Shapeless Hero

46 - Excursion III

Liszka casts a wind spell with the swish of one claw, the air travelling in a straight line for ten yards. Violent beams of magic fire towards the positions of the stone tiles, over which the wind had passed. About two heartbeats later, the beams disappear again.

I frown. "I thought this is a tutorial cave..."

The arctic fox-kin hums. "This is strange indeed. Training halls have such traps, but they aren't usually activated."

I exhale forcibly. "What now then?"

She points at the crevices between the tiles. Growing stern, she explains: "Something  between the tiles reacts to air currents. A simple wind spell, the bottom of a robe pushing air over them or stepping directly on the openings will activate the defense mechanism. The location of the crevices informs the trap where to aim."

"So we have to make sure, the air can't move, right?", I ask, "Can you freeze it over? Should we pour water in the cracks?"

"We could, but the amount of mana to create a complete path to the other side is far above what I can muster up. There's a much simpler solution, though."

My brows rise.

She grins. "Just walk slowly."

My brows fall. "That's... it?"

"I mean it. It's simple as that. Avoid any erratic movement and avoid swiping anything over the crevices. There's a tolerance, so the magic doesn't fire with every small air draft coming from the tunnels. We can exploit that."

"That sounds a bit too easy to circumvent for my taste."

"On pelt, yes. But it's not something that combatants would think of first. We all try to be agile and strong to dodge and block, but this trap exploits our training and habits."

My eyes light up. "Ah, that's where the combination with other enemies would be disastrous, right?"

She beams, pointing at me with her index finger. "Exactly! If you stay slow, the enemies get you. If you dodge, the trap activates."

I beam back at her. The feeling of joy emerged, similar to when I figured out some difficult game mechanic or attack pattern in my past life.

I notice Liszka's confused expression, but it turns into a smile. She chuckles. "If that's how you react to learning about new ways to die, we both could become great explorers." 

"Not gonna say no to that." I look at the tiles and grimace. "Doesn't mean I have a death wish, though."

"You're right. Let's figure out how fast we can move and get over there." Liszka wets her index finger with spit and holds it out towards the ground. Then she starts walking along in the direction of the light draft, not yet on the tiles but close. Soon, she slows down to a crawling pace. "Can't feel the wind when I walk that slow. That should do it."

I follow her lead, trying to remember the pace I need to keep to match the draft's speed. We will probably have to keep that finger-trick up for the whole traversal.

"Okay, I get why combatants would have a hard time now. Walking that slow, whilst avoiding the crevices must be a pain for adventurers in heavy armor.", I tell Liszka, after I walked a couple of yards to get the speed right.

She nods, her arms crossed. "Thankfully, such traps have a switch somewhere. Whoever worked here, didn't want their employees killed on their daily walk to work and back."

"I'd imagine, golems and constructs don't need to do that."

"Yes, true, but let's hope, this isn't that kind of underground complex." She sniffs the air. "The we're getting closer. Something must have went off again."

We check our pace for a last time, before starting. I volunteer to go first. "Trust me, I am resilient.", I tell the incredulous fox-kin.

My fake heart beats fast, as I try to stay slow. The first tile is the worst, because we don't know yet, if our speed is correct. A strong gust of wind could make me fall or force a sudden shift of my feet. In both cases the trap would activate. 

But it works. I suppress my sigh of relief, in fear that it would cause the air to move enough for a magic beam to spawn. Once certain I'm in a stable position, I continue to the next tile. Liszka follows, but we both don't utter a word as to not distract each other.

When you work behind the guild's counter with the kind of perception I have, you overhear the adventurers exchange plenty of cautionary tales—countless tips and tricks that increase your chance of survival. Nobody wants to feel the remorse, once they realize some familiar face is missing in the guild hall, because they forgot to tell them about that one trap or monster. But even with Rev's prep-lessons for today's delve combined, the knowledge I collected doesn't hold up to what people like Liszka figured out in proper practice. I would have never guessed, how simple the solution could be.

Roughly five minutes later, we both make it to the other side, passing the fallen doors. We take a few careful steps away from the tiles, before talking again.

"I'd rather fight someone than do this again.", I admit.

 "Even a dragon?", she asks.

"Honestly, yeah."

She scoffs, but turns pensive a heartbeat later. "Now that I think about it, I've never seen you fight before, but you must have some skills, if you work for the adventurer's guild."

"Surely, the guild has some people with non-combat skills for paperwork, right?"

"Not really. Something about reducing coercion of staff by third parties through sheer power, I've heard.", she responds, while feeling along one of the tunnel walls.

I look down the tunnel, while my mind paints pictures of weak office workers writing documents, a muscular barbarian pointing out spelling mistakes with a threatening aura. I shake my head slightly. That's not quite what she meant, I'm sure.

"Ah, there it is." Her hand presses on the wall, causing a rectangular part of it to recede and slide away, revealing a few small levers, one and half yards above the ground.

I have to suppress a smile at her grumbles. "Could you pull down the left one, please?", she asks. I oblige, of course.

The lever switched, we hear a mechanical whine go from high-pitched to low-pitched. Liszka casts another windspell, which confirms to us that the trap is deactivated.  

"Looking forward to more wisdom of yours, but I feel useless with nobody to fight.", I tell her.

The arctic fox-kin sniffs the air. "Oh don't worry. Smells like combat ahead. We will have to deal with the survivors of the last skirmish soon enough."

I curl and stretch my fingers in anticipation. Let's see what else the world has to offer besides training-golems and rogues. I start walking down the tunnel and Liszka matches my pace.