The other woman narrowed her eyes at Cyn’s question, but nodded after a moment, and Cyn reached out to Pet her arm. It was more of a pat, because actually petting a person is kind of awkward, and to her surprise Cyn felt the skill activate. After a few moments, Dana frowned and backed up a step. “What... what are you doing?”
Cyn laughed at the question, her surprise leaking into the sound. “It looks like people are also classified as creatures. The skill theoretically should have a calming effect.”
“Well it definitely did that, and that is what made it very weird. I could feel you were doing... something.” Dana shook her head and continued. “Don’t do that again.”
Cyn shrugged. She hadn’t planned on doing it again, at least not without good reason. “I was just testing.” The Archer looked even unhappier now, but there wasn’t anything Cyn could do about it. Feeling Hex approach behind her, she was surprised to find the Rogue was not missing health points. His evolution must have not given any vitality.
Turning slightly to face him, Cyn saw Hex wore a scowl. “Evolution not go well?”
“I had to take the best potential in a suite of shitty options.” Cyn gave the Rogue a pat too, sans skill activation. Hex gave her a bit of side-eye, but made no comment on it.
“I have a few more skills to test, but for one of them I need someone injured.” There was a round of groans at Cyn’s words, but ultimately Hex agreed to cut himself so she could test Siphon, in exchange for a future favor. The Rogue was not convinced that Cyn knowing more about her new skill would be a favor in itself, but he was also the only one that was not extremely averse to hurting themselves.
Cyn was going to owe Hex quite a hefty favor, because he had to reopen the same cut multiple times for her to test the range of Siphon. The range wasn’t great, only around ten feet, but ten feet was better than needing to literally touch someone. Every activation also seemed to remove the same amount of health from Cyn, a little under one-hundred points, but she was not sure how that translated to health gained on Hex’s end since he was barely losing any health in the first place. There was a mana cost as well, but it was negligible. The Rogue commented that Siphon appeared to speed up wound healing, but after some discussion the party was not sure if that was because of having full health points or a function of the skill itself.
The way the skill felt to use would be something Cyn would have to study more over time. It was entirely different from how Hubris felt when she was using it for a similar purpose, and she still had to test Light Ball before her party got too impatient about moving on. Using Light Ball felt almost identical to how Mana Ball had felt, right up until the mana was leaving Cyn’s fingers.
As the mana passed through her skin, it was as though it also went through a small pocket of something else. Normally, Cyn could feel her mana all the way from its origin in her chest to its dispersal point, wherever that may be. But when she used Light Ball, for a fraction of a second as the mana passed out of her body, the mana just vanished from her senses. For a barely discernible amount of time, it simply did not exist for Cyn. Once it was back, it took the form of a softly glowing, ephemeral golden mist before condensing into the more solid ‘ball’ shape.
The golden, light-attuned mana still felt almost entirely like Cyn’s normal mana. Almost. There was a strange distortion to her perception of the mana that she found difficult to even pinpoint. It was just... different. She would have to use the attuned mana more to get a better gasp on what was going on before Cyn could ever attempt to attune her mana using Hubris, but she had no doubt that it was possible. She just had to be able to access whatever pocket the mana was entering, and that would just take practice.
Or, with her track record, desperation.
Satisfied with the results of her testing, Cyn gave into the impatient stares of her party and let them know she was done for now. With no idea what to expect, they cautiously walked forward and into the next arena, keeping an eye on the central archway.
Once everyone was inside of the arena, the most surprising thing happened. Nothing at all. The entrance behind them did not suddenly close off, nor did the apparent exit on the other side of the large, flat space. The archway remained dormant, and as they slowly wandered closer Cyn was able to confirm it was made of wood like she thought, intricately carved with symbols she did not recognize.
One other feature of the arena stood out in comparison to the other trials, and that was the stone slabs that made up the floor. It had not been as noticeable from a distance, but there was a pattern to them here. In the previous trials, the floor had been fairly uniform. Four-foot square, gray slabs - which turned out to actually be cubes - for the Trial of Agility, Will, Mind, and Luck. Similar slabs with deep grooves carved into them for the Trial of Vitality, which turned into an obsidian material once Cyn and Hex joined the trial. Dana had not mentioned the floor of the Trial of Strength, except for the large hole that had opened up, but Cyn assumed it was probably much the same.
The arena around the archway, however, used significantly smaller and unevenly shaped paving stones. It gave an almost tiled appearance, the effect increased by the patterns of off-colored pavers that wove through the standard gray. Cyn was attempting to discern any recognizable shape out of the patterns as the party approached the archway, when a portion of the off-colored pavers began to glow purple.
The party quickly retreated, and within a single heartbeat the glowing had stopped. Nothing else changed around the arena, and after a few moments Scott told them to stay back while he inched forward again. The Guardian was not able to trigger the glow a second time. Scott beckoned them forward, and being near the rear Cyn was able to catch the moment the glowing began again.
This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.
Looking down at the paving stones as the party walked forward, Cyn saw Hex’s bare foot pass over one of the off-colored strips, and as soon as the Rogue made contact with the ground on the other side the pattern began to glow again. Purple... like his cloak. The party froze this time instead of backing up, and she was able to more clearly see the pattern now that it was glowing.
The fact Cyn was not able to easily make out a pattern beforehand made more sense now that one portion was glowing. It was not as though just a single section of the arena was glowing purple, instead there were still non-glowing stones passing over and through the lit portions. The patterns were overlapping. There was a large amount of branching embellishment of the pattern too, twisting around the entire arena, but the main portion formed a clear image of a pair of crossed daggers. Hex had stepped into the image of the weapons, and that appeared to have triggered the glow.
While Cyn was studying the glowing stones, Dana had moved away. “Sam, over here. I think I can make out a sword.” The Warrior jogged after her, and the Archer was proved correct as more of the floor lit up crimson. The rest of the party quickly spread out to find their own positions, and in less than a minute Scott was the final member stepping into his sigil, a golden guardian’s shield blazing to life under his feet.
Once the party had ignited all of the sigils, a pentagon formed around the archway with each side of the shape having a separate color, predicably matching both the cloaks each of them wore and the sigils they had lit. The entire pattern shone throughout the stone arena in a bright, chromatic display for a few moments before the colors seemed to flow across the paving stones towards the archway, the tide of color leaving dull paving stones in its wake. As the light entered the wooden arch, the symbols Cyn had seen carved into the structure began to glow white from within.
It only took a handful of seconds for the sigils on the ground to empty their light into the archway, and the symbols in the wood only shone for a few seconds longer before going dark. The party was not left without results, however. Where Cyn could once see through the wooden arch, she now instead was looking at a silvery, iridescent surface. If she had to imagine what a portal to another world would look like, this was it.
Scott snorted softly. “How dramatic.” The Guardian began to walk towards the portal, and the rest of the party seemed to take that as their cue to do the same. “Think we just walk on through?” There was a collective shrug in response to his question, but before Scott could say anything further, Hex took the last few steps into the archway and vanished. Not even stopping to think about it, Cyn followed after the Rogue. As she stepped into the portal, she could hear Scott begin to curse colorfully behind her.
The portal felt inexplicably wet as she passed through, although it did not leave any residue on her skin or clothes. It also did not give her the nausea or feeling of movement that she had experienced when the System moved her between the dungeon floors. Cyn bumped directly into the Rogue’s back on the other side, and - while muttering some curses of her own - she pushed Hex out of the way of the portal while getting a look around them.
The room they had ended up in was not very large - less than thirty feet across - and, after spending so much time under the open sky again after the mineshaft, the effect was almost claustrophobic. Not helping the feeling of close quarters was the creature that looked to be waiting for them, who took up a not-insignificant amount of the available space.
Hekaton - Level ??
The hekaton was definitely a humanoid, nearly twice Cyn’s height and with human-like proportions. Other than the height, what really stood out was the multitude of arms Cyn could see sprouting from the creature’s torso and back, along with the deep blue color of her skin. Cyn was guessing the creature was female based on a human standard of feminine features, but it was all she had to work with. The hekaton at least did not appear to be threatening them for the moment, just lounging in a suitably sized chair while being surrounded by what appeared to be multiple high-tech computer systems and a large number of potted plants. She could feel that Spam was nervous about the hekaton, although that was also obvious by the fact it was barely peeking out of its pouch now and was completely silent. The familiar was not making any kind of warning croak, so she assumed that for the moment the party was not in direct danger.
It had only taken Cyn a few moments to observe the creature and room while pushing a tense Hex to the side, and the instant she was out of the way Scott stepped through the portal behind them. The Guardian quickly closed the gap between himself and the pair that entered first, smacking them both roughly on the back of the head. It hurt, but the effect was not nearly as detrimental as the first time Scott had smacked Hex, based on his lack of health loss. “The hell were you two thinking? Don’t answer that, you w...” Scott’s annoyed lecture cut off abruptly as he seemed to finally take stock of the room they ended up in, most importantly that they were not alone.
The hekaton let out a mirthful laugh as the Warrior and Archer filed into the room directly behind Scott. “Are you not used to wrangling your party yet, Guardian? I would suggest a leash for the Rogue, at least until he learns better.” Hex scoffed at the idea, causing Cyn and Sam to join in on the laughter. The small interaction eased the tension in the room greatly, and since she did not detect any illusions or attempts at mental influence Cyn felt as though the hekaton was not a threat to them. At least not directly. It would still probably be a bad idea to piss her off, since Cyn could not see her level.
Scott’s sighed and slumped his shoulders, before jerking a thumb at Cyn. “Any suggestions about wrangling her?” Cyn choked on her laugh, but before she could object everyone else was laughing even harder. Even Scott had cracked a wry smile.
“Mages are unpredictable. Sometimes a leash works, sometimes they just set it on fire. I don’t think a leash will work for this one, from what data she has provided over the course of the trials she seems the type that would chew her own arm off in protest.” It had taken the hekaton a minute to recover from laughing before she answered, wiping tears from mercury-colored eyes. Hey, I resemble that remark! Wait, data?
“Figured as much. Now, if you don’t mind miss, can you tell me where we are?”
The hekaton, who was smiling warmly, spread out her multitude of arms at the Guardian’s question. “Congratulations, newly Awakened. You have successfully reached the center of the Hungering Labyrinth.”