"..."
Carter stared at the lockpick aimlessly. A particular tool that came in two parts: a small tension wrench and a slender hook pick that could easily slide into any keyhole.
This was the most useful item in this dungeon. The only problem was Carter did not know how to lockpick. The reality caused Carter to contemplate slightly and let out a huge sigh. Now that he was here, he thought that he should have learned more useful skills in the past.
Carter put the lock pick inside the pocket of his shirt. He couldn't use it, but somebody else could, the thief. Recruiting him would be a hassle, though.
Carter then returned to the prison cell, the previous room that had held the Mutated Prisoner. He did not have a chance to loot this room before. Although the chance of finding something useful is slim.
Without an enemy, Carter could now observe the room more closely and check for any hidden passage. First, he approached each wall and tapped his finger on each brick. He tried to stay as quiet as possible to avoid drawing any enemy this way.
There was only one hidden passage that existed in a prison cell. That passage would lead to something that Carter wanted very much. So even if it might take a bit of time, he still checked.
This wasn't the room, unfortunately.
"Not my lucky day. Damn this Moving Maze." Carter says quietly.
He then moved on to check under the bed. Prisoners here had a habit of hiding items under there.
Nothing of value was found.
There was nothing else in the room for Carter to look for. He returned to the Infirmary.
Carter squatted down beside the Mutated Prisoner and pulled open his mouth.
The Alchemist's gloves were made of a special fabric that could prevent venom from leaking through. A necessary tool to operate surgery on venomous creatures. That's why Carter could touch the prisoner all he liked without being afraid that he would die by its venom.
A white and hard material was present inside the prisoner's throat. Its surface was still liquid and covered by the white acidic spit. Blood was still leaking out from the wall of the mouth and colliding with the acidic spit. When the red blood touched the spit, it suddenly formed the white material that Carter was seeing.
"Oh? A new weakness?
Its spit reacted with its blood to form some kind of binding agent that blocked its airway. So that's why it was choking before."
Carter worked out what happened.
This Mutated Prisoner was easier to avoid than Minor Spider. But facing it would surely lead to a failed speedrun. It was extremely hard to kill and didn't have any noticeable weakness apart from its stupidity and slow speed.
If Carter had faced it one-on-one, it could have easily caught his shield and slapped him to death. But now, he found an effective way to take care of Mutated Prisoners.
"I should have found out about this weakness long ago." Carter blamed himself for his incompetence. But then again, the game didn't exactly have an option to strike the throat specifically.
The Infirmary had two doors, one at the north and one at the east. The trap mechanism of this room was activated when Carter had come here at first, but there were no bodies or even fresh blood. This meant that the main characters and Gaston might not have entered this passage and had gone to the other doors instead.
Out of the eleven characters, Carter could deduce the locations of seven of them. The remaining four were kind of unpredictable. The thief, the mage, the priest, and the healer. These four only showed up in specific events in the game and never had a fixed location.
However, even when Carter knew the locations of the seven characters, including the herbalist, getting to them was not easy. This wasn't because of the danger lurking in the darkness. This was because of a special characteristic, or more precisely, a unique mechanic that existed in this level.
Carter decided to keep on this path. He entered the door in the north. This led to a narrow and long passage. He stopped himself immediately when he saw it.
Carter moved back to the Infirmary and got some small tools that could be thrown around. Once he gathered a few, he returned to the door and then threw some tools into the passage. Crevices suddenly opened up at either side of the wall, and giant axes dropped down from the ceiling.
These axes swung themselves from side to side, leaving only a small gap for anyone to pass through.
Carter ran quickly to the first axe and stopped himself right before it.
He was patiently waiting. There was no way to deactivate this trap from here, so the only way was to go through it. But he didn't necessarily have to fit in between the gap to pass through. He knew how to exploit it already.
After about twenty seconds, the axes were slowly raised up, retreating back to the ceiling. It was at this time that Carter bolted with all his might through the passage.
The axes did not react and continued returning to the ceiling.
"Piece of cake!"
The axes swing passage. It was very hard to move through this trap even with a nimble character. You had to time your movement very carefully. However, when it deactivated after twenty seconds, the trap would become temporarily blind for about five to seven seconds, giving Carter enough time to get through.
The axes dropped down about one second after Carter went through the trap. The armor slowed him down a lot, and the axes were far away. But still, that made Carter startled a bit inside. The blade of the axes felt cold even from there.
Carter then moved forward.