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Eldritch Horror? No, I'm A Doctor
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"Hey, hey, Doctor." Varyn's voice came out strained, higher than his usual gentle tone. Sweat beaded on his perfect forehead, running down his temples.
"There's no need to be hostile just yet."
The chainsaw continued to hum. The tentacles swayed. The surgical tools gleamed in the fluorescent light.
"I apologize for my mannerless action." Varyn's hands were raised, palms out, trembling slightly.
"Please forgive me. I didn't know you were an Irregular."
Nox's brow furrowed behind his mask.
What the fuck is an Irregular?
But he chose not to say it. Not yet. He could get more information another way. Play along. Let Varyn think he understood.
"So what?" Ren's voice was still that inhuman growl.
"It must have been hard, right?" Varyn was speaking faster now, words tumbling over each other.
"Hiding among humans. Whose appearance are you using?"
He paused, seemed to realize his mistake.
"Sorry, didn't mean to pry. That's why you have to wear a mask, right?"
One of the tentacles twisted and struck the wooden floor beside Varyn's knee.
BANG.
The wood splintered. A hole the size of a fist appeared where the tentacle had impacted. Splinters scattered across the tile.
"So what the fuck are you asking all these questions for?" Nox demanded.
"Sorry! I have to ask. To help you, okay?" Varyn's composure was completely gone now. His silver eyes were wide, his breathing rapid.
"I've assisted one of your kind before. It's fine if they're all blacked out except Emily, right? I'm not gonna get executed by the military for this, am I?"
He was babbling now, fear overriding his usual calculated speech.
"So which gate are you from, Doctor?" Varyn continued, still on one knee, looking up at the mass of tentacles.
"If it's an S rank gate, we have the Deep Sea Gate on record, but no Eldritch themed gates at the moment. So you must have been a monster that escaped at some point. It must have been the deep sea, right? If the gate has no record, it must have opened under the ocean somewhere."
Nox listened to this rambling, his mind working.
So this is what they call a monster with high intelligence.
He'd never seen the term "Irregular" in the archives of Qintara. But he had seen references to monster intelligence scaling with rank. Ruin rank monsters had intelligence comparable to a human child aged two or three. Destruction rank monsters could be as smart as adult humans, though not all of them were.
The Skin Walker he'd met in the Tomb of the Skin God had been a Destruction rank monster, but it had the intelligence of a beast. All instinct and hunger.
But the Skinless King, also Destruction rank, had been different. It had spoken. It had planned. It had led its people with strategy and wisdom.
And apparently, some of these intelligent monsters looked human enough to blend into human society.
I guess that's what an Irregular is. A monster that can pass for humans.
Ren was still contemplating this when the shadow behind him moved.
Emily.
She'd somehow broken free from the terror that had knocked everyone else unconscious. Her infiltration skills, her shadow walking abilities, had given her just enough resistance to keep moving.
She lunged from the darkness behind Ren, a dagger in her hand. The blade was dark, almost black, with a faint purple sheen. She drove it into Ren's back with all her strength.
The Umbral Gentleman's Attire resisted for a moment. Then the blade pierced through.
Ren felt the dagger dig into his skin. Not deep, the coat had absorbed most of the impact. But it had broken through.
Splash.
A tentacle from Ren's back struck like a viper. It pierced through Emily's stomach, entering from the front and exiting from the back. Blood sprayed across the reception desk.
"Ughhh." Emily's eyes went wide. She looked down at the tentacle protruding from her abdomen, at the blood pouring from the wound.
"Hahahahahaha!" Varyn's laugh was hysterical, edged with madness. "You monster! You're already dead!"
Ren turned slowly to look at Varyn. The movement was deliberate, mechanical. "What the fuck are you talking about?"
"That dagger!" Varyn pointed, his hand shaking. "It has the venom of a Pale Python in it. That's venom from a Cataclysm-rank monster! You're dead, you fucking monster!"
A System notification appeared in Ren's vision.
╔═══════════════════════════════════════╗
║ POISON DETECTED ║
╠═══════════════════════════════════════╣
║ ║
║ Type: Pale Python Venom ║
║ Rank: Cataclysm ║
║ Status: RESISTED ║
╚═══════════════════════════════════════╝
"Huh." Ren looked at the notification. "I forgot I had poison resistance."
"What?" Varyn's expression shifted from triumph to confusion. "What the fuck?"
Ren pulled the dagger from his back. It came out easily, barely any blood on the blade. He looked at it for a moment, then tossed it aside. It clattered across the floor.
Then he grabbed Emily, still impaled on his tentacle, and threw her at Varyn.
The tentacle retracted, sliding out of her stomach with a wet sound. Emily's body flew through the air and crashed into Varyn. Both of them slammed into the wall with a sickening crunch. Plaster cracked. They fell to the floor in a tangle of limbs.
"That's twice now," Ren said, his voice cold.
"Huh?" Varyn groaned, trying to push Emily's bleeding body off of him.
"Twice that you've attacked me." Ren started walking toward them. His footsteps echoed on the tile. "First, you tried to control my mind. Second, you tried to poison me."
"Wait, please!" Varyn managed to get out from under Emily. He scrambled backward, his back against the wall. "I didn't know! I thought you were an Irregular! We have protocols for this!"
"But I'm a good doctor," Ren continued, as if Varyn hadn't spoken. The tentacles swayed behind him. "I swear to do no harm. And I'm professional."
"Then let us go! Please! We'll leave and never come back!"
"So I will give you what you want."
Varyn went very still. "What?"
"You came here for the grafting service," Ren said. "So that's what you'll get."
"No." Varyn's voice was small. "No, please. I changed my mind. I don't want it anymore."
"Too late."
Emily groaned on the floor, her hands pressed against the hole in her stomach. Blood seeped between her fingers. "Please," she gasped. "Please spare me. I only did what my superior asked. I was following orders."
"Following orders." Ren's tone was flat. "That's what they all say."
He pulled several syringes from his coat. The Awakening Anesthesia, green liquid visible in the glass tubes. His tentacles took them, moving with purpose toward the people on the floor.
"No, no, no!" Varyn tried to crawl away, but his back was already against the wall. "Please! I have information! I have money! I can give you anything! Just don't do this!"
"I'm a Brigadier General!" Varyn's voice cracked. "If you do this, the military will hunt you down! They'll find this clinic! They'll destroy everything!"
"Probably," Ren agreed. "But you'll be in no condition to lead that hunt."
The first syringe plunged into Varyn's neck. His eyes went wide. His mouth opened to scream, but the paralysis hit too fast. He slumped forward, his body refusing to respond to his commands.
"No, please!" Emily begged, tears streaming down her face. "I have a family! A daughter! She's only five years old! Please don't do this! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"
The second syringe found her neck. She tried to crawl away, but with the hole in her stomach, she couldn't move fast enough. The needle pierced her skin. The green liquid emptied into her bloodstream.
Her body went rigid, then limp.
But she was still conscious. Still aware. The Awakening Anesthesia didn't render people unconscious. It just paralyzed them while keeping them fully alert.
The four soldiers who had been lying unconscious on the floor suddenly jolted awake. Not because they'd recovered, but because the syringes found them too. One by one, the tentacles administered the anesthesia.
They couldn't move. Couldn't fight. Couldn't run.
They could only scream.
"Please! Oh god, please!" one of them wailed. "I didn't do anything! I was just following orders! Don't do this!"
"I have kids!" another sobbed. "Two boys! They need their father! Please!"
"I'll do anything! Anything you want! Just let me go!"
"We didn't know! We didn't know what he was planning! We're just soldiers!"
Their voices overlapped, creating a chorus of terror and desperation. Begging. Pleading. Offering anything they could think of to escape what was coming.
Varyn tried to speak, but his jaw wouldn't move. His throat wouldn't work. He could only lie there, eyes wide with horror, as drool ran from his paralyzed mouth.
Emily was crying silently, tears streaming down her face. Her body wouldn't respond, but her eyes tracked Ren's every movement.
"Let's go to the Grafting Room," Ren said, his voice returning to something almost pleasant. Almost human. "I'll make sure to give you a service none of you will ever forget."
The tentacles wrapped around each body. Varyn first, lifting him from the floor. Then Emily, still bleeding from her stomach wound. Then each of the four soldiers, one by one.
The screaming continued. High-pitched. Desperate. The sound of people who knew something terrible was about to happen and couldn't stop it.
They were dragged across the floor, leaving smears of blood on the tile. Past the reception desk. Down the dark hallway. Toward the red door at the end.
The door that bled. The door with the mist curling out from underneath. The door that led to the horror movie set of a surgical room that the System had created.
"PLEASE! PLEASE DON'T DO THIS!" Varyn's voice finally worked again for a moment, raw and broken. "I'M SORRY! I'M SO SORRY! I'LL DO ANYTHING! ANYTHING!"
"My daughter!" Emily screamed. "Please! She needs her mother! Please!"
"OH GOD! OH GOD! SOMEONE HELP US! PLEASE! ANYONE!"
"WE'LL TELL EVERYONE YOU'RE INNOCENT! WE'LL SAY IT WAS A MISTAKE!"
"PLEASE HAVE MERCY! WE WERE WRONG! WE WERE SO WRONG!"
The red door opened.
Beyond it, the blood-covered hallway stretched into darkness. The hospital tiles stained with dried gore. The walls splashed with patterns of violence. The summoning circle in the center, glowing faintly with symbols that hurt to look at.
The screaming reached a fever pitch.
And then they were dragged inside.
All 5 of them, pulled into the Grafting Room by tentacles that showed no mercy. Their screams echoed off the blood-stained walls, amplified by the acoustics of the space.
Ren stood at the threshold for a moment, looking at his handiwork. 5 people, all paralyzed, all terrified, all about to experience what it meant to be on the receiving end of his skills.
Then he stepped inside.
The door slammed shut behind him with a sound like a gunshot.
And the screaming stopped.