The Images They Sell

[madimpossibledreamer]

also I never thanked/welcomed spring_gloom /facepalm.  Hi, hope you enjoy your stay & good to see you again!

In the actual game, they build the Park up, and then you just...only get two missions in there. (To be fair, all the mind games individual to the character would be a little harder to do, with an MMORPG.) They almost do enough with it in the standalone game, The Park, but then...don’t actually finish Lorraine’s story there. So this wound up being about...three, four actual missions, plus the spinoff, plus at least a little bit of Lorraine’s mission, plus some of my own stuff and other horror inspiration thrown in a blender and then vacuum distilled down to a manageable and coherent volume.
I had no idea how Winter’s murder-void thing would go until he started going off on an Arkham-rant, so. Yeah, that happened. (If you don’t get the reference, don’t worry about it.)

Main Points: Assassin's Creed/The Secret World
Summary: Time to tear the heart out of Atlantic Island Park.
Word Count: 2661
Rating: Teen   

          The crowds are back, more seethrough than ever. Annoyingly, Desmond’s vision keeps flickering. It’s not the actual world changing around them, not this time. The only reason he can identify that is that it’s not affecting Carter, whose steps are sure. Alice shakes her head occasionally, annoyed, but it’s not bugging her as much. He’d guess she has something like Eagle Vision, maybe like the Bees, but it’s not as strong as Desmond’s.
         Strands of something like gold, glittering threads are getting pulled out of them, collecting in a swirl toward the center. They keep snapping, too, particularly when they touch black, oily raindrops, though those raindrops are falling upward, and getting snagged on something. The machines aren’t exactly working, as far as Desmond can tell, reaching out (and—actually, that’s probably a good idea; he tugs his bag off and rummages around, Alice looking on with intense interest, until he finds the painkillers he’d gotten after leaving London, and swallows one dry with a disgusted face). They’re not working now, but this had been designed as a perpetual machine. Not organic, magic, and still kind of alive for all that. It’s sluggishly trying to repair itself, fill in the missing links. Even if they fail here, unless a bunch of new victims get lured inside, it’ll probably just die on its own, the connections withering, but probably isn’t good enough and he doesn’t intend to fail.
         A man stands in front of the House of Horrors, this time. This is only notable because he’s not one of the ghostly echoes of the visitors, and he’s not one of the carnie-zombies, either. This must be Nathaniel Winter. There is actually a family resemblance, not that Desmond’s ever going to mention that to Nicholas. Only there’s something...off, about the elder. Maybe it’s in large part that he’s maintaining an illusion of his body, now, rather than actually being human anymore, but while Nicholas had been honest to a fault (and kind of rambling in shock, lured too close to a legacy he wanted no part of), something insincere lurks in Nathaniel’s eyes, in his welcoming smile. They dress fairly similarly, though Nicholas went more for a modern businessman look and Nathaniel’s aiming for more whimsical and over the top, with a bow tie large enough to be on one of those show presents in a store and a top hat and fancier coat and white gloves that Desmond is actually really, really shocked aren’t covered in blood. Larger teeth. They look more like a bunny’s, unlike Alice’s, but any shred of innocence they could lend is just an act, Desmond knows. And—wait.
         With a shock, Desmond realizes that that cane is the exact same one that his son’s using. Coupled with the letter, that’s probably all Nathaniel needed to lure his son in, if it still had some kind of imprint or connection to the Bogeyman. It’s unclear if he’d meant to feast off his son or if he’d wanted to twist Nicholas into following in his footsteps, but either way it’s a fate worse than death and Desmond isn’t going to let that happen.
         “I’d like to welcome one, welcome all, to my masterpiece, Atlantic Island Park!” he calls theatrically, throwing his hands wide to applause. “It is an honor to have become a fixture in your great community. They all said it’d never be enough. I wasn’t born with the privileges. I had to earn every penny, and even then it wasn’t enough to buy me a place in your leadership directly, but I could bide my time. Outbidding the Sailors, more feared than any pirate through the ages. Turning physical gold into metaphysical power was, after all, a known alchemical rite. Bring me your joy, your laughter—”
         Winter keeps going, but Desmond isn’t listening. He probably should. The Bogeyman is probably describing his entire plan right now, taunting them, but Desmond’s just a little bit too distracted to keep paying attention, because the realization hits him hard. Oh hell no wonder it hadn’t worked right. Desmond’s pretty sure that’s meant literally. No wonder there had been further murders, no wonder Lorraine and others had experienced so much misery and pain. Winter’s machine, The Park, is built to be powered by happiness, but since it’s built in the shadow of Henderson’s curse, so visitors didn’t have much to begin with, and then if you sucked everything good and happy away, then that neverending spiral of misery was all that was left. It’s not clear at this point if Winter hadn’t known that would happen, or just hadn’t cared. And Desmond doesn’t have a clue which is worse.
         “Enough games, Winter,” he calls out, voice steady, and Winter finally bothers glancing in his direction again.
         “Are you sure? That’s what this place was built for, you know. To bring joy. Are you sure you want to deprive the children of that?” He reminds Desmond vaguely of Vidic, when the man had been bothering to try to seem vaguely friendly.
         “You mean, deprive yourself of your food. That’s why you didn’t want to let Lorraine go.” She had actually loved her son, for as long as the Park hadn’t stolen that from her, too.
         Winter sneers, shaking his head. “You believe everything that Witch told you? I don’t want her like that, any more than I wanted what happened to Chad. They’re what spoiled my utopia. It needed an outsider to finish my transformation, and what luck, when some of your seniors broke in on a dare, my dear.”
         He’s looking straight at Carter. Who turns pale. “He’s talking about the Class of ‘81.”
         Desmond is carefully not going to think about the implication that she actually knows about different graduating classes based on the horrible tragedies that happen to them, specifically because, well, that’s really, really depressing.
         Winter stretches and chuckles, the cracking chillingly loud. “Well, if you insist. I’ve tasted your dreams, you know. I know you better than anyone here could hope.” He waves his cane lazily, and everyone else disappears, leaving an eerie silence in its wake. It doesn’t stay that way for long, though, as his legs and arms lengthen, pieces of the coat and fingers falling off as he does. The insincere smile becomes a grin to a cave of jagged teeth that he probably can’t even close, let alone do anything other than smile menacingly, without gouging himself with those fangs. Even the cane twists, the handle becoming striped blown glass, like the candy house, but the wood gets old and splintered and covered in a deep crimson. His voice alters as his appearance changes. “You died for the world. As the saying goes, ‘there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends’. So much love—you could finish my Park, completely.”
         “That’s not happening,” Carter whispers, readying her power.
         “Correct,” Alice agrees shortly.
         Desmond’s only warning that Rukh is back is the deep-throated half-scream, but he’s able to brace himself before his shoulder is, once again, full of bird. “Welcome back, buddy.”
         Rukh fluffs up, self-satisfied, clicking his beak.
         And then Desmond finds out why Rukh had left in the first place. ...That’s right, he had found Desmond right after he’d run to the Anima Well, but. He’s trying to trust his raven, but that’s not exactly the kind of backup he would’ve gone for.
         “Usually, I’d hunt you, but there’s a far more interesting fight here,” Jack the Lad calls and then just throws what looks like a pumpkin at the Bogeyman. Except it explodes, and catches them slightly in the explosion.
         Desmond mostly manages to get a shield up in time, but it still sends them flying. From the sound of Rukh’s croaks where he’s flapping a safe distance from getting smushed, he’s unimpressed. Desmond’s half expecting him to start calling him ‘Novice’ if he ever actually feels like talking. “Yeah, yeah, I don’t have wings, Rukh,” he informs his bird, like it’s at all not obvious, and at least that quietens him down a bit as he rejoins Desmond. The Park warps again. He’s seeing the Masyaf courtyard, but Carter whispers something about the Academy, and he’s pretty sure Alice is seeing something else. He wonders what Rukh sees. Maybe someday he’ll ask.
         What follows is a much more chaotic fight than with either Chad or the Witch. The green wisps keep popping up, so they’re probably somehow associated with Jack, and they mostly target the Bogeyman. Though, as allies go, Desmond’s pretty sure that Jack really doesn’t care if something horrible happens to them.
         Funnily enough, they fight kind of similarly. Jack will break into fits of unearthly laughter that feel like they’re going to shatter eardrums and vibrate their bodies apart, and is prone to summoning up wisps or throwing dozens of pumpkin bombs, flecks of Filth flying out, though the rest just appear when one is thrown, seemingly at random. He’s also prone to flailing his long claws everywhere, tearing off strips of skin if anyone gets too close. It requires them to run around and be mobile, though, and eventually Alice just gets sick of it and throws her remaining shoe, nailing the Bogeyman’s nose, which begins to bleed some pale, sickly substance. He snaps his teeth at her from a distance, and she returns the favor, completely unintimidated (at least, on the surface). Desmond’s doing a lot of rolling and diving, while Carter’s just scrambling. It’s not pretty, on her part, more clumsy than anything, but it’s effective. Fortunately, Alice is a pretty good deterrent, since it seems Jack isn’t too fond of fire, either.
         The Bogeyman summons up sickly green fields in a ring around him that hurt, with wispy, thankfully not physical Filth tendrils, calling up the whispers from before only like their voices are actually caustic poison dripping on their skin, meaning they have to run up close and brave the long, spindly arms and thwacks from the cane (now Desmond kind of sees why that was used as a punishment...and also, honestly, he’d kind of like to practice fighting with one, because it seems pretty cool). He repeatedly siphons some of the gold threads, throwing them back out in a twisted, haphazard circle around him, burning marks where they touch skin and leaving Desmond feeling a little dizzy every time it happens. He throws his own bombs, purple balls of electricity, bright and hyper-real, the color emphasizing their existence in this reality of his own making. Weirdly enough, Carter’s explosions seem to counter both Jack’s and the Bogeyman’s, though Desmond’s given up on trying to shield from Carter unless they get too close, preferring just to keep his distance. Maybe it’s...something along the lines of explosions sometimes putting out fires? Who knows. Desmond’s not going to waste too much time trying to puzzle it out. At least Alice seems to be trying to follow his example, more. And then there’s the fast-moving tidal waves of despair he throws out in front of him, threatening to drag Desmond back under, or the times he throws his staff high, the ground shaking as the screams of children pull them in like a black hole, wispy Filth bursting from the ground. The first time, Desmond manages to barely shield them in time, but he’s pretty sure he blacks out for a second, and doesn’t remember getting the nosebleed now dripping into his mouth. The second, Carter yells for them to come to her. She’d worked out that if they get far enough away, behind something, that’s apparently enough to protect them, though doesn’t bother wasting the time or breath explaining that. Maybe it’s weaker; the other attacks have been, and he’s pulling in more and more of the golden threads, now, to keep going.
         He does, as they fight, realize the point. The Park had been weakened, so far, by Henderson and his legacy. Jack the Lad is one tangible walking part of Henderson’s legacy, and probably easier to negotiate with than the scarecrows. Rukh’s thought process, because he is actually a really intelligent bird, is probably something along the lines of the fight being a lot closer if they didn’t play dirty. Given that the Bogeyman, for once, isn’t acting cool and cocky and warping the Park more than once to try to kill them or freak them out, he’d probably been thrown off guard.
         Eventually, the Bogeyman falls to his knees, and Desmond doesn’t even hesitate. He just charges right back in, pouring every ounce of his remaining strength into his arm, which lights up, shining like a beacon, straight through that thick, inhuman throat. The wails are nearly deafening—maybe the Park itself, screaming its death throes—but get cut off suddenly.
         “What did I do wrong?” Winter raves, back to looking human for the last time in his life. “Human sacrifice is nothing new. Will you kill all of the others too?”
         “If I have to, yeah.” He is an Assassin.
         Winter starts laughing uncontrollably. “You’re just like me! You’ve been trying to eliminate fear since you were a child.” he taunts. As much as that feels like Altaïr’s path to understanding...it’s not, and Desmond actually feels a spark of relief flare, because it doesn’t matter if he’d seen Desmond’s entire life. It didn’t work like an Animus. Winter—the Bogeyman—whatever he wants to be called, now, didn’t understand, and he never will.
         “I don’t kill for myself, but to protect others.” As expected, Nathaniel doesn’t look like he believes, but that’s okay. Desmond doesn’t have to prove a damn thing to him. “May you, your Park, and your victims rest in peace.”
         The laughter turns to gurgles, and then he’s gone, and they’re actually back in the real world, because one second he’s swaying, feeling empty, and then they’re being hit with a wave of energy. The rain’s real. Kind of a pain, since it’s so cold, but refreshing, too, in a way. Like they’re finally washing away the curse of this place. Everything, even the fences, are gone. Jack the Lad is gone, too, which is good, because Desmond’s not in the mood for another fight again; not yet, anyway.
         Rukh croaks, concerned, and then clacks his beak while staring at the sky, shaking his feathers like a dog trying to dry off. “I’m fine, Rukh, just...tired.” Rukh turns his head and then holds out a white feather in his beak, pushing it into Desmond’s hand. Maybe one that fell out? He doesn’t look like he’s missing any. His raven nips his ear, like he’s complaining about Desmond being slow, and it suddenly occurs to the Assassin what the feather is for. Like Rukh knows the tradition, somehow. Though it’s not as if he has anyone to give it to; there isn’t an Assassin of higher rank, and he’s pretty sure he’d just gross out Shaun if he sent it. Rebecca might actually like it, but she’s a little weird. Still, now that he thinks about it, it’s not like Ezio always did it for someone else, either.
         ...Although, now that he’s thinking about it, maybe there’s somebody who deserves to see the proof, too.
         He wipes the feather through the blood of Winter’s corpse.
         “Eww, Desmond, why?” Carter complains, shivering, and yeah, they should probably get going, to meet up with the others and maybe get dry.
         “It’s a tradition; confirms the kill.” She’s still making a face, but then, she probably doesn’t have much room to talk, going to Innsmouth Academy. Alice, on the other hand, is watching carefully, eyes bright. “Let’s go.” She doesn’t need to dwell on it, anyway. They have to find Javier, and he’s really curious how that’s going to go, and then he needs to talk to Winter and get them all showers and food and maybe even some sleep. They’ve all earned it.