The landing itself was the same as the two before it, but the walls were completely barren, and the only indication of the objective was a metal door set into the wall half-way between the ramps going up and down.

They dismounted the barriers and went over to the door.

"I think we should keep heading up," Adam said.

"We have enough time to investigate," Gladwyn argued.

James looked frazzled.

"Are you okay?" Adam asked him.

"The whispers… they've returned again."

"Ah fuck," Gladwyn muttered.

"If it's another mimic, then we're running," Adam told them.

Gladwyn cast James a worried glance, no doubt thinking about how the last mimic had nearly killed him. But then a calm came over him and he pushed aside the metal door.

As Adam followed him in, he noticed how the door was etched with a seven-pointed star, a heptagram. A ring surrounded it and connected all seven points, and the grooves looked to be filled with blood.

The metal door led them through a wide hallway for a few metres before opening up into a room shaped like a heptagon, each of its seven corners marked with a pillar holding up the four-metre-tall ceiling. The ground sloped down to a flat circular spot in the middle of the room. The circle was filled with red sand, and three cylindrical obsidian pedestals, each about the width of a dinner plate, were placed in a triangular pattern in the centre of the sand. The entire chamber was built from red bricks, and in the dome-like ceiling was a circular hole directly above the one made of sand. Adam immediately assumed that it was a chimney, but he had no idea where it led, since the outside of the tower hadn't had any such protrusions.

Small alcoves sat between each of the chamber's seven corners, and James immediately walked towards one of the ones opposite the entrance. The alcoves were full of reagents and materials, though one held nothing more than blooming flowerbeds, while others held stacks of bones, preserved organs, and even caged animals that peeped and whined at their arrival. There were also polished and oiled weapons and armour, as well as vessels and bowls filled with liquids. Some looked viscous like tar, honey, and tree sap, and others were clearly just blood and mercury.

I don't see anything that could be a mimic.

Unless those caged critters are just pretending.

But then he saw what James was looking at.

Adam frowned.

The Spellblade came over, holding his Quest Object. It was literally just a skinned face.

"What the fuck is that?" Gladwyn asked.

"A Face Given Willingly," he replied.

Even though Adam didn't want to know more, the description appeared unbidden.

< < Quest Object > >

< A Face Given Willingly — The skinned face of a joyous adherent who willingly peeled it from his own skull in a ritualistic offering >

"That's fucking grim," Adam remarked.

"The whispers were pointing me to this," James said. Then he rolled up the flap of skin and stuffed it in his pocket. "They disappeared when I picked it up."

Gladwyn looked around. "We should deal with the Tower Crawler before we try to do this ritual thing."

"Let's keep going up before we decide on whether we fight the boss or not," Adam replied. He was pretty sure they would lose James if they attempted his insane plan.

They left the strange ritual chamber behind, though Adam definitely wanted to return to look for secrets later.

When they were back on the landing, he brought his barriers out and they climbed on board again, before continuing up, following the ramp while James looked over the side to track the Tower Crawler.

"I don't see it," he told them.

"We should try and go to the top," Gladwyn then said. "Maybe there's something there to help us fight it. It would be weird if it's only possible to defeat using a specific Relic or the Secret Weapon."

I didn't even consider that.

"Good call," Adam replied.

They continued spiralling upwards for the next five minutes, but there were no landings and enemies on the way up, which was odd. They reached another ringed landing, and an announcement followed.

< < Stage Objective Updated > >

< Find a clue to the Godstone inside Alepheria's Study >

The floor was similar to the ritual chamber below. There wasn't anything here except a metal door, although it didn't have the heptagram engraved into it. A different symbol was etched into the door and filled with black paint, but it just looked like a simplistic umbrella or an upside-down anchor.

The way that this floor and the previous one were barren, and how the path between them were likewise clear, probably meant that players were meant to encounter the Crawler around here after completing the laboratorium and library objectives.

Strangely, the wandering eye was completely fixated on the door leading into the study, not looking away.

"This is where the painting should be," Gladwyn commented.

"Painting?" James asked.

"It has the clue to the Godstone," he replied. "Not sure how though, but it should be in here."

They stepped off the barriers and Adam commanded the spells out in front of himself, shaping them into spikes.

"No way this is undefended," he said.

Gladwyn readied his shield. "Are we doing this or continuing?"

All three of them looked up. The ramp spiralled onwards towards an unseen ceiling from the landing, but Emelia had said the objective was at the top of the Tower, so Adam assumed there wouldn't be that much further to go.

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"If we do have a fight ahead of us in the study, then I think we should continue up," Adam said. "You were saying that maybe something was waiting for us there, giving us the key to fight the Crawler. We'll need to deal with it if we want any hope of going through the tower to search for secrets and chests."

"If I'm wrong, the boss might reach us and force us into a fight," Gladwyn replied.

The fact that they both knew that the end of the Stage was within reach was tempting. Neither wanted to die, but they were also aware that the more they managed to do in this Stage, the stronger they would come out on top. And that in turn meant they would survive longer in the following Stages that were sure to be much harder.

"I'm with Adam on this," James said. "Even if there's nothing up there, we can use my Cowl and the Blue Shard to try and fight the Crawler."

Gladwyn looked between the ramp up and the door.

"Alright," he said with a sigh. "Onwards and up."

Adam lowered his barriers and unfolded them into sleds for them to sit on, while James returned from the edge of the ringed floor. "I don't see any sign of the Crawler, so it's gotta be really far below us."

"Let's hope it doesn't reset back to the top when it hits the ground floor," Gladwyn replied ominously.

"I didn't even consider that possibility…" Adam said.

They hopped onto the barriers and, though they could not see the Crawler, Adam once again made the barriers follow the ramp as they flew up. He felt it was better to play this safe, just in case the boss had some kind of hidden move and could quickly close the gap to them.

They continued up for five minutes without reaching a ceiling or another landing, and then another five, but just as Adam brought them to a halt and was about to tell them to turn back, James gasped.

"The ceiling!" he exclaimed. "It's made of Mana!"

Adam craned his neck. It looked like just an endless spiral, as though the ramp corkscrewed up through a tunnel to nowhere.

"Keep going," Gladwyn told Adam, and then, from one moment to the next, they moved through the image of the endlessly spiralling stairwell and emerged into a giant round chamber.

It was like a sphere placed at the top of the Tower. Its walls were made of thick glass, behind which was a cosmic black with glowing dots and distant galaxies. At the very top of the sphere, what might be described as the ceiling, was a glass pole with a small sphere attached and something that glowed vibrantly within.

Adam had a bad feeling about the thing inside the ceiling bulb, but he took them up to it. As they moved, the gravity shifted and pulled them towards the curving walls.

I think we were meant to walk on the walls to reach this.

Adam moved them away from the middle of the large chamber and made the barriers follow the wall, tilting them along with it so they wouldn't slide off and go flying.

When they reach the ceiling, they were completely upside-down from where they'd entered and could look up through the entirety of the Tower. For some reason, looking through the floors from here made them able to see the distant Crawler. It had spun around, and its large eye was looking right at them. And just like James had described it, it was a bone-like body with many arms protruding from it. Perhaps because of this chamber, they were able to see it how it really looked, without the invisible veil it coated itself in as it travelled through the Tower.

"It's coming back here fast," Gladwyn remarked, also looking up at the Crawler which was technically below them.

Adam pulled his attention back down to the sphere at the end of the glass pole poking out from the floor. Inside it was a tiny fingernail-sized shard of multi-hued glass. He knew what it was before the description popped up.

< < Quest Object > >

< Dimensional Splinter — A tiny fragment of a dimensional core, yet powerful enough to maintain the reality-warping nature of the Crooked Tower >

That's the same thing that's inside me…

But it's a Quest Object, so which Absolute is this tied to?

Then he remembered how the Watcher had told him that the dimensional core inside the cube was a 'borrowed power'. The same power that made him able to go back in time when he died.

Adam reached out to touch the glass sphere it was hovering inside of, but James caught his hand.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I want it," Adam replied honestly.

Gladwyn looked at the sphere and the splinter inside, then he turned to Adam and smacked him in the back of the head. It wasn't hard enough to do any actual damage, which was good, since that would've triggered the Stone Mask Relic that Adam was wearing.

"Are you a fucking idiot!?" Gladwyn scolded him. "You'll kill us if you remove that!"

Adam blinked.

He'd already known that was a possibility, but in his mind he had rationalised it by telling himself it was okay because he couldn't really die.

What was I thinking?

"Get your shit together, Adam," Gladwyn said. "The boss is coming, and our chance to leave has passed."

Adam looked up just in time to see skeletal hands of varying sizes and lengths emerge into the spherical glass chamber. It was almost like an octopus in the way that the Crawler shoved its arms through the opening first before its main body followed.

Adam immediately fired his barriers at the boss, but they hit their range limit after travelling just slightly past the middle of the spherical chamber, plummeting towards the Tower Crawler without any way for him to control them.

They struck its body, but left only minor dents.

That's a good sign though. Means I can actually hurt it.

The wandering eye was locked firmly on the Dimensional Splinter, completely ignoring the Crawler. But that served him just fine, since it would make it easier to concentrate on fusing his barriers together.

"Give me time to power up my attack," Adam told the others.

Gladwyn and James shared a glance.

Then Gladwyn braced himself and used his Spring Boots to fire his body at the Crawler, shield-first. He flew through the air before slamming into one of the skeletal hands that shot up to catch him, breaking two of the fingers free and pushing through to its main body.

James ran along the curving wall, switching to his crystal sword and holding it out to his side while the aura around it quickly grew. Adam realised he was activating the weapon's special skill.

I suppose I should go all out as well.

He grabbed a Relic from his belt that he'd been looking forward to trying.

The Fetish of Sloth glowed with a malevolent purple light as he squeezed it in his hands.

Then that light shot out around him, manifesting into three rapidly-growing shapes. Their outlines were similar to the Slothling Imps, but they were twice as tall and more angular, not to mention they all had two horns.

"What are those?" Adam asked his cube as the evolved lesser demons manifested in full.

[These are Minor Demons called Slothling Dervishes.]

They had the same fluffy black spherical body as the imps whose coat he was wearing. However, their white legs and arms were freakishly-long, and the claws on them were like daggers. Their white round heads looked super sinister, especially since their horns were like those of real demons.

Adam had expected the imps to evolve into ogres, but this was much better.

He pointed at the boss above them.

"Kill that thing."

The three dervishes cackled and then launched from the floor, zipping through the air like missiles and spinning as they flew, making it clear how they'd gotten their name. They were each met with skeletal arms trying to stop them, but they tore right through, continuing towards the main body. The flame effect from Adam's crown created red flashes every time their claws connected.

Gladwyn had been pushed aside and was in the middle of defending James from the arms as they swiped at them relentlessly, with some of the bigger ones trying to crush them. Adam had missed it, but the Spellblade had used his special skill to cut two of the arms clean off from the Crawler's main body, but it seemed that new ones kept sprouting from it whenever any were destroyed, kind of like the heads of a hydra.

The dervishes took the pressure off of them for the moment, but all three of the slothlings were now glowing red after having triggered the Last Stand's Fervour effect. The boosted speed and damage were making them a serious threat to the Crawler though, and it was using almost all of its arms to try and keep them from reaching its main body.

Adam summoned three new barriers and smashed them all into the ground, cracking them and turning them red. Then he fused the first two together, before carefully fusing them one more time, producing an angry red-glowing panel of magic glass that he did his best to shape quickly, mentally counting down the seconds in his head.

He spun it up and then immediately shot it at the Crawler, but as it zipped through the air, three arms came up to meet it.

Damn, it reacted way too fast.

The wind from the rapid projectile slapped him in the chest like an aftershock, and though the arms blocked it, they were pulverised by its passage. The barrier continued down the length of the arms, unravelling them, but it missed its mark and ended up leaving just a shallow groove along the right side of the Crawler's main body.

However, the boss had put all its focus into defending against him that a Slothling Dervish managed to push through to its main body and tear large holes and rends in it before timing out with its two twins.

Gladwyn and James were also able to take advantage of the distraction and push close enough to the main body for James to deliver a strike with a powered-up crystal blade.

The moment he carved his blade through the tear-drop-shaped shell around the giant eye, he immediately collapsed to the ground, and Adam knew he must've hit Mana Exhaustion.

He only activated his special skill twice, but it must eat a lot of Mana.

However, the sacrifice was worth it, because the Crawler fell into two pieces, the main body cracking open to release the eye as though it was the yolk inside an egg. All the arms connected to the body went limp and started to disintegrate into white dust.

"We're not done!" Gladwyn yelled while trying to swipe for the eye as it floated away from him. If his Spring Boots hadn't still been on cooldown, then he might have been able to get to it, but instead it floated to the centre of the chamber and just hovered there in the air.

Adam summoned up new barriers and hurriedly fused them together.

The cosmos outside the glass sphere pulsed with a purple-pink light.

It's entering a second phase!

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