Chapter 16: You Can't Leave, But You Can't Stay Here

Once I had made it to the bottom of the stairs, I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it was exactly this. It looked like what I would imagine what the interior of an old fantasy style castle would look like. Long hallways with suits of armor.

The ceilings were arched and extremely high up, barely lit by the lamps lining the halls. The floor had an extremely vivid red decorative carpet. It looked incredibly fancy and elegant. There had to be a twist, there's no way that something that looks this nice is safe in a place like this.

I checked the entryway for any immediate danger, but I didn't see anything out of place. The fact that there wasn't anything fishy was just weird. I could usually tell the gimmick of the floor just by hanging out at the beginning for a while.

I walked slowly into the hallway from the staircase, still hesitant that nothing was wrong. I wish I could have gotten more information, but I guess that's just how it is in this place I guess. It would be too easy if everyone just knew all the information and shared it with others. There wouldn't have been anyone in The Hub if that was the case.

As I was walking forwards, I felt something cold on my throat, causing me to stop immediately. I didn't even turn my head as I looked around. There was something touching my neck on the right side, so I carefully moved to the left. The sensation of something touching me stopped, but I still didn't see anything.

I caught a glimpse of something incredibly thin running at about forty five degrees from one side of the wall to the other. The lanterns' flames were barely bright enough to show me the culprit. The incredibly thin wire floated there, firmly tied to each wall, it was completely still.

I started to sweat nervously. It was perfectly at neck height for me. If I was running, with how thin this is, and the angle it's at… it would cause some serious damage. I didn't have anything that could cut it, and the suits of armor that would normally be holding weapons in a place like this, were empty handed.

I carefully ducked under the wire. From the cold feel, I could tell that it was some kind of metal, but I didn't want to touch the wire with my hand. The wire felt ominous in more ways than just being at neck height. Instead, I touched my neck with my right hand and checked it.

On my hand was a small amount of blood. It was maybe like a papercut, and I couldn't feel anything on my neck cut wise, so it probably wasn't deep. Oh my god, I've been on the floor for less than five minutes and I already almost got seriously injured.

Most people choose to stay in The Hub until they die. The words echoed loudly in my head as I looked back to the wire. If I had been any less cautious or paranoid, I would be seriously hurt. I was getting shaken, I needed to think more calmly.

So what I almost died, what is it, the hundredth time? I shouldn't care about it this much at this point, but it had never happened so early into a floor that I was in such immediate danger. Other than the boss floor, I guess.

I calmed myself almost as quickly as I had fallen into panic, and moved on. I would have to keep my eye out for any more wire, but anything else that I find should be fairly obvious to avoid. Based on the Bestiary entry I read on the previous floor, some of these suits of armor weren't as stationionary as they seemed.

Living Armor: This is a creature whose soul has inhabited a suit of armor and now waits in line with the others to attack an unsuspecting passerby. You can usually tell them apart from the other non-sentient armor by seeing that they have a weapon.

Do note that this isn't a catch all. Some armors will still be sentient without a weapon. Since they are made of metal, do not engage in direct combat, as they will always outskill you with their weapon of choice. That is unless you have over twenty years of practice with a weapon.

Run away from these creatures if you can either way, as they do not feel pain. Unless they are completely destroyed, they will keep attacking. However, they are subject to randomization, so just run to the nearest intersection and you'll be safe.

I guess I just needed to be on lookout at all times. There were so many suits of armor in these halls. They were placed every few meters and thankfully, not a single one in my line of sight had a weapon, so I was reasonably safe from the Living Armor.

What I wasn't safe from however, was my foot sinking in slightly after I placed it down on the carpet. There was an audible click once the, clearly a pressure plate, had hit the bottom of its travel. I instinctively jumped back as fast as I could.

After I had left my spot, several arrows flew through the hallway. I felt a slight burning on my arm as one of the arrows still grazed me. The arrowheads were incredibly sharp, and even just a light graze had made a decently sized wound. I could feel blood sliding down my arm as I assessed the situation.

The arrows had stopped flying, most of them bounced off the stone floor under the carpet, but some were clearly so sharp they sunk into the stone. That wasn't a natural sharpness, I couldn't recall a single instance where I had seen a real life arrow sink into solid stone.

I finally checked my arm, and while there was a decent amount of blood, the wound wasn't particularly deep. I got out my first aid kit and cleaned the wound with some water, seeing that it was even smaller than I had imagined, but better safe than sorry.

With my wound super glued shut, I took a look at the hand I injured all the way back on the fourth floor. It had healed nicely, all things considered. There was a sizable scar, but it would be a fun story to tell once I made it out of here.

Moving on past the arrows stuck in the stone, I was going to somehow have to be even more careful of things on this floor. Pressure plates, wires sharp enough that a light touch cut me, and suits of armor that wanted to kill me. One hell of a floor if you asked me, but it wasn't all that bad.

Finally making it to the first corner, I had two equally horrible choices presented to me, and they didn't change with randomization. I could take the left turn and go down the dark hallway that had all of the lanterns out, or I could go down the well lit hallway full of suits of armor that had weapons. All of them had weapons of varying sizes and types.

I may as well see what was going to try and kill me, so I chose the hall to my right and started walking at a brisk pace. I had no idea how these creatures would attack me, but I knew that running was my best bet, even if it was a little dangerous because of the traps.

As soon as I saw one of the armors start to move in the corner of my vision, I decided to start sprinting away. Running like this was easier now that I didn't have everything I owned on me. I maybe had two weeks of supplies on me, but that was plenty of time to find an elevator if need be.

I wasn't confident I would find them on a completely new floor, but I was at least fairly sure I could find them now that I had found one on another floor. How this system even managed to work was beyond me, but I'll take it.

I turned around to see two large suits of armor chasing me through the hallway. They weren't particularly fast, but one held a large two handed sword while the other held a polearm of some kind. I was a little intimidated at how fast they ran despite the full armor.

I made it to the intersection and tried to randomize them, but nothing happened.

This isn't a random floor… is it.

Wait, the guide told me they are supposed to though? Why is it not working? I kept running, I didn't really have a choice. I sure as hell wasn't going to try and stand my ground and fight. Maybe I could use the floor against itself though.

I would have to find a trap, not fall for it myself and then make it so that the armors would get hit by it. Yeah, this was going to be simple to do. Sure, why not just make it super easy for me. This floor sucks, and the Bestiary sucks. I don't think I remembered it wrong at the very least.

I kept running, but I wasn't seeing any traps, no razor wires ready to cut anything, no raised sections on the floor that indicated pressure plates. I was getting quite tired. I had slowed my pace to match what the suits of armor were doing, but it was getting tiring even after just a few minutes.

I had to think of something I could do to get them off me. Just as I was about to get creative with the other suits of armor lining the hall, I saw a thin line glinting in the lamplight. It was some of that crazy sharp wire and it was time to see if it was sharp enough to cut through metal.

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I slid under the wire as I ran through the hall, making sure to give myself some distance on the other side of the wire just in case it didn't work. I was ready to run as the suits of armor made it to the wire, but what I wasn't expecting was that once the armor made contact with the wire, they got cut.

I was expecting it to trip them, not cut them in half. What in the world was that wire. It cut through metal like it was nothing. The suits of armor stopped moving entirely once they were cut in half and black ooze started to flow out from inside the armor.

I was frozen in shock. I couldn't process what I had just seen happen. The wire cut through the metal suits of armor, why, how? How does that even work? I know it might be possible if the wire was slightly serrated and it was moving at high speed, but it didn't appear to be moving or serrated.

The black ooze that I was seeing leak out was another thing entirely. It looked as if it had the consistency of blood, but it was completely black. Then the smell hit me, a putrid rankness that was so much worse than anything I have yet to see on any floor.

I was tempted to grab the polearm from the one suit of armor, but it was a bit too large for me to use. If I didn't want to suffer, I guess I would have to find a weapon that was better suited to my skills than just picking up whatever and suffering from a lack of compatibility when using it later on.

With a bit of regret, I moved on, hoping to find something slightly more usable later to take with me on my adventure. I was going to keep descending these floors, and traveling without a weapon was going to bite me later on, and I knew it.

There were so many traps on this floor, and a lot of them felt completely unavoidable. I have yet to be able to actually randomize anything. No amount of spinning or looking away or closing my eyes changes anything like it did on other random floors. Why did the bestiary lie to me?

It was right about everything before this floor. Descriptions and the way they acted was completely correct and made sense, but the first thing that appears after floor fifteen is almost entirely wrong. I might go back and tell them this, but maybe it was a fluke.

I will have to wait and see if I encounter another one, or maybe I just got unlucky and this section of the floor can't be randomized through the methods I normally use. I carefully made it to the next intersection and tried a few new ways to see if I could get randomization to take effect.

Nothing worked so I just gave up and moved on. I wasn't going to get anywhere while just trying things I know are just wasting time. I didn't have a set time limit to get out. I'm sure I've already missed every appointment I made in the outside world. Three months down here.

It surely is a long time to spend in a place like this that is constantly trying to kill me. I'm beginning to get used to it though. I'm not constantly checking around me, or constantly in a state where I could break down in an emotional mess at any small inconvenience.

My right foot begins to slowly sink down and I jump hard to the right to dodge whatever was going to come at me. A large log that takes up most of the hallway swings down from the ceiling and slams down where I was standing moments before.

The stone tiles beneath the log cracked and splintered, flying everywhere. While the ground trembled I turned my face and covered it with my arm that was now covered in a light long sleeve shirt. Most of the debris scatters harmlessly off my raised arm, but I can feel a few sharp pieces stab my arm.

It was painful, and once the dust had finally settled, I took a look at my arm. It wasn't shredded per say, but the entire side that took the majority of the shrapnel had small cuts and bruises. It stung like crazy, the stone tiles were probably super dirty so I needed to clean every wound quickly, before it became an issue later.

I checked around for any more dangers, but there really wasn't anything this time. I took off all my torn clothing, which thankfully was only a small section of my pants and the left side of my shirt. My bag had been spared any large debris, so there were no holes in it. I kept the pants but just tossed the shirt to the side, it was basically ruined with how dirty it now was from the dust.

I cleaned the wounds with water and did another assessment of the wounds. It seemed like nothing was deep, and none of the debris was stuck in any of my wounds after a light rinse, so I was just going to wait for them to stop bleeding then put on a new shirt and pants.

A few minutes later, I was on my way once again. I spent a lot of time making sure I was okay after getting injured, and it always made everything seem like it takes a lot longer, but it is for my own safety. Letting myself calm down after even a light injury will let me see if there are other issues than what I can see at first glance.

There was one time where I had landed poorly after tripping on a tree root while on a hike. At first, I thought nothing of it, but as some time passed, I realized that my arm was actually broken right above the wrist. Had I continued on, I wouldn't have noticed right away and may have made the injury worse.

I wandered the trapped halls for a while. Logs, knives, arrows, you name it, this place had it. Tripwires, pressure plates, or some mysterious activation that I couldn't place. Everything here was designed to kill anyone traveling through. A nasty floor meant to deter anyone from going deeper.

Without my knowledge of first aid, I would have certainly had a lot more issues while going through this floor. If I was any less cautious I would have had my head sliced off, or any random number of things could have easily killed me. It was mentally draining, I needed to rest.

Wandering through the halls was slow going while I was mentally strained. I had to be extra careful not to miss anything that might lop off my head at a moment's notice. Eventually, I found a small door on the right side of the hall. It was barely tall enough for me to get through while standing.

The intricate design on it drew my attention, but I was cautious. Absolutely everything on this floor had been a trap, there is no way there would be an unmarked door that looked this fancy that wasn't a trap. There was no visible handle on the door, but that wasn't an issue as far as I could tell.

I grabbed one of the nearby suits of armor and took its helmet. I threw it at the door from a distance. The door swung open slightly, but nothing happened. I kept throwing armor at it until the door was fully open. It was extremely dark inside the room, so I started taking some of the lanterns off the wall and made a small collection near the door.

I placed one just inside the doorway and could see metal glinting from the light everywhere along the walls. With nothing to lose, I carefully started lighting up the whole room. It was an armory. Weapons lined the walls and crates were filled to the brim with various leather armors.

I became excited while I checked every possible inch of the room for any traps, but there wasn't anything. Moving armor and weapons alike, nothing tried to kill me. This room was free for me to loot and take whatever I needed. I was ecstatic.

I didn't know what I wanted, but I did have a few requirements before I even started looking at anything. It had to be able to protect me from basic debris and basic attacks from unknown creatures. Unfortunately though, everything here could easily cut through leather, especially if it can cut metal and rock.

So I didn't need anything crazy for my chest, as it was pointless to expect armor to even do anything on these floors. Bracers were definitely a must. With how often I used my forearms to block small things like shattering rock from hitting my face, they would protect me.

I grabbed the first pair that was relatively lightweight and fit comfortably. It took me a while to find something that fit my scrawny arms, but find something I did. I also got something for my inner thighs, shins and calves. It was enough for me. I was tempted to get something that would cover my shoulders, but I wasn't sure it would have the same benefit from blocking small attacks and might just get in the way of important mobility.

Moving on, I looked at all the weapons lining the walls. They all looked incredibly well taken care of, they all had this light covering of oil on them, and I wasn't sure why. I kept looking for something that would fit with me, but there was only a single thing that I gravitated towards.

It looked like a small battle ax, but it only had a single side to it. There was a decent amount of material removed from the metal to reduce its weight. It had a nice ergonomic looking handle, but I could see a few issues arising from it, but nothing I couldn't overcome.

I took the weapon off the wall. It was just slightly longer than my legs, but if strapped well to my bag, the sharp bit was well out of harm's way, and I could grab it quickly without it dragging or swinging around too much.

All geared up, I decided to rest for a while in the armory. There didn't seem to be any traps and I had now spent quite a lot of time in this room. If it hadn't killed me yet, it probably wouldn't. With the door to the armory closed, I felt safe. I trusted this feeling and dozed off for a small nap.

…

The rest of the floor was eventful, but not much more than the beginning. The floor was filled top to bottom with traps, and the closer I got to the exit, the more there were. I wasn't going to stick around here longer than I needed to.

While it felt tempting at first to gather some extra armor, it wasn't really worth it. The extra weight would slow me down if I was trying to run from the Living Armor, and it had too much value for The Hub. They wouldn't use it other than to stay safe where they were, and they didn't have anything there that was of value to me.

The Hub was a place of stagnation, and I wanted to keep moving. Our goals didn't align, and if I waited around too long trying to actually find information, that's just wasted time. I can easily learn everything I need to about these floors on my own. The Author seemed quite knowledgeable, but getting in contact with someone who can delve past floor twenty seems like they would be quite hard to reach.

I shouldn't bother too much with The Hub other than storing and collecting my own resources. I still think that the Hub was nice and was good for saving time when collecting resources, but what I had was too valuable to give away. I feel like I have a serious chance at escape, and I'm not going to throw it away at The Hub.

I didn't find another armory before I managed to find the exit to the floor. The green exit sign was a blessing to my tired and exhausted mind. Constantly watching out for traps was awful. One thing that seemed odd about this door was that it was a sliding door.

The door looked to be made of a thin material, and I couldn't tell what it was. When I touched it, it felt cold and hard. I was beginning to think that these floors had materials that weren't available in the outside world.

I was scared, but also excited. It was time to head to the next floor, a floor full of things I knew would be exciting.