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Aster was a few feet away, and a quick scan of the area showed him that no one else was there yet, making the cavern feel even more empty.
Before he could start tending to his still bleeding wounds, Aster scampered over. “Are you okay?”
She ruined any concern her words gave off by head-butting him and wiggling to get closer, so he picked her up and sat her on his lap. It was good to be able to see her once again, and he gave her the pets she had been missing in the last few weeks.
She looked fine and had no injuries as far as he could see, which was a good bit better than how he felt.
“What happened to you? How did a butterfly hurt you that much?” Aster tilted an ear at him as she asked her question before going back to sniffing his wounds under the armor.
Matt just channeled [Lesser Regeneration] after casting [Bandage] a few times on the worst of the injuries.
“You didn’t have a shadow thing chasing you?”
Aster looked at him like he was crazy. “No, I just played with the butterfly. After catching it ten times, I got teleported out. What did you do?”
Matt was shocked and a little upset that he had only managed to catch the butterfly on his last attempt. He had thought that that was what had ended the test. Not that he had run out of attempts.
After he explained what he went through, Aster laughed at him. “You need to learn how to hunt better. It was easy!”
Matt stood up and tried to walk to the edge of the room so he could set up his house out of the way. He wanted to take a shower he could feel and make a meal he could actually taste. But as he walked to the edge of the room, it expanded, keeping him far away from the wall. Looking back, he checked the seemingly central pillar, and yes, the pillar was getting smaller, but he couldn’t get closer to the edge of the cavern.
Shrugging, he set the house up in the middle of the floor and set himself up for a shower and Aster for a bath after charging the shields.
He was enjoying his steaming hot shower that he could actually feel for the first time in nearly a month, and Aster was lounging in her ice bath, when his AI received a ping as Susanne reconnected to their network.
Toweling off, he verified it was her before opening the shields and letting her in.
She was as bloody as he was and had a similar experience to him where a shadow monster was also hunting for the butterfly.
They both confirmed that killing said monster increased their spiritual perception regarding danger, unlike catching the butterfly.
She went and took her own shower while Matt waited for Liz. After another two hours, where he had cooked a full meal and repaired Susanne’s armor, Liz still hadn’t returned, and he was starting to get worried when she appeared on the floor looking un-touched.
She sauntered over and asked, “What happened?”
Liz looked worried at the still healing wounds on his body, but he shrugged it off to ask his own question.
“Did you not face a shadow monster in there hunting the butterfly as well?” His question caused Liz to look at him like he was crazy.
By this time, Aster and Susanne came out and joined them.
Liz shook her head, “No but catching the butterfly was a pain in the ass. I did figure out the gimmick after a while though.”
The three of them looked at her like she was crazy. Aster was the first to ask. “What gimmick?”
Liz looked at them and asked her own question as she stripped off her armor and walked into the shower.
Using her AI, she continued the conversation. “What did you guys face?”
Matt started to clean Liz’s armor as Aster explained what she went through with her very easy and fun chase and capture of the butterfly.
Then, Matt and Susanne explained how they encountered the shadow monster and killed it.
Hearing that, Liz ahhed but waited until they finished to tell her story.
She came out of the shower with a towel wrapped around her hair and kissed Matt for taking care of her armor, before sitting down and taking the plate he had set out for her.
“I had no obvious hunter or anything after me, but after the first floor where I didn’t catch the butterfly, I worked to discover the gimmick of the place. There were half a dozen exits for the butterfly, which were scattered around each floor. So long as you were fast enough and didn’t get too close to the butterfly, which ended the round, you could get between the exit and the butterfly for an easy catch. Of course, it wasn’t that easy, as there were multiple exits, but just getting between the butterfly and the exit was enough to send it to another one. So I ended up running around for a while, but I think my ability to sense passageways was improved for my efforts.”
She looked at Matt and Susanne, asking, “How come you guys had monsters to fight? I would have liked to get that reward as well. What gives?”
Matt looked to Susanne and reviewed her story but found nothing different.
Offering up an idea, he said, “Maybe it’s because we just charged right at the butterfly and didn’t try to think our way out of the problem?”
Susanne didn’t look as bothered as he was about that prospect and nodded. “Makes sense to me.”
Matt hoped that it wasn’t that simple but feared that it was. He just hadn’t thought to try and find some deeper meaning in a game of tag. It seemed too simple. It was also a good lesson that Minkalla’s test were never what they seemed, and that they should be careful on the deeper floors, where the rewards were greater.
After their talk, they relaxed for another hour to nap, but decided to move onto the next floor instead of sleeping properly.
- Writer
