Arcum managed to make his way up to the top floor. He could hear the sound of combat coming from the bottom floor as Stelle, Hysilens, and Lingsha fought on the bottom floor.
At the top floor, the trial spawner had stopped spawning all the mobs. Laying atop of the spawner, were some trial keys.
"I guess I forgot to tell them to grab these," Arcum sighed out, walking over and grabbing the keys off the top of the spawner. "These are good for the vaults."
Looking off toward the sides of the chamber, Arcum noted the copper doors that led to other parts of the chambers, more to clear.
But for right now, he wasn't going to clear those. His plan was to make the main area safe for the builders to grab loot, and to ensure he could farm a mace.
"Maybe if I keep some trial chambers as they were built," Arcum thought, already planning ahead. "I could use it for some practice. You would just need to make it safer somehow."
Deciding to plan later, however, Arcum pulled out some cobblestone blocks to start making a large platform at the top, ensuring that there were no holes that he would fall through.
Arcum double checked his work to make sure that there weren't any holes. Finding none, he pulled out his pickaxe and started to mine the ceiling to make some more space.
"Landscaping?" Stelle asked as she climbed the ladder up. "Is this supposed to be a 'farm?'"
Arcum spared a glance to Stelle as she climbed the ladder, looking down to see no more mobs around.
"Killed them all already?" Arcum asked. "That was fast."
"I did say we'd beat them in 30 seconds flat," Stelle replied. "What did you expect?"
Arcum rolled his eyes, continuing to mine the blocks in the ceiling. "If you're not doing anything, collect the items that popped out from the spawners in the middle and the bottom floors."
"Where?" Stelle asked, walking over to Arcum and looking at the trial spawner.
"This," Arcum said. "Is a trial spawner that spawns those monsters. After you finish it, it will drop items from the top. Grab those items."
Arcum pulled out the trial key from his inventory. "If you see this, keep it and don't use it yet."
Watching as Stelle went back down the ladder, Arcum resumed breaking the ceiling.
"This should be large enough."
Pulling out his cobblestone yet again, Arcum started to block off the trial chamber spawner, blocking off the spawning area of the mobs.
"You can only spawn in a 9x9 area around the spawner," Arcum recited in his mind. "And one block below and above, so I'll block everything except for the top block."
Unfortunately for Arcum, he had no glass blocks to see everything work properly—cobblestone would have to do, and look ugly at the same time.
"And that's one," Arcum said as he finished placing cobblestone to prevent the mobs from spawning in a 9x9 square area around the spawner. "Time for all the others."
"Such an ugly construct," Lingsha voiced from the bottom of the chambers. "What an eyesore."
"It's trying its best, okay?" Arcum responded, shaking fist at Lingsha.
"Anyway," Lingsha said, changing the subject. "We've gathered all the items from the spawners."
"Cool," Arcum nodded, giving a thumbs up. "You can send some people up to the surface to put the loot in the chests and come back."
"Does it matter who?" Lingsha asked.
"It can be anyone but me," Arcum replied. "Unless one of you would rather make what I'm making."
"Nobody wishes to make your ugly constructs," Lingsha quipped back with such speed, Arcum would've thought she had that thought out in her head already.
"Then you go up to the surface and bring me prettier blocks to build with," Arcum suggested. "If you're so adamant on making it look nice."
"It's not like I'll be coming back down here after this," Lingsha said.
"Just go back up and drop the items off," Arcum sighed out. "Just make sure to keep those keys. We need those."
"Miss Hysilens has all the keys," Lingsha listed. "Stelle, just a moment ago, just left to drop the items off to the surface."
"Then why are you complaining to me..?"
"You seemed to be lonely, so I'm merely accompanying you."
"Piss off," Arcum thought.
"You can accompany me in building these flawless structures, then," Arcum offered, gesturing to his ugly cobblestone trial chamber farm. "It's beautiful just the way it is."
Before Lingsha could reply, Arcum added. "Beauty comes from the inside, not from the outside."
"Yes, beauty comes from the inside, but if your creation looks like it's been hit by a Starskiff, I'm gonna need more than a good heart to see it."
Having enough of Lingsha for now, Arcum made a small stairway to the top of his cobblestone cube to reach the other trial spawners on the top floor.
Hearing the noise of Lingsha's disgust fueled Arcum's desire to speed up building more ugly structures.
"I like this. This is fun."
Finally finishing the first floor, Arcum slid down the ladder to reach the bottom floor.
As he settled his feet down on the bottom floor, his eyes found Hysilens, leaning against the tuff walls, looking at her swords.
"Doing something?" Arcum asked. "Did your swords break or something?"
"No," Hysilens replied. "I just dislike looking up now."
"Even you?" Arcum thought. "I'm not changing it."
Arcum had never been a builder. He was decent at PvP when he was playing Minecraft, but he was extremely good at progression.
"I really don't see the problem," Arcum said, looking up at the cobblestone. "It looks fine."
"Some things you cannot fix," Hysilens said, before saying nothing more.
Shrugging at the opinions given, Arcum started creating more and more cobblestone cubes around spawners, ensuring that mobs could only spawn at the top of the spawner.
Arcum would place a small trapdoor to ensure that if anything did spawn, it wouldn't be able to leap out.
He continued this process for the middle floor too, once finished with the bottom floor.
The trial chamber, once a decent looking structure, was turned into something that you would find in a trashcan.
"I'm back," Stelle said as she walked back down into the chambers. "What's going on?"
Arcum, looking toward the entrance from the middle floor waved at Stelle. "Does this look ugly to you?"
"It's alright," Stelle said. "Why?"
"No reason," Arcum denied. "Anyways, we've got to grab some keys from Hysilens."
Joining Stelle on the bottom floor, they duo went over to Hysilens, who was in the middle of chatting with Lingsha.
"You two look sorta similar," Arcum said, looking at the two. "Am I crazy or is that just me?"
"Just you," Hysilens and Lingsha said simutaniously.
"Okay, jeez," Arcum backed off. "Anyways, we need those keys from you, Hysilens. We're going to be opening loot now."
Hysilens opened her palm, the trial keys appearing in her hand as she took them out of her inventory. "Here."
Taking all the keys, Arcum passed them around evenly. "Everyone should have 3 keys now. Right?"
Looking at each and everyone, they nodded.
"Good," Arcum said. "Now, lets go find a vault."
"What are we supposed to be looking for?" Lingsha asked. "What does it look like, more specifically."
"Hm," Arcum said, thinking. "I don't actually know how to describe it. Kind of like a cage? With items inside the cage."
"Like that," Stelle said, pointing toward the middle floor through a copper grate.
"Like what?" Arcum asked, following her finger to a vault. "Oh, yes. Like that."
The group climbed the ladder to the middle floor, walking over to the vault that Stelle had spotted.
"So," Arcum explained, pulling out a trial key. "Just pop one in and you get some loot. You have to wait to loot it again, so you have to find another vault after this one."
To show a demonstration, Arcum popped a key into the vault.
The vault started to shake, before spewing out three items: emeralds, iron ingots, and a honey bottle.
"Those items seem bad for the danger that was just presented," Lingsha commented.
"Yes, no," Arcum retaliated, defending the loot. "I just got unlucky. You can get really lucky from this and get a trident. Or diamonds."
"We don't know how good those are," Hysilens clarified. "You're not defending much."
"I hate you all," Arcum replied with a deadpan face. "Just open the vault and move on."
Stelle stepped up first. Putting the trial key into the vault, it spewed out a few items: a damaged shield, 7 wind charges, and 2 golden carrots.
"Well, looks better than yours at least," Stelle replied with a grin. "You're in last place, buddy."
"This wasn't a competition," Arcum said. "Why are we competing for something that isn't in our control?"
"Because it's fun," Stelle defended. "Why else?"
Lingsha stepped up next, placing the key into the vault. Out popped more items, an enchanted book, a music disc, and 5 arrows of poison.
"What's on the book?" Arcum asked, gesturing to the book that Lingsha had picked up.
"Here," she replied, tossing it to Arcum. "It's not like it'll be more useful for me than it will be for you."
"How generous of you," Arcum replied, grabbing the book to check its enchantment in his inventory.
"...Efficiency."
"So, why are you guys getting lucky?" Arcum asked. "This isn't fair to me."
"You're probably getting our loot anyway," Stelle replied. "Don't complain."
Arcum sighed, but obliged with Stelle.
Finally, it was Hysilens' turn. She inserted the key into the vault, the block shaking as it produced items from the top.
Out from the top came a golden apple, an ominous bottle, and nothing else.
"There should be 3 items," Arcum said, looking at the vault. "Something going wrong?"
Slowly, something started to rise from the vault.
"Looks like there is something," Lingsha said.
"Pull it out," Stelle said, nudging Hysilens.
At Stelle's nudge, Hysilens stepped forward, placing her hand on the long object, before yanking it out of the vault.
"Bruh," Arcum thought as he gaped.
The three items that Hysilens got were a golden apple, an ominous bottle, and a trident.
"Makes sense to me!" Stelle said.
"How does that make sense?" Arcum asked, gesturing to her. "She took my luck, that's what!"
"She's from the ocean, so the trident makes sense, get it?" Stelle replied.
"I don't want it," Hysilens said, breaking the tension. "It's too large."
"I'll take it," Arcum piped up instantly. "I'll take the trident."
Hysilens looked at Arcum, before handing the trident over to him, his hands dropping as the weight of the trident was put into his hands.
"That's heavier than I thought," Arcum thought. "She held that with no issue. Strong, much?"
The sound of a skeleton's bones rattling caught Arcum's attention as he put the trident into his inventory.
Looking over to the sound, Arcum could see a skeleton stuck inside one of the boxes he had made, trapped and spawned on top of the spawner.
"Oh, wait, breezes can open trapdoors with their wind charges."
Sighing, Arcum pointed to the trapped skeleton. "You guys can kill the ones trapped like that, I'm going to have to replace the trapdoors after the second wave."
"Okay," Stelle said moving toward the box to kill the skeleton.
Looking into his own inventory, Arcum's eyes drifted over and stayed on the ominous bottle from the storage room.
"I suppose we can do a ominous trial after this wave. It wouldn't hurt to get some more trial keys first."