Chapter 9: Going In Blind
"This is all so god damn insane," Arthur thought bitterly as the cave elevator descended down. "This place is huge. And people are in it. And my fucking wives are somewhere in here with these god damn maniacs. How much worse can this bullshit get?!"
Arthur took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He had to keep it cool. He knew this whole entire thing, especially in the last five years, had been absolutely ridiculous. It had its good moments, of course, but a lot of bad things happened too. And this, by far, was the worst thing Arthur could think of that had happened to Lilly.
But he wasn't going to give up. How could he possibly give up on Lilly? He made vows and he was going to stick by them. Arthur had come too far to give up.
He felt O'Callaghan's arm wrap around him, taking him from his thoughts as she snuggled up against him. "You seem troubled, my husband," she said.
Arthur nodded as he put an arm around her. "I am, but...I didn't wanna say nothin'."
"Why?"
Arthur looked at her with a frown. "I don't wanna seem like I'm complainin'."
O'Callaghan raised a brow. "Arthur...we're in Hell on a quest to..." she eyed Fuschia before whispering softly in Arthur's ear, "...save the people that we're supposed to save. I don't need to point out how unfair this all has been to us. You have grievances. Tell me."
Arthur glanced at Fuschia. "Let's talk about it later, I don't want people eavesdroppin'."
"Agreed."
The elevator came to a stop on the ground floor with a loud creaking of metal and a jolty movement. "Here we are!" Fuschia said happily.
Everybody walked out, all dressed in modern white snow gear and Fuschia pulled out something from her pocket as the others looked at themselves. "Uh...what kind of clothes are these?" Sir Jack asked.
"They help protect you from the cold," Fuschia replied, pulling a little item from what looked like a key. "Now, y'all good on your manuals?" The group nodded. "Okay. If you got any questions, just ask the book and it'll lead you to the right page."
As Fuschia put the item down in the ground, Arthur looked around at everybody. O'Callaghan chose to stick with the elf look, Lugh went with the look of a green and black drell, Sir Jack chose something called a ronso, which was a tall, blue furred lion man, and Arthur chose to be human, just with different physical looks. His hair was now medium length, wavy and dark brown and his eyes were gray. He was still handsome as ever, however, even though he was unrecognizable. Fuschia pressed a button on her key and a weird looking black and pink traveling machine with skis on the bottom.
"Alright, I gotta get goin'," she said, looking at everyone with a smirk. "Y'all look badass, though. Thanks so much for playin' the game."
"You're welcome, and...thanks for the help," Arthur said. "What's that?" Arthur asked as he pointed at the machine.
"A snowmobile," Fuschia replied before getting on it. "Have fun!" she said, starting the engine and driving off.
Arthur and the others watched her drive away and he shook his head. "We better get goin'," he said.
Holly neighed and stomped her hooves, reeling back a little by O'Callaghan. "What's wrong, Holly?"
They all heard a snapping of twigs and pulled their weapons out. "Careful, might be a monster," Arthur explained.
Some tree branches moved around as a big, red wolf head appeared through the brush, the wolf sniffing the ground. Arthur blinked in shock as the wolf came forward, one with no eyes, wires hanging out of its ears and chords drooping from its throat. A fiery red line appeared between her chest and Arthur's and he immediately felt like he was going to break down, but he held himself together.
"Lilly?" O'Callaghan gasped as Holly started rearing back.
"Calm her down," Arthur said as he took a few hesitant steps forward. While the others attempted to soothe Holly, the wolf lifted her head and sniffed the wind. She continued tracking a scent as she made her way towards Arthur, her tail wagging furiously. When the wolf got up to Arthur, her vocal chords curled up and started touching him. Arthur smiled as tears fell from his eyes, his hand stroking her face. "Oh Lilly," he sobbed.
The wolf took a big sniff of Arthur and her tail wagged even faster before she began licking his face like crazy. Arthur slumped to his knees and covered his eyes with a hand as he cried silently, his shoulders shaking. Lilly nestled her head in his lap as she laid down, Arthur wrapping his arms around her large neck while he breathed her in. He couldn't help it, this was just so much to handle.
"Darrach, ya might wantah give Arthur a dose of yer Anti-Berserker medicine," Arthur heard Sir Jack say.
"Lord Morgan, do you consent to another dosage?" Darrach asked.
"Yes," Arthur sniffed. After a few moments, Arthur sat up straight and wiped his eyes before clearing his throat. He already felt a lot better. "Apologies, folks. I uh...heh, guess I'm..."
"Ya were havin' a moment," Sir Jack continued for him. "And that's all fine and dandy, laddie, but right now, ya gotta suck it up."
Arthur nodded as he gently scratched behind Lilly's ear. "Yes," he said before standing up. "Well, next we gotta find Rose and the others."
Once Holly was calm enough, O'Callaghan got up on her and Lugh and Jack walked over to Lilly, holding out their hands. "Hello, doll face," Lugh chuckled.
Arthur arched a brow at Lugh as Lilly sniffed their hands, going into a happy frenzy as she licked both their faces. "Did you just call my wife doll face?" he asked curiously.
"I used tah call her that all the time," Lugh said with a grin.
Sir Jack laughed as he pet Lilly's head. "Ya really been having a rough go of it, haven't ya, Lilly?" he asked. "That's okay. Ya come from strong stock."
Holly trotted over hesitantly in the deep snow, whinnying and braying briefly while tossing her head. O'Callaghan squinted her eyes as she looked at the giant red wolf. "Uh...look at her back," she said.
Arthur got to Lilly's side and glimpsed at the thick red fur on her back. He cocked his head when he saw small, pointy bumps protruding out of her shoulder blades. "Huh. Were those there before?" he asked.
"No."
"Hmm. Well, I'm sure we'll find out later," he said before patting Lilly's side. "Where do you think we should start lookin', honey?" he inquired to O'Callaghan.
"I don't know. Without my seer eye, it's hard to say," she replied, humming as she looked deep in thought.
"So we're goin' in blind," Arthur said, pulling out his manual and flipping to a certain page. "We're here on the map, " he said, pointing to a part of the page, "but...most the map is blank except where we are."
"Ah, I see where this is going. The parts of the map that are blank are the parts you haven't been to yet, so as you travel, the map will fill in," Darrach explained.
"How the hell do you know that?" Arthur asked.
"I've been looking through my timeline archives for references to "gaming simulations" and...well, you're essentially in something called a video game."
"A video game?"
"Yes. There's seems to be a lot of elements from different ones, too. The battle system that Fuschia is in control of, for example, is from a series called Final Fantasy. Those games were made by the Japanese and-"
"Alright, I...I think I get it," Arthur chuckled. "We should get goin'."
"But we dunna know where tah look fer the others," Lugh explained.
"I'm sure we'll find 'em. We just need to...ask around," Arthur said.
"Ask around?!" Jack yelled. "We're in fecking Hell and ya wantah ask the bleedin' inhabitants where our people are?! Like they're going tah tell ya?!"
Arthur shrugged. "They might, they might not, but we can at least find out useful information and...I got a good feelin' we're gonna end up where we need to be," he said before tucking his manual away and walking over to Holly and O'Callaghan. "I'll ride with this wife."
O'Callaghan giggled as Arthur climbed behind her and wrapped his arms around her. Sir Jack shook his head. "So this is yer plan. Wandering around Hell, hoping tah stumble upon our people, free them, then kill Mallacht?"
"And Aynaet, too," Arthur added. "I think she and that lady I saw in my, uh..." he sighed. "That threat I got are the same person. But unless you got a better idea, Lord O'Callaghan..." Arthur trailed off.
O'Callaghan turned her head to look at Arthur. "You and Dad don't get along very well, do you?"
"Not always, no," Arthur grumbled as Lugh and Jack argued about who was going to sit where on Lilly's back.
"Why?"
"Hell if I know, maybe he thinks I ain't good enough for you..." He kissed her cheek. "I did miss you a lot, though."
O'Callaghan smirked and leaned against her husband, watching her father and friend shove each other while laughing. "I missed you too."
"Are you sure you're okay for this? I mean...you spent seventy two years bein' tortured by songs. Ain't you...traumatized?"
O'Callaghan blew a raspberry. "Not all of them were like "Hotel California". A lot of them were pretty creative, actually. Say what you will about Mallacht, but he's uh...he's got quite an imagination. And he's intelligent...and I daresay he's even charming."
Arthur barked with laughter. "Charming? Really?"
O'Callaghan shrugged while Sir Jack and Lugh climbed on Lilly. "He didn't really give me too much attention. He left the torturing itself to Jorōgumo, but Mallacht would visit on occasion to check up on how things were going."
"And he'd speak to you?" Arthur asked as they got moving.
"Yes. He wanted feedback."
"Feedback?! On what?!"
"On how I would rate my eternal torture on a scale of one to ten. He'd make me do surveys and questionnaires. It was very strange, but...when he first took us, I told him that being tortured with music was the worst thing I could imagine, so that ended up being my hell." A loud, innocent sigh escaped her. "Can you imagine being tortured by listening to the same songs over and over? Especially ones that you really, really like?"
Arthur's face brightened into a big smile. "You clever little shit," he laughed. "You tricked him into doing that, didn't you?"
"Yes," O'Callaghan giggled. "Don't get me wrong, it still was rather dreadful. Just not as dreadful as Mallacht thought it would be. And the puppets and Jorōgumo? They weren't so bad after a while."
"Really?"
"Mmhmm! She kept a close eye on me, that Jorōgumo. So...naturally, we became what she often called, "frenemies"."
"Frenemies?" Arthur laughed. "What are frenemies?"
"Not exactly friends, not exactly enemies...just somewhere in between."
"So...are you upset that I killed her?" Arthur asked with a regretful expression.
O'Callaghan shook her head. "Nope. As I said, it was still rather dreadful."
After a while of chatting and riding along, they all came across a river and Arthur cocked his head. "I know this place. This river is called Spider Gorge and it flows into Lake Isabella. I wonder if this place got a Colter, too."
"Colter?" Sir Jack asked.
"An old abandoned mining town just north of here. It's the place we settled for a few days after that Blackwater job went wrong and we had to flee."
"So...the cave we just came out of? That's the one Lilly took refuge in?"
"Yes."
"Alright. Well, we should head south."
"Wait..." Arthur said. "There's something north of Colter that I would like to see."
"What is it?" Sir Jack asked, sounding annoyed.
Arthur cleared his throat. "Well, uh...it's personal."
"We dunna have the time!"
"Sure we do!" O'Callaghan chimed in. "I wanna go see it too!"
"Ya know what he's talkin' about?" her father asked as they turned to head north.
"Yes. It's where Lilly and Arthur first...uh...heh, on second thought, you might not want to know, Dad."
Lugh barked with laughter when Sir Jack groaned. "Oh, fer the love of everything saintly and holy!" he yelled in misery. "Yeah, I dunna need tah know any of that."
Lugh laughed even harder. "Oh, yer gonna hate yer life once we get outta here with everybody. Arthur and his harem fuck like really loud rabbits!"
"Lugh!" O'Callaghan scolded with an embarrassed laugh while Arthur and Sir Jack expressed their discomfort.
In a brightly lit, ornately decorated royal bedroom was a black velvet and gold covered chair. And beside that chair was a woman with bright yellow locks that were held back in a ponytail. She had yellow eyes and wore blue scrubs, holding a stethoscope in her hand. Two little curved black horns stuck out from her forehead.
"Mother, I need to examine you," the woman said in an Australian accent, looking down with a stern look at the woman sitting in the chair.
A clawed granite colored hand appeared over the arm of the chair, a single digit pointing at the physician. Clicks and a hiss were heard in a calm, soft tone. The blonde woman rolled her eyes and took a deep breath. "I can't treat you if you won't let me examine you."
More clicks, a wheeze and some hissing were heard again. And again, the doctor rolled her eyes. "Yes, that is true, but you know Father won't allow it," she said in annoyance.
A low growl emerged from the woman's mother, her hand drooping to rest in the chair. Soft clicks and breathing followed. The physician groaned loudly. "Don't you, "Canary" me, Mother. You got yourself into this mess!"
A long hiss was the mother's response. Canary shut her eyes before walking towards the bedroom door. "You're only making things worse by not giving Father what he wants," she mumbled before opening the door and slamming it shut behind her. "Ugh! That woman!"
Canary heard laughing down the hall and she turned to see her father King Mallacht standing in the large corridor dressed in a black and gray Armani suit and his hair tied back in a loose ponytail. "Still won't let you near her, huh?" he chuckled as he approached.
Canary shook her head. "Oh, I can be near her. She just won't let me touch her," she explained. "Very much like your relationship with her."
Mallacht arched a brow. "I don't remember asking for your sass, young lady."
Canary chortled deeply. "As if you'd ask for anything. You just take...so you're going to take my sass, mother fucker."
Mallacht clicked his tongue. "Now you're really pushing it," he smirked. "Go on, keep going. See what happens."
Canary heard a door open and slam shut. They both looked to see Queen Aynaet walking away from her bedroom. Mallacht frowned as he watched her form in a black dress grace through the hallway with her black staff in hand.
"Aynaet," he called out. She stopped, the clanking of her metallic stubbed staff coming to a halt. "Where are you going?"
The queen gave a few clicks before continuing down the hall. Mallacht groaned and marched after her. "What do you mean out?!" he snapped. The queen disappeared into the darkness and Mallacht. "What the hell? Our anniversary is tomorrow, there are preparations to be made...and she has the fucking nerve to go out?!"
"You know she doesn't celebrate it," Canary said. "Not after what you did to her."
Mallacht narrowed his eyes at his daughter. "I outta kill you for bringing that up."
Canary shrugged as she walked away. "You could, but you won't."
