It did turn out that the source of the looped portals was outside of it. However, we were able to overcome it with a rather simple plan. Instead of going the same direction, all of us in turn went back and forth through the pair of portals over and over. Anna’s array was still operating, and it confirmed that the portals were weakening. It took about five minutes before they disappeared from overuse. “It was a pretty insidious trap if you think about it,” Arvallei mused, “if we hadn’t figured it out, the ‘infinite hallway’ still would have ended eventually, but most challengers would have been really unnerved by spending so long in the same hallway, and gotten sloppy.”
I had to give the theory credit, because after that floor, the enemies got substantially tougher and the traps more frequent and trickier. If a team had become high-strung from the “infinite hallway,” they’d most likely die even being skilled enough to get this far. The principle of “intrinsic vs. extrinsic” seemed basic, but realizing its application to a weird trap like that one wasn’t something just any team could do. I certainly wouldn’t have thought something as simple as just going through the portals a bunch of times quickly could work, without that piece of the puzzle.
In fact, maybe the same principle is linked to why my attempts to use Power of Imagination to create magical items failed. To pull it off, I’ll need to grasp something about the fundamental nature of magical items...not sure where to begin with that, but it’s still a possible lead.
The Trial of Illusion had become more difficult, and more taxing of our resources, but not enough to genuinely threaten our lives. After several more hours, we stopped to rest for a short while at the entrance to the boss level before heading in.
An endless void stretching off into the distance was an image that was no longer just mental for me. However, the boss room had a completely different vibe from such previous experiences. A slight haze seemed to pervade its space, such that it seemed to go on forever but not in as definite a way as in any Landing before.
I had just enough time to have that thought before a metallic clanking sound began some distance in front of us, and continued for at least ten seconds before the first gleaming set of full plate armor with ethereal fire burning in its eye slits came into view.
We exchanged looks with each other for a moment before putting our plan into action. You almost had to pity a boss like this that relied on trickery for landing against us; the Trial bosses were some of the most consistent elements of this Floor, and thus they had the most reliable data on them extracted by previous challengers. Not that just anyone would be able to get an entire strategy guide for them, but an enemy that relied on being able to keep its secret strategy secret until it was too late would pose the least amount of trouble to a team that already knew it.
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The single animated armor would soon be followed by ninety-nine more—and the key to the battle would be NOT destroying as many as possible. This boss was actually a Wisp Lord, which was basically a first tier version of the sadistic 5th tier Wisp Emperor who presided over the Fire Trial of Discipline.
The armors were difficult, but not impossible to destroy. However, the Wisp controlling them had split its power in order to control them. The more of them a team destroyed, the stronger it would be when it began to directly participate in the battle. It was also invulnerable to physical attacks, requiring spells or certain Energy based techniques to even be damaged, so if you didn’t have the right party members going in, you had to find some among the Floor Natives, or if you were playing on High difficulty and thus only needed to clear 3 Trials out of 7, you’d be well advised not to even try the Trial of Illusion.
With it having affinity for Fire as well, this was a rare situation that called for Mewi to be a primary attacker. Of course, the thing was invisible and would remain so nearly all the time even after it started attacking. However, Lee could see it easily, and target-painted the boss for us with his own illusion.
The only real difficulty was that quite a few of the armor suits would attack before the real boss got anywhere near us. We had to keep the battalion at bay while finishing off as few of them as possible. Fortunately, by now I was equally accustomed to holding back as I was to going all out.
We held the line for about three minutes, then Lee gave the signal and revealed the presence of the Wisp Lord. My Enemy Scan couldn’t register it, since we were seeing an illusion of its location rather than actually seeing it, but I still saw damage numbers appear where spells and energy projectiles struck it. With almost 90 of its armors still operating, it withered extremely quickly, though with our attention more on attacking it, the armors surrounding us were able to get through some rather substantial damage before it was extinguished.
Well, relatively speaking. Anna fought like she was possessed, keeping an incredible, machine-like multitasking focus on both attacking the boss and healing anyone who got nailed by an armor’s attack, so we were never even close to being in danger. Actually, she was approaching this entire Floor with more zeal than she’d shown on any of the previous three. I thought I knew why, and I wasn’t about to confront her about it.
The moment the Wisp Lord died, it simply vanished from existence along with all of its illusions. The suits of armor returned to an inanimate state, and the haze and sense of endlessness gave way to a much more ordinary though large chamber. At the end opposite of where we stood, there was an ornate chest. With appropriate solemnity, Bruzigan opened it and retrieved the piece of the Key to Freedom inside. It didn’t look anything like a piece of a conventional key, because the key itself was actually more like a complex, three-dimensional sculpture. Once we had all seven, we’d need to puzzle out how to fit them together before we could even set foot in the final dungeon. The key’s configuration was randomized somehow, so we couldn’t rely on the walkthrough for that either.
As soon as the piece of the key was securely in Bruzigan’s possession, we reappeared in the Forest of Illusion. Next would be a lot more travelling and camping out, until we reached a totally different region of the planet where the next Trial Tuner could be obtained and a different Trial Dungeon challenged.
And once we reached that region, we’d have to deal with the next complication that was slated to appear.