“Maybe we should just drop it into somebody’s Inventory and sort it out later,” Girl suggested.
Hawke shook his head. “I need to analyze this mess more deeply, but I have a feeling that trying to move the chest will trigger at least one of the traps. There’s over five thousand Mana tied up around that thing. That’s a lot of ka-boom.”
“One of these days you will tell me how you happen to know those things,” the former Nerf Herder said casually.
“I’d tell you, but I’d have to kill you first.”
“Funny guy.”
“I know. Now, why don’t you all move to the far side of the room? Or better, to the antechamber? Like I said, that’s a lot of ka-boom.”
“Is whatever that chest contains worth losing three Identity points?” Olaf asked as everyone began to file out of the chamber.
“You don’t put that kind of protection on something unless it is highly valuable, so yes, by definition, something this dangerous is worth the risk.”
“You’re probably right, both of you, but sometimes a trap can be turned into a weapon. It may kill me, but it may also make me stronger. So I’m taking the chance. Blaze, go stay with Tava and your sister. And Saturnyx, you’re going into the Inventory, just in case.”
Blaze yipped sadly and left. Hawke saw that Girl-Has was still there.
“I’ll stay, if you don’t mind,” she said.
He shrugged. “It’s your Identity.”
“I might just learn something. I have Create Traps, but only got one ‘recipe’ when I picked up the ability. Maybe I can figure out how to replicate one of those.”
“Okay. I could use a Rogue’s touch as well. This might benefit both of us.”
Or kill us, he didn’t add.
Twenty-One
Hawke used Identify Spell on the three Mana constructs around the chest, running the patterns of each enchantment against his spell ‘database’ and looking for matching pieces. Each spell was like an engine, with multiple interlocking mechanisms that worked together to produce the desired effect. To his senses, they appeared like snowflakes made of gears of different colors, each representing a different Element, Force, or School of Magic. Comparing them with spells he knew, he had a chance, around one in three, to figure out what the trap did.
He quickly determined there were seven spells bound into the traps. He recognized Infernal Fireball, which inflicted both Elemental and Infernal damage, but there was something more about the spell that he couldn’t quite figure out. Like it was enhanced; maybe it was a Major Infernal Fireball? He decided to save that for later and moved on. The other spells he was able to I.D. were Summon Hellhound and Major Death Curse. That left four spells, one of which had summoning markers, which meant they would call up something. He bet whatever that spell brought over would be nastier than three-headed fire-breathing doggos. And then there were the trap ‘strings’ all over the place, making sure you couldn’t touch the chest without tripping one of them. Which reminded him that he had someone who could create traps right by his side.
“Can you set up a trap for me?” he asked Girl. “If I can learn the basic ability, I might have a better chance to disarm the trap.”
“In Akila, they charge a mint for that sort of specialized training.”
“We’re not in Akila.”
“Don’t I know it. How about, in return for my teaching you my tenth-level Ability, I get dibs on whatever is on the chest?”
Hawke sighed. “Deal. But the value of whatever you pick is deducted from your share from the rest of the loot.”
“I suppose that’s fair. Although I doubt we have a licensed appraiser to determine the exact value of every magical item that we come across.”
“We’ll ballpark it. I don’t think anybody is going to quibble over a few gold here or there. We should all come out of this Dungeon with a small fortune in coin and items.”
“Kaiser liked to get itemized lists of all loot found on any Guild operations, and if he felt you’d cheated him out of a copper, he’d take it out of your hide.”
Hawke grinned. “Well, I’m no Kaiser Wrecker. And by the time I’m done with him, neither will he.”
“Very macho. No wonder you’ve snagged a couple of hotties around you. The local wenches must eat that B.S. right up.”
He shrugged and didn’t answer. After a few seconds, Girl walked several feet away from the chest, knelt down, and set up her trap. Hawke watched the operation intently, using Advanced Mana Sight to analyze it. The gathering of Mana was the same for Abilities as for spells, including the shock to the system that interrupted the caster’s natural flow of energy as it was diverted into the magical effect. Magical power seeped into the ground and began taking shape. Hawke recognized the effect immediately; it was very much like what he did when he created an Inscription, except without using magical symbols and writing to fix the energy of a spell or effect into a surface. The Ability summoned a construct that looked like a bear trap, already sprung and ready to go. A moment later, it became invisible, although that didn’t make a difference to his Mana senses. He spotted a conditional element bound into the trap; specifically, it was set to go off if anyone who wasn’t in the trapper’s Party got closer than three feet from it.
Congratulations! You have learned a new Ability: Create Traps.
You have learned a new Trap Schematic: Poisoned Snare
Poisoned Snare
Time to Create: 10 seconds. Cost: 15 Mana. Duration: 1 minute per level of creator, or until triggered. Effect: If any entity not in your Party comes within three feet of the trap, it will be activated, immobilizing the target for 1 second per level of the creator (targets with a Strength of 26 and higher have a 5% chance per Strength point over 25 to break free). The trap also inflicts (level x 2) points of Physical damage and injects a Life-based poison that reduces Dexterity by 1 per creator level and inflicts 1-15 points of damage per level, every second for five seconds.
“Good deal,” he said. “I already could create traps, sort of, with my Inscription ability. Only problem is that the Inscription itself is visible, so it’s hard to hide. Now I can start mixing and matching them. Why fight anybody? Just set up a bunch of magical IEDs and have them come to me.”
“Would be nice if things ever worked out that way, wouldn’t it?” Girl replied. “Eternals can learn anything, in theory at least. But you are doing it a lot faster than anyone I’ve known.”
“I’ve been lucky.”
“I don’t like it. Nobody’s that lucky.”
“A friend of mine thinks my luck comes from some higher power that is setting me up for something. Probably something I won’t like, or that will kill me, or both.”
“I like that a little better, except that I don’t want to be anywhere near you when the cosmic bill comes due. Can you disarm the chest now or do you need me to teach some new tricks?”
“I liked you better when you were pretending to be nice,” Hawke told her. “But yeah, I could use one more trick. Can you use Disarm Magical Trap on the one you created? I should be able to learn it by watching you.”
“That’s two special abilities you want me to give you. You’ve paid for the first one. I’m open for negotiations for the second.”
“Well, I was planning to teach you ‘recipes’ for the traps around the chest after I figured them out, but if you’d rather get paid in gold, I can do that too.”
“All the traps?”
“There are three I can see. If I can learn how to replicate the designs, I’ll teach them to you. Three trap schematics for some lousy Rogue ability I’ll probably be able to pick up when I hit level fifteen. I am a Paladin Ninja,
in case you forgot. We get Rogue skills too, just not as often or as early.”
“I’ll teach you, in exchange for the three trap designs – and you teach me whatever you are using to study magic so efficiently.”
“No deal. For one, I’m not sure I can teach it to you. That was pure dumb luck, and I almost died in the process. And it’s not the sort of thing anybody at our level should be playing with. Maybe when we both hit level twenty.”
Girl started at him, as if trying to read his mind. Or maybe just his face. “If you’re lying, you are damn good at it.”
“I’m not lying. If you want, we can do another Communion and you can look right into my mind.”
“No, that’s okay. Giving you one chance to wipe out all my extra lives is more than enough. You might decide I’m too much trouble to have around after all.”
Hawke picked up a spike of anger from Girl. It wasn’t just that she didn’t like being denied something she wanted, but she also hated to be around someone more powerful than she was. That was one of the many reasons she had to dislike Kaiser, something he had gleaned during his trip inside her head. Girl wanted to be the most over-powered character of the game, and that was how she saw the world, even before arriving at the Realms. As far as she was concerned, the world belonged to her, and other people were less ‘real’ than she was. To her, everybody, normie or Eternal, was an NPC.
“Do we have a deal?” he asked her again.
“The trap designs, and three spells from your list. My choice of spells.”
“One spell.”
“Two.”
“Deal.”
Girl turned back to the trap she’d created. Hawke watched tendrils of Mana leaving the tip of her fingers and running through the magical construct. Since she was disarming her own trap, the process was ridiculously easy; but he still got a good look at the way it worked. The Mana tendrils cut the ‘strings’ that held the trap together, making its stored energy dissipate harmlessly.
Congratulations! You have learned a new Ability: Disarm Magical Traps. You can dispel a magical trap by using your own Mana. The energy cost of the ability is equal to the Mana spent on creating the trap (not the Mana used in spells attached to the trap). Higher-level traps may resist this ability, and some may require the use of the Disarm Traps Skill.
“Thank you,” Hawke said as he went back to work.
Now that he knew what a trap construct looked like, examining the energy devices around the chest became much more informative. The trap covering the entire chest was designed to go off if anybody moved the chest from its current position. The equivalent of a pressure-sensitive plate. It was bound to the Major Infernal Fireball spell. As he finished the analysis, the notifications he had hoped for appeared:
You have learned a new Trap Schematic: Movement Trigger
Attempt to learn Major Infernal Fireball failed! Level requirements not met.
Movement Trigger
Time to Cast: 15 minutes plus triple the normal casting times of any attached spells. Mana Cost: 50 plus the cost of any attached spells. Effect: The trap must be cast on an inanimate object in a stable position. If the object moves from that position, one or more attached spells will be activated. Spell Attachments: A maximum of two spells that the trap creator knows may be attached to the trap, at double the normal cost of the spell. The spell effects can be enhanced by adding additional Mana. Each doubling of the spell’s base cost will increase its damage or other variable effects by 20%.
“Now we’re talking,” he muttered as he analyzed the next trap, which was centered around the padlock. It was tied to the two summoning spells he had found, although he still didn’t know what one of them would summon. At two thousand Mana, it was probably something big, or lots of slightly smaller somethings; either way, he didn’t want to find out. The trap itself was more complex than the first one, with more Conditions added in, including one that linked it to the third and last trap. This wasn’t going to be easy.
You have learned a new Trap Schematic: Anti-Tampering Trap
Anti-Tampering Trap
Time to Cast: 30 minutes plus triple the normal casting times of any attached spells. Mana Cost: 150 plus the cost of any attached spells. Effect: Any attempt to break, pick or remove the padlock will trigger the attached spells. Additionally, if the trap is disarmed, it will trigger another trap linked to it. A maximum of two spells that the trap creator knows may be attached to the trap, at double the normal cost of the spell. The spell effects can be enhanced by adding additional Mana. Each doubling of the spell’s base cost will increase its damage or other variable effects by 20%.
Hawke studied the last trap; it had four spells attached to it, none of which he had been able to identify. They weren’t summoning magic, and each was powered by 600 Mana. Two of them were Infernal spells; the other two used Chaos magic. That was a lot of power, and the spells were designed to go off in succession rather than all at the same time. Triggering that trap was not likely to be survivable even with his In Extremis spell or the once-per-day effect from his Cloak of Salvation. Each of those would save him from one spell, leaving the other two to finish him off. That was a nasty magical device.
You have learned a new Trap Schematic: Touch-Trigger Trap
Touch-Trigger Trap
Time to Cast: 30 minutes plus triple the normal casting times of any attached spells. Mana Cost: 150 plus the cost of any attached spells. Effect: Trap is activated if touched by any object or living being. A maximum of four spells that the creator knows can be attached to the trap, at double the normal cost of the spell. The spell effects can be enhanced by adding additional Mana. Each doubling of the spell’s base cost will increase its damage or other variable effects by 20%.
“Okay, I have to disarm the clasp trap before I can do the padlock,” Hawke commented after describing the traps and teaching their schematics to Girl.
Girl frowned. “That’s going to be tough. The traps are literally on top of each other and the padlock is covering the clasp. Hard to get to it first unless you actually touch the clasp. Which, in this case, would trigger the trap. Somebody put a lot of thought into this. Would have gotten me killed if I’d tried it; I would have just gone for the padlock first and triggered the clasp trap.”
“Any suggestions?”
“What’s your Disarm Traps Skill? The ordinary one.”
“Uh, it’s at two. Haven’t used it much.”
“We can’t do it,” Girl said, sounding frustrated. “Hate leaving something this big behind, but with a noob Skill level, you just don’t have the finesse to go around the padlock. I do, but I don’t have your x-ray vision or whatever you use to see all the moving parts in the traps.”
“We can do it together, I think. If I use Communion, you could see what I see. You’d get to use my x-ray vision or whatever.”
“You really want us to do a freaking mind-meld again, don’t you?”
“Honestly, no, I don’t. But it’s the only way I can think of doing this.”
Girl looked at the chest and bit her lower lip, considering. Greed fought caution.
Finally, she looked up.
“Let’s do it.”
Twenty-Two
Once again, Hawke linked his mind to Girl’s.
He didn’t want to pry, but stuff got through anyway. He learned that her real name was Olivia, and that her mother had called her Livy for short. And that she hated both names. And her mother. And her father, stepfather, older brother, and uncle, all for reasons he didn’t uncover, mostly because she had forgotten them. They all had brutalized her in one way or another, that was all he got, and it was more than he wanted to know.
The memory exchange lasted only a few moments; all of their attention was on the input coming through Hawke’s Advanced Mana Sight. Girl gasped as she took in the colorful display, and all the textures and frequencies of the magical energies of the Realms. Even in an enclosed area, there were tons of things to see; Mana was bound into every
surface of the Dungeon and woven through the very air they breathed. That was one reason Hawke only used the ability when he had to; it was too easy to get lost in the stream of sensory input coming through it.
Girl-Has No-Name has gained Mana Sight.
Hawke hadn’t expected that, but he should have. She was an Eternal with Unlimited Potential, same as him. He hoped that whatever was in the chest was worth giving a functional psychopath the keys to a slew of powerful abilities. And who had first pick of whatever was inside. He had screwed up again.
“Grats. Now focus,” he told her, setting his thoughts aside. They might as well finish the task at hand. “Can you see the traps?”
“I can see them. I can see everything.”
“All right, let’s start with the easy trap, the Movement Trigger. I’ll do it so you can understand what you see.”
Hawke used Disarm Magic Trap and saw the tendrils of energy come out of his body and reach for the network of Mana around the chest. It worked just like when he had watched Girl-Has do it. The trap crumbled, its Mana and that of the attached spells vanishing in a colorful display. Time to take care of the hard part of the job. He turned his attention to the clasp trap, and a notice popped up over the trap:
Chance to Disarm: 53%
His low Skill was working against him; it seemed that properly aiming the Mana tendrils required some of the same techniques you needed to take apart a mechanical trap. It wasn’t an issue for common devices, but more complex constructs required a high skill. It was beyond him, but not Girl. Through their mind-link, he saw that her chance to disarm the trap was 79%. Not a sure thing, but it was a lot better than his.
Labyrinth to Tartarus: A LitRPG Saga (The Eternal Journey Book 3) Page 14
