Wish upon the Stars chapter 1078

The inside of the tower was dark. Not the kind of dark you see when you turn out the lights, or even the type of dark you saw in the Void. This dark wasn’t an absence. It was a presence. It was like a terrible monster looming behind me with fangs bared. A suffocating blanket of blackness crushing down on me like some sort of abyssal gravity.

I reached into myself, calling for Zagan, pulling the power of my purifying flames of life through me as I incarnated the great demon into my body. My hair flickered to life with green flame, the flickers of cleansing fire driving back the unnatural darkness just as easily as I had hoped they would, illuminating the space around us so I could see where we were. “Drexel?” I called in annoyance. “Traditionally during tests you TELL people what you’re testing.”

There was a pause. “Do you?” asked the curious voice of the tower spirit. “How novel. I suppose that must be a recent development. Well, I suppose if that’s how things are done now, I’m not in a position to argue. Very well. Welcome to the first grand game. This one is called ‘enemy’. The rules of enemy are simple. One of you has been replaced, swapped out for a simulacrum while the real thing has been put in stasis. To get them back, you must discover the identity of the enemy. You have ten questions to ask anyone in the room determine who it is. If you fail, you’ll be ejected, and the taken prisoner will remain for eternity.”

“You could have mentioned that,” I frowned. “Tell me the parameters of the questions.” I was very careful not to ASK for them. I demanded he tell me so he couldn’t take that as my first question.

Drexel’s chuckle filled the darkness. Outside the pool of light from my burning hair, the dark remained, and in the flickering green firelight, the expressions on my friends faces were eerie and distorted, the whole thing giving the bodiless laughter a menacing and threatening air. “Clever,” Drexel said cheerfully. “You didn’t ask. Alright then, the rules for questions as such.”

“You may ask a question of any of the participants. The participants don’t have to tell the truth, but they can’t lie twice in a row. When you finally select the enemy, everyone aside from that person must unanimously agree that they’re the suspicious one. Should you choose the WRONG target, that person will join the captive in stasis, and the process will repeat. Once only one person remains, the doppelganger will transform into a monster and attack. Oh, and you can’t ask them if they’re the doppelganger directly.”

I grimaced, but nodded. “Alright, that’s all I need.”

He went silent, and I turned to look at the others. “Alright…here’s the deal. I’ll ask the questions, you just need to answer. Don’t say anything except to respond to things I ask, and DON’T answer a question with a question.”

They all nodded their understanding, and I started looking back and forth. Dayna, Deanna, Azazel, and Brad. Dan hadn’t come along, which was kind of a blessing at this point. One less potential doppelganger to eliminate. I turned to the others, looking around suspiciously. Questions. Ten questions to figure out who was the fake.

I should have been able to cross off Azazel immediately, and probably Brad, given they were my demons, but something about this oppressive darkness had sealed my access to my Domain. Zagan I could access through incarnation, but with Azazel and Brad already OUT here the blockage from the dark force was preventing even that much communication. Whatever that stuff was, it was strong.

Shaking off the thought, I focused on the task at hand. Questions. What should I ask? I squinted around at my companions. Should I ask something only I would know about them? Or maybe some kind of general knowledge question? Instead, I turned to Brad. “What…is your favorite color?”

“Clear,” he answered proudly. “Because there is no sight more glorious than the absence of substance contained within a pit!”

“Ok, it’s not you,” I said, immediately turning away. It was impossible for anyone to answer a question that stupidly and NOT be Brad. I turned to Azazel next. This one was tougher. Azazel was wise. He knew basically everything I knew, and more, but that made it even harder to come up with a question. “How many demons attend the court of Gehenna?” I asked slowly.

He blinked at me. “Seventy two,” he answered after a moment of hesitation. I assume he was trying to figure out if there was some trick.

Nodding, I moved on. My eyes locked on Deanna. “What…is the name of my best friend?”

She smiled confidently. “Benny,” she said with confidence. “You’ve known him since you were a child.”

“Absolutely correct,” I said with a wide smile. “ Except I never told Deanna that. It’s her.”

The others glanced at her in surprise, but none of them argued. Announcing their decision to believe me. Her eyes went wide. “Wait, what? NO!” She lunged forward, but froze midair like a paused image on a screen. Before our eyes, she faded from existence, and she was immediately replaced by another Deanna, this one sleeping peacefully.

Around us, the darkness fell away, revealing a wide open space with stone floors and an extremely wide spiral staircase climbing the wall starting nearby. “Awww,” said Drexel’s. “You figured it out.”

“It wasn’t too hard,” I admitted. “The obvious strategy would be to use up all my questions asking them two at a time. After I used one on Brad and Azazel, that left me two questions for each person. I said I’d eliminated them, but who knew if I was telling the truth. So the common sense move would be for the doppelganger to be honest for the first question and save their lie for the second. So rather than worry about whether it's true or false, I just asked the doppelganger something they shouldn’t have known. That way, even the true answer gave them away.”

As I explained everything, I began to steadily search the nearby area, calling Dantalion into me as I did. Something was wrong. Drexel was…different. Outside he’d seemed excitable and friendly, almost desperate for companionship. He’d reminded me of Shayla, actually, and that had put me at ease. But regardless of how easy that had been for me, Drexel’s attitude just not had been radically different.

The voice that had responded to my questions was mocking and sadistic. He’d put on a show of being cheerful, but there was malice behind his words, and he’d taken Deanna without any mention. Then I thought back to Azazel’s warning earlier. Risk and reward. These trials weren’t difficult. The risk was probably coming from something else.

All of this information led me to a few conclusions. First, Drexel’s reasons for wanting us here weren’t what he’d said. I hadn’t scented any direct lies, but he’d clearly been misleading me. Second, Drexel had to follow the rules of this tower just like we did, but there would almost definitely be some way for him to exploit them to his advantage later. Thirdly, Drexel had some means of gathering information about us.

He’d known EXACTLY what item to mention to draw me back when I was leaving, and that doppelganger had been far too aware of the details of my life.

The question was WHY would he want us here? What purpose did us going through the tower have for him? I thought back to everything he’d said. I couldn’t think of any obvious loopholes. You’d think I’d have been more paranoid after the Roland thing, but he just seemed so…goofy and harmless.

Super competent badasses like Roland were suspicious, but I had a blind spot for goofy idiots. Bethy, Brad, so many people I knew fit into that category or were at least adjacent to it. Drexel had known that. Had figured out what buttons to press to get us in here.

“Drexel,” I said slowly. “I still have seven questions. Your rules didn’t mention the questions not being effective anymore after the game. I can ask anyone questions. And they can’t lie more than once in a row. That includes you. I never thought to ask earlier, in fact, I think you made SURE I didn’t think to ask. What is the name of the enemy that was responsible for the fall of Zand?”

There was a pause, and then the ground began to rumble. At first I thought it was an attack, but after a moment I realized what was happening. The tower was LAUGHING.  “I already told you that, Shane. My name is Drexel.”

Grimacing, I summoned my staff, preparing to fight if necessary. “This is a trap,” I said flatly. “Is there really a Cosmic Phoenix Cinder here? And is there really a Cosmic Phoenix Cinder here? I’m asking twice.” I would be able to scent the lie on whichever answer was inaccurate. I was really hoping there was.

“Oh of course,” he said happily. “And yes, as I said. I never lied to you. For instance, it WOULD be correct to say Zand would want you to keep in mind the name of his usurper IF you had the chance to avenge his downfall. Because my name is how people summon me. You would be unable to obtain vengeance without it. Of course, you don’t HAVE that chance, so keeping my name in mind would be extremely unwise for you at this juncture.”

I frowned at that. “Ok, but we’ve been using your name for ages, why haven’t you shown in up in the flesh?”

“I’m bound to the tower,” he sighed. “You have to think my name OUTSIDE to release me. That’s why I’m giving you such simple tasks. Once you’re done and you get your prize, you’ll carry me outside tucked into your dense little minds, and then I’ll be free.”

I frowned at the tower around me. “Who exactly are you?”

“Why, I’m Drexel,” he said happily. “Your friendly dimwitted tower spirit. Or maybe I’m not. Maybe I’m something very old. Something awful. Maybe I’m a whisper of dark dreams in your waking mind. A seductive purr of evil desires in the back of your head. Maybe I’m a terrible god who you’ve unwittingly begun to release on this universe.”

“That first part was a LIE,” I hissed angrily. “So I’ll ask again. WHO ARE YOU?”

“I am Drexel, the Mindplague,” he cackled in a gleeful voice. “A god of corruption and deceit, trapped in this buried tower for eons uncounted. I am the darkness in the mortal heart. The sickness you hide from the world behind your mask of civility. Your minds will carry me from this place, will spread me once more to the worlds beyond. And the best part is that you have no choice. You are all my hosts, and you WILL transmit me.”

I glanced around worriedly. This was my last question. “How?” I asked simply.

“You’re carriers,” he answered casually. “Anyone who learns my name becomes either a carrier or an infected. Infected can’t spread the influence, so I didn’t bother turning any of you. Once yo leave, I’ll spread to anyone connected to you. You don’t need to meet them face to face, even karmic connections will do.”

My blood was ice. This was BAD. I’d gotten us infected with some kind of divine mind virus. And the worst part was that it wasn’t even my fault this time. I’d love to berate myself for my greed or whatever, but honestly it had probably saved our lives and the lives of our friends. If we’d turned around and left we’d have spread the virus anyway, since we’d already learned his name. I wasn’t sure why he’d wanted us to go through the tower at all, unless he’d been concerned we might die attempting to scale the cliff and wanted to make sure we made it safely back to the surface.

The question was, now that I knew all this what the hell did I DO about it? Because whatever it was, I’d better come up with the answer fast. Otherwise we were either going to be stuck here forever or potentially dooming the universe. Neither one seemed like my kind of party. Which meant now I needed to outwit a god. Fantastic.