by Alston Sleet
Pulling out a unique wooden handle with a hole drilled through, she wrapped the grip around the string then stood as far from the critical pedestal as she could. Checking over her entire setup multiple times she then carefully reached out and tapped the tip of her nail onto the unenchanted sword and with her whole body in the motion yanked on the handle as hard as she could while belly-flopping onto her oil covered chest.
The string, whatever it was, responded to the sudden stretch by violently retracting and pulling her along with it. She moved across the floor so fast that she actually had to tilt to the side to avoid smacking into the prize pedestal as she passed it. The string she used started to twist and bunch up until it resulted in a kind of odd clump. The sound of the coins dropping onto the pedestal had her checking in every direction to be sure nothing was attacking.
After her customary pause behavior, she stood up, pulled her wooden handle off the clumped up string and then stuffed the handle back into her back pouch. She left the clumped up line, so it probably was a single-use item, and I was excited to see what it was once I absorbed it.
While I mentally hovered over the string trying to absorb it, she moved over to the prize pedestal and checked what she had gained. Sniffing the coins, she looked carefully over the entire stand before she flicked a claw out and nocked one coin off and onto the ground. Watching the currency for a short while she reached out and snagged the other one holding it with just the tip of her fingers and waited for something. What I couldn’t imagine, but I desperately wanted to know. Everything she had done screamed special training, that meant it had a purpose, which meant…it was some kind of trap that I could also use myself!
Arrrgh! Talk to me! Tell me your secrets! Die somewhere stupid so that I can know! No. Bad dungeon core, no sapient snack for you.
The string turned out to be some kind of spider silk that had been treated in some sort of process. I couldn't make the spider, but the spider silk was now mine to make, with and without the treatment. Score!
Her customary pause was followed by snapping up the second coin and a return to her slow and careful crawl through the now opened passageway. When she crawled through the doorway of the challenge and reached the point where the achievements are usually awarded she returned to her paused state, this one lasting almost three minutes in total. With a giant inhalation, she slowly stood up and looked around before her jaws widened into a giant toothy smile. If a crocodile could smile in joy, this would be the smile he would give.
Her smile slowly closed before she started to sneak down the hall and back to the Hall of Champions. When she could see the entranceway vestibule, she stood up. She stood there while tapping her jaw again. The phrase I’m looking for is ‘plotting like a sly dog,’ but it had more of a ‘lizard plots takeover of the mammals’ type feel to it.
Coming to some kind of decision she grabbed the collar of her leather armor, ripped it hard, dragged a nail down one of her arms leaving a thin line of blood, then ran screaming from the hallway and towards her guard!
The shift from thinking to manic behavior was abrupt as hell. She never even slowed as she reached her guards, she just dived out screaming. Her guards retreated while holding their spears in the ready position towards my gateway.
Quickly I moved my view with [Far Seeing], so I could try and figure out what was going on. I missed the beginning, but so did most of the teens that had wandered off. The loud screaming and hollering by her soon had all of them gathered up and listening. She waved her arms, hissed and clacked, clicked and jumped around as she mimed fighting, dodging, and fleeing for her life. The animated story was mimicked in the flinches and hisses of her audience. In the end, she waved her arms and made some kind of proclamation and pointed at my entrance. The teens mostly looked shaken up, and they all moved away from my doorway. The more massive guard, the one I had dubbed Romeo, seemed upset over the story and was standing awfully close to the faking female. The shorter guard didn’t look like he was buying it, but wasn’t going to be talking bad about it either.
Me, I just looked confused.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Like a Thief In The Night
After the lizards abandoned my dungeon, I split my time between using [Far Seeing] to watch my lizard entertainment and time spent creating challenges further down in my dungeon. I was blatantly abusing my ability to spy on the different things going on in the settlement. The first thing I discovered is that there were very few females in the colony, most being very young. The second thing was that most of the warriors were somewhere else, some huts were utterly empty, others had only one person sleeping in them even while they had five or more bedrolls.
The rest of that night passed quickly with no one entering the oh so scary dungeon. The two main guards split duty watching my gateway, the shorter guard taking the first watch while Romeo took the second watch. He seemed to be under the impression that the crazy chief lady was upset and needed him to be close for comfort.
I really miss the ability to snicker, nothing else perfectly conveys derision as a good snicker can.
In the morning the tribe woke with the sun. The young warriors in training formed up in front of an older male. The male's slow movements and his cantankerous attitude were how I knew he was older. The dull scales that were still a different color from the female bland grey and browns helped as well. The training was interesting. How to run in a group with spears, how to turn and run away while still harassing your enemies, pincer movements, and of course, traps. Lots and lots of traps.
I watched eagerly as they quickly created pit traps, trip lines, and a host of other traps within the tunnels. If I could just understand what he was saying I was sure I would get a lot more out of the training. While he made a lot of disparaging remarks -it was easy to tell since those targeted would flinch and hunch up- but he also pointed at things and gave detailed instructions. I couldn’t understand his words, but the moment of Eureka was universal, and I watched it appear more than once. I also watched more than one young man smacked upside the head for chatting instead of following along.
Around noon time practice broke up, and some of the men started to weed and water the farm plots. The youths spent hours hauling buckets of water up from a well in the corner of the settlement. The entire process was exhausting for everyone involved. Except for me. I just watched while relaxing in my dungeon. It was nice.
Sometime during the water haul process, Romeo exited the young ladies hut and returned to standing guard outside. I can’t imagine that he was typically required just to stand around and protect her, but with some random dangerous doorway in the settlement, I guess he decided to use it as an excuse to stick close.
During the day the youths would snack on bits of hardtack or smoked meat while training, taking breaks to drink water. There didn’t seem to be an official breakfast or lunch period, but as night approached the communal fire pit area developed a party atmosphere. The shared meal being made was sparse and by no means a feast, but it was shared with everyone and included games and what I would charitably call singing began. The older male performed something that was half song, half performance dance, with a bit of storytelling just to top it off.
The sun was barely over the edge of the settlements rock walls when everyone was starting to disperse and return to their huts. The young lady instructed one of the young men to take up a guard position near, but interestingly not directly in front of, my doorway.
I watched her giving her instructions, and I knew that she was up to something. It was evident to me and would have been even without the hint of her duplicitous nature while in my halls. The big clue? The youth she picked for guard duty had been the biggest slacker of the day, spending vast amounts of time running around and goofing off. He was one of the smallest, and I assume youngest, and after his boisterous day, there was no way he could stand watch.
Returning to her hut, she gestured away her last guard to his bed and then slipped into her shelter. I used
[Far Seeing] to hover at the apex of her hut's roof to get a bird's eye view of her preparations. She packed her bag with herbs, ground powders, little bits of metal, wood, and another loop of treated spider silk.
Grinning I just rubbed my metaphorical hands together in anticipation. She was going to dungeon crawl! Ok, so she was actually going to crawl my floors, but it looked like I was going to get to watch a real expert at her work. I had some concerns of course. What would happen if she died inside without anyone else knowing? If she disappears right after I appeared it won’t look good, but they already distrust my dungeon, so it wasn’t much of a loss.
On the other hand, I have the chance of her dying with no one else in my dungeon! I had wondered if it was easier to absorb someone's patterns if they were the only one in the dungeon when they died. The mana and whatever else it was that caused a disturbance around sapients in my dungeon disappeared the moment they died. With no one else in my dungeon, it should be exactly like when I absorb stone or anything else! Would I get far more of her life if she died if I was empty?
Even if she doesn’t die, there was the chance she could test out some of my other challenges. I was as giddy as a gem could be.
Once her pack was ready, she pushed it next to her bedroll then laid down to wait, her body reaching a calm breathing pattern almost instantly. After three hours or so the settlement became silent, the stars and moon the only light visible beyond the low burning communal fire.
When the stars had been shining for an hour or so, she slowly slinked over to a shelf in the corner of her hut and snagged a small clay jar. Flicking the wax that sealed the jars clay lid off she reached in and pulled an odd mixture out and started dabbing it on her body in blackish streaks. The streaks only covered a small area, but anywhere it rested the darkness deepened and seemed to cling to her body as she moved.
Stopping at her door, she sniffed and listened then opened her door and silently crept out. She moved behind her hut and then traveled the entire circle of the settlement to come towards my entrance from the far side of the village.
Sneaking up on the kid guarding my doorway she checked to see if he was awake, amazingly he was. He was also picking his nose while staring at the stars, so he wasn’t particularly observant. Keeping low she reached the edge of my doorway then waited till the youngster was knuckle-deep before she slipped around and down the stairs.
The entire time I was cheering her on. Well, mostly I was cheering for her to slip and fall and maybe rub off some of that strange darkness potion. I didn’t want her hurt, I just wished for that potion. In my defense, she had something awesome, and I wanted it.
She didn’t slip, but she did hug the wall when she entered to get out of the line of sight as soon as possible. It wasn’t what I was cheering for, but it worked just as well. I now could make a ‘Paste of Shifting Shadows,’ it wasn’t a potion of darkness, but it was still pretty impressive.
I quickly made a few leather stoppered glass jars full of the odd paste. I didn’t have rubber or a cork material, but a thick block of hardened leather worked well enough. Eventually, these would make great rare prizes for the higher level challenges. Maybe I could make it an award for a sneak challenge?
Contrary to my initial thoughts, the female Kobold didn’t crawl through my dungeon. She hunched over but still moved quickly to the challenge hallway and on to the challenge area. She slowed as she reached the hall which split into the different challenge rooms. She checked the words of the doorways, but I doubt they made any more sense this time than they did the last time.
With another one of those rolling click sounds she returned to the same trial she had conquered the time before. I wonder if she knew that she wasn’t headed to the same challenge or if she was just checking if things were the same? Either way, she was moving up to what I was calling the ‘tin’ challenge. I wasn’t sure of the relative values of metals in this world, but I wasn’t able to find much tin from the stone I had excavated.
I had a rough progression ready for the easy trials but not much more for the harder tests. My tiers currently went copper, tin, bronze, and iron. I was sure I was going to use silver, gold, platinum (once I have some), and then something else. I seemed to remember something about some modern common metals being costly before, but I couldn’t remember which ones. I also had my manastone, and whatever magical minerals I would eventually find. My only real worry was that people would start pushing through my challenges before I had solidified my plans.
In my copper challenge, the requirement was to detect which of the embedded swords had more magic. In my tin challenge, you had to be able to push mana into an item. The idea was relatively simple. I had ten targets across the room. When you crossed a line in the floor, the targets would reset while on the entrance side of the room a rotatable pedestal had a protrusion that when you pushed mana into it would send out a pulse of mana. Line the protrusion up with the target, push some mana in, and poof! The targets would be triggered. Trigger all ten targets, and you win.
Whenever you crossed the line the targets would reset, a crude ‘blump’ sound would happen, and one of three stones on the wall would then light up. If all three stones lit up a set of rock columns hanging from the ceiling would start to heat up. They would only slowly heat up, but fried lizard would be the result. The most challenging part of setting up the entire thing was the failure reset sound! Getting the mana and intent for [Will of the World] to make a noise was beyond annoying. Everything else was just a repeat of things I had already done and linking triggers together.
I had initially envisioned this room with targets the challenger would have to blast, but that seemed like too significant a jump between sensing mana and sending mana out in a controlled spell. My second idea had been to put wands in the room that the challenger could use to send blasts out…and I could easily see the problem with that idea within a second. Oh, look! This challenge has a wand…yoink! Ooh and now I have a wand!
No thank you. Challenges only provide prizes when you win, and not the supplies of the challenge themselves.
Lady lizard crawled into the tin challenge, slowly and carefully with sniffs and floor licks the whole way. It was weird how quickly that seemed perfectly reasonable and rational to me. Have a good sense of taste? Worried about someone setting traps? Use your tongue to check for changes in the stone! Perfectly reasonable. Perfectly non-human.
When she determined the rooms had changed, she paused in that odd way the Kobolds had when startled. Humans sort of hopped up and prepared to run when alarmed, the dwarves had done the same thing, Kobolds on the other hand pause even their breathing. It was disturbing, and creepy, and made perfect sense for ambush predators.
Returning to her craw,l she moved into the challenge room and investigated things as she slowly traveled around the room. When she reached a bit before the line, she reached into her pack and flipped out a stone and flicked it in front of the line then stared at the rock and then around the room. I worked to absorb the thrown stone only to realize that it was just a simple pebble. She had remembered that my halls were empty and had loaded up with even disposable rocks for triggering traps. These people were seriously paranoid, but still, it was pretty cool.
Seeing that nothing happened with her trap checking, she sniffed carefully and cautiously then reached to lick the stone on the other side. The moment her snout passed the line the targets flashed and reset, the sound blatted out, and one of the trial gems lit up. A normal human would have jumped away, but lady Kobold just paused then looked around the room, her light green eyes slit in scrutiny. When her eyes tracked over the three gems, she performed one of those slow, careful blinks that I had seen once before.
Backing up she stopped at the pedestal near the entrance. She slowly inspected every inch of the stand, the ground, the way that it moved, the metal protrusion in the front, every inch of it was examined. Then she turned away from it entirely.
I was of two minds now, I was eager to watch her
fail and die, and I was upset since my challenge was apparently not obvious! I wouldn’t be shocked if someone failed, but if they failed because the trial was too obscure, that’s another story entirely. My emotional turmoil was premature since she spent time inspecting everything before the line, wall to wall, she returned to her crawling sniffing practice. She even threw in a few taps with her sharp claws as she tilted her head and listened. Once she had covered every inch of the room, she seemed to be happy with returning to the firing pedestal.
I had expected challengers to have to waste a bit of mana lining up the first shot, but this lady didn’t seem to be willing to do that. She lined up the magic pedestals barrel with the first target then crawled under the barrel and eyed things up carefully. She spent far longer lining things up than I had expected anyone to bother. Once she had it lined up to her satisfaction, she carefully crawled away then leaned away as far as she could, bunched her powerful legs under her self then bent forward placing her claws on the ground in a sort of weird hunched position. I couldn’t figure out what she was doing until she slowly pulled her tail into position and let it rest on the top of the pedestal.
With a push of magic, the pedestal fired, and she simultaneously jumped away from the firing stand. Her shot was absolutely perfect, the glowing ball of mana which gently fired out of the barrel was mostly just a light effect, but she lined it up to hit the target’s center circle. I hadn’t planned for any particular prize for perfect accuracy, and now I was kicking myself for the failure.
She repeated the crocodile smile after the first target lit up. Then she returned to using her odd jumping triggering stance. I was starting to sense that she didn’t trust my trials. After seven triggerings she looked like she had run a mile at a flat out sprint. She wasn’t sweating, I wasn’t even sure if Kobolds could sweat, but she was panting softly and moving far slower. I think I had underestimated yet again how exhausting using mana must be for flesh and blood squishy creatures.