Just as Maria ran through the tent flaps, she skidded to a halt, and her eyes went wide. “What the hell?”
They were standing on a bright red, semicircular platform. Below them was an endless void. The tent stretched for what looked like an eternity. There was no way this massive space was fitting inside the tent. Granted, it was a large tent, but not this large.
“What is this place?” Maria asked. She stepped forward. The ground felt like it was made of plastic, with a glossy sheen to it. Maria walked to the edge of the platform, where another circular platform was held up by a zipline that stretched far into the void. It was floating, independent of any support. Maria followed it and spotted a castle in the distance. It was resting on a large stone pillar that rose from the void. Two sets of spotlights seemed to be shining from the roof of the castle, swinging around randomly.
“Call it a hunch, but I think that’s where we need to go,” Tanalia said.
“Your hunch may be right,” Chariot said.
Maria peered over the edge. There were no guard rails to prevent her from falling over. There truly was nothing below them, like they were standing on the edge of a cliff. “It doesn’t look like theirs any other way we can go.”
“You still have those gravity potions don’t you?” Tanalia asked.
“I only have two left, but I suppose that is one other way we can cross this chasm.” Maria pursed her lips and stepped onto the circular platform. Thankfully, there was a set of guardrails for her to hold onto. Even then, she didn’t want to be so close to the edge. Who knew how far of a fall she would have if she fell into that void? Three steel poles formed a triangular arch over them, connecting to the hook over the magic floating zipline. A single pressure plate was positioned at the center, with a secondary lever on the semi-circular platform, likely to recall the mechanism.
“What happens if we fall there?” Chariot asked.
“We die?” Tanalia peered over the ledge of the platform, before following Maria onto the platform. Chariot sighed and followed too. As soon as the trio was on board, Maria stepped on the pressure plate. The platform shook slightly and shifted. There was nothing to propel them, but it was like the platform knew what to do once it had been stepped on. The platform slowly inched forward. As soon as the hook dipped over the hill of the zipline, the platform picked up speed, wooshing over the void. It wasn’t as fast as Maria would have liked it, the longer she was over this void the worse her heart got. It was beating in her ears.
The air grew colder.
As the trio got closer to the castle, it became far more clear just what they had been looking at before. The castle was less a fortification and more an artistic construction. It was immaculately decorated, with colorful streamers and banners hanging from the surrounding towers and walls. Buttressings arched out from the sides. The bricks had been painted in a black and red checker pattern, while light shone from the colorful stained glass windows depicting the Ringleader’s mask.
The spotlights suddenly shifted and tracked the zipline as it grew closer to the castle. Maria shielded her eyes and glanced away.
An arrow whizzed by her torso, striking the guardrail behind her.
“Everyone get behind me,” Chariot said, raising her shield.
Maria ducked behind the knight as an arrow struck the platform where she had just been standing. The zipline was picking up speed. Maria held onto Chariot's armor for support. Several more arrows whizzed by, one flying over the shield, and striking Maria in the shoulder. She fell back, wincing as she grabbed at her wound. Before she could do anything, the zipline reached the end and came to an abrupt stop. The trio was launched from the platform and landed on the front steps of the castle.
Maria groaned, as she slowly rose to her feet. Her HP had dropped to {1217/1834}.
“Is everyone alright?” Chariot asked.
Maria sighed. “Peachy.” The arrows had stopped flying, but that was likely because they were beneath the walls now. Whatever was firing the arrows in the first place likely couldn’t reach them. Maria pulled the arrow from her shoulder with a shrill cry and gripped the wound as it started to bleed. She drank one of her healing potions. Her health bar was completely refilled, and the wound patched itself. “Fuck those arrows.”
The front steps of the castle were short. Along the red plastic platform holding up the castle was a long stretch of cobblestone leading to the edge, but the zipline rode over all of that. The front doors were emaculetly decorated, thick, and carved half in half into the appearance of the ringleader helmet.
“I think he’s a fan of himself,” Tanalia said and approached the doors. As she reached out to try and open them, they clunked loudly and opened inwards. Ahead was a dark rectangular passageway made of cruse, faded flagstone. Two wall-mounted torches across from each other lit up. The orange flames cast a soft, orange glow over the stone. Then, another set of torches a few feet from the first two illuminated in green fire. Then another set in purple, then red, blue, yellow, pink, and the pattern repeated. When the light got far enough, the ones in the back went out, and a guiding trail of bright lights steak down the tunnel before another set of colorful torches illuminated, and repeated the pattern.
Maria slowly stepped into the hallway, keeping her Serpents Blade drawn.
“Hold on, are we just walking in?” Chariot grabbed Maria.
“Where else can we go?”
“We should just slow down. We don’t know what we’re walking into. I don’t like any of this so far. The tent, the chasm, the platform, none of it feels right. Let’s be cautious as we look for him. Let me take the lead in case anything comes at us from down the hall.
Maria nodded and gestured for Chariot to step ahead. Tanalia took the rear, keeping Maria in the middle. They only made it a few steps in before the doors slammed shut behind them. A loud band echoed down the corridor. The three looked back. They were in the lion's den now.
Suddenly, the floor gave way, opening up into a pit. The trio fell, screaming before crashing down into a pool of water. It was lukewarm and bright. Maria broke the surface of the water, gasping for air. They were suddenly engulfed in flashing bright lights and pleasant smells. A pool was constructed at the entrance of the grand foyer The large, colorful room was adorned with glittering gold, pearl white walls so shiny you could see your reflection. The floor was checkerboarded in black and white, with lavish red carpets rolled out down the center path, with a double stairway leading up to the second floor.
Sitting atop the second-floor railing, and overlooking the first floor was the Ringleader. His legs were crossed, dangling freely as he gripped the rails tight. The playful smile of his mask burned itself into Maria’s eyes. It was all she focused on.
“Greetings my friends!” he said casually as the trio swam to the edge of the pool. They climbed out. Large puddles dripped onto the polished floors and soaked into the red carpets. “Did you know it’s rude to show up to someone's home uninvited?”
“Did you know it's rude to hack someone's leg off?” Maria glared at him, brushing her wet hair out of her face, and readjusting her witch cap.
“Did you know it’s rude to talk back to your older brother?”
“Did you know I don’t give a fuck?” Maria cast {Fireball}, hurling it at the man. An explosion shook the front door, rattling the crystal chandelier that hung above the stairs. The Ringleader was gone when the smoke cleared. Burning playing cards fluttered through the air, whirling around the room before converging in a vortex in front of the trio. The sheer amount of playing cards grew more intense as they started blowing around so fast that they created a current. Maria and Tanalia slowly moved behind Chariot and took cover as the cards flew out in every direction, pinning themselves to the walls and floor. The Ringleader stood there once more, unharmed.
He chuckled. “What a sight this is.”
Chariot lowered her shield, and the trio glared at him.
“The three of you have made it to the third act!” The Ringleader threw his arms up in a spectacular showmanship. “What a long journey it must have been. Look at you now! You’re dressed for the occasion, stronger than ever I take it? I’ve heard this story time and time again. You’ve come to defeat me, you’re the hero in your own story. Well, this is it! Your final act! The final battle!”
“You know how to get under someone's skin,” Tanalia said.
“Yes! This is your moment to say something quippy. Something to assert your goals for the audience! Come on! Give me something!”
The trio remained silent.
The Ringleader slumped forward, disappointed. “Very well. It’s time to put everything you’ve learned to the test!” He snapped his fingers. More of the demon knights marched into the front foyer from the second floor. Maria tensed up, and readied her sword. “Make sure to do your best.” The Ringleader laughed, backing away slowly down the center hallway. “I do hate anticlimactic endings.”
“Where the hell are you going?” Chariot barked. The Ringleader only faded into the shadows of the center hallway. The demons marched down the steps, eight in total, and formed a wall between the trio and the hallway.
“Your bravery is amusing, mortals. But it only prolongs the inevitable,” one of them said.
Maria gulped and glanced around. There wasn’t much room to fight so many of them at once.
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Wait…
Maria grinned. She cast {Wall of Flames}. The entire row of demons was engulfed by a wall of roaring fire. The heat blasted back onto the trio as they flailed, the fire swimming under their armor. They ran for the trio, screaming and howling like a banshee.
Tanalia dashed to the side, sending her knife into the wall of flames to strike at the demons while she dashed at the others, slicing them with her swords.
Chariot dodged one of the flaming monsters with her shield, protecting Maria. “Tanalia, jump!” The knight cast {Arc Slash}, sending an arc of light through the charging demons. Tanalia double-jumped over the attack, pirouetting midair before landing behind one of the demons, and slashing him from behind with her duel blades.
Maria moved to the side and slashed at the burning demons. Their flesh was charing, filling the room with an unpleasant odor. She blocked, and parried their sword strikes, hurling {Firebolt}’s at any who got too close. As the demons dropped, it became easier to focus on singular enemies.
They were strong though.
The demons took a lot of hits. Even the fire magic only went so far. Maria was running out of breath by the time the last of the demons fell. It poofed into a cloud of pixels and polygons. More armor pieces weapons and monster parts were added to her inventory, but she didn’t care. Her XP bar was nearly filled again.
“Let’s not slow down,” Chariot said. “He went down the center path.”
“You sure another trap door isn’t going to get us?” Maria asked between breaths.
“Only one way to find out,” Tanalia grinned.
Chariot took the lead, hurrying down the center pathway. It was long and opened up into a wider hallway. Several doors lined the walls, with lavish portraits hung between them. At the far end of the hallway, The Ringleader stood, waiting.
“Are you going to keep running?” Maria asked.
The Ringleader didn’t respond. He snapped his fingers again, and the hallway started to rotate counterclockwise. Maria’s stomach lurched as she tried to balance herself. The Ringleader stayed properly oriented with the floor, as did all the furniture and chandeliers. He simply chuckled and backed into the doorway at the end of the hall.
As the trio fell to the ceiling, the doors down the hallway opened simultaneously, and more demon knights hopped out, landing on the ceiling, and marching past upright chandeliers.
“So it’s going to be like this, huh?” Maria muttered to herself. From the door at the end of the hall, however, one final demon entered the rotating hallway. It leaped from the doorway, and onto the ceiling. It’s body was bulky, almost bloated, it’s armor thick, and covering only its torso. Large coiled horns protruded from its head. The beast let out a deafening roar that swayed the chandeliers from side to side.
Gordo Demon - Lvl 45
Maria clicked her tongue. “Great.”
The hulking demon charged at the trio, destroying the upright chandeliers. It was wielding a large club, spiked with sword blades. Maria and Tanalia jumped to the side as Chariot raised her shield to block the attack. She was flung into the wall, cracking the stone. Everyone fell onto the right wall as the hallway continued rotating. Chariot rose back to her feet, and aimed her Crimson Petal at the Gordo Demon, binding it in place.
“I’ll take care of it!” she said. “Deal with the grunts!”
Maria and Tanalia nodded, turning to fight the demon knights following close behind the Gordo Demon. Tanalia dashed at the demons, double jumping over them, and twirling her duel blades.
Maria cast {Fire Rune} onto a painting of a red-cloaked woman in front of the approaching hoard, and turned to hurl {Demons Fury} at the demon that was closer to her. The rune exploded, sending the small hoard of demons flying in every direction, while her second spell did heavy damage to the closest. She transformed her sword, using the blade to whip the demon, trails of fire left in the wake of each swing. As it died, another ring chimed in Maria’s ear.
Name: Maria Marigold
Lvl: 27 >> 28
HP: 1834 >> 1900
MP: 150/494 >> 160/513
Total Defense: 148
Total Attack: 83.1
The room kept rotating, forcing Tanalia to readjust her stance as her footing shifted. She dashed past the hoard Maria had blown up, slicing at the demons. She stopped before one and drove her sword into its neck. As another demon came up from behind, her dagger flew from its sheath and blocked the attack. Tanalia spun around and unleashed a flurry of swings at the demon until it was dead. “You know, these aren't so hard to kill when you memorize their attack patterns.”
“You’ve memorized them?” Maria said, jabbing her sword into another demon's skull.
“It’s not that hard.”
“Lucky you.” Maria ripped her sword out as the demon despawned beneath her.
The two looked back to Chariot. She had barely made a dent in the Gordo Demon’s health. She was absorbing the damage into her shield, even if it meant getting knocked around.
“Tanalia!” Chariot yelled. “You still have sticky bombs right?”
“You know I do!”
“Do you mind?”
“Not at all,” Tanalia grinned mischievously and ran at the large bloated demon. With Chariot distracting it, Tanalia double jumped onto its back, stabbing her sword into the back of its neck. She slapped three of the sticky bombs to the back of its head and jumped away. “Maria!”
Chariot raised her shield.
Maria cast {Firebolt}, and struck the bombs. The explosion shook the rotating room, causing it to stop at an awkward slant. Maira stumbled back, supporting herself by standing on both the left wall and the ceiling. The chandeliers finally collapsed, falling to the floor above Maria, and shattering. The shards fell back towards the ceiling, running glass onto her.
The Gordo Demon’s health had nearly halved. Not even the explosion was enough to take it down. Slowly, it turned back to glare at Maria and Tanalia. It roared.
Tanalia stepped back, but just before the beast could charge, Chariot ran up from behind, her shield glowing. She bashed it with her shield and flung the Gordo Demon into the wall with such force it smashed through the stone.
It died, having exploded into a splatter of gore and viscera.
Maria received a large amount of XP.
“That wasn’t too hard,” Chariot said, panting. Her health was nearly empty.
“You sure you’re alright?” Tanalia asked.
“I just need a potion. Its hits were powerful.”
“With your defense, that’s concerning,” Maria said.
“That’s why I took care of it. I appreciate the help.” She gulped down a healing potion. “Now let's go after that bastard.”
The trio walked along the edge of the ceiling and the left wall. The door was positioned horizontally above them, they had to work together to climb up and open it. Maria climbed onto Chariot's shoulders, and reached the doorknob, pushing the door open. Tanalia double-jumped up, and the two had to work together to pull Chariot up. As soon as Maria stepped out of the hallway, she fell back onto the floor as if gravity was proper again.
At least things seemed relatively normal again.
The trio hurried down the lengthy, and winding hallway of doors, and paintings. Many of them were of the Ringleader, but as they went further into the maze of hallways, Maria slowed down. They rounded another corner and saw ahead of them a fork in the road. Something didn’t feel right. Maria looked back the way they had been running, only to see a long stretch of hallway behind them.
“What is it?” Chariot asked.
“Didn’t we just come around a corner?”
“Yes?” The knight looked back and stopped.
There was no corner, just a straight hallway filled with doors, and paintings. The red, velvet carpet just stretched on and on into eternity.
Tanalia sighed. “Wonderful.”
Maria walked past Tanalia and peered down both hallways at the crossroads. She started walking down one of them. It looked like a simple stretch of hallway with a door at the far end, but as she walked further along the hallway looked as though it were shrinking. Maria bumped her head on the… ceiling. Maria was taken aback and looked ahead. The roof of the hallway was sloping downward. No, the entire hallway was getting more and more narrow. An illusion. She groaned. “Okay, seriously, who the fuck has a castle like this?”
“It must be a pain to order room service,” Tanalia said.
Maria trudged back to the intersection and sighed. “Where are we even supposed to go?” She looked along the row of paintings and doors. There were too many to check, but one of the doors in this hallway had to be the way out. Maria opened the closet door and peered inside. It was another hallway, identical to the one she was standing in, with another door directly across the hall from her. She stepped through and looked around. At the far end of the hallway, she spotted Chariot and Tanalia standing by the door she had just opened. She could see herself standing there in the door frame. “Oh, fuck off.”
Chariot turned to the sound of her voice. Her eyes went wide. “Wait. What?” She looked back into the doorframe.
“Start trying all the doors!” Maria said. “One of these has to be a way out.” She walked along the hallway, opening and stepping through doors, only to end up in the same hallway. She stopped for a moment and glanced at the walls. The paintings between each door were oddly strange. They were hung in ornate golden frames but titled ever so slightly, just enough to be noticeable. Of the several that lined the hall, there was a multitude of creatures depicted on them.
No. Not creatures. People.
One of the portraits was of a nearly topless woman, with raven-black hair cascading in wild waves down to her waist, where her luscious smooth skin became scaly. She had the tail of a snake. A Lamia? Maria glanced at the next portrait. It was of a nymph bathing in the lake, just glaring back enough to catch a hint of her emerald-colored eyes. Another was of a man with the torso of a spider, another of a younger-looking woman with claws covering herself in a blood-red cloak. Maria kept walking along the line of paintings. She came across the Ringleader, sitting proudly with his arms stretched out wide. Next to him was the portrait of a man dressed in the same kind of armor the demon guards were wearing. Maria kept going, passing by all manner of characters, from orcs, elves, dwarves, and merfolk. As Maria came across the portrait of a vampire man sitting precariously, Maria spotted the mark of the demon king on his left wrist.
Chariot came up from behind.
“They’re my siblings,” Maria muttered.
“All of these?” Chariot asked.
“Hargrim did say my dad got around.” Maria looked back down the row of portraits. There were so many. She couldn’t even begin counting them all. If this is how many people she needed to track down and kill… maybe this wasn’t going to be as easy as she thought. No, if she could find the demon king's treasure, then she would have the strength to take down all these people. Who knew what they were doing, scattered across Mytharia? She just needed to get through one of them first.
“Hey, I think I found it!” Tanalia called.
Maria and Chariot turned to Tanalia and hurried over. Tanalia held the door open for Maria as she stepped inside. The path ahead was dark. While not inherently a good sign, it wasn’t the hallway again, so it was an improvement. Chariot and Tanalia followed Maria in. The light from the doorway cast a guiding path down the center of the dark space, but as Maria reached the edge of the light, she opened her palm, preparing to cast a spell.
A spotlight engulfed her. She winced, shielding her eyes. The door slammed shut behind the trio. Maria tried looking ahead. Several more spotlights flashed on, converging on one singular space. The center of the dark room. The Ringmaster stood with her arms outstretched. The darkness swiftly faded, overtaken by illuminated torches They were standing in the center of a large open space. A stone, circular wall, decorated with banners and streamers, encased them. It was too tall to climb. Above it, were rows upon rows of empty seats that wrapped around the arena.
“Tonight, I invite the guests of honor to join me at center stage, for they are the stars of today's performance. Ladies and Gentlemen, tonight, I present to you, the grand finale!”