Adamant Blood

The monster wave room was rather simple but most people died to this one, or at least that’s what people believed. Hard to know who died in any particular room when they all, you know, died, and Malaqua didn’t publish statistics or anything like that. So perhaps it was more correct to say that it was believed that most people died in the monster wave room.

There was a canyon road. High rock walls on both sides.

Mark stood at one end of the canyon road. He had just come out of an archway that was now closed, and vanished. What remained behind him was a stout curtain wall made of stone that spanned from one side of the canyon to the other. A closed wooden door held in the center of that wall. It had probably been a sturdy door at one point in time, but it was on its last legs. Someone had propped up what remained of the door into the frame, and left it there. It could be taken down easily enough, if Mark failed to defend it.

Down the road, ahead of Mark, lay a warzone. Smoke rose from burning carts. Broken bodies, most of them human. Some monsters of a chimeric nature that looked like dogs with exposed wounds everywhere, and extra limbs or faces or tails. Malformations; Mark supposed. Malformations came in all kinds. Most people, when they monsterized, turned into malformations. All malformations were usually pretty weak, but when they happened there were usually a lot of them.

A duo of dogs appeared from behind a pair of flaming carts. They looked around, unsure of what was going on, but they rapidly noticed each other. They noticed Mark a second later. They ignored the fallen bodies as possible food because they weren’t interested in food at all. They were interested in causing pain.

They howled as they dashed toward Mark.

A shield lay on the ground beside him, on a corpse. It looked like a pretty flimsy shield, but it would do, for now. Mark would have to grab it before the next wave, though. The dogs were already here.

The first one went high, leaping straight at Mark, but a little to his right side. He would have naturally dodged to the left, but the second one was on the left, and he was aiming low.

Mark went right, swinging his mace down across the right dog’s slavering maw, cracking its neck and sending it back to the ground. He didn’t move fast enough or far enough to the right and the dog partially caught him with its legs. It wasn’t a direct hit and the dog was disoriented now, and almost crashed into its partner, so it was fine. Mark repositioned just in time for the second dog to reposition, too. The second dog turned. It leapt at him, its double face open in two hateful barks, roars, bites.

Overhand smash. Crash to the ground.

First dog was there again. Kick to the face. It bit his shoe but Mark had good shoes. Smash smash. The dog let go.

Mark entered the flow.

Second dog was active again. It rotates around Mark, aiming to bite into his legs. Thwack crack goes the mace. Lucky strike to the neck. Dead dog, already dissolving into rainbow ribbons.

First dog growls and backs away. Howls.

Mark has a moment. He goes for the shield on the ground. Grabs it.

Two more dogs reappear out of nowhere at the end of the canyon path.

He doesn’t wait for the first dog to get reinforcements, though the first dog would certainly want him to. Mark advances. The dog retreats to its new friends but not fast enough, and Mark had already brained it once or twice already. Thwack! Crack! Strike to the hip and shoulders. Once more the mace comes down and the mutant mutt dies, becoming rainbow ribbons that dissolve out of focus.

Mark controls his breathing. In, out, steady. Breathing is secured.

The next two dogs are there.

The shield helps to make short work of both of them but after they take some hits they howl and two more dogs appear out of nowhere.

Four dogs at once. Two of them injured.

Mark takes a nip to his left thigh. It could have been worse. The dog’s jaw was already broken by Mark’s mace. Crack crack goes the mace, meaty thwaps against neck and shoulder and head, when Mark can get it. Two more dogs turn into rainbow ribbons and Mark advances on the final two, killing one as he fends off the other with his shield. Once more, raised high, the mace is ready. Mark breathes outward, swinging down. He does not miss. The last dog dies.

There are no others.

An open archway appeared at the other end of the canyon, beyond the burning caravan and the bodies of the other monsters and the people. The burning caravan and the bodies all vanish in that same moment, dropping out of focus.

Mark breathes as he watches all his possible loot vanish.

He didn’t grab it while the scenario was active, so he doesn’t get it.

It’s fine. He has a good shield, and his mace looks great. Really high quality mace. Solid metal. Bit heavy, but heavy gets the job done. The shield is just wood. Thick wood, too.

Mark breathes and breathes, and relaxes. He takes his pants off to check his wound. It’s not much of a wound. Pants go back up. This is good.

That was a good fight. Just like he imagined a fight going. Perhaps there had been other ways to solve this room, but a straight up fight was the best way, in Mark’s mind, and so that is what he did.

Addashield floats by him, saying, “Really good showing there, Mark. You have a real feel for combat, don’t you? I wasn’t sure at first, and watching you train didn’t really show me anything interesting— Ah. Aside from the fun you had with the kaiju blade. That was a hoot. You’re suited for this life, aren’t you? Eh. Don’t answer that. I shouldn’t have even asked any questions. Good showing, Mark.”

Addashield floats forward.

Mark exits the flow, his breath a little shaky, but feeling good.

Mark came back to himself, back to life outside of battle. He was kinda happy about what had just happened. That was a good fight. He didn’t freeze. He just flowed. Mark hefted his mace in his right hand and his shield on his left forearm, his grip tight on the handle… He adjusted the strap a little, tightening it up. And then he breathed again, focusing.

He walked into the next room.

- - - -

It was a corridor with tiles, each about a meter square, and all of them were white. They were obviously pressure plates, and the holes in the nearby walls were spear-holes. Those holes in the ceiling could be problematic. They probably were…

And there were holes in the floor, too! Between every tile and at the corner of every tile were spear holes. Mark almost missed those.

He studied the floor of the landing zone, underfoot, and there were no visible holes in this space. No holes on the walls or ceiling, either.

Addashield floated across the entire length of corridor, not touching anything, to float at the end, and say, “Pretty easy. You got this.”

Easy for him to say so. Mark had to actually walk across the traps!

And...

Mark frowned a little. Something was wrong with Addashield, but Mark wasn’t going to say anything. Still, though. He said he would guide Mark. Explaining which tiles were traps seemed… Seemed like Addashield should have done that. Without needing to be asked, too.

Whatever.

Mark had trained for this sort of thing and did not actually need Addashield.

He walked forward, bent down, and reached out to tap the first tile with his mace—

The tile clicked downward the instant Mark touched it harder than a feather’s weight. That tile was now a good inch below all the other tiles, which meant that every single tile was a switch.

What happened next truly took Mark’s breath away.

In the leading edge of the tile, around the entire corridor, a spear came out of every single hole in the floor and the ceiling and the walls. Those spear points shunked out of their hiding holes, crushing together in the center of the hallway, just in front of the tile Mark had touched. The entire hallway, in that one thin band, closed off, like an iris shutting. Hundreds of spears, each black and probably-iron, closed off the hall.

And then every single spear pulled back into the floor, smooth as butter.

Mark breathed hard, trying to understand the full nature of the trap room.

This was a fucking deadly trap room.

“Holy shit.”

This was too deadly by—

Mark had pulled back once he touched the first tile. The tile remained depressed. And ever so slightly, in the cracks between that first row of tiles, more spears ticked upward, barely showing out of the holes—

Every single spear in the entire first row of tiles collided inward, like ten irises closing down into the space in front of Mark, and then shunking back into the ground. For a brief moment that entire meter-length of corridor was filled with spears.

Mark exclaimed, “HOLY FUCKING shit that’s not a fair... one.” His voice had lost some enthusiasm there at the end.

The tile he had tapped suddenly clicked back up, snapping back into position.

Addashield said nothing. He just watched from behind his blinds of invisibility, as he floated at the end of the corridor.

Mark had never heard of this sort of trap before, but he could guess at it easily enough. Running forward fast was a death sentence; the second he touched a tile, the tile would click down and the leading edge of that meter-sized-tile space would fill with spears.

And then he would have to wait for that row to go back down.

But if he waited too long, then he’d get speared by all the other spears in that entire section of tile.

Mark reached out and touched a different tile in the front row.

Just like before, the tile clicked down, the leading edge of that entire row became spears, those spears went down —Mark counted the seconds— and 5 seconds later, that entire half-meter row of tiles turned to spears. Spears only came out from between the tiles, though. Not from the tiles themselves.

The spears went down, the line reset.

Mark reached forward to the second row of tiles and touched the tile.

The same thing repeated, with the front line of the corridor, in front of that row of tiles, turning to spears, and then five seconds later that entire row turning to spears. The spears only came out of the edges of the tiles, at about 10-centimeter distances from each other. Nothing happened in the first row of tiles.

Mark looked around.

He saw no other parts of the corridor changing in response to the testing of the tiles.

Could he disable the trap by smashing the spears to the side? He had a nice metal mace, after all.

But...

If he tried to actively disable the trap by smashing some parts of it with his mace, maybe to keep the whole thing from resetting, then it would enter a chaotic state. In such a state, the puzzle might become impassible, for spears might just start coming out of everywhere, or some shit. In that case Mark would need to keep disabling the entire trap, and then the next room he ended up in would be a harder room. Or rather, more grueling. Maybe. Violating a test usually resulted in a harder room…

Oh.

Shit.

Was he supposed to escape the malformations in the previous room? Maybe go through the easily-broken wooden door, instead of fighting them directly?

Ah.

This was a punishment room…

Even punishment rooms were still traversable, though.

… Still, though.

Mark had never heard of a trap like this one. This sort of trap screamed that it was the type of trap you disabled and then you took the longer route to Awakening.

But the problem with attempting to disable this trap is that Mark knew he couldn’t actually disable this trap, not really. It had too many moving parts. If he started disabling it, then he’d have to continue to the end, ensuring that every single spear was out of its hole and, like, bent and broken and in the hallway, or else it could enter an active-trap scenario. In those sorts of traps, the room would pay attention to him and then lay in wait to stab him when it could.

The final rooms of the Tutorial always included active traps. This one might actually be an active trap, too…

Shit.

… Well.

This trap was meant to be tackled one meter at a time. Each tile was a meter square, after all.

Mark tested the first row of tiles, each one, to see if there was a safe path.

A few minutes later, and after testing the second row, too, Mark knew there was no safe path at all.

But… Looking at the tiles and how the spears only came up from the edges...

Could he just… crouch inside that square meter, and not get poked at all?

Mark activated the trap again, to see if that could work.

The spears came out just like before and they all closed into the center of the corridor, in front of that row of tiles, like an iris closing. The center of the iris was about 2 meters off of the ground, so a bit above his head. Those spears had come out of the leading tile at about every 10 centimeters, so 10 to a tile. This completely blocked the way forward. No way of going through that.

When the spears went down, the spears to the sides of the meter-wide tiles launched into the middle of the room. With a spear around the edges of the tiles, each coming out from a hole in the ground 10 centimeters from each other, there were more spears active, by number...

But there was an entire meter-square space on every tile that was completely open. Mostly, anyway.

If the spears in the walls and in the ceiling all came out at odd angles, or if they came out in a crossing pattern, then the trap was just impossible to cross. But they came out of the walls in an iris pattern.

So, actually. This was okay?

The corridor itself was a good seven meters across, too. There was one row of tiles in the very center leading all the way to the other end of the corridor.

If Mark tried to walk on the tiles to the side, then the spears coming out of the walls would get him, since they were aimed at angles. But if he walked in the center, then he could just… walk in the center. The spears would all go up at his sides, and he could just… Well. A meter-sized tile was a lot of space to stand in.

If he stepped, waited for the leading edge to fall down, and then went forward, then he’d never be surrounded by the spears coming out of the sides of the tiles at all. There was that 5 second delay in the spears coming out of the ground, too.

So he just had to step, let the spears go down, and then step, and it would be fine.

“Okay,” Mark told himself, “This isn’t as bad as it first appears.”

Mark stepped onto the first tile. It clicked down. Spears went up in front of him, and then went down.

He stepped forward again. Spears closed off the way forward, threatening to spear him, and behind him 5 seconds had already passed, so the entire corridor filled with spears, on that row back there. This row was still empty. He could actually step back onto that tile behind him and step into open air, between the spears. But doing that would be bad. He’d be crossing the line where the spears would come out at the slightest touch of tiles.

The spears in front of him went down.

Mark walked forward. The leading edge crowded out with spears, irising from the leading edge and closing off in the center. They went down just as the second row of tiles behind him was fully filled with spears, but even then, there was a gap, here, in this center tile. Lots of space, really.

Mark walked forward, not wanting to be in the big gap of spears anyway.

He was calm as could be.

Spears shunked in and out of the corridor.

The corridor was 25 tiles long.

It took Mark about 2 minutes to get through the whole thing.

Mark stepped off of the last tile, onto solid ground near Addashield, and he looked backward—

The entire hallway suddenly filled with spears and then the spears undulated in and out, in a wave, like a throat swallowing. The spears went back into their holders, and then rippled outward just once, just barely.

Mark broke out in a cold sweat and sat on the ground for a moment.

Addashield said, “Good work.” An archway appeared and he floated through it. “Next room is a great journey.”

Mark sat there on the floor for a moment longer.

He collected himself, and then he advanced.

- - - -

A Great Journey room was simple in design.

It was big.

Very big.

Mark started at the foot of a rocky mountain. There wasn’t much to the place save for rocks, dirt, and a few scattered low trees and bushes. It was not a very big mountain, but it was big enough. The peak of the mountain was visible, and so too was a hundred-ish-meter wide path from Mark’s entrance to that peak, but everything else was out of focus, the very world itself unspooling beyond some indeterminate distance.

The path was clear.

“Climb the mountain,” Mark said to himself. “Simple enough.”

It was easier said than done, but Mark got to it, and Addashield floated in front of him, leading the way.

There was a canyon crossing the path. Mark found a way down and then back up, back into the light.

Cliffs were the next obstacle. Mark was sweating hard by the time he backtracked this way and that way, finding handholds and small paths to lead upward. Some cliffs were larger than others. Those required backtracking up and down a few times. With his mace tucked into his belt and his hands bleeding a little bit, but a grin on his face, Mark ascended the cliffs.

The mountain peak loomed.

Half an hour from the start, Mark took a break. His legs burned. His lungs felt on fire. He had kinda forgotten how fatigue felt this last week, under the Color Drop treatment. Those drops had fixed him up faster than he could break down, but now he was back to a baseline human, all the way.

Addashield looked down at Mark, saying nothing.

Mark got up and trudged on, trying to keep up a good pace.

The only danger in a Great Journey room happened if you didn’t finish it in a few hours; if you stayed here past sunset.

When Mark had entered the room, the sun had been somewhere at 2 hours to setting. Hard to know, because the world was unfocused out there.

Mark reached the peak as the unfocused sun was just starting to touch the unfocused mountain range on the horizon. It was maybe 10 minutes to full sunset.

Mark pulled himself over the final cliff, and there was the peak, all rocky and tan. A doorway into the next room loomed just to the side of the rocky peak. Mark chuckled as he hauled himself back to his feet and got going. He had imagined needing to go back down the other side of the mountain, running to get down fast enough, but luckily that wasn’t the case at all. This was the end of this room.

Addashield went through first.

Mark followed, still grinning, so very thankful that he didn’t need to climb down the other side of the mountain.