Diana shook her head and put her hand over Mika’s. “I did. But then I met you two wonderful people. Once I get my chateau, you two will be welcome any time.”
Mika brightened at that and looked back at Jace. “We can visit Diana any time!”
Jace nodded but part of him noticed how Mika just assumed that they’d be together, and that he would still exist. Either she was in denial over the possibility that he would be erased from the system, or she was being her normal optimistic self.
Either way, he didn’t mind. Jace wished he could go visit Diana with her too. He just didn’t know how realistic it was. And he was a realist.
“Which way do we go?” Diana asked, and Jace was glad to change the subject.
“Let’s go north,” Mika said, looking to her left.
“Why north?” he asked, following her gaze. Had she seen something he’d missed.
“Why not?” she asked with her unwavering grin.
He chuckled and shrugged. “Why not.”
They turned to their left and headed north, Jace and Luna once again taking a spot ahead of the light. The procession moved through the forest without encountering any creatures or monsters.
In a game that was all about killing monsters and doing quests, Jace found it very odd and worrisome that they hadn’t run into anything bigger than a forest creature yet. They hadn’t even seen any large game. Why were there no large creatures or monsters in this area?
Had the developers simply never stocked the area? Or was there something here that had hunted all of the other animals? He’d kept an eye out for any sign of a large creature but there was nothing. No knocked over trees. No scratch marks on the bark. And Luna hadn’t smelled anything, which meant nothing was roaming around marking its territory. So where were all the animals?
They walked on for fifteen minutes before the trees suddenly disappeared and gave way to a large clearing. Jace held up a fist, signally his group to stop. The clearing was two or three hundred yards wide and equally as long. The strange thing was, from what he could see, the clearing seemed to be a perfect circle. But that wasn’t what caught his attention.
In the middle of the clearing was the ruins of a large, stone structure that was overgrown with plants and vines. It resembled some sort of temple or possibly a small keep of some sort. The structure looked ancient and had long ago fallen into disrepair.
“How did the captain ever find this place?” Diana asked.
“I don’t know,” Jace replied and looked around. They weren’t anywhere near the water. What would have possessed the captain to stop at this particular peninsula and then search around it for days until they came across this structure - just to hide some treasure.
“Are we sure that those entries are places where he buried his treasure?” Diana asked, looking thoughtful in the glow of the sword’s magical illumination. “Or is it just a list of places where he thought treasure was?”
Jace looked at the ancient ruins. They appeared not to have been disturbed for years, decades, maybe even a century. Was it possible that someone else found this place and told the captain about it? Or maybe he read about it. He remembered all of the books that had been in the captain’s cabin when he’d stolen the tiara.
“This just seems an awfully strange place to bury a pirate’s treasure,” Diana told him. “And how would he have gotten it here alone?”
“Maybe he had help,” Mika said.
“And risk other sailors knowing?” Diana asked.
Mika looked thoughtful and then pulled her finger across her throat. “Maybe he killed them afterwards.”
“Possibly,” Jace agreed and looked back at the structure. “So this may not be the captain’s treasure. Or any treasure at all. It could just be a strange place the captain read about or heard about and decided to keep in his journal.
“But what about Bob’s island,” Mika protested. “It had treasure!”
“Bob’s treasure,” Jace replied, remembering back. “And he said that he found it on the bottom of the ocean and brought it back to his lair. He never said anything about a captain.”
Mika made a face. “Maybe Bob ate the captain.”
“Maybe,” Jace said. “But I’m wondering if the captain had ever even been there. Maybe he heard about the dragon turtle’s treasure from another ship or a survivor from a ship that Bob scuttled.”
“So, there may be no treasure here?” Mika pouted.
Diana let out an exasperated breath. “Please don’t tell me we came all this way for nothing!”
Jace gestured at the crumbling structure. “I didn’t say that. I’m just wondering if, like Bob’s treasure, there’s some guardian inside this structure, guarding the treasure. That might explain why there are no large animals in the woods.”
“Something has eating them?” Mika asked, eyes wide.
“It could be,” Jace said and gestured towards the ruins. “There’s only one way to find out.”
Chapter 43
Leaving Diana and Mika huddling around the sword’s magical light, Jace and Luna entered Stealth and began slowly making their way towards the structure. The closer they got to the ruins, the more it looked like some sort of ancient temple.
It appeared that at one time, the main temple had a wall which, judging by the tallest part still standing, had been about twelve or fifteen feet high. Time, disrepair, some sort of fighting or even a natural disaster, had caused large gaps in the wall now.
The two of them approached the edge of the wall, near a spot where the outer wall had collapsed. The spot looked like it might have one time been an entranceway. Possibly it had once held doors, but those had long since rotted away. Motioning Luna to the other side, he moved so that his back was against the wall and he peered into the inner courtyard.
Like the outer wall, the inner courtyard and buildings were overgrown and crumbling. The area of the outer wall appeared to surround an area 200 or 250 feet long and about 70 feet wide. Forty feet from the entrance he now stood at, were stone steps that lead up to the temple.
The closer he got, the more and more he thought it looked like pictures of older Indian temples that had been abandoned in the jungles. Only this was no jungle and the architecture, while it reminded him of India in real life, didn’t look familiar to any game races he was familiar with.
“Do you smell anything?” he whispered to Luna.
Luna raised her head and sniffed the air. After a moment, she looked back at him. “No.”
If there was a raid boss like Bob here, it might not be a creature. It could be a construct, like a golem. He fought bosses made of stone, and some made of ice, in some of his quests when he had played as Mordred. And technically, Diana had been a construct when they first met her.
If there was a construct, or more than one construct, they wouldn’t have a scent for Luna to pick up. He looked around the courtyard again but saw nothing that looked like a construct or even parts of a construct. The area between him and the main structure contained only plants and overgrown rocks and stones.
He turned his gaze to the main structure. From this vantage point, it definitely looked like an old Indian temple. The front part of the structure was fifty feet tall, supported by six stone pillars. At least, it once had six pillars. The second pillar from the left end appeared to have crumbled and fallen inward.
The roof of the structure was made of the same pale stone as the rest of the structure but appeared to have once held carved images. Time, rain and erosion had marred what had once been intricate carvings. Now, only vague deformations in the stone gave any hint that there had once been carvings.
The foundation of the temple was about fifteen feet off the ground and a wide set of stone stairs lead up to the main level of the temple. Jace strained to see the blocks of stone that made up the foundation but from where he stood, it appeared that it was carved out of a single piece of stone.
Giving Luna a mental command, the two of them entered the courtyard and
paused. He glanced around, alert to any movement. There was none. Not even the creatures of the night seemed to care about Jace’s intrusion into the temple courtyard. Their night song and noises continued all around him.
Creeping through the courtyard, Jace paused on a mound of dirt at the base of the steps that led up to the temple. He looked around the courtyard, making sure nothing was moving up behind him. Something didn’t feel right about this place. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but there were questions which nagged at him.
What was this place? What was its purpose? How long had it been abandoned? How had the late captain learned of it, so far from the coast? Was there some guardian that would appear and kill them all? It was the last question that really occupied his mind.
Having done many quests in his time playing VEIL Online, he knew that some bosses were completely dormant until triggered. Oftentimes, that trigger came in the form of entering a certain place. Was that what he was about to do? Trigger a boss fight with a high-level raid boss?
He shifted his weight, and something crunched under his boot. Looking down, he saw that it was a partially buried skull. Had it been one of the priests who had cared for the temple? Had they died defending it? Who or what had attacked them?
Realizing that he would get no answers from the skull he had stepped on, he looked up at the stone stairs. Maybe there would be answers in the temple.
“Here goes nothing,” Jace said and raised his foot to begin climbing up the stairs. Just before he was about to set it down on the first step, a glow appeared on the step. A trap!
Your Find Trap skill has increased by 1.
Seeing the glow and the skill increase, he immediately stopped. Jerking his foot away from the step, he set it back down on the ground. He bent down and examined the step. It was covered in leaves and other foliage and it was hard to see the actual step.
Jace frowned as he looked at the step. Now that he knew what to look for, he saw that the entire top of the step glowed, though the foliage hid most of it from him. As he concentrated on the second step, he saw that it glowed as well. Perhaps all the steps were trapped.
A terrible thought struck Jace and he stepped off the mound of dirt in front of the steps. Taking out his sword, he began to poke around at the dirt mound. As he did, he uncovered not one, but six different skulls and their accompanying skeletons. These hadn’t been priests. They’d been adventurers or looters who had been killed by the spikes.
He swallowed as he realized he could have been one of them. As he started to resheath his sword, his eye caught the glint of moonlight reflecting off something shiny in the pile. Bending down, he dug around the piles for several minutes and found almost 100 gold that must have spilled from rotted coin pouches. But that wasn’t his big find.
Brushing away the dirt, Jace revealed a completely unblemished set of leather gloves. As he began to pull them off the skeletal hands that still wore them, Jace received a prompt.
Gloves of the Duelist is a Soulbound item.
Do you wish to permanently bind this item to your character? (Yes or No)
Warning: This action cannot be undone.
Jace grinned. Another soulbound item. He wasn’t sure if he wanted them, or whether one of the girls might benefit more. He quickly examined them in his HUD.
Gloves of the Duelist
Type: Hand Armor
Level: (14)
Armor: 6 + 3 (Legendary) + 3 (Hardened) + 3 (Supple)
Wt: 2 lbs
Special: This item is Legendary and scales to the wielder’s level. In addition to normal protection, the wearer can make one additional attack with a one-handed or thrown weapon whenever he makes a normal attack. They also provide immunity to poison and poison effects.
Description: Created by the master leathersmith Solomon from the hide of an ancient Green Dragon, these gloves were given the Duke of Ardor for service to the crown. They were lost at sea when the Duke’s ship disappeared in the north.
Soulbound: This item has been soulbound. It cannot be sold or traded and appears in the wielder’s inventory when they respawn.
Eyes wide as he read the description. Another legendary item. And it was like they were made for him. Of course, a fighter with a shield and one-handed weapon would benefit just as much, but since he could only use a single weapon for his Swashbuckler skills, they worked out perfectly. Plus, the immunity to poison was incredible. Items that granted blanket immunity to poison were extremely rare and highly sought after.
Gloves of the Duelist have been bound.
You received Gloves of the Duelist.
Unable to stop grinning like an idiot, he quickly bound the gloves to himself and slipped them off the skeleton’s bony hands. As he did, he saw something fall out of the gloves and he looked on the ground to see what it was.
It was a ring. A golden ring. He picked it up and held it up to get a better look. It was a signet ring, similar to his own ring. Looking closely, he could see that the ring held the seal of Whitecliff and the crest of the royal line. Had this been the Duke’s ring? Was one of the bodies he’d just found the body of an ancient Duke of Ardor?
He wondered if there was any reward for its return. Or perhaps word of the duke’s final fate. Slipping the ring into his inventory, he dug around the mound for several more minutes to see if he could find any other magical items but there were none. He finally gave up and turned his attention to the steps.
Obviously, the steps were trapped in some way. But how and what did they do? Looking around, Jace grabbed a nearby stone the size of his forearm. Moving to the side of the steps and telling Luna to do the same, he tossed the stone onto the first step. The piece of stone hit the top of the step with a muted clatter. There was a sound, and the stone was displaced as rows of four foot tall, thin, barbed spikes shot up on all of the steps. The spikes stayed exposed for only a moment, then disappeared back into the steps.
Your Find Trap skill has increased by 1.
“That would have hurt,” he said to Luna. The cat just looked at him, saying nothing. The spikes had been wickedly barbed and would have created painful, bleeding wounds. They were tightly packed together, and he didn’t want to know how much damage each one would do.
He grabbed another stone and again threw it onto the second step. The same thing happened. The spikes shot out on all of the steps for a few seconds, and then quickly retracted back into them.
He tried it again with the third step, expecting the same thing. Nothing happened. He waited. No spikes came out. He made a mental note. The third step didn’t have a trigger. He tried it with the next step and the step after. He began to see the pattern. Every third step was safe to step on. Every third step still glowed because they contained spikes that shot out if someone stepped on the other steps, but they themselves weren’t the triggers.
The process took fifteen minutes to complete and he managed to max out his Find Trap skill, getting a new ability when it hit rank 20.
Ability gained: Eye For Details
Eye For Details
Find Traps Ability
Description: You have become more proficient at discovering traps and this has given you an eye for details, allowing you to find secret doors and passages.
Jace smiled when he saw the new ability. There were many hidden things in the game that only someone with magic, like the glasses they’d bought, or someone with the Eye For Details ability could discover. It had come in useful many times when he’d been playing Mordred. It was good to have it back.
He looked to Luna. “Can you hop on every third step in your big form?”
His familiar, who had watched the spikes popping in and out with some degree of fascination, stared at him for a long moment. Then, reluctantly, shrunk down to her normal cat size. She hopped up to the third step, stopped and looked back at him as if to tell him to get moving.
Following the little tabby cat, he carefully stepped only on every third step, climbing to the top. Luna kept ahead of
him and when he realized she was about to hop off the steps onto the main floor of the temple, he sent her a mental command to stop. Luckily, she did.
Catching up to Luna, Jace saw that the floor of the temple was tiled, some light, some dark. He tilted his head. It was almost like a chess board. Each tile was two feet by two feet, and they alternated as darker stone and lighter stone. But that wasn’t the disturbing part.
The disturbing part were the dozen or so skeletons scattered throughout the tiled floor. The tiles had to be trapped and looking at the number of skeletons and their positions around the chessboard like floor, there might not be a safe passage across it.
Chapter 44
Looking around at the tiled floor, Jace frowned. After looking closely at the tiles in front of him, Jace wasn’t able to see any holes in them. The holes on the steps weren’t obvious, being hidden by the pattern carved into the stone. Once he knew what to look for however, they became easy to pick out.
This wasn’t the case with the tiles. The two-feet by two-feet square tiles looked completely smooth. He looked out at the dozen or so skeletons that littered the tiled area. Something had killed them. But what?
Frustrated, Jace carefully made his way back down the steps. He made sure to stick only to every third step so his feet wouldn’t be impaled. When he reached the bottom, he gathered as many pieces of stone as he could easily carry in his inventory and then returned to the top of the stairs.
He tossed on onto the white tile directly in front of him. Nothing happened. He bent down and got closer to the tile. There was no glow. Were white tiles safe to step on? Jace repeated the procedure with the darker tile to the right. The stone hit the tile and bounced, but nothing happened.
“Maybe they lure you in with a false sense of security,” he told Luna. The cat stared back wordlessly.
Was that the way the trap was laid out? Were the first few rows of tiles fine and then afterward they were randomly trapped? Or was there some other pattern? And what had actually killed the other people who had tried to cross the floor? The tiles all looked uniform, other than the alternating colors.
Veil Online - Book 3: An Epic LitRPG Adventure Page 27