Chapter 9: Chapter 9: A Million White Lilies

Morning came. Thankfully, Mr. Atlas hadn't smothered anyone with a pillow while the rest of us slept. Maybe these people weren't so bad after all, but who knew how far their kindness would go. Desperation makes a villain out of anyone.

"A glorious day awaits, my companions!" Saber greeted us as I got up.

Our team prepared for the day's adventures. As we took off for the castle's mid-lane gate, Saber asked us about our roles in combat.

"I'm back-line with Sophia," Becky explained. "Mr. Atlas is frontline. Sophia’s friend, is, uh…no one knows what he's supposed to do."

"Cool," Saber said. "I'm a frontliner too. As for Hei…based on his skills, I think he could be our peel. That's the guy who peels melee opponents away from the backline. If we get flanked, we'll need him to Graviton Joust the flankers away."

As we reached the mid-lane, where the golems fought, I scootched over to Hei. "HP?" I asked.

"Don't worry," he said. He gave my hat a pat. "It topped off a long time ago."

Just like yesterday, we killed the red side's crossbowmen, let our golem wave build, and escorted them down the lane. Only this time, we marched with them all the way to the castle gate. There, the machine responsible for pumping out the red golems blocked our entryway.

"What's that thing called?" I asked Saber.

"There isn't anything like it in the games I play. Call them fabricators, maybe? This one's the mid fab, for short."

Our golem warband went to work, bonking and shooting the fabricator. They pried off a few gears and metal boards, and made puncture holes on the machinery's pipes. We jumped in to help. It didn't take long before the fabricator beeped loudly and then fell apart at the seams. The metal parts collapsed inward into a heap, in a sudden, catastrophic failure that would make any engineer shake their head. I supposed that was the design of the game; the machine had two distinct states: It was either functional, or it wasn't.

With the mid fab destroyed, our golems continued marching through the gate, into a corridor that led deeper into the castle. We followed them in. The stone-brick corridor stretched straight forward, like a tunnel. Fire-lamps, caged in steel and glass, lit the walls on either side. We came across several branches into other hallways, but the golems went straight, and so did we. Soon we came to a dead end, with only a dark, bottomless pit in the ground that went down. The golems marched right ahead and fell in. We didn't.

"You think this is, like, a leap of faith test?" Becky asked.

The sound of shattering stone echoed up to us, from far below down the hole.

"Ignore me," she said. She backed away a few steps from the pit, as did the rest of us.

"That's unusual," Saber said. "Usually the golems head straight to the enemy's Base-Core. Like a crystal, or some other structure, that we destroy to win the game."

Metallic creaking echoed from the direction of the entrance. I startled around, only to see a heavy gate slide out of the ceiling near the entrance. It slammed down and hit the ground with a thud, blotting out the daylight at that end of the tunnel. Another gate fell down with equal force, then another, and another and another. I rushed back as dread set in, until I came face to face with the solid slab of metal blocking our exit. It had no keyholes, or any mechanisms, and it sat perfectly aligned against the surrounding walls and ground. Hei came running up from behind me. He plunged his spear straight at the gate and unleashed a blast of gravity, so strong I felt it inside my chest. But it scarcely scratched the gate.

The others came running as well. Mr. Atlas slammed his axe into the gate, to no effect.

He slowly turned to face me, and stared into my eyes. "Sophia. Becky. Where did you find Saber?"

"I told you," I said. "She saved me in the forest."

"I was there," Becky confirmed.

"And Sophia," Mr. Atlas continued. "That was the first time you've seen her?"

"Well, yeah."

"You've never seen each other before."

I frowned. "No. What are you trying to get at? That we're scheming behind your back? You think this is a trap?"

"It’s obviously a trap," Atlas snapped. "And we've been lured right into it."

He thrusted the base of his axe-shaft at Saber. She raised her sword to block, but moved too late. The solid wooden shaft slammed into her face. Saber stumbled and fell down to the floor.

"What's wrong with you!" I screamed at Atlas.

I rushed over to check on Saber. But she was uninjured, with not even a bruised lip or nosebleed. Friendly-fire immunity? She really was on the same team as us, and now we knew.

She got up. In the moistened rims of her eyes, the reflections of lamplights trembled. "If this actually is a trap, let's get back into formation," she spoke in a low, quiet voice. "I'll walk in front, with Mr. Atlas. Hei, please guard the rear."

We did as she said, and began to explore the side corridors in silence.

After half an hour of maze-like twists and turns, we came across a wooden double-door, barred with a beam - but the beam was on our side of the door. Before removing it and proceeding, we decided to take a break. I squatted down by the wall and drank from my waterskin. Becky walked off, back in the direction we came from, until she half-disappeared around the corner of a bend.

"Sophia, can you come?" Becky asked. "I need to ask you girl questions."

Saber smiled. "May I join?"

Becky thought for a moment. "No. You're not a girl, you're a woman."

"Becky," I chided softly.

"She said herself, she's 23," Becky whispered back.

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"I'm just playing, go ahead," Saber chuckled, waving us away.

Mr. Atlas reminded us not to wander off too far.

Becky and I soon found ourselves alone. "Go ahead," I told her.

"Are you upset?" she ventured.

I exhaled deeply. "About what Atlas did? Well yeah, pretty sure I am." I couldn’t tell if Atlas had attacked Saber out of malice, or just to test whether she had friendly-fire immunity. But regardless, the abrupt way he knocked her down felt wrong.

"...We're still a team, right?" she asked.

"I suppose. I mean, we technically are a team.”

Becky clutched at the sleeve-hems of her hoodie. "Mr. Atlas usually isn't like that. He's a really nice person."

"You know him that well?"

"He's my mom's boss. They work at the fire department. He's a firefighter chief, so he's saved a bunch of people before, and also pets. And houses. So even if he doesn't trust you, you need to trust him."

"That sounds a bit unfair. But alright. Do you want to talk with Saber about this too?"

Becky shook her head. "I don't wanna reveal too much to her. I've barely known her for a day. Maybe I'll talk with her later; she seems nice enough."

I mean, Becky had only known me for a day as well, hadn't she? But I decided not to comment on that.

"Anyways," Becky continued, “if we want to survive, we need everyone to trust each other. Even when our lives are in danger. It's just like your friend said."

"Hei," I reminded her.

"Yeah, hey what's up?"

"No, I mean Hei. H-e-i. That's my friend's name."

"Oh…right. I forgot."

I heard Mr. Atlas laughing from near the doors. Becky and I went back, and we found him and Saber chatting away merrily. Did they make up that fast? Or was this just adults, trying to mask their ill feelings to maintain a working relationship? Hei sat near them, nibbling away at a strip of his beef jerky. He wore a slight smile, so I suppose things hadn't been too bad over here. Or maybe he just really enjoyed his jerky.

"Everyone ready?" Mr. Atlas asked. We were.

He unbarred the double-doors and pushed them open. A sheet of light shone through the crack. I squinted my eyes as I beheld, on the other side, the bright sky once more.

The door led to a massive open-air garden. A continuous field of white lilies stretched out before us, all the way to the castle walls on the other side. This place, presumably a courtyard at the center of the castle, must've measured several hundred yards across.

I caught a glint of something shiny on the end of the field opposite ours. It was a large, crimson crystal, embedded in a raised stone base of sorts. At this distance I couldn't get a proper sense of its scale, but I'd guess it stood a bit taller than myself.

"The Base-Core?" Saber said, looking in the same direction. "That must be it."

We hurried across the field, almost running towards the crystal. The lilies waved about at our waists as we made our way through, and their petals danced in the sunlight, pure-white and pristine. We neared the Base-Core, as Saber called it, and I raised my crossbow to fire. It was a large target, easily the size of a car, and cylindrical in shape.

Destroy it, and we win the game. That was Saber's theory.

Hei jammed his spear into one of the crystal's facets. The spear-tip sank in, creating a web of fractures inside the translucent, red crystal. The Base-Core pulsed with a warm, comforting glow, as though in response. So this was it. I tightened the trigger on my crossbow. I paused.

"Saber," I said. "What's your real name? If we part ways after this, I want to meet you again."

She slammed her sword into the core, chipping it, and then looked to me with a bashful smile. "Mine's too common. Here, give me your number." She fetched a smartphone from under her armor and held it towards me.

As I reached out for it, the red crystal started to shine brighter. The warm glow intensified into a scorching heat.

The earth erupted beneath our feet.

I fell back, tumbling and sinking into the sea of lily stalks. Pieces of dirt and plant matter sailed above my head. Quickly, I rolled back up. The eruption had excavated the soil from around the Base-Core, revealing blocks of jagged stone underneath. The earth continued to rumble as those stone blocks shot up into the air, propelled by some arcane force. They flew around in intricate formations, like a living swarm.

Pieces of the jagged stone clasped onto the Base-Core like armor, then large chunks assembled themselves together to form a pair of arms that grew out of the stone-clad core. Rocky legs pieced themselves together and straightened, bearing the core upon them.

A giant made of stone now towered above us, easily twice our height if not more. Inside its torso was the Base-Core we needed to break. The giant roared in a deep rumble, reached into the ground, and pulled out a crude, massive obsidian blade that matched itself in height. This colossus put to shame the little golems we had been seeing around the lanes.

"Boss fight," I warned my team.

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