Book Five, Chapter 93: The Introduction of Chaos

~Riley~

Ever since we had unearthed Clara Withers, there had been this lingering question: what were we going to do with her?

The answer couldn’t be to leave her underground and ignore her. There were just too many possibilities.

We could have tried to set things up so that, when we removed the necklace from her desiccated body, the werewolf curse itself would fail. But I had no faith in that plan.

We could have tried to lead the pack leader to Clara in hopes that she would suddenly lose the will to fight when she found the corpse. Unfortunately, I had never been able to confirm the exact relationship between those two parties. Just guesses. I suspected their relationship changed with the story.

I mean, I wasn’t an idiot—I knew this was a tragic romance situation. But there were all sorts of things that could happen in a tragic romance. We knew going in, thanks to Cassie and her prediction, that there were two women—two lovers—fighting.

Was that fight still happening? I had no idea.

In the end, we were going to have to play it by ear.

I had it all pictured: I could take the necklace off the body, magically reviving Clara and putting an end to the violence all at once. As the two of them finally embraced each other after so many years—assuming that was the thing they were inclined to do—Kimberly would pop the pack leader in the head with a silver bullet.

Yes, it would be tragic.

But at the end of the day, our goal wasn’t just to put a stop to the violence. We had to kill the pack leader or otherwise save ourselves from the werewolf curse, and it wasn’t clear how we were going to do that.

But suddenly, as I lay bleeding out in the dirt with werewolves running toward me, I realized—and I thought that Andrew also realized—that this werewolf curse wasn’t just a metaphor for a disease or some hand-wavy magic.

There was something physically in the air, even if we couldn’t sense it easily.

Werewolves didn’t just obey the pack leader—they were controlled. We watched in amazement as some wolves—I’d go so far as to say half of them—simply gave up the moment rolling silver seemed to disconnect them from the pack.

It was a remarkable thing to see.

I started thinking about what we knew about werewolf hierarchies. These were things we had largely taken for granted because they seemed so basic. These werewolf packs were not based on physical dominance. The literature didn’t even use the words alpha or beta to describe these relationships, and none of the other players understood how funny that was.

No, it seemed to be the other way around—the werewolves became more powerful depending on where they were in the hierarchy rather than the reverse. New wolves were so completely submissive that the humans within them basically had no control.

With the revelation that this was all some sort of quasi-mind control, I realized there was an extra option—something we could do with Clara Withers that I had not considered before. If it was true that the werewolves seemed to obey the oldest wolf with the greatest connection to the magical curse, what if we were to find one even older? What if we could introduce a little chaos?

I didn’t like to be playing things on the fly like that, but in the blue glow of the advanced rolling silver concoction, I had seen something; I had seen the magical force that made those wolves tick.

We all had.

I couldn’t ignore it.

My body was losing vitality, so I decided to activate my Raised By Television trope in hopes that it might give me just enough Grit and Hustle to get down into the underground crypt.

And it had. That trope had seemed so unwieldy when I first received it, but now it fit like an old pair of jeans.

With a few extra points of Grit, I could barely even feel my body shutting down. But since I was still alive, those wolves—or at least many of them—were still after me.

I ran as fast as I could, suddenly regretting that I had given my silver trope knife to Kimberly in anticipation of my imminent demise.

I just needed to run as fast as I could to the Manor. It was only a football field or two away. I could run that. I just had to put one foot in front of the other, crunching the leaves underneath as I made a beeline for the Manor.

The issue was that Carousel likes to create a variety among its mobs when creating monsters. You’ll have enemies that have the same tropes but different arrangements of stats.

We didn’t need the Atlas to know that. It was obvious if you ever had a bunch of monsters running after you.

Some of these wolves had their physical stats placed into Grit; others had it placed into Mettle. But unfortunately, about a third of them had most of their stats in Hustle, and I could not outrun them. I quickly realized this as I looked over my shoulder and saw a dozen wolves gaining on me.

Luckily, Carousel had given me plenty of time to think ahead.

We had placed a bunch of advanced rolling silver grenades along the path to the Manor, and as I ran by them, all I had to do was kick them over for them to activate.

Those wolves were scared to death of whatever the process of purifying silver was doing to them. They would give the grenades a wide berth, effectively nullifying their Hustle advantage.

I managed to get to the Manor doors with a ten-yard advantage and quickly headed down the stairs into the basement, where I found two werewolves quietly whimpering in their cages. They had become mere scenery by that point in my mind. They were only there to remind us of why we had come—because we needed to rescue allies.

I ran deeper into the tunnels.

This time, I didn’t run around in circles trying to make the path look longer than it was. I could feel myself growing cold.

Even with a few points of extra Grit, I didn’t have long. And although I was not technically Hobbled from the gunshot wound I had received, I was holding my gut, unable to get a full sprint.

Through the tunnels to the little hole that would lead to the crypt, it didn’t take long for the wolves to catch up.

As I rounded a corner and found a straightaway that would lead me to the crypt, a wolf came right behind me. It could easily have grabbed me—except for the fact that it suddenly lacked coordination.

It kept going instead of banking and crashed into the wall. Two more wolves did the same, crashing into each other.

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It was the silver in the walls.

I knew we should have tested what effect that had on the wolves—it had kept Logan and Avery sickly. Perhaps we should have had the final battle down here. But I didn’t have time for regrets.

As the wolves seemed to have become incredibly clumsy underground, I could hear them sniffing rapidly, as if their senses were suddenly dulled so greatly that they could barely make out where they were going. Unfortunately, the underground wasn’t really that complicated, and I needed a light to see where I was going, so they could surely find me.

The hole leading to Clara’s grave was too small for the wolves, so it would buy me some time.

As soon as I jumped through the hole into the crypt, I turned on one of the lanterns we had left down there. I also set my flashlight up so that I could get a good view of the mausoleum. Then, I took out the little handheld camera Carousel had given me—because my character was a documentarian.

I was probably doing a terrible job filming myself, and I wasn’t even sure if this outdated camera could pick up visuals from the meager lighting sources I had. But I had a feeling it wouldn’t matter. The camera was just a prop.

I just had to find the right words and say them with conviction.

I turned the camera at myself as best as possible and began my rant.

“How long have we sought to understand the hierarchical structures of a werewolf pack?” I asked, tired, panicked. “They defy anything else seen in nature. But again, they are not natural—they are supernatural. It has occurred to me that werewolves need a dominant leader, but that leader is not chosen based on physical prowess, as it seems their physical prowess is arbitrarily assigned—and without relation to the original body of the host.”

I paused, my thoughts racing. “No, I believe there is some measurable magical connection between these wolves.”

I was interrupted as the wolves started digging into the hole to get into the crypt. The sound of their claws against the stone sent a chill down my spine, but I pressed on with my speech.

“It appears to me,” I continued, “that there is one solution to disrupt these wolves’ devotion to the she-wolf, to this pack leader that would have them kill me and the others. I need to introduce another wolf, one with a stronger connection to this ancient curse. Something to disrupt their absolute obedience, if only for a moment. It was clear to me that the rolling silver process was curing them of some sort of manipulation or supernatural suggestion that the pack leader had over them. I believe that introducing another werewolf—an older werewolf—might be exactly what we need.”

I entered the mausoleum and shined my flashlight down into the coffin of Clara Withers, onto her corpse.

I breathed a sigh of relief that she was still there; I was half expecting it to be empty again. Luckily, I was On-Screen, and Carousel didn’t feel like playing any pranks on me this time.

“This may be too much to suggest,” I said, “but if the werewolf curse is indeed a curse and is inherently magical—and if it is true that the only way to kill a werewolf is to pierce its heart or organs with a silver object like a bullet or knife, undoubtedly disrupting this magical power—then I have to ask: how is it possible that Clara Withers, reportedly the most notable werewolf of her time, is dead?”