The Great Game

If you’re new to the Great Game, please have a quick look at the blurb to your left, where you’ll find a short catch-up introduction!

“He’s telling the truth,” I say to Alice. “He couldn’t lie if he wanted to.”

“Oh, I want to,” Sinclair says, eyes glittering. “But, as you say, I cannot.”

She grabs my arm. “Your eyes. They lit up, really clearly.” She shakes her head. “What do you think?”

I shrug. “He can’t lie, and it sounds safe enough. Let’s go for it.”

Sinclair rubs his hands together. “Good. Lay your hands on the top of the cairn for a moment, please.”

Alice and I look at each other, then I walk over to the stone, and lay my hands on it. There’s a brief sensation of a tingle perhaps, but nothing more. I look over at Sinclair, who nods, his eyes avid, so I remove my hands again, then look round at Alice and shrug. She comes over and puts her hands on the stone for a moment.

Sinclair looks like a cat who has discovered a cream-filled lake. With little birds and mice playing around the shores. It’s not exactly reassuring. “You’ve earned seven questions. You can save some for another time, if you wish, but you don’t get to buy any more in the future. At least, not that way. What did you want to know?”

Alice takes half a step forward. “Who is after me?”

Sinclair grins. “You know, that’s a really careless question. I could take it to mean chronologically, and answer that it’s your companion here. Aren’t you lucky that I’m in a good mood today.”

Alice’s fists are balling up. “We are,” I say quickly. She looks at me, but subsides.

“Yes,” says Sinclair, in a way that worries me. “You are. They call themselves Macandal. They’re a group of, well, sorcerers and religous followers.”

“Why me?”

“You stumbled onto one of their summonings, and subtly damaged the restraints. The thing they summoned got out of control, and killed four of them. It’s now loose in the hotel. They want revenge, mainly.”

Alice looks intent. “Mainly?”

Sinclair grins. “They’d also like to use your blood, along with what they already took from your dead friend, to tempt the creature back, and bind it properly. They think it will come after you, given time.”

“Will it?” Alice is looking worried.

“That’s four,” I say quickly. Alice pulls an apologetic face.

Sinclair shoots me a broad smirk before answering. “Yes. Yes, it will. It will hunt you down, eat out your mind and soul, and wear your dead skin like a puppet whilst it tricks and then destroys everyone here who knows you.”

Alice gasps in horror, and goes as white as a sheet.

“How precisely do we stop this thing from harming Alice or myself?”

She shoots me a grateful look.

“You can track down the location it was summoned from and dismiss it with a banishing using the name it was called under. You can find and recruit the help of someone who is capable of destroying it. You can get out of the hotel before it finds you. You can kill the woman yourself before it has a chance to do so. You can hide out in a null zone. There are, in fact, an infinity of options, and I’ve been more than generous in listing several.”

We have two questions left, and more pressing puzzles than we had before we started. Alice leans in close to me, and whispers “What the hell do we do?”

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Today’s photo is Summoning the White Spirit by Lisarael