As the elevator dinged open, Merrick stepped out quickly. The ride had been slow and jittery. While it had been the only clear way to the upper floors, it seemed like Merrick's ride had been the service elevator's first use in decades. The ride had ended about two minutes before the door dinged and finally opened to let him out.
The upper floors were not in much better condition than the rest of the gallery. Most of the lights were out, but just enough were flickering to dimly light the halls. From the service elevator, there were signs that led directly to the clocktower. Merrick followed them cautiously. The floor awkwardly creaking beneath his feet filled him with a sense of danger. It felt like he could fall through at any minute.
When he rounded the last corner, Merrick quickly backpedaled. The door to the clocktower was just ahead but something stood directly in front of it. At first Merrick had thought it was a security guard, but when he peered around the corner he realized it was not a person but a stone figure.
There was something unnatural about it. It was more than the fact that the stone was placed perfectly to block the door and that it took the rough hewn form of a giant man. Merrick could feel the same energy coming off the stone that he felt when approaching the Barghest in the basement.
Rather than approaching, Merrick retreated. He worked his way back through the halls of the upper floor, following the mental image of the map that he had seen earlier. There was another entrance to the clock tower. All he needed to do was loop around the entire upper gallery to get there.
It was clear that once upon a time, the Hilltop Gallery and Atheneum had been filled with all manner of fine art. Now it was only an archive of different types of dust and cobwebs. There were some empty frames still hanging on the walls and some pedestals still stood tall as if to display a priceless vase. There was nothing left though. Merrick walked through an entire wing that had been purposefully emptied out.
Unlike the other areas, the name had been stricken from above the door. The tile had been pulled up from the floor to reveal only concrete beneath. The pedestals and frames had all been removed. All Merrick could find as he wandered through the area looking for was the ghost of an image that had been laid over one of the glass doors. It appeared to be a crescent moon followed by the phrase: the world itself. Or it said the wolf icarus. Merrick could not be sure.
As he exited the wing, Merrick finally arrived at the other end of the loop only to learn that this entrance was also blocked by a stone guardian. Before he could sneak backward, this one noticed him. Merrick had envisioned the stone guardian moving like an old school animatronic from Chuck E Cheese. Instead, it moved with the fluid grace of a living being.
It caught him off guard and forced him to retreat backward into the emptied out wing of the gallery. When Merrick was nearly halfway through the gallery, the stone guardian crashed through the door with no care for the structural integrity of the building. The wall cracked from the damage but it did not stop there. As if it understood exactly where to strike, the stone guardian raised two giant hammer-like hands and slammed them down onto the concrete.
Cracks spread immediately. Merrick felt the floor shift uneasily under his feet. Unlike the dull creak of the tile from earlier, this was clearly the creak of concrete about to give way. Looking back, Merrick saw that the stone guardian was satisfied with blocking off the path by destroying the floor. It had already turned to head back to its post.
With a frustrated shout, Merrick reached for that spirit that he had felt earlier when fighting the Barghest. Crudle was somewhere out there, he could feel his companion. Instead of reaching for some of the mephit's power, this time Merrick reached for the mephit itself.
Mirroring as best he could the spellwork to summon Crudle in the game Dungeons Below, Merrick prayed to anyone listening that it would work. It did. Crudle appeared just as the ground gave way. Merrick felt his footing give way for a second before a storm of dirt swirled beneath his feet. Rather than just save Merrick, Crudle seemed overzealous.
In a matter of moments, the entire floor had been salvaged. Where the concrete had been broken before now there were dark lines were Crudle had fused it back together. It was not perfect, there were lumps and slants to the floor now but Merrick could feel that there was no chance of it falling.
With Crudle hovering near his shoulder like a protective spirit, Merrick headed back to the guardian that just tried to drop him with the concrete. The dust mephit cemented the idea that there was no difference between Dungeons Below and the real world. Merrick had already started to feel that, ever since Spell Stealer appeared in his hand, but now he could feel it in his blood.
If he had the same skills as his avatar, the stone guardian did not stand a chance. Though, it would have been neat if he was able to carry the rest of his gear from the game into reality.