Elysium's Multiverse-Chapter 350

Elysium's Multiverse-Chapter 350

Chapter 350
Chapter 350
[Congratulations on finding the site of an alternate Apocalypse Beast Altar.
***THIS ALTAR IS A CHALGATHI ALTAR #2, CURRENTLY UNDER CULTIST CONTROL, AND CAN ONLY BE CLAIMED BY A CHALGATHI AFFILIATED NON-CULTIST OR CULTIST.***
PLEASE REVIEW THE RULES OF THE TRIAL BEFORE PROCEEDING.
Chalgathi, The Apocalypse Beasts World Quest, Panu, sub-event is now underway: The Altars of Despair and Hope.
The locations are marked and access to Chalgathi’s Altars is now enabled. You will be required to visit all 4 Chalgathi altar sites and activate the shrines before acquiring knowledge of the location of Chalgahti’s Temple where Chalgathi’s incubation chamber has been hidden.
There is 1 Altar of Hope where all Non-Cultists will arrive. There is 1 Altar of Despair where all Cultists will arrive for this event. There are 4 additional altars for each of the 3 apocalypse beasts for a total of 12 additional altars.
There are 21 registered Cultists.
7 Chalgathi Cultists, 6 Chubin Cultists, and 8 Nekra Cultists
There are 9 registered Non-Cultists entering this event.
3 Chalgathi Non-Cultists, 4 Chubin Non-Cultists, and 2 Nekra Non-Cultists
Cultists will be pitted against non-cultists when reaching these alternate apocalypse beast altars. It is highly incentivized to work together with your given team, and severe punishments will be handed down to those who intentionally harm any others within your own category while involving yourself in this sub-event of the questline.
Here are the rules:
The Altar of Hope will indefinitely respawn all Non-Cultists after a 24 hour time period after death, and will have a barrier of protection around it that only Non-Cultists can enter through.
The Altar of Despair will indefinitely respawn all Cultists after a 24 hour time period after death, and will have a barrier of protection around it that only Non-Cultists can enter through.
Chalgathi, Chubin, and Nekra altars can only be claimed by Chosen belonging to their designated apocalypse beast, but all altars can be entered and turned off by Chosen of any apocalypse beast. People and creatures from outside Panu that are involved with this World Quest cannot activate or deactivate any altar, but they can enter the altars.
All altars will have indiscriminate defenders that respawn after death.
People and creatures from outside Panu that are involved with this World Quest will continually be funneled into this event either voluntarily or involuntarily depending on circumstance or deals struck with Elysium. These individuals will either die inside the event, or die and live depending on which side and which apocalypse beast they pledge themselves to at the end of the event. More details on this will be discussed later.
The goal of this event is to acquire points. You are a Non-Cultist, your method of gaining points differs from cultists, and will be discussed more thoroughly when you enter the event. Global methods of gaining points, however, are retaining control of altars for uninterrupted 24 hour time periods, unique quests that everyone competes for, and killing Cultists of the opposite team. Killing people of the same team will decrease your total points, but may be necessary to complete and secure larger amounts of quest points and prizes.
Killing anything inside this trial will not grant XP and levels due to temporary immortal status, but completing spawned quests will grant XP and levels.
Points may be spent at the Altars of Despair and Hope for various bonuses, knowledge, items, buffs, or mercenaries.
When you reach 10,000 unspent points, you are allowed to leave the sub event and travel back to Panu. At this time you will be granted the location of Chalgathi’s temple, where Chalgathi’s egg and incubation chamber are located.]
Not having rested while speeding faster than a jet across the landscape for two days straight with Narg, Fay, and Nora’s many personalities - Athela finally found herself at the promised location.
She dismissed the notification with a grumble about how long the text box was, but it was certainly relevant to what was laying in wait ahead of them; and it’d been a while since she’d even reviewed the rules given how long she’d been stuck in the Abyssal Descent with the rest of them.
In fact, this was the very first time she’d come across one of the Chalgathi altars at all, and given how they’d need to at least invade each altar one time minimum - points aside - it was nice to finally get eyes on an example of what was to be expected.
It was an absolutely massive structure, a fortified tower full of battlements, ramparts, and layers of siege equipment. Mage spires, mana cannons, explosive shell cannons, defensive miracle domes, outcroppings flashing with extendable whips of chain lightning, and spikes that gave off oppressive auras were in abundance. Furthermore, golems numbering in the thousands - and various people that weren’t golems numbering in the tens of thousands - were present and set up along battle stations. Perhaps 2000 feet tall and 400 feet from side to side in an octagon shape, the tower was larger than the world trade centers had been if Athela was right on her Earth-history. It also had a gigantic stone dragon statue at the top, where the statue was reared up on its hind legs and roaring to the sky - wings outstretched and full of holes. It was a truly impressive creature to behold, though many of the features were worn by what appeared to be time or weather.
And all around this tower, numbering at probably a hundred thousand strong, was an army besieging it at a great distance. Siege weapons from both the tower and the ground forces were going back and forth with explosions hitting each others barriers and occasionally breaking through to kill a few dozen people and destroy the siege equipment, but the vast majority of the land army was out of reach in a sea of bodies and tents.
“They’re expecting us…” Nora hissed from a hundred different mouths. “Follow me…”
The wave of darkness that she and her ‘others’ made was like watching Moses part the red sea. She moved silently through the crowds of people that quickly got up and made room for her, or they bowed low and kept their heads down with fearful but respectful expressions directed at her. Most of these warriors were men, and most of them were in either cultivator attire with flowing robes and pinned hair - or were in stocky armor with broad shields and various medieval weapons. However there were scattered amounts of women too, usually of the mage classes, and even a few tech-savvy humanoid alien creatures with green skin and bulgy buggy eyes. The abnormally thin green aliens carried what Athela guessed were plasma rifles and energy swords, and they occasionally flickered with shields that coated their bodies like a net of energy wrapped around their formfitting silver spandex clothes.
Weird.
Just weird.
But Athela asked no questions yet and trusted it would be explained in time.
Minutes passed before the swarm of shade-like bodies stopped moving in absolute silence, and only Nora’s main body went forward through a flap in a very large white pyramid tent with flags Athela didn’t recognize posted out the front entrance.
“None of that stupid shit you’ve been on recently.” Athela warned Narg as Fay strode forward to follow Nora through. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately, but I mean it.”
Narg, who’d taken to a smaller shroud of darkness and only a singular eyeball, merely blinked.
Athela took that as understanding and withdrew the sharp killing intent she’d been focusing on the other demon, and stepped inside the tent too.
The tent was about halfway filled with people mostly standing around the perimeter’s edge, whispering to one another in low tones while looking at the newcomers now entering. In the very center of the tent was a square table with a miniature three-dimensional hologram replica of the surrounding landscape and the tower - with troops and even the cloud cover depicted.
Around that table were three men. One was a tall knight with flowing blonde hair and a thick beard with a stern expression, hands clasped behind his back. The next was an old wise looking guy with cultivator robes who had a long gray ponytail and a half eaten apple in one hand. The last was a one of the green-skinned bug-eyed men who was notably shorter than the other two, wearing spandex, and was completely devoid of hair.
“Dark lady.” The knight bowed low at the waist, rather stiffly, and was followed by the others in the same manner of greeting. “I see you’re back. I want to that nothing has changed in your absence, and that vile warlock’s demands remain the same.”
Athela raised a questioning eyebrow at the mention of warlock, but Nora was quick to explain.
“He’s talking about the cultist who originally captured this tower.” Nora said, quivering as she fought off the urge to cackle and clutched her sides - her face going through thirty-four different facial expressions within a single second by Athela’s count before settling on a calm demeanor. “Ehm… Sorry. It’s hard to remain serious now that I’ve changed!”
Fay clapped her on the back, but recoiled at the touch and withdrew her hand - staring at the dark ooze lingering there only for it to fade away after a couple seconds. “Uhm… No worries, Nora. You’re doing really well.”
“THANKS!” Nora screamed, then covered her mouth with a fit of crazed laughter before quickly reverting back a semblance of normalcy. She took in a deep breath, smiled - which looked creepy as hell given how she had no distinguishing features on the solid sheet of black making up her body beyond her pale white eyes and teeth - and slumped her shoulders. She closed her eyes.
Everyone gave her an entire minute to regain herself, and then she started speaking again with only the occasional spasming twitch.
“Things have recently changed.” Nora began, sucking in a sharp breath with a hiss and expelling it slowly - and none of the men present made to move a muscle. “The quests have been dispensed less and less… and more people have been forced to fight over the altars for points instead. Elysium punishes those who kill their own side with point deductions, but even some of the cultists have been killing each other for control of the altars if they don’t want to share the point rewards - because the initial point deduction of killing what Elysium considers a team mate would make it worth getting rid of the competition. But that’s neither here nor there. What really matters is that we, as the Chalgathi non-cultist side of things, need to at minimum invade each of the altars related to Chalgathi and touch the core of the altar. We need to do this to all 4 Chalgathi altars to acquire the location of the temple back on Panu that has the egg, and we need a minimum of 10,000 points to get out of this place after doing so.”
She turned around to stare at the three demons, completely ignoring the other people in the tent. “Do you know why Elysium brought in various villages, towns, cities and fortresses full of people to conquer? Why it brought them here to this realm between realms to fight over?”
Fay shook her head, and Narg remained quiet.
“To acquire points?” Athela shrugged.
Nora tilted her head from side to side. “Yes and no. Yes that is part of it, but the amount of points you can acquire from doing that versus what you can get from holding an altar is… noticeably disproportionate. And people on both sides are starting to notice. My guess is that the real reason Elysium brought them here to conquer, is so that we can use them as armies to break through the innate defenses of the altars.”
Nora waved a hand back around her at the people all standing silently on the sidelines. “These are all people from cities that I either conquered after getting back, or who willingly chose to sign up on my team when I offered them the position. You see, they all have their own Elysium quests. Quests to choose a side and find a way out, or to follow the orders of the one who takes their place of residence by force. If they choose to ignore those prompts, Elysium will simply let them stay here after the event is over as the spatial plane collapses around them and turns them into mince meat. There’s only one way out for them, and it’s by choosing a side.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; any sightings.
“Or being forced to choose.” Snarked the old cultist in the middle of the room.
Nora only grinned his way. “Yes… Your people put up quite a fight. Sad that I had to slaughter half of you before you’d listen to reason… but no matter. Half of them live in my shadows now…”
The man’s face flushed red and his fists clenched, but he didn’t move to act even though it looked like he wanted to. Perhaps, if what Nora said was right, he couldn’t - but it was the first time Atheal had ever heard about this.
Then again, she’d not really done a lot here yet and had been gone for quite some time. She’d never asked any of the people of Outpost #84, or any of the residents of the two cities they’d recently conquered for Riven, whether or not they’d received their own quests after being conquered. Or choosing the non-cultist side willingly, in the case of Outpost #84.
“So the city we just ran through and took back from the cultists…” Athela said, thinking back to where General Caltan’s skeletons and Fish, Brute, and Lizard were currently setting up shop as an occupational force. “They were originally forced to play on the cultist side? We were killing people who didn’t have a choice?”
“Perhaps.” Nora said, taking a seat in one of the chairs next to the table. “Perhaps not. They may have chosen willingly, but they have to choose - and perhaps they just chose wrong. Or perhaps they were conquered early and didn’t get to choose which side they wanted. But they only get out of this place one way - and that’s by siding with a particular cultist or non-cultist and their apocalypse beast to bet on. And if they happen to get lucky by being forcibly conquered again by a different and winning cultist or non-cultist that gets them out faster, while not dying in the process, then great. If their cultist underperforms and gets them killed, or simply doesn’t complete the 10,000 point requirement and doesn’t enter all 4 altars by the end of the event, they die.”
“Why would Elysium take away the right to grow and cultivate from so many people just for an event like this?” Athela asked with a frown. She crossed her arms. “That doesn’t sound like Elysium at all. It likes to build up cultivators and provide opportunities for growth. Cutting those opportunities short by the millions and bringing them here just so that a bunch of temporarily immortal participants in Elysium’s newest trial games can compete is a bit… much.”
“I believe I can answer that.” The bug-eyed green-skinned man said in a soft but firm and slightly feminine voice, despite being a man. He folded his arms in front of him and shook his head. “We’ve already confirmed it with most other groups we’ve come into contact with. “Everyone we’ve talked to so far have been marked as… underperformers, in the eyes of the system. Stagnating civilizations without much promise or growth. For us, and for them, Elysium likely sees this as a crucible to force us into an extreme situation and conflict, and those who survive it are more likely to continue forward on the path of cultivation when our brothers have fallen. I’m not sure what you know about the theories on why Elysium does what it does, but no matter what theories you know about - one thing stands true about them all. It is that Elysium has no need of weaklings or those who show no promise, and it heavily favors those that show the talent and drive to move above the norm. If we are to be cannon fodder for the growth of the elite, then it is a sacrifice Elysium is willing to make. Should we prove ourselves not weak in the face of this judgement, we will likely be deemed as worthy for Elysium to invest in once again.”
“Speculation and nonsense. Nothing more, because I KNOW my clan’s worth.” The cultivator man scoffed, but the knight in heavy plate armor looked resigned by the green alien’s words.
Athela had a lot of questions about that, but she rapidly shook her head to clear her thoughts and held up a hand before things got out of line with what they were there for. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t really care. What I do care about is what we can do to take control of the Chalgathi altar for Riven, and by then - hopefully he’ll have found out where the location of the respawning Altar of Despair is so we can spawn camp the cultists. Repeatedly killing them at their respawn point would be the death blow to their efforts in winning this race, in all three categories at once.”
“That’s not something we can count on until Riven gets back with confirmation.” Fay said.
Narg remained silent and watching, his orange eye slowly blinking and flitting to different people or objects in the tent without any input.
Nora nodded, crossing her legs. “Correct. But even if he does come back with that information and all the things we hope come to pass, we still need to take the altars - or at minimum - touch the cores of each. The problem stems from the fact that each altar has a built- in garrison of very powerful golem soldiers that attack and kill anyone trying to get inside, and they each have multiple runestones that need to be activated simultaneously in order to access the core. What that means, is that a single person cannot do it by themselves. It is literally impossible, and the conquered peoples provide an alternative for that solution. Even I, who have thousands of bodies within my insane asylum, even with my legion of others, the system recognizes them as a single entity. It recognizes them as me. I have tried to infiltrate this altar numerous times, and have been repelled completely by its defenses four of those times. Two of those times I managed to break through by the skin of my teeth into the necessary rooms to activate the runestones, but was unable to use more than one at the same time as my others have the same soul signature that I do.”
She sighed.
“The cultist who originally conquered this place did so with his demons and an army of his own that battled the altar’s innate golem defensive garrison.” The alien said with a nod, taking a seat beside Nora and looking down at the ground in contemplation. “Or at least that is what we guess. He is both a warlock and a cultist, and goes by the name of Tao Zhang… and he’s held onto this tower solo with men and women from conquered cities for nearly the last two months now. He’s rapidly gaining points and will probably reach the top of the leaderboard soon if it isn’t taken from him.”
“There were even other attempts by fellow cultists to share or rest the altar from him.” The knight commander cut in from the side. “Though they all failed too, and we’ve been having a very hard time putting a dent in the defenses here either. Our losses are already numbering over ten thousand in just the last two attempts to take the fortified altar in the past week. We suspect that one or multiple of the contracted demons this man has are defensive specialists that reinforce the natural runic formations present here, but we can’t be sure.”
“It’s either that or the man’s got some sort of natural treasure, or is simply gifted in defensive warfare.” Nora said with another loud and exaggerated sigh. Then her face brightened, and she lasered in on Fay. “Which is where you come in!”
Athela glanced over and shared a confused look with the succubus.
“Uhm… What does that mean, exactly? You never did tell me.” Fay said hesitantly, taking a small step in Athela’s direction with a nervous twitch of her tail.
“Oh, simple - really!” Nora said with a cackling laugh. Her laugh then became a high pitched full belly throttling wail of amusement, and it went on like that for nearly three minutes before she calmed down again and cleared her throat. “Sorry, it’s just that this time it’s genuinely funny!”
“You think anything is funny, lately.” Narg commented blandly from the back.
Nora tutted in his direction with a finger-wag. “No, no, I don’t think you understand. But that’s why we’re here! To understand!!!”
The dark woman shot to her feet and flashed to Fay’s side, wrapping a vantablack arm around Fay’s shoulder and loudly whispering into her ear. “You see, this particular cultist wants to strike a deal - and it’s a very specific deal indeed. He honestly couldn’t care less about the Chalgathi trials if he gets something else out of it - something he wants even more than a silly pet dragon. You see, dearest sister of the dark arts, this man is a hopeless romantic… and he’s tried numerous times to contract with a succubus, only to miserably fail. If you were to, say, get one of your sisters or cousins to form a contract with this man… he’ll sign over his entire army of followers to us on the spot - before allowing us to take the altar without a fight. What’s better is that Tao Zhang also knows where two more of the Chalgathi altars are! One unclaimed, and another under the control of a cultist called Justin Mathers… who’s apparently a large hulking metal manipulator who wields a big mace. So how about it? Want to go for a spin and meet with him to talk things out? Or should we just go ahead and try to take the altar one more time with your help?”
Athela blinked, and then walked over to the tent flap and pulled it open to stare up at the towering fortified structure that Elysium called an ‘altar’ to Chalgathi. The siege equipment, battlements, enchantments, shields, ramparts, and legions of people visible even from here were all something Athela would rather not have to fight if there was a faster way about it.
“Killing that many people in that kind of defensive position would be a real pain…” Athela muttered, clicking her tongue in irritation. “It’d probably take more than a week to break through.”
“That’s overly optimistic of you.” Nora said from inside. “But regardless, why waste time if we can just get the lonely guy what he wants? He’s not all that bad! And this is literally a race to Chalgathi’s egg! Have you not wasted enough time in the descent already?”
There was a pause.
Athela glanced back over her shoulder where Fay was just seriously considering the proposition, and then the succubus spoke.
“Is that seriously all he wants?” Fay asked, nonplussed.
Nora slowly nodded. “You can always ask him yourself if you don’t believe me.”
Fay snorted. She opened her mouth once, shut it, then twice, and shut it again. “This seems off.”
Nora grinned, then giggled, and clutched at her ribcage while shaking her head. “No, my dear. No, no, no… I think you’ll understand when you see him. This man, dearest, is what many would call - desperate. I’ll set the meeting up, so you can speak to him yourself before deciding. But to my knowledge this deal is the real thing, and he’s ready to pull everything out if he just gets that dream girl he’s always been searching for. Men are simple creatures Fay, it’s why women are the superior sex.”
***
The warlock in question was an overweight pudgy man with a serious case of the shut-ins. He stood behind twelve different variations of layered barriers and was taking no chances, with the entire arsenal of the tower behind him trained on the location of the demons he was meeting.
Tao Zhang pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, hawked a loogie, and snorted loudly for emphasis while adjusting his tinfoil wizard’s hat - one that he probably made at home in his kitchen. His voice was nasally, incredibly so, and a depiction of what Athela called a teletubbie was plastered on the front of his shirt underneath what appeared to be a bathrobe.
But the man called it his dungeonmaster warlock getup, with three pocket protectors and bright yellow crocs to boot. The only thing magical about it was the staff he had, which was legitimately a system-made wooden warlock staff with barely a buff to it.
“You know, I had a level 90 draeni paladin back in my world of warcraft days.” The man said, pushing his glasses up with that nasally voice of his, eyeing Fay from about twenty feet across the no-man’s land they now stood in between the two armies. “She uh… she reminds me of you, you know. The blue skin and tail, sexy bod… female paladin of course. She probably could have taken you in a fight. She had all the best gear and I’d decked her out in this super hot bikini chainmail that you could only purchase once a year in cosmetic packs on Christmas!”
Fay, for her part, blinked slowly - feeling violated just by the way this guy was ogling her and snorting every couple seconds - and by the way he wrung his hands repeatedly over his pudgy belly while biting his lower lip. “Yes, yes if I dressed you up in that outfit now, you’d look a lot like my draeni paladin did. Except she had hooves. It’s actually why I became a warlock you know, wanting to bathe in her bathwater and smell her clothes in the morning whenever I did the laundry. Or so I’d hoped. It’s all I even want, you know! I don’t care about being a cultist! I just wanted power to summon a hot waifu babe! I knew I’d be able to summon a succubus if I got strong enough and it just hasn’t worked out for me yet. This system has been a drag, it hasn’t been nearly as easy as I’d thought it’d be to set up. Instead, I had to settle for this ugly cow thing.”
The bulky minotaur holding a body pillow next to the warlock rolled his eyes and let out a snort of hot air, groaning loudly and for everyone to hear.
“Oh shut up Biggie-G.” Tao Zhang said, smacking the minotaur’s elbow with his staff. “Be quiet when the adults are talking, I’ll let you go eat some grass or something later.”
“I have told you numerous times now, master Tao Zhang, that I do not eat grass like my bovine cousins.” The minotaurs sourly retorted with a glare down at the pudgy warlock. “I have told you many times that I eat the meat off the bones of my mutilated enemies, NOT GRASS.”
“Stupid fucking cow. The dungeons and dragon discord discussions always talked about how minotaurs ate grass. I would know! I was a mod!” The warlock muttered, completely ignoring the creature he’d just called ‘Biggie-G’ by name. Then his eyes lit up behind his thick glasses, and he snapped his attention back to the beauty ahead of him - only having sight for Fay in that moment. “But can you do it for me!? Can you get me into touch with one of your hottie succubus friends?! I know you have a boyfriend or whatever but surely you have a few acquaintances or five that you could help me out with right!?”
Fay’s gaze slowly shifted back to the large body pillow the minotaur was being forced to carry, and she pointed to it with a curious lifting of her right eyebrow. “What is that?”
“What is what, precious?” Tao Zhang replied, only to gasp, and he excitedly smacked the minotaur’s side with his staff. “Oh, Biggie-G! Show them Maggie! Show them maggie! Play the part like you’ve practiced!”
The minotaur groaned in distress, pulled the large pillow out of his armpit, and held it up in front of his face to cover the upper half of his body.
Indeed, it was just as Fay had feared. It was the depiction of what Athela had called an ‘anime girl’ on the front end in skimpy clothes with blue skin, enormous boobs, and shiny green hair.
“This is my waifu.” Tao said proudly, somehow even more nasally, rubbing a hand along the front of the pillow lovingly and gargling with what Fay could only describe as drool and affection. “Ahhhh…… ahhhhhhh….. Yes, my precious waifu… Her name is Maggie. I make love to her at night, and the succubus partner I get will need to be sure not to get jealous about our relationship when she joins - I’m a non-exclusive bachelor after all you know. Can’t be held down by only a single waifu. She’s also been with me ever since my very first dungeon raid back when I played dungeons and dragons with the boys on game night in freshman year of college.”
He grinned slyly and wiggled his hips, making his bathrobe flutter in the breeze. “I make a mean dungeon master by the way. You’d probably want to know if you didn’t already have a man.”
Tao jabbed the minotaur in the side with his staff. “Say hello to the nice succubus Maggie! Say hello! If you’re polite, maybe she’ll help find that unicorn partner we’ve been looking for all this time!”
The minotaur’s shoulders slumped behind the large waifu body pillow he was holding up in front of his face, and the demon’s voice grew an octave higher as he pretended to voice out the imaginary ‘Maggie’ girl this warlock was pretending to be in a relationship with. “Hello sexy ladies! My name is Maggie, and I’d really like it if you’d help my brave, handsome master acquire a new succubus! We’d be sure to give you that tower back there and tell you all the nitty gritty secrets we know about the other cultists! Super easy and fun fun fun!”
“Do the dance, Maggie - Do the dance!”
The minotaur made the pillow dance in the air, and Tao cheered while dancing with the pillow in a little jig that made his gut poke out from beneath his teletubbie shirt.
“Oh god.” Fay said, hand covering her mouth.
Athela was snickering on the sidelines. “Oh god indeed.”

Chapter 350