Yn's POV
"So we don't have much to go off of except for this" Safiya said and held up the note. Calliope pulled the map down from the wall and placed it in front of us. There was a new place on the map, Fat Man Slims. "Beware in wait. The Serpent's Eyes lie in wait" Joey read from the map. Suddenly there is this woman peaking her head into the room. Right as she sees us, she takes off. We all get up and chase after her. Roi is finally able to nab her and we bring her back inside.
"Tie her up" Calliope said and handed me a rope. I tied her up so well that not even the best escape artist could get free. "Damn Yn" Manny said. "Who did you kidnap?" "YouTubers have weird talents" I say. "What were you doing" Nikita asked the woman. "I'm looking for the same thing you are. The Serpent's Eyes." "She's been bit" Joey said and pointed to her neck.
"The Snake Woman bit me" the lady replied. "And she stole my husband." "Do you know anything about an artifact" I ask her. She shrugged. "Look for suits in the lounge." "You guys go. I'll stay and watch her" Calliope said. Then we walked back into the lounge.
Right away, my mind thought of the suits on a card. If there is one thing that I can take away from doing this before, it's that nothing is ever literal. Suits that you wear would be too easy.
Just then, Joey picked up a deck of cards and Safiya found a tray with a club on it. I realized that on the back of the cards, there was black marker. So I turned them around and connected the marker. The lines formed an 8. Manny then found a bottle of perfume, and 2 dice, which magically flew onto the tray.
Manny also saw a card with a diamond on it. He grabbed the perfume and began to spray the card. When we sprayed it, we found a map of the room with an X on it. Safiya and Colleen started looking around and found a secret door beneath a little stool. Inside of it was a clock with 4 hands, each with a different suit on it and they all pointed in different directions.
"Wait a minute" Matt said. "This looks like a clock." He bent down and made the hand with the club point towards what would be 1 o'clock. Then, he pointed the heart hand towards 8. "There's a 10 on the diamond card" Manny said. Matt pointed the diamond hand towards 10 o'clock. "What about the spade" Joey asked. We started looking around and Safiya found a hand that goes on the mini statue of liberty. The hand also had a huge ring attached to it. "It has a spade on it" Colleen said.
"What if we look through it" Manny suggested. Joey peaked into the whole and somehow managed to see the number 5 on a poster. Safiya put it into the clock and the popped up revealing 2 stones and a note. "This is the 2nd of the wicked artifacts" Teala read aloud. "To cleanse the Serpent's eyes, you must find the head of a great snake, place the eyes inside, and bathe it in the blood of a Serpent's heart."
Suddenly, I hear screams coming from the arcade and we run to check it out. There was a Snake Woman leaning over the lady we captured. Right as we were spotted, the Snake Woman ran off, and the only person that could possibly help us was dead. So we start searching the body to see if we could find something useful, and Colleen finds some matches. "It says meet me at 7:30, Cindy" Colleen said. "It's from Fat Man Slims" Joey said and pointed to the back of the box of matches.
We decide to head to Fat Man Slims, and right as we walk past the arcade, the Snake Woman appears out of nowhere and bites Roi. Then the Snake Woman ran away. "You've been poisoned" Calliope said. "And in 20 minutes, it will eat through your organs. You must create an antidote." "There is a drugstore over here" Mortimer said.
So since someone has been bitten, we have to split up so that some of us can make an antidote. I'd rather have us all look for something that can get us out of here, but the more people that end up surviving, the merrier.
Me along with Matt, Colleen, Ro, Roi, Mortimer, and Calliope head over to the drugstore to try and make an antidote. Calliope and Roi sit down on a couch while the rest of us, excluding Mortimer, get to work. "There's an apothecary field guide" Matt said and picked up a book. "And here's the anti venom recipe. If done correctly, the liquid will be yellow."
You would think that this is easy, but it's not. Half of all of the words are crossed out. "The first ingredient is Hem something" Matt said. "Ingredient 2 is Snake something. Ingredient 3 is something oil. Ingredient 4 is a petal from an evening flower. And ingredient 5 is a pebble that causes water to bubble." "While Ro and Colleen were looking for the first 3, I decided to tackle the last too. Right off the bat, I found a jar labeled moon lily.
"This is the evening flower" I say and place it onto the desk. "It has to be." Then I began to look for a pebble. I remembered from school that calcium carbonate made water bubble. So I found that and placed it on the desk. Ro and Colleen also had a few bottles. Apparently, there were multiple things with the word parts Hem, Snake, and Oil in this building. "You guys better hurry" Mortimer said.
In the book with the antidotes in them, it says that it's important to add the venom of the venom of whatever bit you into the antidote. So we know that Snake venom has to go into the antidote. That meant that we knew 3 out of the 5 ingredients. We had multiple Hems and Oils. "Let's try Rose Oil" Matt said. "Because it looks like it's only one word. And then Hemp root or Hemlock." "Hemlock is very poisonous" I say. "Like deadly poisonous." "Hemp root it is then" Colleen said.
So we put all of the ingredients together and put the bottle into the centrifuge. I'm hoping that the liquid will be yellow so that we won't have to try another combination, but it turns out green. That means that something isn't right here. "What about a different oil" Mortimer said. "I think that there are more than 2 in here." "What about Castor Oil" Ro asked and pulled a bottle off of the shelf. We put in all of the same ingredients as before except for the oil which we changed from Rose to Castor. Then we put that bottle into the centrifuge.
The liquid turns bright yellow this time, thank god. Mortimer leads us back to the lounge where Roi was. And Teala was also there. Apparently, she got bit too. She should be thanking us that we made extra antidote.
We give Teala and Roi the antidote, and they don't die so I'm assuming that it worked. Then Mortimer took us to Fat Man Slims where the others were waiting for us. A man makes us take a card, but we're not allowed to flip them over yet. These 2 guys come in carrying something big with a sheet over it, and they place it on the table. When the sheet is pulled away, I see a huge Jenga game. I never really liked this game because I would get stressed out trying to not knock the tower over.
"There is a golden brick in this tower" the man said. "When you find it, place it on the stool. If you topple the tower, you automatically go into the final death challenge with no vote needed. Now, flip your cards over. This is the order you will take your turn." I flip over my card and see that I have the number 10. That can be both good or bad. Good because someone could topple the tower over before me. Bad because the tower might be unsteady when it gets to be my turn. Nikita has the Ace so she goes first.
When it gets to me, I play the safe card and pick a wooden piece that I know won't make the tower fall, but that means that its not a gold piece. "I'll sacrifice myself for you" Roi said to Matt when it was Matt's turn. "I mean, you saved my life." Instead though, Roi didn't do anything which got Nikita pissed.
"How are you not going to do anything when he saved your life" she said. "If you're the Daredevil, then prove it by stepping up and taking one for the team." "You want me to. Fine" Roi said. He pulled a block out that made the tower tumble over. The blocks spilled onto the floor and we started looking around for a golden one. Safiya finally finds it and places it on the stool.
All I'm thinking about though is that Roi is being sent to the final challenge. He just put his life on the line for us.
A chest pops open and inside is the Serpent's Head and a note. Safiya puts the Serpent's Eyes into the head before reading the note. "To finish cleansing the artifact, 2 must be selected by vote and search the innards of a serpent to claim it's heart." "We're going to have to vote" Joey said. Then we all head back to the lounge.
We split into 2 groups and start to discuss who we think we should vote in. And that made me kind of angry. "Can I say something" I say and stand up. Everyone turned towards me. "I don't like how we split up and talk. I feel like the Snake Woman already chose the 2 weakest people. And Teala, Roi, I love you guys. But we can only have the strongest move forwards. And if you all hate me for what I just said, then so what. I don't care what you guys think because at the end of the day, I think that the people who are doing well move forwards. And I've done one hell of a job so far. Thank you."
"I agree with Yn" Nikita said and stood up. "The Snake Queen basically gave us 2 people to put into the challenge. So I think we should pick them. Now can we please just vote?" "Yn, come cast your vote" Calliope said. I walked over to the table and chose Teala's card once again. After a few people went, Joey picked his card and turned around towards us. "Guys, there are only so many of each card." "So you're saying that some of us might not get to pick our first choice" Matt asked. Joey nodded.
"The person going into the challenge with the Daredevil is" Calliope said. She turned around the card revealing my face. "The Racecar Driver."
Some people gasped, and I could tell a few of them were fake. If telling the truth put me into a challenge, what else would get people killed?
I stood up and took off my jacket before throwing it onto the couch. "Hey Matt" I say. "Can you do me a favor?" "Sure" he replied. "If I don't make it, give this to the person that has a cold heart. They'll need it. It's a bit chilly." Then I turned around and stalked out of the lounge. Roi, Calliope, and Mortimer followed me out. I was lead over to a place that had a snake face as an arch. I could see the Snake Woman waiting for us inside.
"Put these on" Mortimer said and gave us each a baggy white suit along with black gloves. "Here are the rules" Calliope said and handed Roi a note. "Search the intestines of the Great Serpent to find the missing pieces of your mosaic. A completed image is at the end of the snake to guide you. The first to do so will be able to retrieve the heart and the other will be poisoned by the Snake Woman" he read. "Good luck" Calliope said. Then we ran over to separate sides of the yard.
I stuck my hands into the tubes and started feeling around for pieces of mosaic. There was blood, and guts, and gore everywhere. It was probably grosser than the toilet that I stuck my hand into. I finally found a piece and put it onto my mosaic. There was no way I was dying tonight. I went back to the tubes and squeezed intestines to see if there were pieces in them. I then found another piece. 2 down, 3 to go.
I found the 3rd and 4th tiles quickly after that, and then I had one more. I started throwing guts onto the floor in attempts to find the last piece. And finally, I saw it. I walked over to the mosaic and turned to look at Roi. "Yn don't" he said. "I'm sorry Roi" I say before putting the last piece into the mosaic. That's when the Snake Woman started walking towards Roi.
I felt really bad for winning this challenge because Roi was going to die. But it's kill or be killed in these situations.
I ran over to the container that held the heart and grabbed it just as the Snake Woman pounced onto Roi knocking him to the ground. Then she bit him in different places, which killed him. I ran back to Calliope and Mortimer who was holding the Serpent's Head. I squeezed the heart over the head, which made the Snake Woman disappear. I sighed and dropped the Serpent's heart before heading back to the lounge.
Right as I walked in, everyone cheered. I stepped out of the white suit and threw it and my gloves into the corner. "You're going to need this" Matt said and handed me my jacket. "You know, to keep the cold hearts away." I laughed and accepted the jacket before pulling him into a hug. After that, I placed the Serpent's Head into one of the cubbys.
"Roi didn't die in vain" Teala said. "We found these together." She held up a sun and a note. "The note says place me on the horizon." Colleen spots a picture of a horizon and Teala places the sun onto it. Then, a secret drawer opens up. "There's a note" Teala said. Colleen took it and began to read. "Inside lies the Harp of Lazarus. However, the box can only be opened by finding 2 brass coins that are hidden throughout Everlock, and require an additional task to obtain." I was all for trying to open this box, as long as it was going to help us of course.