Chapter 41. Theft

  “Clear,” Bruno announced. He stepped onto the corner of the rug he had just been starting at, and crouched to inspect the next spot.

  “Bruno, that took, like, fifteen minutes,” said Delilah. “Is every step going to take that long?”

  “Only if you’re interested in survival,” said Bruno.

  An hour passed before Bruno was halfway across the smoking room. With each step, he studied not only where he would place his feet, but also the room as a whole.

  “He’s checking to see if anything is pointed at the spot, like that bookshelf,” said Jeremiah at Allison’s impatient sigh.

  “You guys want to see something interesting?” Bruno produced a tiny bag and tossed a pinch of bright red powder into the air. The cloud of powder coalesced in midair, taking the shape of a long, straight strand.

  “Whisperwire,” said Bruno. “Thinner than human hair. Love the magnetic powder, Delilah, thank you.”

  “Can you disarm it?” asked Delilah.

  “Best not to. The less you interact with a trap the better, especially in here. Alright everyone, move up. Step only where I stepped.

  They started to advance; Allison, Jeremiah, then Delilah, each stepping only where the last person stepped.

  “Get down!” Allison shouted.

  A volley darts erupted from walls, the ceiling, and up from beneath the carpet all at once like a swarm of wasps. Jeremiah felt something bite into the back of his ankle as he dropped.

  “Who’s hit?” asked Delilah.

  “Good!” said Allison and Bruno together.

  “Hit!” said Jeremiah. He pulled the dart from his ankle, and could see the small glass reservoir behind the needle, now empty.

  Delilah sniffed the tip of the dart. “Gorgon toxin. Hold still.” In a smooth motion, she plunged a hefty syringe into Jeremiah’s thigh. He gritted his teeth as the thick needle bit deep, injecting a payload that burned in his muscle. She then injected herself just above the collarbone.

  “We should be good, just a little numb around the injury spot. Let me know if you start to feel stiffness in your upper leg, I don’t have the kit to de-petrify you.”

  “What the hell happened?” asked Bruno.

  “I felt my helmet catch on something,” said Allison. Bruno examined her helmet and pulled a now slack piece of whisperwire off the top.

  “Forgot you’re taller than me, especially in the armor.” Bruno scowled at the wire. “Sorry.”

  “Can we just wait in the bag?” asked Allison. “Seems safer.”

  “No!” said Jeremiah. “If a trap so much as nicks the bag, we're dead.”

  “Plus, I can't monitor Bruno,” said Delilah. “If he gets hurt I need to treat him quickly.”

  It was another hour before they finally made it to the door of the smoking room. Bruno's inspections had become even more thorough after the dart trap. Jeremiah noted that he was starting to rub his eyes from exhaustion. Whatever rogues had instead of magical focus, this dungeon was already taxing Bruno’s.

  Bruno pulled some of his tools and started working the doorknob, slipping paper thin shims of metal behind the plating. With a twist and a click the knob turned, there was an angry hiss, but nothing happened.

  “Got it,” he said. The door opened and they finally left the smoking room.

  The hallway they entered was mercifully free of carpet, but otherwise its splendor was undiminished. Candelabras dotted the walls at regular intervals, their candles lit and giving off a pleasant light. A dark walnut wooden floor was expertly carved with geometric patterns, and an even darker wainscotting bisected the hallway into a darker wooden lower half and a royal purple upper half.

  Delilah whistled. “This place looks expensive.”

  “Bruno, where are we going?” asked Jeremiah. “Somewhere there ought to be safe with the treasure I need for Monty. We shouldn’t explore any more than we have to.”

  “If I had to guess,” said Bruno, “I’d say the basement, or the attic, or the very center of the mansion.”

  “Bruno, that's a terrible guess,” said Allison.

  “Thoughts?” Bruno asked Jeremiah.

  Jeremiah was flattered he was being consulted. “I’d say basement. You already went to the bottom of The Pit to get here, he’d want you to go down even farther.”

  “Ooh he’s got a thing for symbolism, I like that,” said Delilah, “I feel like that tells us something about him.”

  “I feel bad I took us to the second floor then,” said Jeremiah.

  “No, the second floor was a good choice. I can guarantee the easier the entry, the worse the traps.”

  Allison waved her hand over a candelabra’s flame. “Bruno, how are—”

  “Don’t!” Bruno shouted. Everyone tensed, ready to jump, duck, or fight. Nothing happened. “I said not to touch anything!”

  “But why are these candles here? And lit?” asked Allison, ignoring Bruno’s admonishment.

  “Illusion?” Bruno suggested.

  Jeremiah shook his head. “Too broad an effect, and we’ve been interacting with it for too long. We would have noticed something off by now.”

  “Likely a dungeon core, then,” said Bruno.

  “What’s that?” asked Delilah.

  “It’s a magic caretaker for the dungeon,” said Bruno. “They reset traps, perform basic maintenance, stuff like that.”

  “It’s like a golem,” said Jeremiah, “but attached to a location instead of a creature. There’s probably some big crystal somewhere that it’s anchored to. Stronger ones can even do things like summon monsters.”

  “Anything we can do about it?” asked Allison.

  “We can break the crystal,” said Jeremiah. But it won’t just be lying around for us to find.”

  “Alright, so we’re targeting the basement,” said Allison. “Let's find some stairs.”

  “This place seems typical of Elminian architecture, so the primary staircase will be at the center,” said Delilah.

  “This way then,” said Bruno, “and we'll make our way inward.”

  They inched down the hallway, Bruno checking everything for signs of traps. His attentions revealed a pressure plate, more whisperwire, and a suspicious candle.

  “Stop,” said Bruno. “Something just happened.”

  “Heard or seen?” asked Allison, raising her shield.

  “Seen. The wood grain moved.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Jeremiah.

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  “Magic trap,” said Bruno. “Be ready.”

  “What was the trigger?” asked Jeremiah. He'd never seen a magic trap before. It had to be some form of enchanting.

  “Contact!” Delilah said. Jeremiah squeezed aside as Allison ran past to form the front line.

  From back the way they’d come, a strange, blurry form approached. It looked like a square of bluish translucent mist that stretched nearly to the limits of the hallway. Jeremiah would have missed it if it had not been pointed out.

  “Tunnel ooze,” said Allison. “They're acidic and will try to suck you into their body to digest you.”

  “How dangerous?” asked Bruno.

  “Not especially,” said Allison. “They take a while to kill, since they have no vital organs, but they're slow as molasses. You just keep backing up until…oh.”

  “Oh? What oh?” asked Jeremiah. The tunnel ooze crawled towards them, gliding across the floor with tiny undulating pseudopods.

  “Al, I can't check our way that fast!” said Bruno.

  “Oh,” said Jeremiah.

  “We have to take it down, quickly!” said Allison. She rushed towards the slime, Delilah followed right behind her, longspear poised over Allison's shoulder.

  “Al, stop!” cried Jeremiah.

  Allison heeded his warning and skidded to a stop just as she passed the door they’d come in from, the edge of known territory. She eyed the invisible boundary, and drew her axe as the ooze came within range.

  Just as Allison was rearing back to strike, they heard a click from the slime’s part of the hall. A line of thick metal pistons punched out from the wall. Most of the pistons thrust into the side of the slime, barely slowing its progress. One piston caught Allison in the leg.

  Allision grunted. Her armor cushioned the blow but not the torque on her knee, and she fell, twisting, just as the slime reached her. It briefly engulfed her foot, then Delilah hauled her backwards, out of its reach.

  Allison and Delilah retreated back to where Jeremiah waited with Bruno, still frantically scanning.

  Allison clawed at her armored boot, her cries of pain escalating. “Gods, it hurts!” Jeremiah knelt down to help, his fingertips blistering the moment he touched the ooze-covered armor.

  Delilah dumped a bundle of powder on Allison's boot. Jeremiah hurried to undo the buckles.

  “It's inside the armor, godsdammit!” Allison started to scream. “Do something, come on!” She shoved Jeremiah aside to reach the buckles herself.

  “It's okay,” said Delilah calmly. “I got you, hang on.” Another pack of powder, this one poured in the top of the boot. Allison hissed again, but her franticness lessened.

  “Shit, move!” called Jeremiah. The ooze was only a few feet away.

  They leapt away, Jeremiah and Delilah stabbing into the ooze with their spears while Allison struggled to her feet. The ooze’s body was surprisingly firm, it felt like stabbing a bale of hay. Their thrusts left narrow hollow indentations in the ooze that dribbled what Jeremiah assumed was blood.

  Allison finally stepped between them, swinging her axe and taking great gashes out of the ooze. It did not seem to mind. Jeremiah and Delilah backed up to give her room, and bumped into Bruno.

  “Not ready!” he shouted. He wasn’t even two paces from where they left him.

  “We need to move!” Delilah yelled. She threw a packet of the anti acid powder at the ooze, and part of it bubbled and poured away.

  “Not yet!” Bruno said again.

  Allison bumped into Jeremiah. “Move!”

  “No!” Bruno yelled. He took a step forward, just one step, and started checking again, his eyes darting wildly.

  It was only moments before they were compressed together, trapped between a flesh eating monster and the unknown horrors ahead.

  “Bruno!” yelled Allison. She had to choke up on the axe to have room to swing.

  “M-move!” Bruno said. They collectively jumped forward. “Drop!”

  Jeremiah saw a tiny opening appear at the end of the hall, and a long iron spike fired out of it like a gigantic crossbow bolt. He dropped, Bruno dodged, the bolt missed Delilah, and struck Allison in the middle of her back.

  The enchanted armor saved her from being impaled, but the bolt carried enough force to send her stumbling forward, headfirst, into the ooze.

  Jeremiah and Delilah both caught one of Allison’s arms and yanked her free. Allison ripped her helmet off, and Delilah hit her in the with another satchel of powder. Allison’s skin was already an angry red.

  “Move!” Bruno said again. They gained space, but not much.

  “I've got an out, but I need to cavitate it,” said Delilah.

  “What does that mean?” asked Jeremiah.

  “It's going to explode.” Delilah held one of the metallic spheres Jeremiah had made and emptied a satchel inside.

  “Cover!” cried Allison.

  Delilah threw the metal orb into the ooze. It was sucked in, but did not explode.

  “On it.” Jeremiah leapt forward and thrust his spear into the ooze to strike the sphere. He saw a tiny flash of light before he was yanked to the ground. Allison threw herself on top of Jeremiah and Delilah, interposing her shield between them and the blast of burning acid that sprayed down the hallway.

  The hallway was clear, the strange misty curtain transformed into a goop that now coated all surfaces. Jeremiah's ankles tingled, then stung, then burned, then felt like they were being sliced open. Some of the ooze has splashed up under the cuffs of his pants.

  He drew in a breath to scream when he was engulfed in a blizzard of powder, soothing the burn back to merely painful.

  They were all covered in white powder, and Delilah began another round, applying concentrated doses to specific areas.

  “How much of this stuff do you have?” asked Bruno, exposing his forearms to Delilah.

  “Tons. It's a standard lab safety item,” said Delilah. “I don't usually carry this much, but this bag is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

  “It's appreciated,” Allison grimaced, as she finally removed her boot.

  “Oh, sweet lord,” said Bruno, gagging.

  “Yep, that's a bad one,” said Allison. The boot had taken some skin with it, weeping blood around angry red blisters.

  “I can wrap and numb it,” said Delilah. “More powder and anesthetic bandages all around.”

  She paused as she inspected Allison’s face. “Can’t fix this though.” With a finger, she reached up and wiped away one of Allison's eyebrows.

  “Ow. Kinda feels like we’re getting our asses kicked,” said Allison, “and we’ve cleared one room and half a hallway.”

  “Do we have any potions?” asked Jeremiah.

  “One,” said Delilah. “Spent the last of Empress Aubrianna’s gold on it, so please refrain from severe injuries.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to do, if you guys would stop rushing me,” said Bruno. He took a moment to rub his eyes.

  “You okay, Bruno?” asked Jeremiah.

  “Got some acid damage, but I’m alright. Why?” Bruno kept inspecting.

  “You keep rubbing your eyes and squinting,” said Delilah.

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Bruno.

  “I swear to god,” Allison said. She reached into Delilah’s bag and withdrew a book. “Come here.”

  “Busy,” said Bruno.

  “Bruno. Come here,” said Allison in her commander voice.

  Bruno turned to face her, annoyance clear on his face.

  “Read this page,” said Allison. She held the book up close to his face, just past his nose.

  Bruno sighed. He squinted at the page, tilting his head away. “Nor will I…argue it, or pray for anything but…modesty…and not to be angry.”

  “Don’t lean,” said Allison.

  “Can you not?” Bruno stepped back away from the book.

  “Oh, Bruno…you need glasses,” said Delilah.

  “I do not need glasses! You get glasses when you’re a kid.”

  “Humans sometimes need glasses as they get older, it’s perfectly normal,” said Delilah.

  “I’m not getting older, I’m fine.” Bruno returned to the comfort of trap searching.

  “I’m not fine,” said Jeremiah. “The guy checking for traps can’t see.”

  Jeremiah could suddenly see it, the little signs of age on Bruno he had never noticed. His hair was just starting to grey at the front, and there were the tiniest lines around his eyes. Bruno didn't know how old he was exactly, which wasn’t uncommon, but Jeremiah had always assumed he was younger than he looked.

  “If any of you want to look for traps instead, be my guest.” Bruno kept searching and moving them forward, occasionally disarming a hidden switch. He still squinted, but refrained from rubbing his eyes again.

  The others exchanged a look. All they could do was follow.