Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I woke up in an elevator, and didn't remember how I got there. I couldn't remember a lot about my life for some reason. I looked around and saw four other people in the elevator. Three of them were asleep, but one was awake and looked at me.

"Hello there." He said.

I groaned and laid slumped against the wall. There was a fun little song playing, and the other was humming along with it. Two of the others woke up. They were both girls, and had no issue getting up fast. I had been up for a minute and hadn't made any progress. I sat up against the wall and slowly stood up. There was a sudden ding and the elevator stopped and its doors opened, revealing... a hotel lobby. It was at this moment that the last person woke up. He did so with a yelp of surprise, which surprised us as well.

"Oh god." He said. "Not people."

The back wall of the elevator pushed forwards and shoved us into the lobby, then the doors closed. We all took a moment and looked at each other. All of us were teenagers, and looked to be in the early teens. There were two other girls and two boys.

"So." Said one of the girls. "Hello, my name is Daisy."

"I'm Opel." Said the other.

"I'm Max." Said one of the boys.

"Aero." Said the other.

"I'm Nova." I said. 

"Alright." Max said. "Well I'm hungry, let's find something to eat."

"Don't think we're going to find food." Aero said. "It's late."

We walked around the lobby for a bit and looked in drawers and on bookshelves. I climbed through a luggage carrier and behind the big desk. I looked in the drawers and found a few gold coins that I pocketed. As I was doing that I heard a ring and looked up to see Aero in front of the bell. He looked up at me, then at the bell, then back at me and said;

"It rings."

Then he walked away. There was a key behind the desk where I was on a board. I grabbed it and crouched back through the luggage carrier. 

"Guys." I said. "I got the key."

Everyone walked over to the door and I unlocked it revealing another room. It wasn't locked, however. We all walked in and Max looted some drawers.

"Money!" He yelled.

There were a few paintings, but nothing exiting, so we moved on to the next room. There were some cool looking wardrobes in there.

"Those look lovely!" Said Opel

"Looks like somewhere you would hide from a killer in." Said Aero.

"Looks like a place you could hide a body." Said Max.

Three types of people.
There were more drawers in that room that me could loot, but it looked about the same. The next room had some bookshelves as well as everything else. None of the books looked exiting and we didn't have time to read. We kept going and nothing really happened. There were just normal hallways filled with the things we had seen before. There was a new room, though. Door 9 gave us a hallway with eight doors off to the side and a locked door at the end. We all went into one and laughed. The beds were nice, and was the rest of the rooms. There were nice lamps and chairs and everything else. The beds were also high enough off the ground that you could hide under them if you wanted to. We found the key and walked into the next room. As soon as we walked in, the lights started flashing.

" I don't like that." I said.

We all heard the noise at the same time. It was a slight raspy screaming noise, and it seemed to be getting closer every second.

"Closets!" Aero yelled.

We each got in the closet and stayed in there. The screaming got louder and a large misty creature swept right past the closets and into the next opened the door for the next room. The creature had smashed all of the lights, so we couldn't see and ran to the next room.

"What the hell was that?!" Max asked.

"Do you expect us to know?!" Opel yelled nervously.

"I mean..."

"That thing nearly killed us!"

We were back to the normal rooms, and we kept going through doors, now worried of the rushing thing. We assumed that it was the only thing that could hurt us here, so we kept going, ready for flashing lights. Door fourteen showed us that there were more monsters trying to get us. As we opened the door we saw thing bright blue glow, then a bunch of floating eyeballs. We all looked directly at them. We soon found out that was a very bad idea. When I looked at it it felt as though it was burning my in my eyes, then up to my brain, then pain coursing through my entire body with a second. We a screamed in pain and looked away. 

"What is that?" Daisy asked. 

I didn't know, I couldn't think, I fumbled around for the door and flung it open. The eyes in the previous room vanished.

I collapsed onto the ground and laid there, numb. I was in the most pain I had ever felt in my entire life. My eyes could still barely function, my brain was fried and I felt like I had been set on fire.  Everyone else was having problems of their own, but I had the least tolerance for pain, or got hit worse then everyone else.

"Let it end." I whimpered, curled up on the floor, quietly sobbing. "Let it kill me, anything to make the pain stop."

"Nova?" Someone said. "Nova!" 

Daisy kneeled besine me.

"Nova!" She said. "Are you okay?"

"No." I whimpered.

She leaned me against a wall and hugged me.

"Everything is going to be fine." She whispered in my ear. "You're going to be okay."

I hadn't know Daisy for very long, but I was grateful. It she hadn't helped me cope, I might not have made it past that point. She helped me up and we all continued on. As I walked to the front of the group, Daisy pulled me to the back with her. It was only couple more doors before we found something else. It wasn't another entity, just a dark room. A really dark room. We all backed up when the door was opened and hovered around it.

"We need to go in there." Opel said. 

Max was rummaging around in drawers and found something.

"Guys!" He yelled.

"Hold on." Said Opel. "So we need to figure out how to get to the other side."

"Guys!" 

"Hold on! So I was thinking we could-"

"I found a lighter!"

"Oh."

Max turned it on and nearly set his face on fire, then we ventured into the room. The lighter didn't provide as much light as we hoped, and we all had to huddle around it. Out of nowhere, Daisy screamed and collapsed, clutching her face. I quickly ran over there and knelt down. Everyone else ran over as well. 

"What happened?" I asked. 

"There was another monster of some sort." She said. "I heard a noise, but I ignored it. A few seconds later, this thing spun me around and bit my face." 

She moved her hands and showed her face. It was covered in blood, and there were marks on her cheek. 

"What noise did it make?" Asked Aero.

"It went 'psst', or something."

As I was trying to console her, I heard it.

"Psst." I turned around slowly and saw a round ink covered thing.

It had small tentacles around its body and a large mouth and eyes. The moment I looked at it, it screeched in my face and disappeared. I screamed and fell on my butt. Everyone looked at me in confusion.

"Did you not see it?" I asked.

They all shook their heads.

"What should we call it?" Aero asked.

Max suddenly turned around and screamed.

"Good idea." Aero said.

"There was a thing!" Max yelled and bolted to the door. 

I grabbed Daisy and supported her as we walked to the doorway. Opel and Aero walked slower, and were still confused, as they hadn't seen the Screech. They did though. Just like everyone else, their response was to scream and run. Me, Max and Daisy were already in the next room and got to see them freak out. They ran into the bright room and panted.

"I did not enjoy that." Opel said.

We walked through the room quietly, and the next room was a pretty cool one. It was a plus shape and had bedrooms in each of the corners. The door to the left was boarded up, but the door to the left looked fine it didn't have a number, but that didn't stop me. While everyone else looked around in the bedrooms, I opened the mystery door to find... a small room with a box. 

"This is it." I said. "Really?" 

I opened the box, and inside was a bunch of gold and some lockpicks. I grabbed all of it and stuffed them into my pockets, then went into one of the rooms. I found Daisy sitting on a bed, her face still covered in blood. I walked over to the closet to find something like a shirt that Daisy could clean her face with I opened it, and a what looked to be the head an shoulders of a black and white guy screamed in my face and shut the closet. I screamed, very loudly.

"What the hell?!" Daisy yelled and nearly fell of the bed. 

Everyone ran into the room we were in.

"What happened this time?" Max asked.

"There was a guy in the closet." I said, trying to calm myself down.

"A... guy in the closet." Opel said. "Really?"

Me and Daisy nodded. I opened the closet doors and nothing was there.

"He was here." I said.

"You can't disappear from a closet." Aero said.

I just shrugged and walked out of the room. The others followed, but not before Daisy cleaned her face on the bed blankets. The net room was locked, and had a large windowed office to the side, revealing what was outside. It was rain. A lot of it. I walked behind the desk and started looking around, and Max popped the top.

"Oh look." He said. "Performance enhancing drugs."

I stood up and looked at him. He was holding a bottle of pills.

"Excuse me?" I said.

"Performance enhancing drugs." He repeated and shoved them into his pocket.

I grabbed the key and we unlocked the door. In the next room, the lights flickered. There weren't enough closets for all five of us, So Max and Opel quickly backtracked to the previous room to find some there. We got in and waited. The Rush was taking a little while, and after five seconds or so, my vision started turning red. It got brighter, and I saw dark red hands in lining my vision. No matter where I looked, I saw the same thing. Get out. Get out. Get out. The rush passed, and I threw myself out of the closet and ran into the next room. Aero and Daisy came into the room a second later, and Max and Opel came a few seconds after them.

"Was anyone else told to get out?" Daisy asked. 

We all nodded. That meant that we had to wait before we got into the closet, and that meant everything was going to be a lot harder.

Chapter Text

We turned around and saw that our path forward was blocked by a gate. There were doors to either side of us, but the one on the right was boarded up. The one on the left wasn't, and I opened it to find a stairway leading down. There was another door at the bottom, and I opened that and stepped into a cellar of some sort. The others slowly came down. Max took one look ant the barrels and said;

"That's wine."

I didn't even question him or how he knew that at this point. I searched farther and found a vent. I popped it open and climbed inside. It was uncomfortable, but didn't last very long and I punched out the other side and found an orange switch. I pulled ot and heard a faint squeaking. 

"It opened!" Yelled Opel.

I climbed back through the vents and out of the cellar to find them waiting for me. Once they saw me, we continued on our journey. Through more strange rooms and ominous halls, until door 25. Door 25 was dark. Not only was it dark, but there were eyeballs on the wall. It wasn't the ones that could hurt us, but we were still weary. Max turned on his lighter and we stepped in. We made a beeline towards the nearest group of eyes and looked at them. One weird thing they seemed to do was flash other eyes in spots in our vision. Max reached up and poked one.

"Oooh." He said. "It's gooey." 

He put his hand on it and started messing with it and laughing.

"I wonder what would happen if I set it on fire?!" He said.

"Don't do that." Said Opel.

"You should totally do it." Said Aero. 

Me and Aero chanted. "Do it! Do it! Do it!"

He held the lighter up to one and it closed. 

"Oh." Me, Max an Aero groaned. 

"I wanted it to burn" Said Aero.

We walked through the room, and were prepared for the Screeches. I heard it and turned around.

"Hi Screech." I said.

It screamed and vanished. Everyone had a Screech or two before we made it into the next room, where there were even more eyes. The next room had even more eyes, and the next had even more. Door 29 had no eyes however, and was a long hallway.

"Oh." Daisy said. "They're gone just like that."

We walked to the end of the hall and heard a noise behind us. We turned around and saw a pile of the black goo the eyes were made of. 

"What's that?" I asked nervously.

Right on cue, a humanoid creature with one of the eyes on its face slowly emerged from the black goo and stared right at us.

"Oh shit!" I yelled. 

It fully emerged from the goo and ran towards us.

"RUN!" 

The door in front of us flew open and we sprinted through. In front of us were fallen closets, tables and shelves. We went over some and under others. The next door flew open revealing two ways to go. I looked right and saw a blue glow and decided to head that way. All of a sudden, Max yelled;

"Performance enhancing drugs!" 

And he sped right past all of us. The door opened for him and he ran right through. We went through a couple seconds later and saw more fallen furniture. We went over and under it, and Max was already in the next room, which was another two way room. I didn't have to rely on the Guiding Light for this one, as the door was already open, I ran through and saw one of the most chaotic things of my life. It was a long hallway, but there were large black goo arms reaching through the windows and flaming chandeliers on the ground. I tripped and fell hard on the ground, but Daisy grabbed me and practically pulled me the rest of the way. We all made it through the last room and the door slammed in the monsters face. He banged on it a few times, but it wouldn't budge. 

"Thank you so much Daisy." I said.

"Oh, don't mention it." She said and smiled.

I hugged her tightly.

"You're the best." I said.

She hugged me as well. Max was putting out a small fire on his jacket.

"I may have run into some fire." He said.

"So, um, guys." Aero said. "Which Door did we come through?"

I looked at him.

"Why?"

"Well, that one says thirty-six, but that one says thirty-five."

"Does it matter?" Asked Daisy.

"Probably."

"I don't think it does." She said.

Daisy walked over to door thirty-five and opened it. She yelped in surprise and was pulled in by something. We head a slashing or biting noise and she screamed, then she was thrown back out. The door slammed and the number plate fell off.

I ran over to Daisy. Her chest was covered in blood and she was barely conscious.

"Daisy!" I screamed.

I shook her. She coughed up blood and then winced in pain.

"Daisy!" I yelled. "No. No no no. This can't be happening."

I leaned her up against a wall and hugged her.

"Everything's okay." I whispered, sobbing. "Everything's going to be fine."

"I don't think it is." She cried. "And I don't think it will be."

"You're the best Daisy. I can't lose you."

"We haven't known each other for long, barely even at all, but you've been such a good friend. I've tried to be a good friend too."

"You're a great friend! If you hadn't helped me, I wouldn't've made past the eyes. I would've gotten caught by the cyclops thing."

"I guess so. You're the best Nova."

She went limp. I stood up and her body slid onto the ground. I walked up to a wall and screamed. Grief, anger, pain, all coming out suddenly. I looked over at the others. Opel was crying silently, Aero was in shock, and Max looked to have zoned out.

"I can't believe it." Opel said. "I won't believe it. She can't be dead."

"Oh crap, wait." Max said. "She's dead?"

I looked at him angrily.

"Damn it." He said. "Well, we always have the closets."

"Shut up Max." I said.

We walked slowly through the next door. There were two doors in that one as well, but we hadn't really paid attention to the previous door.

"It's thirty-seven." Max said.

"I'm pretty sure it's thirty-six." Aero said

"No, I think it's thirty-seven."

"I don't think so."

He walked over to door thirty-six and opened it. He screamed an was pulled in and attacked by the fake door creature, then thrown back out onto the ground.

"It's thirty-seven." He said.

Max grinned smugly and helped Aero up, and we all went through the door. The next few rooms were pretty basic, and nothing eventful happened until room 40. Max was looking in some drawers for gold, when he suddenly screamed. We looked over and found a large spider on his face.

"OH TIMOTHY!" He yelled. "It's on my face!"

"We can see that." I said, holding back laughter.

The spider dropped of his face and he calmed down.

"I didn't enjoy that." He said. "But hey, I got a coin!"

We continued, and a few rooms later, the lights flickered. This time we opened the doors to the closets and waited to get in until the screeching of the Rush got louder, so we could avoid the hiding creature. We got out and headed towards the open door. I was starting to wonder how many doors were in this hotel, and if we could all survive everything. Room forty-five was a dark one, and fumbling towards the door revealed that is was a locked one. We didn't want to have to search around for the key, and we didn't since I remembered about my lockpicks. It took me a minute to figure out how to use them, and we a few Screeches while I did, but I eventually opened the door and we went on. We had another Rush, but we knew how to deal with him. Door forty-nine was different. I had a raised platform in the middle and a large desk at one end that Max quickly looted. There was a small alarm clock on top of it, and I grabbed it. I assumed it had to be use full at some point. The next door was big and majestic, but we heard strange noises, sort of like growls coming from the other side. I held my breath and pushed open the doors to room fifty. It was a large and sprawling library, but we didn't have time to appreciate it, because a large, lanky, meaty, humanoid creature with a face of teeth came out from behind a bookshelf and charged at us.

Chapter Text

A lamp fell to the left of us, and the creature turned and ran towards it. We all got down and whispered.

"What the hell is that?" Aero asked.

"I don't know." I said. "But be quiet. We just have to get to the other side."

We snuck around and hid behind some bookshelves. The creature walked past the other side then up the stairs to the raised area where the door was. We waited for him to go back down, the ran quietly up the stairs. We hit a slight problem with the door however. There was a large combination code lock. It was five digits and could naturally go from zero to nine.

"What do we do know?" Opel asked.

"Well we have to find the code." Max said. "Duh."

The creature walked past us. We all held our breath anxiously and waited for him to pass by again. When he did, we split up and searched for anything to help us with the code. As I was scanning the shelves, I noticed the Guiding Light was highlighting one of the books. I grabbed it and it flipped open to a page on the left was a circle, and on the right was the number five.

"Good to know, I guess." I muttered. 

I found another book on another shelf, this one also lit up by Guiding Light. On one side was a square and on the other side was the number four. I carried both books around with me. I emerged into the middle of the room and found that Aero, Opel and Max had also found some books. Along with the books, Max also had a slip of paper and some more gold. We were all converging in the middle and the creature was walking towards the top, when I tripped. I fell with a loud thump and my books tumbled onto the ground making even more noise. The creature turned towards me and ran I scampered backwards, but the creature was too fast. Suddenly, Opel ran over and shoved me out of the way. I tumbled backwards, making as little noise as possible. Opel face planted onto the carpet and got up to try to escape but the creature was almost on top of her. She looked at me, tears running down her face. I was crying quietly and mouthed ‘thank you’. The creature grabbed her and bit at her head with its large mouth. She screamed for a split second, then went silent. The creature dropped her and walked away. We all ran over as fast as we could and got down beside her. Aero was crying, and Max just looked kind of sad. I was unsure if he could actually cry at this point. Her head was covered in blood. There was no way she survived the attack. I hugged her and said;

“Thank you.”

Still crying, I grabbed Opel's books, then mine. Aero and Max grabbed theirs and we hid behind a bookshelf as the creature passed us once more. He walked away and we made our way towards the top. We waited for him to go up, then back down, then snuck up to the door. We set down all the books. There were eight in total, but the door only needed five. I sat down next to a potted plant and curled up into a ball.

"I can't believe she's dead." I cried.

"Nova." Aero said.

"Leave me alone!"

"Nova!"

"I said leave me alone!" I yelled much louder then I meant to. 

The creature turned towards us and ran. Fast. We scattered. Aero ran behind the plant pot and me and Max ran towards the nearest closets. The creature nearly got me, but I hid in it just in time. I stayed outside and did what I would call peering into my closet if it had eyes. My breathing was rapid and panicked, and the creature grew more agitated, more alert. I slowed down my breathing and tried to slow my heart rate and calm myself down. I closed my eyes and tried to be calm. It worked, and the creature walked away and down the stairs. I practically burst out of the closet and ran quietly over to the big door. Aero and Max were already there, and they were trying to figure out the code. Max looked at the paper, then the books.

"1st is a pentagon, and that one is six." He said.

Aero turned the first one to six.

"Next is diamond, which is a seven."

Aero turned the next one to seven.

"Then triangle is one, circle is five, star is one."

Aero put those into the lock, but before he could press the button, the creature came back. We all stayed silent and watched it walk past, then walk past again and down the stairs. Aero pressed the green button and the lock opened with a loud clank. The creature heard the noise and ran towards us. We got the lock off the door and pushed it open. We ran into the next room, and the creature tried to follow us, but the doors slammed in his face. We all stood there, gasping for air.

"What the actual hell just happened?" Aero said.

My adrenaline rush was over and I went to go sit in a corner. Aero looked around and Max stared at one of the paintings.

"Theory." He read. "Nice."

I needed to process everything. Opel had died. Not only that, but she died saving me. If I hadn't tripped, would she be with us in this room right now, 'celebrating' with us? could I have done anything to prevent her death? I buried my face in my hands and began to cry quietly.

"She shouldn't have sacrificed herself for me." I whispered. "I don't deserve that. I should've pushed her away or tried to escape, or something."

Then I thought about Daisy, and my messed up brain thought I should've been able to save her, or gone instead of her. It wasn't my fault, and I guess I knew that, but right then I didn't. Right then, I couldn't think straight. My depression wasn't helping with anything, and at that moment, I didn't want go on. But I knew I had to, so I wiped the tears from my eyes and stood up. It was then that I heard faint music coming from the next room.

"Do you guys hear that?" I asked.

They listened.

"Yeah." Max said.

We all gathered at the door.

"Should we open it?" I asked.

"I mean, we have to." Said Aero.

I opened the door.

"What the f-"

Chapter Text

"Oye!"

We just stood there, confused. The one who had spoken was a red goblin thing sitting on a chair in front of a wooden crate. There was another chair facing the crate, and sitting on top of this one was a human skeleton. the skeleton was being swarmed by flies, but the goblin didn't care, or didn't show it. On the left of the room was an alcove into the darkness, but there were glowing white eyes and a few tentacles coming out of the darkness. There were a few more wooden crated forming a semi-circle around the alcove with the creature with cushions on top. There were two white ones, a red one and a yellow one. On the wall above it all was a sign. It simply read; 'Jeff Shop' Except the S was backwards. The tentacle thing, presumably Jeff, waved at us and placed items on the cushions. There were some standard lockpicks and a bottle of vitamins, but there was also a strange key with a skull engraved on one end, and a simple wooden cross. There were values above the signs, showing their worth in gold. The lockpicks and vitamins were one hundred, the skull key was three hundred and the cross was five hundred.

"I'm El Goblino!" He said. "That's Bob." He motioned at the skeleton.

"The uhh." Aero said slowly. "Dead guy?"

"No düd, he's not dead. One time, me and Bob were in the greenhouse. He stepped on one of those spiky-plant-things, düd. Scared him so bad... haven't heard a peep out of him since. Speechless!

"Oh."

We walked over to Jeff and examined the items. Max bought the lockpicks and vitamins, just kind dropping the gold on the cushions. Jeff swiped it quickly and put it into his alcove. Aero purchased the skull key, leaving the cross. I had enough money for it, and it was expensive, so I thought why not? It was either pretty valuable, or I was getting scammed. I bought it, then walked over to El Goblino to talk to him. When I walked up to him, I accidentally swung my cross towards him.

"Oye! Watch where you swing that thing, hombre! Uff!"

"Sorry, sorry." I said.

"It's all good düd. Just don't do it again."

We talked for it bit longer about the hotel, and then Max arm wrestled El Goblino, and lost. Eventually, we decided we needed to leave.

"Oye, I hope you enjoyed your stay."

As we were walking through, I decided. we needed to come up with a name for the meat creature.

"Hey guys." I said. "What should we call that big flesh creature?"

There was a pause where we thought about it.

"The Figure." Max said.

"Figure?"

"Yeah. It sounds pretty cool."

"Alright then."

A few doors later, Rush came by, we all hid, but then I had a thought.

"Do you think everyone at the shop is okay?"

"Probably." Aero responded. "They look like they've been here longer than us."

A few more rooms later, there was a room that had no doors on it, but there were four paintings on the wall, with the Guiding Light showing us where they needed to be. There were also Eyes in that room. When trying to get all the paintings to the right places, we looked at the Eyes several times, but we got all of the paintings to the right places and the fireplace went down into the floor, revealing the next door. We opened it and the eyes disappeared. The next room was dimly lit, and Max's lighter ran out out fuel. He chucked it at a wall, and continued through the dark, Screech attacking us several times. The next room was big and dark, but in front of us was a gate, meaning we had to find the lever in the dark. Unfortunately, the basement was much larger than the other ones had been, meaning it took us a long time to search. Screech was everywhere, too. Finally we found it with the help of guiding light, and found our way out of the room. The room after that was a long ominous hallway, but the seeking thing didn't come chase us. I opened the door and behind it was the closet man from earlier.

"OH!"

We all fell backwards as he disappeared. 

"See!" I said. "That's the closet man!"

We got back up and entered the room, which was covered in blood. The floors and walls were covered in it, and when a drip of blood got in Aero's hair, we found out that it was on the ceiling. We walked through the room, the blood getting on our shoes and in our hair. 

"This is gross!" I whined. "Can we move faster?" 

They didn't listen, and I didn't care. I ran to the door and opened it. Thankfully, the next room didn't have any blood in it. Aero was still in the room, taking his time, while Max was trying to... catch blood on his tongue.

"Tastes like blood." He said.

"Wow!" Aero said sarcastically. "Really?"

They entered the room I was in, and we kept going. A couple rooms later, Rush came by, and forced us to find a key in the dark. It took a while, but we found it. The next door had a pile of gold and diamonds on a table, and Max lunged at it, shoving it into his pockets.

"Money!" He screamed.

We walked into the next room, and all the lights were out, pus there were Eyes. We all looked away and passed by it. But then Max got a screech, so he looked behind him and at it, but also right at the eyes. He screamed and fell over, his eyes pouring blood. The gold spilled from his pockets.

“Oh god.” Aero said. “Well, I’m talking that gold.”

He reached down and did exactly that. I was in shock. It was just us. The others had died.

"Oh god." I said. "Oh god, oh god, oh..."

I fell to my knees, careful not to look at the eyes, and put my face in my hands.

"I can't." I whispered. "I can't take it anymore."

I wasn't sure how I was still alive after everything that happened, and I didn't feel like I deserved it. Life was turning into a mess, and I was completely unprepared.

"C'mon." Aero said. "Let's go."

I wiped my eyes and stood up. Aero opened the next door, which was covered in eyeballs.

"Oh no" I said.

I knew what that meant, and I wasn't exited for it. The seeking thing, or as I decided to call it, Seek, was coming back soon. The next room was quite strange. It was some sort of hospital room, with lots of hospital beds. We looked around, then ran in to explore. There were lots of drawers and boxes in all the various rooms with lots of gold in them. As we went into a side hall to check for loot in some of the rooms, I saw one door that looked different from the others. Approaching it revealed that it had a skull shape on the front, but one of the eyes was a keyhole.

"Well now this is kind of obvious." Aero said, and inserted his skull key into the keyhole.

He twisted and both the door and key instantly evaporated. The room behind it was rather small having only two desks, both with sets of drawers. One desk had a typewriter on it, and Aero started trying to type.

"Please help me." He said as he pressed the buttons on the typewriter, then looked at me. "Out of ink."

The other desk had a strange potted plant on it, so while Aero was looting the drawers, which had a lot of gold in them, I was examining the plant. It seemed like a normal plant until I touched it. The instant I did, some sort of power went from it, into me. It flowed through my fingers, then my arm, then through the rest of my body until it got to my heart. For a moment I thought it was poison, and that it was finally over, but it felt like quite the opposite. My heart felt like it was beating stronger, and my wounds started to heal. 

"What is this?" I whispered, brushing dust off of the pot.

There was a plaque on the pot, and in small faded letters I could read; 'The Herb of Viridis.'

"Huh." I said. "Hey Aero. Come touch this plant."

He looked confused, but did as I said. His eyes widened as he felt its effects. 

"Oh wow." He said.

"Yep." I said. "It's called The Herb of Viridis."

"That means?"

"No clue."

We exited that room and continued, and the next room was a hallway. I had a feeling I knew what was going to happen, and getting to the end of the hallway revealed that I was right. The goo rose up from the ground, and Seek emerged from it. I knew he was going to be back, but he didn't expect him to be back this soon. He ran. And so did we.