Chapter 43 – Light It Up

Room four was more of the same, with switches and lights, but, instead of water raining down from above, hidden holes in the walls opened up whenever a switch was flipped, launching small darts with seemingly random trajectories across the room; While the damage from each dart was low, it was almost impossible for Cam and Eron to follow their flights, depending more on luck than anything to avoid taking too much damage.

Thankfully, Eron had no problem shouldering the risk while Cam hunkered down behind their shield in a corner... but, even then, Cam couldn't avoid taking some damage... and Eron couldn't help but laugh when one of those small holes opened and launched a dart directly into Cam's backside.

While Cam could see the humor in the situation, the experience was a lot less funny.

Room five saw a more drastic shift, as the room not only had twelve switches, but three doors, each with five lights around it...

After a brief discussion- not that it was really needed, as Cam and Eron were once more in sync-, the pair decided to follow the same tactic to solve the puzzle, just with the increased difficulty of having to turn off fifteen lights at once... and the added challenge of trying to light up all three doors at once.

Thankfully, this room lacked traps like the previous two, allowing them to slowly and carefully work through the solution once more.

After collecting the puzzle piece that dropped from the ceiling once more, the duo quickly worked their way back through the puzzle until only a single switch remained to light up all three doors at once...

"Be ready for anything." Cam reminded his clone unnecessarily. "There could be monsters, or loot, or just more rooms behind any of these doors; Hell, for all we know, the first few rooms were just preparing us, and the entire Floor is actually a maze or something!"

"Yeah, I know. Same person, remember!" Eron chuckled, raising his shield with his body angled to watch two of the doors. "I've got eyes on these two, you cover the door beside you!"

Sighing at his clone's flippant attitude- even if it was just a repressed aspect of his own personality, he was sure-, Cam nodded and counted down from three before flipping the switch and quickly rushing to the center of the room to put his back to his clone. As the fifteen lights lit up together, all three doors opened... and nothing happened.

"Jackpot!" Eron exclaimed before Cam could even sigh in relief... but Cam agreed with his clone, his eyes widening in surprise at the sight in front of him.

"A chest!" Eron exclaimed, nearly jumping for joy. "Damn if that ain't lucky!"

"Yeah, what are the odds?" Cam asked, half turning towards his clone... and froze as he realized his clone was staring in the opposite direction, where the lefthand door had revealed a chest... Just like the righthand door, that Cam was watching, had revealed a chest. "Holy fuck!"

Cam didn't know what to think. Loot drops from monsters were somewhat uncommon, though the odds seemed to shift randomly and were completely impossible to predict... But loot chests were supposed to be rare. Extremely rare, assuming what he was taught was correct.

Like... most teams of climbers would only find a loot chest once a year kind of rare. And now they were staring at two of them.

Hearing Cam's exclamation- and rare instance of profanity-, Eron turned, eyes widening at the sight of a second chest... before his eyes narrowed, gaze shifting to meet Cam's as they both took on a calculating look...

"So... Trap?"

"Definitely a trap." Cam nodded at his clone; For something as rare as a loot chest to pop up, he was already feeling cautious... But two? The odds were too low, especially for them being only on Floor 3... The only conclusion he could come to was that it had to be a trap of some sort.

"Ok, hand me the Cracked Iron Mace." Eron said, already stripping off his armor and passing over the Haunted Cudgel and shield. "That way we won't lose anything good."

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Understanding what his clone meant, Cam quickly took back the gear, storing it in his Inventory before handing over the useless weapon drop that he was already considering discarding; The worst case scenario, in his mind, was that one of the doors would close behind his clone, trapping Eron and causing them to lose a weapon- and neither of them wanted to lose their good stuff.

Thankfully, after spending a weak on the previous Floor following the Boss fight, the feelings of pain and nausea from summoning so many clones had faded... and Cam was more and more certain of his deduction that the Ability splintered off small fragments of his soul to create the clones... And, even more thankfully, he was sure that the 'soul'- assuming he was right- could also recover with rest... He was pretty sure, as he hadn't had any problems subsuming and resummoning his clone after that.

Of course, Eron hadn't died since then, so he couldn't be completely sure.. But that was his working theory for now.

"If I get trapped and can't get back to you, I'll have to bash my own head in..." Eron grimaced, clearly not liking the idea- even if he wouldn't hesitate to do it.

"Hopefully that won't be necessary..."

"Yeah, but you never know when it comes to the Tower." The clone shrugged, putting the concern out of his mind. "I'm starting on the left..."

Following behind his clone, Cam set up close to the door while still keeping watch on the other doors, wanting to be close enough to help if anything went wrong, but not willing to take his eyes off the other potential sources of danger.

Moving slowly, Eron eased his way into what was almost a large closet, just large enough to hold a chest big enough for him to crawl in to, a few feet back from the door, with space around it if someone wanted to squeeze past... and the tight confines made him think more and more that it was a trap. Carefully, step by step, the clone inched closer to the chest...

Reaching out, he suddenly slapped the chest before hurriedly darting back out the door, mace raised to strike... and nothing happened.

Letting out the breath he hadn't realized he was holding, Eron stepped back in; With nothing having happened on his first contact with the chest, he was feeling a bit more confident... Even if he also knew that, according to the records, some chests were trapped, and the traps wouldn't set off until the chest was opened.

Reaching out slowly, he grabbed the sturdy wood lid of the chest, and, with a flick of his wrist, flipped it open while simultaneously leaping back... and still, nothing happened.

Leaning through the door, he gazed down into the waist height chest, a grin stretching across his face as he whispered. "Definitely a jackpot!" Reaching into the chest, he pulled out the single item inside before hurriedly backing out.

Taking the item his clone passed to him- a belt, Cam saw- he stepped back, letting Eron keep watch while he checked out the new piece of equipment; Visually, it wasn't the most impressive, just a slate gray belt with three small, round protrusions on the front... that looked similar to the glowing orbs around the door next to him, with the center orb lit up and the other two dark...

Trick of the Light

Tower Value=12

Armor = 4

Special Effect : Attacks and spells cast by the wearer trigger an orb at random. When all three orbs are lit, the wearer is surrounded by a shield of light that blocks the next 50 damage. When all three orbs are dark, adds 50 damage(Dark) to the wearer's next attack or spell. (For multi-target spells, damage is split among all targets.)

"This is..." Cam didn't know whether to call it awesome or terrible. On one hand, it was clearly a higher rarity item, with good armor value, and the effect could be game changing... On the other hand, that assumed the effect actually happened, as it was random chance- and, while the armor was good, it was still a belt, even if a fairly wide one, and only protected a few inches around his waist...

"We both already know you're going to wear it." Eron chuckled, not looking back. "The armor is good, and the chance at such a good effect is worth it... especially since we haven't found another belt!"

"Ah, shut up..." Cam grumbled; His clone wasn't wrong. He was just being... him. Which made Cam's grumbles worse as he quickly slipped the belt around his waist. "It really is an awesome find... but now I'm even more worried about the other chest."

"Same."

With nothing else to say, the pair moved over to the righthand door for Eron to repeat his check: Ease in cautiously, inch by inch, before hurriedly slapping the chest... Except this time went wrong, which they had both expected.

Even if it didn't go wrong in the way they expected.

The door didn't suddenly slam shut behind him. There was no explosion, or darts or arrows flying out. No flood of water, burst of fire or acid... No trap at all.

It wasn't a trap. It was an ambush.

Slapping his hand against the lid of the chest, Eron went to dart away... and found his hand stuck to the chest as if by a strong glue; A brief flicker of panic flashed across his face as he yanked back once more, only to remain stuck fast, and his mouth had barely opened to shout when the chest moved.

The lid of the chest cracked open, revealing not treasure, but a gaping maw, filled with sharp teeth and a huge, wriggling tongue... and Eron knew he was in trouble.

"It's a fucking monster!"