CHAPTER 26: FOCUSING ON YOUR STRENGTHS
Any rewards that she would get for solving the puzzle room had almost certainly already been dwarfed by the gains to her Magic abilities in the rift. Or, at least, that was how Jenna decided to justify looking at the mural first.
It was definitely telling a story, she saw, though she still did not know what it meant. There were scenes of conflict, clearly being done without Magic. Bows, swords, and maces all featured in the conflict, but nothing like what even a Third Tier Enchanter could produce was visible in the melee.
As she kept walking, the land, once green, slowly faded away into greys and yellows. Jenna understood that the message was that somehow a war had caused a lush forest to turn into a desert, though she wasn’t sure how that had happened. Maybe the two events just coincided, and one didn’t cause the other.
Or, at least, maybe the war didn’t cause the desert to form. It was easy to see why what was clearly a land full of food turning into a desert could end a war.
As Jenna kept walking, she grew convinced that the hallway had somehow grown even since she last walked it. She could roughly tell how far down the hallway she had gone. Despite the fact that she had been walking for what must have been five minutes, she was less than a tenth of the way down the hall.
She certainly hadn’t wandered blindly for an hour on her first time through the hallway. Running away the second time might have been faster, sure, but she couldn’t really believe that stumbling in the darkness with just a torch to light her way could have been any faster. Rather than continue to focus on the fact that the Pyramid clearly changed its layout to serve whatever purpose it wanted, Jenna continued to look at the story unfolding.
In what should not have been a surprise, a structure began to emerge from the flat desert. When it first appeared, Jenna was confused. It was clearly a depiction of the Pyramid, but it only had a single floor.
A few steps later, the first climbers entered the Pyramid. She saw the Pyramid grow as some managed to last past their first year. It was then that Jenna realized what the Pyramid was trying to tell her.
There were not eleven floors to the Pyramid because of some grand cosmic rule. There were not even eleven floors because forces aligned to make it so. There were eleven floors because no one had successfully completed the eleventh floor.
It was a bit of a reach to draw from the fact that what was a single story building suddenly became two and three floors tall, she admitted to herself. As she kept walking and the Pyramid kept growing taller, though, which made the idea seem less strange. When she got to the creation of the eleventh floor, she knew exactly what she was seeing.
The entire Pyramid glowed red as it grew. On its top, a single man with flames extending out to the heavens. That was the Lord of Flames, she knew it for certain.
To her surprise, the Pyramid claimed that he left as soon as he had reached the Eleventh Tier. She was sure that there was some deep message she was meant to take from it, but could not say for certain what the message was. There was more to the mural as she kept walking, but it stopped being as clearly representational.
Shapes and colors shifted as she walked, but there was still no coherent narrative. When she had nearly reached the end of the hallway, the Pyramid gave her an alert.
Warning. You have nearly exited the hallway for the puzzle reward. Exiting the hallway will constitute refusal of the reward.
With that, Jenna turned around. Her suspicion that the Pyramid was changing its layout was confirmed on her walk back. It took less than twenty steps for her to be in the center of the room.
The crystal was glowing, though more dimly than it had been even before she fixed it. Jenna assumed that, for whatever reason, the rest of the Magic which had been powering it was now powering the lighting for the mural.
“What was the point of this puzzle?” she asked. Jenna had her suspicions, but it would be nice to have them confirmed or denied explicitly. “More to the point, what is the point of puzzle rooms generally?”
Puzzle rooms have two major purposes. First, they reward delvers who keep a keen eye on their surroundings. Much of Higher Level Magic is dependent on causing and quantifying very minute fluctuations. As a result, the Training Grounds incentivizes working on this skill early and often.
“And what is the other purpose?”
Puzzle rooms give participants more directed incentive to learn level and Tier appropriate skills.
That made some amount of sense. She certainly wouldn’t have been as motivated to learn how to protect herself with Magic if not for the promise of reward. Or, being more honest, the threat of serious injury if she failed to learn the skill.
“So what is my reward for finishing the puzzle?”
Calculating Puzzle Room Rewards. Rift Level: 1 Number of Delvers: 1 Floor: 4 Puzzle Absolute Difficulty: C Puzzle Predicted Relative Difficulty: B Absolute Skill Growth during Puzzle: B+ Skill Growth Relative to Predictions: A Puzzle Completion: B+
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Overall Grade: A Primary Reward: All Minor Magical Affinities changed to Enchantment Secondary Reward: Magic Density increased equivalent to twenty days in rift. Overall Affinity in Enchantment B+-¿A-
The wall of text took Jenna a while to parse. “What did I do wrong that gave me only a B plus for completion?”
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Analyzing Performance. Primary flaw: shifting Magic lines by hand rather than solely with Magic. Bonus points awarded for innovative use of Skills Bonus points awarded for rapid growth in new Skill Points deducted for injuries sustained Bonus points awarded for working through injuries Points deducted for need to use training aids
That was a fairly clear summary, and she couldn’t really argue with any of the Pyramid’s points. “What do you mean that my Magical affinities were changed?”
Each person has Affinities for any number of different Schools of Magic. Primary explicit rewards from delving and puzzle rooms are the removal of extraneous Affinities. As you have expressed no interest in learning any School you had a Minor Affinity for, these Affinities have been consumed to align your spirit more with Enchanting.
“Wait, what Schools do I no longer have an affinity for?”
Analyzing...
Jenna waited for a few minutes as the message kept flashing. Finally, it changed.
Error: You do not have sufficient understanding of Magical Affinities to know which Affinities have been removed. To the best of your understanding, consider the Minor Affinities for Fire, Water, Entropy and Ice to have been excised to improve Affinity for Enchanting.
“Has it already happened?” Jenna wasn’t sure if it was worth losing her other Magical affinities.
No, rewards in rifts must be explicitly claimed.
“Can I just take one part of the reward but not both?”
No.
“Does removing other Minor affinities increase my likelihood of climbing higher?”
Students whose extraneous Affinities have been excised perform on average one year better than those who do not. This performance increase follows a standard distribution.
That was tempting. She looked again at the list of Schools she would be losing access to. Jenna had never planned to work on any of those Schools or even to learn Enchanting Spells that interfaced with them. Or, at least, she didn’t think that she had. It was always possible that the Pyramid had excised those memories to make her more willing to accept this decision.
As Jenna considered her options, she eventually came to the same conclusion she always did: if the Pyramid really wanted to harm her, it had much more effective ways of doing so than lying about what was in her best interest. “I accept the reward,” she said.
Rewards accepted. Excising Magical Affinities.
Jenna felt something in her soul shift. It was a strange feeling. The best way she could think to describe it was a muscle she’d never known existed suddenly falling limp.
Appending Excised Affinities to Enchanting.
That hurt a fair amount. Jenna felt her Magic become more responsive, but the responsiveness came with a jolt of pain. The pain faded quickly, which was a relief.
Secondary Reward: Increase in Magical Density. Increasing Magical Density.
If having her extra affinities cut off was like a muscle she hadn’t known existing suddenly not working, this was the opposite. It was a dull pain suddenly flaring into something blinding. Though she hadn’t been paying attention to it, her soul had been feeling some minor twinges of pain as her Magical density increased during her time in the rift. The increase had happened slowly enough that it was only a dull pain, easily ignored.
Getting twenty days of that growth in a matter of seconds was not so easily ignored. Her entire body burned as the Magic inside of it suddenly grew denser. She couldn’t move any part of her body. Jenna laid in a crumpled heap as the fire wracked through her body.
When she finally regained control of her limbs, she still wasn’t in the clear. Each motion she tried to make sent the body part flying. When she pressed on the ground to stand up, her entire body was flung into the air.
“Is this really what would have happened if I stayed here for twenty days?” she asked.
Query imprecise. Answering best guess: No, over twenty days you would have had time to adapt to the slow increase in your body’s capabilities. Because the changes happened all at once, however, you will need to adapt with more conscious effort.
Jenna groaned and began to follow the new instructions that the Pyramid gave her to adapt to her physicality.
Jenna’s Status:
Jenna Fredrickson First Year Spells Known: First Tier: Hardened Glass Expected Years Completed: 8 Prediction Confidence: 31% Points: 5 Qualified to Ascend to Next Year? Yes