Chapter 528 - Dungeon banter

Author note:

Thank you everyone for the birthday messages yesterday <3

I feel like I often post late so I thought today I might as well post early since I can, for once.

Also I want to ask a question, for after you read this chapter, do you feel it's too slow? The arc will progressively get faster and with more action as they progress deeper into the palace, but I wanted to take the opportunity of there not being a pressing timer, for once, to let the group banter a bit, I just don't know if it slows down things too much or if you guys feel like it's fine. I guess feel free to tell me if you have a strong opinion one way or the other.

And Happy Reading (｀• ω •´)b

Sofia and Ihuarah both failed at telling if this was a trap or not, all they could tell was that the protruding brick could indeed be pushed into the wall, but not what it was going to do.

“I have to hand it to whichever of Sorrow’s old worshippers who designed this place, the security is top-notch. Even by blasting mana into the walls I can’t feel crap,” Sofia said as she stood with an ear on the wall, trying to see if she could hear anything.

“Powerful sorcerers used to be few a far between before my time but it would be remiss of us to think them incompetent. Arguably, most of today’s treasures date back to humanity’s golden age, even before my time,” Ihuarah explained.

“And where are these powerful sorcerers right now?” Everelle questioned.

“Truth be told, I have no idea. Some might be dead, for sure, others have likely become recluse, hermits buried deep under the surface in hidden places like this one,” he explained.

“Well, Richard sounds old enough. I’m not sure but I think from context clues, he should be around the same age as Erredis or older, so in the fifteen thousands…” Sofia guessed, “So some do walk the surface still, even if you only count ‘humans’. But you really think there might be someone here?”

“It is certainly not an impossibility,” Ihuarah said with a shrug, “I am relatively sure, now, that this was designed as a true trial to gauge whether we are deserving of the artifact or not. Whoever did so was undoubtedly invested in their faith at least as much as I am, so staying or at the very least leaving a guardian behind is not so far-fetched.”

“Well. We’ll find out soon enough. We need to deal with that brick, though,” Everelle pointed out.

“Right,” Cinthia agreed, “Everyone’s looking intently. So something is sure to happen. Hard to tell what.”

“Fine, take your distances guys, I will push it. Got my unlife runes up anyway, I’ll be fine.”

The group listened and all walked past Sofia in the narrow corridor, except for Pareth who chose to return to her bone storage, just in case.

“A light press, and…”

The brick entered the wall with a click, which was followed by mechanical sounds.

“Definitely gears in there,” Sofia notified the others, “nothing seems to be happening, though.”

“Hum… Sofia…” Cinthia said, “look below.”

Sofia looked down, the floor behind her feet had disappeared, leading into a deep pit full of spikes. Since Sofia often actually walked on the air just above the ground rather than the ground itself, for practical reasons, she hadn’t even felt the change, which had also been silent.

The one blind spot in my demon form field of view...

“My fused passive skill saved me from a bad fall. Kind of…" Sofia remarked as she observed the pit, “Wait… These are regular Iron spikes. They’re not rusty but… This shit wouldn’t even pierce my regular skin, let alone in my Apostle form. Give me a second I’m going down to investigate.”

Everelle walked up to the hole as Sofia slowly walked down as if on invisible stairs, “Damn, you can see in there? All Sunless have a very good night vision but this is dark dark, looks like there’s some obscuring magic.”

“Demons are just superior, I guess,” Sofia said as she made her way down past the first rows of spikes, observing the pit. Touching the tip of one of the spikes with her palm, she pushed, and the thick iron spike bent under her the pressure, failing to even nick the skin of her palm.

The hell. This can’t seriously be a trap meant to injure an Apostle of Sorrow…

“She thinks the spikes are too weak,” Sofia heard Bookie say to the others from above. 

Ah, I didn’t even realize I was letting you hear this stuff, Bookie, just a reflex to think louder when Pareth is in storage to keep him informed. Well, you can keep the others up to date for me I guess. Let’s see if I find anything other than spikes down there.

The pit was quite deep for a random trap, a good thirty meters down before Sofia found herself walking on the lowest row of upwards-pointing spikes. There was nothing obvious there, and of course, the magic preventing her mana senses from picking up anything past the walls was still very much in place.

There has to be something; this is too weird.

After twenty seconds of careful inspections, she found the thing: another strange brick in the wall, between two rows of spikes, this time it was not protruding, but slightly recessed. 

All hail the recessed Brick, the divinity of bad architecture. Sofia thought, cackling by herself at the bottom of the pit, and making sure not to let Bookie hear her dumb joke.

She pushed on the brick, and it simply fell inside of the wall, leaving a small brick-shaped hole behind. Sofia bent the spikes in the way to get closer and stick her face in front of the opening.

“There’s a treasure chest hidden in the wall!” Sofia yelled for the others to hear above.

“Be careful, could be a mimic!” Everelle shouted back.

“I’d be happy it was!” Sofia answered, dreaming of feeding Bookie another swift chest skeleton.

“You’re fucking weird!” Everelle answered back.

“Said you?!”

“Forget it, I’m not helping if you get gobbled up!”

Sofia snorted with laughter as she used [Summon Self] to teleport through the gap and into the minuscule room where she barely had space to stand in front of the small wooden chest. 

Let’s see what we have here.

Sofia lightly poked the chest with her dagger, leaving a small dent.

Awww… Not a mimic.

She pried open the chest, which wasn’t locked, but sprayed a cloud of thick mist at her face in retaliation.

Oh, so it was trapped.

Sofia smelled the mist, which felt familiar. Hey, that smells like one of those neurotoxins I used to train the venerable physique. That was one of the plant extracts, I think? Nice flowery smell. I kind of like it. Let’s see what else this has to offer…

The contents of the chest were wrapped inside of a silk cloth, they were six opaque ball-shaped flasks covered in messy runic inscriptions. They were accompanied by a tiny wooden plaque engraved with a few words written in Ancient Human.

Ugh, I wish this was Draconic instead, would be easier to translate… Alright…

“Ha… Has… Hast- Oh, no, that’s the other form… Accel- er- atium. Acceleratium potion. Be- Become? Becar, oh, ‘Be careful, risk of overdose’.”

Sofia took one of the flasks, and gently broke the rune-enscribe wax seal around the opaque glass cork. She looked inside the flask.

Is this stuff still good, even? How many thousands of years has it been buried here?

The liquid was pale green like a dried leaf and had a strong herbal smell Sofia dipped the tip of one of her long pointy claws inside to taste the potion, it had a very weak taste, but she clearly felt something happening to her, though it was short lived, a fleeting feeling likely due to the small dose.

It’s like… The opposite of Moonspring water.

Hmmm… Maybe I should Identify it. Could’ve done that before tasting it…

[Concentrated Acceleratium flask] : Powerful but short-lasting, an old classic that has often been overlooked due to its annoying side effects. Increases speed, thinking speed, and reduces friction. Can be drunk or thrown at a target.

You’re going to mention annoying side effects but not say what? Also thrown? Questions…

Sofia brought the flasks back up, and no one had ever heard of the ‘old classic’ Acceleratium. Since Sofia was the one who took the risk with the traps, the others let her choose what to do with the potions. She ended up giving one to Ihuarah and one to Cinthia, keeping two for herself, one of which was for Alith to reverse-engineer, and the last two were for Everelle, since she had been the one to notice the suspicious brick in the first place after Sofia had missed it.

“If everyone is fine with this, let’s keep going,” Sofia said after giving out the potions.

“Honestly I don’t even think I deserved to get one… But thank you,” Cinthia admitted while storing her flask. 

“You’re here so you’re entitled to your share, won’t be the same for the divine artifact, though,” Sofia answered.

“It’s fine, I’m sure you would come with me if I ever wanted to go find an old artifact myself and needed help,” Cinthia continued with a smile.

“True,” Sofia answered, “And Saria would probably gut me alive if I didn’t.”

Everelle stood with her arms crossed, “Do you even still have guts?” she asked, her pendant eye narrowing to a line.

Sofia looked down at her own belly, past the gaping hole in her chest, “Well… I have a few internal organs left, even in demon form. I do have a small stomach-like cavity in there, so that kinda counts?”

“Do you even ever need to take a shit anymore?” Everelle pressed her, almost cackling.

“... Do you?”

“Erm… I don’t even have a proper face, so… Anyway… Exploring the dungeon, am I right? Ahah… You should all be on the lookout for stuff like that protruding brick, if there’s one treasure in the wall, there’s likely more.”