"Why does it look like it's happy?" Jason asks, studying the odd smile on the dead Parasitic Yelospike's face, "You just killed it, but it doesn't look like it was angry about it,"
"That's probably because it had been trapped here for its entire life," Sydra explains as he hops up onto the worm's back and begins pulling out the remaining spikes, "It looks happy because it knows that it is finally leaving this dark hole, even if its only way out is through death,"
Listening to Sydra's theory, Jason glances back at the worm's face once more, feeling a slight sense of guilt as well as pity for it. But those feelings quickly die back out when he thinks back to how it had just been chasing them around the room while trying to eat them.
After gathering up all of the spikes, Sydra jumps back off the worm's back and lands in front of Jason, "Here, take some of these. We might need them later on,"
Sydra hands half of the stack of spikes to Jason before putting the rest under one of his arms. Luckily, the spikes were light, making it easy to carry them as they leave the room. Walking behind Jason, Sydra feels the aura of the Parasitic Yelospike enter his body and become absorbed by one of the roots.
'At least that still works,' Sydra thinks as he follows Jason through the archway. Surprisingly, the other side of the archway is a tunnel made completely of stone, and there are runic lanterns hanging from the walls.
"I guess we should follow the tunnel?" Jason asks, glancing back at Sydra, who was busy looking at the walls, "What is it, did you find something?"
"Yeah..." Sydra says, but he stops after that, causing Jason to become baffled. Walking over, Jason looks at the spot that Sydra is staring at, noticing that there seems to be something written in a different language on the wall.
"Can you read that?" Jason asks, trying to make out what the writing might be saying, "It just looks like a mess of upside-down letters..."
Jason trails off as he turns his head to the side and tries to read the letters again, this time being able to actually make out several words. Frowning, he takes a step back and places his hands on the ground behind him, before standing on them.
"What are you doing?" Sydra asks, watching as all the blood in Jason's body flows to his head while his eyes dart back and forth.
"I'm trying to read what it says, and I thought being upside down might help," Jason responds, his face becoming even redder as he forces the words out.
"But I already know what it says," Sydra says, shocking Jason to the point that he loses his balance and falls over. Picking himself up, Jason dusts himself off before turning back to Sydra, his face still red but this time from embarrassment.
"So...?" Jason says, looking at Sydra with a questioning look. However, a few seconds go by without Sydra saying anything, causing Jason to become exasperated as he motions towards the wall, "What does it say?"
"Oh... It's just directions for how to properly take care of Parasitic Yelospike, and what to do if it manages to escape," Sydra says, "Anyway, let's keep going. I think we're almost to the middle point of the Storm Monarch, and we should be able to find some answers there,"
'That's it? I did all that, and all it was were instructions for taking care of a worm?' Jason wonders, sighing as he follows after Sydra. It takes the two of them the next ten minutes before they reach a split in the tunnel, with one tunnel continuing to go on for who knows how long, while the other one has a door a few feet into it.
"Let's see what is behind the door before deciding which tunnel to take," Sydra says, stepping into the shorter tunnel and pushing against the door, which swings open without much effort, 'I guess they never thought someone would come here so they didn't add locks to it,'
As Sydra peers through the open doorway, he sees hundreds of dried corpses chained to the wall, each one emitting a rancid smell. The room seems to go on forever, with the people closest to the door being the ones that seemed to have been there the longest.
"Ugh, what is that smell?" Jason asks, stepping past Sydra and looking into the room. When he sees all the corpses, he stumbles back, his eyes widening in horror, "What the hell is this place?!"
Sydra quickly shuts the door before pulling Jason away from it, "Those people were wearing clothes similar to those people in the Thunder Nest Kingdom wear. Have you heard anything about people going missing lately?"
Calming down his breathing, Jason stares at the door as he shakes his head, "I haven't heard anything... Wait, no. I did hear something when I was a kid, it seemed like a lot of people were going missing at the time, but no one ever found out where they went. You don't think..."
"Yes, it is highly possible that those corpses are from the missing people, which means that whoever is behind this has been working on it for years," Sydra says, confirming Jason's fears, "There probably isn't anything else inside that room, so we should head down the other tunnel,"
Walking away from the door, Sydra leads Jason down the other tunnel, which eventually stops in front of another archway. Standing on either side of it, Sydra and Jason peek into the room on the other side.
The room is twice as large as the one that they fought the Parasitic Yelospike in, and both the walls and the floor are made from stone. However, the ceiling is made from the flesh of the Storm Monarch, and there is a pulsing red heart hanging from it.
"The heart of the Storm Monarch?" Jason whispers, "If we destroy that, then wouldn't we be able to stop the kingdom's destruction?"
"Maybe, but I don't think it will be that easy," Sydra whispers back, pointing towards several spots on the wall, "It looks like the heart is being guarded by Stone Golems,"
In the spots that Sydra pointed at were several towering Stone Golems, each one blending in with its surroundings. The Stone Golem reached at least seven meters in height, and each one had a sword strapped to their back.
"Great, first a giant worm monster, and now some Stone Golems. What next, a Rubeyknight Deathbringer?" Jason asks, referring to the red knights that wandered the Bone Planes of the afterlife, bringing death wherever they went.
'I hope he didn't just jinx us,' Sydra thinks as he pulls Jason away from the archway so they can talk, "Alright, we have these yellow spikes that we can use as weapons, but I'm not sure how effective they would be against the Stone Golems. They don't have a type of life force that we could exploit, but we might be able to pierce through their cores if we're lucky,"
Much like the Bone-Tree Golem Sydra had fought when he first arrived in this world, the Stone Golems also had a core that released aura, allowing them to move about. However, the difference between the two was that the Bone-Tree Golem was in control of itself, while the Sonte Golems could only follow orders given by their creates.
"I know we have to destroy their core," Jason responds, "The only problem is that the core could be anywhere in their body, and unless we destroy it then the Stone Golem can continue to restore itself to perfect condition no matter how much damage we deal it,"
Before Sydra can respond, he feels a hand appear on his shoulder, and another one appears on Jason's shoulder, "So... what are we talking about?"
Jumping back, Sydra toss several of the yellow spikes towards the spot he had just been standing, but none of them hit anything except the wall on the other side. Frowning, Sydra drops the rest of the spikes to the ground while still holding onto one of them as a weapon.
"Do you see anyone?" Sydra asks, glancing towards Jason, who is still standing in the same spot with a blank look on his face. Snapping his fingers, Sydra pulls Jason out of his stupor, causing him to drop most of his spikes as well before jumping behind Sydra.
"Someone was there, right?" Jason asks, waving a yellow spike back and forth through the air, "We aren't just going crazy, are we?"
"What happened to you?" Sydra asks, "You seemed so brave and confident in the arena, but this already the second time you have hidden behind me while inside the Storm Monarch,"
"Well, it's probably because this is his first time experiencing real danger, while everything else was only practice," The voice says, coming from behind them this time. Whipping around, Sydra points the yellow spike into the faces of two masked men.
"Who are you?" Sydra questions, pushing the two men through the archway, "And how do you know so much about Jason?"
"Who are we?" One of the men asks, laughing behind his mask while the other one answers, "We're the Puppet Masters, of course,"