Chapter 37: The Elder Temple
Angel and Maria survive the elder shrine while Dayvon and Luis survive the pain maze. All of our heroes were all heading towards the Elder Temple although the teams of two have no idea that they are still alive, each one assumes the others are lost or dead. The mystery behind Caleb’s death still hasn’t been solved and it needed to be solved lest one or all of our heroes are killed. Meanwhile was Mariano really dead or not? Finally would Darkgaryl finally show himself to our heroes and where was the anti-matter ball?
Dayvon and Luis enter the Elder Temple and they see a blue bricked hallway with torches on each side of the main side of the entrance. When the two move forward a trap door behind them opens and a couple of death knights pop out trying to ambush the duo. Dayvon uses his voodoo doll against the knights killing them instantly but he notices the doll breaks after being used so much, so Dayvon is forced to throw it away. Our heroes arrive at a wishing well surrounded by a pool of water; Dayvon says to Luis “Wanna make a wish?” Luis replies “Sure I wish we can get the hell outta here!” Dayvon responds “I was expecting a more intelligent answer!” Luis says “Well what do you want a rocket launcher or something?” Then out of no where a gang of death knights attack our heroes by shooting fireballs at them. Dayvon uses his hand cannon to shoot the knights in the head and Luis uses his nail gun to defeat the other knights. The duo is surrounded by three different paths one needed a gold key, one was upstairs and the other was right behind them. The duo head to the path right behind them where they find a small prayer area full of zombies, Dayvon uses his last TNT stick to blow up the zombies. After taking the zombies out the duo see a gold key but when they grab the key more zombies come down but our heroes decided to run. Dayvon says “Discretion is the better part of valor!” Luis says “In otherwords let's just run so we get to fight another day!” Dayvon says “Well that’s works as well, lets go!” Our heroes head to the gold key room on the other hall.
Meanwhile Angel and Maria head inside the North entrance of the temple where they start at a dark blue hall which led the heroes to a dark blue room with a pool in the middle. While the duo was exploring the room they are attacked by a shambler; Maria tries to jump in the water but Angel pulls her back when he sees the creature shooting a bolt of electricity. Angel says “Are you crazy you go in there and you’ll be a nice toasted lobster. As for you big guy time to give you a shock of my own kind!” Angel shoots the shambler with the thunderbolt killing it and says “Take that you big freak of nature!” Maria says “Thanks babe for saving me, I guess I should had used common sense there.” Angel replies “No sweat hun now lets go inside the pool because I don’t see any way out of this room.” There was a door to his right but because the room was so dark he misses it; so both of our heroes head underwater where they soot some piranhas trying to get a bite out of our heroes. Maria sees a switch all the way in the back; she hits the switch which opens a gate. The duo heads through the gate then they resurface back to dry land where they find a hallway even darker than the last. The only sources of light were the torches that were lit up even few feet but it was still rather dark for our heroes. Then they barely see a death knight and a couple of fiends and then they lose them in the darkness. The enemies were walking quietly and our heroes thoughts were if they were quiet then they would be able to get though with out being noticed. Angel and Maria stick together while walking; Maria touches someone she thinks is Angel and says “Damn Angel your skin is rougher than I thought or is it just me?” When Maria finds out what she is touching she is shocked…
Dayvon and Luis head for the gold key door when they bump into a couple of ogres who they take care of easily. After that they enter the gold key room which is a big room which resembles some sort of jail area. Dayvon asks “What kind of temple has a jail?” Luis replies “One that belongs to the Cabal and one they want to put us in forever!” As our heroes entered they see a stick of TNT ready to blow up right next to them, they run as fast as they can to get out of the way of the explosion. Dayvon and Luis are able to get out of the way of the blast but then they are attacked by cultists with crossbows from the upper levels. They peek around the corner from where the cultists were shooting from and they quickly went back in when the arrows started to fly. Luis not wanting to stand like a sitting duck decides to take action by diving to the side and unloading his nailgun taking out the cultists while dodging the arrows. Unbelievably Luis isn’t hurt or even hit by any of the arrows; Dayvon says “I’m impressed bro here let me pick you up.” After Dayvon picks up Luis the duo continues inside finding small cells containing ammo for their respective weapons and finds some more cultists and frantics. This time though our heroes get the upper hand on the enemy and they’re able to kill the enemy off easily. Dayvon spots a button with a Cabal symbol, he pushes the button. The button opens a small hole in the floor just ahead of them; Dayvon looks down and sees the floor. Luis says “Well looks like we’re on our day down.” The duo heads down to the lower floor.
Maria looks up and sees that she wasn’t touching Angel but instead was touching a death knight. Maria freaks out at first when the knight attacks her but gathers herself as fast as she can. Then she gets into a sword fight with the knight, when she sees an opening she beheads the knight killing it. Angel meanwhile takes care of the fiends that try to attack but after he defeats them he hears a slimy thing jumping around. Angel says “It’s one of those blue gooey things again, lets get out of here!” Maria says “Where I have no idea where to go!” Angel sees a door but to his disappointment the door is locked and it needs a sliver key; Angel then says “Crap that thing could be any where we can’t just stand here we gotta get moving.” The duo keeps moving down the hall until they see a door that does open and it leads them back to the room with the pool exactly where they has started. Angel looking stupid says “We just came from here and we didn’t see this door?” Maria replies “Calm down babe its fine, hey there’s another door it’s just too dark here.” Angel and Maria go through the door but the floor opens up inside causing our heroes to fall down to a lower floor. Once they get down they are greeted by a couple of death knights who give our heroes some trouble at first but our heroes are able to kill them off relatively easily. Both heroes see buttons on each side of the hallway; they press the buttons at the same time causing the door to open. A couple of fiends are inside waiting for our heroes but our heroes kill off the fiends before they can even attack. The duo sees an elevator just ahead that lead upstairs.
Angel and Maria explore the north part of the Temple which includes a dark scene just as you would expect from a Cabal temple. They meet a variety of enemies but the challenge for them proves to be the dark hallways of the temple. However they do manage to find a way to get deeper into the temple and find an elevator as they continue their journey through the temple. Meanwhile Dayvon and Luis are on the south side of the temple which deals them zombie infested rooms and surprise attacks inside holding cells. They find a button opening the floor up ahead; they go down the hole ready for what was in store for them. The heroes are in the temple it was only a matter of time before our heroes were going to meet Darkgaryl and find the anti-matter ball; the only thing our heroes have to do is survive the maze.
Dayvon and Luis head on down the hole to a wooden hallway with a blue floor and they are greeted by a group of fiends. Dayvon and Luis are able to defeat all of the fiends easily and as they go down the hallway and they see a teleporter. However as they try to get close to the teleporter the floor below them opens with lava below. Luis says “Damn we were so close but looks like we gotta find another way around.” Dayvon says “Well lets go to the right I see another hallway in front of us.” Dayvon and Luis head towards the hallway at the end of the hallway they see a room full of stained glass picture of Cabal Symbols and Darkgaryl; the duo also sees some death knights on the upper level shooting fireballs at them. Dayvon and Luis run inside dodging the fireballs but then they are met with death knights when they go into the next section. Luis wall jumps then kicks one of the knights down then killing it with his sword. Dayvon simply uses his hand cannon to kill the other knight but after doing so Dayvon begins to feel a burning sensation on his back. Luis looks to see and Dayvon was on fire as he was hit by one of the fireballs on his back, Luis finds some water in a small fountain then pours it on Dayvon. Eventually Luis is able to shut the fire off on Dayvon, Dayvon did suffer from some third degree burns while nothing serious but his back began to burn and he was in pain. Luis killed the knights on the upper levels with his nailgun. After wards when the room was cleared the duo found a button which opened one of the stained glasses which revealed an elevator going up. The duo heads up the elevator and when they get off they find a healing pool according to the sign at least that’s what is was. The two jump into the pool and they sit in the pool for a few minutes. All of a sudden Dayvon’s back no longer hurts from the burn in fact the burn on his back was virtually gone.
Angel and Maria see an elevator which they take up stairs and when they get up they see a picture of a demon on the wall. As they headed towards the picture nails began to shoot out of the picture, Maria is able to pull Angel to the side preventing him from getting hit. Then the two see a pair of rings which makes them invisible for a period of time just like Dayvon and Luis. They head straight to the opposite side of the hall where they bypass a whole bunch of fiends; Maria even goes as far as gloating to the creatures that they cannot see her. However Angel says “Hey this is no time to gloat ok we need to use this power wisely, lets go!” Maria replies “Oh babe you’re such as spoil sport.” The duo head down the ramp into a red bricked room where there are fiends but since our heroes are invisible the fiends just sit there. Maria takes her sword impaling one of fiends while Angel forces the blade of the fiend into its throat killing it. Then there are two hallways they go through the first hall to the left where they sneak kill another fiend and a death knight but their invisibility was starting to wear off. When they continued down the path they are attacked by a couple of fiends who Angel kills easily with his thunderbolt weapon. When they get to a room with a pool they can see that the way to continued is blocked off by a gate, so they don’t even bother with going into the pool instead they backtrack and decide to try the other path.
Dayvon and Luis after sending a few minutes get refreshed and Dayvon’s burn was healed in no time. They get out of the pool and now find themselves on the upper level of the stained glass room, they continued into the next section. When they get there they see several spawns on the lower level but right next to our heroes was a wooden hallway. Dayvon and Luis decide to go through the hallway instead of going down for obvious reasons. When they reach the end of the hall they see a couple of cultists standing there at a sentry point, Dayvon and Luis both ambush and kill the cultists from behind. Then they see a sliver key although they had no idea what it was for as they hadn’t seen a door needing a sliver key. Dayvon says “We probably need to go through the teleporter which would lead us the right way.” Luis sees the teleporter is still blocked by the lava and says “First we have to find a way get the floor back or else we’ll be toast trying to get to the teleport.” The duo backtracks and sees a button but it is in the room where the spawns are; Dayvon says “No sweat I used to play football, I’ll be in and out!” Dayvon jumps down to the switch hits it and at the same time dodges the spawns who are bouncing around; Dayvon says “Don’t just stand there lets get out of here!” Dayvon and Luis notice as they are running that the floor has been restored and now they could go through the teleporter which they do. After going through the two of them end up back at the holding cells pondering what their next move will be.
Angel and Maria backtrack to the red brick room giving their eyes a bit of a break after seeing the temple which was dominated by a blue color on the walls. However the break was only for a few seconds as they headed through the right hallway where as soon as they headed inside a fiend jumps right onto Angel from behind. Maria grabs her sword and takes a hack at the fiend killing it; Maria then says “No one messes with my boyfriend and lives!” Angel says “You tell them honey!” After dealing with the fiend a couple of death knights arrive and Angel says “Looks like we’re not done yet!” Maria give Angel a sword that was hanging on the wall and the duo gets into a sword fight with the knights. Angel says “Looks like it’s time for me to cut open this can of sardines!” Maria follows with “Looks like a recall on canned knights is in order once we’re done.” Angel then says struggling to keep up the knight “For a can of sardines you sure are a tough one but you are not getting me this time!” Maria says “Dang I hit!” then falls to the ground. Angel is able to kill off his death knight and went to help out Maria with her knight. Right before the knight was ready to deliver the final blow to Maria her love Angel beheads the knight without any reaction by the knight. Angel says while killing the knight “Bet you weren't expecting that weren’t you canned meat, too bad you’re expired so you aren’t even worth eating.” Maria laughs saying “Damn babe you make me laugh, that’s for sure.” When our heroes finish off the baddies they arrive at a hallway where they see a set of stairs leading up. Our heroes head upstairs then from above a shambler comes down to attack the duo; Angel tries to shock the shambler but notices that he’s run out of juice foe his thunderbolt weapon. Angel says “Let's make a run for it!” Maria says “No I’m not running, you protected me now I need to protect you!” Maria uses her crossbow aims for the tip of the shambler’s head looking to kill it by shooting it in its head. To Angel’s surprise the shambler actually goes down face first onto the ground and he says “Wow that was excellent!” Maria replies “Thanks I know; besides I did owe you one for protecting me back against the knights.” After killing the shambler the duo finds a button with the Cabal symbol, they press it nothing happens nearby. The duo assumes that perhaps the gate beyond the pool room had opened; Angel finds some more fuses for his thunderbolt weapon which he desperately needed. The duo head back to the room with the big pool to see if the gate beyond had opened.
Angel and Maria were continuing to explore the north side of the temple but as they would find out they started to get the “blues”. That’s because most if not all of the halls and rooms were in the color blue except for the red bricked room which was meeting spot for the cultists. They eventually find a switch which hopefully would help them get to the center of the temple to meet Darkgaryl himself. Meanwhile Dayvon and Luis fought through the southern part of the temple which had more wooden walls and not nearly as much blue colored walls. They fought their way through the lower portions of the temple which contained many stained glass windows of Darkgaryl themselves, they got a sliver key and went into the teleport back to the holding cells. Our heroes were getting close to the center of the temple where they hopefully would get their answers to their questions.
Dayvon and Luis returned to the holding cells after being transported there by the teleport. The duo pondered on where they needed to go next now they had the sliver key. Luis then reminds Dayvon that there was still one path that was unexplored back at the upper part of the entrance. So Dayvon and Luis went back to the entrance and they went to the upper path that they had missed previously. As soon as they got inside though they were attack by spike traps but these traps were aiming for their legs. Luis saw a small edge on the wall which they were able to grab and use to shimmy across the hall until they could get into the next room. Our heroes shimmy on the edge of the wall and when they saw the next room they swung themselves into the next room avoiding the spike traps. The next room was a ritual room with a table surrounded by candles and Cabal statues. It was also full of cultists which our heroes team up to kill off. At the back of the ritual room was a small hallway that led to an unfinished bridge where lava was found below however there was a keyhole for the sliver key. Our heroes use the key which brought the platform from below to complete the bridge; the duo crosses the bridge where they were met with a couple of fiends which they take care of easily. Most importantly the exit door was found or at least it would lead them to the center of the temple. Dayvon says “Ready for this bro?” Luis responds “I been ready to get out of this hell hole! Alright Darkgaryl whoever the hell you are it’s time to take off the mask and show yourself!” The duo heads inside the door.
Back in the northern part of the Elder Temple Maria and Angel head back to the pool and find that the gate has been opened for them. The two of them head down to the pool, swim across then into the hallway where they found a couple of ogres which Maria kills with her sword. Maria says “The sword is mightier than the chainsaw if one knows how to use it.” The duo continues down the dark blue hall until they see a room where smaller rooms are found with water below. Angel spots even more fuses and flares for his weapons while Maria is able to find the sliver key needed to open the door back at the beginning. Before our heroes could celebrate however another shambler comes down from above; Angel says in disbelief “Oh come on not this dude again!” The heroes thought of running but then all the gates come down blocking the exits trapping the heroes. Maria says “Now we’re in the lions den for sure!” Angel says “Well there’s only one thing to do and that’s to give this guy hell!” Our heroes dodged the shambler’s attacks while at the same time avoiding falling into the water due to the shambler’s ability to shoot electrical current. However Maria falls into the water while dodging a slash attack by the shambler. The creature prepared his electrical attack that would fry Maria who had fallen into the water; Maria desperately tried to get out of the water but was unable to. Angel then shot a flare towards the shambler which caught the creature's attention and then he says “Hey you why don’t you come take on a man, you want some come get some!” Angel aimed his thunderbolt weapon on the shambler’s head and said “This should spark you up and next time stay down fool!” Angel kills the shambler and he pulls Maria out of the water, meanwhile the gates had risen enabling the duo to get out.
They went through the following hallway which actually led them back to the hallway they had tried to escape previously but this time they had the key to open the previously locked door. The two of them ran as quickly as they could in order to avoid the spawn that was still around, they got to the door opened it and went inside. When they got outside they saw a big statue of Darkgaryl with Angel saying “Hmm so that’s the bastard himself, hey Darkgaryl how about coming out here and showing your self!” Then the side door opens while Maria and Angel had their weapons drawn but no bad guys came out instead it was Dayvon and Luis. The four are happy to be reunited; Luis asks Angel “Where’s Mariano?” Angel replies “To make the long story short after we fell off the bridge we got transported to the underworld where Darkgaryl try to brainwash me with a mind trap convincing me that Maria was actually my enemy. When I broke out of the trance me and Mariano tried to get out, I was successful Mariano on the other hand fell down to his death.” Dayvon says “We didn’t find Caleb and I assume you guys didn’t find Caleb neither?” Maria responds “Actually we did find him but not in the way we wanted to find him.” Luis asks “What do you mean?” Angel replies “Caleb is dead but we have reason to believe he was assassinated and there is somebody spying on us ready to strike. He was killed by a crossbow but it was done with very good accuracy like it was premeditated...” Then Angel’s heart starts to pound indicating that the anti-matter ball was close by; Angel says “Hey the ball should be around here let's go!” The four of them walked into the next door finding the anti-matter ball was sitting there waiting for them to grab. Angel grabs the anti-matter ball but he notices that there is no warp leading to a way out, Angel says “I got a bad feeling about this.” A voice says “You should because you shall perish here forever!” After the voice finishes his statement a trap door opens then our heroes fall down into a dungeon.
All four of our heroes faced their final trails before they were able to get to the center of the temple. When they finally got to see each other for the first time in a while, Luis and Dayvon were shocked as they had assumed that Angel had died when he fell off the bridge back at the Cabal docks. The anti-matter ball was in the next room and Angel grabs the anti-matter ball but quickly gets suspicious when everything seems to be too quiet. The heroes were correct as they saw the floor below them open up and all of them fell below into a dungeon. Our heroes while shocked are not surprised because they didn’t expect to escape easily; our heroes knew they would have to face Darkgaryl. Our heroes were prepared to find out who was Darkgaryl. However our heroes also had questions on how they were going to get out of the current time period and go back to their current time period to finish their battle with the gloobas.