18 hours passed since the team arrived to the waiting room of the 4 Mode Interchangeable Kinetic Cube and they still were not able to go in. Every time there was a change, they took harassment from the old voice who didn't like the fact that they were waiting for the easy stage, it was as if the voice was deciding on what the mode would be.
It took a lot of convincing from the Old Guard to stop them from committing suicide in a harder mode as the insults from the cube were getting more and more savage. It was also annoying that there was always a chance that mode 001 would never appeared and that they would be stuck in the fifth gate without advancing, in which case it could be considered the same as dying.
On the third day, when everyone seem to be in deep sleep, a very enraged voice said "Bah.. you win.. Mode 001. Introductory Level … POak Poak Bitches"
Midori who was on guard at the time woke the rest of the team from meditation and let them know it was finally time. Rahz wiped away the little saliva from his mouth and grabbed his Axe.
"About time!! It gets quite boring when you don't have to eat to survive"
Rahz stepped in first and was followed by Elune and Riddick who took the middle positions in the formation while Midori protected the rear. As soon as all 4 got into the maze, the first system activated. Two Bolts of steel probably designed to take down a massive dragon came flying at the group from the front. Rahz used his Chaos Blades to hit the bolts but it was only able to slow them down a little bit. Elune responded with a ward and Rahz place his Axe in front of his chest to defend against the attack.
Bang!!
"Poak POak Bitches"
The bolt hit Rahz who them took with him everybody that was behind him. The whole team flew backwards from the hit and were knockout of the maze and into waiting room once more.
"Do you understand now ?" said the specter while looking from the side, 5 steps…
5 steps was all they managed to walk inside.
Rahz stood up and headed back in, this time instead of meeting the 2 anti aircraft bolts he told the team to lay against the walls and let them pass. The weight and the force generated by the weapon was impossible to contain by meeting it head on, but since the walls were designed against the massive bodies of the Dragonkin there was plenty of space for them to evade them.
The 2 bolts passed by them and right before leaving the maze a magnetic field attracted them to the ground and were recycled. The whole place was truly the peak of Gnome engineering.
The team continued to advance and very soon reach the end of the hallway under heavy fire from the mechanism which seemed to be activated by the pressure sensors on the floor.
"Right or Left" asked Rahz
"Take a right since we are already standing on this side, no sense trying to cross the hall while dodging those things"
Rahz nodded to Elune's suggestion, turned right and stepped into a new hallway. The new path was double the length of the previous one and halfway through the hall there were jets of blue fire coming from the walls in a very simple pattern, some time the stream came from the left sometimes from the Right and sometimes from the top.
The moment Rahz took a look his pupils constricted, this was third tier fire and if they got caught up in the middle of the spray they would be incinerated. Looking at the challenge ahead the group determined that there were two ways to passed, the first one was by moving in between the flamethrowers but that need it amazing movement speed and the other was to hug the wall opposite from where the flame came from and used every defensive skill in their arsenal while they ran through.
Seeing that it was an agility challenge, Midori moved forward to be the first to take it on. The length of the challenge was 15 ft and every 5ft there was a flamethrower that shot a flame about 2 ft wide. The dimensions left a safety zone of 3 ft in between the flamethrowers. This zone was a pit stop where the challenger could stand and wait for the next flamethrower to go off before moving. Midori stayed for a few minutes at the starting line and determined that there were only three patterns on the flamethrowers and it looked like they were always in the same order. They were (left, top, right) on the first set then (Top,Right,Left) and finally (Right, Left,Top).
The flamethrowers always activated in that order and all you have to do was memorized it, if you weren't fast enough to clear the 2 ft gap before the next blast came out, they could always make it to the opposite side of the spray to minimize the damage.
Midori got the timing down and the moment the first fire went down she activated Dash and cross the threshold into the safe zone in between the flamethrowers. The whole team cheered at Midori's performance and this gave her more confidence. The rest of the devices were a piece of cake for her and she made it through flawlessly.
Rahz move up to start the challenge but a screech that came from Midori startled him. It was a very high pitch screech, symbolizing the kind of pain that was unexpected like when you hit your finger with a hammer.
Screech!!!! The communication came in and Elune started sweating profusely.
"There was an extra trap at the end of the hallway, Chainsaws come from the bottom. Midori lost her tail again!!"
Elune put a ward on Rahz and he started the challenge. Rahz did a dash forward the moment the flame went out and landed in the safe zone without any problems. Everytime the Flame came out he felt the heat and knew that just a few seconds in the stream would be enough to roast him like a pig. He continued passing through the 15 ft of flamethrowers but in his mind the problem was the chainsaws. After the last flame was clear Rahz continue walking slowly looking at the floor waiting for the Saw Blades to pop up.
Whoosh! Clink!!
The chainsaws pop up and Rahz instinctively did a forward roll but the bottom of his 2h Axe was also clip and cut through. Rahz looked at the damage and wanted to cry as the weapon made by his father was now 1 ft shorter.
Elune didn't have a problem crossing through the flame field but was a little concern about the Chainsaws as well. They had clip her two companions and to be able to cut through iron that fast they had to be made out of a higher level material.
Elune did the most sensible thing and threw a potion to the area where blades were suppose come from. Success, the moment the blades were withdrawing she took the chance to jump to the other side safely. Riddick was the last to go through the challenge but had the easiest time as everything that was learned by the group was passed down to him, making it a lot easier.
The team made sure they had everything they needed to proceed and was sweating profusely, they had already spent 30 minutes of the 6 hours of mode 001 an only had cleared 2 of the traps in the system.
sigh….
Rahz and the others looked to the front of them an saw yet another choice. Right in front of the team there was a portal, the closer they got to the door the stronger the attractive force they felt trying to suck them inside, it was definitely an entrance. The second choice was to continue along the hallway and turn left before reaching the portal and seeing the end of the original road.
The team walked closer to the portal and turned to look left to see exactly what the left road looked like but there was only darkness and about 100 ft away there were intervals of illumination.
"Maybe we shouldn't use the portal just yet, if it takes us too far away from the entrance there won't be a chance to comeback and we will have to continue on a higher level mode" Said Elune.
It was a very rational statement, if they continued along the hall, they could theoretically trace their steps back and go into the waiting room before the change in difficulty and wait for another chance at mode 001.
The team turned the corner and then the usual exasperated voice sounded " Take the portal you Pansies"