Triggers to open, into the depths you go;
But down there lurks a dangerous foe.
Beware of the choices: new dangers rise;
Take heed of the evidence of your eyes.
‘Well, at least it looks more straight-forward than the last one,’ Dominic sighed.
‘More buttons?’ asked Leo, sounding irritated.
‘Possibly, but possibly something else. ‘Triggers’ of some sort, anyway. And have you realised where we’re going to have to find them?’
‘Not…’
‘Yes.’
‘No!’ groaned Leo.
‘Yes,’ sighed Dominic again. He didn’t like it any more than the lion did.
‘Brother, we are not going into the water! It’s wet!’
‘Yes, water tends to be wet,’ agreed Dominic with a hint of amusement at his companion’s complaints.
‘Send the canines! They like water! I’ve seen that in your memories.’
‘Some dogs like water, but the amesheks aren’t dogs,’ pointed out Dominic. ‘Plus, didn’t you read the instructions? We have to beware of creatures in the area, and there are some sorts of choices to make too. Plus other dangers. Chances are, we’re going to have to be involved, even if we stay out of it at first. Besides, I don’t like asking them to do something just because I don’t want to do it,’ he finished.
‘We already dealt with all these warthogs,’ objected Leo. ‘The least the canines can do is to deal with the other enemies.’
‘I chose to deal with them because I wanted to let loose a bit with our new Abilities,’ Dominic pointed out. ‘And thinking about it, I hope I was right in my assumptions and they haven’t suffered a lack of Prey Points from not being part of the action.’
‘But-’
‘No, Leo,’ Dominic interrupted him. ‘If we have to go into the water, we have to go into the water. We’ll clean ourselves after. Why are you complaining so much? You don’t moan this much when we get covered in blood.’
‘That’s different,’ Leo snarled. ‘Blood isn’t cold, and it doesn’t sink through to our skin in the same way. And it’s tastier.’
‘Well, you’ll just have to deal with it,’ Dominic told him unsympathetically. ‘I don’t like it either, but this is the water level. Remember – the sooner we get this done, the sooner we’re likely to see the others.’
The lion snarled wordlessly at him and then withdrew from their shared consciousness. Dominic suspected that he had gone to sulk in the savannah space. He’d cool down a bit and be back, Dominic knew.
The former-human did understand his companion’s stance against diving into the water – it didn’t exactly fill him with excitement to think about sinking into the liquid which had already proved itself uncomfortably cold and was no doubt filled with enemies. But he stood by what he had said.
‘You guys can come over now,’ Dominic put in the Pride chat. ‘But be careful – I’ve pretty much got confirmation that there are enemies in the water.’
The two amesheks started moving carefully across the bridge. Since they were smaller than Dominic, the water reached a good two-thirds up their legs and brushed against their bellies. While waiting for them to arrive, Dominic decided to investigate the Cores of the warthogs.
Just over half of them were level 14; the others were level 15. Higher level than most of the creatures they’d seen so far, but not by much. It made sense when Dominic considered how easily he’d ripped through them.
To get the Cores out, Dominic did his best to extract them with his teeth, crunching through their skulls to get at the crystalline orbs. Given the warning about danger in the water, they might need to keep the bodies around as health potions – particularly since Lionel wasn’t around and they only had one actual health potion with them. Given that they apparently were dealing with a water challenge, Dominic was rather glad that he had the lion’s share of the water breathing potions.
Though what if Sekhmet and the others have to pass through something similar? he wondered, the thought discomforting him. Surely the dungeon wouldn’t split them only to put them through the same trials, right? They hadn’t indicated seeing any water in their room, at least – only enemies.
Checking each of the Cores, he found that, as expected, they all contained Charge as their basic Ability. Gore was a common one too, something Dominic had suspected from some of the injuries they’d caused him. Leo would be glad to learn that five of the Cores held Enhanced Fertility – depending on how many percent progress each Core offered him, they might even get Leo’s coveted Ability in the near future.
As for the other Abilities, there were a couple of more interesting ones. Flash Step, for example, which was an Ability to cover ground very quickly – a bit like Quick Strike except not limited to combat. Though it also didn’t appear to have combat bonuses either. One of the Cores contained Poisoned Tusk, which Dominic didn’t remember being hit by. Maybe the warthog in question hadn’t got close enough. Finally, three other Cores contained Champion, the same Ability he’d started collecting from the upstairs enemies.
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Seeing as Leo still hadn’t emerged from his snit, Dominic started absorbing the Cores, checking the changes once he’d absorbed all seventeen.
Enhanced Fertility (78% to level 1)
Champion (30% to level 1)
Gore (48% to level 1)
Flash Step (72% to level 1)
Charge (36% to level 1)
Unfortunately, he hadn’t gained enough progress to earn any of them, but he’d made some good progress with both Enhanced Fertility and Flash Step, the two he was most interested in. Well, he was interested in Flash Step, but he knew Leo would kill him if he didn’t take the opportunity to grab Enhanced Fertility if he could.
He hadn’t got Poisoned Tusk, but wasn’t too bothered by that. It was only one Core which had had it and he already had Venomous Bite. Actually, why is it called ‘Poisoned Tusk’ instead of ‘Venomous Tusk’? he wondered to himself, then shrugged mentally.
Sirius and Procyon were still making their way across the bridge. They seemed to be trying to take it slowly and create as few ripples in the water as possible. Dominic didn’t blame them – any beasts in the water would no doubt be quicker and more agile in their own environment than the land-bound creatures, at least all he could think of. Just something else that Dominic was feeling concerned about.
Remembering his concern about perhaps having taken away Prey Points from the amesheks by taking on the warthogs alone, Dominic quickly looked at the notifications he’d received. Nine or ten points each time, he noted with relief. Since it was so low, that meant he’d had to have split it. In fact, thinking about it, the points must have been split even with Sekhmet’s group – if not, each of these level 14 or 15 beasts would be worth fewer points than even the low level trodils had been last time. Which wouldn’t make sense.
Curious as to why their points were still being split across the whole party when they couldn’t speak with the Pride chat and didn’t appear to be sharing notifications, Dominic had to soon admit defeat when it came to figuring out the dungeon. Returning to the door, he tried to spot anything which could be useful.
Conscious about the time it had taken them to work out how to even access the underground area because he hadn’t properly understood the message communicated in the relief on the doors upstairs, he paid extra attention to the carvings on this door.
The exit was made out of a pale sort of stone which matched the slope leading up to it. Like on the doors above, there were more of the creatures which resembled the dungeon master’s form in various poses. This time, too, one figure stood out. Like the ruler in the first relief, this one was much bigger than all the others around and stood right in the centre of the golden slab of the door.
It had its arms raised to the sky and above it were three symbols. One looked like a flame; the other like a drop of water, and the third like a wave. Each had a crystalline orb embedded in its design.
A clue? Dominic wondered to himself.
He spent the rest of the time waiting for Sirius and Procyon to arrive looking for any more indications of either clues or traps in the area immediately around the door, but found nothing.
‘Alright,’ he said to the amesheks as soon as they came ashore. ‘I hate to say this, but…can you swim?’
‘Swim? In the water?’ clarified Sirius, sounding reluctant.
‘Yeah.’
‘If we must,’ answered Procyon, sounding just as enthused by the idea as either Sirius or Dominic himself.
‘Because I think that to get out of here, we have to find several triggers of some sort in the water. And fight whatever beasts there are to get to them.’
Their response was wordless, but it spoke loudly nonetheless. They didn’t want to go diving into there just as much as Dominic didn’t. But he was pretty sure that they were going to have to.
‘I fear that our attacks will be very poor in the water,’ Procyon ventured. Dominic paused – he hadn’t considered that. His reluctance to go into the water had been largely because of not wanting to get wet and because it wasn’t what his body had been designed for, but he hadn’t actually thought about how his Abilities might be nerfed.
Crushing Bite and Acidic Venomous Bite wouldn’t be significantly affected – assuming he could get his teeth into the creature. But what about Quick Strike? Powerful Swipe? Rapid Attack? Roar? All the Abilities he’d got used to using. Momentous Charge wasn’t going to be much good if he couldn’t move – and that was assuming he didn’t need to run to make it work, which he did.
The amesheks weren’t the only ones who should be worried about their attacks not working, that was for sure.
‘Vibrating Body should work well enough,’ he responded after a moment. ‘I don’t know about Sonic Attack, though…. We have to try,’ he said in a burst. ‘The doors are locked fast,’ he had actually tried nudging them just in case that was the trick, ‘and our way out is blocked by a stone slab. If you have any other ideas, please let me hear them, but I don’t see any other options.’
There was silence for a few long moments. The amesheks waved their antennae more frantically, and Procyon went to look at the door as Sirius moved to crouch by the water. Dominic followed the lower-level ameshek and started staring into the water below.
Incongruously, there were lights under the water, some sort of substance which burned even when wet. Or maybe it was just dungeon weirdness. Either way, Dominic was grateful for the light, even if it made the shadows flicker and hide the movement of whatever was waiting for them. Fortunately, the ripples of the amesheks’ passage had mostly smoothed out and the surface was almost like glass again.
‘I see something,’ Sirius rumbled, his antennae pausing for a moment. ‘The water blocks my other senses, but I see a shape not too far from the light.’
Dominic squinted in the area Sirius indicated. It took him a few moments before the shape resolved into something more familiar.
‘A lever,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘And there’s something on the wall above it. Can you see what it is?’
‘No,’ Sirius responded immediately. Dominic sighed in disappointment, then moved to look at the other side of the bridge, the ameshek following his example.
Now that he knew what he was looking for, he saw another lever, again with some marks just above it.
From what he remembered of soaring above the water, he’d seen that the areas on either side of the bridge had been broken into sections by walls that rose almost as high as the bridge itself. He thought there had been about eight sections in total.
Maybe that was the choice: deciding which sections to go into to find the levers. Though, if both sections closest to the door had a lever in, that would only leave one, right? There were three pictures, so three levers made sense. On the other hand, maybe there was a lever in each section, but they had to choose the right levers.
Procyon came to join them a few minutes later, looking disgruntled.
‘You can’t find anything else?’ Dominic half-asked, half-stated.
‘No.’
‘Right,’ Dominic sighed again. He couldn’t deny that he had been half-hoping that Procyon would be able to find something he’d missed. Anything to avoid diving into water with unknown threats. ‘We can do this.’ he said, trying to encourage the amesheks – and himself.