So he’d put it off as long as he could.
Unfortunately, he’d run out of excuses. He didn’t have anyone to teach - Ekari had cancelled all of his individual classes until the archer was found - so he had the time. He stayed to answer questions as long as he reasonably could, but the other students needed to get to other classes.
Serenity was on his way to the Armory before he realized there was one more excuse - er, reason - he could delay seeing Entherys. He still hadn’t checked in on Moira. He diverted over to the healer’s area instead.
If he was lucky, he could turn that into lunch, then after lunch there was the new Trial -
No one was guarding Moira’s door when he walked up to it. Moira was simply sitting in a chair with her eyes closed. He’d have thought she was asleep, but he could feel her boredom.
Serenity stopped in the doorway. He could what?
“Moira?” Startlement, then joy.
“Lord Serenity! You came!” Puzzlement. “....why did I just call you Lord?”
She felt a lot like one of his intelligent undead - only she was definitely alive, not undead. Her Death affinity was … well, it was really high for someone who hadn’t had one before, but probably still only 20% or so. It was probably her highest affinity, though he wasn’t entirely sure. He didn’t have a convenient way to sense affinities anymore.
He was going to have to be careful with her - for her sake. He wasn’t sure why they were linked that closely, but a link that close had ethical considerations. The Final Reaper had always been careful with his intelligent minions. He resolved to be even more careful with Moira. His minions had all died, after all, and not peacefully.
As for why she called him Lord … probably the same reason. She’d offered more than he was willing to accept, so he’d limited what he accepted to a lord’s fealty. Apparently fealty was close enough to the old binding that he’d ended up accepting more than he’d realized.
Under the circumstances … if he’d known that was an option, he’d probably have taken it. He’d been pretty angry with her for trying to kill him, and this meant she would never be capable of trying again. He had to give Order’s Voice credit - it had read his intent correctly.
“Well … you ate a bunch of skeleton cores, do you remember?”
Moira nodded. “Yeah … I wanted Death affinity. Still need a couple others but - it seemed like the place to start after what the guy at the Trials said about the skeleton cores being the only ones with a particular affinity. I collected all of them I could find. Traded my cores for them, actually ran a couple Trials solo. The skeletons weren’t that hard, only the big guy at the end was, and he was crazy slow.”
“Well, you have Death affinity now. Please don’t do that again, though, it almost turned you into … something. I’m not sure what happened to you next, the next thing I know is when you stabbed me in the back. Twice.” Serenity was still a little salty about that.
“I don’t - no, wait. I wasn’t feeling well, so I was wandering around trying to walk it off. I ran into - Raymond! That good for nothing!” Helpless anger, almost despair. “He - I don’t know how he did it. Somehow he convinced me it was your fault I didn’t feel well. I’m not sure how. I remember walking up to you in the dining hall, but I don’t remember stabbing you. I don’t really remember much after that. It’s all a blur until I was sitting here looking at a red-haired woman. She was scolding me.”
Serenity tried to distance himself from her emotions. That was going to get really uncomfortable … they faded to background noise. Good enough.
“Well, the short version is that you tried to kill me. Didn’t succeed, obviously … I got lucky. I probably shouldn’t compliment you on it, but it really should have worked. You were captured. When I confronted you, you were pretty out of it and decided to swear loyalty to me. I, ah, accepted. That’s … probably why you called me Lord.”
Moira sat there looking at him.
She rubbed her head. “I can tell exactly where you are. I know that I’ll do whatever you tell me to, and be happy to. I feel like I should be upset but … somehow it’s comforting to know you’re there. That … I don’t know.”
Serenity didn’t want to address that at all. Still, he had to say something. “I guess we’ll deal with that as we have to. Not much else to do now. Er … you did gather that you shouldn’t eat monster cores, right?”
“Yeah, that was pretty obvious from the scolding.”
“Then uh … want to join me for lunch in the dining hall?”
After lunch, Moira headed off to the Trials. If the requirement for the Great Dungeon was completing the Dungeon Trials, she had some work to do. Nightwitch, Doyle, and Liuyedao would run her through the rest of the Trials she hadn’t done while Serenity, Echo, and Lancaster tried out the so-called “Puzzle Trial”. They planned to rush the Trials; since Moira had only done the first three, speed was important if they wanted to enter the Great Dungeon the following day.
Moira hadn’t been getting called for Mandatory Trials. Serenity didn’t know why. He hoped it wasn’t the Oath, but couldn’t think of another reason.
“Feels almost like old times, doesn’t it?” Sillon escorted the three of them into the Trial.
The Trial was hot and dusty. What few plants there were were a sickly-looking red-brown, only slightly redder than the baked dirt. The four of them stood on what looked like a wagon-path, given the many ruts in the dirt. In the distance was what looked like an old house - a house that would not have been out of place in a movie about the Old West.
Serenity nodded. “Good times. So, now that we’re in here, what’s the trial?”
Sillon chuckled. “You could say that’s the trial. You need to find out what to do. I can tell you that there’s usually a puzzle of some sort - mazes are common but it can be anything, even riddles - and there’s generally at least one fight. Probably about as difficult as the goblins or the skeletons. The point is, figure out what you need to do and do it. I can tell you it’ll be faster if you head that way.” He pointed in the direction they were facing, down the rutted dirt path.
The group headed towards the old house. Serenity expected to see other houses near it, but there weren’t any. There was a pair of outbuildings instead - one looked like a stable that was likely to fall over in the next gust of wind, while the other looked more like an awning with a back than a proper building. It also appeared somewhat charred.
Serenity wished there was a wind. It was dry, but even a dry heat is more comfortable with a breeze. “Anyone remember to bring water?”
“Nope.” Lancaster sounded annoyed.
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“Yes, but not much. All I’ve got is one canteen, and it’s made of wood. It … leaks.” Echo held up the canteen. It was indeed slowly dripping.
Serenity glanced at Sillon, who didn’t say anything as he took a drink from his well-made, non-leaking canteen. “You couldn’t have warned us?”
“Could have been anywhere. This isn’t so bad. Could be cold instead.” Sillon capped the canteen and let it fall to his side. “Gear’s important, and if this is how you learn to carry water, well, cheap lesson.”
The house itself looked like it had been whitewashed at some point in its history, but the paint was stained by the dirt. Where the paint had peeled, the underlying rough-looking grayish wood appeared, giving the house a leprous look.
The wagon trail continued past the house, but there wasn’t anything visible in the distance. Serenity walked up to the front door. It seemed like the most likely place to check.
When he knocked, there was a loud CREAK then the door fell into the house.
Serenity jumped.
“Such .. ambiance.” Serenity almost jumped again at Echo’s voice. “That wasn’t the right noise for metal giving way. I don’t hear anything else in the first room, though. A table, a couple chairs off to the left. Three exits from the room, left and forward past the table and chairs, ahead and a bit left - middle of the far wall, and to the right more or less middle of the wall. Middle exit might be stairs. Can’t resolve anything past that.”
Serenity stepped into the room. There was a light layer of dust on everything. The table was small and round, with what looked like a lacework tablecloth that had probably once been white or a light cream color. The chairs were pulled up against the table. They both had high backs and faced away from the entrance.
After he took a couple of steps into the room, Serenity could see what looked like a dead man slumped over in one of the chairs. The man’s face was lined and leathery, like he was old, but his hair was a healthy-looking brown. It didn’t match. Serenity hadn’t seen anything quite like it in this kind of environment; if anything, it was like a body buried in the desert, but that clearly wasn’t what happened.
Serenity gestured to the others to come in - with the fallen door, it wasn’t likely they’d be trapped - and went to check.
The other chair also held a dead man. A quick tug on his Affinities later, Serenity was confident they were both actually dead and not undead or dying. “Less than a day, definitely. At a guess, probably just over two hours. Hard to tell in this heat.” Nothing felt wrong about the death energy, so he was confident in the estimate, but something was nagging -
“Good guess, stranger.” The voice came from ahead, a little ways up the stairs.
Serenity had no idea how he’d missed the man. It was like he’d literally appeared right before he spoke.
“Why are you here? We’ve nothing left to steal, if that’s why. Not that it matters.”
Serenity took a good look at the man on the stairs, then examined the dead man next to him more carefully. The man on the stairs looked very much like the man in the chair, if much healthier, down to the fancy vest he wore - though the man on the stairs also had a very nice belt with a dagger that the man in the chair didn’t.
Serenity turned his gaze back to the ghost on the stairs. “I’m guessing you didn’t die naturally. Some sort of life drain?”
“Door blew open during a storm, a man came in. ‘twere pouring outside, he was dry as a bone. Offered him shelter from the storm, asked about his animals. Asked if he wanted water or beer while he waited for the storm to pass. He said he’d appreciate some water. Been an hour or so since then.”
Serenity turned towards Echo and Lancaster. “Track him or trap him? Either should work - “
“Look out!” Lancaster grabbed Serenity’s arm and pulled him towards the exit. While they stumbled out into the sunlight, Echo threw something invisible at the ghost.
Serenity looked back and saw that the ghost no longer looked like the man in the chair. He started to pull a knife, but realized it wouldn’t do much against a ghost. Instead, he sent his Death Concept into the room while he stayed outside. If Echo could hold it off long enough -
It seemed to be knocked back each time Echo hit it. After the sixth hit, it turned and floated away from them, up the stairs at the back of the house.
Echo looked tired. “Glad it ran. Not sure how many more of those I could manage.”
Serenity could feel the two dead bodies. The ghost … didn’t seem to actually be a ghost. There was Death near it, but it was the energy of killing, not the energy to sustain unlife. “It’s not a ghost. But I’m guessing it is the target of this Trial. Any ideas?”
Lancaster examined the room from the doorway. “It doesn’t like the sun. It wasn’t just Echo, it moved around the sun going in the window and didn’t come close to the door. Um. Any idea if its story was true?”
They turned to Sillon, who stated “There are no direct lies in this Trial. Misdirection and tricks only.”
“Then … came in during a storm alone, wants water, doesn’t like sun, doesn’t like getting hit with magic. I’m not sure a sword will work. Do you think fire would? Those chairs look pretty flammable.”
Lancaster seemed to be ignoring the bodies. Serenity couldn’t. “We should at least pull the bodies out into the sun, maybe burn them. How about we both run in, grab a chair, pull it out into the sun?”
Lancaster agreed, so that’s what they did. Serenity was faster, but not by as much as he’d expected.
Lancaster must have picked a Path too. It’s just me that’s stuck…
As Serenity pulled the first body out into the sunlight, it burst into flames. He pulled the chair far enough to get it out of Lancaster’s way before letting go of the flaming chair.
Both bodies were swiftly reduced to ash, burning the chairs where they touched. The chairs burned brightly and didn’t seem like they’d go out soon. There were more than enough burning parts for each of them to have a pair of torches.
“Convenient.” Lancaster separated the “burning torches” from other wood that wasn’t yet alight. “We should carry some wood as well, in case these go out.”
“Probably means we’re on the right path, or one that will work at least. Let’s … let’s go inside. The other possibility is to burn down the house, but let’s save that option for a last resort.”
Serenity helped Lancaster create three bundles of chair-bits to use if they needed backup. Each of them took two torches, while Echo took one, since she also had her magic.
“How’s your mana?” It had only been a few minutes, but if Echo had a relatively balanced build, her mana regeneration should be fairly quick - for out-of-combat use, anyway.
“Three quarters,” she said. “Up from one quarter at the end of the fight. We should get going, don’t want the torches to go out. A minute or two’s all it needs.”
At the top of the stairs, they were confronted with a maze. The walls seemed to be made of a very green thorny bush, while the top was open. The floor seemed to be a small layer of sand over dirt.
The bushes did not burn when Echo put her torch against them, even if she left it there for a while. They’d clearly have to make their way through the maze. Hopefully the ghost couldn’t attack through the walls.
After some discussion, they decided they’d take the rightmost exit each time. It might not solve it, but it was better than wandering randomly.
They walked for what seemed like hours, expecting an attack at any time. It was probably less than half an hour. No attack came. Eventually, they came to a large clearing in the bushes. There was a dry fountain in the middle.
The ghost - or whatever it was - floated over the fountain. It didn’t seem to notice them, so after a quick whispered discussion Serenity and Lancaster moved to flank it while Echo waited in the entrance. When they were ready, Echo announced their presence with a sonic bolt.
“Intruders! You shall not have my water!” The ghost headed towards Echo for only a moment before Serenity and Lancaster blocked its way with the torches.
It dove for Lancaster, but he blocked with a torch and it screamed as the fire touched it. Lancaster whipped his other torch at it as it withdrew - right into Serenity’s paired attack.
The fight didn’t take long. The ghost-thing seemed to not be able to go up or down, which left it with no way to escape the torches. The last blow was one of Echo’s sonic bolts.
As the spirit faded away, the fountain began to run with water and Sillon stepped out from behind it.
Puzzle Trial Complete
3 Participants
Trial Rewards: 100 XP, 100 Ev
Serenity was happy the Trial had gone well, but unhappy it was over.
He was out of excuses to delay interrogating Entherys.