HC: Handyman | Ch. 24 - Puzzles (Patreon)

Jack studied the cute, furry chest. Despite almost getting killed multiple times by an army of flying boots to get here, its lock mocked him. He had tried everything: punching the chest, hitting it with his quarterstaff, and, in an unseemingly moment, begging Piri on his knees to unlock it. The only thing he didn’t try, and that he wouldn’t try, was kicking it. Piri had already traumatized him. He knew better than to kick anything again in his life.

The chest from the previous maze run required a puzzle to open. This one had no dials, just an ordinary keyhole. That begged the question: where was the key? It had to be hidden somewhere in this maze.

“Map.”

Even though it lacked a marker to show his current location, Jack knew where he was. Piri had hidden the chest at the upper right corner of the map. The key had to be somewhere in the fogged area he hadn’t explored yet. He wished he could set some sort of teleportation pad here so that he could avoid having to run back all the way here.

Jack kept the map open and headed toward the unexplored part of the dungeon. Every time he came to an intersection, he dropped a tin dart on the ground to mark the direction he had come from. That would save him the hassle of having to find his way back. If he could do anything to save himself from thinking, he would.

The traps in this maze didn’t reset. Once he’d sprung them, he was in the clear. That took some of the pressure off, and it was surprising how much faster it was to run the maze if one wasn’t afraid of being kicked to death. His supply of torches was half-spent, but it was still more than enough to run this maze leisurely. It was a good thing he’d bought some extra torches before tackling this dungeon.

Jack finally arrived at the unexplored section of the maze. From here on out, he would have to tread carefully. Any false step could cost him his life. Jack sidestepped whatever traps he came across and eventually, found what he guessed was the key’s location. It was a dead end, on the corner of the maze opposite where the chest was. There was no key in sight, but there was something that he hadn’t seen anywhere else in this maze. It was a burning torch on the wall. Jack approached it, frowning.

“Why is this here?” he asked aloud, his voice bouncing off the pink walls. Since Piri was paying the power bill for this part of the maze, Jack immediately put his own torch away.

Jack reached for the torch and try to take it off its holder. He grabbed it easily, but nothing extraordinary happened. “Wait a minute!” As he was about to scream his discovery, he stopped himself. Piri was listening. Wait a minute! He screamed to himself mentally. I can take torches off the walls?! Then I left a fortune in torches back at the tutorial! Could I have taken those?

The realization soured his mood, and he could feel his eyes tear up. He had been so stupid! “Why, Rob?! Why did you have to make me run these dungeons without consulting tutorials?” This part was OK to shout aloud.

He felt the urge to kick something, bang his head against the wall, or vent his frustration somehow, but he knew better than to display any kind of violence toward the dungeon master. He tried to calm himself down.

“So, I don’t get anything from removing the torch,” he said as he carefully put it back on the metal holder fastened to the wall. “What if I twist it?” He tried turning it clockwise, and nothing happened. He tried in the other direction, and the holder gave. It rotated ninety degrees until there was a satisfying pop.

Click.

“OK. Now we’re getting somewhere. What now? Do I have to reset it?”

He put it back as he found it, and nothing happened. He tried turning it again, and once the torch was at 9 o’clock, he tried pushing and pulling it. The metal piece used to fasten the torch to the wall gave and came slightly off the wall. It was hollow, and inside of the holder was a large bronze key.

Jack smiled and felt his heart race. These mazes could be challenging and frustrating, but there was something incredibly rewarding about finding the answers to the puzzles on one’s own. Even though he was still upset about possibly missing out on having an inventory filled with torches, he understood why Rob had suggested he tried facing these troubles on his own. It was much more fun this way.

Since he had solved this puzzle, Jack removed the torch from the wall and used it to traverse his way back to the chest. Every time he came to an intersection, he located the dropped dart, picked it up, and followed that direction. He was back to the chest in five minutes. He took the key from his inventory and inserted it into the hole and the chest opened.

Congratulations! You’ve completed Piri’s Cute Maze II!

+1500xp

You’ve received 5x[Basic Torch]. 

You’ve received [Blocking Stance].

You’ve received 50 coppers.

Jack collected his rewards and was transported out of the pyramid. The torches were most welcome. He had spent eight of them in the maze. This was the first time that he had gained money from a maze. He hadn’t realized that it would be included in the loot. The other reward turned out to be a skill book.

Blocking Stance (Common)

Description: Talented warriors can position their body to reduce a strike's impact.

Effect:

Active. +10 block for 1 second.

Your equipment can’t lose durability for the duration of the skill.

Restrictions: Lvl. 3.

It was a skill designed to increase survivability. This skill would require impeccable timing. Having only a one-second window seemed too little to Jack, but he hadn’t exactly battled inside the game. Perhaps it was longer than he was giving it credit for. 

Ten block was almost double what his current equipment granted, but the real beauty of the skill was in preventing his equipment from losing durability. 

Are you sure you want to learn [Blocking Stance]?

You’ve learned [Blocking Stance].

Jack considered what to do next. He was one level short of reaching five and learning the [First Aid] skill. He was starting to feel tired from running maze after maze. Even though it was a fun activity, he felt he needed a change soon. Sighing, he decided to run one last dungeon to reach level 5 and then take a break from the psychopathic pyramid.

He didn’t have anything to sell besides almost spent torches, but he wanted to get a few more, just in case. Since this wasn’t a purchase that he minded Piri knowing about, he used the nearer marketplace. Gritting his teeth, he spent five silvers to buy five more basic torches and marched back to the pyramid.

Instead of kicking, he gently caressed the pyramid stone as if it were a precious family heirloom. He selected ‘Piri’s Cute Maze III’ and was transported into the maze. As he arrived, the sight around him brought tears to his eyes. He fell to his knees and brought his hands to his mouth. There were torches everywhere. He didn’t need to spend money on this maze run!

Was this because he had treated Piri gently? If so, he would lick the pyramid’s boots all day long. “Oh, Piri. You’re an incredible pyramid. Your architecture is transcendental. You illuminate my soul!” He praised with his hands stretched up high. 

Jack hated bootlicking. But there was one thing he hated even more than that, and that was hard work. Between treating Piri kindly and having her come up with tortured, deadly traps, he would sing praises to her all day. He had never done this for any boss or supervisor. A man had his pride. This, however, was a different situation. An angry boss wouldn’t kill him with flying boots, arrows, or darts. 

Despite the happy change, Jack licked his lip and, gulping, studied the area around him. He had spawned at an intersection. Corridors stretched wherever he looked. It was time to get the show on the road. After checking Piri hadn’t made him spawn on any trap, the second thing that Jack did was approach one of the torches and inspect it. It had ten durability. He counted the seconds it usually took for a torch to lose one durability point. After receiving the [Novice Explorer] title, it went up from 60 seconds per durability point to 70 seconds. He waited for two full minutes, and still nothing happened.

That meant that as long as the torch was on its holder, it would remain lit indefinitely. Jack started running the dungeon, grabbing torches and stuffing them into his inventory. “Oh, Piri. You’re such an incredible pyramid. I’m going to take these torches as souvenirs of our time together. You’ve touched my life, and these are priceless mementos.”

Even though that was what he was saying aloud, what he was actually thinking was: one silver, two silvers, three silvers, four silvers. Jack kept going along the corridor, picking silver coins as if he were yanking grass back in Bright Hill. 

He halted.

A small reflection had come on and off view. Squatting, he found a very thin wire. “A trip wire.” Jack bit his lip. Should he trigger it, or should he just walk over it? In the short time he’d been here, he had already collected two stacks of basic torches. If things kept going this well, he’d soon run out of space.

Since torches were more valuable than projectiles, and there seemed to be more than enough of them to stuff his inventory, he left one lonesome torch marking the location of this trap and kept going. Jack eventually found the first remarkable place in the maze when he completed his sixth stack of torches.

It was a dead end. The remarkable thing about it was that there were torches on one side of the corridor but not on the other, which Jack immediately found suspicious. Tapping his foot, Jack pondered his next movement. He tried turning the torches on the wall like in the previous maze, but nothing happened. He removed the existing torches on the walls, and nothing happened either. Finally, he took a few torches from his inventory and placed them on the empty holders on the other wall.

Click!

Jack ducked, but no damage numbers appeared. The mechanical sound was incredibly similar to the one when traps activated. The pyramid had just signaled that he had achieved something, maybe completed a part of the puzzle.

The occasional torch signaling where traps he’d located previously were enough to illuminate his trip back, and eventually, he found himself at the intersection where he’d started the maze. This time, he took a different turn, collecting every torch he could get along the way.

He reached another dead end. This only had one missing torch. Jack tried the same trick earlier, placing a new torch in the empty spot, but nothing occurred. He could only pry another click from the pyramid once he removed the torch from the opposite side of the corridor.

Click!

Feeling smug, Jack waltzed back to the starting point and explored the rest of the labyrinth. He completed two similar puzzles in two other dead-ends. On one, he had to turn all the torches 90º before getting a click. On the other, one of the torches worked as a lever. As he pulled it, there was a fourth click, and the maze shook. Dust fell off the ceiling, and the flames of the torches on the dead end flickered. There was a deep rumble and the sound of stone scraping against stone and then silence. 

Something had obviously happened, but Jack couldn’t tell what it was. He looked around but found no chest. “What did I miss?” he asked Piri. 

Jack retraced his steps. His inventory was full of torches. This maze alone had given him 200, the greatest bounty he’d gotten on New Earth yet. If he sold each of them for 1 silver, he was talking about roughly 200 silver or 2 gold.

Jack returned to the maze's starting point and found out what the awesome sound he’d heard earlier was. An open chest was waiting for him.

Ch. 23 - Flying Boot

INDEX

Ch. 25 - Bulletin Board