The flaming projectile exploded in the bailey, and Vance found himself falling into the deep moat. His body spent a few moments in free fall, as the wind battered his sides and the storm drowned his screams, before his dragon claws hit the water. There was a loud splash. He sunk into a festering broth that had the viscosity of tar and the smell of spoiled milk. Although his entire body was submerged, his Flame of Revival didn’t go out, and his strength wasn’t lost. He waited in the darkness of his underwater grave. When he heard the last splash of the debris from the castle wall, he deemed it safe to head toward the surface and started to swim for his life.

The Mantis Armor was a burden. The viscosity of the water was a curse. But he continued to swim with all the strength that his legs and arms could offer, and after a long struggle, he managed to reach the surface. He could see the mauve glow of the magic bridge far above him. It was his guiding light in a world of total darkness. I need to get out of here. He had to climb to safety before the worst happened, and he headed at a fast breaststroke toward the side of the moat. A rocky cliff continued up toward the castle. He planned to scale it with help from his parasitic feet and his Larval Dagger. The ascent wouldn’t be easy for sure, but it was his only option given the circumstances.

As the debris from the wall sunk into the depths of the moat, he planted his Larval Dagger into the cliff and pulled his body up. He found a footing using his dragon claws, which pierced through the rock like the dagger, and started to climb toward the storm. A right step up. A left step up. Right. Left. Right. Left. He made considerable progress in a short time. Despite the damage that he had sustained from the fall, he made it halfway up the cliff with relative ease. But then, in one nameless repetition of his movement cycle, as he pulled his Larval Dagger out of the rock, as he was about to plant it another meter up, something slimy suddenly caught his foot.

What the— Before he could even react, a long vine of seaweed wrapped itself around his right foot. Another vine extended out of the moat and clenched his left. Then the two began to pull him down in sync. He suddenly found himself falling back into the moat, and there was nothing he could do to resist. His body disappeared into the tar-like water with another large splash. He thought that the seaweed would pull him down to the bottom of the moat, but it did the exact opposite: it released him from its slimy grasp and allowed him to swim to the surface. When his helmet emerged from the water, however, the vines quickly returned and wrapped themselves around his body.

There were tens of them. They paralyzed him and held him in place as if with a vice, but he refused to drop his weapon and continued to struggle against their binding force. He cut one vine after the other, pulled them off his armor, and tore them by stretching his dragon claws apart. His struggle was endless, and his spirit was unbroken. He thought that he could cut his way out of this predicament with enough perseverance, and he was certainly on the right path to do so. But then he suddenly paused—stunned, disconcerted, fearful. At that moment, thousands of shiny eyeballs opened up in the dark.

They were embedded in the rocky cliffs on both sides of the moat, and there were as many of them as to illuminate the darkness with a faint light. Some had belonged to goats; others to bulls; others to rabbits and toads. Some had been poked by the Larval Dagger and the dragon claws during the climb; others were shriveled and bloodshot; and yet others were healthy and pristine as if they had just been extracted from their sockets. They reminded Vance of the eyes of the chimerical beast—they were as watchful, as eerie, as frightening—but they seemed to exist on their own as independent entities in this wet world.

Hypnotized by their stare, Vance could no longer struggle. The seaweed vines wrapped themselves around him until he was in their tight clutch. Then he began to hear a beautiful song. Somewhere in the depths of the moat, a creature was singing with an operatic voice. The melodious vocalizations drew closer and closer, grew louder and louder, until the creature emerged from the depths. There it was—floating on the surface of the water and swimming toward Vance with elegant movements. It was a mermaid-like beast, with the head and upper body of a woman and the lower body of a fish. Its hair was made of seamless seaweed; its lips were blue like lapis; and its eyes were unseeing black pearls.

With a gentle touch, it held Vance’s helmet in its hands. It pulled the visor up and then leaned in as if it was about to give him a kiss. Its long tongue appeared from between its blue lips. This tongue was a monstrosity in its own right, with more than 30 centimeters in length and with many barnacles growing along its extent. It curled and twisted inside his helmet, forming a coil-like spiral that surrounded his Flame of Revival. But he wasn’t aware of what was happening. He was mesmerized by the thousand eyeballs that were still staring at him and by the beautiful singing that never ceased till this moment.

Status Alert

Your Flame of Revival is about to be absorbed.

If you do not stop this process in time, immediate death awaits you.

30 seconds remain.

The system message echoed in vain. No one heard it; no one heeded its grim warning. It seemed as if nothing could wake Vance up from the deep hypnosis, and the singing of the mermaid sounded more and more like a deadly lullaby. Great endeavor, sleep forever. But then there came a chime. Whence? No one could tell for sure. From the darkness. From nothingness. From the world beyond. It was sharp and powerful, perhaps jarring for some. Its timbre was one of a long-lost kind, and its incessant reverberation created a discontinuity in the mermaid song—a feat that even the raging thunder couldn’t accomplish.

When he heard this chime, Vance snapped out of his hypnosis. He finally realized what was happening. As a timer counted toward his death, he started to move again. He gathered his strength and stretched his dragon feet apart. His leg muscles strained themselves hard, and his parasitic feet also exerted themselves. The vines that held them together started to tear. With ten seconds remaining, the last vine finally came undone, and Vance moved his legs quickly before more seaweed could come his way. He swam backward with one stroke and simultaneously kicked the beast away, forcing its tongue out of his helmet.

The absorption stopped. His Flame of Revival was safe, and he started to free himself from the rest of the vines. The mermaid beast swam toward him again, but this time he was better prepared. He didn’t stare into the thousand eyeballs, and he deafened himself to the singing voice by focusing on the recurring chime. As soon as the beast got close, he summoned his spectral dagger. The beast grabbed his helmet and tried to insert its tongue again, but this time it couldn’t even make it past the visor. With speed and decisiveness, Vance stabbed it in the head. Then, as several dark-green marks formed, he kicked it away and started to swim.

With no time to spare, he reached the rocky cliff and started to climb toward the castle. He made it a few meters up, but just as before, the vines grabbed his feet and pulled him down at his most vulnerable moment. He fell into the water again, and the seaweed began to surround him. It’s useless to try to climb up. He struggled against the vines with a sense of déjà vu. I have enough Mana for a Spectral Execution, but I have no guarantee that it would kill this thing. He cut another vine and turned to look toward the mermaid beast. It had in fact retreated to a safe distance, and it seemed to be busy with something.

What is it doing? Vance freed himself from another pair of annoying vines and looked closer at his enemy. To his surprise, the mermaid beast was neither approaching nor preparing a ranged attack. It was feeding. It was munching away at the kelp-like leaves of the seaweed, and the more it ate, the more the dark-green marks on its body disappeared. It’s healing back to full health. Vance reached this grim conclusion and realized that a Spectral Execution might not cut it this time. Even if I land an execution, it can just retreat and heal. I’ll lose the Mana and gain nothing. He had limited mobility, while his enemy had much more freedom. I can’t kill it.

He cut through another group of vines. Should I go for a failed execution and rely on teleportation to escape? Can Modus Cimmerian get me out of here? He looked up toward the magic bridge. No, the distance to the surface seems too big. I might end up being teleported to a dry part of the moat, and I don’t know what might be waiting for me there. Teleportation promised him temporary safety, but he could never be sure whether a greater danger would follow. And in such a setting, given all the uncertainties, he was not willing to take the risk of an unlucky teleportation. There must be a different way out of here.

He started to search the darkness for another way to climb up. There were strictly none, but as he looked around frantically, as he cut the still unrelenting vines, his Mental Eye caught sight of something odd. Although he was in the bottom of hell, there was a golden butterfly flying in the air. It looked like a Cleopatra, and wherever it flew, it left a trail of golden dust. What is this thing? Vance followed its flappings and flutterings. It flew close to him, and he felt a strange warmth emanating from it. After it had circled twice around him, it continued its flight into the water. It didn’t swim: it continued to flap its wings and fly as if it were in the middle of the air.

As Vance watched it dive deeper and deeper, he noticed another golden glow in the depths of the moat. There was a light in an apparent world of darkness, and he was immediately stirred by its presence. Maybe there was a reason that the vines didn’t drag him deep. Maybe there was a reason that the mermaid beast rose to fight him at the surface. He cut the last of the vines that held him and dove into the water. Instead of trying to scale the rocky cliffs again, he was choosing to sink with conscious volition. He started to swim after the golden butterfly, toward the light in the depths.

When he approached the submerged glow, he discovered that it was actually a swarm of golden butterflies. They flew through the water and continued into what seemed to be a sewer duct. Does it lead into the castle? There was suddenly a way out of the moat—a passage that had been as close within reach as it had been invisible in the darkness. There’s still hope. Vance began to swim quickly toward the duct. He almost made it inside, but then the vines grabbed his feet. He turned around and heard the soft singing of the mermaid beast. It was fully healed and ready to drag him back to the surface. No, you won’t.

He focused his hearing on the benign chime, cut the vines with his Larval Dagger, and continued to swim with determination. He entered the duct in time, but the soft singing didn’t cease. It continued to echo inside the rusty tube. The mermaid beast had followed him through the narrow opening. It was swimming much faster than he could, and its approach was making his heart skip several beats. Suddenly, a hand extended from the murk and grabbed his ankle. It dug its nails into his body and tried to pull him back, but he kicked with his foot and managed to hit the beast on the head. Free from its clasp again, he continued to swim in pursuit of the golden swarm.

After a few meters, the butterflies started to head up, and Vance followed them until he emerged in a small room with stone walls. He pulled his body out of the water and crawled onto solid ground again. The vines emerged from the duct and reached for him, but he quickly rolled to the side and avoided their clasp. He got up. In the light of the golden butterflies, he found a large stone coffin leaning against a wall and immediately began to push it. As the vines lunged at him again, the coffin finally started to budge. It collapsed, blocked the opening leading into the duct, and grounded the vines under its weight.

The singing echoed—muffled and suppressed. The stone coffin shook once, twice, thrice. The lid almost came off, and a few small cracks formed in its base. Scary moments passed as the threat of an extended battle loomed. But then the shaking stopped. The tangly vines retreated and disappeared while the operatic singing was dying away. Although it was fast and elegant, the mermaid beast didn’t have the strength to break the coffin, just as it didn’t have the strength to harm Vance with direct attacks. And now it retreated into its watery lair, where it would lurk, watched by the thousand eyes embedded in the cliffs, waiting for another offering to fall from the direction of the stormy sky.

***

After the mermaid beast was gone, Vance sat down and took a short break to recharge his Stamina. Then he turned to look around him with both curiosity and unease. He was inside a sealed stone chamber and surrounded by hundreds of shiny golden butterflies. Aside from the coffin that he had felled, he found a large clay urn, a silver ladle, sacks of stale spices, metal embalming tools, and tens of small clay jars. It seemed that the water drawn from the moat was used in rituals or ceremonies. He picked up one of the clay jars and emptied its contents on the ground. A great amount of liquid flowed before a preserved human heart plopped on top of the puddle.

What is the deal with this place? Vance placed the empty jar back on its stone shelf. He was about to crouch to take a closer look at the heart, but then he felt a disturbance in the air. A sourceless cool breeze circled through the chamber. He looked up and found the swarm of butterflies swaying with the breeze. They fluttered their wings and flew in spirals before they began to gather in one spot. What’s going on? He readied his daggers for combat, but there was no need for alarm. The butterflies neither huffed nor puffed. They only grouped together and emitted stronger beams of their golden light.

And it was from inside this light that a ghost suddenly emerged. It formed as if from stardust and walked until it was standing in front of Vance. It had no head, only a ghastly flame. In its right hand, it held a shield decorated with a golden emblem portraying a broad-shouldered caniform—a monster that lived around the northwestern city of Alanstrove and that was known to the locals as the Grisly Bear. In its left hand, the ghost held a sword with a red heart-shaped pommel and with two sickle-like extensions growing sideways from its hilt. As for its ethereal torso and limbs, they were covered with pieces of spiky armor made out of the sturdy quills of hedgehog monsters.

For a few moments, there was silence and stillness. Vance stared at the ghost, and the ghost seemingly stared back. Then it started to move. As Vance watched cautiously and carefully, it walked to the large clay urn that rested on the ground. It sheathed its sword, and with its left hand, it reached into the urn as if to pick something up from deep inside. Then it walked toward one of the walls of the sealed chamber and moved its hand as if it were inserting something into a small circular hole. After this bit of play-acting, it suddenly disappeared without a trace. It disintegrated into the swarm of butterflies, which returned to their random fluttering and meaningless hovering.

Having watched the odd ghost all this time, Vance now sheathed his Larval Dagger, proceeded toward the urn, and reached into it with his hand. It was full of slimy liquid and preserved organs, just like the smaller jars, but there was something different near its bottom. He fumbled with his hand until he was able to grasp this peculiar item. Then he pulled it out of the urn and gave it an appraising look. It was a rod or a shaft that seemed to have been broken off a spear or a staff. All along its length there were abstract carvings, and at its top there seemed to be a mechanism to attach a spearhead or a staff crown.

Hidden Objective Complete: The First Piece

You have found the first piece of the Staff of Galvani.

While you hold this incomplete item, it will act as a true lightning rod. Electro-magic attacks used against you cannot miss and will always deal critical damage. Furthermore, your Magic Resistance is halved.

A hidden objective? Vance was slightly surprised, not only because of the existence of such objectives in Middlerift but also because of the debuffs that he had just received. The Staff of Galvani, huh? He looked at the shaft with some interest. Normally, he would’ve immediately thrown it away, since it made him so vulnerable against electro-magic; but the fact that it was connected to a hidden objective made him decide against anything rash. Completing objectives should have positive results. Even if the shaft alone gives me debuffs, I might have a use for the complete item. He decided to keep his find for now. As long as I don’t get ambushed by electro-magic, I can drop it before a fight and pick it up later.

After he made up his mind, he turned toward the wall where the ghost had disappeared. He remembered the play-acting that he had witnessed earlier, and following in the footsteps of the ghost, he inserted the incomplete staff into the hole in the wall. There was an inaudible click. Then the wall itself faded away as if it had never been there. The chamber was no longer sealed, and the golden butterflies started to fly out of it and into a larger space. Their light illuminated a path that continued between coffins and pillars and walls. They were like tiny fireflies crossing the river of death, and Vance followed them closely.

He seemed to be walking through the catacombs under the castle. He looked right and left at diverging corridors and stairs. Soon there were stone statues of goats and deer, ivory statuettes of bulls and sheep, and jade-adorned skulls of many other creatures. They lined up along the walls like offerings to the dead. And whenever Vance reached an intersection of these homaging paths, the golden butterflies would gather before him, and the ghost in the spiky armor would appear to point in the direction that he should follow next. He was being guided through this labyrinth of death and rot, but the question remained as to where he would end up.

Short on information, he was about to seek the guidance of Thurvik, to compare the direction of the bloodstained footprints to that of the golden swarm. But at that moment, when he stopped walking and closed his Mental Eye and cleared his mind, he suddenly heard a loud thump in the dark. It came from somewhere nearby. Shocked by its loudness and proximity, he opened his Eye again and saw that the golden butterflies were scattering from around him. It seemed that they were afraid of something. Most of them flew quickly toward the ceiling and hovered there like wavery stars in the night sky. Their erratic movements served as a warning, and Vance decided that he had better hide.

He melted into the darkness and concealed himself behind the stone statue of a deer. Peering from his hiding spot, he found a strange silhouette in the dark. It got closer and closer until it revealed itself to be a patrolling beast. It stood on two thin, flamingo-like legs and had a hunchback that was covered by a long xanadu-colored coat. The same coat also had a hood that covered its head. No one could tell what the face of this ugly creature was like, but there were tens of lizard-like tongues hanging down the hood’s opening. These tongues dangled right and left, between one humanoid hand that was free and another that held a gnarled walking stick.

Another loud thump echoed through the catacombs. The patrolling beast hit the ground with its walking stick and stopped a few steps away from where Vance was hiding. Did it notice me? Vance tightened his grip on his spectral dagger and prepared to drop the incomplete Staff of Galvani. He knew nothing about what might lie under the coat, but he was ready to defend himself against whatever attacks his enemy might launch. The beast, however, didn’t turn toward Vance. It didn’t even seem to know that he was there. Instead, its many tongues began to move. They sprung to life like tentacles and extended toward the ceiling in one burst.

In the next few minutes, Vance watched a bizarre scene unfold. The golden butterflies fluttered and scattered for their lives, and the tongues of the beast chased after them stubbornly. Some were caught. Their beautiful glow died, and they were pulled down until they disappeared under the hooded coat. The majority of the swarm, however, managed to flee. Their light receded in the darkness of the catacombs, and after it hit the ground hard with its walking stick, the patrolling beast lowered its tongues and followed them in unrushed pursuit. Its hunched silhouette vanished in the surrounding gloom, and only the heavy thumps could be heard every once in a while.

It was … feeding on them? Vance stepped out of hiding. What exactly did I just witness? This short encounter was the last straw. He felt a terrible sense of disorientation. Beasts waiting in ambush. Butterflies summoning ghosts. The black-pearl-eyed mermaid. The ten-tongued lizard-patroller. Coffins, organs, thunderstorms. The Staff of Galvani. It seemed that there was a lot happening in this dismal castle, but where did he and his Class Ascension fit in? I can’t continue to advance blindly like this. I need to understand what’s going on here, or I might never find the beast that took my head.

Information was more important than any weapon at this point. And as if in response to his growing frustration and thirst for knowledge, two feeble butterflies appeared out of the crack of a coffin. They flickered and flew in a circle around him. Then they continued down the path that the swarm had been following. Straight up a long stairway, past the statue of a weeping deer, along a trail of strange egg-filled sacks—Vance followed his last two remaining guides. He was desperate to find answers, desperate to waste no more of his remaining 30 hours, desperate to break free of whatever curse had been haunting him since he arrived in Middlerift.

After he turned a corner full of statues, he found a dead end—but the hope was not lost. The two butterflies that had been guiding him landed on the wall, and with a distinctive movement of their wings, they began to circle around a small hole as if they were dancing together. It wasn’t difficult for Vance to realize what he should do. He stepped forward and inserted the incomplete Staff of Galvani into the hole. A silent moment passed before the wall itself faded away. A hidden chamber revealed itself, and accompanied by his two small guides, Vance entered with careful steps.

The wall re-formed behind him. Five magical lanterns lit up. And he found himself standing in front of a large coffin that could fit a giant. Unlike the other coffins that he had seen before, this one was surrounded by the remnants of wilted wreaths, and there was an epitaph on its side—an inscription written in guargantiform, the alphabet of the giants. A relatively small wooden table stood dwarfed on the right side of the coffin. It had a magical lantern, a pile of precious gems, a few incense pots, and a pair of thick volumes that lay covered in dust—but it was only this last twofold stack of books that caught Vance’s information-starved attention.

He picked them up and wiped the dust, but there were no writings on the covers, only minimalistic decorations. He placed the books back on the table, one next to the other, and opened the first. To his surprise, he found an index where a title page should be. Each entry in the index was written in a different alphabet and had a page number corresponding to it. Here’s the same alphabet that’s on the coffin. He moved down in the index. Here’s elvenform. He moved further down. The last entry on the long list was written in anthroform. He pointed at it with his forefinger and read: “To the Noble Headbound Who Shall Challenge Galvani the Lord of Lightning.”