CHAPTER SIXTY
A FOILED TRAP
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Theo
The SAC team members quickly realized everyone else had fallen into a panic and ignored their leader. He himself quickly pivoted as he tried to calm everyone. I suspected that a Paladin probably had a skill to prevent a panic like this. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any Paladins.
“Fuck! Maybe this will work!” Nico said, raising a staff he’d looted from the horde of dead monsters outside the prison. A bright light shone at the end of the otherwise normal wooden stick, and a pulsing wave of healing burst from him.
Unfortunately, that just seemed to make the panicked ex-prisoners even more terrified, as half of them tried to duck under the wave while the other half were invigorated by it and only ran faster. Soon, we’d lost track of half of them down different hallways. Two seemed to have had enough sense to remain still, but it quickly became apparent that they were just completely paralyzed with fear. They hadn’t truly been able to overcome the attack. Freezing was just how they’d reacted.
Fortunately, nothing seemed to happen. There was no follow-up from the demon. No second horde popping up out of the walls. No devastating second attack to kill us all.
I was tense but prepared. Whatever came, I could take it. Like this, I could take anything. In fact, I welcomed it. I wondered what it would feel like to claw a greater demon to death?
I knew the bear form was messing with my mind somehow, but at the moment, that was more helpful than not.
It was pandemonium… but it somehow seemed like a bluff.
We stopped those we could, holding them until the panic subsided, but we only managed to stop about five people in the end, including the two who’d remained stock still. The rest could be anywhere on the floor.
“All halls lead to the middle,” Rio said. “We should go there. We’ll probably find most of them there anyway.”
“Negative. That’s almost certainly a trap. We make for the obvious exit. We’re here to save as many people as we reasonably can but not at the expense of our own lives or team.”
Rio hesitated, and I did, too. I wanted to go to the center and I stared down the dim hall, eager to see what awaited us. I’d tear through it. I’d get Rio out of here and all of these people, too. Then I’d save her friends while I was at it. I couldn’t do any of that by running away. Besides, that hole in the second floor had been small. I didn’t think I’d be able to fit through in my normal form, let alone this one.
“We will come back for them, Mrs. Tande.”
Rio shook her head. “No! I’ve already come back for them! I’m not abandoning them here! Not like this, terrified and alone. Come on, Teddy!”
Rio took off down the center hall, and my choice became obvious.
“No wait–! Dammit! Follow them!” Nick cried. To his credit, he’d immediately sacrificed his plan for the one most likely to get his team out alive, and I was glad he’d chosen to come with us. If anything, having Nico around would be fantastic if Rio got hurt.
I hadn’t been very impressed by Nick or Aaron’s showing so far and had been quietly annoyed that Rio had let Nick take the lead for so long.
We barreled down the hall, and to my surprise, Rio nimbly bounded atop my back when she realized my top speed was higher than hers.
It took a few minutes to get back to the basin room, but when we did, the changes were obvious. The pillar of magma was gone, replaced by an old stone staircase. Like a giant sinkhole that someone had shoved steps into, the path to hell spiraled ever downward, where a red glow burned deep and distant. Remnants of the magma pillar.
The staircase leading back to the first level was completely gone. No evidence of it remained.
I… hesitated.
I could handle anything physical, but the demon had now shown that it could flip off the magma pillar in the same way as I might click a garage door opener. What was stopping it from flicking the magma back on the moment we were halfway down the stairs?
My bear form was tough, but I doubted it was that tough.
“Fuck!” Rio hissed in frustration, coming to the same realization I had.
It was a trap, alright, but not one we could walk into. I had privately thought that saving any of the victims Rio had been imprisoned with was a lost cause from the beginning. Now, it seemed more doomed than ever. Hell, we might have trouble getting out ourselves at this point. At least, we would if not for the portal stones.
Nick and the others came barrelling back into the room, all of them noticing the missing magma pillar just as we had.
“He wants us to come to him,” Rio snapped, irritated.
“Then we don’t give him what he wants,” Nick replied. “We need to go to the hole in the wall. We don’t have any confirmation that any of the victims you met before are still alive, and we have living hostages here now. Come with me to the hole so we can get them out.”
Rio stared hollowly at the staircase before turning back to Nick and giving him a sharp nod. Nick didn’t acknowledge the temporary disobedience. He knew doing so wouldn’t be productive, but none of us was going down into that obvious death trap.
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Whatever haste we’d been in before had drained away as the effects of the panic attack wore off. As it turns out, Rio had been right. Most of the people had made their way to the basin room and upon seeing it, wished they hadn’t. They were all safely recovered, though, as the pressing fear eased.
The place was darker without the magma, but ever-burning torches lit the halls exactly as Rio had described. It made my skin crawl, and I was doubly thankful for my circlet lighting the area around me.
Unfortunately, there was no hole. We circled the entire building twice and found the spot we were almost certain the meteor had hit the wall… but no evidence of that damage remained. The prison was whole once more.
I tore at the wall in vain. My claws could mark the stone, but it would take a century to deal as much damage as Eli’s meteor had. McCarthy had no better luck. Rio couldn’t make her ice traps attack an inanimate object, and Nick faced the same problem. The team’s goal had been reconnaissance and intelligence, so they hadn’t come with anything more potent than handguns and assault rifles, which they chose not to attempt for obvious reasons.
We couldn’t get out that way.
“Why… why is he giving us time? Why isn’t another horde coming for us? Another knight?” Aaron asked worriedly.
Rio came up with the answer, though. “He doesn’t want to arm us any further. He needs the sacrifices, though, and he’s been having trouble getting them as people up top become more and more aware of his little idiot imps. We’re his opportunity.”
“So… what do we do? Just willingly walk into the death-pit?” McCarthy asked.
Rio thought for a moment, but Nico spoke up. The man was very quiet when not performing miracles.
“Have we tried using another portal stone? The monster interrupted one of them, but maybe it’s not easy for him to do that. He surely would’ve tried when we used one outside the prison for Eli and Layla, right?”
Rio’s eyes widened along with Nick’s.
“Wood, you’re a genius. McCarthy, you’ve got a couple of those, right? Throw another at the–!”
“Earp, watch out–!” Aaron screamed, pointing at a sudden yellow light on the stone floor.
His warning came too late as a spike erupted out of the floor and speared Nick straight through the chest. It didn’t stop, though. Instead, it traveled straight through to the ceiling to leave him impaled, with no easy way to remove the spike to heal him.
He tried to scream but couldn’t get any breath as blood poured from his mouth. The floor suddenly bowed inward, becoming a basin just like the ones back in the center room.
Nico was fast, his healing light enveloping Nick as we all began to move, terrified of another spike spearing us.
“Aaron! Use the portals! It’s obvious he can hear us! McCarthy, try and cut Nick down!” Rio cried before another yellow light appeared under her. She darted away from the spot just before another spike almost skewered her.
Both were quick to heed orders. We all had at least one of the portal stones. Rio and I had two each. Aaron pulled one of the non-descript rocks out and threw it at the wall, even as McCarthy withdrew the huge glowing sword he’d found below.
“S-sorry, buddy,” He said to Nick before swinging the massive sword at the spike above his head. Rather than cut through, the sword sank halfway through the spike with a thunk and McCarthy screamed as the vibration trailed down his fingers. Nick screamed, too, as those same vibrations rocked his entire body.
That blade couldn’t cut through the spike?
I stood to my full height, towering over the rogue before aiming a heavy claw at the spike. I bellowed in pain but was rewarded as the thing broke under my claw where the sword failed. Nick was in agony as the spike wobbled with him hanging from it. I had no time to revel in the success as another putrid yellow light glittered on the stone right below me.
I threw myself back as fast as I could but wasn't fast enough as the spike nicked one of my back paws.
“Through the portal, people!” Aaron called as it appeared.
The prisoners were quicker to react than even the SAC team. Told that the blue portal would lead them to safety, they dove for it like starving men on a steak, getting in each other’s way as they dashed through the portal as fast as they could. Seeing the spike, not to mention a gigantic bear, probably wasn't helping any of them.
“F-fucking hell. Nico, I really hope you can heal this!” McCarthy said as he got down beneath Nick. “Sorry about this, sir!”
To my horror, McCarthy pushed the officer up and off the spike, his superior strength sliding the man’s body with little trouble until his impaled lung slipped up and off the broken pole and he toppled to the ground in a heap, leaving behind a sickening red trail all the way up the spike.
“Potion!” Nico screamed. “My skill isn’t enough for this alone!”
Moments later, the portal winked out, disappearing just in time for two panicked civilians to smash into each other in their effort to get through.
“Ow! Fuck!” one of them screamed, his mouth having impacted with the shorter one’s skull. I had my healing aura on, so he should be fine, but that was one less portal stone we might all escape with.
At this point, I was infuriated. The spike that had gone for me had almost ripped off half of my left foot, and my healing aura was taking far too long to fix the pain. I drank a potion, still pleased with the strange magic that allowed me to hold all my equipment and use it while I was a bear.
McCarthy was already feeding a potion to Nick’s gasping throat, a scene eerily similar to when I’d saved Bethany’s life, what felt like a lifetime ago. I didn’t know if he’d survive, but I’d bet on it. The potions were the most bullshit magic I'd seen so far... except perhaps the resurrection. I still couldn't believe these were the small versions.
“Fodder! Accursed fodder!” Came a familiar voice. I watched my allies all freeze, the terror temporarily overwhelming even the strongest of them. Not me, though. Not like this.
In that split second, spikes launched from the far end of the hallway. Made of obsidian carapace that glistened in the glow of my circlet, there must have been two dozen of them. More the size of arrows than the full pole that had sprung forth from the ground, the projectiles were lightning fast.
Horrified, I dove for Rio. Far too slow, I was completely unable to block the lightning-quick spikes from reaching her.
I blinked, and so did she when both of us realized that she was okay. She hadn’t been the target.
Her bag wasn’t so lucky. He’d… he’d cut the straps on her backpack?
Every last one of us suddenly lost some sort of pack or pouch. I realized in an instant what the demon was doing and shouted to tell them to protect the portal stones, only for a series of unintelligible growls to echo out of my shapeshifted mouth.
The entire hallway suddenly bubbled and rippled, solid stone momentarily turning to rubber and swallowing the fallen packs and bags while simultaneously knocking most of us to the floor. Rio was far too dexterous to fall, but she still missed snatching her bag before it hit the warping floor.
Surprisingly, Aaron was fast enough to grab his bag, but Nick, McCarthy, and Nico were all distracted by their own struggles. Rio’s portal stones, the assault rifle, our ammo, our food, and most of our potions… gone in an instant.
I looked over to where the voice had come from and finally caught sight of the demon.
The monster was half cockroach, half humanoid, and the size of a car, which actually made it a tad shorter than the knight had been. Four legs, with a scorpion’s tail, and a surprisingly normal looking upper body. It had hands, but it also had four more disjointed arms coming out of its back, each with claws that looked sharp enough to cut through solid stone.
A roachtaur.
I didn’t care about any of that. It was kneeling down, touching the floor. It seemed to need physical contact to manipulate the reality around it. It was vulnerable.
I charged.
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