The two Pandawans tried to hide in the crowd, but no matter where they went, Bin Yong kept on having this irrational fear lingering on him that someone was watching them. It felt like they were looking over their every move and only waiting for the right moment to strike.
Perhaps it was just the pouring rain and constant thundering of the clouds that made Bin Yong feel so insecure since they were the only guys without an umbrella among the crowd? In a way, that made them stand out amongst the soulless crowd who continued with their daily lives.
Despite the fact they looked indifferent, the crowd’s attention would occasionally shift their focus on the Pandawans briefly before they returned to their meaninglessly daily routine. That alone reinforced that anxiety Bin Yong was sensing. Meanwhile, Shi Zuo was looking for directions to reach 34th Street. Fortunately, simplified maps were placed at the bus station near them.
“If I am not wrong, the last street sign I saw should mean we are somewhere here, near 42nd Street. The Grand Central terminal station should be there and just a few blocks ahead.” Shi Zuo figured that if they could find a subway station, they could use it to travel to Penn Station. After all, Boss Jin made the dungeon instance in a modern setting, so there should be some trains prepared in a modern day replicated version of New York City… right?
“Good, the longer we are out in the open, the more we risk getting caught, again. I do not see any agents around, but who knows with Boss Jin. Maybe he made the first ones into plain obvious agents, just so that he could trick us. For all we know, one of these people could turn any minute now.” Bin Yong said while looking around nervously. His behaviour started to be anything but natural. Several bystanders slowed their pace as they stared disapprovingly at him.
“Dude, you are doing it again. Why are you getting so worked up ever since the beginning of the dungeon? This is not like you at all.” Shi Zuo pulled his friend towards him and took big steps to distance themselves from the crowd while whispering to his friend.
“Have you not read about the Deep Ones before?” Bin Yong asked, and Shi Zuo shook his head sluggishly under the pouring rain.
“I only briefly read a summary about them on the net. They are just minion monsters in some cosmic horror genre. So, what about them? We already killed a few of them, and we can always kill some more. Have a little bit of faith in your abilities.” Shi Zuo tried to encourage his friend in a relaxed way as he plotted out the road in his mind to reach the Grand Central Terminal. Bin Yong sighed after he realised why Shi Zuo was taking this so calm. It made sense for him being a tech guy who loved action and spies not to be well versed in the lore of the Lovecraftian stories.
However, Bin Yong had adored those stories in his youth, which he still loved to read during his pastime. As an aspiring animator back then, they inspired a dark period of his drawings phrase and allowed Bin Yong to grow out of his slump to the point he was nearly fanatical about it. Yet, it was a phrase of learning and growing, which eventually lead him to his desired graphical art direction. He did use some for his portfolio, and the interviewers were impressed by the various art style he could develop.
To his knowledge, no one had ever come close to create the image of the perfect Deep Ones. Sure, there were vague descriptions of such monsters in the Lovecraftian books, and he had seen at a lot of attempts trying to give them form, but it was not until recently when he had killed them during their transformation that he experienced this indescribable anxious feeling his heart was secretly harbouring.
It was also apparent that it was not even their final form yet but those eyes which Bin Yong had stared into summoned an indisputable pull of trepidation stirring within him. If he could choose sides, he would instead prefer being on their good graces than against them. The fate of those going against the dark powers rarely if ever ended up positively.
“So, you are aware of the greatness of Lord Dagen…” A whisper caressed Bin Yong’s ears as he was watching out for Shi Zuo, who did not appear to have heard the voice.
“Lord…Dagen?” Bin Yong was a little confused when he heard that particular name, especially since it came out of nowhere all of a sudden. He did some research as a refresher before coming to Jin’s dungeon and even read some of the articles about the Deep Ones that the cultivators encountered in the Pandamonium forum pages. But none of it rang a bell, as he only knew of the name Dagon instead of Dagen. Then again, perhaps Boss Jin purposely renamed it to possibly throw the cultivators off track.
“So, you are aware of the greatness of Lord Dagen?” The whisper got a little louder and Bin Yong looked towards Shi Zuo to look out for any change of expression and actions upon hearing that whisper again.
“You are chosen. Not him. Come to 34th Street, Exit B of Penn Station to learn the real truth.” The familiar whisper continued to creep around his brain non stop, and it lingered for a little longer before he managed to get a grip on himself.
“Lord Dagon…Lord Dagen…” Bin Yong was lost in his thought as he repeated the name a few times. Dagon was a long standing word associated with fish in Canaanite language, leading to the interpretation as a Fish God. However, modern records indicated that word to have been used for grain. Thus, Lovecraft could have used the mistaken myth of the fish god as the object of worship for the Deep Ones in his story. Yet, there were arguments stating Dagon was just an analogy in his novel, for the Deep Ones truly worshipped the Great Old One, Cthulhu.
“Hello?… Snap out of your daze. We need to move quickly before some of your feared Deep Ones really do catch up.” Shi Zuo snapped his fingers a few times in front of Bin Yong and at the third snap, Bin Yong awoke from his train of thoughts.
“Roughly three blocks down and then a left, afterwards we should be able to get a glimpse of New York City’s crown jewel landmark.” Shi Zuo informed him as he quietly ‘borrowed’ two umbrellas that were conveniently left near a stand beside a general convenience store, hoping to truly blend within the crowd.
In less than a few minutes, the duo reached the Grand Central Terminal. Only there was no one else going towards the station at all. It was quite a contrast, the inside of the terminal station being completely empty compared to the busy, bustling crowd walking in the rain.
“Not good, this is definitely a trap. We shoul-” Suddenly the large doors behind them closed shut without any warning. The two tried to open it almost immediately, but it was not budging a single bit. Shi Zuo quickly took his hatchet out and tried to hack at the door knobs to open it. But no matter how much strength he put into it, the door frame around the knob was too thick to pierce through. It was to the point that the handle for the hatchet broke with Shi Zuo’s eighth attempt, and the hatchet blade remained lodged on the door itself.
“I think you should stop trying. We have company.” Bin Yong warned him as there were a more than just a couple of Black Suits staring at them from the second floor of the grand central terminal. Intensifying the moment, the Pandawans heard thunder flashing from outside as the two Pandawans helplessly watched the scene of the black suits fully transforming themselves to the rumoured Deep Ones.
What they did not know was that this was not the real Grand Central Terminal. None of them had ever gone to New York before so they were unaware that the real Grand Central Terminal did not have a pure all wooden front door. (They were mainly vintage doors with 3×3 glass panels.)
Jin did not make this dungeon instance as straightforward as the previous dungeons. He wanted his customers to actively look for clues rather than simply rushing in blindly against the monsters. Sure, they could do that, but that would mostly ensure that they would have an unnecessarily harder time trying to complete his dungeons (if they survived).
Jin wanted to make sure that everyone had a fulfilling experience and hoped to do more of this in the future rather than giving the cultivators just some monsters to fight. If someone’s sole desire was to contend and test their cultivation, they could have gone for the random monster arena instances he set up previously.
The ‘correct’ approach, at least the way he designed it, would have been to start by collecting some information on their situation. Jin did not expect his customers to have some prior knowledge to be able to complete an instance, so anyone could learn what was necessary by exploring more of the city of this particular dungeon instance such as the general stores or even the abandoned building that they were teleported to at the start of the dungeon instance. (Granted that the location of the abandoned building slightly differed with every new instance to provide a fresh new perspective to the dungeon instance.)
There would be magazines around the stands to show the picture of the real Grand Central Terminal. Also, there was a torn page with regards to that in the abandoned building that they were searching around for enemies previously. Unfortunately, they had not paid too much attention to it.
Should they have realised that it was the fake station and walked further down instead of entering, the real station would have been just a corner turn away with no Deep Ones lurking in there awaiting them. They would have been able to take the ride to Penn Station and find Captain Hei to proceed with the instance.
The tens of fish eyes were stalking their new prey, but they were unlike the Deep Ones Jin used to have. The cultivators who had caught glimpses of the Deep Ones previously in the Goblin Western Diversion would be equally shocked. These slicker and stronger Deep Ones still possessed webbed hands, feet and fish heads but now they featured a spiked spine instead of a large fin behind their back coupled with a deadly killer tail.
Jin had used the upgrade cards from his complimentary reward by the System upon reaching Grade 8 to ‘mutate’ the fellow Deep Ones to gain this new look. Initially, they had looked intimidating in the sea but flabby on land with all the gills and fish scales. But since Jin wanted to do an infested city scenario, he had made sure that the newly mutated Deep Ones not only looked equally scary on both terrains but were also decently agile on land too.
Instead of transforming all of them to fit this instance, he only made 50 go through that mutation to test them out since he did not have the time let them experiment on any monsters. (Perhaps, he should create an in-house arena to let the monsters duel with each other.) In the meantime, with the help of Shadow Dagen’s magical powers as well as the System’s, Jin enabled a few of the Deep Ones to wield some wicked, unholy oceanic magic. Therefore, the rain and thunder were not something he had designed but came as a result of the work of the Deep Ones’ magical rituals. (This in turn, saved some money recreating the background from Jin’s point of view.)
A Deep One undoubtedly leapt to the centre of the Grand Central Terminal main concourse, at the top of the iconic clock. If the cultivators were aware that that brass clock was valued at 20 million USD in real life, they might suffer a heartache seeing the claws of the Deep One latching itself into the opal glass.
“Sacrificesssssssssss!!!” The Deep One on the clock roared as it wielded a long, broken and rotten wooden staff (with some seaweed hanging onto it) and pointed to the sky. The clouds grew even gloomier from what the duo was seeing and suddenly, the glass attached to the ceilings broke and out gushed three magical waterfalls flooding the concourse with water.
The water that was pouring in quickly reaching knee deep and hindered the movements of Shi Zuo and Bin Yong who began to run the moment they saw a few Deep Ones jumping down from the second floor to the first while others were standing in wait. The Deep Ones, on the other hand, loved the incoming waterfall as it quickened their pace since (their webbed feet were not ideal on such smooth floors of the main concourse).
“We have to move to higher ground. With the waterfall, escaping underground will only make things worse.” Shi Zuo said as he focused his chi towards his feet, allowing him to walk on water the moment he jumped out.
“To the roof, then?” Bin Yong suggested and Shi Zuo agreed as he evaded an incoming attack from a Deep One and pierced the broken shaft of the hatchet into the Deep One’s eye socket and hacked it from the back.
They had a short term plan, but survival seemed nigh impossible when the odds of overwhelming numbers and lack of proper equipment were clearly stacked against them.
