Pandora Unchained - B1C45: Theory VS Practice

Orpheus’s arrival put an immediate damper on the team’s festive atmosphere. Stephan, who’d been receiving treatment for his bruises, stood up abruptly and half-shifted into bear form. Lawrence and Warren took out their daggers while Gareth and Lise each nocked an arrow.

Unsurprisingly, Daphne didn’t even seem to notice the altercation. She’d been recovering during their battle and trying to figure something out while scribbling on a piece of paper. It was only when Sorin flicked a rock at her that she blinked and realized their current predicament.

“Have I been misleading you into thinking I’m a pushover?” Stephan asked Orpheus. “Because you know full well that fighting amongst adventurers is against the rules. What will you do if we don’t vacate? Would you dare kill us for treasure?”

Orpheus shrugged. “Who’s to say you didn’t die to monsters? In fact, in fact, how dare you try to steal our loot. We worked hard to slay those cyclopes, and here you come in, trying to steal from us? That’s a capital offense.”

“Hahaha,” Lawrence burst out laughing. “And here I thought I was shameless. Are you taking students by any chance? Its my first time meeting a master of the craft.”

“You think I’m joking?” said Orpheus, smile fading. “Raneev. Shoot him.” Lawrence jumped back just as an arrow shot into the corpse he was standing on.

“Hey!” said Lawrence. “Weren’t we talking? Why escalate when we can smoothly resolve this without violence.”

“You can’t fight us without taking losses,” Stephan said to Orpheus. “We might be tired from that battle, but we can at least take half of you down with us. It’s not worth it to risk losing half your team just to get a few demon cores.”

“Likewise, it’s not worth it to fight us for a few demon cores,” Orpheus countered. “Especially since you could stand to lose your entire team. Pretty boy like you from a big family – money is meaningless. Your life is everything. I’ve seen your type before, so I know you’ll back down now and try to escalate this when we get back.”

“You confuse concern for one’s companions with cowardice,” said Stephan. “Don’t push me, Orpheus. You’ll regret it”

“Don’t think I don’t know you’re buying time for you all to recover?” said Orpheus. “You have ten seconds to get the hell out of here. Nine. Eight.”

Sorin frowned and looked over his companion. They were all ragged from the battle, even those who hadn’t taken any direct hits. At the same time, Sorin was indignant. Ever since the death of his parents, people had been pushing him around and restricting him. This was just one more iteration of the same old pattern.

“I’m tired,” Sorin finally said. He pulled a box from his pack and opened it. The labyrinth shivered as manabane poison entered the ruins and began sapping away at everyone’s strength. “I’m tired of getting pushed around, Orpheus. I thought the adventurer’s guild was different, but it seems that everywhere you go, there’s always people like you trying to take what’s not theirs.”

Orpheus eyed the box warily. “What exactly is this treasure? Are you offering it up to us so we’ll leave you in peace?”

Sorin laughed. “I suppose you can say that, but first, let me introduce what’s in the box. This flower is called a manabane chrysanthemum. It’s not a lethal poison, but if received in high doses, it will cripple one’s cultivation and rupture one’s mana sea. Even breathing in its fumes would wipe out one’s mana and leave one crippled with agony.”

“So you’re threatening me,” said Orpheus. “Reasonable. But ff you crush that flower, won’t you cripple everyone in your party? It hardly seems worth it.”

“Isn’t it better than dying?” asked Sorin. “My party members will suffer, but I’ll be able to resist the effects somewhat. Long enough to kill everyone on your team, at least. And even if you do manage to stop me, your entire party won’t survive the labyrinth without mana. So tell me, Orpheus, do you still want to attack us for our things? Are you willing to gamble?”

“You wouldn’t,” Orpheus sneered.

“Actually I would,” said Sorin. “Do you think I wouldn’t dare risk being crippled? Haven’t you heard about the crippled physician who became an adventurer? That’s me. I’ve been there and know exactly what it feels like.

“You’re putting on a strong front and abusing the knowledge that if we fight, we’ll die and at least half of you will live. Well I’m throwing that back at you. Will you really do it if your chances of survival are zero? Do you dare take that chance, coward?”

Cultivators weren’t equally knowledgeable, but they did have sharp instincts. And everyone in the room’s instincts were screaming at them to get out, including Sorin’s.

Orpheus stared Sorin down for a few long seconds before spitting on the ground. “Consider yourself vicious, Sorin Kepler. You win this round. These aren’t the only demons to be had in this labyrinth. Lets hope you continue to be as lucky in your future encounters.

Sorin didn’t immediately put away the flower but held it for five minutes before placing it back in the box. His teammates let out a sigh of relief and resumed their looting and healing.

“That was quick thinking, Sorin,” said Stephan, walking over. “But would you really have destroyed that chrysanthemum?”

“Of course, I would have,” said Sorin. “Otherwise, why would someone like Orpheus have retreated?”

“Well, you’ve got balls,” said Nale, walking up to him. He winced as he rolled his shoulder which had been dislocated during the fight. “I can’t believe a guy like him managed to become such a high ranking adventurer.”

“He’s a bully,” said Stephan. “He makes it his business to roll over weaker adventurers. He has a gift for knowing what people want to avoid as well. Warren. Lawrence. Did you find it?”

“They put it all in one big pile,” said Warren, dragging over a grass net piled up with adventurers gear, including armor and weapons.

“Rules are rules, but living people are living people,” said Stephan. “Inventory it all and split rations amongst everyone present. We’ll split potions half and half, and then decide what to do with the rest of the gear.” He then walked up to the pile and picked out a dagger. “We’re taking first pick, if you don’t mind. Sorin needs a sharper weapon.” He handed the dagger over to Sorin before walking over to Hellen, who’d yet to finish administering treatment.

Sorin looked over the dagger and marvelled at its sharpness. He put its blade to his mithril dagger and stopped after cutting a nick in it. With this dagger, I could cut through one-star bones like cutting through flesh, thought Sorin. I also wouldn’t need to spend so much mana piercing a two-star demon’s mana shields. He also faintly felt that the dagger had another ability, but without identifying it, he had no way to discover what exactly this ability was.

Speaking of abilities, Sorin reflected on the change that had occurred when the cyclops had tried paralyzing him with an eye technique. At first, he’d thought the serpent was just passively helping him resist paralysis. It was only now that he was out of combat that he could further assess the situation.

Instead of resisting the paralysis, it’s more like my own technique fought against the cyclops’s technique and canceled out most of it, thought Sorin. During combat, he’d unconsciously uncovered yet another ability from the Ten Thousand Poison Cannon, Cobra’s Gaze. It was an eye technique that could mesmerize or paralyze one’s opponents. It was heavily reliant on his physical strength, which was abnormally high.

Sorin spent the next six hours studying the technique as he recovered. In this time, Hellen treated all their wounds, and Lawrence and Warren finished collecting the demon cores from nearly a hundred cyclopes. There was only one two-star core, but Nale bargained for additional one-star cores instead, as well as second and third pick of the adventurers’ magical items.

When Sorin asked about getting a bounty for the cores, Stephan informed him that they wouldn’t be getting one. “Creatures in dungeons normally don’t wander out of said dungeons, so there’s no point in offering a bounty for them,” said Stephan. “All we get are their cores, which are larger than usual. We’ll either trade them or gamble them at the Temple of Hope.”

Bruises were tough to heal, but Sorin knew some acupuncture techniques that could mobilize a person’s blood and increase recovery. By the end of their extended rest, even the badly battered Stephan was fully functional. His armor was ironically in better shape than after facing the rockgnaw rats.

Speaking of rockgnaw rats, it was Lawrence who finally found Lorimer after the dust settled. Apparently, a cyclops had fallen on top of him, and he’d used this opportunity to rest and avoid combat. Sorin scolded the rat and prohibited it from eating further demon cores. If it wanted to eat, it would need to participate in combat in the future.

Since Sorin had gotten his mysterious gem-studded dagger, there were still 3 enchanted items left from the adventuring team’s gear. Stephan claimed a pair of boots that increased his strength and footing, while the remaining two items, agility-increasing bracers, and a set of enchanted leather armor, went to Nale and Warren.

“Yes, yes, yes!” Daphne cried out when they finished dividing the loot. “I did it! I’m a genius!”

“What is it this time?” asked Stephan. “Was it worth getting distracted while we were facing off against Orpheus and his gang?”

“Of course it was worth it,” said Daphne excitedly. “I can’t wait to test this out. Which way does the mana density increase again?”

“That way,” said a confused Hellen, pointing towards a wall.

Daphne whistled joyfully as she walked over to the wall and ran her hand along it. She travelled roughly 30 meters before stopping and tracing symbols onto the wall.

“Did you find a secret door or something?” asked Gareth, walking over. “I thought it might be something there, but didn’t look too much into it.”

“Yes, yes, stand back a bit, will you?” said Daphne. She summoned a shield as the wall exploded, revealing a passage on the other side leading deeper into the maze than they’d ever gone before. Their team cautiously entered the gap and inspected the situation. There were no demons or traps, and the labyrinth didn’t seem to mind them taking such a shortcut.

“Couldn’t you just open the door?” asked Lawrence, looking back at the hole in the wall. “Maybe only break down the door as a last resort?”

“In some cases, yes,” said Daphne. “But in this case no. The door was already broken. Its runes were ill-maintained and couldn’t be revitalized. If I find some in better condition, I could probably open them. But… why bother?”

Indeed, why bother? thought Sorin. The only advantage to keeping the maze compartmentalized was keeping groups of demons separate. Aside from people like Orpheus, gathering with other adventurers would only be an advantage given the difficulty of the labyrinth.

“I’m personally a fan of having an escape route we can open and close,” said Nale.

“It would be a much better tactical option,” said Gareth.

“Oh,” said Daphne. “I never considered retreat. Hm… let me think about this.” She took out her paper and began jotting down more notes.

“Since we’ve recovered, we should probably get going,” said Stephan. “We don’t want Orpheus getting too much of a head start on us.”

“I don’t think we have to worry about time anymore,” Sorin pointed out. “Since we can just go directly to the center of the labyrinth. Though after fighting that two-star cyclops, I wonder if that would be biting off more than we can chew?”

“Hm… that is a good question,” said Stephan. “Even so, it’s better to know rather than not know, right? If we find a threat that’s too difficult to tackle, can’t we just retreat and find reinforcements?”

“Agreed,” said Nale. “If its something we can handle on our own, there’s also no point in sharing. No danger, no glory, am I right?”

“I think I’ve figured out how to open doors without breaking them down,” said Daphne, putting down her notepad. “It’s not as fun, and it might break the door, but I can see the tactical applications. I’ll have to be pickier about the doors we use though.”

“I think we can spare the time if it means keeping ourselves a way out,” said Stephan. “Everyone in agreement? Great. Then let’s go hit Orpheus where it hurts most: his ego.”