Athena and I leaped down back to the surface and we stepped through the portal up to the top of the staircase.
"You're welcome Jen for coming up with such a good idea," she said.
"Yeah don't let it get to your head," I said.
Athena only chuckled.
"At least someone appreciates my genius."
"Let's hurry inside already," I said, covering my mouth with my hand. "I keep tasting sand and am definitely not a fan of this wind."
"Likewise," Athena said, and on her word we walked through the large entryway into the dark depths of the sand temple. The hallway in front of us was extremely narrow, only allowing for one of us to go at a time. I only had enough room to spread my arms to just past my own waist. Looking up, the ceiling of the hallway was also low-hung, only about half a foot above our heads.
Of course, it was all made of the same gray-green stone that the exterior of the temple was made out of. I was in the lead and kept descending down the steps as it got darker, darker, yet darker.
I finally saw the light at the end of the literal tunnel as we reached a room that opened up tremendously. We poured out to the rectangular room that was lit by torches—fire that burned like emeralds. The shadows retreated toward the walls like etchings on a prison wall. We rounded a corner into a slightly larger room, a single golden door lied at the end. Between it and me was a green gelatinous form with a small meaty core at the center of it. An enemy bio appeared next to it, calling it the Plasmic Wraith.
"Huh, piece of Jell-O, I see? Well I see your sugary snack and raise you one ass-whoopin'," I said, unsheathing Flintlocke. I clicked the button on the side and turned the blade into a revolver. I fired two shots at the creature. The bullets looked to be sucked in by the beast—halting their progress immediately. They fell to the ground harmlessly.
"Damn, looks like guns are a no go," I said.
"Watch how it's done," Athena called, running up to the creature with her lance drawn. "You've got to go for the core—simple as that." She stabbed at the fleshy core in the center, but as soon as the head of the lance entered the gelatinous form of the creature it bent and shot upward out of its body. "Huh?" She yanked her lance out and it came out straight again.
"Well, it's obvious that physical weapons aren't the way to go," Jen said. "Let the ol' resident genius take a crack at it." I could hear her crack her knuckles from the great beyond.
She spewed out a stream of fire from the end of Zarathustra. The flames licked the creature—it started to vibrate, but it largely didn't do anything to it.
"Still nothing? All right. Let's just ignore it and—"
The blobby beast began to shake even more—a growl erupted from the core inside. A section of the goo separated from the main body and threw itself across the door; stretching wide and sealing the exit shut. The rest of the wraith stood up on itself, several tendrils exerted from its body.
"...well it looks like we can't ignore it," I finished.
"Looks like we've got some fun ahead of us." Athena said.
The Plasmic Wraith leapt high into the air and latched itself onto the ceiling. I busted out Flintlocke and fired off two rounds.
"Why would you try shooting it again?" Jen asked.
"What else can I do? I have a gunblade! It does very little!"
"How are we supposed to hit this thing if all we're doing is being reflected?" Athena asked.
"Let's try this!" Jen cried out. A bolt of electricity shot from her staff and caught the wraith by surprise. The electricity coursed through the goo and cradled the core. It screamed and fell to the floor. When it crashed it split apart to several tiny chunks, leaving the core exposed outside.
"Get it!" I called, chasing after the core.
Unfortunately, it was faster. It reformed and leaped through the air to its other half that had been latched across the door and slid through the cracks, leaving us to ourselves.
"That's...it?" Jen asked.
"No way..." I said. "There's zero percent chance that's the end of it."
"How are you so sure?" Athena asked.
"This kind of thing happens all the time in games. You fight something that's supposed to be much tougher and it seems like its way too easy. It lures you into a false sense of security and then it pulls out it's final trick. I don't want either of you to die when it does that, so stay on your guard."
"Okay," Jen said.
"Got it, I'll keep my eyes peeled, not that I can really do much against it..."
"Jen, keep your thunder spell handy."
"Already on it."
I nodded and gripped the knob on the golden door and swung it open. Darkness awaited us behind.
"Aw, great. Just what I wanted, less visibility...wait, hold on. Jen, can you lead? Cast a slow stream of fire to light the way."
"Uh, you think that will work?"
"Yeah a...a player I used to know taught me that," I said, Pella's death flashed before my eyes. I shook my head and stood back so Jen could take the lead.
"Okay, follow me guys and stay close. I'll try to swap out to the electricity if I see anything, but I'll need some extra eyes."
"You got it."
We followed her down the path—the walls returned to their previously narrow size—to the chagrin of all. I held the rear with my sword held tight at my side. Jen stopped at a wall as the path opened up to a fork on each side.
"Oh god please don't tell me it's a maze," I said.
"Oh...no," Athena said, disheartened.
"Who actually likes mazes though, really?" I groaned. "Okay, you lead the way," I nodded off to Jen. She looked both ways and decided to go left.
"I think..." she started walking down to the end and stopped again. "Right, let's go right."
"All right, following you." I said.
"I...I have a good feeling about the next left," she said.
"What kind of good feeling?" Athena asked.
"I can't explain it."
"It's possible that your visions from your dream are spilling into the waking world," Jay suggested.
I had almost forgotten he was here.
"Visions?" I asked. "You too?"
"Yeah, I was going to tell you later when we weren't in danger. But I saw some old memories of my dad—not all of them were my memories. I wouldn't have been able to remember it all exactly like I saw it...so it must have been something else."
"A dream, maybe?" I asked.
"Like how your vision with Mr. Gupta was a dream?"
"Fair point." I said.
"I'm just going to suspend my disbelief here," Athena said. "I can tell when I'm outnumbered."
"Maybe you instinctively know the way through that maze because of an increase in your mental capacities."
"There's no way that getting smarter would help with a game of chance, right?" I asked.
"An increase like what Jack went through isn't just getting smarter, remember. It could be that she's mentally seeking out the answer to the labyrinth faster than her avatar can see it. This is speculation, of course."
"Well, I'll trust her instincts for now," I said.
"I have no objections," Athena said.
We took the next left that we saw and walked until she stopped midway.
"What is it? Going to be the next right or left?" I asked.
"Neither..."
"Explain," Athena was just as confused as I was.
"The maze changed on us after that last turn—if we continue down either path from this point on we'll loop back to the start."
"What?!" I asked.
"Yes, it was subtle and soundless, but I feel the difference. We have to turn back and take the turn we had just taken."
"All right, let's go," I turned and was now leading us. I could see a tiny bit ahead of me from the light that started to disappear. From behind.
"I have to let out the light. If I continue it'll burn you both."
"Thanks for the consideration," I said. Just tell me when to turn if you can."
"I don't know when you'll reach the wall, but I can try to tell you the turns."
"I'll work with it," I said.
I walked forward slowly and kept my arms outstretched—feeling the wall until I felt it end on my right side. "Right here, turn right," I said. We made our way down the hallway and Jen immediately bade us to go left. I felt my way around and found the crevice and started to walk down it. I kept walking forward until I bumped face first into a solid object.
"Ow, how come you didn't tell me about the turn?" I asked.
"Because there wasn't one to take. We're at a new door."
"Oh, really?" I felt down and grabbed the handle. "Okay, I apologize and retract my question."
"Don't forget to take the sass with it," Jen said.
Athena snorted.
"No, that can stay," I said, turning the handle.
"We entered into a room of solid gold; almost perfectly square in size.
"It's so shiny," Jen said.
In the center of the room was a bulky golden statue of a rather large man. It looked somewhat Indian in structure, it having eight arms and all. It had gold flesh and emeralds for eyes. I recognized the shape of one of the eyes was off, and saw that it was a keystone.
"Back up guys. That's gonna be the next form of that blob monster. I bet you."
"The statue?"
"Bet," I said, taking a step closer toward it. "My money is that it wears it like armor. Watch, it's going to try to do it as I try to touch the keystone."
"Well, what if you were able to snatch the keystone before it could?"
"We...probably could be at an advantage. That is if we knew what it did."
"Well, even if we don't, it wouldn't be able to use it for...whatever purpose it would. That'd already be an advantage, wouldn't it?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
"Here, let me create a portal right in front of it, we'll snatch it from right here."
"That's genius!" I said.
"You're still surprised?" She asked.
"No, I guess not. I can't call it a fluke anymore," I said.
"Oh shut up, you dolt."
I grinned and looked down at the keystone in my hands. It was the Heart of Hephaestus. It looked to grant the holder a 150% buff to speed and a 200% increase to magical defense.
"Oh jeez, this thing would have been impossible for us to kill if it buffed up its magic defenses," I said. "With you as our only spellcaster it wouldn't have been even close to enough."
"Well, I could have done this." she said, creating a portal above the statue in the air, and one just below the statue itself. I saw it fall through the second portal and exit through the first one up top...falling through the second again, leaving from the first. Faster and faster and—
The first portal disappeared and so when the statue finally made contact with the ground it exploded—golden dust and green goo went everywhere across the room. The goo vanished—it couldn't handle the impact.
"Jesus!" I called out.
"You know what to say!" Jen said.
"Holy fuck," Athena said. "That was awesome."
"I actually didn't think that would work, but I'm so glad that it did."
"Hey, look at that," I pointed as the dust started to clear. In the center of the room where the statue hit—the ground was broken away and there looked to be a path forward under the surface.
"I hadn't realized there wasn't a way forward here, holy shit we would have been forced to backtrack," I said and turned to Jen. "You're an absolute genius. No sass added."
"Thank you." She nodded.
I turned to the opening in the ground and looked down into the path. "It looks like there's a hole afterward. I'll go down it first."
"You sure?" Jen asked.
"Yeah, you're the smart one, remember? Let me make the rash decision," I grinned at her and chuckled.
I turned back around and felt a slight worry in my chest. It was possible that this exit wasn't meant to be found, and I could be leaping to my death, but there wasn't really any other choice. It was either this or surrender to be lost in the maze for another eternity. No, I trusted Jen's instincts. They brought us to this keystone, so we must be headed the right way. I counted to three and leaped down to the small path. I got to the edge of the hole and jumped down. My heart started beating at a million beats per minute, but then everything around me turned to white, the familiar floor transition. I pumped my fist in the air and started to laugh.
"Hahaha FUCK yes! Right on the money, baby!" The absurdity of the situation only increased when I began to fall upward. Everything around me was a null void until there was a wall behind me being formed, and then another, and then another, and finally a fourth. I was shot through a bale of hay and landed on my ass on cold dirt. Around me was a door...and then I recognized it as a door for a stable. The walls around me are made of wood. I think I landed in a barn.
Athena shot out of the hay next, almost as if there were a bottomless pit of hay underneath the top layer. I caught her on the fall, almost sending me off of my own feet. Jen came last and Athena and I worked to help break her fall.
"Holy crap that was insane," Jen said.
"Yeah, no kidding. Did it feel like you guys were falling the wrong way too?" Athena asked.
"Yeah, it messed with me big time."
"So this is the fifth floor? I guess it would make sense if this is another town."
"Let's go outside and check." I said.
A rural patch that could barely be classified as a town stretched out around us. The sky had started to dim a vibrant orange that stretched out and met the golden grass that stretched toward the sky. The earth and sky melded into a brilliant goldenrod flavor that elicited awe from each of us.
"Just imagine staying in a place just like this," Jen said. "You know—in the real world. That'd actually be really nice."
"It's almost like a tease," I agreed.
"Over here," Athena said. She walked over toward a rustic sign nailed to the ground. It displayed "Novus Semper" across its face.
"Semper...like Semper Fi?" I asked.
"Well technically it's Semper Fidelis," Jen corrected. "It's Latin. If I had to hazard a guess it's probably just the first part of the phrase, always."
"Always...what?"
"Well, Novus is Latin too, meaning new."
"So this place is new always?"
"Literally, yes. I don't know much about the language but that's what I can get from it."
"Doesn't make much sense though, does it?" Athena asked.
"Well, the other towns were each called Novus also. So it's this place's version of New York?"
"Looks to be it. Maybe it's an in joke—maybe there used to be old versions of these towns."
"I guess that could be possible," I said. "Doesn't matter much now."
We walked past the sign into the "town" proper which included in its entirety a single farmhouse and the barn we had come out of. The area around us was flooded with the golden grass that blew gently in the wind.
I walked toward the farmhouse and stepped up the creaking stairs. The porch looked to be decrepit even though it couldn't have been more than officially a week old. Things like that were weird here. The door opened loudly and I stepped inside, looking around to see if anybody else was inside. I turned back to the others and then we split up through the house to confirm its emptiness. When we finished we met back up in the kitchen of the home—it looked like it belonged to some old couple from the 50's that never bothered to leave and just rot away to nothingness.
"I think we're good to take a breather here," I said.
"That's good, because I need to sit down," Athena said.
"Okay, if you're going to stay here then I think I'm going to head off," Jen said. "Mom'll start to freak if I'm gone for too long. If you guys need to sleep I can come back around...three?"
"Yeah, that'll be good," I said. "Can you take her back, Jay?"
"Of course. I'm going to round back here in case anything happens. I can enter the game using her avatar if need be so you will have a third party member no matter what."
"You familiar with the controls?" I asked.
I could almost hear the smirk on his face. "People over the age of forty know how to use the computer too, Andrew."
"Okay, okay, just making sure," I said, holding my hands up in defense.
"I shall see you both soon," Jen said.
"Later. I love you dweeb," I said.
"Ew," she laughed. Her avatar vanished and then it was just the two of us standing inside the living room.
"Well, that settles that, I think." I said, turning to her. "There was a bedroom upstairs was there not? You can take that if you want and I can stretch out on the couch here."
She cocked her head. "You sure? I easily could make it work down here."
I shook my head, "No, no, you head up. I'll stay down here and I can come get you when Jen comes back."
"Okay. If you need anything," she trailed off and turned to head up the stairs.
"You did good out there," I said. "I couldn't even tell that wasn't your dominant arm."
"T-Thanks," she said and continued up the stairs.
I sat down on the couch and sprawled all out, resting my head back and closing my eyes. It has been one long ass day.