Wyatt was disappointed when the next room was not one of the circular rooms that signified the end of the floor. Instead, he was faced with a room that was filled with simple, and obvious, traps.
The floor was covered in square tiles, forming a neat grid. Some of the tiles had five holes on top of them; one in each corner and one in the center. It didn’t take a genius to tell those were pressure activated and Wyatt assumed spears were locked in place just below each of the holes.
Still, Wyatt kept his pride in check, and examined the room for any other dangers. He was rewarded for his diligence when he noticed holes in the ceiling, as well. Looking closer, he saw the same grid pattern above him as was below, with the traps pertaining to tiles that were not otherwise trapped on the floor.
Clever. Create a false sense of security for adventurers, then punish them with the real trap.
Wyatt’s thoughts were interrupted with a notification, and he quickly looked at it, seeing exactly what he expected to.
Your skill has leveled up:
Perception – Level 5
Dismissing the prompt, Wyatt took another look around the room, creating a map of the dangerous tiles in his mind. Satisfied that there were no other traps, he moved forward.
Wyatt walked down the next short hallway in similar fashion to the last, taking care to look for anything potentially dangerous. He was examining the wall when he received a notification, and it caused his heart to leap.
Your skill has leveled up:
Stealth – Level 3
Wyatt hadn’t been able to experiment with his stealth skill, but he had a suspicion that increasing stealth required something that could potentially spot him, which meant something was nearby. Slowly, he turned his head to the door at the end of the hallway, which seemed much closer than it had been before.
In the room, Wyatt could see multiple humanoid shapes, and immediately he identified them as chimpanzees. Luckily, they didn’t seem to be mutated into larger versions of themselves. Wyatt had heard a lot about the strength and intelligence of chimpanzees, and what would most likely be called a “dire chimpanzee” would be terrifying to face alone.
From his viewpoint, Wyatt could make out only three of the creatures, but from how they moved he assumed there were more. Wyatt readied his opening move, thankful for the lack of any verbal component to his enchantment-based spells. After the five seconds of hand movement required to cast Rampage, Wyatt looked at his target. The chimpanzee in the center of the room shook its head for a moment, before looking around the room.
Then it locked eyes with Wyatt.
Realizing his ability had failed, Wyatt’s mind raced to come up with a strategy to face this new threat. He turned and ran towards the previous room, the sound of screaming chimpanzees following behind him.
From the center of the room, the human turned back at the approaching threat in time to see two of the humanoid animals charging after him, with several more approaching from the hallway.
As the first swung at him, Wyatt used Subtle Manipulation to try and turn its attack on its companion. He failed a second time and was knocked to the ground. He rolled to his feet, stumbling only slightly, as the two came at him again. Realizing these animals were resistant to his enchantments, Wyatt adjusted his strategy yet again.
He used his staff to block an attack, then pushed the animal back, giving the second room to move in for a strike. Wyatt leapt back, hoping he didn’t miscalculate the distance. As the chimpanzee advanced, he heard a click from below, and spears shot up from the ground, impaling his attacker.
The others howled and charged him from all sides. Another trap was set off, and more spears appeared in the ground. Wyatt used the confusion it caused to swing his staff at another, triggering his arcane rune. An explosion of light blasted the target to the ground, directly on top of a third pressure plate.
Hoping he could keep this up, Wyatt attempted to maneuver the chimps into yet more traps, but after so many deaths, they started to avoid the plates with holes in them. That’s when Wyatt moved to the second phase of his hastily developed strategy, placing a specific plate between him and another chimpanzee, which advanced, thinking itself safe.
The creature’s hubris was rewarded with another five spears, this time from above, ending its life. The remaining animals stopped their advance, looking up to the ceiling as well as the floor, and Wyatt was able to finally get an accurate count of the remaining enemies.
Four of them had died from the traps, and another four remained, eyeing him from where they stood in the room, their anger clear on their faces. Wyatt stood in the center of the room, hoping their apprehension would allow him to fight one on one.
Wyatt heard movement from behind, and he turned to see one of the chimpanzees was charging after him. Wyatt Shifted to the side, narrowly avoiding the attack, and swung his staff at the back of its head. Undaunted, it turned back to the mage, swinging its long arm. Wyatt ducked, then used Rock Spike, imitating the traps that had helped him so much in this fight. When the animal continued to swing with a spike in its stomach, Wyatt used it another two times, impaling his attacker and stopping its attack.
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Wyatt turned as one of the chimps roared at him, and he prepared for an attack from the loud animal. Suddenly, something hard impacted Wyatt on the side of the head, and he fell to the ground. As he tried to rise, he was struck in the stomach, knocking him back to the ground.
Wyatt looked up at the attacking chimp, seeing the one that howled earlier jumping up and down with joy at his successful distraction. Wyatt, his staff having fallen from his hands, used air magic to push his attacker back a few feet, giving him room to use Earthen Creation to create another staff out of the rocks below him. He swung blindly towards the chimpanzee, catching it in the legs and toppling it. Wyatt sent another Rock Spike shooting up from the ground, killing his attacker.
Wyatt frantically gazed around the room, his heart pounding as much as his injured head. Two of the other animals were jumping and howling in rage, but one of them was standing still, eyeing the mage with an analyzing look that spoke of greater intelligence than the others.
Breathing heavily, Wyatt held this standoff as long as he dared, giving his dwindling stamina reserves enough time to regenerate as much as he could. His mind raced, trying to remember the location of each of the traps that hadn’t yet been triggered, but none of them were in locations to be of any immediate use.
Knowing he needed to take the offensive, Wyatt used his new ability, Wind Cutter, sending wave after wave of near invisible, and deadly sharp air streaming towards the enemy on his right. His target was surprised by the sudden flurry of motion, made worse by its inability to see the currents of air for the danger they were, and he fell in a bloody mess upon the ground.
The chimpanzee on his left charged him, and Wyatt used his earth magic again, causing a spike of rock to shoot up from the ground. This time, the chimpanzee had begun to learn his tactics, and it leapt up in the air to avoid the attack.
Wyatt, however, was also a creature of intelligence, and as his opponent came down on him from above, he channeled his air magic. Using his staff to direct the blast of air, he struck it downwards, and the chimpanzee was struck in the chest with a burst of wind that sent it backwards, directly into the sharp rock it had just avoided.
Wyatt turned his attention back to the last remaining enemy. He could tell this one would be the most difficult. The thing was larger than the others, standing a head taller than Wyatt, with an intelligence greater than any enemy he had yet faced.
As if to demonstrate this fact, the chimp reached its hand out, and grabbed one of the spears that extended from the ground, snapping it in a show of strength. It examined its new weapon, then turned its attention back to the mage.
Wyatt readied his own staff, hoping his skill with the weapon was sufficient to best this creature. Wyatt barely had time to cast Haste on himself as it leapt forward, and Wyatt attempted to strike it mid-air. His attack met nothing but air, as the chimp grabbed one of the spears mid-flight, changing its momentum above the swing. It struck out with its own weapon, hitting Wyatt in the back as it sailed over him.
Wyatt was forced on the defensive, unable to tell which direction the intelligent chimpanzee’s next attack would come from. Its agility and strength far surpassed his own, and every time he thought it would come at him from one direction, it shifted its momentum with an adept display of aerial acrobatics and attacked from another.
Wyatt’s stamina was close to drained, his health rapidly dropping to match. His enemy closed in, attacking again from the air, striking the brooch that held his cloak in place. It fell to the ground just as Wyatt was forced backwards. As he stepped back, he heard the distinctive click of a trap, and tried to dodge, but his stamina was spent, and only his Haste enhanced speed saved him as he pushed backwards to fall to the ground, a sudden and violent burst of pain in his calf evidence that his dodge had not been entirely successful.
Wyatt looked up at the amused face of the chimpanzee above him. It stood atop his cloak, just to the side of the trap that held the human in place. The creature raised its spear above his head to deliver the killing blow.
In one last desperate attempt to survive, Wyatt reached for his cloak. As he took a handful of the purple garment, he sent the last of his mana into it, activating the spatial magic within. With a look of surprise on its face, the chimpanzee that stood atop it suddenly dropped. It reached out to grab at the floor, but was pulled into the cape, and soon disappeared in its folds.
Wyatt, all three of his resource bars now close to empty, passed out on the hard stone ground.
When he finally opened his eyes, Wyatt was greeted with a searing pain in almost every part of his body. When he tried to move, the pain worsened in multiple locations, causing him to cry out in agony. He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to remain as still as possible as he took stock of his situation. His health was sitting at 10 of 140, meaning he had been out for close to an hour. Curiously, his mana and stamina were less than they should have been after so long unconscious, but with his head pounding, Wyatt wasn’t able to come up with a reason for this and pushed it from his mind.
The worst pain he felt was in his leg and Wyatt slowly looked toward it, ignoring the screams of protest in his head as he did. Almost immediately he wished he hadn’t.
The spear from the trap he had triggered was sticking out of his calf, pinning him in place and causing fresh waves of agony to course up his leg whenever he moved.
That chimp used my own strategy against me. It corralled me into the trap on the floor.
In an attempt to lodge himself free, Wyatt used Shift. His entire body vibrated briefly, renewing his pain, but he remained firmly in place on the ground, skewered upon the shaft of metal.
Shift must not work when I’m immobilized.
Knowing he couldn’t remain attached to the spear Wyatt was forced to come up with a new plan. Luckily, his mana had regenerated enough for him to use his spells, and he used Wind Cutter to cut the top of the spear just above where it extended from his leg.
Wyatt almost vomited as the top of the spear clattered to the ground, and he began sweating profusely. He had never experienced shock before, but the human knew that he was starting to feel the effects of it, and he would have to act fast to free himself.
His mind now increasingly foggy, Wyatt had to try several times before he could conjure the next use of his Wind Cutter. When he was finally successful, he aimed at the base of the spear, just below his leg, and freed himself from the trap, but his success was short lived.
Now fully gripped by the symptoms of shock, Wyatt turned his head and vomited. He was sweating profusely, yet he shivered from the cold. His stomach was turning, and he struggled not to dry heave as he lay there.
A symbol next to his health bar was flashing, indicating that he was bleeding. He watched his health slowly start to tick back towards zero, and he was thankful the wound seemed to have missed any vital veins, or he would have bled faster. He grabbed his cloak, still on the ground beside him, and wrapped it around his leg as best he could from his prone position.
The symbol changed to a bloody bandage, and Wyatt was forced to trust the increased healing offered by the system, as everything went black once more.