Chapter 63: The Trap Floor

The hooded party entered Floor 3 together. At least, Zion assumed all four of them did. He could still only see three, and that continued to bother him.

The visible members stepped into the sandstone corridor at a steady pace while the fourth woman remained completely hidden somewhere among them.

Zion focused on the entrance, watching as one of the hooded adventurers stepped onto the hidden pressure plate.

A click sounded beneath the stone, followed almost immediately by a deep rumble from behind them. He smiled as the massive boulder dropped into the corridor and began rolling down the slope.

The hooded figures turned, but instead of running, they simply watched it approach.

Zion leaned forward. "Come on."

Then all three vanished. The boulder thundered through the exact spot they had been standing, and a heartbeat later the party reappeared farther up the corridor, behind it.

Zion’s shoulders dropped. "Of course they’d use that bullshit move."

The boulder continued down the slope until it crashed into the wall at the far end hard enough to shake dust loose from the ceiling. The leader watched it go without saying anything, but Zion noticed the slight change in his posture.

He was frowning.

Zion sat a little straighter. At least that was something.

The party continued much slower after that.

"Oh, now you’re careful." He leaned to the side, propping up his skull with his boney fingers. "Figures."

The three visible adventurers spread out as they moved through the next corridor, constantly checking the walls, floor, ceiling, and corners. Every few steps, one of them stopped to examine something Zion had hoped they would miss.

They found the thin wire stretched near the floor, the loose stone hiding a pressure plate, and even the small openings along one wall where darts would fire if anyone crossed the wrong section.

Zion’s irritation grew with every trap they avoided.

One of them crouched beside the wall and pulled a small metal tool from beneath his robe. Zion watched him work for a few seconds before a quiet click echoed through the corridor.

The trap deactivated.

Zion frowned."That was one of the better ones."

He wished he had a remote activated trap that he could set off before they were able to tinker with it, but unfortunately he didn’t come across anything like that during that flash sale.

The party moved on.

Zion looked farther down the corridor. "Where is the Shadow Panther?"

This would have been the perfect time for it to make an appearance...

One of them was kneeling and distracted while the others were watching the hall. If the Shadow Panther came through the wall behind them right now, it could probably land a hit before anyone reacted.

Even if it did not defeat someone, it would still be better than whatever this was.

He opened the instance panel and immediately frowned.

The Shadow Panther had spawned near the opposite end of the floor, far enough away that it was not going to reach them anytime soon.

"Of course."

Zion threw one hand toward the roaming marker as it continued moving slowly through the map.

"Why did you spawn all the way back there?"

By the time he looked back toward the adventurers, they were already walking again.

The next trap was a weighted ceiling mechanism hidden above a narrow hallway. Stepping on the wrong stone would release a row of heavy sandstone blocks that slammed down one after another, cutting the corridor into sections.

It was one of the traps Zion was looking forward to seeing in action.

The party stopped before entering. The leader looked upward while one of the others crouched to inspect the floor. After several seconds, he reached into a gap between two stones with a thin piece of metal.

Zion stared at him.

"Don’t."

The man twisted the tool, and a quiet click came from inside the wall.

Nothing happened.

Zion slumped back against the throne. "Come on."

They stepped through safely, and the rest of the first section continued much the same way. Some traps they dismantled, others they simply avoided, and none of them managed to catch the party.

They were not moving quickly anymore, but they were still moving, and that alone was starting to annoy Zion.

He had expected skilled adventurers to do better than Mara had, obviously. Mara had stepped onto the first trap within minutes of entering. Still, there was a pretty large difference between doing better and making the entire floor look utterly useless.

Zion crossed one leg over the other and watched them disappear into another dark corridor.

Then something else started bothering him. They had not brought out a torch, not even once.

He had purposely left large sections of Floor 3 poorly lit. The wall torches were spaced far enough apart that entire stretches of corridor disappeared almost completely into darkness.

He had expected adventurers to compensate somehow.

Lanterns. Torches. Magic.

Something.

This party did the opposite. The darker the corridor became, the more comfortable they seemed. They moved closer to the walls and blended into the shadows so naturally that Zion sometimes lost track of them even without the fourth member being completely invisible.

Zion tilted his skull.

"They’re definitely thieves. Or assassins."

Possibly both.

That would explain why the darkness seemed to help them instead of slowing them down.

His attention drifted toward the sealed throne room doors again, and the word assassin suddenly felt a little less interesting.

Then again, everyone entering the dungeon was trying to reach him eventually. A swordsman could kill him. A mage could kill him. Apparently an invisible woman could too. It didn’t really matter who it was, they were all assassins in his eyes.

Zion frowned. "They’re all threats. Just slightly different types."

Another trap disappeared without activating. His jaw tightened.

"Maybe I should have added monsters."

What if he had actually made a mistake with this floor?

Most of Floor 3 was traps and the roaming boss. Against normal parties, that had seemed dangerous enough.

Against people who specialized in finding traps?

Clearly not.

Enemies in the corridors would have made things harder. Something to distract them, force them to move, or at least stop them from standing around inspecting every stone for as long as they wanted.

Maybe he should have bought more traps. Maybe the hallways were too wide, or the torches too predictable.

Zion caught himself before the thought could spiral any further.

"No. I haven’t even seen the Panther fight yet."

The roaming boss was still making its way toward them, and the party hadn’t even reached the second half of the floor.

That mattered.

The first half had been intentionally easier. The traps became less obvious deeper inside, and several were designed to work together. One mistake could lead directly into another.

Zion nodded to himself. "I’ll wait and see first."

He could panic about rebuilding the entire floor afterward.

Unfortunately, waiting was becoming difficult.

They found another pressure plate, avoided another tripwire, and dismantled a hidden dart mechanism without much trouble.

Zion ground his teeth. "Feel free to stop doing that any time now..."

Eventually, the party reached the end of the upper section, where the corridor opened into a narrow stone shaft descending almost straight downward.

A ladder ran along one wall.

Zion immediately sat upright.

"Finally."

The ladder itself was harmless which was important. After spending so much time searching for traps, Zion wanted the party to think they had finally found a safe transition.

The first hooded figure approached the edge, looked down into the darkness, and tested the ladder before beginning the descent.

The other two waited above. Zion still couldn’t see the woman, and at this point, he had mostly stopped trying.

His attention shifted toward the bottom of the shaft instead. A massive pressure plate covered nearly the entire floor beneath the ladder, making it almost impossible to avoid.

The moment someone put weight on it, vents hidden along the walls would release poison gas into the chamber.

That part was simple. What Zion liked was what came afterward.

The ladder was long enough that climbing all the way back up while breathing poison would take time. The other option was running forward into the next chamber.

And that chamber contained several more traps.

Someone calm might notice the traps in the next chamber. Someone coughing, panicking, and trying to get away from a cloud of poison probably would not.

Zion smiled. "This one should work."

As the hooded adventurer continued climbing down, Zion glanced toward the instance map. The Shadow Panther had finally entered the same general section of the floor, though it still was not quite close enough.

"Come on. Why are you so slow?" he mumbled.

The man was almost at the bottom now.

Zion leaned forward as the man’s boot hovered just above the stone floor. Even if he tried to jump away from the ladder, the pressure plate covered too much of the chamber. There was nowhere safe to land.

His grin widened.

"Got you."