by Angel Medina
All of our heroes head straight inside the castle taking every enemy out while they were at it. They head for the main hallway which presents two pathways for our heroes so once again our heroes find themselves splitting up again. This time it would be Angel, Mariano and Luis taking the left side while Dayvon and Maria taking the right side of the hallway. Dayvon says in a sarcastic tone “Oh this is gonna be fun!” Maria replies “Dayvon don’t you even start with me or I’ll throw you in with the alligators!” Angel screams “Come on you two can’t you go even two minutes without fighting, we gotta stick together here if we wanna survive!” Luis says in a low tone “Don’t hold your breath!” Mariano asks Angel “Are they always like this?” Angel takes a deep breath and replies yes to Mariano. Despite their differences Maria and Dayvon agree to work with each other. Our heroes begin their journey into the uncharted castle which didn’t look too pleasing.
Dayvon and Maria head inside the right hallway which leads them to a bridge with water which was actually blue for once. They encounter a few ogres and some zombies which they are able to take care of easily, especially with the napalm launcher Maria possessed. They cross the bridge until a gargoyle comes out of the blue and knocks Maria down to the water. While it may not seem like a big deal especially after Dayvon defeats the gargoyle with ease however the water contained piranhas and alligators. Maria is scared for her life trying to find a way out of the water; Maria is able to find a ladder and climb her way out of the water back onto the bridge. Dayvon didn’t feel concerned in fact he actually found Maria’s near death experience pretty funny. Dayvon with an uncontrollable laughter says “Hey… remember I was supposed to go down with the alligators… I guess they like you more… All I can say is don’t… Wish anything you don’t want to happen to you… hahaha” Maria not amused replies “Are you done? It wasn’t that funny besides you act up anymore and you’re be next!” Dayvon responds “Take it easy there buttercup they’re just alligators right? Hahaha.” Maria replies “Let's just move on before I actually push you down into the water, can we at least act a little adult or should I say you.” Maria and Dayvon continue to the left path find a few ogres and a new creature called a “behemoth” which would spit out a small amount of a green toxic substance and it resembles a cobra that had the ability to fly probably a product of the Cabal cult. While one shot would do little but a larger quantity then the victim could actually become paralyzed, Maria pushes Dayvon out of the way from the spit of the creature then blasted it with a napalm fireball, while Dayvon took care of the ogres. Maria says to Dayvon “By the way I didn’t have to do that for you, I could have let you take that shot.” Dayvon says “Fine sweet cakes I’ll give you a medal for saving me or I should say doing what you’re supposed to be doing.” Maria walks away from Dayvon and continues until Dayvon pulls her back. Lucky for Maria that Dayvon pulled her back because spikes were coming out of the wall or upon further review nails were being shot out of a “spike trap”. Dayvon says to Maria “I guess it’s your turn to be thankful. Listen lets just do what Angel told us to do and work together.” Maria responds “I guess we can put aside our differences for now, it’s not like we’re going to survive by fighting amongst ourselves.” So the duo continued their journey through the castle.
As for Angel, Luis and Mariano their journey of the castle started inside a dark yellowish room which contained new enemies called “fiends”. These creatures have blades for hands, their face resembled a badly mutated human being and have only one mission in their miserable lives which is to kill and nothing more than that. They were also very agile making them tough targets to hit at first and they constantly jumped towards their prey trying to land a shot on their unsuspecting victims. The trio had trouble getting a good shot at the creatures in fact they found themselves having to dodge much of the time just to avoid getting hurt. Mariano gets tripped up, one the fiend blades catches and rips his clothes but luckily for Mariano that’s all it caught. Mariano uses his life leech once he sees an open shot on the enemy and blasts it away. Angel and Luis recognize the attack pattern as well and let the fiends get close and making them attack them making them open to attack. Once Angel and Luis catch the pattern Angel burns one fiend with his flare gun while Luis takes care of the other with the Tommy gun. Once they cleared the room they proceeded into a wooden room full of cultists armed with crossbows and nailguns as guns weren’t around yet. One arrow nearly strikes Luis in the head and one hits Angel on the leg, our heroes take care of the cultists easily and Mariano grabs a nailgun dropped by the enemy. Luis is able to remove the arrow out of Angel’s leg but the damage to Angel was already done, while Angel was able to walk but his mobility became limited. The trio moves through the big wooden doors all of a sudden then see a wooden ceiling starting to come on down ready to crush them. The door behind them locks and cannot be opened while the other side of the room is simply a wall with a distinctive symbol on it. The heroes try to figure a way out of the trap but are running out of time as the ceiling is not wasting anytime coming on down…
Our heroes begin their exploration of the Castle of the Doomed and as they find out the 12th century is going to be a rather tough period to deal with. As guns were not invented yet which meant their guns would eventually be useless as ammo would be non-existent. Also the enemies were more mean looking and were actually tougher. Maria and Dayvon still can’t get it together when it comes to working together but they show signs of working as they save each other. Angel, Luis and Mariano on the other hand were caught in a trap that seems to have no solution for escape but that symbol of the wall, was it there for design or would it be a clue for the trio escaping the trap. As you can see medieval times can be just as deadly even those who armed with the knowledge of what happened during the time period.
Dayvon and Maria just avoided a spike trap but they saw a row of spike traps. However all of the traps were chest high, so all they had to do was to crotch down and crawl under the traps to avoid them. So they are able to get through the traps without any trouble then they see another room which has a big pool of water full of alligators waiting for a piece of our heroes. To make things worse gargoyles and ogres also wanted a piece of the duo. Our heroes had to do some fancy footwork to avoid being caught by a gargoyle, thrown into the water or cut up by an ogre. Despite the challenging battle put in front of them the duo are actually able to cooperate with each other to defeat the enemies. After that tough battle the duo enter what seems to be a jail area to keep inmate but the gates open and another new enemy is revealed. A group of undead knights who were killed in battle coming back from the dead to haunt the living, they were armed with double handed swords long enough and sharp enough to cut up a human being. Maria tries to blast the knights away but she runs out of napalm rounds and Dayvon ran out of bullets for his shotgun, which meant they had to engage the knights in melee combat. Maria and Dayvon were outnumbered 4 to 2 which gave the knights the advantage. Maria grabs a pair of swords off the wall while Dayvon grabs a flail off the wall as the duo prepared for battle with the undead knights. However due to the fact the knights were undead meant simply impaling them wasn’t going to be enough to kill them, they needed to make sure they never came back to life. The knights slashed away at the duo but the duo was able to avoid every single attack. Maria then wall jumps from the wall behind her and slashes the head of one of the knights killing it. The other chases her back to the pool but with her quick reflexes she is able to force the knight down to the water where the alligators made quick work out of them. Dayvon on the other hand was trading blows with his pair of knights he would swing away but the knights countered with their swords, the knights then cornered Dayvon. Maria eventually comes to his rescue slashing both knights in the head killing them both. Dayvon says “Damn did I get that rusty? Anyway thanks for the save there you’re pretty good with those swords.” Maria replies “Thanks I also took fencing classes as well, although I know I did anything but fencing.” Dayvon responds “I’m pre
tty impressed actually, you are one tough cookie.” Maria says “Finally you realize it, better late than never I suppose.” Maria sees a sliver key on the other side of a drawbridge but isn’t sure if the bridge is trapped. Dayvon finds a rope ties it to Maria’s hand just in case she falls into the water he could pull her out. Maria crosses the bridge, grabs the key and…
Angel, Luis and Mariano meanwhile still search for a way to get out the trap room before getting crushed by a wooden ceiling. Angel screams “That symbol I have no idea but let's touch it, shoot it or whatever!” Mariano shoots it with the nailgun all of a sudden the wall opens up with stairs leading down, the trio heads down quickly as the ceiling made contact with the floor. Angel almost out of breath says “Whew! That was… too close!” Luis and Mariano agree with Angel and the trio move on down the hallway, where a few zombies come out of a trap door trying to surprise them. However the trio senses the zombie's presence and kills them before they could be harmed. Then enter another big room with a pool of green slimy water but unlike the pool that Dayvon and Maria found this water did not contain any creatures however the trio still assumes the water is a dangerous place to fall down in. Meanwhile Angel finds more ammo for his flare gun, Mariano finds a box of nails and Luis finds a set of bolts for his crossbow which he had to use because his Tommy gun was now useless in the time period. When they get deeper in the room they encounter a mixture of ogres, fiends and behemoths (Which were new to the trio but encountered by Maria and Dayvon). Angel lights the behemoths on fire with the flare gun, Luis shoots down the ogres with the crossbow and Mariano uses his nailgun and empties nails onto the fiends. At the end of the room there was were double doors that needed a gold key to open them, our heroes look for the key but are unable to find the key. Until Mariano seen the gold key on a small platform on the level below but that meant they had to go into the water. Luis says “Looks like we don’t have much of a choice here do we?” Angel says “Well let's go get that key and hopefully there is a way to get back up.” The trio heads on down to get the key and once Angel picks up the key a group of zombies pop out of the water; the trio sees a small opening and decide to make a run for it instead of dealing with the zombies. They go inside the opening where they see a ramp which leads back on up, they encountered some more ogres which they defeat easily. The path eventually lead them back to where they had killed the cultists before the trap room, when they got into the room they hear the scream of a Cabal Phantom. Mariano says “I thought these guys didn’t exist!” Mariano is referring to the fact that the Cabal was only just starting and wasn’t spreading their beliefs well according to the handbook at least. Angel uses his x-ray glasses which still work even in the 12th century and sees the phantom then makes quick work of the phantom. Our heroes enter back into the trap room a bit hesitant; when they enter the room they notice the wooden ceiling is already back up and the trio walks through the room without incident. The trio head to the big double doors and used the gold key to open the door.
Meanwhile Maria grabs the sliver key and as she suspected the drawbridge was rigged to retract forcing Maria down to the water. The alligators were hungry for Maria trying to bite her even jumping up trying to get her. Dayvon pulls Maria with all his strength until he is able to pull her back up to safety. Dayvon says “Nice try freaks but we’re too smart for you guys!” Maria and Dayvon go through the next door where they encounter more undead knights and kill them easily. Dayvon then finds a prototype of a hand cannon, it was a prototype so he was unsure how effective it would actually be. Maria finds a ring which gives her the ability to enlarge her targets causing them to implode. Maria says “These aren’t your normal weapons but because we’re in the 12th century we gotta be a bit creative.” When Maria and Dayvon open the door with the sliver key they see a group of fiends in what seems to be an execution room. Dayvon tries out the hand cannon and believe it or not it’s actually very effective against the fiends killing them easily. Maria tries out her ring which she implodes the fiend into pieces and she says “Cool this ring rocks!” What Maria is unaware of is that the ring has a cool down period of five minutes if used to its full potential. Maria is new to the ring so she’ll find out in time. Dayvon steps on a Cabal symbol on the floor then two square stone levitate up and move into the two holes on each side of the door. Then the door opens but it’s another trap where two fiends come out and jump on Maria ready to kill her. Dayvon is able to shoot the fiends with the hand cannon and picks up Maria off the floor. They find out the door lead to a dead end but behind them was a passageway where they go inside and encounter behemoths then ogres. Maria’s ring recharges and she uses it to implode the behemoths but the explosion is powerful enough that it kills off the rest of the enemies. Maria and Dayvon see a big wooden door leading to the exit of the castle; they go through not knowing what was in store for them.
Angel, Luis and Mariano open the gold key door enter inside and they are surprised by a Cabal Phantom who strikes Luis causing him to hit the wall hard. Angel uses his x-ray glasses but even with the glasses the phantom is moving quickly, he tells Mariano to get out of the way and check on Luis. Angel does some fancy foot work to dodge the phantom attacks but the phantom shows off a new attack which he shoots off a skull missing Angel. Angel is able to shoot the phantom with his flare gun when he becomes open to attack; the skull attack is a spirit blast capable of killing those with a weak spirit and can only be countered with spirit armor which would deflect the blast back onto the ghost. Angel asks Mariano “Is Luis ok?” Luis responds “Yeah I’m fine a little headache but I’ll survive let me just gather myself for a few minutes.” After Luis gathers himself the trio heads to a small hallway where they see a spike in the middle ready to pop out so our heroes shimmy along the wall and after the spike shoots out the floor below opens up. The heroes drop down back into the slimy green water where zombies begin to pop out the trio kill off the zombies but at the same time look for the way out of the pathway. They eventually find the way out where the get to a chapel area then they get ambushed by a couple of ogres one grabs Mariano but Mariano is able to fight it off. Luis finds a bomb lights it up and throws it to the ogres while warning the others to jump out of the way. The ogres blow into many pieces and Luis says “Like you said Angel we gotta think on our feet.” Then out of nowhere the Elder God makes an appearance probably to give our heroes more advice.
The Elder God says to the trio “I won’t be long my friends, I’m happy to see you are using you heads and helping each other out knowing that this isn’t your time period. I’m here to tell you where I think Darkgaryl is or at least where I think where he is. He is probably hiding out in the great Elder Temple which is about a mile away; however you’ll have to go through many trials and many you’ll have to endure some of most disturbing things possibly ever in your lifetime. This castle is only the beginning unfortunately well here I’ll equip you guys with spirit armor which should help you against some the evil spiritual forces that might try to kill you. Well I have to go now, good luck!” After the lecture the three of them now have a good idea of where they need to go but getting there was going to be a different story. Angel, Luis and Mariano head out of the chapel into another hallway where cultists with crossbows try to take them out, they run across the hall finding an elevator that goes up. They take the elevator up which leads them to the exit when they get upstairs they see the wooden door leading them out. A couple of fiends are found sleeping by the exit, Angel says in a low voice “I think we can sneak past them if we are quiet enough. Don’t make any sudden noises.” The trio walks gingerly till they get to the door open it and leave without any of the fiends noticing.
The first taste of the 12th century for our heroes comes in with a bang and they barely survive. Dayvon and Maria are able to work together like a team and find their way out of the castle. So do Angel, Luis and Mariano but Angel did take an arrow on his leg limiting his mobility. The trio of Angel, Luis and Mariano also learn that Darkgaryl is hiding ou
t in the Elder Temple but even with that our heroes still didn’t have a clear idea of where to go. At least our heroes were learning to survive in their current situation and they needed to as weapon choices were rather limited in the 12th century. Will our heroes get out in time to deal with the gloobas back on virtual Earth and get back to their current time period?
Chapter 21
The Grisly Depths
Angel, Luis and Mariano took the south exit out of the castle which lead them to the place known as the Grisly Depths where dead people probably sacrifices of the Cabal were drowned underwater. Our heroes needed to be prepared to see a lot of the undead looking to exact revenge on the living humans even if it’s our heroes. Just like the castle this place had a dark and ominous feel to it.
Angel, Luis and Mariano arrive at a set of wooden double doors which they open and find a couple of behemoths hiding out. Luis shoots them down easily with his crossbow. Mariano sees a couple of undead knights patrolling downstairs, while Angel sees the same Cabal symbol he saw in the trap room. Angel says to everyone “Wait lets shoot that symbol I’ll bet you it’ll spring a trap and kill the knights instantly.” Mariano shoots the symbol and all of a sudden a wooden platform comes crashing down crushing the two knights. Angel says “See what I mean, now if every enemy were that easy to take out.” Angel finds a strange weapon know as the thunderbolt a gun that shoots out electricity which he found strange because electricity wasn’t discovered until Ben Franklin. However Angel knew this was a “virtual world” so it wasn’t going to necessary follow what history has written already. Also Angel realizes that if he uses the weapon underwater he will be electrocuted along with his partners. Angel sees a dock where there are behemoths spitting at the heroes, Angel tries out his new weapon and he fries the behemoths with one shot. The dock cannot be reached from where the heroes are, so they head underwater to find an alternative route. They go in an underwater hall then they resurface back into a small hallway where they see ogres at the ready. Angel makes quick work of them with the thunderbolt; Luis tells Angel “Hey sparky better take it easy with that save that weapon when it counts the most.” Angel says “Yeah I guess you’re right.” The heroes proceed through the hallway.