Too Old to Lie
The floor of this level is conspicuously clean of bloodstains. Too clean. But the lack of any distinguishing red marks makes it laughably easy to spot the item that’s just lying on the floor, out in the open. I am about to pick it up when I realize something. This item is almost certainly cursed. After all, I’m in a fucking tower of terror. The wallpaper alone has claimed the lives of sixteen men. It has a lovely floral pattern and it reeks of evil. Come to think of it, that narrow corridor up ahead is probably trapped. Scythe blades will spring from the walls to gut me and then flames will blast down from the ceiling. I’m far too important to be scythed and burned so I force zubat to take point. Who gives a shit if she gets killed by a trap?
Well, she doesn’t get killed by a trap. She gets killed by a bellsprout. Not just an ordinary bellsprout, mind you, but a hippie bellsprout. Its cultist owner keeps going on about coexistence and cooperation. Hah! My dad says that “cooperation” is just another word for higher taxes and freeloaders. I’m betting that’s the sort of thing he says, anyway. I’ve never met him. And whenever I ask mom about it she gets all weird and looks at the wall and says I don’t have a father. But I know I do because Elm told me so and he’s too old to lie.
When the time comes and I’ve mastered the eldritch secrets, I don’t think I’ll save this guy. Dad wouldn’t approve. “Grell, my boy,” he’d say, “the world doesn’t need any more socialists. It’s time you did what this man’s mother should have done the day he was born.” I’m pretty sure I can’t go into labor, but I can certainly abandon him to a lifetime of magical servitude in this creepy death tower. Screw socialists and screw socialism. What have they ever done for me?
I’m so enraged that I mutter to myself all the way out of the tower, shaking my head as I go. Once outside, I head back to the pokemon center to take advantage of the free food and free health care.
