Chapter 28- A Hidden Door

As it turned out there was a cave system hidden under this particular waterfall, after tying a few arrows together along with a layer of moss and algae I managed to rig together a decent torch.

Well in between trying to ring out my mop-like hair. After getting it completely wet and soaked I vowed to cut it after this. The rouge homeless man look was going out of style anyway, the beard should go as well.

Damn itchy thing.

"You're like a wet cat," Ivar said with a small chuckle as he turned back towards me and illuminated me with his torch.

"Fuck you" I said as I motioned to continue forward. I was still mad about being pranked, falling off a waterfall was toeing the line of a prank anyway. But I had to admit it was probably funny from an outsider's perspective.

It wasn't too much longer before I was getting flashbacks of the Rat King's Maze. Looking at Ivar's tense look as he stood beside I knew he felt that way as well. To be honest the maze was worse than this floor, at least so far. 

Physically this floor was no doubt more demanding, I had almost died twice and that was being generous. But comparing the amount of mental strain the maze brought was like comparing night and day. 

Hell, I was only in it for a few weeks and I felt like I was beginning to go insane. More than a few times I found myself wondering if there even was an exit or if my efforts were just useless.

As I looked at the three cave openings before us I let out a frustrated sigh. However, one thing caught my attention, through each of the pathways familiar torches lit the way. The same ones that were in the Rat King's maze.

Apprehension filled my being as I realized we might have found our way out of this floor, for better or worse.

"Any idea?" Ivar asked after we judged our new problem for a few moments. 

I didn't, well I had two ideas but they both sucked.

Splitting up was one. A valid plan when there were only two of us, but this tower was simply too dangerous for either of us to go alone. 

The other option would be picking a pathway at random and going together. 

Both options sucked and were completely stupid. Still, they were the only options we had. 'well they would have been.' I thought to myself as I pulled out the enchanted spyglass. Without a doubt the boss room we were looking for held treasures, meaning the most abundantly filled one had to be the right way.

We had traveled easily a kilometer into this cave, going further and further down as we did. Surely if there was treasure in this place I would be able to see it with the 'Eye of Tullius' now.

'Five dots, three green ones in the center while to the right a green and a gray one? What the hell does gray mean?' It was so faint I honestly felt that my eyes were just playing tricks on me. But through the complete blackness, I saw a small gray dot right next to an uncommon-grade item.

I was extremely curious.

"Three uncommon grade items in the middle path, one uncommon grade item to the right along with something I can't identify" I reported to my companion as I dropped the treasure-detecting spyglass back into my enchanted bag.

"You can't identify it? But it still shows up?" Ivar asked, confused. While we have only had the 'Eye of Tullius' for a week we have spent that week thoroughly testing its capabilities. 

We've determined that its maximum range is roughly three hundred yards, it can't detect items of a higher quality than itself. When detecting treasures it shows them as circular shapes with two possible colors. 

White shows things like gold or money and possibly other more mundane things of value.

Green would denote that the treasure is an uncommon enchanted item.

But now there was a third color and I was eager to figure out what that meant.

"Yeah, it's a gray ball. Extremely close to an enchanted item, I have no idea what it could mean." I replied as we began to debate. Soon we agreed that figuring out something new about possibly our best equipment took precedence over whatever else.

With our decision made, we began traveling through the right pathway.

We have traveled pretty deep into this cave system and I'd be lying if I said that didn't make me nervous. This was akin to a dungeon inside of a dungeon, there should be enemies blocking our way from progressing through.

Or this could be leading us to the boss's room. While a mini-boss could appear to block our path there, making fodder enemies useless.

Despite my nerves and misgivings, we continued forward without a single problem, well despite the path ending.

"Well isn't this a familiar and aggravating experience" Ivar said as we both looked at the dead end in front of us. I shrugged and pulled out the spyglass.

Nothing in front of us but to my left the two enchanted items were so close I felt as if I could jump to it.

Slightly confused I pocketed the spyglass and examined the wall that barred my path. 

It looked like a completely normal cave wall, jagged and uneven.

I almost gave up but an idea came to me. I put my palm on the wall and tried to send my mana into it, much like I did when I used my gauntlet. 

As it turned out it was challenging to move the 'energy' inside me. So difficult in fact that I felt it might be impossible for me without the gauntlet as a conduit.

However, I was hesitant to try it with my gauntlet-clad arm if I mistakenly used too much and used the fireball spell. Well, I'd get a face full of flames for my trouble.

"What are you trying to do Ace? That's just a wall" Ivar asked as if I'd gone crazy. 

I just shrugged it off as my curiosity got the best of me and I put my left palm on the wall. 

Activating the gauntlet was never hard, even when I first took off the goblin's corpse. The energy would come from my stomach and flow up and out of my palm at a simple gesture.

I've already begun finding loopholes in that enchantment. 

The item description read that I could shoot a fireball for fifty mana, it said no more or no less.

But I found I could shoot more than one at once while I could also rapidly fire. Shouldn't it be possible to cut off the 'spell' halfway?

It would be all up to timing. As the runes on my gauntlet lit with an orange glow I immediately felt the energy in my body move. I let it go, flowing from my stomach to my arm unimpeded. Once I felt it touch my palms I jerked and did my best to stop the activation.

A blue mist-like substance petered out of my hand and washed over the cave wall. I was entranced as I watched the cave wall glitch and then fade away. Soon a stone door appeared completely covered in runes that were all alit, most likely due to my intrusion.

"Holy shit, a hidden do…" before I could finish my elated sentence the runes on the stone door became extremely bright. 

Before I knew it I was sent flying back into the wall behind me.