by Sarah Lin
Bloodwraith nodded his approval. "Let's scour the rest of the floor and take several that seem promising."
As it happened, she hadn't made the request too soon, because they only found five more undead lurking on the entire floor. Gharavi bound three of them with the wand, then they all headed toward the room with the pool. There was a brief discussion of returning to the first floor chamber instead, but that would be a longer walk and they wanted to explore the pool in any case.
While they walked back, despite the undead moving alongside them, the boxes decided that the marathon was finally at an end.
[Victory! You received 596,520 EXP.
Marathon Bonus x1.2
Total EXP: 715,824
Marathon Stat Bonus: +0 Unassigned Stat Point
Deferred Stat Updates:
Max Health +1
Max Stamina +1]
It seemed that he couldn't entirely cheat the system: it had given him few bonus stats and didn't grant an unassigned point as the other marathons had. Still, looking at the absurd amount of EXP earned, he felt satisfied. Better than that, they had cleared the second floor far faster than anyone could have expected. He couldn't be certain how far they had yet to go, but now he felt less like a desperate prisoner and more like they were fighting their way back.
The one irritation was that even such a massive boost left him about 40,000 EXP shy of Level 18. While that might not be any world-shaking difference, he would have preferred every advantage before they faced their next real challenge.
When they reached the room with the pool, he found it to be as quiet and peaceful as it had superficially appeared. The water from the pool had a slight healing effect and granted a minor strengthening enchantment, though that wasn't exactly relevant given that they had wiped out all opposition on the floor. Even Izzy enjoyed drinking it, perhaps because of the floor's undead theme.
Normally they might have begun resting, but that was when Danniah began her training. She removed her armor and had Gharavi send the undead against her. It resulted in some terrible injuries that took time and potions to heal, but Danniah kept throwing herself into it.
Though he should have been glad to see her Vitality rise, Bloodwraith found himself unhappy to see her in pain. It was her choice and a wise decision, so he wasn't going to contradict her. Still, he decided that he wasn't going to get any rest while she was training, so instead he wandered on his own.
Most importantly, there was an obstacle in their path: they were still missing two keys to finish the second floor. He refused to believe that they had missed a branch of the maze: even if he didn't trust his own mental mapping abilities, Gharavi was also no slouch and Meara had unusual perception abilities. The keys must be present, but hidden.
One was very likely in the room with all the treasure chests, so Bloodwraith put his equipment back on and headed in that direction. He stayed alert just in case they had somehow missed a final undead, but the halls were deathly quiet. Nothing stopped him from reaching the chamber with all the chests.
But instead of containing treasure, they seemed to follow some sort of perverse logic. When he opened one chest, those nearest it would either open or close, reversing their current position. None of them contained anything, so for a moment he was simply infuriated at the stupidity of it all. But after staring at the chests for a time, he decided that it couldn't be purely random.
If he was Raigar, what would he do? Well, probably get frustrated and go attack something. A better question: why would someone like Alan or the unnamed designers create something like this? Most likely it was a mental puzzle of some kind.
Since the primary complication of the chests' mechanism was how each one affected others, the only outcomes of any difficulty would be to create a specific combination. But what might it be? All open, all closed, some pattern known only on Earth? He settled for going through the list methodically, yet found it surprisingly challenging.
He refused to admit defeat so easily and kept trying, yet failed to make progress. When he heard footsteps he turned back, whirling and grasping his sword, but saw that it was only Danniah. She wasn't wearing her armor and it looked like she had bathed and changed clothes.
"Oh good, you're alright." She smiled softly at him. "Gharavi was a bit worried, but I figured you had just gotten focused on something."
"Yes. These boxes are... vexing."
"You mean the chest things behind you? Or do you mean the usual boxes you complain about?
Though he wasn't sure if she was jesting, he smiled and walked away from the infuriating puzzle. "I mean the former, but it doesn't matter now. I need more sleep to unravel the insane logic of the box gods. But we'll figure it out tomorrow, unlock the next door, and hopefully begin to explore the third floor."
"You just don't stop, do you? I mean, I like that about you, but..."
"Is everything alright?"
"I mean, things are mostly fine." Danniah looked up at him and sighed, but she smiled as she did so. "I'm not as goal-oriented as you, Bloodwraith. I'm flesh and blood in the end. There are... things I want, you know?"
He blinked as he realized what she meant. Yes, he had allowed himself to become entirely consumed by his objectives, but there was more to life than that. For a time he forgot about the puzzle and the box gods entirely as they began taking off his armor.
~ ~ ~
Meara still wasn't sure what to make of her relationship with sleep, but it was a distant relationship at best. After the day of killing defenseless skeletons, she wasn't remotely in the mood to rest. Instead, she wandered the small cavern, looking for anything that might have been overlooked.
The walls were boring enough, so she focused on the pool instead. Given that the water held a slight benefit, perhaps she could do something with that. She created a few empty bottles and tried just scooping up some water in them... and that worked.
Well, not everything had to be a complex process. After using Gharavi as a test subject, Meara confirmed that the bottled water retained the same beneficial traits. Most likely it would fade over time, but time didn't really exist within her cloak. With that rather simple problem solved, Meara filled a large number of bottles with the water for future use.
She wandered the edge of the pool, picking up rocks and placing them into her inventory more out of habit than anything. As she did so, she stared down into the pool... and gradually noticed that something was strange. The bottom was definitely distorted in some way, as if twisted instead of a flat surface.
Since Danniah and Bloodwraith had wandered off, Meara instead gestured for Gharavi and Izzy to come join her. "Do you see that?"
"It looks like it might lead to tunnels." Gharavi peered for a while, then shrugged. "You think they might be worth investigating?"
"We haven't discussed it, but we only found one of three keys. The others must be hidden in some way." Meara stroked her chin as she considered their options. "I think it would be good for us to explore them, but there's always the possibility that there's something alive down there."
"Some sort of monster fish?"
"Hey, we've seen lots of other animals in monstrous form, why not Fellfish?"
In response, Gharavi released an unbroken chain of lightning into the pool. Izzy hopped back in alarm and Meara raised her eyebrows as the spell electrified the entire pool for a long minute, stretching deep before Gharavi finally cut off the spell.
"If there was anything alive in there, I'm pretty sure it's dead now." She stood back and folded her arms. "So what did you have in mind for actually exploring?"
"I thought Izzy could do the job there." Meara turned to her as the little ghoul perked up. "Izzy, you don't need to breathe, do you?"
She shook her head rapidly. "I don't think so! But I can't swim."
"I don't think you need to. Let me just give you some of the useless armor we found..."
Izzy looked absurd with the large breastplate strapped onto her, but it increased her weight enoug
h. After they confirmed that Izzy could remove the breastplate without great difficulty, they sent her in. She sank like a stone, hit the bottom, then began trudging her way through the water toward the strange entrance.
Both of them lingered, watching even though there was nothing to see but the peaceful bottom of the pool. As the time stretched on, Meara began to feel a bit of concern, even though there was no sign anything was amiss. Perhaps she should have waited until the others had returned...
Then Izzy emerged from the twisted caverns, clambering slowly. Once she got fully out, she tugged off the breastplate and quickly floated up to the surface. Meara moved to greet her, but Izzy shot out of the water under her own power and landed on the bank, shaking herself and throwing water in all directions.
"Ta-dah!" Once she had shed most of the water, Izzy rose upward and thrust a metal plate overhead with both hands. Meara smiled at her as she moved to take it.
"This looks like it's the second key we need... good work, Izzy. You didn't see anything else down there?"
"Nope, it was just dark and twisty. I don't know how people who needed to breathe would be able to find anything."
"Perhaps," Gharavi said thoughtfully, "this 'puzzle' was an invitation to use the undead from this floor? While most would not possess an artifact like ours, they could still theoretically be expected to have some similar capacity."
"I dunno, but that sounds smart!"
They mostly split up as Izzy went to one corner of the cave and began chewing through the bones and wight flesh they'd gathered that day. Meara went to consider her own issues, but Gharavi briefly needed her to help create a specifically-shaped wooden rod. It seemed that Gharavi was beginning work on a new custom staff for herself with the components they had collected that day, though she was still missing a few necessary pieces.
Just when Meara was beginning to wonder about their allies, Bloodwraith and Danniah returned. Bloodwraith looked like his usual dour self, but Danniah was beaming, so it wasn't hard to guess what they had been doing. Meara noted that Gharavi's skin shifted to a different green and the sorcerer resolutely focused on her work.
Izzy was under no such restrictions, staring at them. "You were gone for a long time! What were you doing?"
As Danniah started to stammer, Meara cut in. "You were grinding Vitality, right?"
"Umm, yes! That was it, grinding Vitality!" Danniah nodded in quick agreement, falling into the trap.
"Emphasis on the grinding, right?"
"I... hey, don't..."
"Or, given how long you were gone, I suppose you were grinding stamina?"
"Meara! Not in front of Izzy!"
"It's better than telling her what you were really grinding..."
Throughout the conversation Izzy's head swung back and forth between them. Her expression made it obvious that she didn't really understand, but she ended up smiling. Meara enjoyed smirking like she hadn't in some time, and underneath all her blushes Danniah seemed deeply satisfied as well. Bloodwraith just muttered something under his breath and marched past them.
Eventually they pulled out the wolf pelt beds and lay down to rest. Tomorrow she had a feeling that they wouldn't have a magic wand to solve their problems.
Chapter 18
Bloodwraith woke up early and began preparing for their journey, finding that Meara was already awake because she hadn't slept. She did reveal that they had discovered the second key, which left only one remaining. While most were still getting ready and Danniah was eating a breakfast from Meara, Bloodwraith approached Gharavi and gestured for her to follow.
"Would you be willing to help me with something?"
"Certainly, but what is it?" Gharavi gave him a curious look as they proceeded through the maze and he tried to shrug off the matter.
"One of the rooms we ignored proved rather irritating. I need someone else to help work through the Outsiders' insane logic."
As they headed through the maze, he noticed that Izzy was wandering along after them, nibbling on a final undead skull. Since it did no harm to have her along, Bloodwraith gestured for her to come walk beside him and patted her on the head. She grinned up at him and trotted along after them.
Since she was along, Bloodwraith examined her box and to his surprise found that she had 169 Necromancy Points to spend - all of those undead had rapidly increased the available quantity even if their value had deteriorated to almost nothing by the end. That meant she had over 600 points total, which was truly rapid growth...
[Quest Advanced!
Sub-Quest III: Earn Necromancy Points for Undead Companion Izilthor.
EXP +5000]
Another small step forward for him as well. He resolved to help her invest her points soon, but by that point they had reached the chamber with the strange puzzle.
Bloodwraith demonstrated how the fundamental mechanic worked and Gharavi understood immediately. She examined the layout of chests while Izzy curiously experimented, closing one chest and then leaping to try to hold one of the nearby ones closed. Though they could split up to try to accomplish the same thing, Bloodwraith was fairly certain that would prove ineffective. The box gods wanted players to go through the random meaningless exercise.
"What's the final objective?" Gharavi asked. He could only shrug.
"We have no way of knowing and there are no indications anywhere in the chamber."
"Hmm... since you usually want to open chests, let's try to get them all open."
"A reasonable enough place to start, but easier said than done."
Yet to his surprise, Gharavi began to methodically open and close chests. Though it seemed arbitrary at first and without a goal, Bloodwraith realized that such a pattern was necessary to reach a real solution. There was no point trying to steadily reduce the number of closed chests, because they would just be flipped back in the end. Instead she was obviously setting up for a final switch that would close them all.
When she finally came close, Bloodwraith had to shake his head. He was irritated that he hadn't been able to do it, and more frustrated that she had managed it so easily. But most importantly, it seemed that he wouldn't have to waste any more time on the stupid puzzle.
As the last set of chests opened together, a clear tone rang throughout the room. All of the chests closed together, then the chest in the center of the square opened. Izzy immediately ran up to it, looked inside, and cheerfully pulled out another metal plate.
"There." Gharavi stood back with a slightly satisfied expression, but she wasn't smug. Though Bloodwraith wanted to grunt and just head for the door, he decided against it.
"Good work, Gharavi. You... are better at this than I am."
She turned to look at him with an expression of slight surprise, then smiled. "It's not a contest, Bloodwraith. But I'm glad I could help."
Not entirely sure what to say to that, he went back to his plan of grunting and moving on. There were perks to acting as a barbarian after all.
On their way back, he was interrupted by another box.
[Quest Advanced!
Sub-Quest I: Raise Danniah's Level.
EXP +5000]
So all of Danniah's work had helped her advance. Good. It served as a reminder that he should assist Izzy as well before they faced what was likely to be a difficult battle. She had been scouting ahead but returned when he called.
"Da?"
"We should invest your Necromancy Points now, but we've taken most of the traits I was aiming for. Did you have anything in mind?"
"Well... it was a long, long, long time ago, but there was something that was going to let me bite from a distance? I wanna help but sometimes I can't get close."
"Ah, I recall that..." Bloodwraith reached into the boxes, searching for the trait he remembered. It appeared before too long, but to his surprise a second trait came along with it.
[Ranged Bite
Cost: 97 NP
The Undead Companion will gain the ability to cast the skill "Consume Injuries
" at range, healing damage without the need for physical contact. This ability cannot be used on targets that have not been bitten or healed with this skill in the past. Costs to use the skill will double when used remotely.
NOTE: This trait was produced through an idiosyncratic blend of traits and is poorly suited to Undead Companions. Taking this trait is not recommended.]
[Remote Bite
Cost: 133 NP
The Undead Companion will gain the ability to cast their core biting ability as a ranged spell, dealing normal bite damage from a distance. Range will scale with Tier and Quickness.]
The second was a rather striking ability that he thought would work well with all the other traits Izzy had purchased, but he described them both to Izzy and let her choose. She wanted the healing bite more, apparently having been thinking about it ever since it was first explained to her.
After that he also spent another 10 NP on an equipment slot so that she could use all the equipment they had for her at once. But aside from that, he decided to save the remaining 62 NP to put toward the skill later. At the rate they were gaining more, it wasn't even that much of a sacrifice, though he might regret it if the third floor proved as challenging as the first.
When they got back to the healing pool, Meara and Danniah were ready and waiting. Everyone except Meara took a final drink from the pool to gain its beneficial effect, then they headed toward the door at the end of the second floor. As they went, Bloodwraith checked over their group one more time.
[Party Composition
Raigar - Level 17 Barbarian
Meara - Level 0 Peasant
Danniah - Level 15 Warrior
Gharavi - Level 17 Sorcerer
Izilthor - Tier II Undead Companion]
Not bad. The box didn't truly reflect all the progress they'd made, so he considered if there was some way to force the boxes to display total efficacy. Before he could figure anything out, they reached the door and Bloodwraith carefully placed the three metal plates into position. They all stood back and braced themselves as the stone barrier lowered into the floor.