Risen World

Chapter 90: Dungeon Hidden In the Marsh Part 2

Joshua quickly rushed to catch up to Lilly as several lizards started clamoring into the hallway behind him. It didn't take long for him to catch up to her with the speed he was able to move at with the aura shroud around him in full effect. When he did catch up to her he glared at her for a moment as she just smiled back. "Why on earth did you just leave me behind back there?" Joshua asked. He watched as Lilly looked at him a bit confused at the question.

"Did you not read the message? It warned us to run as fast as we can to avoid the danger. Sadly I can't run as fast as you and neither can my lizard so we decided to get a head start sorry if it surprised you, but I knew you would catch up." Lilly responded getting a simple sigh in response from Joshua.

He turned around to see how far ahead they were of the hoard of small lizards, but based of the quick clicking sound of several claws scratching across the stone halls he could tell that the little creatures were gaining on them as long as they moved at the pace of Lilly's pet. Joshua could try to carry her to quicken the pace, but if they ran into any other obstacles up ahead or even more dangerous beast, then he would need to be ready to fight right away. A few seconds could be the difference between life and death in their current circumstances.

Joshua continued to run alongside Lilly as he searched through his inventory for something to delay the little dangerous creatures without having to stop and fight them head on. He was sure he could hold them off on his own for a little while, but eventually he would be overrun and then they would be done for anyways. He found a couple of potions that he had gotten back in the beginner dungeon that were just right for stalling the creatures. He pulled a few of them out and waited for the growing mob of lizards to get within his sight before turning around and smashing one of the canisters into the ground. The moment the bottle shattered a large plume of fire was created in the center of the hall that blazed almost up to the ceiling.

The fire wasn't large enough to block off the entire hall, but it got the job done in causing the little critters to back away in fear for a moment. That was more than enough time for Lilly to gain some more distance from the crazed creatures, but after a while Joshua could hear the clicking of the hoard's claws once again signaling they had gotten around the obstacle. Joshua had to repeat the action a few more times before they finally reached an obstacle in their path.

In front of them the floor was completely gone with large pillars spread out ahead that could be used as stepping stones to make their way across. This wouldn't be so bad if the pillars weren't so slick looking and there wasn't a hoard of monster chasing them down from behind. At the moment Joshua felt like he was in some old adventure movie where he was busy escaping some sort of trap that was laid out for him. At this point he was worried that the ceiling behind them might open up and send some giant boulder hurdling after them. The issue now was the fact that Lilly and all of her pets would have a horrible time trying to get across the stepping stones and he highly doubted falling into that deep abyss was an option if they planned on living.

"Lilly put all of your pets up and get on my back, we're going to get across there as fast as possible." Joshua explained while bending down to make it easier for her. She simply nodded and dismissed all of her pets before climbing up onto Joshua's back and holding on as he stood back up. He let his aura flow through the scarf around his neck and knew he was ready to make the jump. He looked over all the pillars and found one far enough away and in good enough shape that he didn't have to worry too much about it collapsing on him. He took a deep breath before leaping ahead right over several of the pillars, but he wasn't going to try to land from just that. He concentrated his aura into one of his feet and sent an aura blast behind him that caused his weightless body to soar forward even further than before.

Even with all that he hadn't made it enough distance to cross the entire trap, but he was able to land and balance easily on to a rather sturdy pillar that didn't shake for a moment after he got a good footing. He smiled at this and waited patiently for his aura blast to be usable again. He could already see the end of the little trap and was sure he could easily make his way all the way across with just another aura empowered leap, but he could also hear the lizards from behind and turned around to see them continuing to chase after them even with the floor below having disappeared. Now they were crawling along the walls and the ceiling in a frantic manner with some of the unlucky ones slipping and falling into the abyss below.

By the time they were getting close enough to snarl at Joshua he was prepared to make his second leap and once again lunged forward while letting the scarf do its work. He floated a ways before using another aura blast to send his body quickly ahead towards the safety of the other side of the trap. Now with a solid floor underneath him, he put Lilly down and she summoned her Lizard once again to rush ahead. He took out a few more of those fire potions and through them on the ground near where the trap ended. He could see several of the lizards jump back in fright with plenty of them falling to their deaths in their inadvertent actions.

Joshua smiled at how well the fire worked and once again rushed ahead to catch up with Lilly. It didn't take long for him to catch up to her and they quickly made their way towards the end of the seemingly endless hall. Eventually they could see a part of the hallway that was slowly being cut off, but they had more than enough time to get past it before they watched as the tide of lizards behind them were cut off from following them anymore. Joshua took a moment to catch his breath, but after all the training routines he had gone through over the past few years it didn't take him very long to recover his stamina. What did take a few minutes was for his aura to regenerate after having used it so much on the nearly half-hour long escape that the dungeon had just introduced them too.

"Well that was exciting." Lilly cheerfully said as she got off her lizard and walked over towards Joshua to stand beside him. "I wasn't expecting the dungeon to start things off like that. I guess that's the difference between hidden dungeons and system ones, It seems like everything's out to get us."

"It would seem so. Though I could do without dealing with hordes of enemies I had enough of that in the first phase." Joshua said with a smile and slight chuckle. "I expected traps and all, but I didn't expect for them to be at the very start of the dungeon. We'll have to be careful if we come across any treasures if this is the kind of stuff we can expect." Lilly nodded at his response, before the pair started to take in their surroundings a bit more. The hall way was still similar to the one they had been traveling down before, but it seems to have narrowed down a bit with extremely poor lighting that Joshua decided to rectify by taking out a torch of his own. He also had a flash light on his belt in case the torch went out, but he wouldn't be able to just set the flashlight down on one of the walls if they wanted to check something out. He could also use the torch to light some of the lamps and torches hanging in any of the rooms they came across.

The walls in the new hallway were once again filled with several depictions of different types of lizards fighting one another alongside drawings of treasures and humans that seemed to be exploring in a similar way to how they had been. There was even an image of people running away from a swarm of lizard in a similar fashion to how they had just done. It was as if the dungeon was taunting them in some ways, but Joshua ignored it and continued on down the hall a bit more to see if there was anything else that could hold his interest. He made sure to light any torch he came across just to give the place some better lighting. It would also come in handy in keeping them from getting surprised by any creatures from behind. Even if the way had been closed off there was no reason to believe that was impossible for some sort of trap door to open and send more of those creatures after them.

It didn't take them to long to make it towards the end of the short hall way and they had to pass over another obvious gateway that would most likely close shut behind them directly afterwards. When they passed it they could hear some gears turning above them and watched as another slab of stone came from the ceiling and closed off their way back. "Well it looks like will have to keep going forward no matter what." Lilly said without any sign of being frightened. "Oh look at that there seems to be something on the wall in front of us."

Joshua turned around from the cut off path and looked at what Lilly was pointing out. He walked over and notice that there were simply two paths forward which was clearly going to be a decision that the dungeon was going to force them to make. The writing on the wall of course was in some language that he had never seen before, but the system quickly created a pop up in front of the both of them that translated what was on the wall.

[Congratulations on getting past the first obstacle of this dungeon. Things will only get harder as you proceed forward. This next challenge can be considered one of Luck if you wish it, but if you are smart enough then it can also be considered one of intellect. There are two paths before you. The path on the left has two totems at the end while the path on the right only has one. Throughout this dungeon there will be several totems, but there is a distinct difference that splits the two types. One type has depictions of lizards carved into it while the other has depictions of humans. It is a fact that at least one of the totems on the left has depictions of humans on it, but you do not know what is carved on the other totems. I shall tell you now that the path with the highest chance of having a totem with carvings of lizards on it is the correct one. You must choose. Choose correctly and all of the creatures you shall face shall give you extra experience, choose wrong and all experience gained on the upcoming floor will be halved. Make your choice.]

After finishing reading the translation Joshua started to think over the question while Lilly looked at it a bit confused at first. "Isn't it the same chance no matter which direction you choose? I mean if we know there is one human totem to the left then that means there is a fifty percent chance that there is a lizard totem down that path while the same can be said on the other side with their only being one totem there in the first place." Lilly said as she tilted her head a bit.

At first Joshua was thinking along the same lines before a thought came to his mind and he smiled brightly. "You are right in a way and that's probably why the writing did say that it could be thought of a challenge of luck at first, but if you look a bit deeper there is a way to use simple probability to get a definitive answer." Joshua said getting a questioning look from Lilly. "Hmm, well if we were to go right there would be a fifty-fifty chance no matter what and that will be the odds of there being a lizard totem down that path, but if we go left there is actually more than just two outcomes when you think about it. In the end there are actually four outcomes."

Lilly's eyes brightened as she figured out what Joshua was trying to say. "I see, it's like one of those old probability tables they made us do back in school. There should be four possible combinations for the totems down the left path and the only combination we can completely take off the board is that there could be two lizard totems down that path, but we can keep there being two human totems, one human one lizard, and one lizard one human as all possible outcomes. In the end that would give a two thirds chance huh." Lilly said with a smile before she turned to follow Joshua as he started to make his way down the left path with his scale blade at the ready.

"Yep, honestly probability was always annoying to me considering the fact that logically fifty percent seems to be the right answer, but if we look at another way we can get a completely different answer. Even if that wasn't the case I would probably have chosen left anyways sense it has the most possible out comes in comparison to the other path." Joshua explained.

"Well I guess we'll find out when we run into our first monster" Lilly started to say when a loud roar from down the hallway got their attention.

"I guess we'll be finding out now." Joshua said as he got ready to fight whatever was charging down the hall towards them.