A/N: Finally, we've reached Curse of Dreadbear! There might only be fewer "sets" of minigames in Curse of Dreadbear, but there's a lot of variety to be found within those games! And just as much variety to be found with how the ghost kids will react to them. Once again, I will warn you ahead of time that a few elements will be changed from how they operate in the actual game.
Also, I highly recommend getting Curse of Dreadbear DLC. You don't need a VR headset to play it (Flat Mode exists for a reason, after all), and for $10 it's definitely worth it.
Thanatos D.E.M.: Yeah, the Nightmares are always incredibly fun to write! To be honest, my work will probably ramp up from this point forward without showing signs of stopping, so I probably won't be writing any major stories after I complete this one (and even if I do, they won't be nearly as long as Mike's New Ghostly Family).
Jack0Lanterns: Yeah, Nightmare Fredbear is definitely the most sinister and least friendly Greater Nightmare of the three. On the scale of Affably Evil to Faux Affably Evil, Nightmare Fredbear decidedly falls on the latter, with Nightmarionne being in the former and Nightmare falling between the two depending on who he's interacting with.
Nightmarionne's level was easily one of the creepiest in all of Help Wanted. The fact that he repeats his kill lines from UCN doesn't help much.
And I dunno about Charlie being a better gamer than Mike. The man's got literally decades more experience than Charlie in the gaming department XD
TU4Q: Who else but Nightmarionne? XD And yeah, apart from the primary objective of trying to find any more secrets related to Glitchtrap and making the possibility of a returning Glitchtrap absolutely zero (apart from the one that already escaped), this was the purpose of bringing the Nightmares into the game! Although right now the Nightmares are channeling their consciousness through the copies of themselves that exist in the VR game, normally they'd behave more like programs and give off preprogrammed taunt lines whenever they "kill" a player. And all of the levels you see are directly from the actual game itself, with only small variations every so often. So yes, you try to fight off animatronics from invading your room in Night Terrors a la FNaF 4 in the actual Help Wanted game (except for perhaps Circus Baby).
Crazyhead03: Thank you! I hope you keep enjoying the chapters as they keep coming!
Guest: Oh, Nightmare is VERY much aware of evil's self-destructive nature, something that he actively tries to avoid. There's a reason why Nightmare displays and accepts the importance of virtues that other demons will throw out the window, and it's not because of his moral code. He focuses on pragmatism first and foremost, which is the same reason why he willingly sides with Good on occasion. I'm pleasantly surprised you brought up the Persona 5 example since I'm familiar with that game as well, and yeah, Shido going out of his way to be a dick for extremely petty reasons is exactly the kind of behavior that Nightmare would sneer at.
As for their views on incompetence, keep in mind that, for all the positive characteristics that the Nightmares display, they're still demons and aren't going to have charitable opinions on other people in general until they prove themselves. That being said, they will take context into account. If someone makes a mistake because they didn't know better or fails to deal with a situation because they were missing important information, they'll be less harsh than on someone who SHOULD have known better but fucked up anyway. They're so contemptuous of Fazbear Entertainment because anybody with a brain can realize that trying to resurrect a franchise tainted with tragedy and horror is a fucking bad idea.
Slweaver: Thank you! Hope you like the Curse of Dreadbear chapters!
AlchemyWriter: Yep, we've FINALLY gotten there :D. I feel like Fritz would either go for it or protest vehemently to maintain his dignity (though given this is Fritz we're talking about, yeah, good luck with that…)
MothraRanger: I'm proud of that line, lol. Another one of my favorite lines from this chapter was Mike saying "a thousand times zero is still zero, my dude." :P
FireFlamerx9z: They're demons, what did you expect :P
MegaMaster78: There'll be plenty more to come, that's for sure!
Chapter 139 – Curse of Dreadbear Part 1
Having completed the normal versions of the two Dark Rooms levels featuring the Nightmares, Jeremy opted to do the Blacklight versions of those levels as quickly as possible before handing off the VR headset to someone else. The Blacklight Plushtrap level had turned Plushtrap gigantic (or turned Jeremy extremely small, it was hard to tell which), while the Blacklight Nightmare B.B. level had filled the room with balloons to make it harder to tell where the animatronic was. Despite the atmospheric changes, it was surprisingly easy for Jeremy to finish both levels successfully on the first try. At the end of the day, what mattered when it came to winning was tracing the footsteps of the Nightmare children and shining the flashlight when those footsteps marked their location over the X, and the atmospheric changes didn't change the fundamental pattern of their movements from the normal mode. Plushtrap and Nightmare B.B. both seemed to recognize this as he completed their levels, as they simply and impatiently told him to essentially get a move on and not waste their time. A request that Jeremy was more than happy to carry out.
With all the levels completed in the main game, the only thing left to investigate was the strange cupcake-like pail that sat on the monitors to the right. A panel stuck out of the pail's opening with a button on it, inviting him to press it. Jeremy did so, wondering what awaited him in Nightmare's special DLC.
The world around him faded, and when it reappeared, he found himself in a barren, empty dirt clearing. He was standing in front of a large wooden wall that had pumpkins scattered next to it with an old-fashioned movie projector immediately to his right and an empty fire pit in front of him to his left. The movie projector was projecting light onto the wall in front of him, flashing the words "CURSE OF DREADBEAR."
"Curse of Dreadbear?" Jeremy repeated the name in his mind. "Is that the name of the new part of the game Nightmare made?"
He was getting a distinct spooky impression that reminded him of Halloween, an impression that was further reinforced by the rest of the world he now found himself in. All around him were twisted, gnarled, and dead trees that collectively created some kind of demented forest, with Withered Bonnie lurking in the trees behind him. He could also see several pieces of wooden tables and chairs scattered haphazardly and a few TVs placed here and there, their screens glowing brightly in contrast to the dark atmosphere and flickering with static.
"What am I even looking at?" Jeremy wondered. "Is this how they did Halloween years ago? I feel like this is Halloween-themed but I don't remember seeing any of this the last time we went Trick-or-Treating…"
"ARE YOU QUITE FINISHED LOUNGING AROUND?" a dark, booming voice interrupted his thoughts.
"Ack!" Jeremy merely jumped as he looked up towards the source of the voice. He hadn't noticed it before, but looming above the wooden wall was a giant animatronic. The animatronic himself was shrouded in the darkness, except for the glowing yellow eyes that seemed to stare directly into his soul. The only thing that Jeremy could tell from the silhouette was that he looked like a Freddy of some kind, though this was nothing like any Freddy he had ever seen before.
"Sorry," he quickly replied, "I was just looking around. This is…quite the place."
"OUR MASTER OUTDID HIMSELF WITH THE CREATION OF THIS WORLD," the mysterious Freddy agreed. "AS YOU WILL SOON SEE ONCE YOU ENTER IT PROPER. ALLOW ME TO BID YOU WELCOME…TO THE CURSE OF DREADBEAR DLC!"
"Thanks," Jeremy replied. "So does that mean that you're Dreadbear?"
"INDEED," Dreadbear confirmed. "YOU OR YOUR SIBLINGS WILL SEE ME AGAIN, SOON ENOUGH."
"Is there anything I need to know before I go in?" Jeremy asked.
"THERE IS PERHAPS ONE THING I SHOULD INFORM YOU AHEAD OF TIME," Dreadbear answered after a few seconds of thought. "THE COVER STORY NIGHTMARE MADE FOR THIS DLC IS THAT IT IS AN ATTEMPT TO REMOVE GLITCHTRAP FROM THE GAME. THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE IN THE SENSE THAT OUR LORD PLACED OUR ESSENCES IN THE GAME TO REMOVE GLITCHTRAP. BUT IT IS A MINOR DETAIL WITH LITTLE REAL MEANING SINCE WE HAVE ALREADY DEALT WITH THAT PROBLEM AS FAR AS THE GAME IS CONCERNED."
"…why do I feel like that's not what you really wanted to tell me?" the former Bonnie inhabitant muttered.
"BECAUSE IT IS NOT," Dreadbear replied, and Jeremy could swear that he could see the smug smirk on the animatronic's face even through the darkness. "WHAT REALLY MATTERS IS THAT NIGHTMARE DID INDEED FIND SOMETHING RATHER SIGNIFICANT IN THIS GAME. SOMETHING THAT COULD BE HELPFUL IN DEALING WITH THE TRIALS TO COME."
Jeremy's eyes widened. "Wait, REALLY?" he exclaimed.
"YES. HOWEVER, THE SECRET IN QUESTION HAS BEEN CAREFULLY HIDDEN IN ONE OF THE LEVELS TO PREVENT FAZBEAR ENTERTAINMENT FROM FINDING IT AND DESTROYING IT TO COVER UP THEIR FAILINGS. IN ORDER TO UNLOCK THAT LEVEL, YOU WILL NEED TO COMPLETE EVERY OTHER LEVEL IN THE DLC FIRST," Dreadbear warned.
"Oof," he groaned, "sounds like it might take a while."
"A NECESSARY MEASURE TO ENSURE THAT ONLY THE MOST PERSISTENT GAMERS DETERMINED TO FIND THE SECRETS OF THIS GAME WILL DISCOVER WHAT OUR LORD HAS FOUND," Dreadbear commented.
Jeremy nodded. Given what he knew about Fazbear Entertainment, the extra security measures were probably for the best. "Okay…might as well get started," he commented, his eyes falling to a button next to the projector that he hadn't noticed before. "Thanks for the heads-up," he thanked Dreadbear as he moved on to the main hub of the DLC proper.
"Keep in mind that this DLC pack is nothing more than a festive holiday themed add-on, which has absolutely no hidden intent or purpose, so have fun!" HandUnit greeted him as the game loaded.
"Uh huh, yeah, sure…" Jeremy drawled as he turned his attention to the environment. The world he found himself in now was arguably even more impressive than what he had just seen, all of it under an unnaturally dark green-colored sky that reminded him of a swamp. He was still in the middle of a field, but this time he could see his surroundings much more clearly than he could in the introduction screen. The area he was now in could only be described as a creepy farmyard of some kind, as Jeremy could see the outlines of cornfields, hills, and even a windmill in the far distance. Much more tellingly, there was a tractor to his immediate left and a dilapidated but still imposing farmhouse to the right. The entry to the farmhouse was barricaded with more wooden blocks, making it impossible to see what was inside, but Jeremy could still see the faint traces of purple light within. Jeremy couldn't tell if that was meant to be a reference to the Purple Guy or just an aesthetic choice, but he figured it was best not to ask.
The Halloween atmosphere was also in full force here, arguably even more pronounced than in the intro area. Though there were much less of them, there were still quite a few gnarled, twisted dead trees in the area around him, a remnant of the forest he had been in seconds before. To compensate for this, there were many more pumpkins right next to him, some of which had been transformed into Jack-o-Lanterns with ghoulish faces that glowed with fiery yellow light from within. Jeremy glanced at one to his left and was shocked to discover that it had a beak like Chica. "Holy crap," he muttered as he looked at the pumpkins' carved faces more closely. "I think these are meant to be the animatronics as Jack-O-Lanterns!" He couldn't help but be impressed. "That's actually really cool! Maybe we can do something like this when Halloween comes up!" he thought.
There were still more details to be found beyond the Halloween decorations. As Jeremy looked around him, he found a distant lake to his left with disturbingly tranquil black waters, faintly illuminated by the light from the lampposts. And right behind him was a large wooden booth with an old car in the distance with its headlights glowing faintly. The booth had an orange banner that proudly proclaimed "FALLFEST '83," and judging from the fact that it held a box filled with pumpkins Jeremy presumed that it was meant to be selling the pumpkins or something similar.
"Fallfest '83…" Jeremy muttered. "Isn't 1983 the year that the first Bite happened? The year when the Nightmares started getting involved in the Fazbear tragedy?" That was the best explanation he could come up with for why Nightmare had referenced that year, perhaps a twisted, mocking commemoration of Liz's younger brother's death and the Nightmares' attack on her older brother's mind.
There was still a large computer in front of him, situated neatly on a haystack, though this time was the only monitor present. There was only one button in front of the monitor that led back to the intro, although the Blacklight switch and the cupcake pail leading back to the main game were still present. Jeremy experimentally flipped the Blacklight switch, which turned the entire sky purple and gave the world an unnatural purple hue, but also caused all of the levels present on the screen to disappear. A quick investigation revealed that there were no levels at all in the Blacklight mode, so Jeremy had no choice but to switch it back to normal.
"Kinda disappointed that there aren't any Blacklight levels," Jeremy thought as he picked up one of the many pieces of candy strewn across the haystack and "ate" it, "but otherwise, this is really cool! Nightmare did an amazing job creating this new world!"
As much as he wanted to get playing on one of the levels, the former Bonnie inhabitant knew that he had already taken way too long, and it was time to let someone else take a turn. He turned off the VR headset and took it off Rockstar Bonnie's head. "I finished all of the Nightmare levels in the main game," he reported. "And I took a look at the new DLC Nightmare put into the main game, though I didn't actually play any of the games. It's…really something." He quickly gave them a description of what he had seen, also taking the opportunity to remind them all that the Nightmares themselves were channeling their essences through their in-game counterparts. "Who wants to play?" he finished.
The ghosts in the animatronics looked at each other uncertainly. "You know what?" Circus Baby finally ventured. "I'll just do one or two games and that'll be it. I know that playing through the VR game is a lot more important for you guys than it could ever be for me. Why don't I just get it out of the way right now and you guys can figure out who goes next while I take care of my part quickly?" she suggested.
"I'd be down for that," Rockstar Freddy agreed. The other animatronics shrugged and accepted Baby's offer.
"Great, that works out then!" Rockstar Bonnie held the VR headset out to Circus Baby, who accepted it with a nod. "It really is amazing just what Nightmare pulled off."
"I'm looking forward to it!" Baby declared as she put the headset on and activated. Once she was back in the game world, Liz teleported herself over to the world of Curse of Dreadbear through the cupcake bucket. She took a moment to marvel at all the sights around her, amazed at how Nightmare had really managed to capture the essence of Halloween and even autumn in general through what he had created.
"So what levels do we have?" Liz asked aloud as she scrolled through the screens. Unlike the main levels, there were only three sets, each of which was clearly centered around a Halloween theme of some kind. "Afraid of the Dark, Spooky Mansion, Danger! Keep Out!" Liz read each of the titles. They were all accompanied by Helpy transformed into a Halloween creature of some kind: a werewolf, a vampire, and a bat respectively. Unfortunately, Liz couldn't really tell if there was a specific trend that all of the levels in a set followed, for the sets all had every level except for the first grayed-out. Though given that the "Danger! Keep Out!" had its first level marked as "Night 1," she could guess that Nights 2 and 3 would be the other levels.
"I should probably not do that one," Liz thought. She'd promised that she'd only play 1 or 2 levels, and if she played "Danger! Keep Out!" she'd probably end up having to play all 3 (going through almost a third of the total levels in the process). So that left Afraid of the Dark and Spooky Mansion as her only two options. Liz checked out the first level in Spooky Mansion…and immediately decided not to do that one. The only level available was Hallway Crawl, which featured a dark hallway with only a faint bit of light shining through…and the ghoulish image of what looked like a Nightmare version of Foxy glaring menacingly at her with his only yellow eyes.
That left only Afraid of the Dark and its first level, Plushkin Patch. At first, Liz didn't register the name of the level and its meaning, given that she'd picked it on impulse. It was only when she was at the commands screen that her mind started to catch up with what her eyes had just processed.
"Wait…" Liz mumbled, a feeling of dread growing in her stomach. "Is this…is this another Plushbaby level? Please…" she begged, "please don't let this be another Plushbaby level…"
The level loaded…and she was greeted with a terrifying sight. The flashlight with 10 glowing green bars in her right hand, confirming her worst fears. "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!" Liz all but screamed, the horrible flashbacks of the two other Plushbaby levels roaring back to haunt her thoughts. "WHY? WHY DO I HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS SHIT AGAIN?" she shouted furiously. Forcing herself to calm down, she tried to deal with this naturally. "All right, well, last time I could get in a few free seconds by not shining the flashlight and letting them activate by themselves, so…"
"SCREEEEEEEEEEE!" Her thought process was viciously interrupted by a Plushbaby popping up right in her face, shaking violently and screaming.
"Oh, come the FUCK ON!" Liz yelled. "I can't even do that anymore? You've got to be fucking kidding me!"
The orange-haired ghost girl was seething as her screen dissolved into static, but as she was sent to the Game Over screen she was treated to a surprise that took the edge out of her anger.
The Game Over screen was no longer Pirate's Cove. It wasn't even inside a building. There was still a TV showing an unfortunate victim stuffed in a Freddy Fazbear suit with the two buttons next to it, although now it was a on a tree stump with a Chica Jack-O-Lantern replacing the cupcake.
And that was only the beginning of the changes. On closer inspection, Liz realized that she was in a vast graveyard underneath a dark purple sky, with tombstones scattered everywhere. The cemetery only barely registered in Liz's mind, however, as her attention was all but completely taken up by the GIGANTIC animatronic that towered over her. A monstrous animatronic that looked like a Frankenstein version of Freddy with glowing yellow eyes and hands with razor-sharp claws not unlike the Nightmares. The Frankenstein Freddy's left hand was grasping the top of a stone mausoleum, while the right hand was extended towards her as if he was trying to grab her.
"Oh my God…" Liz stared in disbelief at the animatronic. "What the hell am I looking at?"
"THE ANSWER IS IN THE NAME OF THIS GAME," the giant animatronic answered, taking Liz off-guard despite Jeremy's earlier warning.
"Dreadbear?" she finally guessed.
"IT APPEARS YOUR WITS HAVEN'T COMPLETELY ABANDONED YOU, LASS," a guttural voice growled from behind her. Liz whirled around, and was greeted with a hellish abomination of an animatronic standing behind the massive iron gate to the cemetery. The creature looked like Foxy, only just barely. He was exactly what Liz imagined a demonic Foxy to look like, a twisted and monstrous version of Fritz's favorite animatronic wreathed in hellish flames. Even his hook had been replaced with a razor-sharp sickle, a weapon that invoked images of the grim reaper. He was easily one of the most terrifying animatronics Liz had ever seen, and she was supremely thankful that he was standing outside of the closed iron gate.
"WHENEVER YOU STUMBLE, WHENEVER YOU FAIL IN THE TASK APPOINTED TO YOU, WE WILL BE WAITING FOR YOU," Dreadbear's voice rumbled, the dark promise followed by a cruel, mocking laugh.
"THIS IS THE FIRST TIME YOU HAVE COME HERE, LASS," the demonic Foxy added, his fangs stretched into an unholy grin. "COME NOW. SHARE WITH US THE ACCOUNT OF YOUR FAILURE. HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH…"
Liz's anger returned as she recalled how the Plushbabies had immediately jumpscared her, these new animatronics' mockery not helping that in the slightest. "You wanna know how I failed?" she snapped, her fury overriding her sense of caution. "Because of those FUCKING Plushbabies!"
Immediately, both Dreadbear and the demonic Foxy stopped laughing. The menace in Dreadbear's eyes faded considerably and was replaced by…was that…sympathy? "WAIT, REALLY?" the giant Frankenstein Freddy asked, the utterly casual way in which he asked the question breaking the immersion. "OUT OF ALL THE LEVELS YOU COULD HAVE CHOSEN TO BEGIN WITH, YOU CHOSE WHAT IS ARGUABLY THE WORST POSSIBLE LEVEL OUT OF ALL OF THEM?"
"It's not like I had much of a choice!" Liz retorted. "I told my brothers and sisters that I'd leave most of the game to them, so I had to choose between the creepy hallway or the Plushkin Patch. I didn't realize it was a fucking Plushbaby level until it had already started!"
"YOU COULD ALWAYS JUST ABANDON IT AND LEAVE YOUR FELLOW BRATS TO THEIR FATE, LASS," the demonic Foxy helpfully suggested, to which she gave him a thoroughly unimpressed look.
"What are you even called?" Liz wondered. "Nightmare Foxy? Demon Foxy?"
"NIGHTMARE FOXY IS MY FORM WHEN I'M NOT SET AFLAME. INFERNAL FOXY WOULD BE A MORE ACCURATE NAME, BUT I THINK…GRIM FOXY SUITS MY MIEN, WOULDN'T YOU SAY, LASS? YES…I THINK GRIM FOXY WILL DO."
"Okay…Grim Foxy. I'll remember that."
"SEE THAT YOU DO," Grim Foxy hissed.
"None of this still changes the fact that I have to deal with those fucking Plushbabies again!" Liz complained.
"AH, YES…I MUST ADMIT, EVEN I FIND THAT LEVEL EXTRAORDINARILY IRRITATING," Dreadbear admitted. "NORMALLY, OUR MASTER DOES NOT ENGAGE IN PETTY ACTS OF EVIL, THOUGH I SUPPOSE HE FOUND THE TEMPTATION TOO ENTICING TO RESIST THIS ONE TIME. THAT BEING SAID," he added, "I AM WILLING TO OFFER YOU AID FOR THIS LEVEL, AND THIS LEVEL ONLY."
Liz immediately perked up at the word "aid." "Please, ANY help you can give me would be huge," she pleaded.
"NIGHTMARE INCLUDED A LITTLE TRICK TO CONQUERING THE PLUSHKIN PATCH, LASS," Grim Foxy explained, "A TRICK THAT YOU WOULD NOT HAVE WORKED IN THE ORIGINAL PLUSHBABY LEVELS. OUR MASTER MIGHT HAVE BEEN CRUEL ENOUGH TO BRING BACK THE PLUSHBABY LEVELS IN A NEW FORM, BUT TO DO SO WITHOUT OFFERING ANY METHOD TO MAKE IT LESS AGGRAVATING WAS TOO VILE EVEN FOR HIM."
"GO TO THE VERY BEGINNING OF THE GAME, AND FROM THERE GO TO THE OPTIONS," Dreadbear instructed. "GO TO THE VISUALS, AND TURN THE BRIGHTNESS ALL THE WAY UP. THAT SHOULD MAKE THE PLUSHKIN PATCH LEVEL MUCH LESS ANNOYING TO DEAL WITH."
"Thanks!" Liz thanked him, genuinely excited for the first time. "Hopefully this won't take me hours like the original Plushbaby levels did!"
"AS AMUSING AS WATCHING YOU RAGE WOULD BE, LASS, WE ARE NOT PARTICULARLY INTERESTED IN WAITING HOURS FOR YOU TO COMPLETE THE PLUSHKIN PATCH," Grim Foxy growled. "TEDIUM IS SOMETHING TO BE AVOIDED IF AT ALL POSSIBLE."
"AND THOSE PLUSHBABIES ARE EVIL EVEN BY OUR STANDARDS," Dreadbear commented. "NOW GO."
Liz did as she was instructed, deciding not to overstay her welcome. She went all the way back to the main level hub, and then to the introductory menu screen. She went into the options and turned the brightness all the way up, so far that it actually pushed it past the limits of the bar. She immediately noticed the world around her brighten up, with even the very darkness of the room she was in turning more grayish in color. Once she was done, Liz went all the way back to the Plushkin Patch level, hoping that Dreadbear and Grim Foxy's advice would actually make a difference.
Right away, the differences in the Plushkin Patch level were downright staggering with the brightness turned up. She could actually see the level environment, even through the layer of darkness placed on it. The Plushkin Patch level still followed the "farmyard" motif that had been present in the main level hub, only there were many, many more pumpkins and a few haystacks scattered around and the location itself was in front of a thick, dense layer of forest. A few twisted, dead trees were scattered here and there, and in front of her and to the left was a tractor and behind it a wooden wagon filled with pumpkins. Liz's immediate attention, however, was drawn to the alarm clock in front of her that showed 12 AM…and the three Plushbabies sitting in front of her. Her most hated adversaries had returned, though this time they were now wearing animatronic masks. The red one was wearing a BB mask, the blue one a Freddy mask, and the yellow one a Chica mask.
"I see you, you little shits," Liz muttered, getting no small level of satisfaction from being able to see them despite the darkness. "Get the hell out of my sight!"
She shined the flashlight on the mask-wearing Plushbabies, who vanished from sight with three high-pitched giggles. Now that the brightness had been over-saturated, Liz could scan the entire area around her without needing to use her precious flashlight battery. Part of her had always been curious how the game worked behind the darkness, and her questions were answered when the red BB mask-wearing Plushbaby randomly appeared out of nowhere on one of the tree branches.
"Really? They just appear out of thin air?" Liz muttered as she shined the light on the Plushbaby, causing it to disappear with a giggle and a head shake. "That's kinda dumb." Then again, Nightmare probably hadn't found a need to program an appearing animation for the Plushbabies since the level wasn't designed to be played with brightness at max…or the demon lord just flat-out hadn't give a shit. Given that this was the Plushbabies, Liz couldn't blame him in the slightest for that…although she had to admit that giving the Plushbabies animatronic masks had been a nice and unique touch.
"Does this trick really work on the original Plushbaby levels?" the former Baby inhabitant wondered as she shined the light on the BB Plushbaby again, who had hidden behind the large wooden wheel this time. "If it did, I'm going to be really mad that I wasted hours on that when I could have just cheesed the whole thing!"
1 AM rolled around, and Liz was instantly on guard, knowing that the blue Plushbaby would be joining its red counterpart soon. The orange-haired ghost girl had quickly realized that, although oversaturating the brightness had made the level significantly easier, it did not guarantee a free pass. She still needed to find the Plushbabies to get rid of them with the flashlight, and there were plenty of places in the vast farmyard for them to hide.
"Give us something good to eat," a soft female voice whispered.
"Oh no…" Liz groaned as she tried to find the Plushbaby before it could jumpscare her. Fortunately, she was able to catch the blue Freddy Plushbaby hiding behind one of the haystacks in time, its head shaking crazily as it prepared to strike. Liz promptly shined the light on it, causing it to disappear with a giggle.
As she looked around for the Plushbabies in the darkness, she heard a "thudding sound" and saw one of the Plushbabies, one wearing a Bonnie mask that she definitely hadn't seen before, waddling on the ground through the haystacks. If she didn't hate the Plushbabies with a burning passion, she would have found it adorable. "Wait, what the heck?" she exclaimed. She spent a few seconds looking for it, but couldn't find it again. "Was that just a distraction, or…"
"We just want to play…" the voice whispered again. Liz was forced to abandon the search for the running Plushbaby and refocus her efforts on the red BB Plushbaby, which she was fortunately able to find walking on the ground before it attacked.
2 AM came around, and Liz had played the original Plushbaby levels enough times to know that the yellow Plushbaby would be coming soon. Sure enough, she found the yellow Chica mask-wearing Plushbaby hiding in another tree branch. Liz shined the flashlight on it, watching as it laughed and disappeared.
"I am SO happy I can play through this level with the brightness all the way on," Liz mumbled as she got rid of the red BB Plushbaby again. "If I had to play through this normally all over again I think I'd literally go insane."
The clock soon read 3 AM, and Liz heard another thud as she saw a Bonnie mask-wearing Plushbaby run around on the ground again. Given how none of the Plushbabies she'd actually had to fend off were wearing a Bonnie mask, Liz could only assume that it was meant to be a distraction that was not actually relevant to completing the level.
"We're too cute to cause trouble…" the same voice whispered again.
"That is the most bullshit thing I've ever heard in my life," Liz grumbled as she fended off the blue Freddy Plushbaby hiding behind a pumpkin. As she did so, a disturbing realization suddenly hit her. "Wait, I haven't seen the yellow Chica Plushbaby in a whi-"
"SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
The yellow Chica Plushbaby jumped in her face, shrieking and shaking frenziedly.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me!" Liz exclaimed. By now, she was more annoyed than scared by that particular jumpscare. "I was JUST about to go looking for you!" She crossed her arms and sulked as she was taken over to the same cemetery as last time. Sure enough, Dreadbear and Grim Foxy were both waiting for her.
"SO YOU'VE RETURNED," Dreadbear greeted her immediately. "EVEN WITH THE ADVICE WE GAVE YOU, THE PLUSHBABIES PROVED MORE THAN A MATCH FOR YOU."
"Even with the brightness settings all the way up, that damn level still isn't easy!" Liz retorted. "You still have to actually FIND the Plushbabies, even if you don't have to turn the flashlight on to look for them anymore!"
"FAIR ENOUGH," Grim Foxy conceded. "TO BE STRAIGHT WITH YOU, LASS, I HONESTLY DIDN'T EXPECT YOU TO COMPLETE THE LEVEL ON YOUR FIRST TRY EVEN WITH THE BRIGHTNESS TURNED ALL THE WAY UP."
"THAT BEING SAID, YOU HAVE REMOVED A SIGNIFICANT PART OF WHAT MAKES THAT LEVEL DIFFICULT, SO WE EXPECT YOU TO SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETE IT RELATIVELY SOON," Dreadbear commented. "OTHERWISE, WE WILL START QUESTIONING YOUR COMPETENCE."
It took a huge amount of willpower for Liz not to bluntly counter that she didn't give a damn what either demon thought of her. Partly because they actually had a good point. "Hopefully you won't be seeing me again anytime soon," she commented as she reloaded the level and watched the cemetery disappear, replaced by the night-shrouded farmyard where the Plushbabies were lurking.
This time, Liz concentrated fully on beating the Plushbaby level, putting aside all distracting thoughts. By now she understood how the level worked, more specifically how any Plushbabies that were NOT one of the original 3 were just distractions that shouldn't be spared a second thought. Speaking of the original 3, this time the red Plushbaby was wearing a Bonnie mask, the blue Plushbaby was wearing the Foxy mask, and the yellow one the Freddy mask.
After she shined the light on the Plushbabies to make them disappear, Liz immediately got to work. By now, she had an idea of at least some of the locations where a Plushbaby could potentially spawn and could concentrate more of her attention on those specific locations, although she still had to scan the entire map to look for any spots that she might have missed.
It really was incredible just how much easier oversaturating the brightness made the level. Without having to turn the light on to orient herself and without having to worry about conserving battery power, the only issue that Liz truly needed to deal with was finding the Plushbabies and making them disappear.
Still, as Liz had already discovered, that didn't mean she was given a free pass. Keeping track of three Plushbabies was still both difficult and annoying, no matter how much easier she could make the task artificially. The former Baby inhabitant actually failed a second time despite her best efforts, though the failure only occurred at 5 AM and because she missed the yellow Freddy Plushbaby hiding behind one of the pumpkins. Though Liz was furious that she had missed it so close to the end, she was also excited by the fact that she had already made it to the final in-game on only her second attempt. "I can do this!" she thought, anticipation burning within her. "I can do this quickly! I'm not going to be spending hours on these damn Plushbabies over and over again!"
And with that promise in mind, she reloaded the level once more, facing off against her greatest adversaries since William Afton himself. Liz quickly noted the masks on the Plushbabies (Foxy on red, Chica on Blue, Bonnie on yellow) and immediately got to work. Having already attempted the level twice, she had developed her knowledge of the potential spawn points even further, and was getting faster and more efficient at finding the Plushbabies and blocking them off.
Even with more knowledge on the potential spawn locations, the level still proved itself a considerable challenge. Several times Liz heard the whispering of the Plushbabies to signal an impending attack, and had only just barely managed to locate a shaking Plushbaby and repel it in time. 2 AM passed, then 3 AM, then 4 AM, the time simultaneously dragging on forever and flying past in the blink of an eye in Liz's perception.
"5 AM, I'm almost at the end!" Liz thought as the time shifted to 5 AM. She trained her flashlight behind a wagon wheel, causing the Bonnie-wearing yellow Plushbaby to giggle and disappear.
"Want to see what I can do?" a Plushbaby's voice whispered in the shadows.
"No, I don't!" Liz snapped as she shined the light on an agitated Chica Plushbaby. "No, I really, REALLY don't!"
"Want to play a game?" another Plushbaby asked.
"Yeah," she retorted as she caused the red Foxy Plushbaby sitting on top of a tree branch. "It's called literally ANY game except this one!" She scanned the farmyard desperately, knowing full well that the yellow Bonnie Plushbaby that she had recently banished would soon return. Sure enough, it appeared hiding behind a pumpkin.
"I beat you once," Liz declared as she caused the Plushbaby to disappear again with the light, "and I can do it again!" She looked around for the blue and red Plushbabies, knowing that they had likely spawned again by now. "I'm so close, I'm so close, just a little more…"
DING! DONG!
The farmyard faded into black, replaced by the glorious sight of 5 AM transforming to 6 AM in front of her. "YES!" Liz cheered, pumping a fist into the air in victory in a pose very reminiscent to what she had done the first time she had triumphed over the Plushbabies. "I did it! I beat the Halloween Plushbabies in only 3 times! Even if I had to cheat to do it! WOOOOOOOOOOO! I never have to deal with them ever again!"
Liz waited expectantly for the "Game Won!" room to appear, but she was shocked to discover just how much dramatically that particular room had changed as well. No longer was she behind the Show Stage. Instead, she found herself in a much larger and more extravagant space. More specifically, in the middle of the farmhouse, possibly even the same farmhouse that she had seen from the outside in the Curse of Dreadbear main level hub. The prize box was now placed upon a much longer table that led to the front of the farmhouse and had been changed from a single white box into a black and orange Halloween-themed box decorated with many Jack-O-Lanterns and wrapped in orange ribbon, with three similarly colored darts lying next to it. The "Game Won!" ribbon had similarly changed into an orange Halloween-colored banner with more Jack-O-Lanterns on it, the decorative piece hanging from a rafter that held several faintly lit candles and a cow's skull hanging directly above the gift box.
Those weren't the only changes to the décor, however. Liz looked around to see many other tables in the farmhouse, on which had been placed open pizza boxes and a myriad of decorations such as white giftboxes with black ribbons, pumpkins, and some of the Jack-O-Lanterns she remembered seeing in the main level hub. There were also several sets of white, orange, and black balloons scattered both near and far from her location. The table to her immediate right was particularly notable, as it held a large, Halloween-themed birthday cake with many lit candles on top of it and several cases of Chig Chug cans right next to it. And the final notable feature of the room she was in were three posters on the walls, one on each side and one behind her. Two of them showed a savage looking werewolf described as the "Man-Wolf", while the one behind her featured a smiling Jack-O-Lantern and was labelled with the word "Spook-Fest" instead.
Overall, the victory room looked like the scene of a recently concluded party that celebrated both a birthday and Halloween at the same time. A party that she wouldn't have minded celebrating with her new family if they had arrived at Mike's house around Halloween instead of back in the early summer. Liz was blown away by the sheer level of decoration and effort that Nightmare had devoted to this particular room. "Could we even celebrate a party like this nowadays?" she wondered. "If only Dad had a farmhouse of some kind…"
Despite the impressive level of detail, the room ultimately served the same purpose that the original victory room had, and from what Liz could tell Nightmare apparently hadn't added more to the room in terms of functionality. With nothing else to do, Liz turned the lever and the gift box, and was rewarded with a Bonnie mask almost identical to the one that one of the Plushbabies had been wearing earlier in the level. "Oh, great," she rolled her eyes. "A prize to remind me of the Plushbabies now that I've just finished dealing with them. Thanks." Still, associations with the Plushbabies aside, the Bonnie mask wasn't a bad prize to win. Though it had looked smaller on the Plushbabies, the mask was actually just big enough to fit on her face. Liz experimented with the mask a little, putting it on her face, before she finally decided to move on.
Once she returned to the main level hub, she noticed that another level had opened up in "Afraid of the Dark." This one seemed to be completely different from the Plushbaby-based level she had just completed (thankfully), and was labelled "Pirate Ride." On the icon, she could see the original Foxy animatronic on it, wearing full pirate attire. "Okay," she decided, unable to suppress a snicker, "I'm definitely stopping here, then. Fritz would be after my head if I dared to play the pirate-themed level before he did."
Before she took off the VR headset, Liz took one last look around the spooky countryside that the main level hub of the DLC had become, admiring all of the creepy details that really made her feel like she had fallen into a Halloween-based world. "I've only just hit the beginning and everything already looks so amazing!" she marveled. "What else did Nightmare add to this game to make it even better than it already was?"
/
A/N: You might not find out the answer to that question yourself, Liz, but your siblings definitely will.
As much as I hate to torture Liz with the Plushbabies, this was honestly the best option for me to start with. While I have been trying to tone down the swearing that the ghost kids do in general (except for Fritz and Mike), I just had to make an exception for this specific case. Because it's the return of the FUCKING Plushbabies, and we all know just how much Liz suffered at the hands of those evil gremlins in her hours of trying to beat the original levels. Indeed, it would have been incredibly out of character for her not to curse up a storm on seeing the Plushbabies again, given all the shit that they put her through last time. At least this time, Liz could cheese Plushkin Patch by turning the brightness ALL the way up, which allowed her to see through the darkness and find the Plushbabies without having to turn the flashlight on. And yes, this trick works in the actual game too (but ONLY for the Plushkin Patch level specifically). I've played and beaten every other level in Help Wanted fair and square, but I cheesed this level using the trick without any regret whatsoever, and I don't think Liz gives any more of a fuck about being Plushkin Patch fairly than I do.
Once again, I'm amazed by how long this chapter turned out to be. This was only ONE minigame in Curse of Dreadbear, but between the descriptions of all the new locations and levels, the conversation between Liz, Dreadbear, and Grim Foxy, and the actual Plushkin Patch level itself, it STILL almost took up 15 pages. Yeesh.
I was always going to have a Nightmare/Infernal animatronic pop up and talk with Liz, but my original idea was to have Jack-O-Chica/Infernal Chica randomly appear behind her after she completed Plushkin Patch and then they'd talk about how much that level sucks. But then I remembered that Dreadbear and Grim Foxy appear in the Game Over cemetery (a place that Liz would almost certainly end up in at least once from losing to the Plushbabies), I had an infinitely better idea. The conversation between Liz, Dreadbear, and Grim Foxy was absolutely a blast to write, and it will be far from the last one that the two demon/Infernal/Halloween animatronics have between themselves and a ghost kid. If you're wondering at how…casual…their dialogue seems, think of them as being "off-duty" in the Game Over screen. I have plenty of threatening, "in-character" voice lines for all of the Nightmares in the coming chapters.
However, this will be the only time that either of them significantly helps one of the ghost kids complete a level. They only did that because even demons think Plushbabies are bullshit XD
One last note: I'm making it so that all of the levels are locked for each section except for the first one, and that you need to unlock each level by beating the previous one. And similarly to Pizza Party, there is one level in particular that requires beating every other level in the DLC to unlock. Take a guess which one that is…
That's all I have for now. Hope you guys enjoyed!
