They hurried down the ramp, sliding more than running, with James quickly falling behind since he kept glancing back over his shoulder.

"I can see its arms!" he called from behind them. "The Crawler is very slow and I think we can defeat it if I absorb the Mana it coats itself with!"

"There's no way!" Gladwyn yelled back.

Adam summoned new barriers and had them all hop on board.

"We'll go down to one of the floors we've already completed and wait for it to pass!" he told them.

Handprints, big and small, appeared all over the ramp and walls as Adam commanded their barriers down through the middle of the Tower. His necklace's wandering eye was locked onto the giant one floating above them, making it difficult to concentrate and forcing him to rely on Alepheria's Mandate to issue commands.

It was deeply unnerving the way that the Tower Crawler's giant eye just followed them at a steady pace while its unseen hands pressed against the walls and ramp, pulling it down after them. But what truly made it terrifying was the fact that it was utterly silent.

We're so screwed!

Think! What else did she say about the boss??

There has to be something that I'm forgetting!

Adam was surprised to find himself panicking. So far they had overcome all the challenges in front of them, but somehow he'd known it couldn't be that easy. It was true that Emelia had underestimated him in the other Stages, but maybe she had taken him seriously this time, which didn't bode well for their chances against the Crawler.

If only the Stage hadn't started off with two people immediately bowing out…

Gladwyn joining my Stage Six is definitely a new feature, but I'm sure that if something like two team members not participating had been a regular occurrence for me in the past, then Emelia would've mentioned it.

Some changes, either by me or happening as a consequence of Emelia's help spreading to people, must have altered the dynamic of our group.

They fled deeper and deeper, flying past the floors between the library and the laboratorium, pulling away from the Crawler, although it seemed inevitable that it would catch up to them.

The ideal way to do this Stage would be to start with the optional objective at the top of the Tower and then go downwards. It's probably worth doing all the optional objectives even if we don't fight the Crawler.

As far as I can tell, we don't actually need to kill it to win, and Emelia insinuated that too.

[15 hours remaining.]

"Shut up," Gladwyn told his cube, although all three of them had spoken up at once.

"Let's hide inside the tunnels of the laboratorium," Adam told them. "If it's really patrolling the whole Tower, then we should be able to wait for it to pass and then slip by it and go up higher."

Since none of them argued with his plan, he set it into motion, steering their flying barriers to the side of the tower in order to use the spiralling ramps to block them from the Crawler's eye. Adam was fairly sure they needed to go deep enough into one of the chambers in the Tower's walls that its arms could not find them.

After a couple of minutes, they reached the ringed landing of the lab and he immediately deposited them inside the burnt-out operating room they had used to flee the explosion and fire. All three of them quickly dismounted the barriers and ran through the chamber and into the tunnels that would lead them to where the enormous Master Flesh Smith had been.

The laboratorium smelled of burnt flesh and hair, as well as soot and ozone. When they emerged into the large chamber they found the blackened remains of the spider-like monstrosity, most of its arms completely reduced to ash by the intense heat and flames that setting it on fire had produced.

"If it can reach us in here, then we've got no way to escape," Gladwyn said.

"There's a lot of space, so we could probably fight back," Adam replied, "especially if James was right about being able to absorb the Mana protecting it."

"The only problem is that I'll have to get close to its hands," he said, "but I think I'm right."

"What does it look like with the Cowl?" Gladwyn asked.

"It has a bunch of three-fingered skeletal hands with arms that have several joints all connecting back to the eye, which itself is inside a tapered tear-drop-shaped shell with a mouth at the front. The bones and body are all midnight-blue like Adam's barriers, but they're wreathed in this squishy-looking 'flesh' that has a pinkish purple transparent hue."

"Wait, it's entire body is made of Mana then?" Adam asked.

James nodded. "I think so."

"Didn't the special skill of the Blue Shard weapon say something about absorbing ambient Mana?" Gladwyn asked. "You should try to use that on it."

James looked at his cube. "Can you tell us when the Crawler has moved past our floor?"

[No. Such information would be considered an unfair advantage.]

"It should take 10 to 15 minutes for it to reach us," Gladwyn said. "It was moving at maybe a fourth of our speed as we went down, and it took us 3 to 4 minutes to get here."

"Set a timer for 15 minutes," Adam told his cube.

[Understood.]

"Let's take a breather. Once the timer has passed, I will check if it's outside or not," Adam said.

"I should be the one to do it," James insisted. "I can see it much better than you."

"Fine, but make sure it doesn't see you," he replied. "By the way, there was something I wanted to ask you about. Emelia knows a lot about how I usually perform in this Stage, but things have been very different so far, and I'm trying to figure out why."

"I don't think I was meant to survive Stage Five," Gladwyn said honestly, having the same realisation that Adam had reached already. "That might have made a difference."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"Could it have something to do with the mimic that was caused by me picking Nharlla?" James asked.

Adam shook his head. "No, according to Emelia I normally pick Nharlla, and she said we always have to fight the mimic in this Stage."

"Isn't the answer obvious then?" Gladwyn replied. "Since you usually pick a different Patron, your new one must be the catalyst for the change, right?"

"Unless one of the other Players like Maggie or that kid had their fates changed by something Emelia did," he replied.

"You absolutely can't tell us who your Patron is?" James asked.

"He didn't explicitly say so, but that was the sense I got, yeah," he replied. "His domain is knowledge, so I'm pretty sure he'd know everything I tell you, and I don't want to be Scorned."

"What's his weakness?" Gladwyn asked.

Adam paused. "I don't know."

"Mine was the mimic," James reiterated. "Which I suppose makes sense if Nharlla is the father of mimics and his whole thing is transformations, like swapping my stats around. Gladwyn said he had the Guardian, who was… what was it again?"

"Some kind of God associated with patience and resistance," Gladwyn replied. "But I don't know the weakness tied to him. It doesn't seem like an obvious one."

"If you don't normally make it here, could it be that your weakness is the reason for Maggie and the boy refusing to participate?" James asked.

"It could also be due to Adam's Patron," he argued.

"What kind of thing could it be though?" Adam wondered.

"If it's a pantheon of Gods, then they likely don't all get along," James said. "Look at the various pantheons throughout time. Think of Gods like Veles and Perun."

"Who?" Gladwyn and Adam both asked.

James gave them a disapproving stare. It seemed he was quite knowledgeable about this sort of thing.

"I do think a rivalry between Gods makes some sense," Gladwyn said. "But whether their dislike of each other bleeds into the weaknesses bestowed on us or just in their general interference, like with the strange whispers you described hearing, is hard to say."

"So you think that Maggie has a Patron that told her to mess up our group dynamic because of the Absolute you or I worship?" Adam replied.

"Could also be the kid," he said.

"What Gods do you know of?" James asked them. "I only saw the Void, Nharlla, Messimer, and Morrligt."

Adam quickly explained all the ones he knew of, except for the Tome Keeper.

James took on a contemplative expression. "So we're missing some pretty significant archetypes then. The Void, despite its power literally killing anyone who worships it, seems to not be a specifically evil force, but more of a law of nature, like Death. The All-Mother and the First Light both seem centred around saving people, benevolence, blessings, and peace. They could easily be argued to be forces of good. Nharlla seems like a trickster, which are usually neither good nor evil. Messimer, the Eternal Serpent, and the Guardian all sound like they represent forces of nature as well in some way, like Time, the concept of sight, and the concept of resisting change. Morrligt strikes me as a kind of warrior God perhaps, like Ares, Týr, and so on. And the Masked Courtesan could be a Goddess of love like Hathor and Venus."

Adam nodded. "This all makes sense."

"The knowledge-based God you serve also fits in, and if he's searching for hidden knowledge, then he strikes me as a type of collector God. This is perhaps both good and evil, since, like a trickster, he works for his own cause and not something greater."

Damn, this guy is pretty sharp.

I hope the Tome Keeper doesn't suddenly pop in to ask me to silence him for knowing too much…

"But what are the missing archetypes?" Gladwyn asked. "Evil?"

James nodded. "Evil and chaos. Those seem to be missing."

"There are two I didn't mention," Adam said, "one because I don't know what she stands for, but she's called The Flayed Lady, and the other because he frankly scares the shit out of me. He's called Nwetrou and his whole thing is sacrificing Players. Permanently. Like deleting them from the timeline sort of sacrifice, in order to fight back against the God who created the Trials, known as the Watcher."

Gladwyn looked at Adam, seeming surprised about how much he was willing to share.

If James is as knowledgeable about this stuff as he seems, then his insights could benefit me a lot going forward.

"The Flayed Lady's name reminds me of Xipetotec, an Aztec God also known as 'The Flayed Lord'. His sphere is warfare and agriculture, and he was not evil like his name makes him sound. The All-Mother already covers that sphere here, but it would not be out of the ordinary to have two separate Gods in a pantheon connected to sustenance. However, it seems that the ones in this pantheon don't have a lot of overlap, so perhaps the Flayed Lady is another type of warfare God, or maybe connected to something like torture. Nwetrou does fit into the role of evil though, since his goal sounds like it is made to harm as many as possible," James went on.

"He's also associated with black holes," Adam added.

James smiled slightly. "That would fit him into the 'devourer' role that so often exists in other pantheons, such as Apep from Egyptian Myth, or Sköll and Hati from Norse Mythology."

Adam frowned.

"What?" Gladwyn asked.

"That's the name of his envoy," he replied. "Skǫll."

"Fascinating," James muttered.

"Does that cover the chaos role too then?" Gladwyn wondered. "Chaos and evil often overlap, don't they?"

"They do," James replied, "but there are still three Gods unaccounted for, and I would bet that one might be chaos personified, since Nwetrou's goal seems very single-minded."

I wonder what it could be.

Once we're done with this Stage, I've gotta introduce James to Emelia. She'd get a lot out of talking to him about this stuff I think.

[15 minutes have passed,] Adam's cube said after a few moments of them talking about what the last Gods could represent.

James got up from where they'd sat within the burnt remains of the Master Flesh Smith's operating theatre. "I'll be back shortly," he said.

As Gladwyn watched him leave, he remarked, "Doesn't the black guy always die first in horror movies?"

Adam laughed. "Stop, don't say that, I'll feel bad for letting him go alone."

They had neither seen nor heard any sign of the terrifying Tower Crawler while waiting in the depths of the laboratorium, and each moment was excruciatingly long as they anticipated James' return.

Then the sounds of running footsteps caught Adam's attention and he readied his barriers, hoping he'd be able to at the very least use them defensively against the boss.

James emerged from the narrow hallway leading to the chamber.

"We're good," he announced, "it's already down below the laboratorium."

"I was worried you weren't going to make it," Gladwyn said.

"I know, I heard your joke," James replied, his serious expression causing Gladwyn to pause mid-step.

"I'm so—"

"Do you have any idea how nerve-wracking that was!?" James exclaimed.

Gladwyn laughed.

Adam went into the tunnel and they followed behind him at a brisk pace. When they emerged into the burnt-down operating room, they slowed and cautiously exited out through the portcullis. James pulled out in front and kneeled at the edge of the ringed landing, looking down and gesturing for them to come over.

Gladwyn stayed by the portcullis, clearly not interested in seeing that the Crawler was below them and just trusting that James was right.

Adam knelt next to James and followed his hand, spotting the giant eye below them, the only part of the boss that was visible to him. It was down by where the metal slimes had been, and large blue handprints showed that its invisible arms were rummaging around the landing, perhaps looking for them.

He shuddered and pulled back from the edge, bringing his barriers over and shaping them into sleds.

Without a word, they all got on and he commanded the barriers to take them up by following the ramp, since flying through the middle of the Tower was likely to get them noticed.

They flew past the three floors they'd passed twice already, and the monsters were still alive and standing guard, making it clear that the Tower Crawler only targeted Players.

A shame. I was hoping it might help us out by killing the enemies so we could loot whatever is inside their chambers.

They eventually reached the library, but Adam didn't stop and carried them onwards and up. The next floor after it had more of the humanoid bone birds, and a couple flew after them when they passed. None of them dared fight back lest they alert the Crawler to their location, so they continued up, outpacing the birds after a minute. The next two landings held more unsettling creatures, with the last having a large scale-covered chimaera standing outside its chamber.

Even if we manage to kill the Crawler, clearing these remaining floors is going to be difficult.

I have no idea how people are supposed to normally reach the top if they can't fly like me.

As the next ringed floor came into view, a loud scream echoed up through the tower, making Adam nearly slip off his barrier in surprise.

"What the fuck was that!?" Gladwyn exclaimed, breaking the silence.

"I kind of don't want to know," James replied.

"Yeah, I'm with James on this one," Adam said.

The ramp led them up to their third ringed landing and, as expected, an announcement hit them.

< < Optional Stage Objective > >

< Complete the Ritual >

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.