Their steps echoed down through the stairwell into the pyramid on Anchor Hole island. Ellen, Jabari, Lasse, and Cathy were awaiting them as they reached the last step.
“Thanks for waiting,” Adam said.
Lasse looked between him and Julie, and while he didn’t say anything, Adam noticed the change in his lody.
I suppose that from his perspective it must look like we’re in a relationship.
Little does he know that I’m actually trying to keep them all safe from this psycho.
Although he hoped it wouldn’t co to it, Adam was fully prepared to kill Julie if she tried anything again. Failing his quest to protect her would lead to a punishnt from the Flayed Lady, but he was pretty sure he knew a way to get out of her grasp if it ca to that.
“I checked on our ship, and the tethers aren’t going to hold forever. It already shifted loose a bit, so we don’t have a lot of ti,” Adam warned them. “Regardless, let’s proceed with caution. Julie and I will sweep for traps, then Ellen and Jabari will enter each chamber first.”
“I have a protective bubble skill if we need it,” Ellen said.
Adam nodded. That’s gotta be her third evolution skill, I’m guessing.
Julie drifted a ball of blood out in front of herself and split it into three. Adam realised that she must’ve brought so with her from the ship, which he hadn’t noticed since she’d kept it close to her body.
She’s learning how to hide her magic from …
Adam manipulated the bit of flesh and blood he’d brought with him as well, bringing it out in front of their group. He gestured for Julie to step forward while keeping his left hand with the Blood Fist Ring close to her, in case she suddenly tried sothing.
If she can feel out the blood I injected into her, then she will eventually find a way to counter it, I’m sure. I have to be certain that I can kill her instantly if necessary, so I can’t rely on just one thing to do the job.
The Flayed Lady is truly testing
with this quest of hers…
Adam and Julie walked past the others in the little vestibule at the foot of the stairs, stopping by the open doorway leading into the first chamber of what seed to be several comprising the pyramid’s interior.
An old sun gem was embedded sowhere in the chamber, casting a sparse bit of its glow onto the interior.
The two of them worked together to sweep the floor and walls with their magic, running it along the stones in an attempt to pre-emptively trigger any traps.
“It’s clear,” Adam said.
Ellen and Jabari entered first, and then the rest of them followed.
The chamber was 10 tres wide and half that across, with ornantal statues lining the wall and a pillar like a totem pole running from the centre of the floor and up to the ceiling that was about 4 tres up. All of the stone and carvings were made from the dark-green stone, and the light filling the room actually ca from within the totem pole, which was hollow on the inside and cast out the light of the sun gem from the holes in the mouths and eyes of the faces carved into the pillar.
Three chambers branched from the totem room, and Adam and Julie swept them in succession. None of them had active traps, but two of them had ones that’d already been triggered. They started with the rightmost chamber first, inside of which was the dead body of a Treasure Hunter who had been speared through by several spikes poking out of the floor in front of a large stone chest. The chest itself had been looted, but nobody had attempted to dislodge the skewered pirate. His blood was completely dry, providing no information to Adam when he touched it, but it was clear his death preceded that of those outside by several days.
“Adam might’ve been right,” Jabari admitted. “This place looks like it was cleaned out thoroughly.”
They went to the left-branching chamber, which also had a trap that’d been triggered, but this one was a spike that’d co out of a wall in front of a statue with suspiciously-empty eye sockets. There was blood on the spike and the floor next to it, but no body.
“Another dud,” Jabari muttered.
The chamber that went straight ahead from the totem room was a long corridor and there was blood here-and-there on the floor, but no corpses. There hadn’t been any signs of traps though, so they cautiously proceeded through the room, passing by several statues with empty eye sockets.
“I think they might’ve had gemstones in their eyes,” Ellen remarked.
At the end of the corridor was another chamber, and they started to sweep it but quickly stopped when they realised it wasn’t empty.
“There’s sothing inside,” Adam said.
Julie grinned.
“What kind of sothing?” Ellen asked.
“A statue elental,” Julie guessed.
Adam brought out his Spidersilk Needle. “It seems stronger than the ones from the Forbidden Altar.”
Ellen entered first, with Jabari next to her, then the rest of them followed.
The chamber had four large totem pillars and it was 20 tres long and about 8 wide. At the far end was a pedestal shaped like a flat-topped pyramid with two grasping arms on top, reminding Adam of how the Solbor spear had been kept in the secret room of Stage Five. It seed that the object it’d held was cylindrical and about the size of a human arm.
That must’ve been where the chanism was stored.
I wonder where exactly we are on the island right now though. Maybe this chamber is below the surface and not actually inside the pyramid. After all, we didn’t see what was underneath Anchor Hole.
Two triangular platforms stood in front of the pedestal, but only one was occupied, with the remnants of the other occupant lying on the floor in scattered shards of stone. The one that remained was staring right at them, two glowing sun gems in its eyes lighting up anything it saw. It was a tall humanoid statue with the head of a serpent, the clawed feet of an eagle, and arms like feathery wings. Armour made of large leaf-like scales covered its torso and legs, and there was dried blood on its wing-tips, taloned feet, and head.
No sooner had Ellen set a foot on the floor of the large chamber than the statue ca to life.
“It’s an Elite Statue Elental,” Lasse said, appraising the enemy. He quickly put the Scope of Insight to his eye and then added, “We have to destroy the gems in its head before we can kill it.”
Jabari surged forward with a roar and Ellen quickly followed after him. Julie stayed with Adam, while Lasse and Cathy prepared their ranged attacks.
“My attacks cannot kill it,” Julie said bluntly.
“Then give your blood to ,” Adam told her.
Surprisingly, she did as he asked and after he’d taken control of her blood, he coated his Spidersilk Needle and started bouncing it back-and-forth in the air.
The serpent bird statue leapt forward with a flap of its wings, driving the sharp talons of its feet into Ellen’s shield. Her defence apparently counted as a successful block, because the Elite staggered for a second, allowing both her and Jabari to smash their weapons into its body.
But neither of them were able to break the gems in its head and before they could swing again, the statue had kicked off from Ellen’s shield and leapt towards Adam and the others who were at the back of the chamber.
“Focus on !” Ellen shouted, forcing the statue to lock onto her even as it soared right for Adam, thanks to the cape that she wore.
But it was unable to change its montum mid-air, and Cathy and Lasse both fired their projectiles at the statue as it ca towards them, but they simply bounced off its stone body.
Adam launched his needle forward, striking the right gem eye of the serpent’s head and shattering it a mont before the statue collided with the blood barrier created by his choker Relic.
Adam pulled the needle into his right hand while shoving the blood barrier forward and making the serpent bird stumble. Then he drove the needle into its left eye like a dagger, the attack powered by his enhanced muscles easily breaking the gem.
Before it could retaliate, Ellen’s mace smashed into its right knee, destroying it and knocking the statue onto its side.
Like Lasse had said, its body was vulnerable now that the gems were destroyed, and they were easily able to break it into chunks with their attacks. After Ellen struck its head with a particularly powerful blow, a sound like broken glass ca from within and the statue stopped moving altogether.
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[Elite enemy defeated,] announced their cubes.
“Good call on the eyes,” Adam told Lasse.
“Those were so impressive moves from soone who I thought was a blood mage,” Jabari remarked.
“How did you get two weapons?” Cathy asked.
“There’s a vendor on Interim Island you have to find,” Adam replied. “I’ll tell you about it later.”
From their lodies, he could tell most of them were surprised by his response.
Everyone except Julie and Lasse.
They scoured the chamber after defeating the Elite, but aside from the signs of Treasure Hunters fighting and dying to the statue pair, and the one they’d managed to break, they didn’t find anything of note. However, the pedestal gave them so clues to the size and shape of the chanism they were seeking.
“Turns out you were right,” Lasse said as they returned to the stairs. They’d looked around for hidden rooms and secret panels, but there really hadn’t been anything.
“It’s possible that we might find sothing on the two airships parked outside the temple,” Adam said.
Sure enough, after they returned to the surface and retraced their steps towards the Creaking Madam, they ca upon the tethered airships and climbed on board, finding a chest on each, as well as valuables amounting to about 1500 Doubloons.
I think Elia said the threshold for the gold curse was 1000, so we need to be careful. It’s probably best to spend it as soon as we get back to Morgan’s Rest.
The Treasure Hunter airship on the left had an Upgrade Chest, and the one on the right had a Relic Chest. After telling them about his Luck and how it affected rarities, which it seed none of them had realised, as well as his ability to get more reward options, they let Adam open the Relic Chest.
Adam had been careful to not make it clear where he’d gotten the Rewards ta upgrade from, but from their lodies it seed they just took his vague answers as a sign that he wasn’t willing to give up beneficial information for free.
Nevertheless, once they saw the options, their doubts about him were quelled. There was one Epic, two Rares, and an Uncommon. The Epic option was new to him and seed to have appeared because of Lasse and Cathy. It looked like a pristine white Navy Officer jacket that’d been retrofitted with golden decorations on the shoulders, as well as golden embroidery on the wrists and coat edges. Because of the way it was displayed as a hologram, and the nature of its ability, it didn’t seem like it was a piece of armour but instead sothing to be worn over it.
< < Relics Available > >
< Rum (Uncommon) — Reduces damage taken by 25% for 10 minutes after consumption >
< Barrage Master’s Coat (Epic) — Activate to turn the next projectile fired into a barrage attack. 30-minute cooldown >
< Portsmith’s Goggles (Rare) — Identify weaknesses in armour after looking at it for 3 seconds | Lowers Player Relic cooldowns by 5% >
< Ranger’s Lucky Charm (Rare) — Activate to cause your next fired projectile to always strike true. 2-minute cooldown >
Since I’m really close to the Luck threshold for guaranteed Rares, it seems like I won’t be seeing a lot of Uncommons.
“I want the goggles,” Ellen said.
“We should talk about who wants what,” Jabari replied, trying to pre-empt any selfish actions.
“I’m okay with waiting,” Lasse said. “Although I could definitely use the Barrage Master’s Coat and Ranger’s Charm.”
“ too,” Cathy added.
“I think the coat is like a cape,” Adam said. “So, it should go over your normal armour.”
“Even if it doesn’t, it’s strong enough that I could replace my Slothling Fur Coat with it,” Lasse said.
Cathy nodded.
“How do we figure out who gets what and in which order?” Jabari asked, genuinely looking to Adam for advice.
“Since it’s an Epic Relic that works for both Cathy and Lasse, I think we should have them do rock-paper-scissors for it,” Adam suggested.
He understood why Ellen wanted the goggles, but it was inefficient to take a Rare item when there was sothing of higher quality that was genuinely strong.
It may be one of the first Epic Relics I’ve seen that doesn’t have so huge drawback, unless there’s sothing I’m missing about it.
“Fine,” Ellen said. Despite her sour expression, she was at least anable to logic.
Lasse ended up winning the rock-paper-scissors and grabbed the Barrage Master’s Coat for himself.
The mont he touched it, it appeared around his shoulders, over the top of his fur coat.
“How did you know it would work like that?” Lasse asked Adam.
“It was because of the way the hologram looked,” he explained.
Lasse nodded. “That makes sense, it did look different than an armour Relic.”
The Upgrade Chest ended up going to Jabari, but they agreed that the Relics and upgrades would not count as the sa, aning that if soone got an upgrade, they wouldn’t be locked out of getting a beneficial Relic.
Once they were done looting, they worked together to dislodge the Anchor Shot chanisms from the two Treasure Hunter airships. Adam and Julie ended up doing most of the work, since their blood magic was useful for cutting through the wooden hull around the housings that held the thick cables, because they could do it from the ground out of harm’s way.
The mont the Anchor Shots were cut loose, the housings for the chanisms fell down towards the island while the airships rapidly flew up towards the floating point. The speed at which they moved was quite terrifying.
For the sake of hiding his true strength, Adam let Lasse, Ellen, Jabari, and Cathy carry one of the Anchor Shots, while he and Julie lifted the other with their magic. Fortunately, the cables and hooks were easily reeled into the housings by using a winch on the back of it, the side which had been on the inside of the airships.
When they’d brought them back to their airship, Adam coated the copious amounts of flesh and blood he’d gathered earlier on the underside of the Creaking Madam, as well as breaking down the tentacle he’d used to anchor them, before bracing their ship against the jerking motions when the others released their tethers tied around the palm trees.
He had Julie co over to stand next to him and pretend to be using her magic while he slowly let their ship float back up to its natural floating point.
“It is a fun ga you are playing, Adam,” Julie whispered into his ear.
He ignored her remark, knowing she enjoyed the charade more than him.
Once they were back to ‘sea level’, Adam relaxed his control sigil. In the distance floated the two Treasure Hunter ships.
It might’ve been safer to release them first and then loot them, he thought.
“Do you think they count for Points if we shoot them down?” Lasse asked as Adam returned to the helm.
He could tell that the Archer was itching to try out his new Relic.
“I guess we should find out,” Adam said.
Lasse nodded, and while his facial expressions didn’t show it, his lody beca quite excited.
Adam sailed them closer to the airships and then Lasse walked to the bow of the Creaking Madam, pulling out one of the arrows from his Magical Quiver. By default, the quiver contained 9 arrows, divided by ice, fire, and lightning. Predictably, Lasse pulled out a fire arrow. It was the first special arrow he’d used from the quiver, since 8 still remained afterwards.
Lasse nocked the arrow to the string, and lifted the bow about 50 degrees. His cape released a golden glow, and a different green glow ran along the arrow just before he fired.
Is that a double activation? Adam wondered.
The flaming arrow flew into the air before it divided into 21 copies. Then those 21 copies divided into 21 again. Suddenly a roar of fire hailed down on the two airships that floated close to each other. Wood, sails, masts, fins, propellers, rudders, everything lit on fire in an instant, and the arrows flew all over the place after striking their targets, no doubt thanks to the Trickster’s ricochet ability. Fortunately, they were far enough away that the rebounding arrows couldn’t reach them.
It took less than a minute for both of the airships to beco completely engulfed in fire and lose their ability to stay afloat. Their burning wreckages split apart as they plumted back down towards Anchor Hole island.
It didn’t work. I guess they don’t give rewards if the ships have been empty for a while?
Even though destroying the ships had been ultimately aningless, Lasse was actually grinning when he returned to the helm where the others stood.
“I wasn’t sure that would work,” he said.
“What the hell was that!?” Jabari asked, amazed.
“My final evolution is called Arrow Rain,” Lasse replied. “It lets
turn a projectile into a barrage, just like my new coat. It seems that because I activated the coat first and then the skill, each of the split projectiles was considered for the skill activation.”
“That’s a good combo,” Adam said. “You should try and find other things that affect your projectile count, like the Barrage Glove. It may also be really powerful with the Blink Ring and the Ranger’s Lucky Charm.”
“I was thinking the sa thing,” Lasse replied. “The Arrow Rain skill is hard to use in the middle of a fight though, and I need more Draw Aim upgrades to make the area it affects narrower, but now I can at least do a lot of damage to big enemies and groups.”
It’ll definitely co in handy when we fight the feral dragon, Adam thought. And maybe against the Golden Slug as well, although I don’t want to destroy the airship.
“Quite the trump card,” Jabari said, impressed and maybe a bit jealous.
“What do your evolutions do?” Adam asked the warrior.
“Frontliner makes
hit harder while I’m running, Colossus temporarily gives
a small amount of Defence with every kill, and Unstoppable Giant lets
activate a skill to quadruple my Defence in exchange for making
very slow.”
“I only have two evolutions so far, and I don’t think picking Hastatus was worth it, since I don’t use the shield a lot,” Cathy interjected. “I have a lot of Health, Defence, Bleed, and Venom upgrades though.”
“Your setup is based around throwing, right?” Adam asked even though he already knew the answer. “Maybe the Harpooner weapon from this Stage is worth switching to?”
“Maybe,” she replied noncommittally. To Adam, Cathy seed like the sort of person who would stick with her initial choice, even if it was a bad choice, because change was more frightening.
How on Earth did she survive the Altar?
They returned to their tasks aboard the ship shortly after and took off towards the southwest where Morgan had told them there was a Slugwhale he wanted them to kill and bring back.
On the way there, Lasse ca over to where Adam stood by the wheel once it was Julie’s turn to man the jib sail at the bow of the ship.
“What’s the deal with you two?” he asked.
“It’s complicated,” Adam said.
“You’re not worshipping ssir, are you?” Lasse asked.
“I’m not,” Adam admitted. “Did my skin colour, teeth, and eyes give it away?”
“No. Your appraisal did. I thought you were just naturally pale, to be honest.”
“Ah. Right.”
I forgot about that… I should be careful about lying when there’s a ssir worshipper around.
“Well, a lot of the weirdness between Julie and
is because of our Patron,” Adam said. “She gave
a troubleso quest to protect Julie while she does her own quest…”
Lasse let out a sigh of relief. “I was getting so dangerous vibes from her, but I’m glad you seem trustworthy. Even if your magic is disturbing and you lied about your patron.”
“Sorry about that, I’ve just had so negative reactions to telling people I worship the Flayed Lady,” he replied, which was at least half-true.
“Speaking of lies,” Lasse went on, “Julie’s main class isn’t Blood Speaker, it’s Betrayer, which uses a dagger and boosts the effectiveness of afflictions applied by surprise attacks.”
Adam frowned. That sounds like an evolution of Assassin. I wasn’t sure whether she was hiding another weapon or not… But it’s troubling that she didn’t tell .
Maybe I should just get rid of her to avoid this blowing up in my face later?
But she suggested that the Flayed Lady’s punishnt would be particularly damaging to … Perhaps she’d destroy my mory or sothing fucked up?
“You should be careful,” Adam told Lasse. “She threatened to kill Ellen just because I helped her up after she fell. If she thinks you know too much, she might want to target you.”
Lasse did a ‘my lips are sealed’ motion over his lips and returned to his crow’s nest.
I’ve gotta make sure Julie doesn’t find out…
Just then, Julie looked back at him.
Adam t her eyes and held her gaze until she looked away again.
We should hurry this up and return to Morgan’s Rest. I know she’s planning sothing…
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