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Chapter 554 - Inside the tunnel
🕑 Added 2022-11-12 13:00:06 +0000 UTCHera's Status
Hera, Daskka, Nimbus, and Mylo inched, little by little, toward the open door. They were all trying their best to notice something from the room beyond it. They didn't want to be caught off guard if something, or someone, was inside that place. Hera knew that the odds of that were very slim. Monsters should only show up during a storm, and no one should be living here. Especially since for that to happen, people had to be stuck here for generations. As far as she knew, it's been decades since anyone came to this room. However, all this was only considering the doorway they came from. People could still come from any other doorways, wherever they were. There was a chance that a new civilization was beyond this room and that this would be their first contact. Hell, she might even find some of the dwarves from Kul Dorul here.
They passed the last of the support beams and approached the door when a loud bang echoed through the tunnel. Hera instinctively created a stone barrier in front of them, and they all ducked down. A few moments passed before any of them moved again. Peeking over the stone barrier, Hera sent out Scythe towards the door since they were the smallest blade she had. The earrings passed by the door, and after a brief moment, Hera heard them talk to her.
'It's all clear. I have no idea where the noise came from, though. But there is no one here. Also, there is a corridor to the side.'
'Ok, but what is in there?' Hera asked.
'It looks like a forge. There are a bunch of furnaces and some anvils and tools to the side. Everything seems to be fine too. It doesn't look like someone was just here. I can't see any footprints or anything of the sort.'
Hera frowned but whispered the information to the rest of the group. It was more for Mylo since Nimbus and Daskka also heard what Scythe was saying, but they didn't make any comment about that.
"So we can enter?" Mylo asked, still in a whisper.
"I think so. But there is a chance that something there will only trigger when we are inside," Hera replied.
Mylo nodded and got up. Before continuing to walk, Hera put the stone barrier down, just in case something happened, and they had to run for it. Moving to the door again, they peeked inside, and just like what Scythe reported, this place was a forge. There was a set of ten anvils and racks with several types of tools to make things. From this distance, it was hard to tell exactly what was there, but some things seemed familiar to Hera, even if she couldn't understand why. Looking to the sides, they noticed a large workbench with more sets of tools on the right, and to the left, there was a corridor leading deeper into the mountain. Hera and Mylo shared one look before stepping inside this forge, ready for any traps that could trigger.
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You have entered the Supafa Island challenge.
To complete this challenge, you must reforge the correct item.
Current participants 2/10
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"Current participants? Does that mean there is a limit to how many people can work here at one time?" Hera asked.
"Considering the number of tools and stations, it makes sense," Nimbus nodded.
"How many participants showed up for you?" Mylo turned to Hera.
"Two out of ten. And for you?"
"I got one out of ten. So I guess I'm the one, and you are the two," Mylo said.
Hera nodded, "Yeah, I don't think it would make sense to tell how many people are inside but don't count you. Still, let's check out the corridor first before dropping our guard."
Mylo looked to the tunnel and started walking with his staff already in hand. He held it as if it was a spear since this tunnel was much smaller than the one they used to get here. Before walking in that direction, Hera did a once-over around the area just to make sure they didn't miss anything or any other passages. Confirming that the coast was clear, Hera called all of her blades and spread them out. She would be in the middle while the court covered both the front and the rear.
Following that corridor, they found a few doors. The first one was a storage area filled with hundreds of weird items. From cutlery and earrings to support beams and padlocks. There were some weapons and armor in the mix, but they didn't look all that well. Not to mention that the items were in bad shape. Be it rusted, moldy, or just plain broken, every single item had some type of defect that made it unusable. In all likelihood, the test was about finding the item they had to remake here and then use as a base. Or at least that was what Hera was thinking about. This challenge was obviously made for crafters.
"Now that I think about it… Each challenge is made for a specific role," Hera said as they looked around the small warehouse.
"What do you mean?" Nimbus asked, but both Daskka and Mylo were also staring at the explorer.
"Well, the first challenge felt a lot like something made for an assassin. Being sneaky and stealing one item is something that can even happen in the role test. The second one seemed to be made for researchers since it used language and something more 'researchy' to complete it. In the race one… I don't know, it could work for a fighter since it's a more physical-based thing, but maybe it works for an explorer, too, since we are more versatile in facing random obstacles. And then we have the crafters," Hera gestured to the items in this place.
"Right… so we are still missing mage, controller, healer, hunter, and then fighter or explorer?" Mylo asked.
"Yeah. I know the math doesn't add up. There are nine roles and only seven challenges. My guess is that healer and explorer are the ones that won't show up. That's why I'm considering that the race was for fighters," Hera explained.
"Why do you think explorer would be missing?" Nimbus tilted his head.
"Because it's the one that makes less sense. How can you make a challenge for the literal jack of all trades? Not to mention, explorers don't have a set skill or something that all of us share. At most, our relic, but each of us has something unique with it. Just look at mine, Shane's, and Adriel's. There is no way anyone would even say they have the same origin."
"That is true. Having drones as relics is something weird. And yours is… what does it do again?" Mylo turned to Hera.
"I can ask a question and use mana to get the answer. It will always give me a correct answer, but if there is not enough mana, it won't give a reply. Then there is the thread that I can attach to things and move it around using mana, and …. A binding thread effect that I always forget to use," Hera scratched her cheek.
"That's all?" Mylo was looking at a shelf filled with small bobbleheads, trying to see if one of them was less damaged than the others.
"I mean, the question part is kind of big, but yeah. Last time I changed it, I got the thread, but now I don't even have to use it," Hera looked at her blades, "I really need to change how it works, but I don't want to mess up. So I need a crafter role. Shane and Adriel confirmed that with that role, we can use a skill to change our relic. It can only do small things, but if you keep tweaking it, you can get to where you want to go."
"Do you know what you want to change?" Mylo was now crouched in front of a box filled with mining tools.
"I have a few ideas, but I need to see what the skill does first," Hera went to check a shelf of teapots, they looked more or less ok, but when she touched one of the lids, it broke in five different pieces.
"Like what?" Mylo continued going through the tools.
"Maybe changing the string so if I wrap something with it, I can move it around as if I'm holding it. That would work great to solve the problem of my blades being too light to deal heavy blows. But a more realistic idea would be to make my dread to be a wireless receiver for my mana. That way, maybe my court can move around without worrying about being inside a set range of me. After that… I don't know. It used to have a threat detector. Maybe I can make something like that again, but more effective, like allowing me to see any hostility within range," Hera moved to a drawer filled with glasses. They had no lens on them, but the frames were also banged up and broken.
"You also had that idea about turning the thread into armor," Daskka spoke up.
"Right, that was an idea I had a long time ago, but I think it would take way too much effort to make it work," she turned to Mylo, who was staring with a confused expression, "The threads are very hard to cut, so I thought about making armor out of it. I even tried buying some yarn to see how much I would need just to wrap myself with it, and… yeah, it's not worth it."
"I see," Mylo nodded and continued searching for the item that they didn't know what it was.
'Were…. Were you really thinking about changing your relic to something like that?' Lurize asked.
'Of course. I want you guys to be able to move around. I imagine that having to stick with me is very boring. Who knows, maybe we can even figure out a way for all of you to speak or at least write like Daskka with her mist to communicate with others. Not that she actually likes doing that, and talking in a group is a mess, but I want you guys to be as free as possible,' Hera smiled at Lurize as she replied without opening her mouth.
'But… Giving us that much freedom can cause problems, can't it? I mean, What about when you have to change court members?' Ooze asked.
'In that case, we can throw a farewell party. I was already thinking about doing something like that next time I change one of you guys.'
'That could be fun… in a weird kind of way,' Core was floating by the armors, testing them out. Most of the pieces were pierced by his probing with almost no resistance.
'I'm trying to come up with a better way. I really don't want to be depressed for days every time I have to part with one of you guys,' Hera replied, and before anyone could say anything else, Mylo grabbed a shield and started walking towards the door.
"This looks easy to make," unfortunately, the moment he tried to leave the storage, the shield vanished and appeared back in the box where it was found, "Oh… if you take the wrong item, it goes back. This sucks."
"Yeah… let's check the rest of the rooms first. Then we can try to figure something out here," Hera put all the knick-knacks she was checking and left the storage with Mylo and her court.
There were three more rooms in this hallway. On the opposite side was another storage, but this one only had paper. Thousands of pieces of paper with various schematics and instructions were written in languages none of them could recognize. After searching for a few minutes, they went to the last door. This one was all the way in the back, with a heavy-looking steel door in front of it. Carefully, both of them opened the door and revealed a dormitory with ten king-size beds and some desks in front of it as if they were more workstations. The most unexpected part was the beds themselves. They had sheets that were, somehow, still soft, and beneath it, there was what could only be described as the top of a jellyfish being used as a mattress. Daskka was the one who tried it out, and it didn't hurt, but it was like she was sitting on top of a water bed. On the side, there were also three bathrooms with showers and running water.
"Well… I guess we have a place to sleep if we need it," Hera scratched the back of her head.
"Yeah… And we are alone. We should go back to the forge. We barely looked there," Mylo turned around. Not seeing anything better to do, Hera followed the fighter, hoping that she could progress her crafting skills during this challenge.
Comments
Gail Burke
So much fun. Still wondering what was up with that band. Hello Cliff my dear hubby, it looks like you are back from your business trip.
