Tree Guardian by Andrew Karevik

Author:Andrew Karevik [Karevik, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-09-04T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

Finally, after two weeks of waiting, Vincenzo discovered the entrance to Level Four. I was excited at the prospect of seeing him experience a kind of challenge that would test all of his assumptions and pre-existing conceptions. Vincenzo’s Humility would indeed push him to the brink of his skillset. It was my hope that by trapping him in this level, he would eventually relent and give up on his attempts to map me.

Of course, in order to achieve this, there would need to be a bit of foul play on my part. One such measure I took was to create a Soul Diversion artifact. From the extensive amount of necromantic knowledge I had gained after I slew Urioc, I knew ways to capture souls or even trap them. Going to such lengths was not in my nature, as I had no hatred or desire to see mortals suffer such a terrible fate. Yet, those spells had their uses.

Soul Diversion was a type of magic that drew recently released spirits to them. They were often used to imprison souls into items or artifacts, but I had a different idea for this Soul Diversion spell. It wouldn’t lock anyone away, just force any released soul to a very specific resurrection shrine—one located in the middle of the fourth level. The diversion spell would also slow down the travel speed of the soul, giving the dungeon level enough time to reset itself.

This meant two things: the first was that Vincenzo would be utterly incapable of leaving the fourth level until he could solve the grand puzzle and escape out the exit portal. The second was that the dungeon would be constantly changing after each time he died, making it impossible to get a handle on. How persistent was Vincenzo? Would he endure every single death and reset to map this place? Or would he give up after the third or fourth time? He was a skilled man and very confident, so I wondered how well he would handle failure. I figured I would find out soon enough.

Vincenzo seemed happy to have discovered another level. He often spoke out loud, hoping to catch my attention, or perhaps because he loved to hear the sound of his own voice.

“Ah, of course, sticking with the vault theme, are we?” he said as he scribbled down notes.

The first room was the default anti-vault trap that I had designed. He would spend a great deal of time searching for the key, not bothering to try the handle. Why should he? After all, vaults needed keys. There was no getting past that simple fact.

He would find the key after a few minutes of searching, for it was hidden behind a false wall. Of course, my new buzzsaw trap was whirring back and forth, valiantly guarding the chest that contained this key. And much to my delight, Vincenzo tried to solve this problem the traditional way. He backed up several feet and made a running jump. The buzzsaw met him in the middle…and Vincenzo gave me a significant portion of his raw essence.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.