On the same day Taph came, there was another killer attack, this time from Jason. Taph had already littered the outside of the cabin with subspace tripmines and tripwires, in preparation. Hopefully, they wouldn't do too much damage to the actual cabin. The bombs never did any damage to any of the other infastructure, or even the soft grass beneath them, usually.

But they weren't IN the cabin. No, they had a better idea. A significantly better idea.

Jason expected them to be inside. They expected themselves to be inside, too.

And by 'they', I mean Taph and Dusekkar. The two were discreetly hidden in the undergrowth, waiting for Jason to get stunned by the bombs Taph had placed. And from the sounds of it, Jason had JUST attempted to hack through the door, and recoiled when the bomb detonated.

Now is where the actual plan comes into play.

The two quickly scrambled out of their hiding spots, Dusekkar slowing Jason even furthur with his magic, meanwhile Taph got him pinned to the floor to disarm him. Well, Taph kept him on the floor, restraining his arms and legs so that he couldn't do anything else, by pushing his own on his. Dusekkar was in charge of actually taking his knives and chainsaw, and he did so, taking them and temporarily storing them underneath the pool table. Jason struggled against him, but was at a clear disadvantage and failed.

Then, Taph moved Jason's other arm to his other, using his now-free hand to repeatedly bash the base of a tripwire into the back of his head.

So what if it took a while? He would not stop until he was unconscious. And eventually, he fell unconscious. Which meant that Taph and Dusekkar could get to work.

Of course, that 'work' was strapping him to the chair Builderman used to shove 1x1x1x1 into the fireplace with duct tape. And instead of duct taping his arms, they did it over his shoulders, so that he could sign, if he knew how to, since he didn't really speak at all. Taph's idea.

Builderman had built two sentries outside as well.

Now imagine that you are Shedletsky, and the first thing you see after getting slaughtered in your sleep after a total of three days on planet Voss is Taph and Dusekkar trying to drag an either dead or unconscious Jason inside the cabin, with Taph promptly using Jason's chainsaw on the door upon realising it had mended itself again.

What?-

You get up, stretch, wonder who the fuck killed you (probably Two Time), and walked inside the main cabin.

You were definitely not expecting three sentries directed straight at you. Well, straight at the doorway, for that matter. That sure is something. When you walked to the other room with the tables, you also were not expecting to see Dusekkar trying to duct tape Jason to the chair. Actually, the chair looked charred, almost burnt. This day is full of surprises, you guess.

There also seemed to be a sort of weapon shrine underneath the pool table. There were two daemonshank swords, and- hey wait a minute, where the hell'd they get them?

And where's Builderman?

"...Uh, what's happening?-"

The two froze and turned to look at you. Their faces almost lit up at seeing you. Well, Dusekkar's face did, Taph's was still a black void. His side head wing things did open up slightly though. You're assuming that's a good thing.

Dusekkar unrolled one more ring of duct tape over Jason's legs.

"You I expected not to meet; I understand this is confusing to see. We are pacifying an aggressor, who shall be used to barter."

"How'd he get here?"

"We know that not, although we ought."

Taph, who was previously keeping the chair still and stuffing Jason's knives and chainsaw underneath the pool table, saw you and walked over.

He signed pointing at you, tapping his chest twice with his thumb with a spread out hand and pointed at you again.

"I- think so? Moreso confused. How are you two holding up?"

Taph put his right hand down on his left in a chopping motion, which was flat, and twisted it slightly upwards upon impact twice. Dusekkar, who went back to duct taping Jason, answered with:

"I would reply that I am okay, were it not for the dangers that wish for us to decay."

That was a horrible way to describe it, but you agreed. That was indeed something to worry about. Especially since the main cabin was no longer a safe space.

Taph then got your attention again. He put his thumb on his chin with all his fingers folded in except for his index finger and contracted it three consecutive times, sliced his left hand with his right hand, index finger extended, across it diagonally downwards, and then pointed at himself.

"Bets on Two Time, if I'm being honest."

Your bets WERE on Two Time. No one else had any reason to kill you, and the only ones who could that quickly were Guest 1337 and Chance. Chance doesn't have a silencer, and Guest 1337 just has no motive. You then, begrudgingly, think back to Two Time, which causes you to cringe slightly at the thought of them killing Taph for absolutely no reason. Just how bloodlustful were they?

Either way, you find it more interesting to think about why they had Jason there.

So, of course, you asked. You were not expecting a whole operation to be explained. But basically, it was holding Jason for ransom and hopefully convincing the killers to get off their backs for a couple days in exchange for Jason back.

If you want it dumbed down even more, it's 'don't try to kill us or Jason gets it'.

Then another question appeared in your head. Where would they put Jason?

The answer to that was the sleeping cabins. You voiced all the same concerns they had with the idea at first, but then they explained the weird phenomenon where the cabins decide to mend themselves.

Uh, okay, you guess.

It was a bit weird to watch, if you're being honest. Then again, it looked a bit fun to tear through doors just like that. Either way, they decided to put him in the cabin where Taph usually slept, simply because he didn't care too much, and he had subspace tripmine cores stored, so if jason managed to get unbound it would quite literally blow up in his face. You wouldn't give up your turf so easily, but hey, you're not Taph.

Builderman, when he was told about the whole thing, thought it was completely stupid and reckless, and promptly built three sentries outside the door. Well alright.

Weirdly, the two construction workers at the fence with the cake monster were gone. The cake monster was gone too, and so were Desmond, Investigative Iris, Brandon, Ragerr, Glebus, and the Roland Cosplayer. Greg, Carl, Mart, the draxobloxxer plaque, the cat and the pizza delivery guy were still there.

You feel like that's going to be really, really important at some point.

Either way, you thought that Builderman, Taph and Dusekkar would only be kidnapping Jason to promise his safety in exchange for theirs.

They were not.

They were also interrogating him, or at least trying to. And that led to Taph and Jason furiously signing to each other.

Did anyone else know what they were saying?

No.

No they did not.

But it probably wasn't good, because Taph's wings kept bristling in irritation. Still, vague.

Originally, it was an interrogation. Jason didn't try to answer at all, at least, not with words. So Taph ended up translating for Jason, and Dusekkar ended up translating Taph's emoji combos whenever Shedletsky and Builderman had absolutely zero clue what that meant. Of course the one who only speaks in poetry would be able to understand the strings of pictures and punctuation.

At one point, Jason must've said something especially worrying, because Taph's signing became more frantic, and he didn't explain in emojis what they were talking about every couple of sentences. Which left everyone else very confused.

Of course, the lack of updates was concerning, but they were told.

So turns out, this was 'day four' of a weird round The Spectre had set up, that would last for a while. Over one week, but less than a month. That was anywhere between eight and thirty days.

And the rules of a regular round didn't apply. First thing - the cooldowns had been reduced to five seconds, unless they were shorter than five seconds already, in which case the cooldown would remain unchanged. Which meant the survivors stood a chance in combat against the killers, if they were smart about it.

But there was something else that was mentioned.

Usually, in a round, when someone died, they would simply be brought back to life to wait in the main cabin, until the next round began.

But now that the main cabin and the area around it WAS where the round was being held place, where would they be transported once they died? With Builderman and Dusekkar, when they first died, they just came back to the main cabin with a slight headache.

Apparently, every survivor, and every killer, had three lives for this round. It was unclear where you'd go if you lost all three. Maybe go back to planet Voss? They wondered how everyone was holding up there. Hopefully C00lkidd was still playing nice.

Now you may be wondering, how'd they all get Jason to tell them all this, instead of staying silent? A chainsaw held behind him and Dusekkar's staff fused with a subspace tripmine core, both threatening to be used against him if he didn't talk, of course. In fact, the first thing he told them was about the three lives. How did that work for Two Time? Does that give them six lives? Whatever, they'd figure it out later.

More interestingly, the killers weren't after the survivors at all. They were after the main cabin. Meaning that even if everyone survived, but the main cabin was destroyed, it would count as a loss for the survivors.

The last time a 'game' like this was played, the punishment for losing was a three-month long advantage for the killers. And that was awful, so they did NOT want to lose again. But last time, the game had nothing to do with a ridiculously long round. So what was The Spectre gonna do this time if they lost?

Hopefully, they wouldn't find out.

...

They left Jason in there for that night, but not without knocking him out first and blocking the doorway with one of the stray boxes lying around. Of course, the next day was going to be very important - either 1x1x1x1 or John Doe would be after them this time. If they were going in a rotation, it should be 1x1x1x1's turn tomorrow. John Doe would most likely be easier to barter with. Not easy, but easier than 1x1x1x1. Either way, they'd first have to actually convince the killer to hear them out, which could end with a bit more work.

And this time, 'work' was not duct taping someone to a chair, it was avoiding certain death.

Except this time, the killer was running a bit late. In fact, it was already the evening, and there hadn't been any attack. Which was weird. Had another survivor from planet Voss died...? No. One had not.

Turns out, Jason was not eliminated from the equation. He was supposed to be sawing at the cabin. Of course, he couldn't, because the guy got taped to a chair and was stuck in Taph's bathroom not being able to move. Great.

At least the survivors were given more time to figure out just HOW they were going to go about convincing 1x1x1x1 or John Doe to leave them alone for Jason. Statistically speaking, they all have nine lives combined due to C00lkidd's absence, so even if they took one of the killers down every other day, they would all be dead by the 24th day or earlier, which just so happens to be the average between 8 and 30, the minimum and maximum amount of days the weird game could last. Then again, the smallest slip-up could end with the whole game thrown.

If only Chance and Guest 1337 were there. But they also didn't want them to die all too quickly, that would just be cruel.

Anyway, since they actually had access to beds now, they slept on those. Taph didn't go in his cabin, obviously, because that would be stupid, so instead he shared a bed.

The killer that day happened to be John Doe. Okay, at least they weren't dealing with a literal culmination of malice and hatred.

When the guy approached the area, he looked around, and swung at Shedletsky upon sight. Annoying sentinels.

And in short, what happened after that was messily-coordinated shouting and swerving done by Builderman, Shedletsky and Dusekkar trying to get John Doe to calm down.

He did not calm down, he attempted to impale them all with spikes as usual.

Alright, if he won't listen, we have to MAKE him listen. Second route.

Now, John Doe is more difficult to take down than, well, anyone else. For some reason, he could only ever stay stunned for a little over two seconds, and after that, he even gets a bit of a speed boost.

And unlike Jason, he only had one regular arm, so even if they got him down, they'd have to touch the corruption, which would hurt. A lot.

Taph had gloves, unlike everyone else, but the corruption still got through. Clearly, they needed something stronger or thicker to block the corruption.

If Builderman could run quickly with the metal he carries around for the dispensers and sentries, he could use it as a shield and use blunt force to get him down. Unfortunately, the metal was pretty heavy, and it was haphazardly cut, so it would sooner slice whoever was holding it than John Doe.

Thinking about all this, they were at a striking disadvantage.

But then again...

Whenever he summoned his spikes, he stood still for a bit. And it's not like he got harmed by the spikes, but he also couldn't just walk through them.

Which meant that in some scenarios, if he cucked up the spikes, he could end up trapping himself.

That did not happen often. And relying on a blunder was just stupid, because they couldn't guarantee it.

So anyway, why am I yapping so much about this?

Because not a single one of them remembered that. The dumbasses got killed, eventually. So more damage to the cabin was done.

Interestingly enough, when the survivors died, they only woke up the next day. Probably to give the killers more time to wreck the place. The main cabin must have been sturdy, because when they woke up, it was still perfectly fine. Well, that's what they thought, until they saw the back of the place, where there were clear claw marks from outside. Oh well.

So now it was, if they had cared to count, day six.

It wasn't going to be eight days only, was it?