The Land: Forging (Chaos Seeds Book 2) (38 page)

“We found something,” Yoshi said. Daniella handed over what she and Yoshi had collected from the bodies. It looked to be the same type of loot that Richter and Sion had found. He put it in his Bag.

“Us too,” Richter replied. He told the sword adept about what they had found. Yoshi nodded.

“There is a room
this way,” Yoshi said pointing back the way he had come. “It has a chest in the center, but the room is absolutely bristling with traps.”

“Show me,” Richter said.

Yoshi led the way through three rooms still holding the leg bone aloft. Richter asked him if he planned to wash his hands before he ate. Yoshi just looked back at him with a deadpan expression and kept walking. Richter couldn’t resist annoying the half-sprite by shooting a ball of light ahead of them, just to prove how useless the torch was. Yoshi ignored him.

After passing through a few rooms, they arrived at a doorway lined with white stone. It was larger than the other doorways in what looked to be exactly the same proportions as the black doorway leading to the boss room. Richter gazed inside. At first, nothing special jumped out at him, but then random
flag stones
began to glow red. The chest itself glowed red as well. No magic glowed in the room, other than the chest itself.

Richter looked at Yoshi and said, “Let’s get to work.”

It took a little over two hours to disarm the traps in the room. Richter was definitely able to deal with traps faster than he had a few days ago. There were a few traps to the side of the
room
that they could have avoided, but Yoshi figured better safe than sorry. The gold column had only appeared when they had disabled all the traps in the central chamber after all, and there was no denying that the Light of Life had been pivotal in defeating the fades. The adept also raised the point that the initial wind that blew them down once they had opened the skeleton door would have made them land on traps if there hadn’t all been disarmed. If they hadn’t taken the time to remove potential dangers before proceeding, it would almost certainly have meant all of their deaths.

Once they had finished with the floor, that only left the chest. Richter hoped it would be an easy task, but doubted it. It had taken Killik and Leandra an entire night to safely open the chest from the Night Blades’ hideout. He looked at
Yoshi
who had a stern look on his face as examined the chest. The sword adept looked up and said, “I will need some time.”

Richter nodded and stepped back. Yoshi had started moving towards the
chest when Futen spoke.

“I would advise against touching the chest”

“Why,” Richter asked.

“There are protective wards set on the chest, my Lord.”

“Show me.”

The light at the heart of the remnant glowed brighter, and a series of overlapping circles appeared on the chest. It looked like some interwove, and other were merely laid on top or bottom of the others. Yoshi not only arrested his forward
movement
but jumped back sharply at seeing the now visible magical traps.

“What the hell,” the Warrior swore.

“Okaayyy,” Richter said. “Can you disarm the
wards
, Futen?”

“I am unsure, my Lord. I have the ability to disarm
any one
ward, but I believe they must be unraveled in a certain sequence. Otherwise to affect one would trigger a cascade that would make the
rest
discharge. The specific result would be unpredictable, but it would most certainly violent.”

“What would happen if we just triggered them on purpose,” Daniella asked. “We could set them all off and then open the chest once they were discharged.”

“Among the wards
present are Ravaging Frost, Explosive Heat, and Chain Lightning. Those
wards
alone would be enough to destroy the chest and its contents. If all of the wards went off at once, the destructive energy might be enough to destroy the integrity of this cave system, and bury all of you alive. That
is, if your bodies were not already reduced to their most base constituent parts,” Futen answered in his deadpan tone.

Richter shook his head, “Total protonic reversal. That’s bad. Okay. Important safety tip.
Thanks Egon.”

The sprites were used to ignoring Richter when he started speaking nonsense at this point, so Daniella just kept trying to find a solution. “There has to be a way to open this,” she said. “We just have to look.”

And so they looked. And they looked. And they LOOKED. Every skeleton was removed from every cubby. Richter
stared
at the chest for an hour. He had hoped that his Pierce the Veil skill would reveal a hidden compartment somewhere, but nothing happened. It was about as boring as watching paint dry… only without the paint. Then he stared into every cubby and alcove, but again, nothing. The only interesting thing that Richter
discovered, was that the bones weren’t human like
he had originally thought. They were similar in shape, but were longer and far heavier. Seeing as how he wasn’t an archeologist though, it wasn’t much help. He even leant his wand to Sion who shone it against every surface and floor a second time. Still nothing.

The search went on for the rest of that first day and through another. Both nights they bunked in the central chamber under the glow of the golden column. Yoshi had resolved that when they woke again, they would need attack the room with the draugh guards. It was the only place they hadn’t looked.

Richter couldn’t quite get to sleep that second night, his mind searching for an answer, and his shoulders tense with irritation from night finding one. So he just laid on his back, staring up at the ceiling of the central chamber. It was a mosaic that showed the life cycle of a tree. The ceiling was divided into nine equal squares, in a 3x3 grid. One square showed the tree with full green leaves and birds flying around it. The second was of a darkened sky, the
tree draped in shadow. The next was the tree bending under a strong wind. The one after showed a rain storm and the tree had been struck by lightning. In the fifth, the tree was on fire. The following picture, the tree had burned down and only ash remained. The next showed the sun rising over the horizon, and in the last a new green offshoot had sprung up. Richter stared up ceiling, and something tickled his memory.

He opened the Lore book, and read again about the Basic Elements. Earth, Air, Water, Fire, Light, Dark, Life and Death. Eight Basic Elements. Eight tiles surrounding the central symbol of a sun. He stared back up at the ceiling… it couldn’t be that easy! Could it? What was the order, though? He looked at each tile for a number system or some indication of order, but nothing leaped out at him. The only other thing up there was the center tile of the eight pointed star… that matched the column on the ground.

Richter jumped up, and ran over to the column. He didn’t see anything on top, but when he shined the wand down on it the whole thing lit white, and white numbers appeared etched into the surface. Each number was by one point of the star, and each point indicated a square of the mosaic. This had to be it! The last piece of the puzzle was to ask Futen how many wards were on the chest. The remnant answered that there were eight wards, and each was cast in a different type of magic. Ya Ta!

He turned to the sprites who were staring at him at this point.

“I’ve got it,” he said excited. “The wards need to be disarmed in the order of the mosaics on the ceiling. We can do this!”

They all raced back to room
with a chest.

Richter started giving orders, “Futen, disable the wards
in this order, Life, Fire, Water, Death, Dark, Air, Light, Earth.”

The white light at Futen’s center started pulsing, and the lines of symbols surrounding the golden rune began spinning like a tumblers
on a safe. All three layers of symbols stopped moving, and then the golden lines comprising the ward thinned until it disappeared completely. Richter waited a moment, but when nothing happened, he gave a cheer.

“Thank god that worked!”

“What?!” That question came from all of the sprites at once. They hadn’t known that he was only
mostly
sure his reasoning was right.

“Relaaxxx
,” Richter said. “Everything worked out.”

Yoshi opened his mouth with an angry expression on his face, but Richter interjected, “Shhhh. Don’t distract Futen. If he loses focus, we could all
blow-up.”

Futen spoke in his emotionless voice, “I will not be distrac-”

“Shhhh,” Richter interjected again, “just get back to work.”

In less than ten minutes, all of the wards had been disabled. Richter gave a flourishing bow. The sprites had apparently not forgot that he had just gambled their lives on a hunch, though. Yoshi just brushed past
him
and started examining the chest, muttering under his breath. Sion and Daniella walked away saying they were going to gather the bedrolls they had left in the central chamber. Richter sat down with a satisfied sigh, reflecting on something he
had heard long ago. The saying was true, there was only one thing more satisfying than solving a puzzle, and with the puzzle you didn’t have to buy dinner first.

Richter woke to a hand shaking him. He looked up into Yoshi’s face, and the sword adept was actually smiling. The scar on his face made the expression more than a little creepy. Not exactly the visage Richter would have chosen to wake up to.

“What’s up,” he asked.

“I need your help,” Yoshi said, extending a hand to help Richter up.

Richter stood and walked across the room to the chest. Only one area of the chest was still glowed red when he looked at it. A one foot by
three-inch
rectangle.

“The release points are at each corner of this last trap
. Do you see them?” After a moment, Richter nodded. “All of the points need to be pressed simultaneously. I could do it myself, but it’s easier with help.”

Richter placed his picks, and Yoshi did the same. At Yoshi’s direction, he sunk both lock picks into the tiny holes of the mechanism. There
was
an audible click and the red rectangle of the trap faded away. Richter shared an excited grin with the half-human
swordsman
and gestured magnanimously to the chest. Yoshi surely deserved the reward of opening it after having spent all night disarming the traps.

Sion and Daniella had awoken at hearing their conversation
and now stood behind the kneeling members of their party. Yoshi put his hand on the chest lid, and they all held their breath with the anticipation of children on Christmas morning. They were not disappointed.

You have found: Enhanced Health Potion
x 4
. Will restore 120 health points over 6 seconds.

You have found: Basic Life Oil. Apply to weapons for increased damage against Death creatures.

You have found: Bag of Coins.

You have found: Book of Flame. Shoot a weak gout of flame from your hand.

You have found: Bone Key.

You have found: Hatch Wheel.

You have found: Iron chain.
Damage 7-9. Durability 20/20. Item class: Common. Quality: Average. Weight 2.4 kg.

You have found: Wooden Shield. Defense
+6.
Durability 40/40. Item class: Common. Quality: Average. Weight: 3.4 kg. Type: Light armor.

You have found: Recipe: Potion of Stagnation. Halts health regeneration.

You have found: Recipe: Basic Health Potion. Restores 80 health points over 6 seconds.

You have found: Gold figurine

Richter was happy that Futen had followed his direction to start identifying unknown objects without prompting. It was kinda irritating always having to ask. The haul from the
chest was amazing! Of course, after two solid days of work! The amount of effort that had been required to navigate the traps was maddening. Richter could very well see why this dungeon had been locked to him until he reached a level 10. Even at his current level, he couldn’t have
soloed
it. The enemies,
puzzles
and traps would have stopped him before he even got to this point.

He handed the recipes to Sion, who immediately started pouring over the stagnation recipe. Richter didn’t really have a use for them yet. His Alchemy skill was still at level one. The sprite already knew the recipe for weak health potions, but the basic potion would be a step up. Richter handed the health potions out equally. The weapon and shield didn’t seem like anything special, but he had never seen a chain weapon before. It had a baseball sized weight at the end. Actually, it looked like the weapon Gogo used to fight Black Mamba, but a lot less graceful, Richter thought. It should have a good reach, he reflected.