Trials of a VRMMO Healer

Chapter 15 - Dungeon Dive

We were surrounded. Again. Ever since entering the Temple of Or Din, Arti and I had been regularly attacked by strange guardian constructs. They were quadrupedal, with legs and bodies made of some sort of ceramic. Their limbs were bound together with roots or vines of some kind. They were sort of... headless robot tree dogs. Instead of heads they had a bundle of vines that lashed out and attempted to capture us. At first, I had tried to avoid them, but they had some kind of vibration sense that let them find us. While they didn't do a great deal of damage, their attacks were meant to bind and capture, so every hit was really dangerous. I was glad I had Arti. While he didn't have much in the way of damage, his claws were sharp enough to keep me free and they seemed to have a hard time grabbing his body.

This time there were four of them, two on each side and we were in a particularly bad position—a balcony overlooking the central chamber, between two doorways. On one side, we had a massive pit and on the other we had We limited in space and flanked. Where were these things coming from, anyway? They weren't patrolling, and each time the encounters were getting more difficult for me, like someone watch watching and spawning these in response to my progress through the temple. In any case, I had more immediate problems to deal with. First off, this position was a problem. I scooped Arti up into my arms and hopped up onto the railing and using a combination of [Jump] and then [Glide], I leapt towards the wall. When I hit it, I did a triangle jump off of it. I might not be able to fly properly but my skills did give me some better options. I dropped Arti and came out swinging, using an underhand smash to avoid the troublesome tentacle-vines and damage the ceramic armor instead. The two in the back lunged at me, but I blocked them with a body check and shoved my current target back. I got nicked a bit by the lashing vines but that wasn't a big deal as long as I didn't get tangled up. The other nearby one wrapped its tentacles around me and I called to Arti, who charged in and began tearing at them with his claws. The first one I had attacked was acting strangely; it was staggering and stumbling. I hadn't done enough damage to take it down but their undersides might be some kind of weak spot.

I had taken enough damage now to be able to summon a scorpid pet. I wasted no time in doing so. This time I had a plan. I instructed it to crawl between the legs of the constructs and target their underside. The nearer one who had latched onto me had been forced to release its grasp by Arti and now with the help of my scorpid, it was struggling to fend off the attacks from my pets, but it wasn't really built to defend attackers below it. While they distracted it, I continued to attack my first target. I spun Mountainsong so I could attack it with the pick side and poured my mana into my strength. I figured that more than raw damage, what I needed was to break through the armor. I figured correctly, because with two more solid strikes, the undercarriage plate of the construct shattered and it fell to pieces. The second one was already struggling with my pets, and I was able to dispatch it with relative ease. Two more to go. The constructs charged at me, so I swung Earthsinger at the railing and it crumbled. I then did another triangle jump off the wall, this time I wasn't trying to escape, I was trying to shove them from the side where they were less stable. The first tumbled off the balcony and into the pit. The second one scrabbled as its legs slipped off the edge, but to no avail. It went over the side as well but as it did it lashed out with its vines and snared me by the ankle. It tried to drag me over the side, but I swung the pick side of Earthsinger down into the floor. I went over the edge, clinging to my hammer, with the construct's vines firmly wrapped around my leg. Well. This was a problem. The hammer slipped bit by bit and then Arti appeared at the edge, looking down at me. After a moment of apparent thought, he clambered down my back and attacked the vines. The vines tore away and the construct fell down the pit. My heart stopped for a moment thinking that Arti may have gone with it, but he had wrapped his tail around my legs and was clinging on. I shifted my mana to strength and climbed up. It seemed that my [Animal Handling] skill had gone up and with it, Arti had become better able to help me.

First order of business was to get out of this dangerous spot. I proceeded down to the open door and went inside. This room had a solid stone door, similar to the secret passage above. I closed it with the same sort of spiritual manipulation. Actually, this looked like a good spot to rest in general. It had probably been some kind of dormitory, though the beds had long since rotted away. Throughout the Temple I had noticed a number of symbols, when I wasn't busy running from the constructs. Now I had time to properly investigate. The first one I had seen was a diamond symbol. It wasn't just a rotated square, it was more like the suit on a deck of cards, being taller than it was wide. This was usually carved with a horizontal line across the middle. Then there were the plants and constructs. Clearly, this place had had them as guardians prior to the sinking of Or Din, though the plants in the central chamber were almost certainly not so big. I decided to try a deeper trance while we were in a safe spot. I told Arti to keep watch while I did so.

I saw the devotees who came here to study and train in the distant past. They looked like vaguely humanoid shadows, or shadows made of light, or something similar. It wasn't entirely visual. They wandered through the corridors, slept in this room, studied in others, and meditated. Try as I might, I wasn't able to gain any particular insight from that alone, so I shifted my vision. You know those lenticular pictures that played an animation depending on the angle that you looked at them? It was sort of like that. I could 'play' the spirits backwards and forwards. Nothing. Just daily life. Except... the traffic patterns in the halls were somewhat weird. As I scrubbed back and forth through the timeline it became obvious that the devotees were avoiding certain spots. I focused on those spots. It was subtle, but there. There were air spirits set up as a kind of invisible tripwire. This... this actually could help a lot! After I had rested up and recovered my health and manage, I headed out of the room and scanned for more of the spirits.

Sure enough, there were these spirits set up as alarms or traps all over the place. The people who lived here had an awareness of the spirits, so they were easy to avoid, but intruders would stumble into them over and over. With that taken care of, I was able to make easy progress down the pyramid, as it was now clear that it was. The outside wasn't pyramidal, exactly, but from what I could tell, that section was meant as a security measure. There were also some larger rooms in the exterior section that were used for interacting with the public. But the open space inside was definitely a pyramid. Without tripping any more guardian traps, all I had to deal with were some overgrown crustaceans that had made their home in the moist environment. There were also some giant tree frogs, but Arti growled at them and they hopped away.

Finally, I had reached the bottom and... nothing. The bottom floor was flooded, with water pooled clear as glass. I had passed a number of rooms but I had looked in each one. While I hadn't explored the whole complex, of course, my spirit vision (as I was temporarily calling it) hadn't shown anything particularly intriguing elsewhere. My quest was still there, though. Clearly I hadn't met the conditions for it. I sat by the water's edge. This was just puzzle after puzzle, huh? I tried spirit vision but didn't really see anything. People would come down here and gather water or bathe, but that was it.

It was kind of weird, though. Water was falling from the upper levels down here, but it hadn't flooded or risen since the city had sunk. It was all very strange. This must have been filled with water even then and now that it was underwater, it... just happened to drain at the same rate it filled? What other clues did I have? Oh. Oh yeah, the diamond symbols. They were split in half. I stuck my head underwater. No, that wasn't it. Arti looked at me with his head cocked to the side like I was going nuts. Still, I was on the right track. There was definitely more to the temple than this. I was certain that the temple wasn't just a pyramid; it was two stacked on top of each other. I needed more information. I went back into spirit vision and instead of the people, I looked at the pyramid. Anything there? No, it was mostly the same. What about the pool? No, not that either.

All the answers I'd gotten so far were simpler than I had expected, but they were things I hadn't noticed at first. What about... what about the pyramid that was reflected IN the pool? I focused on that and... it was different. Definitely different. It wasn't the same temple! The more I focused on it, the more the water seemed to fade away. I couldn't tell anymore if the water was reflecting the mirror pyramid or not. It was like it was right there. I stepped over the edge and the world flipped over.

Just like the other side of the temple, this side was an open space shaped like a step pyramid, but there was a major difference: this one had windows. Outside I could see clouds and through breaks in them, a vast landscape.