“How are you able to activate the Tavern without sitting on the chair?” Adam asked.

  Mórrígan laughed. “You haven’t figured that out yet?”

  She paused to look at the marble in her hand. Then she held it out so that it was right in front of his face.

  “Do you even know what this is?”

  “No.”

  She laughed again. But then her expression became hard like stone. She was just like Ilya had described. Shoulder-length black hair. Sickly-pale and wrinkly skin. Bright blood-red lipstick. He couldn’t tell what nationality she had, and her accent was indistinguishable.

  She also wore a black bodysuit made out of some finely-woven silk mesh. Adam thought it might’ve been made by Weaver, although it was also potentially an Armour Relic from a later Stage, if she had the Relic Saving upgrade.

  Maybe I’ve been underestimating that meta upgrade, he thought to himself. He’d have to find out how it worked next time he saw the white moth.

  “How do you know about the Self-devouring Eye? Why were you trying to find me? How did you change your own fate like that?” she demanded, her words frantic.

  Adam blinked, confused.

  “Back away and I’ll talk,” he then told her, trying to gain some control over the situation.

  Mórrígan vanished, only to appear on the stool next to him. Except it wasn’t the usual stool anymore. It now had a high back and four legs. She was leaning it on the back legs while resting her feet on the table.

  How is she doing that?

  Are these all commands I don’t know about?

  “Talk,” she demanded.

  Adam focused for a moment and his simple stool turned into a proper chair, identical to hers. She didn’t make any comment about it and her strange eyes just bored into him as she awaited his response.

  He tried to feign nonchalance, but his heart was pounding so hard he could feel it in the tips of his fingers and hear the pulse in his ear canals.

  “I wasn’t trying to find you. I was just curious.”

  There was no way he’d tell her the truth, but he figured half-truths would be okay. He was still wondering what the marble in her hand was all about, but something told him he should be afraid of it.

  “Luvicidix told me about the Relic, that’s how I knew about it,” Adam eventually admitted.

  “Why would he tell you about it? Why would he even appear before you.”

  Adam was confused for a second, until he remembered that the genders for the island’s denizens were swapped based on ‘preference’.

  Before he could try and bullshit her with an answer, Mórrígan continued and he saw no reason to interrupt her.

  “I’ve already dealt with Emelia, Haoyang, and Arturo. You never make it past Five. You always die. But this time you picked Lancer instead of Defender, and you got the Speedrun on One.”

  She must have looped a lot to know that about me…

  She shook her head.

  “How!?” she demanded.

  Her hologram blinked out and reappeared atop the table, her fingers holding the marble pointed right at his left eye.

  Adam shifted his chair back a little.

  I don’t know who those three people she mentioned are, but I’ve got the feeling she has a way of killing people. I should tread carefully, but maybe I can mess with her a little.

  She clearly sees me as an enigma, so maybe I can play into that.

  “I found a different way to loop,” he told her.

  Mórrígan froze.

  “Impossible,” she whispered.

  “Then explain how I know about Luvicidix. She only shows up after someone has looped.”

  “But you don’t know anything!” she shouted. “And there are no Secrets left to uncover! I’ve found them all! You’re lying to me!”

  She pushed the marble right into his forehead.

  To Adam’s shock, he could feel it touching him, although her fingers still passed through him.

  The marble was warm.

  Whatever that thing is, it’s bad news if it can touch me!

  “I’ll tell you how I did it, if you tell me how to survive the fifth Stage.”

  “No! You have to die on Five! If you live it messes everything up! You’ve already ruined Willow Martin! She’ll have to die too now. This run is already unsalvageable! It’s your fault! Tell me how to do what you did! Tell me or I’ll use this on you!”

  Mórrígan pushed the marble into his forehead again, this time with enough force to tip his chair back.

  Cut the connection!

  Her hologram disappeared.

  “Block her, quickly!”

  [Understood.]

  Adam got up from his chair and walked away from the table.

  What the fuck!

  Willow was right, she’s totally crazy!

  Wait… I have to warn her!

  Adam ran back over and sat down.

  “Connect me to Willow Martin!”

  [This Player is not currently seated in the Tavern.]

  “Fuck!”

  “Connect me to Lenard Schulz.”

  A moment passed.

  Then it turned into half a minute.

  “What is happening?? Connect me to him!”

  [This Player is not responding to your request.]

  “Show him to me.”

  Lenard’s hologram popped up a few seats down. He looked uncomfortable and was leaning back in his seat. It was a scene that almost perfectly replicated what Adam had just experienced himself.

  Oh no.

  “Lenard!” Adam yelled. “Disconnect!”

  The hologram didn’t respond or even turn to face him.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  It was as if he couldn’t hear Adam at all.

  “Send him a message or something! You can do that, right!?”

  [I cannot.]

  “Well then fucking connect me to him again! Keep sending him the request over-and-over until he accepts it!”

  As Adam watched his friend, who was surely being harassed by the insane time-looper, the man just vanished.

  “What happened!? Where did he go!?”

  [This Player is no longer seated in the Tavern.]

  Adam hadn’t seen him stand up. The hologram had just vanished.

  For the next three desperate minutes, he tried to connect to Lenard again-and-again, but kept getting the same message.

  [This Player is not currently seated in the Tavern.]

  He tried to connect to Willow as well, but she was also not in the Tavern.

  Then, when he tried Lenard again, he got a different message and his heart sank.

  [The Player you are searching for has perished.]

  It’s all my fault…

  I got him killed.

  Adam remained in his seat, staring at the spot where he’d last seen Lenard.

  He might’ve sat like that for an hour, though he had no idea of how much time really passed.

  Then he got a message.

  [Another Player is trying to communicate with you. Do you wish to talk to them?]

  The message repeated two more times until he finally accepted it.

  Willow appeared opposite him.

  She became worried when she saw his face.

  “What happened?” she asked. “Are you okay?”

  “Lenard is dead and it’s all my fault.”

  Adam walked through the streets of Interim Island in the light of the moon. He’d managed to get Willow to block Mórrígan, but he had no idea if that would keep her safe.

  The more he thought about it, the more he believed that he knew what the time-looper’s marble was. There’d been two crossed swords inside it, so he felt certain that it was something that allowed her to challenge another Player. Whether it was a Relic or one of Alivida’s future upgrades, he could not say, but it also didn’t matter.

  Those three people she mentioned. Emelia, Haoyang, and Arturo. They might have been Players who would go on to become strong enough to reach the Stage with the Self-devouring Eye. They would have been people who could have had a real chance of beating the Trials perhaps, and Mórrígan killed them for that reason…

  She’s like a gardener pruning a tree to decide how it should grow.

  He sighed.

  And she believes I should die in the next Stage. That is apparently my ‘fate’.

  She also said I ruined Willow by interfering with her… That’s lunacy.

  What she probably meant was that I made Willow less susceptible to manipulation.

  Adam thought back to how she’d reacted to the news of Lenard’s death. She hadn’t even shed a tear, but she’d clearly been distraught. After hearing his recounting of events, she’d immediately tried to say that it wasn’t Adam’s fault. But he could tell what she really thought. He saw the look that passed over her. She knew it was because of him and part of her was scared that she’d die too.

  Meddling in things I don’t understand was a mistake.

  Telling Willow about time-loops was a mistake.

  Adam had tried to spy on Mórrígan, but she’d blocked him, just like the first time he’d seen her in the Tavern. He’d also tried to talk to Ilya, but the Russian hadn’t accepted his request. He couldn’t bear talking to Willow after the mess he’d created, so now he was just wandering through the night-time city.

  I could just reset and all of this goes away, erased as though it never happened.

  He remembered his promise to Willow and sighed.

  But he also knew things wouldn’t be that easy.

  If I die, I don’t go back to the start of this universe. I go to a different one where the odds are changed. Perhaps I land in one where Willow and Lenard die in Stage One. Or maybe I end up in another psychotic time-looper’s domain.

  Adam thought about the Divine Relic and its implications.

  It’s a trap, he realised. Anyone who finds the Self-devouring Eye is probably quite powerful, but they will undoubtedly have lost those they cared for along the way and know things they could’ve done differently.

  Heck, if I’d found it and didn’t have this ability to loop already, my first thought would have been to go back and find all the Secrets I only learnt about later.

  But it’s a poisoned apple. Once you take a bite and realise the potential of looping back, along with the upgrades it brings, you can never stop. And as you go back time-and-again, you gradually grind away your own humanity until you either die or give up even fighting to win.

  After wandering for a while, he made it to the Market. Yenna was playing a normal flute while looking at the water splashing into the fountain’s top bowl. Past her, several of the vendors were standing outside their stalls and talking. Some of them were holding food, perhaps brought to them by Charlie.

  When the wasp noticed him, the other vendors all scurried into their stalls.

  It felt as though he’d seen something he wasn’t allowed to. Like entering the changing room at Disney Land and seeing all the mascots without their suits on.

  “Good evening, Adam,” Yenna said. “You’re out late. Have you come to hear a melody? I can play you a lullaby if you’re struggling to sleep.”

  Adam sat down on the cobblestones in front of her.

  “Tell me something, Yenna.”

  The wasp tilted her head.

  “Are you real? Are any of you insects real?”

  “We’re real,” she replied, her answer confident.

  “Do you have agency? Choice?”

  “We do not, no. We do what the System commands.”

  Adam laid down on his back and looked up at the stars and the bright moon.

  “And how does that feel? Are you content sitting here playing melodies all day?”

  “It is not the worst fate,” she said.

  Adam laughed, but there was no humour in it. “I guess you’re right. You could have been a monster for me to fight instead of this.”

  Yenna did not respond.

  [It is advised that you return to the Player House to get some rest.]

  “Eat my ass, Shitbox. I’m staying here.”

  The wasp got down from her tall wooden stool and knelt next to Adam. She smelled like beeswax and honey. It took him a second to realise that her appearance no longer freaked him out.

  He laughed a little at that.

  “I think I’ll probably die soon,” he told Yenna.

  “Everybody has to die eventually, Adam.”

  He sighed. “I guess a lullaby would be nice.”

  The wasp put away her instrument and started to sing softly. It was a lilting song that lacked any words.

  Adam kept looking up at the stars while her voice flowed across the island.

  Eventually his eyelids became too heavy to keep open and he fell asleep.

  Yenna’s voice followed him into his dream.

  Adam saw the giant eye in the cosmos. Its iris was the star of a solar system and an asteroid belt formed its outline. Planets flew past as it gazed onto him.

  Its heat was scorching and yet also frigid.

  Even though it was light-years away, it felt as though he could reach out and touch it.

  Suddenly, the sun went out.

  Then Adam felt like he was falling.

  < < Now Entering > >

  < Stage 5 >

  < The Forbidden Altar >

  < 30-minute Timer >

  Adam recognised the sensation as soon as he opened his eyes.

  He was stuck in another cutscene.

  In front of him was the engraved stone disc from the Elphin Sanctuary. He was standing a little in front of its central point and under his feet flowed silvery metal, like mercury. But there was also a thicker cerulean-blue liquid flowing alongside it. The two fluids could not mix and swirled around each other as the blue liquid raced along the channels in the stone.

  In front of him, the Elphin from the city were gathered on the steps of the ritual site. The lustre in their red wings seemed to have faded and their skin had become pale. They watched him intently.

  Adam could not move nor turn around, but he knew that the cerulean-blue that moved to fill the disc was not water.

  The echoes of Belamouranthe’s voice filled his ears. “We have magic in our veins.”

  The ground rumbled and something like thunder sounded in the distance.

  Under his feet, the stone disc started to rotate. He was scared of seeing what lay behind him. The source of the cerulean-blue. But as the disc spun it did not show him. What it did reveal was a stairwell that opened up along its outer edge.

  Cold slender hands with long nails suddenly gripped Adam by the shoulders.

  “Thou brought us hope, Adam,” said the Elphin Queen into his ear. “Once more the Altar is opened. Once more a champion must seek its benevolence. Thou must be our champion, Adam. Only then may the Elphin survive.”

  He had no idea what was going on, but he understood that the Queen had sacrificed her daughter to open the way to this altar and that he was now expected to enter it. Although he didn’t want to, he could not fight against the invisible restraints on his body.

  The ground rumbled again and he realised that it wasn’t from the movement of the stone disc. It was like an earthquake, as though the God that controlled the powers of nature was offended at the ritual taking place and this ‘forbidden’ altar being accessed.

  “Make haste, Adam. The ritual has angered the All-Mother. If we do not receive benevolence in time, our kin will suffer.”

  It would serve you right, he thought, but could not say.

  Instead his mouth opened and he replied, “I will seek the altar on your behalf.”

  Adam moved towards the stairwell on the edge of the stone disc. He prayed that he would not turn to look back at the hideous sight that surely lay behind him.

  To his relief, the cutscene ended with a blink.

  Adam was wandering down a spiralling staircase made of stone. On his right was a hole leading straight into darkness below.

  He blinked and was transported deeper. The stairwell was now narrower and there were openings in the round walls, revealing a vast chamber with four identical spiralling staircases. They ringed a central shaft that ran deep into the belly of the earth.

  Although he could not override the movement of his body carrying him deeper, he was able to turn his head and look around.

  Fuck…

  Walking down the steps of the staircases in the distance were four other people, each stepping in synchronised movements and looking around like him. Cubes floated along behind them, just as surely as one floated behind Adam.

  What’s more, he recognised one of them.

  Suddenly a lot of things made sense.

  That’s why he wanted to know how I beat the third Stage.

  He did not care about the Stage itself, only about my Relics and fighting style.

  Because he knew, thanks to Mórrígan, that we would face each other here.

  It was Ilya Sokolov.

  The revelation brought along another.

  The pattern of the Stages was not based on the rule of 6.

  No, it was based on the number 5.

  The Forbidden Altar was a Player-versus-Player Stage, of that there could be no doubt. And he would have to face someone he’d previously thought was his friend.

  made another animation!

  He also has a on RR you should totally check out.