Chapter 410: That’s Enough for Today
"Please fasten your seatbelts and... Never mind, we've arrived!" Ares dropped all the dizzy passengers onto the floor and they sort of just tumbled over each other creating a messy pileup behind him. Only Aejaz was barely able to stay standing as he hopped about trying to regain his balance without falling over. Ares paid them no mind because he was fully on the ball when it came to finishing up these rooms and was wiling to waste no time doing as such. He walked up to Tom Tom and waited for the riddle because that was what manner of challenge room this appeared to be if Ares wasn't mistaken... But for some reason Tom Tom wasn't coming out of his stony form on the wall! He was hiding! Ares rapped his knuckles against the stone Tom Tom and refused to stop knocking until someone answered the door!
Knock knock knock knock knock
"Anybody home?!"
Knock knock knock knock knock
"Do you have a moment to talk about our lord and saviour Mr Gold?"
Knock knock knock knock knock
"We also do insurance!"
Knock knock knock knock knock
"Ahhhh stop already! I get it I get it! I can still kinda feel you punching my head even when I'm in stone form so cut that out you damnable menace!" Tom Tom emerged and shook Ares away by flicking his head to create a small gust of wind.
"Why were you all stony faced and not responding anyway? Cat got your tongue?"
"... No reason..."
"Ok. I don't believe you, not even for a second you shady feline, but ok. I won't pry! Give me a riddle!"
"..."
"Riddle dispenser! Dispense riddles!"
"..."
"Eh? Are you broken? Do I need to shove a coin up your ass?"
"Tsk, fine fine fine! Shut up already!... What do you call it when a postman gets married in secret?"
"... What? Why does that sound more like a pun than a riddle?... Wait... No... Tom Tom! Really? Hehehehe. A postman that gets married in secret is 'env-eloping'. Hehehe. Like envelope and elope, right? You ran out of riddles!"
"Correct. Now leave me alone! I didn't think you'd get here this quick! I was distracted 'cos of your damn fight with the Anubis and then you blew through the passageway before I could even get into the room! Have you ever tried coming up with riddles? I can't do it that fast! And if I can't, nobody can!"
"Heh." Ares smugly chuckled for a brief second at Tom Tom and wore a condescending smirk that oozed derision from every facial muscle. Ares' cheeks were raised, making him look like a squirrel with nuts in his mouth, and the smile in his eyes was not a polite one. Mockery aplenty.
"Don't 'heh' me you creepy shmuck! Whose fault do you think this is to begin with?! I should boot you out the room and make you wait until I come up with something else! Tsk, just go to the next room already damnit!" Tom Tom must have come up with an actual riddle while he was going back and forth with Ares, or at least something a bit more complicated and riddle-ish in nature, which would explain why he ran away so fast. He wanted to get set up in the next room before Ares could come charging in again at the speed of sound... Speaking of...
WHOOSH
Aejaz and the other group had barely any time to comprehend what happened to them but one single blink was all it took for them to have appeared in a brand new room with a queasy feeling in their gut. They wanted to hurl because the sheer velocity of Ares' borderline instant transportation from point A to point B was doing bad things to their stomachs... Everyone's hair was rustled, and their clothes were out of place and in need of serious ironing, but the man responsible couldn't care less because he was poking away at Tom Tom again in this new room... Tom Tom wasn't in his stone form, Ares was just poking him anyway...
"Poke me one more time and see if I don't bite your finger off! Only cute magical girls are allowed to pet me! No dudes or ugly hags allowed!"
"Wow, picky much? Actually, Leo was like this too... Are you both secretly unicorns or Pegasuses in search of purity? Whatever. I'm not interested in this your strange addiction, I want a real riddle! Don't disappoint me with another pun!.. Not that I mind, I actually quite like them..."
"Ahem. A zombie, a ghost, an Arachne, and a skeleton are going to spend a day out together. They want to do all kinds of activities but there was only enough time for four. They played paintball, poker, went indoor mountain climbing, and finished up with some bowling. Who won / did the best at each activity?"
"Uh, that's a rather unusual group but sure. Undead need to enjoy holidays every now and then too I guess. Can't just terrorise humans all summer... Ok, lemme see here... So the skeleton definitely wins at poker because his poker face is immaculate, right? He has no facial muscles, or a face to begin with, so nobody can tell if he's bluffing or not. The Arachne has to win at mountain climbing because it's a disgusting spider and none of the other monsters are beating that in a wall climbing competition. The ghost is unbeatable at paintball because it can't be hit, that's simple enough... Which leaves the zombie to win the bowling session? Don't really get why... The ghost can't hold a ball, the ball might be too heavy for the skeleton to throw without breaking his wrist I suppose... And, what? The Arachne's palms are too sticky for the ball to detach from when she tries to throw it? Something along those lines?"
"Tsk, yeah. Also the zombie used his own head as a bowling ball at one point."
"Is that relevant to the riddle?"
"Not really, just a bit of background lore."
"Your inner dungeon master is showing... Well whatever. The bowling part of the riddle was a bit clunky but you were in a rush so I'll let it slide this time! Also the zombie head bowling ball thing is a pretty good excuse because he can control it directly form afar, guaranteeing him strikes by headbutting all the pins one by one. Should have jsut went with that instead of tacking it on at the end as miscellaneous information... Although maybe that solution tot he riddle is too out there... Ah whatever, what's done is done... Ha, though, now, you got me thinking about which monsters would be good at other activities... Gnomes would be good at hide and seek... Slimes at escape rooms because they can slip through the keyhole... Ah silly me, now I'm getting sidetracked... Maybe I should do some of these activities with Appa when I get a chance to... But not poker! That's a slippery slope! There's only one kinda Gamble I'm tolerating in my household and its not poker!"
Tom Tom didn't really understand Ares' rant, he had no idea what an 'Appa' was, but then again Ares didn't understand Tom Tom's Magical girl rant either so it evened out and they were both just going to ignore each other. A simple enough solution! "You said you're leaving after this floor right? Good! The floor's over. Get lost already! Leave me alone! You've given me enough headaches today to last a last life time and it's not even the last I'm going to be seeing of you. I need to reevaluate literally every single challenge from here to the end of the Riddlemyd because of you and stock up on more riddles... Shoo! Shoo! Damn pest!" Tom Tom nudged Ares with his snoot and pushed him away until he was stumbling towards the centre of the room. "I'm opening the portal now so jump in or I'll push you in myself!"
As Tom Tom finished speaking, a green portal appeared and he turned back into stone. He might actually come back and start picking everyone up by the scruff of their necks with his teeth to throw them in if they didn't hurry up but Ares was at least curious to see what the other group were thinking... If anything... Their heads had been spun around like a globe in a whirlwind so they'd need some time to consider their plan of action from here on out. They were originally going to keep exploring but maybe they also needed some time to themselves like Tom Tom did.. Ares had that effect on people! Marcus' group were staying at an inn whenever they weren't slumming it halfway through a riddlemyd floor, that was the agreed upon strategy, but maybe a nice warm bed after everything they'd been through was in order... But there was an issue with this idea! Ares was also leaving right now! Normally that wouldn't be a problem in the slightest but this guy was a bad luck magnet if ever there was one. Marcus' group had only been alongside him for three rooms now and they were already painfully aware of it; that was jsut the extent of Ares' trouble-attracting qualities. Ares should consider a career in being professional bait for fishermen. Let them hook his shirt and dip him into the water and all sorts of fantastical creatures of the ocean would come looking for a nibble!... Although the fishermen's boats might get eaten whole in the process...
"Let's go.. Back to the inn..." Bess took deep breaths and finally uttered out her suggestion because nobody else was in the right state of mind to keep going. Sure physically they weren't tired or anything, they'd barely done anything after all, but mentally they were exhausted and incapable of progressing smoothly beyond this point. Even a single riddle would require too much thought processing for them now that they were dazed and confused by everything they'd seen. Nobody else who'd ever gone through this Riddlemyd could say they had an experience like this one and it wasn't supposed to be like this to begin with. Only Ares was supposed to have dealt with this madness but their group had tagged along at the worst possible time and gotten in way over their heads! This was a side of the Riddlemyd that shouldn't have been available to them. Even if they continued their dungeon dive basic rooms would stump them because all their brain power was sapped up and, thus, the decision was made unanimously with a few quiet nods that it was time to leave and not look back until tomorrow.
It took way less time than Ares expected for them to come to this decision but they were all feeling the exact same way which sped things up nicely... Although this did still mean having to follow Ares around... Well, they could wait for five minutes for him to leave but just sitting here in this room when they could be heading back to their fluffy beds felt silly... Treating Ares like he was some bad luck charm was superstitious! He couldn't possibly be such a bad travel companion that even walking around with him for another minute, until they arrived at their inn, would cause complications! Besides, what was the worst that could happen? A monster showed up? There was already a monster here anyway and his name was Ares! Ares was the scariest thing in Xasca right now, probably, at least according to this group, so they'd be fine under his protection! Of which he owed them a lot! Again, at least according to them, anyway. If he kept getting them involved in his mess then he could offer them even jsut a bit of protection here and there!
Ares headed through the portal and was followed by Aejaz and the other group who'd finally picked themselves up and dusted themselves off. They all wound up in the same checkpoint area, because they were all on the same floor and so it didn't complicate the portal situation. If the other group were on a higher or lower floor than Ares and Aejaz then they would have been separated from Ares automictically, so as not allow anyone easy access to floors they weren't supposed to be on via someone else's portal collection, but, as that wasn't the case, they were here too. Everyone looked around, as a new bunch of torches had lit up and somewhat expanded how far everyone could view the rest of the room, but interest was short lived as not much changed. The encroaching darkness was repelled a somewhat but there was still a large of this room that was impossible to wade through without getting lost in a pitch black, unflinching miasma. Even Ares' Omniscience couldn't pierce the abyss and offer a sneak peak so it was likely the dark fog was a solid and tangible substance. Ares Omniscience wasn't X-ray vision! There were situations like this where it wouldn't actually be able to help and, honestly, Ares couldn't be mad at it... After how much Omniscience had done for him, getting stumped once or twice like this was very acceptable! Also, the room would be lit up eventually as Ares made his way to the end of the Riddlemyd regardless so there was no reason to be impatient!
As for how to leave this place, there was a slate on the floor in front of everyone that was raised slightly. By pushing down on it, like a pressure plate, it would spawn a portal in the middle of this warp zone that could lead everyone outside the Riddlemyd and straight back to where the entrance was. The reason the exit was 'hidden' usually was to prevent anyone from accidentally stepping in it when they returned here after a long adventuring session on a gruelling floor. Spawning back in this room and accidentally walking head-first into an exit directly in front of you wasn't a big deal, you could come back in right away without any fuss, but it was still an inconvenience that didn't need to be there. Exiting was a conscious effort thanks to this setup but, in its own way, that also caused problems! If you barely survived a floor and wanted to exit the Riddlemyd quickly you might wind up dying in this room under specific circumstances. There were probably dead people buried in many different versions of this room because they'd been unable to open the portal and crawl their bloodied bodies through it... Well, there would only be dead people buried here if their corpses hadn't been devoured by that rumour-mill monster, that is. Ares didn't want to think about whether the monster could make it into this checkpoint room because there was a massive vision-obstructing playground right behind him where the thing could very well be lurking if that was the case! It supposedly only moved around at night so the chances it could see through that fog, if it really could be in here, were not slim! Ares would rather pretend it was an impossibility, that his room was 100% safe, and move on ASAP so he left through the portal and covered his eyes with shades so as not to be blinded by the sun on the way out. It wasn't exactly bright in the Riddlemyd so being thrown out into the sun-battered desert was no bueno and he was in the mood to be blinded! The sun had set a little but it was still brighter outside than inside at this time of day, that was for sure. Ares had been in the Riddlemyd for a while now but not so long it was dark out, he had a curry to deliver after all and couldn't be that late!
Now that Ares was out of the Riddlemyd, the plan of action from here was to head back to Xasca city, go to transmit and send the curry and a small letter / note, and go to sleep! No more exploring, no more asking around about the quarry, no more running after fellahins for information on the scavengers. Any and all of that could happen tomorrow! Ares had a lot to digest regarding his new scythe mastery and, rather than tire himself out with more physical practice, it was best to just have everything assimilate via time and rest. The myriad moves floating around in his head could sink into his brain as he slept, allowing him to internalise everything without anything else clogging up the space or delaying the process!
"HEY! YOU!"
Oh no. What was Ares supposed to say about this situation? Now, to be fair to Ares' luck, this was a problem he himself had caused directly earlier and so this wasn't bad luck per se, just the repercussions of his own actions coming back to bite him... But still! Those damn scavengers he blasted away earlier, when he entered the Riddlemyd, had actually come back with reinforcements and stalked the entrance! Marcus' group looked about ready to burst into tears because they were also being encircled and surrounded alongside Ares as though they were his accomplices or something... They had all come out at the same time but this too much! They weren't even involved in this dispute at all! Unfortunately that would hardly matter to these lot because scavengers took any opportunity they could to bully people regardless of whether they were relevant to the matter at hand. As it turned out, waiting five minutes in the Riddlemyd for Ares to go on ahead would have been a way better choice... Now they had to rely on Ares again to save their hide but, annoyingly, that wouldn't necessarily be the end of it. One thing the scavengers were good at was remembering faces so they could stubbornly pick on the person / people that interested them... This group was going to have to deal with these annoying scavengers more than once or twice going forward... But that was maybe ok? These lot, the scavengers here at the Riddlemyd, didn't seem too strong; there was only one transition realm cultivator amongst them and that was manageable... The only issue here and now, regarding why this particular situation was a hassle for Marcus' group, was because everyone really was too tired to put up a proper fight or resistance. The thought of giving everything with value up, if it meant making it to their warm pillow even a second sooner, was rather alluring right now!
Ares, however was not willing to fork anything over or make any compromises. Hell he wasn't even in the mood to talk to these guys so it didn't matter what they wanted with him! There were about twenty of them now but twenty ants was just twenty ants, nothing more, and Ares was like a sun God with a magnifying glass comparatively. There was going to be a clear victor in this ensuing 'fight', if it could even be called such a thing, and the losing team were not going to be looking pretty by the time Ares was done with them! What were they gonna do, put up a fight greater than the two Anubis did? Highly unlikely! One Anubis could kill everyone here with a hand tied behind its burly back, and Ares could kill about ten of them, so who was going to stop Ares? If these foolish scavengers had witnessed anything that went down inside the Riddlemyd, or were at least aware Ares was responsible or the massive nuke in the desert earlier, they might have made a more sensible decision. They'd investigated the nuke site as well in the last few hours, so knew very clearly what kind of magical power whoever was responsible for it was packing, they just couldn't connect the last few dots. The people who were hit with the Grand Annihilation earlier should have been able to but they must have refused to believe someone with such a low cultivation could do it. It was another case of underestimating but Ares was already mentally prepared for that to happen all the time anyway and cause his trouble. If anything, he was surprised it didn't happen more often...
"Are you the..." The leader of this scavenger group tried to interrogate Ares but Ares was having none of this and just wanted to leave this place already! The curry was made, and yes he'd been making it in the Primordial Blade while he was in the middle of fighting the Anubis, and now it was time to deliver it. These scavengers were picking a fight with a man on a mission right now and that was very unwise because Ares determination was unmatched!
"Quietus Edict." To shut up Ares' opposition and set the stage for a resounding victory. "Flashbang." To control the masses and prevent them from scurrying around like roaches or responding to what came next. "Esoteric Compression." To deal the final Blow! These scavengers were now blind, deaf, and numbed as they were anchored to the floor and unable to move. They were in a bright white dream, unable to feel their own body or make it move in an meaningful way. Even if they tried to cleanse themselves with an art their voices betrayed them and made no noise whatsoever. the blindness would wear off shortly but Ares was already leaving so they'd have no idea where he went or how to get revenge fr this humiliation. Plus the Quietus and Compression would stick around, lingering in the area for a while. This zone near the entrance was going to be like a display case for the scavengers who were bolted to the floor and unable to escape. Plus there'd be an odd silence too, like the eery scene of a mass murder with bodies strewn about all over the place. As far as the local adventurers would be concerned, however, these lot would have jsut gotten exactly what they deserved and nobody was going to help them out. Not that they could even if they wanted to anyway, Ares' pressure was impossible to lift so the scavengers were going to be pinned down for the better part of three to four hours until it disappeared naturally.
As for Ares, he was already back in the desert and Voidwalking across the centre path back to Xasca city. For some 'inexplicable' reason, Marcus' group sprinted away from him the second their inn was within sight so Ares jsut shrugged and waved goodbye at their backs while dragging Aejaz along with him to the exit of the Riddlemyd encampment. Today had been a long day but it was coming to a close now and Ares was well versed in how things were going to play out form now on. He'd experienced everything the desert had to offer, for the most part, and now it was all a matter of seeing what had already been started to completion... The only things that still eluded him currently were the east and west sides of the dessert, that he'd yet to visit personally, and the black market somewhere in the city. Other than that it was just going to be more quarry nonsense, Riddlemyd exploration, and monster hunting stuff so he was feeling good! He couldn't construct a plan that covered all his bases but coming up with a rough itinerary should be possible now that he knew what he was up against! So, with that in mind, he walked through the sky, Shifting with every step, and started writing his note to Bellona and Enyo to be delivered alongside the curry. It wasn't going to be a big letter like the ones previous but just a small response to some of their questions and worries. It wasn't really necessary but Ares enjoyed talking to them, even in this manner, and so he wasn't going to waste any opportunity or excuse he had to do so! It also seemed like Aejaz was scribbling something down too for his own safety lest Allie get mad Ares had sent two notes before Aejaz sent even one... That little gremlin could be scary when she was mad!