Remedial Psychopathy

The air became caustic the exact same moment that the device began sucking all of it inside. I breathed in some of the poison vapor and even knowing that gasping and hacking the burning air would make it worse, I still couldn't stop my body from inhaling a lungful of the poison before intentionally exhaling and holding my breath. My experience was nothing like unique in the room, but we all heard a sparkling whirring and felt the movement of air towards the orb, even as we went to our knees hands over our noses and mouths, eyes shut and full of tears. The magical vacuum was powerful. It sucked in the gas, and, we hoped, the air would be replaced by fresh air like it always was in other rooms.

We were holding our breaths still when the voice spoke again:

"Huh? You did it. I was pretty sure this was a death trap. Good on you. Rewards, rewards… I'm sure I'll figure something out, check that little Journal of yours. Try not to die!" he said.

And one by one we gasped in breaths of clear air. Well, clean-ish. If the first gasps of poison wasn't going to kill us, neither were the traces left in the air by the time the voice started talking. Without the blue glowing smoke, the room looked particularly clinical. Like the workbenches, the floors too were made of steel, and with only the fluorescent lights providing illumination, the effect was that of a modern morgue.

"We all good?" Brooke said. "Bloody- darn and hell," Mrs. Hoxley said. But she was up and swearing, so, assuming she had a healing ability, she would be fine. One by one the rest of the voices answered in affirmative.

"Nicely done, Emma, real MVP here," Ajit said. "Bloody fucking right. What'd you wankers do without me?" Emma said. "The device, will it hold?" Anna said. "Should do. I reckon the gas'd be solid by now, innit," Emma said. "Something something compression something something density," I said. "What he said," Emma said.

At which point Anna flipped open her Journal to see what rewards she'd got. And, well, to be fair, there was that. I checked the log first.

Log

Quest: Extra Credit- Arcane Knowledge completed. Reward: See Traits

Skill Artifice increased from Artifice 1 to Artifice 3

Air Elemental defeated x6, Experience to level 12 9613/12000

Then flipped to traits to see what we'd got.

Traits Arcane Supplies: Uh, just grab whatever's laying around. They're valuable arcane tools and ingredients, honest.

"Cheap fucking asshole," I said, and as the others flipped over to the Trait section, there was a variety of groans and swear words. Mrs. Hoxley had made it to level 13 though. All of the Birminham-ers? were higher level than any of us, with the exception of Artemis, courtesy of the even more hellish nightmare that their hellish nightmare had been compared to ours.

"It's not so bad. This stuff really could be useful," Ajit said. "It would, but we could have taken it anyways. The bastard's playing with us," Brooke said. "What else is new. Let's just grab what we can carry and get the fuck out of here," Anna said.

It wasn't great, because the only one of us who had any sort of a bag was Brooke, and hers was an, admittedly large, handbag that was already full to bursting with gear and supplies. I was in second place storage-space wise, with my cargo pants and the two oversized and nonsensical pockets in my oversized and nonsensical robe thing. But everyone grabbed a couple of crystals and some of the more generally useful tools.

"Shouldn't you wear a t-shirt or something?" Emma said. "Indecent is what it is. Probably a nutter, or a pervert," Mrs. Hoxley said. "My shirt sort of burned and melted into my skin. Haven't found anything since," I said. "Ooh, so that's like a magic item, not like a fashion statement," Brooke said. "What sort of a statement would that be? 'I'm 35 and laid back, and also like sex robes'?" Anna said. "Hey! Look who's talking, scarecrow sack," I said. "Oh wow, I didn't know Alex had misogyny, so sad, we'll pray for your health," Anna said. "Not to interrupt the adrenaline giggles, but are we good to go?" Ajit said. "Let's get fucking scarce, yeah," Emma said.

We got up, and since none of us were particularly injured, moved to get out of here before anything else. I was just about on the threshold to the next set of hallways, when the scratching from my journal became really, really insistent. I'd been updating the party chat here and now with our progress and copying a few spells for them in emergencies, but it hadn't been like this. It was like my mom texting me a long story line by line, a constant scratching from my pocket.

I flipped open to the chat.

Chat

Luigi, you missed your last check-in, everything going well? -Artemis

We're splitting up. Some people have a thing where they have to do make up work for arcane knowledge. Alex, could you stay with us for a bit to answer any questions we might have? -Kristen

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Luigi? Was that you? Luigi! Answer immediately! -Artemis

I am so sorry. The reward is too good.

What the fuck was that? -Kristen

Alex, we need your expertise immediately. -Artemis

She'd kept repeating the text until I finally checked my Journal, in tiny handwriting to make sure I'd see the context.

Shit, that's what text looks like in other people's Journals. Anna is with me, I'm pretty sure this means that Luigi has lost his Journal. -Alex

What fucking reason would anyone have to betray us? -Artemis

I didn't want to mention it, but one of my available level up abilities was "Traitor". Obviously I didn't pick it, but I should have said something. -Alex

What does it do? -Artemis

All the description said was that it gives you quests and rewards for completing them. The title is pretty self-explanatory otherwise, I imagine. -Alex

Fucking damn it. Everyone keep your Journals close and update us on any progress. -Artemis

We'll check out the next hallway and if we split up I'll try to add one of the Brits to the party. If it works we'll know for sure. -Alex

Fuck. -Artemis

"Hold on, we have an issue," I said. "Yeah we pretty goddamn sure do," Brooke said.

The hallway ahead was not like any hallway we'd seen before. Most obviously, it was lit in red light. I suspected for reasons of drama, because if nothing else our host was certainly dramatic. More frustrating was that there were only two doors. And, of course, one of them was door Nr. 13.

"Hell no, we're all going through the other one," I said. "The other one is also psychopathy, but the other way around," Arnold said. "So, what, we all go in the fucking psycho room to 'fix' our empathy?" I said. "It ain't like that for us, innit?" Emma said. "Remember, not a lot of us survived," Brooke said. "We all passed. It was rough out there," Ajit said. "Right. So all of you passed?" I said. "Yeah. We wot could do wizard shit got some free points or something. I got the top score, which is bollocks," Emma said. "That's the only thing this darn Tower got right," Mrs. Hoxley said. "We'll go through. We have to," Ajit said. "No, no you don't. And neither do we. We can just turn around and go back to the previous hallway, that was always allowed," I said. "Worth considering," Arnold said. "How? The door is still sealed by a slab of metal and a barrier," Brooke said. "I've got dispel. I'll try that and Anna can try to melt the metal," I said. "Unless her fire burns blue or white it won't be hot enough," Emma said. "Fuck," I said. "Fuck is right," Anna said.

"We've got to get through. All of us, understand?" I said. "I mean, we'll try, but you know the Tower," Anna said. "Fuck the Tower. No reward is worth whatever the fuck they're going to have us do in those rooms. We go in there, we figure out how to get out the other side without doing whatever the fuck he wants us to do," I said.

I walked up and down the hallway, looking for the secret third option. But there really wasn't one.

"Fucking Hell," I said. "Yeah. Let's get this over with," Brooke said. "Wait, hold on. You should know, one of the people in the Guild, Luigi, I just learned he died," I said. "Fuck. I didn't know him, were you two close?" Anna said. "No, but there was a traitor in the failure group. Probably, it's kind of unclear. It sucks and everything, but what it means on practical terms is that I can add one of you to the party," I said. "I decline," Mrs. Hoxley said. "What's party do?" Emma said.

I briefly explained the functions of my party ability, and with the exception of Mrs. Hoxley they were all pretty excited to join. It ended up being Brooke, purely because Emma's handwriting was borderline indecipherable. It honestly looked like she was doing it on purpose, but whatever. I added Brooke to the party, she introduced herself in the chat, and everyone knew that Luigi was definitely dead.

"Ready for this, Alex?" Anna said. "Fuck no. Feels like I'm going to die," I said. "Coward?" Anna said. "I just mean. If it's between the two of us, I can't really see myself-" I said. "Shut up. We don't know what the test is, so let's not pick who's doing the heroic sacrifice quite yet," Anna said. "I'm serious. If it comes to it, fuck… If it comes to it it's gotta be me," I said. "God, you really did catch misogyny out here. I'm a grown woman and can make my own choices, we'll discuss it when we see what we're talking about," she said.

"Oi, Sam and Frodo, it's cool you can both be protagonists," Emma said. "It's not going to be like that, is it?" Brooke said. "Can't know," Ajit said. "Well I vote we kill the brat if we have to," Mrs. Hoxley said. Emma jumped at her and grabbed by the scruff, and it took Ajit and Brooke to get her off, but not before she'd bitten the old woman on the nose. There was blood and everything. Mrs. Hoxley was shouting, and I couldn't quite make out what she was saying with the accent. It took a moment for everyone to calm down. "Nobody is sacrificing anybody. We'll find another way. I doubt it's going to be that simple anyways," Ajit said. "This is what we get for letting the idle poor on the dole," Mrs. Hoxley said. "Please, for the love of god, just shut the fuck up," I said.

Strangely, she did. Well, whatever, I didn't have the time nor the empathy to unravel the political psychology of the woman, so, in a tense, bitter silence we separated and went up to our respective doors. I glanced over to the door that the other team was going through. It reminded me of nothing more than a very amateurish horror house, like something a rich family would set up in their home for Halloween- there were black curtains with skulls and crossbones drawn on them and plastic skeletons hanging on wires. Wait, scratch that, of course those were actual bones. That's just how it went here, I thought. Tense and focused, Emma went through first, Arnold and Mrs. Hoxley bringing up the rear.

"Don't worry about it, Alex, we'll get through this. We survived everything else," Anna said. "Yeah, alright. We can do this. Just, focus on getting out of there," I said.

We went in to that damned room not quite holding hands, but the vibes were there. The room was very different from what we'd seen before.

It was an almost entirely empty white room, and it seemed to be perfectly cube shaped. The only object, if it could be called that, inside the room was a flickering pseudoportal. It looked similar to mine, except instead of a rough tear in reality it was a perfect oblong shape, like a full body mirror. On the opposite side of the entrance there was another door. Inside the pseudoportal there was what looked like a table covered in black fabric, maybe satin, and on the table there sat one golden key.

"Well this is abstract," Anna said.

"Naughty, naughty, naughty. But not quite naughty enough. Welcome to Remedial Psychopathy. Do not worry, my very dear students, before you leave this class you will know everything you need to leave a swath of blood and bones in your wake," the disembodied voice of our Archmage enemy said.

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