Puzzles

The Past

"Keep your mind as sharp as a spade." -from First Principles by Ven Praxus

The moment the entry door to the dungeon closed itself behind him, Wick knew the only way out was through. He had heard about trap rooms like these from other, much more experienced Sprawlers. Dungeoneers only ever encountered them in the lower levels of the Sprawl.

After running his hands along the wall, Wick realized the door didn't just close, it sealed itself. Air compressed from the cracks between the door and the stone wall until it was completely seamless. There was no turning back. The first room itself was unlike anything he had ever seen, putting a crack in the knowledge of what he had learned from his father and other Sprawlers. It was an actual room, not a giant cavern with its own unique ecosystem.

The room was made of four walls lined with letters unfamiliar to Wick. The letters were a series of circles within circles and lines crossing the circles.

"This must be the Misonians' writing," Wick muttered to himself.

On opposite walls were two sealed doors made of stone. Wick had seen these before. They were like normal hinged doors in people's homes. These doors would either slide upward or sideways, and could only be activated when touched.

"It doesn't feel like a dungeon," Wick thought aloud. A nervous shiver ran up his spine.

The first room to the ancient dungeon didn't feel like any real dungeon he had ever been in. It was too organized. It felt like he had stepped into the minds of the mouse-people who had apparently brought cities to the sky in the old days of great magic.

Small globes of dim yellow light protruded from the ceiling in the corners of the room.

He inspected the doors for any traps, using the bone end of his spade to trace their edges. If there were any crevices on the sides of the doors, then sometimes darts or spears would stick out. A few traps even released a variety of gasses with effects ranging from mild stupor to melting off the faces of anyone inexperienced enough to not check for them carefully. Instead, there was nothing.

Wick knew he was stepping through a dungeon untouched by man. Other kids his age would have pissed their pants by now. Luckily, he had been trained by the most cautious man on the surface, his dad.

His father had made Wick memorize every basic and advanced trap from the books the Sprawler's Guild had to offer. Even then, Wick had been a fast learner. Maybe it was because his dad was a great teacher. Or, it was the fact that Wick didn't want his dad to worry about him, to show him that he could handle himself.

Wick went through several more mental checklists of possible traps that could be found on doors. He had been made fun of by the other Sprawlers' kids for being so cautious. They had called him an old man because he was so slow when faced with something new.

He smiled at the memories of the uninspired nickname they gave him. Those kids ended up getting hospitalized for injuries at one point or another, while Wick had never received a cut or a bruise unless he worked his hands too hard when digging.

"The only scars a Spade should have is on his hands," his dad had told him.

Wick was sure that wasn't an actual saying the Sprawlers used. There had been too much fear in his dad's voice when he had said it, too much concern. It wasn't the first time he wondered if the reason they had stayed up in the higher-leveled dungeons was to keep Wick safe.

When he was done checking all the potential traps, Wick finally pressed the end of his spade against the door. It reacted to the pressure and opened to a room nearly identical to the first one he opened. The only difference was that instead of a globe of light for each corner, there was a giant one attached to the ceiling by a rope.

This room had no doors.

Instead of walking in, he stepped back through the threshold into the first room. He jumped in place as the stone door slid shut behind him.

"Weird," Wick said. "The door shouldn't have shut like that. There weren't any pressure plates to activate a mechanism to close it."

A shiver ran up his spine again. Wick's grip on his spade tightened.

He walked to the other door and spent another ten minutes going through his trap checklist. Again, no traps. He double checked to see if there were any pressure mechanisms but couldn't find any.

When he pressed the door open with his spade, he was greeted with another room just like the main entry room and the opposite one with the giant globe of light. This one was different in that it had no light. The only way he could see in the room was because the entry room's light poured in.

In the room's ceiling was a circle with protruding lines, similar to the writing in the entry room.

Wick stepped back into the first room, and once again, this door slid shut. No sounds indicated an unlocking, pivoting, or even lever mechanism that caused it to close. "How in the Cursed Crawl does it do that?"

None of the three rooms showed any other doors except for the ones leading into each other. It didn't feel like a dungeon at all. He suddenly felt like he had been dropped into the middle of a puzzle without any instructions or end goal in mind.

Wick walked back to the first side room, which he called Room A just for his own sanity. What he saw on the door made him frown. In the stone door was a single vertical line where there hadn't been one before. The line was the size of his hand.

He traced his fingers along the mark and flexed his legs to move in case something attacked him. Nothing happened.

"Why did this mark show up?" Wick wondered.

He pressed the door again, but this time with his hand. The same room with the giant globe opened up. Except, this time, the room didn't have a flat stone surface. It had tiles.

The air in Wick's lungs threatened to escape him and he felt his jaw tighten. The damned room changed. Rooms in dungeons weren't supposed to change. Deepest Hells, rooms anywhere weren't supposed to change. Nothing in his books told him about this. The only place with changing rooms was the Labyrinth, but that place was several wormholes and a country away.

He forced himself to relax against the fear and inspect the room. Finally, he stepped on the tiles, walking carefully on balanced feet toward the center. The walls had the same odd, simple lettering of circles and straight lines all over them, just like the entry room.

Wick stood in the center of the room, checking to see if anything else changed. The only thing that was different in Room A was the floor.

"What the..." Wick whispered.

He took a step forward on to a new tile. The tile loosened and slid.

Wick immediately jumped backward onto one of the tiles he had already stepped on, cursing himself for abandoning his father's training in favor of curiosity. An arrow shot upward from the loose tile and stuck hard into the stone wall, right next to the giant glowing orb in the center of the ceiling.

The fear that had been rising in Wick was slowly overcome with the cool calm of his years of training. It was a floor dart trap. Basic stuff for Picks and Spades.

Before, everything had been unfamiliar to him, strange. But this, a simple trap? This was his territory, and he felt his confidence rise.

Wick touched each new tile he hadn't yet stepped on with the end of his spade. Four different tiles sprung arrows from the floor into the ceiling. The wave of triumph he felt was quickly sobered by the fact that he still hadn't figured out what the rooms were meant to do and how in the world he was going to get out.

"It doesn't matter if I can survive the traps. If I don't get out of here, I'm gonna die of starvation."

Wick walked carefully back into the entry room. The door slid behind him once more. He turned around to find another vertical line marked next to the first one. Two marks.

The entry room hadn't changed at all.

"I need to get out," Wick told himself. "Or, I need a way out so I'm not trapped in here."

He looked at his Source Points and found he had plenty to spare since he walked in. The dungeon's manna density seemed twice that of the already-high Grey Forest. His skin felt like it was a sponge to the manna.

Wick aimed his hands where the entry door had been and activated Cut. A blue arc the size of his body split apart against the stone as if the magic was made of paper.

He frowned. Cut wasn't very powerful. It couldn't go through stone, but it was worth the effort. He did smile at how his manna was drained by the perfect amount his skill required.

Wick checked what he called the opposite door as Room B. This door had one vertical mark. He pressed his hand against it, and it opened. The tiles weren't on the floor but on the walls.

"Wall traps? Really?" Wick said smugly. Although he felt confident at seeing familiar traps, an uneasy sensation lurked in his tense shoulders.

The rooms were changing. Rooms shouldn't change like this. Every one of his senses were on high alert to fight off the confusion. It didn't make sense from any perspective -- magical, mechanical, or otherwise. Nothing he had read about dungeons prepared him for changing rooms, and the Guild only had stories about the Labyrinth.

Something clicked in the walls, and Wick's instincts took over. His knees bent and calves flexed. With all the extra manna he was absorbing, Wick summoned four Cuts, one for each wall, each arc two seconds apart. He expertly dodged five arrows. It wasn't like his coordination was that much better than other Sprawlers his age, but he didn't just rely on his sight. The sound the tiles made while sliding back and the spring of tension that held the arrows all informed him in a split second.

He just wished people were that easy to read in a fight. The thought reminded him of Pebbles' group of orphans. Once he got out of this puzzle of a dungeon, he needed to find a way to deal with them. Most of all, Lanton had to pay.

Besides the wall tiles, nothing changed. The tiles on the walls still had the Misonian lettering. Wick inspected them. Maybe they would hold a clue.

He was startled at how easy it was to memorize the letters. In a few minutes, he felt like he had known the letters his whole life. Thymesia was already paying off.

"I technically don't have a perfect memory," Wick said. "As long as I occasionally review what I remember, I could practically remember everything, just as long as I don't forget it."

He laughed at how ridiculous that would sound out loud to anyone who heard him say it. The explanation would have only made sense if they knew what his trait was. Even with the naiad's help, he barely even knew what it was.

After another round of inspection, Wick exited the room. The door slid shut, revealing two total vertical marks. "It's counting every time I enter and exit the room."

His SP was spent, so Wick sat down in the entry room, his back leaning against the wall. He felt the emptiness in his stomach and he smiled at it. The feeling reminded him of his dad's advice. "Hunger keeps you awake. Eating too much slows your mind. Keep your mind as sharp as your spade and pick."

After half an hour, Wick walked to Room A and opened it. The air around him immediately dropped in temperature, and he had to stop himself from stepping backward into the entry room. If he had, the door would have closed again, adding another marker.

Room A was completely covered in ice from floor to ceiling. Sharp icicles floated in the air near the ceiling, held up by a magic unknown to Wick. He gulped. "Wick, buddy, you are out of your element."

He used Cut, and arced the magical blade at a low angle against the floating icicles. They burst into three or four smaller pieces each in various directions. Wick caught a few on his jacket and forearms, blood dripping from his skin.

He didn't have to take some of the damage head-on, but he didn't want to step on to the ice floor in case there were new traps besides the floating icicles. Besides, the cuts were shallow and stopped bleeding almost immediately. They were more annoying than painful.

"That was stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid." He had been too careless with how easy it was to use his dad's skill. Wick had relied on his sorcery when he should have relied on his mind first.

"Back to basics, you idiot." He went through the room slowly, checking for traps. After checking for more traps and finding nothing, he looked for any signs of a way out. He found nothing.

When he finally stepped out of Room A nearly an hour later, Wick slid to the floor, his back against the wall, and stared at the three vertical markings on the stone door.

--

All Wick could feel was despair. Both doors for Rooms A and B had six markings on them.

Each time he entered the rooms, he was faced with a new series of traps more challenging than before. He endured cuts, nearly froze his eyes out, and barely evaded a row of swinging axes intent on divorcing his head from his neck, not to mention the floor tiles that shot out lava.

"Lava! Who in the Cursed Crawl uses lava for a trap!" Wick yelled to no one in the entry room, which he quickly changed the name to Home Sweet Home.

Nothing about these so-called dungeon rooms made sense. Did the nymph trick him into going here? No. That couldn't have been it. She had healed him from all his wounds and made a trade.

Well, it wasn't like he was an expert on how nymphs thought.

The hunger that he normally used to sharpened his mind had grown to something like a feral beast tearing him from the inside out. All he could think about now was food and water and getting out. How long had it been? Hours? Days?

He stared at the doors, each with their six markings. There was no possible way he was going in there again. What could possibly be worse than spewing lava?

Worse yet, even if he managed to survive the traps, he still wouldn't have a way out. His Thymesia or nearly perfect memory allowed him to review every facet of everything he had faced since entering the torture chamber of a dungeon, and the facts told him nothing.

Wick chuckled darkly in Home Sweet Home. "I'm probably not even absorbing manna. I'm probably just absorbing bad luck!"

Even though he was absorbing manna at a ridiculous rate in the dungeon, Wick's SP had been completely depleted when he barely escaped Room B's fire traps only to find nothing new or important. Room B's giant, round hole in the ceiling felt like the gods' telescope looking down on him just to get a good laugh.

Before, Wick's religious beliefs had been in line with most of the country in that they believed there were no gods. Etheria herself proved it. But right now, Wick just wished the gods existed so he would have someone to curse other than himself for being so damn stupid.

He just had the worst luck.

Luck. Wick turned the word in his mind as if seeing it for the first time. The nymph had told him that the dungeon contained both good luck and bad in equal measure.

He dipped his finger into his pockets, pulling out a small leather-bound notebook with a pencil, scrawling his memories down. Even with his nearly perfect memory, it was helpful to write things down. If anything, it calmed him.

The despair was still there, but the reminder that something good was on the other side of this bad gave him more than hope. It gave him strength. He felt the corners of his lips stretch into a dragon's grin.

"The nymph could see fates. She had no reason to lie about the good and bad luck that's here. All I've faced so far is bad. If I can get through this and solve whatever this place is, then I'm guaranteed something good."

As soon as he said the words aloud, Wick was sure he was right. He stood up, strength renewed by his hunger for more. Images of piles of gold floated in his vision so strongly that they actually appeared just like Max the Guild dog. He stared at the gold brightly for a few seconds as hope before casting it aside.

Wick wasn't here to escape. He was here to conquer. He was here to grow his hoard.

So, he calmed himself, analyzing the facts. Home Sweet Home was a safe room. It never changed. On the four corners were small yellow globes that spread dim lights. The lights were bright enough to light Room B's since it didn't have light-globes.

Rooms A and B changed into more difficult trap rooms every time Wick entered them. He was sure that his ten-year-old body, Sprawler training or not, wouldn't be able to handle a few more challenges, especially if they kept getting harder.

Room A had a giant globe in the center. But it wasn't that big, maybe the size of his head while the smaller globes in Home Sweet Home were the size of his palm.

When Room A changed, the only thing that didn't change was the globe tethered by rope in the ceiling.

Room B was nearly identical to Room A, except it had a round hole in the ceiling with no lights.

All the memories in Wick's head began to twist, clicking together like magnets. "And all the rooms have the Misonian lettering on them."

He summoned the images of all the letters with Thymesia. On the walls, they had been placed in horizontal sequence.

Wick acted on a hunch. His vision put the odd letters on top of each other without rotating their forms. First, he paired them two at a time, then three. Then four.

His eyes widened as he saw the pattern. "These aren't letters," Wick muttered. "They're instructions."

The globe with lines coming out of it wasn't a sun with rays of light. The lines and circles weren't letters. The Misonians were engineers, mad mouse scientists who fused magic and mechanics into wondrous splendors lost to time.

He looked at Room A's door and said, "Time to make that seven."

Without hesitation, Wick pressed his hand on Room A's door. The stone slid open to reveal flaming circles of protruding spikes spinning and shooting from the walls, moving back and forth in erratic rhythm.

Wick's heart raced at the sight, but he didn't step back. His grip tightened on his spade bought by his father's blood, sweat, and most importantly, money. He set his eyes on the prize, the globe of light hanging from the ceiling by rope.

Wick stared at the walls as they exchanged the fiery spike-circles. The floor didn't have any spikes coming out of it, but he knew better. He absorbed the sight of the mayhem before him, letting the chaotic rhythm of the spikes bleed into his memory.

With Thymesia, he memorized it all in half a minute. He had the room's rhythm down. If he tried to run into the room and dodge all the flaming spikes at once, he would be minced meat before getting grilled into a nice thin steak of arrogant little boy.

But Wick was a Sprawler. He would go for the gold as boldly as any of them, but he would do so with a sharp mind.

He had rested enough to absorb SP for fifteen Cuts, and he would need them all.

Wick reviewed the plan in his mind once before running into the room.

His first foot planted on the second tile away from the door. The tile loosened, slid to the side, and shot out a beam of ice that would have frozen a polar bear. But Wick was already moving past it, summoning five Cuts to his right.

The skill wasn't powerful enough to cut through, but five of them in a row stopped the momentum of the burning spike wheels just enough for him to break his run into a slide. Wick's insides burned from the multiple use of skills in a way he hadn't felt before. It felt like a line of fire had erupted from his heart to his arm.

His boots squeaked against the tiles, and he rolled to the side as a beam of fire shot up from the floor where he had slid, burning into the ceiling. Five more Cuts were arced in blue magical blades against another wave of oncoming spikes to his front, and he twisted his body upward with the help of his spade.

Wick's spade wasn't a weapon. It wasn't a tool. To him, it was another part of his body; he lifted himself into the air in a vaulting motion, spinning five more Cuts at more oncoming fiery wheels.

That gave him just enough breathing room to throw a single Cut at the rope holding the yellow orb. The orb dropped down a little farther away than Wick intended, and he ran, catching it with one hand.

His other hand pushed him deftly away from the tile he stepped on as a beam of fire shot from the sliding tile burning into his spade. Even in the chaos and at the edge of death, Wick allowed himself a grin. His spade's handle was made of pluminwood, and a little fire wouldn't get the best of it.

He didn't have to turn around to see where he had stepped. Thymesia kicked in, giving the perfect memory of where he was.

Wick ran backward halfway through the path of safe tiles, twisting around to use the final four Cuts to block a wave of fiery spirals of spiky death.

He dove into the entrance room as the stone door slid behind him, the yellow globe of light spilling from his hand onto the floor. Wick let out a breath he didn't realize he had been holding. "Home Sweet Home."

Even though he was hungry and tired, he sat himself against the wall and rested, waiting for his body to absorb as much manna as it could. Finally, he had enough Source Points for twenty Cuts.

"Puzzle dungeon," Wick said. "That's what I'll call it."

The name was a little too on the nose and kind of ridiculous, but he was a pioneer, dammit. It was a long wait to get all the SP, but he didn't know what he would face when he completed this dungeon. That is, if he was right about everything.

Wick's knees wavered as he stood himself up with his spade. "Bold gold and all that," he muttered tiredly. He needed a pep talk for what was to come, but that was all he could manage. Every ounce of energy was needed for the next and hopefully final room.

He held the yellow orb in one hand and looked over his shoulder to Room A, giving the seven-marked stone door a friendly single-fingered salute.

Wick pressed his spade's bone-end to the door for Room B, and the stone slid open.

The plan he had been forming while waiting to absorb manna was complicated and required finesse. As soon as the door opened to reveal lava shooting from the ceiling corners and pendulum blades swinging from wall to wall, Wick rolled his eyes and threw away his very good, but admittedly complicated plan.

"I don't have time for this," he groaned.

He leaned his spade against the threshold of the door, opened his palm and yelled, "Cut!"

Blue blades arced in several directions, halting or slowing the momentum of the pendulums. Wick ignored the lava altogether.

Wick shifted his weight to his back heel, held the yellow orb behind him at the waist, and chucked it hard and fast at the empty circular hole in the ceiling.

The ball soared effortlessly through the air, untouched by lava or blades, a perfect path made by Wick's trait, skill, and annoyance at the traps. Still, he felt his mouth go even dryer and his heart almost stop during the ball's flight.

But as the globe of light sunk into the empty hole in the ceiling like it had been there all along, Wick suddenly felt very stupid. The whole puzzle could have been solved even without his special trait. A child, a smaller child, could have figured it out.

"Ball-shaped thing goes into ball-shaped hole, you idiot."

Wick picked up his spade, stepped back into the entrance room, and collapsed on his back. He closed his eyes, exhausted, if only for a second. When he opened them again, he realized he was no longer in Home Sweet Home.

He was in a small room with two doors next to each other. One was labeled in merchant speak, "Exit", while the other was labeled, "Guardian".

What caught his attention was a chest. It wasn't a very big chest, and it bore no key hole, just a simple twist latch. Wick crawled to the chest and hugged it like he was a starving boy and it was a hot meal.

Suddenly, a thought came to him, and he pushed back from the chest, pointing his spade at it. "It better not be a mimic. I swear to nonexistent gods that if this thing is a mimic, I'm gonna kill someone."

After taking the due diligence to check the chest for traps or any signs of mimicry, Wick finally twisted the latch and opened it.

Inside was not gold or a powerful artifact or magical weapon. Instead, it was a simple iron orb that was curiously warm to the touch. The despair he had felt in the puzzle dungeon was nothing compared to the dread in his stomach telling him it was all for laughs.

Before his anger took hold of him, a message box appeared.

You are the first to conquer the dungeon's first trial and have gained the Title: The Crafter, Legacy of the Misonians

Title: The Crafter, Legacy of the Misonians

All skills and skill slots are now 50% of their standard costs.

Unparalleled Crafters of the Ages. Through their inheritance, you will now receive a base golem as a model for future golems, and the pinnacle of their achievements, the skill, Automate.