The Land: Forging (Chaos Seeds Book 2) (31 page)

He still had his six characteristic points in reserve. After seeing the devilish trap floor, he decided
holding
off was the right choice. Who knew what the next challenge would be?

He had also received three noteworthy prompts during the past few days.

Congratulations! You have advanced from Novice to Initiate
in:
Pierce the Veil. In addition to hidden traps, you can now find hidden compartments.

Congratulations! You have advanced from Novice to Initiate
in:
Traps. You can set traps with proximity triggers in addition to simple pressure triggers.

Congratulations! You have advanced from Novice to Initiate
in:
Trap Disarm. You can now retrieve some of the traps you disarm for your own future use.

Hidden compartments? Had he been missing hidden treasure?! Richter looked
around
but didn’t see anything new.

The three sprites walked up. Sion was protesting, “Of all the doorways here, are we sure that we want to go into the bone doorway?” Richter was just about to chime in, ‘That’s what I said!’, when Yoshi made an abrupt swipe of his hand.

“This was the most efficient option,” Yoshi said. “We have limited resources and without further information, each choice was the same as the others.” Looking at
Richter, he asked, “Do you sense anything?”

Richter shook his head. Even though the bone door was weird, there was no red glow coming off of it.
Similarly, the wand
didn’t show anything. “Futen, any magical wards or traps that you can detect?”

“No, my Lord.”

The door had a small hole in it where a door knob would be. Looking inside the hole, he saw a metal circle with the impression of a square set in its center. The circle was set about a foot past the door. It could be easily
reached if you decided to stick your hand in the hole.

“Okay,” Richter said, “So one of us is supposed to stick our hand in that hole to reach that circle, but then it’s going to be all like, ‘Oh no! Something grabbed my hand. And where did that monster come from?
Oh,
curse this completely unexpected twist of fate!
Oh, the humanity!”

Richter was really getting into the role and was doing his best Sterling Archer by the end of it. The sprites just looked at him with unamused expressions. Tough crowd, he thought. He tried another tact. “The point is; this is an obvious trap. And I don’t think any of us wants to lose a hand to prove it.”

“Well, what do you suggest,” Yoshi asked annoyed.

“We go to the metal door, which incidentally, unlike this bone door, doesn’t have the obvious promise of sure death attached to it,” Richter said.

“We do not have time to go to another door!”

“Then be my guest,” Richter said. He swept his arm towards the hole in the bone door.

Yoshi stared at it for a minute and then said, “I need some time to think this through. Until I figure out a
solution,
though, we should keep working on the other traps. We might as well go in that direction,” he gestured loosely towards the metal iron door. He turned around and walked towards the middle of the room again.

Richter’s eyes opened wide, “Really dude? Really?”

Yoshi just kept walking.

Shaking his head, Richter led Sion and Daniella back through the traps so they could wait safely in the tunnel. He was walking back to join
Yoshi
when Alma shrieked unhappily. He handed her some dried meat out of his Bag, which she sniffed at in disdain, but ultimately took. She had made her displeasure at the lack of fresh meat clear the first time he had offered it. All he got in return was a stream of air into his face.

The two men got back to work. Something interesting happened as they were making it to the metal door. After he disarmed a trap that at first seemed no different from the others, it had started glow a reassuring green. None of the other traps had ever done that before.

He kept staring at it hoping a prompt would appear, but he had no such luck. A little voice whispered in the corner of his mind, but he shushed it. It was talking crazy. He kept staring at the green glow, and the voice whispered again, louder this time.

‘Try to grab it,’ an adventurous little part of him said.

‘Why don’t you try to grab it,’ the cautious part of him thought back. Then all of him thought, please god don’t let anyone find out that I’m talking to myself! Alma stared at him suspiciously.

‘The green light probably means everything is fine,” the adventurous part of Richter said. ‘Just put your hand in the hole. Something great might happen!’

‘Well something great might happen at a glory hole, but I’m not sticking my hand, or any other part of me in one of those either! Or have you forgotten what happened in Tijuana?’

Silence reigned in Richter’s head. The cautious part of him cheered in victory.

That was when the chicken noises started.

‘Bwakkk, bwakkk, bok, bok, bgwaakkkk!’

After two minutes of that he gave in.

‘Fine! I’ll do it,’ Richter thought. The adventurous part of him reintegrated into his psyche with a smug grin.

Richter stuck his fingers under the circle and into the green glow. His jaw was clenched shut expecting to lose his hand at any moment. Finally, a prompt came up.

Do you wish to retrieve Level Acid Trap? Yes or No?

Nowww I get a prompt, he silently asked, staring up at the ceiling in exasperation. He selected ‘Yes’ and the circle of the trap came completely free. A metal contraption with a glass sphere rose to the level of the floor. The sphere was clear and was mostly filled with a syrupy red liquid.

You have found: Adhesive Fire Acid Trap.
Durability 5/5. Item class: Uncommon. Quality: Average. Weight .2 kg. On
ce triggered, will release a spray of acid in a circle five feet in diameter. This acid will adhere to anything it touches making it extremely difficult to remove. Does 7-10 damage (85% Acid, 15% Fire magic) per second for 20 seconds.

Despite having had to guess about the green light, Richter was please at this new weapon. This acid sounded like some serious stuff. He was also feeling like he didn’t want any part of a trap like this going off near him! He CAUTIOUSLY got back to work.

A day later, they had finally made their way to the metal door. His trap skills increased another two levels. Unfortunately, it was always the way that the higher skills rose, the harder it was to level them.

Up close, the bands of metal that created the door had a previously unseen feature. The entire surface was covered with impossibly thin and short spikes. Richter hadn’t seen them earlier because they were completely clear. Not one was longer than an inch, but they were so tightly packed and so numerous that touching the door ensured being pricked. Richter tried to cut one free with his glass dagger, but the spike seemed to be impervious to damage. What did
happen,
however, was a drop of clear viscous liquid welled from the end of the spike. Sion collected it in an empty vial he took from his pack. He
wafted
some of the odor towards his face, then took out a second vial of orange power. He placed a small amount of water in the first vial and added some of the powder. When he swirled the mixture around it turned into a milky purple solution. With a disbelieving look on his face, he added a small brown leaf and it began to produce green bubbles.

“Shrieke venom,” Sion said in surprise.

“What effects does it cause,” Richter asked.

“Death,” Sion said definitively. “It is one of the deadliest naturally occurring venoms in The Land. We cannot touch this door. Even one drop would kill us. You,” he said pointing at Richter, “might be able to survive being stuck once by a spike because of your larger size, but not twice. The venom has Earth and Death based magic as well as just being a natural poison, so your resistance should help, but again, I wouldn’t risk it.”

“What is going on,” Richter cried out. “Who would come up with a massive metal door covered
in near
invisible spikes that leak deadly poison? The architect/author for this dungeon must have been insane… or just insanely clever and attractive!”

No one spoke for a second, “I am not sure why you would draw that last conclusion,” his Companion said, “but I am sure that we cannot touch any of these spikes.”

“There has to be a way out of here,” Daniella said. “We are just not looking in the right place. Maybe one of the other doors will be helpful.”

Richter knew that they would ultimately have to check out the other doors, but felt sure that each one would present a problem as well. As a matter of course, he pulled his wand and scanned for magic. The door itself glowed white uniformly. No real surprise there. In frustration, Richter dropped his hand. He was going to scream in frustration
again,
but felt someone nudge him.

“Look down,” Sion said.

Richter looked, and in the beam of blue light emanating from the wand, were words in a flourishing script. It contained umlaut’s, tilde’s, and other unknown accents.

Daniella drew in her breath sharply.

“What,” Sion asked turning around sharply to scan the room. They were all a bit on edge from just sitting in here.

“This is ancient high elvish.”

“Bah,” Yoshi said. “That hasn’t been spoken for almost one hundred thousand years. How could you recognize it?”

“Hisako has books written in high elvish in her library. If you enjoyed doing more than just stroking your sword, you might have learned something as well,” she answered waspishly. Sion took a step back from the potential confrontation. He was always smart like that.

Richter had been tracing the line writing with his wand, and saw that it completely encircled the door. The words touched the ceiling, the walls, and the floor. “I can read it,” he said. “Listen,”

“Red of iron, essence
of flesh, both must be tempered, to unlock the way forward.

Grist of bone is the stage of life, rage against the fading of life.

To prepare the way forward, remove the distractions of the past.
Heed this warning or suffer the error of youth.

Death comes on swift wings, causing a terrible storm.
The passage of birth is the loss of the womb.
The safety of illusion fractures under the blows of pain’s truth.
Any being would be crushed, to carry the world on his shoulders.
Know thy limitations or never transcend them.
The last path is the first that is taken each day.
Listen well to both devils and angels, for both are you.
Life can be found in the truthful lies of one and the lying truths of the other.
Cross not the wrong threshold, or suffer the reaper.
Only these truths can pierce the veil of lies which bar your way.”

Yoshi stared at him, “Is that it?”

“Yes,” Richter replied.

“Are you sure,” Sion asked.

“Maybe you’re reading it wrong,” Yoshi said. He turned to Daniella, “What do you think it says?”

“I can’t read it,” Daniella said.

“You said you had learned from the Hearth Mother!”

“I said I could recognize it! The same way I can recognize a
gyoti
when I’m looking at one!” She glared at the sword adept. Yoshi inhaled deeply, probably preparing for a scathing reply.

“Enough,” Richter said forcefully. “Trust me Yoshi, I can read
it
. It’s my Gift of Tongues ability. Now all of you stop wasting energy. We have to get out of here. We have enough rations for a good while, but our water will not last forever. Also, have you forgotten that the eaters are a clear threat to the entire Forest of
Nadria
? Now start being helpful!”

Yoshi stared angrily at Daniella a while longer, then shook his head and looked down. When he looked back up, the irritation was gone from his face. “You are of course right, Lord Richter. I apologize. I also apologize to you, sister sprite. I am frustrated by the need to remove this menace before it harms our people.” He bowed at the waist.

Daniella bowed back, “I apologize as well sword adept.”

Richter looked back and forth between the sprites, “Yeah yeah, kumbaya. We still need to get out of here.”

Sion asked him to repeat the inscription. When Richter was done reciting, he said, “Well flesh and iron can be red, and we have a red door…”

No one else had a better idea, and for a good Georgia boy who had been raised on red clay hills, the reasoning was sound enough. Yoshi and he got back to work. While they did, Sion had brought out another empty vial and was meticulously striking each spike to catch the drops of venom it produced. Though it took hours, he got all of the spikes within easy reach of his short frame.

The traps were all level five or six in this section of the room, but luckily, the increases in Richter’s trap skills made the process go a bit faster. They both had to rest before they were
done
. On the plus side, Richter was awarded two more traps. On paralyze, and another that triggered a needle coated with fear poison. It took the greater part of a day, but they made their way to the red door.

Richter had been hoping that once they got right up to it, a means of opening it would be revealed, but a careful inspection showed nothing. Until he used the want that is, the blue light revealed more spidery script appeared.