Sean and Wormwood, Canto II, Part v

Sean, Wormwood, and the intern continued their trek through the Cave of Trials. The light from the cave entrance was no longer illuminating their path, but a faint glow from up ahead had taken its place. This new light was not at all soothing. It changed hues. It brightened, then dimmed. At moments it would black out completely, startling the intern but not, apparently, his two captors.

Accompanying the light were strange noises. The echoes in the cave were so overpowering that it was a growing cacophony, but the intern was able to make out strange mechanical pulses, so fast that their echoes made them sound almost like a buzzsaw. He heard strange cries in a language he couldn’t understand. He thought he heard orders being shouted, followed by more screeches.

The intern had the sudden realization that, for a members of a supposed Satanic cult, his petty overlords hadn’t exposed him to much that was genuinely disturbing, with the obvious and glaring exception of his new body. He had seen the extensive steel-lined hallways of their subterranean base, he had seen the Malibu home of a man with too much money and too few lucid brain cells, and he had seen a surprisingly shabby Toyota Corolla. Odd, maybe even a bit disturbing, but nothing that would strike him as particularly vile, much less infernal. The most Satanic thing about the whole experience, again excepting his transformation into a one-eyed floating ball of goo, was the little guy’s—Wormwood’s—seeming delight in his ongoing misery.

But the disorienting colors flashing around him like a malicious kaleidoscope; the grinding pulsation, battering at whatever passed for his “ears” in his new form; the high-pitched, screeching chants; the barked orders from an inhuman voice—these distressed him. He had no pulse and no throat, but the unfamiliar sensations running through his ectoplasmic body as his fears rose were at least as unpleasant as a rapid heartbeat and a dry, constricted throat. Only the darkness of the passage behind him and the fear of pain kept him from racing away as fast as whatever forces propelled him could go.

“Okay, Sean,” said Wormwood. “Give me the lowdown on the first trial. Enlowdown me.”

Sean’s voice was like the first cold wind of a winter that would never end. “The Trial of the Legs takes place within an eldrich circle delimited by occult sigils. Unholy wailing and blasphemous rhythms will surround you and drive themselves into your mind.”

“I look forward to that,” said Wormwood.

“You must perform for the unspeakable powers that created this place,” continued Sean. “They require you to dance for them, dance to their exacting requirements. If you fail to please them, you will perish.”

As Sean finished his summation, they turned a corner and were faced with a strange altar, one that was simultaneously repulsive to the intern’s sight, and oddly familiar.

There was a small platform made of some unknown stone-like material. On it was inscribed a glowing circle. Within the circle were four strange, curling symbols, each pointing to one of the cardinal directions. Behind the circle grew a strange branch or vine, forming an arch about waist-high to a typical human. Strangest of all, though was the monolith standing on the other side of the circle, facing them. The blood-red color was strange. The unsettlingly organic circular protuberances erupting from its sides, belting out the weird sounds the intern had heard, were stranger.

Strangest of all was a glowing screen set in the middle of the monolith. It appeared to be showing animated instructions for the trial; arrow-shaped runes ran up the screen as some sort of bizarrely-dressed humanoid moved its feet to touch the corresponding runes on the ground. A whining, rapidly throbbing beat accompanied the demonstration. Then the tutorial ended and the screen displayed, in garish lettering, “DANCE DANCE REVELATION.”

The intern’s fear dissipated only slightly, the emotional space it freed up being taken by the now-familiar concern that someone was putting him on.

“Well, yay,” said Wormwood as he stepped into the center of the circle. He looked at the screen, and poked at the menu it displayed.

Immediately, a reverberating voice commanded “Go!” and a song that sounded like a merry-go-round spinning at power drill speed blasted into the echoing chamber. A few arrows started crawling up the screen.

Wormwood, taken off guard, missed the first two arrows. The word “Boo!” appeared on the screen as they scrolled off the top of the screen. Furrowing his brow, Wormwood stomped the sigils in time to the synthesized canticle, and the “Boo!” was shortly replaced by an “Ok!” and then a “Perfect!”

Wormwood’s perfection was short-lived, though, as more and more arrows piled onto the screen.

“Oif,” said Wormwood. “I’m kind of sucking hard here. I probably shouldn’t have selected expert mode.”

After a few more steps, a bright red “DANGER!!!” popped into the middle of the screen.

“Screw this,” groused Wormwood. “I’m not going down standing up.”

Wormwood dropped to his knees just in front of the circle of runes, looked up at the screen, then started slapping the arrows according to the requirements of the title. The “DANGER!!!!” changed to an “Ok!” then “Good!” before returning to “Ok!” Then the music stopped.

A glowing, throbbing grade appeared on the screen. C minus. 

A voice from within the monolith shouted “You Win!” Wormwood stood up, brushed his hands against his robe, and walked toward a door that had appeared with the words “Next Trial This Way” glowing above it.

“So how was that a trial of the legs, then?” asked the intern as he followed.

“Because I kicked ass!” said Wormwood.