Level 1 Fallen

Looking around, I briefly considered my options. I could still not sense all the way down to the base of the tower, meaning that I couldn’t just teleport us down there. In other words, there would be no small amount of digging required.

We were a few hundred meters away from the defensive camp at this point, so there were still quite a few people that would notice a giant hole appearing in the middle of the desert. To prevent this, I would have to dig a small hole, and then cover it up with sand as we dug downwards.

This left us with a new potential issue, breathable air. If there was a village down at the base of the mountain, that showed that they had air down there. However, if I sealed off the hole that I created to dig down, I would have to wait until then before getting any of that highly necessary oxygen.

As for leaving a hole at the top of the… Well, the hole, to let air in? That would just let the sand pour in all over us and negate the point of sealing it in the first place.

“I’m going to dig alone first,” I said, looking at the three behind me. “I’ll leave one of my summons up here to maintain the stealth effect around you all, and then I’ll come back up to teleport you down once I can sense a cave down below.”

As I said that, I created my Ki General, who layered his own Wraith Zone over mine. Then, with Walking Fortress, I dug into the sand beneath, condensing it at the sides to fortify it while digging straight down. Once I was five meters deep, I created a stone lid at the top and covered it with sand.

My world was temporarily engulfed in darkness, but I pushed through with True Sight. My senses pierced through the layers of sand as I quickly carved out a shaft leading downwards. Ten meters, twenty meters, the ground constantly gave way to me, forming a thin cavern of sandstone.

Fifty meters, a hundred meters. I sensed the end of the sand at the extent of my senses below, but I had not spotted a cave yet. Instead, there was a dense layer of bedrock at a depth of three hundred meters.  For the bedrock layer to be that deep did not feel normal, but I was not exactly a geologist.

My body continued to plummet. Two hundred meters, then three. My pace slowed slightly when the sand gave way to bedrock, but this didn’t last long. Another dozen meters, and I was into granite. However, my descent abruptly stopped around three hundred and fifty meters.

Finally, I was able to sense a hollowed cave beneath, more than half a kilometer under the surface. With that as my anchor, I halted my excavation efforts and remotely set up an alcove at the very top of that cave, large enough for me to teleport to.

Once there, I took a deep breath of fresh air, having held my breath for the vast majority of my earlier descent. I looked down below, seeing a village lit by torches. Large chimerae walked on stone paths, their figures covered with various types of fur. One thing that they typically had in common was long claws on their hands, and small, bead-like eyes reminiscent of moles.

In the distance to my left, I spotted a cave of glowing mushrooms surrounding a wide lake, where water streamed in from the top of the cavern wall. To the right, I saw the base of the tower, seemingly left forgotten by the passing of ages. There was not a single guard standing at its closed gate.

I slipped into the spiritual realm while descending towards the gate, eager to investigate. Judging by the Trial of Resolve, it should have been possible to teleport inside, as long as it was only to the entrance. I didn’t see any screaming army of souls crying at me from the tower’s surface, so it clearly hadn’t been constructed of the same soul stones that wrapped around the final room in the previous dungeon.

Once through the gate, I took a moment to look around, verifying the interior. Like the first trial, it appeared to be a stone labyrinth, with not a single source of light to be found. This boded ill for me, as I found my True Sight entirely disabled within the dungeon. Whether it was behind my back, around the next bend, or simply piercing through the darkness permeating the dungeon, I had become well and truly blind.

Thankfully, I verified that this darkness was not supernatural in itself by creating a glowing orb of light with Martial King, illuminating the path before me. Standing at the next junction was a single pedestal with unreadable text, some of the symbols looking familiar to those I had seen in the final room of the last trial.

Shaking my head, I teleported back to the surface with the others, only to be momentarily blinded by the intense light of the sun from above. My True Sight kicked back in a moment later to stabilize my senses, but I couldn’t help letting out a brief hiss of pain while covering my eyes.

“Everything alright down there,” Bella asked in alarm, stepping closer and placing a hand on my shoulder.

“Y-yeah. I found the dungeon entrance. If I’m right, this one should be the Trial of Wisdom. The chimerae guarding it all have features of burrowing animals, but I bypassed them to enter the dungeon directly,” I explained, slowly lowering my eyes and squinting. “Also, it looks like sensory skills are disabled entirely in this dungeon. The restriction is even stronger than the last one.’

“Did you try mapping it with your sentry things?” Marron asked curiously, and I gave a brief nod.

“Yeah. The skill wouldn’t even activate. Any skills unrelated to senses work fine, but this maze doesn’t seem possible to map out through a loophole.”

Hearing this, Diane pursed her lips. “In that case, the dungeon probably doesn’t have the same spatial restrictions as the last one. The structure of the tower should be the actual layout of the dungeon this time, so they had to use an alternative method to prevent foul play.”

With that in mind, everyone seemed ready to go. I briefly collapsed the shaft below us, letting it fill in with sand again as we left. No need to leave a lid on a three hundred meter drop that someone could just stumble into in the future.

We appeared in the dark labyrinth, my sphere of light once again illuminating the passage. When Marron spotted the pedestal at the upcoming intersection, she walked over and translated the text written on its surface.

“The rules of this trial are simple. Challengers may not attempt this trial alone. At every intersection, a question will be asked. One challenger must step forward to answer the question, after which a path will be revealed. A single challenger may not answer questions twice in a row. After answering a question correctly, that challenger will be temporarily sealed, only released after the next question has been answered.”

“Every floor requires five correct answers to be submitted. If a question is answered incorrectly, the challenger who answered this question will be sealed on the next floor. If, at any point, all challengers are sealed at the same time, it is judged as a loss, and all challengers will perish.”

Those final words hung heavy in the air. Given that this dungeon had to have been created in a time before players with the ability to respawn ever appeared in Chimeris, this dungeon had been crafted with a deadly intent not to let anyone pass through unless they could complete these trials.

However, Bella seemed somewhat confused as she listened to the rules. “If it’s like this, can’t we just power through the dungeon with sheer numbers? Even if we just guess the answers, we’re bound to make it through each floor as long as we have enough people.”

“That’s probably part of the point,” I mused. “If this is a trial to test the wisdom of the party as a whole, then using the wisdom of the collective is a viable tactic. However, if we wanted to bring in so many people, we would also have to worry about the risks involved. Most players wouldn’t just agree to a dungeon with seemingly no rewards that could lead to a meaningless death. If they did, they would probably be wanting something.”

“I’ve got another problem,” Diane said, stepping forward. “Marron’s the only one here that can read this script. That means that we can’t afford for her to be sealed. We’ll have to be the ones answering the questions ourselves, using the answers that she gives us.”

Marron blinked at that, nodding her head. “That’s right, I guess. If I ended up sealed and unable to read the questions for you, none of you would know how to answer them.”

“I’m currently the source of light here,” I added. “If any of you have torches, feel free to use them, but I’m not sure how airtight this dungeon is.”

Diane simply pursed her lips. “It would be for the best for Bella and I to take turns answering these questions. If one of us answers wrong, Drake will have to take over. If we answer two questions wrong on a single floor, whoever is left will have to purposely answer wrong so we can restart. Hopefully, the questions won’t change each time, if they’re not expecting people to be able to retake the test.”

“I’ll go first, then,” Bella offered, moving over to Marron. “Is there a question attached to this one?”

Marron looked at the text, nodding her head. “It’s a simple one. ‘Do you understand these rules as written?’ This button says yes, and this one says no.” Marron pointed to the small indentations at the bottom of the text, and Bella pressed her finger against the ‘yes’ button.

Immediately, Bella disappeared from view. My body tensed, remembering the death mechanic in the last dungeon. I opened my friends list to send her a message, only to receive a prompt saying that the target was in a special location and unable to receive messages.

“It’s fine,” Diane assured me, seeing how worried I appeared. “This isn’t a death system. It’s just the way for the dungeon to try to ensure that one person doesn’t answer everything themselves. Getting someone else to read the questions and answers for us is probably a loophole that they didn’t have a way to prevent.”

“If I’m right, the person that found these ruins was meant to learn the language through the system after translating it once, similar to reading a book, and then could teach it to others. With multiple people being able to read this text, there should have been no need for one person to read and another answer.”

“However, since Marron can’t get the benefits of reading books like a normal player, she can only translate everything manually, and doesn’t have the means to teach us the language.”

As Diane explained her thought process, a series of torches suddenly lit up down the left path, as if beckoning us down that route. Diane didn’t immediately take that passage, however, and instead retrieved a throwing dagger from her inventory. “I want to see what happens if we go down the wrong corridor.”

With that said, she assumed a throwing stance, sending her dagger flying down the unlit passage straight ahead. The dagger continued for only five meters before the sound of shattering metal rang out. The dagger twisted along its blade, snapping into multiple pieces and falling to the ground.

“Noted… we will only go down the paths that are lit,” she muttered, before turning to look at me. “We probably don’t need your floating light anymore, but we’ll maintain the answer rotation that we agreed on before.”

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