Chapter 19: Caution (Patreon)

The young lion was very cautious as he padded towards the gaping doorway. With its hexagonal shape, it looked like a half-open maw, waiting to bite down on him. Or maybe he was just projecting: his own mouth was his greatest weapon, after all.

It always has been, he thought humorously to himself, though not a little ruefully too. His mouth had got him into trouble almost as often as it had got him out of it. Focus, he remonstrated himself as his nose crossed the threshold.

Freezing at that point, Dominic strained his senses to detect any sort of movement, sound, or even sense of watchfulness which might indicate that he was about to get jumped. Not detecting anything, he eased forwards a little, automatically falling into a fluid stalking motion with his head lowered and his muscles tensed for a quick reaction if necessary.

As he took one step and then another into the gloomy space, it seemed like his caution was over-paranoid. No attack came, no shift of movement indicated that there was anything else living in the room.

The tip of Dominic’s tufted tail cleared the threshold. The door slammed shut with a loud bang which made the human-turned-lion almost jump out of his skin.

Moving without thought, the lion jumped a foot off the ground, whirling around mid-air to land turned towards the door. In one fluid motion, he turned his landing into the impetus for another jump, this time leaping at the door, his teeth and claws bared.

Colliding uncomfortably with the door, banging his head in the process, Dominic’s thoughts caught up with his too-quick actions.

Damn it, he swore, growling unhappily as he rubbed at his sore head with one paw. What happened there? It was like...something had taken over. Not Leo – that was the first thing Dominic checked, worried that his leonine passenger had found a way of taking control of their shared body. But no.

It was more like...his reactions were quicker than his thought process, and his reaction to a threat was to attack. Not bad necessarily, but not good either – what if he attacked something he shouldn’t? Something that fought back, that is. Though I think I came off worst from this encounter, he grumbled, even his hard head still throbbing from the collision. The door, of course, was unharmed.

Well, hopefully he’d find a way of either gaining control over his reactions or improving the speed of his thought. At least that whole thing almost proves there isn’t anything in here waiting to attack, Dominic concluded. If there had been, the moment when his back was turned and he’d just been knocked silly by his own attack on an inanimate object would have been the perfect opportunity.

The young lion still checked out the space cautiously – one could never be too careful when one’s life was on the line.

The room wasn’t that large, though it had a high ceiling. Higher than he might have thought, given its outside dimensions. It was – surprise, surprise – hexagonal in appearance with the door providing one of the faces and a mosaic design of some sort on the face opposite. The two faces on either side of the mosaic contained open doorways, their height and width impressive, but no bigger than the doors through which he’d just entered.

The other two faces were almost blank, only holding two braziers which had flared to life as soon as the door had slammed shut. Dominic hadn’t noticed at the time, but it had become evident when he realised that he could still see despite his light source being cut off. The human-turned-lion’s attention was drawn back to the gaping archways, the obvious next step given the lack of other decoration.

I guess one of those go through to the altar, Dominic thought, a little disappointed. After realising he was in a dungeon, he’d hoped for a little more than just the combat-focused room outside, but it looked like his hopes were in vain. Oh well. He might as well go and get his reward then, whatever those question marks in the original description indicated.

Deciding to go right first, he padded forwards quietly and cautiously. Just because he couldn’t see anything didn’t mean there was no danger: Dominic had watched enough Indiana Jones to know that arrows could come flying out of walls or stone balls could threaten to crush an intruder at the most unexpected of times.

Beyond the archway was a dimly-lit corridor; It was about fifteen feet long, but there was a bend to the left at the end which prevented him from seeing whether it led directly into a room, had more corridor beyond, or was a dead end. The light level was very low, only the brazier behind him and another opposite the doorway on the wall of the bend providing light. Fortunately, Dominic’s night vision was easily able to deal with conditions which would have been very murky to his human eyes.

What about the other archway? Did that lead somewhere more promising? Dominic padded past the mosaic and peered through the archway to the left. It was honestly identical; the only difference was that the bend at the end led to the right. Do they lead to the same room? he wondered. I guess I’ll have to find out. Now, which way first?

Since he was already in front of one archway, he decided that he might as well go through it. Slowly moving, all his senses on high alert, he took a step.

His caution was immediately rewarded. A quiet snick met his ears a fraction of a second before he flinched backwards. Having only placed a single paw down, it was easy enough to withdraw his foot.

Just in time. Sharp, narrow spikes shot up from barely-noticeable holes in the floor. They were only about three feet high, but that could have seriously messed up his day if he’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Would a level up even fix a gut wound, or would it just replenish my health and leave me with the injury to deal with? Dominic wondered, feeling a little shaken.

Before his eyes, the spikes slowly retracted, vanishing once more into the floor. Now he knew what he was looking for, he could see the gaps from which the spikes had emerged. They were narrow, only about three times the size of a pin-hole.

Taking a deep breath, Dominic gave himself a pep talk. You knew traps were possible. Now you know they’re here for sure, you can keep an eye out for them. Although he’d never explored a trapped corridor, he got the basics.

Suspect any anomalies in the decoration of the walls, floor, or ceiling which could hide spikes, projectiles, falling blades etc. Keep an eye out for rolling balls of stone coming to get him. Watch out for any bit of floor that looked like it might give way to drop him into a pit or slide. Avoid any sort of obvious trigger. And if he did accidentally step on something that moved, get the hell out of there. I can do this.

Pausing for a moment, the human-turned-lion debated with himself whether he should level up. More speed would help, wouldn’t it?he wondered. Well...maybe. Then again, maybe not. He didn’t know enough about these traps yet to know. If he was likely to be injured, more health would probably be better. Actually, maybe it was better to leave the level up in reserve: since it replenished both his SP and HP, it could pull him back from the brink in an emergency. Decided, he turned his gaze back to the corridor ahead of him.

His eyes focusing intently, Dominic decided that the first thing was to work out how the spike trap had been triggered. Is it from motion? He waved his paw above the holes, then waited, listening intently. Nothing happened. There was no clicking sound no movement. Not motion, then.

Next test. Is it touch sensitive? Without applying any pressure, Dominic touched the surface of the dotted grey stone. Once more quickly withdrawing his paw, he waited to see if there was any reaction. There wasn’t.

So, it’s pressure-activated, he concluded, this time putting his weight on the paw briefly before withdrawing it. Expecting the spikes to suddenly jut out, he was surprised and frustrated when there was still no reaction. Has it been deactivated, or something?Dominic demanded mentally.

Huffing in irritation, he dared to step forwards a little bit more. Ready to leap away at any moment, he put one paw and then the next on the area. No reaction. It must be a single use trap,he concluded. Then a nasty thought occurred. Or it’s deactivated for a time, but will become active again later.

Although he intended to push forwards now, it was worth keeping the possibility in the back of his mind that his route back might not be as safe as he thought.

Looking ahead, he tried to spot any indications of other traps. His eyes picked out two more sets of dotted stone – spikes for sure. Unless they were something else disguised as spikes. Either way, a trap.

He noted a couple of marks on the corridor walls which could easily be something. Either that, or they were just cracks. Fortunately, the corridors were the same unembellished stone which seemed to make up everything else in this ‘temple’. Much easier to spot anomalies on plain stone than the carven edifices which could have been there.

Dominic edged forwards, inch by inch. His padded and furry paws made very little sound, even in this enclosed, silent environment. On high alert, the human-turned-lion was able to avoid another spike trap, and noticed the trigger stone for something else – it was very slightly raised above the level of the other stone tiles.

He ducked under a set of suspicious marks in the wall, lowering himself onto his belly to crawl beneath them rather than risk being shot with something. After a time, though, and only halfway toward the bend, the tension started to get to him.

The silence was unnerving, as were the relatively narrow confines. Leo really didn’t like this space and his sense of being caged meshed uncomfortably with Dominic’s wariness, each emotion heightening the other. He found himself speeding up little by little, wanting to get to the end of the corridor which was as frustratingly close as it was still so far away.

It was inevitable. He was bound to make a mistake at some point: he was so far from being an expert at this kind of thing that it was amazing he’d got through unscathed so far. When the moment came, however, he felt the bottom drop out of his stomach.

Or maybe that was just the consequence of the tiles below him falling away.

*****

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