Seeds of Discordia

Everyone was completely frozen as they stared at the skeletal Naga figures that were looking back down on them from above. The fact there were skeleton creatures in this dungeon made them all think back on the Graveyard of the Forgotten Realm back in the Tutorial Area.

It was a Forgotten Realm revolving around the downfall of the Askith Nation. A race known as an Arisen that was a Lich related to the Seven Immoral Vices had orchestrated the downfall of that nation by isolating them and then disguising itself as a healer when really it was slowly turning all the people into skeletons and zombies and sacrificing their souls for a ritual.

Gimmel and Val may have been frozen like the others, but what they were thinking was nowhere near what Liam, Avery, Ariyana, Artem, Blair, Mercer, and Roman were. In the two minds they were trying to process why they were seeing skeletal Nagas. As for the rest, they were hoping that this dungeon wasn't anything like their first. Because if this was then they were given another reason why they needed to beat this dungeon as fast as they could.

Their thoughts were interrupted, and they came back to the present as the undead creatures started to make their move. They didn't move fast, but they were dexterous enough to be able to move from one pipe to the next. Where they were hanging was near the back wall of the room, which they came to see was farther than they had first thought now that the lights were filling the entire room. Another thing they were to see was the area where the steps suddenly end was now in clear view. It looked like a massive pit meant to hold something.

After a quick glance within they were able to see it was cemented with the same materials as the walls and floor. They also noticed several areas where circular metallic walls were. Liam guessed they had to be part of some drainage system, and the walled parts were the stopper.

An idea suddenly popped into Liam's head as he turned his head right and left to see if he could find it. After a quick glance he was able to find what he was looking for. To the left of them against the corner wall were wheels, nobs, and a massive pully that dangled from the massive pipe way up above it.

Putting two and two together, Liam shouted, "It's a Pipe Puzzle!"

Everyone swiftly turned to look at him with a confused look. They all saw him pointing to something at the corner of the room to their left and slowly began to understand what he meant. However, they were now confused on what exactly they should do. That was until Mercer called out, "Who's good at these types of puzzles?"

"I am!" Val shouted as she raised her hand.

Mercer nodded as he started formulating a plan. He rushed as he noticed the several skeletal creatures were getting closer to where they could jump down safely and they would be forced to engage. After taking a moment he finally said, "Artem, those wheels look heavy, assist Val, and turn the wheels. Liam, you've got good eyes and can notice tiny details Val might miss. Be her eyes and help her. Val, try to get through this puzzle as fast as you can. I'll call out if we need heals, buffs, or anything else you can assist us with."

"Got it!" Artem, Val, and Liam said as they started moving towards the corner.

They had started moving just in time too as the group of skeletal creatures had jumped down before racing towards them. Blair didn't allow them to get too far as she channeled enough mana before letting out an Arcane Battle Scream. The taunting scream was enough to get all but one's attention as it had reached outside of her range.

However, it didn't get far as Roman was already on it by jumping straight at it and punching it with a rock covered fist. It had taken a couple of punches before it finally turned its attention on to him and chased after back into the group of taunted monsters. As soon as Roman had pulled the loose monster back into the fray, Mercer started created an Ice made violin as he played his flute. Both played different buff based spells while a wave of frost pushed out towards the monsters, affecting their speed slightly.

As the group gained their defense, and attack buffs, Ariyana threw out pods full of Burnout Aroma hoping they would work. She then created a small group of Pod Shooters while bringing out Tabby to act as a knockback support in case the creatures decided not to stick around and separate. After that she worked on buffing everyone's spell damage and Mercer's instrumental effects.

Blair focused on making sure the creatures remained focused on her as she swung her battleaxe around strategically and dodging when she needed to. Every now and then she used an Arcanic Heavy Strike when she had some breathing room to swing wide and hard. Avery and Roman focused on the creatures on the outside.

They both targeted the same monster and tried to coordinate with each other. Unlike with Liam, one of them had to slow down while the other tried speeding up so they wouldn't. Even though their start was rocky and they had to course correct so they wouldn't accidentally hit each other or crash into one another as they switched going in and out, they slowly started getting better.

Gimmel sent out a small flock of illusioned bird puppets and had them start flying. He was confused as to why Mercer had Liam help Val instead of him, but as he sent his birds up into the air Mercer instructed as he paused in his playing, "Gimmel use your Illusioned Birds to throw off the enemies when they attack. If the birds get hit use them as bombers on the ones that haven't taken any damage. We need your birds here instead of up there." Mercer paused for a moment before clarifying, "You're a good scout, but there are some things you need to work on. Like being able to fully multitask on processing what all of your puppets are seeing around the same time. You'll get there so don't worry."

Gimmel nodded. He understood what Mercer was saying. He had made a mistake when he didn't catch his illusioned bird puppet get destroyed earlier that day. His focus and processing of the destroyed puppet hadn't caught his attention and that was something a scout needed to be able to do when it came to using puppets. Taking a deep breath and switching from self-scolding to the task at hand, Gimmel used all his will to focus on his new goal.

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As the group fought the skeletal Nagas, Liam, Val, and Artem approached the wheels on the walls and the pully that hung there. Artem looked to Val and Liam and asked, "Okay, what do we do now?"

"We need to figure out what wheel turns what," Val stated as she looked at each one. There were fifteen wheels spread out in groups of three high and five long. She had a frown on her face as she stared at them.

Artem noticed the frown and asked, "What's wrong?"

Val eyed the big guy for a long moment. After a moment she responded, "The problem with a puzzle like this is you don't know what wheel belongs to what pipe. The other issues is, are some of these decoys?"

"Decoys?" Artem asked.

Val nodded as she explained, "Things there as a distraction. Either they don't do anything, or they are there to cause problems. Like traps or maybe they destroy a key thing we need."

"What makes you think some of these might be decoys?" Artem asked. He watched as she turned her head to look at Liam who was turning back to look at them. He saw him nod his head as he answered the unasked question Val had, "I counted nine."

Val clicked her tongue as she muttered, "Of course it would be an odd number. That makes things a bit more complicated."

"Nine?" Artem asked even more confused.

"There are fifteen wheels and nine pipes. That means six of these wheels are decoys," Val stated as she started thinking. "The next problem is we don't know the rules of this puzzle besides getting the pipes to connect."

"There's not much we can do, but pick one out and see what happens," Liam stated.

"Yeah, I know. I just hate that kind of starting," Val muttered before pointing to the top left one and said, "Fuck it. Start with that one. We're going to need to figure out which goes to what anyways so let's get to it before things get too hairy for the others."

Artem nodded as he moved to the wheel she pointed at. He gripped the handle on the wheel and started turning. As he did, Liam turned his gaze onto the pipes until he saw one at the far right of the room start to slowly turn with the same speed as Artem's turning.

Liam pointed to the one he saw for Val to see. After Artem finished turning it they noticed it wasn't fully connected to any of the pipes. However, what made them grow irritated was as soon as Artem let go of the wheel the pipe started to move back to its original position.

Val let out a slew of slurs both Artem and Liam had never heard before. This caused Artem to turn and ask, "What? What happened? Why did the wheel spin back to its original position?"

"The pipe did the same as well," Val said as she calmed herself. "That means two things. Either they all do this, and we need everyone's help. Or there's an order of what pipe needs to connect and when. This is going to be a pain. Ok do the next one below it."

Artem did as he was told and as he turned the wheel, Liam saw where it was connect and pointed to it. This one was near the opposite wall and, even though it connected to two pipes, it started turning back to its original place like the last one did."

"The last one below it," Val instructed.

As Artem started turning this one Liam noticed none of the pipes turned. He was about to say something, but before he could they heard a click as the wheel suddenly stopped turning. Liam turned his focus back to all of the pipes as they heard a rattling sound fill the room. Not so soon after the click, bones started pouring out of one of the pipes closest to them. Luckily, the bones were pouring into the pit and instead of on the platform they were on. However, that relief was replaced with confusion as they heard weird noises coming from the empty pit.

The three moved closer to see what it was they had heard and to their shock they saw that the bones that were pouring down there weren't just a pile of random bones. Instead the bones started to connect to one another slowly as skeletal Naga creatures began to take form.

"Shit," Val said as she looked back up. "If there are more decoys like that then we could be in trouble if we don't finish this puzzle quickly."

"What do you mean?" Artem asked as he looked at her and Liam.

"She means that if we don't hurry then this whole pit will be filled with Skeletal Nagas and once it overflows we will have a wave of undead Nagas on our hands."

"Shit," Artem stated as he added, "I don't think I like Pipe Puzzles."

Mercer eyed the fight before them as he and the others took down three of the six Skeletal Nagas. He was worried they would have a harder time without Artem helping Blair as a tank, but she was taking the role by herself quite well. Avery's and Roman's tag teaming was spotty at first, but after they had gotten their groove things had gotten better. Gimmel's assistance as well as Ariyana's was great as well. Her toad tamed beast came in handy a couple of times as well as Gimmel's Illusioned Bird Puppets.

He and the others were shocked when the loud rattling had happened earlier, and all those bones started flowing out of what he was now starting to suspect was the main pipe system concerned. However, when they didn't spray onto the ground they were standing on he went to write it off. That was until Roman and Blair conveyed what they overheard Liam and Val say.

He would be lying if he said he wasn't worried, but he also didn't have the time to be. Things like this happened. In the books he had read about on Puzzle Dungeons they had mentioned there were traps like this. They just needed to focus on the task before them and be ready in case they needed to fight against a massive wave of undead Naga skeletons.

After another skeletal Naga fell they focused on the last two. They were picking up speed because the remaining health these two creatures had wasn't a lot. However, as they jumped onto the next one, another rattling sound filled the room. Mercer heard Val curse loudly before a section of the wall on their side opened up and pushed out a pipe the same size as the others and started pouring out more bones into the pit.

Mercer could sympathize with Val. The last thing they needed was another pipe pouring in more bones. The only luck they had right now was the fact this pipe was in the middle of the pit instead of over the floor they were standing on.

Shortly after that he heard Val shout, "Finally! Okay the next one…Fuck." She took in a deep breath as she tried to regain composure and said, "Okay we now know we don't need everyone to help us. Let's…oh shit."

The last skeletal creature they were fighting finally dropped as they heard her say that. They all turned to look at the three and saw they were looking elsewhere. They turned to see a section of the wall open up on the other side of the room. It was right by the pipes hanging and was the size of the new opening was around the slightly bigger than Artem.

However, instead of a pipe pushing out, several more skeletal Nagas started slithering out and through the pipe obstacle. He wanted to swear as well but he didn't have the luxury of being flustered. Instead he shouted, "Restore your resources as fast as you can and get ready for round two."

As Mercer drank a Minor Mana Potion he kept an eye on the new wave of skeletal monsters. There was two more than the last wave which annoyed him, but then he noticed their path. It wasn't towards them, but towards Artem, Val, and Liam. After he finished drinking his potion he shouted out, "Blair! The moment they touch the ground get their attention and pull them here. Avery and Roman, kite any back to the group that Blair fails to get."

As the three voiced their confirmations, Mercer thought to himself, This is going to be a long fight.