Chapter 165: Chapter 99

Tibs added notes to the paper regarding the sequence of trigger that had led to the boar’s crest. The next team would have to verify his work.

As with the lion crest, this one was a puzzle; also a sliding square puzzle. But unlike the other, instead of moving one square at a time, using the empty space, he needed to slide a line in its entirety. The square at the edge vanished into it as he slid it and reappeared on the other side.

“How does it do that?” Jackal asked.

“Essence,” Khumdar replied in his usual casual tone.

Tibs felt the essence as he pushed a column down. He couldn’t tell all of them, but it had the same overall sense of the doorways as the square moved through it. Tandy didn’t know how Sto could use the essence in this way. She’d asked her teacher, but if he knew, he wasn’t telling her.

Once he set aside the question of how it happened, moving the square to reform the crest was straightforward. Just like with the lion, the closer to finishing he was, the tougher it became, but this time he wasn’t stuck at accomplishing it without undoing the previous work. All he needed to do was find the sequence of moves which gave the appearance of chaos, while actually ending with the tiles he wanted in their proper place.

The last column slid into place, completing the boar crest. Something clicked, and the door slid down with a groan of stone against stone.

The room consisted of a grid made of one and eight square tiles in each direction, large enough for one person to stand on it. It made them roughly half the size of the ones in the lion room.

Instead of lying flat on the ground, they were at various heights, only a few level were with the floor, some pressed against the ceiling, and most somewhere between, but with the gap in height large enough that they would be difficult to leaped.

Gerald’s notes on the room told him the sides were too sheer and hard to be climbed, even with tools, and that the columns’ height changed each time someone stepped onto one, but his team hadn’t been able to work out the pattern governing the changes. On the other side was a lever which, unless Ganny changed how things went, would turn the room ‘off’. So if they could get one person to the other side, they’d won.

The door was wide enough he had four tiles to pick from, but two were higher than the top of the door, and one was too close to it for him to be willing to risk it. Gerald had told him the columns moved the moment a person’s weight was added, and not always down. With that one, if it went up, he wouldn’t have the time to get fully on. The column also didn’t go down to where they had started when the person let go. That information also told him all four started near the floor, so the room didn’t reset identically for the next team.

Tibs leaped and grabbed the edge of the tile and hurried to climb on it even as it lowered. Half his height from the floor, it clicked and stopped, while the one next to it kept moving until it was level with the ground, and the one on his left move up past the top of the door. Within the room, more columns moved up and down until it was a new landscape of heights.

Tibs sat and looked at his friends. “And that’s the puzzle for this room. Anytime one of us steps onto a tile, it, and others, will change in response.

“So you move around until you’re stuck,” Jackal said, “then one of us goes in until it opens up for you again.”

“It can’t be that simply,” Carina said, then closed her eyes. “The room is square, and eighteen tiles twice is…. Three hundred and twenty-four.”

“Eighteen twice is thirty-six,” Jackal said.

“It’s not that kind of twice,” she replied. “It’s twice because they’re in both directions.”

“And this is why I leave numbers to the sorcerer,” the fighter said.

“Can these four tiles change things enough you’ll be able to be unstuck?” she asked.

Tibs shrugged. “Gerald’s team is the only one that went in at this point, so I don’t have a lot of information. Some columns might be fixed, but for the others, it’s like you saw. Stepping on one moves a lot of them, but not always in the same way. Getting on here made it go down. If I do it again, it might go down further, or go up. This one might stay the same, it might move in either direction.”

Mez leaned in to look at the ceiling. “If we’re on a tile as it goes to the ceiling, that’s going to be a problem.”

“Then you jump off,” Jackal said.

The archer looked at him. “That’s quite a drop. You’ll be fine, being stone, and Tibs likes to throw himself out of high windows so—”

“I only did that trying to get my audience with air,” Tibs pointed out.

“It was my understanding,” Khumdar said, “that you accomplished it by throwing yourself off a mountain.”

Tibs glared at the smiling cleric. “I tripped.”

“You’re still experienced,” Mez said. “Carina can use air to lower herself. Me and Khumdar won’t manage it without breaking something.”

“And landing on a new tile will cause more changes.” Carina studied the landscape. “It looks open all the way, so I should be able to float myself there. Or you can use that trick with hard air you did in the lion room.”

“Ganny made this floor,” Tibs said, “so I’m confident she’s figured out a way to keep us from cheating since she saw us do that last time.”

“Hey,” Sto exclaimed. “Are you implying I can’t come up with a way to stop you from cheating?”

“How many tries did it take until Tibs was forced to go through the maze you made for him?” Ganny asked innocently.

“Tibs, find a way to cheat,” Sto ordered.

He smiled. “We can try it, or something else. I can’t activate the lever from here since even without the mess Ganny made of my sense, I can’t reach that far.”

“I can’t see it,” Mez said, “so I can’t shoot it.”

“Same with me,” Carina said.

“Do you know where it is?” the archer asked, thoughtful.

“All Gerald managed to get is that it’s on the far wall, by the crest and over the chest. I don’t think destroying it will help us.”

“Does the lever have to be pulled up or down?”

Tibs shrugged. “They didn’t get far enough to try it, and what position it starts with isn’t something he noted.”

“Then I think we’re going to have to make our way across somehow,” Mez admitted.

Tibs stood. “Let me walk around the room and see if I can work out the pattern, then we’ll see how we go.”

* * * * *

Tibs stood on a platform, watching the others move as he had instructed. Platforms all around him moved, but his was one that either wasn’t affected by how he’d moved around, or didn’t move at all. He was ready to jump off the moment he felt it shift.

He’d tested using the hard air. As soon as he’d stepped on it, the platforms randomly moved up to smash against the ceiling, as Ganny giggled maniacally, until he stepped onto a tile. Everything shifted, then settled into a landscape that didn’t try to outright kill him.

He wasn’t able to write it down yet, but Tibs’s confidence there was a pattern grew as he moved around and with how none of the platforms rose to flatten his friends against the ceiling.

Now, it would have to be enough to get one of them to the other side.

“Jackal,” He called, once the platforms stopped moving. “Two ahead and one to the left. Can you make it?” It was twice the fighter’s height, but from where he was, Jackal was hidden from Tibs’s view.

“I think so.”

Tibs decided there was enough confidence in his friend’s voice. “That one shouldn’t cause ours to change.”

“And if we start feeling our platform shift,” Carina picked up, “we jump to—”

“No,” Tibs said.

“Or, you know, if I can’t make the jump,” Jackal said.

“Stop!” Tibs ordered. “Can you or can’t you make it?”

The fighter took his time answering. “Yes, I can.”

“Okay. If your platform shifts, you only jump if it goes up, and I’ll tell you where. If we start jumping on and off without a plan, we’re not going to make it.”

“Don’t worry, Tibs,” Mez said. “Unlike Jackal, I’m not scared.”

“I’m not scared,” Jackal replied. “Just worried my actions will kill one of you. Then I have to deal with hiding from Tibs, so he doesn’t kill me.”

“I won’t kill you,” Tibs said, “Kroseph wouldn’t forgive me.”

“I don’t know,” Carina said. “If Jackal ends up killing one of us, he might find that an acceptable reaction. I’m sure that given time, he’d forgive you.”

“Jackal isn’t going to get anyone killed,” Tibs said in exasperation, “so I’m not going to have to kill him and Kroseph isn’t going to have to worry about forgiving me. Now, can we get on with this?” He told his friends which platform to jump to if theirs shifted, then gave Jackal the go ahead.

With a grunt, then the groaning of stone as the landscape of the room shifted, Jackal became visible on above it.

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Tibs watched the change, counting the number of platform that moved. He counted two and two. That meant he’d missed two of them. He was sure that each platform was connected to two and four others.

“Carina,” he said once they were all still. “Drop to the one on your right. Khumdar, you’ll got three ahead, Mez, yours will go down, if it goes up, two back and two to the right. Khumdar, if yours goes up, drop to the one on the left and back. Jackal, can you hang off the side of yours?”

“I thought you didn’t want to kill me.”

“That’s why I’m checking. I’m not sure how high yours will go in response to Carina’s move, and there’s nothing you can reach I’m confident I can predict the effect of on our platforms.”

The fighter leaned over the side, rested a hand against the column, then pushed in and made a handhold. “Not as easy as it should be, but I can manage it.”

“Then do that.” Once he was ready, he instructed Carina to move. Mez had to leap off, as his moved up, and that cause more movement, but none that affected them, it only complicated Tibs’s view of the room.

Until they worked out the pattern, he suspected it would be impossible to do this room and the others in the time they had before the next team entered. He added notes to the papers, studied the room, and gave his instructions.

The progress was slow and came with three near-deaths. Two because his instructions were wrong, and the last when Khumdar couldn’t reach the pillar he’d leaped for and the one he landed on sent Carina’s rocketing up. She threw herself off and used air to control her descent. Tibs quickly working out a safe platform before Ganny’s safeguard against them flying kicked in.

He made a note of how long Carina was in the air. There might be a way to make use of it in the future. That unexpected shift had resulted in even more delays, but in time, they were on the other side.

Jackal was the one to leap off and onto the safe section. He pulled the switch down and slowly, every platform lowered to the ground. By the time Tibs was done making his notes, he could feel the fire filament in the crest pulsing beyond what he could sense, and he barely felt the vibration in the floor that resulted from it.

“It’s empty,” Jackal said, crestfallen, looking into the open chest.

“Did he think I was going to trust him not to take something meant for one of you?” Sto asked smugly. “Tell him to close the chest.”

Jackal slammed the lid close hard enough Tibs was surprised it didn’t break. The fighter glared at Tibs when he was instructed to open it again. The glare as he looked in turned to surprise, and he pulled a belt pouch out of it.

It wasn’t like the one Sto had given Tibs. That one had been a supple leather bag he could attach to his best. This one was larger and made sturdier. It went from the tip of Jackal’s fingers to the middle of his forearm and was boxier. It reminded Tibs of what the workers had to hold nails and other small material they needed when building homes, but theirs would come attacked to the belt and have hoops to hold tools.

Sensing it gave him an odd sensation. He couldn’t sense the essence that had to be woven through it—Jackal put his arm in it up his shoulder—but he had the impression something wasn’t entirely right about it.

“Khumdar,” Tibs asked, “Can you sense anything about it?”

The cleric shook his head. “Despite the evidence, I sense no secret from the pouch.”

Jackal took Mez’s bow and placed it inside. When he approached the cleric, Khumdar stepped back, moving his staff behind him.

Did that mean it wasn’t Darkness responsible for the oddness? Was it light letting him know there was a lie in the pouch? Something else entirely?

Jackal took the pieces of armor they’s accumulated from the fights out of Carina’s pack and added them to the pouch. With each piece that fit, the fighter grinned as if Kroseph had just whispered something they were going to do in private.

“He is having a lot more fun with this than I expected,” Sto said with a chuckle. “Close the lid, Tibs. I’ll tell you when to have Carina open it. This one is hers.”

“I thought you couldn’t change something when I’m this close to it.”

Jackal put a dented metal breastplate three times wider than the opening of the pouch and Tibs and to look away as the way it distorted to fit through gave him a headache.

“The chests aren’t part of the room,” Sto said. “Well, no, okay, let me try this again. The outside of the chest is in the room. I can’t absorb it with you there. But the inside is on… I don’t know how to describe it, but it lets me put items in it as needed. The normal way I have them set up is that the items are assigned automatically when I reset a floor, but this was the most convenient way I could think of handing you your rewards. You can call her over.”

Jackal held on to her by the backpack as she tried to step away, and instead of arguing. She took it off. Then Carina opened the chest and took a blue-gray robe from it. Tibs closed the chest as she admired it.

Again, there was an oddness to it in how he sensed it.

She studied the imperfections, smiling as she ran her fingers over them.

“As she asked, there are reserves hidden throughout. I’ve put more for air, but every essence will accumulate over time, or she can do it. I don’t know how sorcerers work, and I haven’t overheard anything that tells me how sorcerers go about using other essences. There is metal, earth, water, fire, and air woven through the material. It makes it as resistant as I can and it will give her some protection against the elements. Mez is next.”

The archer was as surprised as Tibs to be called over.

The chest contained a quiver when it was opened, and Tibs focused on it. He made out essences, but they were muted, as if much further than he knew them to be, until Mez touched it, then all sense of them went away, leaving behind this oddness that Tibs thought might be some part of him knowing there should be more to what he was sensing.

“Mez has mentioned a few times how running out of arrows can be a problem. This quiver never will. So long as there is one arrow in it, it will make more. It uses fire essence, so Mez can make sure it’s never out. Don’t ask how that works, it’s complicated. If he puts in different kind of arrows, the quiver will remake them evenly, which will slow it down. And obviously, if he isn’t careful, people will notice the arrows reforming.”

Tibs explained how it worked.

“Thanks you,” Mez told the ceiling in awe. “For this and the bow.”

“I had nothing to do with the bow,” Sto stated. “That was just randomly assigned loot.”

“He said that you’re welcome,” Tibs replied as he heard in the distance Ganny grumble something.

“Next is Khumdar.”

“I have not asked for anything,” the cleric said uncertainly. “Nor did I contribute to the ideas which led the dungeon to awarding these.”

“Jackal and Carina wouldn’t be who they are if not for the three of you,” Sto replied, and Tibs repeated. “It felt wrong not to acknowledge that.”

Khumdar opened the chest and pulled out a black robe like the one he was wearing.

“It has the same protection as Carina’s,” Tibs told the cleric as Sto told him, “and above that, it will help you hide. You mentioned how you aren’t particularly suited to it, despite Darkness being your element. When you feed your essence into the robe, it will create an area that will bend the shadows around you and anyone close to you. The darker the shadow, the easier it will be, but if you put enough essence into it, you will be able to hide even in a faint one.”

“This is more than I deserve, Sto,” Khumdar whispered.

“It’s a gift,” the dungeon replied. “Not something you needed to earn.” Once Tibs had repeated what he said, Sto added. “And now for you Tibs.”

“Are you sure? You gave me the bracers, the pouch, and the shoes.”

“Two of which I destroyed.”

“I destroyed them when I walked into an inferno wearing them.”

“Still, what I said to Khumdar applies to you too, but more so.”

In the chest was a leather armor. Other than the essence woven into it, it was like the one he wore, but without the bracers.

“I considered remaking the pouch, but even if no one can tell what’s in it, it’s still a pouch and it’ll draw attention. What I did is take the hiding place and give them a treatment similar to Jackal’s pouch. You’ll be able to keep more coins in each and even larger things, like amulets. The belt has something extra in its hiding spots. It’ll take knifes and other items like that. When you use darkness essence, you’ll be able to move one of them directly to your hand. It’s more complicated than it sounds and I can’t really explain it, so you’re going to have to test to work out the appropriate way to trigger it. It felt right to use darkness, since it’s about hiding and all that. You can fit six knives like things, although if they are smaller, you might be able to put more. I’m not entirely sure about that one.”

Tibs tried to think of something more appropriate than thank you, but had to settle for “Thank you.”

They were all silent. Even Jackal had had enough playing with his pouch. He’d laid everything in it on the ground and just looked at it. Tibs hesitate, then asked the one thing that was nagging at him.

“Don’t you think this gives us an unfair advantage over the other teams, Sto?”

“Not as much of one as you think,” Ganny answered. “You might have noticed that this floor put more pressure on you to think. The fighting’s there just to keep Sto happy.”

“Hey,” the dungeon replied. “They’re there because it’s not fair for a floor to only push those who think. The teams have fighters and archers, and those don’t always do a lot of thinking.”

“So he claims. But, there’s also the fourth floor,” she said. “We are having to rethink a few things to take it into account. Just think of what you’re getting as a personalized version of things we’ll start putting in the chest when we’re closer to opening it. Well, the armors and protective items, and weapons. The pouch and hiding things that’s just for you and your team.”

She didn’t sound as reproachful as Tibs expected. Even if they were going to give similar armors, what Sto had given him and his team was… significant.

“So, there’s going to be a lot of fighting on the next floor?” Tibs asked.

Jackal stared at him and grinned.

“Oh yes,” Sto says. “Enough that—”

“That’s enough,” Ganny interjected. “I swear, you’d rather tell him how clever you are than let him discover it the amusing way.”

“Well, when you put it that way,” Sto said. “Tibs, there’s one more item left. Close the lid and tell Jackal it’s time for Kroseph’s gift.”

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