Chapter III: The Gathering of Grotesques
'Finish the headcount. Fast. Before they start tearing into each other like starving dogs.'
The thought slithered through Lionel's skull as he watched his subjects—his monsters, his beautiful abominations—shifting, circling, sizing each other up like predators at a watering hole.
"Eighth floor." His voice echoed through the treasury, bouncing off walls that seemed to pulse with anticipation. The previous group descended, melting into shadow. Rachel Foley and Jack Norman emerged—faces blank, bodies tense, coiled springs waiting to snap. Lionel's eyes slid over them without truly seeing. No time. No time. No time.
"Ninth floor."
Deborah Harper stepped forward, her movements too fluid, too serpentine. Derek C. Simmons followed, jaw tight, that executive arrogance radiating off him like cologne. Carla Radames—his twisted reflection—smiled with teeth too white, too sharp.
"Tenth floor."
Pedro Fernandez. Neil Fisher. Alex Wesker.
The names meant nothing. The faces meant everything. Each one was a nightmare someone had lovingly sculpted, breathing horrible life into digital clay.
"Alright. Next." The word cracked like a whip. Several subjects flinched. Good.
"Eleventh floor."
Click-click-click-click.
The wheelchair wheels sang their discordant song before the Bakers emerged from the ranks. Jack—massive, mountainous, moving like an avalanche in coveralls. Marguerite—all angles and aggression, fingers twitching like spider legs. Lucas—grinning that oil-slick grin, the one that promised bear traps and claymores hidden in birthday cakes.
And Eveline.
Oh, Eveline.
The wheelchair creaked. The woman sitting in it—ancient, withered, a mockery of the child she'd once been—stared at Lionel with eyes that had seen the world burn and wanted to watch it burn again.
"Eveline?" The word escaped before he could stop it, barely a whisper. "I watched my colleagues create the younger version. Watched them pore over every detail, every wrinkle that shouldn't exist on a child's face." His throat tightened. "Maybe... maybe she can mutate back. Maybe—"
Maybe they programmed that feature. Maybe they didn't. Maybe she's stuck like this forever, a grandmother wearing a monster's skin.
He swallowed the thought like broken glass.
'Thank God—thank whatever dark deity watches over this place—their memories aren't intact. The Resident Evil lore, all those betrayals and vendettas, buried deep where they can't reach.'
His gaze swept across them: Simmons and Carla, creator and creation, standing side-by-side without the weight of what he'd done to her pressing down. The Bakers, blissfully unaware of their own victimhood, were the parasites that had hollowed them out and worn them like puppets.
'If they remembered—truly remembered—this gathering would be a bloodbath. A beautiful, terrible, catastrophic bloodbath.'
"Twelfth floor."
The temperature dropped.
Not metaphorically. Lionel felt his breath mist, watched frost creep across the floor in spiraling fractals as they emerged.
The Lords.
Alcina Dimitrescu flowed forward first, because of course she did, nine feet of aristocratic disdain poured into a dress that cost more than most people's lives. Her daughters followed like pale shadows—Bela, Cassandra, Daniela—their movements synchronized, insectoid, wrong in ways that made Lionel's hindbrain scream.
Thud. Drag. Thud. Drag.
Salvatore Moreau lurched into view, his body a testament to every body horror fever dream, flesh sloughing and reforming, bones visible through translucent skin. The smell hit Lionel like a physical force—brine and rot and things best left in deep water.
Donna Beneviento drifted forward in her funeral blacks, face hidden, the doll Angie perched on her shoulder like a wooden vulture. Silent. Always silent. Except when she screamed through her puppets.
Karl Heisenberg swaggered to the center, hat tilted at an angle that suggested he owned not just the place, but the very concept of places. His hammer—massive, ridiculous, beautiful—rested on his shoulder. He raised it slowly, deliberately.
A challenge. A promise. A middle finger to every other egomaniac in the room.
Glares erupted like brushfires. Simmons's jaw clenched. Wesker's lips curled. Dimitrescu's eyes flashed gold-bright with barely contained rage.
Clack-clack-clack-clack.
Heisenberg's hammer tapped against the floor. Morse code for 'try me.'
Many of the others shifted backward, unwilling to engage. Because the Lords—the beautiful, terrible Lords—they weren't just inhuman in behavior. They looked like nightmares given flesh. Especially Moreau, whose body defied physics and good taste in equal measure.
"Alright. Oh—" Lionel's voice caught. His brain stuttered. "Oh shit. I forgot floor one."
The curse echoed. Came back to him wearing his own shame.
'Idiot. Incompetent. You had ONE job—count to twelve—and you couldn't even—'
"Those villains from the console games—enemies that mirrored other titles—we placed them on floor one because Resident Evil 1 didn't have human bosses. Just zombies and hunters and that goddamn first-person shark—"
He was rambling. Spiraling. Several subjects exchanged glances that clearly communicated: 'Is our creator having a breakdown?'
"Sorry. First floor."
Morpheus D. Duvall emerged, all theatrical grandiosity and gender-fluid magnificence, moving like a ballet dancer who'd learned their craft from praying mantises. Sergei Vladimir followed—Cold War personified, a walking monument to brutal efficiency.
"Alright." Lionel exhaled, feeling his lungs burn. "The headcount is done. Complete. Finished. Please return to your floors. I'll meet with you all personally. One by one. Or maybe in groups. We'll figure it out. Just—go."
They moved past him in a procession of the damned.
Some bowed—crisp, military precision.
Some nodded—casual acknowledgment that their creator deserved at least that much respect.
Some just stared, eyes holding questions Lionel didn't want to answer.
Eventually, blessedly, they filed out of the treasury and returned to their respective floors.
In peace.
Miraculously, impossibly, wonderfully—in peace.
Lionel stood alone in the emptiness, feeling his heartbeat slowly descend from hummingbird territory back to something resembling human. He turned, scanning the treasury, and spotted it at the far end.
A door.
Tall. Ornate. Practically humming with significance.
"Ah." The word came out reverent. "This must be it. Our only World Item."
His footsteps echoed as he approached—click, click, click—each one a countdown to something he didn't quite understand yet. The door opened without resistance, revealing a pedestal bathed in ethereal light.
On it sat their sole World Item.
The Terraform.
"This can change everything," Lionel whispered, reaching for it with trembling fingers. The item looked almost absurdly mundane—just a snow globe with a tiny castle suspended in swirling white flakes. Beautiful. Simple. Deceptive.
"It can alter terrain, build structures instantly, reshape entire landscapes." His voice gained confidence, falling into the lecture-hall cadence he'd used when explaining game mechanics to his colleagues. "We designed it to recreate the Resident Evil maps, every location perfectly rendered. But it had limitations—could only build within the game's predetermined boundaries, couldn't destroy the invisible walls that kept players on the rails."
He lifted the snow globe, watching the castle tumble and spin inside its glass prison.
"But wait." The realization hit like lightning. "This new world—this place we've been pulled into—it doesn't have boundaries. No invisible walls, no artificial limitations, no 'you cannot go that way' messages burned into the fabric of reality."
His hands shook. The snow globe trembled.
"Can I actually use this? Can I really—?"
Hope. Dangerous, intoxicating hope.
"We need to try this! We need to try this right now!"
He clutched the relic to his chest and sprinted for the elevator, his footsteps a frantic percussion—thump-thump-thump-thump—racing against his own impatience.
The elevator ride was agony. Lionel bounced on his heels, watching the floor numbers tick upward with glacial slowness.
Ding.
He exploded out of the elevator before the doors fully opened, nearly colliding with the wall, recovered, sprinting down the corridor to the archives. His keycard slid into the slot—beep—and the special compartment opened with a pneumatic hiss.
Inside: blueprints.
Not just any blueprints. The blueprints. Months of work crystallized into paper and ink.
"It took us months to create these." His voice cracked with something between pride and grief. "We replayed every game, walked through every location, and made rough sketches as we went. Died repeatedly to get the angles right. Fell through floors, glitched through walls, did everything possible to map the unmappable."
His fingers traced the lines—the Spencer Mansion, the RPD Station, the village, the castle, all of it rendered in obsessive detail.
"The underground labs, too. Every spawn point, every enemy placement, every resource location. Because we were perfectionists. Because we were obsessed."
He gathered the blueprints carefully, reverently, like holy texts written by madmen.
"Our work won't be in vain. Not today. Not ever."
The control room beckoned. He spread the blueprints across the main table, smoothing out wrinkles with shaking hands, then practically lunged for the P.A. system.
Click.
"Attention, all creatures." His voice boomed through every speaker, echoing through every floor, probably startling half of them out of whatever they were doing. "Would all creatures please return to the underground labs immediately. There will be significant changes to the terrain—seismic activity, structural reformation, reality rearrangement—that might affect you. I repeat: please return to the underground labs. This is not a drill. This is not optional. This is—"
He released the button, cutting himself off before he devolved into manic rambling again.
The CCTV monitors flickered to life at his touch. Dozens of screens, hundreds of angles, a digital panopticon showing every corner of his domain.
Empty floors. Clear corridors. Vacant rooms.
"Good." Relief flooded through him. "They actually listen. They actually follow orders."
'Unlike my colleagues, who argued about every creative decision for hours...'
He shoved the thought away, focusing on the task at hand.
The Terraform sat on the table, waiting. Lionel picked it up, feeling the weight of possibility in his palms. He shook it.
Once. Twice.
The snow swirled inside, and then—
Whirrrrrr.
A scanner emerged from the base like a mechanical tongue, bathing the table in crimson light. The beam swept left, right, pulsing with each pass.
Lionel moved quickly, positioning the scanner over the first blueprint. The red light intensified, drinking in every line, every notation, every painstakingly rendered detail.
Beep.
Next blueprint. The light slid across it like a lover's caress, hungry and thorough.
Beep.
Another. The village. The castle. The reservoir.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
His hands moved faster, feeding the machine its diet of paper dreams. Each scan took seconds but felt like hours, time distorting under the weight of anticipation.
Finally—the last blueprint.
The light turned green.
The scanner retracted with a satisfied click.
"Alright." Lionel collapsed into the office chair, gripping the armrests until his knuckles went white. "Sit tight. This is going to be—"
BOOM.
The world moved.
Not figuratively. Not metaphorically. The entire laboratory lurched sideways like a ship cresting a wave. Lionel's stomach flipped. His vision swam. The chair rolled backward, slamming into the wall with a crash that rattled his teeth.
Grind. Crack. Rumble.
Stone screamed as it rearranged itself. Metal shrieked as it bent into new configurations. The very bedrock beneath them groaned like a waking giant, bones popping as it stretched into shapes it was never meant to hold.
The monitors showed chaos—corridors expanding, walls rising from nothing, entire structures materializing like architectural ghosts becoming solid. The Terraform was building, pulling matter from... somewhere... nowhere... everywhere... and weaving it into the patterns Lionel had provided.
Crash. Boom. Crack.
A support beam materialized through where a wall used to be.
Whoosh.
Water flooded the reservoir level, filling it in seconds with liquid that sparkled too brightly, moved too purposefully.
Thud.
The castle settled into place, its towers piercing upward through layers of manufactured earth.
The shaking intensified. Lionel held on, eyes wide, watching his vision take shape through pixelated surveillance footage. It was beautiful. It was terrifying. It was working.
Then—
Silence.
Sudden, absolute, deafening silence.
The earthquake stopped as abruptly as it began, leaving only the hum of electronics and Lionel's ragged breathing.
"Alright!" He leaped from the chair, nearly tripping over his own feet in his excitement. "Let's see the results! Let's see what we've built! Let's—"
He was already moving, practically dancing to the elevator, pressing the button for the twelfth floor with trembling fingers.
'I need a teleportation ring. Or a portal. Or jetpack. Anything but this goddamn elevator and its glacial pace—'
Ding.
The doors opened.
Lionel stepped out.
And stopped.
"This is..." His voice failed him. Words felt inadequate, insufficient, wrong for what he was seeing.
The crash site stretched before him, rendered in excruciating detail. The van—twisted metal and shattered glass, positioned at exactly the angle from the game, tire tracks carved into synthetic earth that looked real enough to touch, smelled real enough to believe.
He walked forward slowly, reverently, like a pilgrim approaching a shrine.
The van's side door hung open. The interior was visible—blood splatter on the walls (realistic, too realistic), equipment scattered (names on the labels, serial numbers that probably didn't exist), everything perfect except—
"The bodies aren't here." Lionel's fingers traced the van's exterior. "No soldiers. No victims. Just the aftermath without the actors."
'Because we never modeled the corpses. Never thought we'd need to. Never imagined—'
He shook his head, pushing forward down the path. Daylight filtered through the canopy—artificial sun casting real shadows—and the dense forest pressed in from both sides. Trees that weren't quite right, bark that looked like bark but felt like memory, leaves that rustled without wind.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
His footsteps on manufactured earth sounded genuine. The terrain gave beneath his weight, left impressions, and behaved exactly as physics demanded.
The path twisted and turned, forcing him to duck under branches (real scratches, real resistance), navigate roots (solid, stubborn, perfect), until finally—
The village.
"Oh my God." The words came out strangled. "This is so... this is..."
He stood at the edge of the square, taking it all in.
Stone buildings weathered by imaginary centuries. Thatched roofs that had never seen real straw. Windows dark and empty, staring like eye sockets. The well in the center, surrounded by cobblestones that told stories of gatherings that never happened.
And everywhere—everywhere—details.
Laundry hanging on lines. Tools leaning against walls. A child's toy was abandoned near a doorway. Each element adds layers of false history, building a narrative of lives never lived.
Growl.
Lionel froze.
Skitter-scrape-thud.
From the rooftops, Lycans emerged. Not the cheap enemy models, but actual Lycans—muscle and sinew wrapped around frames that defied anatomy, jaws that split too wide, eyes that reflected light in colors that hurt to perceive.
They leaped from building to building—thump, thump, thump—scouting their new territory, testing boundaries, claiming space.
One landed nearby.
Too close.
It turned, fixing Lionel with a stare that held intelligence and hunger in equal measure. Its nostrils flared. Its lips peeled back, revealing teeth like broken glass.
"I'm... I'm your creator." Lionel's voice sounded small, fragile. "You know that, right? You remember? You—"
The Lycan tilted its head. Sniffed again. Then bounded away, dismissing him as either non-threatening or unappetizing.
Lionel released a breath he didn't remember holding.
"Right. Okay. They recognize authority. Good to know. Great to know. Essential to—"
'Stop babbling.'
He composed himself, straightening his posture, and continued through the village square. His eyes tracked everything—the way shadows fell, the texture of stones, the distant sound of water flowing somewhere unseen.
"Oh shit." The realization hit mid-step. "I haven't talked to Donna about where we are. About this place. About—"
'Focus. Find House Beneviento. Have the conversation. Make the plans.'
Easier said than done.
The village sprawled larger than he'd anticipated, streets branching and doubling back, creating a maze of authentic confusion. He wandered, turned around twice, and backtracked once before finally spotting them.
The four-winged gates.
Wrought iron curled into shapes that suggested angels or demons, depending on perspective. They stood open—inviting—framing a path that led deeper into a manufactured nightmare.
Lionel entered.
The doll forest greeted him immediately. Wooden figures hung from branches on fraying ropes—creak, creak, creak—swaying without breeze, turning to follow his passage with painted eyes that saw everything.
"Creepy!" He said it with genuine delight, grinning like a child in the world's worst theme park. "This is exactly what we wanted! The atmosphere, the dread, the—"
Snap.
A rope broke. A doll fell.
Thud.
It landed at his feet, cracked face staring up with one eye missing, mouth frozen mid-scream.
"—the psychological horror," Lionel finished weakly.
He stepped over it, moving faster now, eager to reach relative safety. The suspension bridge appeared ahead, swaying over a chasm that definitely hadn't existed minutes ago. Wooden planks groaned under his weight—creeeak, creeeak—some deliberately loose, gaps between them showing darkness below.
'Don't look down. That's horror movie rule one. Don't look—'
He looked down.
The chasm yawned beneath him, depth impossible to gauge, walls too smooth and vertical. Something moved in the darkness. Something large.
"Nope." Lionel sprinted the rest of the way, feet hammering planks—thump-thump-thump-thump—until he reached solid ground on the other side.
The path continued through more hanging dolls (more eyes, more cracks, more judgment), past Claudia Beneviento's grave—a stone marker that proclaimed grief for someone who never lived—until finally, the entrance loomed ahead.
Mountainside Manor.
Stone and timber and secrets, nestled against a waterfall that cascaded with water too clear, too pure, probably pulled from the same nowhere-space as everything else.
Beside the door: a sign.
"Give up your memories."
Lionel laughed—the sound echoing strangely and hollow. "Alright, here you go. My memories of forty hours of elevator rides, every meeting where we argued about polygon counts, the exact moment I realized we'd created something beautiful and terrible."
He inserted his keycard.
Beep. Click. Hummmmm.
The door swung inward, heavy and slow, revealing darkness that beckoned. He stepped inside, retrieving his keycard from the interior compartment, and found the lift waiting.
Smaller than their main elevator. Cramped. Intimate.
He entered.
Clang.
The gate closed with finality. The lift descended, cables groaning—errrrrr—pulleys screaming—eeeee—while lights flickered on and off in seizure-inducing patterns.
Darkness. Light. Darkness. Light.
Creak.
The lift shuddered.
Pop.
A cable snapped somewhere above. The lift dropped six inches, caught, swayed.
Lionel's heart hammered. Sweat beaded on his forehead. "This is just atmospheric design. Just ambiance. Just—"
Ding.
The lift stopped. The gate opened.
He practically fell out, stumbling into the cavern beyond. Natural stone walls curved away into shadow. Bioluminescent fungi provided sickly green light—glow, pulse, glow—casting everything in corpse-light.
He took three steps.
Something grabbed his ankle.
"JESUS FUCKING—"
Lionel's scream echoed through the cavern, bouncing back at him from multiple directions, harmonizing with itself into a chorus of terror. He jerked his foot up, heart threatening to burst through his ribs, brain flooding with adrenaline and panic and pure animal fear—
Angie dangled from his ankle, grinning.
That wooden, painted, eternally cheerful grin that promised tea parties and dismemberment in equal measure.
"What the—!? Angie!?" Lionel gasped, hand pressed to his chest, feeling his heart try to punch its way out. "No jumpscares! Please! I'm going to have a heart attack! My actual human heart is going to stop!"
The doll giggled—tee-hee-hee—a sound like wind chimes made from finger bones.
"No. More. Jumpscares." Each word came out sharp, emphatic, heavy with the weight of genuine terror. "You're going to kill me. Actually, literally, kill me, and then who's going to run this place? Who's going to—"
Tee-hee-hee.
Angie swung back and forth, still attached to his ankle, apparently finding his existential dread hilarious.
Lionel picked her up—carefully, like defusing a bomb—and took in the scenery properly.
The Mountainside Manor stood before that impossible waterfall, positioned exactly as the game demanded. Water crashed down—roar, thunder, constant percussion—creating mist that caught light and turned it into rainbows.
Beautiful and wrong in the way only artificial perfection could be.
He approached the manor, Angie tucked under his arm (still giggling occasionally, the little nightmare), and entered through the front door. His footsteps echoed through empty halls—click, click, click—until he reached the kitchen.
Dolls sat at the table.
Not moving. Not breathing. Just sitting in chairs, hands folded, eyes forward, participating in the world's creepiest dinner party.
And among them: Donna Beneviento herself.
Still veiled. Still silent. Still radiating that particular quality of wrongness that came from being simultaneously present and absent, alive and not-quite.
"Here's Angie." Lionel set the doll on the table, perhaps more forcefully than necessary. "And please, please, Donna—no more jumpscares. My cardiovascular system isn't designed for this. I'm going to develop anxiety. I'm going to need therapy."
A sound emerged from beneath the veil.
Soft. Barely audible.
A giggle.
Faint and fragile, like broken glass wrapped in silk.
"I'm serious!" But Lionel was smiling despite himself, the terror fading into something warmer. "You're going to kill me, and then what? Then who's going to appreciate all this?" He gestured broadly at the manor, the dolls, the carefully crafted atmosphere of dread.
Another giggle. Stronger this time.
"I actually forgot to ask you something important." Lionel pulled out a chair—it scraped against stone—screech—and sat, picking up a doll from the table to examine. Porcelain face, glass eyes, joints that moved with unnerving smoothness. "What is our current location? Are we still underground? Do you know where we are?"
Donna didn't answer immediately.
She never did.
Instead, Angie stirred to life, jerking upright with puppet-string suddenness, head swiveling to face him with mechanical precision.
"We are still underground, Creator!" The doll's voice rang out, cheerful and hollow, projecting Donna's words through a wooden throat. "Deep, deep, deep underground! Under a mountain, to be exact!"
'Mountains. Plural possibilities. Which mountain? Which range? Which—'
"The dolls and I explored!" Angie continued, bouncing excitedly, arms flailing. "We found passages, tunnels, caves! And at the end—light! We saw the outside! We saw a village!"
Lionel leaned forward. "A village?"
"Yes, yes, yes!" Angie practically vibrated. "Just like the one here, but different! More... medieval? Less Resident Evil, more actual-evil! People living there! Actual humans! Not test subjects or enemy models! Real people!"
"A village," Lionel repeated the word slowly, tasting its implications. His mind raced, connecting dots, forming plans, seeing possibilities spread out like chess moves.
'Humans. A population. Potential worshippers. Potential... resources.'
He could recreate it. The entire Resident Evil 8 storyline. Make himself or Miranda into a deity—Mother Miranda, protector and devourer—have people worship and pray. Let that devotion spread like an infection through communities, passing from village to village to kingdom to empire.
And when other kingdoms heard about this supposed false god, they'd do what kingdoms always did: send armies to purge the heresy.
'Let them come. Let them march into our mountains, our territory, our carefully crafted killing grounds. And then—'
"Is something wrong, Creator?"
Donna's voice—not Angie's, but Donna's—cut through his planning. Direct. Unfiltered. Concerned.
Lionel looked up, realizing he'd been silent for too long, staring into space with what was probably a concerning expression.
"No." He shook his head, tried to smile. "I was just thinking about our plans. About what comes next." He paused. "Can you please gather the other Lords? Tell them to meet us here?"
He really, really didn't want to traverse the entire map again. His legs were already protesting.
Donna started to rise—shift, movement, fabric rustling—but he held up a hand.
"Wait." An idea struck. "Can't you just send the dolls?"
She stopped. Considered. Nodded.
All around them, dolls stirred to life. Eyes blinked. Heads turned. Bodies unfolded from chairs with joints creaking—pop-crack-snap—each one a small nightmare achieving mobility.
They filed out in eerie silence, a procession of wooden soldiers marching to war.
"Don't leave, Donna." Lionel's voice came out softer than intended. "I want to talk with you. Just us. No Angie. No other dolls. Just... conversation."
She settled back into her chair, hands folding in her lap, waiting.
Silent as always.
"And don't use Angie to speak either," he added quickly. "I want to hear your voice. Not filtered through puppets or dolls or intermediaries. Just you."
The silence stretched.
Extended.
Became uncomfortable.
Lionel scrambled for a topic, anything to fill the void. "So... uh... how are you liking the new place? The manor? The waterfall? The whole—" he gestured vaguely "—aesthetic?"
More silence.
Then, barely audible, like wind through cracks:
"It's wonderful."
Her voice was small. Fragile. The voice of someone who'd forgotten how to use it, who'd spent so long speaking through others that direct communication felt foreign.
"Rather than those plain white rooms..." She paused, gathering courage. "Those empty spaces without furniture or warmth or... anything... we now have homes. Real homes. Places that feel... lived in."
"Yeah." Lionel's throat tightened. Guilt crashed over him in waves. "The old rooms were terrible. Inhumane. We treated you all like... like assets. Like NPCs waiting to be deployed. Like—"
'Like the monsters we designed you to be, without considering you might be more.'
"It's okay, Creator." Donna's voice rose slightly, emotion bleeding through. "We knew. We understood. You were planning to build better places. We could feel your intentions. Your designs. Your... care."
The last word hung in the air between them, heavy with meaning.
Before Lionel could respond, the world shook.
BOOM.
Something massive landed outside. The manor trembled. Dolls rattled on shelves. Dishes clinked. The waterfall's roar intensified momentarily, as if startled.
The dolls streamed back inside, marching in formation, mission accomplished.
"Let's go, shall we?" Lionel stood, offering his hand to Donna.
She took it—hesitantly, carefully—her fingers cold through her black gloves.
They walked outside together, emerging into mist and light and the sight of the assembled Lords.
Alcina Dimitrescu stood at the center, looming really, her full mutated form on display. Dragon wings spread wide—whoosh—each beat generating wind that bent trees and scattered mist. Her body had become something else entirely—flesh warped into organic architecture, beauty and horror merged into one towering monument to excess.
"What was that large thing that landed?" Lionel asked, though he already knew.
Dimitrescu's form shifted. Bones cracked. Skin rippled. She folded back into her standard appearance—nine feet of aristocratic elegance stuffed into a dress that somehow survived the transformation.
She knelt immediately, head bowed. Even kneeling, she was tall.
"I apologize, Creator." Her voice carried centuries of refinement and barely contained violence. "I caused the disturbance. I required my mutated form to traverse the distance. Flying was... necessary."
"Why didn't you just use the—" Lionel started, then stopped. "Oh."
'The lift. She wouldn't fit. Obviously. Idiot.'
Heat crept up his neck. He cleared his throat, trying to regain composure, trying to look like someone who hadn't just revealed ignorance about his own creations' limitations.
"Anyway." The word came out too loud. "I called you here to plan our next course of action. But first—a question."
He looked at each of them in turn: Dimitrescu and her daughters (pale, predatory, perfect), Moreau (hunched, dripping, desperate for approval), Heisenberg (slouching with deliberate casualness, hat tilted just so), Miranda (ancient and terrible, wearing human form like an ill-fitting coat).
"How do you like the new areas? Your domains? Your homes?"
"I find the castle quite satisfactory." Dimitrescu's lips curved into something approximating a smile. "My daughters and I now have proper space to... entertain."
Her daughters giggled in unison—tee-hee-hee—the sound like breaking glass and wind chimes.
Lionel's gaze shifted to Moreau, who was fidgeting, fingers twisting together, clearly wanting to speak but afraid to.
"Do you want to say something, big guy?" Lionel kept his voice gentle, encouraging.
Moreau's eyes went wide. His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
"The... the reservoir..." His voice bubbled, literally, words emerging through fluid. "It gives me space. So much space. I can swim. I can move. And the water—it's clean, Creator. Clean. Not tainted or poisoned or filled with industrial runoff. Just... pure."
Tears streamed down his malformed face.
"Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you—"
"You're welcome, Moreau." Lionel stepped forward, placing a hand gently on the creature's back—careful to avoid the worst of the mutations, the places where bone jutted through skin. "You deserve space. You deserve comfort."
'Poor bastard. All he ever wanted was acceptance. Was love. Was someone to tell him he mattered?'
In the game, Moreau had been pitiable. Desperate for Miranda's approval, throwing himself into impossible tasks just to earn a moment's acknowledgment. Knowing that made this interaction feel heavier, more real.
"Okay." Lionel stepped back, addressing them all. "Rules. Specific, non-negotiable rules."
They straightened, attention sharpening.
"No discriminating against other Lords." He pointed at Dimitrescu and Heisenberg. "Especially you two. I know you hate each other. I know you'd rather see each other dissolved in acid. But you will work together. You will cooperate. Or I'll find creative ways to ensure compliance. Understood?"
They glared at each other—mutual loathing crackling like electricity—but both nodded.
"And don't fight with allies from other floors," Lionel continued. "Everyone here has a purpose. Everyone here is valuable. Treat them accordingly."
Murmurs of acknowledgment rippled through the group.
"Good." He took a breath. "Now, Donna told me there's a village nearby. A human settlement."
The atmosphere changed. Every head turned toward him with predatory focus. Eyes brightened. Bodies tensed. The smell of anticipation flooded the air—copper and ozone and hunger.
"Miranda." Lionel fixed her with a steady gaze. "You can transform into an old woman, correct?"
She inclined her head, the movement bird-like, alien despite the human frame.
"Then you'll go to the village. Take a doll with you—they know the location." He paced as he spoke, gesturing, building the narrative. "Speak about a deity. Mother Miranda. A protector, a savior, a being of terrible mercy. Let them mock you. Let them laugh. Let them dismiss you as a mad crone spouting delusions."
Miranda's eyes narrowed. "And if they attack?"
"Only fight if they strike first," Lionel emphasized. "We need to appear victimized. Martyred. The crazy old woman who was right all along."
Understanding flickered across several faces.
"Then send the doll back secretly. That's our signal." Lionel's hands moved faster, painting pictures in the air. "Once it arrives, we unleash the Lycans. Not all of them—just enough to create chaos. Enough to make the villagers scream and pray and remember every horror story their grandparents told them."
He turned to Miranda. "You, in your old woman disguise, will remain unharmed. Untouched. The Lycans will avoid you completely, making it seem like divine protection."
Heisenberg grunted. "And where do I come in?"
"You play the savior." Lionel pointed at him. "You wade into the carnage, hammer swinging, beating back the creatures. Hero of the hour. Champion of the people."
"But don't kill them," he added quickly. "Please. Making Lycans is... challenging."
'Challenging' meaning we'd need test subjects, meaning we'd need to kidnap villagers, meaning complications I don't want to deal with yet.'
"Just knock them around. Make it look good. Then—" Lionel's voice dropped, became intense "—tell them to pray. Tell them Mother Miranda is their last hope for salvation. Tell them to get on their knees and beg for her protection."
He could see them getting it now, the plan crystallizing.
"Once every villager is kneeling, praying, crying for salvation—we withdraw. Pull the Lycans back. Let the people believe their prayers worked. That Mother Miranda answered. That they're now under her divine protection."
Silence. Then:
"Brilliant," Dimitrescu breathed.
The Lords started to move, eager to begin, but Lionel's voice cracked like a whip:
"DID I TELL YOU TO LEAVE!?"
The words came out wrong. Distorted. Layered with harmonics that shouldn't exist in human vocal cords. His voice dropped two octaves, gained resonance that vibrated in bone marrow, and carried weight that pressed down on everything in hearing range.
The Lords froze mid-step.
Several actually flinched.
Moreau whimpered.
"You will leave when I DISMISS you! Not before! Not whenever you feel like wandering off! When I—when I—"
Lionel caught himself, horror flooding through him as he heard what he'd become.
'Oh God. Oh no. The virus. The virus is—'
He was a virus now. Merged with his in-game character through some cosmic joke or nightmare logic. And that virus was settling, integrating, changing him from the inside out. Making him more violent. More dominant. More inhuman.
The Lords had retreated, bodies tense, eyes wide, clearly uncertain how to respond to their Creator's sudden fury.
"I'm..." Lionel's voice returned to normal—small, shaky, horrified. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. That was—I didn't mean—"
He took a breath. Another. Forced calm, he didn't feel.
"Please don't leave until I dismiss you," he said quietly. "That's all I ask. Just... wait until I'm finished speaking."
Nods all around. Hasty, nervous nods.
'They're afraid of me now. Great. Wonderful. Exactly what I needed—my creations fearing me because I can't control my own goddamn biology.'
"As I was saying." He pulled out the wooden goat he'd crafted earlier—crude work, all rough edges and amateur carving, but recognizable. "Heisenberg, once the people accept their devotion to Mother Miranda, give them this."
He handed over the figure.
"Tell them it's a sign of protection. Tell them to make more and place them around the village. Start a tradition. Create symbols of faith."
Heisenberg examined the goat, turning it over in his hands.
"And inform them about offerings," Lionel continued. "Tell them Mother Miranda requires tribute. Food, mostly. Livestock, grain, whatever they can spare. We need to feed the Lycans and other inhabitants. This will be our first sustainable food source."
Understanding rippled through the group. Nods became more confident.
"Alright." Lionel exhaled slowly. "You may leave now. Begin the plan. And—good luck."
The Lords bowed—some deeply, some perfunctorily—before departing.
Dimitrescu's transformation was spectacular. Bones cracked. Skin split. Wings erupted from her back in sprays of blood that immediately reabsorbed. She launched skyward with a sound like thunder, massive form blotting out the artificial sun as she flew toward her distant castle.
The others dispersed through more conventional means—walking, shambling, or floating in Donna's case.
Lionel watched them go, feeling exhaustion settle into his bones.
"This is stressful," he mumbled, pressing fingers to his temples. "The virus is setting in. I can feel it. Like insects crawling under my skin, rewiring my brain one neuron at a time."
"What is, Creator?"
Donna's voice made him jump. He'd forgotten she lived here; she wasn't part of the deployment plan.
"Oh—nothing. Just..." He manufactured a smile that felt plastic. "I forgot you weren't going with them. Come on, accompany me to the village. We need to prepare the Lycans for their dramatic entrance."
He didn't want her asking about his condition. Didn't want to explain that he was slowly losing himself to the very code they'd written, becoming less human with each passing hour.
"Very well, Creator."
They walked together toward the lift, Angie perched on Donna's shoulder, all three of them standing in awkward silence as the mechanism descended.
Creak. Groan. Clank.
"Let me ask one question, Creator." Donna's voice cut through the ambient noise. "Who were those people earlier? In the treasury?"
"Well, first—" Lionel seized on the change of subject gratefully "—it's nice you can talk to me without using Angie. Really. I appreciate actual conversation."
She ducked her head, almost bashful.
"Those were creations by other creators. Like me, but... different."
The lift shuddered. Stopped. They exited into the cavern.
"Creations of the five of you?" Donna asked, referencing the five creators who'd spent the most time in their area.
'Oh. They remember the others. Of course they do. They remember everything we let them remember.'
Pain lanced through Lionel's chest—sharp, unexpected. He thought about his colleagues. About what they'd say if they could see this, could talk to their creations, could witness the impossible made manifest.
"No, Donna. Creations from other creators. There were thirty of us total."
She gasped—a small, sharp sound.
"But those others look human," she said carefully, as if afraid of offending. "The people with you told us humans are inferior. Lower lifeforms. Resources to be consumed or controlled."
The words stung despite knowing their source—programming and game logic, not genuine cruelty.
"They look human, yes. But they're similar to you and me. They have unique powers, abilities, and purposes. They're..." He searched for words. "They're more than they appear."
'Please don't let them fight. Please don't let my poor programming choices create unnecessary conflict.'
"What happened to the other creators?"
They were walking through the doll forest now, puppet-eyes tracking their movement, rope creaking—eek-eek-eek.
Lionel's throat closed. "They... passed away. Our lifespan isn't as long as yours."
The lie tasted like ash but served its purpose—protecting Donna from the truth that humans had simply abandoned this project, had logged out and never returned, had left their creations in limbo.
Donna stopped walking.
Just... stopped.
When she spoke, her voice shook: "Wh-what about you, Creator? H-how long will you stay with us?"
And then she was crying—actual tears soaking through her veil, body trembling, Angie clutched tight against her chest like a child's favorite toy.
Lionel's heart shattered.
'God. She's had everyone leave her. Her family died. She isolated herself. And now she thinks I'm going to abandon her, too. Going to die and leave her alone in this empty manor with only dolls for company.'
"Don't worry, Donna." He stepped closer, fighting his own tears. "The other creators found a way to make me immortal. Unfortunately, they died before they could use it themselves, but I received the treatment. I'm here. I'll stay with you forever."
The lie expanded, grew teeth, became something he'd have to maintain indefinitely.
"R-really? You promise?"
She sounded so young. Her voice held hope and doubt in equal measure, the voice of someone who'd been disappointed too many times to trust easily.
"I promise, Donna." His voice cracked. "I promise. Now let's go before we both end up crying in the creepy doll forest, which would be pathetic and also thematically appropriate."
She giggled—wet, choked, but genuine.
They continued walking, both wiping tears, both pretending they weren't emotionally compromised.
'I didn't expect this. Didn't expect to care. Didn't expect them to be... real. To have feelings that mattered. To be more than the code we wrote.'
The village appeared ahead, and with it, the weight of what came next.
<><><>
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Chapter III: The Gathering of Grotesques
I don't know if this is how Donna Beneviento would actually speak in private—we barely got dialogue from her in the game. But I genuinely feel terrible for her and Moreau. They were just broken people who wanted love and acceptance, and instead they got parasites and manipulation and Mother Miranda's conditional affection.
The body horror elements are going to intensify. The virus subplot is going to get worse. Lionel's humanity is going to erode.
You've been warned.
Next chapter coming tomorrow, maybe sooner if the inspiration hits.
—END CHAPTER III—