A/N: Congratulations to Ceryxis for being first to answer the second and third riddles. The reward was two-fold. First, a fishling has been named after them: Crrrgls, who failed where Ceryxis succeeded. The second reward will be explained later.
At the time of publishing this chapter, the first riddle is still up for grabs. On the one hand, I'm not surprised, it's the hardest of the three. On the other hand, Mrgl was practically shouting the answer.
Update: Congratulations to Nostre38 for being first to solve the first riddle. They succeeded where the now-named Nrrrnr failed.
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Mrgl had tried to tell Nrrrnr that the first riddle's answer was "gill", but he was ignored. Mrgl had tried to tell Crrrgls that the second answer was "fire", but she didn't listen either. Eventually, Mrgl realized that fishlings behind the blurry-thing couldn't hear, but that hadn't stopped him from shouting out answers. Some of the others had mocked and laughed at him for what they thought were stupid answers. Now he would prove he's not stupid!
"SUN!" Mrgl answered excitedly.
The door swung open, leaving a gap in the mist.
"You are right, little fish.
Path is clear, but at risk.
Go ahead, if you wish.
Or if not, stay on disk."
The timer did not stop ticking upward. Mrgl had answered right away, so there was still plenty of time to decide, but Mrgl knew that if he didn't go forward, he would be gone in a flash like everyone else. He looked back to see the elder, to hear his commands, but the blurry thing made it impossible. The elder had told everyone to be careful, to wait for him if they got it right. But the timer meant Mrgl couldn't wait, he had to go forward.
So Mrgl stepped through the gap in the mist, and what he saw on the other side caused all other thoughts to vanish from his mind. There, at the end of a path bordered by walls as tall as the floor was wide, glowed the biggest, brightest, most beautiful pearl Mrgl had ever laid eyes upon. Like a hatchling who had just seen a shiny thing, he was drawn forward, paying no attention at all to his surroundings.
Place.
So he failed to notice when a perfect square of the glowing ground in front of him changed. He did not fail to notice when the ground seemed to drop out from under him after he was halfway across the altered patch.
With a sudden and fear-filled shout of alarm, he fell down a few fishling-heights until he landed on something soft and squishy. A thingy in his vision lit up in that familiar half-circle timer, only this time it was a full circle, and it suddenly felt harder to breathe. Not like he was choking, more like he was running hard.
YES! Rori cheered.
Object: Crystal Pit Trap
Properties: Path to the Core, Harmless, Economy
This crystalline pit steadily drains the mana of delvers who fall into it. Should they spend too long in the trap, or their mana fall too low, they will be ejected from the dungeon.
It was the only last-minute defense Rori had been able to afford. His remaining natural I/M had taken a dip after he put up those walls along the home stretch. Although with how hypnotized the fishling had been, maybe cheese-proofing was overkill.
Hopefully Mrgl would run out of time or mana and the currently-occupied trap would reset before-
"MRGL!" the elder shouted, stepping out of the boss room and rushing to the edge of the pit trap.
Darn!
The riddle door had closed and reset itself after letting Mrgl through, and Rori's attention had lingered just long enough to see that the elder would be delayed by its own riddle. But it was hardly a delay at all.
The elder tapped its staff twice on the glowing ground, then held it vertically over the pit. The bottom of the wood extended downward like a living thing, allowing Mrgl to grab on and pull itself out of the pit. Two more taps and the staff returned to its original length. Another two and the staff extended to the other side of the trap, allowing it to serve as a narrow bridge for Mrgl and the elder, like a thin, fallen tree over a river.
Mrgl wobbled across with arms held out to each side for balance – occasionally flailing wildly.
Don't come on! Rori thought with all his mental might. You can't do it! No you can't! Fall, fall, fall!
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
But Mrgl made it to the other side, as did the elder.
There was nothing left for Rori to do with last-minute temporary structures; he had reached the true limit of natural I/M: -100%. There was likewise nothing to be done with fixed structures, even if Rori was willing to eat into his buffer of stored mana. Fixed structures couldn't be supported only by temporary ones, so he couldn't put anything on the temporary floor tiles leading up to his core. And the existence of 'build time' meant that he wouldn't have had the time, even if he could.
Then another thought occurred to him, a way to possibly eke out a few extra percentage points of I/M. But it would cost stored mana, and he didn't know if it would even affect his natural I/M. He wasn't willing to gamble his buffer on it.
And so, once again he was helpless but to watch.
The Elder spoke a few words of instruction, extended its staff, and allowed little Mrgl to climb up to the core.
Offering automated reward to conqueror…
At least I finally reached 500 stored mana the natural way, Rori thought. With 500 left of my starting allowance, I'll still have a buffer of 500 after-
Mrgl crushed the pearl, becoming the Cave-Watcher tribe's third member with a double-digit level and becoming the elder's replacement-in-training.
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The guise of a man who moments ago had been soaring swiftly through the sky now hovered motionless, his quarry having vanished from the face of the planet. Instead of growing angry, he considered his options.
Charting an undiscovered dungeon respawn point would be a poor consolation, but better than nothing. (Along with, perhaps, teaching a lesson to those who had destroyed the core. It wouldn't be the first time Clac had done such a thing.)
But with how many leagues still stretched between himself and his former destination, and without a mark to lead him straight there anymore, it would take days to locate the exact respawn point – if he could find it at all – and in that case he'd be better off hiring a team of adventurers and handing them the coordinates he'd initially calculated.
Not that any competent adventurers would jump for such a job without a guaranteed dungeon to delve or a significant amount of pay to take home. But as the prospective employer in that equation, Clac knew neither would be worth it for knowledge of a mere respawn point and petty revenge.
He had already traveled a journey long enough to be significantly time-and-effort-consuming, but not far enough to get anything out of it. This venture of the last few hours had well and truly been a waste.
Sutalu Clac struck the natural landscape below with a bolt of true lightning, then returned home empty-handed.
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Huh? Rori thought. What? Where's-
Alert! Integrity Failure Detected in Core ID: 0.0.931-48.
Initializing SOP… //Standard Operating Procedures
Initializing SOP-ACRP… //Automated Core Recycling Program
Initializing SOP-ACRP.EECR… //Extract Excess Core Resources
Oh.
Failure! Central servers unresponsive.
Integrating resources into SOP-ACRP…
What gives, Mrgl? he grumbled. I save my mana for you, and this is the thanks I get?
Initializing SOP-ACRP.RCD… //Resetting Core Defaults
Initializing SOP-ACRP.ECD… //Extracting Core Data
Initializing SOP-ACRP.ACD… //Assessing Core Data
Well, at least I'm not dead.
Alert! Anomaly detected within Core ID: 0.0.931-48.
Initializing SOP-ACRP.Anomolies…
Or wait, maybe I am.
Alert! IPP detected. //Integrated Processing Power
Initializing SOP-ACRP.Anomolies.IPP…
Analyzing IPP…
I guess it depends on…
Alert! IPP identified as Soul ID: 0.0.irori.
Alert! Soul ID value 0.0 has triggered emergency override.
Yeah, that.
Attention intruder!
Once again, and with less alarm this time around, Rori paid close attention to Mr. Terminator's voice.
Unauthorized mortal occupation of dungeon cores is punishable by immediate termination!
It matched up to memory – words, tone, and inflection.
Leave now or suffer the consequences!
Yep. Definitely pre-recorded.
You have chosen poorly! Farewell, foolish mortal! May the system have mercy on your soul!
Farewell, foolish bureaucrat! May your superiors have mercy on your career when they find out about this.
Purging IPP…
Pleasefailpleasefailpleasefail…
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Sutalu Clac set a timer the moment he thought to do so, since he no longer has the convenient reference frame of 'midnight'. It doesn't take a genius to guess that it'll take a while.
The core did not quite set a new record for 'quickest destruction after spawning' – that honor belongs to all the cores with truly the worst luck – but its pathetic performance would have certainly landed it on the leaderboard, if Clac had been keeping track of such things. The core should not have had enough time to grow beyond the basic level, and therefore it should not yet be at risk of banishment into permanent limbo. Clac still doesn't know what causes that to happen, but he knows that the weaker cores are typically safe from it.
All this amounts to the high likelihood that the core shall spawn again. If Clac is ready, there's still the same chance as before that the returns will exceed his investments. So long as the soul occupying the core doesn't do something stupid or reckless before Clac can collect it.
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Alert! IPP cannot be purged with available resources.
Phew. First failure out of the way…
Requesting additional resources…
Come on, come on, come on…
Failure! Central servers unresponsive.
Yes! Infinite tries! I'm effectively immortal!
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Chapter Fin.
A/N: As their second reward, Ceryxis was told to choose between 'high, deep, far', and again between 'normal, water, earth, plant'. They chose 'high' and 'normal'. Thus, Rori's next dungeon type shall be Ordinary Heights.