Chapter 15

  With less than an hour before sunset, we were tasked with the tall order of locating every resident of the town and sheltering them inside The Gene, and if necessary, the inn. Normally, this task would be impossible, or would require a massive group of individuals for a town this size. Currently, our team included four helpful members and four members that would not help for one reason or another.

  The team of helpful members included me, Joan, Riff, and Ray. Obviously Joan and I had our limitations since we weren't locals and hadn't built up the trust of the townspeople. The idea of us randomly walking up to houses and successfully getting the residents to leave with very little reason seemed nigh impossible. Riff obviously had the best odds of corralling the townspeople, but having one person succeed for an entire town was very difficult. Ray seemed to be well liked in the town and, for all we could tell, he appeared to be capable. So he might have some success in rounding up townspeople, but without a specific authority like being sheriff, it would be unrealistic to believe he'd automatically succeed.

  The team of members who would not help included Raif, Tara, Mayor Night, and Zuul. Raif was already sulking about having to help face the Dimensional Shambler later that night, and he made sure to rope Tara into his refusal to do anything else. Instead, the two waited near the mayor's office where the entrance to the tunnel was located. Mayor Night was technically in custody, so it would be difficult to explain why we had a prisoner running around grabbing residents, if nothing else it would send mixed signals about who the townspeople should trust. And Zuul? For whatever reason, she always had a chip on her shoulder about me. I could barely get her name out of my mouth before she'd start yelling at me, so the idea of gaining her assistance was a lost cause.

  Under normal circumstances, our efforts would be futile.

  Luckily for us, Joan had a trump card for occasions just like this.

  When we had initially reviewed Joan's abilities, there was one ability we had never had the time to review. I had been too distracted by her Character Sheet ability to really spend a lot of time on her other skills. Most of her abilities had been fairly straight forward in how they would be used in situations through an investigation, yet one was somewhat of a mystery.

  Opening Night

  Once per 2 hours.

  User has a 50% chance of compelling nearby NPCs to fill current room to capacity, or repel all NPCs from the current room.

  (Only includes non-combatant NPCs and NPCs not currently in combat.)

  Level MAX

  While the success of the skill was a coinflip, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to utilize her Opening Night ability. Standing in the abandoned Gene, Joan extended her hand and said the words, "Opening Night!" We hypothesized if we completely vacated the space prior to using the ability it might automatically cause the ability to fill the space with NPCs instead of repel them. Even if we were wrong, there were no NPCs inside for the ability to repel, so in a worst case situation, it would do nothing.

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  "It worked!" Joan's eyes lit up with excitement. We wouldn't know for sure whether we had found a loophole in the rules of the ability, or if we had just gotten lucky, but at this point neither of us had any time to think it through. Instead, the next step was to get an idea of the radius of the ability. Since The Gene was close to the center of town, we should quickly be able to determine what areas are outside of the ability's range. At that point, we would simply have Riff and Ray split up and clear out the remaining homes. If The Gene filled up at any point, we'd send the remaining townspeople to the inn nearby. While it wasn't foolproof, our plan gave us the best chance of success.

  Almost immediately, a steady stream of individuals started flowing into The Gene. Even though they were compelled by Opening Night, none of the townspeople entering the tavern appeared as if they were under some sort of hypnosis spell. They all acted as if they had chosen to come to The Gene at the exact time of their own accord.

  It didn't take long for the entire tavern to be filled. As we neared the maximum occupancy, some of the townspeople started telling us they had been sent by Riff or Ray, which at least gave us an idea that Joan's ability had reached its limit. From what we could tell, there were only a couple dozen houses that did not fall inside Opening Night's radius.

  Although we didn't meet the deadline of finishing before sunset, the final townspeople made it to the inn just a few minutes after the sun disappeared over the horizon. It appeared that we had succeeded in preventing any new disappearances from occurring to the townspeople.

  That just left...

  "I hear you're ready for me to take you to the entrance?" Escorted by Riff, Mayor Night approached. He still had the cuffs around his wrists, but he at least appeared to be cooperating with us.

  "Yeah, we're ready. Everyone's safely inside." Joan responded with a smile.

  "Yinz pulled it off. I dunno how yinz did it, but thank Gods it worked." Even though I'd been around him for over a week, I still couldn't tell you if Riff was using yinz correctly. With our investigation coming to an end, I was just now getting better at understanding his wildly inconsistent accent.

  The town was completely silent. Since the first night where I committed rat-thing war crimes, we hadn't been approached by the creepy little attackers. Without anything in our way, we were able to make a quick journey the few blocks from The Gene to the mayor's office. Raif and Tara were waiting on the steps out front.

  "You guys ready?" I called out to them. Raif unenthusiastically climbed to his feet, Tara followed shortly behind.

  "You'd better not get me killed, loser." The spikey haired delinquent made sure to accidentally bump me with his elbow as he walked past.

  Mayor Night guided us around the building to the back. He stopped at a cellar door that appeared to be a direct entrance into the mayor's office's cellar. "Hidden in plain sight." Night laughed at the cleverly hidden secret tunnel.

  To be honest, I would have never even given it a second glance. Many of the buildings around here had exterior doors to access the cellars, so this entrance was like hiding a tree in a forest.

  "Once you enter, I'm going to lock the door from this side. The only exit is into the settlement. Try not to die." Having completed his task, Night said words that lacked all sincerity. I didn't really blame him, we weren't on great terms and he'd done the job we asked of him. Now he'd go back to his cell while the four players walked down the stairs to the tunnel. With each step, we drew closer and closer to our impending deaths.

  "Everyone, make sure you don't say anything that would trigger an obvious death flag. No confessions of love. No reminding us this is your last day before retirement... You get the idea." With my vast media knowledge, I wasn't about to take any chances.

  "All we have left is this final battle, and we're done." Joan added to my point.

  "Goddamnit Joan! I literally just said no obvious death flags!"

  "That reminds me, Clay, there's something I need to tell you after we're done."

  "Now I know you're messing with me! It's your fault if we die."

  The cellar door closed behind us. Locking us inside.