When faced with the unknown, making the right choice the first time every time tended to be impractically idealistic. More important -not to mention reasonable- was the ability to learn from one’s mistakes, and after falling prey to an unseen trap once already, Sandalphon was determined not to let it happen again. She knew that the team needed quality footage in order to complete this task, but quality footage didn’t always just crop out of nowhere. Instead it could be engineered, optimizing the safety of everyone involved. While the archangel couldn’t fathom what made for a thrilling horror movie, she knew that the four filmmakers couldn’t make any film if they wound up dead. So even though Juri asked her to take point, she hung back slightly behind Zenkichi as the team advanced into the cruise ship, providing the darkly-dressed man the light he needed to see -and intercept- whatever creeped their way.
After only twenty seconds or so, another entity appeared. Sandalphon heard it before she saw it, pausing halfway down a flight of stairs.
Click-click, click-click, click-click. At the landing below, a doorway opened up into what looked like a theater, with ghostly orbs shining down on rows of empty seats. Focused on the sound, Sandalphon quickly spotted the source: a glowing red light, moving toward the doorway just erratically enough to suggest organic locomotion. Until now, this place had been wholly devoid of color. “There,” she whispered, bracing herself. This entity didn’t seem fast though, nor did it attempt to conceal itself, and a moment later it stepped into the light. With four jointed, tube-like legs holding up a body shaped -and the size of- a stack of dinner plates, it appeared to be no more threatening than the average crab, except for one thing: that red light positioned atop its center mass, housed in a smooth disc that very much resembled a button. That, combined with the shape of its body, gave Sandalphon the unmistakable impression of a
walking landmine.
“Careful. Don’t touch it,” she hissed. If the four allowed it to, the spider mine would scuttle right up to them, stop, and just stand there. Waiting. Tantalizing.
”Oooh I don’t like that…” Zenkichi muttered. He knew that was bad, and he was pretty sure he knew what it would do, but he was absolutely not going to touch it and find out for sure.
Juri frowned, unimpressed by the little robot. Still, she turned the camera on, and seeing Sandalphon’s extreme reaction to the little guy, she grinned.
”What, you mean don’t do this?” She stuck her hand out and aimed to smack it down towards the button, before stopping her hand short of actually pressing it. For a split second, Sandalphon’s pupils cycled between a half-dozen different symbols, finally settling on stress marks. Her expression remained unchanged, but reading her emotions wasn’t hard.
Juri snickered.
”You’re too funny, Sandy. Blblblblbleep!” She shook her head around to mimic the pupils, and flicked off the camera.
”C’mon, let’s ditch this hunk of junk.” Juri said. She once again indicated someone go before her so all the scary stuff could happen to them and she could film it. Wary of the walking landmine that insistently hounded the group, Sandalphon pushed ahead once more.
Juri kept moving forward, not wanting to go down into the lower levels. If one of her teammates wanted to go, they could speak up. Juri was interested in what turned out to be a theater.
”There’s gotta be somethin’ good in here. HEY!” She yelled, trying to get something’s attention.
”Okay, that’s definitely not gonna come back to bite us in the ass…” Zenkichi muttered, already ready to deal with a horde of freaky things. At least that was his specialty!
Her shout, which also managed to startle Sandalphon a second time as she hadn’t quite regained her composure after that prank, evoked an immediate response from inside the theater. There came a burst of childlike laughter, which sounded like the product of a cheap speaker on a wind-up toy. Sandalphon scanned the rows of seats, but she couldn’t see any movement, even as the laughter continued in short spurts and the sound of little footsteps grew louder. After a moment, a pint-sized
bedsheet ghost charged out into the aisle and hustled toward the Seekers, carving knife at the ready. Though the archangel reflexively readied her Aether Lance, she held her fire as she stepped to the side, giving Juri a clear shot. “Stay sharp. There’s more than one,” she advised, her voice a whisper.
When Juri pointed her camera down the theater’s main aisle, however, she spotted something that wasn’t a bedsheet ghost. On the stage, all by itself, stood a
thin man that only she, with the aid of the camera, could see.
Juri turned the camera on, and let out a bemused giggle at the bedsheet ghost.
”What the hell? That’s not a ghost, that’s just some psycho with a knife! Isn’t it?” She started to back up. Juri was locked onto the camera, so she wasn’t sure what to make of the Thin Man that suddenly appeared in her view finder.
”Huh? There’s something up on stage!” She called out. Due to backing up away from the bedsheet ghost, the Thin Man went in and out of the camera's vision. She flicked off the camera for now, to yell out:
”Someone go get chased around by that thing!” She called out, pointing to the bedsheet ghost. She eyed the stage, sneering at the missing thin man. Did it only show up in the camera?
Ganondorf had just stood there with arms crossed all this time. Even if he
did volunteer to go get chased around, he had a hard time believing anyone watching to believe that a big and imposing man like him could be frightened around by these rather unfrightening looking creatures. Of course that didn’t mean he couldn’t contribute something to the effort. After a moment of thought he dismissively waved his hand and summoned a squad of Moblins. Maybe he wouldn’t make for a very believable victim, but the moblins conceivably could. And so one Moblin put itself in the crosshairs of the charging ghost and led it around on a chase for Juri to record.
The sight of a bedsheet ghost chasing around a tall, lanky carnivore four times its size gave the ensuing antics a more comedic bent than anything, but Sandalphon kept her composure. Unlike Juri, who laughed for a few seconds before stopping the recording.
”This sucks!””Honestly, yeah, that…nah, that wasn’t freaky or creepy at all.” Zenkichi begrudgingly admitted. It might help break up some tension, but given that this delve hadn’t exactly been a high-octane adventure so far, there wasn’t much tension
to break.
Unless that little knife-wielding gremlin packed the punch of a Tonberry, it could be safely ignored. The same couldn’t be said of the other entity Juri reported, since no matter how carefully the archangel scrutinized the stage, nothing seemed to be there. “I don’t see anything,” she murmured, her voice raised over the ghost’s manic giggles. With any number of monsters lurking among the rows of theater seats, she couldn’t settle down without some semblance of a secure position. After looking around, Sandalphon vaulted into the air, throwing the light of her halo across the theater as she landed in the upper gallery. Right away she spotted a second and third bedsheet ghost laying in wait to ambush anyone who walked down the main aisle. “Two more specters hidden in the chairs,” she reported to Ganondorf and Zenkichi through their connection. She did not get to see any more than that before a
giant bedsheet ghost as tall as Goldlewis emerged from the shadows behind her, its deep voice sending chills down her spine.
”...Heeheehee”Juri was interested in this thing that only appeared in her camera, but the giant ghost?
”Shit, there we go!” She pointed the camera at the giant man-shaped creature and made sure to get Sandalphon in the frame.
”Run away, Sandy! The monsters like you!” Zenkichi quietly thanked Sandalphon for the warning, looking up to see the giant bedsheet ghost menacingly standing behind her, and freezing stock still for a moment. His eyes narrowed and he made a break for it, climbing over the seats in the stadium to avoid the ones lying in wait, and made himself another target.
”Over here!” He called to Sandalphon.
”I’ve got your back!” He let a little note of panic slip into his voice, though in the back of his mind he knew that whatever happened here, they’d be dumped back on the floating island above, safe and sound.
Thanks to Zenkichi’s efforts, the smaller bedsheet ghosts went after him, but their super-sized ringleader had only one target in mind. His carving knife glittered in the light of Sandalphon’s halo as she whirled around. The huge specter loomed before her, his drawn-on bedsheet little more than an afterthought across his enormous frame. But Sandalphon’s face betrayed nothing, her pupils shaped like crosshairs. She'd expected something like this, after all. Juri said the monsters here liked her, but the opposite seemed more plausible: that these denizens of the dark abhorred her, and the divine light that crowned her head. So when the terror attacked, the archangel was ready.
She swung her Aether Lance as if to club the big ghost’s head. It easily caught the weak blow, giving Sandalphon the chance she needed to enact her real plan. With a thrust of her palm she struck the ghost with a Frost Lock, freezing him solid. Then she jumped back over the railing into the open air, slowly drifting down into the theater. She watched as the first bedsheet ghost severed the moblin’s Achilles tendon, which dropped it to the ground in a heap, then turned her attention to Juri. “It may be wise to make our escape.” Her Frost Lock would hold for only a second or two more.
Throughout all of this, no one kept a colder stone-faced expression than Ganondorf. At this point he wasn’t even entertaining the idea of pretending to be scared, mostly because he was convinced no one would believe it given his size and imposing stature. Even when the larger bedsheet ghost appeared, Ganondorf could tell that he dwarfed it in height still. Under most circumstances he would just slay the thing and be done with it. But those were not the rules of this particular game. And he had begun to wonder how much of their oxygen they had used up by now and whether or not it was a good idea to take their leave. So he fell back at Sandalphon’s suggestion, although the remainder of his moblins stayed behind. They didn’t exactly have oxygen of their own to begin with, and they’d be more useful as a distraction anyway.
But before he exited the theater he used one of his newly acquired warframe abilities to sanctify the ground around the theater’s exit. The Hallowed Ground wouldn’t remain for more than a few seconds, but that was still a few seconds of the ghostly enemies being potentially held back by constant radiation damage that could make them think twice about giving chase. Of course, when the freshly-thawed big ghost slammed down directly in the Hallowed Ground a moment later and didn’t so much as bat an eye, that threw something of a wrench in the works. Thankfully there were still some Moblins around to grab its attention and district it for a few moments.
Juri was backing up out of the theater, filming the chaos. The big medieval guy was so annoyed she was trying not to laugh. As she backed up she elected to focus her film on the mysterious invisible Thin Man that had watched all of this unfold without moving a muscle.
”Woooo~” She made a scary noise, zooming in on him.
Relying on the moblins to be tantalizing targets, Sandalphon and Zenkichi hustled out of the theater as well. They pushed through Ganondorf’s radiation zone and split to either side of Juri as she took her parting shots of the theater and the bedsheet pandemonium within. It all made for an effective escape scene, but when Juri focused just a little too long on the haunting visage of the lone phantom on stage, she got more than she bargained for. The then man lunged forward, less like a predator and more like someone riding a zip line. It flew straight through the theater toward Juri, fast enough that she only had about two seconds to react.
”Woooo haha, nyaha- OH FUCK!” Juri shouted, the camera shaking wildly as the ghost lunged towards her. Juri stumbled backwards and kicked wildly where she thought the invisible creature would be. Her foot impacted something she couldn’t see, and when she panned over the area in a frenzy, she could see no sign of her would-be attacker at all.
At the sudden exclamation, the three who’d already reached the staircase turned to look back. Of the other members, though, Ganondorf remained the most nonplussed, and in his eagerness to get this chore over with he continued to climb the stairs. His heavy boot came down on something that wasn’t a step, however, and at a distinct
click sound the warlord looked down to discover the spider mine from before, splayed beneath his heel.
Beep, beep, beep, beepbeepBEEPBEEP!Sandalphon’s pupils became exclamation marks as she made her choice. She, Zenkichi, and Ganondorf were all in the splash zone. Only immediate action would save them. “Get down!” she commanded, throwing herself into Zenkichi. The warlord could only try to launch himself back with a bullet jump. It kept him from taking a lethal blast, but didn’t prevent damage entirely. The next instant, the bomb went off with a deafening fireburst, demolishing the entire section of stairs. Though Juri was the furthest away, it still threw her back toward the theater. Zenkichi took enough damage to be stunned, and when his senses returned, the light of Sandalphon’s halo had disappeared. As for Ganondorf, he had taken quite the hit. But he was big and sturdy enough not to be killed outright at least. He was, however, not in the best of shape - both physically and by the fact that his hit points were now hovering at around 25% remaining. With what strength he still had, he staggered over to Zenkichi and Sandalphon. The angel looked like she was down, and in that case the job of healing would fall to his shoulders. He’d have to spend whatever remained of his warframe energy, but Ganondorf could use Renewal to allow himself and the others to regenerate a chunk of lost health, enough to hopefully get Sandalphon back up on her feet and continue the healing should she deem it necessary.
Even with the ambiguity of the darkness, however, it quickly became apparent that his efforts had no effect on the archangel. With her hit points depleted by the blast, Sandalphon had been eliminated, and the body that remained behind -its helmet dark- was nothing more than a prop. Ganondorf’s Renewal healed up Zenkichi’s body, but his hit points (displayed inside his helmet) remained unchanged; another hit from basically anything at this point would eliminate him, too. And with the moblins freshly exterminated by the bedsheet gang, all three Seekers were cornered against the damaged stairwell.
Juri scrambled to her feet, back in the theater.
”Get off me, loser!” She complained loudly, crushing a bedsheet ghost to the floor. Still filming, she panned her camera around to search for the Thin Man. When it was nowhere in sight, she let out a sigh of relief. Then she growled in frustration, having actually gotten scared by this stupid gameshow! She ran to meet up with the others. Now her camera was the biggest light source, which cast itself over Sandalphon’s ‘corpse’ as Juri took in the sight.
”Freakin’ idiots!” She shouted.
”I’m sick of this stupid place, I’m getting the hell outta here.” She started heading up the stairs, moving around the hole. Zenkichi bit back a retort, cast one last unsettled look at the prop Sandalphon left behind, and hurried after her. Ganondorf did as well, noting that healing did not restore any of the lost hit points their helmets were displaying.
Juri had memorized the way out, and it wasn’t like they had gone all that far. That was when a wad of web shot out from the darkness and exploding, entangling her.
”God damn it!” She swore, the camera turning back on in her hand.
”I’m stuck! Wait-” She looked, and saw the giant
split-faced spider lumbering towards her.
”What the hell kinda spider is that?” Juri said.
”That’s not a species I recognize!” She captured the spider drawing closer as she started pulling free of the webs.
”Looks like something out of Australia… ” Zenkichi muttered, definitely a little freaked out by the thing.
”It’s head is all weird! No chelicerae, no fangs, the face shape is all wrong, the head is way too big for the thorax. For fucks sake, it doesn’t even have the right number of legs! What a rip off!” Juri noticed her health was going down just from being in the web, so she planted her feet and pushed free on the other side. The entangled webs were spread all across the hallway that was leading back to where they came from, but there was probably a way around, not that it mattered to Juri.
Rather than go around, Zenkichi cut through, using his heavy greatsword. Its size and weight proved enough to tear away any webs it didn’t manage to cut through, though some also stuck to its edges. And then there was Ganondorf who decided to execute a more… heated solution. He summoned a fresh squad of Moblin Archers to burn away sections of the web by shooting at it with fire arrows. It wasn’t a solid path, but this provided patches of safe ground that Zenkichi could cut his way toward like waypoints, meanwhile the warlord was able to leap directly to them by using his warframe bullet jump. Together, the two managed to outpace the spider’s chomping maw, escaping through the bar’s entrance into the open air just as another web ball burst behind them. With the diving bell just a few hundred feet away, they hurried after Juri, Ganondorf bullet-jumping ahead while Zenkichi brought up the rear. As a last ditch tactic, Ganondorf summoned Phantom Ganon to go charging back in to take on the spider. Whether the Phantom could defeat it or be bested by the webs didn’t matter. All that mattered was distracting the spider from continuing to give chase. And maybe it would give Juri something to film at the end.
Juri filmed the very last of their escape.
”C’mon, it’s closing!” She said, a tinge of glee in her voice as she set her hand on the lever and began to slowly pull it down as the other two joined her in the diving bell.
"Thou art lucky this is only a game." Ganondorf grumbled.
”Seriously! You couldn’t wait another two seconds? Jeeze…” Zenkichi complained, but the shrug that came after betrayed his lack of actual hard feelings. If anything happened, he would just pop up on the surface with Sandalphon while the diving bell ascended.
Juri laughed, and turned on the camera and put it on selfie mode again to film the group with her own face up front.
”That’s basically it for today, so subscribe if you aren’t a total moron.”"Yes, insult the people we are trying to appeal to." Ganondorf responded afterward with some biting sarcasm.
”See, that guy isn’t subscribed.” She said, jerking her thumb over her shoulder and turning it to get a better angle on Ganondorf. Instead her camera caught the Thin Man from before, standing in the midst of everyone, its hands closing around Juri’s neck. The woman shrieked, tossing the camera in the air, before her face port went dark and she dropped face first to the floor of the diving bell.
”Woah, holy shit!” Zenkichi screeched, jumping back from Juri’s ‘corpse’ as it slumped -and the camera clattered- to the ground.
”That was screwed up, dude…”””Ha ha ha!” Ganondorf laughed,
”I say she had it coming.” He reached up and pulled the lever to activate the bell so it would take them back up to the surface.
Juri found herself in the medical shed, flailing her arms and hands around. There was an indecent amount of very loud swearing, and she kicked a hole in the wall. She ripped that stupid helmet off her head and threw it to the ground. The stupid rules were the only reason why she didn’t turn around and break that monster in half!
After appearing rather abruptly inside the completely empty ‘medical shed’, Sandalphon had promptly made her way toward the diving bell to wait. After standing there for a few minutes, though, her attention had wandered, and she ended up perusing all the tutorial text she could find to familiarize herself with the tech. She managed to get absorbed enough by the reading material that she jumped in surprise when a lot of pissed-off yelling rang out from the direction of the medical tent. That could only mean that Juri had been eliminated as well. “Hmm…” she murmured, hoping that the others hadn’t been wiped out in her absence. By her count the team still had about forty seconds of oxygen left though, so if Juri had returned alone, the mission wasn’t lost just yet. And sure enough, a moment later the big chain began to retract in order to pull the diving bell up from the depths. Zenkichi and Ganondorf were finishing the job. Her pupils became carets, and she went to meet with the others.
Stepping out of the diving bell, Zenkichi gave Sandalphon a thumb’s up.
”We made it! Not sure what happened to Juri, but…camera’s okay!” He confirmed, holding up the valuable tool.
After returning Zenkichi’s thumbs-up, Sandalphon directed the team toward a machine by the island’s main house, which featured a perfectly camera-sized receptacle. “I believe we should deposit the camcorder in there to extract the footage.”
Juri stomped out onto the grass to reunite with the others.
”I coulda fuckin’ taken that thing! It only got me because I agreed to put the stupid helmet on!” She points at all of them, emphasizing her point.
Sandalphon glanced at her for a moment, not sure if the martial artist would respond well to consolation. She decided against it.
”And I could have slain every single creature down there, if I wanted to.” Ganondorf said back to her with some biting sarcasm in his voice,
”But such is the rule of the game. Deal with it.” Although as he said this, he also took off the helmet and tossed it aside as well.
”Did the rules of the game make you step on a giant glowing red bomb? No, that was just you being a blind idiot!” She shouted.
”At least I survived.” he retorted back at her, even gesturing toward the prop corpse she had left behind in the diving bell for emphasis.
”Yeah, for now!” Juri said.
”Doesn’t take much to trick you, chump!” She kicked the dirt and stormed off into the house.
Once Zenkichi fed the camera to the editing machine, the extraction process took only a moment, after which it churned out a silvery disc. To the archangel, it looked tantalizingly futuristic, though to others the CD was already an antique. She then directed everyone inside the house to the living room, where she’d learned they were supposed to insert the disc and then watch the premier along with the audience. After such a tense adventure, the all-important moment had arrived: the results. Standing by the couch with her arms crossed, Sandalphon watched as the video went live.
Juri was in a sour mood, sitting with her arms crossed and face down. The video began with her brief intro in the sky garden, and already the comments were pouring in.
Ooh, nice garden
Amateur hour already?
O****, this girls kinda cute
Big brat energy already
…still totally would.
Whos the big guy in the back
Tall woman???
Dork? Me??? Never!When the playback reached the cruise ship’s bar, Sandalphon narrowed her eyes in anticipation of what she knew would come. Sure enough, the footage showed her already snatched up by the starfish, since Juri hadn’t been preemptively recording when she got caught. Seeing herself caught in such a horrific and undignified situation made her wince once again at her obliviousness. “I looked like a hangman in a noose,” she remarked, looking over at the comments section.
Something got her!!!
Noo, pretty lady!
Lol, rookie mistake
I swear, ppl never notice the tentacle. its not that hard my guy
Y aren’t they helping her???
Suit guy to the rescue!One comment from user SA-KU-RA:
OMGZ!!! D: Sandalphon-san on Spooktube??The initial shot of the theater with Juri’s momentary glimpse of the thin man seemed to generate a disproportionate amount of buzz. It certainly intrigued Sandalphon since she’d never seen it herself. The solitary gaunt figure standing stock-still only appeared for a brief moment, which made it all the more impactful.
What was that? U guys see that??
Omg i cant watch
These guys are so screwed lol
Seriously a creep, how lucky are these guys
Ogod that was a cam creep
I missed it, what happened>
Dumbass that was obviously Big Slap
Blind streamer
Uh no??? Big Slap doesn’t spawn on this map *******
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No love for ghosts :<
Neck snap incomingSandalphon watched with mild interest until the part where Ganondorf triggered the mine. If his carelessness resulted in casualties in the real world, she would certainly not look kindly upon him, but she couldn’t assume he’d be so blasé in a real scenario either. Nor did she expect him to feel particularly bad about the team kill. Still, the sight of her own corpse -even as a prop- left her with chills. From here, everything in the video was stuff she hadn’t been able to see for herself, and she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t curious about what got Juri in the end.
BA-BOOM!
Omg, he actually pressed it? What a troll!
Friendly fire! LMAO xD
Wow something finally happened :pogchamp:
This cliche sucks, always the hot one that goes first or second
Best part of the video right here.
All those ghosts and it’s the mine that gets em lol
She sacrificed herself for the glasses guy! Sooo cute!!!
Literally fell to my knees at PokeMartDuring the spider chase, a comment came in from user happiestchaos:
I cant even roman cancel to this, I just burst immediately. Cleanup on aisle Lars Canyon!Where’d he get that sword from!??!?!
LEET HAXOR LMFAO
Just got here guys, whatd I miss?
No but like srsly did they add new items?
Freaky dude was literally summoning lanky bois and ur worried about a sword lolk
Hey, woah, wow :/ das a big spider boi
Heh, hope you’re not arachnophobic, yeesh…Someone also apparently noticed a certain pattern to Ganondorf’s actions throughout the video:
wait has he just been sending people in to die in his place? #evilbastard And while that ruffled his feathers somewhat, Ganondorf couldn’t exactly deny that accusation either.
Eventually they reached Juri’s rather abrupt and terrifying (or depending on who you ask, humorous) end, and it happened in the diving bell no less. Well, Ganondorf had found it amusing anyway. All that attitude and big mouth of hers and Juri more or less got assassinated at the last possible minute. It got a chuckle out of the warlord if nothing else.
That scared the literal piss outta me
HOLY HELL
They actually found a cam creep?
**** that actually got me ngl
I literally forgot about that cam creep they found until now, holy ****!
Bahahaha, so much for all her shit-talk!
Right? Lol, get wrecked, noob!
I KNEW it was gonna come back
Karma’s a bitch, ain’t it?
I spat out my soda all over my keyboard, thx guys :/Then the video concluded, and a popup appeared with the team’s ad revenue. It looked like an awful lot, considering what little Sandalphon knew of the content creation business back in Midgar, but what mattered was how it compared to the earnings of the others. Hopefully all the hubbub around the ‘cam creep’ would give the team’s video the spike it needed. “Good job, everyone,” she told the team.
”Yeah, you’re welcome.” Juri said. She chucked a lamp at the TV. Its screen shattered.
”You’re lucky I can sell a scare.””Selling it, right…” Ganondorf said with an incredulous tone.
”I’m sure that’s all that was, yes.””I’m the leader, I found the rare monster, I filmed it, and I made the scariest thing happen by far. It’s AWESOME to have me be the leader. I’m the fucking best.” She concluded, shooting out of the couch and slamming the door behind her as she left.
With the minigame finished, all that remained was for the wonderworld to collapse and the overall placements to roll in.
Member
stone
NoriWasHere
DisturbedSpec
Sylvan
Aku the Samurai
Damycles
Hitman
Majoraa
LG