A Trap of Tremors

<snip>"You have a choice bro. Do you like want to be a man or a heinous monster? " Alex stared at Jaxx silently. Then Jaxx said, "Make your choice bro. Cause you totally can't be both."</snip>

As Jaxx walked off, Alex thought about what the shark-guy had said. He wondered if he was referring to his… liking a drinkness, or his despair over killing Jacob, or the other things which haunted him. Perhaps he just meant his Dark Jester guise… Or perhaps something else entirely. He squinted after him. Maybe he’d ask.
Whatever he meant, he appreciated him coming over to help. And he’d seen him direct Evelina over to Jade, and Jamie had headed to her as well. He breathed a grateful sigh of relief.
He wasn’t only relieved that Jade was in good hands, but that Jaxx had allowed him to get dressed again.
He picked up his lute, and began to play the comforting tune he'd imagined in his head.

<snip>There was no time for comforting though, as the floor began to rumble, shaking most from their daze.</snip>

A long fissure rent the earth, and suddenly a large, slug-like creature the size of a Dwarf Minke Whale [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Minke_whale_size.svg] erupted through the quivering ground.

“What the ACTUAL fuck!?” Jay yelled, skipping backwards to avoid the creature’s snapping claw-like jaws, and a long worm-like tongue which was trying to latch onto him. “Don’t we have clearance yet?” He snapped towards Tregard.
The Dungeon Master smiled. “Clearance? Ah you mean, have you been granted rights to the Chamber of Boridium yet? No, child. Did I forget to mention? The Succubi were merely an aperitif to wet, er stimulate you.” He chuckled darkly. “Er, that is to say to whet your appetites for further adventure.”
“So, is this the main course?” Plisken bellowed, nodding at the new horror, and trying to arrange his bosom in a comely fashion in the hope that giant death worms were into man-madams. Into keeping them alive and not making them a meal, that was.
Tregard shrugged noncommittally. “That’s up to you, but just for fun, let’s lower your points. You no longer have any special powers until you find the Chamber of Boridium.”
"What!?" Plisken raged.
Tregard glared around at them.
“Any of you…”

Several more of the Giganto Slugs tore through the floor.
“Not having our powers? Well that doesn’t sound like ‘fun’ at all!” Artemis pointed out.
Tregard lazily inspected his nails and shrugged. “Eh. Difference of opinion. In any case, you must rely on your inherent cunning and skills in order to survive your way to the chamber. No help here, children.”

He looked back up at them.
"Ruuhhnnn..." was his creepy, whispered suggestion.

“Come on!” Jamie yelled, grabbing Jade and Evelina and dragging them into the corridor before pelting down it. Jaxx was soon by their side, making sure his Eve-babe was okay.

“I saw a movie like this, late at night on my own…” Alex mused, mid-dash, following the others. “… If I remember correctly, slugs can’t break through stone.”
Jay, who was pounding along next to him, shot him a look which may as well have been specially crafted for the particularly hard-of-thinking. “What the hell do you think the castle’s made of, Solvay?”
"Ah..." Alex shrugged and jangled as he ran. “You might think I’m a cock, … But... perhaps it ain’t rock...”
“Well” panted Jacky, falling behind “whatever it is, they can certainly get through it.”
Alex grabbed a handful of Jacky’s clothing and yanked him along faster, as another slug-thing burst through the floor. “C’mon, git along.” He growled, a cockney-cowboy jester.

“This way! It’s… this way.” Artemis yelped excitedly from up ahead. Bizarrely, he seemed to be quite enjoying himself.
“How on Io can you tell that?” Plisken boomed, lifting his skirts so as not to trip over them and wondering why his chest-parts felt so tender at the running.
“I don’t know, it’s just a feeling.”
“Yes.” Jade agreed. “I feel it too.”

“Gah, fine. That way, then.” Jay swerved round the corner, as a slug-mouth exploded through a wall. He leapt up and it missed swiping his ankles by about a foot. He brought his priest-shoes down smartly on its head, both disabling it, and using it like a make-shift mid-corridor springboard, to propel himself along more quickly, in order to reach the front of the group and the door they were heading towards.
He turned to face the others, who - despite varying levels of fitness - were all panting.
Chrysler quickly scoped the immediate area behind his crew, checking there were no slugs about.
“Okay, I think we’ve outrun them for now...” “Out-slithered” someone muttered.
"Speak for yourself" someone else replied. "I wasn't slithering..."
“All right," Jay snapped, cutting through the nonsense. "So we all agree, we feel the best way is through this door ?”
They all nodded, feeling the same draw towards the room now.
Jay shrugged.
“Righty ho.”

He unbolted the huge door, and pushed it open. It was heavy and swung immediately into the room under its own weight, dragging the Priest with it.
Unfortunately, the room’s floor wasn’t where you’d expect it to be, and Jay was left dangling, clinging to the door-catch, over a pit full of the giant slug-worms. And they looked hungry. The feeling... The magnetic draw... It had been a trap.

He turned to look back at the others.
“Oh smeg” he uttered, before losing his grip and falling down, quickly becoming lost in the seething mass…

"Oh this isn't good." Alex's stomach lurched in concern for the leader. "... I preferred having wood."

He had a horrible feeling that it wasn’t just a game any more and was worried about the real-life implications of injuries sustained within the artificial reality. Sooner they powered up in the Chamber of Boridium, and defeated the first Boss, the better. At least they'd have made a chunk of positive progress then.
Oh shit... That's it...
That's why the trap... the virus didn't want them to enter the chamber, because it knew then they'd have enough power to start wiping it out. It was getting wise to their plan.
That may also explain why the originally-friendly Tregard seemed a bit... Unstable. Probably virus-affected.

He couldn’t tell how much time had passed since they’d been in the simulation, but he hoped to Gods everything was ticking over safely in the real world..

He shuddered to think what the smeg would happen if Jay got eaten.

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<TAG Everyone.
How do we rescue Jay? / Jay how do you escape?

Don’t forget we don’t have our new special powers (or our original ones) at the moment. But we CAN use our weapons. We need to use our brains to get him out of there without getting eaten or injured ourselves.>