by Andrew Rowe
“Aaaaand...begin!”
I turned the door handle, swung the door wide—
—and appeared on a pedestal in the midst of a chamber filled with water.
Oh, resh.
We’re in the wrong room.
***
We’d talked about several different ways the test could go the previous night.
The test could have been identical to last time — same rooms, same configuration, same tricks.
We considered the possibility of a completely different test, too.
Or that the tests might outwardly look the same, but have subtle changes to trip us up.
We’d spent hours discussing ways to prepare for those more complex scenarios.
We’d never planned for the very simple idea of them swapping the entrance doors.
If we’d pre-planned for this scenario, it’d be trivial to just use the bells to switch rooms. But we don’t have any way to coordinate that now.
I really should have made an item to send messages.
I took a deep breath, scanning the room. It was bigger than the other chamber — but not by much. I could see several pedestals that were within jumping range, just as the others had described.
I could see the swirling of something moving within the water, too.
As much as the disruption was terrifying, the consistency with what the others had described to us was a comfort.
We hadn’t explicitly prepared for this, but we had shared information.
We knew what we were up against, and we could probably handle it.
But we did have a better solution.
I took the bell out of the bag. “Swapping for Mara. She’s been in here before.”
Patrick nodded. “Sorry if you’re bored out there.”
I shook my head. “No problem. Don’t get killed.”
I rang the return bell.
***
Sitting in the waiting room wasn’t exactly an epic adventure, but I felt like we’d taken the smart route, even if I didn’t get to contribute as much personally. Sometimes the success of the team was more important than my personal excitement.
Professor Orden was sitting in the waiting room. She raised an eyebrow at me as I appeared. “That was quick. Losing your nerve, Cadence?”
“Nothing like that. I wasn’t expecting you to switch the room configuration on us. Mara will be better at handling that room, since she’s been there before.”
Orden made a ‘hmm’ noise. “Perhaps.”
We sat in relative silence for the next few minutes. I was very tempted to ask what was happening with the Voice of the Tower, but this didn’t seem like the right place or time.
I was a little surprised when Jin appeared in the room, not far from where I’d teleported in.
What would have happened if we’d rung our bells one after another? Could people be teleported inside each other?
I shook my head, dismissing the disturbing thought.
Jin folded his arms at me. “Marissa was supposed to be in here.”
“We already swapped.”
“Hmpf. I was hoping to get Sera some real muscle. But I suppose you’ll have to do.”
I rolled my eyes at his teasing. “Your confidence in my abilities is overwhelming.” I stood up and headed to the exit door. “What should I know?”
“We handled the shadow monster.” Jin lifted up the monocle I made him. “Works.”
I blinked. I hadn’t expected invisibility detection to work on that shadow creature. Considering it could pass through walls, I figured it was some sort of plane shifting effect.
Not that I was complaining. I wanted to ask for more details, but Sera was waiting. “Anything else?”
“We opened the other door this time as planned. Might be even worse than the fire room — and it ate the key.”
Oh, perfect.
We’d been hoping that other room would be easier to handle than the fire statues. Apparently, we’d gambled poorly. “Details?”
“No imminent danger. Sera will show you what we’ve found.”
I nodded, waving to Jin and exiting the room.
I drew my sword before heading into Sera’s entrance. It never hurt to be prepared.
***
I felt my stomach lurch as I appeared in a familiar chamber.
The setup was similar to what I remembered — lit torches on the walls, a sealed container sitting in one corner, and a huge fountain in the center. The key had already been removed from the fountain.
There were only a couple differences from when I’d last left the room. One was the room that they’d chosen to open with the key, as Jin had already mentioned.
The second was Sera’s presence in the room — I hadn’t had her with me last time I’d gone in here. In fact, I’d never worked with her in any major test — we’d done some minor team activities in Teft’s class, but nothing of any significance.
She shot me a raised eyebrow when I appeared.
I shrugged in reply. “We already stole Marissa. I hope you’re not too disappointed. I could get a wig, maybe talk with a country accent?”
Sera sighed. “You barely pass for Corin Cadence, let alone anyone else.”
“Ouch.” I raised my free hand over my heart. “I’ll have you know that I almost considered participating in a play once. I’m practically a professional.”
“Clearly. In the meantime, let’s focus that professionalism on actually finishing this?”
I bowed at the waist. “Your wish is my command.”
She jerked a thumb toward the open door. “Get a glance at that.”
I walked over to the now-open door to an adjacent chamber. A long, red carpet trailed across the center of the thin room. My eyes narrowed at the style. It brought back unwelcome memories of the tower room where Katashi had appeared.
The carpet served as a trail, leading directly to a throne woven from vines. The throne was far too big for a human. It looked like it was designed to accommodate something on the scale of an ogre, but no creature sat atop it. Instead, a golden crown glittered in the center.
The path to the throne was maybe sixty feet — much longer than the distance across our current room. The room was thinner, however, maybe fifteen feet in width.
The sides of the room — basically the whole area off of the red-carpeted path — were enshrouded in vines covered in thorns the size of my fist. I ground my jaw just looking at them. They weren’t moving, but I could imagine them writhing around like snakes.
The danger seemed pretty straightforward. Something in that room would trigger the vines to attack.
Narrowing my eyes, I thought I could see a couple more glimmering objects within the vines somewhere. Possibly secondary objectives, or maybe the true objective, if the crown was a decoy.
Is there a key anywhere?
I didn’t see one, but maybe it was in that tangle of vines somewhere.
Interestingly, I didn’t see any doors within the chamber. Maybe there was one hidden behind the vines? Or maybe this direction just didn’t go any further and our objective was to obtain something inside.
I turned my head back to Sera. “Seems likely the vines are designed to attack.”
Sera chuckled. “Obviously. Anything more creative to contribute?”
I shrugged, turning back toward the room. Nervously, I glanced at my necklace. I hadn’t used any mana yet, but I had an obsessive need to check. 46/46. I was fine.
I turned on my attunement, just for a moment.
Everything glowed.
I’d almost forgotten that virtually this whole place was some kind of magical construct or illusion. After a blinding moment, I shook my head and focused, filtering out the ambient glow to focus on the things with significance.
The crown glowed brighter — and so did a spot on the rear wall, to the left side of the throne. A false wall, maybe?
The floor directly in front of the throne was also glowing. A trap, perhaps, or a passage into a
nother room.
I spotted three glowing objects within the vines. All the way in the back right corner, a huge greatsword was propped up against the wall. It was about as far from the entrance as it was possible to get.
Toward the middle of the room on the left side, something small was glowing on the floor. A key, if I had to guess.
Another glowing object was just inside the door, sitting on the floor just inside a layer of vines. I couldn’t quite make it out, but it was roughly dagger sized.
I turned off my attunement, turned back to Sera, and relayed my findings.
I checked my mana again. 45/46.
I need to stop being so obsessive about checking my mental mana. I’m not in any danger using it a few minutes here or there.
I told myself that routinely, but it didn’t help.
Sera raised a hand to brush a stray hair out of her vision. “Okay, that’s actually pretty good to know, because we’re going to have to make some choices. As soon as you step in there, the vines start moving in. They grow an inch or so every time you take a step. I bet it’s designed so we can’t get everything before the room fills up with vines.”
I folded my arms. “How much did you test that already?”
“Don’t look so irritated. We only took a couple steps in there. They didn’t reset after we left the room, but they haven’t grown any further, either.”
I scratched my chin. “You try setting the vines on fire?”
She shook her head. “Not yet. We had a feeling attacking the vines might make them get worse, but it’s probably going to be necessary if we want to get those items you noticed.”
“Do we actually want those things? They could all be traps. Classic temptation strategy. The real reward is the crown right in front of us, but if we step off the trail, we get eaten.”
She shrugged. “Problem is, we don’t exactly have a label on the room to tell us the intent. It could be a virtue test like you’re describing, or it could be a test to see if we’re easily distracted by the obvious solution and miss the thing we really need — the key. Or the glowing wall.”
“Why’d you try to get Mara?”
Sera waved toward the throne. “The vines grow when they detect a step, as far as we could tell. A Guardian like Marissa could jump half way across the room and it’d probably only count as one step.”
I scratched my chin. “Not a bad idea. Can we do something similar with just the two of us?”
Sera winced. “I thought about summoning my karvensi and having him fly across the room, but I’ve been trying to hold off on summoning anything in here. Both because I don’t know how they’d react to a fake tower and because I want to conserve my mana.”
I didn’t know much about summoned monster behavior, but that sounded like a reasonable concern. Still, we didn’t have a lot of good options available. “I think we should try it. I don’t have a better solution, unless you want me to try to blast you across the room with my gauntlet.”
“Funny, but no. All right, I’ll take a shot at this.”
Sera took a deep breath, glancing from side-to-side.
“Karvensi, I summon you.”
The karvensi appeared at her side. It was a little startling — when I was younger, I’d always expected summoning to have some kind of flashy special effect like a puff of smoke or a column of fire. Nothing like that happened — one moment the space next to her was empty, the next moment...bam, karvensi.
And he looked bemused.
“You again?” The winged figure crossed his rather formidable arms, glancing around. “And what is this? It looks like the Serpent Spire, only assembled by a child.”
“You’re not far off.” Sera smirked. “This is an academic test, designed to look similar to the tower. We’re trying to get through as many rooms as possible. We have very little information.” She pointed into the room with the throne. “Those vines grow when we step inside, so I figured a flying creature like yourself might be able to retrieve the things we need without triggering it.”
“I don’t feel like it.” The karvensi turned his nose upward.
Sera and I both gawked at him.
I glanced at Sera. “Are summoned monsters supposed to...do that?”
She shook her head vehemently. “Uh, I don’t think so?”
The karvensi sighed. “So rude. I’m right here you know.”
Sera wiped her forehead. “I knew this was a bad idea.”
I extended a hand toward the karvensi. “I’m Corin Cadence. We haven’t met, but I watched your work in that arena. Really quite impressive.”
The karvensi turned his head, glancing me up and down before focusing on my outstretched hand. “...really.”
I grinned. “Really! We could use someone with your skills to help with this test — and not just with the flying. I’m pretty sure some of the spells you cast in there were stronger than anything I could do on my own.”
Sera gave me an inquisitive look, and then turned back to the karvensi. “Will you help us?”
He turned toward her. “You, miss, were quite rude to bind me without a discussion. But, given that I’m aware that you were mid-battle and clearly out of your depth, I’m willing to put that aside — provided you’re willing to negotiate a real contract.”
She narrowed her eyes. “...can you even do that? You do know that you’re a temporary copy, right?”
The karvensi laughed. “Far better than you, child. It’s somewhat disconcerting to know that my lifespan is limited by your whim — and your available mana —and not feel any fear about it. I know I should have self-preservation instincts, but for some reason, I feel the urge to protect you instead. An element of the binding spell, of course, I have no real attachment to you.”
Lifting a hand, the karvensi looked upward, taking a breath. “There is not, however, any part of your spell that prevents me from thinking about my true self’s interests. You could compel me to take an action against my will. It is already an effort to resist your suggestion of what I could do to help you. But, if you’d rather make an ally than compel a duplicate, I may be willing to offer you a more permanent arrangement...Sera Cadence.”
Sera folded her arms. “And how would you know my name?”
“When another version of me was summoned to fight you, Miss Theas told me a bit about both you and your partner. I retain those memories, as well as the memories from the previous instance in which you summoned me. I will continue to accumulate memories when you summon me again, but your version of me is now distinct from the version contracted with Miss Theas, and thus I will not gain any memories from her subsequent summonings.”
I pointed at the room. “Okay, this is fascinating — really, it is — but we have a limited amount of time on this test. Can we discuss the summoning theory in more detail later?”
Sera raised a hand to silence me. “This is important, Corin. If I’m going to make a contract, that’s going to affect me long-term. You may want to go in there and start working on that room while the karvensi and I discuss.” She frowned, turning her head upward toward the karvensi’s. “Do you have a name?”
“Ah, you finally asked.” The karvensi looked down, meeting her gaze. “You may refer to me as Vanniv.” He folded an arm across his bare chest and made a formal bow, nearly smacking me with a wing in the process.
“A pleasure to formally meet you, Vanniv. Now, please tell me why your true self would benefit from me making an arrangement with a copy?”
“Ah, an excellent question. A mere copy could not normally negotiate on behalf of their true self — but I am a sorcerer, you see. And if we make a contract, I am quite capable of extending that contract back to the real Vanniv. You would then feed mana to him continuously. I’m sure you understand the process. In exchange, you would gain access to my true self’s more formidable abilities...and, of course, long-term access to this personalized copy.”
Sera ran a hand through her hair. “For someone without an instinct for se
lf-preservation, that sounds remarkably like a plan from someone who doesn’t want to die.”
The karvensi grinned. “I said I didn’t have the urge to survive. Intellectually, however? I can still act on the knowledge of what I know I should want.”
I wasn’t kidding when I had said this was fascinating information, but it also wasn’t getting us any closer to finishing the test, and minutes had already past while they negotiated. If I had to guess, it would take at least a few more to come to specific terms. I didn’t know a lot about Summoners, but I did know that they had to negotiate how much mana they’d be feeding their summoned entities, the length of the contract, and some other details.
So, I was on my own for a bit.
I took a step closer to the throne room.
I needed to make some decisions.
My goal was to minimize the number of times I made contact with the ground, assuming that was how the room decided how much the vines should be growing.
Can I climb on the vines?
I stood at the doorway and looked at them. The vines varied in size and thickness, but they all glistened as if wet. That’d make gripping difficult, so that route was probably out.
Running jumps, maybe?
I dismissed that quickly. I’d have to take several steps each time to get a running start. Even if I could jump over small sections, it wouldn’t be efficient.
Blast myself off the ground with the gauntlet’s transference bursts?
No, that’s a terrible idea. I’d just hurt myself.
I didn’t have a great solution. We did still have a return bell, so one of us could have tried to switch back out with Jin — but if he had a great idea, he probably would have used it already.
Does the room only react when a person touches the floor?
What about items?
That was an easy enough test. I fished a copper coin out of my bag and flipped it onto the floor of the room.
No reaction from the vines.
Okay, now I’m getting somewhere.
Can I make something to stand on?
I considered throwing the box and using that as a platform to jump on, but just one platform wouldn’t get me very far.
The cage that was around the fountain, maybe?