Chapter 21

There must be an easier way, Eli thought to himself as the bosses finally died. These goblins had been in riot gear which had easily defeated everything the party had thrown at it.

Like, the goblins were dressed in actual child sized riot gear, except that they were extra resistant beyond what you’d see the police wearing in the event of a protest that got out of hand.

Elain’s bullets bounced off, as did the crossbow bolts of Junior and Susan. Luke’s magic had been similarly uneffective.

The little monsters seemed to delight in the back and forth as they used their batons to do battle with Peter, Mattie and Maia. They fought back to back, and neither of the white-eyed goblins had seemed to tire as they were hit again and again and again and again by the weapons of the warriors.

Not even Maia’s new sword, which had been so effective against the unarmored goblins, had pierced through the riot goblin’s defenses.

And then, out of nowhere, Erik had stepped into melee and slapped each of the goblins on the side of the head with his palm, and they had each fallen over dead.

“Why didn’t you do that ten minutes ago?” Peter said, falling backward as he realized that the goblins were dead.

“I wasn’t sure I could,” Erik said honestly. He looked down at the dead goblins and sighed. “I’m still getting a feeling for what I can and can’t do.”

“Yeah? Well what the hell was that?” Peter demanded.

“I had a coin in my hands when I tapped them,” Peter answered. “Now its in their brains.”

“But that’s—” Peter began before he thought better of how to finish that sentence. “Scary as hell, that’s what that is. So you can, what, pierce through armor with your weird ass abilities now?”

“Something like that,” Erik answered. “I’m not certain myself.”

“Well, next time do it sooner,” Peter said.

We examined the fallen goblin elites for loot to see if there was anything we wanted to take, but there wasn’t anything that looked valuable or interesting, so we moved on. Sophie hadn’t taken part in the battle and had instead been sent on to scout out another one of the five corridors from the SafeZone. She’d actually scouted two and signalled that she’d found two more of the same type of elites in each location.

With three corridors scouted and her presently scanning the fourth, we decided to take a look at the fifth.

Specifically Elaine scouted ahead of us while the rest of the party followed behind. We worked together, splitting in opposite directions when we came to a fork, but neither of us actively sought out combat.

It didn’t take long for us to find the final room, which had two more of the riot-gear wearing goblins. We sighed and began to return to the --

Wait.

Eli turned back to look at the expansive room where the two bosses were standing at the far corner. They had their backs turned to the party and were, along with the loincloth wearing goblins, all bowing to figurines that were carved into the wall.

He swallowed. He thought he understood. All they needed to do was--

Congratulations!

You have found the Stairwell of the 3 rd floor!

Advancing to the 4 th floor in 30 seconds.

Please secure all belongings before transference.

Eli cursed in surprise as the prompt alerted him that Sophie had, apparently, found the stairwell and activated them. Half a moment passed, and then he was once more disembodied as the transferrence happened.

Floor 3 Summary (Hard)

Time Taken: 6:31:12

Rank: 272,987

Goblins Killed: 21 (Exp automatically awarded to top contributors)

Floor Bosses Killed: 2/3 (bonus points awarded)

Secret Locations Found: (0/10)

Stairwell Found: Yes

Loot: Minor Mana Potions X10, Minor Healing Potions X15, 3,500 Contribution Points (total), 27,000 experience points (total)

Eli couldn’t quite sigh with disappointment as the rewards were displayed for the completion of the third floor scrolled by. He noticed that there was no loot except for the mana and healing potions they’d been getting every floor, as well as the Contribution Points and Experience Points of course. But bubkiss for loot.

He assigned the potions fairly and toggled out of the menu. Everyone woke up on the fourth floor, which, surprisingly, was a SafeZone identicle to the first three, save for the fact that there was only a single doorway leading away from it.

Eli considered complaining that he’d figured out the Secret of the Totems, or whatever it had been called, but he decided to keep his mouth shut. Sophie had been told to take the exit if she found it, as soon as she found it, so there was no point in getting worked up. In fact--

“Good job finding the exit Sophie,” he said, smiling. “One more floor and we have access to the shop. At least if we can really believe Gabri about anything.”

“Hey! I haven’t steered you wrong yet!” the faerie objected. “You’d think that I’d never have been through this before! Trust me, trust me, trust me! I’m trying to keep you alive until I—”

Abruptly the faerie cut off. “Ooh look at that!” he exclaimed, pointing at the depiction above the corridor. There was a series of goblins carved into the walls in bas relief. They were bowing to a man, who stood atop a platform with his hand raised to the sky. Upon his hand was what looked like a star, to Eli, but could have been a crystal, or a piece of glass for all he knew.

“Okay, that’s neat,” Eli said. “Now come on, let’s strategize.”

He pulled up the menu to check the floors objectives.

Welcome to Floor 4 SafeZone

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Time until SafeZone Collapse: N/A

Floor 4 objectives:

Debate the Rising of the Spheres

Delay the Rising of the Tides

Destroy the Path to Regret

Defeat the Specter of the King

Completion of any of these four objectives will teleport your party to floor 5, regardless of where they are on the floor.

Good luck!

He frowned as he read the win objectives for the floor. What?

“I think that the system is having a joke at our expense,” he said. “There’s no kill quota this time, but there are four weird objectives that I don’t understand.”

“Oooh, what are they?” Gabri asked, even as the others got the distant look on their face to show that they were examining their own menus. Eli read the options off, and Gabri laughed.

“Yeah, I have no idea what the heck you’re supposed to do. Good luck! You only have until you run out of food until you figure it out.”

“What do you mean?” Eli asked.

“Didn’t you notice? There’s no option to retreat,” Gabri explained. Eli frowned. It was true that the place where the menu said something about returning to the SafeZone to withdraw was gone.

“He’s right,” Jose said suddenly. “I can’t initiate a vote, like I did before.”

“Great,” Eli said, and the others exchanged nervous looks as they each began poking about in their interfaces to confirm what Jose and Eli had said. “Okay, let’s not panic. The kill quota is gone, and so far the path is linear. This might be the easiest floor yet.”

“Don’t freaking jinx us man,” Junior said, swatting him on the arm. “But yeah, come on, let’s go. Sophie, do you hear anything coming from up ahead?”

“Water,” she said. “No goblins, but that might be because the water is too loud.”

“Damn,” Eli said.

“I’ll go check it out,” Sophie volunteered, but Elain put a hand on her shoulder.

“We’ll go together,” her mother said, and the mother and daughter took off at a brisk jog. The rest of the party finished getting organized, putting all of their gear and loot together where Jose and Lucy could rush to claim it when they cleared the floor, then went off after the Waters mother and daughter.

Eli watched as they passed more and more bass reliefs, each showing an interaction between men and goblins that he didn’t understand. Then the elves came, and then the dwarves, and then fae and orcs and many, many other races. It was obvious that the walls were telling a story, but he couldn’t for the life of him put together what that story was.

It might help if he could read the runes on the wall better, he thought to himself, but they were just like the runes in the books that Gabri had given him. Useless.

They walked along the path for half an hour, studying the bas relief statues as they went. The story grew more intricate the further in, with clear battles taking place, but Eli couldn’t tell who they were fighting, or why, or who won.

The sound of water was coming from all around them, as though there were a great waterfall on either side of the path. Nobody was talking, but Eli doubted that anyone could hear enough to hold a coversation anyway.

Finally, the party caught up to Sophie and Elaine, who were standing in the final room. Eli knew it was the final room because the walls were bare, and there was nothing but a crystal sphere in the center of the room. He frowned.

“Debate the Rising of the Spheres,” he muttered. “What does that mean? We have a sphere here, are we supposed to argue with it?”

“Try pumping your Mana into it, Master,” Gabri said excitedly. “Try try try, see what happens!”

Eli frowned, but he couldn’t think of any reason not to follow the faerie’s advice, so he put a hand on the crystal, which was the size of a car, and he pressed about fifteen mana into the crystal. Abruptly his menu appeared.

Unauthorized User Detected.

Mana Signature Logged.

Authorizing User.

Privileges set to -52i

Authorized User Detected.

Awakenining Titan Gilgamesh.

Error: ##5235##

##Do not Wake the Titans – Ranalin Windsong

##Do not Wake the Titans – Korgoth Deepdrum

##Do not Wake the Titans – Sugarplum

##Do not Wake the Titans

##Do not Wake the Titans

##Do not Wake the Titans!

##Do not Wake the Titans!!!!

Eli watched as the phrase repeated itself a thousand times, sometimes signed and sometimes not. The words remained the same each time they passed. He cried out in pain as the words echoed through his mind, spoken by a thousand voices, until a thousand thousand men, women and children had spoken.

And then there was silence, and he was left with a simple prompt.

~#:

After some consideration, Eli realized that he could think an argument into the prompt, and so he went with the most basic request he could ask of a computer.

~#: Help

Scanning

Contacting Sysadmin, please wait.

Abruptly, the menu disappeared, and within the crystal ball a man’s head appeared. Eli breathed a sigh of relief.

“Erandius!” he said, but the voice that followed was mechanical and recorded.

“ I apologize for any distress you were caused. I am unable to delete this floor for sentimental reasons. I have attempted to reduce the frequency at which it appears to prevent confusion. Please STAND BY as I unstick you.”

The voice spoke loudly and clearly, but there was no soul to it. Then, abruptly, the world went black.

Floor 3 Summary (Hard)

Time Taken: 32:21

Rank: 2,241

Debate the Rising of the Spheres: Complete

Loot: 500 Contribution Points (total), 1,000 experience points (total)

Eli sighed as he confirmed the Contribution Point and Experience Point Bias that he’d been using all along, then sat up.

“Welcome to floor five,” he said to everyone, and for the first time he realized that they were in a completely different sort of SafeZone than before.

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