Last night's chapter....Need an idea for a tough puzzle that Eryk can figure out....see below and sorry for the break in immersion but I haven't thought of anything all morning that fits.

Chapter 579: Puzzled

Was it my hubris, greed, or yearning for a challenge that carried me to the unknown room? Probably a mix of all three, as I knew the reward chest would likely give something exceptional since it had not been cleared in centuries. The safe room had no details on this room, which meant it had been added after the fall of Caelora. My earth speak found no dangers as I walked, and I was quickly in the room. It was exactly as I recalled it. Rolling hills of dark brown rock with no denizen in sight.

I couldn’t tell if there was another corridor because the rocky hills blocked my line of sight to the other side, but walls and ceiling had the same flowing river of lights found in the corridors and safe room. I knew this couldn’t be a safe room as no dungeon would have safe rooms next to each other. I folded my legs under me and sat to study the room as I had done with Maveith long ago.

The room didn’t appear to have any animals for a creature to prey on or water to drink. We were on the second level of the Shimmering Labyrinth, so it should be a relatively strong creature, or a collection of creatures. It could be an earth elemental or something that could hibernate without water. Or it could be an ethereal creature like the phase spiders.

I got impatient and stepped into the room, but nothing happened. My earth speak, and aether sight showed nothing, and my thicken air spell form was affecting nothing. There was a putrid odor in the air, but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. I felt nothing brushing my mind fortress either, not even the dungeon observing me. Maybe the room was empty—some dungeons did have empty rooms, but they usually had puzzles or traps for a challenge instead.

I weighed the danger before taking a tentative step forward. Still nothing. I took slow, measured steps up the nearest hill. When I crested it, I had a view of the entire chamber. There was another entry point, indicating there were more unexplored rooms but still no monsters to fight. I decided to return to the others. I walked back down the slope to the exit, only to find the exit covered in a wall of force.

I made my way to the other exit to find the same. I was sealed in the room. It had to be a puzzle room, only there was nothing (sorry for the immersion break---haven’t thought of a cool and original puzzle yet, been thinking all morning so ideas welcome)

The stone chest appeared in the center of the chamber, and I relaxed. What a diabolical room, and I wondered if Maveith and I would have been able to solve it or if we would have been trapped in it for eternity. The reward was hopefully worth it.

I shattered the chest, and a few dozing silver coins spilled out. Bagging the coins, I found the true treasure mingled with them. A golden ring that was clearly an artifact. I took out a thermal stone and heated the ring until the runes glowed, then carefully turned it, taking in all the runes. The next time I was in the dreamscape, I would figure out the properties. Any dungeon ring was a valuable reward.

I looked over the puzzle room and knew why there had not been any writing on the walls. Puzzle rooms were sometimes secret rooms in a dungeon, accessible only once, then disappearing and reappearing at a later time. The reward was generally exceptional, so I had high hopes for the ring.

An irate Konstantin called to me from the corridor, “Eryk, what are you doing? We need the collector for the gnolls before it is too late to harvest an essence.” He hadn’t stepped into the room and was scanning it for dangers.

I acknowledged him. “Coming,” I said. I looked around the room one last time and then went toward Konstantin. He appeared tense as I approached, but that was likely his suspicious nature.

“What was in here?” he asked when I reached him.

“It was a puzzle room,” I said simply and didn’t elaborate. Although Konstantin nagged me a little as we walked, I remained mum.

Konstantin pulled me along with long strides to reach the gnoll room before the essence left the gnolls. Castile and Lexi were awake and joined us with Lepidus. The gnoll room hadn’t changed, with a stream flowing through the center of it. The gnolls’ diet consisted of a purple potato, which would be very easy to locate with earth speak.

I got to work on the bodies of the gnolls, noting how each had been killed. It was easy to discern which ones Konstantin had killed since he wielded two swords, while Alhur preferred shorter blades. Both men had been deadly efficient in their strikes and I could almost replay the fight in my head.

When I finished harvesting all eight of the feral gnolls, I handed Konstantin one apex dexterity essence and seven major ones. “Alhur got five to your three,” I commented, trying to sound disappointed.

A grunt and curt reply came from the old Hound. “He entered first and stole one of my kills at the end.” He turned away to split the harvest with Alhur. I thought it was a bit insensitive of them not to share the essences, since I always did even when they offered little help in a fight.

“What was the reward?” I asked Konstantin’s back. He gestured at Castile, who held up a pair of citrine earrings. I approached to look more closely and found that the spherical yellow stones had flecks of gold suspended within, and that the prongs holding it were made of lustrous gold.

“Eyes of the owl,” Lepidus said, causing me to look at him. “The earrings. They are called the eyes of the owl and bestow excellent low-light vision. They were one of the prized goods that master artificer Thananil Faelar crafted when he was the premier artificer of Caelora. He was the greatest elven artificer of the era.”

The name stirred up some memories from my readings in the Caelorian library books. “Even greater than you?” I replied.

“By far. His loss in the siege of the city was a travesty, and his skill might be unmatched even by Hephaestus himself.” Lepidus gestured at the earrings. “The spell forms are suspended in the gemstone.” Shocked, I took the earring from Castile and, using my aether sight, looked more closely. As I rotated the earring, you could see hints of the three-dimensional spell form within. It was a simple spell form, but to miniaturize it and suspend them perfectly in a gemstone…

Lepidus answered my unasked question. “He could manipulate metal with immaculate precision. Even something the size of a particle of dust.” It was clear they had decided Castile was gifted the earrings, maybe because Konstantin wouldn’t wear jewelry, so I handed them back to her.

A bath wouldn’t be unwelcome, but we needed to keep moving. “If we can catch some moles, great, but let’s dig up some of the potatoes,” I said.

“Should we waste time on such things?” Alhur said pointedly.

“You will not be getting any hash browns…harsh purples…When I make them,” I told the elf assassin who shrugged in indifference. Zyna would have appreciated the dungeon culinary delight. “The next room is phase spiders and will not be difficult for our group. I will mark where to dig, and we will just spend an hour. On the bright side, there is water to clean off after.”

Grudgingly, the group accepted the order, and I was able to leave with a large sack of vitelotte potatoes. I knew there was a bear deeper in the dungeon, so we didn’t need to return for the stone bear to get another healing potion.

When we arrived at the forest room, it was easy to pick out the large praying mantises. The phase spiders were much harder to spot, and I didn’t see any sign of the mama spider. Alhur, Konstantin, Castile and I entered the room with a simple plan. Since we all had runic weapons the spiders’ phasing ability was useless. When the large phase spider appeared, Castile would restrain it with shadow chains.

Alhur led the way into the room, and the movement in the canopy was instant as the phase spiders scuttled down the trunks. Without our runic weapons, this could have been a difficult fight, as the spiders would have only manifested physically just before sinking their fangs into us.

I hung back as Alhur and Kostantin waded into the spiders with an unspoken contest of masculinity. There were only twelve of the smaller spiders, and they were extremely fragile, their carapaces splitting with a solid strike. Only three of the spiders attacked Castile and me, and I handled all of them. “Above you!” Konstantin shouted.

“I saw it,” Alhur snapped back as he rolled away. The mama spider landed where Alhur had been. Castile’s shadow tendrils were already lancing toward the ginormous spider. While Alhur kept its attention, fingers of smoke snaked up five of the eight legs, and soon it was completely restrained. The spider wasn’t even strong enough to break free as its angry mandibles clacked in frustration. Konstantin had finished the last of the smaller horde and crunched through one of the legs that wasn’t restrained. I sheathed magebane and let Alhur and Konstantin compete for the kill. Since these creatures yielded displacement essences, there was no justification for them keeping any of the essences.

Blue blood oozed from punctures in the large spider's abdomen, and I felt sorry for it as it panicked and was unable to protect itself. It reminded me of when I had been toyed with by Khrusos on Mount Olympia. Being at the mercy of a superior foe was something I experienced rarely now. When the chest appeared, the two warriors ceased their attacks, and Castile released the shadow chains. The giant phase spider collapsed.

While I used the collector on the largest spider, Alhur shattered the stone chest. I assumed there was an unspoken contest between Konstantin and him—the one with the most kills got to open the chest first. The apex displacement essence that formed drew Castile’s attention. “Lexi has the displacement affinity,” she said without preamble. “She can have my share of the rewards.”

“So does Evie, and so do I,” I returned levelly. “Let me see the complete harvest before deciding on a division.” Whereas Evie could assimilate essences efficiently, Lexi could not. I knew this was why Castile wanted her in the dungeon, but Lexi’s contribution had been lacking up to this point for what she had already received.

I managed to pull a major essence from every one of the lesser phase spiders except one. That one had been mutilated so badly, I was lucky to get a lesser essence from it. I put aside two of the major essences and the lesser essence for Evie. I gave Castile the apex essence to pass on to Lexi while I kept nine of the major displacement essences for myself. That should raise my affinity by around sixteen points.

I think Konstantin and Alhur had known they would not be getting any essences from this room. “What was in the reward chest?” I asked the pair.

“Runic arrow heads. Twenty-three of them,” Konstantin answered, patting a pouch on his hip. He didn’t ask Lepidus to identify them, so maybe he already knew what they were. When I had cleared this room with Maveith and Raelia, the reward had been a hair clasp that helped your aim with a bow. I had given it to Blaze, though he didn't need it.

“The next room is a rest room, but I am going to dig up some ginseng. I don’t need any help.” I looked up at the tree, but didn’t feel like chasing the giant mantises. My original ginseng was stolen by Khrusos, and now that my alchemy had progressed, I knew how valuable the roots actually were. The others waited for me as I walked the room, trying to find the ancient ginseng. Raelia and I had been fairly efficient, but we had missed a number of them. Even the regrowth appeared to have a decade or two of rings. I took a few of them as well to practice on the purification process before utilizing the incredibly valuable roots.

When I was satisfied, I joined the others to reach the safe room. There was more nostalgia here, as this was the room where I had released and healed Raelia. Castile directed Lexi to practice her elvish translation while the others rested.

“It says it is a frost salamander,” Lexi said, pausing in her translation.

“It is a blizzard lizard. It has six legs and is a monstrous and dangerous foe,” I assaulted theatrically in English. She looked at the writing and then back at me, not understanding.

“I want to see it,” Lexi announced.

I wasn’t tired, and I wanted to formulate a plan anyway. “I will take you. Don’t worry, I have no intention of entering the room,” I said as Castile started to rise. Konstantin and Castile’s look told me they doubted me. “I won’t.”

I walked with Lexi down the passage to the large ice cavern. Only there was no sheet of ice covering the water, as the surface reflected the chamber's low light. Lexi crowded forward, and I made sure she didn’t enter the room. She was intently scanning the room as I was. Ripples in the water told me the eels remained, but there was no sign of the blizzard lizard.

“I don’t see anything?” Lexi lamented, her excitement fading. A large white shadowy shape moved under the water, drawing my attention. It surfaced in a spray as it emerged and beat its ivory wings twice to land on a ledge overhead. It had a large eel in its jaws, causing Lexi to gasp. “That is a blizzard lizard?” she said appreciatively as the creature did look majestic.

Lexi’s voice echoed into the room, and the long neck of the drake snapped toward us. It abandoned its fish and dove at us, coming up just short and landing on the ledge in front of the entry. Lexi had backpedaled and stumbled, falling on her but. The drake’s eyes narrowed in recognition, and it hissed angrily at me. “No, Lexi, that is an ice drake—and one that doesn’t like me very much.” The drake was hissing and growling at me, its predator teeth gleaming white and hungry to take a bite out of me. But smart enough to know it couldn’t pass the entrance until I entered the room, so it was helpless.

“Why is it so angry?” she said, trying to rein in her fear.

“Because I have already killed it once,” I replied.

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