by Deck Davis
A chair. A puppy. A small child. An apple.
Finally, it transformed into an ant, and it tried to flee the room. Tripp took one step so he was in its path, and then stomped on it. The mimic grew back into its normal form now, and it lay dead on the floor as a disgusting pile of pus and ooze.
Rolley collapsed against the wall, out of breath. Tripp put his flail in his inventory, let his pulse calm down, and took a look around his new surroundings.
CHAPTER 27
With the mimic dead, Tripp could focus on their new environment. They were inside a cave, with an arched ceiling high above them. The walls looked like they were made from stone at first glance. The more Tripp looked, the more he realized they were constructed from living flesh.
They weren’t soft, but instead hardened. The closest thing he could compare it to would be the red, hard part of the roof of his mouth. They gave off a warm glow, and the air was humid like a jungle. He started to sweat under his steel armor.
Though it was darker than the flower room they’d entered after room 1, the sound of a harp indicated that this was a rest room. Knowing this, he allowed himself to relax.
In the center of the cavern were three chests, each with symbols floating above them. Rolley looked downcast, and Tripp guessed it was because there were three chests, and not four.
Etta pointed across the cavern. “It splits off down there. See? Two passageways. We know the drill by now; wait too long and our monk friends visit us. Check your notifications, sort out your gear and level-ups. Then we’ll inspect our loot chests and get out of here.”
Rolley approached his chest with a mask symbol floating above it. “Silver,” he said. “We must have done better this time. Wonder how we could have earned gold chests?”
“We used force to remove the mimic. Guess there was another way.”
“Let’s see what our rewards are,” said Etta.
Tripp watched her reach for her chest, and then panic flared in him. “Wait a second,” he said.
“What?”
“Use your spear and stab each chest please, Etta. I might be paranoid, but after watching a friend get his arm bitten off by a door, I think we should be cautious.”
“Good thinking,” said Etta.
Rolley grimaced. “Yeah. Trust me, better to be cautious.”
Etta prodded each chest two times, and then Tripp was satisfied. “If one of these was a mimic, then getting poked in the arse with a spear would have made them show themselves. Go ahead, guys. Get to it.”
Rolley tried to unlock his chest. It would have been difficult to work the clasp with two blackened hands, but he only had one. He kept trying, his face getting redder by the second. Tripp guessed he didn’t like asking for help.
Etta unlocked it for him, pretending to strain at the effort. “They must have closed yours extra tight,” she said. Tripp was a little touched at her show of empathy.
He opened his chest now. A beam of silver light shot out, hitting the ceiling and spreading outwards before fading.
Loot Received!
Unconcentrated Essence x12
This essence lacks a base, and as such will take on the trait of any essence it is mixed with.
Foresight Dust
Dust scraped from the rocks of the Psychic Valley. Then blown in the air, this dust will tell you if your current path aligns with your goals.
Scythe of the Tower Born *Blade*
Tripp was more than happy with his loot this time. As he packed the three items into his inventory, he could already picture their uses.
For an artificer, the unconcentrated essence was like gold dust. Part of the problem with getting essence was that you needed to kill or deconstruct something to get it. That meant that sometimes, you couldn’t find enough. Like in the tomb in room one, where he’d started to get undead essence from the corpses, but he’d had to leave before getting enough.
If he’d had the unconcentrated essence back then, he could have mixed it with the undead essence, multiplying it.
Yeah, this stuff was great, and he had to make sure he used it well.
The foresight dust seemed valuable, too. In a tower of mazes and puzzles, who wouldn’t want magic dust that showed them the way? Checking it, he only had one use of the stuff.
A spark lit in his head when he thought about the unconcentrated essence and the foresight dust. He checked it and felt his idea fade away when he saw that the foresight dust, though it looked like essence, was different. It couldn’t be mixed. Damn it.
Finally, he’d found another piece of the Scythe of the Tower Born. Now he had the shaft and the long, curved blade. That should have been enough, right?
He attached the blade to the shaft. Though they stayed together, his inventory still listed the item as broken.
Then he saw that on the blade, there were two small sockets where gems should be placed. Close, but not close enough. All in all, it had been a good loot chest.
“How did you guys fare?” he asked.
“Another dagger,” said Rolley. “And a pair of gauntlets. Great.”
“Boxe really doesn’t like you, for some reason.”
“Still convinced its Boxe?” asked Etta.
“He admitted it.”
“True, but it could be a trick.”
“Perhaps. Better to err on the side of trusting nothing, I guess. What did you get, Etta?”
“A liquid lantern, and a gem to set in my staff. Do you think you could do that for me, Tripp?”
“Sure. But a liquid lantern? What’s that?”
She showed him the item. It looked like an old coal lamp that a miner might use. “I pour liquid into it. Any liquid, and the lantern turns it to light.”
“Let’s try it out. There’s a puddle over here.”
He pointed to a groove in the hard-flesh ground, where dew had dripped. Etta scooped some water into the lantern. Light glowed from the antique, brightening up the cavern.
With the added illumination, Tripp saw that there were drawings on the walls around them. It showed a bunch of stick figures hefting rocks toward a half-built structure. It was unmistakably the tower.
Moving along, he saw the various stages of the tower’s construction by these slender people. There was a common theme in the scenes; in each one, a person was sitting on a throne of glass, overseeing the work.
In the final drawing, the tower was completed. Now, twenty stick figures were dragging a giant, blackened heart to the tower.
Before he could think about what it meant and why the drawings were here, golden words appeared in the cavern.
Woo hoo,
Hark at you,
You clever little rascals,
Have solved room 2.
Though your solution was great,
It wasn’t the best.
But your goal is closer,
No time to rest!
Tower purpose letters unlocked:
Y, S
_EST_ _ Y T H E H E _ _ T
“Would you look at that,” said Etta. “Five letters to go. So, so close.”
“If Barnard were here, he’d have figured this out,” said Rolley.
Etta sucked in her hairy cheeks as she pondered the clue. “I might have the first word,” she said.
“Go on..”
“We have EST and Y. So…NESTFLY?”
“Nest fly? What the hell does that mean?”
“Haven’t you done the Balgorp’s Forest quest? You have to go kill a giant insect and its brethren. They’re called nestflies.”
“The second word is ‘the’. So ‘nestfly the’? Doesn’t make sense.”
Tripp felt like he almost had it. That the word was there, in his mind, begging him to reach it, but he was so tired that he couldn’t quite get there.
“Give me a minute,” he said. “I need to occupy my mind with something else, and then the answer will come to me. Sometimes, when you need to think of a solution to something, the best thing to do is think of anything els
e.”
“We better not stay too long. You know, on account of the monks,” said Etta.
“Just a little crafting, and then we’ll move on. Listen, there’s something I’ve been thinking about, Etta, and it’s a lot to ask. But I think it would be for the greater good of the party.”
“This sounds ominous.”
“I was thinking about the Time Tapper. We all agree it could be useful, right? For me, the drawback of making future rooms tougher is too much. We’re paying the present by borrowing from the future.”
“We know that, Tripp. God, you’re so sensible, except when you’re chopping off heads. Although, even that was a practical decision. The tower isn’t going to give me an item like that without consequences.”
“What if I said I could remove the consequences?”
“You can do that?”
“Maybe. It would dilute the Time Tapper’s power a little, but it’d take away the risk of using it.”
“And I’m sensing you want to pull my new toy apart to do that.”
Tripp smiled. “We’re really getting to know each other, huh? That’s exactly what I want to do. I can use my deconstructor to smash the tapper into its essence and parts. I’ll use the essence to artifice something else.”
“Something else? Kinda vague. I’m gonna need more than that to let you destroy something so valuable.”
“I’m thinking I’ll make a few more spears. Smaller ones, easier to throw. They won’t have to be too durable, since all we need them for is their effect. I’ll artifice the tapper essence into the spears. Then we should have long-range weapons that stop or slow time in a localized area.”
“You’re going to make spears that we can hurl at things to slow them down. I can get behind that. Rolley, what do you think?”
“I think that if we’d had something like that earlier, we could have saved Barnard. Maybe I could have kept my arm. Sounds more useful than the Tapper, as long as they come without consequences.”
Tripp nodded. “By deconstructing the tapper, I’ll be left with the time-stopping essence and whatever adds the 'make future rooms tougher' penalty.”
Etta took the tapper from her inventory, went to hand it to him, then pulled it back. “I still don’t know, Tripp.”
“You’ve trusted me so far. I trust you, too. We’ve got each other through mimics, zombies, scourges, and we almost know the purpose of the tower. Trust me a little while longer.”
“Okay. This better work.”
Item Received: Tower Time Tapper
Holding the Time Tapper, Tripp became more aware of just how valuable it was. Doubts started to creep in. What if this didn’t work? What if he ruined it?
Maybe he needed to have a little more faith in himself. To take a chance. Barnard was an example of what happened when you doubted yourself.
Using his deconstructor mallet, he pounded the Tapper until it was reduced to a lump of scrap copper, a pile of time-slowing essence, and a black pile of essence that must have added the penalty of making future rooms harder.
Next, he faced the door to the room they’d just left. It was ajar, but the giant stone completely blocked the room.
“Help me take this off its hinges please,” he said.
Rolley got up, then again realized he had one arm, and the hand on that arm was almost useless. Etta and Tripp pounded at the door hinges, breaking them free. They placed the door on the floor.
Tripp wielded his deconstructor mallet, smashing the door until it was in pieces.
Items received: Wood pieces x10
“Almost done,” he told them.
He wiped sweat from his brow. Using his armorer hammer, he crafted the 10 wooden pieces into 20 shaft-like strips. He added sharpened iron and steel tips to these, though he couldn’t spare enough metal for all the shafts.
His crafter’s instincts told him to take a little time and make these [great] or even [excellent], but the monks would be here soon if they weren’t already on the way. Who knew, maybe they were visiting other players right now. Perhaps the blood-drinking monks had a player-killing schedule they had to adhere to.
Soon, helped by the quicker speed his improved armorer skill gave him, he was done.
Items created: [Average] Spears x7
All that left now was the artificery. He started by imagining the spears in his mind and then picturing a clock next to them. The clock was stopped, the hands frozen in place. With a final image of essence drifting from the spears, a notification pinged.
Crafting card created: Spear of Minor Time-Stop
A spear with an artificed tip that stops time in a 1-meter area around whatever it pierces.
Materials Needed:
- Spear
- Time Tapper essence
“Check it out,” he said, flicking the card to Rolley, who failed to catch it.
While they looked at the card, Tripp donned his goggles and used manus and artificery to add the Tapper essence to the spears. By the time he was done, he’d concentrated so intently that he felt mentally exhausted.
Items created: Spear of Minor Time Stop x7
Artificer-inventor level up!
New Rank - you are now an Iron-1 artificer-inventor!
You have reached a new stage in your mastery of the artificer skill. Your growing experience meets with new knowledge, and skill pumps through your veins. You are closer to your journey’s end, but there are lots more steps to take.
Ability Gained: Artificer’s Soul
As an artificer, you have worked with enough essence that its powers and knowledge become a part of you. You have gained an artificery slot on your person, into which you can place materials, items, or essence to gain an effect.
You are now an Iron-1 Artificer-Inventor with an artificer’s soul.
This was big. So big that Tripp had to read the description a few times before he could realty grasp the words.
Just as he weaved magic into items by blending essence into them, he could now artifice things into his body. This could change everything.
Tripp felt a strange tugging sensation on his right palm. It turned into a scratch, and it burned for a second before numbing.
There, etched deep into his right hand, was an octagonal artificery slot.
“Tripp!” said Etta. “Your hammer just turned iron!”
“You got iron?” said Rolley. “Way to go, buddy.”
“That isn’t all. Watch this.”
He didn’t quite know what would happen, but he hoped it would be special. He took firebolg essence from his inventory and used artificery to blend it into the octagon on his palm.
Effect gained: Minor fire damage
His nerves buzzed now. He was so excited, he could hardly believe it. He’d never expected to get this. The thing was, everyone leveled differently. Even fellow artificers took different paths in advancement, so he hadn’t been able to predict what achieving the iron rank would earn him.
But now he knew, and now he felt a heat gently drift over his skin, from his hand to his arms to his chest. The firebolg essence was inside him.
Time to see what it did.
Tripp walked over to the nearest dry flesh wall.
“What’s he doing?” asked Rolley.
“Breathing in too much essence has finally sent him mad,” said Etta.
Trusting his new power to answer the question, Tripp thumped the wall.
And nothing happened.
“He’s really gone mad.”
He hit it again, and again, and again. It was on his fourth strike that, when his fist hit the wall, a flicker of fire left his knuckles. It scorched a part of the wall, before dying out.
“What the hell was that?” said Rolley.
Tripp didn’t answer; he was too wrapped up in playing with his new ability. This time, he took his flail from his inventory. He didn’t hit himself to store damage. Instead, he pounded it on the wall until, on the sixth hit, a hand-sized burst of fire left his weapon.
&nb
sp; Interesting. If he artificed himself with something, the effect transferred to his weapons. It was a small effect, and it didn’t work on every hit, but it was something.
“That was cool, but are you going to explain?”
“Sure,” said Tripp.
While he explained his level-up, he used his mallet to pound the mimic corpse into essence, which he stored in his inventory.
Item received: Mimic Essence x3
After he finished this and ended his explanation, he gave Etta three of the time-stop spears. He kept three for himself and held the last one out to Rolley.
“This is for you.”
“But Tripp, I can’t-”
“I think I can fix your hand. For real, this time. I can’t grow an arm for you, but we can get one hand working. When that happens, you should have a spear. Now, I need to-”
He stopped talking when he heard something.
From across the cavern, over by one of the passageways, came the sound of footsteps.
CHAPTER 28
He couldn’t see them yet, but the footsteps were coming from the passageway on the left, at the far side of the cavern.
“Monks,” said Rolley. “Time to go.”
“What if we fight them?” asked Etta.
“First Tripp starts punching walls, now you want to fight the monks. What the hell is this tower doing to you guys?”
“I’m just thinking out loud. They can’t invincible, and just because we haven’t see them get hurt, doesn’t mean they can’t be. We have the time-stop spears now. We have loot. We’ve all levelled our skills while we’ve been in here. Maybe we could try.”
Tripp sensed it was time for the party leader to step in. “No,” he said.
