Chapter 32: The Tower Of Despair
Luis makes it to the bell tower and heads into the south side entrance but his thoughts remain on Angel and Mariano who fell off the bridge. Meanwhile Maria and Dayvon found the top entrance of the bell tower and were prepared to go inside to work their way down. Maria and Dayvon still have no idea of what had just happened to Angel and Mariano. Another thing bothering our heroes was that Caleb was still MIA and our heroes grow suspicious that he is up to no good. Anyway our heroes are on their way to the first stop to the Elder Temple. What was waiting for them inside?
Dayvon and Maria head to the bell tower and find a ladder which leads them up to the roof of the tower. Once they get to the roof of the tower they find a way to jump down inside, Maria says “Let’s sneak in and surprise them!” Dayvon says “Yeah let’s do this!” So Maria and Dayvon jump inside once they see the coast is clear, they are now inside the tower. They see a couple of cultists walking around the duo come behind them choking both of them before they can react. Then down the hall they see a couple of undead knights walking they use their sword to behead them from behind. Maria says “Wow this is easy so far, I know that we shouldn’t get too cocky though it’s probably going to get tough from here on out.” Dayvon replies “Hey girl don’t so pessimistic we’re bound to find the others, I know Caleb is in his own world but I get the feeling he’s going to help us out.” After the short talk the duo continue down the hall and find a couple of ogres with their backs turned as well, the duo takes out the ogres from behind. Maria impaled her ogre in the heart, while Dayvon simply beheaded the ogre attacking him. After they go through the hallway they arrive at room with three smaller rooms to their left, right and straight ahead that surrounded a pool of blue water. The heroes are shot at by cultists with crossbows and frantics armed with nailguns. Dayvon shoots some of the cultists with his hand cannon and notices one falls into the water but the water didn’t splash or move at all. Maria takes care of the other cultists with her expander ring and implodes the cultists. Maria notices the same thing when the body parts fall into the water that the water didn’t make any movements at all. A sliver key was right in front of them; Maria attempts to jump to the platform to get the key fearing the water very deep but she was timing her jump the bell goes off with the vibration strong enough to force the duo into the water. However as the two head into the water it really wasn’t water it was a mirage and they simply fell through hitting the ground. After the two get up they hear a loud scream and Dayvon says “Who’s there?” Maria replies “No I think the question should be are we the hunted?” The duo goes to find out where the screaming is coming from.
Meanwhile Luis enters the bell tower using the south side entrance and the first room he sees is a chapel. The chapel is filled with cultists doing their routine prayers; Luis still angry about losing Angel and Mariano says “Alright this prayer service is over right now, it’s not like it’s helping anybody out anyway, you wanna worship the devil then you go see him for yourself!” Using one of the bombs he found in the castle he lights up the bomb then throws it towards the cultists blowing all of them up. Luis then says “Well I hope you enjoy your stay at the Satan hotel!” Luis then heads to a side door leading out of the chapel into the back room of the chapel where the supplies and clothing are found. He finds some zombies waiting for him which he kills off easily and finds nothing useful in the back room then moves on. Luis finds himself getting out of the chapel and notices the next room is darker in nature; the walls are made out of rough stone and several stained glass windows can be seen as well. Luis also finds a new enemy as well which is another knight but one that is taller and much more armored than the undead knights. These knights were called “Death Knights” or Luis would refer them to as “Canned Knights” due to their amount of armor. Unlike the undead knights the death knight did not use a double handed sword instead using a long rapier and relying on its heavy armor. Luis tries to use the crossbow on the knight but the armor deflects the arrow and the knight starts to swing for Luis. Luis is able to dodge the swings of the knight and after catching the knight off guard he takes the sword of the knight then beheads the knight. Luis finds a weapon behind him which was a nailgun but unlike Mariano’s this one had more power to it therefore making it more effective than the crossbow Luis had (We will call it the super nailgun). Luis sees another death knight shoots it with his nailgun killing it easily and then another knight shows up in front of Luis. However instead of chasing Luis the knight began to shoot fireballs that went forward spreading out as they went. One hits Luis burning his shirt leaving him shirtless then he says “You seem too hot, time to cool you down!” Luis kills the death knight with his super nailgun. Luis ends up in an area that resembled a medieval jail or death row in today’s world. Luis while exploring hears a scream and a roar coming from his left was it similar to that of what Dayvon and Luis heard?
Maria, Dayvon and Luis find themselves inside the bell tower or in reality the tower of despair as the architecture of the tower was ominous in nature. Maria and Dayvon that everything they see isn’t what that they seem to be like such as the fake pool of water. Luis meets and defeats the tougher death knights who seemed to be elite knights that joined the Cabal or were infected with the “Devil Juice” that mutated their bodies to the evil forms that our heroes have seen. However our heroes heard a loud roar giving them the indication that they were about to encounter something even worse then they have seen so far.
Dayvon and Maria head towards the source of the noise very carefully and before they knew it they had found the source of the noise. It was a new enemy called the shambler a very intimidating looking creature that a huge body but the most disturbing feature what that it’s face had large fangs but no eyes. While it was unable to see its sense of sound was very good making up for its lack of ability to see. Our heroes ran away as fast as they could but the shambler followed their foot steps and it shot a bolt of lightning at the duo barely missing them. Dayvon says “How in the hell do we defeat this thing?” Maria says “I don’t know how but that freak is heading right towards us!” Dayvon shoots the thing while the shot is able to push it back but that’s about it; the shambler shot another bolt of electricity towards Maria who gets hit. Maria is shocked by the high voltage goes down and is unconscious. The shambler moves towards Dayvon cornering him ready to use his claws to finish Dayvon off until a bunch of nails hit the shambler in the back. It was Luis to the rescue all of a sudden the shambler looks confused as he couldn’t see and wasn’t sure where the noise was coming from. The shambler walks around in circles trying to find the source of the noise, Dayvon realizes a weak spot on the shambler’s head which is pinkish in nature. Dayvon tells Luis “Shoot him in the head and I’ll shoot from behind!” The two take advantage of the shambles inability of seeing and are quiet as possible to give the creature the idea that all was clear. Then the two empty their weapons onto the shambler’s head then the shambler goes down back first, Dayvon gets closer just to make sure that the monster is actually dead. Maria by some miracle is able to get back up but she takes a few minutes to rest recovering from her shocking experience.
Once Maria is able to get back on her feet she tells the men that she’s ok and is grateful for Luis coming in to save her. Dayvon says “At least we know if we see that creature that to be as quiet as we can because whatever it can’t see it will be able to hear even more.” Luis in a depressed tone says “Listen this creature is the least of our problems…” Maria replies “Ok… well just like every other obstacle we’ll shall overcome them!” Dayvon adds “Yeah we’re the “A” team; I pity the fool who tries to mess with us!” Luis once again in a depressed tone says “I wasn’t finished; I don’t know how to say this but Angel and Mariano are… they’re gone!” Maria says “What?!” Dayvon says “You can’t be serious?” Luis says “No I’m afraid I’m telling them the truth, I’ll try paging them now and I get no response at all.” Maria asks ready to cry “What the hell happened?” Luis responds “I tried to help but we were ambushed by a gang of gargoyles while trying to cross a bridge but Angel tripped along with Mariano; I tried to kill off all of the gargoyles but their numbers were too great. Before I knew it those bastards pushed Angel and Mariano down the bridge and all I can say is all I saw was nothing except pitch black.” Maria asks “So that means… No! Angel’s gone! Why didn’t you protect him?” Luis replies while hugging Maria “I tried Maria I really did, you gotta believe me I know how upset you are.” Maria continues to cry in the shoulders of Luis knowing that she has just found out that the love of her life was probably dead. Dayvon goes to Maria saying “Listen girl we’ll get Angel back as long as we can get our mission done, everything that has happened will be reversed and Angel will be back. However if we just stand here Angel will be dead forever because the bad guys will win if we don’t reverse the effects.” Luis says “What Dayvon is trying to say is that we have to remain strong and finish our mission as we have been destined to complete, lets do it for Angel I’m sure he would like us to stay strong. Maria still showing tears says “I need him right here next to me, okay I’ll tell the truth I’m in love with Angel and we just hooked up together.” Luis says “Doesn’t that feel better that you finally spoke the truth? Take it easy everything is going to be alright.” Maria responds “Yeah it does, well I gotta stay strong.” Dayvon says “That just gives you more of a reason to continue to be persistent, I’m sure Angel doesn’t want a quitter as his girlfriend.” Maria wiping her tears away replies “You’re right guys, it’s time for these bastards some hell!” Luis says “That’s the spirit!” The trio head forward deeper inside the tower.
The trio meets the newest enemy known as the shambler a yeti-looking creature with no eyes but beyond perfect hearing. As dangerous the shambler has proven to be nearly shocking Maria to death our heroes find a way to defeat it. Maria and Dayvon were not prepared for the news that Luis was about to tell them, which was that Angel and Mariano have gone missing probably dying after falling off the bridge. Maria was especially broken after she heard the news as Angel had become the love of her life. However Maria and the others know that as long as they were able to complete their mission that Angel would come back as everything that took place at the moment would be reversed back on Earth and history would remain the same as well. However are Angel and Maria really dead? Finally where is Caleb and what are his true intentions?
Maria, Dayvon and Luis continue on their way through the tower. They find more undead knights and death knights who were a new enemy for Maria and Dayvon but the trio work together to defeat the enemies. Then they enter the core of the tower or central point which looks like it was still under construction. Cultists were found guarding the area while in the eyes of our heroes there were also slaves working to build the room. Maria tells while surprising them “Hey how about giving us a job with you guys, we believe in the same hell we’re about to send you too.” Maria uses her expander ring to implode some of the cultists and then Luis along with Dayvon took care of the rest. Once they got an upper portion of the room gargoyles came out looking to ambush the trio. However Luis is able to spot them in advance and takes out three of them before they got any closer. Problem is there were more gargoyles to come for our heroes while the trio were able to keep up with the gargoyles easily one of them does manage to capture Maria and kidnaps her taking her up the bell tower to an unknown location. Luis tries to shoot the gargoyle before it got away but it was too fast for Luis to take down. Luis says “Shit! There goes Maria!” Dayvon replies “Damn bro relax at least we’re still here and alive.” Luis responds “If only it was that easy I want to calm down but I can’t because we are being taken out one by one slowly but surely. Who knows one of us might be next and Caleb maybe working with the Cabal as a spy giving away our exact location. He may just be spying on us right now.” Dayvon says “Well whatever the circumstances might be we have to be careful and watch our backs more then ever.” After Maria is kidnapped by the gargoyle Dayvon and Luis look for any clues that will lead them out of the tower.
Dayvon and Luis are unable to find anything useful at first until they realize a funny looking switch by the stained glass of the Cabal symbol. Dayvon presses the switch and a rusted door to their left opens where a few ogres and a death knight are waiting for them. The death knight shoots out fireballs that Dayvon was unaware of but Luis pushes him down before any of the fireballs could hit Dayvon. Dayvon grabs his sword and starts to fight the knight in melee combat; Dayvon and the knight exchanged swords slashes and their swords would constantly touch; until Luis stepped in to distract the knight giving the chance for Dayvon to behead the knight. Dayvon says “Nice one man! You sure fooled him!” The duo then deals with the ogre which turns into a piece of cake. Once the coast was cleared the duo continued down the hallway but notice a strange looking thing in front of them it was a set of metal looking fangs one that looked like a medieval guillotine. Dayvon says “You feeling lucky bro?” Luis replies “No do you? That thing is waiting for us to go in so it can crush us. Wait that’s it?” Dayvon asks “What’s it?” Luis responds “Let's just throw in the dead knight into the guillotine so it will crush him instead of us.” After the guillotine comes down to decapitate the dead knight body the duo sees a hole within the trap big enough to fit a human being. The two of them head through the hole then the see a hallway full of spike trap just waiting for our heroes. The heroes sprinted through the hallway until they got to the door which led them to the exit of the tower.
The duo finds the door leading to the exit and they step out of the tower, when they do get out our heroes get a view of the outside of the bell tower. They go through a small forest that is infected with gargoyles and deadly poisonous snakes. They see another building in front of them and the duo decide that they should make a run for it instead of fighting off the enemy. Dayvon says “Quickly into that building, it’s too dangerous to fight these guys outside without an idea of how many of these guys are there.” Dayvon and Luis both run as fast as they can until they get to the building, the two are in such of a rush that they fail to read the sign that says “The Palace Of Hate”. They open the front door then close the door as fast as they can to catch their breaths. Luis says “Oh damn… that… was too close!” Dayvon says “I’m… trying… to… catch… my breath… where are… we now?” Dayvon and Luis after catching their breaths begin to start explore their surroundings.
After dealing with the shambler Maria, Dayvon and Luis were once again back together minus Angel, Mariano and Caleb. However the reunion between the three wouldn’t last for long as they are ambushed by gargoyles. In the unfinished room gargoyles attack the trio and while most of the gargoyles were accounted for one was left alive and it grabbed Maria taking her to an unknown location. Luis and Dayvon managed to escape the bell tower into a forest where they were ambushed by snakes and gargoyles. They are able to find a place to hide but they miss the sign which says “The Palace Of Hate” not knowing what’s inside could be worse than what was outside. Another thing crossing Dayvon’s and Luis’s mind was that they were the only ones alive or at least the only ones that we can identify to be alive. Where was Maria being taken to by the gargoyle? We still don’t know the condition of Angel and Mariano if they are alive or not? Caleb was nowhere to be found and finally what does the palace of hate have in store for Luis and Dayvon?