Once the party were back at the first intersection they took a short break to reorganize themselves before they started on the Main Path. Not a long break like earlier, just a minute to check over their equipment and discuss the group order, then they were off. The tunnel sections looked similar to the alternate path they’d just explored, the main difference between the paths being the caves. There were still technically two caverns, though the second was more a proper cave at this point. It was made by carving out and combining what had once been two separate smaller caves, to make a larger space to enable at least one proper battle before the Guardian fight. And where the smaller caverns had a small pool of water in the corner for my Mantas, the large one had one large moat encircling the whole cavern, which also had a trap that the Bats would trigger once the water was crossed. This would be the final test of my encounter setup with the Mantas. If this one didn’t work, I might have to ditch the underwater creatures entirely in favor of something people could actually fight.
That conundrum was for later though. The party still had the smaller cavern to deal with before reaching the main one, as well as two traps in the tunnels leading up to it, with the first one coming almost right after the turn.
Being near the beginning of the Floor, this trap was a part of my ‘Early Traps’, and decidedly less deadly than the deadfall. A pressure plate magically disguised as tunnel floor would trigger two effects; a magical [Darkness], as well as a series of [Water Bolts] from the tunnel walls. Not enough to be lethal, but enough to both do damage and disorient any Challenger that triggered it.
At least that was how it was supposed to work. With the party’s increased vigilance Alerio was able to find the trap well before they were at risk of stepping on it, letting them all bypass the obstacle with ease. I had mixed feelings about that. Looking at it one way, that was exactly how I wanted the traps to function; trigger one or two, then learn from that and avoid the future ones. Still there was a part of me that wished they’d triggered it, so at least I would know how well it worked. Now I wouldn’t know how good the design was until the next time someone came in here. If the trap was even active then. And they didn’t find it as well.
…Maybe I could ask them to trigger it on purpose. After all, they were conducting an investigation here. It would only be proper to investigate the effects of the trap as well as the location and trigger. Would they accept that?
…Probably not, right?
After passing through the area of the trap they arrived at the branching tunnel leading to the first cavern, and just like last time they stopped and had a brief discussion before deciding to head down the side-path first. Actually, calling it a side-path would be an exaggeration, since all it was was a short tunnel that quickly opened up into a five square meter cavern. The cavern itself was empty of enemies, and the only objects within were a skeleton and a piece of parchment. That alone proved to be enough incentive though as they instantly became curious and inquisitive about what the piece of parchment could mean. The placement right in front of the entrance though made them a bit wary as well, so Ceria walked in the front with her shield high the last few steps up towards the entrance.
“Wait.” Alerio called, and the fighter paused.
Darn, he found it.
“Another trap.” Alerio said. He looked around the tunnel with a squint, then bent down to examine the floor by the entrance to the cavern.
“Hmm.” He said after a moment. “It’s not tied to any specific thing like the pressure plate or even the false stone sheets… It feels more like a line of flowing mana here,” He waved a hand above the ground entrance, then turned back to the rest of the party.
“I think crossing it triggers the trap.” He paused. “No… It has to be something that has mana crossing it for it to trigger, so we can’t just throw a rock at it to trigger it from a safe distance.”
“What’s the trap do?” Ceria asked. Alerio tilted his head to the side.
“No clue. I can feel that there is mana here, and that it seems to be flowing up and around the… doorway I suppose I should call it. But as for what happens when you trigger it…” He shrugged. “Again, no clue. We’d have to activate it to see.”
“Lovely…” Ceria said with a frown.
“Do we turn back?” Athilana asked.
What? No, don’t turn back now! Athilana I thought you were on my side!
“Without finding out what’s written on the parchment over there?” Alerio said. “No way. I’d not be able to sleep tonight if we do that. With how it’s positioned it’s bound to be important to a Challenger. Or at least the Dungeon thinks it’s important.”
Exactly. Good thinking Alerio.
“Or it’s bait for the trap.” Ceria said. “Like you said it’s obviously placed right there so we’d see it. Maybe it’s there to lure us into the cavern.”
“That… is certainly a possibility.” Alerio conceded. He frowned. “But we’re still doing an investigation here, and just leaving the room unexplored doesn’t feel right.”
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Walking right into a known trap doesn’t exactly feel right.” Ceria said.
“...That's fair.” Alerio nodded.
“Let’s take a minute to think. If we can’t think of something we’ll continue with the rest of the investigation, and maybe tackle this room last.” Noracin said.
…Crap. That was actually a reasonable conclusion to come to from this setup. Especially since what they were saying was true, though only partially. The placement was made to draw the party into the room, but not specifically to trigger the trap, since I only made that afterwards as a way to prepare Challengers for the cavern later. The trap wasn’t even dangerous this time. All it would do was trigger a stone door to shut behind the party, making them have to spend some time investigating the cavern to find the button to open it back up again. And hopefully find the second piece of narrative that was more hidden in the process.
I felt miffed. A minute ago I’d been feeling not just a little bit pleased at myself for how my traps had worked exactly as I’d planned in how it changed the party’s behavior. But now that very change had made it so my carefully placed narrative connections might be missed because they were being too respectful of my traps. I was frowning internally in annoyance and trying to think of what I could possibly do to make them wary, but not too scared to progress when Aira spoke for the first time in a while.
“Excuse me”, she said. The party turned to face her. She hesitated for a moment, but pressed on. “I’m sorry if this is a stupid idea, but couldn’t we jump over the trigger to the trap and enter the room that way?”
.
.
.
Oh.
The rest of the party had a similar reaction, staring with blank eyes towards Aira then turning to stare at the open entryway. After a moment all eyes turned to Alerio, who blinked, then frowned, then planted a palm on his forehead.
“Yeah, we can jump over the trap.” He said, though he didn’t sound happy about it. Ceria burst out laughing and was joined by Athilana and Aira a few seconds later. Even Noracin’s lips twitched in amusement. Alerio’s face was one of embarrassment and… indignation…? That was a bit strange, though it did make me feel a kind of kinship with the Mage.
After a brief discussion the party decided that only one of them should jump over the trap, to reduce the risk of someone triggering it accidentally. They also decided to only go in, get the parchment, and get out, just in case something unexpected happened upon picking the object up. It was a bit annoying that they would miss the second piece of narrative, especially since nothing would happen, but they had no way of knowing that. After an even longer discussion they decided that the one to do so should be Aira, which made sense since she had the highest Agility of the group and wasn’t currently hampered by any unwieldy armor. Two quick jumps and a grab later the Ranger was back in the tunnel, parchment in hand. She handed it over to Noracin, who looked it over with a frown.
“What’s it say?” Alerio asked. “Don’t keep us in suspense.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll read it.” Noracin said. He cleared his throat.
“Magus Krazad”, he began. “I hope this letter finds you well, though I wish I was writing for better reasons. Things here are escalating, and I would ask you to petition Archmage Karun to send aid as soon as possible. Discretion is of course still vital, hence why this letter is sent to you and not in an official missive to the Tower, but if the situation deteriorates much further the general fears a more open request will be required. You can of course see how that could turn into an issue, and can understand why this request is of such great importance. I look forward to a positive response. M.”
There was a brief moment of silence after Noracin stopped speaking as the party processed what he’d said. Alerio was the first one to eventually speak.
“Well, I wasn’t expecting that.” He said.
“What’s that even supposed to mean?” Ceria asked. “Like why was that there? A letter to a mages Tower? What does that have to do with a cave Floor?”
“Clearly the Dungeon wanted us to learn this information.” Noracin said. He thought for a moment. “It’s either related to some future Floors or…” He paused. “Honestly I don’t know.”
“Are any of the names familiar to any of you?” Athilana asked. “Like could this be a copy of an actual real letter?”
Alerio shook his head. “I don’t know any of the names.” He said. “There are a few Mage Towers around, though most have more specific names than just ‘the Tower’. And I haven’t heard of any Archmage Karun.”
“I don’t get how the Dungeon could have a letter from outside.” Ceria said with a frown. “Isn’t it the same as the medallion, where it’s too young to have had the kind of outside interaction which would let it know this stuff?”
“Normally I would agree.” Alerio said. “But this is different from the medallion. More specifically tied to the outside world. I can see the Dungeon designing a medallion like that for a puzzle or something… But what puzzle would require this kind of letter? None I’ve ever heard of before.” He shook his head and pointed to the parchment. “This makes it much more likely that both it and the medallion are from outside, in my opinion.”
“Then where could he have gotten them from? And why is he displaying them like this?” Athilana asked.
Alerio shrugged. “No idea. We’ll have to ask him. Though I have no clue if he'd answer or not.”
“Good suggestion.” Noracin said. He put the piece of parchment away. “I think it’s clear that we won’t be able to figure this out by ourselves. So let us continue our investigation and ask the Guardian once we get there. And ask the Hallmaster once we return.”
With that decided the party turned and walked back to the main tunnel. I felt it was a bit of an anticlimactic ending to the discussion, but at least now they weren’t simply dismissing it as ‘decoration’ ‘clues to random puzzles.’ Now they were at least considering the possibility that something more was going on, which was progress. Though considering they were coming to ask me questions I’d have to think of good answers that stuck to the Story and didn’t make it sound as something I’d just made up. I’d have to play the role of discoverer, rather than author. I frowned. This could require some thought… I glanced back at the party.
They were still deep in discussion about the parchment while they walked, though they were keeping their guard up. This made their progress even slower than normal. They were walking through a deactivated section of tunnel one step at a time, and stopping occasionally to let Alerio recover his Mana. Looking ahead I saw the large cavern, with it's manually activated trap and full squadron of enemies.
...I should have some time to think.