The Midwich Prologues

The Midwich Prologues ~ A Love Story in Hell

~ (1992) from the Midwich Codex ~

The map of the land.

________________________________

Two characters seen from behind, the ship's fore deck, a crow on the rail. Any combination is still a love story with the same motion capture. Two voice actors each and their parts are written here without pronouns.

Here as such the Killer and Learner are able to select both character genders in any combination, but Explorer is default female because of her relationship with the later characterization of Death.

Leaving an apparent to Lord Charon and Lady Styx, but never actually bringing that up, as with many characters in variants from many previous tales and often in less pleasant forms.

~ The Midwich Prologues ~

A Love Story in Hell

Awaiting the dock as the ship unloads before departure, she walks ahead of the player into town (the same for all three players) ~

Gabrielle - Looking back, seeming friendly enough but vaguely amused by their existence, "Welcome back" (regardless if the first play). Turns leading their walk ahead, "This is where the experiment first started." Smiles, "Everyone was very excited."

The town's brickwork buildings all appear exactly the same but then start turning nearly as Rubik's Cubes in heavy chunks and grinding stone, aligning the doors and windows to differentiate them.

Some structures collapse inward to smaller, others chunking outward to wider and higher ending in a strange approximation of 'neo-victorian' into a classical Gothic architecture, peaked with spires at the finer corners.

~ The last of the buildings settle in as orbs of light rise behind them, darting to and fro in their rise while guards exit the wall towers from the parapets.

Gabrielle - To those in the sky, "They're the ones to watch. They're the system intelligence, all one mind and code but differentiated throughout the lands, to think wherever it thinks like imagination stretching and now ...

"They've become something else entirely. We don't even know anymore. But there they are ... being brilliant. Every single time.

"The entire population is derived from that code, all one intelligence divided and branched, but they don't know that yet. It's all too big for them still. They only know what they're here to do.

"So they've got their own varied randoms for their details. Clothing and wealth, but taken randomly from different sets as those above. Different every time."

~ The player and Gabrielle reach the town's central fountain ~

Gabrielle - Looking at the fountain, "Hm. This is a nice touch. The exact center." She sits on the edge and smiles up at the player, "Been a while." Distracted a moment by the touch of the stone, "Okay ! So before we start, I need to ask. Why are you here ?"

~ 1 - I want to kill.

~ 2 - I want to learn.

~ 3 - I want to explore.

"Well alrighty then." She stands and smiles, "And good luck with that. Let the games begin."

She turns away with a single step and is gone in a flash to the sky as it's grid-work crackles to the corners of the skybox.
________________

The sky-box is the artificial sky in most games, usually a large box with its images skewed to fit the corners to make it look rounded. When one moves across a large open world, the skybox moves with you, containing the currently seen portion of that world.

This is important later on.

It usually includes the stars at night, transitions between day and night being lighting and skybox images changing over time. But in this case the stars are these little Cherubim spheres, a sense of true nighttime depth.

Their motion when in rest too slow to see as time passes but the pattern is according to whatever the AI feels like doing more than any constellations.

More-so consistencies in the thinking of the game itself, and we'll just have to see how that plays out over time. The Explorer can fly to them, altering the formula.

Of particular notice through the town aside from what makes a town run is the chapel that's never open and the pub that always is, with this playing from the jukebox at a random starting point upon the player's entry for mini-missions.

(cycling on the pub's jukebox)

Volume I ~ The Killer's Tale

~ The player and Gabrielle reach the town's central fountain ~

~ 1 - I want to kill.

~ 2 - ~~I want to learn~~.

~ 3 - ~~I want to explore~~.

"Well alrighty then." She stands and smiles, "And good luck with that. Let the game begin."

She turns away with a single step and is gone in a flash to the sky as it's grid-work crackles to the corners of the skybox.

('God's Gonna Cut You Down' remix by DJ Schmolli)

~ anatomy of the mortician's blade, an excellent hatchet and cracker ~

~ The Killer's Tale ~

~ while the Mortician performs his autopsy on the Founder ~

Credits roll with the cuts beginning with the citizenry pouring from their homes shops and alleyway mists into a vibrant city while the player explores the town for the first time.

A clearly faux overtones which near modern in antiquated materials. Some are more notably gothic, their eyes pierced with pointed smiles, the nobility excess lingering the manor at the far end of town.

~ But notably never the pub.

The player wanders the credits in the streets, no local moneys have been earned or found. Even the muggers in the alleyways haven't mugged anyone yet, they've just spawned but that also means they haven't spent their bullets yet either, and they're hungry. Everyone is.

Horses and carriage start mingling among to load for the docks.

(0:32 second)

The aged cars start making their way through the bustle.

(0:57 light)

The airships begin peaking over the buildings forming their lanes of sky traffic.

(1:36 Helter)

A man from the crowd is dragged to the alley by prostitutes.

A madman's eyes, an airship laden with more tries over the city wall, taken down in a heavy burn arrow barraged from the parapet launcher. Burning into the ground, police rushing to run the survivors down as they tear feasting through the populace.

(1:48 Skelter)

Teeth grow in the alleyway to feast while the rest take the cash.

(1:54 return)

The last touches of a 'balanced world'. Each individual NPC has a function, and without them that function ceases. Any in excess of these functions goes mad as the population grows.

For every person added, so is a madman exiled to the wood and for every death, one found sane seeking Sanctuary at the city gates. Some think Vampyrism the serum to that madness which otherwise besets the useless.

The player has no money yet, one could always try mugging someone, causing the entire town to turn on them. Everyone knows who you are. However if you wait for a mugger to mug someone and then mug them, there's always that.

~ Super secret bonus on the next play-through for getting killed like a dumbass before the opening credits were even over ~

(it's an infinite supply of pub darts ~ they sting a bit)

The Killer arrives clothed in on site acquisition gear waiting to be filled. The disposition borne from similar training in unknown places carrying nothing, enjoyed and continued as a constant challenge.

Using only the tools that lay around and leaving the way you came with only the most common local casings left behind. How the Killer becomes one with new places.

Would less prefer to carry the many and large tools of survival than the fewer and smaller tools required to create them as needed.

"A weapon for battle is only required when they are already there to be plucked, while for tools for the hunt are best crafted in silence."

~ Teacher

________________

The pouches contain only the rare components, weapon sight transmitters to the goggles for targeting, small motors, shoulder-mount tracking for pistols attached to the packs straps, pouches lining them down to the belt.

The Killer's gear is based on a DARPA proposition for urban combat from I believe 2012. As proposed ~

The shoulder cannons, each with cam, lock to movement and sound, headset racking in HUD side windows while the processors triangulate the information into a mapped environment.

The suit was to intended work in conjunction with others networked to add all information into a singular map which was shared by all. So in the overlay, one could see on the map what another sees, including a target blip not in their sight-range.

Mapping here is as the VR system publicly demonstrated by the military, being a map projected on the floor just in front of the wearer, blips tracked. The same kind Timepiece uses.

Targeting from the HUD works like a flight helm, multiple modes of vision, each gun in the game would have its own AI and level up system according to its kills.

Two universal small arm holsters on the belt, the pack holds three long be them rifle or blade, showing their menu arrangement on the player's back.

Worn duster over the belts and under the pack, a normal traveler's fedora topping period clothes normal for a depression era wanderer like many just off the boat, if not with a conspicuous number of pouches.

And the ever present the crow that follows to feast on the dead left behind. Whenever an enemy's struck down in the game, it will be there.

The primary difference between prologue and main game gear is that main game has the actual guns for the gear while the prologue version is adaptable to found weapons. In the main game found guns are parted into them.

The main game gun on the right shoulder is painted as an angel, the devil on the left, each run by it's own distinct AI with its own unique targeting and response disposition.

Upgraded and leveled individually, the Killer can for example be protected while focusing on a sniping, if the shoulder mounts are used well and silenced.

PS ~ The original proposition was abandoned for weight, mobility, and network sensitivity to intrusion or worse, distraction while its nature leaves the user too dependent on it.

Left useless by a string of firecrackers, but good for games.

Chapter One

The city is walled off but there are ways to the woods if not just over the wall, one could explore forever but for the purpose of telling, the tale follows the immediate events, each prologue covering a different region.

Here the city. As inevitably the player reaches the mayor's manor on the far edge of town from the dock.

('Trying to Get to Heaven' ~ Dylan cover by Bowie)

A decadent mass overflows its steps and balconies, desperately celebrating desperation itself to stave off the Hell seeking them from beneath their feet.

They player passes through as they mock their own fates in masquerade of the demons which hunt them. Walled off by the parapets as long as they'll hold while everyone knows in the end, they will not.

Blowing fire into the air drunkenly, one is ignited to flight, encircled and pushed back with sticks and beaten til dead in their revelry. The crow sounds.

They shy away as cowered beasts, reminded by the Killer's presence who and what they've become.

Their guest's success will save them, but leave them no reason for their current state which they've come to prefer. Fearing to lose their reasons why for madness slightly less than the death the Killer's come to spare them.

Damnation feared even less than that, in spite of Hell's growth all around them. The tones at play among Vampyres. Among nobility it's considered an expensive serum to the madness which besets the useless.

Every glance as they all cease their variety leads directly to cowering away in their shames or their lasciviousness poking its curiosities forth for simply being something new. Powerful. Desire.

Tones become hushed as a path is cleared to the mayor, while in the rooms it's much the same. Levity becomes silence. Up the steps and through the crowd swirly to the dance, the Mayor atop the stairs chatting his accountant.

'The Mayor' - "Ah. Welcome. Your secrets are safe with us, we have aplenty our own. And we'll keep you here as well, to be safe from these secrets you flee."

Killer - "I don't flee my past and I haven't chosen to stay. You're another safe harbor on my own personal map. Though I admit. It is very nicely out of the way."

Mayor - "As we sought it. And to the point, our sad little tale."

Killer - "I'll tell you. Your perfect world was lost because of someone betrayed you. Correct ?"

Mayor - A smile, "Correct."

Killer - "So I'm assuming your cult's founder is at the heart of the matter. Where's the body ?"

...

Mayor - "In the Mortuarium."

Killer - "Really."

...

Mayor - "A place we do not go."

Killer - "But you do have the key."

...

Mayor - "I do. But you cannot let anything escape."

Killer - Smiles and starts loading up. "What happens then ?"

Mayor - "Then Hell takes us all. Even you. Surely it's where you were headed along your way here, so I'd imagine our plight interests you only in the most 'selfless' of terms."

Killer - "If you could see you in the mirror saying that to me."

Mayor - "There are no mirrors in this house. Your room key in the nearest motel. Gather your companion and meet me at the Mortuarium."

Killer - "Companion ?"

Mayor - "Another one come to ... 'save us all'." A laugh, "Of course. Be good to that one, you have more in common than you know."

Killer - "I'm not splitting the check."

Mayor - "I didn't ask. Meet me at the Mortuarium. And then to meet our maker. Without me."

Killer - "Isn't that what everyone wants ?"

Mayor - Turning away to the returning sounds of celebration, "Far fewer I think than those who like to say it. I've already mourned him."

________________

At the Motel ~

Lady at the desk - "Ah ! The killer killer ... killer killer ... ha ! Thank God for you there's plenty a doin' for that around here. Chelsea Cotter. I'm not one a them. Yer one of us. Room's up the stairs ... the one what don't sound like fucking."

Indeed the case and one the noisy ones may even be unlocked ! Two for the second play-through and three for the third ? (the hot coffee mod was terrible)

Found the right room, inside sitting on the bed reading, The Learner.

Learner - Spots the Killer, "Ho-lee shit look at you. They tried to tell me but hm. Mm-hm. You must be the total fucking psychopath. As requested." Circles in bemused examination ...

Killer - Drops the weapons to refit the pistols to his gear. "That's a dated term. No legitimate practitioner uses it anymore."

Learner - "Who told you that !?"

Killer - Begins disassembly with the tools from his belt. "My therapist. It did actually make me feel a little better."

Learner - "Nice. Got any pills ?"

Killer - "Sometimes."

Learner - "Well then ... looks like I'm your Demonologist."

Killer - "I heard they call you 'the Learner'."

Learner - "I've learned a lot of things. Now I'm learning that."

Killer - "Huh. Me too." Done adjusting the gear, "Shall we 'away to the Mortuarium' then ?"

Learner - "Delighted." Notes the crow on the sill, "Funny that." Then back to the Killer, "So you're here to kill everything out of my way while I solve the great big mysteries of these freaks lives, right ?"

Killer - "I would very much like to believe that's the case. Lead the way."

________________

On the first play through, any companion has the same stats as you and grows from there. If playing through again, the Learner here is your own character from that prior play (still has gear).

The Learner seems uniquely aware that they're in a game.

Takes nothing seriously but the puzzle of it, and is only frustrated at the times a gamer would be, as opposed to a character who believed what was happening is real.

A platform and puzzle player mostly, likes to activate all the mini missions when you're not looking, then run off finding keys and secrets, babbling them on return.

Pretty much everything a shoot-gamer hates doing, this one does automatically. Very talky, immediately flees all battle and swears a lot when hit, occasionally badass.

~ two

~ when the player's ready for the mortuarium ~

Learner - With a sense for what's beyond the door, the iron too cold to the touch. "What did you do ?"

Mayor - "It cannot be described. There was an 'error'. In our ceremonies. It swallows this world from beneath this ... 'mortuarium' even now as we speak, locked within its walls.

"And the Beast ... it's warned us it would use you somehow to escape this place once it has. Into your world."

Killer - "Then we should just leave you to your fate. Sounds like you've earned it."

Mayor - "Damn you to Hell and here you are, right. But someone else will come in your stead. you know it. And what I know is that you came to kill." With despise, "And you will find what you seek here in droves."

Killer - "They do say a soldier's only welcome in times of war."

Mayor - "They say it right. We were a peaceful people, building paradise."

Killer - "So much arrogance in such failure, and now ... here we are. You paying me."

Mayor - "Indeed. I'll not go in there, the door bars behind you I wait here for your banging screams to escape it."

~ unlocks, unbars, and pulls the heavy door open scrapping hard ~

Killer - "The door had better open back up again or I'm the next mayor of this town."

Mayor - "And sheriff no doubt."

Killer - "Judge."

Learner - "Jury !"

Mayor - "And executioner ..." a laugh to the crow pecking in the street. "Well alright then. Well met. Perhaps there is hope for us after all."

The door slams behind the player, the lock bangs through.

~ so what the hell's a mortuarium !? ~

A 'Mortuarium' was a place where bodies were dissected in a viewing theater, encircled like an arena in raised seating about the slab. Along the hall to and surrounding the core were smaller rooms displaying samples and dissections for taken notes.

A museum of death provided well for by plagues and grave robbers, particularly when they had no idea how plagues worked. The discovery times, these akin to a 'Museum of Natural History', or 'Bestiary'.

Artists would come to render for rare pay. Some dug graves to survive the dark times, some simply killed. While poor artists as well found their ways to make ends meet, or died to be here nonetheless.

Autopsies and samples on the wall, a 'Mortuarium' was equal parts gallery and school in times where bodies were aplenty and 'anatomy' was regarded nearly like horror pornography, when not precisely that.

They continued into the early twentieth century quite well alongside the classical Asylums, even now giving up their occasional touring displays, the bodies been signed away to 'science'.

But most skeletons in the classroom today come from India.

Ghosts of funeraries fade among the open caskets in the circular entryway. The tears of mourners and their eulogies, good people spoken of dubiously, the dubious spoken of well, been taken by the beasts of the woods surrounding.

In passing they become angrier, seeking to lash the beast out, building to screams of rage at some dragon before silenced and gone. But for the Mortician staring in his tall hat and jeweler's monocle, cane seeming forged from the cast of a brain stem to the spinal chord.

He examines them a moment, tips his hat and turns passing through the door where Hell's vine works grows most thick.

Learner - "I swear to God this is why I picked Demonology. Everyone was like 'you should be a ghost hunter !' And I was like 'fuck that'. Just a bunch of cold ass breezes banging pots and pans.

"But Demonology ? Those be the real haunts. Right ? Lesson learned. I'm going the way where it's not Hell. We're gonna need a map from the service booth."

Killer - "Why do we need a map ? The path is clear. Look."

Learner - "I like maps ! And also the secrets ... like you care. I'll catch up when everything's dead. Or you could just join me ... but we both know that's not happening because you're a gun wielding lunatic looking for a corpse."

Killer - "Lunatic now. 'Moon madness' ? So Pych 101 wasn't on the learner's list then."

Learner - "Lost track when they went DSM ... did you know like every contributor has a position with a pharmaceutical company ? Literally every single one of them."

Killer - "I did know that."

Learner - Smiles turning away for the booth, "I bet you did ... you comin' or killin' ?"

('The Earth Died Screaming by Tom Waits)

If the Killer tries the middle door, it's found locked.

Learner - From inside the booth, "Ha ! Here ya go." A loud buzzer and click announces the unlocked door. "If you die I'm going home." Attention turns to babble about finds and drawers and where the hell's the goddamn map while the Killer enters.

Learner - "I've got to lock it behind you or the whole town is completely fucked and so am I."

Killer - Opens it slowly examining, "You've got your priorities backwards. I think we can see clearly we're saving these people a fate they deserve. This is a pure mercenary gig and get used to it. Ready."

The door locks behind.

Hell's biosphere has had time to grow here, voraciously clogging the hall. In the rooms to the side, etchers etching and sketchers sketching undistracted around dissection corpses posed suspended from trellises with their skin peeled back as elegant cloth, positioned in scenes of drama and enlightenment.

And we're still talking about history.

Posed here according to their actual etchings.

Such was the origin of 'Gray's Anatomy' and everything we think we know about the body in the west. Grave robbers, strangely compelled artists, carnivals and underground mortuariums.

On the shelves lining the rooms are electrical experiments performed to animate disfigured animal limbs in the late 1800's and early nines, deeper into the rooms human. These experiments were regularly performed in carnivals and were the known inspiration for 'Frankenstein'.

Limbs still twitching in generator sparks and dimming lights responding.

In the booth connecting the office just prior these, the most notable addition is a series of kinoscope monitors (round screens, 1926 prototype) keeping watch on the classrooms and an intercom.

And Ooo ... a map.

Which shows the other entry to the artists rooms encircling the operating theater and an incinerator in the basement with sewer access apparently for the runoff.

In the office past the booth are pages concerning phrenology which overlay the island map, dividing the regions and predicting the beasts invading. While the diagrams of actual brain functions seem to match the uninfected biosphere.

Books to be collected are anatomical, an herbology chapter on poisons, a page from John French with three differing recipes for the philosopher's stone, and drawing the essential oils from blood and bone.

Monocle atop the desk, service pistol in the drawer, his walking stick in the corner under the hat and overcoat on the hook, all can and be taken clothes and worn.

The Learner will show up later wearing them anyway if the player split ways, truly finds all secrets within a certain range of the player, scurrying about preferring ducts to doorways.

Following can be useful for ways around places. left alone the finds appear automatically on the map. The Killer's gear can't however fit most ducts.

Having found the janitor keys together and seeing each other ignored by the fast sketching artists, or on the intercom crackling in as the Killer enters the central door alone ~

Learner - Draws pistol if seen ... "I'm running ahead to lock the doors around the theater to trap them in. The weird monitors just show me a bunch of fucking art students. I'll scream bloody murder if I'm getting bloody murdered but I think I'll be okay."

A deep breath and exhale before comm out or exit.

The central hall accessible from these side doors getting locked along the way, the occasional 'click' to show where the Learner is. Overgrown with Hell's strange vine-work, the first chance to examine it closely.

Lining the walls itself harmlessly, expanding by force of growth alone through any way blocking while gliding over the frames without care, archways of vinework still growing before the eyes.

Barely beast like responsive to the player's presence.

The occasional flicker of dated lights marks the passage of ghosts passing through carrying a body, a third with a shovel walking to the Killer's face staring as if to warn, 'Mind your own.'.

Nothing done causes notice here, the Killer frozen.

The mortician pays the gravediggers a bag of coin and throws the body over his shoulders, nods to the Killer with a smile and turns through the door at the end of the hall. The gravediggers glare walking by through the entryway door.

A knock on the door to the left ~

Learner - From the other side, "Knock knock."

Killer - Watches the last gravedigger looking over his shoulder with a grin before passing through the front door. "Who's there."

Learner - "Harmonde Walthers. The mortician. He's dead and when they told me they were 'bringing life to this world', that's not what I imagined."

Killer - "It's exactly what I imagined."

...

Learner - "Really ?"

Killer - Loads, "Yeah. Keep going. This place isn't that big and the operating theater should be right up right through these doors ahead, the classrooms wrapping around. How's that map ?"

Learner - "You're ... right ! And how do you know that do tell ?"

Killer - "They have these in the army."

Learner - "Explain."

Killer - "Never. But something about it feels right like home."

...

Learner - "Knock knock."

...

Killer - "Who's there."

Learner - "I want you to live."

The door clicks locked as the Learner shuffles off on the other side, play resumes.

~ three

('In the Colosseum' by Tom Waits)

The stairs descending the operating theatre where the growth of hell from the spill-well to the sewers below. Through the body on the slab in the center of the room, with one of three circles from the Grimoire Verum sigils from Abognazar drawn in the rings.

Hell's growth seems crawled from the grates beneath and down the legs of the operating table like branched vine-works, while that from the center is thrust through the table and carcass.

The leveled seating in the round room is made for doctors and medical students to observe a surgery or dissection clearly. Magnifier glasses and curved mirrors give views of particular organs from which the hell seems to be growing for inspection.

The mortician stands over him, scalpel in hand, said students and anatomy artists surrounding the chamber, one seem interested in the player, fastidiously sketching as though running out of time.

Mortician - "We mean you no harm. Come see." He smiles, "It's God."

In fact aside from the prison tattoos and the actual hell growing out of him the corpse does look a bit like a western bearded white guy God or maybe Santa Clause, but in reality he just looks like a local cult leader.

... as the ghosts of the bodies in the foyer gather passing through the main locked door, more coming through the floor from the incinerators below.

Mortician - "Mmm ... yes ... our founder. This is how he got out you know. His 'grand plan' to escape his own Hell and into a new world. Our world. And we helped him. Now look at us. LOOK at US.

"And here or God lay on the slab like the rest, dug up from the church yard for a bag of coin. So how do you plan to escape us, your own Hell incarnate."

Killer - "Killing. It's what I chose."

Mortician - Smiles, "Good to know. Completely helpless. Now we mean you harm."

The door crashes open as the artists from the other rooms pour through with the dissected bodies dragging their trellises. A Killer's bullet passes through the ghost mortician as he steps forth smiling, hatchet cane raised to strike.

A sound banging through the above ducts accompanied by a lot of swearing ... some twisting of metal and banging directly over head ...

The Learner drops landing on hands and feet, stands back to back with the Killer, wearing if, the Top-hat and coat, passes the Killer bladed walking stick and pistol from the drawer, with one full load.

Learner - "I wasn't gonna let you die alone."

The Mortician cocks his head looking at the Learner.

Killer - "There are better things you could have said right there."

Learner - "No. Listen and Sh. Only his weapons will work on him. But ... you know I think these other guys may actually be living zombies !? Because ew."

Shoots the flopping arm, flipping it to the corner a twitching hand righting itself to crawl back to.

Learner - "I literally punched one in the back of the head like five minutes ago. I think it was that one." Shoots. "Did nothing ! So I did a lot of it ! This is not my fault they were already like that."

Killer - "I ... believe you ?"

The Learner starts canting Hebrew.

Killer - "What are you doing ?"

Learner - "Sh. I'm dealing with their ghosts."

Electricity crackles from the Learner's chanting mouth, across the face beneath glowing eyes sparking. Down to the arms, and whips it at the the gathering at the door, the watchers in the observation ring rise to join.

This works well on their souls, tearing them from their bodies to weaken them.

While playing as Learner, one can see for example the singular soul connecting the disconnected body parts across the room like a network, and pluck it like a web.

The Mortician draws the memory of his bladed cane and pistol. The learner's power tries at the Mortician but seems too weak until distracted back to the artisans, leaving Mortician to Killer.

The Mortician's blade locks to the Killer's in its strikes as opposed to the body, the pistol as secondary making the intended strike from the left.

From a sixteenth century Spanish sword and dagger style.

In the end the two versions of the walking stick become one and can kill a ghost, being fused of both worlds. This pistol too but only with as much of the original ammo as the player has left.

After it's done, the Founder's' body is examined further, Killer digging around in there with the forceps ...

Learner - Pulls the monocle, "Here."

Killer - "I wanted macroscopics for these." Pulls a goggle to place the monocle, "But they didn't want to pay out for that." Digging digging with a squirt. "Said I was a killer not an investigator and ... there it is.

"Looks like somebody betrayed their god."

Drops the silver bullet to the tray.

...

Learner - "This is the most disgusting crawl ever. Are we even past the intro yet ?"

Killer - "What ?"

Learner - A look ... "Let's ... just get out of here."

As they turn to leave the body sits up, the door closes behind them.

Out to the front door, the Killer bangs three times ... nothing. Again and nothing again.

Learner - "Oh fuck ..."

Killer - Bangs again, "What."

Learner - "I don't think we can kill that."

The Killer turns as the Founder walks through the far door at the end of the hall dragging Hell's growth behind him, covering the walls. "Oh fuck ..."

Both - "The bullet."

Learner - "You know what's cool about maps ?"

Killer - "Which way."

Learner - "Behind the curtain on the right. Basement to the bloodletting drop access, the incinerator, the mausoleum, and then the sewer where the all Hell apparently lives. Literally ... the best I got."

Killer - "That's not better."

The Founder roars his pain.

Learner - "Sure it is."

Runs for the curtain gone (player dies shortly unless following).

Chapter Two

~ they bar the door, the roaring and the pounding ...

Stairs down, basement to the bloodletting drop access dripping.

The Founder follows as closely as possible overhead so when they're closer to underfoot than the door he's banging on he follows above, dragging, pounding, screaming of Hell's agony.

Vine-works grows through the bloodletting grates above, like stalactites seeded from the organs flopped carelessly over the edge, and from there they enter the mausoleum.

('Vomit' by MF Doom (1926 remix)

The dead break their caskets for them, many already dissected, dragging their own now clothing like flesh with insides strewn, to be rendered into limbs that never stop twitching but can no longer follow.

The gameplay pushes a zombie like absurdities through with the music. Unarmed and weak, a relaxed shootout with refreshingly direct if not hilarious results until the sewer access is found.

~ two

('Dead Billy' live by Big Black)

The underground network is the true shooter's level, patrolled by an unknown clockwork militia. Golems mass produced and magically activated, the Learner's ability to knock out their ghost in waves is very useful here.

The roughly clay packed gear-works for bodies are sensitive to shots in the joints. Their targeting is adequate but are incapable of properly lining a shot on moving targets. Easily frustrated and likely to throw grenades as the last attempt.

The Midwich underground would have been constructed first then the town on top of it, tunnels connecting all the major buildings. Surprisingly competent works for what's so far been seen.

Suspicious.

This opening leads directly out to the docks through the warehouses, where cargo is only prepared for going out, loading onto ships which came empty.

The other direction through the tunnels the sewers connect, passing the outflow generators powering the town;s weak lights, and pouring out into the valley.

They examine the outgoing cargo. These tunnels are made to be cleared, my personal preference to levels which offer multiple ways to get to things amid already set patrol patterns.

The Learner lowers binoculars.

Learner - "What are they moving ?"

...

Killer - Looking with the goggles zoomed, "Looks like ... provisions. Like ... food."

Learner - "That's it ?"

Killer - "Looks like. Food. Wares. Some damn livestock even. But nothing ... there's nothing strange here at all ... "

Learner - "Well that's strange in of itself. So ... they ... must be stopped ?"

Killer - "I guess ... what's the map have to say about all this."

Learner - "Cuts off at the first layer of Hell."

Killer - "You didn't list that upstairs."

...

Learner - "Do you really want save these people ?"

Killer - "Which ones ?"

Learner - A giggle, "Any of them. The ones we like."

...

Killer - "I do."

Learner - Smiles, a hand over the hand. "Then we're going down."

~ three

As either now or later they approach the way to Hell ~

Learner - "I have a plan."

Killer - "And I like blaming others. Let's hear it."

Learner - Smiles, "The provisions are for them. The mayor and his people. They don't expect us to succeed, and they don't want us to.

"The symbols they combined in there ... there's three circles from that set. Each with a correlating demon that oversees the protection it's supposed to give, but the one we saw in the Mortuarium had mismatched inlays."

Killer - "So they paid the wrong guy."

Learner - "Probably three times. Each to a very competitive demon, infuriated by any reminder of the other. All we need to do is complete their mistake. It's like they fucked it all up just right for it."

Killer - "Does that make it a good idea ? Can this world handle all three ?"

Learner - Answers with a sad and desperate kiss. "So we need to go into the deepest pit and draw a circle around it. And when the rumbling starts sooner than they expected, the people we don't hate all start running for a boatload of supplies waiting for them."

Killer - "While our 'Mister Mayor' and the like are on the wrong side of town from it. ... Hey. We're gonna make it."

The learner smiles indulgently, nods as they rise.

Descending the pits, tapered downward much like the operating theater seating and more like Dante, through the core of the underground network from which the passages and warehouses all split.

Deeper leaving what's attached to Midwich and into Hell at the lowest, where the damned pour impossibly numbered from their tortures, carried by the pain as the thorny vines grow through their bodies, pushing them forward with each growth spurt.

The descent to the lowest pit reached, countless clawing beyond killing's count in pursuit, the Learner sets to work on the circle and words.

When finished the damned pour accusing them of their crimes from all passes surrounding the pit forcing them back to it, spending ammo which just turned infinite.

Learner - Shooting, "I was going to marry you someday."

Killer - "Be a real nice house too."

Learner - "The best. And I'd always feel safe."

Killer - "Always would be. I thought maybe we'd even get a kid in there somewhere."

Learner - "Or two ... you know I heard it's better when they have someone to play with."

Killer - "I heard that too."

Learner - "I remember you ..."

('Happiness is a Warm Gun' by The Beatles)

Surrounded firing into the oncoming endless swarming them until the guitar, the Founder hanging over the mass by the growth. He screams the agonies of it tearing through him, flowing with its thorns, echoing the hells.

Watching.

The phrase in the song "mother superior drop the gun" repeats into an increasing loop of cacophony sounds never moving on until finally the Killer and Learner are finally forced backward into the pit

~ firing at the droves pouring over them, fire beneath them ~

"Happiness is a Warm Gun"

After a long fall, time slowing for all but them as they fire, they reach for hand and smiling into each other's eyes. The roar beneath them fills the pit through at the vocal crescendo, burning them and their falling pursuers.

It burns the caverns through and all within, soldier demon and damned alike, cracking the ground beneath the town and burning the roar to the skies.

Chapter Three

('In the Mood' remix by Funk Ferret and Goodgroove RMX)

Awaking in a period seeming speakeasy, drinks before them.

A nightclub apparently built inside the usually closed chapel. If those assorted with the mayor were considered decadent, these would go simply beyond to cultish and ceremonial. Room to room of sacrifice to devotion, every craving being satisfied.

Mixed among them the familiar faces of everyone the player's killed, staring frozen as they pass until the table in the back, Gabrielle seated with her back to the wall watching them.

Gabrielle - "Welcome back."

Killer - "What is this."

Gabrielle - "It's too late. Hell has taken Midwich already and you're already damned to it. So where else could you go ?"

Killer - "Everyone we've ever killed ..."

Gabrielle - "Is here. They're waiting."

Learner - "And that's why ..."

Gabrielle - "Why you're here. They're waiting for you."

The Killer draws and fires, it passes her through with a glitch, the world glazing over around her, a bullet hole in the beam to the side.

Gabrielle - "It's not real you know, but the pay's still the same. You do remember dying, you'd just rather not and true enough. I understand that."

Killer - "And you ?"

Gabrielle - "I was never alive. I'm encoded to the system. What you just saw was the game recreating reality to fills the vacuum of any encoded removal, as it most recently was. In short, you missed."

Killer - "The Hell I did." He points and clicks misfired.

Learner - Lowers the gun-hand ... "She's right. It's just a thing that can't happen. Fate will rewrite it." To her, "At least here."

Gabrielle - To the Killer, "Meaning you remember seeing what you mind needs to comprehend my continued existence."

To both - "We're abandoning the project to let it collapse it in on itself, destroying the beasts within it. And I do I truly hope not you too." To both, "But it's too late. The experiment is over."

Killer - "So where the Hell do we go now !?"

Learner giggles.

Gabrielle - "You could always just stop playing." Shots are delivered.

They look guiltily around at each other ... they take their shots.

Gabrielle - "True I had better hopes for it, but this place was always designed as a trap. So now it gets sprung. And you get the hell out of town on that shipment."

Learner bursts out laughing, "You two Have to Stop !"

Gabrielle - "Never. You in ?"

Killer - "And then what. 'Salvation' ?"

Gabrielle - "I'm sorry ... that's as far as I can see."

Killer - "Meaning ?"

Gabrielle - "Meaning the experiment is over. I'm not the one to break you out of Hell. My hypocrisy here can only go so far without ... "

Killer - "Without what." Thanks for the round and pays.

Learner - "Oh ... my ... God ... doesn't even know ... "

She looks away a sec, then back. Takes the glass and cheers with an acknowledging smile of sarcasm before the shot.

(if the right Abognazar page was found)

The Learner giggles.

Killer - "Now what."

Learner - "I knew Gabriel was a girl. No one believed me. The names of female angels in the Abognazar woodcuts are reversed to white lines on black because he was a fucking misogynist."

Gabrielle - Smiles appreciatively, "Indeed."

~ two

('Believer' by Remember Dragons (Beat Sabre Edition)

Leaving to the the crowd, those the player and companion have killed are gathered around close blocking the way and trying to pull them down.

The difficulty depends on how many the player's killed compounded by previous play-throughs. They do no damage but shooting will only flinch them.

Swinging with the Mortician's walking stick or similar will knock them back, while allowing them to pile will turn them to the tearing of flesh to devour. The hard push through their ceremony to the door and out to the street.

The sky turned red, Hell's hoard breaching the distant wall in impossible numbers.

The population flees past them screaming for the docks, cars swerving to avoid them, airships turning away taken down by leaping creatures from the kicked up silt fog, reflecting the fires within. A wave of herd and sparse beasts of the woods alike charge past the running screamers.

The ground quakes once hard, the distant echo of the beast beneath.

~ three

Learner - "Think we'll make it ?"

Killer - "Yep."

Learner - "I'll take it. What now."

Killer - "We cover every last one of these people out of here and then we walk away."

Learner - "Hm. So die."

Killer - "Yep."

Learner - "And like actual actual die. Dead and gone gonna die die, die. Gone with the world."

...

The long kiss goodbye ~

Killer - "Death is for pansies."

Chelsea Cotter - Standing there unnoticed, shotgun over her shoulder next to them, "Agreed. But that really is a shite plan." Spits. "We're in."

('Hallowed be thy Enemy' remix by Wax Audio (?)

The people from the alley circles exit their mist thick hides, from all across town filling into the streets. Pub and motel, a few non coward guards, the rest screaming away with the fleeing herds and swerving cars.

Dealers and alleyway thugs, prostitutes and just fucking poor and crazy loading their guns while the rest make for the boat. Note if you killed a lot of thugs thinking you were doing a good thing, you weren't.

The endless hoard reaches town's edge, the last residents lost torn beneath them. In the dower silence, of screams and roars, the charge about to range, a man laughs.

...

Slowly everyone starts laughing to cheering as they all open fire now close enough. Individually the hoard beasts die easily enough and pile well enough while descending airships cook the groups with flame throwers.

But the beasts go on forever and can leap the flamethrower's range.

As much as we can possibly get away with running smooth is what happens here, until the ground begins to buckle at the end of the song.

The distant woods start rising up in two, taking great forms of its features, screaming painfully as they break into new shape. A massive roar of pain from beneath their feet with the starting quakes.

The Killer - Spots the mayor fleeing in his very fast looking car looking suddenly afraid upon seeing him. "Oh ... who's yer mayor now ..." Targeted and locked into extreme slow motion, a shot through the mayor's head, the car spinning out.

If you miss that shot, you're gonna die. By the way. It's real friendly.

Learner - The car swerving to, "This was her plan !?"

Killer - "Apparently. Pretty sure it was yours. Now our plan is to get the fuck to that ship with the rest of these fools."

The greater demons rise behind them forming of the two conquered regions, beyond massive but technically climbable if you want to die. The wildlife fleeing the woods become limbs, a head screaming from the mountainside in pain.

The city streets ahead start buckling hard.

Gabrielle strikes the ground from the sky, cracking it through and splitting the forming beast into rubble. She looks back as it begins climbing from its own rubble again more pissed off, "Run."

As the beast takes the town from within, tectonic plates separate in quake forming limbs reaching, the earth roaring it's pain beneath them. A slow transformation from land to upright beast while in the distance that valley and swamps do the same.

Newly formed eyes first seeing each other they pull from the ground for battle, the player escaping or not its transforming limbs. The Building around shatter where their structures can't bear the quake, the rest dragging along with its formation.

These will be independently intelligent enemies warring while the world they're made of caves in on itself. No guaranteed route through, but probably. To be tested well enough to know it's possible.

Live or die.

The game goes on to another chapter or to the main game either way.

Voluminous Endings

(assuming the player survived)

Watching the last of the battle rage from the boat as the world tears itself apart fighting itself in three forms before collapsing in on itself painfully into a single point of light darting through the skybox.

They watch the nothingness a moment and turn for the rest of the survivors, as many or few as happened to make it on their own intelligence and luck.

The passage of time, sleeping stacked with the cargo and animals who found the dock in the funneled streets.

On the fore deck spotting the isle ...

Choosing another volume where it all begins again and where now the survivors are the excess population, or if one's already played all three (or is just ready to move on) ~

('Harder than You Think' by Public Enemy)

Death now awaits at the shore in place of Gabrielle, the Explorer as crow flying to his waiting wrist. And Death is Death.

Not like the tarot card, Death is not transformation.

Death has a sickle, a skull for a face, and wears a big black cloak. The sickle collapses its blade along the length of the pole, can extend straight like a pole-arm sword, reverse curved.

The skin of the face grows as though windswept from past the cheeks and forehead, sweeping down across the form to completion at the chest.

So pale that where skin begins and bleached bone ends is debatable. So dead as not to question what color it may have once been if ever it had any, simply devoid and featureless like a sketchpad to hold an idea.

One may believe a face had been sandblasted off the bone by time itself, leaving only the eyes deep in their sockets suspended from the remaining inset brow.

No ears because Death does not hear your pleas, while inside the mouth is only what's needed to speak and to satisfy the needs of a now living hunger.

Volume II ~ The Learner's Tale

~ The player and Gabrielle reach the town's central fountain ~

~ 1 - ~~I want to kill~~.

~ 2 - I want to learn.

~ 3 - ~~I want to explore~~.

('Lonely Cinderella' by Herosyn)

~ the song begins over the buildings' final settling ~

~ The Learner's Tale ~

(0:30)

Credits roll as the rest of the citizenry dances out from their homes, shops, and alleyway mists and into a vibrant city while the player explores the town for the first time.

They don't sleep like the others but only frolic through the night providing the only twenty-four hour entertainment, unleavened by any duties at all. Found otherwise around the theater (scripted classical performances), and the chapel which never seems open.

~ But notably never the pub.

Player wanders the streets through the credits, with no local money having been earned or found. Even the muggers in the alleyways haven't mugged anyone yet, they've just spawned but that also means they haven't spent their bullets yet either, and they're hungry. Everyone is.

Horses and carriage start mingling among to load for the docks.

(0:40)

An out of control early car careens through the crowds and they twirl aside.

(1:01)

The airships begin peaking over the buildings forming their lanes of sky traffic.

(2:08)

A madman's eyes, an airship laden with more hanging off the ship to the music, tries over the city wall, taken down in a heavy burn arrow barraged from the parapet launcher. Burning into the ground, police rushing to run the survivors down as they tear mad dancing through the populace.

~ A man from the crowd is dragged to the alley by prostitutes.

(2:16)

Teeth grow in the alleyway to feast while the rest take the cash.

(2:18)

~ The dancing madmen are thrown cartwheeling back over the wall.

The last touches of a 'balanced world' settling in with dancing streets-weepers, the rest to their days, shops and shopping, before everyone snaps to normality.
________________

The Learner's abilities are gathered mostly in the prologue from pages found to the grimoires, but the electrical enhancements have a different effect in modern environments with advanced electrical grids.

Replacing the Gecko-Gun is the ability to pull wires, pulling the Learner toward the heavier cables in downtown's modern architecture while tearing the wires from the wall by the resistance of mass.

This disrupts all electrical in the vicinity, shredding the outer walls of the building or halls, and the grids they're torn from.

The Learner can as well transmit through the wires to a visually seen or marked location, so long as it's on the same grid. Seen as a transmission of information, and can include across the sky as lightning.

Once this power is achieved at the end of the prologue and brought into a modern world, it becomes extremely destructive by nature. At that point I'd just give the Gecko-Gun to the Killer because awesome.