I let out a low groan as I woke up in the dark. Had I died again? No, I quickly discounted that. If I was dead or even respawned, I wouldn’t hurt so damn much.
My entire body felt like it was bruised to hell and back. Everything ached, and that was while I had a pretty high vitality. I could only guess how worse it would have been otherwise.
“Where the hell am I?” I grumbled.
All I knew about my current location was that it was dark, and the ground was hard. Then, I realized that it wasn’t quite as dark as I’d thought. There were glowing crystals along the walls, just a bit distant from me. I just happened to be in a particularly dark patch.
I slowly stood up and moved towards the light, noting that it was light enough to see by, though still on the dark side. Still, it was enough to make out my surroundings a little better.
There were stone blocks making up the floors and walls, and the walls were pretty close together. Exactly like in the maze. However, unlike most of the maze that I’d been in before, there was a ceiling above me, at about thirty feet or so up.
I was still in the maze, just on a lower level. And from what I could see, it looked like I’d fallen right into the middle of a four-way intersection.
There was rubble all over the place, including some large blocks of stone. When I looked at the ceiling above where I’d found myself, I saw a gaping hole that I’d fallen through. A hole that was closing up as I watched.
“The Labyrinth is fixing things pretty fast,” I mused.
My eyes went to a large chunk of rubble, which looked like part of the ceiling that had collapsed. It was slowly sinking into the floor, being absorbed by the Labyrinth. I had no doubt that before long, all the rubble and debris would be gone and there would be no indication that the place had ever been damaged. The Labyrinth was good at that kind of repair.
“How the hell do I get back up there?” I asked, looking back towards the shrinking hole in the ceiling. It was closing up fast and I didn’t see any way of reaching it before then. “HELLO,” I yelled, hoping my friends could hear me. “I’m DOWN HERE.”
There was no response, at least none that I could hear. I suddenly felt worried at that, especially when I remembered what had happened with Ace. For all I knew, the others could all be buried beneath collapsed walls.
“Or,” I quickly reminded myself, “they could have run away from the collapsing floor like anyone with common sense would do.”
I took a moment to stretch so that I could try working out some of these aches and bruises, then I looked around for my hammer. It was on the ground, just a couple feet away from where I’d found myself. Once I was armed with that, I decided that it was time to find my way out.
“Since going up won’t work,” I muttered as I pulled out the mirror ball. “Okay, shard, which way do I go?”
The mirror ball gently tugged in one direction, so I began walking that way. I couldn’t go back up the way I’d come down, but this thing should lead out of the basement. Hopefully, I’d be able to meet up with the others before long.
Since I was still in the maze, I knew that there were bound to me more traps. I scowled at the very thought, knowing that without Bunny and Maya testing the path, this was going to be dangerous.
I picked paused and picked up some of the debris, a few rocks that were about the general size of a baseball. This would have to do for now.
“Now,” I said as I looked down the corridor ahead of me. “Let’s see how dangerous you are.”
There was one spot that looked a little sketchy, so I rolled one of the rock down the hall, more like I was skipping a stone over a pond than rolling a bowling ball. Once the stone hit the sketchy spot, there was a clicking sound followed by a couple metal spikes dropping from the ceiling.
“Okay,” I grumbled, my eyes locked onto the spikes that were now embedded in the floor. Those things could have turned me into a damn pin cushion. “Good thing I checked.”
After this, I took care to keep tossing stones along the path ahead of me, using them the same way that Bunny had used her horned rabbits. I was able to reuse the stones several times, until a trap door opened under one and then a small explosion took a second. Before long, I only had one stone left.
It was at this point that I looked around a corner and spotted a couple of porcubombs heading my way. I muttered a brief profanity, then considered how I could deal with them. I needed to go that way, which meant that they had to go.
I charged my ‘Invocation of Spite’, then stepped around the corner and fired the attack at one of the porcubombs. It immediately exploded, just as I’d hoped it would. However, it had been far enough away from the other porcubomb that it hadn’t been caught in the blast.
“Crap,” I grumbled. I’d been counting on that to take out both monsters.
The remaining porcubomb came towards me even faster than before, in what was probably its version of a run. It was still pretty slow by human standards, and especially by player standards, so I had time to consider my options.
A few seconds later, I threw my one remaining rock at the monster. I hit the porcubomb dead on and it immediately exploded. This one had gotten closer than where the other one had been, so I dove to the side passage that I’d come from in order to avoid the shrapnel.
“I’m glad that worked,” I said.
Unfortunately, I was now out of rocks and would have to find another way to test for traps. After a moment of consideration, I grabbed a shrapnel spike that was embedded in a wall and pulled it out. Now I had replacement, at least until it melted.
I continued moving forward, though I hoped that I wouldn’t run into any more of the porcubombs, and especially not one of the big ones. I shuddered at the idea of encountering another of the big boys while I was on my own.
Then, I felt a now familiar tingling against my skin. I came to a halt and looked around, trying to see if I could see the source of primal magic. I couldn’t see the source, but I felt it coming from a side corridor. After a moment of hesitation, I moved towards the source.
“Divine magic,” I mused warily. I was sure of that much, though I had absolutely no idea of which deity it was coming from.
About twenty yards down the corridor, I found an alcove in a wall which included a shrine. It was a completely different style than the shrines and altars that I’d seen before, being a bit larger and including a small statue of a strange looking being.
A popup appeared in front of me.
SHRINE OF NI’CAETH, DEITY OF LOST SOULS
This wasn’t a name I recognized, though I would have been more surprised if it had been. I had absolutely no idea of Ni’Caeth was part of the same pantheon as Avexis or not, but I hoped that I didn’t get caught between the two of them like I had between her and Araelys.
Unlike the shrines and altars that I’d seen before, there was actual dust and grime on this one. I was pretty sure that nobody had come by to clean those shrines up, which meant that magic had been involved. I didn’t know why those ones had been taken care of like that and this one hadn’t.
I could feel the primal power emanating from the shrine, just like I had the others. Again, this was not a primal, merely an object with a connection to them.
For a moment, I considered whether or not I wanted to try making some kind of deal with this deity. Then, I decided that I had better avoid doing so. As I’d already learned, divine type primals tended to have baggage, and I didn’t want to deal with any more of that. I sure as hell didn’t want to set my current patron off again.
Now that my curiosity had been satisfied, I was about to turn and leave. However, I took one more look at the shrine and let out a sigh. It seemed kind of rude to leave the shrine in this state.
I took a minute to wipe all the dust off the shrine, mostly using my hand and sleeve. That wasn’t quite as effective as a good rag and some cleaner, but it worked.
Once I finished giving the shrine a quick cleaning, I turned to leave, only to have a new popup appear in front of me.
YOU HAVE BEEN WITNESSED BY NI’CAETH, DEITY OF LOST SOULS. NI’CAEITH APPROVES OF YOUR ACTIONS AND GRANTS YOU A BOON OF POWER.
NEW ABILITY ACQUIRED: DETECT TRAPS (24 HOURS REMAIN)
“What…?” I gasped in surprise. Then I quickly brought up my status screen.
CLASS: INVOKER
LEVEL: 15
FREE STAT POINTS: 0
FOCUS: 12
PERCEPTION: 8
PRESENCE: 10
STRENGTH: 8
VITALITY: 14
DEXTERITY: 7
AGILITY: 7
TALENTS AND AFFINITIES:
-PRIMAL MAGIC
--DIVINE TYPE
-KNIVES
ABILITIES:
-INVOCATION OF SPITE
-INVOCATION OF THE WISP (17 USES REMAIN}
-BLESSING OF AVEXIS
-ABSORB
-DETECT TRAPS (23 HOURS 59 MINUTES REMAIN)
‘Detect Traps’ was an ideal ability for my current situation, which was obviously why Ni’Caeth had given it to me. It was also a temporary ability, much like my ‘Invocation of the Wisp’. But where that one had a limited number of uses, this one was only available for a limited amount of time.
“One day,” I said. “One day to find my friends and get out of this maze.”
I considered that for a moment and then nodded faintly. That would be enough time. It had to be.
Then I bowed my head to the shrine and said, “Thank you Ni’Caeth for the boon you have generously given me.”
I felt a faint pulse of acknowledgement from the shrine, but nothing else. I also noticed that Avexis hadn’t reacted to my interactions with this deity, as small as they had been. Maybe their relationship was more of a neutral one.
A few seconds later, I was on my way again, quickly going back to my previous route and then cautiously walking down the corridor. It didn’t take me long to see how my temporary ability worked.
In the middle of the corridor, a single block of stone glowed with an eerie red color. I instinctively knew that this was the trigger for the trap, though I wasn’t sure of exactly what it would trigger. Nor did I intend to find out. With that warning, it was easy to simply step around that stone.
“That will make things a whole lot easier,” I said. “Thank you again, Ni’Caeth.”
My thoughts went back to the last new ability I’d gained, ‘Absorb’. I’d felt myself absorbing a little of the primal magic around the shrine, though not a lot. I still had no idea of what I could do with that absorbed magic.
I frowned as I walked, second-guessing my choice of abilities. Both abilities had seemed too situational at first, but now that I’d had a bit more time to think about it, I realized that ‘Syphon’ and ‘Resist’ both had potential that I’d overlooked.
‘Syphon’ might have been able to steal magic from other invokers, or from primal powered artifacts. Both of those things might have come in handy considering the people I was going up against. That might have been useful if I had to fight Wolf.
And ‘Resist’… Well, that might have been handy with Wolf as well. However, it might have been even more useful in protecting me from my own ability. If that ability made me more resistant to primal magic, then it might have protected me from the damage I took while channeling ‘Invocation of Spite’. That could have opened the door to firing off more frequent or more powerful blasts.
Then again, for all I knew, ‘Resist’ might have interfered with ‘Invocation of Spite’ instead. I had no way of knowing if I’d really made a good choice in skipping that one or not.
“Too late to worry about it now,” I reminded myself. “I already picked ‘Absorb’, so now I just have to wait and see if it was worth it.”