The dungeon's adventurers had gathered in the front row, making the stone bench more comfortable with blankets and cushions. Trulda was debating with the duskgnome Skorr Callad about whether salty or sweet exploded corn was better. Princess Ulmenglanz had the dungeon create various types of moss to test whether it was suitable as padding. The first attempts were not quite to Malvorik's taste, as the moss was too damaged by spectators and needed active dungeon help to regenerate.
The dryad princess grimaced: "This underground world is unnatural enough already. This room is especially ghastly. Unadorned stone walls, stone seats, a huge wall of mirrors..."
Weylan whistled: "Hey, the revenants are about to come in!" Everyone hurried to their seats. On the mirrored wall, a semi-circular room in the dungeon appeared, with the portal embedded in the straight wall. The reflective obsidian surface changed to a lightless blackness.
The entrance room had square stone tiles, all the same light grey color. Opposite the portal, a corridor three steps wide and four steps high led out. The walls of the room and corridor were overgrown up to the ceiling with climbing plants. A chaotic tangle of wooden poles and scaffolding allowed the plants to grow half a meter into the room and a good distance along the ceiling. Irregularly distributed glowing fist-sized crystals in the ceiling illuminated the dungeon in different colors.
A warrior with a freshly painted wooden shield jumped into the room, looked around quickly, and stepped forward to the left, where he remained bent over and ready to jump with his shield raised to ward off a still unrecognized danger. Behind him, a mage in a white robe, a slender woman, and another mage in a black robe entered. They all stopped and looked around.
Malvorik's voice echoed in the spectators' minds:
Bernd (Warrior, Level 5)
Legolias (Mage, Level 6)
Fleetfoot (Thief, Level 5)
Darken o' Mighty (Master of the Dark Arts, Level 5)
Ulmenglanz looked up. "Legolias? I met him in the city. He seemed like a decent guy. I wouldn't underestimate him. He seemed to know more about magic theory than most revenants care to learn."
Weylan nodded thoughtfully. "He actually took lessons in theory at the Mage Academy. Everyone else just wanted to learn spells."
Malvorik spoke up as the group entered the dungeon:
Some spectators placed bets on whether and how quickly the team would find the dagger. Before they could agree on the odds, the thief had already reached the spot and became visibly agitated. The mirror screen didn’t transmit sound, so the spectators couldn’t hear the discussion. Malvorik commented:
The thief skillfully bypassed the spikes and carefully pulled out the dagger hidden behind them. With a satisfied grin, she slipped it into her shoulder bag. She took the bag off, pressed it into Darken's hand and carefully approached the exit.
The audience's perspective shifted, showing the group from behind with the open corridor in front. Fleetfoot commented on the pattern of the tiles, which changed from monochrome to black and light grey in the corridor. She used her wand to press against the tiles, moving further into the corridor while standing in the archway. Her attention fully focused on the walls, ceiling and floor of the corridor, she was taken by surprise when two plant chimeras shot out of the undergrowth from the top left and right. Flower-like mouths with pointed wooden teeth lunged at her. The thief reacted explosively, throwing herself backward out of the danger zone with a flying roll. The audience clapped and cheered.
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Trulda nudged Weylan: "Don’t even think about it."
Weylan closed the menu fields he had just opened: "I don't know what you mean.”
"You were about to search the feats list. Your master is high level and very experienced. If he’s told you not to choose new feats, he probably wants you to unlock some rare ones first."
"It's frustrating. There are so many brilliant feats..."
"And you have the unique opportunity to get even better ones. Your ability to access rare things is your biggest advantage.”
Princess Ulmenglanz nudged Trulda: "Watch out, they’re finishing off the snake chimeras."
Bernd, the warrior, was close behind Fleetfoot and sliced one of the snakes with his sword before it could retreat. The second narrowly escaped the backhanded blow and disappeared into the undergrowth. Legolias raised his staff to cast a fire spell, but Darken pressed his hand down and said something. He pulled out a vial from his belt and threw it into the undergrowth, where it disappeared. There was a muffled clink in the bushes and black smoke shot out in a concentric cloud. Before it could spread more than a step, the smoke flared up and disappeared in an orange-red deflagration. The liana bushes remained unchanged. Legolias waited briefly, then looked at Darken with a raised eyebrow. Fleetfoot made a snide comment, and Darken waved her off, telling her to wait. The liana snake dropped from the undergrowth, remained stretched out, slowly swaying back and forth. Darken walked over leisurely, held the snake close to its head with one hand and sawed through it with his dagger.
Malvorik’s voice sounded confused:
Fleetfoot wiggled at the rest of the chimera in disgust, then the group reassembled.
They poked around the plants near the exit until they were sure there was no further danger. Fleetfoot began examining the corridor again. As she moved tiles with her stick, arrows were repeatedly released, which flew across the corridor and disappeared between the climbing plants on the other side.
Legolias watched attentively while the others kept an eye on their surroundings. Fleetfoot stepped back and then ran into the corridor, performing a quick flic-flac, then jumping against the wall and further into the corridor. Crossbow bolts whizzed around her but missed. With a flying roll, she overcame the tripwires at the end of the corridor and came to a triumphant stop, arms outstretched upwards, in a round room with walls densely overgrown with ivy-like plants.
The audience fell silent and bowed their heads.
A trapdoor in the ceiling clanged down behind the thief. One of the lurking stranglers swung his upper body out downwards while holding on to the ceiling with his feet around a handle. Long-fingered hands reaching for the thief's neck. Fleetfoot flinched, bent down and looked around in panic as three knee-high rat-snake chimeras slithered out of a passage hidden behind vines in the wall. Scaly skin, wide-open mouths full of venomous teeth. They leapt out with a hiss. Fleetfoot looked around in panic, rolled to the side, catching herself close to the wall. The way back was blocked by traps she couldn’t cross without a running start and preparation. To the front, the strangler blocked most of the corridor with its long arms, and the chimeras were coming towards her. The spectators in the arena held their breath. The thief clenched her fists and prepared to try and get past all four opponents. Even if she succeeded, it would only take her deeper into the dungeon. Away from her allies. She jumped, deftly bouncing between the vines on the wall. She catapulted herself upwards, where she clung flat to the ceiling with her hands and feet.
There was a murmur of disbelief. What was that all about? The chimeras couldn’t reach her, but she couldn’t stay there long either.
Fist-sized fireballs from the other end of the corridor trailed trails of smoke as they flew beneath the thief hanging from the ceiling. Three, in close succession, slammed into the rat chimeras. Nobody had seen the crossbow bolt suddenly lodged in the lurking strangler coming. The strangler let go with his feet and fell to the ground. There it rolled off and ran away in a zigzag. An arrow struck the stone floor beside him and bounced off at a shallow angle.
The image rotated to show Bernd with a short bow and Darken frantically reloading a light crossbow. Legolias held his staff with glowing runes and a smoking ruby at the tip raised high, summoning the next fireball.
The mage waved his hands, and his next fireball disappeared. Concentrating, he held both hands in front of him, palms up. A translucent sphere appeared above each hand. He muttered another spell. Both spheres filled with blue mist.
Weylan spoke: "Malvorik? Aren't you going to let your chimeras take cover?"
The mage hurled both spells at once, one with each hand. Trailing white streaks of condensation that spiraled around each other. The chimeras leapt apart, but Legolias made a subtle gesture and the magical projectiles followed them with precise changes of direction. The projectiles missed their targets but hit right next to the chimeras, where they exploded in a bright blue flash of light and a concentric wave of white mist. The chimeras fell over, covered in frost and trembling slightly.
The spectators waited patiently while the heroes, in a mixture of haste and exaggerated caution, tried to figure out how to overcome the traps. It took them a while to realize that once one of them had reached the other side, all traps were deactivated and they could simply walk through. Roaring laughter echoed through the auditorium. Meanwhile, Fleetfoot had swung down from the ceiling and carefully explored her surroundings. However, the strangler had disappeared.
Weylan leaned over to Trulda: "The next room was partly my idea. It fits the concept of a training dungeon for assassins. Malvorik just finished it yesterday."