Okay, so it was 3/4 done already and I just needed the extra motivation to finish the last fourth. Sorry for making everyone wait so long, I just kind of lost the will to write more after zOMG was removed. But with its return imminent I've regained some of that will. Hope you all enjoy.
Chapter 28: Hearts Ablaze
“Well at least now we can pull the plug on The Phantom’s server if it’s a little close to that time for comfort.” Bret looked at Ryan as they looked over the stacks of electronic equipment in the basement.
“Not to mention we found The Phantom’s immersed body. Maybe we could just unplug him and see what happens.” Ryan stood over the semi-sleeping body of David, or more accurately the consumed body of David. While outwardly it looked like their old friend, the consciousness that controlled it now was the malevolent will of The Phantom. Ryan wondered how long such an evil creature had been using their friend as a mask.
“How exactly did we even find this place?” Bret asked.
“I could get into the technical talk of someone having an idea run a trace after that power surge to see if we could see where the data was being routed to, but I know you wouldn’t listen to it and your eyes would glaze over about halfway through it.” Ryan shrugged his shoulders as he joked with Bret.
“I wonder how crazy things are inside.” Bret stared at the blinking lights on some of the equipment.
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“Let’s stagger out the players with have. We don’t want everyone lumped together. Not to mention we’ll need to support our animated allies.” Mikey was going over plans in the courtyard with the Anari and some of the other players that had come with the army.
“I’d like to point out, we’re defending a pretty big target.” Lei had his arms crossed over his chest as he looked at the rough sketches that were hastily put together.
“True but unless they have a means to break through these walls, they have to come through the front gates over there.” Omni retorted.
“We should not underestimate the lengths our foe will go to. I mean he surrendered his castle as part of a trap that probably has more layers than an ogre sized onion.” Mage decided to chime in.
“Alright, that’s enough. We have to get our crews organized. Each of you already have your teams set, and you know which animated brigade is your support. So unless there’s something else you want to weigh in with, your mission is defending the castle walls. When The Phantom himself decides to take to the field my crew and I will deal with him.” He paused as he heard Miles hovering overhead.
“Scouting report, sir.” He looked at McCoy as he landed.
“Report Miles.” The aged Anari replied.
“The Phantom doesn’t just have golems, he has his revived generals. Tridra, Frosti, Doppelord, they’re all coming.” The Anari sounded out of breath as he gave his report. “I flew back as quickly as I could.”
“Peace, Miles, your dedication is admirable.” McCoy and Miles bumped their heads together before Miles turned to go inside the castle.
“Well that certainly complicates things. A lot of his generals had an annoying ability to climb or fly, which makes spreading our defenses even more prudent.” Mikey stared at the map a few seconds before he heard Jeremy calling him.
“Mikey we found some stuff inside you’ll want to see.” Mikey looked concerned as Jeremy grabbed his arm and dragged him inside the castle. They rushed down the staircase and through the hallways to a basement room with its door ajar.
“Stasis tanks?” He blinked a few times as his eyes adjusted to the dim blue light.
“Not all of them are empty. Look.” Jeremy lead him to a section where several players that he and other survivors had presumed dead were floating in the crystal blue fluid of the tanks.
“Is there any way to wake them up?” He looked concerned but a bit relieved that nobody had been permanently killed yet.
“Been working on that. I think I’ve got things set to wake them up, though I can only wake them one at a time. I was waiting for you to give the okay before trying.” Kimberly was wearing a pair of lab goggles and had grease streaked across her face from where she had been working.
“Will they be able to fight? Recent scouting report indicates we’re going to need every fighter we can get on the walls.” He looked from Jeremy to Kimberly.
“I wouldn’t be able to say until we wake them. It would depend on how and when they went into suspension.” Kimberly crossed her arms as she stared back at Mikey.
“Alright, get them awake, but if it looks like it’s going to permanently hurt someone, then stop. You two use your best judgment. I have to check in with Penelope and the Aekean bots upstairs.” Mikey turned to go upstairs. His footfalls echoed off of the crystal walls as he reached the staircase. “Funny, three months ago I never dreamed I could be somewhere like this. I used to watch anime all the time with Alex, and now I’m in one.” He touched the pair of broken goggles around his neck, “If you were here, what would you do? Probably something stupidly reckless and flashy with lots of explosions.” He smiled to himself as he went up the stairs.
Even as he walked down the hallway he could hear Penelope swearing angrily at something in the communications room. As he stood by the door he could see her language had greatly disturbed the gold colored robot Aurum. He made the robot equivalent to a shrug as he stomped out of the room leaving a frustrated Penelope leaning over the console. “Did I come at a bad time?” He cautiously asked as he poked his head into the room.
“No. It’s just… Ugh how do I explain it.” She looked flustered as she crossed her arms and tapped her foot several times.
“Walk me through it one step at a time.” He leaned against the doorway trying to look calm and composed.
“We’ve managed to repair the transmitter.” She replied.
“That’s good, excellent.”
“Except, apparently there’s a password to access the systems we don’t have. I thought plugging in one of the bots would allow us to break it or bypass it. But no, instead we have a working transmitter with no way to use it.” She kicked the base of the terminal several times.
“You know, they don’t like it when people call them bots. They’ve said it makes them feel like you’re mocking them with a derogatory for lazy cheaters.” He replied calmly.
“Like I give an actual f-“ Penelope began.
“Did you try the password, Phantom3?” Mikey’s interrupting response caused her to shut up. As she turned to enter something on the terminal’s keyboard.
“How did you know that?” She looked angry and about ready to hit him.
“I could make a joke about how it makes sense because The Phantom views himself as a god and three is a divine number, but in reality, it’s written on that scrap of paper clinging to the wall behind you.” He pointed to a torn and crumpled piece of paper that hung on the wall.
“You a**.” Her face was red from embarrassment as he walked out the door. He continued down the hallway to the monitor room where John, Henry and Kerri were still trying to get an accurate count of what they were up against.
He took a few minutes to compose himself before approaching the room but he could already hear the three in there bickering, “I’m telling you, the number 20,123 is how many golems he has.” Henry raised his voice to just below a yell.
“And I’m saying it’s a total. Golems, generals and himself included.” Kerri’s voice was already a low yell.
“I’m telling you, looking at this map, it’s not a troop number, it’s a location. (20,123) here looks like a giant crystal spire with a flat top.” He heard John slam what he only imagined was the map table’s top. Mikey shook his head and took a deep breath before going inside.
“Alright, listen up. Enough of this bickering.” He pressed his hands against the table. He looked at one of the monitors that showed the moving walls of golems and tried doing a rough estimate in his head. “You’re all right. We’re fighting a force of 20,123 give or take a few hundred. And yes, this map indicates coordinates (20,123) as ‘Site Beta,’ so get over it and figure out what we’re going to do with that information. Got it?” He replied gruffly before walking back out the door. He hated having to be mean like that to them, but they needed someone to snap them back to reality.
Mikey stared up at the sky as he stepped into the courtyard. He felt a strange calmness as he looked at his watch. Eleven PM, it had been six hours since The Phantom’s troops began their march. At the pace they were moving it would still be another two hours before they reached the castle. For one reason or another The Phantom was taking his time and drawing out this final confrontation. He still felt some apprehension about not knowing the other staff member working with The Phantom, or if it was just a bluff. “One way or another in 18 hours one of us is going to stand victorious. And I hate losing.” Mikey muttered to himself as he flexed his hands. In about an hour he and anyone else who had invested in shield rings were going to raise a shield around the castle. He’d practiced with room sized shields before, but nothing as large as a castle. As much energy as it was going to take, he anticipated no fewer than 15 people could have the energy needed to raise such a shield, much less maintain it.
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“Check on alpha.” Kimberly called out as she pulled a lever on one of the stasis chambers.
“Alpha is go.” Jeremy called back as he pulled his lever at the main computer in the lab room. Both of them watched their monitors as the first person they selected to remove from stasis slowly began to thaw. The blue liquid drained out several vents on the bottom of the tank he or she was in. They had a hard time telling the person’s gender because of the well-endowed female avatar, but the beard on the face suggested a man.
“Hey Jeremy, once this is all over what do you plan on doing?” Kimberly asked nervously, Jeremy was silent for a while before she added, “I mean after you get to return the real world?”
“You know, I never gave it much thought,” Jeremy scratched his chin as he thought, “Probably finish high school then pursue a degree in software design or computer programming. What about you?” Jeremy asked. He paused a few seconds before realizing, “I meant when you’re able to do you know, not focus on just being a computer program.”
Kimberly chuckled at how flustered Jeremy was, “I was thinking maybe be a relations person between the players of zOMG and the creatures of zOMG, I mean I don’t quite fit with either but can understand both.” She paused a few seconds, “Of course that assumes I don’t go rampant between now or then, but I think I kinda did go rampant and managed to come back from it.” She paused as the vital signs of their first revive began to display that they were fully awake.
Jeremy was doing a few checks on their vision before he asked, “What’s your name and what’s the last thing you remember?” He looked at the person as they slowly became alert.
“My name?” The person thought for a moment, “RevvRaptor, and the last thing I remember… well I remember getting swarmed by those piranha things in the rivers before the Otami Underworld.”
“RevvRaptor, that name rings a bell. Hey wait you were guy who always had those weird spider avis, you used to always creep me out when I joined. Alright, are you able to fight you think?” Jeremy asked.
“Fresh as a spring chicken. Which way?” RevvRaptor responded.
“Down the hall, up the stairs, down the next hall, out the doors, look for a guy with a blue robe or cape named Mikey.” Kimberly replied.
They watched him hobble a few steps before jogging out the door, “It works, we should get to thawing more people out, as quickly as we can.” Jeremy was already prepping the next tank, this one had an orange dragon looking person. “I know this person, she helped me when I first joined. Her name’s Ren.”
“Well then, let’s get her thawed out.” Kimberly pulled her lever to begin the thawing sequence as Jeremy pulled his.
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“Whew, I sent all those messages Mikey wanted me to send. Maybe we’ll get a response before I have to close the connection.” Penelope looked around the room she was left alone in. She looked down at the data pad she had been downloading messages to send back to the real world. She was actually quite surprised at the volume of the tactical notes Mikey had been keeping on every fight they had, he’d collected and meticulously sorted data on every foe they had hoping to get some comparison against what was originally programmed. He even included some of his and Kimberly’s schematics for compressing animated data to streamline the AI coding for enemy units. “All this tactical data and not one letter home from him. He made sure everyone else had one to send, but nothing from him.”
She paced around the room for several minutes before something on the terminal began blinking. Penelope’s eyes widened as she began shaking with excitement. It was a message from home, several in fact. Most of them were responses to the tactical data Mikey had sent from the various developers who had coded those enemies. There was also a list of names of players that had been lost and presumed dead, and something else. “A letter from his dad. Interesting.” She tapped the data pad she was using to send a message to the pad that been left with Jeremy.
“Jeremy, got a list of names. Can u compare it 2 the names of people ur thawing out. Don’t want 2 leave any1 bhind. ~P” She attached the list of names to the message and sent it. She decided to scroll through some of the data on foes that they got back. Aside from the major bosses, which were marked as having substantial changes to their tactics and passive abilities most enemies looked like The Phantom had given them a simple +20% to their stats. It also looked like the Otami Underworld was greatly changed, lighting the area should have taken a one-time light burst and the Bloodstone Bracelets should have been able to completely negate the entry mental attack.
“I’m going to chalk the bracelets not working to the source that actually gave them to Michael. Oh…” Penelope stopped partway through the document when there was information on an item called Time Axis. It included a rough sketch of the concept work done for it. “That’s… that’s an amulet. Just like ours. It was sealed in a dev only area due to balance issues but it was programmed in so it could be rebalanced later. The door responds to human touch and it resonates with the other six amulets.” She continued to read the information within the document, her eyes only widening with disbelief, “The door will only open for one who has mastered the six.” She looked at the clock on the tablet, “Oh crap, ten minutes till show time. I better get this stuff down to Mikey.” She grabbed the pad and ran out the door.
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“How close are we to piecing all this data back together?” Henry stared bored as Kerri and John were going back and forth with scraps of paper they had found in the room and trying to retrieve data from the smashed displays.
“Probably would be done sooner if you were contributing. As it is we’re just barely getting anything.” Kerri sounded angry as she entered some of the information she’d found on a balled up scrap of paper into the data pad the three of them were sharing.
“I’ve made next to zero progress, this data has been flipped and flopped so many times that we could have The Phantom’s pron stash or his global domination plans and we wouldn’t be able to tell.” John growled through clenched jaws.
Henry stared bored at the display John was working on, “Nah, you just need to be able speak the same language as the data, then you can recognize where the typos are and correct them. Here.” Henry stepped up to the display John was working on and began reworking some of the characters on the screen. After a few seconds the gibberish was gone, in its place were lists of supplies and building instructions.
“How in the world?” Kerri stared in disbelief.
“This what you were in school for, isn’t it?” John’s awestruck stare and tone of disbelief made Henry smile as he went to the next file.
“Smarter than I look, aren’t I?” He only chuckled as they both stared dumbfounded at Henry. “Hey Kerri, those papers you’ve been piecing back together, don’t bother. They’re all printouts of these files. Man, whatever he was erecting at 20,123 was huge.”
“That’s what she said.” Both John and Henry stopped and stared at Kerri.
“Did you just?”
“Looks like she finally got the sense of humor.”
“Umm guys, it’s getting pretty close to show time. Should we maybe take what we’ve got to Mikey?” Kerri asked.
“Not yet, I’ve almost got a complete readout of whatever he was building it looks like a giant version of that device we found in Aekea.” Henry began copying the files he decrypted onto the data pad. Once it was done, he handed the pad to Kerri and nodded as he turned back to the display of scrambled code.
Kerri was running down the hallway when she bumped into Penelope. She saw on the data pad that Penelope had were several annotations and diagrams, “What did you manage to find?”
“We got responses on most of the things Mikey had me send. He even got a letter from his dad.” Penelope and Kerri both slowed to a brisk walk as the hallway went around a corner.
“Uh oh. That’s not going to end well.” Kerri replied.
“Why’s that? I thought with his dad being the main developer of the controller used for the game a letter might give him good news or an edge of some kind.” Penelope looked confused now.
“Mikey and his dad don’t have what you would call a great father-son relationship. If anything, Mikey’s harbored feelings of rage and anger towards his father for what happened when they had their falling out. And from what I understand it hasn’t improved much since his dad reappeared as the designer and owner of the company that produces the helmet controllers we’ve been using.” Kerri rambled.
“Wow, I almost don’t want to give it to him now.” Penelope said as they passed by the stairwell to the basement. Kimberly was already at the top and looked like she was out of breath.
“Wait a minute, if I came from the data room and you came from the transmission room wouldn’t the stairs have been behind us?” Kerri looked a bit worried.
“The room’s positions change every hour but the general shape of the hallways and castle don’t. The Phantom thought it a good security measure in case someone ever got this far, anyway, I have something I need to deliver to Mikey so come on.” Kimberly began to lead the small troop through the hallway to the main doors.
“What are you delivering? I can’t imagine thawing people out has anything that needs to be delivered.” Kerri stared at Kimberly suspiciously.
“It’s a secret project that Mikey and I have been working on since Aekea, he handed it off to me to finish up while he dealt with stuff up top. Can’t say any more than that, sorry.” The three of them opened the doorway to find Mikey talking to what looked like a very thin and slimmed down golem.
“My master offers very generous terms for your surrender. All estimates indicate that you will suffer a casualty rate of 45% or higher in the coming battle. His offer allows everyone else to go free in exchange for you, your crew, the Anari scum, and the traitor program.” The golem droned.
“I assume by traitor program you mean Kimberly.” Mikey looked at the four assembled players he had been talking strategy with, he’d called them his generals. “What do you guys think?” He asked with a serious tone.
“Thirteen lives for everyone else’s? It would sound like a fair trade except for one catch,” Mage began.
“Yeah, the catch being that the whole point of coming here was stopping The Phantom’s plan of mental virus. Sure saving a bunch of players and friendly animated is nice but not when you lose the main objective.” Omni added.
“Aurum, the animated voted you a while back to be their representative when it came to these strategy discussions, what are your thoughts?” He looked at the gold colored robot that had been recharging.
“I speculate The Phantom is banking on your desire to avoid bloodshed and trying to force you into a suicidal option. That gives his overall plan a 100% chance of success.” The robot sounded sleepy as he rose to his full height. Mikey wondered if the robots viewed recharging the same way he viewed sleep.
“Guess that settles it.” Mikey shrugged his shoulders before turning back to the messenger golem, “You can tell your master that we’d sooner drink Gramster Goo than let him succeed.” He stared the golem down as it departed.
“Very well then.” It finally said as it left out the gate, “I shall make sure to arrange the Gramster Goo.”
Mikey turned to find the women of his traveling group waiting for him at the table full of notes, “Okay guys, what’s the word?” He sat down and motioned to the chairs behind them to sit.
“Jeremy and I have been able to match everyone we’ve found either in the army already or in the basement to a name on the list that was sent. Including finding braindead bodies for the three you asked me about in particular. Unfortunately, nothing can be done for them here, if at all.” Kimberly spoke up first.
“John’s not going to be too thrilled about that one, but he needs to know now.” Mikey looked disappointed by that piece of news.
“We got some data off his systems, a lot of it indicates he was building something big.” Kerri showed Mikey some of the diagrams.
“It’s a matter-energy transporter, he designed it himself to use electrical energy to transport things from this world to ours. It can also bypass the server hopping restrictions were it to be used to target a game server location. He used a prototype in Aekea, and chances are he’s got another one stashed somewhere in the castle. Next.” Mikey replied flatly.
“We got some replies from home. Mostly confirmations of what you suspected. Most of the animated enemies have had an across the board 20% buff from what the original programming was, but bosses received large AI upgrades putting them just below human players in their ability to devise strategies. There was also a letter from your dad.” Penelope waited to see Mikey’s response, but he didn’t even bat an eyelash.
“Okay, Kerri and Penelope you both know what’s left to do get what you can done before final curtain call. Kimberly, I have other things I have to go over with you.” He replied flatly. He looked down at his data pad where Penelope had forwarded him his father’s letter. He waited until Kerri and Penelope had gone before speaking again. “Is it going to be ready in time?”
“I was just applying the final touches to Project Guilty Thorn as I decided to come up. It’s ready, but are you sure you’ll need it?” She looked at him a bit concerned.
“I’ve known for a while now that while strong the Ghi Blade was something already known by The Phantom. I’d rather have Guilty Thorn and not need it, than wish I had it and need it.” He looked down as Kimberly nodded her head and stood up.
“Jeremy and I have been able to speed up the thawing process, we should be able to have everyone awake and able to fight by final curtain call.” She paused a moment and looked back at him, “If the worst should happen tonight, I want you to know the months I’ve been with you and the others have made me happy to have been created. Even if it was only a glimpse into people, the way you all are makes me happy to have known you.” She turned and walked towards the castle door.
“I might as well find out what my dad wanted to say now.” He stared at the mail’s icon a few seconds before pressing the button to open it.
“Dear, Michael… no that doesn’t sound quite right, Dear Son… still doesn’t sound right, oh well.
I can’t begin to imagine some of the terrible things you’ve had to do in order to survive in this world because of me. If I’d actually taken the time to be your dad instead of place blame on you, maybe things between us could have been different. I don’t know, maybe it’s already too late to even try to mend things and close the rift between us.
I’d like you to work with me and be part of a company that someday I’d like to pass down to you. I’ve seen some of your work from when you were still in college. That paper you published about cognitive immersion and building virtual spaces that could provide real world services, like an entirely virtual research lab to streamline R&D departments really blew my mind. Or how about the one where proposed that with a neural controller device coming soon for games that it could be possible to modify the scanners on it from facial scanners to full body scanners to be able to put affordable health screening devices into every person’s home? I really liked that idea but could never figure out how to miniaturize some of the needed on board equipment. You even published one about being able to use one to stabilize a coma patient for long term care until they’re able to wake up. That one actually has already seen some success in the experiment phase and is going through a semi-first live trial with the uhh adventure you’re on right now. Why did you decide to drop out of Neural-Computer Studies and go into Chemical Engineering? Was it to avoid having to deal with me, because you actually show a keen understanding and natural talent for NCS.
Any ways, I have a new wife and we have a son, he’s about 10 years old now and his name is Christopher. I’d like you to meet them when you get out of there. I know you aren’t exactly keen on crossing paths with me, but I want to try and be a family again, and I want you to help me with that.
Good luck in your coming fight, knock him on his a**.
-Michael Berth Sr. err Dad”
Mikey felt his chest wrench as he read the letter, “He’s been following my career since college?” He thought back to when a mysterious donation had been made to the school’s computer science department the same year he published that paper. He was only a second year but he’d either tested out of or taken all his prerequisite courses. When he learned later that year what his father’s company did, he changed his major. It cost him an extra round of summer school, but he thought at the time it was worth it. “Wait ten years old? That means,” Mikey paused as he did a rough estimate, “This new wife was already pregnant when my mom and Maria died. That lying, cheating, no… now’s not the time.” He took a few breaths to keep from getting angry. He rose from his seat and approached an X marking that had been placed at what had been determined to be the exact center of the castle grounds. He took several more breaths to calm himself as he began to focus on the task at hand, creating a gigantic energy shield around the castle. His ability to create shields was the strongest so he was to create the initial barrier. Other people that they’d found or revived had been placed along the castle walls and towers and were to use their shield rings to strengthen the shield once it was raised. Even so, Mikey worried, the largest shield he’d ever created was the size of a medium sized room, a castle was a number of order of magnitudes larger.
“I can do this. In the point between rage and serenity lies true focus.” He could feel the energy oozing out of his palm as he raised it towards the sky. The stream of crystal blue energy shot skyward, past the castle walls, past the tallest towers, it rose like a pale beacon as Mikey focused all his energy into shaping it. As the beacon hovered over the castle for a second it began to grow smaller strands of energy that formed a disc around it before gently falling around the castle. In the darkness below the castle the strands rejoined creating a skeletal sphere around the castle. “Just a little more.” Mikey strained as he poured more of his energy into forming the barrier. Small hexagonal tiles began to grow between the strands of energy. As the hexagonal tiles began to spread between the strands the entire barrier began to spark and glow a faint blue.
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“It’s hauntingly beautiful.” Kerri remarked as she stood in the doorway waiting for Kimberly. She had her arms crossed as she stared down the computer program.
“The Phantom’s probably going to see this as a challenge. You wanted to see me alone.” Kimberly stared back at Kerri as she followed her into the castle. “And I’m sensing some hostility towards me.” Kimberly added.
Kerri didn’t speak as they walked through some of the corridors, “I’ll be honest. I don’t trust you, nor do I like you.” Kerri and Kimberly were walking through the hallways and that comment caused Kimberly to stop.
“Why?” Was her only response to Kerri’s harsh words.
“I still think there’s something you’re hiding. Some other purpose you have in helping us. What it is, I still don’t know, but that nagging feeling that there’s more to you bugs me.” Kerri stopped and glared at Kimberly. Her stare was piercing and angry as Kimberly stammered to respond.
“At first my plan was to use you to remove The Phantom from my path to conquest.” Kimberly stared back, “But once I began fighting alongside you and learning more about you, that changed.”
Kerri’s eyes narrowed as she continued to stare Kimberly down, “Care to elaborate? I have some time.” Her voice was icy as she responded.
“Something changed. I saw you fighting to defend more than just yourselves. You actually cared about what happened to this world, and its inhabitants. When I saw that, something inside me changed. I didn’t want you to just dethrone The Phantom for me, I actually wanted to help you save both worlds. I can’t explain it.” Kimberly looked down and scratched her head, “And then Mikey began working with me to try and solve some of the big problems this world had, that’s when I began to truly fight for a world of peace.”
“Well alright then.” Kerri’s face and stance softened, “Seeing as you want to truly help now, and given Mikey trusts you. I trust you. Just, be careful out there.” Kerri held her fist up and Kimberly stared confused before she realized it was for a fist bump. Both of them stumbled as there was a loud crash against the glowing barrier.
“Looks like The Phantom’s already begun his assault.” Kimberly led Kerri back outside where they found Mikey lying semi-conscious on the ground. His breathing was heavy as his eyes remained fixed on the shimmering shield around the castle. Soon enough John, Henry, Penelope and Jeremy had run out to check on the commotion.
“Sir it looks like the enemy has begun to try and remove the defensive shielding.” Aurum reported. “If he continues to strike it with projectiles similar to the last one, the current shield’s integrity will fail in one hundred and twenty-three attacks.”
Mikey struggled to sit back up as he looked at the gold robot, [colo=red]“Everyone in position?” He asked. The gold robot simply nodded its response, “Then buy us as much time as possible. There’s something still hidden here we have to find before he reaches it.” He stood up and dusted himself off as he looked over his crew. “There’s another amulet in the castle somewhere. And he wants it, desperately. It’s like his life depends on it. We have to find it before he does.”
“Something like that would be in the basement. It’s where the ancient rooms the castle was built over are, and if he didn’t hide it himself, it’s most likely there.” Kimberly responded before leading them into the castle and down the staircase into the basement. She led them in silence as the only sounds were the occasional thud of something against the energy shield outside or the clicking of their steps against the crystal floor.
Mikey held his amulet up and turned several times as he was trying to determine something, “Kimberly, are there more basement levels? I think it’s somewhere below us.” He asked as he watched his amulet glow brighter when he lowered it towards the ground.
“Several. The lowest one is about seven stories underground. But, the stair ways to each level don’t exactly line up into one staircase. We’ll have to traverse each and every floor.” Her voice echoed in the darkness. Another explosion impacted the shield, this one caused the castle underneath it to shudder.
Henry pulled up a diagram of the castle defenses, “That was a big one. It wiped out 5% of the shield integrity by itself.” The darkness around them seemed to swallow all the light given off by the readout, even Mikey’s light amulet was a dim glow in the black as they continued down to the second basement.
“So what was in these basements?” Jeremy felt a shiver as he asked his question.
“Only the uppermost basement was used by The Phantom and even then it was only research and development for some of his monsters. Everything from here and lower were a series of ruins that were leftover from an alpha build of a dungeon that the development team didn’t want to fully scrap.” She tapped one of the half crumbled archways.
“I think we called the dungeon Buried and Forgotten: An Ancient Evil Awakens. It was designed to delve deep into the Null Moon to uncover the secrets about Null Crystals. But we scrapped it because we couldn’t get the item rewarded at the end to be balanced right and some of the monsters in the dungeon were too overpowered for single crews, so we tried to get big team instances to work but it was no good.” John droned on as they descended a staircase.
Penelope’s ears twitched as they reached the bottom of the stairs, “Hold on, we aren’t alone down here.” She formed a small fireball as a shadow darted out of her line of sight. She hurled her fireball at where she thought the creature was only to hear a slurping sound. The crew stared in horror as a purple slime began to glow from inside as it absorbed the fireball. It squished several times as a goofy, toothy smile crossed its face, at least they hoped it was a face that was sitting below a pair of eyestalks. Henry shot it with a jet of water only for it to absorb the water and grow larger.
“Kerri, shoot it with your shadow energy now.” Mikey pointed at the purple slime as he heard more slimes approaching.
Kerri shot the purple slime with her shadow attack and the slime exploded into a purple puddle on the ground, “How did you know?”
“When it absorbed both Henry and Penelope’s attacks I realized the color had to be important.” He pointed at some of the approaching slimes and they counted six different colors of slime. “Okay guys match up against any slimes that are the same color as your amulet, Kimberly hang back.” Mikey pointed to the yellow, red, green, blue, purple, and brown slimes that were approaching them from the hallways.
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“Sire, there’s an energy barrier around the castle. The humans must have erected it to repel us.” A worried golem reported to The Phantom.
“Michael.” He shook his fist, “So they did survive the Trioxic in the basement, my scout didn’t lie to me. The boy must have realized what is hidden there by now and plans to seek it.” The Phantom paused to scratch his chin as he examined the glowing orb around the castle. “All according to plan.” He began laughing to himself as his army began organizing into columns as some of them continued to launch projectiles at the barrier. “Give them some time to find the treasure. March!” The columns began to slowly march towards the pathway leading to the castle. Their thunderous footfalls were deafening as they approached.
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“Phew… I think that’s the last of them.” Jeremy breathed a sigh of relief as the last of the green slimes dissolved.
“Alright, then let’s go.” Kimberly took off at a run towards the next staircase they needed to descend. She slowed her pace until she could hear the others just behind her. Down into the inky blackness they ran as above them the impacts to the shield multiplied. Kimberly thought to herself as she tried estimating how much damage each impact made and how frequent they were.
“Fifteen minutes.” Mikey whispered in the darkness beside her.
“So you’re a telepath now?” Kimberly whispered back.
“No, just worried about the same thing.” The next floor greeted them with the sight of piled up gold and silver coins. There were treasure chests bursting with all manner of wrought golden and jeweled items, and at the far end of the room sat a gilded throne with a massive stone giant sitting upon it.
“It looks like one of those golems we had to run from back in Gold Beach, only much bigger.” Henry stared in awe as the stone giant only stared at them.
“Chances are The Phantom based his golems on that big guy. What hasn’t he copied from elsewhere?” Penelope scoffed as she began running across the room, “You’re in our way!” She yelled as she hurled a larger fireball at the sitting giant. The creature only smirked as the fireball only singed part of its nose. In one of its hands it carried a massive hammer, the other was balled into a fist.
“Penelope move!” Henry dove and shoved Penelope out of the way just as the hammer crashed into the ground she would have been standing on.
“Sentry the Guardian of Infinity, am I reading his information correctly?” Kerri asked as a tag for the monster’s name popped up when she targeted him.
“s**t. This guy was never meant to be released. He was designed so that three or four crews would need to team up to stop him.” John remarked as Mikey charged into battle. His sword was already glowing from readying an attack.
