Hm. Strange. It appears the Lieutenant I sent to find Viktoria has been disconnected somehow. Don’t tell me that the traveller actually managed to kill them both off? No, there must be something else at play. But, just in case, I’ll summon all of my Soldiers. Purely as a precautionary method, of course. It’s bad strategy to take risks, even when they are so clearly unlikely to happen. I suppose, if I’m going to do that I may as well activate the traps, no? Though of course, nothing is wrong.

Nothing is going wrong at all.

----

Behind Reto, the spikes of the gate slammed into the top of the doorway with a clang of finality, missing them by centimetres. The person at the other end of the room hurried to lift the sconce and open the gate, but before they could move Reto had active Riven Spell on them. Reto drew a shuddering breath as the enemy became silent, slowly blinking and attempting to figure out what was happening.

Fuck, that was too close. I need some way to deal with traps if they’re gonna be like that the rest of the way up.

Looking to the rest of the room, it appears similar to the rest of the lair that they’d seen already, the only difference being the prevalence of empty sconces. Whilst earlier rooms had sparse torches, this place had 3 sconces to a wall, most of which were empty.

Was that hidden lever supposed to be subtle?

In the centre of the back of the room, was a staircase. It went up a small amount before hitting the wall and splitting to the left and right, creating something of a balcony. It seems awfully decorative compared to the rest of the place, though still made in the same dull stone.

They suspiciously looked around, before moving onto the first step. When nothing happened, they moved up to the third, skipping one entirely, before pausing again. This continued up until halfway up the second portion of the staircase, where there was a small, nigh-imperceptible, clicking sound. With a mental yell, they leapt back onto the landing just as a wall of spikes similar to the previous gate shot out into the wall, on each side.

Reto looked at the newly made wall, disconcerted.

How can I get past now? If there’s any sort of lever it’ll be on the other side, so unless I can reach it I’m out of options. Unless.

They looked up from the small landing in the middle of the staircase, and confirmed that there was no wall above it. By using the bars of the spikes as a ladder, they could climb onto the balcony of the next floor, though it seems calling it a balcony is something of an exaggeration.

They expected it to be more difficult, as on a closer inspection they are actually angled somewhat inwards, so the top is closer to the middle of the two flights of stairs than the bottom. However, as it turned out it doesn’t seem to have been any more difficult than a ladder would normally be.

Unless this is because of that body enhancement that Mana does, but I don’t climb ladders enough to be able to tell unfortunately.

Once at the top, there were once again two doors. In accordance with the path on the first floor they took the doorway on the right, crouching at first in case there were any enemies. Though there weren’t any they could see, they do appear to have found the armoury. Looking left, they took note of the fact that they both lead to the same room.

The armoury had lot’s of weapons just carelessly thrown onto tables and shelves, likely because the thralls can’t be controlled well enough to use much dexterity after a certain point. Many of the weapons are in poor condition, though whether this is because they are old, extensive use, or the way they were stored, it’s difficult to tell.

They stepped between the shelves, hoping to find something of use, when they came across something interesting. It seems that this world is at the level of technological advancement to have crossbows, at least, as there’s a pile of a few of them. Unfortunately, they’ve all had their strings either removed or broken, so they were unusable. Despite this, Reto opted to take just one in the case that it may be useful, though first they had to find a belt it could be kept on.

In the process of doing so, they found a bow, string intact. They weren’t entirely sure how exactly to unstring it, but learned that it was actually quite simple. After around 10 minutes of work, they had a mostly functional crossbow, albeit with some of the drawstring hanging off the edges.

Looking further, they found a belt with a dagger already strapped to it, and decided to take them both. Taking it out of the belt loop the dagger seems to be in fairly poor condition, but it should be functional enough for the time being.

They stepped through the left exit, and came across a staircase, this time with no-one nearby. They did notice some more bows however, and the loop-holes to go with them. Peering through curiously, they saw what must have been dozens of people approaching the lair, moving perfectly in sync with each other. Thoroughly disturbed, and worried for their own safety, they hurried to the next floor.

This time around, they took the same amount of care as with the previous floor. There was indeed another click this time, however when they jumped back nothing seemed to happen. Curiously, they continued up the stairs only to see some heavy stone slabs closing over the next doorways, already halfway down.

Taking yet another risk, they attempted to use the smooth and drab floor to their advantage and slide beneath the closing door, again on the right side. It seems that fate may be on their side, as they were able to slide through with little issue, though near the end it accelerated and trapped some of their hair. Given the length, that was another exceedingly close call.

After pulling their hair out from under the door, they looked around the room to find another armoury. This one though, felt different. The air seemed to be charged with tension, the weapons seemed more important. Not to mention that, in this room, they were carefully arranged and locked carefully. They struggle to imagine the limits of what might happen were they to attempt to break one of these open, but it can’t be good.

They were broken out of their considerations upon hearing a the grating sound of rock scraping against rock, and looked to see the opposite doorways being blocked as well. With a mental groan they run over to them and prepared to slide under again.

What is this, Indiana Jones? I’m not even stealing any indigenous religious artefacts though!

Armed with the knowledge that it’ll likely close faster neat the end, they were able to make it through the door with more than a little room to spare. They stood up in a room that looks identical to the other staircases, with the key difference that it is much darker. The only light comes from the loop-holes, and it is unable to reach the staircase.

Reto, though currently extremely suspicious, no longer had any other direction to go. The slabs behind them have blended almost seamlessly with the wall, and in the darkness it’s impossible to tell where they were.

They walked up the steps, prepared to jump at the half way point, but was shocked to feel a sharp pain in their right foot as soon as they touched the first step. They crouched down and discovered a series of holes in the sides of the steps, that must activate when the step beneath them feels weight.

These just keep getting worse, huh?

With effort they were barely able to clear the first flight and get to a landing, but the twinge of pain from their foot caused them to fail to stay stood up, and end up laying face down. As soon as their full weight was on the ground, they heard a click from somewhere ahead of them.

In a moment of desperate panic, they unhooked their dagger and tried to block with it. It managed to stop two of them, they seemed to stop moving as soon as they hit something solid, but one still got the hand holding the dagger, and they ended up with an additional two cuts, one on either arm.

Oh my god. I need to hurry up and get out of here. And, I should probably do something about these cuts.

They fought to push themselves up through the pain, wincing as it was just made worse with every movement. They were hoping to use their jumper to bandage the wounds, but the thought of taking it off over there arms caused shivers to roll down their spine. Instead, they reached to the dagger where it was left on the ground, and started sawing at the threads connecting the sleeves to the rest of it. Logically it should be easy, but the dagger was much blunter than they first realised.

The wounds on their arms were only shallow, but they were still bleeding quite a lot and already they were almost feeling dizzy from it. They wrapped the sleeves around and tied them in a knot, but due to the fact they were doing it one-handed on each side, and were using the same knot as they’d use to tie their shoelaces, it seemed unlikely to do much good. Deciding to take precautions if there was some sort of spell effect making the bleeding worse, they moved Riven Spell back to being in a sphere around them.

The first thing that happened is that the blood loss immediately slowed. Then, they heard clicks from all around them and shot into a jump.

The spike traps on all of the steps around them activated all at once and, had they jumped any sooner, they would have been grievously injured. It does seem that the enhanced bleeding was a spell effect, rather than a poison, or Reto not understanding how much people bleed.

When they landed, it was on the spikes as they would ordinarily be retracting. Riven Spell seems to have prevented them all from being able to go back into the walls, which does make sense because there’s no way the outside wall is actually thick enough to hold them.

Oh, good, the blood loss has been dealt with. Now I just need to worry about infection, fighting the big boss guy, and regular blood loss. Almost nothing. Could I at least take the spikes?

Tugging at one of them, it caught on something in the wall. Looking closer, they couldn’t see anything because of the darkness. Deciding to probe the hole with their dagger, they hit a sheet of metal that seems to be connected to the spikes, and must be what was keeping them from being taken out.

Oh great, just my luck isn’t it? Can’t even take the deadly traps for my own benefit.

They took the steps slowly, to give the spikes time to be sent out before stepping over them, until they soon made it to the top. Once there, they were this time faced with only one door in the middle, this time with an actual door in it.

Why is it different here then? Could this be the last floor?

They warily approached it from the right side, and gently pushed it with the tip of their dagger. When there was no reaction, they tried to use it to turn what they discovered was a doorknob, the darkness persisting up here made it hard to tell, and gave up with the dagger and just opened it normally.

The door swung upon with an ominous creak, revealing a more brightly lit, and disturbing, sight.

Lining the room were a series of cages. At the moment they were all empty, but the blood along the floor of some of them didn’t imply anything good. There was one person going around and cleaning each of them, and there were only a few left.

At the end of the room, was a person. He was wearing dark robes, which obscured any armour or weapons he might have, aside from an ornate helmet that covered most of his head. His eyes were closed, and there was a look of consternation on his face, his hands kept twitching as if to grab something only to abort the motion partway through.

As Reto moved through the door it suddenly slammed shut behind them, jolting the man’s eyes open and causing him to immediately draw a sword.

“The interloper! I’ve been searching for you, you know. I’d thought you were close, but to think, right under my nose the whole time! Well, of course I’ve planned for this.”

With a gesture in Retos direction, the man ordered a group of around a dozen fully armoured minions to jump out of the ceiling, looking as though they were jumping right through it. Their must have been a similar illusion to that which hides the loop-holes for archers to fire through.

They started approaching Reto, who then attempted to direct Riven Spell towards them, only to find it not listening to them at all. In fact, it felt as though it were unravelling.

The fuck? I just got this, and already I’ve lost it! What did I do? Unless there’s a spell that can unravel something that breaks spells. I don’t have a clue how that would work though.

By the time the group was on them, it had truly gone entirely, leaving them lacking in a sense that they barely realised they had.

“I’ve had the mages Enlisted in my service working on that little trick for years before now! It’s quite insidious, I’ll admit. You probably wouldn’t have even noticed until it was too late.”

Wait, so this has been active for a while? But it had too sudden of an effect for it to have been passively ramping up though, so it must have been manually activated then. But when did it get activated then? Was it when I went through the gate? It must have been before I got Riven Spell, nothing I’ve seen so far has been able to stand up to that. Could it have been when I first entered the town?

Amidst all of these thoughts, they hadn’t been entirely idle. Though this group was moving much faster than the others they’d seen, they are still not exactly fast. Because of this, they had time to draw their dagger, though not the crossbow because they haven’t found any bolts.

“Stealing from my armoury? When will the list of crimes end?”

This guy talks too much

They wanted to circle around the room, but the cages are making a smaller corridor, and the ‘soldiers’ have already started to spread out to form a barrier.

Could I climb onto the cages?

There were gaps large enough to function as footholds, but they were also large enough for them to slip through a gap if they don’t move along the top slowly.

Not too bad of an idea, but then what? Could I jump directly at the master?

From this angle, they couldn’t tell exactly how far away he would be, but it may be possible. Plan set, they started to climb the closest cage. They are quite close to the ceiling on the edges, though it moves further upwards in the middle of the room, so they won’t be able to move as fast as they envisioned, and jumping will be quite difficult.

There were 6 cages on each side of the room, each around 3 metres across, so they’ll have to travel 18 metres. If they can move at 3m/s that’ll only be 6 seconds, which shouldn’t give the soldiers on the ground time to catch them.

An issue arises when, halfway across, they bump into something that isn’t there. This thing than grabs them, revealing that they were standing in a small area with an illusion over it on the cages.

It, or rather her based off what they could feel, had a rather strong grip. They pushed their uninjured foot against the side of one of the bars making up the cages to give them the leverage to push this person over, leading to them being on top of her, partially in the illusory field. They tried to crawl to their destination but had their right ankle grabbed as they were almost away. Their foot instinctively shot backwards, causing a shot of pain, but allowing their foot to slip out of the women’s grip.

Trying their hardest to ignore the pain, they prepared to jump.

“What did you hope to accomplish now? You think I don’t have any more traps prepared for you? Hah! As if I would be so foolish.”

Reto untied the sleeve from their left arm, lamenting the lack of a proper bandage for it, and tried to throw it at the man. Though it didn’t even go half the distance, it did travel unimpeded. They jumped, trying to land on the same location as the sleeve, and stumbled slightly on the landing.

They threw out their right arm to catch themselves, but their hand caught on an invisible blade, followed by their sleeve which was then cut completely off. This movement dislodged the blade, making a portion of it visible.

They grabbed the remnants of cotton and wrapped them around their hand, in order to reduce the damage from yanking the blade out of whatever was holding it. It lacked a handle, but based on the pain from holding it, must be very sharp.

Fuck! That hurts.

The master was getting visibly nervous by that point, but mustn’t have prepared an exit strategy, based on his reactions. Reto stalked menacingly towards him, moving carefully to avoid any other hidden traps, before suddenly lunging and brandishing the blade towards him. As it sunk into his flesh, an illusion was dispelled revealing a completely different person standing there, unblinking.

All around the room, illusions were dispelled, including a hidden hallway behind the chair he was sitting in. All there was through it was a glowing blue room, with esoteric runes carved into every surface.

God dammit! All that, and he just got away?

As the adrenaline fade, they looked to the chair that seemed so inviting, and carelessly walked towards it, barely avoiding the various blade traps scattered across the floor. As they were about to sit in the chair, it seemed time stopped for a moment, before resuming with a message.

[Due to repeated sleeping during System messages, messages will be delayed until you are in the correct state to read them]

Though they didn’t sleep, they did just sit there, blood slowly dripping from their wounds and too disappointed with themselves to move just yet.

Reto Mason – Mage Adept – Lv.2

Health – 5/5

Will – 21/25

Mana – 40/45

Power

: Physical – 1.05

: Mental – 1.05

: Magical – 1.30

Durability

: Physical – 1.00

: Mental – 1.20

: Magical – 1.15

Speed

: Physical – 1.05

: Mental – 1.25

: Magical – 1.50

{Desolate Survivalism} – {Mana Feeding} – {Riven Spell}

{Anti-hero}

{Adept Mage}

{Army of One}