Chapter 42. Lessons in Dungeoneering

  “For such a big mansion, there aren’t a lot of rooms,” said Delilah. Since the smoking room, they saw no doors in the hallway besides the one they were making their way towards at the end.

  “Likely a lot of the space is taken up by trap mechanisms and components,” said Bruno. “They can be very space intensive.”

  “Do magic traps need space too?” asked Jeremiah.

  “Not as much,” said Bruno. “It’s just a form of enchanting, like you do. Hell, you could probably make magic traps.”

  That sentence sent Jereiah’s mind reeling. A trapmaker? A magic trapmaker? That sounded so cool, but how would he even…“ Oh! I could do a contact triggered Adhesion rune to stick your foot to the floor . And then I could also super heat it! Oh! And then I could —”

  Allison snapped her fingers in front of his face, “Jay, come back to us. You can fantasize later.”

  “Making traps aren’t very useful for adventurers anyways,” said Bruno, “they’re meant to protect against us.”

  “Not like magic items,” said Delilah.

  “Yeah, more of those,” said Allison, “focus on more of those.”

  They reached the end of the hallway at last. The door was made of strong wood reinforced with metal rivets. Etched into its surface were words in a language Jeremiah couldn't read.

  “It says 'please knock’ in halfling,” said Bruno. “No obvious traps or mechanisms…This is one of those moments where knowing the man who designed the trap helps us. Is knocking an idiot test that will set off the trap? Or is it some sort of, I don't know, politeness check?”

  “I feel like we already failed the idiot test just be being dumb enough to come in here,” said Jeremiah. “As for a politeness check? Hmm, I can see Monty doing something like that. I say knock.”

  “Agreed, knock,” said Delilah. “I think decorum means something to this Cassidy guy.”

  “Alright, but back up just in case,” said Bruno. Jeremiah and Delilah retreated a fair distance, but Allison stayed, shield raised.

  Bruno straightened up, fixed his armor, and raised his hand to knock.

  “Wait,” said Allison.

  Bruno went rigid, fist still poised.

  “Why is it written in halfling?” asked Allison.

  “Because Cassidy was a halfling, I assume,” said Bruno.

  “Get low and knock,” said Allison. She and Bruno knelt, trying to mimic a halfling's diminutive size.

  From his new vantage point, Bruno gave the door three quick raps. They heard a click, and the lower half of the door opened. The upper half remained stationary.

  “Ooooh, that was a good one,” said Bruno.

  “Damn clever, Al,” said Delilah.

  They crawled through the miniature door. As he passed underneath, Jeremiah saw the upper half of the door was actually a thick wooden block, presumably containing trap mechanisms. He avoided touching it.

  They found themselves in a large circular room with an abnormally high ceiling. The walls were adorned with ribbons, streamers, and dozens of mirrors of all sizes, as though prepared for a wealthy child's birthday party. There was no furniture, not even carpet. Or, Jeremiah noticed, an exit.

  “We should be near the center of the structure,” said Delilah, “there should be stairs here. Or near here or-”

  On cue, the door slammed shut behind them.

  “Oh, that's what that was,” said Bruno.

  Jeremiah stumbled as the floor beneath his feet shifted and began to rotate.

  “Screw floor,” said Delilah, “King Growler had one in his command chambers. Careful, it’s speeding up.”

  Sure enough, the speed of rotation began to increase, and Jeremiah felt himself being pulled outwards, towards the outer wall. At the same time, he realized they were moving downward, the celebratory decor receding overhead.

  As the floor lowered, needle sharp spikes sprung up out of the walls, Jeremiah was suddenly aware of the deadly nature of the pull. They were needle-sharp and started small, but quickly grew larger and more numerous.

  The floor spun faster. Jeremiah struggled to keep his footing and avoid being thrown into the spiked wall.

  “Move to the center!” said Allison. She caught his arm and helped haul him to the middle of the room.

  They huddled at the center of the spinning floor, where the feeling of force diminished. The floor continued to accelerate, however, and as they descended the spikes grew even deadlier, now sporting barbed tips and cutting edges.

  “Hang on!” said Allison. “We'll be at the bottom soon.” They gripped each other for stability, Jeremiah straining to hold onto Allison and Bruno.

  “What does the trapmaker want?” came Bruno’s voice in Jeremiah’s ear, although the real Bruno was busy bracing his feet and clinging to his friends.

  “A physics test? ” Jeremiah wondered. “ No, any child knows you can't hang on forever.” Indeed, even at the center of the room, they were being subjected to dizzying speeds.

  What does he want?”

  It dawned on him as his feet slipped the slightest inch.

  “Let go!” he yelled.

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  “What? No, just hang on!” said Bruno.

  “It's what Cassidy wants, we need to let go!” Jeremiah resigned himself to the pain, and released his hold on his friends.

  He was immediately pulled off balance. The difference in speed even a few feet from the center caused him to stumble. Vertigo overwhelmed his senses and he fell, sliding along the ground, and prayed to collide with a less pointy section of wall.

  Jeremiah’s head slammed against brick as he hit the wall at speed. His world continued to spin even as he became aware of pain in his leg where a spike impaled him. He braced his foot against another to take his weight as he tried not to be sick. Below, the floor continued to drop away, carrying his friends and spinning ever faster.

  The floor spun faster and faster. Jeremiah’s friends huddled together, arms linked, resisting the force.

  “Let go!” Jeremiah screamed. The weapons further down the wall took an increasingly crueler shape. Spikes became forks and axe heads. From his vantage point, he realized the room was a gaping maw, its teeth waiting to shred its prey.

  Delilah's feel slipped out from under her, she shrieked as her grip on Allison and Bruno failed. Jeremiah watched helplessly as she was she thrown onto a barbed spike. Delilah screamed as the spike punctured her reinforced breastplate, punching into her abdomen. She gripped at the barbed spine that had shot into her stomach, and screamed as the floor fell away beneath her, and she rotated on the spike, hanging head down.

  Jeremiah wrenched his leg off of the spike gouging his thigh, and started towards Delilah. Below, Bruno and Allison clutched each other, delaying the inevitable.

  Bruno released one hand from Allison’s armor, reaching for the magic climbing handles at his belt. Allison gripped him all the tighter and yelled something unintelligable. Bruno grabbed a handle, and swung down to attach it to the whirling floor. He missed. Disoriented and dizzy beyond comprehension, his grip slipped and he was pulled away from Allison and launched toward the wall. Jeremiah watched with astonishment as he twisted in midair and avoided the blades and plant on his feet. He slammed his magic climbing handles against the wall, arresting his fall.

  Allison, alone in the center of the room, gripped the floor with the claws on her gauntleted fingers. The weapons lining the room changed again. No longer fearsome prongs and blades, they became needle sharp cones with wide flaring bases. They stood out from the wall as dense and unavoidable as a hedgehog’s spines, projecting a grim, efficient lethality.

  The trap functioned as designed. Allison’s grip failed just as the spinning floor reached its maximum velocity. She struck the spikes with a quick crunch of surrendering metal and was still.

  The floor finally slotted into place with a resounding boom, revealing a new pair of doors set into the wall.

  Jeremiah reached Delilah first. She still hung upside down. “Don’t worry, we’re going to get you down from here.”

  “Is the bag okay?” she whispered. Blood was leaking from under her armor and running down her neck. The blade had punched into her lower stomach, sneaking under the magic breastplate.

  “Bag is fine,” Jeremiah reassured her without checking.

  Bruno arrived, the handles making the walls easy to scale. “How do we do this?”

  “Tie a rope harness. We’ll push her off the spike and lower her all the way to the floor,” said Jeremiah. Then to Delilah, “We’re going to get you down now, okay?”

  They tied the harness and started to push. Delilah screamed. “Wait! Wait wait, something’s stuck! Something inside me’s stuck!”

  Jeremiah inspected the puncture. At once, the anatomy knowledge sprang to his mind to make sense of the mess of the torn flesh and blood. “Delilah, I think there’s a barb caught on your hip bones, right on the crest. I’m going to need to lift you up a little to unhook it.”

  “No, no, no, please don’t!” Delilah curled up to paw at the spike in her guts before falling limp again with exhaustion.

  Bruno had gone a sickly green. Jeremiah barked at him, “Hey! Look at me! I need you with me right now, got it?”

  Bruno met his eyes, swallowed, and nodded.

  “Alright, Delilah, here we go,” said Jeremiah.

  “No, no, please wait. I’m not ready,” Delilah sobbed.

  “One, two, deep breath, three!” Jeremiah shoved, ignoring Delilah’s ear piercing scream as she slid off the spike. Whatever was caught inside her slipped free with a scraping sensation, and Bruno grunted in effort as he caught her weight, then he and Jeremiah belayed her to the floor below.

  They scrambled down after her once she landed. She was already reaching for the Giant’s Bag when her eyes fell on Allison, impaled on the spikes, still and silent.

  Delilah pressed a small parcel of paper to her own nostrils and inhaled hard. “Gah!” She looked around with renewed vigor. “Bruno, go take a look at Allison. Jay, come here and tell me if you smell almonds.” She injected herself in the neck with something.

  “If I smell…almonds?” said Jeremiah. He leaned over the wound and sniffed, but smelled only blood.

  “Little miracles. Okay, welcome to your first day of medical school. We’re going to stitch a complex abdominal tear. I need you to inject this into my spine, between the vertebrae.

  “You need the potion, Ive never stitched anyone back together,” said Jeremiah. He unstrapped Delilah’s armor and slid the needle into her back, that part was at least easy. Delilah didn't flinch.

  “We’ll see,” said Delilah, still looking at Allison. “How is she?” she called.

  “The spikes only barely punched through the armor, but she’s not moving.” said Bruno. “Her head’s all kinked.”

  “Get her down, careful as you can,” said Delilah. She handed Jeremiah a strange ‘J’ shaped needle and thick thread. “You are going to sew where I tell you. I’m not going to feel it, but I can’t help you either.”

  “Sewing. Okay, I can do that,” said Jeremiah. Following Delilah’s instructions was somehow calming. A tiny task, one he was familiar with. The idea that he was punching a needle in and out of his friend’s body sat on the sidelines, patiently waiting its turn.

  Bruno finally hoisted Allison off the wall. Her armor clattered as he set her on the floor. “Rise and shine, Al, you got knocked out.”

  She didn’t move.

  “Allison?” said Bruno. He lifted her visor. “Hey, good to see you’re awake…can you…Delilah! Something’s wrong. Her eyes are moving, but she’s not doing anything else.”

  “Internal decapitation,” said Delilah. “Potion, now. She broke her neck.”

  Bruno sprinted to the bag for their one and only potion. He jammed it into Allison’s mouth, forcing her jaw open with his fingers, and rubbing her throat as he emptied its contents.

  For a few terrible moments, nothing happened. Then Allison gasped. Her limbs flailed out in every direction in a single great spasm.

  “Oh, that was awful,” she choked out, “really awful. I’ve never had my neck broken before.”

  “Glad to have you back. Ever treat a gut wound?” asked Delilah.

  “Tons,” said Allison.

  As Bruno vomited on the other side of the room, Jeremiah and Allison followed Delilah’s guidance and stitched the hole in Delilah’s abdomen back together, mostly. They finished it off with a thick green paste to stem the bleeding.

  As Delilah moved to tend Jeremiah’s leg, Bruno asked, “Jay, what the hell was that? How did you know what we were supposed to do?”

  “Call it a hunch,” said Jeremiah. “Cassidy wouldn’t make a trap you could just brute force your way through, he’s too tricky for that. This one was about knowing when to cut your losses and take the hit. Or something. Ouch.”

  “Hush,” said Delilah. “Everyone remember we’re out of potions now. Please, please, please, stay sharp and no more deadly injuries!”

  “Stay sharp, huh,” said Jeremiah, gazing at their spiked surroundings.

  “Don’t worry, Delilah,” said Allison seriously, “we’ll keep our heads on straight.”

  “Literally putting ourselves back together and you’re making puns,” grumbled Delilah.