I don’t think I took another breath until Sigrid grabbed my arm and hauled me the final few feet to safety on the other side of the pit, which was roughly the same time as the pit trap finished resetting.

The staircase we were on now was the same as the one we’d descended to get into the hall of traps. I sat on the bottom steps looking back the way we’d come. Even knowing the trap doors were there, I couldn’t see any trace of their seams in the floor.

Morgan sat down beside me. “Need a while to catch a breather?”

I waved her off. “Nah, I’m good to go.”

I glanced over my shoulder when I heard Sigrid go “hmmm.” She stood a few steps above us with Kenji, alternating looking up toward the top of the stairs and back toward the corridor we’d passed through.

“Everything okay?” I said. “Don’t tell me there’s more danger here.”

Sigrid bit her lip. “Hard to say.”

“I’m sure this entire place is dangerous,” Lancelot said from a few steps above Sigrid, rubbing his hand along his bare arm. “It’s too hard to put my armor back on on these stairs and I’m feeling a bit vulnerable. I vote we keep going.”

“We do have a quest to complete,” Morgan said.

“True,” I sighed, putting both hands on my knees and pushing myself up to my feet.

“Alright alright alright,” Lancelot drawled. “Let’s boogie.”

As he set off to lead the way up the stairs he looked so different than normal. I was used to the imposing knight Lancelot, decked out in full plate armor, but now he only had on the simple cotton pants and a light shirt he wore under his armor. The only sign he wasn’t an ordinary guy in his early 20s was the sword hanging off his belt; the rest of his gear was stowed in Morgan’s inventory.

Even without the powerful aura his armor leant him, Lance was still a hunky guy. Lean and fit, with the sculpted muscles of someone who put some effort into it, and the sort of face that would've made my sister call him "pretty boy." If he hadn't chosen to hang around with Arthur all the time, he probably would've been the best looking guy in the room in most places. Is that where his bluster comes from? Trying to force his way out of Arthur's shadow?

Lancelot charged up the stairs, taking them two or three at a time, the rest of us following somewhat less enthusiastically, but he barely made it half the way up before Sigrid’s eyes snapped wide open. She began to call out a warning but it was too late. Lancelot stepped on a certain step and there was a loud click. Another trap. At first we all stood there dazed. Then after the click there was a clunk from behind us.

We all looked back, and saw that the bottom step was no longer there. It had levered down forty-five degrees. Clunk. The next step angled down. The staircase was transforming into a ramp.

Clunk. Another step had angled down. Clunk. Another.

But that wasn’t the worst part.

The worst part was that the pit trap at the bottom of the stairs had reopened. The solid steps we stood on were turning into a slide straight down into the pit. So far, four steps had shifted, and I was standing on the fifth.

I turned around, wanting to leap up three or four steps at a time, but Morgan was in the way, only a couple of steps ahead of me. Kenji and Sigrid several steps above her, and finally Lancelot up on the trigger step. There was no way we were going to make it.

Clunk.

I felt the step under my foot angle down, and I think I shouted something, I’m not sure, and I started flailing my arms for balance, letting go of the bag of rats. Morgan reached back and caught my hand, but it was pointless. The steps under her feet had angled down too. Everything started happening in slow motion.

While Morgan and I both fell onto our backs and began to slide down, she somehow kept a tight grip on my wrist. I felt my body slip over the bottom edge of the ramp into the pit. I looked up at her, our eyes locked in fear. Then behind her I saw Sigrid lunge toward us, diving down the stairs. She’d rammed the bottom of her shield into a step at the same time as the step folded down to become part of the ramp. Her shield was trapped, anchored in the stuck step. Sigrid threw her free arm forward and grabbed the back of Morgan’s purple dress.

We hung there, Sigrid’s shield stuck in the steps, her left arm secured in the shield’s straps, her right arm holding Morgan. My entire body dangled in the pit, the only thing keeping me from falling was Morgan’s hand clenched tightly around my wrist. Above us, the clunking continued as the rest of the stairs transformed one by one into a ramp.

I heard Lancelot curse right before there was a soft thump followed by a scrabbling sound. I could picture him falling as the stairs shifted under his feet, his hands clawing at the ramp trying to keep from sliding down. Then the scrabbling stopped and I heard Kenji’s voice: “Gotcha.”

“What’s happening up there?” I called.

“I’ve got you guys,” Sigrid said, “but I can’t move.”

“Kenji’s got me,” Lancelot said. “I don’t know how, but he’s got me.”

“How are you doing that?” Sigrid said.

“Spider climb,” Kenji said. “This ramp’s nothing.”

“Not to rush this or anything,” Morgan said, “but I don’t know how much longer I can hold on.”

I looked down. The bottom of the pit was only a little more than a dozen feet or so below me and I could fall that far without much problem, but it wasn’t the floor of the pit that concerned me, it was the array of five foot long spikes that would meet me first. I saw baby rats fleeing from the bag I'd dropped, scurrying around on the floor of the pit amid the remains of the trap's prior victims.

Then I saw the glint of something shiny down among the bones and other remains at the bottom of the pit.

Of all the times to find treasure.

“Daniel,” Morgan said, her voice tight with the strain of holding onto me. “You need to think of something fast.”

“It’s okay.”

“I mean it.”

“It’s okay Morgan,” I said. “You can let go.”

“But—”

“It’s okay. I’ll just slide down the wall.”

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“But the spikes.”

“There’s a gap. Not a big one, but I think I can squeeze between the spikes.”

“Are you sure?” Sigrid said from above.

“Does it matter? I said.

“No,” Morgan said. “Sorry Daniel.”

And she let go.

Think thin. Think thin.

I tried to keep my body and face pressed to the pit’s wall as I slid down. I could feel the smooth metal of a spike sliding along my body, but no pain. It hadn’t pierced me, but the space was so tight it had slid up under my clothing. My feet hit the floor hard, but I remained standing, wedged between the hard stone wall and the cold metal spike.

“Daniel!” Sigrid’s voice came from above.

“I’m okay,” I shouted back.

“Thank god,” she said.

“Okay, now what?” Morgan said.

“Kenji?” I said.

His soft voice squeaked from up above. “Yes?”

“Think you can climb to the top?”

“No. With Lancelot’s weight I’m barely holding on as it is.”

“Don’t let go,” Lancelot said.

“What if you weren’t supporting Lancelot?” I said.

“Oh, then no problem,” Kenji said.

“I said don’t let go!” Lancelot shrieked.

“Sigrid?” I said.

“Yeah?” she said.

“How secure are you there? Will your shield hold?”

“Feels wedged in there pretty good.”

“Do you think if Kenji let go of Lance you could catch him?”

“Not really. I’m out of free hands.”

“She’s right below us,” Kenji said. “He could just slide down into the shield.”

“Lance? What do you think?” I said.

“It’s not that far,” he said. “I think I could do it.”

“Kenji, do you have any rope?”

“No.”

“Does anybody up there have any rope?”

A chorus of no’s.

“Jeez,” I said. “Adventuring Basics, always have rope.”

“We don’t all have a magic inventory, you know,” Lancelot said.

“I do,” Morgan said.

“But no rope,” he said.

“Hey, I play video games,” Morgan said. “Why would I think to bring rope? In my games, if you’re gonna need rope, the game provides it.”

“Okay,” I said, “here’s what we’re gonna do...”

After explaining the plan, we went on to make it happen. I opened my inventory, reached in, and pulled out a length of rope. It was thin and light, but very strong. Cost me a fortune, but years of role playing games had taught me well. Always have rope. It would have been hard enough to maneuver, face against the wall and wedged tight between it and the spike, but with the spike riding up under my clothes it was even harder. It had slid under my jacket and shirt as I fell, running up under my clothes and preventing me from moving anything but my arms. I was able to get the rope out with one hand, then feed one end of it past my stomach to the other hand.

As I did this, Sigrid hauled Morgan up, then the two of them used some spare clothes from Morgan’s inventory to bind their feet together. The trick was to get Morgan’s hands to the edge of the pit so she could catch the rope when I tossed it up. Sigrid held her shield with both hands with Morgan dangling upside down from her legs. When I saw Morgan’s hands at the top of the pit, I uncoiled the rope a bit, then heaved the bulk of it up. It took a few tries, but she finally caught it.

I could hear them moving and communicating above me as the rope was tossed up to Kenji. Then Kenji let go of Lancelot, who slid down. There was a thunk as his feet hit the shield, but no screams or anything, so I knew it held when he landed on it. Kenji skittered up the ramp to the top, then he lowered the rope and the three of them climbed up. There was only me left.

The end of the rope dropped beside me. I grabbed it with one hand.

“Okay, pull me up!”

The rest of the group hauled on the rope and I started to ascend. When I’d risen enough that the spike was finally free from my clothes, I told them to stop.

“What’s wrong?” Sigrid called down.

“Nothing bad, it’s just...can you lower me down again?”

With my feet on the floor again — and no spike under my clothes trapping me in place — I squeezed between the spikes toward the glint I’d seen earlier. I crouched down to the best of my ability, it was like playing Twister against immovable poles, finally getting my hand close to the glint. Digging under the remains, I found...a present. It was small, like the size of a deck of cards, wrapped in shiny metalic paper and done up with a ribbon and bow and everything.

There was no doubt in my mind what this was.

I'd done my best to ignore the observers comments. It was clear the others couldn't see their messages, and I didn't want to alarm the others with the knowledge that some strange, twisted entities had been watching us for who knows how long. Still, I had received some pretty good stuff from observers in the past. This prettily-wrapped present was absolutely something from them.

I hesitated before touching it.

"Why is there a gift down here?" I said, quietly, so that Morgan wouldn't hear but the observers would.

An unnamed observer put it there

An unnamed observer replaced the crappy magic dagger that was there before with it

Darn. I would've liked a magic dagger.

"Is it really okay for you observers to mess with things this way? Doesn't it, like, break the fourth wall or something?"

System could not find a rule against it

A curious observer still doesn't know if all this merits a reward

An unnamed observer tells a curious observer to stuff itself and go watch some other boring Players then

I grit my teeth and touched the present. It exploded in a blossom of virtual confetti to reveal the gacha wheel of fortune. This time, the slots on the wheel were filled with potential prizes like Little Treasure Chest, Huge Treasure Chest, Magic Armor, Magic Weapon, Unique Artifact, and, in what I can only think was a last-minute addition, Baby Giant Rat Refills. How thoughtful.

"How's it going down there?" came Morgan's voice from above.

"Fine," I called back. "Just need a minute."

I reached out toward the wheel and was just able to touch it with my fingertips. I gave it a flick. It wasn't much, but it was enough to set the wheel spinning.

"What's that clicking sound?" Morgan said.

"Nothing," I said.

The wheel slowed and eventually came to rest on the Unique Artifact slot. That sounded promising.

The wheel vanished and in my hand appeared a thin, flat circle of dark, cloudy metal, about a foot in diameter and maybe a sixteenth of an inch thick.

Plate of Peace The Great War began when the Demon Queen demonstrated the use of this enchanted plate of malficium to the High Chancellor of the Land, to whom she had just given it as a gift, then kept him inside its bubble until he told her something. Nobody knows what he said, but after she killed him immediately following that, the Land was at war with the Demons. Powers:

Alternate Energy Source: Biofuel - Use the life force of target(s) inside a dome of silence to fuel the Plate of Peace’s powers instead of mana

Leave Me Alone - Infuse mana to add a force field effect to a dome of silence

Shhhh - Create a dome of silence when standing on the Plate of Peace

What the hell? That was quite the description. I was holding a piece of history. Curious set of powers, though. And you had to be standing still on it the whole time. That was strangely specific.

“Hey, you coming out or what?” Sigrid shouted from above.

I tucked the plate into my inventory and muttered a quiet thank you to the observer.

“Yeah,” I called back. “All good. Haul away.”