The last humans working for the Matriarch didn’t even get to put up a fight as Adam and Kat hunted them down in the night, harvesting them for all they were worth.
Using his new magic, Adam turned their bones into a sled to carry the flesh and blood, and then they went through the island, trapping the houses and thoroughfares, focusing on places that appeared to be lived in.
Adam had co up with a mix of Snare and Push patterns that would activate sequentially, causing the target to first be locked in place, and then get pelted with hardened blood, flesh, and bone shrapnel from the Push explosion. It was possible that the design wouldn’t outright kill most of the bloodfiends, but it would disable them for long enough that Adam and Kat could run them down and eliminate them without much of a fight. And given how outnumbered they were about to be, it was the safest bet to turn the tide in their favour.
Kat had consud fourteen human hearts by the ti they were done with their hunt, and except for the first one, she hadn’t really said much. From what he could sense of her lody, there was clearly an uncomfortable side-effect that followed the consumption, but Kat had a will of steel and was able to shrug off whatever it was she saw when she ate a heart.
Based on the way her lody changed, Adam was fairly confident that she relived so of her victim’s mories, but whether it was their final monts or so cherished piece of their past, he couldn’t say for sure. Kat had only described it as an unpleasant surprise, but refused to elaborate. Adam avoided pushing the issue for now, but he wanted to have a clear sense of the Fiend Tongue’s weaknesses before they left the Stage.
[15 minutes until sunrise.]
Kat and Adam had returned to the castle and were watching the skies as pale shapes ca towards Matriarch Island. In the distance, down by the docks, lesser bloodfiends leapt out of the water, returning to the various houses around the area where they would escape the sun.
Just as the fliers ca in, the first explosion echoed across the island, the sound bouncing off the tall fortress walls. It was imdiately followed by many more.
[Lesser Bloodfiend defeated.]
[Lesser Bloodfiend defeated.]
[Lesser Bloodfiend defeated.]
Adam laughed as the announcents rolled in. Within just a minute, their traps had eliminated fifteen. The fliers went to their houses at the sa ti, seemingly ignorant to the mayhem down by the docks, and monts later they too were lit up as traps went off inside their hos, causing four announcents of third-generation vampire kills to imdiately co in.
The lesser fiends that had survived the traps fled to the water, but as the sun started to rise and cast its glow across Moonport, those in the dark waves were turned to ash. At the sa ti, Kat’s body was returned to its normal human shape, and this happened to the transford fiends simultaneously, aning the remaining fliers were forced to land or crash into the island or the water.
Many of the surviving third- and second-generation bloodfiends ran towards the castle, clearly seeking the protection of their Matriarch. But the castle was the most elaborately-trapped out of any place on the island, and they got the credit for three more third-generation kills as a result.
Adam and Kat leapt off the roof of the castle, sliding down its stone walls and coming in behind the fiends who had been torn to shreds by the shrapnel of crystallised blood, hardened flesh, and fragnted bones the mont they entered the ground floor. There were a couple of second-generation vampires in the mix, but they were so injured that they couldn’t even fight back as Adam and Kat put them out of their misery.
The pair went from the castle and down through the island settlent, taking out a few more bloodfiends who had survived the traps, and looting and harvesting the bodies of the rest. Once they had reached the docks and were done, they’d killed two second-generation bloodfiends, ten third-generation, and eighteen lesser. All lodies besides their own were gone from the island.
“That was more effective than I thought it would be,” Kat remarked and Adam nodded.
Perhaps getting the bone sigils greatly increased my potential damage output from spells like Push and Snare.
Adam had made so many traps that the special affliction from his elentalist skirt had activated twice, but given that their activations had been within the trapped spell constructs, Adam and Kat hadn’t been anywhere near when they’d gone off in unexpected ways.
It was a good thing too, because both of the traps affected by the Magical Disturbance affliction had utterly ruined the houses where they’d been planted. One was missing half of the structure, with an entire side of the building just gone to the Push explosion. The other had pierced a warehouse through completely with vines of bones and flesh from a Snare.
At least that downside to my skirt isn’t so bad in trap form, Adam thought.
However, he was keeping track of the affliction now, with the cube alerting him whenever he hit 95% on it, since that ant the following spell would be affected.
“How many more bloodfiends remain?” Kat asked.
“I have no idea,” Adam said. He still couldn’t encompass the entire city of Moonport with his blood perception without losing track of basically all details, but he was willing to bet that they’d taken out the majority of them, and that the remnants would be orbiting the last few powerful second-generation bloodfiends, like the Guard Captain and the Maestro.
“I think we should hit up Garden Isle on the way back to the city,” Adam said. “After that we’ll visit Gillian and find out how he’s connected to the bloodfiends. We should also be able to pick up a quest for a masked ball in the Wine district. Unless we missed the timing for it, I think it’s ant to take place on the third night. Once we’ve run down whoever is connected to Gillian, we’ll go to the Garrison district and deal with the Guard Captain and your patron quest.”
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“When we’ve dealt with those factions, will we be done with the bloodfiends?” she asked.
“Possibly. I’m anticipating that the third night won’t be as dangerous, and that we can roam to eliminate the lone vampires that might remain. Day four and five we can probably just focus on quests. I also really want to find the Golden Nail serial killer.”
“There is still a lot to do,” Kat noted.
“Well, you wanted a lot of Points, right?” he responded. “I’m starting to think that 35 or 40,000 may not be unthinkable once we’ve eliminated all the bloodfiends. They’re supposed to give quite a lot of Points per kill.”
“That is more than double my last Stage,” she said.
“The objectives, secret bosses, and quests are worth doing for more Points,” Adam remarked. “But for Moonport, the kill bonuses are worth the most. Not to ntion, we’ve got a bunch of trophies to sell.”
“How many Points would Luo have gotten for leaving early?” she asked.
Adam thought about it for a bit before replying, “Maybe around 12,000 Points. Not bad for leaving before the second night. I think he should have gotten the Speedrun bonus too.”
“How many extra Points would soone who beat the Stage alone receive from the objectives?” she asked.
“Are you planning on killing ?” Adam replied, pausing the construction of his newest version of the flying flesh boat.
“No,” she said, though her lody was wavering for so reason.
Adam t her eyes. “You’re welco to try, but you will lose.”
“I just wanted to know if Aeran’s advice was worth it.”
That response surprised him and he paused for a mont, before asking, “How many objectives did you complete in the Floating Sea?”
“The main one, and the buried treasure one on Death’s Head Island,” she said.
“I’m not familiar with that one. How many Points did it reward you?”
“1200 Points. The main objective gave
9,000.”
“So, you killed five other Players?” Adam asked.
Kat nodded.
“For the sake of your question, let’s do the math. Killing five other Players gave you 2,500 Points, on top of the 8,500 for the two objectives, so 11,000 Points is the extra you got. If you had completed the objectives that are fairly doable with a good team, you would have gotten 1200 per Player for defeating the Golden Slug, 300 for the Mad Captain, and you may have also defeated the Secret Boss for 800 per Player and then another 1500 for the achievent bonus. Additionally, since no other Players survived, you are ineligible to get the Defender bonus, which would’ve given 2,000, and would likely have been easy for you to obtain. And lastly, if all mbers of the six-man group had survived, you would’ve gotten 1200 Points, aning the difference between everyone surviving and you killing them, is 4,000 Points.”
“So, it was worth more to kill the others then?” she asked. He could tell by her lody she was hoping this was the case, as though needing justification that she hadn’t chosen wrong in following Aeran’s advice.
“Yes,” Adam started, before holding up a hand to stop her reply. “If you don’t consider secondary benefits from having a good team, such as being able to obtain more kills of the slugwhales, enemy airships, captains, and such for more Points. Not to ntion completing quests for unique rewards, finding more treasure since you can cover ground quicker, and so on. Of course, you could have done all of those with your team and then killed them before the end, if you want to be brutally efficient.
“Ultimately, going the Player-killer route can give a benefit in terms of Points compared to everyone surviving, but sothing to consider is that there’s a rippling effect from every death that can end up resulting in more deaths in the future, which in turn will reduce the pool of Players. This then makes it more and more likely that you’ll end up in groups with other Player-killers, and they may be as strong, if not stronger, than you. And if everyone fights only for themselves, suddenly the Stages where cooperation is required beco impossible.”
“Then why did you kill Aeran?” she asked.
Adam was surprised that she’d known and yet had been holding on to the question this entire ti, waiting for a mont like this. He’d thought she’d accepted it and moved on, but clearly it hadn’t left her mind. “You know why,” he replied. “In my last Stage, only
and one other Player survived, because I saved him. We almost had a full team wipe because two people were selfish and betrayed us. When I understood what kind of person Aeran was, I knew we had to get rid of him or risk the sa thing happening again.”
Kat nodded. “He was going to kill you before the Stage was over. I think he would have killed
too.”
“Would you have let him?” Adam asked.
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll warn you now,” Adam started, feeling that it needed to be said. “If you kill everyone in Stage Nine, you will die. That’s not a promise, it’s a guarantee. That Stage is designed to counter those who murder their own team mbers.”
“How do you know?” Kat asked.
“Because I’m a ti-looper,” Adam told her. “I’ve seen so much selfishness already, and I know you’re not that kind of person. If you didn’t care about anyone else, then you wouldn’t have protected the others. You would’ve let them die, because it would’ve been easier. Killing other Players is for cowards and losers, because the consequences will catch up eventually, and then all your extra Points won’t do shit to save you. So please, you need to let go of whatever poison Aeran has planted in your mind. Every Player-killer I’ve seen has died, even though they had more power than those around them.”
“But the Trials demand that we kill, so how are we supposed to know any better?” Kat retorted.
“They’re called the Trials of Defiance for a reason,” he reminded her. “It has never been a requirent to kill another Player. Not even in the Forbidden Altar. I was able to save everyone in my group, after all.”
Kat’s eyes widened. “Can I beco a ti-looper too?” she asked. “I want to grow stronger.”
“It’s not worth it,” Adam replied. “But I can help you get to the end. But only if you promise
you won’t continue down the path Aeran had been leading you.”
“You know every Stage from here on?” she asked.
“That’s right.”
“So the Orb of Insight was a lie?”
“A believable lie, but yes,” he replied. “Its power is similar to what I described, but more limited.”
“You are a better liar than Aeran,” she remarked, and Adam frowned at the comparison. “He was convinced he needed to unlock the Orb like you before the next Stage.”
“For soone with such an insightful patron, he was quite easy to mislead,” Adam said. “His claim that he could tell when soone was lying was clearly untrue.”
“He used to say that even before we ca here,” Kat remarked. “But you are right. Even though he was very good at getting girls to follow his whims, he was not impervious to manipulation himself. Every ti I wanted him to stop doing sothing bad, I had to appeal to his vanity and ego. It was very exhausting. I am unsure why I put up with it for so long.”
“Hopefully you can put it behind you now,” Adam said.
He turned his focus back to the boat he’d been crafting. It had a smooth skeletal fra with layers of flesh and blood on the outside.
He gestured for Kat to enter and got in behind her.
“It looks different than before,” she remarked.
Adam couldn’t help but grin as he said, “Make sure to hold on tight.”
As he flew them west from Matriarch Island towards the Garden Isle, their speed was almost double that of their flight the night before.
Despite her stoic personality, even Kat couldn’t withstand the speed and she scread with laughter as they tore across the lagoon.
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