Work Text:
This is a pretty impressive map, even though Wato has only really had a chance to explore the spawn room while she waits for Wifies and Ken to join.
There wasn't a whole lot of information about this map at the hub where Wato found the download link for it. Not that she wanted to read too far into the player reviews, since she usually likes to avoid major spoilers for solutions to whatever puzzles or lore these types of servers might have. The brief teaser video that shared a few glimpses into some of the rooms in this mega horror mansion were more than enough to convince Wato that it would be fun, and she was excited when both Ken and Wifies said that they would join her too.
She's not really sure if she's going to turn this into a video, but she's got a recording set up anyway, just in case. She's actually cleared her whole day for this since it seemed like such a big place, and she's trusting that the meticulous detail that's gone into the decorations that she's looking at in this first room will extend to the rest of the map.
Heck, even if the puzzles aren't all that challenging, at least it's a beautiful piece of work. The whole place has an overtaken-by-nature feel to it, with thick flowering vines pushing in through several cracks in the only window, which carry on to snake along the walls and floor. Through the window, the world outside is dark and gloomy, with an indigo-hued fog obscuring anything Wato might have been able to see beyond the mansion.
She kind of hopes that there's an outdoor level, if nature is going to be a theme in this map. Or an underground level would be cool too. She'll just have to wait and see.
There's a pair of soft chimes as Ken and Wifies log in one after another.
Ken hums to themself as they immediately look around the spawn room and find the rulebook on the podium just a few paces away. Wifies, however, remains stationary for a few seconds, as if he's afk despite only joining a second ago.
"Hey," Wato says, heading over to stand next to him. "Glad you could make it."
Another second passes, and then he blinks at her. "Hi," he says, his face finally softening in a faint smile. Wato relaxes a little bit. He's been— well, he's assumedly still learning how to be a person since she and Ken got him out of that escape room hell. He's kind of been keeping to himself a lot, but she can understand that he needs his space. She was a little worried he wouldn't show up to this at all, since he has turned down quite a few of her and Ken's offers to spend some time together in the past few weeks.
She's not sure if it's a positive thing or not that the first social outing he's agreed to in the last week and a half was another escape room map.
"This book doesn't really explain the goal of the map," Ken announces, shutting the book but still taking it into their inventory. They also break the podium and take that too, which seems a little excessive.
"Yeah," Wato says. "But best way to learn is just to start. I don't think it's timed, since the creator of the map allows groups up to eight to play together."
"Eight seems like a lot," Ken mutters.
The three of them line up at the door labeled Start.
Ken heads in first.
The dimly-lit hallways are a whole lot narrower than Wato would have expected, considering the immense size of the starting room. The ceiling gradually gets lower as well, until it's only a foot or so higher than Wato. Meanwhile, the vines continue along the ground, thick enough to be a serious tripping hazard, especially with the minimal visibility from flickering purple sconces set at irregular intervals along the walls.
And, yeah. Wato figured it was gonna start out as a maze. Nothing wrong with a well-designed maze, though. Ken leads the way in silence for a little while as they pick their way along hallways at random. As time passes, they don't run into any dead ends, but they also don't come across any doors that will let them into any rooms to explore. Wato distinctly remembers seeing some interesting looking rooms in the teaser video for this horror map, so as the minutes continue to pass, she reminds herself that she's got all day to play this map, and it's really looking like it'll be a decent payoff.
The vines have been steadily growing more prolific along the walls and floors, which has unfortunately been reducing the space to walk through the passageways. Wato can hardly see over Ken's shoulder while they continues to find their way through this first challenge section of the map.
"This is nice," Wifies says when the group turns another corner to reveal a cluster of massive white-petaled flowers blocking the pathway ahead.
"What, the flowers or the creepy maze?" Ken says with a laugh. They step forward to poke at the flowers, which sway lightly at their touch. "I think there's enough space to squeeze through underneath these vines," they add. "Or do you think we should turn back and try a different route?"
"I don't know. Was there a reason we picked this route?" Wato says.
"Well, I'm following the vines," Ken says, tapping the flowers again. "I think… I don't know, they're all over the place. It would make sense if they're all coming from some origin point. Wifies, what do you think?"
"I think you could squeeze through," Wifies says. "I can go first if you want."
"No, that's okay, I can go first," Ken says. They crouch down and push at the vines. There's just enough give in the heavy-looking tendrils, and as they had guessed, they're able to crawl through the opening.
Wifies turns back to look at Wato with a smile.
"I don't think you're going to make it, Wato1876," he says.
"Huh?" Wato says. "What are you talking about?"
Why's he being so weird all of a sudden—
The lights go out.
Wato immediately grabs at the walls, her hands clenching into the vines which— ouch. She winces at the thorns that dig into her palms and backs off a few steps. Since when did these vines have thorns? She thought it was just flowers. She doesn't think she saw thorns just a moment ago while the creepy purple lights were still turned on.
"Wifies?" she says, raising her voice as she blinks but the darkness doesn't ease. "Ken?"
There's no response. Wato bites her lip and, after a second of hesitation, she moves towards the flowers that were blocking part of the path. Maybe Ken just activated the next part of the map, and they're waiting for her on the other side.
Except her hands press against a solid wall with absolutely no flowers growing along the surface of it.
"What?" she says. "Wait— no. That. That wasn't there—"
She drags her hands along the surface of the wall and curses when her search just finds her more thorny vines.
"Ken!" she yells. She knocks her fists against the wall, careful to avoid the places where she felt thorns just now. "Wifies! Where are you!"
Again, there's no response. Not even an answering knock from the other side of the wall.
She carefully pokes her hands along the corners, hoping to maybe feel a hinge or a button or a bit of airflow that would suggest a piston door… or something.
Nothing.
"Fuck," she says.
What the hell is she supposed to do now? She reluctantly turns around and cautiously starts feeling her way back the way the group had come. Surely there's got to be another way to get into the next part of the map, right? The thorny vines are painful when they catch on her hands, but at least she's moving slowly enough that she doesn't trip and find out the bad way if the vines on the floor are covered in thorns as well.
Finally, after a few minutes of shuffling along, she spots faint amethyst-colored light in the distance.
And maybe she's a little too focused on that light, because she doesn't see the hole that she falls directly into.
She barely gets a chance to scream before she's falling into ice-cold water. God, she fucking hopes it's water, because it's gotten into her mouth. It tastes like stale minerals and burns in her lungs. She kicks her legs and flails her arms, trying to push herself back to the surface.
But all she finds is a firm ceiling of stone, perfectly above the surface of the water leaving not even a quarter inch of an air gap.
Oh god.
Damage starts to tick away at her.
What the hell—
She can't see. She can't see and there's no fucking air and as she throws her arms around her in a panic she knocks into solid stone walls on either side of a very small box—
She screams, even though it causes the air to pour out of her lungs in a torrent of bubbles and the damage to tick faster.
The last player that Wifies was ever expecting to see logging into his horror map server was another Wifies.
Not that he's not aware that there are probably a few other clones that have slipped away from that other Wifies to run loose across the countless world seeds and servers out there. Technically, he's one of those clones, although he's spent enough time on his own that he considers himself a little more than a simple clone.
He's… well… he's had some time to consider the intents and machinations of the so-called creator. And he really gets it. Escape rooms and puzzle maps are fascinating. Although rather than put himself or a version of himself through the puzzles and challenges, he finds it so much more satisfying to build an extensive map and watch other players struggle through it.
Like little rats in a cage, all with their own unique intellects and skill sets. And he hardly even has to encourage them to continue on through his map; a good amount of them just keep trying for hours.
And if they're having too easy of a time with it, he can always switch things up on them. Separating large groups into smaller groups and then into individuals is one of his favorite things to do. The map is certainly large enough for all of them to crawl around with no hopes of finding their companions. And he has no shortage of commands he can run to raise the difficulty, or to skip the players around from one section to another.
He steps back as Kenadian pushes and shouts at the wall he's put between them and Wato1876. It's an entirely fruitless effort. The wall is not going to move or break. He had run one of his scripts to glitch them into an entirely different part of the map. Even Wato1876 isn't in the same part of the map she had been in when he decided it was time to split up the group.
"I don't know what to do," Kenadian finally says, turning back to Wifies. "She's still in the tab list, so… so she hasn't been banned by anything."
Wifies shrugs. "We'll probably run into her eventually," he says. "She just needs to follow the vines, right? There might be more than one way to get to this part."
There isn't.
Kenadian punches at the wall again. "Damn it. I wasn't expecting the map to change on us like that. I should have been more careful."
Being more careful still wouldn't have helped. They could have been holding hands and Wifies still would have found a way to drop them on opposite ends of the map.
Finally, Kenadian gives up on trying to break through the wall and gets to work examining the room the two of them have ended up in. It's one of Wifies' favorite rooms, apart from his command room. And the lab, of course. The other Wifies is currently in that lab, and Wifies is very much looking forward to the moment that he'll be able to separate himself from Kenadian and head back to play around with the other clone.
Right now, he's getting a very personal throwback to that other Wifies' lab. The one used by the so-called creator. Except Wifies' is better. Far more sophisticated and intentional.
He considers himself to have a much more refined taste in science than that other Wifies that he had left over a year ago. Exploring the physics of escape rooms that utilize various game mechanics isn't quite so fascinating as tracking the various methods of devolution of the human psyche when put through as many classic horrors as Wifies can pack into his map. Agoraphobia, claustrophobia, hydrophobia, dendrophobia, arachnophobia, belonephobia, ophidiophobia, cynophobia…
Oh, it's so enthralling to watch them all suffer.
But back to this room.
It's lovely. He was very particular when he set up the decorations. There are still plenty of flowering and thorny vines twisting across the floor and walls of the room, but there are a few immobile skeletons and zombies that have been left to decay amongst all the plant life as well. There's one wall in particular— which Wifies is pleased to see Kenadian looking at right now— where the tendrils of the vines are intentionally growing out through the skeleton's jaw as they burst through while it was screaming in its final moments before death. It's even posed to be pressed against the wall as if it was trying to escape.
He thinks it's funny. Usually when players make it to this room with minimal assistance from Wifies, they've already been in the map for a few hours. That skeleton on the wall has made some of them start crying and desperately start hunting through the rest of the room for a key or a clue to the way out.
A shame that Kenadian doesn't give the skeleton more than a momentary look.
Wifies lets out a small sigh and looks at the rest of the room.
This place is actually located in one of the towers of the mansion, not that there are any windows in this room for Kenadian or any other player to look out and get their bearings. Kind of a shame, since the exterior details of this tower— dark gray and purple stone twisting up into one of nine jagged spires that jut up from the main bulk of the massive house— is just as good as the interior in Wifies' opinion.
Oh well. At least he knows it's there.
"There's got to be something in here," Kenadian says, sounding distracted as they continue their search.
"Mm, yeah," Wifies says. It's not all that easy to find. But he did sort of cheat Kenadian into this part, and they haven't had a chance to figure out how he tends to hide useful items in this map yet, so maybe it would be fine to give them one little hint.
He pokes at a rotted immobile zombie on the ground which has been posed as if it's been ripped in two by the vines. There are a handful of flowers sprouting out of its mangled head.
"Oh," he says.
"Did you find something?" Kenadian says.
"A barrel," he says.
Kenadian suddenly laughs, which Wifies definitely wasn't expecting.
"Oh my god," they say, crouching down to open up the barrel. "Really? Might as well have left it in a hopper."
They pull out a book, a flint and steel, and a single wind charge.
Wifies lets them read the book, wandering back over to the opposite side of the room from the hidden piston that Kenadian will need to hit with the wind charge to get to the next room. He's not going to give out all the answers. That wouldn't be fun at all.
He does close his eyes so he can project his vision to check on Wato1876.
Hm. She's gotten out of the water trap. And she's actually progressed on to the actual second level of the map. What a clever girl.
Well, how about the other Wifies?
Oh, he's really not doing very well. He looks like he's having a panic attack where Wifies has him boxed up in the lab. Huh. Honestly it would be a lot more fun to visit him after Wifies can separate himself from Kenadian.
Wifies spares another glance across the room at Kenadian, who does not seem as distressed about the book full of blacked-out pages and disturbing diagrams and pieces of lore as most players find it. This is starting to get annoying. He put a lot of effort into carefully redacting just enough information in the lore books to encourage players to get scared.
Yeah, this one isn't really worth following around.
Maybe they'll be more interesting if he leaves them in isolation and lets the fear fester for a few hours.
As soon as Ken figures out what the hell this imposter has done to their Wifies, they're burning this damn place to the ground, logging the hell out, and never coming back. Maybe skip on the literal burning and have to settle on metaphorical, depending on how soon they're able to actually find Wifies.
At the moment, it looks like this impostor's expectation is for them to keep playing this horror map until they—
Actually?
Screw this.
They toss the book on the ground and light it with the flint and steel. This evil impostor Wifies looks mildly disappointed at the small fire. Well he's about to be even more disappointed.
Ken stares him down.
"So where's the real Wifies?" Ken says.
The impostor stares back. "What? I am the real Wifies," he says.
Ken scoffs. "Maybe to you. I'm talking about mine. The one we came here with. You swapped out with him while we were in the maze. So where'd you put him?"
The impostor slowly smiles. "Aren't you concerned about your other friend as well?"
"Wato will be fine," Ken says.
"You seem awfully confident about that," the impostor says. "You don't even know what I've done to her."
Ken tenses, but they quickly remind themself that Wato is a master at escape rooms, even if they're intentionally designed to be unwinnable, as Ken is starting to suspect this one might be. Wato will be okay.
"She's a whole lot smarter than you'd give her credit for," Ken says.
The impostor laughs. "Maybe. Maybe not. I suppose I'll have to see just how far she's willing to venture into this map before she gives up." He tilts his head, the smile vanishing from his face. "Same with you."
"I'm not going to give up," Ken says. "Not until I find my Wifes."
"Well, good luck with that, I suppose," the impostor says.
A sudden worry crosses Ken's mind.
"You're not going to run away from me," they say quickly.
"Hm?" The impostor says. "Are you going to keep me here somehow? I'm curious to hear how you plan on doing that. I'm the owner of this server. I can do anything I want. There's absolutely nothing you can do to me in my own domain."
"Okay, well, the second I leave this place, I'm going to expose how fake of a horror map this is," Ken says venomously, mind racing to try and come up with a plan on the spot. "You made a mistake by letting me and Wato in here. I only have to make a sixty second short to spread the word that this place isn't worth coming to. People listen to me when it comes to escape rooms and horror maps. I can ruin you."
The impostor narrows his eyes. "Sounds like you're planning on doing that whether or not I give you your clone back."
"Not necessarily," Ken says, "Just tell me where my Wifies is and we'll all log out. And I promise I won't make a video about this."
They're not making any promises on Wato's behalf, though.
The impostor is back to staring at them. But rather than disappointed, he now looks annoyed, and it's such an uncomfortable parallel to the last time Ken had faced down an evil Wifies to protect their Wifies. This… this can't be all that different to that time, right? Ken can save him again.
"Hm," the impostor finally says. "Well then. If my fate is to be burned by your retalitory video anyway, then I might as well take my time with… your Wifies. He can't exactly log out where I've got him in."
"Wait—"
"Have fun with the map," the impostor says. "Or log out. Whatever. I'm not holding you back."
"Stop!"
But he's already gone.
Ken yells and kicks at the nearest lump of vines. Then they set it on fire for good measure. The flames flick along the dense greenery, catching at a painfully slow rate. It's not all that satisfying.
Fuck.
Fuck!
Ken checks the tab list again. Just them, Wato and Wifies. There's no guarantee that the Wifies on the list is their Wifies and not the evil server owner.
"Fuck," they groan, and then glare at the edges of the room.
"Alright," they say. "You wanna play? Let's play."
This guy is about to get cheesed on so fucking hard. He doesn't even know how many items there are in this room alone that Ken can use.
Idiot.
There's something… there's something Wifies is forgetting. The thought slips out of his mind the moment it gathers and is swiftly replaced by a horrible throbbing ache throughout his skull, even as he tries to remember—
Remember what?
He gets the feeling he's been in this situation before. Or he's thought this thought before, even though he can't quite collect what it was—
The pain pulses through the rest of his body. Fire in his veins. Oh, that hurts a lot.
He hisses, pulling on the restraints.
Wait.
Why is he restrained?
He blinks through blurry eyes at the rest of the room. Dim, amethyst-colored light against smooth gray walls. It reminds him of that lab where Ken and he had found the original Wifies.
Oh.
That's what he's forgetting.
He squints across the room, where another Wifies is sitting at a elegant-looking desk and writing in a book.
The other Wifies looks up at him. "You healed from that quickly," he says. "Maybe I need to cut deeper into your brain. I'd have hoped the poison would slow down your recovery time, but I guess being an artificial creation makes you a little less predictable. I wonder if that's why those players find you so remarkable." He sighs and writes something else in the book, then shuts it and walks across the room to stand beside the table that Wifies has been strapped to.
Wifies looks him over. This other Wifies' face is just like his own, but that's where the surface-level similarities end. This Wifies is wearing something between a fancy suit and a lab coat with an elaborate amethyst brooch pinned to his lapel, which is admittedly pretty cool, even if it's not something Wifies could see himself ever wearing. He'll take his soft cardigan and comfy sweatpants any day. Every day. They don't leave a weird crawling sensation on his skin like a lot of other things he's tried on. And he has tried a few other things! Ken had pointed out a few days after they'd gotten him out of that other lab how it might be nice to separate himself from the look of the original creator. He tried. He just likes this best.
"If only I knew how to clone you," the other Wifies says almost wistfully, bringing Wifies' attention away from the topic of clothes and back to him. "I guess I see the appeal of the whole setup the other one had going. Putting these little… disposable things through the escape rooms, watch them squirm." He shakes his head. "You might not be as interesting as a real player, but I can at least make it so that you can't run away from me. If I had more time, I'd love to dig a little deeper. Cut you open and see how long it takes you to die. Wire you up like a little automaton that can only follow my instructions. Make you into a puppet and send you into the map until it's all you know. Remake you into something a little more… interesting." He frowns and taps his pen against the surface of the table. "Unfortunately that pretty little friend of yours keeps getting close to this room, and I'm getting a little tired of setting them back."
The other Wifies starts pacing. Wifies watches him move. It's a bit like how the original one had paced across the top of the table, except this one feels less… frenetic? Something like that.
"What a waste," the other Wifies says. "It took me nearly a year to build this server. I've only had it up for a few months. I'm going to have to start over from scratch."
He returns to Wifies and traces his finger along the spot on Wifies' head that burns in pain. Wifies winces and tries to move away from the touch.
"Hm," the other Wifies says. "Maybe I'll see you again someday."
"I hope I don't see you again," Wifies says honestly.
The other Wifies laughs. "Yes, I suppose you would say that. Well… unless you turn out a little more like me. You never know. The apple doesn't fall far, so they say."
There's a soft chime. Wifies blinks at the spot the other Wifies had just occupied.
Did he log out?
Well, at least he's gone.
Wifies goes back to staring at the ceiling. He still feels really terrible, both physically and… and emotionally. Mostly, he feels like he's been cut open a few times, and he would like nothing more than to get back to somewhere that feels safe and… and just be upset about this.
There's also a subtle feeling in his body that he thinks might be regeneration, but it's not doing a whole lot for whatever has happened to him, which he still can't remember.
"Wifies!"
"Ken?" Wifies says.
The restraints are being taken off. Wifies winces as Ken— and Wato— help him sit up. Ugh, his whole body is stiff and— He tries not to flinch when they touch him. The feeling of their hands on his skin— even through the layers of his clothes— still feels like too much. But he puts on that smile that usually calms them down and tries to think of something to say to get them to stop touching him.
"I'm okay," he says. "I'm not hurt."
"You're really not," Wato says, although she backs off a bit. "You were alone with him for hours. Fuck, Wifies, you look terrible."
Wifies laughs softly. "I'll be better once we log out." The physical stuff isn't anything that relogging into a different world won't fix.
He's about to get off the table, but before he can move, Ken is scooping him into their arms. Wifies tries his best not to look too uncomfortable. Because Ken looks like they're emotionally distressed, and this is probably good for them, even though Wifies doesn't like it all that much. He doesn't really care for the kiss they give him either, even though it's on his forehead and not on his cheek this time.
"You can put me down," he says as his brain foggily reminds him that Wato and Ken have both told him he can speak up when he doesn't want to be touched. "Please put me down."
Miraculously, it works. Ken whispers, "Sorry, sorry," and sets him on his feet. He's able to take a few steps away from them.
Much better. He can breathe a little easier like this. His body still feels awful, but it's better than being strapped to the table.
"Okay," Wato says. "God, this place sucks. Let's get the hell out of here. We found the evil guy's command blocks and turned off the one that wasn't letting us log out." She gives Wifies another sad look, but instead of trying to hug him or anything, she just takes Ken's hand and sighs deeply.
"Wifies," she says. "If you need to talk about… about what happened—"
"Yeah," Wifies says. "I'll talk to you if I need to."
He doesn't plan on talking about anything.