Werewolves 3 Beta Preview -- Prologue: The Facility

Welcome to the third in a series of previews from my upcoming game: Werewolves 3: Evolution's End! This prologue begins immediately after the Werewolves 2 ending where you flee with Maker to her facility along with the elders. You had discovered Lapu, recovering from a grisly experiment, but when you returned to help him, he'd disappeared. Some characters appearing here are variable during the game. The text for choices I've made in this preview is noted with a '#' before the text of each choice.

Hell is the fire that burns truth from the eyes of the seer, a smoldering sense of impotence in the face of inevitable danger. Hell is a distrustful gaze and the judgment it implies.

 Hell is other people.

 The harsh glare of the dormitory's fluorescent lighting bakes away your rationality as you twist and turn in bed, hoping for a sleep that will not come. They hadn't believed you. By the time you went to fetch the others and returned to the medical wing, Lapu was gone. Not that there had been much of him left to find. But it [i]was[/i] him. You know it! Those haunted eyes…

 A select few wolves had elected to humor your claims, of course—Bly, Tiva, Ahote, and a small handful of others—but the look in their eyes told a different story. A story of worry. A concern that you'd seen too much trauma too early in life and that your senses have, in some part, taken leave.

 They trust me, you think. But they don't trust my mind.

 You'll just have to figure out how to show them the truth, and that starts and ends with finding Lapu and proving your claim.

 It's midday and the others are outside in the yard, training. You asked to stay behind due to a stomach sickness, and the excuse has yielded the results you were hoping for. You just needed to be away. But should you be doing something more? A wolf is not a sheep to be slaughtered, especially not a lone wolf who knows what they saw.

#There must be notes detailing Lapu's surgeries somewhere on Maker's computer network. There's a terminal in the labs that should be abandoned at this time of day.

You watch carefully for any sign of hidden surveillance before slipping out of the dorm and into the hallway beyond. From there it's easy to make your way to the labs. You ignore the high, black countertops overflowing with scientific equipment from beakers to complex analytic instruments, instead focusing on finding a computer terminal that's still logged in to the network. When you find one, you breathe a heavy sigh of relief. A quick check shows nobody around, so you sit and begin your search.

 Ten minutes later you feel like you have a migraine coming on.

   You're a bit out of your depth on this one. What could have possessed you to try this when you have so little experience with modern tech? Still, you've learned your fair share of things since your days in Haven. You have more of a chance now than you would have had then.

   How can one woman have generated so much data? You're not so much browsing directories as poring over reams of documents and spreadsheets, all sorted using a methodology known only to their owner. You're not going to have enough time alone to read through all of it. Not by a long shot. Somewhere in this mess there must be proof that Lapu was here!

  Where should you focus your search?

#I check to see if I can access security footage from the medical wing on the day I found Lapu.

It seemed like a simple idea at first, but it proves to be more difficult to access the security footage than you'd expected. You're about to give up in frustration when you notice that one of the shortcut files has the login information baked into its properties. If you were being honest with yourself, you'd admit that you only stumbled on it by mistake, but you need the win, so you take it.

     A screen pops up on the monitor, divided up into twenty different small windows, each with a different view of the compound. You peer closely, searching for just the right one before double-clicking to make it bigger. It's the hallway in the medical wing! So now you have the right location, just not the right time. How do you…there it is! You drag the small bar at the bottom of the window to the left, scrubbing through the footage for the last few days. It takes a little patience, and significantly more finesse than you're used to, but you finally get it right.

     "Gods," you whisper. Maker's arrival is so fast that you can barely see her between the frames, but she appeared less than a minute after you left to go get help. She removed the gurney you'd seen Lapu on and placed it in a room on the other side of the hall. There's just one small problem—it's empty.

     "I have to go check that room," you mutter to yourself. There's no way to know how Maker made Lapu disappear, but if there's any physical evidence of his presence, it might be found in the room where Maker stashed the equipment.

*page_break

    You trace your hand along the wall of the medical wing and close your eyes, remembering those fateful steps. You were here, passing by this door, when you first heard Lapu's voice. The air is perfumed with antiseptic, and the scent triggers your memories as if they happened only minutes ago.

    "Kept in the dark…like mushrooms…" Lapu had groaned. "Heard…talking in the hall. Know that voice anywhere."

     You open up the fourth door on the left and see a very familiar wheeled medical table. This is it—this is where she stashed the evidence! But has she left anything that you can use to prove your case?

#I sniff the area carefully, searching for any sign of Lapu's scent on the equipment. If I can smell it, so can anyone else I bring here.

It's hard to smell anything over the scent of antiseptic and old mildewy invoices lingering from long before Maker renovated this place, but you're sure there's something else here. You follow your nose around the table and something catches your eye, almost hidden in an old box of odds and ends. You pick it up carefully and your eyes light up with recognition. It's one of the fabric restraints that was used to tie Lapu to the table! You bring it to your nose and sniff. Yes—it's unmistakable! There's several small dots of blood as well, leaving no doubt in your mind. This is the proof you need!

   You take the strap, fold it, and slip it in your pocket. There's no way you're going to risk having it disappear on you like Lapu did.

   The dormitory is quiet when you return, but you're surprised to find that your bunk isn't empty.

   "Ahote?" you ask. "What are you doing here?"

"And here I was wondering where you were," Ahote says. "I have news, and I'm not sure you're going to like it."

 "I have news too," you say, fishing the strap out of your pocket. "I found—"

 Ahote holds his hand up to stop you. "Sonoma's at the camp. Maker negotiated her release from General Rivera."

 To be continued in Werewolves 3: Evolution's End!