Chapter 228: Caught Rock Handed

Chapter 228: Caught Rock Handed

?=9; Thats a riddle? How is this helping right now?

The answer is nine? Doesnt mean much. And if that was it, just saying =9 would have worked better. Question equals nine, then?

Sofia looked around in the den and tried to make sense of the Scribes hint but she was stumped, she kept visualizing the three characters in her mind until she figured something out.

Ninth Oh. Ninth question? There haven't been many occasions where I was faced with nine questions in a row. I think I get it now. Thanks Mr Scribe, thats not something I had thought about. But that could indeed explain how Saria could have done this.

Ninth question : What one rule would you add, delete or change if you could modify the system?

I would add a rule to punish harming children.

I see. You might be interested in knowing that there is, in fact, such a rule.

So in the end, it was the system that helped her, as a punishment for the slaver?

Since she was the one who did this, and considering she survived the monsters after that The most likely thing that happened is that she unlocked an unusually strong class which allowed her to accomplish all of this. Unless the system just gave her a bunch of stat or levels for free, but would it do that without giving her a real class first? It could also have given her a strong item But then the possibility exists that the person it was meant to punish could steal the item and profit off of it.

Considering where she ended up in the spires ranking as well My hypothesis is that she received a strong class.

Once again, Sofias total health tracker opened up by itself, but it came with a small bout of pain around her temples this time.

You confirm, then? Thank you, really. But dont overdo it, it looks like even the opening of the health counter is starting to hurt you

Sofia was now relatively certain that Saria had gotten a strong class, something violent enough that she could instantly fight back against the head slaver at level one and embed him into a wall. That was an encouraging start, but the trail stopped there. It didnt seem like Saria had stayed for long inside of the cave, or she would have moved the dead body out.

That would have been hard to do for Saria But maybe not if she had the strength to do what she did to the slaver. Sofia pushed up the iron trapdoor at the top of the ladder, she was welcomed by a strong gust of glacial wind. At first she thought it was the outside, but once again, it wasnt. Or not quite.

The trapdoor was in the middle of a room, this was a small room carved inside of the very top of the mountain there was a door on one side, and large windows on the two others giving the impression that this was some kind of an observation post. The last wall, opposite the one door, was missing, there was instead only a gaping hole leading straight to the snowy and abrupt mountainside, giving an unparalleled view of the monster-filled sky.

Looks like I found Sarias camp.

In a corner were stacked weird dwarven devices, in the opposite one was the remnants of a collapsed makeshift bed frame made of twigs, cloth and iron wire. I guess she stole one of the slavers bedrolls, but its no longer there. Must have gone through the huge hole in the other wall. There was a bunch more stuff on small handmade shelves and in crude wooden boxes, as well as a few flying monster skulls decorating the furniture.

Before she could inspect the rest of the items in the room, as well as whatever was behind the door, Sofia couldnt help but examine the hole in the wall a bit more. Something about it felt off. The ultra-high-performance wall had been cleaved through cleanly, this couldnt be the work of the flying monsters.

Sofia flew out of the room. Even from the outside, the cut was really clean, not only had it cut the wall, it had also cut the mountain around it as if it was someones dessert that they took a giant spoonful out of. Something else attracted Sofia, something strange in her peripheral vision. A handprint.

It was the kind of trace one would leave if they tried to grab the tower of a mud castle only to realize they would only crush it if they did that while their hand was already half buried into it.

Except that trace was taller than Sofia, and the hand was a scaled paw with long curved claws, strong enough to leave an imprint on the side of a stone cliff.

Well, shit.

I get why she picked the Dragon mask, now.

So I just need to search for whichever Dragon rescued and-or kidnapped Saria

Im relieved that theres a trace at all. And a real confirmation she survived. And a big hint on how she might have escaped this flying mountain. I dont need any divination skill to understand what happened here

But now I have to find a Dragon? And my only clue is a paw-print the size of an average tree?

I need to return to the bottom and activate the tracker to let the others know I found what I was looking for. I might as well return inside and inspect the room in detail before that.