The Wandering Inn_Volume 1, page 308
Ceria just looked at him. How was she supposed to respond to that? But maybe that was Ksmvr’s way of saying he was glad things had worked out. She thought for a second, and then looked at the place where he’d sliced her pants apart.
“Ksmvr? You said you made the blindfold for me?”
He nodded. Cautiously.
“Yes. I was…unable to do more. I regret my failure to act, but—”
“Good job.”
“Oh. Thank you.”
—-
Ceria and Ksmvr sat in silence for over twenty minutes before Pisces woke up. He came to with a shout of surprise, which turned into a groan.
“My head…”
He didn’t appear to be insane, but Ceria and Ksmvr were ready for anything as he staggered upright. Pisces took one look around at them, at the bones, and the foul pit they were in, and then he asked if they had anything to eat. That reassured them he was back to normal.
Ceria had a thing about bones, in that she didn’t like seeing them, especially if they were her bones. Add that to the general unsanitary nature of the pit, with the black foreign substance crusting every part of the room, and she was feeling quite unhappy with their current predicament. But Pisces seemed to regard the dead bodies as mere furnishings, and he happily crammed some dried meat into his mouth.
“So you and Ksmvr eliminated the spell? Most efficacious. Allow me to congratulate the both of you. I was completely subsumed by the enchantment. What was my reaction to the [Insanity] spell, incidentally?”
“You thought you were your father.”
Pisces paused mid-chew.
“Ah.”
“And you tried to run both me and Yvlon through.”
“I apologize for that. I am relieved I was so ineffectual.”
He chewed the rest of his bite slowly, and swallowed, no longer looking quite as pleased. Pisces glanced over to Yvlon. She was still drooling on the bindings on her wrist, looking more than a little rabid.
“…Perhaps we should leave before your mud wears off. I would not like to repeat such a harrowing experience.”
Ceria nodded. That was her first thought too, but…
“How the hell are we going to get out?”
The pit was dark, and as far as she could see, the walls extended upwards at least thirty feet. If there was a ceiling, it wasn’t within her [Light] spell’s cone of illumination.
Pisces looked up. He frowned and conjured a ball of light himself and threw it upwards.
“Let’s find out.”
His orb glowed with pure white light. Ksmvr and Ceria both saw it fly upwards, and then break—splash, really, the light becoming fading motes—across a dirt ceiling. Ceria groaned and Pisces made a similar noise of displeasure.
“We’re trapped.”
Pisces nodded, looking unhappy.
“Who knows how deep we are? We could dig up for years and not reach the surface.”
“Not necessarily.”
Both mages looked at Ksmvr. The Antinium nodded as he stared upwards.
“There must be an entrance higher up. Companion Pisces, if you recast your spell, I believe we may be able to identify an opening.”
“What makes you assume that, Ksmvr?”
Ceria looked curiously at the Antinium. He looked back at her without a shred of doubt as he replied.
“If this room were truly a sealed chamber, we and those who have preceded us would have quickly used up the supply of air within the room. The fact that we did not suffocate instantly indicates an air source of some kind.”
“Oh.”
Pisces looked at Ceria and then both mages threw orbs of [Light] upwards again. After a minute of studying the ceiling, Ksmvr exclaimed and pointed.
“There.”
Pisces squinted upwards, frowning.
“Are you certain? I cannot see anything.”
“My eyes are used to the dark. There is an opening there. If we dig, we will most likely find some sort of passageway.”
“So now we just have to get to it. Any ideas?”
Ceria eyed the smooth walls doubtfully. Aside from the black coating, the stone looked unblemished. Pisces just smirked as he stroked his chin.
“This issue should be easily surmounted. Allow me to rectify my earlier deficiency.”
He clicked his fingers, and Ceria felt the room move. Not the ground or the walls, but everything else in it. The bones of the countless dead began to shift.
“Pisces?”
He just smiled as yellowed bones began flying into the air and upwards. Ksmvr stared at the shifting bones without comment, but on the ground Yvlon stopped biting at her robes and screamed.
“Necromancer! Kill him at once!”
“Oh hush.”
Pisces frowned and pointed at Yvlon. Two piles of bones stood up and became skeletons. They walked over to hold her down as she wriggled and tried to break free of her bindings.
“No! Don’t touch me! Stop!”
She wailed—Ceria had never heard Yvlon make any sound like that before—as the skeletons held her in place. Yvlon thrashed wildly, but she was unable to break free. The real Yvlon might have mustered the strength, but Yelen Byres, whoever she was, was a weak noblewoman who couldn’t do a thing.
And meanwhile, the other bones were floating in the air, rearranging themselves. They weren’t forming a creature—instead, Ceria saw with horrified fascination, they were forming a staircase. Small bones and big ones ordered themselves into smooth ledges, and, step-by-step, an ivory staircase built itself upwards, leading to the spot Ksmvr had indicated.
Pisces wiped some sweat off his forehead and exhaled a few times as the last bone flew into the horrific set of steps. He smiled cheerfully at Ceria and Ksmvr, both of whom were giving him the fisheye.
“There. We have a way up, and the means to dig as well.”
“I guess?”
Ceria looked uneasily at the staircase. She did not like Necromancy, but neither was she stupid enough to turn down a good solution. Ksmvr just stared at the bones and nodded.
“Efficient.”
Only Yvlon was upset. She screamed at the skeletons as they lifted her up, staggering under the weight of her armor. Pisces frowned—he waved his hand and several more skeletons stood up out of the collection of bones still littering the floor.
“It appears that this trap, however temporarily detrimental to our health, has one unexpected benefit. I can conjure as many skeletons as I need to from this supply.”
“And you won’t run out of mana? I know you’ve got to be tired, and we don’t exactly have any mana potions to spare.”
Ceria looked doubtfully at Pisces. He hesitated.
“I have used quite a bit. But it seems wiser to expend my resources in creating more undead to aid us, especially given our weakened states.”
“True. Okay, summon as many as you can.”
“These five will do for now. I shall begin digging upwards, unless Ksmvr thinks it will cause a collapse?”
Ksmvr studied the dirt roof and shook his head.
“It should be fine.”
“Very well then.”
Pisces pointed upwards, at the small dark crevice in the ceiling. Two skeletons ran up the staircase and began digging energetically at the spot, showering dirt into the pit below. They were holding rusted blades and pieces of metal—the remains of some of the adventurer’s gear.
“It should take them just a little while to clear the obstruction!”
Pisces shouted down cheerily as he walked up to supervise his skeletons. Ceria shook her head as she found a place to sit on the now-cleared floor of the pit. She wasn’t going up that staircase more than once; solid it may be, but Pisces had opted not to build guardrails, and the bones hovered in the air without any solid supports. It was an amazing piece of magic, but it still made her queasy to imagine climbing it.
She’d have to in the end, but that was later. To take her mind off of that, Ceria looked around. Now that the ground was clear, she saw something that had been buried under a pile of bones. Cautiously, Ceria walked over to it. It was dark and bulky, and at first she thought it was a part of an adventurer that had yet to rot. But this wasn’t meat. Instead, Ceria found dark, rough fabric. She cast another [Light] spell and saw what it was clearly.
It was an adventurer’s pack, still neatly secured to the skeleton of its owner. Ceria hesitated, and then shifted the bones aside and lifted the bag. It was quite heavy.
“Ksmvr, here’s something else. Can you take it?”
The Antinium walked over and hoisted the pack easily. Ceria nodded to him, and then heard a shout from above.
“I see light! We’re right below the tunnel we uncovered!”
Both adventurers below sighed in relief. Pisces grinned at them from above, and then shouted.
“Watch out!”
They saw a skeleton falling from above, brought down by a cascade of dirt. Pisces blew away the dirt around him with a barrier of air and Ceria and Ksmvr covered Yvlon, shielding their heads as the skeleton struck the floor of the pit and shattered.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine!”
Ksmvr shouted up as Ceria looked around. The flailing skeleton hadn’t done any damage to the staircase, but her blood ran cold when she saw something glinting on the side of the pit.
“Dead gods! Watch the sides!”
Pisces looked down and swore. The flailing skeleton had, in its fall, struck the black, encrusted wall of the pit. In doing so, he’d knocked some of the unnamed substance free, and glowing behind the covering was the unmistakable symbol of the [Insanity] spell.
Both Ceria and Pisces reacted with the speed of panic. She threw mud and he blew a cloud of dust in front of the spell before it could work on them. The partially visible runes disappeared as Ceria hurled more mud to cover it and stopped, panting heavily.
“That was quite dangerous.”
“You think?”
Ceria wiped cold sweat from her forehead as she stared at the spot. She looked around the pit and shuddered as she suddenly realized the true nature of the trap.
“Runes underneath…? All the walls must be covered in the [Insanity] spell.”
Ksmvr looked around.
“Truly? That would be a most dangerous effect. It is fortunate that previous adventurers managed to coat the walls.”
“You’re telling me. If we’d been exposed to the spell from all sides, we wouldn’t have had a chance.”
Ceria wondered what the black substance was. She looked down at a flake of it on the ground. It was almost like tar—although spread quite thin. It couldn’t be magic; even the best spells faded after time. An [Alchemist]’s concoction of some kind? Whoever it was, Ceria gave her quiet thanks to them for doing what they had.
“I see light! The tunnel’s wide enough! I’m going up!”
Pisces shouted down to Ksmvr and Ceria after a few more minutes of dirt falling. She raised a hand in acknowledgment.
“Be careful!”
Pisces disappeared above. After a few seconds, he poked his head down.
“Come on up! Ascend carefully—my skeletons will help you!”
Ceria and Ksmvr didn’t need the help of the skeletons to walk upwards, although they did move quite slowly and deliberately to avoid slipping. But Yvlon had to be dragged up by three skeletons, all of them holding her as tightly as possible as she cursed and struggled, oblivious to the drop.
It was a small tunnel that Pisces’ skeletons had dug upwards. They’d followed the already-existing passageway and broken into the very same tunnel where Ceria and the other Horns of Hammerad had been walking earlier. Pisces pulled Ceria out of the pit, coughing as she shook herself to get most of the dirt off. Ksmvr easily clambered out of the ground and helped the skeletons pull Yvlon up. She was still screaming curses at Pisces.
“Foul [Necromancer]! My father will have your head for your sorcery, do you hear me? If it’s a ransom you want, he’ll pay it. Only do not touch a hair on my head! The Byres family will not tolerate any—”
“I am concerned about comrade Yvlon’s mental state, Captain.”
Ksmvr calmly held a hand over Yvlon’s mouth. She shouted into his hand as he addressed Ceria.
“She has not awoken from the effects of the spell. Should we knock her out to aid in that process?”
Ceria shook her head as she looked around.
“She’s not a [Mage] like Pisces or me, and she doesn’t have…whatever you have, Ksmvr. The spell will take longer to wear off, but I’m sure it will in time.”
“I see. Then, what should we do? Press on or wait?”
“Can we just—wait a second?”
Ceria panted as she sat down on the smooth, wonderfully solid stone floor. Pisces sat down as well, and after a pause, so did Ksmvr.
“We’re alive. We were in the worst of traps but—we’re alive.”
Pisces and Ksmvr nodded. Yvlon drooled on the ground around Ksmvr’s hand. Ceria sighed. She lay back on the ground, stretching out. She wanted to shake and cry and laugh and vomit. They’d made it. It wasn’t the first time she’d gotten out of a hairy situation but this—
This had been one of the worst. And they’d done it as a team. No one had died. For a few minutes, ten, really, she just lay there. Then Pisces coughed.
“As unpleasant as that last obstacle was, it occurs to me that we must have been underground for a long time. Hours, perhaps.”
“Days?”
“Maybe. I cannot be certain. But it is clear that we have two options as of now. We can either retreat and regroup with the knowledge of these advanced deterrents, or…we can advance.”
He pointed. Ceria looked, and saw the door. The damn door. They’d come out in the last part of the passageway, almost directly in front of the door that had sent them into the trap in the first place.
“You’re telling me that thing just teleported us down?”
“It’s the most efficient use of mana. It only makes sense.”
Ksmvr nodded.
“It is a formidable obstacle, but now that we have uncovered the danger, is it worth moving forwards? We are nearly out of food, and we all require rest.”
“What do you think, Ceria?”
The half-Elf looked up at Pisces. He looked down at her, quite innocently. But there was a gleam in his eyes. He knew what she was about to say. She sat up and stared at the plain wooden door. Then she looked at the other mage.
“Pisces?”
“Yes, oh Captain of mine?”
“Get your skeletons to grab whatever weapons they can and break down that damn door.”
“It would be my pleasure.”
—-
An hour later, the door fell in. It wasn’t because the wood had been shattered by the constant hammering on it, or that the four adventurers had cast any particular spell to break it. No, the reason the door broke was simple: the skeletons had chipped away at the stone around the hinges set in the wall until the masonry cracked, and the door obeyed the forces of gravity.
The four skeletons that had done all of the work stepped back, rusted blades in hand as three adventurers peeked into the opening, coughing as the small dust cloud that had been raised temporarily obscured all vision.
Pisces, Ceria, and Ksmvr stood behind the wall of skeletons, ready for anything. They were exhausted, hurt, and hungry, but all were sure this was the final barrier, and they were determined to be here. And they were all alive. The only incapacitated member of their team they’d left a few feet away, wrapped up in a blanket.
Yvlon lay on the ground, shuddering. She was safe, but not up to any further exploring for the moment. She was still gibbering a bit, but she had stopped assuming different personalities and better, she had regained bowel control. It had deserted her in a rather unfortunate way as she slowly came out of the effects of the [Insanity] spell.
Now the three adventurers tensed, waiting for the cloud to clear. They expected another trap, or maybe an antechamber, the beginning of another part of the hallway, but then the dust cleared and they saw the light.
It wasn’t sunlight, or artificial light, but rather, the golden glow as the light from outside touched something in the room and made it shimmer. Ceria lowered her skeletal hand and breathed out. Slowly.
“Oh dead gods.”
The fallen door had revealed only a small chamber at the end of all these deadly traps. It was a small room. Yes, a small room, but one filled with one thing. The thing all adventurers dreamed of.
Treasure.
Pisces and Ceria gaped in wonder, their eyes nearly popping out of their heads. Peeking around one of the motionless skeletons. Ksmvr nodded in approval.
“I see quite a number of swords. This is considered good, correct?”
In truth, the room couldn’t have been more than twenty feet across, and it was certainly narrower than it was long. It was the storage closet of treasure vaults, but the quality set it apart. Ceria and Pisces could see it in the glimmering aura that manifested itself the instant they laid eyes on the treasure.
“Look at it!”
Ceria half-screamed as she pointed. The room was small, but it had a rack of weapons that first caught the eye. Glimmering weapons and metal that didn’t look like any ore Ceria had ever seen before hung in the form of swords, daggers, even a battleaxe.
On the other wall a bookshelf full of clearly magical tomes stood, a treasure in itself. A mage’s library. But that wasn’t all. Glittering gold coins and gems occupied the back of the treasure room glowing and glimmering in the adventurer’s light. But what drew Ceria’s attention was the small desk, the magical tome and small bag sitting next to it, and the staff almost casually propped up against the wall.
Any other eye might have been drawn to the gold, or like Ksmvr to the artifacts in the forms of weaponry. But both mages only had eyes for the staff. They saw what others could not; the magic that emanated from the object like a beacon.
“The staff. I can’t believe it! Can you see the aura, Springwalker? Can you see the power in it?”
“I can! I can! It radiates—just look, Ksmvr!”
“I see swords. Where is the staff?”
