"It's not optional if they lock us in here…" Gladwyn muttered.

"Maybe one of the levers works for the door," Adam suggested.

"I don't think we're getting around that thing," he replied.

The Cell Warden was still lowering itself down from the hole in the ceiling, revealing a massive squishy body like that of a cephalopod, except instead of its head was a squishy ball with a giant eye on it that eight arms sprouted from. The arms didn't have any suction cups, but there were tiny spikes all along their undersides that Adam feared were venomous. Its body was off-white with tiny red rings randomly dotting its skin.

"What are you waiting for!?" James protested. "Let's kill it before it gets all the way in here!"

Hahn didn't waste a second and fired off his bow, the Fiendbarb yet again back on his weapon.

But the projectiles failed to pierce the octopus monster's hide, bouncing off and clattering to the floor instead.

Gladwyn moved forward, smashing his shield into the nearest arm and producing a strange hum from the Warden. James performed a flourish of his blade and sent a vertical crescent of sheering ice at the same arm, which left a shallow cut in the hide.

"Aim for the wound!" he yelled to Hahn.

Adam moved along the wall and shot his barrier lances towards the main body repeatedly, each impact creating small holes where they struck and scorching the flesh, which turned it grey and brittle. But he was unable to dig the barriers deep enough to deal significant damage, since the Warden's flesh was bouncy, which aided in its hide's defence against projectiles.

He recalled them after making several holes for Hahn to aim for, and then he fused the barriers together to create something he hoped would be powerful enough. The fused barrier gleamed as though moonlight hit its midnight-blue body and Adam shaped it into a drill-head.

It needs to be able to grab on to the springy flesh and dig deep, he thought and added tiny teeth along the shape. It was difficult to maintain coherence for the complex design, but it helped that he was able to just give the commands to move it, so that he could focus on keeping the design consistent in his mind's eye.

With a prompt, he made the drill-head spin as fast as it could go. The air around the barrier started to pulse before turning shrill and high-pitched.

James cried out as the Warden swung an arm into his leg, knocking him down and lifting him by the mid-section, driving the spikes on its underside through his clothes and into his skin. Hahn scored a hit on the arm where James had left a weak spot for him, and the arrow dug in deep enough to trigger the Blood Burst effect, causing the tip of the arm to sheer off like broken glass, releasing the Spellblade in the process.

But even released from its grip James lay unmoving on the floor.

"He's paralysed!" Gladwyn yelled after moving in front of his body to defend him.

Adam's barrier had reached its top speed and with a simple nudge, he told it to fly into the Warden's head.

The sound was bizarre. It was like the whine its rapid rotations produced was stretched out unnaturally as it fired across the round chamber.

Without pausing, the barrier zipped right through the Warden's head and embedded itself in the wall behind it, leaving such an explosive exit wound that the octopus stumbled and dropped to the ground, momentarily immobilised from the damage.

Hahn didn't waste a moment and launched a barrage of arrows into the gaping hole that Adam had made, quickly crystallising the boss' head and killing it completely.

Or so they thought.

The moment the archer stopped to celebrate, one of the arms slapped him with such force that he skipped once across the floor and then struck one of the stone slabs with a loud crunch before tumbling head-over-heels and landing in a heap.

"Fuck!" Adam cursed. "The arms are still alive!"

With a forceful command, he pulled the barrier projectile out of the far wall, managing to pierce it into one of the other arms, but then it disappeared, no doubt because the Last Stand's Fervour had been triggered when it hit the wall and now the effect had run out of time.

"Gladwyn! Move away from the entrance!" Adam yelled as he summoned two new barriers and used them to scoop up James and Hahn, bringing them towards the back of the chamber.

"What are you planning!?" he called back, while defending against the arms as they tried to grab him. Thanks to his Patron, he would be much better off if the spikes stabbed him, but he wasn't immune, so he was fighting very cautiously.

Adam hopped up onto the podium and immediately pulled all the levers.

An ungodly cacophony came from the hallway outside the chamber as the cells opened. One of the levers also lifted the portcullis that locked them in the chamber.

"What the fuck, Adam!?" Gladwyn shouted as he joined him and the two unconscious Players by the podium.

"Stay here and protect them. Also, see if Hahn is still alive, he hit that slab pretty hard."

With that, Adam hopped off the podium and landed on a barrier like it was a surfboard, using the other to protect him from the Warden's arms that swung for him. Thanks to Fervour's invulnerability effect none of them were able to break through the barriers and get to him, even after cracking it.

He hopped off his improvised surfboard as he reached the chamber's entrance and resummoned his barriers. He felt a tinge of exhaustion from the repeated summonings, but knew he was still somewhere above 30% Mana.

Outside the chamber the different creatures fought each other, which, although not what he had expected, greatly helped his plan. Soul essences flew into his lantern, quickly summoning Winter Dancers until six of them were spinning around the mass of creatures, humanoids, and monstrosities, aiding Adam's barriers in killing as many as quickly as possible.

When there were only a handful of the prisoners left, Adam spun on his heel and commanded all the dancers to fly into the chamber.

In the back near the podium, Gladwyn was fending off two of the arms, but when Adam's summons entered the fight, the octopus monster quickly slowed down. With its skin becoming brittle from the dancers' freezing magic, Adam's barriers and Gladwyn's sword had a much easier time dealing damage.

During the next thirty seconds, they defeated the remaining arms, but then had to switch to fighting off the prisoners that had survived the impromptu melee outside. Two of them were smaller versions of the Warden and the other five were red-brown panther-like animals with wings grafted to their backs and two horns sprouting from above their eyes.

Adam and Gladwyn quickly dealt with them.

< < Optional Stage Objective Complete > >

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< Defeated the Cell Warden >

The Tower Crawler stirs.

"That was rough," Adam said with a sigh of relief.

"Yeah, no wonder this was designed for a group of six," Gladwyn replied, leaning on his large shield.

James was slowly coming to, but Hahn wasn't moving.

Adam looked at the archer. "Is he…?"

Gladwyn nodded gravely. "Yeah. I think he must've broken his neck."

"Fuck," Adam muttered. Since Hahn wore the Forlorn Cuirass it made his head a major weak point, which seemed to extend to the neck.

If not for that Relic, he might've survived.

James groaned as he sat up. "That was very unpleasant," he said. "I could feel everything, but I couldn't move. Thank you for saving me."

He apparently hadn't heard what they'd just said, because when he stood up and saw Hahn's unmoving body next to him, he cursed.

"Are we going to be alright with just the three of us?" he asked.

"We don't have a choice," Adam replied and went over to Hahn's corpse. "Loot."

< < Loot ­— Seung-Hwan Hahn > >

< Fiendbarb (Epic) >

< Forlorn Cuirass (Rare) >

< Rapid-Fire Bracer (Rare) >

< Slothling Spring Boots (Rare) >

Gladwyn and James both watched him as he looked through the archer's Relics, but neither of them said anything. They both knew that necessity meant they could not afford to leave anything useful behind.

Adam inspected the Bracer since he hadn't seen it before.

< < Relic > >

< Rapid-Fire Bracer (Rare) — Doubles your draw speed for the next 5 seconds. 2-minute cooldown >

"You should take the boots," he told Gladwyn.

"What about the rest?" James asked.

"I'll carry them for now, then we can split them at the end of the Stage," Adam replied.

"What do we do with the body?" Gladwyn asked after Adam had put the Relics into his Spidersilk Sack.

"We leave him here," James said.

Adam didn't like the idea of just abandoning Hahn's body down here, but it was even creepier to carry it with him, he thought.

"I agree," he said.

Gladwyn looked like he wanted to argue, but then he just looked towards the centre of the room where the Warden was slumped over the chests they had seen earlier.

"Let's get it off of the rewards and get the hell out of here. This place creeps me out."

Adam nodded and got to work pushing the dead octopus monster away from the central dais. Somehow, the vats in the left side of the room were all still intact. The creatures inside were unmoving and probably in some kind of coma or maybe just dead.

After a couple of minutes using his barriers to shove the Warden, Adam managed to free up enough space for them to access the chests.

"Your weapon seems really strong," James commented.

"It's hard to get used to," he replied, "but once you learn how to use it, it's very versatile."

"Spellblade isn't super difficult to use, but every spell consumes like 50 Mana. Without using Nharlla's power, I would literally get Mana Exhaustion after every spell."

"Don't the upgrades help you make it more efficient?" Adam asked.

"No… It's apparently still a mainly physical weapon, with the magic stuff meant to be used as a finisher or something. I don't really understand why."

"One of these is an Upgrade Chest," Gladwyn commented. "Whose turn is it?"

"Let's see what the Relic Chest has first," Adam replied and opened it.

The gem on his Choice Ring glowed as the three options appeared. There was a crimson cape with white fur and a gold clasp, a strange bone and flesh necklace with an eye on it, and a square blue metallic quiver.

< < Relics Available > >

< Reckless Warlord's Cape (Epic) — Reduces Defence by 25% | Verbally taunting foes makes them inclined to attack you >

< The Summoner's Wandering Eye (Rare) — Increase Summon count by 1 | Summons die in one hit >

< Magical Quiver (Rare) — Contains 3 arrows of ice, fire, and lightning magic. Once all 9 arrows have been used the Relic is destroyed >

I need that necklace!

"It's like they're doing this on purpose just to be cruel," Gladwyn remarked as he saw the last option.

Adam frowned. "You're right, it would have been the perfect Relic for Hahn."

"Troubling that we're still getting options for his weapon even after he died," James remarked.

Gladwyn shot him a glare.

"I need the necklace," Adam said, "and I think Gladwyn should take the cape."

"Give me the Fiendbarb and the Upgrade," James said.

Adam looked at Gladwyn. He nodded.

"Sure, let's do it like that," he replied, pulling the Fiendbarb out of the sack tied to his belt and tossing it to James.

< < Relics Selected > >

< Reckless Warlord's Cape (Epic) >

< The Summoner's Wandering Eye (Rare) >

The organic necklace appeared around Adam's neck, while the cape landed in his arms. Instead of immediately handing the Relic to Gladwyn, Adam froze as a horrifying realisation hit him.

He could see out of this new eye…

Unfortunately, he couldn't control it.

"You okay, Adam?" Gladwyn asked, taking the cape from his outstretched arms and equipping it.

"This is deeply uncomfortable," he replied as his vision was mixed with that of the wandering eye.

"Weird, that necklace has the same eye colour as you now," James commented.

"I can also see through it…" Adam said. "I think I'm gonna throw up."

"Can't you close it?" Gladwyn asked.

"No."

"Damn," he said with a small chuckle. "This place is so fucked up."

For some reason, the wandering eye kept looking over at James. Adam wondered if it was attracted to magic like the many monsters in the Tower. Still, it was an amazing Relic, because it allowed him to summon three barriers now.

I'm sure I can get used to the third eye…

Probably…

Since the necklace was Rare and the True Flame's Icon was Epic, Adam was pretty sure that the one-hit debuff from the necklace couldn't overrule Last Stand's Fervour, given that there was a rarity hierarchy to buffs and debuffs.

He didn't get to see what upgrades were offered to James, because he quickly selected one while Adam was trying to not get disoriented from the change to his vision.

"Let's go," James said.

"One moment," Gladwyn replied. He was looking around near the tube vats, no doubt searching for the object he had to find for his Patron.

James left the chamber to search through the hallway and cells, meanwhile Adam summoned his three barriers and tried to fuse them together. The wandering eye was making it difficult for him to concentrate, which in turn made it hard to visualise what he was trying to do in his mind's eye.

Gladwyn came over after failing to find what he was looking for.

"Come on, Adam," he said.

Adam left the Warden's chamber with him and together they waded through the corpses of the prisoners. A lot had died thanks to Adam and his Wraith Lantern, but many of them had also killed each other.

"Over here," James called, standing in the opening of a cell door.

"What did you find?" Gladwyn asked him as they came over.

The cell was much like the rest, a square hole in the wall with sturdy steel bars and a door much the same. Adam found that he was still unable to slip his barriers between the bars, meaning there was some kind of invisible protection in place. Inside the cell lay the body of a man with two additional arms and a tail grafted to it. The body was crystallised into obsidian glass, similar in appearance to Adam's hand, but its face was still human, making it the only thing here that hadn't been fully warped.

Gladwyn went inside to look closer while Adam continued messing with his barriers. He needed to get used to the wandering eye before he had any chance of really attempting the triple fusion, but the possibilities of what he could now accomplish made him giddy with excitement.

Thank God I got Alepheria's Mandate. Without this Relic, I wouldn't be able to use the necklace at all.

"Found it," Gladwyn announced, holding up a kidney made of black glass.

Adam inspected it after he left the cell.

< < Quest Object > >

< Resistant Organ — An organ that prevented the transformation of its host >

That's a new category of item.

I was worried for a moment that they'd be considered Secret Relics, since that would mean there would be at least fifteen of them to find…

Still, Emelia said nothing about the Secrets in this Stage, so they must be hidden well.

She also didn't mention the trick for the Warden… If we'd known then Hahn would've survived.

Gladwyn put the item in his pocket and they finally left the underground, returning to the ramp and going up.

We got some useful Relics out of it, but we lost a person in the process… I don't think it was a good trade.

If the two other Players hadn't bowed out at the start, then Hahn's death wouldn't have been as impactful, but now they were down to just the three of them and Emelia seemed to suggest that Stages scaled based on the number of Players in it.

We might be screwed.

James was at the front of their formation as they reached the ground floor, but he froze at the top of the ramp and Gladwyn nearly bumped into him.

Before Adam could ask what was wrong, he saw the figure waiting for them at the top.

"Hey guys, what did I miss?" Hahn asked.

"What the fuck?" Gladwyn muttered.

Adam immediately commanded his barriers forward.

"It's a mimic!" he yelled.

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