Chapter 15 #2
Yeah, what the fuck was that?
He didn’t know. He planned for a direct spell. Then inspiration struck him, and he fired a spell that wasn’t his.
The twin orbs coiling around each other to accelerate reminded him of particle accelerator mechanics he heard about in school. To apply such a level of complexity to a new spell was unthinkable. All his new spells were crude, as they should have been.
This one was perfect.
And then there was the name. It popped into mind on its own, now firmly burned into it. He hadn’t the faintest idea of what had happened.
The dust settled a bit. The room, or well, whatever was left of it came into view. The statues were gone, together with the wall, reduced to dust and debris. The steel gate lay on the floor, collapsed from its very frame, getting annihilated.
The entrance to the lower levels gaped beyond the dust.
The dust took a while to settle.
Alsen needed all his strength to stand straight, breathing through the collar of his shirt. His ribs ached. His hands shook. Cold had nested deep in his chest, the familiar consequence of overusing magic. Fully deserved, as far as he was concerned. He really overdid it with the last spell.
The Twin Dawn of the Seventh Sun.
He had to be really careful with this one. And he had to find where it came from.
Luna passed him, giving him the move-it look.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he knew, all right?
Everyone else was ready to go.
Led by Garrett, they walked through the collapsed gate into the darkness beyond.
The corridor past the gate sloped downward, the air cooler and drier. His floating light orb flickered, its edges unsteady. Maintaining even that small spell cost him now. The backlash from magic overuse meant he really needed to take a break.
But he was the sole source of light, so he couldn’t turn that off either.
Marena fell in beside him. “I’m sorry, but do you need healing?”
“I’m fine. Just, overused.”
“You’re bleeding from the mouth.”
Alsen wiped his lip. His fingers came back red. “That’s nothing. Just a few drops from the shock.”
She tilted her head from side to side. “I guess…. That’s okay. My mentor always taught me only to heal those who ask for it. So, if you need healing, ask.”
“Thanks. But really, I’m fine.”
She nodded and returned to Theron’s side. Luna replaced her within a moment, using him as a barrier between her and Sonja.
They changed their formation as they entered the lower level. Garrett and Theron still walked in the front, but then Marena and Sonja followed, with Alsen being second to last, and Luna on the implied babysitting duty.
Embarrassing, in a way, but also perfectly reasonable. He couldn’t cast much in the next few hours.
The corridor widened into a long hall with a vaulted ceiling.
The geometric carvings here became denser, more intricate than anything on the surface level.
Interlocking shapes covered every surface, spirals nested within spirals, lines that curved and met and diverged in patterns that felt deliberate but unknowable.
Alsen wanted to stop and study them. He couldn’t afford to do either, though. Hopefully, on the way back, he would get the chance.
“Hold.” Garrett’s voice cut through the silence.
Everyone froze.
He crouched, running his fingers along the edge of a floor tile. “This looks like there might be traps in the floor again.”
“I’ll look,” Sonja and Luna said at the same time. They exchanged a swift glance, Sonja mouthing out a kiss, Luna rolling her eyes. They walked to the front, and Alsen used the opportunity to lean against a wall.
To him, the tiles ahead looked the same as the ones before, nothing suspicious about the hallway at all.
As she approached the front, Luna kicked a rock ahead.
It landed on the further away tiles, the noise echoing through the hallway.
A section of the ceiling dropped. Three stone slabs slammed down like guillotine blades, one after the other, crashing into the floor with enough force to shatter bones. Dust billowed. The slabs retracted slowly back into the ceiling, grinding stone on stone.
And the tiles remained unscratched.
Ah, so Garrett noticed the tiles here were made from a different, much tougher material.
“Pressure plates,” Luna said, standing. “Only the ones in the center, though. See the half-tiles by the walls? Those are safe.”
She stepped ahead, back pressed against the wall. She walked sideways through the hallway until she got to the door at its end. Only there, she stepped away from the wall. “It should be safe here. I’ll look over the gate trap next.”
Sonja went first on the narrow track by the wall. “But who’s going to kiss me for getting there safely?”
Even Alsen snorted. One by one, they moved by the wall. He took his sweet time, careful to not misstep. He had no reason to rush.
By the time he got to the other side, Luna was already disarming the door trap. A spring-based mechanism in the doorframe, which would trigger if someone opened the door too quickly or too slowly.
Luna now directed Garrett to pry tiles from the frame with his dagger, so that he could tear out the spring. Alsen watched for a moment. Garrett reached the springs, pulled them out, breaking the mechanism.
Sonja unlocked the door in the meantime.
A wider chamber opened before them. Square, maybe forty feet across, with three doorways on the far wall. Two were collapsed, rubble choking them from floor to ceiling. The third gaped open, darkness beyond the frame.
In the center of the room, three constructs stood motionless on a raised platform.
Smaller statues than those at the gate, each about six feet tall, built of dark stone with pale veining.
They also didn’t look exactly humanoid. They had the limbs, but the legs were strangely short, compensated by the torso and arms being long.
Each had a faceless head with only a gem between where eyes would have been.
Their arms ended in weapons instead of hands, either axe blades or a sword.
“Those are new,” Garrett remarked, drawing his sword. “Alsen, take it easy. We’ve got this.”
He didn’t need to hear that twice, remaining by the start.
“You too, Kitten,” Sonja added. “Watch and be amazed by my awesomeness. I’ll earn that kiss.” She grabbed her bow, nocked an arrow, and fired. Her arrow split the air, aimed at the gem on the central statue’s forehead.
The statue’s head spun, the arrow hitting the back of its head, pure stone. The head turned back to its original position, and the statues stepped forward.
“All right,” Garrett said, stepping forward. “Time to show the newbies how it’s done.”
Theron stayed at his side, Sonja releasing another arrow. Marena whispered something in a language he didn’t understand. Globes of mist flew from her. They hit everyone else. When the globe touched Alsen, its mist washed over him.
Adrenaline surged through his veins, the tiredness and pain lessening in an instant.
Garrett bolted to the first statue. It met him with a lightning-fast slash of its axe arm. That hit his shield. He didn’t waver, pushing into the statue. He slammed the shield into it, making the statue stumble.
Sonja released a couple more arrows, one at each of the other statues. They both turned their heads to protect the gems. That stopped them in their tracks, though.
Theron synchronized his attack with the arrows perfectly. As the middle statue’s head turned, he stepped in and, with a wide swing, cut off its leg. The statue fell to the side, its head turning back towards him with the gem.
He moved from this one, attacking the third one. His axe clashed with its, sparks flying.
Garrett moved from his statue and bolted to the back of the middle one. Sonja fired an arrow at its gem. The head turned, moving the gem straight toward Garrett.
He ran by the statue, slashing its turning head, shattering the gem into bits. The statue slashed at him. He blocked with the shield, jumping back to his original statue.
“The main gem is in the chest,” Marena shouted. “In the lower center, where the liver would be.”
Garrett smashed the statue. He fought with the shield again, making it stumble once more. He pushed forward, parried an axe strike, ducked under another, and stabbed its chest. His blade passed through the stone.
It still slashed at him. He slipped back, withdrawing the sword, evading at the same time. He sidestepped the follow-up strike and countered with a slash, demolishing the crystal in its face.
The statue stopped moving.
Theron, meanwhile, exchanged strikes with the leftmost statue. He parried a few strikes, then used an opening and crushed its shoulder. Theron shifted into attack and, three blows later, cut the other arm. He ducked and severed its leg, leaving it immobilized.
Sonja fired another standard arrow but then drew power to herself. “Kitten! Watch this!” She readied an arrow, the power wreathed it with green light, and she fired. The arrow flew straight through the middle statue’s chest. The statue stopped moving.
Garrett casually walked to the statue Theron immobilized, and stabbed it, destroying the gem in its chest.
[SYSTEM MESSAGE: ENEMIES DEFEATED – GEMBOUND GUARDIAN STATUES (3)]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 600]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL: 10]
Alsen let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. That was clean. The constructs weren’t weak, nor slow, nor brittle. But Garrett and his party had just enough offensive power to dispatch them, and more than enough defense.
Actually, the whole group had a defensive angle to it. He only now realized. Marena functioned as a fully defensive spellcaster. Garrett and Theron didn’t have any special attacks, but they sure absorbed attacks well. Only Sonja seemed to be more focused on offense, aside from on Luna, of course.
“That went well,” Garrett evaluated, dusting off his sword.
They moved on. The open doorway led to another corridor, this one narrower, with lower ceilings that forced Theron to duck. Luna walked at the front, having Alsen move the light so that she could see every detail.