NOVEL NEXT Chapter 75 – Deep Basement
The center of Dais Floor was a terraced village of flat surfaces on top of a wide natural arch hanging over a deep chasm that seemed bottomless.
The ‘houses’ where Argoidar lived on the stone terraces were just carved boundary lines on the ground. In general, the area looked like a life-size 3D blueprint of a planned village instead of real village.
Some Argoidars moved slowly along ‘corridors’ that were just parallel straight lines. Others simply stood inside ‘rooms’ of carved squares and octagons. Every ‘room’ had one or two openings to a ‘corridor’ so they were able to move out of the rooms without crossing a line.
Argoids lived in imaginary buildings, like impoverished aliens trying to imitate life in a human village. If anyone dared to cross a line that represented a wall, they attacked en masse and ripped the taboo-breaker apart with bone blades and pushed the gibs down to the chasm below.
“I’m going to say it again to make sure everyone understands: do not step on the lines or over the lines. These carved lines are sacred to Argoidar. They hate it if you disrespect their tribe. Imagine that every carved line here is an infinitely tall and impassable wall. Move through the central paths that do not have any crossing lines. Don’t touch the Argoidar, that’s a mistake noobs always make here: they get impatient, try to push them out of the way, and end up dying. If some Argoids look like they’re coming towards you, look down; if there’s a line, they won’t cross it. And if there’s no line, step aside and let them pass. Bodhi and Kraj, we good?”
“Yes.” (Reavertooth)
“Yes.” (Ivorythief)
“Intriguing. A stage play without set pieces.” (Crys)
“Yeah, they are basically automatons performing an endless role-playing game. If you mess up their routines, they temporarily all break that illusion and attack you without caring about anything else. But if you don’t trigger them, this is one of the rare safe areas in Deep Basement. It’s pretty lucky that the new route drops here instead of one level above or one level below... Hey, T-Sub, keep your hands next to your body, don’t take any unnecessary risks.”
“Yes, master. I won’t touch anything. But I have a question: were all these creatures created by Strangers?” (T-Sub)
“No info on that. Maybe they were here before Strangers. Maybe they are an ancient tribe following some pseudo-wiccan religious practice where magic circles cannot be broken, and you cannot step outside a circle unless you draw a door. But then again, since Strangers kind of wanted to segregate the world into separate rooms and areas – or at least that’s the conclusion you could draw from Starfish Mansion roomworlds, Ur landwalls, and so on – maybe here, instead of building solid walls, they just carved some frames and forced the deviant slaves to stay inside them? But that raises the question of why. Like, surely they weren’t lacking in resources. And would the slaves actually respect the frames and pretend they cannot step over generation after generation? Perhaps it was an experiment in saving resources and observing how obediently these deviants believe in imaginary walls. Is it a room if there are no walls? Crys, what do you think?”
“A patchwork without a purpose. A religion for simpletons.” (Crys)
“So, if we follow the conjecture that Strangers sliced, diced and dismantled the whole Le Continent out of existence and used the chunks to create all the roomworlds of Starfish Mansion, you could continue that line of thought by saying that Deep Basement is a collection of all the random throwaway parts Strangers didn’t care enough for to put behind nice portal doors.”
“So this is Strangers landfill. Repulsive.” (Kimono)
“Well, it’s just one conjecture. There are similar old ruins and similarly hostile creatures in rooms above ground, so it’s hard to know what Strangers found undesirable and desirable. Maybe these areas are the parts they liked enough to put in the same pocket space, which would mean that the nicer rooms above are the undesirable parts in separate containers. Who knows?”
“So, they maybe weren’t created by Strangers…” (T-Sub)
Our resident Strangers otaku seemed immediately less interested in Argoidar.
Suddenly, a low monstrous howl came from the chasm below. It echoed in the cavern like a slowed and throwed whale song mixed with a lion’s roar.
The twins immediately jumped at the edge of the Argoidar Flat to look down into the dark abyss. Fortunately there wasn’t any lines to cross there; I felt a chill go down my spine when they used their movement skill here.
“No need to freak out, boys. It’s just a friendly monster five levels down saying hi, singing the song of its people. It makes loud noises when triggered, but that’s about all it does. Ignore it, it’s literally low-level.”
Let’s say it’s friendly and low-level because I don’t want the twins to get excited about a new boss target. Stay calm and pretend that the jumpscare audio doesn’t faze me at all.
I kept walking forward, but T-Sub kept taking fighting stances next to me.
“Master, what was that?” (T-Sub)
“I’m also interested in hearing what kind of creature makes that noise.” (Crys)
“It’s a full-on ghost apparition called Abyss Poltergeist. It’s big and loud, and you need some special stuff to deal with it, but it’s not that bad. Just annoying, really. Completely avoidable, just pick a different path. I’ll draw you a picture later.”
Crys understood that I avoided details because there were too many sensitive ears around.
In general, we don’t need to worry about horror-level monsters living in remote silly places. Normal citizens don’t care about mountain gorillas or Komodo dragons. They may be more dangerous than baseline humans in physical strength or other aspects, but they just live their NPC lives in their own small areas. They don’t buy long weapons wholesale or seek personal revenge against us. They don’t try to actively take over the world.
While we carefully crossed the Argoidar Flats area in contemplative silence and ignored the howls from below, I re-checked everyone’s reaction faces.
Crys kept looking around with great interest, as did T-Sub. The twins were stone-faced behind their masks, but zigzagged around like seasoned FPS players; never stopping, never dropping their guard.
Only Kimono looked spooked by the strange noises and strange architecture – or maybe by the Argoidar shuffling around and staring us from imaginary rooms like satiated zombies. Normally she would’ve hurled more insults on me, but here she talked in whispers.
I guess it’s spooky in general to find out that colossal underground caverns like this exist under your home. People who live in modern megacities rarely think about all the underground rail lines, maintenance tunnels, sewage systems, floodwater cathedrals and abandoned car parks from the petrol era occupied by homeless people under their nice apartment buildings. You think you’re walking on solid ground, but there might be a relatively thin layer of asphalt, rock and dirt separating you from a long death drop into an artificial void.
I suddenly remembered an old streamer meme and smiled. I took a linen handkerchief from my shoulder bag, sidestepped inside an empty Argoidar room through a doorway and placed the handkerchief in the middle of the room.
”Master, what are you doing?” (T-Sub)
Kimono clicked her tongue and whispered curses on me.
“You just said not to take unnecessary risks, idiot!” (Kimono)
“There’s a doorway, I didn’t disturb any lines. But I do agree that this was so completely unnecessary.”
They don’t need to understand. This one’s only for you, old chat.
After leaving the Argoidar terraces behind, we hiked down another steeply sloping cave ramp and reached ruins of yet another ancient temple-like structure – remnants of some earlier anthropocenic strata.
At the bottom of the slope, there was a triangular opening called A-tunnel, and on the left side of the tunnel there was a half-circle that looked like reverse D formed by a protrusion on the wall. On the right side of the triangle, you could see a stone carving that looked like runic letter S.
This is why D-A-S floor got its original fanon name. The name evolved into Dais Floor later when a player pointed out that the tall pillar next to the tunnel should be added to the name as letter “I”.
After the triangle tunnel, we found ourselves in front of tall double doors of pseudo-Parthian design. Carved in the middle of the dark metal doors, there was a simple yet disturbing emblem: three downwards arrows that looked like a human face, with eyes and mouth pierced with sticks.
“Okay, listen up. The sub-area behind these doors usually has four groups of hostiles, all groups consisting of armored deviants called Shok-Shoks. They are kinda like Argoidar in reverse because Shok-Shoks are instantly hostile and move pretty fast despite wearing heavy armor. Their main ranged attack is to throw javelins, and main melee attack is to rub their hands together and generate magical triboelectricity. If you get hit by the glow of their hands, you get stunned, and the Shok-Shoks then try to strangle you or kick you with their spiked sabatons. In general, keep some distance and try to maneuver behind them, and aim for their lumbar – that is, their lower back spine, that’s their crit point. Crys and Kim, since you’re here, this is gonna go faster with six-person party. Get two incendiaries ready and throw them on the right side on a count of five after opening the door. There’s a bit of a precise timing we’re going for. There’s a ramp and a tunnel going down and forward on the right side, and stairs going up and forward on the left side. Ignore the disorientation caused by the flashing dungeon lights, it’s basically their security alarm. Just count to five and throw a firebomb on the right tunnel. Bodhi and Kraj, you attack down and forward; two more groups usually come from the stone huts you see on your forward and left–”
When players came to Shok-Shok area for the first time, they usually started a fight with the first group coming from the right side and then got ambushed from behind by the second group coming down the stairs. If the Shok-Shok guards here move as expected, we can use their routines against them. With explosives and correct timing, it’s easy to spawnkill them even without LOS.
“Crys and Kim: after the first firebombs, count to five again and throw another pair of bombs to the staircase just in case some of them slacked on response time.”
“Sure. Five and five.” (Crys)
“Then, after the first hits, we can pretty much wallbang rest of the enemies – that is, the domes of their tribe huts look like solid stone, but it’s actually just stone panels on stone frames. Projectiles can easily penetrate the panels between support beams, so just shoot the walls. It’s best to kill them before they grab their gear. But again, if they get close enough to melee, don’t try to block their electropalms, step back and put some obstacles between you and them.”
Here we go massacring again.
To make a short story shorter: after burning and massacring the Shok-Shok village as planned, we went down yet another set of stone stairs.
We crossed an empty rectangular sub-area that looked like a multicolored Courier Chess board filled with half-melted statues of winged demons. Probably some strange whim of an ancient sculptor.
Then we found ourselves in front of double doors filled with exotic carvings that made the metal surfaces look like embedded Persian carpets. Next to the doors was a black metal bell the size of a human head decorated with sharp metal spikes attached to an overhang.
“This one is called Bell of Undeath. Do not ring the bell. The undead appear automatically, if you ring the bell. So don’t do it.”
“Stop repeating every little detail. You already warned us before.” (Kimono)
“Kim-chan, the steps you want to take in this senseless place are very specific. The things you want to avoid are very specific. One little mistake and everything here might instakill you. I don’t want anyone to mess this up. I don’t want to single out anyone who might be prone to messing up, so I talk to all of you in general.”
“I’m sorry, master.” (T-Sub)
“Without singling out anyone particularly: do not touch the spiky bell, T-Sub.”
Pressure, stress and anxiety: if you’re into one or more of those, be sure to visit Deep Basement.
T-Sub pushed the doors open and we entered an empty hall illuminated by a dungeon light in the middle.
The floor of the hall was made of small round pebbles. There were two sets of pebbled stairs leading down to different directions.
“Okay, the stairs on the left lead to Abyss Trap. Never ever go there. The steps look like they lead to the bottom of a pit, but the pit has no bottom as far as I know. The steps soon turn into helical stairs and they start to get narrower and narrower, and then there’s a gap and some missing steps, and then a bit wider gap, and eventually the steps disappear almost completely and you have to keep going down by jumping between randomly spaced metal bars or recesses in the walls. At that point you don’t want to turn back because you’ve put in too much effort to give up, so you keep going down until you miss a step and fall – and that’s when the bottom of the abyss suddenly jumps at you, like it was waiting right there one meter below you in the darkness all the time. It attacks and kills you with fall damage.”
Abyss Trap was an endless platformer for gamers who hoped to find a treasure at the bottom.
There was no treasure. It was a Fall Damage Mimic waiting for prey.
Abyss Trap runs were a separate challenge category back in the early days. The most hardcore Abyss Trap runners could get around 40,000 steps deep before falling and hitting the jumpscare floor. My personal record from the early days – when I still did Deep Basement runs – was only around 18,000 steps. Pretty weak, huh?
Anyway, we chose to go down the steps on the right this time.
Finally, we reached the “Level of Three Levers” – the puzzle trap before teleportation trap.
These three levers were immortalized in a famous meme video. You’ve all seen that, right?
In the old meta, teleportation trap room was a must for fast Winter Forest clear, but in the current world record speedruns Basement Skip existed, so visiting Deep Basement wasn’t necessary at all.
I’d like to extend big shout-outs to early Mu-Ur runners like x_FCHeasy_x for routing this area and finding all the legacy starts I’m using here.
“Ladies and gentlemen, our objective is right behind this weird-looking door mechanism. As you can see, there are three levers embedded on the door. If you pull the first lever down, the door opens, but the teleportation platform doesn’t work and other levers don’t do anything. So we don’t want to pull that. Second lever down and the door doesn’t open, but the teleportation platform brings in monsters from somewhere else, so that’s a trap. Third lever down, and the teleporter trigs after a 90 second timer, but the door stays closed. So all of these three levers are actually traps.”
“Skip to the point.” (Kimono)
“I was getting to the point. What you actually want to do is pull down first lever and third lever at the same time. Nasty user interface, isn’t it? When you do that, the door opens and some undead enemies spawn, but it also starts the 90-second timer for teleportation. When the timer reaches zero, the teleportation platform transfers exactly four characters in the Ice Dungeon below Winter Forest. But if there are less or more than exactly four people in the circle, more undead get teleported in instead and the timer has to be restarted. So, if you solo this room without sidekicks, you want to pull exactly three enemies on the platform with you while keeping others outside the circle. Which is kinda finicky.”
“We got it already.” (Kimono)
“And then you would kill the helpful enemies on the other side after teleportation. That’s it, now you’re thinking with portals. Thank you, you’ve been a great audience.”
In that famous meme video, a casual player kept yanking all the levers up and down in sync with upbeat music, opening and closing the door while spawning more and more monsters in the room until a pile of monsters eventually managed to flood out and kill the player.
In the game, it was a real chore to escort three NPC sidekicks alive into this place and then hope that their AI cooperates to kill the spawns and take their place in the teleport circle. If one sidekick missed the circle, you ended up with more monsters to kill before you could exit the room and start a new attempt.
“Let’s take a short rest and gear up for Winter Forest before starting the timer. Our destination is Ice Cave Dungeon, so change now and store some warmth before the cold. Layers are the key, get some insulating air between the layers.”
Multiple shirts and pants. Three pairs of socks. Gloves inside gloves. Balaclava and tuque. Top the setup with a heavy, white camouflage winter cloak.
Reavertooth and Ivorythief looked like puffy dark elves under their cloaks. They knew from experience how cold the Winter Forest was. They were Firelanders from volcanic islands, they weren’t used to cold areas. At the same time, they didn’t want to hinder their movements with heavy clothing.
Their setup was an uneven compromise between warmth and mobility, but since they moved practically all the time, it should be fine.
I checked my time card.
“We’re advancing on good pace. We can probably hit the first level of Ice Dungeon before sundown. While we are inside the teleportation room, don’t touch any of the statues or pull any levers on the walls on the opposite side. Don’t step to the altar either, there are floor traps on the other side of the platform. Bodhi, Kraj and T-sub – cut the heads of the four undead when they spawn, throw their bodies off the circle, and take their place on the platform. Then we just wait until the silent timer counts to zero. Keep all your appendages inside the magic circle. Crys and Kim, stay outside the circle. Everyone ready? If you need a biobreak, better go now.”
“We ready.” (Reavertooth)
“Ready.” (Ivorythief)
“I’m ready, master.” (T-Sub)
“Ready.” (Crys)
“…” (Kimono)
“Kim, are you ready? You have to say ready like everyone else, don’t just roll your eyes.”
“Yes, I’m ready.” (Kimono)
“Excellent. Let me just pour some flammable oil on the flag...”
I readied my Sultanate flagstaff with Revolution Movement’s blue V-flag.
“Another trick attempt?” (Crys)
“Yep. I’ll set the flag on fire and hold part of the staff outside the circle. I’m kind of trying to put half of the pole in my shoulder bag while keeping the burning half outside the circle. I mean, since we’re here and all... Something glitchy might happen, you never know...”
I’m basically trying to force a burning flagstaff into my nonexistent inventory. Nothing can go wrong. Surely nothing goes wrong.
The undead teleported in. They went down easy. We took their place. Say no more.
“Alright, Santa’s Elf Squad, stay still. The teleport effect is gonna kick in any moment now!”
“Master, will there be pain?” (T-Sub)
“Nah, it’s just a jumpcut. But don’t hold your breath just in case, it could be a long jaunt… I’m just kidding.”
The twins weren’t concerned or surprised by the teleportation circle at all. Their home dungeon in Fireland didn’t have teleportation circles as such, but there were enemies that used pseudo-teleportation to move around, and they themselves used skills that mimicked short-range teleportation.
Crys and Kimono watched the teleportation sequence outside the circle. I held part of the burning flagstaff outside the circle with my left arm and waved with my right arm exaggeratedly, with a stilted smile on my face.
“Bye bye, best friends! Don’t step on any lines on the way back!”
ZAP