The Failed Challenge

As the kodama was too small to kill with his ax easily, Thodin immediately started stomping it to death. Of course, the kodama still tried to escape, but it was too small to do so and quickly perished under the weight of the dwarf. The strange rattling sound of the kodama's head echoed out across the room, making it all the more eerie.

Tobias easily destroyed the slime's core and then the group began to collect the room's resources. Some of the [Items] would have to be brought back to the guild as samples of what was available in the dungeon, but the rest could easily be sold.

"Has anyone gotten any challenge notifications since we entered?"

Everyone answered Tobias with a firm shake of their head.

"Alright, let's move on to the next room."

Since they were tasked to thoroughly investigate the dungeon, they were expected to complete any challenges they did come across. If the puzzle couldn't be completed in a reasonable amount of time, they would have to return another day just to attempt it until the task was complete. It was impossible to report back on any [Traps] that might be involved as well as the dungeon's true difficulty to complete if they didn't check everything thoroughly.

In Violet's old world, there was well-known advice about traversing mazes that involved always sticking to the left-hand side with one's hand against the wall. However, this sort of tale was not actually how people usually worked. Instead, they had a habit of choosing between left and right based on whichever was their dominant side. Right-handers would choose right while left-handers would choose left. 

As such, the group easily made the decision to go right and ended up in the slime parkour room next. Of course, this was not before Matthias could freak out about the roundabouts being confusing and Mirabella reminding him in an annoyed tone questioning if he had forgotten she had the navigator class. While the dungeon map only updated once she got into close proximity to an area, the small roundabout was hardly a challenge. It was only when they got stuck in large mazes that they'd end up running into trouble. Even then, that could only last so long as the map would eventually fill out, and then they'd be able to escape.

Well, that was the case so long as the walls weren't the shifting kind. That was a rather annoying feature that dungeons with any real experience tended to employ to throw even navigators off course. However, that was a phenomenon that was limited to maze challenge rooms, anyway. A random hallway didn't have such a luxury.

Of course, while it would be easy for dungeon masters to get frustrated and target navigators just so their dungeons couldn't be mapped, there were stipulations in the dungeon accords to prevent such a thing. A dungeon could only be mapped once a year and all maps of dungeons had to be sold for a minimum of ten silver per floor covered. That could quickly add up with the twenty-five-floor dungeons costing an entire two and a half gold pieces. Since most of the lower-ranking adventurers couldn't afford to buy such maps, it didn't tend to help very many people. Besides, it wasn't like the resources on the lower floors were worth enough to make the purchase worth the trouble either.

Most adventurers would only enter a particular dungeon a certain number of times before moving on and those who remained long enough to make the purchase worthwhile usually just memorized the layout of the lower floors. Still, the adventurer guilds and the richer nobility always bought the updated maps. With the navigator class already being quite rare, Mirabella could easily earn a few gold coins each year when she remapped the local dungeons and sold them to her regular customers.

Of course, selling information was also a very valuable trade. Information on what types of [Traps], puzzles, and challenges were in a dungeon as well as anything on the rewards available in treasure chests or for the challenges were in high demand. Since anyone could gather such information, though, the adventurer guild only paid a few silver, at most, for any new information. Still, Mirabella felt quite lucky that she was able to secure this job for her party since they were likely to be paid several gold coins for both the map and the information they'd be gathering today.

"You can't be serious! You can't seriously expect me to jump from platform to platform in this pouring rain. Someone is going to die!"

Matthias's loud complaints just made the team's already bleak outlook on their first puzzle that much worse.

"For once, the boy has a point. I don't think I'll be able to avoid sinking to the bottom with all of this armor on. It'll weigh me down and I can't exactly just leave it here."

Thodin Bharrum didn't often agree with Matthias, but he wasn't exactly eager to die either. Tobias sighed as he replied

"Alright, look, you all just stay here. I'll try to see if I can safely cross. Matthias and I are the only ones not wearing heavy armor and I can't actually force him to do anything. If I throw him into the water, he'd just fail the challenge right away, anyway. Whether I succeed or fail, I'll come back and then we can go back the other way."

Mirabella looked warily at the pitch-black room and then at her brother worriedly.

"At least take a magic light with you, brother. It's difficult to even see the first platform from here, it'll be impossible to see if there are any [Monsters] or [Traps] hiding in the water if you don't have it. I can't map the entire room from here, so I don't know what to expect."

Tobias frowned as he said

"We'll have to come back tomorrow to finish the map then. We should know what else to expect from the dungeon then and we can prepare for it ahead of time and make sure the map gets finished. The guildmaster isn't going to want to buy an incomplete map. It'd be a waste of their one chance to get an accurate map this year."

Mirabella just nodded as she watched her brother walk away. He had left his satchel of gear with her, but had taken the magic light as she had requested.

Tobias stretched as he prepared himself to make the leap across to the first platform. He had pretty good strength and his height gave him an advantage in jumping further distances than most. Still, it was likely he'd have a hard landing and the platform was rather limited in size. He doubted he could even fully lay down on the wooden platform and its width was even narrower than its length. Unfortunately, there wouldn't be the ability to get a running start either with the grassy area near the entrance being rather short as well.

Tobias shook his head, he couldn't psyche himself out now. He crouched down before leaping forward, just barely making it onto the first platform. He shined his light out across the distance and was disheartened to see that it was even further away than the first had been. If this pattern continued, it would be nearly impossible to finish by the time he got to the other side of the room. Still, he couldn't give up just yet.

Once more, Tobias crouched before leaping forward and just narrowly making it to the next platform. However, he had ended up touching the water and the system notification he was presented with made it very clear that he had failed the challenge. Sighing, Tobias shined his light into the distance, only to have it knocked out of his hand as something jumped out of the water.

"What the heck!"

Tobias shouted as he jumped into the water after his light. The monster was certainly a concern, but magic lights weren't exactly cheap. They cost an entire gold coin each and were meant to last the entirety of an adventurer's lifetime. Quickly grabbing the light, Tobias swam to the next platform before pulling himself up. 

More carefully, this time, he held his light and shone it around the room. When another slime jumped up out of the water at him, he quickly dodged out of the way. Tobias furrowed his brows. While it was a relief that it was just a weak slime, it was still rather odd to have them hopping out of the water like this.

Before he returned to the other side, Tobias attempted to jump the rest of the way across. It would be good to see just how far away the other platforms were before returning. It seemed there were eight platforms in total with all of the platforms being equally far apart so long as he hopped over to the one that was to the side before going forward each time. He'd have to make use of all eight platforms if he wanted to make things easier on himself next time.

Of course, the problem with challenges like this was that he'd have to exit the dungeon and return on a separate day to be eligible for the reward again. That's always how these sorts of static puzzles worked. Some puzzles would reset after the room was empty for a set period of time and could be attempted anew at that point. Others would lock you in until you completed them. Then, there were the puzzles that didn't require resetting, like this one, which would only make the reward available once a day and wouldn't be available once you failed the challenge.

Tobias sighed, it looked like he would have to return to give the challenge another attempt tomorrow.