Loopshard - Chapter 128

-Previous Chapter-
--Encyclopaedia---
---Next Chapter----

I feel like I've fallen into a pretty good rhythm for posting, so from now on you can expect a new chapter on Loopshard on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and if I do more than 3, they'll land in the weekend.

Apologies that it took me this long to land on some predictable schedule, things have truly been hectic.

-----------------------------

Chapter One-Hundred-and-Twenty-Eight

Adam landed on his feet in a field of tall red spiky grass. It was immediately clear to him what Alivida’s cryptic words had meant, because ahead of him, past where the grass ended, was an area that seemed touched by Nwetrou’s power, since it was a discoloured swamp with two large black ponds.

It was no doubt the same arena that Adam had been sent to when Hiroshi Sakurai challenged him, but it was clear that who a Player worshipped had a role in how the arena ended up looking. Even the stands around the arena mirrored the influences of their patrons, with Adam’s side being made of crimson glass and seating figures that looked like they’d been freshly skinned, with their flayed remains hanging about their waists, while their exposed red flesh dripped blood onto where they sat.

On Adnan’s half, the seating area was a mix of driftwood, rotten carcasses, barnacles, and bleached bones. Upon them weren’t figures that were united in appearance, but rather creatures of the ocean. Octopuses like the Envoy in the cave on the island, whale-shark-like things, large fish, sea slugs, half monstrosities like mermen, multi-headed serpents, and a handful of creatures that were like blobs of dark shadows with nothing but round glowing eyes staring at him.

Adam didn’t waste a moment and shot himself forward with a big push of his Princely Raiment and the Mana permeating his enormous body, basically throwing himself right at his opponent like a projectile.

Adnan was quick to react, activating his spring boots and launching himself up at Adam, his spear outstretched in his right hand and his parry shield ready and waiting in his left.

Before they collided, Adam used his magical control to move himself away from Adnan’s spear, ending up above him and immediately punching down into his spine.

The Nwetrou worshipper flew down towards Adam’s side of the arena, hitting the spike grass, which bristled and pierced him like it was alive.

But Adam knew that he hadn’t killed his opponent, because his body twitched on the red spikes that’d caught him.

This bastard must have the Hobgoblin Pendant, he thought as his large frame landed on the edge of the arena on Adnan’s side, his armoured feet crushing the stands and scattering the audience seated there. With his own spring boots and the powerful muscles in his body, Adam flew back towards his side, even as Adnan pulled himself from the spikes and downed a healing potion that quickly repaired his broken body.

He took up a stance as Adam came right at him, but then Adam used his control sigil again, giving himself a boost that sent him up and over the awaiting spear and parry shield. As he moved around the back of his opponent, who was slow to turn, Adam triggered the Heart Lance construct woven onto his right arm.

The sound of a shrill whistle came from inside Adam’s armoured right hand as a hole was created by a pressurised beam of blood and silk. It moved so quickly that it was impossible to really track, and as Adam landed on the red needle grass, Adnan had collapsed in the middle of the arena where the two halves met. There was a fist-sized hole right in the middle of his torso, which had torn apart his lungs and obliterated his heart. His ribcage had a perfect hole in it as well, as did his fur coat relic.

< < Challenge Stone Deactivated > >

< You have defeated Player Adnan Nasr in the arena >

< < Victory Pearl Obtained > >

Adam didn’t get a chance to loot his opponent before he was returned to the basement restaurant of his house.

The Princely Raiment quickly started to disintegrate around him, dropping darkened fragments onto the floor. Since he didn’t want to leave a mess for Charlie, Adam went upstairs to his room and let the rest of the armour shed off of him.

He slumped onto the floor as the adrenaline died down and his heartrate returned to its normal rhythm.

Part of him almost felt disappointed.

It had been so easy.

He pulled out the Victory Pearl that he’d been rewarded.

It was like a smaller version of the Challenge Stone, although it didn’t have the symbol of crossed blades inside and instead there was a golden fluid trapped within.

< < Visiting Stone Activated > >

< Player Becky has entered your Dimension >

Adam got back to his feet and left the Player House, walking the short distance to the centre of the island where his friend arrived.

“How’d it go?” Adam asked.

“It was easy,” Beck replied.

“Yeah…” Adam agreed.

“What do you think the pearl is for?” Beck then asked, a curious gleam in his eyes.

“I knew you’d ask that,” Adam replied.

“Could it be that there are more vendors we don’t know about?” Beck speculated. “How many more secrets are there on this island?”

“Let’s ask Alivida and see what she says,” Adam suggested.

They went to the garden to find her tent, but as they walked Beck kept glancing up and down at Adam’s enlarged frame.

“It really doesn’t suit you,” he remarked.

“It’s more convenient,” Adam said.

“All I’ll say is that I wouldn’t trust you if you looked like that when I met you. It’s freaky.”

“Yeah, I got that loud and clear,” Adam replied.

“What should we do about the last two that blocked us?” Beck wondered.

“I don’t know what we really can do,” Adam said. “We just have to stay on guard. There’s a high likelihood that we’ll encounter them soon enough. Because, despite having the ability to plan far ahead and lay traps for us, Nwetrou strikes me as someone impatient.”

“Do you know what quest Nwetrou worshippers have for the Floating Sea?” Beck asked.

“They have to summon a Cloud Leviathan,” Adam replied. “It’s the next evolution up from a Slug Dragon.”

“That sounds like a fun time,” he remarked.

“I heard from a time-looper I befriended in the past that it’s a massive creature that will devour all the islands and airships.”

“That would be a problem,” Beck said. “But how do you even summon it? This is the first I’m hearing of this thing.”

“You know the lamprey things at the bottom of the world, below the floating sea?”

Beck nodded. “I’ve seen them, yeah, but I never could get close.”

“Well, you’ve gotta get one of them and put it into a Slug Dragon, that will make it evolve into the Leviathan. It can also create a feral Slug Dragon if you put it into a Slugwhale.”

“Then I don’t think we have to worry about it,” Beck reassured Adam. “There’s no way to get down there unless you can fly. Even with the Drake Wing and the Grappling Hook from the Cloud Skimmer captain, I don’t see a way you can get down there unless you possess your kind of magic.”

“Warders can also fly,” Adam pointed out, although Beck had a point.

“If they know what they’re doing, perhaps,” Beck said, making it clear that he hadn’t met such a Player yet.

“Maybe some of the parasitic eels are already on one of the islands,” Adam guessed. “When I helped my friend with her patron quest involving Mast-Chewer, the Drakes’ captain tasked us with taking down a feral Slug Dragon that’d been infected by an eel brought up onto one of the islands.”

“Hmm,” Beck muttered. “That would be an issue to worry about then.”

They reached Alivida’s tent and both went inside, their cubes time-frozen by the opening where violet light spilled out.

“Back so soon?” Alivida greeted Adam.

“We had a question about the Challenge Stone,” he replied. “Can you tell us what the Victory Pearls are for?”

“I cannot say,” she said. The melody of her blood didn’t reveal anything either, and he thought that perhaps she had no idea at all.

“Can you at least confirm that they’re meant for a vendor?” Adam pushed on.

“I cannot say.”

Again, her blood held no answers.

“I knew this was a waste of time,” Beck said. “None of the denizens would tell me if the Mastery Shards were for a vendor either. I think we just have to find out ourselves.”

“It’s a shame Luvicidix already went to sleep,” Adam said. “She usually drops a lot of hints.”

“I’ve always preferred solving puzzles without getting clues, anyway,” Beck commented.

“I suppose we could start from the bottom of the island and work our way up,” Adam considered. “You’d get to see the big creepy eye as well.”

“I can’t wait,” Beck deadpanned.

Although they were friends and got along well, it was hard to tell with how much Beck complained about Adam’s flying skills as he manoeuvred their flesh-shaped platform down to the bottom of the island.

Beck held a lantern on the end of his staff, casting a warm glow onto the island’s cliffside as they descended. It was a good thing too, because the light of the silvery moon did not reach below the surface of Interim Island, leaving it in total darkness.

As they reached the very bottom of the island, Beck and Adam both looked up at the eye that adorned the island’s tip. Three enormous seven-fingered hands of stone grasped an orb with a toothy mouth within which was a large squishy eye.

[You should not be here,] said both of their cubes.

“Well, that’s certainly going to keep me up at night,” Beck remarked, though he didn’t look away.

The eye glanced between them, the warm light of Beck’s lantern reflecting off its cornea.

Adam brought out his Victory Pearl and showed it to the large eye.

Its gaze fixed on the item, but it didn’t blink or do anything special. Still, it was clear that the object held some kind of fascination to it.

Then Adam noticed it. The slow bassy melody of the island changed slightly. He couldn’t decipher what it meant, but he knew it was a clue.

“Should we ask the squid?” Beck suggested.

Adam shot him a look as if to say, “Are you stupid?”

“I was just joking,” he added.

“Let’s see if there aren’t some kind of cave or opening in the sides of the island that we’ve missed,” Adam said.

They spent the next half hour slowly circling the tapering earth and rock that hung from beneath the island, but aside from Sköll’s cave, there was nothing to be found.

“We should check the Market,” Beck said. “I’ve always thought that the fountain could be hiding some sort of secret.”

As they returned to the surface aboard Adam’s floating platform of flesh, his figurative ear piqued for any new melodies of the Blood, he suddenly noticed a new one, but it was incredibly faint. He wasn’t sure if it had been there all along and he just hadn’t been paying enough attention, or if it had appeared only after he’d gotten the Victory Pearl.

“Where are we going?” Beck asked as Adam steered them towards the source.

“Be quiet for a moment,” he replied, pausing the platform in the air above the island’s centre.

Since all the other melodies were so strong and vibrant, the new one was really difficult to locate.

I’ll have to triangulate it, Adam thought and flew straight east, past his Player House.

As he passed over his home and the bright lighthouse, he realised that the melody he’d been hearing from this direction previously was actually coming from the small garden and not the First Light’s brazier.

I think the Glass Sapling might be alive, he thought.

It was hard to pick up the faint melody since he was so close to a stronger one, so Adam moved north towards the Market, stopping when he was between it and the Player House. Although the melodies from the Market were strong, he was at least not directly next to one of them and as such he could just barely hear the new melody again.

He flew them south, stopping when they were between the Tavern and the house, but it was still impossible to tell if they were closer or further from the source.

Adam sighed in defeat.

“Were you trying to triangulate a signal?” Beck asked, quick on the uptake.

“I can hear the melodies of the Blood thanks to this,” Adam said and showed him his red glass hand.

“I was wondering what that thing was,” he replied after seeing the description. “It’s based on the Legendary from the Tower, right?”

Adam nodded.

“And it lets you hear blood?” Beck asked.

Adam nodded again.

“I suppose that tracks for the Flayed Lady,” he remarked.

“I noticed a new melody from someone on the island,” Adam said. “But it’s too faint for me to tell precisely where it’s located.”

“Is it close to the centre?”

“It might be,” Adam replied uncertainly.

“Then we’ve gotta brute-force it,” Beck said. “Bring us down near the altar.”

Adam wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but did as he asked.

Once Beck got off the flesh platform, he wiped his feet on the cobblestones and sneered at it in disgust.

“My ex-wife once forced me to buy a waterbed. That thing reminds me of it.”

Adam laughed. “I can make it firmer for you next time.”

Beck’s frown deepened.

“So, what’s your plan?” Adam asked.

His brute-force plan turned out to be very simple. Since Adam hadn’t been able to get much of a read on the signal of the melody, he was fairly sure it was originating near the middle of the island rather than on the fringes. And as such, they simply had to check the houses to see if any of them were more than they seemed.

Every, single, house.

“Do you have any better ideas?” Beck retorted when Adam told him exactly what he thought of that plan.

“The houses are hollow,” Adam pointed out.

“But perhaps not all of them.”

“And why exactly can’t we just flatten them all to check?” Adam added, before realising the answer himself. After all, if they destroyed a house that had the secret denizen inside, they might kill them and lose access. Or well, Adam would, since it was his dimension. “Nevermind, dumb question.”

“For a moment there I thought all the blood magic might’ve cut off oxygen to your brain,” Beck said.

They spent the better part of three hours moving in a circle spiralling outwards from the centre of the island, checking each of the houses. Adam went through the houses on the southern side towards the Tavern, while Beck checked the north towards the Market.

Since a lot of Players had perished, all of the houses were fully-formed, and Adam wondered if this was a requirement to access the mysterious denizen.

I suppose I was a bit too quick to give up on the idea that the houses might have something to hide. After all, there have been secrets all over the place, so it makes sense the houses wouldn’t just be some meaningless prop.

He yanked the door off his thirtieth house and peered inside. It was hollow like all the ones before it.

Although… So far nothing has disproved my initial assumption.

Then a spell went off to the north, catching Adam’s attention with its light. He also heard how the melody of Beck’s blood changed its tune, becoming excited.

In only a few seconds, Adam had already landed next to his friend and the house that’d caught his attention.

“I found it,” Beck said, his smugness overshadowed by his curious excitement.

The house was no less different than all of the ones nearby or on the other side of the city, but inside was something surprising. It was a stairwell that led down into the island, reminding Adam of the well extension to his house that had unlocked the ritual chamber.

“I told you we should’ve just levelled all the houses,” Adam said. “It would’ve saved us a lot of time.”

“The answer is only obvious once you know it,” Beck replied. “I think it was a good idea to err on the side of caution.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Adam conceded and gestured for Beck to enter the house. “Ladies first.”

Beck didn’t skip a beat and immediately went through the door and down the steps. Adam had to scramble to catch up, and since the stairwell was quite narrow, he was forced to shed much of the flesh and muscle he’d bulked out his body with, leaving it behind him on the steps like clumps of wet clay.

As the steps led deep into the island, they transformed from stone to dirt, and then from dirt to wood. The walls followed the same transformation, and before they knew it, they were standing at the foot of the long stairwell, inside a completely wooden structure. Plants, glowing mushrooms, and roots and twine interwoven, filled the wide hallways leading from the stairs and into some unseen space ahead.

They both had their weapons ready as they followed the hallway, which curved slightly to the right until terminating in a large chamber that was five metres from floor to ceiling. Tall green bushes, thick grass, and short trees filled the interior.

“What the hell is this place?” Beck muttered.

Adam panned his eyes across the space, beckoning the melody of the blood to reveal itself to him, but it was still so incredibly faint. But one thing was certain, it had to be originating from this place.

“Whoever is in here, reveal yourself!” Adam shouted into the overgrown chamber.

Nothing happened.

“If you don’t, we’ll burn down this place!” Beck added, lifting his lantern into the air in front of himself.

Rustling immediately came from some trees nearby and they both turned to face them.

But then Adam heard it, the melody of another’s blood.

He whirled around, a dagger of blood manifesting into his hand as he instinctively reacted to the presence that’d snuck up on them from above.

A towering dead leaf mantis with a green body stood poised right behind them, its dangerous spiked arms hugging its narrow torso.

“I had hoped for a bit of hide and seek,” the mantis said, her voice like the rustling of a bush. “Have you come to spend your Victory Pearls?”

-----------------------------

-Previous Chapter-
--Encyclopaedia---
---Next Chapter----