ALL NOVEL Chapter 64: Don’t Push The Buttons
Fortunately, it seemed that stopping the levelling up process midway hadn’t caused any issues as he just picked it up from where they’d left off. Since he and Leo had already decided what they were choosing, it was a quick process to finish.
Level: Evolved Beast Level 26 Tier 2 (Path of Evolution)
Progress to Evolution: 56/901 PP
Now at level 26, he was only four levels off the next half-step. He was excited to get there and find out what the bonuses would be.
Adding two strength enhancements to his Wings had increased their capacity as weapons and also gained another effect.
- Feathered Wings level 4 (+10% –> +20% to strikes from the air) (25-50 Blunt damage)
His wings now actually had a damage rating of their own. It applied to blows made with the wings, Dominic had to assume, not just any attacks. His increased strength also meant more bonuses to his attacks from the air too, which had already proven to be a major factor in how much damage he could do from an air-strike.
As for his newest Ability, he was keen to try it out, though he’d have to choose his moment wisely.
Hypnotise (T1) level 1 (0% to level 2) – make small movements to catch the attention of a single opponent. The longer your opponent is caught in the effect of this Ability, the harder it is for them to break out of it. Injury or significant sensation can shock them out of their controlled state. While your opponent is caught, they will remain unmoving and unresponsive. Beings of greater intelligence, perception, and with higher mental resistance have a higher chance of being able to notice and break out of the effect. This chance is greater or smaller depending on how much higher their intelligence, perception, and mental resistance is in comparison to your own.
In a way, Dominic felt that it should probably be called ‘mesmerise’ more than ‘hypnotise’, but perhaps it would develop more in the direction of traditional hypnosis at higher levels or tiers. Anyway, it could work well to stop an enemy from acting. Dominic wondered whether it might have even stopped the monitor from pumping out its poisonous fumes.
Probably if Poison Cloud is an active Ability, he decided, though not necessarily if it’s passive or something triggered once which continues for a set period of time.
It was also interesting that the Ability description mentioned ‘intelligence’, ‘perception’, and ‘mental resistance’, all things which were not in his status screen. Was it because they weren’t stats so to speak? Or were they just stats Dominic didn’t have? Or had but were written in a different way? Or might they even be hidden, to be discovered later?
Show Intelligence? he tried, but nothing appeared. He tested with both ‘perception’ and ‘mental resistance’ but nothing happened. Maybe there are Abilities which will unlock them? he wondered, then dismissed the matter for later.
Level up done, Dominic joined the others in looking for an exit in this room. Once they had all verified that there wasn’t any way out of the room that they could see, the pride headed out of the chamber and approached the next-door room. Reluctantly so, on Dominic’s part.
This one appeared to be empty, though Dominic didn’t necessarily trust that.
It hadn’t changed since they had last looked in through the doorway: the room was still very bare with nothing to hide behind. The fire was still burning in a small pit in the centre of the room; the braziers tucked into recesses around the wall were still unlit.
Dominic leaned forwards, hoping to be able to read the writing near the central fire, but he couldn’t see it clearly enough at this angle to decipher it. The inscriptions written all around the walls were not in a form that he was capable of reading either.
‘Do you see or smell anything?’ he asked the group grimly.
‘It smells empty,’ Sekhmet answered after a moment, Lionel and Fang chiming in with their agreement.
Procyon and Sirius both waved their antennae, testing the room with whatever extra senses they had.
‘It’s empty of beings,’ Sirius confirmed after a few seconds.
‘Yes,’ agreed Procyon. ‘There is something odd about the roof, though.’
‘Odd in what way?’ asked Dominic cautiously.
‘It appears to be in two parts set above each other with a small gap between the pieces.’
‘Huh,’ commented Dominic, his mind working busily. ‘And there’s nothing in between the pieces? Nothing living?’
‘No.’
The information didn’t reassure Dominic – not being able to determine the nature of the trap didn’t mean it wasn’t a trap, but merely one that they didn’t know how to counter.
‘Well, I guess we just go in,’ he said in the Pride chat, more than a little nervous at stepping into an obvious trap – it had worked out the last time he’d gone through this dungeon, but only just. Unfortunately, with no second exit in the other room, he didn’t know how to advance further in the dungeon without completing the challenge in this room too.
Just before leading the way in, Dominic Roared a challenge to the room. If there were any beasts camouflaged from their senses, he was hoping that they would emerge from hiding, either to flee or to attack him.
Nothing moved, so Dominic took a cautious step inside. When nothing happened, he brought another paw inside, and then his back paws.
Fully inside, he moved slowly and carefully forwards, his pride slowly filing in behind him.
The moment the last of them, Procyon, stepped inside, there was an almighty bang as the door slammed shut. They all jumped about three feet in the air, the lions landing with snarls rising from their throats and the amesheks starting to vibrate threateningly.
I should have expected that, Dominic told himself angrily. They’d been trapped in the rooms on their last visit; why would it be different this go-around? Then again, they hadn’t been trapped in the room with the monitor lizard….
There was another difference, one which made a sinking feeling go through the former-human’s stomach. Ironically so, given the cause. Grinding and rattling coming from above drew their eyes to the ceiling. The ceiling that had started to lower.
It was going slowly – at that time, at least – but the inscriptions on the walls made it easy to see that it was descending nonetheless. The empty, hexagonal room with its hexagonal ceiling left nowhere to hide if the ceiling decided to descend right to the floor – and why wouldn’t it? The braziers tucked into their recesses basically guaranteed it. It was a trap, after all.
But, if his previous experience was any indication, there should be a way of getting out of it – either by opening an exit, or stopping the ceiling from lowering.
‘Spread out,’ he ordered in the Pride chat. ‘See if you can find any clues as to what we have to do here. But be careful! There may be more traps to trigger.’
‘What kind of clues?’ asked Fang cautiously, his body language agitated.
‘Anything that looks different, any marks, or pictures carved into the stone, or buttons, or lines…basically, anything that’s not blank stone. But don’t touch anything, just in case.’
Dominic stepped quickly towards the central area as he was speaking. Out of the six of them, he was the one with the best chance of being able to read whatever was written there.
The fire burned merrily in its recessed pit with a single stick leaning diagonally against the pit walls, casting a flickering light over Dominic’s paws as he stepped in front of the engraved writing. It’s one of those damn poems, he realised with dismay as he scanned the text. He almost wished that it was written in an unknown alphabet now.
Don’t lose your heads; the ceiling descends
To help it rise, six eyes.
Yet five must be fed, they close when it ends;
Team has no I; unite or die.
‘The dungeon’s poetry hasn’t improved since last time,’ he couldn’t resist commenting to Leo.
‘It does seem to like warning about impending doom or death, doesn’t it?’ agreed the lion, seemingly out of whatever snit he was in earlier – perhaps it was their impending death which had focussed his attention on the present.
‘I can’t make heads nor tails of this,’ Dominic admitted, ‘apart from the ‘ceiling descends’ bit – that would have been obvious even if the ceiling hadn’t triggered when the door had slammed shut.’
‘It does sound like we’re not looking for an exit, but that we need to stop the ceiling’s descent, though,’ Leo pointed out.
‘That’s a good point,’ Dominic recognised. ‘But what are these ‘eyes’ we need to keep open?’
‘I don’t know,’ admitted Leo.
‘It indicates that the solution will require the group working together,’ mused Dominic, eyeing the last line. ‘No I in ‘team’, unite or die…. I’ll share the clue with everyone – maybe they’ll have better ideas than us.’
‘The only other things in this room are these objects in recesses in the walls,’ pointed out Fang upon hearing the poem.
‘Are five of them,’ added Sekhmet. ‘Maybe ‘five must be fed.’
‘Good point,’ Dominic acknowledged thoughtfully.
‘There is a round shape in the stone,’ Procyon said a moment later.
‘And here,’ added Sirius.
‘And here,’ echoed Lionel.
Dominic quickly hurried over to where the three were standing, spotting the round objects they were talking about.
‘They look like buttons,’ he said thoughtfully. Looking around, he saw that there were five buttons spread around the room. None of them were within a body’s length of another and they were scattered all over. One was almost next to the central fire; another was right at the edge of the room. The fifth had taken him a few moments to spot – it was actually in the wall near the door.
‘What happens if we press it?’ he asked.
‘I haven’t tried,’ Procyon rumbled, Lionel and Sirius saying the same a moment later. Dominic hesitated, then put his paw on the closest. When nothing happened, he put a little pressure on it.
The rattles and grinding noises from above increased slightly, and he looked up to see that the ceiling was descending a little faster.
‘Don’t push the buttons, everyone,’ Dominic said hurriedly, yanking his paw away. Fortunately, the ceiling slowed down again.
‘This is like last time,’ Leo said abruptly.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Dominic.
‘’To help it rise, six eyes / Yet five must be fed’ I don’t know what the ‘fed’ is about, but think about it – there are five braziers and a central fire.’
‘Like Fang and Sekhmet mentioned,’ Dominic pointed out. ‘But that’s an interesting point. You think we need to light all the braziers to make six fires in total – six eyes? Smart thinking!’
The lion preened at the back of Dominic’s mind.
‘There is a stick next to the fire in the central pit which I think is for the purpose,’ he added.
‘We still have a candle and torch in our storage space too,’ Dominic added, hurrying back to the pit. ‘OK everyone, Leo and I think we need to light all the braziers to make the ceiling go back up. Sekhmet, Procyon, come help me, please.’
Pulling the torch and half-melted candle out of his storage space, he quickly showed Sekhmet and Procyon how to light them. They needed a bit of reassurance that the fire wasn’t going to hurt them – neither were used to fire in the way Dominic was – but the urgency of the situation drove them to accept it more easily than they might have otherwise. Fishing out the stick from beside the fire – not easy – he lit that next and hurried over to one of the braziers, glad that it seemed like they’d figured out the riddle.
It turned out that he’d thought that too soon.
‘It not working,’ Sekhmet said even as he reached his own brazier.
‘It lights, but a moment later, it goes out again,’ seconded Procyon, his mental tone worried.
Dominic tried it for himself. Sure enough, he was able to get the cloth-like material in the brazier to light, but a moment later, the flames burnt down and vanished. He tried again, but the stick in his mouth had gone out. Rushing back to the central fire, he lit it again, and then returned to the brazier, trying again. Once again, the brazier lit for a moment; the stick in his mouth went out.
That sinking feeling was back in his stomach. Maybe if they had had five pieces of wood, they’d be able to light all the braziers at the same time, for an instant having all six fires alight. Perhaps that would be enough.
But they didn’t have five pieces of wood, and if they broke the ones they currently had, they’d risk burning off their whiskers carrying the fire from the central pit to the recessed braziers.
Besides, that couldn’t be the answer. The dungeon couldn’t assume that people carried around items that could be burnt, meaning that the single piece of wood it offered as a taper was supposed to be sufficient to overcome the challenge. So how was it supposed to work?
The rumble and rattle of the ceiling above was an ever-present reminder that they needed to figure this out – and fast.
