Chapter 37
Floor 8 Summary (Hard)
Time Taken: 183:45:12
Rank: 6,423
Men Killed in Honorable Combat: 1,000
Secret Locations Found: 6/145
Floor Puzzle Solved: No
Loot: 75,000 experience, 12,000 Contribution Points.
Eli closed the menu with a sigh and sat up, wincing at the pain of his partially healed wound. He turned to find the rest of the party also recovering from the transference. They were in a small house, the walls made of plaster and wood.
“Hey guys, sorry that I was useless during the last floor,” he began. He blinked as he found everyone staring at him with wide eyes.
“You’re alive,” his mother said, disbelief in her voice.
Eli blinked. They hadn’t known? “Yeah. I was being held prisoner by the Trojans, I guess. One of them kept sneaking me healing potions or else I probably would have died, but—”
Abruptly he was engulfed in a hug by Mattie, and he winced.
“I’m still injured,” he said.
She backed off. “Where?”
“My stomach,” he said.
“Alaina get over him and use your magic on him,” Mattie Mathews barked, and the Medico complied, not complaining at the tone that the other woman was using. If it had been her daughter that had returned from the dead and the rolls had been perfectly reversed, she would have been much the same.
“So what happened?” Eli asked. “I mean, I can sort of guess. You all seem to have survived the ambush, so you must have thought I was dead and avenged me or something. But beyond that—”
“When we figured out that the war had just started, we didn’t bother with the Trojan horse idea,” Erik said. “I knew it wouldn’t work. Instead we looked for some other sort of puzzle while Mattie and some of the others … went to war. I have no idea what the solution to the previous floor might have been, Eli. The only thing I can think of would have been to somehow convince Troy to return Helen, since that’s the only thing that would convince the Greeks to go home. But we started on the beach with the Greeks, not inside the city with the Trojans, so I don’t know.”
“Yeah, well, I’m just glad that you finished when you did. I’m pretty sure I was set to be executed pretty soon,” Eli confessed. “Alright, let’s figure out where we are and what to do next.”
Welcome to Floor 8 SafeZone
Time until SafeZone Collapse: 119:53
Floor 9 objectives:
Kill 2,000 Men in Honorable Combat
or
Kill 3/12 Elite Enemies
or
Solve Floor Puzzle
Or
Find Stairwell to Floor 10
Completion of any of these objectives will teleport your party to floor 10, regardless of where they are on the floor.
Return to SafeZone before Collapse if you wish to withdraw (Error: Sysadmin Intervention prevents withdrawal at this time)
Good luck!
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“Okay, so same conditions as last time except we need to kill ten times as many men or three times as many elites,” Eli said. “Does anyone want to scout the area to see what we’ve—”
Abruptly the curtain that separated their SafeZone from the outside was opened, and a woman came in. Eli blushed and sat up when he saw her.
“Cassandra!” he said.
“You’re in Ancient Troy,” she said. “It’s been ten years and the war is coming to its end. Come with me, Eli, and I’ll take you to Hector.”
“The last time I saw him he was planning my execution,” Eli said. “I think I’ll pass.”
“He has changed much over the last ten years,” Cassandra assured him. “He is not so eager to discard potential allies as before, even if he cannot trust their loyalty. I assure you that you’ll survive your next encounter with him.”
“I don’t believe you. Thank you for saving my life on the eighth floor, but I’d rather survive the ninth too,” Eli told her.
“Very well. Then if you won’t let me make things simple, we’ll have to do things the hard way. Come with me.”
Eli blinked. “I just said—”
“Hector is on the walls defending the city from the Greeks,” Cassandra said. “I’m not going to show you the walls, Eli, I’m going to show you the puzzle. It’s up to you to figure out how to solve it, however. If I tell you, you just won’t believe me.”
After some talking, half of the party agreed to go with Cassandra while the tinkerers and some others stayed back to defend the base. Mattie wouldn’t let Eli out of her sight, and Maia was likewise insistent on coming with. Sophie tagged along, as did Peter and Mister Estabon.
They left the SafeZone to find the city filled with people wearing simple clothes. Eli kept feeling like he was on a movie set with thousands of extras in costume around him, but nobody paid them any mind or thought that they looked out of place.
That was largely because he was the only one who actually looked out of place. He was still wearing his jeans and leather jacket, same as he’d been wearing this entire dungeon. Except for when he hadn’t, of course, he thought with a slight blush. He was rather relieved that nobody except the dungeon-spawned NPCs had seen him during his captivity and recovery.
They traveled through the densely populated city, and Eli noticed along the way just how many women there were. They outnumbered the men ten to one. There were boys, he noticed. But not many, and those he did see were under the age of twelve.
He swallowed as he realized what this meant. The war had been going on for ten years, and the men were either dead, or defending the city at the wall.
They arrived at the palace, and Cassandra spoke with the guards. The guards examined the party members for a moment, then nodded and stood aside. Cassandra motioned for them to follow, and they walked through the palace’s winding decorative halls.
They arrived in a room that was painted the color of the sky. An infant wrapped in swaddling, no more than a few days old, sat in one corner. He looked up at Cassandra and the party when they entered, then closed his eyes and went back to sleep.
“The puzzle is very simple. Save this boy,” Cassandra said. “That’s it. You just have to keep him alive.”
Eli blinked. He looked down at the white-eyed boy. “I don’t understand. What makes you think that?”
“I think that because I am who I am,” Cassandra answered.
“We passed hundreds, perhaps thousands of children on the way in. What makes this one special?” Eli asked.
“You mean aside from the fact that he’s royalty?” Cassandra asked. “He’s my nephew. Hector’s son. But it’s not nepotism that has me asking you to save him. He really is the puzzle. If you allow history to play out the way that it’s supposed to, he’ll be thrown from the walls of Troy. He’ll die alongside thousands of others, but without him Troy has no future. Without him, well, history shows what becomes of Troy. That’s the point of the last two floors, Eli. What you’re supposed to learn. That if you solve the present problems with the tools of the past, then the future will repeat the past.”
“Okay. So how do we—”
Eli was interrupted when the door to the bedchamber was abruptly thrown open. Prince Hector entered, his eyes filled with danger.
“Cassandra. Who have you brought to the bedroom of my son? ” the man asked, an arctic anger in his voice.
“The savior of Troy,” she answered. “Because you’re going to die today, and if I do nothing then my family will die with you.”
The man stalked over to her, and with a casual brutality, he struck her with a backhanded blow. She went to the floor. She looked up at him, a certain pleasure in her expression.
“That will be the last time you ever strike me. Say hello to Achilles for me.”
“I am so tired of your nonsense, Cassandra,” he said with a calm weariness. “Achilles is dead.”
She began to laugh.
Hector turned back to the party, who stood on edge.
“So then, you have returned,” Hector said. “Here to assassinate my son? Well, I still intend to have you executed. But before I do, perhaps it is time to show you the true might of Troy. Come with me.”
“You just threatened to kill me,” Eli said. “Why would I—”
Abruptly the room was filled with men, who filed in from behind Eli. They were outnumbered two to one, and Eli remembered the way that Hector himself had fought the one time he’d seen it. His party was at a disadvantage against an elite.
“Okay,” Eli agreed. “Let’s see the strength of Troy.
?
