An Unknown

Well it seems I was wrong. I made a comment on Ember’s blog the other day stating my distain for chess metaphors because they don’t really apply in the whole mask/jogger dynamic, in my opinion at least. About an hour later Trent showed up and handed me an open laptop with a game preloaded and set up.

I’m not really much for games but the title on the top little bar for the game read ‘Slender Chess’ and the opposing player’s name thing read ‘frac.4.ture’.  Figured I might was well try, if for no other reason to see if I couldn’t get something to rub in Fracture’s stupid grinning face the next time I see him.

The game was about what you would expect. It was chess with the Master sitting in the middle of the board as a small figurine with many tendrils coming off of his back. For some reason we weren’t white and black, our pieces were orange and blue. The only white and black piece was the Master and he was both. I also noticed that I had an extra Pawn and an extra Queen piece. My guess was that was necessary to spread the board out wider so there was a middle place for the Master, although Fracture explained it as never being able to have enough Queens. Makes sense I guess; those are powerful pieces.

Every round I would get a turn, Fracture would get a turn, and then the Master would get a turn. The Master piece was weird. I would move next to another piece each turn. It didn’t seem to have any movement restrictions. It went where it wanted to.  After a few rounds it started killing pieces. After it moved next to them it would step into their square and then rip them apart in a slow and rather gruesome animation. It didn’t do that often though, just occasionally.

Then occasionally a piece it moved next to would turn black and start attacking the other pieces. I tried attacking the Master with a pawn at one point. The pawn died. It entered the Masters square and was ripped to shreds. I tried it with a queen too.  It was a bit gorier the second time. I did note I could kill the black pieces though, although if they were closer to Fractures side I tried to leave them be in hopes they would pick on him instead. I had some mixed results there.

At one point I moved a Knight next to the Master and watched as my piece killed over for what seemed to be no apparent reason. I accused Fracture of cheating. He explained that some people simply can’t stand in the presence of the Master because it would kill them and apparently that Knight was one of those pieces. I’m pretty sure Fracture was covering his ass because he’s a dirty fucking cheater.

Also, the king became a lot less useless in this version. If you could move your king next to a blackened piece, it would turn to that king’s color. Fracture ended up with 3 Rooks at one point using that rule that he couldn’t be bothered to explain to me before he did it.

The game kind of felt like a big waste of time at the end. Neither Fracture nor I won. We had lost too many pieces and it turned into a Stalemate. Honestly, if the game had gone on any longer I think the black pieces would have checkmated us, you know if that was possible. Can’t be sure, it didn’t happen. Although the game did have some sort of point system because the numbers next to my name were bigger than Fracture’s at the end, so I guess I’ll take that as a victory.

That little game was so interesting I almost forgot just how mad at Fracture I was. I was reminded when he congratulated me on my victory.

'Good job mutt.' the message read.
That fucker keeps treating me like a dog and I don’t know where the fuck he’s getting it from. He just started doing it right out of the fucking blue. I’m kind of glad he isn’t here; I think I’d snap his neck… a couple of times.

“Be sure you stay out of those files pup, I can’t have you pawing your wet little nose into them and making a mess.”
Quite frankly, he’s lucky I didn’t send him a broken computer coated in Trent’s blood.

A part of me really wants to know what it is he thinks he can hide from me but at the end of the day it really doesn’t matter. I’ll not have myself fall back into petty little paranoid distractions.

I just need to focus on my actual mission.

…

Huh. New message from Fracture.

'Why are you still at the school mutt? Shouldn’t you be out hunting?'

And look at that, five new marks on the list… apparently they’ve been there since Wednesday.

...I really need to work on this focus thing. I blame Fracture.

QUIT TREATING ME LIKE A DOG YOU FUCK!
Ugly D[og]k out! [Bark, Bark!]