They went back through the Pleasure district on their way to the Market, and stopped by the Blue Pavilion so that they could break the windows and destroy the blinds of all the rooms with lesser bloodfiends inside.
After only a few minutes of Luo pelting the brothel from afar with his crossbow, they’d eliminated all 22 of the vampires using just sunlight. Adam quickly went through the building to pick up the lesser fangs and fill up his crimson shirt from the few remains that hadn’t completely turned to ash, before they continued on their way to the Market district. Fortunately, it seed that the Blue Pavilion was the only place in the Pleasure district that’d had more than one powerful bloodfiend within. The rest scattered throughout the other brothels, massage parlours, bathhouses, and restaurants were either lone operators or lesser fiends lying in wait.
Despite both Luo and Sofia being in pain from their injuries, they pushed through and walked on their own accord, even though Adam and Kat suggested finding them a carriage. Adam had also suggested flying off to get the potions they needed, but the idea made everyone nervous, so he relented. It was slow progress as a result, but it seed that they were both trying to atone for their foolishness that’d almost gotten them killed.
It also gave them the ti to discuss sothing important.
“When we find the Godstone, I’ll be going back to Interim Island,” Sofia said. “I’ve almost died twice now, and I feel like I’m not contributing much.”
Luo nodded. “ too.”
“I will stay,” Kat told Adam. “I wish to gain as many Points as possible.”
“Are you sure?” Adam asked her. “It would be safer to leave.”
“I will not slow you down,” she said, and her words made Luo look away with regret in his lody.
“There are still so quests left that wouldn’t be that dangerous,” Adam remarked. “You guys should at least stay until then.”
“It may end up night ti before then,” Luo remarked. “Without the church, where would we stay?”
“There’s a lighthouse out near the breakwater past the wall of the lagoon,” Adam replied.
“I don’t want to risk it,” he said.
“ neither,” Sofia added.
“What about your patron quest?” Adam asked.
If they leave early they won’t get a lot of Points, but on top of that, they will receive a punishnt from their patron, which may end up a death sentence given what awaits in Stage Nine.
They would survive only to delay their deaths…
“I don’t know,” Sofia replied.
“I’d like to do it,” Luo said. “But we don’t know where to go to complete the next step.”
“I have a way to find it,” Adam said. “If the Patriarch’s lair is in the Market district, we should be able to find it quickly I think, especially after we press Jasper for information. We have enough ti to try and finish your quest.”
Although Adam was sure that the compass would work for their patron quests, his previous attempts to use it to find the Patriarch’s lair and Godstone had just made the arrow spin around aimlessly.
They passed through to the Market district and after about half an hour of walking ca to a vendor who sold two dium healing potions. They had just 800 Shillings left, since Adam had spent a thousand on the last batch of potions, which ant they could only afford one. However, after a bit of haggling with the vendor, they were able to sell the Noble’s Mask for 500, allowing them to buy a second potion and have 300 Shillings left.
Luo and Sofia both filled with relief as they drank the flasks and were able to heal back to mostly full, and Adam removed the casts from Sofia’s arm and leg.
With the pair once again fit enough to run, the four of them moved through the district quickly to reach Oiled Ollie’s Eatery. The sun was halfway on its journey to the horizon, which ant they still had three or four hours to go before nightfall.
“How many of the tavern keepers are involved with the bloodfiends?” Sofia wondered.
Adam shrugged. “I think the proprietor of the Good Drink was killed by the Patriarch, since I doubt he was disguised that way the entire ti. At least I would like to believe I would’ve noticed if that was the case. Gilded Gillian might have been bought off to send people to the Blue Pavilion in a roundabout way, and I’m sure Jasper is no different. None of them are bloodfiends themselves, or in the process of turning, since the signs are quite obvious, but when everything in Moonport is secretly ruled over by vampires, it’s probably impossible not to end up embroiled with them, whether through happenstance, active compliance, or blackmail.”
“What exactly did you find that linked Jasper to the Patriarch?” Kat asked.
“It’s really dumb,” Adam said as they ca within view of the tavern, slowing down to a walking pace. “They were harvesting blood, separating it by blood types, and then sending those off to various places in the city. The rarest blood, AB negative, was sent to Oiled Ollie’s Eatery.”
“What, like wine deliveries?” Sofia asked, confused.
“Basically.”
“Do you think different blood types have different flavours?” Luo wondered.
They all looked to Adam for an answer, even Kat.
“I don’t drink blood…” he replied with a frown. “But I’m assuming there must be a difference.”
“Perhaps they’re like real wine connoisseurs who can’t tell a cheap rlot from an expensive one,” Sofia remarked. “I’ve t a lot of people like that. They’re insufferable.”
“Aeran used to order the most expensive and rare wines in the Dinsional Tavern,” Kat interjected.
Sofia shook her head. “Why am I not surprised?”
“I tried so of them, but I could not tell what made them special,” Kat continued.
“Alright, let’s focus,” Adam said, getting them all back to what mattered. “While I grill Jasper, I need Luo to be on overwatch of the building from outside. Sofia will block the front entrance and Kat will guard the back exit.”
“What if another mimic shows up?” Luo asked.
“While we probably can’t rule it out, it would be incredibly unlikely,” Adam told him. “But just in case, don’t let anyone lead you away from the tavern, no matter how convincing they are. We will et up inside when I give you all the signal or when ten minutes have passed.”
Adam turned to his cube and told the others, “Everyone, repeat after . Cube, set a tir for 10 minutes.”
[Understood.]
The others followed suit and received affirmations as well.
“Let’s go,” Adam told them.
Luo used the grappling hook to climb up the side of a two-storey building across from the large three-storey tavern, where he’d be able to see the tavern and most of the street behind it, making it difficult for anyone to leave without catching his attention. The two won followed Adam inside, with Sofia sticking around near the entrance and Kat moving towards the back of the tavern, next to the kitchen that would surely have an alternate exit for the employees and many waiters, given how none of them used the front door.
As the two did their best to blend in, Adam flagged down a waiter and asked him to get a hold of Jasper. He lied and said they’d completed the quest for the Garden Isle treasure.
While Adam waited, he spread out his blood sense, scrutinising the many lodies of the tavern’s patrons, but finding nothing. Even expanding his perceptions didn’t change that.
That’s kind of odd, he thought. Given how the bloodfiends rampaged about last night, I would’ve expected so ghouls and lesser fiends scattered about, but there’s nothing at all within this entire section of the Market district.
They had eliminated a few lesser fiends the day before, and it seed none had co to take up their place, which, given that the Market district was as busy as ever today as well, really stood out. It was as though the bloodfiends had avoided the district for the most part, despite how many potential victims they’d be able to find here.
It’s almost like a serial killer making sure not to kill too close to ho, which in turn makes the void in hotspots of activity serve as a big fat X to mark their location.
I thought that maybe Jasper just took the shipnts of blood elsewhere, but I’m starting to think that maybe the Patriarch’s lair is right here.
The young proprietor with wispy-thin blonde hair ca up to Adam.
“You already found the treasure?” he asked excitedly. “What was it? Do tell.”
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Adam leaned in conspiratorially and Jasper mimicked him. Then Adam whispered, “That was a lie. I’m here about the shipnt of blood for the Patriarch, Jasper.”
The proprietor started to pull away, but Adam seized his wrist and added, “If you don’t show
where you bring the blood, then I will kill you and every single person in here. But don’t worry about the Patriarch punishing you if you tell , I’ve already dealt with him.”
Jasper swallowed.
“Follow ,” he said with a shaky voice.
Kat and Sofia had been watching the exchange and Adam gave them a nod.
Sofia went out the door and signalled Luo, who took a mont to respond, since he clearly waited for Adam to give the ‘all clear’.
As Luo ca to the tavern, Adam and Kat were already trailing behind Jasper who led them to a corner of the tavern which had a locked door that was reinforced with tal. He unlocked it with an old brass key and pushed it open to reveal stairs leading down into a wine cellar.
“Did you really kill him?” Jasper asked, turning back to look at Adam. His lody jumped in surprise when he saw that there were four of them now, all standing close and clearly not about to let him leave.
“We all did,” Kat confird.
Jasper nodded slightly.
He didn’t seem convinced, so Adam pulled out the crimson glass key he’d looted from the Patriarch.
“You know what this is for,” Adam said, seeing that Jasper recognised it.
“He showed
once,” the proprietor replied. “It’s down here. Co on.”
Adam and Kat moved down the steps behind Jasper, and when they saw that it was an ordinary wine cellar, they gave the signal for the others to follow. Sofia was the last down the steps, and she closed the reinforced door behind her.
Jasper jumped at the sound. “Are you going to kill !?”
“That depends,” Adam said. “What else did you help the Patriarch with?”
“Nothing! I swear!”
“How did you end up delivering blood to him?” Sofia asked, clearly not buying his words, even though his lody told Adam that he was speaking the truth.
Jasper sighed, his expression one of guilt and regret. “I was poor when I first ca to Moonport. I ca here looking to make food for the rich, but none of them were interested in my skills. An old rchant found
when I was selling food in the market and on my last few Shillings, and he told
that he needed soone to run his tavern. I didn’t realise he was a bloodfiend until much later when he ca to ask for a favour. He promised he wouldn’t feed on the people in my tavern so long as I did what he said. I didn’t know what else to do but comply! Thanks to his money, I’ve been able to employ a lot of people who were struggling to make ends et. I’ve really been trying to turn this tavern into sothing good! I’m not a bad person, I swear!”
“What do you do with the blood?” Adam asked.
The cellar had three large barrels turned onto their sides with taps hamred into them. There were so smaller casks and bottles stacked on wooden shelves opposite them, but other than that there was no sign that the cellar had anything special about it.
“One of the servants from the Blue Pavilion brings
a bottle every month,” Jasper said. “I take it down here and place it in front of that wall.”
He indicated a barren brick wall next to the last of the three large barrels.
“I have no idea how he built this, but when you press four specific bricks in order, it reveals a door made of red glass.”
Jasper went on to press a brick at his eye level, then another a bit down and to the right, another above that, and then lastly one right in front of his chest.
The brick wall started unfolding silently, pulling itself open to show a short corridor coated in darkness with a crimson glass door at the end and an opening for the Patriarch’s key in the middle.
“We actually found it,” Luo muttered.
“That was a lot easier than I thought it would be,” Sofia said.
Nothing was easy about that… Adam wanted to say, but he stayed his tongue. He knew that most people would’ve struggled for a long ti to make this connection. It wasn’t exactly obvious how the bloodfiend network was connected if you couldn’t sense their blood like Adam could or knew about them in advance. And the fact that the entrance to the Patriarch’s lair was hidden behind a fake wall requiring a special way to access it, ant that no one would just stumble upon it by pure happenstance. Not to ntion, the setup and location was different for every group, as far as Adam knew, so it was likely there was an even more complicated and roundabout way required to find the lair when he ca here next ti.
Perhaps if we hadn’t killed the Patriarch, we would’ve had to fight him here.
Adam looked around again. The cellar was much smaller than the church’s interior.
We wouldn’t have survived a fight in such a small space, and a lot of people would’ve died if we’d taken it outside.
“Are there other ways to enter the hidden room beyond this door?” Kat asked Jasper.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Perhaps one of the old sewer tunnels connected to the lagoon? I’ve tried not to pry, since pretending this place doesn’t exist was the only way I could continue to go on without guilt eating away at . I know that the disappearances and murders weren’t perpetrated by the serial killer at large.”
Adam put a hand on Jasper’s shoulder. “Don’t tell anyone we were here,” he said as he injected a ball of blood into his body.
Jasper yelped in pain.
“I will know if you do,” Adam added.
The proprietor looked at him with fear in his eyes. Although his sob story didn’t sll of lies and deception, Adam didn’t trust him to not rat them out to save himself and his tavern.
“Let’s see what’s inside,” Luo said, clearly wanting to leave the Stage as soon as possible.
Before Jasper could leave the basent, Sofia took the key from him and followed him up the steps, locking the door from the inside after he’d left.
“Maybe we can use the Patriarch’s lair as our hideout during the night, if necessary,” Sofia suggested as she ca back down.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Adam replied. “But let’s see what we’re dealing with first. And stay on guard, there might be defences in place or bloodfiends within. For so reason, my blood sense can’t penetrate this door.”
He slotted the key into the lock while the others waited in the cellar outside the dark corridor.
When he turned the chanism, the door pulled itself into the key, which surprised him.
Behind it was another short unlit hallway of stone, but past that ca the warm glow of candlelight. Adam proceeded slowly as Kat joined him and the other two brought up the rear.
The stone floor transitioned into a lush silky carpet and the ‘lair’ was revealed to be more like a study and library packed into a ten-by-ten-tre room. There were tall bookcases full of old literature, an expensive-looking dark-red wooden desk with an inkwell full of blood and a quill pen next to it, an unmistakeable Relic Chest made of the sa dark-red wood, a shelf with bottles of the rare AB negative blood, and another dark hallway leading further in and barred with a crimson glass door.
Just like with the first, turning the key into the lock made the door pull itself into the key.
The next hallway was longer than the first, and it led to a room with display cases full of rare collectible items such as jewellery and art pieces, trophies on the walls of freaky-looking animals and skinned human faces, paintings, and a strange crimson glass stand that held up the fragnt of a glowing red-golden stone.
It was the Godstone.
< < Stage Objective Complete > >
< Found the Godstone fragnt >
From this chamber was another red door, but nobody was interested in that right now.
“I think I will just leave,” Luo said.
Sofia seed hesitant.
“It would be a mistake to not at least finish your patron quest,” Adam said. “If you receive a punishnt, you may die in the next Stage.”
Luo frowned. “But there’s no telling if doing the patron quest will get
killed!”
Sofia put a hand on his shoulder to calm him down. “I think Adam is right, we still have a few hours left until nightfall, and, worst case scenario, we can hide down here during the night. With your crossbow and Adam’s magic, defending the corridors would be easy.”
Luo looked at her and then at Adam and Kat.
“Fine,” he said with a sigh.
Adam pulled out the compass and spoke into it.
The golden arrow spun around and pointed west-southwest.
“It seems the Changeling’s Core is ant to go sowhere in the Artisan district,” he announced, based on the direction the compass pointed.
“How did you get that thing?” Kat asked as she inspected the compass.
“It was on board the Golden Slug in the last Stage,” he replied.
“Why didn’t you just use it to find the Godstone?” Sofia asked.
“I tried a few tis, but it didn’t work,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Beats ,” he replied. “I guess because the All-Seeing System deems it to be too unfair or sothing. It works for patron quests though, and secrets.”
“Let’s see what’s behind the next door,” Luo said.
Adam opened it and revealed another dark corridor that led out into an old unused sewer tunnel, which went straight to the edge of the Moonport island and down into the lagoon waters.
“If we use the lair as our hideout at night, we’ll potentially have to defend from two places at once,” Adam remarked.
“Do you think they would co here?” Kat asked.
“I have no idea,” he replied. “But news of the Patriarch’s death must’ve spread by now, so it’s only a matter of ti I think.”
They went back into the lair, and Adam found that he could recreate the crimson glass door by spinning the key in the opposite direction mid-air. It only seed to work in the dark corridors unfortunately, because otherwise it would’ve been quite a useful tool.
Maybe I can find a way to absorb the spell inside it though.
I’ll have to study it more.
Sofia found 2,000 Shillings inside a pouch in the trophy room, which they intended to take to the Market later if they had ti. Before they left the lair to hunt down the Changeling quest objective, Adam opened the Relic Chest inside the study. It revealed a necklace with a small figure of the angel relic they’d brought to the church, brown leather boots, a spherical amber stone with a black crack running through it, and a white tricorne hat with five red stars on one side.
< < Relics Available > >
< Father Mathias’ Keepsake (Rare) — Resist charming and mind-altering effects up to 3 tis before the Relic breaks | Emit a holy aura around yourself for 1 minute. 15-minute cooldown >
< Travel Boots of the Magus (Rare) — Increases Mana and Stamina by 25 | Regenerates 4 Mana and Stamina per second while walking, but prevents all other forms of passive regeneration >
< Cracked Conjuring Stone (Epic) — Combine 2 Relics of Rare rarity or lower to produce a new unique Cracked Fusion Relic. 1 use >
< Duellist’s Hat (Rare) — Each successful deflect and parry builds up 1 point of power, up to a maximum of 5 points. When released, the following attack has its Damage and Speed increased by 10% for each point consud. 5-minute cooldown >
All of the options were interesting, but aside from the cracked conjuring stone, nothing really stood out to Adam right now, although the hat was possibly really strong in the right hands.
“I would like to try the hat,” Kat said, before adding, “but I will find it in the Market if sobody wants sothing else.”
“I want to see what the conjuring stone does,” Adam admitted.
Based on where she was looking and the tone of guilt in her lody, Adam could tell Sofia wanted the keepsake. She’d had so affinity for the priest, and she no doubt felt terrible for getting him killed, even though none of them could have predicted it.
Since nobody had a strong claim on any of the items and Kat admitted she would just find the hat again later, Adam grabbed the conjuring stone. He rembered how the cube had told him that a Fused Relic combined the power of two Relics, but that the cracked part of it ant it would have a weakness. Elia had said there was a Legendary version without a crack that could be obtained after Stage Ten, but he was curious to see just how bad the weakness would be.
They looked around in the study for a little bit, and Luo ended up finding another pouch of Shillings inside a drawer of the dark-red desk, which added 1,500 Shillings to their total.
“Maybe we should splurge in the Market before Sofia and I leave,” he said.
Adam laughed. “Sure, let’s do that.”
After they left the hidden study, Adam recreated the door to the wine cellar of Oiled Ollie’s Eatery, and then they closed the brick wall behind them before using the key Sofia had taken from Jasper to let themselves back out into the tavern.
Jasper stood by the counter and watched them leave, his lody full of relief.
I hope he doesn’t forget my warning, Adam thought as they headed west to the Artisan district.
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