Aech scowled at it, then she let out an annoyed sigh and dropped a single gold coin into the jar. When she did, it vanished. I decided not to ask. Instead, I pointed down at the row of symbols on the shard.
“Aech,” I said. “Do you know what these symbols mean?”
She nodded and took a deep breath.
“I think they mean that to obtain the Fifth Shard, we have to battle the Seven,” Aech replied, pointing to the seven love symbols on the left. “By joining forces with ‘The Original 7ven.’？”
Shoto and I exchanged confused looks. Aech continued. “The Seven are a team of seven different NPC incarnations of the Purple One. Each from a different stage of his career. Each with godlike powers.”
“Have you done battle with any of them before?” Shoto asked, innocently enough.
“Of course not!” Aech replied, clearly offended by the question. “You’re asking for serious trouble if you attack any incarnation of His Royal Badness on the Afterworld. Facing down seven at once is suicide. Would you visit Mount Olympus or go to Asgard to pick a fight with all of the gods? Only non-fan, level-grinding tourists ever even attempt to do battle with the Seven, and every last one of them gets zeroed out as a reward for their insolence and hubris.”
“Yeah,” I replied. “But that was probably because none of them were true Prince fans. But you are. You know everything about him, and about this planet. Come on, Aech.” I pointed down at the symbols on the shard. “If we have to fight the Seven, where do we find them?”
Aech hesitated before answering. Then she sighed and nodded toward the southern horizon.
“There’s a temple out in the desert, seven miles south of the city,” she said. “The Temple of Seven. In the center of its courtyard is an arena, and if you set foot inside it, the seven incarnations of Prince are summoned there from all over the Afterworld to do battle with you.”
Aech took off running again, through the open gates of Paisley Park, once again motioning for us to follow her.
“Why are we going in there?” I yelled after Aech. “I thought you said the arena was in a desert outside of town?”
“We can’t go to the arena yet,” she replied. “First we gotta collect a few weapons. And power-ups. Like, a lot of them…”
“I’m already carrying plenty of weapons in my inventory,” Shoto said. “And so are you. We can loan Parzival anything he needs.”
Aech shook her head.
“Conventional weapons won’t work against his Royal Badness,” Aech said. “In any of his seven incarnations. Only locally forged sonic, percussive, and musical weapons can affect the Seven and their familiars. All of them are armed with deadly sonic weapons, too, and some of them are powerful artifacts that can deal enough damage to kill your avatar with one attack. That’s why we need to gear up before we attempt to face them, OK? And boy, do I love wasting precious seconds myself, because y’all don’t trust me to know what I’m doing!”
“We trust you, Aech!” I replied. “Lead on.”
She led us on, to the front entrance of Paisley Park. As soon as we reached it, Aech opened one of the glass front doors and waved us inside. We could hear the opening of the cheerful song “Paisley Park” emanating from within.
“First we need to go in here,” she said. “And by ‘we’ I mean you, Z. This is your quest to complete. But I’ll walk you through it, step by step. OK?”
“OK,” I said, reluctantly peering inside.
A split second later, I felt Aech’s foot hit me squarely in the small of my avatar’s back, propelling me forward, through the doorway, and into Paisley Park.
* * *
The moment we reached the foyer, Aech began leading, prodding, and dragging me forward, through the building’s mazelike interior. Shoto followed close on our heels as we sprinted up and down Paisley Park’s marble hallways and through its ornately carved wooden doors, many of which were marked with either a moon or a star.
Aech led me from one padded purple velvet room to the next, occasionally stopping to tell me to touch a specific object （or undergarment） to gain access to a secret passage, which would lead us to yet another padded purple velvet room. By following her instructions, I was able to collect five hidden pieces of a Love Symbol–shaped power cell, which Aech said we needed to repair a spaceship that was parked up on the roof. Luckily, she already knew exactly where and how to obtain each of the five pieces.