Ebony's Fable

‘Trap? Treasure? This is obviously a challenge.’

Ebony was unbothered whether it was a trap or a treasure. To him the dungeon was challenging them. Take it if you can.

Placing an oddly suspicious bright white box in the centre of a room that had pathetically thin walls. It was hardly hidden. Not even preventing them from taking or touching it with a group of monsters. Not even bothering to stop them from leaving by sealing the entrance.

Ordina was mocking them and it succeeded.

As intrigued as to what was that cube, none of them could get through the turbulent barrier of water.

Scarlet didn’t even try though. “A waste of mana.” was what she said. She wasn’t wrong. Even if she could evaporate a large body of water it would be pointless if it could keep refilling itself. She couldn’t exactly cut apart the water either. They still have to be able to get the cube out in the short time frame that either Scarlet or Hector could open up.

They were planning to leave after they rested for the night.

“Do you have confidence to get that box out if the flow of water was cut off for a second?” Ryley asked before they walked off to rest for the night. He was getting interesting looks from the party except Ebony. They all saw Hector trying to super punch the thing another time but even he wasn’t able to fully open a gap through to the other side.

“A second is more than enough.” Scarlet replied flatly. One second was a long time for her when the distance was so short. The cube shouldn’t be unmovable since Hector was able to shift it with his punch.

“Let’s try. Stand back.” Ryley said before taking an arrow out from his bottom quiver. Ebony hasn’t seen him use the metal arrows in this particular quiver. Ryley brought 3 quivers of arrows, one filled with wooden arrows while the other 2 were metal. The bottommost quiver had the least arrows, only 7. Most of his wooden ones already broke or were lost or unserviceable. The metal arrow he nocked on his bowstring didn’t look any different from his usual.

They backed off but Ryley got them to go further and further. Scarlet was beside him, the sound of her heart beating resounded. Lightning sparked from her skin and clothes. Once again mystified by Ebony’s tips on increasing heart rate. Taking a deep breath and tightened the muscles on her chest as if trying to compress and squeeze her lungs and released that breath slowly. It shortened the time needed for her Core Skill to kick in by a significant amount.

The metal arrow Ebony thought was no different glowed light blue as the ambient mana dipped horrendously fast. The wavy lines on the arrow glowed brighter and brighter. The ambient mana dried out without a single drop remaining that he could sense. The arrow was discontent. It drained on Ryley’s mana till his complexion was almost purple.

Ryley had held the arrow fully drawn for what felt like days to him but it was merely about half a minute. His mana pool pathetically low if not for the fact he appointed some stats to Wisdom for this skill and enchanted arrow. His arrow wasn’t the only thing that drained his mana, his bow did too. Mana can be used to temporarily strengthen the tension of his bowstring and bowframe itself. It was not easy to hold such a heavyweight bow at full draw for half a minute.

Sweat dripped down his brows as he shouted uncharacteristically. The arrow was aimed above the cube before it was released.

The arrow flew at such speed it practically reached the water barrier as soon as Ryley released the arrow. The arrow poked through the waterfall and exploded with enough force to cause the air and ground to vibrate till where they were. Ebony did prepare to defend with his shields but there was no need. There weren’t any broken fragments flying around for some reason. Maybe the waterfall, maybe the arrow disintegrated. Many maybes but he wouldn’t know for sure.

The moment the arrow exploded was when Scarlet disappeared from their midst and appeared across the lake. The ground where she had moved off from, cracked. She was drenched and slipped onto the frozen lake. Coughing a few times as she awkwardly hugged the large cube. It was about a metre by a metre.

Mentally cursing at herself, thinking the cube was light. She bulldozed into it at such speed that her shoulders and chest were in pain. Some bruises are likely forming. The cube was obviously much heavier than she thought it was, she was lucky she took some time to build up her physical strengthening.

“Are you okay?” Scarlet found Ebony already kneeling by her side. She could feel the deep concern behind the simple words. She pushed him away when he tried to help her up and got up herself. Flushed. Obviously from her Violent Heart Acceleration and coughing. He didn’t have his gravity spell on.

Scarlet had never actually moved so fast that she couldn’t be seen but she was pretty damn good at timing her movements to when one blinks or during a lapse in their attention. Almost as good as Ebony.

Water rained down on them. Ebony came out dry, water sliding off his membrane.

It was quite a sight to behold, Ryley's shot. The deafening sound of water smashing into a hard surface re-emerged shortly.

Perhaps Ebony could only survive that shot if he had all his Layered Ice Carapaces working to protect him. That was only if he tried taking it head on. With how long it took Ryley to prepare a shot, Ebony didn’t even need to open his eyes to dodge it. There was distance and whether he let Ryley have the chance to charge such a shot to take into account as well.

Hector whistled in amazement. Tuffock, who was originally sceptical, was also surprised by the power of the exploding arrow.

“Th..the entrance is still there.” Tuffock pointed out. Just in case, they left the hidden room back to the walkway before they checked their bounty. Hector tried to lift the cube up but his face went red, punching his fist together before lifting the cube out with one hand.

Ebony helped to widen the tunnel for ease of taking it out. Intrigued that once all of them were out with the cube the wall started closing up.

“HA! I knew it! It was a treasure room after all. We’re rich!”

“Mo...more like a challenge or puzzle room.”

“Whatever! The point is that we got the loot.”

Hector placed down the cube and they stared at it. Ryley was drained, not so much physical exhaustion but his head was pounding from how fast he emptied out his mana. He gained a modicum of respect for mages who have to deal with it. And absolute deference to Ebony who spends mana, casts multiple spells and manipulates multiple elements throughout the day like breathing. No wonder his fellow party members who were also magic users hold him in such high regard for his future potential.

Ebony cocked his head to the left. He assumed they knew what to do with it but it was just a damn cube not a treasure chest.

“Want me to punch it open?” Hector asked as if that was the obvious solution.

“Do..don’t be so hasty…” Tuffock inspected the cube from every angle. None of them found any button, latch or sign of traps.

[White Cube]

Identify was pretty useless. Now that Ebony thought about it, how did he identify the Frostblaze Amur Maple Trees? Was it his preconceived notion of what the tree was? ‘Hmm… more food for thought. Food? Hungry.’ Ebony mentally complained.

Hector gave it a few jabs and pokes but it was undamaged. He was getting ready for a good punch when the white cube started dissolving to the ground. Seems like they just had to wait for a while after it was taken out of the hidden room.

It was more of a bang than a thud when something fell to the ground. Hector yelped and pulled his feet up as something orange in colour smashed into his toes. He was lucky he had a good pair of boots on.

There were multiple objects that appeared. Some small and some larger than the white cube itself.

A silver needle as long as Ebony’s forearm and just a bit thicker than hair.

A white bundle of…something. It looked wet and sticky and was at least 3 metres long. It was twitching.

An orange rectangular block, bigger and thicker than his hands. He could feel lightning mana in it but his senses for that were blurry at best..

A round bottom flask that he felt like he shouldn’t touch. It contained a liquid that continuously changed colour. His mana perception or the elemental part was confused. It didn’t stay put or he couldn’t quite catch or feel what type of mana it was before it changed.

A pitch black rectangular cuboid. If it was placed beside him, standing up it would be taller by a bit, it was practically a plank-shaped cuboid. As wide as both palms put side by side and perhaps a quarter as thick.

Five items. Seems about right. But how were they going to split it?

They looked at each other before bending down to pick what they wanted at the same time. No one touched the same object or item.

Tuffock took the needle. Ryley the white bundle. Scarlet took the orange block. Hector the flask of suspicious liquid. Ebony the thick plank.

It was no surprise.

He was guessing that the dungeon was observing them in some fashion or perhaps only their actions in the hidden room were taken into account. The items were practically designed for each of them.

He didn’t know what was special about the needle but Tuffock said it was chock full of stone mana.

Ryley recognised the white bundle as a material for bowstrings. Scarlet took the bundle and confirmed that it was some kind of monster’s tendons. As expected of a chef that took apart monsters while fighting.

Ebony could only guess that Scarlet took the orange block for the lightning mana in it. Perhaps fire too but he couldn’t sense that. Remembering Hector using the same two elements, he thought that Hector may have gone for it too.

Reasonably, the suspicious liquid was way more intriguing to the quadra elemental enhancement mage that has shown to use five elements so far.

Finally, the cuboid plank which Ebony was set on checking out. ‘Intrigued’ couldn’t even begin to describe his feeling of doing something with it.

Any object or body of mass whether it was a pair of socks, a shirt, a person, a heavy-ass shield, a building or just a plain old rock had extremely, exceedingly, exceptionally weak gravitational waves. Mostly invisible in his Vibrational Gravity Sense. When his Vibrational Gravity Sense was really low level, he could hardly even feel most objects' gravity mana. The planet’s encompassing all others’. Ebony slowly got more sensitive and was able to perceive weaker gravitational waves.

How heavy was his full powered Layered Ice Carapace? He is unable to lift it off the ground without Icebody Enhancement. He could prop it up to an upright position and possibly lift it off the ground for a second or two but that was the limit without enhancement. His Layered Ice Carapace is taller, wider and when 5 layered, thicker than his body. Without a scale or reference, he had estimated it to weigh around 120kg before he started compressing the ice mana.

Ice was light and less dense than water and he just took a rough guess, it was getting more accurate with his ability to sense and perceive gravitational waves. With a little magical touch, poof and ice was denser after he compressed it. 6.5 times denser. Exactly how much he compressed mana by. Simple maths told him 780kg, it was mind-boggling to think he was carrying literal tons when he controlled multiple shields at speeds faster than a car. With his mind.

And then there was this lump of material. Giving off even stronger gravitational waves than his Layered Ice Carapace despite being quite a bit smaller and lesser in volume. It wasn’t saying much since it was still an extremely weak ‘output’ of gravitational waves.

Ebony couldn’t pick it off the ground when it lay flat, so he got an ice sculpture to try so that he wouldn’t accidentally drop it on his fingers. And his suspicions and the actual reason he wanted this item held true.

His sculpture’s hands disappeared. It got smaller and smaller when it attempted to apply force to pick the lug up.

‘Hot damn. It really absorbed ice mana.’ Ebony knew that it absorbed ice mana the moment it fell out or popped up from the white cube. He felt something tugging at his Layered Ice Carapace close by or rather tugging at the ice mana in the spell. If that wasn’t interesting enough then the fact that he couldn’t sense a lick of ice mana inside the cuboid block was even more interesting. It wasn’t as if the gravitational waves interrupted his senses since he had long been able to differentiate them.

It was pretty awkward just standing there so he got Icebody Enhancement running and picked the thing up with more ease. He couldn’t exactly put it in his bag though so he would have to carry it by resting it on his shoulder.

[?]

Was all he got from identifying it. They checked out each other’s loot but it was all the same to him. Hector informed him that the pitch black block he got was some kind of wood. Ebony wood? Was all he could think seeing the colour of the wooden block. Hector even offered to put it in his expanded spatial bag of his before they moved off the next day. How nice of him.

They went to rest for the night in turns as usual.

❅❅❅

Scarlet was preparing to cook like any other day when Hector came up to her to pester her again.

“Hey hey. Why are you ignoring the poor guy?” Hector spoke softly.

“...” Scarlet looked at Hector for a half a second before continuing to bring out the ingredients.

“Come on, don’t ignore me too.” Hector tried to help Ebony once more.

“...” Met with silence other than the sound of the disagreeable vegetables getting washed. Her cooking only good enough for Hector to swallow the leafy greens.

“Fine fine.” He shrugged. “Why don’t we talk about something else. Tuffock’s death or ours. What did you mean?” Hector whispered uncharacteristically. Finally managing to catch her attention, Scarlet stopped what she was doing. Staring at Hector the same way she always did to anyone in the party other than Ebony. Her eyes seemed to want to burn through whatever she looked at. Her gaze powerful enough to deter the masses.

“He told you.”

Hector acknowledged with silence. The words may be a load of bull from anyone else. From Scarlet who had some all seeing all powerful divination mage of some kind watching her? He couldn’t get it out of his mind.

“You know what I mean.” Scarlet’s words and tone, confident and sure of herself. She continued preparing dinner. Loudly chopping, drowning out their whispers.

“...I do. It’s true then?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. No.”

Hector was a little confused and also not confused. Divination was just a prediction after all. But he didn’t know what the ‘no’ at the end meant.

“...He was right.”

“...”

“I am weaker than I thought I was.”

“...”

“But I’m not wrong either…he is…”

“...he is?”

“...Nothing.”

“He is nothing?”

“NO!”

Scarlet’s durable chopping board split in two.

Hector’s heart skipped at her sudden outburst. So did Scarlet’s. She panicked when she grabbed the flying piece of meat and almost caused it to drop. Fortunately Ebony and Ryley were further off the 2 paths scouting and clearing whatever stray golems and also keeping watch. Tuffock should be deep in meditation. Scarlet was embarrassed that she messed up while cooking due to an emotional outburst. She was a chef! How could she let that happen?

“Calm down lady. Then why are you ignoring him?” Hector pacified.

She ignored Hector again as she took a spare chopping board out and continued chopping.

“Something to do with him going off and killing all the monsters without us?”

Hector was met with silence again.

“He had your back and you had his right? So something that happened afterwards.”

‘Spot on.’ Hector thought when he felt Scarlet increasing her chopping speed. Hector tried to recall what Ebony told him but all he knew was that they rested for a short while and then she punched him. So something happened during that short period of time.

“Something happened while you rested after the clearing of monsters?”

Hector backed off. He could literally hear her heartbeat drumming. Instinct told him to stop with his line of questioning.

“How about you help me play a prank on Ebony? It’s time for a little sweet or should I say sour revenge. Hehehe” Hector quickly changed the subject. He had a classic evil laugh as he rubbed his palms together and rummaged his belongings for a pouch.

“Don’t you wanna see his expression change?”

“...I don’t play with food.”

‘She’s hooked on!’

“You can’t make it taste good?” Hector acted bewildered by his own question. Scarlet snapped and grabbed the pouch in his hands before he could get it back. Not that he didn’t want to give it to her.

‘This is as far as I can help you brother. Heh heh some payback isn’t too much to ask isn’t it.’ Hector laughed out loud as he imagined the look on Ebony's face. It was a little irritating that it was so hard to imagine but it mattered not, he would be seeing it soon.