this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2023
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PrePub - Ascendance of a Bookworm
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- Ascendance of a Bookworm
- Honzuki no Gekokujou
- 『本好きの下剋上』
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Marbles on the ground, throwing waste, insect swarms, flash bangs, hidden teleporters, battle shumils! Almost seems like we're having a "Home Alone" style battle on our hands. The part of the silver hooded man with a missing hand will be played by Joe Pesci.
Those traps might sound simplistic, but we must keep in mind how nobles usually consider only mana-based attacks worth even thinking about. So even simple physical traps are very likely to catch a born and raised noble by surprise and have an effect on them.
With the feystone bodysuits nobles usually wear underneath their clothes when expecting trouble, there's only so much non-magical traps can do, but even that bodysuit won't stop a noble from losing their balance and banging their head on the wall or ground, or twisting an ankle, so something like marbles or a really slick floor might actually be surprisingly effective.
With the body suit in mind, any trap intended to be lethal would have to hit at head-height though. A spike shooting out of the floor would probably not work... well it would be, if it's made of silver material, but Sylvester doesn't have access to that, especially not on such short notice. If they had more time, maybe Ferdinand cound potentially discreetly make inquiries with some Lanzenave traders willing to circumvent their own royal family for a big profit. With Ferdinand's access to high quality feystones and ingredients, he sure has some stuff that would be worth an absolute fortune in Lanzenave, but that's neither here nor there for the current issues Ehrenfest is facing.
I wonder if some high quality feybeast parts, like that which the bag containing Quinta's name-swearing stone was made of, would be able to pierce light feystone armour, if used as tips of a spike-trap.
I think it would be fitting to have some poison traps.
The issue is the delivery mechanism. Any poison that needs to be injected or come in contact with skin, would need to hit the unprotected hands or face to have any effect. Some kind of liquid spray, airborn powder or gas would probably have much better chances to work than spikes or somesuch.
Unless of course they set up traps in a place were Georgine or her subordinates are likely to still be wearing the silver cloth... so right outside, or inside the book room's barrier would make a perfect spot for such a trap... but the problem here is how to make the trigger, without endangering the regular denizens of the temple.
A magical trigger is out of the question, since the silver cloth would make the intruder effectively invisible to that. But designing a physical trigger that only works on intruders and can't be set off by the blue and grey priests is out of the question with their level of technology. Informing the people with access to the book room of how to not trigger the trap is an option, but still risks accidents and opens everything up to being leaked to Georgine's faction, whether by accident, spy or being forced by intriders. Not to mention that Sylvester has a vested interest in keeping the very existence of the door a secret, so the fewer people to know about there being anything worth trapping in the book room the better.
Or maybe not... if they could make a magical trigger that works like a real-life light barrier, that might work. The silver cloth blocks magic, so if you made a two-part sensor, with one part emitting a constant, low-level emission of some kind and a recipient that triggers the moment the emission from the other part stops, that should still work on silver cloth protected people. Now you'd only need to also give it the ability to sense the passing through of people authorized to enter the book room, and it'd be perfectly safe, if set up just inside the barrier.