Boulder

We're finally in front of the Key of Guile. Though I've enjoyed seeing all of the interesting traps and obstacles on the way here, even I have to admit that it feels like it's taken us a while to get this far. It's certainly been longer than the simpler, more straight-forward Hall of Strength.

But then, if we hadn't had Leuke with us, we might still have been straining away on that one, too.

The dais is made of bricks of native stone, rising up from the tile of the temple floor, the sunlight coming down glinting off of its swirled shape. I'm reminded it's not a tumbler key, but an insert into a larger mechanism made to look like a decoration. Behind the entire thing is a massive statue of a three-eyed ogre's head, its eyes all turned as if concentrating their attention on whoever might stand before the key.

"Alright, fearless leader," Ayre asks as he paces back and forth at the bottom of the steps, "what are we looking at this time? Electrified stand? Collapsing steps into a pit of snakes? An illusory key that entrances us so we won't stop grabbing for it?"

I'm standing facing the key directly, and I grab my chin with one hand while crossing the other arm over my stomach. "Oh, actually, those are some really good ideas! But no, it's just sitting there."

Ayre pauses in his pacing to turn toward me. "Just sitting there? In this place? Why would anything in this entire Hall be just sitting there?!"

"Because by this time," I explain, "if you've been paying any attention at all, you are going to be so neurotic about what's going to go wrong with the key that you aren't looking around for anything else."

Ayre narrows his eyes. "You are putting way too much emphasis on intelligent design, Remmi."

Leuke puts his hands forward. "Let's not be so quick. She's had a pretty good record so far, right? Spell it out for us, Rem. What is going to happen?"

I toss my gaze around the room again. "Well, let's assume for a moment that the Hall of Guile isn't randomly generated. It's designed to live up to its name. It tests our wit, our perception, our intelligence. But it's just a Hall. Sooner or later, it has to come to an end, and the only way out back to the Main Hall is the way we came in."

"Yeah," Ayre agrees easily enough, "so we have to go through all of the traps all over again."

"Except, like you told Korrigan," I point out, "we've already done them. We've either disabled them or understand them. Let's take a moment and go through them."

I start counting off on my fingers. "Starting from the last, we've got a tilting bridge that the designer can assume we have either permanently disabled or can easily bypass, turning the biggest head scratcher into a non-issue."

A second finger. "Then we've got a mirror maze we've already navigated, so as long as we didn't stumble through it until we found the exit, the designer can assume we have at least a reasonably solid path back through."

Third finger. "Invisible path hidden by an illusion. Either we dispelled the illusion or deciphered its boundaries somehow. So long as we didn't tiptoe through it with a seeing cane, the designer can assume any exit is more concerned with not tripping over the edge on the way back out than navigating it all over again."

Last finger. "Pits and vines. Either we made a bridge or killed all of the vines. Either way, the obstacle heading out is more about a narrow path than a difficult hurdle."

And, finally, my thumb. "Light beam spear traps. Absolutely no challenge so long as you take your time to maneuver around them."

Ayre crosses his arms, one hip tilted out. "We remember the traps, Remmi. We were there. You're lecturing."

"Stay with me a moment, I'm reaching my point," I insist. "So if you know the people going through your Hall are going to have to go right back out the same way they came in, what can you do to add more challenge to the traps they've already gone through? In particular, how can you make the easiest first traps the most dangerous last traps?"

The three before me go silent for a moment, but it's Korrigan who comes up with the answer first. "The first traps were easy because we could take our time moving past them. So you'd want to take that away!"

I point dramatically to the oni. "Exactly! There's no point in trapping the key, because what taking the key is going to trigger is going to run us back out of here in a hurry!"

"And what's that going to look like?" Ayre asks.

But I throw my arms up in the air. "Who knows! This whole hall could start collapsing, or a lava flow could open up! Great bursts of elemental geysers could erupt so that we have to keep ahead of them or get burned alive! We won't know until we grab the key!"

"So we know it's coming, though," Leuke reasons. "Can we do anything to stop it?"

"Honestly, these things are, like, hardwired into the place usually," I try to explain. "Once it starts, nothing's going to stop it. The most we can probably do is slow it down by risking being caught in it, and that's assuming it's something with a clear source. Not much we can do if the place just comes apart at the seams."

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"So, that's it?" the elf asks. "We just grab the key and run?"

"We just grab the key and run," I confirm.

"Oh, this is going to suck …"

I ignore Ayre's complaining and point to Leuke. "You're on Korrigan duty again!" Then, to the oni, "Sorry, but we can't risk you falling behind because your stamina gives out or you can't keep up with us. There may be no time for us to grab you if that happens."

But she shakes her head. "No, I understand. It's okay."

"Good! Everybody on your marks!"

Leuke gets a good grip on Korrigan and Ayre secures his bow.

I turn around and yank the key off of the plinth, and the entire hall begins to rumble and shake. The mouth of the giant head statue starts to shift in grinding dust as it slowly opens, and I catch sight of something solid just behind it.

My face splits into a grin. "Ooh, classic!" I stuff the key into my storage space and turn to the others. "It's a giant boulder! Run!"

Even though they're all ahead of me, I burn Empower to leap ahead, because I know I'm going to be essential to getting past the first two obstacles. At the same time as I'm firing to time-lock the bridge, that boulder comes down and completely crushes the dais, and it's just getting started.

I'm already changing to my overpressure rounds as we clear the pit, and I'm raising the pistol ahead of me as we charge toward the mirror maze. "I hate to do this, but I really hope it works!"

The boulder crushes the bridge, but is so massive that it keeps rolling right over the pit. I open fire on the exterior wall of the mirror maze, sending shards of glass shattering in every direction as we sprint through the interior of its layout.

"I HAD NO PART OF THAT! ALL BAD LUCK RESTS SOLELY ON REMMI!" Ayre shouts as we run through the glass shards of the mirror maze.

"It's an emergency," I shout back. "Fate will understand! Stick to the sides and watch out for pressure plates and broken glass!"

"We're all wearing reinforced or armored boots," the elf reminds me in response. "The glass will be fine!"

We tear past the still-deactivated barrier and into the no-man's land of the illusory path. If I'm due bad luck for shooting us a route through the maze, that boulder is doomed because it demolishes the entire rest of the funhouse mirror collection.

"Follow the sand," I remind everybody with a shout, motioning everyone past me since I no longer need to be in front to shoot things. In fact, I switch back to the EzStop rounds and pop a couple of them into the boulder, but golden light flashes over it and disappears. It doesn't even slow down. "Guess I found out the too-much-mass limit."

It doesn't care about my one-liner, either, and I turn and dash after the rest of the group.

The illusory path has the added benefit of funneling us into a line, which we maintain right into the pit traps, running along the narrow path along the wall.

"All we've got left are the spear traps," I shout ahead. "The bend will slow the boulder down for just a moment! Leuke, you're in front! If you can't run bent over and carrying Korrigan, too, now's the time to put her down and crawl for all you're worth!"

"Don't worry," he calls back, "I've got this! You aren't the only Hero here today, Rem!"

What I can only describe as a red … aura surrounds his form, and rather than slowing down or attempting any evasion, he just lowers his shoulder, turning Korrigan toward the far wall so that his body is between her and the spear holes, and he powers right through the beams of light.

The spears rush out and shatter against his armor like he's suddenly become Superman. He just tears through them like they aren't even there, using his body to shield Korrigan from harm, and leaving Ayre and myself with nothing to do but run behind him in his wake.

I'm in awe, but this section of the tunnel is long. Longer, apparently, than the duration of his enhancement. I start to see the light around him dim when he's still got two left to go. I can immediately tell he notices it, too, but rather than slowing down or changing course, he wraps Korrigan tighter in his arms and turns her fully away from the spears entirely, going from trusting his skill to trusting his armor and his own Toughness stat.

Still, I can see him flinch up as he heads into the next light. I suspect he knows it's going to hurt. But I bring my gun up and take aim. The moment he passes through the beam of light, I fire, and the spears stop inches from him, all three surrounded by a golden light. He wastes as little time as possible picking his jaw up off of the floor and keeps running like he's a quarterback and Korrigan's the ball for the final touchdown of the playoffs.

One more beam of light, and I fire through the first set of spears, managing to catch the second one, too. He and Korrigan clear it, and, not wanting to risk those things timing out on us and getting us caught behind their slow retraction, I holster my gun, activate Empower and scoop Ayre up as we shoot through, too.

"Through the door, through the door," I shout, and Leuke all but kicks it off its hinges as we throw ourselves through it.

A moment later, there's a great crash and the entire dungeon seems to shake as the boulder collides with the other side of the wall to the Hall of Guile, but the dungeon wall holds, and a moment later, everything falls to silence again.

Leuke, Ayre and I all pretty much collapse where we are, slumping against the cold stone of the main hall's floor.

"We made it," I mutter. "Eat your heart out, Dr. Jones."

"Good shooting," Leuke calls over to me. "Guess we can call us even for the wood golem now, eh?"

I scoff. "I'm not sure those things could have taken you down even without that crazy skill you used."

He shrugs with one shoulder. "It's nice, but I run out of mana way too fast."

"Mages get a skill for reducing mana consumption," I advise him. "It's worth picking up to double the duration of buffs like that."

Effectively sitting in my lap, Ayre sighs and pushes himself up with a red face, running his hands down the sides of his tunic to straighten it out. "And you really need to stop picking me up and carrying me, Remmi! I'm not some … some damsel!"

"Sorry, I didn't have time to ask permission." I jump to my feet and throw an arm around the elf's shoulder. "But don't worry, I know you're not some damsel, you're my damsel."

"Ew! Remmi!" I laugh even as Ayre pushes me away.

"Hey, guys?" It's Korrigan speaking up that catches all of our attention, and her gaze is on the floor ahead of us. "Was that chest sitting there when we came through here before?"

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.