Chapter 7

“The cage is too small!” I’d sat up from a dead sleep, shouting. In my dream, my mind must have sorted out what was bugging me about the end of this portal run. The caged-off area was too small.

If I made it to the portal on the last part of the last day, I’d pass through and be stuck in the caged area. With the door open when I went through on the way in, I kinda assumed that there would be lots of room. But there wasn’t. I bet there wasn’t even enough room to avoid touching the portal. I’d appear, be stuck, and be drawn back in when the timer reset.

CO Morley sent me here to die. Even if I had enough food and water, I’d eventually cycle too deep and be killed by the Rats. I could kill one, I could even kill four if I could prevent them from surrounding me, but I couldn’t kill ten, twenty, thirty. They wouldn’t even have to hide my body.

I could draw it out, play for time. If I finished level one, I’d get half a day to yell and call out from the cage with the portal before I was inevitably drawn back in. At that point, I’d be on the first run of level two and if I survived that, I would get another half day or maybe a full day to scream my head off in an out of the way area, full of noisy pipe work.

I’d then be drawn back in, to a harder version of level two ... rinse and repeat until I was finally killed. It wouldn’t matter if I leveled, it wouldn’t matter if I got a cool magic item or bought a magic potion or ... or would it...?

Plan it out ... could I get strong enough to break the lock ... probably not. Would my new skill of ‘Fade’ get me past that lock ... unknown. Could my blades cut that giant padlock ... doubtful. Wait! Padlock! I drew the leather roll from my inventory. Jake said they were lock picks ... Reading their description, they were labeled ‘unidentified’. Unrolling them, they looked like random shaped thin bits of metal. If I was possibly going to use them, I’d need lessons or practice or ... From a long, long-ago memory something resurfaced.

Some other kid in grade 8, his father was a machinist and they carefully cut into a simple padlock. His ‘science fair’ project was “locks, and how they work”. I remember it so well because all the boys were crowded around it all the time, looking at what the pins and tumblers did when you put the key in. I’d thought it was a shoo-in for winner based only on the number of people around it all the time, but the kid who did eventually win had only a simple screen with two dots on it representing a sun and a planet orbiting each other. He could change the distance between the two, and their mass too. It wasn’t as cool as the padlock though.

So: I had an idea of how the lock worked, the tools to do it, but no practical experience. It was going to take a miracle, but I couldn’t see any other plan. I wasn’t strong enough or skilled enough to escape this trap yet, but I had time to grow and time to practice. First up, get some practice with my dagger, kill some Rats, get something to eat, and move on.

The Rat killing went well, I fought the remaining one on the next island with Needle and Sword, just trying to keep my practice up. When I was dumped back into the portal the next time, I’d be on the next level and there was no telling what I was going to face. I trudged over to the next island in the chain and tried to improve my hit percentage as well as my ability to pick a particular target. Taking out the bigger of the two rats from a distance was a super advantage, but it relied on the fact that they wouldn’t enter the water and stayed in range. If the scenery changed in the next run, or if they suddenly found it in themselves to enter the marsh, I was going to be in a world of trouble. I needed another method of sniping from a distance. A long stick might work for one, but forget it for two or more. The islands so far didn’t have a high hill, or cliff to climb, they had been all pretty flat. Climb a tree? Maybe? Ok: Skills to practice after I moved campsites to the new island and started preparing my ratty-meals.

I spent the next three days getting acquainted with the trees. When I wasn’t throwing my dagger at one, I was re-learning how to climb one quickly. Out of a whole island, maybe one or two of them could hold my weight. Climbing up one was more like trying to shimmy up a coconut tree, if the coconut tree had sharp, broken-off branches that were trying to rip up your hands and poke out your eyes (those leather gloves were a godsend) ... trying this with half a dozen angry rats chasing you down would be a nightmare. Now to find out if rats would or could climb trees. I’d killed the larger of the two rats on the seventh island yesterday and today the plan was to force myself onto the island and try to climb a tree (to see if the rat would try to follow me up). Approaching the island, I used two longer sticks to fend off the small(er) rat and slowly worked my way to the base of the tree that was the best candidate. I threw one of my sticks javelin style to try to drive him off and spun to scale the tree as fast as I could.

I was focusing on not ripping myself up, as well as listening for the sound of this thing following me. Reaching about 2 meters off the ground, I glanced back. Junior rat was still on the ground but staying right near the base of the tree. So far so good. After bracing myself, I pulled my Dagger and threw it, then I pulled out Needle and dropped it on him. Two solid strikes, and still that rat didn’t climb or run off. After trying a few different types of throws, some more successful than others, that rat was long dead, so I climbed down, strung it up and searched the whole island. I hadn’t found a cache in ages, so it was quite a surprise to see it. I dug out a small charm? It looked like two hands, one closed in a fist resting in the open palm of the other. Storing it, I found it labeled ‘unknown charm’ ... really helpful.

Two days, I had two days to go.

It was day nine, and I was sitting I front of the two portals. I’d never heard what happened to anyone who stayed in the portal when it reset, but it probably wasn’t good. Time to take stock of my situation. One ‘identify item’ scroll, four unidentified items (lighter, lock picks, lure, and charm), camping items, 3 weapons, silver, gems, a Skill Book and a Rosewater service. I was just about to find out if this was a death sentence, or if the COs were going to play fair. I had strong suspicions of the former.

In the start room I called up the store. Since I couldn’t quite afford what I wanted, I closed it out again and looked at my stats

So close, and yet so far.

Repacking my stuff, I thought far enough ahead to piss in the corner. I’d avoid doing it all over myself if I ended up stuck in that cage for hours and hours but I also wanted to know if everything totally reset between portal runs.

I crawled through the portal ... and immediately rammed into the locked gate. There was no one around so I pulled out the lock picks and reached around to the lock shackle with my hand to try to turn it towards myself. I guess I was lucky? The key was supposed to go into the front of the lock, and it could be flipped so that it faced me, at a strange angle though. I pulled the roll out and selected one of the thin ‘picks’ at random. Sliding it into the keyhole, I found that I could definitely feel the pins, and that there were three (I later figured just how lucky I was that the COs cheaped out with this lock, anything else would have been impossible for a total amateur like me. After playing around with the pins for a few minutes, it was apparent that I’d found them all. For the life of me I couldn’t decide what I was supposed to do next. I had to turn the tumbler, but how?