Chương 36: 35. The Dream Snatcher's Treasure

Going down a shaft proved a lot less fun than I expected. Ironically, my body suffered a lot more than my clothes. No matter how badly the fabric got torn, one quick heal, and it was back to new. When it came down to me, the pain remained even after the skin had healed. Also, the card did nothing to reduce the stress on my muscles. The only thing I went by was the knowledge that after some time I would reach a side opening. Naturally, there were a number of nasty surprises on the way.

The traps were rudimentary: a latch or tile along the walls that caused a set of spikes to puncture anyone unfortunate enough to get caught. Knowing what to expect, I didn't even require light to find the trigger points. It was all about keeping to the corners and sliding the tip of the sword thoroughly along any solid surface within reach. Now and again, a few magic traps were scattered in.

Harlequin probably thought that he was being clever, but as it happened, those were even easier to spot thanks to my magic sight. For what felt like hours, I kept descending further and further. At no point did Serp say a word, probably fearing that I'd drop him again if he did. For a few short moments, I almost pitied the sword. I had undoubtedly been harsh towards him. Still, that was the reality of the Arcana. The strong got to command the weak. The only rule I had imposed on myself was to never go overboard.

After all, there was no telling who might want to stab me in the back, or what deities they were associated with.

"Is this it?" I asked as I came upon an opening. Maybe. Serp hesitated. It seems down enough. I told you I'm unable to see without you.

"Is there a skill for that?" Not at my current level. Feed me enough spheres and we'll find out. Always the same game. Regardless, one opening was better than none. The lack of light was seriously starting to irk me. Thinking back, it would have been a lot better to use the boost sphere on my Magician card. At least that way, I might have had the means to create some light and possibly a few useful spells. Locking myself in the shaft, I unsummoned the serpent sword and took out my dual blades.

Instantly, they pulled down, indicating the location of the nearest strong opponent. That was good, suggesting no strong monsters awaited me in the immediate chamber.

"Serp," I put my blades away.

"I'm going to throw you inside. If anything strange happens, let me know." I'm a sword, not your dummy! he protested.

"You're also invincible," I countered and summoned him to my hand.

"Ready?" I asked and immediately tossed him through the opening. There was a series of clanging noises as the metal hit stone. For a moment, it almost seemed that my fears had been for nothing. Then, there was a sharp, sudden click, followed by a series of sliding sounds. Without a moment's delay, I unsummoned the weapon and waited.

"Well?" I asked after a few seconds of silence. Just spikes, he replied in a bored tone. Wouldn't have done much harm. Not more than you tossing me onto a stone floor. The sword was showing more attitude than I would have liked. Sadly, it was impractical to do anything about it until the trial was over. While I had never known someone to have a living sword, I had seen what happened to participants that mistreated their familiars.

"Good job," I uttered, then managed a leap into the opening. Finally, the muscles in my legs got to experience some relief. The few moments of bliss were followed by a secondary wave of pain, although that, too, quickly diminished. I felt my way around. There was still no light, which meant no magic.

"Any chance you can light up?" I asked. No answer followed.

"Thought so." I re-summoned the weapon. The spring trap was a few steps away. It used the standard pressure plate mechanism, thrusting spikes from the sides of the walls. From what I could tell, there was no discernible poison on the tips. Even so, I was careful not to draw blood as I pushed them back into the wall. The further I went down the corridor, the more stagnant the air became. Soon enough, I reached what I was aiming for: an archway with a set of winding stairs behind it.

As a participant with a passion for collecting thief skills had told me, one of the greatest misconceptions was that stairwells had traps. The right space and many steps definitely created the impression, but the physical space wasn't enough to place anything sophisticated. The most someone could do was add a few magical snares here and there. In this case, there were a total of three, each placed on every tenth step. Leaving the other end of the stairwell, I entered a small antechamber.

Although dim, there was actual light here, bleeding in through a wooden door from the larger room beyond. Several old torches were on the walls, yet without a means to light them, they weren't of much use. I decided to ignore them and made my way to the door. As rickety as it seemed, the rules of the trial kept it from being broken or opened. Knowing how this went, I took out ten silver coins and fed them to the handle. When I placed the last one, the entire door collapsed, transforming into a pile of dust.

What I saw filled me with joy. A massive room lay beyond me, filled with piles of gold, assorted jewels, and more chests than I had ever seen in one place. A pair of golden statues stood at all three remaining walls, looking at each other with firm determination. Wow! You hit the motherlode! Serp said. By any objective measure, he seemed correct. With all the gold in this room, there was little I couldn't do.

When it came down to it, I didn't even have to risk taking it out of the chamber; I could simply let my divine blades consume it in order to awaken several times more. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. As I stood there and watched, a low growl sounded in my mind.

"I know," I uttered with a sigh. It was too good to be true. The first hint, apart from the absurd amount of wealth, was the lack of specific light sources. It was as if the gold itself provided light, illuminating everything else in the room. Not to mention that the more I looked, the greater the treasure seemed to become. Deliberately, I looked down at the floor, then at the room again. The piles of gold had doubled. Now, in addition to the standard wealth, there were expensive-looking weapons scattered about.

I sniffed the air. The smell of stagnant air was also gone. For close to a minute, I waited, hoping that the trap would trigger itself. When no such thing happened, I resorted to the alternative approach: slashing the space in front of me with the serpent blade. A trail of smoke was left behind, as if my strike had momentarily erased part of a living picture.

"Just give it up," I said, as I kept on slashing. An entire section of the room became blurred. The powers maintaining the illusion found themselves no longer capable of dealing with my interference. Initially, the number of objects in the treasure room decreased. When that didn't work, an abrupt transformation followed. All the pieces of treasure flew toward the center. Attracting each other, they merged to form one massive entity.

Gold scales covered the serpentine body, with dozens of black metal legs sticking out.

"A centipede?" I wondered. It was true that I had issues with insects in the past, but that was before I survived ten years through the trials. Compared to what I had to put up with at the time, this seemed almost cute.

"You'll have to do a lot better than that," I said, standing at the entrance in defiance. Eager to prove me wrong, the creature twisted in my direction. Its body, still not completely formed, shot straight at me, two pairs of sharp feet aiming for my torso. Before it could reach me, an even faster entity flew from the side, intercepting the attack. A large sabretooth had caught the middle of the insect in its massive jaws, taking it to the far part of the room.

"Nothing to say?" I asked the serpent sword. You'd have figured it out sooner or later, Serp grumbled. I chose not to respond. Golden tendrils shot out from the treasure room floor, all aimed at me. Maintaining my position, I swung my sword, slicing them to bits as if I were chopping celery in a kitchen. The strikes were faster than the eye could see, leaving no doubt of our skill difference. Then again, it was difficult for the outcome to be different, since this was a dream, and a poorly constructed one at that.

"Done playing around?" I asked in a loud voice, while my dream pup continued devouring the golden centipede. The monster that had seemed so impressive just moments ago had now been reduced to a torn ragdoll.

"Wake up!" I shouted, shooting out a series of dream strands in all directions. The entire surroundings broke up like a piece of glass as the dream itself shattered. The next moment, I opened my eyes. I was lying on the floor of the cold, dark room. A heavy smell of dust and decay filled my nostrils. A sharp pain came from my left knee. By the looks of it, I must have collapsed at the end of the stairwell and injured my leg in the process. Two of Chalice, I thought.

A warm sensation surrounded my knee, removing a large part of the pain. Slowly, I stood up. The dim light hadn't been part of the room, providing an idea of where I was. Over a dozen dead bodies lay on the floor on either side—former participants who hadn't seen through the trap and ended up dead. The scary part was that they likely hadn't failed through any major mistake of their own. Whatever had been released in the air wasn't easy to detect.

I had caught the discrepancies in reality, so would have broken out of the dream even without the dream pup or my Sleeper card. Having to face a Dream Snatcher this early on was still way too much. Leaping to my feet, I rushed to where the door in my dreams had been. While being a terror to deal with, Dream Snatchers didn't have any imagination. Everything they took from the dreams of their victims and their immediate surroundings. One clean thrust, and the door was gone.

The second room was just as large as the treasure vault, but instead of treasure, it held a single wax figure in the center of it. Two flames flickered on the wax figure's head, their color constantly shifting between orange and blue. Dream Snatcher Level: 3 Cards: [REMOVED] Special: Dream Walking Weapon: None My blade sliced the air, decapitating the statue. I half expected it to vanish, releasing a booster sphere. Instead, all I got was a makeshift lantern.

Beggars can't be choosers, I said to myself, then finally examined the room. A single old wooden chest was there, covered by layers of wax dust.

"Should have figured," I said. There was no other reason for the door in my dream to be locked. The Snatcher had copied the properties of the chest in more ways than one; the lock had become the door, and the room of riches—the treasure. Now, it was time to see what this was really about. I pushed a silver coin into the lock. It clicked. Taking that as a good sign, I moved the lid.

"You must be kidding," I laughed. On the very bottom lay nothing but a single grey card—one of the worst cards in the entire Grand Arcana. RICHES (Rarity – JUNK) Can be used for trading. And here come the junk cards. As the name suggested, they provided no skills and had no value whatsoever. There was always talk that a certain number of junk cards could unlock doors or loot caches in specific circumstances, but one single riches card wasn't going to do anything.

You lucked out there, Serp said, joining to my annoyance. A vault without a treasure. Funny. I took the Snatcher's head and moved it closer to the chest so I could get a better look. The riches card seemed to be the only reward. Naturally, I took it, then lifted the chest and checked underneath. That was a complete waste of time. The serpent sword kept complaining. Might as well get out of here.

"Actually, it isn't." I examined the walls. There were no aether strands and no indications of a hidden exit.

"We haven't explored the rest of the pyramid yet." What's up with you, old man? Haven't you got enough junk?

"There's still a leader somewhere here." Besides, there still was the reward I'd get upon killing every living thing in the building. The Dream Snatcher was one such entity, carefully hidden away in a fake treasure chamber of the pyramid. It was likely that there would be more of them further down. Carrying the wax head, I returned to the antechamber and took a torch from the wall. The piece of wood was too foregone to light up, so I shoved the Snatcher's head onto it.

Now, at least, I had the means to see where we were going.