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The inside of the keep was surprisingly quiet, Omar thought. He could hear the battle outside, but other than the occasional group of NPC acolytes that attacked them when they encountered them, it looked and felt like any of a number of keeps he'd conquered.

"I was expecting something different," Tuck commented. "Didn't you say your friend could have turned this into any kind of nightmarish place?"

"Could have doesn't mean that he did," Omar replied.

"He might not have had the time," Marc added. "Or felt he did. Changing the way the keep looks takes time, it's like building a mini-game. As an entopic designer, Paul has the skill, but no matter how good he is, he'd have to keep in mind he was being hunted."

"Another thing," Tuck said, then paused to take down an acolyte, "why didn't those guys storm this place? They have an army in that city, they would have made short work of whatever defenses this place has."

"The city's army can't venture far enough to reach the keep," Taro answered. "It's a defensive force, not an assault. They went after us because we were within the city's influence, so valid targets, and once they were hunting us, I think the way the game works we could have led them to the keep because they were chasing enemies. I'm not sure, I never tried that when I played conquering scenarios. Marc?"

"I have no idea," the bull Necalium answered, dispatching a couple of guards. "Taking or defending a city has never been my kind of play."

"Didn't you read about it?" Taro teased. "Haven't you read everything there is on the net about the Lands?"

Marc let out a bark of laughter. "Hardly."

"Still, we got in," Tuck said, "why didn't they? Clearly they know there's something here, they killed someone who received the file your friend sent."

Being reminded of David's death weight on Trevor, and it must have on the others too because no one answered his brother. "I wish you weren't so casual in mentioning my friend's death, Tuck. We're not military, like you." He breathed in slowly. "But, if you'd played the Lands more seriously, you'd know keeps have heavy defenses at the entrance. Those first few rooms would have been a bitch to get through even for us and even without an army at our asses."

"And they didn't use the trick we did why?" Tuck asked. "I'm not trying to undermine what we've accomplished, but I have to say, it seems like they let us get in here."

Taro and Marc stared at the leafy monkey.

Omar chuckled. "Only you would consider everything we had to do to get here as too easy. You're thinking too hard about it. This isn't the real world, and they aren't a trained army. From speaking with whoever Bobby's double is, I get the sense we're dealing with some criminal elements, maybe one of the crime conglomerates. Even if some of them are serious players, they wouldn't know every little secret the Lands has. We have Marc, they don't."

Marc motioned them into silence, then vanished. He returned and motioned them back one intersection.

"The chapel is around the corner, three intersections down, it's guarded by six of the keep's guards. Level fifty-eight Eckeciran knights. They're a local mob," he added when Omar looked at him, rolling an eye until a question mark came up. "Typical tanks, with ice-based abilities. We shouldn't have any trouble, but we have to be careful, there's no telling how the chapel itself is set up. The keep's boss is there, protecting the caern. It might not be set to activate when we enter, but there's no way to know."

Omar nodded. "We take down the guards, then you and Tuck can look for triggers and we go from there."

The others nodded, and they rushed the door.

* * * * *

Marc cleaned Life-Bane off the knight's robe before sheathing it. The gesture wasn't needed, but it felt proper. Life-Bane was too dear of a weapon to just treat it like a game element. With the six guards dead, he turned his attention to the door. A large stone thing with ornamental framing depicting a story about the area to feed the players who thrived on the Land's lore. Constellation did like to go deep on that aspect, even if sometimes he went a little light on others, like naming the creatures.

Tuck joined him and they searched the door for any triggering mechanism. He shook his head when the monkey looked at him. He hadn't found anything either, which meant the odds were close to zero there was no trap on the door. There was no way to ever be entirely certain, no matter how skilled at locating traps someone was, the trap could have been set up by someone better. Even NPC's had levels and skills and Constellation had built the Lands as if it had evolved, so someone had built the keep, this door. And they could have been a master builder.

"Looks clear," Tuck said.

"We're going in," Omar replied, and Marc pulled the door opened and readied himself for anything.

Nothing happened.

That was good. He hoped.

The chapel was surprisingly normal, Marc thought. He hadn't expected Paul to override the entire keep when he took control of the caern, but he'd at least expected him to do something with this room. Of all of them, Paul was the more artistically driven. He must really have felt pressed for time not to add any elements here.

The chapel was a large room, easily three hundred feet deep by fifty wide, made of stone, with a dozen statues along both walls, armored men and women who looked out of place, although they were made of the same stone. Pews made of the ice looking wood that was native to Siberal filled the space leading up to the altar which had to be the caern. Stained glass high on the walls provided the light to see and depicted yet more of this land's lore.

"So, no boss?" Taro asked.

"None that activated on entering, at least," Omar answered. "The caern is bound to have something protecting it."

"There is something," Tuck said, crouched and indicating a line along the floor before them. "My trap detection registers it, but I can't see what it's connected to. Horace?"

It took Marc a second to realize Tuck meant him, and he chuckled. Playing with someone who wasn't used to their guild's convention was taking some getting used to. Omar scowled at his brother.

Marc studied what Tuck indicated. His skill wasn't as high as the monkey, he'd neglected it once he'd been high enough level to have other abilities to bypass traps, but he had more experience playing and he knew how most of the traps within the Lands worked.

Only this one perplexed him. He could tell the trigger point was the line, but it wasn't on the floor, it just was. A veil that would do something when one of them crossed it. Was this something new Constellation had designed? Traps were usually a contest of skills, which meant it was possible to get an idea of what to expect.

"Tuck's right, I can't tell what this is going to do." Marc stood. "I'm going to go through, I'm the best equipped to deal with whatever it will trigger. Taro, be ready with some healing, just in case."

The bat took a couple of potions out and nodded.

Marc took Life-Bane out, readied his vanishing ability, and stepped through.

The veil pulsed blue and ... nothing.

"A defective trigger?" Tuck asked.

"Normally I'd say those don't exist in the Lands," Marc answered as he considered it, "but the server isn't in place, the...admin, isn't active, so maybe? It's possible whatever the people who prevented it from being put on the transport did something to how it works."

Taro stepped through and there was another blue flash through the veil, and again, nothing happened. The bat put the potions away. "I won't complain at not having to fight anything."

Omar motioned for Tuck to join them. The veil flashed red as he crossed and everyone froze.

"That couldn't have been good," the monkey said after a second.

"So why isn't anything happening?" Omar asked, looking at Marc.

"I'm out of my depth at this point," he answered. "But I'm leaning toward it being defective too now."

"I don't like this," Tuck said.

"It isn't like we can just turn around and leave," Omar pointed out. "We still need to access the caern to find out why Paul drew us here." He stepped through the veil, which flashed blue.

"I think," Taro began, but was interrupted by a flash of light from the caern.

Marc blinked to clear the spots. He hadn't expected anything to be able to blind him, his Ever Sight ability should have prevented it.

When he was able to see again, there was something wrong with the chapel. It had gone fuzzy, and the colors had leached out of everything.

"What the fuck is happening?" Omar asked.

Marc turned to look at the brastok and nearly fell as his leg buckled under him. He straightened reflexively and noticed he'd set his foot on a broken stone, which had thrown him off balance. He also couldn't feel the floor under his feet. His friends were fuzzy gray shaded shapes before him.

"I think that's the trap," Tuck said, looking at his hands. "I've lost sensation below my knees."

"What kind of trap his this?" Omar demanded.

Taro looked at them. "Are you guys okay?"

"Aren't you affected?" Tuck asked.

"The visual resolution's crap now, as is the sensory input below my knees, but I've played with worse. This feels like one of my early game interface, back from before I could afford a suit." Whatever else he planned on saying was interrupted by the sound of stone breaking away from stone. One of the statues stepped down from the alcove it had been standing in.

"Fuck," Tuck let out and he took a hesitating step forward. "This is going to be a bitch to deal with."

A second statue stepped down from an alcove.

"I think you might be underestimating how bad this is going to be, Tuck," Omar said, moving his hands and fire flickering around them.

Marc prepared himself as a third statue stepped down, and a fourth and fifth. Twelve, twelve fucking statues, each level forty-eight. "We are so fucked," he cursed.

"I think it's Tuck's fault," Taro said.

"I didn't do anything," the monkey replied. "For once."

"You flashed red," the bat replied.

"But nothing happened!"

"Because we weren't all across," the bat said. "I don't think this is the Lands. I think Paul set this up. It should have been Melor who'd come with us. Because it's you, he thinks we're being forced by the enemies or something. So he had to protect what's hidden."

"Fine, it's my fault."

"Again," Omar said with a grin.

"But it doesn't explain why I can barely see or feel my feet," the monkey said and gave a raspberry to the brastok.

"Handicapping us?" Marc suggested.

"Then why not go further? If the point is to prevent us from reaching the caern, why only a partial handicap? Why not fully blind us? They feel like a trap." Tuck indicated the lumbering statues, then moved his hands before him. "This feels like an unintended consequence."

"One that's going to get us killed regardless," Omar said and gestured at one of the statues, a gout of flame enveloping it.

Marc watched as only a sliver of the statue's health vanished. Yeah, they were fucked, but it wasn't like they could give up and log out. They owed it to Paul to go through with this or die trying.

He activated his vanishing ability and carefully watched where he stepped as he positioned himself to make a critical attack.

* * * * *

Taro threw a poison potion at a statue and moved out of the way of the crashing sword. He'd cranked the visuals up as high as the suit went, and still, he couldn't make out much in the way of details on the statues, but all he needed was to know where they and his friends were.

Moving had been a little more precarious, but very old reflexes were kicking back in. No raising of the feet, shuffling ensured he didn't step on something that would force his balance off. It slowed him, but speed wasn't exactly required against the statues. This felt like it was going to be persistence more than power-driven. Poison potions we easy to manufacture at least even if they only took a minuscule amount.

Marc was nowhere to be seen most of the time, appearing only to stab one of the statues in the back, then vanishing again. Omar had picked up on the shuffling trick and kept his distances, throwing lighting and fire at the statues, the two more efficient attacks.

Tuck was... Taro couldn't decide if the monkey was insane or a genius. He'd forgone trying to walk, using his hands to maneuver himself around the statue's body, flinging himself from one appendage to another, letting momentum power his kicks, and ripping pieces of armor as he moved.

One statue crashed down and shattered, Marc becoming visible in the dust, and Taro threw healing and regenerative potions his way. It crashed and the skeletal bull regained his vitality. Tuck let himself fall off the statue and roll on the floor until he was within the area of effect, before throwing himself at another statue.

"Hold on to something!" Omar yelled, and Taro shuffled outside his cone of effect. Marc vanished again, and Tuck grabbed onto the statue's crown. With a muttered word and a push forward, a hurricane erupted from the brastok's hands, inflicting little damage to the statues caught in it, but they were pushed back to the center of the chapel. When the wind ended, the brastok dropped to his knees, steam and oil leaking out of his head.

"Omar," Taro called and lobbed him his best regeneration potion. It would be even more effective since the area effect would be concentrated on one person when they drank it. The brastok downed the potion and got back to his feet. He squared his shoulders and went back to throwing fire and lightning.

* * * * *

The last of the statues fell, and silence settled in the chapel.

Omar fought to catch his breath. Even with the regenerative potions Taro had handed him, he'd had to push himself further than he'd ever done in a fight. If whatever Paul had left for them to find hadn't been at risk, he'd have logged out and attempted this another day, with more players or after gaining a few more levels.

"That was fun!" Tuck said, rolling to his feet and tapping them on the floor. "I'm back to normal too."

Omar hadn't noticed because of the dust, but as that settled he did see colors again and details. Tentatively he tapped a foot and felt the rubble under it. No more shuffling. No more fighting. He was finally done with all this.

"Okay," he headed for the caern, "let's go see what it is Paul left for us."

The door to the chapel chose that moment to explode inward.