Use the crystal heart to propel yourself over the spears coming out of the thorn-covered ground. Slam face-first into a platform— scrabble and leap up and over before you can slip and fall into the carpet of thorns below, hurling yourself over the spikes on the other side. Catch the next platform, repeat the process. One more time— and there are more spears, thrusting up every few seconds. You slash down and bounce off the first set... and are just a fraction to early to do the same with the second. You fall, and are impaled— and when the pain clears, you're staring at the statue on the landing at the beginning of the room.
You turn around and do it all again. This time you mistime the whole cycle and fall into the thorns while trying to bounce off of the first set of spears.
Again. You get to the third set, and to the spinning sawblade after, but another mistimed jump means the sawblade after that cleaves you in two.
Again. Another mis-timed jump into a blade.
Again. A jump takes you too high, into the thorns covering the ceiling.
Again. Again. Again. You throw yourself into the gauntlet over and over, waiting just long enough for your charms to heal over the leftover damage from each attempt before starting your next one. The pain is excruciating. The pain doesn't matter.
"To witness secrets sealed, one must endure the harshest punishment."
You want to know. You want to see. The pain doesn't matter, because the silent, screaming desire to understand why—to drag your "father"'s most hidden secrets into the light—burns more than your aching body ever could.
Eventually, you reach the end.
You don't know how long it took. Time had joined pain as something that didn't matter, your focus narrowed down to the simple purity of learning the pattern. Every ounce of your being is on the next step to take in the dance of blade and thorns, then the next, then the next— and with a shock like waking up you realize you're almost there. There's a gap in the thorns ahead, the one you've only made it to a few times, the one you can feel at your core is the last step, and you bounce-flap off the last saw and lunge through—
—and you drop.
And you land— directly between two of the king's hard-hitting guard-automata. Because of course, of course it isn't over. Of course he'd put one last guard on whatever secret he hid away here.
There were no benches on the path here. If you're defeated, you'll have to do the entire thing over again.
Desperate, aching, you throw yourself at the closest Kingsmould and dive, shamelessly spending every last drop of hoarded SOUL on spell after spell. You shred through armor— take a scythe to the face with a shell-shattering boom when you mis-time your invunerability— pull out your nail as you run empty and turn, bracing yourself... only to be faced with empty armor and puddle of evaporating void.
They're both dead. You're still here.
And beyond the room with its intricately carved Seal, there's light. You walk forward into it, and stare at— ]
the path of pain
You turn around and do it all again. This time you mistime the whole cycle and fall into the thorns while trying to bounce off of the first set of spears.
Again. You get to the third set, and to the spinning sawblade after, but another mistimed jump means the sawblade after that cleaves you in two.
Again. Another mis-timed jump into a blade.
Again. A jump takes you too high, into the thorns covering the ceiling.
Again. Again. Again. You throw yourself into the gauntlet over and over, waiting just long enough for your charms to heal over the leftover damage from each attempt before starting your next one. The pain is excruciating. The pain doesn't matter.
You want to know. You want to see. The pain doesn't matter, because the silent, screaming desire to understand why—to drag your "father"'s most hidden secrets into the light—burns more than your aching body ever could.
Eventually, you reach the end.
You don't know how long it took. Time had joined pain as something that didn't matter, your focus narrowed down to the simple purity of learning the pattern. Every ounce of your being is on the next step to take in the dance of blade and thorns, then the next, then the next— and with a shock like waking up you realize you're almost there. There's a gap in the thorns ahead, the one you've only made it to a few times, the one you can feel at your core is the last step, and you bounce-flap off the last saw and lunge through—
—and you drop.
And you land— directly between two of the king's hard-hitting guard-automata. Because of course, of course it isn't over. Of course he'd put one last guard on whatever secret he hid away here.
There were no benches on the path here. If you're defeated, you'll have to do the entire thing over again.
Desperate, aching, you throw yourself at the closest Kingsmould and dive, shamelessly spending every last drop of hoarded SOUL on spell after spell. You shred through armor— take a scythe to the face with a shell-shattering boom when you mis-time your invunerability— pull out your nail as you run empty and turn, bracing yourself... only to be faced with empty armor and puddle of evaporating void.
They're both dead. You're still here.
And beyond the room with its intricately carved Seal, there's light. You walk forward into it, and stare at— ]