Chapter Text
Here Jesse was, in a stone-brick room with the old and new orders, Radar, Jack, Nurm, and Stella. All people he had wished never to see again after he killed Romeo. And yet here they all were in a room, underground, in a giant labyrinth with seemingly no escape.
"Ahh! What happened? Where am I?" Radar yelped.
"I would like to ask the same thing," Ellegaard exclaimed. "Why am I here?"
"Does anyone know why we're here?" Lukas asked the group.
Lukas, out of everyone here, was the one Jesse liked the most, though "like" was still a stretch. His relationship with everyone here was bitter, to say the least. He had a feeling that the same could be said for basically everyone else. Everyone was on bad terms with everyone, aside from maybe Lukas, Radar, and Nurm. Those three happened to get out of everything mostly drama-free.
In reply to his question, the room was full of turning heads and silence. The answer was clear: either no one knew anything, or no one was willing to say anything.
"Clearly not," Axel replied after a few moments. "Now, if you don't mind, I would rather not concern myself with any of you," he paused to glare at Jesse specifically, "and I'd rather look for a way to leave than bicker." He turned away into a hallway behind him.
Stella scoffed from the other side of the room and did the same, entering another hall to the left of the one Axel entered.
Looking more closely, Jesse observed the area. The walls were solid, clearly made recently. Whatever the reason they were all here, they were here on purpose. Continuing to look around, he also noted four hallways, one on every wall. The floors were covered in red carpet, and a dark oak table covered in dark gray felt filled the center of the main room.
By the time Jesse finished his observations, everyone else had either gone down one of the halls to explore or was talking to someone else. Specifically, Gabriel and Soren were already bantering, Nurm and Jack were debating which way to go, and Olivia and Petra were chatting. Jesse supposed that even after it all, some positive relationships remained.
He noted as Radar and Lukas both walked down the hall to his left, Ivor walked to the same hall that Axel went down that was to his right, and Ellegaard went through the same hall Stella went down that was directly across the room from Jesse.
Sighing, Jesse decided not to stand around. He turned around and began walking through the hall that had been behind him. The first room was only a few blocks in. It was a kitchen, not a very big or grand one, but it had wheat and sugar and other things for baking. However, at the moment Jesse was too on edge to develop an appetite, so he moved on.
Further down was another room; this one didn't interest Jesse either. It looked like a prison. There were two cells in the room. It gave Jesse shivers. Why was there a prison here?
He continued walking down the long hall until there was a turn. He could either go left or right; he chose right.
As he turned, he saw three rooms total down the newly revealed corridor. The first room was a bedroom with two twin beds, one on the left side of the room and one on the right. Unlike the other rooms, this one had a door that blocked it off from the hall, where the others just had alcoves as an entrance. Above the door was a sign that read 'Bedroom 1.' The second room was the same as the first, aside from the sign which said 'Bedroom 2.' The third was a garden where Lukas was. Jesse decided that a chat with the blond may be nice in a time as stressful as this.
He walked into the garden. There were beetroots and potatoes, carrots, sweet berries, watermelon, and other vegetables and fruits too. Man-made paths lined the floor, guiding Jesse's feet. Lukas noticed his presence as he approached, turning to face him instead of the plants he'd previously been looking at.
"Hey, Jesse," Lukas muttered, "Long time no speak."
"Indeed. Based on what you said earlier, you've got no idea about this place."
Lukas shook his head. "Not a clue. Kinda reminds me of—" He cut himself off for no apparent reason. "Never mind."
Jesse looked at him skeptically before sighing. "Trouble always seems to find me, I suppose. Just when I'm finally trying to settle down, too."
"You? Settle down?" Lukas said, with humor in his voice. Jesse gave him an annoyed glare. "I just never saw you settling down, that's all," he added quickly.
"I'm not settling anything while stuck wherever we are anyway."
"Well, whatever is happening, you've always been good at figuring these types of things out." Lukas smiled lightly.
"Yeah, well, what if I don't want to?" Jesse muttered.
Lukas was taken aback slightly; however, before he could say anything, Jesse continued.
"Never mind, forget I said anything. How are you holding up?"
"As good as you can be when you're suddenly teleported to a random medieval-looking giant system of halls of a place against your will," Lukas responded. "You?"
Jesse sighed. "About the same, I guess, though I've seen a lot of faces I would have rather never seen again in my life today."
Lukas frowned. "You know, I still don't blame you for what you did. Romeo deserved it."
"Yeah, well, no one else sees it that way. In their eyes, I'm an arrogant, self-centered murderer." He paused. "I'm gonna keep looking around. See you later, Lukas."
"Oh— okay— bye then," Lukas replied, realizing he'd struck a nerve.
Jesse walked out of the garden, continuing his journey through the halls. He turned right at the corner instead of taking the path ahead of him. He saw there were two rooms down this hall. The first led to the garden again, while the other was what appeared to be a study.
Jesse was about to move on; however, he noticed that Olivia and Petra were walking down the hall in front of him at that moment, and not wanting to interact with them at all, he decided the study sounded quite good at that moment.
It was a fairly sized room, about the size of a secondary school classroom. A desk in the middle of the room was left untouched with blank papers neatly stacked atop. Mostly empty bookshelves with only a few journals and books lined the walls. If anyone would appreciate this room, it would be Radar. Jesse wondered where he was at the moment.
Looking further, he found something of much interest to him: a map. Specifically, a map of, well, what the map called 'The Labyrinth Mansion.' Great, another mansion. Jesse rolled his eyes, observing the map more closely.
In the middle of the poster was a room labeled the 'Common area,' Jesse recognized this as the room everyone had appeared in. The area west of the common area described the way Jesse went with the kitchen and prison. North of that was the first two bedrooms and the garden, but south of it was a library. In the corridor north of the common area was another bedroom labeled 'Bedroom 3' on the left side and a security and red room to the left. At that end of the hall it worked into two new halls, one to the left and one to the right. To the left was the second garden entrance and the study and to the right was two more bedrooms, bedrooms four and five. The west hall had three bedrooms; seven, eight, and nine. To the north of it was bedroom six, to the south was bedrooms ten and eleven.
Eleven bedrooms, thirteen people. Jesse was slightly perplexed by this, but he quickly remembered that there were two beds in the first two rooms. Either every room is like that, or the person who built this place didn't have enough space to make two extra rooms. Either way I have a feeling I'll somehow be the one sharing a room.
Continuing to look at the map, the final hall to examine was the south hall. Down this hall was a courtyard and another entrance to the library. Both rooms were very large compared to everything else.
Jesse nearly jumped out of his skin when he suddenly heard a voice he didn't recognize. He promptly realized it was above his head and saw a speaker.
"May everyone please gather in the common area for an announcement," the speaker called.
The voice was distorted, reminding Jesse of a female version of the white pumpkin's voice. He was starting to have a very bad feeling about this. But whatever he was feeling didn't matter at the moment. He wanted information, and going to the main hall seemed like where he was going to get it.
Before leaving the study, Jesse took the map off the wall to take with him and show the others. He didn't look as he walked down the north hall, but he knew that Lukas, Petra, and Olivia were all behind him, and Radar was in front of him.
The five all walked into the common area only seconds apart. Jesse approached the table in the middle of the room where they had started the day. He stood waiting for everyone else to arrive, listening to Petra and Olivia 'sneakily' talk badly about him. Well, mostly just Petra. Lukas stood between Jesse and the other three, looking very uncomfortable.
Stella and Axel both emerged from the east hall, while Nurm and Jack came from the west hall. Gabriel and Soren came from the south hall, followed by Ivor half a minute later. Finally, Ellegaard came from the same hall Jesse and the other four came from. Weird, but not crazy.
All thirteen of them surrounded the table, some chatting, some just waiting. Jesse was one of the ones who sat waiting, debating with himself whether to show them the map yet or not.
His debate was cut short to the distorted voice returning.
"Welcome to Labyrinth Mansion," the voice started. "You may call me Etre. One of you has wronged me; that person will die, and anyone who gets in my way will die as well."
Fear struck the room; no one made a single sound, except for the shaking that comes with fear.
The voice continued. "There is no way to escape this place. If you want to leave, then let me get my goal done quickly. Until then, this place has everything you need to live comfortably. Make yourself at home. Make sure to watch your backs~"
The room was silent for several moments.
"I'm getting flashbacks," Ivor commented.
"Anonymous murderers, big mansions, no way to escape, yeah, me too," Lukas agreed.
Jesse remained silent. When he said he didn't want to be the big hero this time, he meant it. Everyone here was a backstabber; they didn't need his help. Plus, if he brought attention to himself, he knew that they'd likely blame him because he was technically already a murderer, and because he had a lot of reasons to dislike everyone there.
Silent or not, he had to agree with the other two. This whole situation made him unsettled. Anyone could be the murderer's target, and anyone could accidentally see too much and become a victim.
Well, automatically, he could safely say it most likely wasn't Nurm or Radar. He couldn't see them doing something like this, especially making the place, assuming the soon-to-be murderer also built the mansion.
The discussion continued, but it became accusatory slop.
"I bet you it's Olivia!" Axel accused. "You're mad because of the war."
"Me! Likely story. It's obviously you, Axel," Olivia retorted.
"War?" Lukas questioned, but his voice was drowned out by the arguing.
Across the room, Radar and Stella were fighting. Not much further, Soren and Ivor were doing the same.
This is exactly what the murderer wants. Jesse realized. That's why they announced their plans. So, a smart one then.
Jesse silently turned around and began to walk back towards the hall behind him. Sadly, that had only attracted what he wanted to avoid: attention.
"Where are you going, Jesse?" Petra asked with an accusatory tone. Everyone turned towards him and the fighting stopped. "Walking away, are you? I wouldn't put murder past you; it wouldn't be the first time."
Jesse sighed, turning back towards the crowd. "Paranoia and infighting are exactly what the murderer wants, blockhead. If there's anything you should've learned from the White Pumpkin's mansion, it's that." Years of being an outcast made Jesse's temper short and his words true. "Now, if you don't mind, I have things to do."
"Actually, I do mind. You probably hate everyone here, a.k.a. you have a motive, you have enough of an understanding of Redstone to make the intercom work, you are a good builder, you've had years of time to make a place like this, and you've already murdered once. I wouldn't put it past you to do it twice."
Jesse snapped. "Shut up! If you were in my shoes, you would know that killing Romeo was the only choice! Do you think I wanted to kill him? Clearly, we were never really friends if you don't even know that about me. You sicken me, Petra, because Romeo was and always will have been a far worse person than me, and if you can't see that, then you're blind."
Everyone, besides Petra, was taken aback by the former hero's harsh words, but friendly wasn't a trait he was willing to consider having when the topic was Romeo.
"I've never done anything I didn't have to; it was me or him. That wasn't murder, that was self-defense." He muttered, walking away uninterrupted this time.
* * *
Jesse found himself back in the study. There wasn't much evidence yet, but he was piecing together all he could at the moment. It had been an hour or two since the meeting, and luckily no one had bothered him yet.
"Jesse?" Lukas's voice called.
He'd spoken too soon.
Sighing, he replied, "Yes?"
"We're having another meeting, something about rooms."
Jesse rolled his eyes. "Fine, let's go."
The two walked to the meeting table. Everyone else was already discussing, arguing.
"I'm not sharing a room!"
"You don't have to; there are eleven rooms."
"Yeah, which means four people overall will share a room with someone else; I'm not being one of those four."
"Wait, where's room eight?"
"Doesn't matter 'cause it's mine!"
"It would be nice to have a map right now."
A map? I suppose I could show them.
"Hey guys, I'm back with Jesse," Lukas added to the conversation.
Jesse sighed. "I don't care what room I get."
"Asking for any more would be crazy," Petra snarkily commented. Jesse tried to keep his cool.
He turned his attention to Radar, the one who asked for a map. Walking over to the black-haired man, he handed him the map.
"What's this?" Radar started as he unrolled the map in his hands, his face lighting up as he realized what it was. "Whoa! Where did you get this?"
"The study," he replied quickly.
"What is it?" Jack and Lukas asked at almost the exact same time.
"A map!" Radar smiled.
"Very convenient that you have one of those," Ellegaard commented.
"Suppose so." Jesse shrugged.
With the map, the room dividing was still chaotic, but better. With a quill, Lukas wrote down names in each of the rooms until every room was full.
Room 1: Nurm and Jack
Room 2: Lukas and Jesse
Room 3: Ivor
Room 4: Petra
Room 5: Olivia
Room 6: Ellegaard
Room 7: Radar
Room 8: Stella
Room 9: Gabriel
Room 10: Soren
Room 11: Axel
The thirteen people surrounded the map, looking at the list with various emotions; mostly disapproval, but who cared, the tedious task of room picking was over.
"You know there's a prison here. I say that should be Jesse's room," Petra muttered.
To everyone, especially Petra and Jesse's surprise, Jack retorted, "You know, if you keep talking badly like that about Jesse, I'm going to start suspecting that you're the murderer trying to kill him."
Petra looked flabbergasted. "Me? Murder?"
Jack just shrugged. "I'm just sayin'." He turned towards Nurm, "C'mon Nurm, let's go to our room."
The villager nodded and followed Jack down the west hall.
"Here Jesse, your map." Radar offered the map back to Jesse.
"Thanks, Radar." Jesse took the map from his once intern's hands.
Soren took a clock from his inventory. "It's sunset, I say we get some rest."
Most of the others agreed and headed off to their rooms, including Lukas and Jesse. The two walked down the west hall slightly behind Nurm and Jack. As they approached their room, they went inside.
Lukas locked the door as he came into the room behind Jesse. An unlocked door with a murderer on the loose was a bad mix. No one knew who the murderer's target was yet.
"Let's get some rest," Lukas suggested. "Though I doubt I'm getting any sleep."
"Yeah. Hey, Lukas, thanks for, like, not hating me."
Lukas frowned. "Petra has been very unfair to you. She was in the terminal space; she knew how dire things were, and she still calls you a bad person."
"I guess at the end of the day, murder is murder." Jesse sighed, sitting down on the bed on the right side of the room.
"That's just completely ignoring the fact that Romeo had done things much worse than murder, plus murder itself."
Jesse didn't reply; he just lay down, knowing that he, too, wouldn't get much sleep tonight.