Okay. Calm. Let’s hit those switches.
I had enough rope to reach the other side of the chasm, but I didn’t trust myself to lasso one of the switches in a timely fashion. I chose to lift the dueling cane and aim it carefully at the switch on the right, pressing my thumb against the button.
The blast ripped forward, striking true — and snapping the top half of the switch right off. Apparently, those things weren’t very sturdy.
Three options left in my mind: a lasso; a swim; and the bars on the sides.
I went with the lasso. I didn’t trust that water in the slightest.
My first attempt to catch one of the switches missed. The second time, the rope landed in the water, soaking through. That added weight made it harder to throw, but easier to control — I managed to encircle the switch that was facing away from me. With a yank, I pulled it toward me. The water began to drain from the pool.
Which was great in one respect: the water terrified me. Less great was that a comfortable four foot drop into water was now swiftly becoming a twenty-four foot fall into a pair of broken legs.
I had a decision to make, and quickly. I dropped the rope and rushed for the nearest wall, where the hand-holds were, and grabbed on tight. Pulling hard, I determined that the holds seemed sturdy. Then I made my way across the chasm, hand over hand.
The entire room rumbled as I moved, nearly sending me tumbling into the diminishing water below. I wanted to fall sooner rather than later if I was going to; there was enough water left to serve as a cushion, but it wasn’t going to last much longer.
Of course, I didn’t want to fall at all. Even if that liquid was really water and not acid, I didn’t know what other dangers lay within. Maybe a monster would come out of that grate as soon as the water drained, or acid would rise from the floor.
One hand in front of the other. Twice, I lost the grip with one of my hands and had to haul myself back into position... but I made it across.
I walked over to the other switch, the one I had broken, and pushed the remaining half of the handle.
Back where I had made my entrance, three doors appeared with gems of black, silver, and bronze coloring.
I didn’t have the faintest idea what those meant.
My arms ached. I felt something on my head — dust or tiny rocks, crumbling from the ceiling above me. That rumbling wasn’t illusory; the room was beginning to collapse.
I turned back to the chasm. The water was nearly gone now. I had hoped one of the switches would provide a bridge, but that was clearly too much to ask for.
Did I trust my arms to carry me back across the chasm to the new doors? The book had hinted that the exits nearest me were sub-optimal solutions, but it didn’t imply they’d be deadly. I might be better off taking the “easy” route out and testing myself in the next room.
I found myself making my way over to the pit’s edge, but not to cross it. Instead, I gripped the ladder, slowly climbing down.
I needed to know what was behind that grate.
The ladder was steel, slippery from contact with the water, but embedded in the wall similar to the handrails. It was sturdy and easy to climb.
I tested a foot against the ground before dropping off the ladder entirely. The floor itself seemed solid, and I didn’t see any signs of other traps.
I made my way to the grate. It was taller than I was and blocked by iron bars. I saw a keyhole on the right side of the gate, but it wasn’t marked with any specific color, nor was there a gem like on the doors above. Beyond the bars, I could see only darkness.
I stuck the back of the quill through the bars first. It came back perfectly intact. The blackness wasn’t some kind of annihilating field, at least.
I slowly tried a finger next. There was no pain, no wetness. Nothing uncomfortable.
The floor rumbled.
This may not be a gem-studded door, but I think it qualifies as a non-standard exit.
I readied the dueling cane, stepped back, and blasted the bars off the gate. I had chosen my exit.
I stepped into the dark.
Chapter III — Limited Options
I was immensely relieved when I found myself standing in an illuminated tunnel. The walls hugged close around me. The tunnel was roughly cylindrical, and barely wider than I was.
I turned around, finding a circular door behind me. There was no obvious lock, just a clear gemstone at the center.
Interesting.
I opened the door immediately. It led into a hexagonal chamber with pristine white walls. The walls were somewhat less important than the massive pendulums swinging back and forth throughout the room.
I was barely quick enough to step back before one of them swished out of the doorway. I’d been inches away from being pulverized — the swinging spheres were solid stone, maybe four feet in diameter, and moving fast enough to pulp me.
Odd that the trap swung outside of the door... I’ve never seen one of the traps exit the boundary of a room before. What was it doing before I walked in? Did the pendulums activate when I approached, or was that sphere slamming into the door before I opened it? I didn’t hear anything hitting the wall, but it could be covered in sound-proofing runes.
Now out of the pendulum’s swinging range, I took a deep breath and looked at the room a bit more closely. Five different pendulums, and for variety, a scythe-like blade swinging near the center. Each pendulum had a different trajectory.
One more swinging in parallel on the left side of the room.
Two swinging perpendicular to the first, located on the right side of the room.
One final pendulum swinging diagonally, near the rear of the left side.
More interestingly, there were square-shaped crystalline sections on various parts of the walls, roughly four feet across. A blue one on the ceiling, a red one on the right wall, and a yellow one on the floor below where one of the pendulums were swinging.