Mountain of the Immortals

“They were,” I said, and moved on to the next part of the corridor, tapping the ground with my spear before taking each step. “One of them is pure AoE damage.”

I sent them the first of the skill windows and, for a fraction of a second, they lost focus as they absorbed the information.

* * *

Name: Maelstrom of Steel

Level: 18

Type: Active

HP Consumed: 0

MP Consumed: 55

Power: 1374

Range: Melee

Precondition: Only usable with spears, lances, and polearms.

Description: A swinging attack that can strike multiple enemies at once. Mana envelops the spear in the wielder’s hands, making it spin extremely fast around its axis. The combination of magical spinning and the 360-degree rotation by the wielder delivers a devastating attack to up to five enemies, ignoring shield defense bonuses.

* * *

“Thirteen hundred power?” Aphrodite exclaimed. “And on five creatures, no less.”

I was sure that Artemis had skills of a similar, if not higher, power level but since she wasn’t forthcoming with sharing them at the moment, I wasn’t going to press her into it.

“Yes, it can be quite handy when doing AoE XP,” I said, and for a moment I remembered the XP parties I used to have with my siblings. “The other one delivers damage to multiple enemies too and even though it’s weaker, it can also stun them.”

“Stun is always good,” Artemis remarked.

I sent them the second skill.

* * *

Name: Spear of the Thunder God

Level: 18

Type: Active

HP Consumed: 0

MP Consumed: 78

Power: 1045

Range: Melee

Precondition: Only usable with spears, lances, and polearms.

Description: The magnificence of the thunder god materializes as a shining orb of electricity around the weapon’s blade. Upon contact with an enemy the electric field envelops them before crushing their bodies with terrible force and frying their insides. Affected creatures may become stunned for 7 seconds and the attack ignores shield defense bonuses.

* * *

“This one looks very specific to that whole thunder thing you’ve got going on,” Artemis said.

“The whole thunder thing I’ve got going on?” I asked, feigning indignation.

“Well, that’s what you said your domain was. And since you’re not king of gods yet…” She let that last sentence linger, and then pointed at a small groove on the wall. “Look at this line.”

“It goes all the way up,” Aphrodite said, following it with her finger, “and down the ground too.”

“Looks like a guillotine system,” I said, having noticed additional lines every couple of feet ahead of us. I picked up a small rock from the ground and threw it a little further forward. As soon as it passed over the vicinity of the groove, a long slab of metal crashed down from the roof of the tunnel at speed. It didn’t travel the whole distance instantly, but it was fast enough to cut a thin slice off the stone.

“Hmmm, not only was it fast enough to hit the flying rock, but it also sliced through rather than just knocking it out of the way,” I said. “Seems like perhaps it’s been magically enhanced.”

“Let’s see what happens if we keep throwing rocks once it starts going back up again,” Artemis suggested.

We would have to somehow time our passing based on the flaws in its design, meaning it would be useful to know how long it would take it to return to its initial position. Aphrodite and I continued gathering rocks until the huge blade began retracting into the ceiling again.

The speed at which it was returning was significantly slower, and once we saw a small gap between the blade and the ground, we started casting stones forward, waiting to see when it was going to trigger another fall. One of the rocks made it all the way to the next groove where it set off a different kind of trap.

Instead of the blade falling from above, a large double axe swung from one side to the other, though its speed was much more manageable than the first trap in front of us. The space between the two traps was enough to allow for all three of us to squeeze in together, so I focused on throwing rocks again.

To our satisfaction, the metal blade of the guillotine didn’t fall down again until it had completely retracted into the stone. However, as soon as it was hidden, it fell again immediately, even though none of us had thrown a stone to trigger it at that exact moment. Either the trap was triggered as soon as it registered more movement but had to wait until the whole trap had reset, or it was just going to go on like this for a while now that we’d triggered it the first time.

“Alright, let’s get to the next one as soon as we can fit under it,” I said, and prepared myself.

I waited until the blade had risen to around waist height, then crouched and ducked underneath it. I felt a rush of irrational excitement as I crossed over the threshold where the blade could have cut me in half before I came to a stop right in front of the still-swinging axe blade. I turned around to look at the women who hadn’t even started moving yet.

Artemis was the first to join me, bending her knees and her upper body backward to limbo under the blade, before she squeezed to my left. She smiled at me before turning her attention to the trap in front of us, immediately starting to throw rocks in order to determine what the next ones were going to be.

Aphrodite, on the other hand, was completely calm about the whole situation. She waited until the blade was high enough to safely pass underneath without it touching even a single strand of her hair before she took a big step forward and ended up on my right.

As expected, the space between the traps was very limited and I could feel my mind getting carried away.

I snapped back to reality when the blade fell again behind us, much too close for comfort. In the meantime, Artemis had discovered that the third trap was a guillotine blade like the first one, with a gap in front of it large enough for us to squeeze into again.

“I’ll go first,” she said, and waited for the axe to swing to the right before jumping forward and then continuing throwing rocks in order to determine the nature of the fourth and final trap.

“Goddesses first,” I offered to Aphrodite, smiling at her.

“You just want to enjoy the view, don’t you?” she purred, then jumped forward once the deadly pendulum had reached the opposite side.

I really needed to get my head together if we wanted to get out of this dungeon alive.

I stepped forward, again squeezing myself between the two goddesses, when I heard Artemis curse under her breath.

“Oh, by the fucking maggots,” she said, pointing forward with her chin.

The last obstacle wasn’t just one trap, but rather a multitude of blades swinging, spinning, and thrusting out of the ground for a good twenty feet along the tunnel. The worst part was that they all moved at different speeds and they were out of sync with each other, which meant that we had to carefully time our sprinting through them.

“That’s me,” Artemis said, and launched herself forward.