Date: Mon, 15 May 2023 04:09:53 -0500 From: Fang Saito Subject: Welcome to Avernus - Chapter 5 This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any real people or places is purely coincidental. This story is the property of the author and is protected under copyright laws. The author retains all rights. No reproduction is allowed without the author's consent. Conversations and feedback are appreciated to Greyson B. via email at hokkaidohotel86it@gmail.com. I love hearing from readers. If you enjoy this story, please support the Nifty archives today with a thoughtful donation by visiting https://donate.nifty.org/. This story will contain graphic depictions of sex between males of teen and adult ages (M/m, m/m). If this is an issue for you or the laws where you live, you are obviously in the wrong place. By the way, https://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/adult-youth/cadence/ https://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/highschool/a-ghost-finds-a-body/ Welcome to Avernus Chapter 5 The elevator opened onto the kind of lobby I had seen on TV used for high end businesses or law firms or something. The walls were chrome edging around this creamy off white. The floors were carpeted in a pale grey that looked expensive. There was a semicircular reception desk with a glass walled conference room behind it. No one was sitting at the desk, and it lent an air of abandonment to the place. I supposed it was right though, since it was after hours. Big glass doors led into a conference room, which held a table that looked like it could probably seat twenty or more people. There were two men in there, currently hunched over something at the table, their backs to us. To the left was a set of heavy, industrial doors leading off the lobby. I was led to the right, to a more simple door which was held open for me by one of my scary armed escorts. From there, I was led down a plush hallway, our footsteps swallowed by the carpeting. It was a long hallway, with plain fluorescent light panels in the ceiling and nothing on the walls to draw my interest at all. Some ways down, I could make out four doors, two on each side, near each other, and another door at the far end, maybe 40 or 50 feet away. The gorilla leading me went to the first door on the right, knocked twice, and without waiting for a reply, opened it and gestured for me to go inside. I had no idea what to expect, so I wasn't disappointed. It was, I don't know, a fancy dining room. It could have been in any fancy house I've seen on TV. A big oak table dominated the room, with chairs at each end and five other chairs lined up on each side. There was a long, thin serving cabinet of some kind along the outer wall, where I would have thought there would have been windows. Sitting at the other end of the table was Mr. Dominic Tsui. A woman was standing beside him, leaning in and murmuring something in his ear. Seeing me enter the room, he nodded and waved her off casually. "Jason Docker," he said grandly, standing and raising both his arms, palms open in greeting. "At last, a proper conversation between us." He was slender, but seemed still well muscled. His Asian looks made me wonder if he did some kind of martial arts. I knew it was a stereotype, but he really looked like he did. Seeing him here in the brightly lit room, he looked less like Neo, and more like a really young Shang Tsung, the bad guy from the old Mortal Kombat movie. Or maybe I was just being a racist moron. Either way, he looked badass, dangerous, and intimidating. His long black hair was shiny and flowed past his shoulders. He was wearing black slacks, a pale grey shirt of some kind of shiny material and a black fitted vest that accentuated him upper frame and made his shoulders look wider than the trench coat I had seen him in before. The woman walked toward me around the table. She had a sharp look on her face toward me, almost a look of hate, her mouth puckered up like she'd just sucked on a lemon. My attention was mostly on her as she approached me, but then she passed me, leaving out the door I had just entered. As she left, I looked back to Mr. Tsui. He was still smiling, and gestured for me to take a seat. Considering the only places that were made up for use were the two end chairs, that is where I sat down. Once I had pulled out my chair and was sitting, he sat as well. "It's much better seeing you in this light," Mr. Tsui said. I wasn't sure what to say to that, so rather than being sarcastic or rude, for once I bit my tongue. After a moment of me not answering, he continued. "I am surprised. I was unsure what I might find, once you arrived." His accent was crisp, practiced, cultured. Rather than making him seem friendly, it only added to his intimidating nature. I was so far out of my element with this guy that it wasn't even funny. But I always found that the best defense was a good offense, so I spoke up. "Surprised in a good way? Or a bad way?" He smiled slightly, looking amused. "Oh, I am pleased, my boy. Very pleased." "I'm glad I please," I said, trying to add some emotion other than annoyance to the words. "Can I ask, what is all this about? Why are you even talking to me?" "Should I not show an interest in you, Jason?" "It just seems kind of weird. You hired my dad, sure, then you keep creeping on his teenage kid?" Mr. Tsui did not seem upset by this, but rather amused. "I suppose it does seem, as you say, `sus', when looked at that way." Just then the door opened, and a pair of men wearing white chef's coats walked in, carrying trays. Before I could even really comprehend what was going on, I had a full meal spread out in front of me, on half a dozen plates. There was what looked like a stuffed chicken breast, roasted potatoes, some kind of vegetable medley, dinner rolls, and more. Two glasses of ice were set before me, along with two cans of Coke and a pitcher of water. Neither of us spoke as all of this was set in front of me, and a single opaque wine glass was set in front of my host. Finally the whirlwind left with the two chefs and we were once again alone. Mr. Tsui spoke into the silence. "Please, eat." "Are you not gonna eat?" I asked. It felt weird with all this food in front of me, and him having nothing. "But of course. All men must eat." "Ohh-kay." I looked over the food. It did smell amazing. I tentatively cut into the chicken and it was juicy, practically falling apart as it oozed a stuffing of cheese and asparagus. But as good as it looked, as good as it smelled, I wasn't exactly interested in food at the moment. "So back to what you were saying. Why are you bothering to talk to me? You hired my dad, not me." Mr. Tsui laughed when I said that. You would have thought I told him an award-winning joke. "My boy," said Mr. Tsui, waving his hands almost as if he was drunk. "I gave your father that wastrel posting as an excuse to bring you here." As I struggled to understand why he would say something like that, my head spun. I continued to hear his voice, but it was muted, as if my head was underwater. I noticed a warmth on the side of my face, as right along my ear I felt a ring of cold. My vision weaved in and out of focus, and I began to wonder why my plate of chicken was sideways and only inches from my eyes. Was I laying with my head on the table? Oh damn, was my face sitting in a plate of food? As I tried to make some kind of understanding of what was going on, I thought I heard Mr. Tsui as he muttered in almost a stage whisper to me, "God, the power I feel coming off of you. How I have craved that." Then I think I heard him yell, "Bah! This isn't wor-" I awoke soft and warm. As I fought my way up through the layers of consciousness, I realized I was in my hotel bed again. The early morning sun was streaming in from around the drawn curtains. I may have been warm and cozy, but there were oddities that made me uncomfortable. For one, I was wearing socks and a shirt in bed again. Gross. As I felt the need to pee, I realized that once again, I had not showered before bed. My state made me feel an extra layer of discomfort, as it meant that once more, someone had put me in bed. After grabbing a shower and getting dressed, I headed downstairs for breakfast. It occurred to me that I didn't think I had managed to eat any dinner, and was starving. For a split second I was worried that I had been drugged, but I had never gotten around to even drinking anything, much less tasting the food. Only once in the elevator did I think to check my phone, and realize that it was only 6:30. Fuck, I couldn't wait to get out of this damned hotel and into some privacy. Once I got to the dining room, there were actually a few more people taking advantage of the place. Maybe this is just a really early rising area. Who knows. Maybe the guy in the tweed jacket is the mascot of the place? Or maybe he is a statue, and I only thought I saw him moving. I laughed to myself at that thought. I took a seat at a table that gave me some distance from anyone else, and the food I had ordered was just as good as anything else I had tried at this place. Seriously, they should close the hotel and just open a restaurant. I was just tucking into my first few bites of cream cheese stuffed french toast when I was pulled out of my relaxed breakfast. "What the fuck do you think you are doing?" A lady with two children a couple of tables away looked up and scowled at my father as he crossed the dining room. She wasn't the only one to be annoyed at the scene he was making, especially at the language he was practically shouting at the room. My mother was walking a few steps behind him, looking with a cross between embarrassment, and the desire to grab his arm and pull him back. Even the old-man-mascot shook his head in disgust as he went back to his newspaper. Reaching the table, Dad slammed himself into a seat, grabbing my arm and making me drop the bite of food off my fork. "You too good to call us and let us know you were up?" He practically threw my arm away from himself, causing me to drop my fork, which clattered against my plate. "Didn't want to bother waiting for your mother and me?" I was in no mood for him this morning. There was already too much weird stuff going on. I didn't need his bullying as well. So of course, I showed what a genius I was and opened my mouth. "Yeah, if I had called, you'd be yelling at me for bothering you too early!" I was trying to keep my voice down. I kept the volume out of it, but not the venom. "I was planning on calling mamma in a little bit, but assumed you were off for another of your super breakfasts." I didn't even know what happened, but the next thing I know, I was laying on the floor, my mother was scolding out my father's name, "Jeremy, no!", and my father was rubbing the back of his hand like he hit it on something. Then I felt the side of my face and realized that it was what he hit. I was burning with shame and embarrassment as I picked myself up off the floor and got back into my chair. My father had scooted close, so that getting back in my seat put my face inches from his, even as I tried to lean away. "Remember your fuckin' place, Jason. Don't you dare talk back to me like that." My mother said nothing, so I backed down meekly. If she wasn't going to jump in, I had no chance. Fortunately my supplication seemed to be working, and the animosity at the table seemed to be dissipating. Within a few moments, a server approached the table. "Is there a problem here?" I didn't look up to see if she was trying to show concern or a warning. "Yeah, there's a problem," said my dad. "Me and my wife don't have no menus. When's breakfast?" "My apologies," the woman said. This time I could catch the layer of sarcastic disgust that tinted her words. "I'll be right back with those menus. Coffee to drink?" "Yes, thank you," said my mother soothingly. I kept my head down and my mouth shut for the rest of breakfast. I did overhear my parents talking that, joy of all joys, Dad was taking today and tomorrow off to deal with moving into the house. My phone dinged with a text alert, but I knew better than to take out my phone when Dad was in this kind of mood. Breakfast dragged on, and I couldn't wait to get away from the table. The food that had seemed amazing when I started eating had lost all its taste. I was still pissed when we finished eating, so I held back to make sure I didn't have to ride up with the bastard. My mother slowed just to quietly give me a quick word, telling me to meet them back in the lobby at 9:45 to go over to the house with them, and to "bring a book". Great. That meant we were going to be sitting around a bunch. I asked if I could bring my board, and she shook her head, nodding my Dad's direction. So there went my fucking day. We met the realtor at ten, and she unlocked the house and let us in. Maybe the sun was shining differently, but the blue paint on the house looked cleaner, more satisfying today. And despite the bad start to the day, I was excited and curious as I entered the house. The downstairs was divided into two main areas, with the larger being an open floor plan of a living room, dining room, and kitchen all as one space. It looked nice, but I could already see that there was going to be no privacy out here. About a third of the downstairs was the master bedroom and bathroom. They had a standing shower with glass walls that was huge, probably enough room for 3 or 4 at once. There were even multiple shower heads built into the sides. Next to it, with big bay windows looking out over the back yard, there was a giant garden tub with jacuzzi jets. Then I got to go upstairs. The stairs opened on this wide space, easily big enough for a couch, TV, and probably a couple of chairs. Or maybe a computer desk. One wall was a pair of five foot tall windows overlooking the street out front, while the back wall had a bathroom. The end of the area closer to the stairs had a bedroom with a decent closet. The other end, though, had the prize. There were two bedrooms, one a decent size, but another that was damn near the size of the living room downstairs. It was easily bigger than the lounge area in the center of the upstairs. And even better, the two bedrooms actually had their own bathroom they shared, which opened directly from the bedrooms. Each side had its own toilet and sink, and then separate doors that led to a shared shower identical to the one downstairs in the master bedroom. "Oh, this is nice!" came my mother's voice from behind me. I jumped, but turned to her with a grin. "Have you seen in here?" I asked. She came over and looked around the corner into the bathroom. "Just keep in mind that it is going to be your responsibility to keep this place clean. Next door is going to be a guest bedroom, and I don't want to have to keep on you about making it presentable." "Yes, ma'am," I answered. "So that's your bedroom over on the other end, right?" she teased. "No, ma'am. I assumed it was the closet off the kitchen!" "So what do you think of the place?" "This just doesn't seem real," I said, still with a bit of awe in my voice. "We can really afford this place? It's like twice what we had in Alabama." "Only twice?" she said in mock insult. "You obviously haven't seen the whole place." "What do you mean?" Mom put her arm around my shoulders, dragging me toward the bedroom door and over to the stairs. "Oh, poor deluded child o'mine. You missed somethin'" She took me downstairs and took me over to the big double glass doors leading out to the back yard. The yard definitely wasn't huge, but it was nicely kept up, and even had a pair of big trees out there, to match the big one out front. Then she showed me a door off to the side. She opened it up, and I saw that it was a tiny room, probably not even five feet to a side, but it had three other doors, one on each wall. She pointed straight ahead, saying, "That there's the garage." Then pointing to the right, she said, "And there's the back yard, obviously." Looking at the last door, to the left, with my voice tinged with curiosity and apprehension, I asked, "And that door?" "Open it and find out." I opened the door, and was met with the object of amazement and half the horror movies I had heard of. A set of stairs led down into deep, suffocating darkness. There was no way to tell the condition of the stairs, or what might be awaiting us down there. The ceiling in front of me sloped down just as steeply as the stairs before me. The space seemed to absorb sound just as well as it stole the light. These stairs seemed narrow, claustrophobic. Perhaps because of the bright and open nature of the rest of the house, this space seemed menacing and dangerous. So absorbed was I in the oppressive feeling of the space, that I jumped about a mile, nearly toppling forward down the stairway, as a hand landed on my shoulder from behind. "Well go on down!" my mother said cheerfully. I think she enjoyed making me jump. "Meanie!" I laughed, accepting the joke. "Seriously, where are the lights?" "Are they not down there on the wall?" she asked. "Oh, wait." I heard a switch behind me, and a small light came on over my head, just inside the stairwell. It was enough to let me see where I was going. The stairs went straight, all the way down. Once I got about halfway down the room opened up, as I got low enough to be below the ceiling level. There was a small amount of vague light, and although I couldn't make out the full room, I was able to get the impression that it felt cavernous. Once I got to the bottom, I found a bank of light switches, and cut them on. I was not wrong when I felt like the place was massive. It was probably the same footprint of the house above us. It had a full height ceiling, and only at the far end was any of it divided off, with two doors in the far wall. There were two spots in each of the long walls, the front and back of the house, where there were narrow windows maybe 6 or 8 inches tall and a foot and a half long, set right up at the very top against the ceiling. Otherwise, the room was open, except for six round metal poles set at regular intervals, maybe a foot off the wall, obviously there as a support system for the upper house. "Oh, yeah," said Mom as she joined me. "Get some carpeting down here, maybe something on the walls. This could be a nice man cave, don't ya think?" "So Dad's man cave, huh?" I said, the magic of the room draining right out of me. "We'll see," she said. She patted my shoulder understandingly. "Come on back upstairs. The delivery people should be here soon enough, and we need ta' make sure we know where they're puttin' stuff." As we headed back upstairs, I asked, "What's being delivered? I thought the movers weren't getting here `til tomorrow?" "Well," said Mom conspiratorially, "On top of a sign-on bonus, we were given some money to furnish the house with." She put her hands on my shoulders and walked me in front of her. "This is a lot of money getting thrown at us," I muttered. I was thinking about some of the vague phrases from the night before. I couldn't remember most of the conversation, and I had the impression that the few words and phrases that I could recall were only the tip of the iceberg. But one line that stuck out in my head was where Mr. Tsui mentioned hiring Dad to bring me here. I didn't get it. Who was I? I'm nobody. And yet, everyone knew what foods I did and didn't like. I was given my own hotel room. The desk staff were going out of their way to be cool with me. And here we were, getting a house that was big enough that I got my own bathroom, and was only a short walk from school. Dad started into a bitchfest about the place being too big, and how much the electricity was going to be, not to mention the taxes, the cost to get furniture for the place, and who knows what else, so I slipped out and sat on the front steps. Thinking spatially, I looked at the ground to my right, and buried in the flower bed there, I saw one of the short basement windows. I decided to pull out my phone to look over some more of the Hammers and Hordes armies, when I saw the notification for the text message I had received at breakfast. I had seriously forgotten all about it. It was from an unknown number. --This is the official apology committee. Can you meet tonight at LGM?-- Huh? "Apology committee"? If, and that was a big "if", this was meant for me, it explained nothing. Not what it was about, or even where this was supposed to take place. No other way to find out more, right? So I texted back. --Wrong number maybe? Don't no anything about apology comittee or what lgm is.-- I didn't even get to get into my browser to look at Hammers stuff before I received a reply. --I just wanted to apologize about last night, and let you in on some stuff. LGM is the comics store on the square. Maybe after dinner, around 8:30 or so?-- The response was quick. They were either already on their phone, or maybe they had been sitting around the last few hours waiting for a reply. I decided it was too weird and didn't bother responding. Maybe my curiosity tonight would be enough for me to go check it out. Right now my curiosity was just enough to make me a little paranoid, and honestly, to piss me off quite a bit. I was being messed with. Whether it was an elaborate prank or some kind of scheme, I didn't care. I was sick of being blind. I tried looking around at models, but I was too distracted by the bullshit message. As far as I was concerned, Mr. Tsui could kiss my ass. The day turned out to be a lot of "sit and wait", interspersed with bouts of frenzied activity whenever a truck showed up. We ended up getting a whole new living room. Mom said our old couch was going to go downstairs in the basement. I was kind of pissed a bit later, when I watched them get a whole new bedroom set: bed, furniture, and everything, while I was told that what I had was "good enough", and that their old bed was going in the guest room next to my room. Even though I was doing absolutely nothing, I was even told to stay out of the delivery guys' way and absolutely not help, I still wasn't allowed to leave the house. I just sulked and messed around on my phone the whole day, all of it wasted time. Eventually my dad announced that we were done until the moving truck arrived the next day, and we loaded back up in the car to go back over to the hotel. Lunch had been a crappy pizza from some local place. Probably a gas station, knowing my dad. When I asked if I could finally go out, I was told "absolutely not", and I was told to be down at the hotel dining room in half an hour. It was barely six by then, but considering the condition of breakfast and lunch, I was hungry. Dinner was actually tolerable. Daddy was in a good mood for once. We got through the entire meal without him losing his temper or getting too drunk to cause a scene. After we ate, I was debating back and forth about meeting this mystery person. In the end, I decided that I was not interested in hanging out in the hotel room the whole night, so I grabbed my new medium jacket and my board, texted my mom that I was going down to the town square, and headed out. Just as I was stepping into the elevator, I heard a door down the hall slam open and my father's voice yell out, "Hey, Jason! Get back here!" "Oh, no," I muttered under my breath as I lazily pressed the Door Close button. "Look at that. The door is closing and I can't do anything about it." I kept pressing the button over and over, trying to hurry the doors to close, all while muttering, "Sorry, Dad. Nothing I can do." I did not know what he was pissed about this time, and I didn't care. All I know was, I wasn't going to deal with it right now. The moment the door opened, I speed-walked across the lobby, waving at Mina. The front doors had barely slid open before my board hit the ground and I was out. When I got to the square, I took a closer look at the front signs all around the comic store. The words "Comics & Games" were written in large letters, much bigger than any other signage. Above that was the name of the town, Avernus. But in between that was what I had taken for doodling and some random signage. That's what I get for not paying attention. The line in between said "Little Green Men", with the letters being climbed around on by some green space aliens, some fantasy Goblins, and a few of the green army men, like they had in Toy Story. So I guess the actual name of the store was Little Green Men, aka LGM. Finally, one of the hundreds of mysteries had an answer. I was starting to get why this place had weird hours as I pulled the door open and walked in. It was 8 o'clock on a Thursday, and there were easily a dozen people in here. I ducked my head back out of the door and checked the posted hours. Sure enough, they were open 1am, and 3am Friday and Saturday nights. Damn, a bunch of night owls around here. The door was barely closed behind me when I heard a voice call out, "You're early." I looked around, trying to see anyone I might recognize. A guy was approaching me, smiling widely and waving casually in my direction. I couldn't tell if his creamy skin was more Hispanic or a pale African descent, but it was working for him. He was an average height, meaning several inches taller than me, and seemed maybe 20 or so. I'm sure I looked at him like he had three heads. He was decently attractive, but I did not in any way know this guy. Sensing my confusion, he laughed, stuck out his hand, and said, "Sorry, I'm Montgomery. I'm part of your apology committee." I tentatively shook his hand, and Montgomery instantly pulled me in so that the next thing I knew, his arm was around my shoulder and I was pulled against his body. He started guiding me across the shop, giving me very little control. The best I could do was not stumble and fall. He was strong enough that I had no say. "So anyway, me and a couple of others were sent here by Dom to straighten things out. He felt bad about how things went last night." "So he sends you? Why not come himself?" I couldn't tell if I was more annoyed or curious about what was going on. Montgomery laughed, and I honestly couldn't tell if he was laughing at what I said, or at me specifically. I definitely got the impression I was a chore he had been assigned. He was talking AT me, not TO me. He was leading me over toward the area of the store that had all the gaming tables with the buildings and trees all over them. Then I saw who he was taking me to, and I instantly had no problem with where he was taking me. Erin, my girl with the white hair, was moving a line of miniatures along one side of a table, facing across from "definitely not my boyfriend" Garrett. It occurred to me that while we had discussed options that I might play, I had not asked what she played. As we got to the table, I pulled away from Montgomery and he let me go without a fight. I took a look at Erin's miniatures, and saw they were boxy, armored models, Humans, I thought. If I was recognizing them, I was thinking they were some version of Cosmos Emptor, the big evil Human empire. She had said they were easily the most popular to play. She looked up then, and I said, "Hello again." But I saw her eyes, and rather than the casual warmth I had seen yesterday, instead I saw a look of humor, disdain, or something similar. Maybe she was just annoyed at being interrupted. "Hello again, I suppose." Then she looked past me. "I've got this, Montgomery." She made a shoo-ing motion with her hand. "You can go." "Yes, your bitchiness," said the man behind me, and just like that he was gone. Erin, meanwhile, went back to moving her models around. "Please sit," she said to me. And just like that, she was softer and more friendly. Maybe it was Montgomery she disliked. "This jackass across from me is my good friend, Garrett." "Bitch, don't even start," Garrett said with a playful smirk. "Curious," I said. "Yesterday you barely wanted to acknowledge his existence." "Did I, now," she said with a grin. Garrett laughed, obviously in on a joke I didn't get. I tried to move past my awkwardness and confusion. "Anyway, I did what you said, and did some more research. I think I found an army that you overlooked." "Is that so?" Erin was looking at me like I was some amusing puppy doing tricks for her. It was the weirdest, most awkward feeling, and it was starting to piss me off. "Do I need to fucking go or something?" "No, please," interjected Garrett. "Please stay, Jason. `Ren, quit being bitchy. He doesn't deserve it, and you're going to get yourself censured. Dom's not worth it." Erin looked at him, and for a moment, I thought she was going to leap across the table. Then just like that, she was calm, and that friendly warmth filled her eyes. "I apologize, Jason. I'm being rude." She held out her hand for me to shake. "I haven't introduced myself. I'm Wren."