Sworded Affair

Chapter 36: Humor Me

[First floor clear!]

Emma kept her guard up as she approached the spiral staircase, generally trusting her System yet wary of the possibility for a final twist in the tale. A full minute later, as no attack proved forthcoming, she relented and began to climb, the glow from the hole in the roof intensifying with every upward step. As her head rose up into the second floor, Emma paused as she saw the open sky; the midday sun glaring down at her despite the certainty that she was still inside the Dungeon. Emerging fully, she found herself in a flat grassy plain, at the center of and surrounded by four hilltops of roughly equal proportions. Upon each hill was a pillar, identical in form whilst distinct of color; Red, Yellow, Blue and Black each greeting her sight in turn as Emma rotated to take in the entire tableau.

From a rough estimate, Emma conceded that the total area might just about fit inside the proportions of the tower she’d observed from afar, though that failed to explain how any of this terrain came to be. Far more worrying than the sudden change of scenery, however, was the status message that soon followed.

[Pacifism debuff applied. On this floor, you are unable to perform any act inflicting direct harm upon another. Good luck!]

Besides that single message, no further instructions were issued, leaving Emma metaphorically scratching her head.

“No combat and no instructions; this is definitely a puzzle challenge of some sort. Hey, since I’m no longer in the library, can Sir Bearington come out to play?”

Emma eventually asked, after quite some time spent analyzing her course of action.

“The bear? Sure, why not.” The overseer agreed easily.

[Seal released. Gained companion: Sir Bearington - Level 4]

Emma sidestepped as Sir Bearington appeared right over her head, the latter landing with a loud thud and a faint whine of disapproval. His mood improved quickly enough however, aided by Emma scratching him behind the ears, and soon she was mounted up and ready to do a bit of exploring. Picking the hill with a red pillar by simple virtue of facing that direction as she made her choice, the duo set off for a bit of exploration. Nothing emerged to bar their path, and a few minutes later they were at the top of the hill, next to the pillar that stood just a few inches taller than Emma sitting astride Sir Bearington’s back.

As soon as they arrived, Emma’s eyes were immediately drawn to the pillar’s base, wherein a shallow groove held a button with an inscription carved below.

“Button up, let the trial begin,

Press all four to claim your win.

Knowing that bloodshed is a sin,

Why is it so hard to find something that rhymes with sin? Hold on, let me get the thesaurus…”

Emma trailed off disbelievingly, reading it again to make sure she hadn’t made a mistake somewhere.

“I think this bit’s unfinished,” Emma concluded aloud, for the benefit of those observing her progress in the dungeon.

“Um, oops?” A disgruntled voice replied, distinctly younger than the overseer she was used to hearing.

“Right, yes, let’s get rid of that for now, shall we? A simple placeholder will do for now; I’m sure someone can think of a better verse by the next centennial review. Time reversal.”

—

As soon as they arrived, Emma’s eyes were immediately drawn to the pillar’s base, wherein a shallow groove held a button with an inscription carved below.

“Press a button to start the trial, press all four to reach the next floor. Test your wits, not your fists.”

“Seems straightforward enough,” Emma grunted as she observed the other three pillars, two equidistant and one significantly further afield. “Which means there’s clearly more at work here."

"Let’s see; all four pillars have different colors, so there should be different outcomes from pressing them, even if they all share a common purpose in the trial. Not sure what each color represents, and it's hard to speculate without any hints since they could mean literally anything. Combat-wise, nobody has attacked us until now, which is definitely going to change once we start the trial by pushing a button. We can’t really fight back, so evade or misdirect, and make it to all four by any means necessary? Probably gets harder with each button we press as well, to increase the challenge the further in we get. In that case…”

Dismounting from Sir Bearington’s back, Emma waved him forward, beckoning him to sit in front of the pillar. Summoning Epitaph, Emma plunged the blade into the dirt beside the pillar.

“See this button?” Emma pointed, getting a nod in response from her companion. “Now, tap out five seconds, one tap of your paw with each second that passes.”

Counting thousands as she’d been taught in school, Emma was gratified to see Sir Bearington’s paws tap in tandem with the beats of her voice.

“Good, you’re able to keep time. In that case, see Epitaph here? Keep watching it; the moment it disappears, count to five seconds then press that button.”

Receiving a final nod from Sir Bearington, she began the slightly longer walk to the opposite hill with the black pillar. Arriving after traveling for approximately three times as long as the first floor took, Emma found as expected an identical button, whilst a quick check showed Sir Bearington still waiting patiently for her signal. Raising one hand, her other right by the button, Emma called her blade back to her.

“One thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand, five thousand.” She recited aloud at a steady pace, before slamming a finger into the button at the conclusion of the final syllable as Sir Bearington did the same from afar.

All four pillars immediately erupted in light, as around them the world trembled. The earth rose around Emma’s hill, reborn and reshaped into towering golems of stone. Nearest Sir Bearington, wind funnels formed from the heavens, heralding the descent of angelic beings clad in pure white clouds. To her right, the world burned as hungry flames fed on dried grass and warm summer air, and to her left what was once a plain flooded over, a shallow lake from which bubbling behemoths emerged.

Emma had five seconds, more or less, to appreciate how her expectations were largely proven right. Then the headache hit, worse by far than anything she’d felt for many, many years now.

[Mass anima linkup detected. Emergency protocol activated; command interface initializing. Please stand by!]