Chapter 448: Be Patient (and Be Therapist)

Your poll results show interesting dynamics in your relationship with Froid.

You might resent some of his control over you, but you also rely on his guidance so that your impulsivity, sociopathy and fear (because you do live in fear, with Death breathing down your neck like a conscious entity) can be managed enough for you to live as you wish, with minimal disruption and countless delicious minds.

This is why you don't dare try to tell Froid what to do. He is your anchor. You need him.

You may feel smothered by his leash, but you don't dare actually kill him. Or get him killed. You'll indulge in petty revenge like the falling bucket, but while you enjoy a fantasy of sending him down the booby trapped staircase, you don't dare actually do it.

You are, however, not above getting your digs in when you can. "Why Froid, aren't you an unmanned aerial vehicle that should have no trouble navigating in this shaft?"

Froid seems nervous every time you do something a little bit culturally unacceptable. "I don't see why we're...."

"Because the prey has delusions of fighting back."

You reach out to touch the minds of that prey.

Idiot 1--the one whose guilt and cowardice you first tasted--is hiding at the top of the staircase, ready to set the falling-cart trap in motion.

Idiot 2--the other one you chased--is outside trying to ascertain the nature of the big metallic ball at the entrance to the crypt.

Getaway...seems to be sleeping, and the grandiose nature of his dreams means he really should be Froid's patient, not his boss.

And idiot 3 is satisfied because of something recently done to the container Getaway is in. You make a note of this as you begin climbing down the elevator shaft.

But your mind is on the soft hiss of static coming from the lowest level. It draws you like a beacon. Calling to you.

Con polls Tomorrow, it's just been so busy so many days in a row that I want to take the time to do an engaging entry with the info from the past few days of polls before the backlog overwhelms the story.

Here's to Tomorrow

Chapter 447: Fly Hard

Thanks to idiot #3 you know where all the traps are ..and aren't.

For example, these false Knights didn't have time to booby trap the elevators, so they locked them out of service instead.

Their plan was to force you to descend via the staircases, almost all of which include such amenities as: greasy floors, sabotaged railings, heavy carts falling down the stairs after you, swinging paint cans, and some sicko even covered the morgue staircase with Lego.

But what are they going to do if you climb down the service elevator at the side of the main elevator shaft?

You figure this is an excellent way to bypass all the traps on the floors in between.

You pry open the elevator doors and look down into the gaping black elevator shaft.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: You love the tight polls lately, so, results of yesterday's vote in tomorrow's installment

Chapter 446: How to Fudge a Busy Day

It's a busy day and yesterday's poll is pretty tight, so while we wait to see how you're getting to the bottom level of the crypt, let's see what intelligence you can get from checking in with one of the resident idiots.

Chapter 445: To The Ninth Circle of Robot Hell

You watch Froid pick himself up, rubbing his dented aft, and you smile internally. You may rely on Froid to navigate the world around you, but that doesn't mean he owns you.

And right now you have your own goal. You can hear the distant whisper of static on the far verge of your signal zone and you know he's out there...

You are hunting this person who dares call himself Lord Mortilus. You will cast him down from his counterfeit throne.

....even though you sense your own death walking at your shoulder.

You don't care about Getaway. The static appears to eminate from, of course, the deepest level of the crypt. So that's where you're going.

Chapter 444: Therapy Game

You have a complicated and highly inappropriate relationship with your therapist.

(With no shippy stuff implied. Imagine that sort of thing or don't, as you choose.)

Your Narrator has no difficulty coming up with other problematic aspects of your relationship.

It started out small: you took Froid hostage after the shuttle crash (as escaped prisoners often do) and he began psychoanalyzing you (can't blame the guy for wanting to survive).

But having a hostage doesn't equate to having a new life of freedom. Froid offered you that life: a new start, a job, the opportunity to hunt. And all you had to do was read the minds of his patients and wear his collar....

...keep your end of the bargain. Because this is a deal, and you're in control.

Sometimes you like to remind Froid who's in control.

That's why you hang back and let Froid go first. He's muttering something about Getaway owing him for this rescue.

Froid pushes the door open. As you expect, the bucket of embalming fluid falls on him. As you don't expect, the fluid makes the marble floor slippery, and when Froid jumps in surprise, he lands badly and falls on his aft. From the sound of the clang, you can guess it left a dent.

You deftly sidestep the spill and enter the crypt.

Unfortunately, the loser whose brain you picked might have been thinking about where all the traps are, but not about the route from the door to... wherever Getaway is.

Wherever the fake Mortilus is.

Chapter 443: Let's "Both-Sides" This

YOU are a deranged mnemosurgeon named Sunder!

(This, as we learned from Ardeath and Regatta, is the proper way to experience Home Alone 2: Lost in the Mausoleum.)

YOUR GOAL is to retrieve your employer, Captain Getaway of the Corcapsia Incursion...

....well, okay, that's your business partner/therapist's goal. Let's try this again.

YOUR GOAL is to feast on the tasty sin of the animal masses. And maybe figure out why every time you try to operate on the brain of the fake Mortilus, all you get from him is static.

YOU are the expert on Mortilus here. For most of your life, you've felt him looking over your shoulder. You dance with him every time you operate. You usher those animal masses into his dark embrace, one kill at a time. You know his sharp hunger, his unquenchable thirst--for he created you in his image.

You are feeling pretty good about entering the 895th's crypt because you took a peek into the mind of one of the losers inside, who was most helpfully thinking about where all the traps are.

That's how you know that there is a bucket of embalming fluid balanced overtop of the crypt's main doors.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The timing would have been so perfect to do this yesterday. At least you April Fools voted for thinking about where all the traps are ;)

Chapter 442: DoubleTrouble Think

The last thing you want is to get Elegy any more pissed off than he might theoretically be already. And the number one way to piss him off is to ignore what he said about disturbing the graves. And the number one grave disturber is none other than your podcast's paranormal "expert" and professor of mummyology, Misfire.

You have already had to talk Elegy down from what he was going to do to Misfire for rummaging through the coffins on the hospital ship. You don't want to see the consequences of the "awesome trap" Misfire has in mind.

You send Misfire out to check on Deathsaurus.

Which leaves you, Skids, Fulcrum and Elegy to set up traps in the crypt. It's more difficult than you expected because you have fewer materials to work with and less time.

Chapter 441: Pete's Dragonformer

"Hey, Fulcrum," you say. "Why don't you go outside and check on Deathsaurus?"

Fulcrum gives you the stink eye. "Really?"

Oh. Right. Oops.

Chapter 440: Do You Feel Lucky, Pile of Junk?

You aren't a fighter and neither are Misfire or Fulcrum. Skids might be--when he's not on the verge of a breakdown. As for Elegy... maybe he'd object if you tried to sic him on a serial killer, maybe you just don't want to see his inner mechanism again, maybe he'll shove you into four neatly arranged jars because you already did ... you should probably ask him to be last line of defense.

"There's only one way we get through this," you say. "We need to rig up this mausoleum the way we rigged up the hospital ship."

Elegy raises an optic ridge. "Don't disturb the corpses."

And you need to rig fast. Sunder and Froid are probably already on their way down here.

But so is someone else. And his crew of Autobots.

"We just have to give him the runaround until Rodimus brings reinforcements."

You try to sound cool and in control. But it's a stressful situation, and let's face it, you might do something dumb.

Or maybe you'll just have bad luck as you try to choose the best among these four options.

You could send someone out to check on Deathsaurus, but that would leave you with one fewer mech to set up traps.

And then there's the matter of traps. You have an opportunity to give Sunder some extra nasty surprises....but that would involve opening a few of these coffins.

Maybe it would be better to ask Elegy to let Sunder chase him, to lead him into the ambushes. This, of course, involves asking the mummy to play bait.

Or maybe it would be better to focus your energies on taking Froid hostage. Sunder might care about that more than he cares about Elegy...or maybe he'll be happy about it. But this would probably be easier than tackling the Tetrahex Ripper....if it will work.

Chapter 439: Congratulations on Your Promotion to Field Commander

There are all kinds of weird and wonderful things in the universe! In fact, there are tons of things that you don't even know the name of!

And clearly Elegy's alt mode is one of those things and Everything is Fine!

Elegy is probably a beastformer that doesn't have a bipedal robot mode. It's no wonder a mech like that would want an armoured shell that would provide him the means to fit in with the rest of Cybertronian society.

This is a reasonable conclusion that does nothing to explain the organic material in your sonar readings (not going to think too hard about that) or why Sunder was able to read your and Skids's minds like a pile of magazines, but all he can do to Elegy is give him a headache.

Getaway's radio crackles again. This time the voice is clearly Froid's. "He wants to come in and see this mech he can't read. Please advise."

Great.

You radio Deathsaurus to ask what to do. He's a general, he can do general stuff.

Deathsaurus doesn't answer.

Really great.

Now what?

Can you get Skids to reply through Getaway's comm and tell them to leave? Would they listen to Skids?

Or should you let them in on purpose? You've got a pretty good track record for setting up traps. On the other hand, Ardeath and Regatta are not the Tetrahex Ripper.

Maybe you should try to hold them off until Rodimus arrives with backup.

Or...if it turns out that Everything is Not Fine, and Deathsaurus is in trouble, perhaps Elegy and Sunder can show one another what they are in the daylight rather than the dark.

Chapter 438: Corpse Party

Since Everything is Fine, there is no reason not to ask the resident medic about Getaway's condition. That's what medics are for!

You take a deep breath and turn your head.

Elegy('s corpse?) is kneeling with its left hand pressed to its midsection. His face bears an expression of discomfort.

But hey, Everything is Fine, so you ask, "So, um, is Getaway dead or not?"

Elegy looks up at you with those dim optics and presses his right hand to his temple. "Sorry, I seem to have a bit of a headache."

Yeah, that thing with his right hand looks like an afterthought. A gesture made because it's socially expected....the sort of thing you do when you have a headache.

But Elegy was instinctively clutching his chest, and now you have an idea how someone can get shot in the head and not be particularly bothered by it. His brain is likely somewhere else. Upper right chest, given where he's pressing.

See? There's a perfectly logical explanation! Everything is Fine!

Elegy draws a shuddering breath into his vents and says, "I was asked not to kill Getaway, so I didn't. He's in stasis until I wake him up again."

You figure even an escapologist is going to have trouble making an escape if he's unconscious.

"Now our only problem is the serial killer outside," Misfire says.

Getaway's comm link crackles with that voice that sounds like Elegy's. "I can't get a read on your false Mortilus?"

Great. Sunder clearly doesn't think that Everything is Fine.

And that forces you to think about that weird thing your sonar picked up in the dark.

You know what Pretenders are....Loadbearers with outer shells. And some of them, like Carnivac and Catilla, wear those shells while in their alt modes. Look, Everything is Fine!

Except...you've also heard scary stories about aliens in mobile suits that look like Cybertronians. There are urban legends that some of those suits are made from Cybertronian corpses.

On the other hand, Elegy's idea of the scariest story ever is a hole to another dimension. Do they count as aliens if they aren't from this plane of existence?

But, my dude, you are also deeply conflicted about the supernatural.