Chapter 77: Pyramid Of Old

I quickly descended towards the glistening golden desert and sank ever so slightly into the soft warm sand with a light ‘thud.’

Lightly kicking the sand, I felt the soft texture through my armor. Every inhalation felt dry and coarse, even through my armor. Looking over the sandy dunes and spotting heatwaves steadily rising like steam from a kettle, I murmured “damned hot over here.”

It's jarring how fast the temperature changed upon stepping into the desert. I’m grateful for my potent armor and its weatherproofing capabilities. I slowly begin walking through the desert, finding every step tiresome given the little traction that sand supplies. Like walking through the snow, it exhausts my stamina far quicker than normal earth or stone ground.

Nonetheless, I enjoy the difference in terrain and the comfortable warmth that slips through my armor. Steadily heading towards the decorative pyramid in the distance, I hope that it's not looted. As I get closer, it seems to get bigger with every step. It’s far bigger than I recall.

Finally coming upon the structure, I note its sheer scale. It’s a true pyramid, dwarfing me in its height and width. Walking around its surprising girth, I find a large, open entrance along the right side of the pyramid.

Marking the entrance so that exiting is far easier, I enter the dark depths. My cat's eyes kick in, revealing a black and white picture of the environment. Beginning to walk through the long dark tunnels, I noticed a large number of offshoots from the main path. Continuing along the large main path, I find that it continuously winds around itself, with stairs placed that occasionally result in a slight incline.

Focusing on the walls, I note symbols and inscriptions that are reminiscent of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics litter the walls. They are difficult to decipher, my night vision is good but poorly shows finely detailed images. I additionally noticed a few diagrams and pictures painted onto the walls. The strange style they are drawn and painted in makes them virtually indecipherable.

Continuing along the winding paths, I begin to get more and more frustrated. “I’m seriously sick of these black tunnels by this point, where’s the treasure?!?” I say before immediately hearing an audible ‘click’ as the stone I stepped on sinks into the ground. “Ah, shit!”

With haste, I quickly dig a path into the wall as I hear ‘rumble’ from in front of me. Stepping into the cavity, I quickly spotted several large and angular stones rolling down the pathway. I facepalm in both shame and stress at having just triggered the oldest trick in the book.

Stepping out of my little hidey-hole was a mistake as a late rock immediately hit me with a loud ‘smash.’ It did little more than knock me around a little, but the fact that I didn’t check to see if all the rocks had gone past was stupid of me.

Continuing along the inclined path, I keep an eye on the ground, slowly following the trail of dirt and rubble left behind by the ancient stones. Eventually, the trail abruptly stops, so I immediately look up to see a thin line across the ceiling. Taking my pickaxe, I remove the ceiling above me, exposing a large cavity. The door flap I broke through was connected to a pulley system. From what I can tell, it opened the door, let the stones out, then, once all the stones fell, retracted the door flap back with a spring.

That’s all I can see. It looks rather barbaric and bare bones, but the creativity is impressive. It’s a trap that activates and then hides its own existence. It would be perfect only if they accounted for a dirt trail from the busted stones.

Having enjoyed looking at the unique trap design, I continue on the path. I have a sneaking suspicion in the back of my mind that this whole trip will be wasted. This is likely a fake path or dummy path meant to get you killed. In fact, I know it is, given that it’s a common practice to create a ‘main’ fake route then have the actual route be in a small, easy to miss location. Likely, a large number of small paths split off in a particular way to make the whole thing a massive maze.

Without the blueprints or a guide, it would take weeks, if not longer, to find the true route. So, I am going to finish the path then hopefully mine my way down into the treasury.

Having had my eyes on the ground, I note a suspicious-looking stone on the floor. Walking to the side, I mine around it, exposing… nothing. It was just a weird-looking floor stone. “damn.”

It doesn’t take to long for me to hear another audible ‘click,’ to which I look to the ground to see a common stone slowly sinking down. “Not again!” I say in anger while swinging my pickaxe at the brittle sandstone walls. Finding refuge within the small cavity, I wait for whatever trap is coming down those halls.

Having sat there for a while without a noise to speak of, I start to consider the possibility that it’s a dud. Carefully extending my head and craning my neck to look ahead, I see no incoming stones, which is a start. Slowly stepping out of my safety hole, I find no clear signs of a trap.

Regaining some of my confidence, I continue. Slowly but steadily, I keep ascending the pyramid in a steady spiral. I keep ignoring the occasional offshoot paths, even though I fully know one hides the true path.

Eventually, I came to a suspiciously straight path. Taking every step with caution, I slowly traverse the path. Halfway through the pathway, I hear a barely audible ‘crack’ before the floor splits under me into 2 interconnected trap doors. As the trap doors swing down, I quickly activate my flight. Looking down, I spot a scarily sharp-looking array of spikes. I audibly gulp then thank my flight capabilities.

Ascending back towards the path, I turned to see the trap doors slowly raise thanks to almost invisible ropes being pulled slowly across grooves in the trap door and floor. Interestingly, it has a constant upwards force. When you travel down it and reach the middle, the equilibrium is broken and you fall to your doom. Without you as a weight pushing the doors down, they slowly rise back up and the trap resets, ingenious.

I would love to meet the trap creator, or creators. I imagine them having an extremely interesting point of view and large amounts of creativity.

Finally, after a long, arduous, and relatively peaceful walk, I come across a small pyramid room at the end of the path – the top. And what do I find? “Nothing, absolutely nothing; I knew it!”

Unperturbed I immediately start digging down, breaking through layer after layer of sandstone in very slightly different colors. I occasionally break through the odd narrow path before continuing on. ‘crash’ I fall into a large cavity containing lots of boulders; more than one of these are traps it seems.

Breaking the trap door to trigger the trap and clear my path, I was in awe as the trap springs and then attempts to close… without the door. I begin laughing at the silliness of the trap before continuing on my way down.

Eventually, I break into a very large room and gape at a black abyss that even my night vision struggles to pierce. While slowly falling like a feather towards the ground, I find it ashy and stale. I wonder why?

Looking around at the large dark cavern-like room, I don’t immediately see anything, so I begin to wander around. Eventually, I find myself upon a small stone structure on top of a small statue of an unknown creature. Stepping closer, I climb to the top of the small stone structure. Being face to face with the statue fills me with a sense of dread and impending doom. I avert my gaze from the cold deathly statue. I know what it is. It’s an abyssalcraft old god, something that is rather… dangerous to mess with.

That cold aura is undoubtedly ‘potential energy’ which is sacrificed to the old gods to complete evil rituals. How long has this statue been here to accumulate enough potential energy for it to be felt by an unattuned being such as myself? I am currently ‘attuned,’ as I call it, to natural energy and mana. I can perceive both like a sixth sense.

Yet, something like potential energy should be invisible to me unless something happens to allow me to feel or see it. Yet, this statue radiates cold energy that fills my bones with lead and makes my mind weary. If blood magic and evil craft are morally ambiguous, abyssalcraft is downright evil, all things considered.

It won't stop me from eventually messing with it, but the energy alone is giving me chills. “Use with caution. Noted.” Touching the stone with my hand was strange. The smooth stone was icy to the touch, but didn’t leave the cold and numbing sensation of something cold. Rather, it just made my limb heavy and tired.

Without further ado, I break the statue, which releases a small wave of terrifying potential energy through the already saturated cavern. I dread the thought of what could manifest in this cavern with such a dangerous energy within. I can’t feel a shred of mana or natural energy within, just a cold emptiness.

Shrugging, I say “not my problem.” And, with that, I leave by teleporting to the entrance. I immediately felt the pressure on my body lesson. I can feel a slightly icy chill billow out of the entrance like a slight cold breeze, making me shiver slightly as I walk away into the sandy desert.

Taking flight and ascending quickly into the sky, I begin to look for the desert novas that I came here for. I enjoy the warmth of the sun's rays as the heat bleeds through my armor.

It doesn’t take long before red dots come into my vision. Slowly falling to the ground, I find that the red dots are a combination of small red plants and desert novas, thankfully. With gusto, I begin the harvest of dozens of desert novas. I can always teleport back here, but grabbing them while I’m here is far wiser.

After gathering a large number of desert novas, I set my sight on the large array of cacti. I collect a large range of each cactus for replanting and growing if I ever need any of them. After collecting a large array of seed cacti, I take out my shovel and begin digging out massive quantities of sand for storage because I can. I’m within a desert, I may as well gather some sand in case I need it.

Finally, I have gathered the annoying plant. “It’s about damn time.” Now I only have 1 plant remaining on my agenda – Tarma root. It’s the worst of them all, I have spent many a day searching for this elusive plant. Without a growth spell to produce them, they truly are a nightmare to gather… and, unfortunately, are required to summon the next guardian on my agenda.

So, I need a large cave network to begin searching. Perhaps I could get Jengal to find some, although I know that’s a pipe dream. Some mods have these frustrating elements that just make it feel like a waste of time.

I head home to eat a large meal of roast chicken and steamed vegetables. They are all garnished in a healthy amount of salt and plenty of spices for flavor enhancement. The spread is a reward for a successful and rather fruitful trip to a new location. Having gained a surprisingly rare item, an abyssalcraft statue, I am admittedly glad that I found it rather than a random person. I would definitely consider it A-class dangerous. Not quite S-class, which is something on the level of world-destroying, like a super scary world-eating bacterium or pandora's box… Thankfully, they require a large number of nether stars to craft.

So many dangerous objects exist in this world. How is it still alive? Someone must have made a necromantic army or activated a world-ending bomb by now?

Well, clearly nothing like that has happened, given that I am standing in a very alive world. So, let's go to bed and get ready for Tarma root hunting tomorrow.