Chapter Text
Noah: Finding earth is more of a struggle, you know? It's dark outside, we have these little dinky flashlights that don't really work.
"This looks sketchy, this is a basement situation," Lindsay pointed out the open window below the house. "I don't wanna look in there," she backed off from it and began searching.
"I'm scared!" Courtney called out as Noah was checking in the bushes. "Do you wanna get trapped in the 1920s?" he asked, her response being, "No, I really don't! I wanna go to 2016!"
Noah: I'm kinda feeling like after the club when you're drunk and you're trying to get your phone to text a booty call but then you're drunk texting your ex. That's how I'm feeling right now.
Courtney searched through the dirt until, "What's this?" Noah and Lindsay walked over and helped revealing a box with two handprints and the earth symbol. Noah pulled it out and Lindsay opened it revealing a two.
Courtney ran inside followed by Noah and Lindsay, chanting, "Wind, 8, dirt, 2, wind, 8, dirt, 2." Each group said their numbers, fire was 5, water was 3, air was 8, and earth was 2.
Chris: So all the groups come back together and we each have a number which correlates to the combination of the lock.
Lindsay put the combination in and she and Izzy opened the cabinet. The group cheered and clapped as Lindsay turned another lock and opened it, revealing a note, which Lindsay read, and a giant cog.
The Ungodly Machine is in the basement. The cog key will ignite its wicked engine, but understand once the machine has been started it can only be stopped by the loss of an innocent life. Two guests must be selected by the vote of the group to be locked in the machine, then those two must each choose a partner who will aid them in defeating the machine.
Owen: Ungodly Machine, I mean, what is that?
"I'm not going in the basement," Leshawna announced to everyone when Izzy started the pointy-finger game again. "Noah is one of 'em, 'cause he just killed everybody so he deserves to die," Noah defended himself with, "I don't kill my friends."
Owen grabbed the cog and handed it to Noah as Trent said, "Yeah, I think we need to lay off Noah, alright?" Their helper approached them again with some paper, a pen, and a hat.
"I may have a method for voting. Please, have a seat," Arthur spoke as everyone sat in the various couches and chairs. "Here is how the final voting will work. Each one of you will write down the name of the person you want to attempt the final task and put it in this hat. I will then draw two names who must face death. Please, discuss this amongst yourselves."
Owen: I mean, this is crazy! Like, what dinner party do you go to and you vote two of your friends to go in a basement and fight a bloody machine? That just doesn't happen!
"I kill people for business, not for pleasure!" Noah explained again when Leshawna budded in. "Well, out of all of us, you are the worst one so-" He interrupted her and joked that he was the best dressed.
"Okay, with an attitude too," Izzy added on, fanning the flames, when Trent kicked in. "You guys are very quick to throw stones from over there," he pointed out to the group.
Trent: Izzy needs to go. As soon as we got into the mansion, she was accusing Noah of being a murderer, she's been egotistical, she didn't let me help for a while when we needed to find the life key and then she blamed us for taking so long on me for not helping.
"I think we should form an alliance," Chris told Heather, Courtney, and Lindsay. "Me too, but who do we kick out?" Lindsay whispered. "Someone who's useless," Courtney recommended, the other three in the group having the same response, Bridgette.
Chris: I feel like Bridgette just is in the shadows. Like, she's not putting in, like, effort.
"I'm the one finding all the clues here, I cannot die. We'll all die," Lindsay pointed out to her little group. With the others, Leshawna was saying they should vote for Lindsay.
"She was the last person with Cody and he's dead. And she still hasn't explained what happened. She said she was in the bathroom, she was not in the bathroom."
Izzy: I'm choosing Trent. He's just very bipolar and he hasn't done much. I don't like that. (A/N for character: Uhh, projection much?)
"Okay, I think we know what we have to do," Courtney ended the conversation with her alliance. They all walked back to the seating and waited for Arthur to call someone up.
Chris: I don't feel safe. Like, I feel like my name could go on there. People are starting to come after me because I invited people here.
Lindsay - Bridgette
Leshawna - Lindsay
Owen - Owen
Heather - Bridgette
Bridgette - Courtney
Trent - Izzy
Courtney - Bridgette
Izzy - Trent
Noah - Izzy
Chris - Bridgette
Arthur shuffled the hat, papers flying about inside, before stopping and drawing, "Bridgette." She exhaled as Noah turned to her and patted her back. Arthur repeated the process of shuffling before drawing, "Courtney." "WHAT!" she yelled out and Trent clenched his hand.
Courtney: All of a sudden, my name gets pulled out of the hat.
"Who voted for me?!" no one raised their hand or said anything. "Bridgette, you get to pick your partner first," Arthur told her. "And the partner solves the problem. For you," Leshawna reminded her.
Courtney: Our partners have to try to save us and whoever succeeds first wins.
Owen: Please don't think that I am gonna be any good at going down in the basement and fighting an Ungodly Machine.
Bridgette scanned through her options, "I'm gonna pick... Heather." She immediately looked at her and shook her head, "What? No, I'm an idiot, you don't want me!" She started having a little freak out at being picked and Owen comforted her.
Noah: I'm not sure if I trust iHeather to put in 100% to save Bridgette right now because I kind of feel like she's part of the reason that Bridgette's going into the machine in the first place.
"So Bridgette picks Heather. Courtney?" Arthur asked as Heather finished her episode. The Heiress scanned the room before landing on two options, Lindsay or Trent. She looked at Trent and saw him clenching his fist, "Trent."
He looked up, not connecting what she meant until Arthur said, "Courtney picks Trent," and she nodded. His fist unclenched and clenched again when he remembered what he was being picked for.
Courtney: I chose Trent 'cause he's a Professor, he's clever, has been helping with puzzles, and he looks like he needs to ensure I'm safe.
Trent: I need to get the challenge done and get us out.
The four followed Arthur outside, the butler holding the cog. Courtney leaned into Trent's ear and told him, "If I die, don't hold yourself accountable." His face flushed from the closeness before he realized he was just standing there.
He ran to catch up with the others when they reached the entrance and recoiled at the machine. "This is like Saw!" Courtney yelled out, grabbing Trent's arm until she recovered from the shock.
Trent: I've seen this in movies, nobody comes out alive.
"Ladies and gentleman. Welcome to The Ungodly Machine," Arthur stated as if it were his greatest achievement. "Why is this even down here?" Courtney asked when Arthur pointed his arm at a journal. "Please read the directions," Trent walked over and grabbed the journal.
To free the artifact from the bowels of the machine, it must be forced to malfunction during operation. The machine is started by placing the cog key in the center console. The two guests selected by vote must be locked in a separate glass chamber. Their partner will have 30 minutes to try and disrupt the machine. If either side causes a malfunction, their respective chamber will open. However, the other chamber will fill with a noxious gas, killing the guest whose partner was not quick enough. If after 30 minutes the machine has not malfunctioned, both guests will be killed and a monster will emerge.
Arthur led the two guests into their chambers, Bridgette on the right and Courtney on the left. He grabbed the cog key and placed it in its place before turning it and starting the challenge.
Trent: Basically, the first person to get the machine to malfunction gets the person out of their tube.
"It begins," Arthur cryptically said, before handing Trent and Heather the blueprints. "This isn't even in English. It's just these weird symbols," Trent tilted his head as he said it, trying to see if he just had it orientated wrong.
Heather: The blueprints have these different levers, so we have to lift the levers up and the levers down and you have to get them in the correct combination. So, each lever has a corresponding little code that's matched up with a decoder, so we have to decide which ways the levers go.
"D13, so you just have to match them up," Heather talked to herself as Trent was blazing through after figuring it out. Bridgette exhaled inside her tube and Heather turned to her, "Girl, I'm trying."
Trent looked at the clock and saw it said 15:33, before continuing to switch where the levers went until a light bulb on top of his center lit up. "Trent has solved the first step," Arthur spoke for the first time since the machine started.
Trent: I'm doing a pretty good job and I'm feeling pretty confident, almost cocky, until I see my friend still stuck.
"I'm gonna die in here," Bridgette slumped in her chamber. "I'm doing exactly what this is telling me to do," Heather explained when Trent looked up from his blueprint. "You need help?" he asked, Heather was about to nod when Bridgette yelled out.
"No! Don't ask for help!" Trent turned to her and pointed, "Hey! You don't get to be pissy that the idiot you chose needs help, no offense." Heather looked up at him and smiled, "None taken."
"Just keep flipping switches, that's what I did," he called out to Heather before looking back at his blueprint.
Trent: I get to this point where I have to stick my hand in ice water to unscrew a bolt.
"Okay. Here we go," Trent hyped himself up after rolling up his right sleeve. He dunked it into the vat and immediately flinched, but kept going. Heather finally managed to get the levers right and dunked her hand in the vat before immediately pulling it out.
"Girl, I can't get the bolt," she said before Trent looked up at her. "Take off the glove, that should help," he said before continuing to unscrew the bolt. Heather takes her gloves off and begins unscrewing the bolt as Trent unscrews his.
Trent: Finally, it breaks free and I move on to the next step.
Trent looks at the next step and uses the bolt to pop open the control center filled with wires. Heather finally gets the bolt out and grabs her next step, finally doing something without help, unleashing the wires.
Trent: Inside of the control center is all these connectors or wires. And there's symbols that connect to each other. Also Heather is at the same spot as me, and time is running out, so I'm getting stressed.
Trent started connecting the things into the right place, while Heather was stumped. He got stuck on blue and Heather started catching up, so he just shoved it in every hole until he got it right.
Heather got up from her crouch when she saw out of the corner of her eye black gas fill Bridgette's tube. Bridgette started to inhale the gas and cough violently, it entered her lungs and they started to burn. She slammed against the glass trying to escape as she lost oxygen and died, face planted on the glass.
"Trent's done it," Arthur announced, a small unnoticeable smirk on his face. Courtney popped out of her chamber, slammed herself into Trent, and hugged him. As Arthur walked in between the chambers, they turned to the unopened chamber.
"Heather, I'm sorry. Bridgette did not survive," he solemnly said as everyone in the room looked down. Arthur turned to Trent, "You've caused the machine to malfunction, and it will now produce the artifact."
A drawer popped open revealing a black and brown, tall pyramid with a glowing red circle on every side. Trent took the artifact and the note that came with it, before grabbing Heather's gloves and leaving them in front of Bridgette's chamber.
Courtney: I'm sad for Bridgette, but she didn't do much. Other than finding the final book, I can't recall anything she did.
The group sat in the lounge, waiting for something, when Chris heard footsteps. "They're coming!" he exclaimed, getting everyone's attention.
Leshawna: I hope that Courtney comes back from The Ungodly Machine. I really do.
Arthur walked in through the door followed by a super glum Heather and a slightly glum Trent and Courtney holding hands, the artifact, and note. "I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!" Leshawna exclaimed, hitting her can on the floor for emphasis as the three sat down.
"Bridgette's dead!" Noah exclaimed at Heather, "I seriously tried. Like, I honestly did everything. If it wasn't for Trent's help, I wouldn't have gotten as far as I did." Noah turned to Trent, "You helped her?" he asked.
"Well, yeah. I didn't want either of them to die. I preferred for Courtney to live, but if I knew a way for both to live, I would have done that," he confessed. Noah still kept his scowl at Heather even after she told them about her level of idiocy.
Noah: It's super obvious to me that Heather wanted Bridgette to die. She totally didn't play to save Bridgette's life. She set Bridgette up. Heather is the rat, I know it.
"You let my friend die, Heather," Noah wouldn't back down from his stance. In her mind, she was angry at everything and was being overstimulated by herself, so she let her anger out in the wrong way.
"Maybe she needed to go, honestly. What is she even doing here?" Everyone was shocked and Owen got up from his chair, "You killed her!" She held her finger up, silencing them, "All I'm saying is, we were over there trying to open up that look and I was like, 'Oh, hey, Fixer, why don't you fix the problem?' And she was like, mm. Didn't even try to help. And that's where I got a little bit upset, so you know what? Who's The Fixer now?!"
To calm everyone down, Trent grabbed the artifact, "This is one of the four artifacts we need."
Owen: He pulls out this artifact that was, like, I've never seen anything like this.
Courtney grabbed the artifact from Chris and walked over to the mantelpiece. The rest of the group followed her as she placed it atop, "Only three more left."
Owen: The artifact goes up on the mantelpiece and I look over, and in the corner of my eye I can see a bit of paper.
You've been warned. One among you is in league with the evil of the house.
The group began to argue as Arthur watched from the sidelines. "A house divided amongst itself cannot stand," he thought as they began to point fingers.