120 Fear
The duo crept up the passage with the skeletons in front.
Passing the rings of crystals, each of them caused the crystal detectors to light up both green and yellow respectively.
Jay remembered that the dihexapede soul eater caused a red light to come from the passage, so it must have lit up red; right before he heard the deep booming sounds.
“Hmm… I wonder why it lights up yellow for me and the skeletons.” Jay wondered.
Anya was the only one who made it green.
“Strange..” he thought as he walked through another, the yellow light reflecting in his eyes.
They silently reached the top, the only sound the small party made came from the taping of the skeleton bones.
Finally they laid their eyes upon the dihexapede soul eater once more.
“What…” Jay’s brows were creased, seeing what was in the entrance, he stopped himself from speaking.
Before them was a battlefield – the remnants of one anyway.
The massive statues were still standing on their pedestals, however not all of them…
The two swordsman giants had been turned to rubble, along with one of the spearmen statues.
“They aren’t just statues?” Anya whispered.
Jay was still gazing up at them, nodding slowly with fearful eyes.
Between the giant broken statues, the recently slain body of the dihexapede soul eater lay, oozing red blood from its corpse; the human head had blood still pouring from its mouth and eyes, the jaw was still slack.
A spear the size of a tree was pinning its body to the ground, along with some giant arrows sticking from its hide, each of them larger than javelins. Giant holes, perforations and slashes riddled its body.
“No fucking way…” was Jay’s only thought as he looked over the battle scene.
The dihexapede was still partly wrapped around the broken legs of the destroyed statues, it clearly didn’t go down without a fight.
Jay looked over the statues next.
Blood was dripping from the spear of the remaining giant spearman statue.
The two legless floating statues were both turned, facing towards the dihexapede – but unmoving, as if they were frozen in mid-air again.
Jay felt it was safe enough to talk quietly since none of them moved.
Jay began to ponder over what was going on – why the statues were arranged the way they were, why there were crystal scanners in the passage, why the dungeon was sealed, why the monster didn’t attack them… Piece by piece it all fell into place.
“Anya, I think I understand what this place is…” he said, still looking at the blood dripping off the remaining spearmen statue.
Anya was still looking at the broken giant statues with the pierced creature wrapped around and through the rubble of the destroyed swordsmen statues.
Jay continued, “I think it’s some kind of failed research facility… The statues aren’t arranged backwards because they’re not there to keep us out… they’re here to keep something in.”
Anya had a fearful look. She glanced at Jay before looking back at the rubble.
Everything fell into place.
“The creature grew stronger by eating soul stones, obviously it was a threat to any of the statues. I think those green and yellow glowing rings were scanning us, turning red when the creature ran through. That must be when the giant statues got activated.”
Anya was staring at the giant statues for a moment before she slowly nodded; finally she was ready to talk.
“I see… Should we leave? Do you want to keep going?” Anya whispered, clearly she didn’t think the risk was worth the reward.
Jay thought for a moment in silence, rolling his tongue in his cheek.
It was incredibly dangerous, but It didn’t make much sense for a level three dungeon to have something that could kill them both in one hit.
Furthermore, the creature didn’t attack them at all.
It seemed that the soul eater could only consume filled soul stones, and perhaps that was all it was interested in?
Maybe in the centuries it was down here, it learnt to conserve what little energy it had to achieve its goal to consume – killing some ants like Jay and Anya would be a waste of energy.
Meanwhile, the giant statues only came to life after the scanners turned red, so while they were deactivated, they were not a threat.
“Could this simply be a sort of puzzle…” he raised a brow, piecing everything together before answering.
“I’m gonna keep going. I don’t think it’s as dangerous as it appears to be.” he nodded, walking over to the dead soul eater; the statues could have squashed him easily if they were still active.
Jay watched the giant statues for any signs of movement as he walked. This was a test.
He of course was ready to use the [Asklin] skill of his boots in a split second – not as dangerous as Anya thought it was.
Finally reaching the soul eater, he found that he was right – the statues didn’t activate.
Jay waved his hand and looted the soul eater, pocketing all its soul stones.
[Soul stone] (empty) x 132
“Wow. Greedy little thing.” he smiled at the corpse, not seeing the irony that he was now doing the same thing.
Anya still hadn’t moved forward, still watching the statues. Some sort of fear had gripped her since she entered this place.
“I see… well, maybe you should look at the murals before going on…” Anya suggested, still whispering, “I think I need some time.. Maybe come get me when you finish this pyramid?”
Jay raised a brow, surprised how she was acting. It wasn’t like her to be afraid, but there was nothing Jay could do.
“Oh.. ok. Well thanks for the help. I’ll find you when I’m done… don’t forget about my rings.”
Anya nodded and willed to leave, exiting the dungeon and leaving the party.
[Party Disbanded]
“She seemed way more scared than usual… actually, it’s not like her to be scared at all.” Jay thought, “I wonder if this pyramid makes people afraid somehow? Maybe it doesn’t work on me since I have a monster class?” he guessed.
It seemed like Anya got more and more fearful the longer they spent in the pyramid. Seeing the slain level 133 soul eater was probably what finally pushed her over the edge, she was at her limit.
“Perhaps this was some kind of fear effect to stop people from solving the pyramid?” Jay guessed, but there was no way of knowing.
Jay could only wonder, but he was more surprised that he wasn’t scared at all. If there was a fear effect, it was obviously not working on him – perhaps even having the opposite effect.
After figuring out the trick, the pyramid now seemed like a walk in the park to Jay. It seemed that this dungeon wasn’t only just about blindly killing everything in sight to get stronger.
All he had to do now was open the next room in the passageway to the right, open the prison gate before getting out of the way of whatever was down there, waiting in the darkness as the giant statues did all the work.
“Well, it sucks not having the extra damage without Anya, but it seems like I won’t need it for the rest of the pyramid anyway. I already did a damage challenge to get inside after all.”
Jay decided to take Anya’s advice before heading down the passage and began looking over the murals behind the giant statues.