Okay, next chapter... and it comes with a slight change of plans. I've decided to divide The Cave of Trials into three parts instead of two. It's an old story by now: The chapter turned out to be unexpectedly long, and I reached a point in the story that made for a good end of a chapter, so...
Anyway, last time, Akinym and Sinon decided to take on a dungeon that the KoB had discovered while being unable to clear it. After a rather unpleasant encounter (or two, actually), they start their long journey through said dungeon.
Disclaimer: I don't own Sword Art Online Re:Hollow Fragment or Sword Art Online in general.
Akinym and Sinon didn't need much time to discover that Argo hadn't exaggerated when she had told them that this particular dungeon featured a ton of different challenges.
Well, for starters, there were the lizards doing sneak attacks at the very beginning. Akinym's guess was that there was a hidden second floor of sorts above them, and the monsters moved there until they saw a good opportunity to jump through the holes between the two floors, almost as if they attempted jump scares. Once Akinym and Sinon were aware of the gimmick, they weren't caught by surprise anymore, and the lizard monsters didn't pose that much of a challenge.
Next up, there was one of those pitch-black areas. Due to a special effect in this area, the efficiency of artificial light sources such as their lamp was significantly reduced. They could see barely one metre ahead.
With such bad visibility, Sinon's archery was useless, so she focused on holding the lamp. She also switched her weapon and used a dagger instead of her bow. Thankfully, she had kept the weapon skill for daggers, and she still used this kind of weapon in case of emergencies when opponents got too close. She didn't like to switch to close combat, though.
For the most part, fighting the occasionally appearing monsters in that dark area was up to Akinym, but this wasn't easy either. Sure, Akinym knew how to defend himself against attacks even at extremely close distance. In a sense, his fighting style was pretty much tailor-made for that purpose. Furthermore, by listening carefully for approaching enemies, Akinym could avoid being caught by surprise.
Counterattacking was a different issue, though. There had to be some distance between him and the target for Akinym to hit it properly. One metre was enough, but the monsters would quickly vanish into the darkness if they were hit. Akinym wasn't that good at aiming to begin with, and aiming at an opponent he couldn't even see didn't work any better. Even though Akinym could guess the rough position of a monster for a second or two based on its movements before it vanished from view, attacking them didn't exactly work well.
Frankly, under other circumstances, Akinym and Sinon would've considered sneaking through the place. Well, why "under other circumstances"? That's because there were special bat-themed monsters in this cave which could spot any enemy.
Argo had told them about these troublesome monsters. Even if a player used a high Hiding skill, the bat monsters would detect them and attack. Their attacks weren't that strong, but they revealed the players presence. The KoB players who had encountered them compared that ability to echolocation.
By the way, these monsters could be found in almost any part of the cave. Thus, it was impossible to traverse the cave using stealth methods, since all of them – no matter if they were based on a system skill or the players' individual abilities – were useless against these bats.
Anyway, Akinym and Sinon eventually made it past the dark area and entered a section that was actually lit pretty well by luminescent crystals, only to arrive at a large fissure. It was so deep that they couldn't see the bottom even when they shined the light of the lamp at it. To be fair, that didn't mean much, but Akinym guessed that they wouldn't survive falling into the fissure.
There were several natural stone columns at intervals of around two metres, and they formed a path of sorts across the gaping hole in the ground. One player had to make their way across these columns to the other side in order to activate a mechanism which would cause a bridge to appear for three minutes.
The columns were quite small, just big enough for one person to stand on them, which made jumping from one of them to the next even more difficult. This was a job for a player with high Agility, and thankfully, Akinym fit that criterion. He even came up with the idea to use his spear as a balancing pole.
Alas, he had to jump from one column to another with utmost care, and at the third column, he almost overshot it. After that, he came to the conclusion that it was better to rely on his Acrobatics skill, which featured a technique that was tailor-made for situations like this. The only disadvantage of that was that he had to wait for the cooldown to be over.
There was, however, one more problem. This particular cavern was inhabited by a different kind of bat monsters. These monsters attacked any player that tried to make their way across the fissure. The impact of their attacks was strong, although they didn't deal much damage. The purpose of these attacks was to push the players off the columns, so these monsters had to be defeated before they got the chance to strike.
The bat monsters were relatively fragile, though. They could survive a few hits from rather weak weapons such as the "regular" long-ranged weapons, throwing picks for instance. Polearms such as spears could, however, defeat them quite easily. It was overall clear that this challenge was supposed to be taken on by a player with a comparatively long-ranged weapon.
However, there was a significant loophole in that design, namely that it completely ignored Sinon's archery. She could use long range attacks that dealt remarkable damage, and she could provide Akinym covering fire. Thankfully, the bat monsters were relatively big, and the rift was only about twenty metres wide, so aiming wasn't too hard. Regardless, since Sinon really couldn't afford to miss here, so she mostly relied on system-assisted shots when Akinym reached the last few columns.
In the end, it had been somewhat nerve-wracking, but they made it. Nevertheless, it had become obvious that clearing this dungeon would be exceedingly difficult and taxing – and it was. Let's skip some of the countless challenges and focus on a few of them as examples.
For instance, at one point, Akinym and Sinon reached a somewhat spherical cavern with a diameter of about ten metres. There were four large stalagmites, and the exit on the opposite side of the cavern was sealed by a large boulder.
Akinym and Sinon already knew what was coming. When they entered this area, the four stalagmites were transformed into golem-type monsters. They were quite unshapely and just a bit larger than a grown man (except for the likes of Agil or ODE, perhaps), and they moved overall rigidly.
However, as Akinym and Sinon knew from the KoB's report, their attacks were incredibly strong, and they had an increased chance of breaking through parries. Their HP were rather low, but their stone bodies were extremely sturdy. Thrust and Slash attacks did hardly any damage. Blunt attacks, however, were quite effective.
Well, neither Akinym nor Sinon had much to offer with regard to Blunt attacks. Well, Akinym knew that a strong blow with the shaft of his spear could cause Blunt damage, but he also knew that it would require a lot of force for it to be considered an attack by the system. Not to mention that it was the least effective way to use his spear as a proper weapon.
Fortunately, these monsters also had certain weak points. There were small gaps in their "stone armour" at their joints, and the space between them was weak to Thrust attacks. However, these gaps were merely about one centimetre wide, and an attack had to reach at least five centimetres deep into these cavities to hit the actual weak spot.
A rapier would've been the perfect weapon for this, although a spear with a sufficiently slim spearhead would've done the trick, too. The same applied to daggers with a blade that was long enough.
Sinon tried using her archery. Her arrows fit into the gaps just fine, but she had to shoot at the exactly right angle. Akinym had to manoeuvre around a lot to get the golems to move into the right position, and he had to make sure that they wouldn't encircle him. Aggro control was another tricky aspect of this battle.
In the end, Sinon had a completely different idea. She decided to use a dagger instead. At first, she had dismissed that idea since the blade of her usual dagger was to bulky to fit into the gaps. However, she also had a few spare daggers. When she remembered the cross dagger she had got from the fortune teller event a while ago, Sinon decided to try using it.
As it turned out, it worked even better than expected. The dagger got stuck inside the gaps, and not only did it hinder the golems movements even more, it dealt continuous damage until the respective monster was defeated. Once a golem shattered into polygons, Sinon retrieved the dagger, and they did the same thing with the next one.
When the fourth golem died, the final battle of this stage began. This time, the boulder that blocked the exit turned into an even more massive golem. This monster was basically a mid-boss, and it had three HP bars and an attack that was guaranteed to break through any parry and dealt insane damage. When the KoB had fought this boss, it had reduced their tanks HP by half with a single strike.
On top of that, contrary to its bulkier appearance, this boss was actually faster and more agile than the smaller golems. Ironically, its mobility was still the boss' weak point.
As the KoB had found out more or less by accident, the boss staggered more than an average monster when it was hit. The effect was hardly noticeable once the boss got in position for an attack since it took a much more stable stance in that situation. However, it needed two or three seconds just to regain its balance when it was hit while moving. Therefore, it was extremely vulnerable to long-ranged attacks.
Sinon could defeat that boss with her Sniping skill, although it took a while. Akinym stayed out of this battle, just to be safe.
A while later, they reached an extremely narrow passage. Akinym and Sinon had to worm their way through a crevice that was just big enough for them to fit through it. The way it had been designed, it was impossible to get through this crevice while carrying any kind of bulky equipment. Especially shields or metal armour could easily get stuck here.
Taking off one's equipment just for traversing the crevice and putting it on again on the other side wasn't an option, of course. The KoB had tried that, and they had been ambushed by monsters on the other side immediately. Thankfully, all of them had survived since one of them had quickly re-equipped his gear using the skill Quick Change, and that player had defended the others long enough for them to get ready.
Those were just some examples. The path through the cave led them deeper and deeper underground, and many obstacles awaited them.
Speaking of going deeper underground, Akinym had noticed early on that the path appeared to be spiral-shaped. In particular, the passageways between the larger caverns were a bit slanted and led them downwards. He guessed that the final cavern might be around the level of the bottom of the chasm around the labyrinth. Maybe it was even below that point.
It would be a long way to get there, though. Clearing this dungeon certainly took a while, especially since Akinym and Sinon took regular breaks between the "trials of the cave" as they had dubbed it as a joke before long.
It was sometime between two and three o'clock in the afternoon when Akinym and Sinon reached a long tunnel of sorts. The entire area was crammed with stalagmites, stalagnates and boulders. The ceiling was only about two metres high. And it was the last section of the dungeon that they had any information on.
There were only a few monsters scattered across the tunnel, but Akinym and Sinon still had to fight their way through them. That was one of the most difficult challenges for them due to the terrain.
Akinym could hardly move his spear around at all without getting caught on a stalagmite or something similar. Ironically, he had actually chosen a short spear as a weapon because he'd be able to fight at least to some extent with that weapon even in such a narrow space, but this place was downright ridiculous. On top of that, dodging attacks was rather difficult in this area since the ground was very uneven, and he could hardly move without bumping into something.
Similarly, Sinon could hardly find any spot where she had a free field of fire. She even had to switch from Ullr, her usual bow, to her smaller spare bow. That way, she had to be at least five metres away from her target, but that was easier said than done.
The monsters were orcs, and they were about one and a half metre tall and used relatively small machetes, which were – as they knew from the KoB report – sprinkled with comparatively weak paralysis poison. The monsters used armour to some extent. For instance, they wore helmets and bracers, but their armour was overall scanty, and it hardly covered their upper bodies. In this terrain, this kind of monsters had a certain advantage.
They were lucky that the monster density in this area was rather low. That way, they could fight one or two at a time, making their way through the tunnel slowly but steadily.
In the end, Akinym usually reverted to his martial arts skills in order to defeat single enemies since fighting with his spear in this environment was tedious. He dropped the weapon at suitable moments for that purpose.
The monsters often swung their machetes in a certain vertical arc, and Akinym soon figured out that they were quite vulnerable to a certain judo throw when they attacked that way. Akinym could follow up with a shoulder lock, and the orc monsters weren't strong enough to free themselves. Similarly, Akinym also trapped enemies against a boulder or pushed them into small gaps between two stalagnates, so they'd get stuck.
All these techniques were meant to render the monsters immobile, so Sinon could switch to her dagger and kill them while they were defenseless. It worked pretty well.
Akinym and Sinon crept forward in a bent posture, and they squatted down behind a boulder. When they peeked over the boulder, they could see the exit of the tunnel up ahead. Well, and also…
Sinon [whispers]: Two enemies ahead. [slightly exasperatedly] When we take them out, we can finally leave this claustrophobic place.
Akinym: Yes, but I don't think we can fight them separately. They stand too close together, and we've seen earlier that the monsters have Swarm Aggro, so luring one of them away isn't possible either.
Sinon [slightly doubtfully]: Seems that way. I guess there's no way around it. [looks around] If only we could find a good place to…
To the left, Sinon spotted a strangely inviting, relatively open spot in the tunnel. There was an area with relatively even ground and no stalagmites or other hindrances within a radius of two or three metres.
Sinon [quizzically]: What about that area over there? If we can lure them there, it would be a good place to fight.
Akinym took a look at the spot himself. He could understand Sinon's idea, but he also eyed the place suspiciously, deciding to check it with his Trap Dismantling skill.
Thanks to regular visits to the training dungeon for this skill and doing several trap-related quests, Akinym's Trap Dismantling was at a fairly high level, and he could detect most traps even on the highest available floors. Any trap his skill noticed would be highlighted in his field of vision.
Akinym: It's a trap. If we enter that zone, we will trigger a trap. I'm not sure what it does, but it will probably spawn more monsters, and I don't know if I can disarm it – or if I'd even have to.
Sinon [sighs]: I see. We better don't push our luck, do we? It was too good to be true after all.
Akinym: Well, you know the rule: When something seems too good to be true, that's because it is.
Sinon: Seems like it. [slightly contemplatively] I guess I have to look for a different place to…
Sinon took a look to the right, searching for a good spot to take position at, and there seemed to be one that piqued her interest.
Sinon: Maybe I can shoot between those two stalagnates over there. [points at a cluster of stalagmites] If you lure the monsters in front of the rock formation over there, I should have a good, free field of fire for once.
Akinym eyed the "battlefield" Sinon had recommended, and he looked over to the monsters, which stood nearby. Luring them to this position shouldn't be difficult. He didn't like the particularly uneven ground, though.
There was, however, another problem, which worried Akinym even more. His gaze slowly wandered from the position where he would fight to the position Sinon wanted to go to.
Akinym: I can see the advantages, but I'd have to get past these boulders in order to get to you. I'd need a few seconds to get around them, so I couldn't cover you if a monster respawned nearby. We've seen that they can respawn all over the place. It would cause trouble if one spawned over there.
Sinon [slightly taken aback]: You really are a worrywart sometimes. [slightly worriedly] Although I'd rather avoid that, to be honest. But… What do you have in mind?
Akinym: It might be better to wait for the last few monsters we've killed to respawn, so we can say for sure that you're gonna be okay.
Sinon: So you wanna wait… [slightly exasperatedly] I don't know about you, but I'd rather not spend more time in this crammed place. Yeah, maybe a monster will spawn at my shooting range – [slightly determinedly] or maybe not. It's unlikely, isn't it? In fact, if we wait, the monsters might spawn as well around these two ahead. Would you want to fight against three or four of them instead of two?
Akinym could see where Sinon was coming from. In fact, he caught himself agreeing with her: He didn't want to be in this gloomy, claustrophobic cave any longer. Maybe the stressful atmosphere was getting to them… and to their judgment.
Regardless of these concerns, Akinym thought that Sinon might be right. The determination of his partner to face a challenge had been the right call on a few occasions.
Akinym: It would still be risky. Are you really okay with that?
Sinon: Hey, I'm not a defenseless damsel, you know? I can fend off one of these monsters for a moment.
Akinym still hesitated, albeit just for a moment.
Akinym: Alright, let's go!
Sinon nodded affirmatively and made her way over to her position. When she was ready, Akinym came out of hiding and rushed over to his designated battle area. The two monsters they were targeting noticed him immediately and charged at Akinym.
Akinym could fend off the first one that attacked. However, he had had hardly any time to take a battle stance, and keeping his balance on the ground was hard enough anyway, so when he thrust his spear at his opponent, Akinym almost slipped. When the second orc monster lunged at him, Akinym could barely leap slightly to the side to dodge. Now the monster tumbled past him, and he had one enemy on each side, which was a rather unfavourable situation.
Trying to keep an eye on both the monster in front of him and the one behind him, Akinym thrust his spear back and forth to keep both of them at bay. Simultaneously, he tried to dodge their machetes relatively successfully. Fortunately, the two monsters didn't coordinate their attacks.
The orc monster in front of Akinym sustained some scratches over time, and Akinym figured that Sinon could start to attack. He glanced over at her, and she seemed to wait for a good opportunity. Right… The monster swayed back and forth a lot, and it would be better if it stood still.
After another one of its strikes had been parried, the monster tumbled back a little, and when it was just far away enough for it to be unable to reach Akinym with its machete, Akinym impaled one of its legs with his spear, basically pinning it to the ground.
However, it came at a price. Akinym couldn't really move around in this situation, so he received a direct hit on his back from the monster behind him.
Akinym: Switch!
Sinon understood the intention behind Akinym's actions. She used her newest Sword Skill, Quintuple Shot. Similarly to Triple Shot, Sinon fired five arrows in quick succession, and there was an accumulative damage bonus for each arrow that hit the same spot as a previously fired one. It was the perfect choice against the essentially immobilised foe, and the attack was strong to take the monster out.
Akinym quickly performed a somersault using his Acrobatics skill in order to dodge the next blow from the remaining monster. Normally, that movement would've been extremely difficult on this uneven ground, but the system assistant stabilised it to the greatest possible extent. It still felt very unpleasant to roll around on the floor of the cave, but Akinym put up with it since it allowed him to avoid another hit.
Sinon prepared to shoot an arrow at the other monster when she heard the sound of yet another monster spawning nearby. To make things worse, the sound seemed to come from directly behind her. For a second, Sinon wondered if this could really mean what she thought it did.
She turned around and noticed the incoming attack of an orc monster just in time to dodge by rolling to the side.
Akinym heard the commotion, although he couldn't look over to Sinon to get a clear picture of the situation. He still had to deal with a monster on his end, too.
Akinym: What's wrong?! Did a monster spawn over there after all?!
Sinon: Yes, but it's just one!
Akinym: What does it matter?! Try to keep it in check for a moment, I'm coming!
Sinon: No! Take care of that one you're dealing with now first! I've got this!
Sinon had learnt Quick Change for situations like this, and she used the skill to switch from her bow to her dagger in an instant. She held the weapon in her hand in time, so she could deflect the next blow.
Now that she actually had to fight one of these monsters at close range, Sinon remembered quickly what she disliked about this fighting style. She couldn't think clearly like this. Fighting this deadly opponent like this made her feel exactly as she had felt years ago when she had been an eleven-year-old girl that had tried to wrestle a deadly weapon out of a grown man's hands.
Sinon frantically swung her dagger at the orc monster without much of a plan. She only thought about the next move during the entire fight. She hastily dodged and countered with rather sloppy swings of her dagger. Sinon didn't even know how long she fought her opponent like that, she only knew that it worked somehow.
The orc monster sustained some scratches on its right arm, and they were enough to bring its HP down to eighty per cent. At some point, Sinon stopped an incoming downward strike of the orc's machete by ramming her dagger into its wrist. The monster slowly overpowered her, though, and it eventually pushed her back.
In her frenzied state, Sinon got up quickly and used the Sword Skill Slash. Her Dagger skill was still on a quite low level, so she didn't have many good Sword Skills for this weapon. At least the attack was a direct hit, and Sinon got a clean hit on the monster's neck.
The post-motion delay of Slash only lasted for a second or two, but Sinon still couldn't dodge the orc's counterattack completely. Its machete grazed her arm. The attack might've caused a paralysis effect. Akinym had a relatively high resistance to status ailments, which was yet another reason why he was the one to fight these orcs up close, but Sinon didn't have any equipment with bonuses against such effects. It was only due to luck that she wasn't paralysed.
Alas, Sinon wasn't in a calm state of mind, and she didn't even think of this possibility. She just dodged the next blow, a horizontal strike with the machete, and prepared another Sword Skill, Cross Edge this time. After inflicting two slashes that formed a cross on the monster's torso, Sinon was once again defenseless due to the post-motion delay. Furthermore, Sinon had failed to take into account that the monster used an attack that resembled the Sword Skill Horizontal Arc, so it quickly attacked again, and since Sinon couldn't dodge, it hit her at the stomach without problem.
After the attack, Sinon had the feeling that her body became numb. Even when the post-motion delay was over, she couldn't move, and she collapsed to the ground. A quick glance at her HP gauge in the top left corner of her vision confirmed that the attack had paralysed her.
For situations like this, she had an Antidote Crystal ready in her pouch, so she reached for it. However, due to the paralysis, moving was extremely difficult, and it would take her a few seconds to get the crystal. Meanwhile, the monster prepared another attack.
The monster raised its machete and swung it at Sinon, but the blow was deflected by the thrust of a spear. Sinon numbly turned her head. It was a slow, sluggish movement due to the paralysis, but she could see that Akinym had apparently defeated the other monster, and now he had come to her aid.
Akinym had hastened to kill the monster on his side. He had seen Sinon's "skill" with a dagger too often to take chances. In order to make quick work of the monster he had fought, however, Akinym had used quite a lot of Sword Skills, and in the narrow space, his spear had got caught on the surrounding rock formations almost every time. Not even the system assistant could correct the trajectories of many of these attacks. For instance, when Akinym had used Needle Rain, only four of the seven thrusts had hit the target.
Anyway, now that he was here, Akinym wasted no time and preempted the next attack of the monster by piercing its shoulder with his spear. Well, he had aimed for the chest…
Akinym made the best of it and basically shove the monster towards the wall. The monster tried to resist, of course, and Akinym and the monster were about equally matched in this "reverse tug-of-war" scenario.
In the end, the monster gained the upper hand by turning and twisting its body. Akinym could feel that his spear was about to slip off, and he tried to compensate by circling around the monster. However, he tripped over some sort of small rock ledge. As a consequences, Akinym lost his balance and tumbled straight into a small cavity in the wall.
By now, the monster had changed its target to Akinym, and it attacked. Akinym tried to raise his spear to parry the incoming blow, but the weapon got caught on the surrounding walls. To make things worse, he literally had his back to the wall, so he couldn't dodge to any side. The cavity was so narrow that Akinym could hardly move his arms, let alone the rest of his body.
The monster hit him a few times with its machete while Akinym was trying to think of a way out of this situation. He got the idea to use his Acrobatics skill for a frontflip. With the help of the system assistant, he might be able to jump over his foe. However, he'd probably crash into the low ceiling, but at this point, he had to take the risk.
Alas, when Akinym was about to execute that plan, he lost control over his body. The next attack of the orc monster had paralysed him. Well, even with his high Paralysis Resistance, it was clear that it would happen eventually.
Now the monster sunk its weapon into Akinym's chest almost like a bloodthirsty reaper. Akinym's HP bar had already been around the yellow zone when he had begun fighting this monster. In his previous battle, killing his opponent quickly had required prioritising offense over defense, and Akinym had sustained a few hits. Now, his HP bar reached the red zone.
Things were looking really dire when the monster suddenly jerked vigorously. This happened two more times in quick succession after that, and the orc grunted in pain each time. The strength in its arms vanished, and the monster literally fell apart as its HP fell to zero.
When the cloud of polygons the monster had disintegrated into cleared, it revealed Sinon standing a few metres away with her bow. After Akinym had diverted the monster's attention, Sinon had grabbed her Antidote Crystal to get rid of the paralysis. She had switched back to her bow using Quick Change, and she had taken the monster out with Triple Shot.
Akinym sunk to the ground, still being paralysed, and Sinon rushed over to him with a worried expression.
Sinon: Are you okay? That was… awfully close.
Akinym: That's for sure! Thanks for… taking care of that.
Sinon: Well, I guess we're even. To think that one of them really spawned next to me…
Well, it had worked out in the end. Nevertheless, it had been a reminder to remain cautious.
Both Akinym and Sinon wondered if Akinym should use an Antidote Crystal or something similar to get rid of the paralysis. The orc monsters here used a quite weak paralysis poison, and the effect lasted only for a minute.
The respawn time of the monsters, on the other hand, was relatively long, so it was unlikely that waiting for the status ailment to expire would cause any problems. If anything, anything else seemed like a waste of anti-paralysis items. As if to confirm that, a monster respawned in the distance, too far away to cause them any trouble.
Sinon stood guard, just in case anything would happen after all. She was wondering if she could've avoided the trouble they had faced, silently thinking about the previous battle. Meanwhile, Akinym was quietly waiting for the debuff to expire. At the same time, he thought back to the time when he and Sinon had gone to a bookstore. Maybe he should've bought that book about fighting in caves and similar places after all…
Once Akinym could move again, he quickly drank a potion to get his HP back. After that, he and Sinon walked towards the exit of the tunnel. To Akinym's surprise, Sinon stopped in front of the natural gateway.
Akinym: What is it?
Sinon [hesitantly, slightly worriedly]: Behind this point… We have no idea what to expect, do we? The KoB… stopped here. Not even they made it past this point.
Akinym: It would be more accurate to say that they didn't even make it this far. Do you remember what Argo-san said? When they were in this area, they figured that this was too tedious, so they turned around. We've already made it further than they did, and frankly, the KoB isn't an invincible army either. [dryly] Besides, wasn't it your idea that we can just call it quits if we think that it's getting too dangerous?
Sinon [slightly upset]: I know that! Cut me some slack! Coming this far was hard enough so… [slightly worriedly] of course I'm a little bit nervous.
Akinym thought about what to say in response for a brief moment.
Akinym: Well, I guess you have a point. [slightly sternly] Still, we're not done yet, so let's get going! [flatly] For all we know, we might just get a quest reward in the next cavern, and that would be it.
Sinon: Well, that would make for an interesting story, but I doubt that this is going to happen.
Akinym: Well… So do I. Regardless, let's see what's next!
Sinon took a deep breath and nodded determinedly. With that, they ventured into the uncharted part of the cave.
...which they will explore in part 3.
This whole Cave of Trials sub-story is essentially an excuse for me to dump certain scenarios into the story, so this explains the variety of different challenges Akinym and Sinon have to meet.
Little Preview: Unsurprisingly, not knowing what to expect doesn't make clearing the dungeon easier. What kind of challenges and near-death experiences lie ahead?