Walking into the sixth challenge, and hopefully the final room, I was somewhat glad to see it was back to a standard table. Sitting on the table was a long spiralling piece of metal with a ring on it, with both ends of the metal slotted into a wooden base. There was a small metal plaque on the base as well with a simple inscription. ‘Remove the ring from the metal rod without breaking any part of the puzzle.’
Nice and straight forward, though in the end it was at least twenty minutes of moving the ring around just to find where the small slit in the ring could in theory get around the metal, and another ten minutes had the ring off. As soon as it completed the ring and the rest of the puzzle dissolved into a silver mist, and a new puzzle formed out of a similar mist in the centre of the table.
This one was a small six by six cube that reminded me of a rubix cube, that could rotate and had patterns on each cubes sides. I wasn’t the best at these as a kid, but this only took around half an hour to puzzle out at least. Same as before the puzzle dissolved and a new one formed.
The next puzzle was a simple box, about ten centimetres long and five wide, at most three high. Moving it around I found on the bottom another inscription, this time burned into the wood, that simply read ‘Open me without damage.’
Moving the box I found that part of the wood grain didn’t match on one of the sides, and I was able to shift that piece slightly forward, which allowed me to press in part of the back and move that out removing a piece. Continuing in this fashion this one was a fairly fast solution to find once I got it going, but definitely a bit of an odd one as once I opened the box it dissolved before I could even see if anything had been inside of it.
Next there was a board with sliding pieces to create a picture, only it looked like instead of being an actual image it was a maths problem, each line and square only contained each number once like sudoku, except because it was a sliding puzzle there was a lot more thinking in movement as well as the actual number part of the problem.
While trying to work out how to get a seven out of the square that was hoarding four of them I realised the entire time I had been in the challenge I hadn’t eaten, drank, or needed to relieve myself or even sleep. This was definitely beneficial, but I was worried if it would be a debt to pay back later with rest and recovery.
Eventually I got through the puzzle, though I am not sure how much was brute forcing it with luck and how much was actual puzzle solving.
This pattern continued a few more times. I had expected the sixth puzzle to be the final one but apparently not, each time the puzzles were specifically harder, just different enough to each other to require slightly different thinking or different processes to work out a good solution.
Eventually I just checked out, I was solving puzzles but I didn’t even have any real conscious thought about it, it felt like when people had tried to describe what meditation was supposed to be. Although for me those attempts to centre myself or find zen usually resulted in frustration and a return to listening to podcasts to relax instead.
After puzzle thirty six I realised no new puzzle had formed. Looking up the door across from the table had opened, except this time instead of a door with choices it had opened into a single passageway. This time the walls were clearly meant to be worked stone rather then the more cave wall like tunnels I had been walking through prior as well.
As I walked out of the room I got a pleasant surprise with a prompt I wasn’t expecting, although I was a little concerned that it implied I got so zoned out solving puzzles that I completely missed the door opening to this passage.
Challenge update: For completing an additional six puzzles more than required you have obtained a hidden challenge reward.
Bonus reward pool: D4 Stat Dice (1 x Strength, 1 x Dexterity, 1x Intelligence, 1x Wisdom, 1x Endurance, 1x Vitality)
The little completionist in my heart was happy at having one die for each of the stats at least, although being only D4 the overall rewards were somewhat limited, but being a bonus reward I couldn’t complain at all.
Stepping out of the passageway I found myself in a room that was a perfect sphere with steps leading down from where I entered, which was halfway up the side, down to a little altar in the middle that had a small crystal rotating slowly on it.
The guide to challenges had mentioned these, touching one would trigger completion of the challenge, this would grant you your rewards, and give you a window of time to go through them all. Once you had used each reward, in the case of any defined as must be used in the reward room, other rewards would either be delivered to your personal space or intended for collection and storage prior to you leaving.
The colour of this one was a nice lavender, as far as the little reading and knowledge I was given stated the colour meant nothing it was simply a decorative part of the theme like the cave this challenge was in or how the treasure room was designed.
Reaching down the end of the steps I reached out to touch the crystal and got a nice stack of system notifications.
Challenge completed: Congratulations, rewards and skill improvements earned will be provided now
Oh good to know that is why my skills hadn’t been levelling up, it had seemed off to do so many puzzles with a puzzle skill and get no levels.
Rewards will be issued and rolled for in the below order. Until a roll is made the next reward will not be provided.
First reward generated for base challenge completion: 1x consumable item D100, 1x Gear D20, 1x stat D6.
As I read this each of the dice fell out of the crystal onto the small platform below it.
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Picking one up, this was the D6 that was a standard black with white numbers written on it. Rolling this back down on the altar I looked and saw it land on a 3.
Stat selection for stat dice has resulted in a 1, stat dice for intelligence provided.
Looking at the D6 it had dissolved into the same type of mist the puzzles had been earlier, while a new D6 fell out of the crystal.
Continuing with the smallest die first I rolled the new D6, getting a 2. Feeling nothing in particular change I called up my stats and saw the slight change had applied already.
Strength:
7
Dexterity
11
Intelligence
10
Wisdom
14
Endurance
17
Vitality
13
At least my intelligence was at 10 as well now, hopefully the roll for strength was a bit better.
Picking up my D20 for the gear roll I tossed it on the altar as well, landing on a 14.
Gear result is 14, hand held equipment reward. please select between offensive or defensive options.
Selecting offensive, as I could buy new gear a lot better than I could a weapon, and Ignut had said it was really easier to get weapons that weren’t sold online.
Over on the other side of the altar along the edge of the sphere a small section folded out, creating a shelf, where a box about as long as my forearm appeared out of the challenge’s silver mist.
Looking at the last die, a D100, its sheer number of sides looked intimidating, but I picked it up and gave it a roll. It eventually settled on a 76, taking far longer to settle then I thought it would.
Item roll result 76, reward provided based on result: Temporal link cube. Items must be used before leaving the challenge.
Next to where the previous shelf and box had appeared another shelf folded out, with a small cube of twilight blue appearing out of the mist.
As soon as that had finished form from the mist I got the prompts for the next rewards, which I was excited to roll with my bonus stat dice.
Bonus reward pool: D4 Stat Dice (1 x Strength, 1 x Dexterity, 1x Intelligence, 1x Wisdom, 1x Endurance, 1x Vitality)
As those displayed the dice fell out of the crystal, and inspecting them I couldn’t see anything different between the six dice. Picking one up at random I rolled it, and noting it added strength realised it was just going to use the rolls in the displayed order.
Going through one by one I rolled my results: 2, 4, 3, 1, 4, 2.
Looking at my updated stats this time I felt the result, not from any specific stat, but I overall felt more powerful and more real, like I weighed more on a metaphysical scale, but it also provided a feeling of strength that was reassuring.
Strength:
9
Dexterity
15
Intelligence
13
Wisdom
15
Endurance
21
Vitality
15
Skill gains delayed by challenge conditions: Mana-Morph Weapon skill ranked up to Rank 3, Enlightening puzzle resolvement ranked up to Rank 5.
Enlightening puzzle resolvement reached first tier upgrade.
Reward for first tier skill upgrade: 1 intelligence point.
Checking over my stats I saw my intelligence had gone up by one, these rewards had been included in the knowledge however getting decent rank ups without earning them in a challenge was meant to be difficult so I hadn’t focused on it much.
Looking over at my other rewards I made my way over to the cube that I needed to use before I left.