Radical-9

CHAPTER 26: The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God

February 24^th, 2022

9:14 pm

The Plasmic Wraith leaps high into the air and latches itself onto the ceiling. I bust out Flintlocke and fire off two rounds. The bullets fly towards the revenant, but like with Athena and Klein's attempts, they redirect once they make contact with the goo outside of the core.

“How are we supposed to hit this thing if all we're doing is being reflected?” I ask.

Two of the tendrils wrap themselves around my forearm, they deliver electric shocks down the rest of my body. Athena slams the butt of her blade into the tendril, separating it from my arm, it jumps up to rejoin its full self.

“Let me see if I can try something,” Jen says, thrusting her staff forward, a plume of fire extends out and onto the Plasmic Wraith's body. I can see the plasma surrounding it begin to bubble, and it lurches back into itself, retracting all of its tendons before reforming one large mass of plasma again, even the chunk guarding the door.

“I think you might have found our way through, Jen!” I call out.

“Fire! Fire!” Sam calls.

The revenant backs up into the far wall and squeezes itself through the cracks, leaving us in a mad dash.

“Is that it? That can't be it,” Klein says.

“Well come on, you should know, you were here last time,” Athena says.

“That monster's new. The format of this place looks to be the exact same, so we're going to continue down this hall through that door and then we'll be entering...wait for it, the labyrinth,” he says, swaying his arms around.

“There just always has to be some sort of maze in these games, right?” I ask.

“What do you mean?” Athena asks.

I sigh, “Mazes are so stupid. They're not challenging or need skill or anything, it's just random guessing until you find your way out. Like, nobody enters the Lost Woods in Legend of Zelda and goes 'Oh yes! My favorite part of the game!'”

“Legend of who?” Athena asks.

“When we get out I need to show you the classics,” I say.

We walk through the door and the path branches off to both the left and right.

“All right, Klein. You've been through here, where are we going?” Jen asks.

“Right! Let's go right!” Sam says.

“He's not wrong, right is the first way,” Klein says.

We take a right, and then Sam runs in front of us, “Left! Left!” He calls out.

“Sam! Where are you...?”

“Left...actually is next,” Klein says.

“How'd he guess that again, is he really that lucky?” I ask.

“I don't know,” Klein says.

We follow Sam down the path, Klein nodding each time Sam chooses a path in the fork. The look on his face seems to show that he's just as curious about Sam's direction as I am. We run into a large golden room, almost perfectly square in size. The floor and walls are made of solid gold blocks, carved to look like brick.

“It's so shiny,” Sam says.

“Woah, what is this place?” I say in awe.

In the center of the room is a bulky golden statue of a rather large man. It looks somewhat Indian in structure, it having eight arms and all. is a golden statue with what looks to be emeralds for eyes. I see a sparkle in the left eye as I recognize it as a Keystone, fit into the statue's eyeholes. But just then the statue begins to shake, and inbetween its joints plasma begins to fill and it begins moving.

“Guys, I think that slop monster wants another round with us,” I say, arming Flintlocke.

“Step back, I've got this,” Jen says with a smile. She raises her staff as before and lets loose a stream of fire. The Plasmic Wraith charges through the fire, it spills off of the statue as if it were a coat of armor. It slams itself into Jen, she is sent back. Athena jumps in with Hauteclere, her blade slams against the statue's base and sends shockwaves up through her arms. “God damn it, fuck this thing!” She yells out.

Klein and I run up side by side, blue right beside red. I switch Flintlocke back into a blade as I bring it up, swinging it in a quick arc as opposed to Klein, who's going for a swift slice from the bottom. The Plasmic Wraith turns on a dime and catches the both of our blades in two of its hands.

“Make him go boom!” Sam calls.

“Hey Athena, now'd be a great time to jump in,” Klein says, pushing against the statue's grip of his blade.

She nods her head and runs up taking off into a sprint, she jumps and swings out her sword, it begins to glow, it moves faster the heavier it becomes. It cuts clean through the four arms on the statue's left side, the plasma tendrils seep through the holes that they had made. Before it can move I see a ring of fire open from underneath the statue, and then a similar one above it on the ceiling. I turn to see Jen grasping the Heart of Hades in her hands, its red glow shining through her fingertips.

The Plasmic Wraith falls through the open portal, and falls through it again, and again, and again, going faster each time it falls through. Jen aims into the first portal and shoots in another spray of fire, the Plasmic Wraith's tendrils catch flame when it falls through again.

Athena smiles as she takes her sword and spins once with it, spinning her sword almost reminiscent of a baseball bat as it gains weight and she slams it into the metal as it flies down. The momentum carries it to the wall on the other side of the room, and as soon as it makes contact it explodes, sending smoke and chunks of gold flying everywhere. I duck to my stomach, waiting for it to clear.

“Is it over?” Klein asks.

I look up as the smoke begins to dissipate, “Yeah, I think it is okay,” I say.

“Yeah! You made it go boom!” Sam says, clapping.

Athena stands again, turning to Jen, “Good thinking with the portals there, that was really smart of you.”

“All in a days work, I guess,” she says, blushing.

“Hey, we cannot forget about this,” Klein says, picking up the keystone. It glows a nice green in his hand. The item window calls it the Heart of Hephaestus. “Grants the wearer increased speed by 150% and magical defense by 150%,” Klein reads.

“That's good and all, but what about there?” I ask, pointing to the spot where the revenant had collided with the wall, the explosion had revealed a path beyond the golden bricks.

“I am going to take a guess and say that is where we have to go next,” Jen says.

I nod and walk over towards the rubble. I peek on through, it is completely black wit absolutely no light.

“Well, there's only one way to find out now,” Klein says.

“Jump!” Sam says.

“Jump?” Athena asks.

I look back to the area, it is still pitch black. “Sam, have you been here before? Is that how you knew where to go back there?” I ask.

“No, I've never been here,” he says.

“Then how could you have...?” Jen asks.

“I saw it,” he answers.

“You saw it?”

“Yeah, I saw it. I closed my eyes and I saw it. Like I saw the gold man go boom,” he says.

“Wait,” I begin. “When you said that before, that was before we made it explode,” I say.

“Yeah, I saw it twice.”

“Sam, are you saying you can see things? Special things?” Klein asks, almost sarcastically.

“I see things, don't you?” He asks, looking directly at me.

“I...I do, but I see things that have already happened. Sam, I think you might be seeing things that have yet to happen,” I say.

“Like seeing the future?” Jen asks.

“Yeah, why don't we test it right now?”

I turn to the opening in the wall and take a deep breathe. I count to three and jump into the darkness. I begin falling, I can feel my heart start beating faster, but then everything around me turns to white, a familiar floor transition. I can only laugh as I think of the absurdity of the situation. It only increases when I begin falling upwards, everything around me is a null void until there is a wall behind me being formed, and then another, and then another, and finally a fourth. I'm shot through a bale of hay and land on my ass on cold dirt. Around me is a door, a door for a stable. The walls around me are made of a kind of wood, I think I'm in some sort of abandoned barn.

I see Athena shot out of the hay next, almost as if there is a bottomless pit of hay underneath the top layer. I catch her on the fall, almost sending me off of my feet once more. Jen and Sam are next, she sticks the landing and looks back with a wild expression on her face.

“Holy crap that was insane,” she says.

Klein is last, he shoots up the highest, I would assume maybe the momentum carried him the furthest because of how heavy his armor is. He lands flat on his face, his arms spinning like windmills as he tried to fix his descent.

“Any of you laugh and I'm leaving,” Klein says with a face full of dirt.

I laugh but try my hardest to keep it inaudible.

It doesn't work out.

“That's it, I'm out,” he says, standing up, wiping his face off.

“Oh Klein, we know you don't mean that,” Jen says. “You'd get too lonely without us.”

“And we without you,” I say.

“Aw, that was actually really deep...damn, I don't know how to respond to that,” he laughs. “Let me buy you all a beer on the outside, okay?” he asks.

“I'm not of age,” I say.

“Dude, what's of age anymore, really?”

“I'll pass, I'm not the biggest fan of alcohol,” Athena says.

“I'm game,” Jen says, smiling.

I look from him to her, “No, no way in hell is that happening,” I say.

“What? He's just offering a drink. It's not like he's actually getting anywhere,” Jen says.

“Harsh,” Klein says.

Jen laughs, “I was just kidding, I really shouldn't. I-” She cuts off as her eyes open real wide.

“Jen?” I ask.

She stands up real stiff and she goes all tense.

“She seeing now,” Sam says beside Klein.

“What?”

“Now. She is seeing,” he repeats.

Of course, she must be seeing one of those visions. The question of the hour now is why. Why do we see these, why not Athena or Klein? What is so special about us? I almost wish I could see what she is seeing right now.