< < Now Entering > >

< Stage 5 >

< The Forbidden Altar >

< 30-minute Timer >

Adam opened his eyes, immediately recognising the strange sensation of being stuck in a cutscene.

But it was different from last time.

He stood on the engraved stone disc in the middle of the Elphin Sanctuary's ritual site. Under his feet reflective mercury flowed through the grooves in the stone and ahead of him, in the very centre of the disc, stood Belamouranthe. Behind her was the Elphin Queen. Both wore the green dresses that Weaver had spun.

The girl was facing Adam and, as he watched, her mother lifted a silvery dagger in the air, unseen by her child.

Adam couldn't move nor speak, and he was forced to watch as the blade plunged down towards Belamouranthe's neck.

The necklace he'd given her glowed with a violet light and a thunderclap rocked the air, sending the Elphin Queen hurtling along the ground while Adam stumbled back a step.

Enormous blue petals emerged from the air around the Elphin girl and all the spectators on the steps of the pit gasped, dropping to their knees in religious supplication. Then the petals closed around Belamouranthe. A beautiful flower formed briefly before vanishing without a trace, taking the girl with it.

She's saved!

Was that the All-Mother coming to her rescue??

The Elphin Queen screamed, her voice like the banshees Adam's lantern manifested.

She stumbled towards the centre of the disc while the voices of the Elphin around them blended together into an incoherent chorus. The wing that hung from her back, the translucent-red extension of her soul, was coming apart. Glowing purple slashes adorned it and the wing broke into pieces like glass as she staggered towards where Adam stood, unable to move.

Then she fell to her knees in the centre of the disc and rammed the silver dagger into the side of her own neck.

"I do this for mine people," she wheezed and wrenched the blade through her flesh, spilling cerulean-blue blood into the engraved pattern.

Adam was forced to watch as the woman bled to death, her lifeblood spreading across the disc, flowing alongside the mercury without mixing together.

The Elphin on the steps continued to pray and weep, but unlike last time, their wings and skin had not faded and become pale.

The ground rumbled and the stone disc under his feet started to rotate. He turned away from the dead Queen to watch the entrance to the Altar be revealed. Unlike last time, there was no one here to tell him to become a champion of the Elphin.

With the sacrifice of Belamouranthe prevented, the people of the Sanctuary have not caught the All-Mother's ire. Though they may have lost her favour, it is better to be Godless than scorned.

Without a word or a glance back over his shoulder, Adam moved towards the stairwell at the edge of the stone disc.

Then he blinked.

Like last time, he found himself wandering down a spiralling staircase made of stone. On his right was a hole leading straight into darkness below. With a blink he was transported deeper and the stairwell had become narrower. There were openings in the walls that revealed the vast chamber he was descending into. As he looked around, his head and eyes the only things he could control, he spotted five other spiralling staircases.

The Orb of Insight was right. I really am facing five other Players this time. Last time it was four.

Then he saw the other Players imitating his movements on the other stairwells. He looked around for Willow and found her directly opposite him, in what was the southern part of the Stage. She stared right back at him in surprise. He held her gaze as their bodies were puppeteered down the steps until they lost line of sight of each other when the steps blocked their view. As he came back around he immediately spotted another woman.

That's the one with the Crusader type.

She had caramel skin and black hair styled into a bob, and looked to be in her thirties. Something told him she was Caribbean. Though he squinted and tried to gauge her equipment, he couldn't see her weapon or Relics.

Adam looked at the others but couldn't tell who was who. However, he did notice one of the men staring intently at the Crusader. He had a complexion like her and his black hair was in a buzzcut. Given their similar appearances, he wondered if they were related or from the same place or something. He felt fairly confident that this was the Assassin that Emelia had warned him about.

Maybe that's why they end up working together?

The last two were an Asian man with a goatee and slicked-back black hair, and a blonde and tan late-teens guy whose eyes were huge and terrified. The Asian guy seemed a bit more put-together and was probably in his forties if Adam had to guess.

He tried to map out where each of them were in relation to him and Willow while considering the layout that Emelia had explained to him. He was dismayed to realise that to Willow's immediate right was the Assassin and to her left was the Crusader. The Asian man was to the Crusader's right on the eastern side and opposite on the west was the blonde guy.

Adam blinked and suddenly found himself at the foot of the stairwell.

He took a deep breath as the control of his body returned to him.

Willow is gonna run straight into the Assassin based on their locations. I have to go as fast as I can to get to her.

He summoned his barriers and combined them in front of himself.

I can do this.

< < Stage Objective > >

< Claim the Altar before the timer runs out >

He formed the barrier into a narrow sled and climbed on top. He was going to fly down the hallways since running wouldn't be quick enough. Because he knew the layout, he knew which way to go to reach Willow. If he was fast enough, he knew he might be able to get to the chamber where her path connected with the Assassin's.

[The Stage will begin in 30 seconds.]

[Only 1 Player may claim the Altar.]

[If there are other Players alive, claiming the Altar takes 5 minutes. Once the Altar is claimed, surviving Players will perish.]

Adam knew he couldn't trust the words of the Eye, but it was hard for him to not feel anxious about his plan.

If it really was as simple as two people claiming the Altar simultaneously, then surely Arturo would've known.

But there has to be a way to save other Players! It wouldn't make any sense if it wasn't possible to defy this Stage. Or would it?

The only way I've been able to defy the game, besides getting a shard lodged in my chest, was to give Belamouranthe the necklace. In terms of the story I'm playing through, it makes sense that it would work that way.

I don't know enough about this setting and these Absolutes to say if there's a way to defy the Player versus Player design, but maybe there's something like a Twin God that would allow two Players to survive together. After all, Emelia didn't know what four of them were, so they could be anything.

He shook his head.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

First I need to save Willow from the others, then I can find out a way for us to both survive the Stage.

Adam swallowed. He'd already decided that the Crusader and Assassin had to die, since they were too dangerous to leave alive, but he couldn't decide if he should attempt to save the other two.

[Begin.]

Adam gripped his flying barrier tightly and shot himself down the stone hallway. He zoomed past the statues that came to life, too fast for them to catch him, and rounded the first corner without slowing down.

The stone corridors were lit by yellow gems in the ceiling as he flew through, taking every new corner with reckless speed until he reached his first chamber. Unlike the first chamber he'd encountered in his last loop, this one only had two tunnels branching from it. The room itself was like a triangle, with a tunnel in each wall, and the walls were covered in hieroglyphs. At the centre of the room was a treasure chest made of stone and on either side of it stood two sword-wielding Statue Elementals.

I'll come back for it, he decided and took the right tunnel.

From behind came the echoing steps of the many enemies that trailed after him, but they would never be able to catch up.

I wonder if I should try and harvest their cores. It seemed like they were made of glass, so they'll be difficult to break free of their bodies without destroying them.

Although if he could harvest the cores he'd get a lot of Points out of it, since there were a lot of enemies in the Stage. It was something else to try after he had saved Willow.

While he flew through the tunnels and chambers, following the fastest route from the northern stairwell to the southern one, he considered the two potions he'd bought last night. Emelia had told him to just get a medium potion, but he'd bought a small one as well. With his remaining 300 Points he'd gotten the Potion Belt from Lucca, and it was now strapped around his right arm. It was not only to protect his healing items but also so he could utilise the Relic as a shield. He'd gotten the idea from his memories of the past, which had made him realise that the 'indestructible' description of the Relic literally made the potions impossible to break. It was a simple exploit but far more useful than anything else he could've spent his remaining Points on.

If my reflexes are fast enough, I might even be able to block an arrow, he thought to himself. Though probably not if they're instant…

Sounds of fighting came from a right-branching tunnel as Adam flew through a box-shaped chamber. It was the direction of the blonde guy's stairwell, but he didn't stop.

The elementals he'd triggered were unable to keep up and he couldn't even hear them anymore.

I wonder if they'll just hang around where they lost sight of me, or maybe they'll return to their starting points.

He wanted to get the chest he'd passed so he was gonna find out the answer later.

The tunnel he flew through had a strange U-shape and he banked hard on the first corner, slamming the bottom of his flying barrier into a Statue Elemental that came to life. The stone Elphin was knocked back into the wall with enough force to detach its head, and the impact damaged the barrier enough to crack it completely, triggering Last Stand's Fervour.

Oh shit.

Adam didn't stop to finish off the elemental and instead surged around the next corner in the U-shaped tunnel, going a lot faster than before thanks to the new buff. He banked around the turn leading out of the strange corridor and emerged into a wider hallway that fed into a large oval chamber.

As he flew into this new room, he counted down the timer in his head.

The chamber was identical to the one that Ilya had ambushed him in, with statues standing around a large central pillar and stone coffins placed near the walls. Unlike last time, all the statues were intact.

Adam put the brakes on his barrier and stepped off before resummoning his replacements. While fusing the two fresh barriers together, some of the statues awoke and started to approach. But he didn't have time to fight them and quickly shaped his spell into a sled before climbing on board and taking off down past the pillar. The eyes engraved on the structure seemed to be following him.

It's definitely the same room I died in last time.

He suppressed a shudder. This chamber brought back bad memories.

Adam flew down through a tunnel on the left side of the far wall, retracing his path from the last loop. It brought him to a chamber with a closed stone chest and two tunnels connecting to it. If he went right, he would go to the chamber he'd encountered Charlotte Hayes in. But he went left to go towards Willow's stairwell, zooming down the tunnel. He immediately noticed that statues were missing along the hallway walls. Then he realised the ones that should've been in the previous chamber were gone too.

Shit!

Adam came out of the tunnel and into a circular room with a raised dais in the middle and dead statues lying around its stone steps. On the platform lay Willow, her blood running down the stones from a gash across her neck and a wound in her back. Above her stood the man with the buzzcut, holding a single bloody dagger. He wore the same fur coat Armour Relic as Adam and had the Blood Mage's choker on his neck.

"No!" Adam roared and leapt off his barrier, flinging it at the Assassin and shaping it into a cone mid-flight.

Adam skidded along the stone floor on his boots as the killer turned in his direction and immediately leapt toward him. He wasn't fast enough to avoid the barrier and it flew through his left leg with ease, tearing it from his body and leaving just a frayed stump.

The Assassin tumbled as he landed at the foot of the dais and immediately began screaming in pain. Adam brought the barrier back and drove it down through the guy's head, piercing his cranium like it was made of wet paper and cutting off his scream.

He ran past the dead Assassin to where Willow lay, taking the medium healing potion out of his Potion Belt and pouring it into her mouth.

"Don't die! Don't die!" he muttered repeatedly in desperation while making sure as much of the potion went into her mouth as possible.

The Eye floated over next to him.

[When looking at a lootable corpse, you may utter the command 'Loot' to receive a list of Relics available to take.]

Adam froze.

"What the fuck did you just say…?"

He looked down at Willow's body. The red liquid from the healing potion was spilling out of her open mouth and her lifeless eyes stared into the distance.

"No… No! She can't be fucking dead!"

[This Player has perished. You cannot heal dead Players.]

Adam wanted to yell at the cube and swing his barrier to try and kill it. But he knew it was pointless. It wouldn't bring her back to life.

He finally noticed the blood that covered his hands and soaked into the silken pants and under-suit that Weaver had made for him. The red puddle he knelt in reflected his face.

Bile filled his throat, but he swallowed it down.

What was I even thinking?

How arrogant to assume I would find a way to save Willow when Emelia and Arturo couldn't defy this Stage.

But I didn't even get to try my plan with the Altar…

He knew it wouldn't have worked. It was too obvious. But he wanted to at least have been able to give it a try, just so he could say he hadn't given up without knowing.

Adam shut Willow's eyes and got to his feet.

He gritted his teeth and said, "Loot."

< < Loot ­— Willow Martin > >

< Captain's Cape (Rare) >

< First Strike Earring (Rare) >

< Sanctuary Defender's Robe (Rare) >

< Barrage Glove (Uncommon) >

< Blink Ring (Uncommon) >

< Small Healing Potion (Common) >

He grabbed the potion first and it immediately appeared in the Potion Belt strapped around his right arm.

"Can I wear two First Strike Earrings?" he asked the Eye.

[Yes.]

He nodded. That was good.

When he looted the earring, it pierced his left earlobe and equipped itself. The pain was hardly noticeable.

I don't want to take her clothes…

He grabbed everything else and stuffed it in his Spidersilk Sack, leaving Willow with the robe still on her body.

It took a surprising amount of effort to leave her behind, but he didn't have a choice if he wanted to live.

I will save you! he promised her in his mind.

Adam walked down the steps to where the Assassin's corpse lay and prompted the loot command in his mind.

< < Loot ­— Ajani Lewis > >

< Blood Mage Choker (Epic) >

< Slothling Fur Coat (Rare) >

< Affliction Ward (Uncommon) >

< Parry Bracer (Uncommon) >

< Tainted Bracer (Uncommon) >

Adam could picture how the fight between the two had gone. Willow had probably not noticed him at first and fought through the Statue Elementals he'd brought with him. Then, when she's spotted him, she might have managed to shoot an arrow at him, but because of the choker, he'd survived the hit.

He pulled all of the Relics into his Spidersilk Sack. It was already full and he knew he'd have to discard stuff before he was done with the Stage. There were three other Players he'd have to loot before then…

"Equip Affliction Ward," he said.

[You are already wearing a Relic on your available belt slot. Would you like to unequip Fetish of Sloth and replace it with Affliction Ward?]

Hmm, I guess I can't unequip the Wraith Lantern, which must be taking up another slot on my belt.

Even though there was plenty of space on his belt, he was apparently limited to just two attachments. It was just another weird quirk of the slot-based system, similar to how he could only use one Ring Relic per hand. Strangely, the Potion Belt allowed itself to be strapped anywhere on his body as far as he could tell.

"Sure, unequip the Fetish and equip the Ward."

I'll swap it back before I take on the Deathguard.

The dried worm popped into his hand and he plopped it down into the Spidersilk Sack. He wondered if getting a backpack would be more efficient.

Adam's barrier was still buried in Ajani's skull and when he lifted it up, his body followed.

He frowned.

He doesn't deserve to lay dead in the same chamber as Willow.

Adam slowly walked out of the tunnel as his barrier moved in front of him, the Assassin's dead body still attached.

When he got to the smaller chamber, he threw the murderer's body off to the side and went over to loot the stone chest.

There was no golden light or anything, but inside lay a stone mask with a similar appearance to the faces of the Elphin statues. It had hooded eyes and a flat smile with thin lips, as well as pointed cheeks and a sharp chin, making the face quite angular. The top of the mask cut off in the middle of the forehead.

He lifted it up.

< < Relic > >

< Stone Mask (Uncommon) — Sacrifice the Relic to negate the damage of the next attack | When the Relic breaks, the wearer is cursed with Wither, taking 50% increased damage from the next attack >

This wasn't a Relic Chest, but this is a good reward.

If the Assassin had taken a second to grab this, he might've been able to put up a fight…

"Can I equip this even though I'm wearing the earrings and crown?"

[Yes. Your face is not covered by anything.]

"If I'd worn a nose ring, would I still be able to wear it?"

[No.]

This slot system is truly bizarre…

Adam put the stone mask on and his vision narrowed to slits.

He took a deep breath and retraced his steps to the chamber with the pillar.

I will be the sole survivor today so that I can save everyone from this Stage in the future.

I will find a way.

Adam folded the barrier into the needle shape and prepared himself for his next encounter.

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