Risen World

Chapter 262: Canyon Dungeon Part 10

After entering the new area the first thing they all noticed was the fact that the path didn't seem to go all that far. When Joshua sent an aura pulse out ahead of the group he noticed it stopped well before its range as it seemed to smash into a wall up ahead. The wall was a bit oddly designed since it wasn't a smooth surface like all of the other walls in the dungeon, but instead seemed similar to the face of a cliff. It looked like something you'd be forced to climb up or down, but from what Joshua could tell from his aura pulse there wasn't anywhere to go with the wall. The ceiling was right above it and the floor was beneath it cutting you off from being able to climb the wall to anywhere at all which made it seem pointless.

The other thing Joshua took notice of with his aura pulse was the fact that although his aura pulse was able to reach the wall up ahead and the wall to his right, it wasn't able to reach the one to his left. From that fact alone he was starting to think the true path ahead was going to the left instead of straight ahead, but he still wanted to check out the far wall to see what was going on there. It didn't take the group more than a few minutes to reach the wall and what they found was exactly what Joshua had sensed when he sent out the aura pulse in the first place. There was a cliff like wall in front of them with nothing else to see. Becca and Marcus were both checking the wall to see if there was something hidden for them to find.

"Do you think we should go to the left? I'm not seeing anything here for us to find and the path to the right isn't very far based off of what I'm seeing from my echolocation." Becca said aloud as she turned to look at Joshua.

"I don't know something just feels off." Joshua said thinking back on the warning they had gotten before entering this path. Then he started to think about what he knew about these ram creatures from before entering the dungeon. From what they had seen earlier they loved to scale cliff sides and only came down into the canyon for food instead of challenging the other beast up on the prairie. That's when Joshua took notice of the fact that the wall in front of them was a bit too similar to the walls in the canyon. The ceiling in the room was also extremely high giving the wall plenty of space. "I think I've got an idea of what's going to happen."

"What do you mean?" Adrian asked as he turned to look at Joshua, but before Joshua could respond a clicking sound started to fill up the room getting everyone's attention. The group tensed up a bit preparing for something to happen, but Joshua already had a good idea of what was coming.

"Everyone start running to the left for as long as possible, but stay close to the wall." Joshua shouted before he started running ahead of the group. The others didn't know exactly what was going on, but they all trusted Joshua so they followed his lead. The group kept running as the clicking sound kept getting louder and louder giving them a sign that something was about to happen.

"What's going on Joshua?" Laura shouted as they ran down the large hall while staying as close to the wall as possible.

"If this path is supposed to be based off an environment that benefits the rams then what did we see the rams doing all the time whenever we saw them?" Joshua yelled back over the loud clicking sound that was getting faster and faster. It was getting to the point that it was hard to hear anything else.

"They were always climbing the cliffs right?" Henry said as he finally understood what was going on. "Then the room here is going to change to fit that environment in some way."

"Exactly! My guess is when the clicking stops the room is going to shift so that what is the current right side of the room will be the ceiling and the left side will be the floor. That means wed all fall to our deaths unless we scale the wall." Joshua explained getting nods from the rest of the group. "Running to the left now just gives us a good head start before we have to scale the wall when the room shifts. I have no idea how far we'll have to go to get to the bottom though."

It wasn't more than a few seconds later after Joshua explanation that a final loud click occurred surprising everyone in the group. The sound echoed for a moment before the room started turning. The floor that they stood on was starting to slant and that's when the entire group knew that Joshua's idea was correct. "Get on to the wall now! Find any hand holdings you can."

Everyone rushed to the wall and started to grab on to anything that looked like it could hold their weight fine. From what Joshua could tell everyone seemed fine with scaling a cliff from earlier in the canyon when they went up to check on the rams. It was something you got used to doing when exploring all sorts of different areas. Lilly even summoned Cinder who clung to the wall and allowed Lilly to ride on her back. Being a spider and all Cinder was a pro at climbing so it made things easier for Lilly and the triplets who decided to get on top of the spider as well.

It didn't take long for the entire room to finish shifting and the group was left staring down below themselves into what now looked like a bottomless hole that stretched on for a long time. It was just as deep as the hole they had to go down to get to the dungeon in the first place which meant it could take them a long time to reach the end of the dungeon. Luckily the wall seemed fairly sturdy with a ton of handholds that would make it easy to climb down without much trouble. It seemed like it would be a challenge of endurance at this point as long as nothing else popped up. Joshua was just hoping they wouldn't have to fight anything while scaling down a cliff since that would be extremely difficult.

"Well looks like things aren't too bad. Now we just have to scale the cliff carefully." Adam said as he hung on to the wall with one hand and twisted his body to look down below.

"Well let's get down to the bottom of this place as quickly as possible before anything else can happen." Adrian responded getting a nod from everyone, but it was in that moment that the group heard a loud click from up above them similar to the countdown clicks from before. They all stared up to see what else could possibly be going on, but nothing happened for a few minutes. It was then that another click sounded out before a loud thud happened above shaking the entire wall and causing everyone to hang on. Bits of rock fell down from the ceiling, but it wasn't anything to dangerous. The danger this time was the fact that something was smashing the cliff above them and nobody wanted to stick around to find out if it would continue.

"Let's get a move on. Our descent was just put on a timer." Joshua shouted as he started climbing down at a fast pace ahead of everyone else. He was taking the lead just in case they came across any other problems. He had the ability to float for a time period which made it safer for him if any of the hand holds broke off or they came across some sort of beast and he needed to take it out so the rest of the group could make their way down without too much danger. His rushing got everyone else to kick things into high gear as well. They started to rush down the cliff as quickly as possible with Cinder casually keeping pace with the rest of the group since she could climb down so much faster if needed.

After a few minutes another click came from up above followed by a loud thud signaling that another piece of the wall had been smashed into. Whenever this happened it would halt the pace of the group since they had to cling on to the wall for safety so that they wouldn't fall off from all of the shaking. The further they went down the cliff the more this would happen. The increasing pace also made the group rush down faster since they knew whatever was happening above them was coming in their direction quicker and quicker. The fact that they had run as far as they could down the hall at the start of everything was the only reason they were so far ahead of whatever was happening above them. Otherwise they'd be in a lot more danger.

After a couple of hours of the hectic climbing the pace of the slamming above them had gone from happening every few minutes to every minute and it only seemed to be getting faster and faster. The group still hadn't reached the bottom of the cliff yet, but there was a change in their surroundings. They were starting to see the glyphs along the walls below them and that was a good sign that they were getting close to something. Even so they needed to hurry since it had gotten to the point where they could see what was happening up above them. Of course it was still a ways away, but they could see it at this point.

What used to be the entrance way to the path before the room had shifted was now smashing itself into the wall that they were climbing down. It was happening at a faster pace and in large chunks that were comparable to the height of one of the rooms in the dungeon. In other words the group had to descend at least five stories or so every minute to keep ahead of the death trap above and that pace was only getting faster. The group continued to push their selves as they descended as fast as possible. The mages in the group were struggling to keep up a bit with the melee fighters that were having a much easier time, so Joshua had all of the mages get on to Cinders back so they could descend at a faster pace. If they didn't they'd get caught eventually and that wasn't going to end well.

By the time that it had gotten to the point where the smashing up above was happening every thirty seconds the group had already reached the area of the cliff that was surrounded in several symbols that spread along the walls. At this point Joshua could see the floor beneath him as he sighed with relief seeing that they were going to be able to make it in time. He jumped from off the cliff and started to float the rest of the way down. When the rest of the group saw this they knew they were in the clear so they just made sure they didn't have any slip ups at the end of the race.

When Joshua landed on the ground below he found himself in a large empty room with nothing but glyphs to brighten the room. On the far end of the room was another large door with a ram on it and this time Joshua could feel the presence of something beyond the door. He knew this meant that the boss for this path was just ahead of them and it didn't take nearly as long to get through this path as the last one. Even so he could see how dangerous this path could be if a group wasn't prepared. If they had to climb down at the pace of the healers in the group then they might not have made it in time. Also the fact that they had gotten a head start had also made things easier for them in the long run.

"Well let's see what the boss for this path has to offer." Joshua said with a small smile as he waited for the rest of the group to finish making their way down the cliff.