Though preoccupied, I followed Lynnria to the end of the corridor.
And it was the end. Finally.
The walls we had been trudging beside—wending along like the veins in some giant’s body—had abruptly been severed. In front of us was a new wall with what appeared to be a heavy, sliding door set on rails. There was a simple latch handle on one end, and the whole of it looked like it was designed to pull into the left-hand wall.
I should have been more excited. Just getting here had been quite the accomplishment. Both of us had been heavily bruised and battered before even entering the seemingly endless tunnel, and having walked through it in such a condition was a testament to our endurance and will. But at that moment, it could not have been further from my mind.
Jax was out there. I had felt her. Could still feel her, though my awareness of it was dimming somewhat now, like putting on a comfortable sweater on a cold day. Even so, I could tell she must have been quite distant. I could not say what sort of condition she was in nor anything else of substance.
But she was alive.
The only thing was… I should have already known that. Her respawn timer had to have run out long before, but for some reason, I had not felt our connection until just now. I had not even noticed its absence. To be fair, I usually never thought about it. She was always with me, so I had not needed to. It was just this… thing that existed between us, binding us together.
But having died—however temporarily—my sense of her had severed in that same instant. So why was I only now noticing? I should have felt her from the moment she returned.
And for that matter, where was Arx? She had died well before Jax, and I still could not sense her at all.
“Mia, what’s going on?” I whispered, absently rubbing at the spot just below my sternum where the connection to Jax seemed to originate from.
She did not answer.
However, that was not too uncommon. She was often busy tinkering with whatever it was she did in my head. Or she could have been asleep. She had a bedroom now, after all. Or bathing again… but that assumed she had managed to find the bathroom. She could have even been over in Lynnria’s head. It was hard to say.
Although… wasn’t I just daydreaming about her? What had that been about? I could not quite remember anymore. Frustratingly. But surely daydreams don’t count.
In any case, I would need to wait until she was paying attention. I could ask her then.
Refocusing my attention back to the task at hand, I jerked my head toward the door. “Have you checked it yet?”
“For traps, you mean?” she asked with a dismissive snort. “How am I supposed to do that? Shoot it with dirt?”
I shrugged. “I’ve heard worse ideas. I don’t know much about finding or disarming traps, to be honest.”
She eyed me critically for a moment but refrained from comment. Not that she needed to. My current state of injury stood as a living testimony to that particular understatement.
Instead, she just sighed. “Same. Grandfather taught me a lot, but he’s no scout. Alright, back up. No telling what might happen.”
I nodded seriously before taking her advice. Most of the traps we had bumbled into had been relatively nonlethal and even avoidable if a person was expecting them… and nimble enough to do something about it.
Even so, something about that door was making the hackles stand up in back of my neck. Maybe it was just because it was a new thing after so much monotony, but it was hard to say for sure. People tend to have an instinctual suspicion of new things.
Or normally, anyway. Which makes it odd that screenwriters are always using tropes like having some dumb-ass go up and poke the weird egg-thing. And with their face right over it, no less. I always wished they would at least have the decency to include a side character frantically calling them out on it. Or beating them down with a metal pipe.
But… the plot most go on.
Lynnria took careful aim at the door handle before shouting, “Dirt!”
As before, a loosely packed clod of soil launched from the end of her magical dowel rod and slammed into the door with enough force to rattle the thing nearly off its hinges. However, any concern for the indelicacy of the act was dismissed the moment a fan-blade the size of a serving tray arced vertically through the air just past the door handle.
A duet of nervous swallowing accompanied the soft click of the blade re-slotting itself into the right-hand frame of the door.
“Mercy’s tush,” Lynnria swore softly.
I nodded in complete agreement. “I think the traps may be getting worse.”
Either we were getting close to something important, or Xhinn was getting impatient. She could have even been upset we had been using Mia to cheat a little. She did have a degree of insider knowledge, so you could argue that keeping her around was like having a hint button installed in my brain. Well, if that’s the case, then that’s just too bad! I’ve got her, and you’re damned straight I’m going to use her!
When she was paying attention, anyway.
“Donum…” Lynnria began, “does that healing spell of yours regenerate body parts? Hypothetically speaking.”
I looked down at her with a degree of shock. “You can’t be serious.”
“No, I mean…” She chuckled nervously. “Well, I was just thinking, what if we hadn’t checked, is all. That trap could have taken my sword arm!”
“Oh.” That’s a reasonable fear, I guess. “It’s a regeneration buff, so… maybe? But it would take a lot of juice, and I don’t have enough to heal a paper cut right now.”
“No, I know. I was just… just checking.” She clenched her fist, no doubt still imagining the consequences of the might-have-been. “So, how do we get past this?”
I shrugged. “Maybe we could get a stick to pry it open or something?”
“And where exactly do you propose we find—“ She gasped mid-sentence and quickly hid her wand behind her back. “No way! I just got it! There’s no way I’m sticking the Earthen bow into that meat slicer.”
I quirked an eyebrow. “Earthen bow?”
“Well… it needs a name, doesn’t it?” she replied defensively. “So I figured, it shoots earth kind of like a bow. And it sounds a lot better than ‘dirt stick.’”
“Why not just call it a wand? Wand of Earth sounds pretty snazzy.”
She frowned and crossed her arms. “Because I’m a warrior! I can’t very well be seen waving something called a wand around. That would be weird.”
I blinked twice.
“Moving on.” Pausing briefly, I considered the rest of our options. The list was short. “Since that’s out… I did notice a slight delay after the trap goes off before it resets itself. We might be able to get the door open in that interval. If we’re quick.”
Lynnria paled at that. Understandably. And for a brief moment, she cast an eye back the way we had come. We both knew that was out, though. It had taken everything we had just to get this far, and even if we did manage to get back to the room with the gravity trap, we would still be in the same boat as when we had started.
She inhaled. “Valleys cut mountains?”
“Huh?”
“You know…” She jerked a thumb toward the door. “Loser has to chance the meat cleaver.”
With that, she assumed a stance I knew all too well, with one foot facing forward and a fist expectantly outstretched.
Huh… I guess some things are just universal.
“Do we go on three or shoot?”
Seleroan
Hey there, gentle reader.
Enjoying the content? Well, why not drop by my Patreon? It helps me keep this show running, and allows me to afford great things like editors, cover artists, and food!
Each chapter is now being personalized with some... passable chapter-inspired AI generated art. I try. But it gives things a bit of color. And you can read ahead!
Come on down! We'd love to see you.
Though preoccupied, I followed Lynnria to the end of the corridor.
And it was the end. Finally.
The walls we had been trudging beside—wending along like the veins in some giant’s body—had abruptly been severed. In front of us was a new wall with what appeared to be a heavy, sliding door set on rails. There was a simple latch handle on one end, and the whole of it looked like it was designed to pull into the left-hand wall.
I should have been more excited. Just getting here had been quite the accomplishment. Both of us had been heavily bruised and battered before even entering the seemingly endless tunnel, and having walked through it in such a condition was a testament to our endurance and will. But at that moment, it could not have been further from my mind.
Jax was out there. I had felt her. Could still feel her, though my awareness of it was dimming somewhat now, like putting on a comfortable sweater on a cold day. Even so, I could tell she must have been quite distant. I could not say what sort of condition she was in nor anything else of substance.
But she was alive.
The only thing was… I should have already known that. Her respawn timer had to have run out long before, but for some reason, I had not felt our connection until just now. I had not even noticed its absence. To be fair, I usually never thought about it. She was always with me, so I had not needed to. It was just this… thing that existed between us, binding us together.
But having died—however temporarily—my sense of her had severed in that same instant. So why was I only now noticing? I should have felt her from the moment she returned.
And for that matter, where was Arx? She had died well before Jax, and I still could not sense her at all.
“Mia, what’s going on?” I whispered, absently rubbing at the spot just below my sternum where the connection to Jax seemed to originate from.
She did not answer.
However, that was not too uncommon. She was often busy tinkering with whatever it was she did in my head. Or she could have been asleep. She had a bedroom now, after all. Or bathing again… but that assumed she had managed to find the bathroom. She could have even been over in Lynnria’s head. It was hard to say.
Although… wasn’t I just daydreaming about her? What had that been about? I could not quite remember anymore. Frustratingly. But surely daydreams don’t count.
In any case, I would need to wait until she was paying attention. I could ask her then.
Refocusing my attention back to the task at hand, I jerked my head toward the door. “Have you checked it yet?”
“For traps, you mean?” she asked with a dismissive snort. “How am I supposed to do that? Shoot it with dirt?”
I shrugged. “I’ve heard worse ideas. I don’t know much about finding or disarming traps, to be honest.”
She eyed me critically for a moment but refrained from comment. Not that she needed to. My current state of injury stood as a living testimony to that particular understatement.
Instead, she just sighed. “Same. Grandfather taught me a lot, but he’s no scout. Alright, back up. No telling what might happen.”
I nodded seriously before taking her advice. Most of the traps we had bumbled into had been relatively nonlethal and even avoidable if a person was expecting them… and nimble enough to do something about it.
Even so, something about that door was making the hackles stand up in back of my neck. Maybe it was just because it was a new thing after so much monotony, but it was hard to say for sure. People tend to have an instinctual suspicion of new things.
Or normally, anyway. Which makes it odd that screenwriters are always using tropes like having some dumb-ass go up and poke the weird egg-thing. And with their face right over it, no less. I always wished they would at least have the decency to include a side character frantically calling them out on it. Or beating them down with a metal pipe.
But… the plot most go on.
Lynnria took careful aim at the door handle before shouting, “Dirt!”
As before, a loosely packed clod of soil launched from the end of her magical dowel rod and slammed into the door with enough force to rattle the thing nearly off its hinges. However, any concern for the indelicacy of the act was dismissed the moment a fan-blade the size of a serving tray arced vertically through the air just past the door handle.
A duet of nervous swallowing accompanied the soft click of the blade re-slotting itself into the right-hand frame of the door.
“Mercy’s tush,” Lynnria swore softly.
I nodded in complete agreement. “I think the traps may be getting worse.”
Either we were getting close to something important, or Xhinn was getting impatient. She could have even been upset we had been using Mia to cheat a little. She did have a degree of insider knowledge, so you could argue that keeping her around was like having a hint button installed in my brain. Well, if that’s the case, then that’s just too bad! I’ve got her, and you’re damned straight I’m going to use her!
When she was paying attention, anyway.
“Donum…” Lynnria began, “does that healing spell of yours regenerate body parts? Hypothetically speaking.”
I looked down at her with a degree of shock. “You can’t be serious.”
“No, I mean…” She chuckled nervously. “Well, I was just thinking, what if we hadn’t checked, is all. That trap could have taken my sword arm!”
“Oh.” That’s a reasonable fear, I guess. “It’s a regeneration buff, so… maybe? But it would take a lot of juice, and I don’t have enough to heal a paper cut right now.”
“No, I know. I was just… just checking.” She clenched her fist, no doubt still imagining the consequences of the might-have-been. “So, how do we get past this?”
I shrugged. “Maybe we could get a stick to pry it open or something?”
“And where exactly do you propose we find—“ She gasped mid-sentence and quickly hid her wand behind her back. “No way! I just got it! There’s no way I’m sticking the Earthen bow into that meat slicer.”
I quirked an eyebrow. “Earthen bow?”
“Well… it needs a name, doesn’t it?” she replied defensively. “So I figured, it shoots earth kind of like a bow. And it sounds a lot better than ‘dirt stick.’”
“Why not just call it a wand? Wand of Earth sounds pretty snazzy.”
She frowned and crossed her arms. “Because I’m a warrior! I can’t very well be seen waving something called a wand around. That would be weird.”
I blinked twice.
“Moving on.” Pausing briefly, I considered the rest of our options. The list was short. “Since that’s out… I did notice a slight delay after the trap goes off before it resets itself. We might be able to get the door open in that interval. If we’re quick.”
Lynnria paled at that. Understandably. And for a brief moment, she cast an eye back the way we had come. We both knew that was out, though. It had taken everything we had just to get this far, and even if we did manage to get back to the room with the gravity trap, we would still be in the same boat as when we had started.
She inhaled. “Valleys cut mountains?”
“Huh?”
“You know…” She jerked a thumb toward the door. “Loser has to chance the meat cleaver.”
With that, she assumed a stance I knew all too well, with one foot facing forward and a fist expectantly outstretched.
Huh… I guess some things are just universal.
“Do we go on three or shoot?”
Seleroan
Hey there, gentle reader.
Enjoying the content? Well, why not drop by my Patreon? It helps me keep this show running, and allows me to afford great things like editors, cover artists, and food!
Each chapter is now being personalized with some... passable chapter-inspired AI generated art. I try. But it gives things a bit of color. And you can read ahead!
Come on down! We'd love to see you.
