Sufficiently Advanced Magic (Arcane Ascension Book 1) Read online

  I took the dueling vest, too, and slipped it on. I replaced both the weapon and armor with coins.

  Having already taken three items, I couldn’t resist taking a little bit more, even knowing the ever-growing risk.

  I took the book and the scroll, again replacing them with coins. I really hoped the goddess liked coins.

  The dueling cane’s mechanical parts bothered me. It was an unusual design, foreign. I flipped the switch on the back, and it deployed a blade as I expected. I had to push the switch back in and pull it down to get the blade to retract, which was an annoyance. It was most likely spring-loaded.

  Well, I’d adapt.

  The weapon had a small clip on the bottom designed to attach to clothing, which I used to secure it on my belt. I’d draw the cane the instant I sensed any chance of combat.

  I flipped open the book. It appeared to be blank. A puzzle? I’d worry about it later. I put the book away.

  I broke the seal on the scroll next, unrolling it.

  On the positive side of things, this had writing on it.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t in a language I could read. Valdaric, maybe? I wasn’t a linguistics expert. I rolled it up and shoved it in my pack, mildly irritated.

  I briefly considered whether or not the quill was meant to be used in conjunction with the blank book.

  I had no way of knowing, really.

  One quill exchanged for one coin.

  A good deal for the goddess, as far as I was concerned. Maybe this whole tower thing was just an excuse to rob seventeen-year-olds of their hard-earned savings.

  I doubted it, but who could know for sure?

  I approached the blue door first. Blue was a nice, safe, tranquil color. It also was generally assumed to be associated with mental traits, and I figured I had the best chance of surviving mental puzzles.

  I touched the gem. The door rumbled, sliding down into a depression in the ground.

  The next room was square shaped, and in the midst of it, a smaller square, divided into a grid. There were three doors on the opposite side of the room, each with a different color of gem. Purple, green, and — um — maybe indigo?

  Each of the grid squares near the center had a color-coded tile, and each tile had a foreign symbol within.

  I really hate color coded tile puzzles.

  I’d read a lot about this style of puzzle, and even tried a few practice ones. I was terrible at them.

  I stepped away from the door, shaking my head. It closed without any further interaction my part.

  I walked over to the red door and opened it.

  It showed a long, narrow hallway, wide enough for two people to walk abreast. I could see the door on the opposite end, but just barely.

  In the middle of the path, however, was a monster.

  The world’s most adorable monster.

  It looked like a big house cat, with gray and white stripes, sitting with its front paws raised. It had three long, bunny-like ears and a trailing rat-like tail. It tilted its head to the side as it saw me, giving me a quizzical expression.

  It was too cute to die.

  I stepped away from the door, chuckling to myself.

  It’s possible I am the world’s worst adventurer.

  One door left.

  The red door slid shut as I headed to the yellow and touched the final gem.

  The last room was square, about twenty feet across. The same size as the first one I had opened.

  This one was divided into smaller squares too, but in a very different way.

  A solid third of the squares were missing. From my vantage point in the doorway, I could see nothing below the gaps in the floor but darkness. I assumed, to be safe, that it would be certain death if I fell in one of those holes.

  Directly across from me, blocking one of the room’s three exit doors, was a mirror. It was taller than I was and nearly twice as wide.

  This seemed like the most appealing option. Visible pit traps didn’t worry me anywhere near as much as stepping on the wrong tile in some kind of color puzzle.

  I didn’t step into the yellow room. Not immediately.

  First, I needed to map those squares.

  The left and right half of the room were almost symmetrical. Not quite, but it took some observation to spot the differences in the paths. Two paths led to two doors on opposite ends of the room.

  The third door had only a single square of floor in front of it, with no solid path to it. I’d have to jump, or otherwise problem-solve, to make it to that one.

  The doors were, of course, also color coded. The green door was the isolated one, on my left. Orange was on my right. Gold in the center. Two were clearly combinations of the colors from the first room, and I had seen green as an option in the room with the colored squares... Would both green doors lead to the same place? I wasn’t sure.

  And it wasn’t easily testable, since I knew there was a good chance the door I used to enter this chamber was going to vanish the moment I walked in. The goddess disapproved of backtracking, apparently.

  The room seemed too simple at a glance; the mirror probably had some kind of function that wasn’t obvious from a distance. Maybe some of the tiles were illusory, and some of the “gaps” were actually solid, and I’d have to look in the mirror to see the true path. That seemed like a valid puzzle, and it scared me a lot less than the colored tiles.

  It scared me more than the cat-rat-bunny, but I really wanted to avoid killing something without cause.

  I scanned the room for anything I might tie my rope for a lifeline if I fell. No handrails, no obvious protrusions from the floor. Just squares, some empty, some apparently safe. And the mirror, of course.

  I had brought a lot of rope. Nearly fifty feet, coiled up, high quality. The tower was notorious for having pits, many of which would be fatal.

  I tied one end of the rope around my waist with a climbing knot. I prepped the other side of the rope as a crude lasso, took a deep breath, and stepped inside.

  As I expected, there was no exit when I turned around.

  I did not, however, expect the shadowy simulacrum of myself that appeared in front of the mirror.

  Oh, resh. That’s bad.

  I raised my rope, preparing to throw it at the mirror.

  The duplicate copied my motions exactly, holding an identical rope.

  Ah, the “killer shadow that mirrors what I do” puzzle. A classic.

  I slid my foot forward, not taking a full step in case the ground in front of me was illusory. Fortunately, the next square proved as solid as it appeared.

  The shadow creature mirrored my movement.

  I waved.

  It waved.

  “Hi,” I said. Even if I knew it was going to try to kill me, there was no need to be rude.

  It opened its mouth, mirroring me, but no sound emerged.

  Creepy.

  There was nothing overtly dangerous about the duplicate, but I was confident bad things were going to happen if it got too close. Or possibly if I took too long in solving whatever I was supposed to solve.

  I continued to slide my foot, moving to the right side of the room. I wanted a clear throw at the mirror with my rope, without the shadow throwing a rope in my direction. I had no idea what a shadow-rope might do if it hit me, or how the shadow would react if it touched my own rope.

  Once I was in position, I threw the rope at the mirror.

  And missed.

  The shadow mirrored me, throwing its own rope, with equally useless results.

  I threw the rope a second time, missing again.

  The tile that I had stood on when I entered the room broke away from the others, plunging into the darkness below.

  Oh, resh me. I have a time limit.

  I finished reeling in the rope, tossed it lazily over my shoulder, and pulled the dueling cane off my belt.

  The shadow mirrored me. If I fired at him, he’d probably fire something back at me. I didn’t know if the shadow cane would pr
oduce a projectile, but if it did, it might be more dangerous than my own.

  I aimed at the mirror instead, pressing the button.

  I felt a familiar tingling as the cane syphoned mana from my arm, channeling it into the weapon’s core and expelling it as a blue-white burst of arcane force. The bolt slammed into the mirror and — predictably — bounced right back at me.

  I didn’t have time to dodge. I raised both arms in a defensive stance and the blast crashed into my forearms. The force of the burst knocked me backward, leaving one of my feet dangling just over the edge of a fatal fall.

  I leaned forward, falling on my knees and elbows to avoid a descent into the pit.

  It was only at that point that I processed what my duplicate had done: its own projectile had been silent and nearly invisible. Tracing the path from the creature’s dueling cane, however, I could see a hole in the wall, burrowing nearly three feet into the stone.

  That was a dozen times more force than I could muster, and more than enough to overwhelm my dueling vest’s protection.

  I couldn’t take this thing in a blasting fight.

  Breathing deeply, I pushed myself to my feet.

  Another tile fell into the darkness. I marched forward, following the path toward the central door, my eyes following the shadow.

  It mirrored me, but the room wasn’t symmetrical.

  When I neared the middle of the room, I found the spot I was looking for. A space where I could move forward safely, but a single step would plunge the shadow into the darkness below.

  I stepped forward.

  My duplicate didn’t. Instead, it raised its cane toward me.

  I ran.

  Gah. Stupid shadow, not following the rules.

  The blast ripped through the air behind me as I rushed for the mirror, taking cover behind it. I could see three options if the shadow fired at me — the mirror would reflect the blast, the mirror would break and destroy the shadow, or the mirror would break and the shadow would be fine.

  Two out of three options led to my survival, and I was good with that.

  It was, unfortunately, impossible to see what the shadow was doing if I was fully concealed behind the mirror... and I had limited time to act.

  I raised my cane, listening. The creature made no sound.

  I can’t outfight this thing. I need to outthink it.

  I might make it if I rush for the door, but I might not.

  I could try to hold out here until the shadow falls, but there’s a good chance it would come around the side of the mirror and annihilate me before then.

  Maybe I could fire a distracting shot one way, and then go around the other?

  Too risky.

  High odds it’s tied to the mirror somehow, given the theme of the room.

  What am I doing here? I can test one hypothesis right now.

  I pressed my cane against the wooden back of the mirror and hit the switch for the spring-loaded blade.

  The blade pierced through the mirror, splintering wood and glass.

  And the creature wailed in agony.

  Apparently, it could make sound.

  I grabbed the cane with both hands, dragging downward as my shadow circled around the mirror.

  As my weapon tore through the mirror, the shadow’s chest was torn apart.

  I stood, yelling as I ripped the weapon upward, cutting through the top of the mirror.

  I bisected the shadow.

  It fell to the ground, inert. I shivered as I watched it, trying to push the guilt from my mind.

  It wasn’t real. It’s just an illusion, a figment created by the mirror.

  I wasn’t certain of that, but I tried to convince myself as best I could.

  I slammed a shoulder into the mirror, but it didn’t fall. That was fine.

  I retracted the blade, rushing for the golden door. Maybe I had time to explore, maybe I didn’t. I didn’t like my odds if I waited.

  I touched the golden gem, revealing a room with a glass table and two glass chairs in the center. There was a board on the table with glass figures atop it. Valor, if I wasn’t mistaken.

  Good enough.

  I stepped inside.

  Chapter II — Valor

  The door vanished behind me, of course.

  I pondered the significance of the door’s color for a moment. Was the golden gem just representing a more challenging version of the same style of room? Or maybe these colors had some sort of cultural significance. The room could represent the Tyrant in Gold, for example. If it did, I was probably in a great deal of trouble.

  I carefully inspected the floor before I made my way forward. The square-shaped grid wasn’t present here, and I didn’t see any runes or indentations. There were, however, four small grates in the corners of the room. They looked inert for now, but I didn’t like the look of them.

  The Valor board was the most obvious set piece for a puzzle. I ignored it and headed straight toward the three doors in the back of the room: green; gold; and orange. Just like the last room. I didn’t know how many rooms I’d have to complete in total, but I’d plan to stick with gold unless I saw a good reason to switch.

  Especially if I could skip the puzzle entirely.

  I moved my hand toward the golden gem, but pulled it back at the last second. There was a keyhole above the gem. I frowned and checked the other doors. They were all set up in the same way.

  Okay, I could deal with that. Maybe. I had a key, but I didn’t know if it would fit. I headed back to the gold door, unslung the rope that was still awkwardly hanging over my shoulder, and set down my backpack.

  The first thing I noticed was that the rope was a lot shorter than when I had started. I’d lost the looped section, as well as over a dozen feet of length. Maybe it’d been nicked by one of the blasts from my shadowy rival, or maybe it had been bisected when I stepped through the doorway into the next room. That was a scary thought.

  I had known the doorways were actually teleporting me, but I hadn’t considered what would happen if I trailed something behind me. Could that be used to my advantage? Maybe I could use the doorways offensively in later challenges somehow. A good thing to keep in mind for the future.

  I undid the knot around my waist and folded up the rope, emptying out my backpack to put the remaining rope back on the bottom. When I was removing the book, though, I noticed something odd.

  On the cover, “Trials of Judgment” was now written in an antiquated style.

  I flipped the book open and gawked at what I saw. The first two pages had been written in.

  This is the Room of Reflection. Move swiftly; any tile you stand upon too long will fall into the void below.

  The mirror poses a grave danger. Avoid showing your reflection.

  I really wished I had seen that earlier, but honestly, I wasn’t sure I would have had time to read it even if I had known the hint was there. Was that the book’s function? Hints for each room? If so, it was incredibly valuable. I flipped to the next page.

  This is the Room of Valor. Complete the game to advance.

  Beware the rising mist.

  I frowned. Mist? What mist?

  Oh, the stuff that was rising from the grates on the side of the room. I knew I hated those.

  I dug for the key and kept it in my left hand while I buried the other items in my pack. I considered trying it on the doors immediately — maybe it was a way to bypass the puzzle. If it was, however, I suspected I’d only be able to use it once; according to legend, at least, the goddess didn’t like people reusing the same solutions. I would rather save it if I could.

  I moved to the table, keeping the key close at hand. The mist was rising, but not particularly rapidly. I guessed I’d have at least a few minutes before it got high enough that I’d be breathing much of it in. Of course, if it was acid mist or something, I’d need to act a lot sooner.

  I’d played a lot of Valor in my youth. It was a fairly standard game of tactics, common in noble households like my ow
n. Each side started with twenty pieces, many of which had different functions. Based on what I’d read, I assumed I’d be playing against the tower itself.

  If the tower played like an average civilian, I’d have a good chance.

  If the tower played like my childhood companion, Sera, well... I’d have better luck inhaling the mist.

  The Valor board was stone, and the figures atop it were forged from red and blue gems. The board was in a standard starting configuration, save for a single missing piece on the red side. The ruby statue from the first room, I realized. If I had taken that, I’d have one more piece to play.

  Assuming I sat on the red side of the table.

  I sat down on the blue side, which was opposite from the entrance. It was unintuitive, but I hadn’t been given any instructions. Nothing said I had to take the side with a disadvantage. My hand shook as I reached for the first piece.

  The mist was rising. How long did a game of Valor usually take? A half hour, maybe, against a new opponent? Maybe a little less, if the enemy was missing a key piece. Fifteen minutes.

  I didn’t have that kind of time.

  I reached across the table for the red side and systemically removed each of their pieces from the board, with the exception of their goddess.

  Then, I moved my own visages into pincer positions around the enemy goddess. She was pinned; the game was won.

  A red key appeared in the center of the table. I cheered aloud, shamelessly.

  Cheating? Nah. I was just playing to win.

  I picked up the red key, heading for the gold door.

  I knew even before I tried it that the key wasn’t going to fit.

  Apparently, brute forcing a victory on the board earned me a specific type of key, not access to any room I wanted.

  My winged key from the first room was gold. Would it work on the golden door? Probably, but I still wanted to save it for an emergency.

  I knew the orange door might take the red key. I hadn’t been into an orange room, though, and I wasn’t sure if it would have a gold exit as an option — meaning my gold key might be useless if I headed on that path.