Eramith
patreon
Book 2: Chapter 41
🕑 Added 2023-05-22 13:00:07 +0000 UTCFelix pulled the orb from his inventory and carefully placed it into the statue’s outstretched hands. The orb floated on the water as it poured out, spinning in place for a few seconds before it began to glow. Felix backed up a few paces as the orb brightened and a large dark rectangle appeared in the air in front of it. A slight breeze of cool air blew out of the rectangle as Felix peered into it without getting too close. He just managed to make out what appeared to be a stone cave that descended downwards, curving out of sight just a few meters in.
Is it… Safe?
It seems just as stable as any portal I’ve ever seen. I suspect the system has something to do with that.
Yeah but… what if I go in there then someone picks the orb up?
Possible… Maybe try walking in then back out first, if that works then we can figure things out from there.
You sure it’s safe?
Probably.
Felix clenched his teeth and walked forwards, his hand out in front of him so he didn’t send his head in first. As soon as his finger made contact with the portal, a screen appeared.
.________________________________________________________________________________________
World Event
Rothden Family Vault
You have successfully found a vault in the city of Ky’Bel. Erolan’s vaults were all designed to have defenses and traps as he was a paranoid individual. The recommendation for this vault is a group of 4 - 5 at an average level of 140 - 145. Vaults are completable, each one containing at most 5 noteworthy treasures that must be collected for them to be considered complete. This vault contains 4 noteworthy treasures.
Note: Entering a vault will cause the vault to become inaccessible to anyone outside. The portal will not close and the immediate area around it will be sealed, inaccessible to anyone. Should you survive, you will be able to exit the vault. You may explore without fear of becoming trapped inside from the portal closing. Once complete, the vault will be closed and inaccessible to anyone else in the future. If you leave without collecting all of the noteworthy treasures, the vault will remain open for future attempts by your or another’s group.
Would you like to enter the vault with your party of 1?
Yes.
No.
.________________________________________________________________________________________
Oh thank System. Guess we don’t have to worry about it. Did you know that would happen?
I figured it might. Didn’t seem right for The System to let something like that happen. It was a possibility, but seemed wrong if it’s letting you into portal’s without any knowledge of them ahead of time. If you were familiar with them and had encountered them before, it would be different. As it is, this is the first encounter for, I assume, the entirety of your planet’s population.
Could I use a portal to get to Eramith? Or teleportation somehow?
Possibly. We can talk about it later but you might as well loot the statue and the orb on your way out then study it. The more you learn, the more I can talk about and reveal.
Sounds good. Yes.
Instead of Felix being teleported into the vault, his hand simply passed through the portal, the barrier from before having disappeared. Felix stepped forwards, his entire body passing into the portal before the light pouring through it vanished. Felix cast a quick light spell then turned around and saw what looked like a picture of what he would expect to see through the portal. It was a snapshot of what was on the other side of the portal, though not an actual portal so no light was emitted. Felix assumed he would just touch the surface to exit and didn’t bother testing that instead he walked down the curving cave and into the vault.
Where the portal had appeared, the cave appeared to be a natural formation, the walls a rough stone marked by erosion and wear. Felix descended through the winding cave just big enough for a single person to pass through a few hundred meters before the cave smoothed out and opened up. The last hundred meters or so the cave walls became perfectly smooth, carved out of the stone and the hall was entirely straight. It no longer felt like he was in a cave at all, instead it looked like the hall and room had been carefully constructed. The straight wall opened up into a large room with the entire floor covered in a red carpet. There was a door opposite the tunnel as well as one on the right wall with an open doorway leading to stairs that descended on the left wall.
Felix walked to within a few meters of the room and, warned by The System, began doing his best to search for traps. He was using his staff to hit the ground in front of him already, but he was worried that would be too close if the trap was some kind of toxic gas or acid. A tiny light blue bead shot out of Felix’s finger and into the room ahead of him exploding with a burst of force in every direction. Immediately, the room was filled with an inferno that quickly died out without spreading into the other rooms. Felix tested it a few more times, finding the limit of the detection area using spells and his mana senses. He knew there had to be some kind of trick to get through without getting hurt because this vault was being used when it was trapped, at least he assumed so. He found that just the center of the room triggered the trap, with an area about a half meter wide along all the walls that was safe.
Felix was happy his little trick with the Force Bomb worked but he knew that it would only work on the most basic of detection methods. If he wanted to, Felix was certain he could figured out traps that triggered based on shape, soul, mana and other abstract methods that were harder to fool if he just had access to the necessary nodes. He was also certain Erolan would be able to figure them out as well. He just hoped this trick worked for as long as possible. He didn’t really know how else to test for traps but he put figuring out more triggers on his to do list for later.
Walking into the room, Felix stepped along the wall and proceeded to the staircase to the left of the entrance first, mostly because it was the closest. His head peered around the corner and he saw a half dozen Devoured beasts along with four cages that had been rusted over and broken from age. The entire room was stone and there was a small bowl carved out of the stone floor that was filled with water next to a divot with a drain in it. Felix carefully stepped down the staircase and inspected the Devoured beasts closer. They were all the same level, two of them appeared to be large wolves, three of them some kind of large predatory cat and one of them a bear.
.________________________________________________________________________________________
[D] Devoured (Lvl 142) .________________________________________________________________________________________
Felix could have fired off a barrage of spells until the creatures stopped moving. Instead he fired off a series of Mana Bolts to get their attention then led them back into the trapped room he had just crossed through. The creatures all screeched with the sickly wet cry the Devoured were famous for then bounded towards him until they reached the staircase and completely stopped. Felix had already walked back into the previous room before he realized something was wrong and turned back to figure out what had happened. Felix looked down the stairs and saw the bear standing at the base with the wolves circling behind it and the cats ready to pounce on and around the cages.
Wow. Well trained I guess. It is kind of depressing though, and makes me feel bad for killing them from up here when they can’t even fight back.
A series of Lightning Bolts arced from around Felix into the bodies of the creatures one by one until they all fell to the ground. Once they were all dead, Felix stalked into the room, firing off a couple of Force Bombs just to be sure the room wasn’t trapped. Inside the room, on the same wall as the stair case in the corners sat bags of various foods, the piles of rot only identifiable by the markings on the sacks now. There was a sound of water flowing just beyond the wall with the drain which piqued Felix’s curiosity because it meant were pipes of some kind wherever they were. He had initially thought the vault was a pocket universe but now he wasn’t so sure. Felix walked towards the next room on the wall to the right of the staircase, parallel with the entrance, and looked inside without getting too close, wary of any traps.
In the room there were crates, barrels and sacks stacked in a pile in the center as well as on every wall. There was a staircase back upwards on the opposite wall and a drain in the corner, on the same wall as the drain in the last room. Felix cast a series of tiny Force Bombs making sure not to blow up or even knock over any crates. He was only satisfied when he was certain he had tested everything else then carefully walked into the room. As cautious as he was, he didn’t encounter any traps whatsoever. He inspected the crates so he could figure out their contents as well as try to find any that may have been trapped.
In the crates and sacks Felix found sugar, salt, wood, parchment, silks, spices, coins and gems. None of the gems seemed to be usable for Mana Batteries, or rather they were too small and flawed to be Mana Batteries of any use. The barrels seemed to contain some kind of alcohol that Felix suspected had gone bad but didn’t really know because he didn’t drink. There were other sacks that had probably contained grain or some other perishable good like food, now they contained only rot and smelled awful. Felix looted the barrels and everything that hadn’t rotted. He stored them in his inventory, careful to search for any kind of pressure plate beneath them but found nothing of the sort.
He walked to the base of the stairs to the next room and did his best to search for traps then ascended to the door. He inspected the door as best he could but he was just a novice, he risked it and opened the door anyways into a large stone room with a door to the right that had been sealed off and a door on the opposite wall. In the room, there was a wooden wall that had been added after the fact not even fastened to anything, just freestanding in the middle of the room. Felix carefully walked to the other end of the room and on the other side of the wooden was was simply a bed, a bedside table and a dresser. He walked up and looted all the furniture after looking through the dresser and finding nothing but clothes.
He inspected the door on the right wall and saw that the door was sealed by having a large thick metal plate welded over the opening. Felix looked through the door opposite the one he entered from and saw an open doorway to the left and closed one to the right. There was also an alcove in the wall with dried straw laid on the floor that was mostly rotted through, some of it having survived just enough to be identifiable. It seemed like the resting place of some kind of animal.
Felix checked for traps as best he could then cautiously stepped into the room. He saw through the door to the left and saw the doorway open into what appeared to be an underground lake, the smooth, carved walls reverting to the rough stone of a natural cave. Felix walked right up to the doorway and saw the lake span far to the right and left, likely where the drains in the last rooms had led considering they were placed on the adjacent wall to the lake. He turned around and walked to the other door inspecting it as carefully as he could manage before cautiously opening it. It was a heavy steel door and the hinges were not well maintained so even though it did open, it was a loud endeavor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
