1

When Damon entered the tower’s expansive fifteenth room, he saw the weapons at the other end, just waiting for them. Unfortunately, there were a ton of monsters between the team and the prize. The mobs looked like the belchers they had encountered earlier. These creatures had the same vertical rows of eyes on their tree-stump bodies, only these mobs were bigger and made completely of stone.

Behind the stone belchers was a massive sculpture of a human male face. It stretched ten feet high, extending from the floor to the ceiling. The sculpture had been chiseled out of the blue-and-white marble that encompassed the entire chamber. Two large stone hammers, perfectly suited for the orcs, leaned against the wall on either side of the head.

The sculpture’s eyelids slid open. The inverted spheres of its pupils turned toward the team, then glowed lime green. The statue’s eyes stared at the Inmates with an insane vitality that contrasted with its stone appearance.

Damon’s Creature Description details came up.

PYGMALION (Level 48)

HP: 515

MP: 450

STRENGTH: 74

CONSTITUTION: 51

DEXTERITY: 5

INTELLIGENCE: 45

WISDOM: 39

XP: 101

DESCRIPTION: The master of his own creation.

When the statue’s gaze fell upon the Inmates, the stone belchers animated and started marching toward them. Their feet stomped loudly against the marble floor and echoed throughout the tower. Damon realized from the sound that they were near the top. The belcher details appeared.

BELCH BULWARK (Level 5)

HP: 101

MP: 0

STRENGTH: 15

CONSTITUTION: 10

DEXTERITY: 14

INTELLIGENCE: 1

WISDOM: 1

XP: 18

DESCRIPTION: Petrified remains of former king character.

Damon turned to Ethan. “I think the only weapon that might work against the belchers is your flail.” He faced the rest of the group. “We need to get those hammers.”

“Easier said than done,” Janna groaned as she counted twenty belchers in their half of the room alone.

“Any ideas, Harper?” Damon asked, but she had already acted, swinging her staff and firing a half-charged Fire Bullet at the first row of monsters. The fireball just ricocheted off the mobs and pounded into the statue, which remained undamaged. Emma and Harper quickly tried all their spells, but nothing worked; the acid slid off the mobs’ stone exteriors and the earth spells would not grip the marble floor.

Ethan charged ahead and started smashing them with the flail. The other Inmates divided into a widening gap to steer clear of the steadily progressing monsters. Harper and Janna cast Defense Buff and Offense Buff on all the members of Team Death Row, but they didn’t know what else to do.

“Do you think the belchers are being controlled by the statue?” Emma asked Harper.

“Maybe.”

They swung their swords at the belchers, but it was a futile effort against the hard surface of the monsters.

“Fuck this,” Emma muttered impatiently, then jumped into the army of belchers.

2

Ethan lunged forward, hugging his stone-encased shield close to the front of his body. He swung his flail at the first belcher. The spiked balls smashed into the mob’s porous stone, chipping away some of its petrified wood. Ethan swung at another belcher. Before his blow could land, he was knocked to the ground by a powerful force that struck his shield. As he sat up, he noticed what looked like a cannonball rolling away from him. The ball was one foot in diameter and made of the same bluish marble used in the walls and sculpture.

Another belcher closed in on him. It wrapped its large hand around his right ankle and squeezed. Ethan felt the bone in his foot bend, then break. “Ah, fuck!” he cried painfully as his HP dropped to 421 from 493. He swung his flail desperately. The weapon’s three spiked balls hammered into the monster’s row of eyes.

The belcher released his ankle and reached for its eyes, covering them in an almost comical gesture.

“Yeah. That’s right, you fuck!” He slammed the flail into the creature again, taking out its remaining eyes.

The belcher, blinded now, wandered around in circles with its arms outstretched. Ethan swung again, this time aiming for its legs. The blow sheared off its legs, and the belcher pounded to the floor with an audible thump. Damn, that was easy. he thought. Just as he reared back to swing at another belcher, he saw a flash of white out of the corner of his eye. He ducked instinctively.

An instant later, he saw a cannonball rip past where his head had just been. He gulped, sat up, and saw that the Pygmalion was just shutting its mouth.

Is that where the rocks are coming from? Ethan wondered.

He glanced around the room to see what the other Inmates were doing. Zack and Damon were attacking the belchers, but weren’t using their primary swords. Instead, they were using the inferior gladius swords. That’s smart, Ethan thought. The gladius swords had taken a lot of damage. The blades were riddled with chips and breaks.

“We need those hammers,” Ethan muttered to himself. He began dragging himself across the floor. The belchers in his vicinity focused on him. They surrounded him, attempting to stop his progress. Ethan continued crawling toward them and got ready to swing his flail again.

Suddenly, with uncanny speed, the belchers sidestepped and created an opening in their group. Ethan saw the cannonball speed toward him. He dipped out of the way, but was too late. The projectile missed his head but pounded into his right shoulder, tearing ligaments and breaking more bones.

He screamed.

3

Emma had the right idea, leaping into the horde of belchers. She skipped over and across them. The mobs reached up for her. At one point, she felt stone hands close around her foot, but she pulled free. There were many mobs to leap over in the vast chamber, but at the speed she was going, Emma was confident she would reach the hammers in a matter of seconds. She felt exhilarated, bounding over the belchers with such ease.

The Pygmalion’s green eyes turned toward her and its mouth opened. How can that be? Emma wondered distantly. She saw an oversized bowling ball shoot from its mouth and speed toward her. “Oh!” she muttered.

Emma quickly changed direction. The cannonball grazed her thigh, hitting her muscles but not her bone. It crashed into the wall behind her as Emma slammed to the chamber floor. She cast Basic Heal as the belchers rushed her. She jumped up, but her injured thigh wouldn’t support her weight. Growling with frustration, she equipped her Skelchion, uncertain it would help her.

While Emma shook her leg, trying to get the blood flowing again, she swung her sword in a horizontal arc. The blade bounced off several mobs and jarred loose a few petrified eyeballs. They rolled across the floor like marbles.

Fuck! The blade is chipped now! she thought. She unequipped the weapon and forced herself to stand. She attempted to jump out of the closing circle of belchers. Her leap went only half the distance she intended, but she could feel the strength returning to her leg.

She checked her hit points, which were 256 out of 280, and cast another healing spell. Emma started skipping across the room again. The Pygmalion had just fired a cannonball at Ethan. Its glowing green eyes zeroed in on her. Another projectile shot from its gaping mouth. This time, Emma had plenty of time to react and swerved to the center of the room.

“Nice try there, Stonehenge!” she yelled defiantly as she landed and clung to a belcher with her sharp claws.

The statue fired two balls in quick succession. Surprised by the change in tactic, Emma could only jump toward the ceiling. She watched the two balls fly under her legs and speed toward the back of the room. Oh, god, I hope those balls don’t hit anyone, she thought. She landed on another belcher.

Just ten feet away from the hammers and almost out of the Pygmalion’s range, Emma vaulted forward just as the belcher’s stone hands clutched for her feet. She crashed onto the ground beside the hammers. Emma jumped back up.

“One big fucking bash, coming right up!” she yelled at the giant stone head.

She grasped the hammer with both hands. It didn’t move an inch.

“Wha?” she cried incredulously. “No!” She tightened her grip around the iron handle, already feeling her palms become slick with sweat. Emma pulled with all her strength, but the weapon wouldn’t budge. She called up Object Description, which was on delay because of her activity level.

Congratulations, Emma! You have located the Hammer of the Gods! This weapon is a marvel of structural engineering, forged from iron and solid marble. Rated advanced and available only to Valhallan Orcs, so tell all your friends. Shout from the top of your lungs, “Valhalla, I am coming!”

Emma looked around the chamber. The belchers were closing in on her. Soon, she would have to give up her position and move.

Then she saw Jordan leaping across the top of the belchers. To her right, Ethan rose from the floor and started limping toward her, and from the rear of the room, a blue healing light descended on his body.

Emma heard stone scraping beside her. She turned to look at the Pygmalion. Its mouth opened and its eyes fixed on Jordan. “Look out!” she shouted. “There’s a bowling ball coming your way!”

Jordan glanced up, amused for a second, then saw the projectile speeding toward him. He leaped to his right. The heavy ball smashed into a belcher behind Jordan, killing it instantly. Jordan didn’t stop and jumped the rest of the way across the chamber, landing beside Emma.

They grabbed the hammer’s handle together and pulled. The weapon shifted but didn’t lift from the floor.

“Let’s drag it, Jordan,” Emma said, blowing hair from her face.

They stayed close to the wall to evade the Pygmalion’s projectiles and dragged the hammer toward Ethan. The hammer’s head, which was made from a solid block of blue marble, screeched across the floor.

Ethan was still limping, only fifteen feet away now. The Pygmalion fired another shot at him. He quickly dropped to the floor, allowing the cannonball to sail over him and into the courtyard. The ball crashed and banged down the tower walls, echoing throughout the building.

Ethan got back up and shuffled quickly, but painfully, to Emma and Jordan. He grabbed the hammer. It wouldn’t move. “What the hell?”

“Is your inventory full?” Emma asked desperately.

Ethan sighed and discarded the two damaged gladius swords. He lifted the hammer with his left hand, avoiding his injured right shoulder. He turned to the two Grimalkin members. “Get out of the way.”

They ducked under the Pygmalion’s mouth to the other side of its face.

Ethan grinned and glared at the enormous statue. “I’m going to fucking enjoy this.” He awkwardly hoisted the hammer onto his left shoulder. He swung the weapon, spinning his entire body with the force. The hammer smashed into the Pygmalion’s face, jettisoning chucks of marble across the floor.

The Pygmalion reacted by opening and closing its mouth rapidly, but the creature didn’t make a sound.

As more healing spells traveled through his body, Ethan swung again, slamming the hammer into the monster’s eyes. The Pygmalion’s left eye shot from the head and landed on the floor, where it cast a green glow on its surroundings. Ethan raised the hammer again, aiming to pound the beast’s other eye.

“Look out, Ethan!” Jordan cried out.

He halted the swing and spun around. The belchers had closed in on him and one reached out for his swollen ankle.

Ethan cried out and darted away from the creature. He swung his hammer at the swarm of belchers. Four monsters exploded in a shower of gray stone and dust that coated the other advancing belchers.

Ethan turned his attention back to the Pygmalion. He belted it repeatedly with the hammer, taking out its remaining eye and destroying its mouth. His left arm was aching now, but he didn’t want to test his injured right shoulder.

With the head statue neutralized, Ethan bashed the belchers, clearing a path for the other orcs to reach the second hammer. Damon grabbed it, discarding his gladius and joining Ethan as they finished off the belchers. With a cloud of stone dust hovering in their half of the chamber, the rest of the Inmates joined Emma, Jordan, and the orcs near the Pygmalion’s debris.

4

“How’s your foot and your shoulder?” Harper asked Ethan.

Still limping, he attempted to lift his right arm and winced. “Needs more spells.”

Janna and Emma were running their healing spells nonstop.

They examined the remains of the Pygmalion. It still had the shape of a head, but its facial features were obliterated. The creature had closed its mouth during the last stages of Ethan’s onslaught, and a thin crevasse remained where its lips had been.

At their feet, the monster’s marble eyes shone green light into the dusty air. Harper kicked one, and it rolled to the chamber wall. She glanced at Damon. “I don’t think we’ve finished the Pygmalion. Can you smash those two green rocks?”

Damon smiled. “With pleasure.”

He brought the hammer down, and the eyes exploded into shards of marble. Green goo sprayed across the marble floor. An Epiphany cloud popped up from the remains.

Abruptly, the Pygmalion started moving again, startling the team. They took a step back. The thin crevasse where the monster’s mouth had been yawned open as its upper jaw rose from the floor. They saw what was on the inside of its mouth even before the monster’s mouth rumbled to a stop.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Ethan muttered. “It’s a goddamned portal.”

5

“You know, we’re not done,” Zack commented. He pointed to the other end of the chamber. Like the previous one, the fifteenth chamber was ring-shaped and took up the entire floor. Another Pygmalion and a swarm of belch bulwarks waited for them on the other side.

Damon sighed. “I guess that means this room has two portals too?” he asked Harper, knowing what her answer was going to be.

She nodded.

He turned to Zack. “You ready?”

Zack hoisted the heavy marble hammer onto his shoulder and grunted his agreement.

“Ethan, with your injury, stay behind us and grab a hammer when you can,” Damon said. He pointed at the two weapons leaning up against the other Pygmalion. The marble face was one of a beautiful woman with exquisitely detailed long hair cascading down the sides of her head.

While the other Inmates followed, the three orcs walked along the chamber’s circular wall to the other side. When they got within thirty meters of the belchers, both those mobs and the Pygmalion reacted. The three orcs ran to the giant statue, hoping to avoid a barrage of cannonballs. Several belchers got in their way, but Zack and Damon bashed them into extinction.

In rapid succession, the Pygmalion fired three projectiles at the orcs. Zack and Ethan avoided the blasts, but Damon got hit square in the stomach, driving him back twenty feet. He slammed against the chamber wall before falling over, moaning in pain. Janna and Emma rushed to him.

“Pull him to the other side!” Zack shouted at the team. Jordan helped drag Damon back to the vacant side of the chamber. As Zack turned to face the Pygmalion, Ethan charged at him and tackled him to the floor. Two more stone balls flew over the guardrail and pinballed down the inner courtyard of the tower.

“Thanks, buddy,” Zack grunted.

They got back up and ran at the Pygmalion again. “How ‘bout you take the left, I’ll take the right,” Zack instructed. Ethan moved to his left, widening the gap between them.

The monster spat more balls at them, but the two orcs evaded the shots. They arrived at the beast and took its eyes out first. More belchers got close during the blitz, but the orcs pulverized them.

The battle was over in a couple of minutes, leaving the same gritty dust cloud floating in the air. Because Ethan was two levels higher, he suggested Zack should be the one to smash the Pygmalion’s eyes. The Marine thanked him and pounded the creature into oblivion. Immediately afterward, the statue opened its mouth, revealing the second portal.

6

Zack and Ethan collected the two extra hammers and joined the team back on the other side of the chamber. “How you feeling, bro?” Zack asked as he approached Damon.

“Got a stomachache and had the wind blown out of me, but I’ll be okay.”

The Inmates walked to the guardrail and verified they were near the top of the tower. Zack counted just three floors above them. He ditched his gladius sword to make room for the hammer. Damon discarded the extra Almain Rivet armor he was carrying to hold on to the fourth hammer.

Zack nabbed ten belchers and one Pygmalion, earning 281 XP, which nudged him to level 56. He dumped his 4 attribute points into endurance. Damon killed eight belchers and one Pygmalion, which moved him to level 57. He deposited his 4 points into dexterity. Ethan bagged twenty-two belchers and rose to level 59. He dropped his 8 points into endurance.

Harper touched one of the Epiphany clouds and received a spell.

Congratulations, Harper! You have found an Epiphany that contains the spell: Boulder. Launch this hard rock at your foes. Ranked novice and available to all classes, so tell all your friends. Boulder will cost you 1 MP for every stone’s throw, and has a cooldown rate of 1 second and a range of 100 meters. Let the good times roll with Boulder!

“Boulder,” she muttered. “That seems a bit understated.” She launched one from her staff. It created the same projectile the Pygmalions had used. The ball crashed into the nearby wall, splintering the marble. “Not bad,” she said, sounding more impressed.

The rest of the Inmates grabbed the spell and started experimenting with it as well. Janna discovered she could roll the balls along the floor.

Zack walked up beside her. “Hey, we can go lawn bowling now,” he quipped.

Janna snorted.

7

“So which portal should we go through?” Zack asked while the team considered the two different portals.

“The one on the right, like we planned,” Harper answered.

“Hmmm, I don’t know,” he replied. “That didn’t turn out so great last time.”

They haggled back and forth about the decision for a few minutes. Zack, Damon, and Janna argued for the portal on the left side of the room. Harper and Emma insisted that they stay with the plan they’d agreed to. The two sides wouldn’t give in, so they took a vote. Harper, once again, lost out. Emma and Angie were the only ones who voted for her side, which incensed the mage. The team depends on me for so much, yet they won’t support me in decisions like this, she fumed.

It took all of her self-control not to confront the team. Emma saw the mage wrestling with her emotions and reached for her hand. Harper closed her eyes and took a deep breath while the others gathered their weapons. She squeezed Emma’s hand, then released it.

Using Acid Fly, she marked the fifteenth room, then followed Damon through the left-side portal.