Chapter 39

  Floor 9 Summary (Hard)

  Time Taken: 13:42:13

  Rank: 428

  Men Murdered: 2

  Secret Locations Found: 8/124

  Floor Puzzle Solved: Yes

  Loot: 275,000 experience, 240,000 Contribution Points.

  No loot, but a lot of experience and Contribution Points, Eli noticed. He pushed through the screen and waited while the party oriented themselves after coming to in floor 10’s SafeZone.

  He recognized it. It was the palace of Troy. The city had been sacked, but the fires had long gone out. The city was mostly abandoned, but when they started checking on their equipment they Sophie spotted movement.

  She vanished in a flash that she shouldn’t have been capable of reappeared dragging a reluctant eight year old boy behind her. He was dressed in the garb of a Greek.

  “Let me go, let me go,” the boy was shouting.

  “Who are you?” Elaine asked him.

  “I’m the prince of Troy!” he announced. “My name is Asty! Astyanax! Let me go, for I am royalty and I demand you let me go!”

  Sophie scoffed and continued to frog march the boy into the center of the camp. “Okay, so what do we do with him?”

  “If he’s Hector’s son, then he’s clearly related to clearing this floor,” Erik said, scratching his chin. “I think he’s the kid we saved on the last floor. The question is what we do with him on this one.”

  Eli agreed with his science teacher, and he pulled up the floor’s objectives to see if there was a hint.

  Time until SafeZone Collapse: ∞

  Floor 9 objectives:

  Kill 12 Elite Enemies

  or

  Solve Floor Puzzle

  Completion of either of these objectives will complete the floor and permit you to return to the surface.

  Failure Conditions:

  The Death of Astyanax or the ending of the Line of Hector

  Return to SafeZone before Collapse if you wish to withdraw (Error: Sysadmin Intervention prevents withdrawal at this time)

  Good luck!

  “Yeah, considering we fail the floor if the kid dies I’d say he’s involved,” Junior said. “Hey kid, if Sophie let’s you go, will you run?”

  “Why would I run?” the boy asked. “I have nowhere else to go. There are monsters outside the city. The city is the only place that’s safe.”

  “You’re not worried we’re going to hurt you?” Peter asked.

  “ Are you going to hurt me ?” the boy asked.

  “No,” Peter answered.

  “Well then there you have it,” Asty said. “Anyway it really doesn’t matter. I ran out of food yesterday. So either I find someone to feed me or I starve, and I can’t leave the city because of the monsters. I thought I was going to starve to death until I saw a flash of light and Aunt Cassandra’s spirit told me that the people who would kill me had arrived, so I rushed to find you.”

  “You rushed to find the people who would kill you?” Peter asked, incredulous.

  “Aunt Cassandra’s spirit is always being dramatic about things that will never happen,” Asty said, shrugging. “I knew when she arrived that you were here to help me. You are here to help me, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah,” Eli said. “We’ll help you Asty. Let’s just figure out what’s going on, and then we’ll figure out this floor’s puzzle too. That will make all of your problems go away.”

  ~~~~~~

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  They investigated the city for a while, but aside from Asty they found that it was deserted. They climbed the ramparts, and just as Asty had promised they saw that the city was encircled by twelve giant cyclops. Each was twice as tall as a man and broad enough that they could wield an uprooted tree as a club.

  “So that’s one way to end the floor,” Eli said as they stood atop the ramparts. “We just have to kill the cyclops.”

  “You shouldn’t do that,” Asty said. “They’re the children of the gods, and even though they’re ugly the gods love them. If you kill the cyclops then the gods will curse you.”

  “We’ll take that into consideration,” Eli said. “But there’s another possibility I want to examine first. Let’s go back to the palace.”

  “You’re thinking about the gate to the underworld?” Erik asked him.

  “There might be more monsters down there to slay. They might be easier than the cyclops,” Eli said. “Or it might have something to do with the floor puzzle. We only know about it because we completed the floor puzzle on the previous floor, but so far we’ve had three floors in a row that have this Trojan theme, so the system is obviously trying to tell us something.”

  “Okay,” Erik said, and the others agreed.

  They found the stairwell to the underworld, which left Asty astounded.

  “I never knew this was here!” he declared. “My mom said if I ever went into this room I would surely die!”

  “Why are you following us then?” Peter asked.

  “You went in first,” Asty answered. “Nothing scary happened when you did it, so I’m not scared to follow.”

  “You’re weird, kid,” Peter said.

  They went down to the bottom. When they arrived, the gates remained wide open, but they had a guardian. A massive three headed dog.

  “Cerberus,” Erik said, cursing. “We can’t get close while he’s in the way.”

  “So do we fight the dog or the elites outside?” Maia asked. “Because my vote is not to piss off the giant puppy.”

  “Seeing Cerberus I’m even more certain that the puzzle is down here,” Eli said, looking at the others. “What do you think? Do we take him on?”

  The others exchanged looks, then nodded. They checked their gear—Eli redressed in his enchanted leather jacket while the others dressed in their best gear, which was mostly what they’d gotten from the Greeks, and they stepped forward, brandishing their weapons.

  Cerberus’s three heads snapped up at the exact same moment. It stared at them, then growled, but rather than go on the offensive it stood and slinked back to the door. It stood on the other side, waiting.

  “Who goes there?” a quiet, whispering voice said. “I smell the prince of a dead people and the doomed souls of another. Who goes there? Who goes there?”

  Gabri abruptly shivered and hid behind Eli, clinging to his back and poking his head over his shoulder.

  “That’s a step too far,” the faerie complained. “I was silent when the heroes of the deeper floors appeared so close to the surface, but to hear the voice of the void on floor ten is a step to far! I cannot stand this any longer!”

  Having said that, Gabri vanished, his little toga falling to the floor, and Eli blinked as he realized that the familiar had un-summoned himself.

  “Hades?” Erik asked. “Is that you?”

  “I go by that name, and others,” the voice answered. “Tell me why you come to the gates of the underworld, child of man.”

  “We are trying to solve the mystery of this floor,” Eli said. “We would take any hints which you might offer.”

  “Close these doors,” the voice said. “It is as simple as that.”

  “Close the doors, and then we clear the floor. That’s really all we have to do?” Eli asked.

  “Yes,” the voice confirmed. “But I made a deal with the one known as Prince Hector, and only his hand, or the hands of his male line, may close the gate that he opened. Fortunately for you it seems that you have brought the key with you.”

  Eli looked at Asty, then nodded. “Asty, will you help us close these gates?”

  “Me? But they’re so big,” the boy said. “I’m just a boy, what can I do?”

  “We’ll all work together,” Eli promised. “All of us.”

  Asty hesitated, but agreed, and they all moved towards the left gate first. The gate moved slowly, barely, and only when Asty had a hand on it, but as long as the boy pushed as hard as he could the gate shut slowly. When they moved to the right gate, things went even faster than before.

  It took them twenty minutes. Without really thinking about it, and since the gates only moved while they were pushed, they wound up on the underworld side of the gates.

  “Congratulations,” the voice of Hades said. “You have completed the bargain.”

  Then, without any warning, Asty’s flesh turned to dust, leaving behind a childish skeleton that clattered to the floor. Eli’s eyes went wide as he recalled the words of Cassandra. To complete the tenth floor, they would have to sacrifice a child. Why hadn’t he understood sooner.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head in denial. “It shouldn’t have to be like this.”

  “But it is,” the voice said. “Congratulations, Children of Man. You have shut fast the gates of Hades. Prepare yourself well for the challenges to come, and perhaps you shall survive until the Antithesis comes.”

  Floor 10 Summary (Hard)

  Time Taken: 1:24:54

  Rank: 1

  Secret Locations Found: 1/224

  Floor Puzzle Solved: Yes

  Loot: Greater Haven Token, Greater Guild Creation Token, Contribution Store Preferred Customer Badge X14 (20% Discount, Waved Auction Fees), 1,000,000 experience, 500,000 Contribution Points

  Floor 10 has been reached, Mandatory Rest Period initiated (1 week).

  Unnamed Party shall be returned to Surface during rest period.

  Good Luck!

  ?