Carter opened his eyes and stood up. He just thought of a way to disrupt this Alchemy seal.
There was no way to deactivate a seal in the game. But that was because of the limitation of the system on a computer. It does not mean that Carter couldn't do it.
Carter ran back to the Infirmary. He had to trigger the axe trap one more time and used the same strategy as before to get through it. Once he returned to the Infirmary, he took some salt from the cabinets and spread it onto a piece of cloth.
Then, he soaked the piece of cloth with water, diluting the salt on its surface. This would make sure the salt was evenly distributed and not concentrated.
Carter took a salt bottle with him and returned to the cliff again. This time with the salted piece of cloth. Before experimenting, he took out a piece of fabric and tied it around his face. The piece of fabric covered him from the nose down, making sure no substance or gas could get in his airway.
"Okay. Time for the truth."
Carter held the piece of cloth with one hand and reached over to one of the poles. He stood just close enough to be in range of it and not any centimeters closer. If something went wrong, he would turn away and run for his life.
The salted piece of cloth touched the part of the Alchemy seal. The seal lit up in orange and was visible to see again.
With one determined motion, Carter wiped the piece of cloth over the seal. He was ready to bolt at any time if there was even a single spark.
But nothing happened at all. The salted piece of cloth washed away the Alchemy seal.
The particular pattern was imprinted onto the piece of cloth. Yellow dust fell off the wooden surface.
"It works!"
The yellow dust was sulfur. The salted piece of cloth successfully neutralized the Alchemy seal.
Carter did it one more time for the pole, deactivating the second seal.
But then, there was another issue. Carter wondered if there would be other seals on the other side of the bridge. If there were, Carter still wouldn't be able to cross the bridge.
He walked back and forth at the cliff, trying to think of a solution to deal with this ordeal.
Carter tilted his head and looked at the wolves on the other side. The wolves were big, very big.
"If they did that… Hmm. Maybe it could help me find out if there were seals on the other side."
Carter put two fingers inside his mouth and whistled loudly, catching the attention of the wolves.
The wolves stood up and wagged their tails.
"Soom I'car!" Carter shouted.
The wolves jerked their heads and looked at each other. Their eyes showed that they didn't know how to think about this command. They growled at each other, seemingly talking to one another.
"Soom I'car!" Carter shouted again.
Three wolves growled at one wolf. That wolf whimpered and involuntarily walked forward. It lifted one of its hind legs up. The three wolves looked the other way, letting their mate finish the job.
A sizzling sound emanated from the wooden pole when the yellow liquid touched its surface. Another seal was deactivated.
"Da'ka Ma! Soom A'tra! Soom I'car!"
Stop! Go left! Pee!
And with a few more precise commands, the wolf let out its remaining waste on the other pole, deactivating the last seal. It returned to sit down with the other wolves, seemingly very embarrassed. That wolf growled. While the other seemed to be coughing in a weird tone.
Carter swore that the other wolves were laughing at their mate. He crossed the bridge with ease, and no surprise happened.
"Phew! Now that is done."
These Alchemists must have made these seals as a security measure in case something happened. It won't react to them or their guard dogs, but if anyone else walked on it, it would definitely go off and drop the bridge down to the abyss below.
Carter finally understood the reason for the 50/50 percent encounter. The seals were meant to explode every time, but they malfunctioned, either because of time degradation or because the Alchemists did not do their job right.
Carter sat down in front of the wolves and checked if they had any name tags on them.
"Hmm… Let's see. Nineteen. Seven. Thirty-four. Fifty-two."
On the necks of the wolves were spike collars that went inward to their flesh. Any movement they made would cause the spikes to scratch onto the wolves' flesh. They didn't have names on the collar but had numbers instead, indicating the order in which they were experimented on.
"There are at least fifty-two Hunting Wolves, eh…" Carter rolled his eyes around, trying to recall how many Hunting Wolves in total were in this dungeon. "Fifty-two is too much. If I remember correctly, the number should be around twenty. They must be dying off due to the disappearance of the Alchemists.
Now that I know their names, it should be easier to command them.
But first…"
Carter took off the collars on the Hunting Wolves' necks. As far as he knows, these spiked collars lost their purpose after the wolves completed their training. The Alchemists left them on, however, in case they wanted to leash the wolves.
The wolves ran around in happiness when their itchy and painful necks were released of their misery.
Carter shouted again to regain the wolves' attention.
"Nineteen, Soom A'tru!
Thirty-four, Soom A'sa!
Seven, Fifty-two, Soom I'lar!
Soom A'leur!"
Nineteen, the second oldest of the wolves, reacted quickly and got in front of the group. It had visible muscle lines appearing on its body and very nimble feet. It barely made any noise when it was strutting forward.
Thirty-four was bigger than Nineteen and younger, it didn't have any grey hair at all and only pure black fur. Thirty-four moved behind Carter's back and stayed at the end of the group.
Seven was the oldest. Its fur was a mix of white and grey. It responded to Carter the quickest and got beside him. It was the smallest of the four, its rib cages were showing visibly on its chest.
Fifty-two seemed the most lively and always looked at Carter with those puppy eyes. It went to Carter's other side.
Then the wolves kept that formation while entering defensive mode, prioritizing Carter's protection but also maintaining a somewhat flexible position.
These wolves were different in age and experience. Carter thought that arranging them like this would be best for now. He and the wolves trod forward into the cavern.
The cavern opened up in height the more Carter walked into it, the ceiling went up higher and higher. This was the main testing ground for the Alchemists. Big enough to do a lot of things and far enough from all the important structures of the dungeon.
It was mostly barren with nothing in sight. The Alchemists had destroyed this cave's natural habitats and conditions, therefore no living things should be in the cavern. However, Carter kept his guard up, and the wolves also did their job seriously.
They walked for a while. The ground changed from time to time, going up and down unexpectedly. Sometimes a cliff suddenly popped up without notice and was very hard to realize until it was too late.
But Nineteen knew this cavern well, so Carter simply needed to turn if the wolf suddenly stopped.
His original torch almost went off, so he had to light up a new one. Thankfully he grabbed some torches earlier so he didn't need to make a new one.
The torch in Darkness and Bloodlust had a different design than the typical torch in fantasy games. It actually resembled a giant candle more, with a round metal disk on top to catch the wax from falling off.
So when Carter's torch was going off, he could see that the wax at the tip was almost gone. He simply took another torch out and let it touch the original torch, the fire caught on to the wax easily.
It was rather lucky that Carter had a burning torch already since he had no way of making a fire at the moment. If the second torch went off, it would be a hard time for Carter.
And then he did a big swing with the second torch and extinguished it immediately. Carter dropped down on his knees and whispered under his breath.
"Da'la Leur!"
Meaning: Stealth mode. The wolves lowered their bodies down also and tried to make themselves as small as possible.
On the far side, red charcoals illuminated inside a fire pit. The fire was put out, leaving only the charcoal smoldering.
Someone was over there recently.