"You know," Arcum said, looking at his newly obtained trident, another idea taking over his head. "I do want to take the time to practice my combat. Ominous trials can wait."
Arcum spoke to Hysilens as Stelle was moving throughout the chamber to the ugly cobblestone boxes, killing the mobs that had spawned inside.
"How do you plan to practice?" Hysilens asked. "You've made these into 'farms,' as you call it."
Arcum, using the trident, pointed to the copper doors on the sides of the chamber walls. "See those doors?"
Hysilens turned to look. She gave a curt nod to Arcum, letting him know she saw it.
"Those are larger, more spacious areas where spawners, like these, are," Arcum explained. "It's a better area to practice against mobs. That's why we're only making the main rooms a farm."
"It's not safe," Lingsha chimed into the conversation, appearing behind the two. "If the monsters are anything like these ones, there's no guarantee that you can come out unhurt."
Arcum, nodding at her concern, opened his inventory to produce iron blocks.
"I still have these from our base," Arcum explained, holding out the blocks for the two to see. "It would be a waste, given we have some spare armor at our base, but we can make armor with this."
Placing down a crafting table, Arcum started to deconstruct the blocks into ingots to craft into armor. "If we have anyone trying to train here, like the builders, we can have them wear armor to reduce the chance of fatal injury."
Crafting iron armor, Arcum put on the gear. The weight was heavy on his body, but not enough to be cumbersome.
"The builders should be training in groups,"' Arcum continued to explain. "They can fend for each other, while building teamwork. If there's dangerous spawners, we can block them off with the same strategy I've done for the main room spawners."
Arcum broke the crafting table, looking to the two ladies who were listening to his explanations. "Does that make sense?"
"While it seems safe in theory," Lingsha acknowledged, her hand scratching her head. "You'd have to put it into practice first."
"That's the plan," Arcum agreed, gesturing to the iron armor he was wearing. "I'll be going in and practicing."
"Shouldn't one of us join to ensure safety?" Hysilens commented, her eyes narrowing at Arcum's bold suggestion. "If things go wrong, you could lose your life."
"No," Arcum responded. "You should focus on finding the vaults of the chamber. Getting more loot is a necessity."
Gesturing around the chamber, Arcum continued to explain the structure and behavior of the chambers.
"You can explain this to Stelle later. You all should find the vaults of the chamber and open the vaults using the keys. If you see a bluish vault instead, mark it and wait. We don't have the keys for those."
Arcum gave his instructions a bit of thought, trying to figure out if he left anything out.
"The copperish vaults we've opened can be opened again after some time, so you can go around and open them in a cycle. That should be everything... that you should know."
Looking at the two, Arcum tilted his head, awaiting any questions that they may have.
The two merely nodded their heads, albeit a bit hesitantly at Arcum's continued ignorance of going in alone.
Seemingly picking up on this, Arcum pulled out the golden apple that he had taken from the dungeon chest on his mining venture.
"If worse comes to worse," Arcum reassured, holding up the apple for the two to look at. "I'll eat this. It'll ensure I won't die before I get out."
"Fine," Lingsha conceded. "Just don't say we didn't warn you."
With those final parting words, the two ladies left to inform and help Stelle, leaving Arcum alone in the chambers.
Moving away from the center of the chambers and to the side door, Arcum took a deep breath in, clearing his mind.
He opened his inventory to ensure that everything was in order before he went into the battle. His sword, axe, and trident were all ready to be equipped at a moments notice. The same went for his shield, blocks, and golden apple.
Before he closed his inventory, his eyes landed on the breeze that he had stuffed into his inventory a while ago.
"Hm."
With a small hum, Arcum tossed it out of his inventory and onto the floor, attempting to pry a breeze rod from it's blocky body.
Soon enough, with Arcum's effort, he pried off the rod from the breeze's body, sending him tumbling backwards, catching himself before he fell onto his rear.
"If this is useful, then I can put this on my to-farm list."
Tossing the newly obtained breeze rod into his inventory crafting grid, Arcum made a few wind charges, allowing him to move vertically with no problems.
Finally prepared to enter the side chamber, Arcum opened the copper door and walked across the copper block floors, ready to fight.
The door led to a hallway, with copper stairs leading upward into the main room. Copper trapdoors were covering the way up, which gave Arcum an idea on what the room was going to look like.
"If I'm not mistaken," Arcum thought, clenching his fist tighter before releasing it. "There should be ranged mobs and a breeze spawner in here."
Inside the hallway, on the side, was another vault that was yet to be opened. Something that Arcum could look forward to, if he could survive this training session first.
"But first. A game plan."
Arcum, knowing he was going in alone, needed to make a gameplan before he went in, guns blazing.
Usually, Arcum was with others in combat.
The first night with Stelle, Hysilens, Argenti, and Mydei.
The mining trip and raider fight with Stelle and Mydei.
The enderman scuffle with Stelle, Hysilens, and Fugue.
But now, he was willingly going in alone, against mobs that aren't bound to Minecraft's code, and act like real, fantasy-like monsters.
Sure, Arcum could use Minecraft tactics. Hit and run, place blocks—target high priority mobs to ensure the cleanest clear. But that was also dangerous, given how evasive mobs were now.
"... wait."
A lightbulb went off above Arcum's head. The mobs were different, the world was Minecraft. Some things in the world followed Minecraft rules, while others didn't.
"Instead of being stuck thinking like I can only play with Minecraft mechanics, why can't I just... freestyle?"
Arcum did have a golden apple in case things went wrong. He was also wearing some iron armor, providing extra protection that he never had in those other battles.
He could afford to be more careless all in the name of testing something out.
"Let's go, then."
Stepping up the copper stairs, Arcum opened the trapdoors and entered the room above.
As he expected, it was spacious, looking like an assembly room. Spawners were spread around evenly. Some of them were skeleton spawners, with one of them being a breeze spawner.
Stepping foot into the room lit up the trial spawners, immediately summoning skeletons and breezes to start the trial.
Wasting no time, Arcum decided to deal with the skeletons first. Wind charge shots from breezes were annoying, sure, but the wind could also disrupt the arrows skeletons fire, giving a bit more protection.
Arcum pulled out his trident, winding it up like a javelin and hurling it from the center of the room towards a skeleton on the outer edge.
As expected, the skeleton rolled out of the way, already drawing its bow with an arrow to fire at Arcum, the rest of the skeletons mirroring its actions.
However, he wasted no time in sprinting towards the skeleton that had just rolled, pulling out his iron axe to drive it into the skull of the skeleton, still kneeled on the floor.
The axe broke cleanly into the skeleton, the blade of the axe getting stuck in it's skeletal structure.
Woosh!
The sound of wind charges firing caught Arcum's attention. He spun around to where the breeze spawner was.
He drew the axe closer to him along with the skeleton, kicking the ribcage with his foot to dislodge the axe and send the skeleton's body into the wind charge as it connects, causing the limbs of the skeleton to humorously fly around the room.
Arcum ducked down instinctively, knowing the skeletons had not yet fired yet.
True to his instincts, not even a second later, arrows flew where his head once was.
Standing up, Arcum pulled out some cobblestone, erecting a barricade to his back to ensure he would not be shot from behind as he faced down some skeletons on his side of the barrier.
Looking down at his axe, Arcum shrugged, before throwing the axe toward the skeleton as a projectile, catching the undead corpse by surprise and taking its blocky head clean off it's body.
Ting!
Arcum's focus immediately shifted when he heard the sound of an arrow bouncing off his iron armor.
Snapping his head toward where the arrow was fired from, Arcum found some skeletons that had repositioned to the center of the room, firing their arrows at him.
Swinging on his hotbar, Arcum pulled out his shield, holding it up as arrows lodged itself into the wood of the defense, some arrows even piercing through it.
Taking a little time to let the arrows fire, Arcum took the shield off of his arm and threw it like a frisbee towards the skeletons.
As the skeletons scattered to dodge the incoming shield, Arcum moved, darting around the barrier he had made to the other side, skeletons still present.
Spotting the trident, still embedded into the wall, an idea struck his head.
Pulling out the wind charges in one hand, his other hand empty, Arcum leapt up onto the trident, standing on it and using it as leverage to leap off it.
Arcum threw the wind charges at the skeletons, aimed towards the ground behind them, sending some of them flying away while others flew off the ground and straight towards him.
He pulled out his iron sword, plunging the blade into the ribcage of the skeleton as it flew towards him, using it as a cushion and landing onto the floor, pulling the sword out of the skeleton.
"Gymnastics and martial arts really weren't a waste of time," Arcum thought as he started to run around to make sure arrows wouldn't hit him. "Surprising that iron armor isn't weighing me down."
Woosh!
The sound of a wind charge being fired caught Arcum off guard, forgetting that the breezes were still a thing.
A wind charge slammed into the blocks at Arcum's feet, sending him flying upward into the ceiling and dropping him to the floor, knocking the wind out of him.
"Ow."
Getting to his knees, Arcum quickly placed cobblestone around him so that he could catch his breath.
There were still about four skeletons left, and two breezes, last he saw. Three of the skeletons were positioned near the middle, and the last one was send somewhere by his wind charge. He would need to figure out where the breezes were.
Peeking out of his barrier, Arcum was met by an arrow, narrowly missing his head as it shot directly above his helmet.
".... okay."
Despite the almost fatal headshot, Arcum's eyes landed on the breezes, bundled up in the corner of the room, camping the edges like kids camping the sidewalk, scared of some houses' Halloween decorations.
With the small respite over, Arcum used one of his remaining three wind charges to fly up, back towards where his trident was in the wall.
Landing safely near the trident, he pulled it out of the wall, winding it up again and chucking it across the room toward the breezes.
Woosh!
One of the breezes leapt away, while the other stayed, shooting a wind charge to disrupt the trident's aim.
However, the trident didn't move, continuing it's shot through the wind charge and impaling the breeze onto the wall.
"Ha! Sucker!" Arcum shouted instinctively, raising his hands above his head. "It seems I have a strong arm!"
Arrows that whizzed past his head again reminded him that he was in no situation to celebrate. He pulled out his sword and wind charge, before launching himself toward the center of the room where the skeletons were with extreme speed.
The skeletons, seemingly caught off guard, were in no position to dodge as he flew in from above, swinging his sword wide and dismantling two of the skeletons with a single swing.
The other skeleton that he had missed drew its bow back at Arcum's crouched figure, attempting to fire an arrow at his head before being swept off its feet by Arcum sweeping its legs and dropping it to the floor.
Promptly shoving his sword into its skull, Arcum looked around. The last skeleton had doubled up with the breeze, in yet another corner.
Looking down at the floor, Arcum found his shield that he had thrown earlier, picking it up and equipping it on his other arm.
The two groups stared at each other for a brief moment, before Arcum charged forth, his shield held up in front of him.
Woosh!
The breeze shot a wind charge towards Arcum. The distance between the two was wide enough to allow Arcum to dodge the wind charge, the gust only sending him to the side a few blocks.
As he was being sent to the side, his raised shield had blocked the arrow the skeleton had notched backwards, the wood on the shield splintering.
Throwing his shield off his arm, Arcum, using his last wind charge, threw it behind him and at his feet, sending him flying towards the two remaining mobs with speed.
He swung his sword in a horizontal arc, cutting both the breeze and the skeleton before they could escape his attack with the wind charge speed up, taking down the remaining mobs.
The spawners in the room started to spew out items after the room was cleared, signaling to Arcum that his training session was over.
"Hey, not bad... I think. Could be safer, but I think it works for now."
Arcum fell to his rear, breathing out a sigh of relief trying to catch his breath, looking around the room.
"And now the best part!" Arcum announced to himself with sarcasm. "The clean up."