CA Chapter Twenty-four

In spite of the feeling of hope they’d experienced when they first logged on, nothing out of the ordinary happened the first day, or the second. Alpha had to remind herself that this was the downside of the time dilation players experienced in Veritas Online. While it seemed like it had been plenty of time for something to have changed, it had barely been twenty-four hours in real life.

Tess and Vexxx, of course, had no idea that anything was supposed to happen, so they were still excitedly discussing their plans for exploring the dungeon.

“I’m telling you,” Vexxx insisted, “we should split up! If we each go to one of these spots, we’ll be done in an hour. We all have some kind of [Trap Detection] skill now, and I got [Disarm Trap] last time.”

Tess rolled her eyes. “You mean when you dropped that spike plate on us? Yeah, we noticed.”

Alpha shook her head. “Toggle’s the only one with a high enough level in [Disarm Trap] to actually succeed. This place is a mid-tier dungeon, and we’re already running into mobs at around our own levels. If someone,” she glanced pointedly at Vexxx, “is alone when they manage to summon another golem, they’re going to get squished flat as a tortilla.”

Vexxx shrugged, folding his arms across his chest defiantly. “Those things are slow. Slower than me, anyway. I can just run.”

“And fall right into another trap,” Tess said, crossing her own arms and upping the ante with a tapping foot. “Why are you in such a hurry, anyway?”

Shoulders slumping, Vexxx admitted, “My mom caught me playing Veritas after ten. She says she’s going to come in and take my headset and keep it in her room for the night.”

Alpha snorted, but Tess asked, “So, how long do you have?”

The boy’s dark brown eyes flicked up and to the right, and he said, “Two and a half hours.”

Myles, who had spent the last day hovering around Amy, spoke up for the first time. “We’d better hurry, then. Who votes we split up?”

Vexxx’s hand rose.

“Who votes we check out the area near us, and then make a decision?” Myles continued.

Tess and Alpha both raised  their hands, and, after a moment, Toggle hesitantly followed suit.

Vexxx scowled, then brightened and pointed at Orah. “What about the snake? You let the snake vote last time, and she totes agreed with me.”

Alpha rubbed her temples, but lifted the flying snake from around her neck. Orah’s beautiful rainbow wings hummed as she lifted into the air like a serpentine hummingbird.

“What do you think?” Alpha asked the snake. “Or, um, Quezal? Do you have any suggestions?”

Quezal has heard your prayer, but believes you already know what you must do.

Alpha blinked at the notification, and stroked Orah’s porcelain scales as the divine creature lowered herself into Alpha’s grasp again. “I think that means Quezal agrees with me,” she said.

Tess patted the crestfallen lightning mage on the back. “It’s all right, Vexxx. Come on, you know you were just going to get splattered on some wall if you went out there alone. So would I, for that matter.”

Sighing, Vexxx admitted defeat with a shake of his head. “Whatever. But if we’re going to go, let’s go.”

That sentiment was one everyone agreed with, so they quickly hurried around, picking up bedding and eating implements and returning them to their inventories. As soon as the brick-lined chamber was empty again, Alpha pulled up her map, orienting herself toward the closest of the areas that made their maps - or possibly their eyes - malfunction.

The halls in the brick area were wider and straighter than any of the others, so it only took a little while for their group to reach the outskirts of the disorienting zone. It was Vexxx, with the map he’d hand-drawn in the flyleaf at the front of what looked like an outsized grimoire, who noticed the first change.

“Here,” he said, tapping the book he held awkwardly in front of him. “My map shows we took a left turn last time we were here, but that,” he pointed ahead of them, “is right, and my minimap says we need to go straight.”

Alpha shook her head. “So, what’s real?”

Tess held out her palm, revealing three of the round metal orbs low-level players often used as ammunition for slingshots. “You’d be amazed how many things I’ve used these for.” She took a few steps closer to where the hall seemed to end in a right-hand turn, and threw one of the orbs at the empty gap. To no one’s surprise, it vanished down the dark corridor beyond the corner.

Pinching a second sphere between her thumb and forefinger, Tess threw it at the left wall. It bounced off with a quiet plink, and rolled back to spin in the middle of the hall. Picking up the third ball, Tess threw it toward the solid wall straight ahead of her, and it bounced back at her with so much force it actually hit her cuirass and ricocheted away again.

Everyone turned to look at Vexxx.

His cheeks darkened, but he set his jaw firmly. “I’m sure I’m right,” he insisted. “There’s an opening there!” He glared around, as if the simple brick walls might give him a clue. He paused as his gaze crossed the wall Tess’ marble-sized projectile had bounced off of. Before anyone could stop him, he darted off, crossing the last fifteen feet to the wall, where he immediately began pushing and pulling at the two bluish bricks that were embedded among the gray ones.

Alpha and Tess exchanged glances of relief as they walked over beside the mage. Toggle hadn’t found a trap for several minutes, and they were both expecting one at any moment. When Vexxx ran forward, Alpha couldn’t help but feel certain the boy was about to find the next pitfall or spear trap, but it seemed his luck was holding.

“This thing has to open somehow,” Vexxx asserted again. “It’s the only thing that makes sense!” He shoved hard at one brick with his left hand, while pulling at the edges of the other one with his right.

Nothing happened.

Cautiously, Alpha reached out and shoved at the wall. All of the bricks were worn smooth in places, and cracked in others, but Vexxx was right, the blue bricks were the only really different ones.

Holding out a hand, Tess summoned a pickaxe that rivaled her battle axe for size from her inventory. Waving a hand at Alpha and Vexxx, the half-dwarf gripped the haft of the pick. “Step back, you two, and watch a pro at work.”

Tess was, indeed, surprisingly good at swinging her pick. The gleaming tip connected solidly with the wall, and Alpha expected mortar and chunks of brick to go flying. Unfortunately, when Tess stopped after a good twenty or thirty powerful blows, the wall looked exactly the same as it had before.

“Graaaahhh!” Vexxx yelled in frustration, and hurled his ball of lightning at the unmarked barrier. Since the sparking sphere had been their source of light, since they were currently in one of the patches of absolute darkness between the sconces that lined the walls, that meant they were all dropped into complete darkness.

“Damn it,” Vexxx muttered, and as Alpha’s [Darkvision] kicked in, she saw him shift in preparation for summoning a new one. She also saw something else, and she caught his arm in her hand as he lifted it.

“Wait,” she muttered, then stepped forward and swung her arm through the newly open space directly ahead of them. When she glanced around, she saw that the opening to their right was gone, and they stood in a long, straight hallway with no turns within her range of vision.

Shaking her head, Alpha said, “It’s only visible in the dark. Maybe it’s only there in the dark.”

Vexxx’s voice shook a little, and he was glancing around, eyes wide as he strained to see. “How can something be visible in the dark? That’s the whole point of darkness.”

Alpha shook her head, then huffed a breath at her own error and spoke out loud. “This whole floor of the dungeon is meant to be completely dark, except for a few torches, and I bet none of these anomalies happen where there’s any light. I didn’t even think about it, because I have [Darkvision], and so does Toggle, but as soon as Vexxx could, he made a light. Since neither Tess nor Vexxx have [Darkvision], we’ve stayed in the light ever since.”

Reaching out, she gently grasped Vexxx and Tessle’s arms. Vexxx jumped and almost jerked from her grasp, but from the look of slowly dawning comprehension on Tess’ grayscale face, she understood what Alpha was doing. Alpha took a step through the newly opened passage, and when she pulled her companions after her, they stumbled, but followed. Toggle, of course, could see the same thing as Alpha, so he hurried ahead, looking for traps, while Amy followed automatically, and Myles trailed along at the end, a broad grin on his face.

Once they’d walked a yard or two, Vexxx plaintively asked, “Can I make a light, now? I really don’t like the dark. Not that I’m scared, or whatever,” he hastened to assure them, “but I like to be able to see where I’m going. Y’all would probably let me fall down a hole or something, just for laughs.”

Alpha lips twitched. That… was actually not far from the truth. But to her surprise, she found that she didn’t actually want him to get hurt or sent to respawn, even though it would get him out of her hair for at least a few days.

“I promise not to let you fall in any traps,” she said, trying to sound reassuring, “but I think we need to stay in the dark if we want to get off this floor.”

Vexxx’s arm was tense beneath Alpha’s hand, but he nodded jerkily. “Fine, whatever. If I die, I’m haunting you forever, though.”

She laughed. “Just come back and harass us again. Maybe I’ll feel bad enough that I'll actually turn you into a vampire.”

His face brightened. “Really?”

“No. Now come on.” Alpha led them down the hall after Toggle, who was already busy disarming yet another trap.

The gnome looked up as they approached. “This was a more difficult one, Mistress. A fire burst. I think we’re heading in the right direction.”

Alpha nodded, and fell in behind him as he started off again. They had gotten out of the habit of always following behind the gnome once everyone had [Detect Trap] to level five, which seemed to be enough to get a vague sense of most of the simple devices that were so common in the brick halls. Toggle still had to disarm the traps once they were discovered, but it didn’t really seem to matter who was at the front of the party.

“Do you have your written map, Vexxx?” Alpha asked, as they waited in the broad hall while Toggle took care of a particularly nasty gas trap.

Vexxx nodded and pulled the grimoire from his inventory. Not for the first time, he started to raise his hand to summon his lightning ball, then lowered it and sighed, holding the book out in the darkness toward Alpha’s voice. “Here,” he said, though his hands lingered on the cover as she took it from him.

Lightning Mage’s Book of Spells - This book contains all of the lightning spells known to Vexxx. While he holds it, it increases the power of his spells, but if he loses it, his spells will be reduced by an equal amount until it is recovered or replaced. Drop Rate - 0%. Weight - 10 lbs, 5 oz. Rarity - Unique

Alpha shook her head. A [Tome of Knowledge] was an uncommon item dropped in the dungeon of the Paramount Potentate. The Potentate was a level sixty Hexblade, and dropped one of these books about half the time. If a player with a mage class wrote all of their spells into it, it would become their own grimoire, and boost their spell power. Obviously, any mage with enough money or strength got one eventually, and then tucked it away to take up one slot of their primary inventory, where it couldn’t be lost, damaged, or stolen.

And Vexxx had scribbled all over his, and then handed it to her. Honestly, it was kind of touching that he trusted her that much. At least, until he opened his big mouth, and said, “I have a backup copy I just need to add one more spell to to finish, but don’t, like, drop that or anything.”

Alpha’s fingers twitched with the desire to do just that, but she pushed it down and just opened the cover to reveal the flyleaf where he’d drawn the map. Glancing from the rough sketch to her minimap, she saw that the map in the book indicated the path was supposed to dead end ahead of them, but as far as she could tell, it continued straight instead.

“Toggle?” Alpha glanced over at the gnome, who had taken off his hat to work on this trap, but now stood and carefully replaced it on his head, adjusting it so it was perfectly centered.

“Yes, Mistress, it’s done. But,” he hesitated, tugging at the edge of his conical hat, “this one was very difficult. If they get any harder, I’m not sure I can disable them.”

Clicking her tongue thoughtfully, Alpha said, “Fingers crossed that now that we’ve figured out the trick, we don’t have much farther to go.” She looked down at the map again. “If Vexxx didn’t completely screw up the scale of this map, the center of this thing should be ahead and a little to the right. Lead on, Toggle.”

Toggle nodded and walked off down the hall, moving even more cautiously than he had before. His concern turned out to be unnecessary, however, since there were no more obstructions between them and the end. The straight passage ended in a right hand turn, where they came face to face with the first door they’d seen in this place.

“It’s big,” Alpha said, describing the door for Tess and Vexx. “But not ridiculously so. Definitely wood. Handle instead of a doorknob. No visible hinges, but the handle is made of some kind of metal.”

“So, what do we do?” Tess asked.

Vexxx’s eyes flickered up toward his clock again. “We open it, that’s what,” he said, stepping forward with a hand outstretched until it came to rest on the wooden surface in front of him. Sliding his hand down and to the right, he found the plate that attached the handle to the door and pushed.

To Alpha’s surprise, the door opened easily, and golden light flooded from the opening. Vexxx turned and grinned at her. “Piece of cake.”

That was when the giant stone hand rose from the ground and closed him in its fist.