The sun filtered down through the thick canopy overhead, light fractured into golden shafts as it pierced the thick jungle leaves and landed on the large platform that Deacon, Sam, Jass, Esmerelda, and Bonehead were standing on in front of one of the Altars of Offerings.
Each of them was clutching cloth bundles that held enchanted gear, crappy artifacts, and gold within them. Each bundle held the worst of their share of what they've collected in their three-month stay on Floor Three.
A little ways back, Arne lounged on a thick tree branch overhead, his long legs dangling as he casually peeled a piece of fruit. His eyes were locked onto the group below, watching them with mild curiosity. As per the call of Esmerelda, since they weren't really sure what would happen when they did offer half a million gold what would happen, that it would be best for him to be away yet close so they could escape if something went wrong.
The five of them didn't look especially confident either.
"I still think we're about to accidentally summon a jungle god that'll eat us," Bonehead muttered, staring suspiciously at the altar as he adjusted his bundle that slung over his right shoulder.
"It's fine," Sam replied absently, his gaze flicking over the floating stats on the Identification Relay as he double-checked the value of his bundle for the fourth time. "Enchanted gear, artifacts, and coins, totaling 100,000 gold exactly. System says that's the criteria, and the Floor Quest aligns with that."
"But we don't know how it works," Bonehead insisted. "For all we know, that altar wants a sacrifice. A live one."
Deacon sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Bonehead, if it wanted blood, I'm pretty sure that it would have said so in the Quest Completion Criteria."
Bonehead just grunted. "If we die, I get the right to say 'I told you so,' okay?"
Jass and Esmerelda chuckled in response.
Deacon, setting aside the banter, was the first to step forward. From within his Spatial Storage, he pulled free a neatly wrapped cloth bundle, plain but tightly packed, filled with enchanted scraps, two barely-useful Artifacts, and just under 2,500 in raw coin to make up the difference. It annoyed him to have to use coins, especially when he could have squeezed a little more from auctioning those Artifacts, but they didn't have time to wait.
One of the Artifacts being called the Baseball of Respite, which, when thrown at maximum strength, would grant a brief period of respite to whoever got hit with it. However, the person struck by the Baseball of Respite must be equal in level to the owner of the Baseball or lower in order for the effects to be true. It provided nothing else, and if used in combat, it actually helped out your opponent, which marked itself as an incredibly shitty Artifact for any of them.
Compared to what he was now wearing, enchanted gear, the Baseball of Respite was utter trash. While he hadn't found any headgear of use to him, he had put on both the Chestpiece of the Barbarian along with the Belt of the Barbarian, and when doing so, he received the 2 of 4 set bonus, which was a well-welcomed +5 to Strength.
He was also wearing a basic set of leather bracers and gloves that provided him with +10 Agility and +5 Strength, and +10 Agility and +5 Strength respectively.
"As a man of my word," he began solemnly.
"And the loser of rock-paper-scissors," Sam added helpfully.
Deacon gave him a flat look. "Yes. That."
He still couldn't believe Jass had actually thrown a rock. Who says they'll throw a rock and actually do it?
"Anyway... I'll go first. Let's see how this works."
He stepped up to the altar and, with a breath, tossed his bundle into the basin.
Nothing happened.
Five long seconds passed.
Then Deacon blinked, a System Notification popping up in the center of his vision.
System Alert:
Party Leader detected. Party Quest requires a cumulative offering from the entire party. Minimum value: 500,000 gold.
All members must contribute simultaneously.
"Oh," he muttered.
"What?" Sam asked.
"I just got a System message," Deacon said, turning around. "It says since I'm the Party Leader, it's treating us as a collective. We all need to throw in our offerings at the same time for it to count."
"…Huh?" Bonehead looked baffled. "That's… weird."
"What?..." Sam frowned. "Wait, actually… that sounds familiar. I think a Professor mentioned something about Party-based Quest functioning like that."
"When?" Esmerelda asked, brows raised.
"I dunno," Sam shrugged. "Probably sometime after midterms. I kinda stopped listening to lectures and just focused on reviewing magic tomes after that."
"Of course you did," Jass muttered, unslinging her own bundle from over her shoulder.
Resigned, the rest of them followed suit.
With little fanfare, each of them stepped up one by one and tossed their bundles into the basin, each containing 100,000 exactly within them.
As the final bundle, Esmerelda's, hit the basin with a soft thump, the altar pulsed.
Then, fire exploded upward.
Flames burst from the Altar of Offering's basin with a thunderous roar, shooting three meters into the air, easily engulfing the five bundles, and transforming the red and orange flames into ones with strange hues, greens, and blues flickering in with the orange and red.
As the flames devoured the various enchanted gear, Artifacts, and gold it was offered, the runes around the altar lit up, glowing brighter and brighter.
The five of them instinctively took a step back.
Even Arne sat upright on his branch.
"Well," Deacon muttered, eyes squinting into the fire. "That's… probably a good sign."
"Or it's about to explode," Bonehead offered.
"Still counts as a sign," Jass said with a grin, hand on her glaive's haft, as they watched in silence as the flame continued to roar.
But instead of a sudden monster bursting out from the flames, like they expected, instead, they were greeted with a Quest Panel popping out in front of them.
Floor Three – The Isles of the Damned:
You have arrived at the Isles of the Damned, containing the remnants of a once-great Aztec empire. These lush isles were home to a proud and prosperous people of sorcerers and shamans, whose golden cities and rituals were the envy of surrounding lands. But such as all great kingdoms, greed brings blood. However, their deaths had nothing to do with the human invaders that arrived two hundred years after the collapse of their once glorious empire.
Upon a discovery by a single adventurer; colonies, empires, warlords, and profiteers all sought to take the riches and valuables of the Aztec empire. However, every warrior, wizard, witch, soldier, and outcast they sent to the isles, never made it back to the boat that was designated to take them back.
For hundreds of years after the disastrous expedition of 1562, an attempt that ended in a bloody massacre, the Isles remained mostly untouched. But desperation eventually drove the world's kingdoms to try again. One by one, they began sending their worst criminals into the jungle, offering full pardons and unimaginable riches in exchange for even a sliver of the ancient treasure that resides within the isles.
Not a single coin ever made it out of the Isles.
Still, they persist. More ships arrive; more exiles are cast ashore.
Floor Completion Criteria:
▸ As a Treasure Hunter, uncover and retrieve treasures and valuables totaling 100,000 Gold in worth. ✔
▸ Bring them to the central Altar of Offering to lift the seal and unlock Floor Four. ✔
Time Remaining: — ∞ —
Rewards: Access to Floor Four, Knowledge of Floor Three's Waystone Location, and Refined Fortification Pill.
Deacon looked at the screen in confusion for a moment as he'd suddenly felt the knowledge of where Floor Three's Waystone was before he detected an item entering his Spatial Sling Bag.
"Oh, wow," he said as he used Identify on the Refined Fortification Pill that he received upon completing Floor Three's Quest.
Item Name: Refined Fortification Pill
Type: Consumable
Effect: Permanently increases in some physical attributes: +5 Vit and +2 End.
Duration: Permanent
Rarity: Rare
Description:
The Refined Fortification Pill is a matte-black pill crafted through careful distillation of endurance tonics and hardened root extracts, brewed by a talented Tier 1 Alchemist for long-term resilience training, the pill strengthens the body at its foundation. After consumption, you will experience a short period of heightened awareness, followed by a permanent enhancement to physical capability. No effect if taken more than once within a day's time.
Without wasting time, Deacon, along with everyone else in the group, immediately popped the Refined Fortification Pill in their mouths.
"Oh wow, they weren't kidding with the side effect," Esmerelda muttered, wincing at her sudden heightened awareness, looking like she'd just taken a bite out of a lemon. "How screwed are we if we take one that enhances Perception?"
"Very," Sam muttered, looking just the same as her.
After taking a minute or two to collect their bearings, they all focused back on their task at hand.
"It's close," Esmerelda murmured, her eyes distant, clearly following the internal compass the System had just embedded in them.
Jass squinted in the same direction, expression thoughtful. "If I'm not wrong… isn't that around the area where a couple of teams found a Field Boss yesterday while we were still in the Temple?"
"Yeah," Deacon said slowly. "How strong was that Field Boss to where we felt it deep in the Temple?"
Sam nodded in agreement. "It must have been strong since, by the sounds of everything and the remnants of the battle were huge."
Esmerelda gave a short hum of confirmation, while Bonehead, who was already halfway turning away, mumbled a distracted, "I dunno," before suddenly sprinting back in the direction of their treehouse.
"Where the hell are you going?" Jass called after him.
"My garden!" Bonehead shouted without slowing. "Some of those herbs matured today, and if we're leaving immediately, I want them in my storage!"
They watched him disappear into the dense foliage.
Deacon glanced toward the tree branch Arne still lounged on and raised a brow. "You coming, or what?"
Jass let out a sharp whistle and motioned for Arne to join them. "C'mon, kid! You've got a Waystone to touch and a Tower to explore!"
Arne flicked the core of his half-eaten fruit away before leaping down effortlessly from the branch, landing with a soft thud beside the others.
***
The Waystone sat in the center of a clearing, massive and unmoving, carved in the image of a Quetzalcoatl holding up what looked to be some type of toucan above its head.
For something so large, easily four meters tall, Bonehead was somewhat stunned that they had never once noticed it before.
"Really weird how we've never seen this," Bonehead muttered as he returned, panting slightly from his jog back. "We've crossed this island like a dozen times."
"Unless we gain the System's permission to access the Waystone, we'd never be able to see it," Esmerelda explained, her tone patient but pointed. "The System obscures it until we fulfill the requirements. You literally asked something similar during class."
"I did?" Bonehead asked, genuinely surprised.
"Yeah," Deacon replied with a grin. "Colorful phrasing included. Mrs. McGee had to pause her lecture because of it."
"When?"
"Two weeks before graduation," Sam chimed in. "I specifically remember because you raised your hand in class, which only happens during rare planetary alignments or when you've got a personal agenda."
"Huh… Oh well," Bonehead said, shrugging. "I probably just wanted to see her–"
Esmerelda cleared her throat loudly, cutting him off mid-sentence. She gestured meaningfully to Arne, who stood beside her, clutching his small satchel.
"We have a child present."
Bonehead threw his hands up, muttering, "Yeah, yeah," and stepped back.
Esmerelda crouched beside Arne and handed him a small parchment. It had been carefully written in her elegant, spidery script: "I am a native from Floor Three. A party from Gen 327 found me. I am not hostile. Please direct me to the proper authority, as I cannot speak your tongue."
"Give this to a guard," she said slowly, enunciating as she pantomimed a guard's uniform, then mimicked touching the Waystone.
Arne watched closely, nodded once, and took the parchment. He gave Esmerelda a quick, tight hug before scampering to Jass and throwing his arms around her waist as well.
"See you soon, squirt," Jass said softly, ruffling his hair.
Taking a deep breath, Arne stepped up to the Waystone, however, as he did, he hesitated for a couple of seconds before placing his hand against the Waystone.
With a flash of white-blue light and a gentle gust of wind, he vanished from Floor Three and appeared within the back gardens of the Academy of Beginnings in Floor Zero, and waited for a passing guard to notice him.
They stood in silence for a few seconds before Deacon finally rolled his shoulders and said, "Well… that's our cue."
"Right," Sam said quietly, then turned to Jass and Esmerelda. "We'll see him again, you know. Once he's graduated, he's tough from what we've seen, plus from what I've read, the whole integration process for them to get into the Academy is way better than our own. He'll do fine."
Jass gave him a small smile, while Esmerelda nodded.
Each of them turned toward the Waystone, placing their palms flat against its cool stone surface one after another.
[SYSTEM NOTICE]
You are eligible to enter Floor Four.
Confirm transfer?
[YES] [NO]
They all said the same word with confidence.
"Yes."
And with that, they vanished.