Chapter 6


    Hours passed, and he found himself thrown into a bizarre mix of puzzle games, gates with solvable riddles, dangerous traps, and winding turns that seemed like they’d never end. He encountered a couple more bodies, one half-eaten by arge rat that he had to run from after it noted his presence, and it made him wonder just how many people were going to get past this stage in the quest.


    His Blessing of the Crow had also run out of time, and his once-endless stamina and speed increase now faltered as his jogging came to a fast-paced walk. Unlike earlier, he now breathed heavily and had to take the asional break.


    He thus found himself sitting down against a wall to catch his breath in the corner of a small, dark room that was devoid of anything at all while massaging his aching legs. Dust covered the stone floor underneath him, and he hadn’t seen even a trace of anyone else who’d been sent into this oddbyrinth ever since the stone statues in the medusa’s room. It felt eerily lonesome.


    “This is quite the situation to be in…”Riven let out a smallugh, finding amusement at how ridiculous his situation was. Regardless of how tired his muscles were, he knew that most if not all the others must be even more tired. That gave him a little bit of hope that he’d still make it. He’d been going nonstop, and he’d had his free trial period of the blessing for the first hour of the trip…


    What if the others had already finished the maze and he just didn’t know about it? What if he was one of the ones who were sentenced to die now, to rot here in this godforsakenbyrinth, forever to roam until he died of starvation without a clue that he’d already failed, stuck here in who-knows-where without even realizing it yet? What if he were to remain here and live out the rest of his remaining days, withering away and slowlying to the realization that he’d been left behind?


    He shook his head. No, he couldn’t think like that.


    The cold stone at his back beckoned him to slumber. Yawning despite his best efforts not to and leaning to the side, he realized how little sleep he’d gotten </a>recently. Folding his arms and refusing to let sleep take him just yet, knowing he couldn’t sleep unless he wanted to die here, he decided to give himself just another minute longer…and he tilted his head farther out to lean against the adjacent wall for a little rxation.


    Or he would have if the wall had even been there.


    With a start, he fellpletely over. The illusion didn’t hold his weight whatsoever, and he quickly found himself sprawled out in yet another room with a single green ball of mes hovering in the middle of it…disying arge wooden chest underneath.


    Curious, and remembering many stories he’d heard and games he’d yed in the past, he quickly got up, brushed himself off, and headed toward said chest. It was old; moss had grown over nearly half of the wood, and arge, rusted lock decorated the front.


    He repeatedly blinked, bit down on his tongue hard enough to elicit pain, and pped himself once to try and wake himself up. Trying to get the lid toe off came with no results, and the chest was far too heavy to move by himself. Frowning, and walking around it while ncing up once more at the ball of green fire overhead, he came to the front yet again and began to examine the lock.


    [Pick the lock to proceed. Failure after attempting this will result in death.]


    In death? That was nothing new here. Captain Obvious to the rescue.


    The system notification red to life as another teal hologram in front of him just as the ball of mes above shed a brighter green—trails of fire slowly dripping down tond on the chest itself, only to fade away, leaving behind five thin metal instruments.


    He’d definitely done his fair share of lock picking back on Earth, but at first nce he’d thought these objects were some kind of odd bent pins rather than lockpicks he was familiar with.


    Hesitantly he picked one of them up, examined it, and then tried to get a better view of the hole leading into the lock. Having no sess there, either, he once more took a look at the pick in his hand and steadied his breath. Inserting it, he began to fidget around…and felt a snap when he applied a little too much pressure.


    And as his initial attempt failed, a metal gate erupted from the ceiling to m into the stone behind him—barring his exitpletely.


    Oh, no.


    How ominous.


    He rolled his tired eyes. The trial was trying to intimidate him, as if he wasn’t </a>already trapped here. Frowning and withdrawing the lockpick, he found it’d broken off. Fortunately he was able to fish the other piece out rather easily with the end he still had, but then his worry grew as he realized he’d just used up one of five total lockpicks.


    He took another steadying breath and tried to clear his mind of the exhaustion he felt. It was safe to say that breaking all five lockpicks before the chest was opened would constitute failure. He had to do this…and do it carefully.


    This time, as he picked up the second of the picks, he very gently inserted it—trying to make a mental image of the dimensions of the lock with the depth, height, and width. He put very little pressure on his movements this time, careful not to break it—and found that there were actually five tiny spring-loaded cylinders inside the lock that he could gently press upward on.


    To his great relief, he found that the first of these cylinders clicked into ce when he pressed up just right…and arge smile crossed his face as he knew how to proceed. He’d seen locks like this before.


    Unfortunately, some cylinders were more sensitive than others…and after the first two cylinders had clicked into ce, he found he’d gone too far on the third cylinder. With a snap and crunch, the cylinder mmed back down into the bottom of the lock—taking half of his lockpick with it and resetting the entire thing in one fell swoop.


    “Damn it!”


    The fireball above him red slightly, growing in size as palpable heat began to descend upon him.


    Bing more aware of his impending doom, he withdrew the broken lockpick from the keyhole again and started anew. The third time went exactly as the second time had gone—the pick ending up breaking on the third cylinder.


    He inserted the fourth lockpick into the hole and had to calm his nerves before proceeding so that his hand would stop shaking. When he’d finally steadied himself, he began again.


    The first and second cylinders clicked into ce just as they’d done so before, and he gave himself an internal pep talk to congratte himself on at least a small victory in that regard. This time, though, when he came to the third cylinder, he used both hands to steady the advancing pick instead of one. Using it like a lever, he pushed up against the cylinder just slightly—taking it in second by second, until it, too, clicked into ce. Sweating profusely and moving on, much to his delight, the fourth and fifth cylinders clicked into ce far easier than even the first two.


    [Congrattions, you havepleted part two of three in Chalgathi’s Lineage. Because you have found one of the hidden exits, please choose an additional prize before leaving. Do not choose more than one.]


    </a>With the mechanism audibly unlocking, the chest’s lid was swung open to reveal two items at the bottom of the box. Delighted at having discovered a way out, and also having found a prize in the process, his face fell into confusion as he looked upon either object.


    One was…a vase? A very small ceramic vase, painted white with ornate and wilting ck flowers…and it had a lid that hid its contents, if there were any to be had.


    Meanwhile, the other item was more typical of the fantasy-style world he now found himself in. Though it was certainly a little grotesque. It was a ne of sorts…or a charm, in the form of a bird’s withered foot that’d been encased in an amber stone and then strung up on a metal chain.


    There was no exnation. No telltale sign of what either of them did. No notification to detail their usefulness, and even when he tried to identify these items like the system prompt had described with the medusa, there was nothing.


    A little frustrated at theck of detail, he decided to pick up the vase. It was a white porcin aside from the ck painted flowers, small enough that it fit in his hand, and the lid seemed to be screwed on—but before he could even try to remove itpletely, the green fire above him red to life.


    In the next instant, he evaporated in a sweltering shower of pain and green mes just as he had at the top of the pyramid in the first trial. Less than a secondter, all signs of his presence were gone—vanished from thebyrinth to move on to the third part of the quest.


    Riven’s mind stayed nk, but a prompt appeared, urging him to select from the following options:


    [For every level gained, you will be presented with a certain number of stat points depending upon both your ss title, your race, and sometimes other unique factors that will not be discussed here. Currently you have no ss title, and your race is set to Human. The human race has +5 free stat points per level. Please choose your starter ss title, or if you’d rather, you may choose to change your race to one of the selected options, courtesy of Chalgathi. All supplied choices are unique to the individual, and remember that beyond this unique event, sses do not dictate your survival style—rather, in the future, your survival style will dictate what sses you are awarded beyond these base forms. The better your performance, the better sses you will be awarded upon evolution opportunities.


    </a>Novice Necromancer (ss Title)—A strictly caster-ss evolutionary pathway emphasizing the mass production and control of undead, such as corpses, skeletons, and ghosts. Unlocks ten minion slots for undead creations, +1 Willpower, +2 Intelligence, +3 free stat points per level.


    Unholy Deacon (ss Title)—A divinity-using, faith-based evolutionary pathway, emphasizing the use of Unholy miracles. In order to get the most out of this ss, you will need to choose a patron god to worship early on—but choosing this ss now will also allow you to make contact with a deity for contracting their power. +3 Faith, +1 free stat point per level.


    Novice Warlock (ss Title)—A pathway that leads to very high magic damage output in future evolutions, one that focuses on harnessing ck magics and contracting with demons. +1 Willpower, +2 Intelligence, +2 free stat points per level. Enables demons to contact you of their own volition for contracts if your Willpower requirement has been met; up to two contracts may be filled with this ss.


    Novice Rogue (ss Title)—The beginnings of a ss pathway emphasizing underhanded close-quarters and ranged martial art abilities. +7% bonus to all Stealth attempts or abilities and light armor attributes. +9% bonus to damage done by daggers. +2 Agility, +1 free stat point per level.


    Ghoul (Race Change)—Ghouls are the most basic form of sentient undead and disy a sincereck of pain along with a vast increase in Sturdiness. A good choice for any melee fighter. +18 to base Sturdiness and Strength immediately upon evolution. +3 Sturdiness, +2 Strength, +1 free stat point per level.]


    Riven blinked. <span ss="italic">ss choices?


    Frankly, he didn’t know what he wanted to choose. Being a necromancer sounded really cool; the idea definitely appealed to him, as he’d control minions to fight for him while he could remain safe on the back lines and dish out hard damage while at it.


    Because of that, the Novice Warlock ss also really appealed to him. It had an evolutionary pathway emphasizing a simr type of y style, but instead of undead it revolved around demons. Not only that, but it was the only ss described itself as a path that would lead to “very high damage.” That was a big plus.


    </a>Unholy Deacon sounded cool, but Riven wasn’t so sure he wanted to get mixed up with any gods early on, either. He’d never been the religious type and didn’t see that changing any time soon.


    Rogue… Well, Riven had an Agility-based blessing ability. So that’d help with this ss given the bonuses it gave to Stealth and Agility, but he wanted to use magic, too. Now that he’d entered some sick and twisted fantasy–sci-fi “multiverse,” as the prompts had called it, he wanted to cast magic, goddamn it! So Rogue was out the window.


    Then there was the race change to Ghoul. This waspletely off the table, as Riven didn’t want to be transforming into some sort of undead monster. Controlling them sounded interesting, but bing one was certainly less appealing.


    He thought about it some, regarding the choices of necromancer and warlock before finally settling down with a nod. Thus, he selected Novice Warlock.