Rex cautiously made his way into the cave, skimming through his memories in an effort to scrounge up any information he could about ruins.
The tunnel he was in was kept illuminated by glowing vines, that grew along the walls of the cave, the light from the vines gave the tunnel an ancient feel. Rex likened the feel to the sort he often experienced when his dad took him cave exploring during vacations, the thought filled him with nostalgia of memories about his parents.
Rex's could feel a numbing sadness creeping into his heart.
"Hoohhh", Res slowly exhaled, pushing back his sad thoughts away from his mind.
He had a ruin to conquer. Considering the penalty of failing his quest, he could not afford any leisurely approach in challenging the ruin.
He made his way deeper into the cave, walking on a stone-tiled pathway, which seemed to ripple as he stepped on them.
As Rex continued down the slowly descending pathway, he suddenly felt an abrupt sense of foreboding danger creeping up his spine. He immediately halted his steps, his senses scanning his surroundings for any abnormalities.
At first he didn't notice anything, but as he paid more detailed attention, he noticed a slight pitch black slit, hidden within the wall of the passageway in front of him. As he spotted the first opening, it did not take long for him to spot similar like slits.
The dark, slit like opening, seemed to run in a repetitive pattern, forming a circular formation at this particular interval of the passage.
A victorious brow appeared on Rex's face as he recalled what it was he was seeing. It was a commonly seen trap in ruins. The urban title for it, was the "skewer". It was a motion-sensitive trap that was triggered the moment any object moved through such a space, surrounded by the trap.
Rex's eye darted around as he scanned for an item he could use to better study this trap. His mind breeding a growing experimental energy.
A rough rock lay close to the openings, hiding behind a small patch of weed. Rex picked up the rock, his specimen NO 1.
Assuming the stance of a veteran cricket bowler, the rock: specimen 1, was sent shuttling towards the Skewer. As the rock shot through the center of the passage with slit like openings that possibly housed the skewer.
Black rusty iron pokes shot out, with edges so pointy that Rex caught a glint of the green illumination of the cave on it.
Rex scrunched his eyes as he made his mental calculations. specimen 1, had survived the skewers, as the skewers activation took an estimated 0.7 secs to activate, allowing the pioneer rock to safely shoot past it, before its activation.
Rex breathed out with relief. Based on his knowledge of this devilish skewer, this particular one, he was facing was the less troublesome one to deal with.
According to his guide from Big-Fish lord, this type fell under the dasher type of traps. Surviving this dasher type of traps was more of a matter of speed than anything else. Surviving it demanded not much on ingenuity but more of physical capabilities.
Rex performed a rapid series of alternating foot raises, his warm up for his dash. During his preparation phase for Cosmic Ascendance, he had incorporated a lot of running exercises. He was quite confident in his dash. But considering the penalty of flopping the quest, he had an ace up his sleeve for this.
Walking some meters back to get a good track for his acceleration.
Fiam!!! , Rex broke into a run.
His feet's barely striking the floor as he dashed forward with the kind of speed you would see from a wild park tourist, who had gone into a restricted area and was being chased down by creatures that had identified him/her as dinner.
As Rex got within centimeters of the slits housing the pokes which had now retracted back into their crevices. He fell forward, using his two hands to break the fall and convert his forward momentum into a roll.
Swoosh!!!, he shot past the skewer.
Dish!! The skewer shot upward, revealing themselves once again, but Rex was already safely past them.
Hmmm'- - Humm' - - Humm'; Rex steadied his breathing as his heart beat madly in his chest. He was brimming with excitement. The fact that failure would ban him from Cosmic Ascendance only made him more excited. He had survived a dasher. He already had his first urban achievement, in less than an hour of playing.
He was feeling on top of the world.
Having survived the skewer, Rex continued on his way, deeper into the tunnel.
The glowing vines that illuminated the tunnel were growing in thickness as Rex made his way further down. After walking forward for three minutes, with the tunnel seeming to lead downwards.
Rex saw a blockage ahead. The light from the now overly thick glowing vines had now become a menace to visibility, an antithesis to it's prior role in the tunnel.
Amidst the blinding light, Rex observed the blockage, it seemed to be formed from woody vines that wrapped around each other, sealing the way forward.
"COMMUNICATE WITH THE EVERLIGHT VINE TO PROCEED."
Rex saw a notification pop-up in his POV.
Everlight vine, as Rex thought of the name, he saw a tag appear on the glowing menace, identifying it as the Everlight Vine.
Rex walked closer to the glowing vines, stretching his hand forward to touch the vine.
As his hand made contact with the vines, he felt a connection establish between him and the vines, their lights dimming.
"Da**, I could have done that", Rex thought.
As a connection was established between him and the vine, his mind was flooded with information about what he could do with the connection. It turned out he could adjust the intensity of the light it radiated, and he had been making his way forward blinded by the intensity of the lightning, anxious about triggering a trap.
The only thing that had filled him with confidence to keep on proceeding forward, was his instincts, which his confidence in had increased tremendously after his last experience with the skewer.
With the light pollution gone, Rex touched the warm, glowing body of the vine again. As the connection was once again established. He could feel the blockage, opening it, gave him the same sort of sensation, closing a fully extended finger will.
It felt like he was letting go of some kind of tension, but this sensation was simply his body trying to make sense of the mode of action of the glowing plant life.
The woody vines, slowly untangled themselves, as moist air assaulted Rex's face. Revealing a spacious interior. As Rex made his way into the spacious interior, the glowing vine seemed to have been woken up in the chamber he had entered, as their glows intensified.
First: the light from the vine was almost imperceptible, then dim, then it was bright enough to illuminate the whole chamber.
The chamber seemed like a scene, straight out of a scifi movie. The rooms architecture a marriage between technology and nature.
The most eye-catching feature was the mighty tree in the middle of the chamber, with luminescent leaves that made the whole space seem ethereal.
He could see seats placed randomly across the chamber, which now illuminated, seemed to be more of a hall.
As the illumination of the hall improved, Rex was even able to see better, the marvling architecture of the hall. Its floors were made of pristine white marble, with minuscule veins running across them, rhythmically pulsing. As Rex observed the veiny floor pattern, he noted that they all seemed to be converging towards an area were there was an elevated white arc structure.
- - -
Dum!, Dum!. Rex heard a light sound, that seemed to signify the movement of something.
An ashy head popped out from behind the white arc, following suit were its fingers, it used to hold onto the Arc, pulling iself upward.
Rex was looking at a 1.85-meters creature pulling itself into standing. As the creature stood, he saw a question mark appear on it's head. That was where the health bar and name of the creature was meant to be.
In Cosmic Ascendance, when a player encounters a new creature or NPC. He knows nothing about, Cosmic Ascendance does not provide any information about the creature or NPC. Only displaying it as an unknown. Players could address this issue by visiting libraries in the area to update their interface with the information of the natives and creatures in this region, or they could also purchase information orb from fellow players, which they could use to update their interface with all the information the other player had updated into the orb.
The unknown creature Rex was observing, possessed a human-like structure and its anatomy looked like a blend of plant-life and tortoise-like features. It possessed a rounded shell at its back, with woody legs that ended in a stump. His hands had only three fingers, which seemed much thicker than human hands.
As Rex observed the features of this creature, he chose to refer to it as "Humanoid Tortoise".
The humanoid tortoise observed Rex as he observed it. Seeming excited with the result of its observation, it suddenly shot up, leaping over the arc that it had been lying behind off and dashing towards Rex like a truck with a failed braking system.
Rex, seemingly feeling the creature's excitement, prepared himself for battle.