"Woah..." Linda couldn't believe her eyes.
"Well well well: mommy's little princess has stationed herself up in a real castle it seems... or perhaps it would be 'down' in this case." Anonydeath allowed his vocals to shift a little more playfully near the end, because really, what he was looking at right now kind of got him a little excited.
"I've seen better." Warechu spat, apparently unfazed by the ever descending 'stairway' into the stars.
When they finally reached the point of the signal, they'd been naturally perplexed with what they saw. It was a man-hole, in the middle of the road. Sarah didn't sound like the type of person to take casual trips through the sewers, so this was a fairly questionable find. However the beacon supposedly didn't lie - claimed by the pro hacker himself - and so they opened it up. At first it was a simple ladder, but once they started to descend...
The earth melted into a nighttime sky.
"So... uh..." Linda poked her leg over the ledge a little, looking as though she was trying to feel something. "Almost feels wet… Do you think it's really how it looks?"
"Last I checked, chu, the stars were up in the sky, not underground in a hole." Warechu kept his voice dead, to hopefully make it clear he did not care about any of the stupidity before him.
"But, It looks so..." Linda waved her hand out, and yeah, he'd give her credit there: upon a glance it seemed fantastical.
The ladder led them to a platform, which sat solitarily in the empty expanse of space. Above them was the hole they came through, and only that hole; above it sat a scene similar to that below, which consisted of an endless midnight sky, decorated with stars calling out in various bubble-gum colors.
Ahead of them on the tiny patch of floating dirt they'd descended onto there were a series of steps: an array of peppermint planks strung along sugared ropes of - hopefully not fragile - frosting. Those steps took them down to the castle below, and it too was made of many different sweets, as well as having no land surrounding it - it kind of just floated in the void.
Warechu sure as hell didn't sign up for a trip through candy-land.
"I'm getting a toothache just looking at it." The mouse enjoyed his fair share of junk and other assorted sweets, but even for him this was too much. He scoffed and shot a look at Linda. "Besides, you know this is all fake right, chu?"
"Well no duh." Linda tossed, however her eyes filled with excitement again. "But think of how much real shit is inside; nobody builds a candy-castle this detailed without having a serious sweet-tooth."
"We're not taking it all." Warechu stated - not suggested, stated.
"Heck no!" Linda waved her hands back and forth, denying whatever it was she assumed her partner and roomie was thinking. "But we can still swipe some of the more expensive stuff. Haven't you ever wanted to know what multi-thousand credit sugar has ever tasted like?"
"Ugh." Warechu rolled his eyes, but never outright denied her. Yeah, every now and then he wondered if the tastes of the filthy rich were any different than their own, and he wouldn't be adverse to a little of their cuisine, even if it was nothing but sugar, spice, and everything nice.
And so, very cautiously - that drop looked a little... 'intense' so to say - the group made their way across the bridge downwards towards the castle, and strangely enough the bridge did not move or shake in the slightest; Warechu guessed physics kind of gave up here. Standing right before the doors was intimidating, mostly due to their size, but what was not intimidating was the tiny door carved into it, one which Warechu just up and opened; apparently, Sarah's never heard of locks.
The crew stepped inside.
"Hmm..." Anonydeath mumbled aloud, seeming almost a little turned off from the sounds of it. "She sure has... 'interesting' tastes."
"What's wrong with it?" Linda questioned, turning her eyes forward. "It's nothing different from the outside.
That was true, at least, in terms of general aesthetic: the room was just as 'sweetened' as the rest of the castle, and yet interestingly, there was a sort of green looking series of shrubs along the tables.
"You really don't see anything wrong here, chu?" Warechu made an attempt to give Linda a hint that something clearly didn't belong, but the girl either wasn't paying too much attention, or just wasn't looking at the place in the way they were period.
"Nope... okay." Linda sighed, deflating a little as a sourness pulled at her cheeks, settling into a lax face of accepted defeat. "What am I missing?"
"Those are vegetables along the tabletops, dear." Anonydeath offered, and Linda just perked her face a little on one side, as if to ask 'so what'.
"So what?" Yep, called it.
"Vegetables... in a candy castle..." Warechu rolled his hand towards the scene, waiting silently over the course of a minute for his partner to finally drive a knife in the issue clearly situated before them. Truthfully, it took a bit, but soon enough Linda's eyes widened as she caught on to what they'd spotted as soon as they entered. The woman then spit out a harsh growl through grit teeth.
"Yeah." She sucked in a breath, settling down again, but wearing no less than a wicked frown. "Yeah, I get it."
"Perhaps the girl just likes to mix and match?" Anonydeath proposed, only for Warechu to shoot him a look - flat face and everything.
"Broccoli and peppermint?"
"Well I didn't say I agreed with her choices, but then again, I do suppose it's a little... questionable."
"Questionable, chu." Warechu faced the front again, almost glaring at the little sprouts of broccoli sat innocently in their peppermint pots along the graham cracker tables. "More like culinary assassination."
"Where did she get all this junk anyway?" Linda piped up. stepping ahead only to recoil back. "Augh, damnit!"
"What's wrong, chu?"
Linda just massaged her forehead, and then reached out, pressing her hand firmly against the air, and then giving a few taps.
"The hell?" She started to knock, which echoed all around them. "There's a solid freaking wall here!"
"You high or something, woman?"
Linda responded by knocking against the air again, staring at Warechu with an emotionless expression. Warechu flinched a little and relented.
"Okay, I hear your point."
"Interesting~" Anonydeath slowly made his way to the left, towards what looked like a stairwell, and he too ended up bumping into something. He ran his metal hand along the invisible wall, humming before tossing out an observation. "It would appear as though we are quite literally boxed in."
Warechu fought off the cross expression threatening to break out along his face.
"We can't be entirely enclosed, chu. Sarah's here isn't she?"
"The signal ended here, so I would assume yes." Anonydeath said, running his hand along the unseen flat, and walking with it. "But perhaps we can treat this like a maze."
"How?" Linda spit out, only to stop - the answer came to her instantly. "No wait, you're talking about the left side trick."
"Exactly." Anonydeath confirmed, only to - surprisingly - stand ahead Linda. He was parallel to her, only, he was on the other side of the wall obstructing her. "In theory, we may be able to follow one wall, and no matter how many wrong turns it takes us, it'll end up with us at the end eventually."
"Not all mazes work like that, chu. How do we know Sarah didn't craft a more complex maze to counter intruders who try that trick?"
Anonydeath answered firstly with a giggle.
"My my, you must really have high hopes for the woman running away from her mommy~"
That was fair, and Warechu reluctantly shut his mouth. Sarah apparently chose to steal something from Zaeda, which itself was dumb, but she was the woman's daughter, so the punishment wouldn't be too extreme... or so he believed - there's no telling with these gang folks. Then again, Sarah left their chains unlocked back when they were first captured too, so it seemed Anonydeath had pulled out the win on this one: Sarah wouldn't anticipate such a tactic, heck, she probably thought she was being cheeky and used it herself, relying on the invisibility of the maze to trip up invaders, thinking they'd leave once they bumped into the invisible wall for the first time.
"So..." Linda tossed her own voice into the fray. "We're following through with the 'lefty' play?"
"I guess we are, chu."
No further words were needed, and soon enough they'd taken to the idea. They'd passed not up, but through a series of stairs, offering a weird perspective as they 'no-clipped' to and fro. Frosting baths, licorice curtains, and even a giant gummy bear perked in a garden of chocolate grass and roses; they'd walked through it all, but at this point it was fairly obvious that none of it was real, much to Linda's personal disappointment - no several thousand credit candy for them it seemed.
They did come to a stop at one point though, and it was here where things began to get hazy, literally.
"What's happening?" Linda spoke for all of them there, because from her point of view the whole world was flickering between sugary wonderland and pavement paradise.
"Just keep walking, chu." Everyone followed through with that idea, and soon, all the candy sights faded. Anonydeath was the first to speak afterwards, when they were surrounded by nothing but the cold damp stone walls of what should have been the sewer they entered in the first place.
"Interesting." He clicked at something on the side of his visor. "Give me just a moment hunnies." Pausing for a bit, the crew waited for a few seconds before Anonydeath chuckled. "What a clever little rascal."
"What's happening?" Linda perked the question, only for Anonydeath to fiddle with his visor a little more and cross his arms.
"There's a sort of gas back along the tunnel; invisible and scentless."
"Are you saying we were drugged, chu?" Warechu should have been worried about what types of toxins his pristinely perfect lungs were subjected to, but he was more curious than anything. He hadn't felt any different than his usual self back there - barring the visualization of the plaque-teasing wonderworld - so he was curious as to just how toxic the gas really was.
"It would seem so, and if I were to guess, I'd say it was entirely hallucinogenic." He crossed his arms and hummed again. "But it has to be specialized as well: we all saw the same thing, correct?"
"As far as I remember, chu." Warechu was equally perplexed. "But if it was a hallucination, how was it able to control what we saw?"
"That's the part that confuses me." Anonydeath would have mulled on it further, had Linda not broken out a shout, all the while she scratched at her face.
"That's the third friggin time!"
"Third time?" Anonydeath asked, only for Warechu to interrupt.
"Ignore her, chu." He then glared back at the plain hallway behind. "Seriously, how do you even get a hold of specialized drugs like that?
"I don't know, but something is most certainly wrong here." Anonydeath tapped irritatedly at his chin. "There shouldn't even be any drugs that focused..." His body perked a little. "Warchu, can you walk back into it."
"Excuse me, chu?" Warechu glared at him like he'd grown a third head. "Run that by me again, I don't think I heard you clearly."
"May you please walk back into the gas."
"That's what I thought you said, and let me offer this as a rebuttal..." Warechu breathed in, breathed out, relaxed his body, smiled, and spoke. "Are you deranged, absolutely bonkers, chu?
Coming from such a calm smile, Anonydeath would be lying if he'd ever claimed the question didn't ruffle his metaphorical feathers so to say - perhaps he should get a bird-themed monitor so he could ruffle them for real.
"It never offered anything other than hallucinations before, right?" Anonydeath tried to reason, steadying his voice as he did so. "I only want to know how quickly the gas takes to bring on the effect."
"And why am I the one doing it?" Warechu had a point, and Anonydeath chose to instantly shoot it down.
"Because I am the one with the manual scanner, and can easily do a quick check on you from a distance to get a basic feel for how it reacts in your system, and our dear Linda is having a breakdown over there." He pointed to Linda who was indeed having a small spat behind them, grumbling and screeching about annoying psychos and their stinky drugs - she was going through a whole slew of phrases, most of which were both fairly creative; childish; adult-only, and perhaps a little bit racist at points if you bent some of the details out of context.
Warechu held his ground... for all of two seconds, and then gave up.
"Fine, chu, but you better make it quick."
"Don't worry, I promise I'll be gentle~"
Warechu ignored that last part and walked back into the tunnel. Anonydeath waited with his scanner active and at the ready. He then noticed something peculiar: the world began to shift back into its candy land appearance... for all of them.
"What the hell!" Linda screamed from behind, but Anonydeath wasn't paying attention: he was focused on the way the gas seemed to shift around Warechu, having not a single visible effect on his old buddy's biological systems, however he did notice something else.
The walls - now visible because of the gas picked up on his radar - appeared to react, and a shift in said haze proved that something popped out of them on a few upper corners. Anonydeath knew what was going on at that point.
"We're not being drugged."
Warechu seemed to perk up at that, and Linda shot her entire body around.
"For real?!" She sounded desperate as can be, and Anonydeath felt a little bad for her - clearly she hadn't had the best of experiences with drugs.
"It acts as a detection system, like a security laser." Anonydeath began, finally swapping his scanner to a more physical one, and he was able to see the room outlined before him, which only proved his theory ten-fold. "The gas detects whether anyone is present, and a system of projectors pop out silently and create a sort of hologram. Interestingly it goes a little further than that, and the best I can compare it to is Leanbox's newest game accessory."
"They have another one, chu?"
"Yes." Anonydeath waved for Warechu to return to them, and as he did so - following a few seconds for the gas to settle - the world returned to normal. "It allows for a sort of virtual reality field to be created, one where players can take on different forms and partake in fantasy adventure. From what I understand it limits player movement in the real world, and more or less sends out frequencies to craft specified hallucinations for all players, making them believe they're actually in the game."
"That sounds both incredibly impossible and like a massive invasion of privacy on a personal level." Linda pointed out, and Anonydeath nodded.
"Goddesses honey, nothing is impossible, and also, anyone who purchases one of those devices has to agree to the terms and conditions anyway, which we all know they don't read. Legally, they can't be charged for invasion of privacy, because you basically sign it away when you use the thing."
"Figures, chu. So, is that what Sarah's using here?"
"Not quite." Anonydeath disabled his environmental scans from the forefront, and set them on in the background: there would be no more getting caught off guard without at least a little warning. "From what I see here, these are just holographic projectors: they don't alter people's minds on a deeper level, nor do they have any effect on their motor systems, which is why we were able to use the maze tactic."
"But I could see you through the walls?" Linda pointed out. "How does that make any sense?"
"I would assume some glass panels were used as blockades to create the illusion of a maze, among other bits and bobs to sell the scene. Little Sarah wanted her castle as real as she could get."
"Still sounds stupid… But why would she go through all that trouble for a dumb maze anyway, chu?"
"She kidnapped over twenty women as dolls for her playhouse, and you draw the line at a sewer maze?"
When he put it like that, Warechu had no choice but to relent.
"Okay, I see your point, chu." The little guy sent a look down the tunnel beyond. "But if she wanted an underground castle so badly, why didn't she just pay a few guys to make one?"
"Probably the same reason she's going incognito: naughty girl wants to avoid punishment."
Linda took the front this time, stepping past Warechu as she called back.
"She'll get punished alright." Cracking her knuckles as she walked, Linda sketched a darker sort of grin across her face. "Bitch wants to tease us with something as simple as elegant candy-"
"You were the one who brought up the idea, chu." Despite the obvious being vocalized, Linda carried on, not even appearing to have heard.
"Well she can think again; we aren't that gullible."
"Yes you are."
"It's time we showed her just how tough we..."
Anonydeath reached down, offering a small pat to Warechu's head; the mouse took it about as well as you would expect: thrashing violently for the much taller instigator - basically telling him to cheese off.
"I don't believe she can see past her own bravado right now."
"Geeze, chu, I wonder what gave it away?"
"Aw, you're always so adorable when you're being pushed to the side casually like a worthless nobody~"
At this point Warechu was certain the hacker was messing with him again, and rather than keep up the game of back and forth, he opted to start his own march ahead.
"Whatever. Come on, chu, we better keep up and make sure she doesn't get into trouble."
"Yes, I do suppose she has quite the habit of ending up in places she shouldn't be."
The pair ventured forth, ready to deal with whatever traps Linda would inevitably walk into, just like the filthy sewer rats they were.
Author's note
…
Here we go again.
Yeah, I know you're all probably a little upset that Kurome wasn't in this chapter, but her own adventure is a little less intense than this. She'll show up soon enough - probably next chapter really - so just hold out for a little while longer.
Why Sarah has an underground hologram setup in the sewers is anyone's guess, but I suppose we might have a shot at it later - if any of them remember to ask that is.
Until next time.