Chapter 375 — The Final Gallery II

They came in to Ronan on the middle island from three directions, and he put the Ward up once, and they went through the dome one after another like people going through a doorway.

`[ACCUMULATING — 0%]` ×5

Nobody stopped moving. Finn was already looking at the next jump. Cillian was counting what was left above them — "three Slingers, two right, one far left." Maeve said "broken ring" once, quietly, to herself.

James looked at the rest of the gallery and found the next two blights: one on a low island off to the left, one across on the right, further forward.

And as he looked, he saw the channels.

They were in the underside of the central island — the rock was open there, broken — and in the gaps, thin dull red lines ran through the stone and out of it and on through the next island, and the next, going toward the door.

*Still going.*

He left it.

---

The second half went differently, and nobody had to say how.

Finn and Ronan went first. James stayed a jump behind them. Maeve and Cillian came after, but on separate islands, at angles, so that neither of them was ever on the same two metres of stone as anybody else.

The first blight was on the low island to the left, over four Thralls, and one of the four was standing on the landing.

It was standing there on purpose. Its protection meant nothing could shift it by force.

Finn did not try to. He went across onto the edge of the island beside it and made himself something it wanted to hit. It went after him, and he gave ground round the back of the island, and it followed.

The landing was empty.

James crossed and drew the blight.

`[BLIGHT DRAWN]`

Finn turned round and killed the Thrall he had been leading about, in two strikes, and Ronan and Maeve took the other three.

---

The second blight was two islands away on the right, over four more.

James went across the first gap and the second, and on the second one, something jumped.

He saw it this time. One of the four came off the island to his left, low and fast, and he had just enough time to turn his shoulder into it and get the Cage in against his chest.

It hit him anyway.

It hit him on the turned shoulder and drove him sideways, and his right foot went off the edge.

Just the foot. His weight was still over the stone and his left boot was still on it, and for about half a second the right one was over nothing at all. The grit went out from under his heel and fell, and he did not hear it land.

`[CILLIAN WARD — LIGHTNING STRIKE]`

The Thrall went back off him, away from the edge.

James got his right foot onto the stone. Both hands were still round the Cage.

"*You alright?*" Cillian shouted, from one island back.

"Yes."

"You don't *look* alright—"

"I've still got it," said James, and went to the blight.

`[BLIGHT DRAWN]`

Finn and Cillian put all four of them down while he was still getting his breath.

---

`[COUNTDOWN: 00:02:18]`

The second pair of Keepers came out near the approach to the door.

They split as little as they could. Finn and Maeve took one. James, Ronan and Cillian took the other, with Ronan standing where both fights could come back to him instead of the other way round.

Both Keepers were down in about fifty seconds.

"Open eye, ring-with-a-cross, wedge," said Cillian.

"Three-bar, ring-with-a-cross, spiral," said James.

"Cross-in-circle," said Maeve. "And broken ring. That's both."

---

The Glass Knight came up under the low roof again.

Finn was three islands away this time.

`[COUNTDOWN: 00:01:34]`

James looked at the number and at the distance, and there was no safe way round.

"Finn—"

"Going."

He went the direct way, across two gaps and up the third. Cillian stopped doing anything else and put every bolt he had into anything that turned toward Finn's line. James and Maeve went forward and held the approach to the door. Ronan moved to the island Finn would have to pass on the way back, and stood there with the Ward ready.

Finn got under the roof and did not stop behind the wall this time. He knew where it would be.

`[GLASS KNIGHT — SLAIN]`

`[+00:01:00]`

`[COUNTDOWN: 00:02:07]`

He came back through Ronan's dome without breaking stride.

---

The door had fifteen marks round its frame.

"Broken ring," said Maeve. "Cross-in-circle."

Cillian found both, looked at them, looked at them again, and said "yeah" before he fired.

Both lit.

The door opened.

James stood there for about a second and let himself know it: that was every mechanic in the room, done.

`[COUNTDOWN: 00:01:41]`

It was still counting. Nobody was safe until the relics were down.

"Go."

---

The last chamber had three pedestals at the far end and recesses along both walls, and things started coming out of the recesses as soon as they were through the door.

Nobody went forward.

Maeve backed away from the nearest group of them without looking round. Cillian put a bolt into the front one of the cluster, and it went up and took four more with it, and the black mark spread across the floor. Finn used the beam once on one that had come round the side. Ronan stood in front of anything that came through the smoke.

`[BLOATS SLAIN ×8]`

James walked to the pedestal on the left and put the Cage down.

Finn put the Lens down. Ronan put the Ward down.

The countdown went away.

`[PRIMARY OBJECTIVE COMPLETE]`

`[FLOOR 38 CLEARED]`

---

`[BLIGHTED THRALLS SLAIN ×16]`

`[STONE SLINGERS SLAIN ×5]`

`[GALLERY KEEPERS SLAIN ×4]`

`[GLASS KNIGHTS SLAIN ×2]`

`[BLOATS SLAIN ×8]`

`[EXP GAINED: 16,100]`

`[FLOOR 38 CLEAR REWARD]`

`[EXPERIENCE AWARDED: 11,000]`

`[TOWER CREDITS AWARDED: 48,000 PER MEMBER]`

`[JAMES GANNER — LEVEL: 47]`

`[EXP: 79,785 / 84,000]`

`[FLOOR MVP — FINN HALE]`

`[REASON: TIMER EXTENDED — BOTH INSTANCES UNDER DIRECT FIRE]`

The relics stayed in their cradles. Nothing came off them. Nothing new appeared in James's list.

---

Finn sat down on the floor with his back against the pedestal he had just used and put his head back against the stone.

Ronan went round all four of them before he lowered the shield. He looked at each one and did not say anything.

"Five," said Maeve. "All five. No relics."

"No relics," said James.

Cillian was standing in the open doorway, looking back out at the platforms. The islands hung over the dark with nothing on them now, and nobody said anything to him about it.

James looked at the floor.

The channels ran across it — out of the doorway behind them, across the chamber, and toward the exit on the far side, which had come alight when the objective completed.

The Steward had not stopped them. Four galleries of relics and glyphs had not stopped them.

They were still going.

---

Then they moved.

James saw it start at the doorway. The red came up out of the channels — out of the cut stone, not sinking the way it had on Floor 28 and in the Caerleon footage. Up. The thin separate lines peeled off the floor and came together as they crossed the chamber.

Four became two. Two became one.

One bright line about as thick as a man's arm, crossing the chamber floor straight toward the lit exit.

He knew it before anyone said anything. He had watched it from the top of a terrace on Floor 29 — sixty metres of line going into an arch.

It reached the exit before any of them had moved.

It went through.

---

Nobody said anything for about five seconds.

"So," said Finn, from the floor. "Are we following it again?"

He was not frightened. He was asking. All five of them had been on the other side of the last door that thing went through.

James thought about it, briefly, because there was not much to think about.

Alice had looked at a carving in that fortress and named Wrath. The channels had run through four floors in a row. And now the red had gone into the next floor on purpose, ahead of them.

He had nothing else to follow. Not following it would not make it go away. It would still be there, one floor up, in whatever it had gone to.

"Yes," he said.

---

`[FLOOR EXIT SEQUENCE INITIATED]`

`[LIVE BROADCAST ENDING]`

**[FloorTheoryIE]:** IT WENT THROUGH

**[ZeroFan]:** SAME AS 29. EXACTLY THE SAME AS 29

**[ShieldMainSiobhan]:** it went up. it's gone up again

**[GalwayGoblin]:** four galleries and it was just WAITING

**[CorkClimber]:** 39. whats on 39

`[FLOOR EXIT — BROADCAST TERMINATED]`

---

`[FLOOR 39 AVAILABLE]`

James looked at it, standing in a chamber with three dead relics and no red left in the floor.

On Floor 29 the red had gone through the door ahead of them and they had followed it to a courtyard and a man who knew the name.

This time it had gone through before any of them had moved.

It had been there first.