sky, reflecting nothing of the room save Frances – and a figure in red quietly sitting in a wheelchair just behind him.
Frances straightened. He wondered if the woman in red had been following him around her ruined home, invisible until this very moment.
"I will tell you the last clue. You will tell me the final truth," a female voice croaked.
Frances nodded silently. He could not see the woman's face in the mirror and did not dare turn around, lest she disappeared before she could tell him what he needed to know.
"It worked," the woman said quietly.
[Ding! Clue 4/4 collected! Final truth remains. Player should think carefully and formulate an answer using the previous clues in the instance. 70% match to the actual clue required to clear instance. Good luck!]
"I'm going to turn around," Frances said.
"As you should. It is only polite," the woman agreed.
Even with her permission, Frances kept an eye on the red shadow in the mirror as he slowly spun on his heel. The Lady of Cicada Manor did not disappear when he laid eyes on her, but she looked much diminished from the portraits of a vibrant young woman that decorated the Manor's walls. Her body had thinned and shriveled, the skin nearly translucent where it stretched over her bony hands. She wore a hat fitted with a black veil, the kind once fashionable at funerals. Her face was hidden but the fabric was sheer enough to allow Frances another important hint.
The woman's eyes were closed, the lids sunken in.
"The final truth?" the woman prompted.
Seventy percent match, Frances reminded himself. He needed his answer to match the system's perfect response at least 70% of the way to clear the instance. Frances squared his shoulders, feeling much more apprehensive than he would have facing a horde of zombies.
"You went mad," Frances blurted out, all his careful thoughts giving way under the strain of the moment.
The woman in red said nothing, patiently waiting for the rest. Frances swallowed and continued.
"You found out what your husband was doing. At first, you pretended not to know. When you could no longer pretend, you tried to flee, but you were caught and disabled. You knew the truth at that point but chose to delude yourself, seeing no other way to live.
Then your children got sick. Medicine could not cure them. In desperation, you turned to your husband's research. He sought immortality in the stories of old civilizations. You sought salvation for your children.
In the end, you convinced yourself that you had found a solution."
The woman in red let out a broken breath. Frances paused, watching her warily. She raised a trembling hand and gestured for him to continue.
"It was you," Frances said. "You killed your children to save them from death. Part of you believed that you had succeeded. The porcelain dolls – they have their real eyes, do they not?"
"Windows to the soul," the woman croaked.
Frances kept his face impassive even as a shiver of dread rolled down his spine. "But you were aware of your delusion. In a moment of lucidity and anger, you murdered your husband by setting fire to his study, burning him and all his research.
The two versions of Cicada Manor are your creation. One is reality as you wished it to be, with your children alive in a different form and your husband's grandiose delusions realized. The other, the one we are now in, is the truth."
[DING! Answer match... c̴͍̲̱̼͓͊̈́͋͌̃̇̂͊͗͒͒̚̕͠ḁ̵̡̝͚̯̭͈͎̩̤̲͑̍̃̇̕͠ĺ̵͕̘̪̜͎̿̑̓͒̌̕͜c̵̘͔̭͈̲͈̝̻͈͈̊̍͊̀̒u̸̝͎̞̠̳̹̔ļ̴̹͇̽a̸̧̨̙̰̯̳͂̊͜t̷̛̛̗̮͇̄̈́͗̄̈͆͛͊̿̈͘͝ḯ̴̩̙̲̤̟̬̫̟̞͎̅̽̑̾͌̍̇͐ņ̵̧̦̥͉̯͙͍̳̝̯̗̃͐͆̿̀͐̔̉͌g̸̺̩͉͎̦̿̍͋͛̏̐͑ ... 83% Congratulations to player for finding all three truths!]
Frances noted the system announcement, but did not dare celebrate yet. The woman in red was curiously silent. The instance, too, was showing no signs of ending.
"What would you have done, in my place?" she asked softly.
"I don't know," Frances said truthfully.
"You do not blame me?" the woman asked.
Frances hesitated. In the end, he could only answer honestly. "We are all responsible for our actions. Whatever our reasons."
The woman in red slowly bowed her head. "My reasons," she muttered softly, then whispered.
"The box in your hands. Will you open it?"
Frances blinked. The box he had found in the basket of yarn was suddenly in his hands, unprompted. The lid was loose.
[Special item now available! Open?
YES – NO]
"No," Frances said.
The woman raised her head with a dull crack. "Are you not curious? Cicada Manor holds many secrets. You may find something precious in its ruins," she said.
Her voice, Frances noted, sounded far younger than it had a moment prior.
"No," he repeated, decisive this time. "The game is over. I have cleared the conditions."
[WARNING: Progress will reset upon exit. Player will begin at stage one if instance is engaged in the future. Sure to continue?]
"It is not," the woman in red said. The wheelchair creaked, rolling forward slowly. "Cicada Manor Museum has no end. There is more to explore. So much more. Are you not curious? Are you not tempted?"
The words grew shriller and shriller. Frances stood his ground with difficulty, not budging back a single step even as the woman came so close the wheels of her chair threatened to thread over his feet.
"I am not," Frances said and, very slowly, set the box on the ground, releasing it from custody.
The woman did not follow the motion, as she could not see. Her face remained tilted up, expectant.
"It is over," Frances told her.
The woman nodded. Behind Frances and unknown to him, half a dozen charred hands withdrew back into the mirror, having frozen an inch from his back.
[DING! Stage cleared! Congratulations to player! Game will exit in 3 –
3—
3̵̡͔̗̤̮̬̗͚͍͙͓͚̩̼̀ –]