A chittering, skittering noise echoed up the unnaturally dark hole, growing louder and louder. Finally, Bruce erged, and Akio pulled him out before hurriedly moving the manhole cover back into place. The group collapsed to the ground, lying on the cool stone flagstones as they processed their latest feat.
"Almost as bad as the Skaven," Bruce wheezed out. "Not worse, but almost."
"I doubt The Creator would actually remake the Skaven," Sophie claid between heaving breaths. "They were made by an evil god who wanted them to be evil. The Ratten are just... incredibly varied, and there are thousands of them."
"So many rats..." Elize muttered with a shiver, staring into the middle distance. She'd almost been overwheld by a swarm of fist-sized rats before Bruce washed them away.
They lay the floor for a while, and Akio wondered how many guilders had managed to reach this point. "Alright, ti to move," he said, springing to his feet. The others stood, though less energetically "Elize, what's the map say?"
"Well," Elize said, pulling out the guidebook. She flipped to the portion about the Fifth while the group gathered around her. When she reached the correct section, Akio blinked as the pages unfolded into the largest, most intricate map he'd seen in a while—an enormous castle, surrounded by a forest of mushrooms. A few 'clearings' in the trees held the image of a key, and multiple paths seed to lead out and loop back on themselves...
"Probably best for us to make our way through the castle first," Elize eventually stated, after scanning the map and checking the following few pages of details. "Each section has its own guardian, and unlocks the next section as well as access from the starting area, so we don't need to travel the whole castle unless we want to."
"Does this bit lead out onto the rooftops of part of the castle?" Bruce asked, an odd tone in his voice.
"Yeah... You don't think..?" Akio agreed, feeling a slowly mounting horror. "The boss of that section... Is it two gargoyles? Demonic-looking statues?"
"Earth manabeings, but yeah," Elize confird. "Why? What's wrong?"
"It's a goddamn souls-like floor," Sophie said aloud, a little strangled. "The shortcuts... The... There! A sewer level, inhabited by shadow-magic touched and venomous rats."
"A poison swamp," Bruce deadpanned. "Of course. It wouldn't be a souls-like without one..."
"Why is this bad?" Elize asked with a tilt of her head, still confused.
"Souls-like is a reference to a kind of ga, back on Earth. These gas are brutal, unforgiving, and you usually have unlimited lives. You normally die repeatedly and respawn to try again. And again. And again. Beating any Souls-like is the mark of a true gar. Now, we have to fight through one, for real, with no respawn option."
"We're dead." "Oh, yeah." "Totally."
Elize looked at the three slumped teens. "These gas... You never beat any, did you?" Given the wincing, she hit the problem right on the nose.
"They take so long to finish," Akio tried to explain. "And there were too many gas to play, and so little ti..."
"I couldn't make it past Margit," Sophie admitted to so incredulous glances. "He kept killing . I barely did any damage, and I couldn't even dodge...."
"But he's the first of the main bosses!" Bruce exclaid. "You're ant to go south first! Explore, fight through the fort and find the other minibosses. Level up, and co back later with more health, more stamina, better equipnt!"
"No one told !" Sophie defended herself. "Plus, I had other things going on in my life, you know! I couldn't dedicate hundreds of hours to grind out a souls-like; I didn't even buy it for myself. My brother bought it for my birthday, the smug bastard. He knew I'd give up!"
Akio rubbed his face and looked back at the map as Sophie and Bruce argued. Elize was still confused, but was starting to look worried herself. Akio put a comforting hand on her shoulder and gave her a reassuring smile. "Don't worry too much. The main problem with Souls-like gas was the limited healing. With you here, I think we'll be fine. Might get a bit banged up, but we'll make it through."
Elize smiled back, then looked down at the map again. "It looks like the main halls are first, then we go through the sewers, over the rooftops, and only then do the towers unlock. We need a key from the Mushroom Forest to unlock the Guardian's room, which could be at any two of these clearings."
"Enemies?" Akio asked, hearing Bruce and Sophie quiet down and pay attention.
"Earth and Darkness manabeings, for this first part," Elize explained. "Their main tactic is ambushes, where stone hands trap our feet. The Darkness manabeings descend from the ceiling, and the statues co alive. It's impossible to tell which statues are Earth manabeings until they move."
"That's gonna suck," Bruce wondered, rubbing the thin stubble he was sporting. He was staring intently at the description and sketches. "Sophie, do you think your darkness magics will let you hit the shadows when they go intangible?"
"Maybe," Sophie answered uncertainly. "Don't count on it, but it might help us drive them off..."
"Keep your eyes peeled for any movent, especially in large, empty hallways with vaulted ceilings," Akio advised as Elize put the book away. The group walked out of the small antechamber into a long hallway. It led off in both directions, was lined with ard and armoured stone statues, and had high, vaulted ceilings.
"So, all the ti, then?" Bruce sarcasd.
"Smartass."
"You know it."
The Teen Heroes reaching the Fifth was a huge milestone, and listening in on their conversation was a delight. And far too relatable. I hadn't finished a Souls-like either; I kept starting new gas with different builds, instead of following one through to the end. I was pulled from the very entertaining scene of them creeping through the castle by an alert from my surface spies.
One of the targets was doing sothing unusual.
Now, this in and of itself wasn't really sothing out of the ordinary. People diverted from their routines all the ti, and this was the tenth such alert in the week or so since I'd started tracking them. I checked each ti, of course, just in case. It wouldn't do to get sloppy now, not with the stakes as they were. I'd learned a lot about the Guild and its employees since they started delving into , but I'd never had cause to analyse their behaviours and ticks like this before. Even after only a week of surveillance, I had a pretty good idea of who they were.
This ti, the alert was triggered by... the guild hall's receptionist, Emalie Lewin. The woman had been hired a little before I... dealt with Cadmus, then known only as Instincts. Emalie possessed a sunny disposition, always smiling and greeting people with a friendly wave. She was almost sanguine in the face of the coming crusade, where most of those who remained had so level of tension, knowing what was coming. The threat of a second invasion of Atlantis slid off of Emalie like water off a duck's back.
She was the outlier. The other suspects were probably more worried than the average human on my island. They knew more of what was coming, after all.
Emalie had triggered the alert because she'd taken files from the archives ho with her. Unlike her fellow guild employees, who lived in the guild hall itself, Emalie had chosen to rent a small apartnt in the town. As she walked down the hall towards her room, I snuck an invisible rat down the hallway behind her, and slipped through the doorway with her.
As soon as the door closed, her entire deanour changed. Her shoulders slumped, her smile pulled into an ugly frown, and she crossed the room with purpose.
She pulled out docunts from her bag, rolled them into a tube, and slipped them into a bag far too small to fit them. She sat at the small desk, muttering to herself. "Finally. That's the last one. Ti to get off this gods-forsaken island."
Well, that was telling, if nothing else.
Emalie stood and uncovered a cage in the corner of the room. A ssenger hawk yawned awake, trilling at her. Emalie wasted no ti attaching the bag to its leg and opening the window. The bird launched itself into the air, flying off into the darkness of the early evening.
Until a bolt of green, glowing poison ca out of nowhere and struck the bird down, by the ti it hit the ground, it was naught but feathers and bones—even those dissolved into nothing within monts. Emalie was stunned, mouth agape and eyes wide. She looked right and locked eyes with Skitters. The Obsidian Scorpan stood still only a mont before she started rapidly approaching.
The spy stumbled back from the window and grabbed what was obviously a bugout bag. She threw the strap over one shoulder, and after checking the street to see if Skitters was still there, Emalie attempted to climb down from her window.
Attempted.
My little invisible spy hadn't been doing nothing this entire ti, after all. As she all but threw herself out the open window, my rat bit down on her neck. Emalie cried out in pain and brought a hand up to grab my brave, brave monster. Instead of a quick descent and slick landing as she'd doubtlessly intended, she landed on her back with a sickening crack. She'd probably broken sothing from that fall. She gasped, and gaped, and tried to move. Her legs remained still. Definitely broken. Slowly, Skitters skittered into view. She briefly stopped, picking up the pouch of holding from next to the bubbling puddle. Emalie gasped and desperately stretched out a hand at the pouch, her other hand trying to staunch her heavily bleeding carotid.
Skitters held out a hand, and a green magic washed over the spy. She blinked, as she no doubt felt her pain recede and feeling return to her legs.
"Why...?"
"This is not a rcy. For multiple counts of Espionage against Atlantis and The Creator, you are under arrest. I will drag you before The Voice, and in His na you will be sentenced."
"I can't... understand you..."
...
Skitters scowled her scorpan scowl, an utterly terrifying expression. Emalie seed to agree as Skitters picked her up and restrained her. The spy was paraded up the main street and brought before the Voice. Said woman glared imperiously down from her throne as the spy was brought before her. Monts later, Layla, Felin and the rest of the high-ranking staff of the island filtered in, looking confused at the calling of the Voice's court at this late hour.
"The accused, who calls herself Emalie Lewin, has been caught in the act of Espionage by The Creator," Kata announced, to gasps and soft exclaimations. "Skitters, the evidence."
The Obsidian Scorpan passed the small pouch of holding to Layla, who frowned at the docunts she pulled from it. Her scowl turned thunderous as she realised what she was holding. "These are detailed maps, monster descriptions and their weaknesses. The original docunts I used to make the guidebooks. There are details in here that never made it to general circulation."
"Do you have anything to say in your defence, Emalie, if that is your real na?"
"You will be swept from the face of creation by the Crusade and the Templar," Emalie retorted, venom on her tongue. "Monsters! Traitors to Humanity and the gods alike! Your false god will be destroyed, shattered to a million shards!"
It was certainly a departure from her previous behaviour.
"Why, Emalie?" Layla called, obviously shocked. "You've t the Children. You know they aren't monsters!"
The spy scoffed. "I only do what you should have been doing since you got here. This dungeon is too dangerous to leave alone! You know that as well as I do!"
"You've got that backwards," Kata claid. "He is too dangerous to kill. The Creator's death will be the destruction of our world. Atlantis will be obliterated entirely. The entire world will shake apart, and tidal waves will wash what remains clean. If there is a world left, after his death throes, it will not be one you would be able to live upon." Everyone in the room was pale, and none more so than Emalie.
"Emalie Lewin, I find you guilty, and for your cris you are sentenced to death," Kata passed judgnt. "Your sentence will be carried out deep in the dungeon. Skitters, take her away."
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