It had been insane to take Kat at her word that the guilds were honorable. In retrospect, Lacey was pretty sure that they should be dead. They’d rushed to get 10 entrances open by their reopening time. They were still fussing with economizing which mobs to buy to beef up their menagerie when their timer ran out, but the guilds hadn’t come in until an hour later. A single goblin at the doorway had held up a sign saying, “Please wait…” and the guilds had waited.
Kat had chosen to enter the level 10-15 version of the Aztec Tomb. As far as Lacey knew, Kat was still cranking up buckets of blood to dump on the altar. The puzzle had been designed for a full party to work together to complete so it was quite the challenge for the single level 11 rogue. Kat was a trooper though and they didn’t see her complain, not that they would hear it. Every time Lacey looked at Kat’s progress, Kat was grinning like a maniac, even covered in the blood from the Aztec Tomb’s wells.
“Think she’ll make it?” Lacey asked Colt, not daring to look up from the creature she was creating on paper so they could get the hoard quest done.
“She’s got plenty of time before the dungeon mobs reset,” Colt hadn’t stopped grinning since the event had started. They had a full 10 groups in the dungeon, each on their own level, with Kat as the only solo adventurer. The adventurers had a 10-hour timer to complete the dungeon, but at 6 hours they got a warning that the monsters, locks, and puzzles would reset, making getting out as hard as getting in. Kat wasn’t even at the 5-hour mark.
The way they had it set up, the adventurers would have to get to the final treasure and back out by the time the 6-hour timer reset the dungeon. They found it unfeasible to provide shortcuts to the exits without opening themselves up to adventurers going through backwards and bypassing whole levels. Lacey and Colt could have done it with one-way doors, but had decided in the end that it wasn’t worth it when they weren’t sure if adventurers could figure out how to hold open a one-way door somehow. They were still testing out a lot of theories without a lot of experience.
“I think you’re going to owe her another Tomb,” Colt laughed at the screen. “She’s having a ball. I want to splurge for the video playback feature just to watch her disarm those traps. She might have powered down, but it’s like she can’t forget mechanisms, right?”
To start their newest format for their dungeon, Lacey and Colt had decided to provide only one level/floor of challenge. When the previous bullies had been trying to destroy them, they’d layered floor after floor just to put distance between them and the intruders. While these new levels were only a single floor, they were tailored to only that level of adventurers. It gave the parties a chance to understand that if they did decide to descend past that level, they would face a challenge that was a much higher level of monsters. It also made the dungeons faster to complete. While the Aztec Tomb that Kat was on did descend further to the next level, she’d then be on a level that had probably already been cleared by a higher-leveled group.
Lacey tried not to think about how little actually stood between their control room and the incursions. They had the coupons to force a closure, but they’d used up most of their backup levels to make enough levels to challenge the incursions. With a total of 10 entrances, they could be invaded by 50 adventurers at the same time. They’d had five nights that they’d used as 5-year growth spurts, so they had a pretty robust stable of monsters, but one army could still feasibly wipe them out.
“She caught on too fast to the puzzles,” Lacey worried at her lip. “We got lazy on the NPCs and Hughe. Do you think Kat can handle the Manchester Room?”
“That’s the last room in the highest arena, right?” Colt pressed his lips together. “The higher leveled group just got to it, and they are probably going to wipe. You think it’ll piss them off?”
“We warned Kat that we weren’t going to pull our punches,” Lacey took a breath to keep her nerves from jangling. It wasn’t like they could change the room now, even if they wanted to. With adventurers in the dungeon, they were locked out of most of the controls.
“They seem pretty happy so far,” Colt worried, and Lacey knew that he was flipping back and forth between Kat’s dungeon and the Manchester Room. The room was a simple chamber lined with wood. The floors and walls were smooth planks of wood stained a rich, deep cherry color. The ceiling was like the inside of a ski lodge with rafters and a pitched V shape that was filled with chains of thicknesses that ranged from an inch wide to a full foot. Some of the chains were studded with sharp metal thorns and some ended in wrecking balls that hid within the depth of darkness at the peak of the ceiling.
The chamber itself was 100 feet wide and twice that in length with simple wooden benches lined up like pews. The entry wall had only the door the adventurers would enter through, and the opposite wall had a large stage. The side walls were lined with doors, all locked, and all trapped except for the very first one. If the doors were opened with anything other than the keys, the chains would begin to swing down. The chains with the thorns had a thirst for adventurer blood, but it was the wrecking balls that were the true threat. The ceiling was held up by a hundred pillars of wood, and once a significant number of them had been destroyed by the wrecking balls, the ceiling would collapse, and a ton of earth would crush the occupants.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
“Kat’s going to pick the locks in the Manchester Room,” Lacey warned Colt, sketching out the details of whiskers on a pillow-monster that wore its poisoned feathers on the inside. When it was killed, it exploded, the tiny quills of the downy feathers pricking anyone nearby with a poison that Lacey figured they could level up and modify using the colored glow-worms.
“This group has a rogue,” Colt winced. “They are totally going to wipe.”
“Good thing only one level has the Manchester Room,” Lacey tore the drawing out of the book and place it next to the other 4 creatures she’d drawn that day. “I’m going to start on another dungeon level. I’m running out of inspiration on monsters we can summon.”
“You should focus on the denizens for the back yard area,” Colt rubbed his hands together as he walked over to pick up the sheets and look them over. “A pillow monster?”
“I told you, I’m burning out,” Lacey grumped at his sneer. “My other idea was an elephant trunk mimic. I’ll start another set tomorrow. As long as we get some sleep tonight, I’ll have new inspiration.”
“I fleshed out the moving wall system for the Aztec Tomb so that at least the maze part changes,” Colt offered as an apology. “I’ll do a map with you. We’re always better thinking together.”
“You might miss something,” Lacey waved at the pedestal.
“Kat’s the only one still in there with the Manchester Room wipe,” Colt flipped to another drawing of a creature that had a duck bill lined with sharp teeth, only it wasn’t covered in feathers. The whole rest of the creature was a snake with centipede legs.
“I’m sure Kat is about to finish the altar quest.”
“Dang it,” Colt grunted and hurried back to his desk to watch. “This is why we need instant replay so we don’t miss anything. If we don’t watch, we don’t know what we need to tweak.”
“I get it,” Lacey stretched her fingers and then shook out her hands.
“I’m sorry, Lace,” Colt flinched at her pained look. “We’ll work on this one together as soon as Kat finishes the Aztec Tomb. I’ve got an idea for the modular mazes. I can at least grind out a few modules.”
The fact that the adventurers had finished the levels by the 5-hour mark opened up the very good possibility that they could process 2 sets of groups every day. That was good since many of the groups had casualties. Of the ten groups that had entered the dungeon less than 6 hours before, only 4 had survived all the way through with no casualties at all. If they used the NPCs as a guide, their dungeons were too tough for the ratings. Only one group completely wiped in the Manchester Room, but 4 of the others lost at least one party member, with most of the casualties being at the lowest levels.
“It’s fine,” Lacey scooped up a bunch of colored pencils. “You can sharpen my pencils while I’m working on a set of puzzle rooms that are itching at the back of my mind. If I don’t get them on paper soon, I’m afraid I will forget them.”
“I can sharpen and watch,” Colt held out his hand for the pencils, but didn’t leave his desk. “I’m moving that automatic sharpener up on the list of stuff we need though.”
“Why?” Lacey got up to give him the pencils. Her muscles protested in a way that reminded her that she wanted to design a treadmill for them.
“Ginger complained about the mess last week and I’m trying to be better about it,” Colt admitted, reluctant to confess that a little goblin had intimidated him into cleanliness.
“Spark likes chasing the peelings,” Lacey’s lips twitched.
“Then you take the blame for it when Ginger does that clicky thing with her tongue,” he took the pencils and waved them around.
“How does she even click a forked tongue?” Lacey pondered, walking back to her own desk.
“I do not know, but it keeps me up at night, I’m telling you,” Colt exaggerated, at least Lacey hoped he was exaggerating.
Lacey twisted the top off a soda that she grabbed out of the ever-full ice bucket.
“She cleared it,” Colt said, glowing with pride as if he had been the one to do it.
Lacey ambled over to watch the end of the splitting of the back wall of the Aztec Tomb. Rather than watch it on another monitor, she chose to peer over Colt’s shoulder. Just before the stairway down stood a large chest. Kat crouched as if expecting further danger, only straightening up when nothing else moved. Lacey didn’t know what shape Kat had to be in for her to crouch like that after an hour of cranking up and hauling buckets of blood to dump over the altars, but Lacey moved the treadmill design higher up on her list of priorities. Adventurers were so much stronger than her and Colt. It was frightening to be at the mercy of their honor.
Kat quickly checked the chest for traps and then rummaged around in the contents, taking the treasure, chest and all, into her inventory. Kat did a little victory dance of happiness before she seemed to remember that she wasn’t entirely alone. Lacey watched and sipped the soda, thoughtful.
“She’s right there,” Colt whispered, probably low enough that he figured Lacey wouldn’t hear.
“It’s too dangerous,” Lacey shook her head at him.
“I know it, but she’s right there,” Colt repeated.
It was lunacy to know that not much stood between Kat and them at that moment. One of the 15-20 groups had lost one of their group to a dozen level 18 gossowaries (a vicious cross between a goose and a cassowary). With only one full wipe, there was only the collapsed Manchester Room between Kat and the lower levels that were supposed to be off limits. They couldn’t reset anything until all the groups cleared the dungeon one way or another.
Lacey could imagine it. Kat’s familiar was sitting at the entrance to the level where the highest level had wiped, crushed by the collapse of the Manchester Room. Kat could work her way down to the cat as it worked its way to her with so little resistance. Then, between the large cat and Kat, they could dig out the Manchester Room and probably be at their doorstep before the 10-hour timer ran out. It wouldn’t be easy to dig it all out, but it would be a good plan except for the collapsed room.
Lacey held her breath as Kat chipped a chunk of rock out of the cave wall and then used it as a paperweight to leave a note on the now-pristine altar in the middle of the final puzzle of the Aztec Tomb.
“Is that?” Lacey leaned closer as Colt zoomed in on it.
“It’s a coupon for an hour outside,” Colt squinted at the screen.
When they zoomed back out, Kat was waving at the ceiling before jogging back out the way she had come in. They must have had some kind of telepathic link, Kat and her cat, because the large black cat exited at the same time Kat did. Lacey let out a breath that she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, but only once Kat exited the dungeon on a wave. She’d been good to her word.