[NR] Firebreak - Chapter 492 (Patreon)

It takes Rosha over ten minutes to touch anything. While she is relatively sure that the triggers for the trap are only located where she can see stuff, well, she can’t see the other parts to determine otherwise. This time was spent trying to peek through the foliage at the edge of the path.

Then, once mostly certain instead of just relatively, Rosha began to disassemble the living plants that are covering the kindling behind. Not too hard to do, just a tedious task. In the end, though, it was worth it.

Once cleared away, the mechanism of how the trap fired the javelins and lit the fire. Well, the javelin part isn’t all that unique. She had seen it used many times over in the rest of the dungeon.

It was the fire starters that held her attention. More because of the simplicity than any tricky effects. While some Mana was in play, it wasn’t an active part. This was likely to prevent detection by the more magic minded delvers

No, all it was, was the classic rub a stick on another stick. If she had to be more specific, it would be the bow style, which used a bow to spin the stick faster than usual. Though only because it used a string being pulled to spin it.

The only fancy part was the mentioned Mana and that was just infused into the wood the stick was rubbing against. It had a wisp of Fire Mana in it so once it caught, the fire would grow much faster than natural. Even with that, the setup wasn’t all that effective.

Instead, the dungeon had gone for quantity over quality. There were hundreds of the things set up. So many that the deeper areas seemed almost more string than kindling. Not that string wasn’t a perfectly fine source of kindling.

In fact, it appears to her that the dungeon was using that as a way to spread the trap effect even further. After all, it isn’t like you could stretch a string across half the dungeon floor and have it work most of the time. Instead, as parts would burn, it would release what were separate traps even further down the way.

If anything, it made the entire area even deadlier for any fire users. After all, they could easily set the trap off much earlier in the floor and it would block off their exit. A very nasty surprise.

This thankfully made Rosha’s job easier. In fact, after disabling the fire trap furthest from the triggers that was still connected to them, she called the rest of the group back for a little bit of physical labor. This time, the dungeon wasn’t going to set the entire floor on fire, even if she fails.

No, instead the trio and Lily spend a good while clearing out about 120 paces of all foliage. What would hopefully be more than enough space to create a firebreak that would stop the spread? After that, though, the others retreat again, leaving Rosha to handle the rest of the trap.

Not that she is done with the fire starters. In fact, while it is a lot quicker, Rosha works her way back, dissembling everyone of them until she comes upon one of the javelin throwers. Another simple bit of work. Though it uses an interesting bit of tech, a javelin thrower. Except instead of a person holding it, there are what look like saplings being used to provide the throw.

An interesting alternative to the usual mechanic solution. It trades the dependability of the throw for a hair trigger that even one mistake would set off a whole cluster of them, if only because they are packed so tightly together. Not that a javelin thrower is less accurate, just that when attached to a bent over sapling you have less control than when a person uses it or if compared to what is basically a sized up crossbow.

Not that the dungeon need worry about the accuracy. As already mentioned, they’re packed in tight. Swiss cheese would be envious of the number of holes you end up with when hit by the trap.

Now, Rosha was pretty skilled and could take any one of the javelin throwers apart. There were just so many that it was practically assured that she would eventually fail on one of them. So, with that in mind, she turned back to the trigger.

That big mass of pressure plates, tripwires, and wind detectors. All the trap was missing is some kind of thermal sensor for the trap to cover all of its bases. Sure, there was likely some sort of thing it wasn’t able to pick up, but at that point the delver is either hyper specialized or out levels the place enough that the trap didn’t matter in the first place.

Rosha, of course didn’t fit any of those categories. So she sets about taking the thing apart and thankfully, her method of disabling the pressure plates still works a charm. This let her get to the maze of vines.

Tripwires that while are also the same as last time, they’ve been repositioned so Rosha has to figure her way through once more. This time with even more backtracking. The dungeon had gone even more heavily into making the vines overlap in strange ways.

Still, limbo-ing under the vines wasn’t any harder. Just tedious to figure out the best path. So soon enough, she is once again at the fronds. That which killed her last time. Well, the javelins killed her, but really it was the trap as a whole that stopped the group.

Rosha hadn’t even really had a chance to practice against similar traps. Well, she could have technically done so in her home space, but the experience never translates perfectly into the game. Despite that, and the fact that they led to her dying, she feels ready to take them on once again.