Chapter 33

...

[Floor 5 – Day 1]

[Total Days in Trial: 118]

"Ping!"

[Floor 5 - Minimum Clear Condition:]

[Survive The Night]

[Floor 5 – Secondary Conditions:] [Reach The Town]

[Protect the Passengers] - 3/3

[Condition met! – No Perk] [Temporary Perk awarded!] [Lesser Analysis] - [Granted]

"Ping!"

Temporary Perk – Presently limited to the Fifth Floor. Allows the user to access additional information about the contents of a Trial floor.

[Status]

Name: John

Attributes

Class: Disciple – Skills: 4/7

Titles:

Perks:

Strength:

18

-

Lesser Analysis

Dexterity:

16

Archery 16

Constitution:

23

Resist Poison 23

Intelligence:

10

-

Wisdom:

16 [+2]

Meditation 13

Lesser Heal 12 - (Miracle)

Wise man of the Mountains

Charisma:

12 [+0]

-

Ambitious [INACTIVE]

Adventurer's Spirit

Free

3

- - -

The night was dark, and full of horrors.

Ahead of me, a pair of horses let out loud huffs as they ran. Froth spewed from their mouths as the carriage rocked on the uneven ground of the road. The man at the reins cracked the leather straps, urging the animals to move faster, and faster. Around us, in the silence of night, trees flew past with great speed. Their branches reaching out, as if to claw at the foolish souls who dared to cross their path in this late hour.

But my focus was elsewhere.

The longbow was ready in my hand, and I aimed down from where I sat atop the carriage, already lining up another shot. I felt the familiar tension, the draw holding steady with the bow's taut string against my gloved fingers. And I knew that I couldn't afford to miss. Not even as the wagon rocked, and my aim shook with it, I dare not miss. So, I fought: to keep the bow in position, to keep the arrow waiting against my hand. I waited, even as the target grew closer. Because I knew these roads, and I knew that soon the wheels below would straighten out, and I would get my chance.

They did.

In an instant, I felt everything come into alignment. From this distance I felt certain, and my arrow flashed out into the night. Released to the wind, it disappeared into the darkness, a streak of wood and feather invisible in the light of the single torch mounted behind me. Soundlessly, I watched something collapse in the distance. What had been rapidly approaching, was now left behind, and quickly gone from my field of view as we continued onward. Rounding another bend, the trees around either side of the road closed in. I ducked low as branchs swung for me, and we carried onward. My senses screamed of danger, as I found I needed to hold on with my free hand for dear life. The wheels lifted up beneath, rocking dangerously until we finally rightened, slamming down hard.

I was but a spectator.

Though it was a strange feeling, I waited as my body continued to move on its own. I might be a witness to all of this, but I wasn't in control of it. Everything happening was within my ability, but I wasn't the one deciding my own actions.

This was a scene. Of that much, I could recognize. This was the introduction to the 5th Floor.

"That's the last of them!" I felt myself shouting. "Let the horses slow down before they collapse! We'll need them to last through the night!"

"Understood!" An older man wearing servant's attire let off the reins, as the carriage began to shake. The wheels slipped once again on the muddy path, almost throwing me from my perch. The rains from the previous evening still soaked into the road. "Sir Adventurer, do you think anyone else from the manor made it?"

"No." I answered bluntly. "Not unless they took a different route."

I knew that was being generous. From what I had seen, I felt certain that no one else has survived. The thought filled me with both certainty and dread.

Slowly, I felt my body falling back into my own control. My breathing went from automatic, to practiced. It slipped back into the familiar meditative pattern as the carriage continued down the path at a crawl. As my control returned, the remaining knowledge gifted by the [Trial] seemed to be floating into place. As I looked about my new surroundings, I felt the pieces click.

We were miles out from town, and the horses were already exhausted. They weren't ready to collapse, but we'd pushed them hard up until this point.

The carriage itself was covered in scatches and claw marks, but it seemed in decent shape. The damage to the bright white paint was eye-catching, but the wheels were still in one piece, and the structure of the carriage itself was fine. On the doors to either side , I could see a noble crest of house Salic if I wished to risk leaning over the roof's edge.

"So... Adventurer again, huh?" I muttered to myself, as the rush memories settled down. Sorting through them, I tried to formulate the best course of action.

The premise for the Floor was simple. As an Adventurer, I had taken a contract to help a remote estate deal with a minor pest problem that had been killing livestock. The monster was unidentified, but it was thought to be a small threat. As the only Adventurer in the area, I had taken the job in hopes of some extra coin before returning to town. Yet, when I had arrived at the estate after a long day's march, the Salic's estate was already under attack from a large group of monsters. Having traveled on foot, I quickly joined a fleeing carriage in the hopes of escaping from the sudden danger. Yet, while I had been defending the people I was currently with, my character's background on this Floor was morally ambiguous.

The implications were clear enough: If I wanted to, I could easily abandon the people here. The [Trial] had provided me with all the tools to do so. I was armed, I had knowledge of the area and other information that seemed to be related to the Floor. Compared to the two people inside the carriage who had not come out the entire journey up until this point, and the elderly man in control of the horses...

I could probably win. They didn't appear to be capable of fighting.

Glancing back down at the servant again, I confirmed my suspicions. The man had a sword on his belt, but I didn't get the strong impression he knew how to use the weapon very well. Chances were good that I would be fully capable of stealing a horse and continuing on without them. In which case, I could easily make it to the safety of the nearest town.

I dragged the menu back up into view.

[Floor 5 – Secondary Conditions:] [Reach The Town]

[Protect the Passengers] - 3/3

This whole thing felt like a trick question, in an exam. Where the obvious answer wasn't the right one. Yet, at the same time, the real solution was probably a lot more difficult...

"A test of morality, maybe? Does the [Trial] even do morality?" I clicked my tongue. If I knew anything about the [Trial], I knew this was probably going to be a pain. And yet, thinking ahead on what I knew about the area, I found I could clearly picture the path I needed to take to get to town. We were still quite a ways off, and at the pace we were going, and it was going to be a close thing to reach before sunrise... It was doable.

I felt that this was probably doable, so long as we kept moving.

I went back through the memories I'd been given. After running through them a few times, I felt absolutely certain that I could easily reach the town if I were on my own. Extremely easily, in fact. If I decided to steal a horse and make a break for it, though... well, apart from needing to live with the fact I was being a complete and utter bastard, who gave up on people trying to escape a disaster by stealing? I'd also be giving up on the rewards that would possibly come out of saving them. Which likely meant losing my chance at some extra Attribute points, and possibly hidden rewards.

So... the easy way out, or the troublesome way.

The [Trial] was clearly giving me a choice.

"Is everything alright, Sir Adventurer?" The servant by the horses was looking up from the reins with a nervous expression. His gray hair and mustache seemed to fit the quintessential example of a butler, as did his suit and gloves.

I realized I was still staring at him, and he'd picked up on it. From his look, though, I thought that maybe he was considering the same thing as me. He seemed concerned, and it had to be fairly obvious that there was a possibility that I might betray them. So far as I understood, they didn't really know me. I was just the somewhat dangerous fellow riding on top of their carriage, mostly by chance.

"I'm fine. Just trying to consider our best options for getting us to town." I said, trying to poke Charisma into giving me some sort of hint. It had seemed to be quiet so far, possibly because I hadn't established much of a rapport with anyone. It seemed that I needed to break the ice a bit. "Once you feel the horses are ready, we'll need to start moving quicker again. We need to keep ahead of what's coming."

"Of course." The butler nodded at this. "They'll be ready to run again soon."

"Good." I turned back to keeping an eye on the darkness behind us. The man seemed to be a little less wary of me, but I wasn't entirely sure. For now, he seemed to be in a position where he had to hope I could be trusted. And I hadn't given him a clear reason to think otherwise.

My seat atop the roof was hardly fitting. There was a piece of luggage that was clumsily tied down, and I was seated on that. By looping my feet under the rope, I could find enough stability to aim and fire my bow. But there wasn't much more to my overhead view. It was rough going, and every bump in the carriage was a bit more dangerous than it needed to be. If a bump came at the wrong time in combat, I'd probably end up missing my target.

I did a quick inventory: On my person, I had all my familiar gear from the 3rd Floor. My small bag was the same. My leather armor seemed a little bit more worn down, and the bow seemed a lot more scratched up than I remembered, but they were all the same. My quiver held another ten arrows, suggesting I'd already shot a lot of them in the escape. This wasn't much, but I hoped it would do as long as the horses kept moving. Uncomfortable at my best, I also found the sword was still with me. The same symbol was branded...

Stopping for a second, I considered this.

Was this really the same sword? Did that mean I was the same Adventurer as before?

I let out a long breath.

Was this the same world as the 3rd Floor? Was there a chance of running into my old comrades?

The thoughts filled me with a mix of emotions. There was a chance... none of the information that had dropped into my head seemed to suggest one way or another, but the concept was almost kind. In a [Trial] that was a fight for my life, I knew that I really wouldn't mind meeting some old friends again, if I had the chance.

Scanning over my Status, I considered something that had been bothering me.

"Is this what the Title does? Let's me drop back into a familiar role?" I asked, skimming my Titles again. The "Adventurer's Spirit" floated by Charisma, just as cryptic as when it had first appeared. Yet no manner of poking or prodding at the text gave me an information on what it would do for me. "You had better not be anything like Ambitious."

"Sir? Did you say something?"

"Oh, no. It's nothing." I winced. That old butler had good ears.

As the minutes passed, the carriage began to pick up speed a bit. Not moving at a dead sprint like before, but easily taking the speed of someone jogging. Under the butler's guidance, the two horses seemed to have found a decent balance for what they could keep up with. They still looked tired though, but even with the extra memories that came from the Floor, I didn't know enough about horses to feel certain about their condition.

What could I really do, here? What were my limits? I had to ask, because realistically, the [Trial] being what it was: There would be more combat soon. And I knew that there was no way in hell the 5th Floor was going to politely let me ride all the way to town without it attempting murder a few more times. Plus, from the looks of things, I was going to be alone in dealing with whatever came to attack the carriage. I needed to know when to pull the plug and run.

All it would take is a few monsters, and I'd be out of arrows. After that, I didn't really want to think about how I was going to fight. The sword wasn't even long enough to swing from where I was currently positioned.

"Is there anything we can leave behind?" I asked. "Anything we can lose, to lighten the carriage?"

"I am uncertain." The butler seemed both surprised and relieved by my question. "We can ask the young master."

"Let's do that." I answered, carefully leaning down and knocking on the door. "You two have anything heavy we can part with?"

I waited for a moment, but no one answered. I spared a glance at the bulter, who looked just as confused as I was.

"Hey, anyone in there?" I knocked again. "Do either of you have anything we can-"

"You! You're heavy, and we can part with you!" The door opened suddenly, and a very angry voice squeaked. "Get off my carriage!"

"Uh..." I almost bit my tongue as the wheels hit a rock, and the door slammed shut again.

Looking back to the butler, I could see his eyebrows were raised. He blinked, before he shook his head, as if to tell me he would prefer I didn't follow the sudden instructions.

Inside, I heard muffled tones arguing.

"Young mistress! That man is protecting us!" A woman spoke firmly. "He's the only reason we've made it this far!"

"I don't care! I won't leave behind anything! I won't!"

The shouting was too muffled to hear much of it clearly, but it was enough for me to understand the general situation.

Children.

I'd never been great with children.

As far as I was concerned, kids were things that happened to other people. Like my coworkers, who looked exhaused all the time. Or those people in the grocery store, surrounded by shrieking munchkins, staring off into space with bags under their eyes that looked like they'd been there for decades. Or my married friends, who would cancel plans last minute because the babysitter couldn't make it...

Children were strange, screaming, things, that I knew could swarm during the rare occasion of a distant family reunion, causing nothing but trouble.

Logically, I knew this was unfair of me to think this way. I also felt reasonably certain that if I had a child of my own I'd probably feel differently. But, if I wasn't mistaken... Well, it sounded an awful lot like a spoiled brat had suggested I go die in the woods somewhere. And honestly, that wasn't doing much to change my opinion.

"Oh, you had better be worth the Attribute Points." I muttered.

"What was that, Sir Adventurer?" The butler asked.

"Nothing to worry about." I answered quickly. "If there's nothing we can afford to leave behind, we just need to keep moving as best we can."

In the distance, I heard something approaching, and I sat up and readied another arrow. The forest around the road seemed to darken, as a howl rose, and was then joined by many more. From the darkness beyond the torchlight, I could see glowing eyes rushing forward.

"Sir Adventurer-"

"Don't worry!" I shouted, as I readied for combat. "Everything is under control!"

Yeah, that pretty much sealed the deal.

This Floor was going to suck.