While it was not the most enjoyable situation, it was nice to have so much room to walk around. If I had to guess, I would say the chamber was ten meters in both length and width. The ceiling was half that, the height going up to five meters. I could not quite tell the color of the bricks that made up the walls, but I could certainly tell the texture with my soul sense. It was a strange sensation, seeing by feeling with my soul essence. I could tell the texture, shape, and location of anything within the room, yet I could not perceive anything else. It was both convenient and inconvenient, giving me the benefit of a circular range of “vision” and requiring no light source but with the penalty that I could not make out the finer details of anything.

I could tell some spots of the ancient stone brick walls were fuzzy, likely some sort of moss that invaded through the cracks that had appeared as the structure of the crypt aged. Four pillars in each of the corners of the room that once stood tall were now half-broken yet still held up the ceiling, if barely. The ceiling of smooth stone was slowly being crushed under the weight of the earth that buried the complex. Each step I took caused subtle vibrations that sent dust and pebbles hurling down to ground. ‘Well, I suppose I was lucky in a way. If I had reanimated any later, that lid of my coffin would not be the only problem of escaping that prison.’

There was not much else within the room that I could detect, so I turned to the tall doors of stone that acted as the only exit of this new space. Pressing upon them carefully, they opened inwards with some resistance into a long hallway, but I had a terrible feeling emerge as my “gut” told me something was wrong. I felt a subtle click from the door as an opening on the side of the chamber behind myself revealed itself. Twisting my body out of the way, I felt an arrow soar towards the door and graze past my ribs. Surprised, I stepped out onto a tile that promptly depressed under my weight. Only acting on instinct, I dove to the ground as I felt a glaive pass by going from the left to right side of the hallway where I had inadvertently treaded upon. ‘I suppose it would not be a crypt without a few traps.’ Grave robbers were always an issue for the dead, afterall, a corpse cannot fight back. Traps were the only way for those in their eternal slumber to protect what they had left behind.

Now alert to the dangers of my new obstacle, the hallway, I returned to the doorway for safe haven. ‘How should I pass by?’ I asked myself. I could try to use my soul sense to search for traps, yet I did not have the precision to worm my way through the openings in between the tiles. I only trained the strength of my soul essence, subtle manipulation was a completely foreign concept to myself. Going on to train that for lord knows how long would break me after the trauma of the coffin. Thinking for a moment, my jaw clattered this time with delight. The solution was quite simple, I’d use rocks. The chamber was already threatening to crumble already so I could just give it some encouragement to get some heavy rocks to fall. Traveling a step into the hallway to the sides of the door, I reached out to the left door of the double doors and pulled it with all my strength to slam against the frame that prevented it from going outwards while the right door that was farther away from myself remained open to prevent any debris from barring the door. With a heavy thunk, I could feel a set of heavy booms crash against the floor inside. After the booms petered out, I moved over to the right open door to allow my soul essence to flow inside. The coffin was… well destroyed. A boulder crushed it, leaving only scattered pieces as proof of its existence. The rest of the room was not much better as large rocks dotted it. One of the pillars was completely destroyed, leaving the back left of the chamber but a pile of rocks.

Tip toeing inside, I collected a rock that I had guessed to be slightly heavier than myself. Well collected is a generous term, more truthfully I rolled it over over the course of ten minutes to the doorway. If a tile does not get pressed down, that either means it was not a trap or the trigger was not sensitive enough to detect my weight. Whichever one it was, it was all the same to me since all I cared for was my safety. In the hallway, I continued to roll it at a snail-like pace. Push, rest, push again, rest again, so on and so forth. But hey, my effort was paid off as near the midpoint of the corridor, the decoy rock set off a trap. Swinging down, the glaive hit the rock, breaking it into small pieces. Yet with the lost momentum due to the impact, the large blade could not climb up again and hung uselessly in the middle of the hallway. Your sacrifice will be remembered, Rocky.

Only then did I realise, I had to find another rock. Shit. Well… no matter, it is simply a task of moving a heavy rock. Hard as it was, it did help train my soul essence. Silver linings, or so I told myself to keep myself in a better mood. I proclaim this new rock Rocky Jr! Rocky Jr shall finish the duty that its parents left them hopefully…

Rocky Jr cleared the hallway for me until the three-quarters point. In the rhythm of things trying to get the rock across, I stopped mere centimeters from a thin wire that I only managed to detect before it was too late. A tripwire or something more sinister, I did not want to investigate. Curiosity killed the cat afterall. I am not the sort to risk my own neck for information. What was knowledge worth when you are dead… well when you are truly dead I mean. I had no idea if I would get a do over after this and I was not particularly interested in dying. While in part my own will, an urge that felt so foreign commanded me to survive. That I had to get out of here. Its origin was not of my own mind, of that I can be sure, but at least it seemed to have the same interest in getting out of this hellhole so I did not question it too much. Bending over giving the wire a wide berth, Rocky Jr and I continued our journey.

The long march to the end of the hallway grew its conclusion. Unfortunately, Rocky Jr got crushed as both sides of the wall shot out on the last tile. Really, whoever made this place was quite sadistic. All that and if you get to the end, you get a surprise arrow to the chest. The relief of getting past this house of horrors only for a cheapshot to fell you when victory was in your grasp! Even then, only a dusty, old skeleton was their reward. But speaking of that arrow, it was impaled within the door that I did so much to get to. Ripping it out to inspect, I was expecting poison but nothing of liquid texture was on it. Perhaps the poison simply was neutralized with age? Not seeing a particular risk to it being a being of bones with no blood to be poisoned, I touched the arrowhead with my right index finger. Sliding my finger across it, I had a funny feeling. Immediately retracting, I was befuddled. How in the hell did the arrow… do whatever it did? It was not poison, I am physically incapable of being poisoned. Looking into my soul core, something had the soul essence swirling around furiously. Some odd black energy was attempting to attack my soul core. Was this some kind of curse? Thankfully only touching it for a mere second, my soul essence fought off the curse, but I felt exhausted after. Just a touch and it practically left me unable to continue on since movement required most of my soul essence to upkeep. Now weakened, I could not go any longer. Pressing my back against the door, I slid to the floor before cutting off my soul essence from my body to let it recover. Slow and steady wins the race I guess.