I wasn’t sure what to expect going into the dreaded Director’s office, but I remembered the role that I cast myself into. Doctor Walter wasn't someone who was fearful, he was someone to be feared. I strolled in as if it was my own office. As long as I don’t react negatively, no matter what the Director looks like, I should be in the clear. Aside from myself, Alice, and Molly, the other prisoners- er, I mean staff and patients looked like they’d die from stress at any moment. There was clearly something they feared here, and I was moments away from finding out what that was.
I'll admit that I was a little nervous. But just a little.
The office itself wasn’t anything special, it was more modern than the rest of the building, with a nice, large laminated desk nestled near the back of the building. Cluttered on the sides were various shelves and bookshelves filled with odd medical memorabilia, books, and miscellaneous assortments of office equipment. There was a worn-out sofa nestled to the side that looked neglected and a small table that served some espresso and snacks opposite the seats.
The only thing that definitely didn’t belong in a normal office was the cages that were built into the walls in the very back of the office. They kind of looked like a standard Xollon Food Cage, now that I thought about it. They were empty, but the Disciplinary staff quickly stuffed the poor staff and patients into them before quickly making their exit.
The only person missing from the scene was the actual Director herself. Her desk was empty, and the chair which I would assume belonged to her was likewise unused. What the hell was I supposed to do now? Presumably, Dr. Walter would have had a lot of these reports before, so I couldn’t ask where the Director was without being suspicious as hell. I was just about to do that anyway when I felt a huge… something gather in the office space and coalesce.
The presence felt odd. It didn’t feel hostile, to me at least, but I could tell that whatever was making such an aura was pissed off. No, I think it would be more accurate to say that the suffocating feeling was directed at the poor sods in the back, or at least another party, while a completely different feeling was directed at the three of us. It was so disorientating because that presence was immensely powerful. My heart was palpitating erratically just standing here.
I grit my teeth and remembered who I was here. Dr. William Walter’s not the type of guy to get intimidated by his (why did I choose this damn background for myself?) lover. No, he’s a man of action! I can’t fuck it all up here because of a little bit of intimidation, this Director thing can’t be any worse than Q and his staff. They’re probably small fry compared to Xalla and Rogue!
I can do this!
I shook my head and reminded myself of the stuff I’d already witnessed. Between dimension-destroying Xollons and multiversal Systems, the Director honestly didn’t seem that bad. I met and pissed off the person in charge of the entire Central Collective, why would I be intimidated by some random hospital worker? I felt my body relax immediately as I eased into the pressure. I let it just flow through me, and with a casual shrug, I walked towards the Director’s desk and sat down on her chair.
Fuck it, if I was going to be Dr. William Walter, then I’ll show the whole world how he operates! The illustrious doctor’s not one to shy away from breaking damn social norms, and the more I get intimidated by all these rules, Trials, and other useless information, the less I act like the man I had envisioned when I first introduced myself to Sarah.
I turned vaguely to the direction where the aura was the strongest and gave it my signature smile, “Director, darling, come on now, enough with the theatrics, we have Alice here and she wants to give you a present!”
Alice came over with a smile, the small girl didn’t seem to even notice the suffocating presence, “Yeah mom! But it’s from me and Molly and Uncle- um, I mean Dr. Walter!”
As if agreeing with our request, the invisible malevolent force condensed into a physical form. First, a black, sludge-like substance seemed to gather from every corner of the room, flowing against gravity onto the table by my side. It solidified into a vaguely humanoid shape first, then morphed ever quicker into a distinctly female form. Once the last of the black liquid gathered with the rest, the entire mass seemed to freeze and congeal, before solidifying into a woman.
She was pitch black, not as in that she had a very dark skin tone, but rather, it was like her whole form simply sucked in all the light around it. She looked like a three-dimensional shadow, with the only defining feature being her eerie, perfectly circular white eyes, and her bright red lipstick. Those eyes were terrifying if you could even call them eyes in the first place. It looked more like two floating white orbs among that otherwise featureless face. The Director didn’t look like she should even belong in this dimension.
I even tried to peek at her information with the Rookie Arbiter's eyes, but I found nothing. I don’t think the Director would be immune to my skill, since I was able to see even Xalla’s basic information, and I highly doubted that she was more powerful than a full-on Xollon… although if she was, then that would be a whole other problem.
But that kind of thinking seemed unlikely. No matter how strange this place is, it is still only the Third Trial. There’s no way that piece of shit Overseer could bend the rules so much to introduce beings stronger than literal Eldritch Horrors this early. I suspected something else was up. It was like the figure before me didn’t exist, so perhaps this wasn’t the true body of the Director at all? Maybe she’s simply not alive in the conventional sense? Either way, I’ll have to be careful with such limited information to work with.
The dark void of a woman sighed but had a playful smile on her lips, I felt her gaze at me with amused eyes, “My Dear Doctor Walter, I would normally be a little more angry with you for getting my favorite chair dirty, but you’ve managed to do quite the number of tasks today, so I’ll forgive you just this once. And hello Alice, I see the good doctor’s been keeping you busy as well. Were you good today?”
Alice nodded so quickly it looked like she was doing her best impression of one of those bobble toys, “Yes mom! We even caught you the bad sick person that ran away! Dr. Walter told me to not squish him, so Molly tied him up after Dr. Walter fixed him up again!”
The Director laughed, “Thank you, I’ll make sure to thoroughly enjoy your gift, why don’t you and Molly go down and get a cookie as a reward? It’s about time for you to head to bed soon, and I still need to chat with Dr. Walter about work.”
The girl’s cheer deflated almost immediately, “Ok mom…”
“Hey,” I added, “I’ll see you again tomorrow, so don’t go with a frown on your face!”
The Director nodded, “That is true. You are better with children than I thought… that’s good. I’d be glad if you can continue to look after my daughter and her little friend.”
I gave her my best smile and a thumbs up.
“Off you go then, Alice,” she continued, “I’ll see you after I’m done here, and you can tell me how your day went. Save a cookie for Dr. Walter as well, ok?”
“Ok mom,” the girl said finally, “And good night Dr. Walter… will you play with me again tomorrow?”
I gave her a good-hearted chuckle, “I already promised, didn’t I? Here, let’s pinky promise, that way you’ll know that I’ll be there!”
Alice’s expression brightened and we sealed the contract with the time-honored tradition of the pinky promise. Nothing can get me out of that!
Alice seemed pretty satisfied with that and left the Director’s room shortly after giving her mom a hug. That left just the Detector and myself alone in the room (if you discount the people in the cages, but I highly doubt they’ll remain people for much longer). Guess it’s time to see if I’ll survive the night now.
Once the door was firmly closed, the Director’s demeanor changed immediately. She slumped down on the sofa by the side and produced a drink that smelled of heavy alcohol from the void, and drank it all in one go.
“Gods damn it, Will!” she muttered before producing another drink, “Those fucking invaders are getting out of hand! They think they can just walk all over us! Fuck! They really think they can just ignore us? I’d love to give whoever’s in charge a piece of my damn mind..."
She calmed down and sighed, "Have a drink, I know you need one as well.”
Ok… this was certainly not what I was expecting. Then again, when have things gone the way I thought they would? At times like this, it was best to lend her a comforting ear and just allow her to continue ranting.
I took the offered alcohol and took careful sips. The thing tasted like liquid fire.
“Is it that bad?” I asked.
“679 new patients, Will,” the Director continued, “and who knows how many of the worthless interns are imposters? I’m betting all of them are, again. It wasn’t always this bad, you know. Things were fine before my idiot grandfather made that braindead deal, and now I'm the one who's saddled with the consequences."
The Director took another heavy sip of her alcohol before pouring another generous portion, "And it’s just gotten worse lately… Fuck! Our hospital can’t continue like this! We don't have the personnel to handle these kinds of numbers! And we can’t fight back against those pieces of shit before Alice is ready, but I don’t think we'll last that long!”
Wait, does she mean those invaders were the people from Central? It would make the most sense for that to be the case since it was the Trash Matrix shoving all these new patients down the Hospital’s throat. Since we were using other worlds and dimensions as Trial grounds, I can only imagine the frustration that the natives of those worlds would feel having their homes invaded by unknown beings. If that was the case, then the Director has my sympathies.
More importantly, maybe I can find an ally here since I was trying to dispose of that damned Overseer myself. It’s good to see other people hate the Central Collective as much as I was starting to. It’s starting to seem like everyone who’s worked with the Overseer, whether they wanted to or not, was not a fan of the man. Yeah, this is definitely a situation that I can leverage to my advantage, but I’ll have to be careful how I approach things.
I put my drink down and started to massage the very stressed-out Director’s shoulders. Feeling her skin, if you could even call it that, was odd. It was like I was touching nothing, but the resistance was clearly there.
“Hey, no use stressing over it right now,” I said with the most calming voice I could muster with my Idol skill, “Just relax, we’ll figure something out like we always do. You're not alone dealing with this anymore, remember? I’ve been doing a bit of research about our invaders on my end as well, and I think I can do something about them soon.”
She relaxed and I felt her body ease up, “Thank you, Will, god, what’d I do without you here. And thank you for taking care of Alice today, I wasn’t planning to wake her up so early, but things have gotten out of hand.”
I nodded and continued my massage, making sure to keep the Director relaxed and amicable, “Yeah, how come she’s awake so soon? I was surprised to see her in the cafeteria today.”
“Couldn’t help it,” she muttered, her body completely at ease now, “The influx of new arrivals is disrupting everything in the hospital and even the basement’s not insulated enough to prevent all that noise. I’m making her a new toy to keep her occupied, but you must have heard about how fast she goes through those. Thankfully now that she’s taken such a liking to you, I don’t have to worry about her going out of control in the short term. You’ve taken one of my biggest headaches out of the way; I can’t thank you enough for that, Will.”
“I’ll do what I can for Alice, but you know that it’s not a long-term solution though,” I added, and it was true, I couldn’t stick with the girl forever, after all.
“No, but if I could just make her a permanent companion…”
I furrowed my brows, “She’ll be content with just a buddy?”
“Yes,” the Director answered, “but it’s harder than it sounds.”
She moved a little bit and gestured to have a seat beside her. She refilled my glass and poured another one for herself before continuing, “You weren’t here when I first tried to solve this problem, but my first few attempts were failures. I just tried to modify existing lifeforms to suit my needs, but that didn't work. It's not their fault, the people in my bloodline have always been sensitive to emotions, and it's especially strong with my daughter. If there’s any hint of fear or distrust, she’ll know, and then it’s another month cleaning up after her.
The Director took a deep sigh and downed another shot, "But our counter-offense against the invaders can’t start until Alice is stable.”
While I wanted to know what any of that meant in more detail, it was, once again, something that I couldn't exactly ask without risking my disguise breaking. What I did know was that helping out the Director and her daughter was likely to help fuck over the Overseer, and I was all too happy to help with that!
“And all that needs is to make her a true friend, right?” I asked.
“Yes, but that’s a hard task to do like I said,” she looked at me, those hovering orbs looking at me with curiosity, “Why, do you think you can manage?”
Now that I thought about it, Alice seemed like a nice girl, but she felt overwhelmingly lonely. There were no other kids her age here, and before I met her, she only had her doll to play with. That’s not really the life a child should live. As for creating her a friend…
Say, Noe, how much longer will it take for you to upgrade fully?
“One day, 18 hours and 32 minutes, my Host.”
And I got over a thousand luck charges to work with, plus however many I can regain by recharging… I think I can actually do this.
“Yeah…” I said, nodding slowly, “Do you think you can trust me with something?”
“Depends,” she answered, “What is it you need?”
“Quite a lot, honestly, but I think I can make your daughter that friend of hers in about two days.”
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I wasn’t sure what to expect going into the dreaded Director’s office, but I remembered the role that I cast myself into. Doctor Walter wasn't someone who was fearful, he was someone to be feared. I strolled in as if it was my own office. As long as I don’t react negatively, no matter what the Director looks like, I should be in the clear. Aside from myself, Alice, and Molly, the other prisoners- er, I mean staff and patients looked like they’d die from stress at any moment. There was clearly something they feared here, and I was moments away from finding out what that was.
I'll admit that I was a little nervous. But just a little.
The office itself wasn’t anything special, it was more modern than the rest of the building, with a nice, large laminated desk nestled near the back of the building. Cluttered on the sides were various shelves and bookshelves filled with odd medical memorabilia, books, and miscellaneous assortments of office equipment. There was a worn-out sofa nestled to the side that looked neglected and a small table that served some espresso and snacks opposite the seats.
The only thing that definitely didn’t belong in a normal office was the cages that were built into the walls in the very back of the office. They kind of looked like a standard Xollon Food Cage, now that I thought about it. They were empty, but the Disciplinary staff quickly stuffed the poor staff and patients into them before quickly making their exit.
The only person missing from the scene was the actual Director herself. Her desk was empty, and the chair which I would assume belonged to her was likewise unused. What the hell was I supposed to do now? Presumably, Dr. Walter would have had a lot of these reports before, so I couldn’t ask where the Director was without being suspicious as hell. I was just about to do that anyway when I felt a huge… something gather in the office space and coalesce.
The presence felt odd. It didn’t feel hostile, to me at least, but I could tell that whatever was making such an aura was pissed off. No, I think it would be more accurate to say that the suffocating feeling was directed at the poor sods in the back, or at least another party, while a completely different feeling was directed at the three of us. It was so disorientating because that presence was immensely powerful. My heart was palpitating erratically just standing here.
I grit my teeth and remembered who I was here. Dr. William Walter’s not the type of guy to get intimidated by his (why did I choose this damn background for myself?) lover. No, he’s a man of action! I can’t fuck it all up here because of a little bit of intimidation, this Director thing can’t be any worse than Q and his staff. They’re probably small fry compared to Xalla and Rogue!
I can do this!
I shook my head and reminded myself of the stuff I’d already witnessed. Between dimension-destroying Xollons and multiversal Systems, the Director honestly didn’t seem that bad. I met and pissed off the person in charge of the entire Central Collective, why would I be intimidated by some random hospital worker? I felt my body relax immediately as I eased into the pressure. I let it just flow through me, and with a casual shrug, I walked towards the Director’s desk and sat down on her chair.
Fuck it, if I was going to be Dr. William Walter, then I’ll show the whole world how he operates! The illustrious doctor’s not one to shy away from breaking damn social norms, and the more I get intimidated by all these rules, Trials, and other useless information, the less I act like the man I had envisioned when I first introduced myself to Sarah.
I turned vaguely to the direction where the aura was the strongest and gave it my signature smile, “Director, darling, come on now, enough with the theatrics, we have Alice here and she wants to give you a present!”
Alice came over with a smile, the small girl didn’t seem to even notice the suffocating presence, “Yeah mom! But it’s from me and Molly and Uncle- um, I mean Dr. Walter!”
As if agreeing with our request, the invisible malevolent force condensed into a physical form. First, a black, sludge-like substance seemed to gather from every corner of the room, flowing against gravity onto the table by my side. It solidified into a vaguely humanoid shape first, then morphed ever quicker into a distinctly female form. Once the last of the black liquid gathered with the rest, the entire mass seemed to freeze and congeal, before solidifying into a woman.
She was pitch black, not as in that she had a very dark skin tone, but rather, it was like her whole form simply sucked in all the light around it. She looked like a three-dimensional shadow, with the only defining feature being her eerie, perfectly circular white eyes, and her bright red lipstick. Those eyes were terrifying if you could even call them eyes in the first place. It looked more like two floating white orbs among that otherwise featureless face. The Director didn’t look like she should even belong in this dimension.
I even tried to peek at her information with the Rookie Arbiter's eyes, but I found nothing. I don’t think the Director would be immune to my skill, since I was able to see even Xalla’s basic information, and I highly doubted that she was more powerful than a full-on Xollon… although if she was, then that would be a whole other problem.
But that kind of thinking seemed unlikely. No matter how strange this place is, it is still only the Third Trial. There’s no way that piece of shit Overseer could bend the rules so much to introduce beings stronger than literal Eldritch Horrors this early. I suspected something else was up. It was like the figure before me didn’t exist, so perhaps this wasn’t the true body of the Director at all? Maybe she’s simply not alive in the conventional sense? Either way, I’ll have to be careful with such limited information to work with.
The dark void of a woman sighed but had a playful smile on her lips, I felt her gaze at me with amused eyes, “My Dear Doctor Walter, I would normally be a little more angry with you for getting my favorite chair dirty, but you’ve managed to do quite the number of tasks today, so I’ll forgive you just this once. And hello Alice, I see the good doctor’s been keeping you busy as well. Were you good today?”
Alice nodded so quickly it looked like she was doing her best impression of one of those bobble toys, “Yes mom! We even caught you the bad sick person that ran away! Dr. Walter told me to not squish him, so Molly tied him up after Dr. Walter fixed him up again!”
The Director laughed, “Thank you, I’ll make sure to thoroughly enjoy your gift, why don’t you and Molly go down and get a cookie as a reward? It’s about time for you to head to bed soon, and I still need to chat with Dr. Walter about work.”
The girl’s cheer deflated almost immediately, “Ok mom…”
“Hey,” I added, “I’ll see you again tomorrow, so don’t go with a frown on your face!”
The Director nodded, “That is true. You are better with children than I thought… that’s good. I’d be glad if you can continue to look after my daughter and her little friend.”
I gave her my best smile and a thumbs up.
“Off you go then, Alice,” she continued, “I’ll see you after I’m done here, and you can tell me how your day went. Save a cookie for Dr. Walter as well, ok?”
“Ok mom,” the girl said finally, “And good night Dr. Walter… will you play with me again tomorrow?”
I gave her a good-hearted chuckle, “I already promised, didn’t I? Here, let’s pinky promise, that way you’ll know that I’ll be there!”
Alice’s expression brightened and we sealed the contract with the time-honored tradition of the pinky promise. Nothing can get me out of that!
Alice seemed pretty satisfied with that and left the Director’s room shortly after giving her mom a hug. That left just the Detector and myself alone in the room (if you discount the people in the cages, but I highly doubt they’ll remain people for much longer). Guess it’s time to see if I’ll survive the night now.
Once the door was firmly closed, the Director’s demeanor changed immediately. She slumped down on the sofa by the side and produced a drink that smelled of heavy alcohol from the void, and drank it all in one go.
“Gods damn it, Will!” she muttered before producing another drink, “Those fucking invaders are getting out of hand! They think they can just walk all over us! Fuck! They really think they can just ignore us? I’d love to give whoever’s in charge a piece of my damn mind..."
She calmed down and sighed, "Have a drink, I know you need one as well.”
Ok… this was certainly not what I was expecting. Then again, when have things gone the way I thought they would? At times like this, it was best to lend her a comforting ear and just allow her to continue ranting.
I took the offered alcohol and took careful sips. The thing tasted like liquid fire.
“Is it that bad?” I asked.
“679 new patients, Will,” the Director continued, “and who knows how many of the worthless interns are imposters? I’m betting all of them are, again. It wasn’t always this bad, you know. Things were fine before my idiot grandfather made that braindead deal, and now I'm the one who's saddled with the consequences."
The Director took another heavy sip of her alcohol before pouring another generous portion, "And it’s just gotten worse lately… Fuck! Our hospital can’t continue like this! We don't have the personnel to handle these kinds of numbers! And we can’t fight back against those pieces of shit before Alice is ready, but I don’t think we'll last that long!”
Wait, does she mean those invaders were the people from Central? It would make the most sense for that to be the case since it was the Trash Matrix shoving all these new patients down the Hospital’s throat. Since we were using other worlds and dimensions as Trial grounds, I can only imagine the frustration that the natives of those worlds would feel having their homes invaded by unknown beings. If that was the case, then the Director has my sympathies.
More importantly, maybe I can find an ally here since I was trying to dispose of that damned Overseer myself. It’s good to see other people hate the Central Collective as much as I was starting to. It’s starting to seem like everyone who’s worked with the Overseer, whether they wanted to or not, was not a fan of the man. Yeah, this is definitely a situation that I can leverage to my advantage, but I’ll have to be careful how I approach things.
I put my drink down and started to massage the very stressed-out Director’s shoulders. Feeling her skin, if you could even call it that, was odd. It was like I was touching nothing, but the resistance was clearly there.
“Hey, no use stressing over it right now,” I said with the most calming voice I could muster with my Idol skill, “Just relax, we’ll figure something out like we always do. You're not alone dealing with this anymore, remember? I’ve been doing a bit of research about our invaders on my end as well, and I think I can do something about them soon.”
She relaxed and I felt her body ease up, “Thank you, Will, god, what’d I do without you here. And thank you for taking care of Alice today, I wasn’t planning to wake her up so early, but things have gotten out of hand.”
I nodded and continued my massage, making sure to keep the Director relaxed and amicable, “Yeah, how come she’s awake so soon? I was surprised to see her in the cafeteria today.”
“Couldn’t help it,” she muttered, her body completely at ease now, “The influx of new arrivals is disrupting everything in the hospital and even the basement’s not insulated enough to prevent all that noise. I’m making her a new toy to keep her occupied, but you must have heard about how fast she goes through those. Thankfully now that she’s taken such a liking to you, I don’t have to worry about her going out of control in the short term. You’ve taken one of my biggest headaches out of the way; I can’t thank you enough for that, Will.”
“I’ll do what I can for Alice, but you know that it’s not a long-term solution though,” I added, and it was true, I couldn’t stick with the girl forever, after all.
“No, but if I could just make her a permanent companion…”
I furrowed my brows, “She’ll be content with just a buddy?”
“Yes,” the Director answered, “but it’s harder than it sounds.”
She moved a little bit and gestured to have a seat beside her. She refilled my glass and poured another one for herself before continuing, “You weren’t here when I first tried to solve this problem, but my first few attempts were failures. I just tried to modify existing lifeforms to suit my needs, but that didn't work. It's not their fault, the people in my bloodline have always been sensitive to emotions, and it's especially strong with my daughter. If there’s any hint of fear or distrust, she’ll know, and then it’s another month cleaning up after her.
The Director took a deep sigh and downed another shot, "But our counter-offense against the invaders can’t start until Alice is stable.”
While I wanted to know what any of that meant in more detail, it was, once again, something that I couldn't exactly ask without risking my disguise breaking. What I did know was that helping out the Director and her daughter was likely to help fuck over the Overseer, and I was all too happy to help with that!
“And all that needs is to make her a true friend, right?” I asked.
“Yes, but that’s a hard task to do like I said,” she looked at me, those hovering orbs looking at me with curiosity, “Why, do you think you can manage?”
Now that I thought about it, Alice seemed like a nice girl, but she felt overwhelmingly lonely. There were no other kids her age here, and before I met her, she only had her doll to play with. That’s not really the life a child should live. As for creating her a friend…
Say, Noe, how much longer will it take for you to upgrade fully?
“One day, 18 hours and 32 minutes, my Host.”
And I got over a thousand luck charges to work with, plus however many I can regain by recharging… I think I can actually do this.
“Yeah…” I said, nodding slowly, “Do you think you can trust me with something?”
“Depends,” she answered, “What is it you need?”
“Quite a lot, honestly, but I think I can make your daughter that friend of hers in about two days.”
Want to read ahead? Check out my Patreon! It's what's keeping this project alive and well!
It's currently 29 chapters ahead with a new chapter uploaded daily!
Check it out if you want to support the author, and as always, thank you for reading!
