Cass let the conversation die. It didn’t matter what she wanted if she couldn’t get Alyx through the underwater section anyway. She had the vague sketch of a plan but needed to think through the details a little longer before she suggested it to Salos.

That was fine. She had some time still before her Focus was fully recovered.

Teach me the language at least, Cass said. I can’t rely on you for translating forever. It's already annoying and I’ve barely had to say anything to her yet.

That would probably be best, yes, Salos said. Alyx there is speaking Jothi, the language of the Jottena Peninsula. It was probably the third most common language on the Continent.

Any chance I can get a skill for the language? Cass asked.

I have heard of language skills, yes. They are not popular but they exist. It might be a good idea for you given no one speaks your English.

In any case, I suppose I should start with some common words… Salos began listing words and their translations one at a time. Cass repeated them quietly under her breath.

It was slow going, but she wasn’t really expecting anything else. She didn’t make much progress in the couple hours they spent sitting beside her campfire, but she had at least memorized a handful of words.

Enough stalling, Salos said finally. Your Focus must be full by now, and if it is not it is close enough.

Cass nodded. It was time. Time to decide what to do with Alyx.

Help me ask her what she plans to do now, Cass asked Salos.

You should just dictate that you intend to go deeper and that she cannot follow.

No. Cass crossed her arms over her chest. They may end up going separate ways, but she wanted to at least try to make this work first.

Fine. Salos instructed her on how to ask her question.

Alyx thought over the question, her lips a tight line, her hand tapping at the pommel of her sword. When she spoke, Salos translated it as, “I had wanted to slay the Lord of the Forest, with my team. Now though, I think the best I can hope for is to escape the Valley with my life. And you?”

“I’m going to kill the Lord of the Deep,” Cass said with Salos’s help.

Alyx looked Cass up and down. She didn’t say anything, but there was an incredulity in her body language that Cass didn’t miss. She doesn’t think I can kill the Lord.

Well, of course not, Salos said. You can’t. Not the real lord. Not the one she’s imagining. That’s fine. Just point her to the entrance to the Temple. She can find her way out of the Deep another way.

What if we brought her with us, though? Cass asked.

We have been over this, Cass, Salos said with a belabored sigh. She cannot make it through the underwater portion.

Okay, but what if she could?

But she can’t.

I have a plan though, Cass said. Please, humor me?

There is no way an ordinary human can hold their breath for more than ten minutes, Salos said. She cannot come with us.

Please, Salos? Let’s just offer to let her come with us, at least up to that point.

She hated that she needed to beg to say what she wanted, but she pushed through the frustration. This was her only option right now. Begging and appealing to his concerns.

She won’t hurt us if we have a way of getting her out of the Deep, right? And we can always leave her behind if my plan doesn’t work. What can she do about it? Follow us through the section she can’t follow?

He thought it over another minute in silence, his concerns spinning in an amorphous ball over her chest. Finally, he said, Fine. That’s not an awful option.

With Salos’s help, Cass said, “I have a sure-fire way of killing the Lord of the Deep. I plan to use the teleportation portal beyond his chamber to get out of here after. You can come with me if you want, but I don’t know if you can get all the way there.”

Cass pointed at the door she came from, “That’s the way I came from if you’d rather risk leaving the Deep on your own some other way.”

Alyx frowned. She looked between the two doors. They lingered on the one leading deeper into the labyrinth, hungry and desperate.

She nodded and said something in Jothi.

I can’t believe it, Salos said with a sigh. Greed surely outweighs good sense for this one.

She’s coming with us? Cass asked.

Yes, seems she’s willing to give your undisclosed plan a chance.

“Great!” Cass stood up, staff in hand pointing to the far doorway. “We should get going!”

She still doesn’t speak English, Cass.

Then tell me how to say it in Jothi and I’ll repeat it.

It wasn’t needed though. Alyx stood with a stretch, following Cass out of the room.

Immediately, Cass wished they could have rested longer. She was doing just fine.

Stamina: 51/51

Focus: 221/225

Health: 34/40

But she could see Alyx was still worse for wear. Some of it, no amount of rest would fix. Her armor was in tatters, for example. Entire sections were missing, like along her right arm and most of both legs. What remained was beaten and dented. She wore two scabbards on her hip, but the longer of the two was empty.

But some of it, a day or two at camp might have fixed. She walked with a slight limp. Cass could see long scabs through the bloody tears in her clothing. There was a grimace in pain that Alyx tried to hide every couple of steps.

But they didn’t have a couple of days to loiter in the dark Deep. They had only so much food for Alyx. There was no knowing when another monster could wander through their camp. The Storm could burst any day.

So on they went.

The hall beyond the spider’s lair was much the same as the ones Cass had seen before, except a channel of water filled the left half of the corridor. Otherwise, it was the same dark hall, lined with uniform dark stone and poorly lit from above by the same blue-green runes.

I don’t suppose she can detect traps? Cass asked as she started tapping her staff around the floor.

Unlikely, Salos said. She looks like a front-line fighter. They rarely put much into their Perception. Still, if you want to ask, this is how…

Cass did, carefully repeating him to Alyx.

Alyx shook her head. A particularly sad look crossed her face, but she didn’t elaborate.

I suppose I should dump my last level’s stats in Perception, Cass said, sighing deeply. She probably should have after the previous level up, if she was being honest. But well, better late than never. Four points went into Perception.

Per 10->14

The world sharpened around her. Color registered deeper and more nuanced. She could feel the texture of the tile through her boots. She could hear a quiet trickle of the water flowing down the corridor on her left.

She did not see any sign of traps.

Another sigh and she resumed her tap, tap, tap down the corridor.

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They had barely gone three yards when a click and a prompting from Dodge told her it was time to leap back again.

Spikes shot from the walls, meeting inches in front of Cass’s face as she threw herself backward, directly into Alyx.

Hitting Alyx was like hitting a wall. The woman didn’t even stagger. Cass just bounced right off, tumbling to the floor in a graceless pile.

“Oof,” Cass grunted. She looked up at Alyx sheepishly. She used one of the few words she remembered in Jothi to say, “Sorry.”

Alyx shook her head and offered a hand down to Cass. Cass took it. As she pulled Cass back to her feet, she said something, of which Cass only caught the one word ‘sorry’ in return.

She is apologizing for being too close to you. Salos said. She will stand a little further back going forward.

Cass nodded. “Thank you.”

Alyx returned the gesture and took a couple of steps back, patiently waiting for Cass to continue finding the way for them.

Cass turned her attention back to the sea of tiles before her.

How high does my Perception need to be to spot the traps? Cass asked.

Unless things have changed more than I expect, you should be in the right range.

Then why do I keep finding them with my face? Cass asked. She was whining. She knew she was whining. But also, she was tired of finding spikes in the vicinity of her face. She was allowed to whine a little.

Oh, come now, you haven’t walked head-first into one in a while now.

Cass glowered.

Just because you are physically capable does not mean you know what to look for, Salos said more seriously.

What should I be looking for then? Cass asked.

That is an excellent question, Salos said.

Cass waited a moment expectantly. When he didn’t say anything even after she’d tapped the next four tiles, Cass prompted him, And the answer is?

Complicated.

Okay? Any more concrete hints? Cass asked.

Salos hummed in thought. There was a building worry there both in the sound and in his pendant. Something quickly rising toward panic.

Salos? Cass asked again. She stopped where she was. Something was happening. Something was happening to Salos and she needed to know what.

“Cass?” Alyx said from behind her. The poor woman was probably even more confused. Cass had just stopped mid-corridor for no apparent reason. Cass didn’t have the bandwidth to spare her another thought though.

Salos, what’s going on? Are you okay?

I— I— Yeah. I’m fine, he said. The panic had not subsided.

Are you sure? Cass asked.

No. The word was short and clipped. But I will be. Probably.

Cass waited another minute, waiting for him to explain or calm down, or both. Preferably both.

Another minute passed. Neither happened.

Should she ignore it? He clearly didn’t want to talk about it, whatever it was. But, she didn’t like the idea of just leaving it unresolved. But, was it even something she could help with?

Another minute.

Cass could hear Alyx shifting her weight behind her and a quiet scraping of her drawing the first inch of her sword.

Come on, Salos, Cass said. I thought you were some expert on sneaky things, being an assassin specializing in Dexterity and Perception or something? Isn’t that what you love to tell me? I would have thought traps would have been your thing?

Salos laughed nervously. Ah, yes. You would be right. However…

However? Cass asked. What was so bad, pulling teeth like this was better for him?

I—um—don’t seem to have the skill anymore?

His words hung between them, filled to bursting with a cold fear that belonged entirely to Salos but which cut at Cass all the same.

What? she asked. She didn’t know one could lose skills. From the sound of it, neither did Salos.

I know I used to have it. Before all this. In fact, I am about certain I had a large number of very high-level skills. But, I don’t seem to anymore?

Cass frowned. That sounds bad.

I am doing my very best not to panic, he confirmed, the panic rising in his tone.

When did you notice?

When the first trap went off in your face and I didn’t notice.

He must have felt her unspoken incredulity because he added, it is not like I checked when I first became a demon. That’d be like waking up one morning and checking if you have all your toes. Obviously, you do, why would you check?

Sorry, Cass said. He was probably right. Skills were new to her, so she wasn’t sure how she’d handle their loss. But Salos had lived with them his whole life. He didn’t know what it was like to not have them.

Gently, she asked, Is this related to the whole demon thing?

Probably, he said. It could be an issue of my level being reset. Or, it could be due to my soul being torn to pieces.

He was a rolling ball of fear. She could feel him pulling it tighter. Away from her. Into a corner where even he wouldn’t have to look at it.

I’ll survive, somehow. He didn’t sound wholly convinced, but Cass didn’t push it. She wished she had some advice for him. Something that would make this easier.

She didn’t.

Anyway, he said. All this to say, I have no idea what you should be looking for. Something weird? Or maybe something normal? That sounds right. I don’t know.

Cass frowned again. That wasn’t helpful advice. She was already looking for something weird. She was scanning the corridor with Mana Sense and Atmospheric Sense as well as physically tapping the tiles ahead of her. If something irregular was ahead she wanted to think she would find it.

As for looking for something normal? She didn’t know where to start with that. By definition that made it not worth looking at, didn’t it?

She turned the issue over in her mind as she plodded on. How would she hide a magic tile in a sea of anti-magic projecting tiles? And not just the trigger but also the trap mechanism itself? Magic, was the obvious answer, but that just begged the question: How do you hide the magic hiding the magic?

Maybe it was her understanding of magic that was the problem. She’d come to think of all the stuff not present on Earth as Magic. The System, Stats, Skills, monsters, all of it. But was that accurate?

Salos had said there were multiple ways of using magic and had compared it to pottery. His pottery example had even included a method that sounded like magic to her, yet he’d talked about it like it was pure craftsmanship.

She looked over her list of skills. Some were magic no matter how she looked at it: Wind Step, Elemental Manipulation, Wind Blade, Soul Guard, Mana Sense, all definitely magic. But some seemed more mundane: Dodge, Stealth, Sprint, Staff Mastery. The effect was otherworldly, magical even. Impossible according to her Earth understanding of the world. But they didn’t consume Focus or manipulate mana or anything as far as she could tell.

She paused, looking at Stealth again.

Stealth (lvl 8) (Wind)

[Slink through the shadows through places you should not be or do not wish to be found. Unseen as the wind. As quiet as a breath.

Passively reduces one’s presence to others to a small degree.

Active use greatly reduces one’s presence to others and advises on how best to move one’s body to mitigate detection.

Association with the Concept of Wind increases the effect of these bonuses while user is in motion.

Modified by Dex.]

Right, presence. She’d touched on it a little during that last fight. Somehow it affected how easily people noticed her.

Hey, Salos, do objects have presence? Cass asked.

Objects? Yes. Everything has presence. It's an attribute of everything that exists. If it didn’t have presence it wouldn’t be able to interact with the world.

Are there skills that can reduce the presence of other objects?

Yes, Sleight of Hand, for example, Salos said, then paused. Which I am also missing?

He fell silent. Cass waited a minute for him to continue but he didn’t. She could feel his attention was elsewhere.

That was fine, that answered her question enough for now. She didn’t need to know how to reduce an object’s presence just that it was possible.

The real question was how to spot it. Salos said earlier that higher perception and the knowledge something was there could help cut through the effects of reduced presence. But help how?

She knew there were traps. She had increased perception. She didn’t see anything.

It had to be more complicated than that though. Traps would never work if it was that simple. So there had to be a trick to this. She scanned the tiles ahead of her. They all looked perfectly normal. Completely regular. Absolutely ordinary.

She shook her head. No. Evaluate each one independently. She was tapping each tile anyway, she could spend an extra second to really look at it first. Don’t fall into autopilot. Focus.

She could feel her Focus draining slowly as she continued down the hall, as she threw all her attention on the next tile in the line. So many ordinary tiles. One after another after another after another after another after another after another after another after another…

She shook herself, catching herself succumbing to the mind-numbing task. She was halfway to pressing on the next tile with her staff. That was fine, a corner of her mind whispered, this one is ordinary, push it and move on. Refocus on the next. Keep moving. You can’t expect to check absolutely every tile. That would be ridiculous.

She frowned. There was a certain sense to that, but also, what? Where had that thought come from? It was her internal voice, but also, it wasn’t. It almost felt like Salos whispering at the edge of her mind. But, she could simultaneously feel him still reeling from his missing skill crisis.

She flicked Soul Guard on for a moment and immediately the whispering stopped. She frowned, looking closer at the tile in question.

It seemed entirely ordinary. No different from the tile to either side of it. She blinked. Wait. Was she skipping over the tile and comparing its neighbors to each other instead?

Hell! She was.

Focus! She needed to focus. Really look at the tile. Something was wrong with it. She could feel it.

Like a rubber band snapping, reality snapped into focus in front of her. She blinked, staring at the tile in question. She laughed and let Soul Guard fall.

What’s going on? Salos asked. Alyx was asking her something too.

Cass just grinned and took a large step back, tapping the tile with her staff. Tapping the magically glowing tile. The tile with the now very obvious text inscribed on its surface.

There was a click and a burst of flames exploded from the walls.

Skill Earned: Trap Detection (lvl 1)

[Through trial and error you have discovered the trick to spotting traps. No longer will you need to find them through error alone.

Passively increase your detection of presence.

Actively highlight areas with significant presence irregularities.

Actively highlight areas ideal for setting traps.]

I figured out how to detect traps.