--- Kat ---
Kat had been thrown through a few more traps, none of which were any threat to her. Eventually, she was dumped out into a small room with nothing around. As she stood up though, a video started to play on the wall. "Hello? Hello? Is this thing on? Hang on..." on screen there was a dwarf that left just as quickly. They were grimy, with a surprisingly short beard and a set of goggles. They had overalls to cover their front. Perhaps that had sothing interesting below that but the screen only showed them from about the belly button up.
From offscreen the dwarf said, "Ah! Yes, alright I think this is all working..." as he sat back down. "Right, um... if you’re watching this then I think this is the first trap room you’ve found yourself in! Sorry about that. I grew to enjoy making traps as a young boy and I never really stopped. Moved out into the mountains and built a digging machine both to have space to make the traps, and the resources to do so.
"I have... also lost track of what exactly counts as dangerous sowhere along the way. I’m not sure what Rank I am these days but nothing I’ve made manages to hurt so... yeah hard to know how tough I am in comparison. The last person I saw was... ooh... maybe twenty years ago? They ran away screaming.
"Anyway, ignore all of that," the dwarf said as they waved a hand in front of their face. "You can call ... um... hmm... I think I had a good na written down but I don’t rember it. Aw well, just call ’The Trapmaster’ I suppose."
Trapmaster awkwardly scratched at their cheek, knocking their goggles up a bit causing them to squint and shake their face a bit before pulling the goggles off and rubbing their eyes. A poor decision because they had grease on it. "Ergh. It’s in my eyes... it doesn’t hurt but I hate it!"
Trapmaster grumbled as he got off and walked out of screen. Kat heard him continue to walk until a door was opened and slamd shut. Kat blinked as a few seconds past and the video just... kept going. Kat turned around slowly, looking for sothing in the room that counted as a trap... but it was still empty. The only thing worth ntioning is that the section of wall she’d been flung out of had closed up, trapping her inside. Kat was pretty sure she could break it down though.
Shrugging, and deciding to kill so ti, she gave a ntal poke to Lily to see what her girlfriend was doing. Unlike Kat, the other two seed to still be on the slide. Kat really wasn’t sure Trapmaster thought the whole slide thing through all that well. Currently, Lily was shooting down a smooth section of slide with large gaps in it. What you were probably ant to do was swerve around the holes to avoid falling off the slide... but extending a shadow over the gap for a short mont worked even better.
Kat considering chatting with Lily, knowing she was quite safe, especially considering the fact she could fly if she fell... but it was probably best to let her concentrate as Hedera was still at risk. Kat couldn’t tell what was off to the sides either so it was possible the fall would be enough to break legs.
With that in mind, Kat refocused back on the room. Trapmaster was still missing... but perhaps that was ant to be part of the test? Kat did a quick lap around the small room, looking for anything that was obviously out of place. Nothing stood out so she then took to shuffling around the room and trying to feel out any odd bits of flooring that might let her enter the next room. When that too failed, Kat moved onto checking the walls
On her second lap of the walls, Trapmaster returned, or at least, Kat could hear the door open again. "Note to self, cut out the dead ti on this video. Or maybe re-record it? Probably better to do that. I’ll finish this one for the practice though..." Kat rolled her eyes at the screen.
The Trapmaster took a few monts to check whatever was recording all of this before sitting back down. They’d cleaned up... sowhat. Their face was now soaking wet with water dripping from their hair. Their overalls had been replaced by a more casual looking shirt without a pattern. It might have been white at one point but now it was a dirty grey with a few other stains. They did still have their goggles, though now they were resting on Trapmaster’s forehead.
"Where was I? Gave my na, talked about my love of traps, the fact they might be deadly... right. So what’s going to happen, is that there will be a series of rooms. Inside each one, will be a video explaining the task and so props. If you complete the test, the door opens and you get to move onto the next one.
"Um... do I have the rewards set up yet?" Trapmaster frowned. "I think I’ve got so? Hmmm... then again I don’t exactly have this place open and ready for guests. I wonder how long after making the real video soone will show off?" Trapmaster shook his head. "Whatever, I’ll make sure to double check the rewards after this so you’ll get at least sothing,"
*That is not reassuring.*
Trapmaster rubbed his face a little more, so grease coming off once again because apparently they didn’t properly clean up but it was just a light bit on their cheek. Trapmaster didn’t even seem to notice. "Err... hmm... what room are you in? This is ant to be a generic ’first room’ ssage but um. No, no, let just end this one here and then the next video should play explaining things!"
Kat sighed but nodded as the screen sunk back into the wall and the video stopped. Kat tapped her foot a few tis, waiting for the screen to co back and explain what she was ant to do... when instead the wall opposite to where she’d co from opened up. Kat glanced around one more ti, double checking the ceiling to be absolutely sure... and then stepped through the now open door.
Stepping inside Kat found a small box on a pedestal along with a table nearby. When Kat moved into the room the screen flickered on. "Welco to my trap called ’Need a Hand’" said a Trapmaster back in his standard getup... though cleaned up quite a bit. The overalls seed to have been power washed and there was no gri on him.
"The way this trap works, is that once you place a hand in the box it will clamp down, trapping it inside. Then, several different items will drop from the ceiling. Your goal is to use them as best you can to open the box. This is made more difficult by how far away the table and the box are. Good luck!" cheered the Trapmaster before vanishing.
Kat shrugged, placing her arm in the box and feeling it clamp down. Then, from the ceiling three other boxes dropped down onto the table. Kat nodded at them all, and then transford into water, freeing herself. The screen flickered back to life with an angry looking Trapmaster "CHEATING! I don’t know what you did, this is a recording... but my sensors told you tried to cheat! The room is getting reset. Don’t do it again."
Kat sighed. *Not sure how it counts as cheating but fine.* Kat placed her hand back in the box and felt it clamp down once again. Then, because she was a bit annoyed with the Trapmaster she reached over and grabbed a box with her tail. The boxes were just barely in grasping range normally... but her tail bypassed that issue nicely.
The first box had a hacksaw and bandages as well as a few other dical things. Kat supposed the trick with that one was to encourage you to just saw your arm off. Kat put the box down next to her and grabbed another. Inside this one was a number of liquids without any labels. *So... for trying to slip my hand out?* Kat pulled on her hand a bit to see how much give there was. It was tight... but maybe it was possible?
*Might be possible. Depends on what exactly this gunk is. I can’t tell just by looking, but they aren’t all going to be lubricants. One of them looks like soap.* Kat used her tail to pick out that bottle and sniffed it slightly. *Definitely soap.*
Kat placed that box down. It a number of small tal things. It wasn’t obvious what they were ant to be for at first glance but considering the theming for the other two, Kat was willing to guess that it was ant to be sothing for her to use as lockpicks. *Guess we just get started on this.*
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