“There. That should do it.” Mei-Mei gives a satisfied nod as she wipes her hands against her coat and wanders back over to where me, Bran, and the tree are waiting.
“Huh? What did you do?” Bran inquires, a lot calmer and cleaner than he was a few minutes ago. “What was that stuff you put on the door?”
“Hmm... It’s something like putty, I guess you could say,” Mei-Mei replies, admiring from a distance the so-called putty she just smeared across the Curse Ward’s metal exit.
“Okay...? Why do we need to stand so far away from it though?”
“Keh-heh! Don’t worry about it,” Mei-Mei cackles, taking one last drag from her cigarette and flicking the butt away as she exhales a final puff of smoke. “You’ll see.”
Right now, me, Mei-Mei, Bran, and the tree are waiting several paces away from the door. Mei-Mei said to be on immediate standby so we can move as soon as Lust wakes up, but...
“How are you so sure Lust is even going to wake up?” Bran asks. “I mean, we aren’t doing anything. We’re just waiting here...”
“She will,” Mei-Mei replies without hesitation. “I told you, your actions weren’t meaningless. There was a reason I needed that door open, and you accomplished that. I just can't remember what that reason was...”
In the end, after being forced to humiliate himself in front of everybody, Bran eventually managed to calm down after having a long shower, a quick pudding, and a few throttles of the dwarf for good measure.
“Anyway,” she says. “Whatever the reason, although I can’t recall why I planned for Lust to wake up, the fact that I planned for it means it’ll happen without a doubt. You read my note, right?” She pulls the piece of paper from her pocket and flashes it at us again, tapping a finger against the top line with a smug look on her face.
Step 1: Trust in myself (genius)
“Trust me. I am a genius after all,” she adds, and then gestures for me to pick her up.
Doing as she asks, I pick up the small dwarf woman and place her atop my shoulders. Bran and the tree wait anxiously on standby, eyes glued to the door.
From what my short attention span soaked up, I think Mei-Mei’s plan is to have Lust awaken, go on some kind of rampage, and distract the guards—and the Warden—long enough to slip down ninety-nine floors in the resulting chaos mostly unimpeded. It doesn't feel like the most foolproof or well-thought-out plan but it sounds fun and Mei-Mei seems pretty confident in it so I’m sure it’ll be fine!
...
Many slow minutes roll by, maybe even hours, as we all wait in silence for something to happen—some kind of signal to signify the waking of Lust. Mei-Mei squirms a little in discomfort atop my shoulders and Bran nervously fiddles with one of the tree’s leaves.
“Fweh... This was exciting at first, but now I’m kinda bored,” I complain. “Can’t we just wake Lust up ourselves? Let’s just bust the door down already and—”
“[WARNING. BREACH IN ORGANIC STASIS CHAMBER #0000.]”
In an instant, all the lights in the prison wing shut off, leaving us in complete darkness. It lasts only a second before being quickly replaced by a dim red light. The same hollow voice from the day before calls out all around the room—
“[WARNING. ACTIVATING AUTO-DEFENSE SYSTEMS IN— ]”
—and then it stops, as if abruptly cut off. The lights are still dimmed with red, but the room is silent once again.
“Get ready...” Mei-Mei says from above me as she fiddles with something in her pocket.
Nodding, I pick the person-sized tree up and cradle it beneath one of my arms—bucket-side forward—leaving the branches and leaves to sweep the floor behind me.
The seconds tick by as we wait in complete silence, each new second adding more weight to the already heavy tension filling the room. I feel Bran’s trembling hand nervously grip the back of my shirt, and even Mei-Mei isn’t immune to the feeling, lightly digging her fingernails into the sides of my shoulders in anxiousness. I too can’t help but crack under the pressure of such a heavy atmosphere...
“Fwahahaha!” I laugh, cracking a wide grin from ear to ear. “I can’t wait!” Punching through both the silence and the thick tension in the air with nothing but a flex of my powerful voice muscles, I shout out with genuine excitement.
Bran and Mei-Mei turn their faces to me in surprise, before both sighing in unison. “... Idiot,” they both mutter, relaxing a little as the tension leaves their body like an overdue fart.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
“Fwahaha—!”
An intense shiver suddenly runs down my spine. A moment later, a deafening explosion from above causes the entire room to shake. Chunks of concrete fall from the already damaged walls and ceiling as they crumble away, revealing the thick metal underneath. The entire Spire seems to sway and groan in response.
“Keh-heh!” Mei-Mei cackles maniacally over the noise, pulling something from her pocket and pushing her thumb down on it.
BANG!
In that instant, there’s a quick flash of light and a second explosion rings out directly in front of us—the Curse Ward entrance. The metal door blows away from its frame, crumpling outward and revealing the hallway on the other side. Two bloodied guards lie amongst the scorched rubble of the broken door on the other side, groaning as they writhe around on the floor.
“Let’s go!” Mei-Mei shouts, slapping the top of my head. “We’ve still got three more doors to get through!”
Nodding, I sprint my way through the rubble and into the newly opened hallway, still carrying Mei-Mei and the tree. Giving the groaning guards a quick passing glance, I don’t recognize either of their faces.
“That wasn’t putty at all!” Bran complains, following close behind me. “That was, like, C-4 or something!”
“Explosive putty!” Mei-Mei cackles. “Keh-heh! I’ve still got plenty more where that came from so take me to the next door already!”
Sprinting through the hallway, we quickly arrive at the door and Mei-Mei hurriedly slides off my back and runs up to it. She pulls strange chunks of the same ‘putty’ out of her pockets and starts smearing it liberally to the surface of the door.
A hatch to the side of the door suddenly opens and a shocked-looking guard pushes his face up to the opening. “What the hell is—?!”
I jab a fist through the hatch, slamming it between the opening in the guard’s helmet. He reels backward in a spurt of blood and I hear the clank of his armour hitting the ground on the other side.
“What’s going on in—?! Urgh!” The hatch on the other side opens and Bran immediately throws something through the opening. It shatters against the guard’s helmet in a spurt of yellow liquid and I hear him collapse to the ground, retching in disgust on the other side.
“Seriously? You really brought your urine bottles with us?” Mei-Mei complains as she pushes something metallic into the putty she smeared across the door.
“I didn’t want to!” Bran complains right back. “But I’m not like the gorilla! I’m weak! It’s the only thing I could think of as self-defense! I don’t exactly like having this as one of my character traits, you know!"
Finishing her preparations, Mei-Mei climbs back onto my shoulders and we step back a few paces from the door, awaiting the explosion. There are four doors guarding the entrance to the Curse Ward, so we just need to do this two more times after this one.
Focusing my attention to the ceiling, the rumbling from the floor above has stopped, but my back muscles are still twitching uncontrollably at the strange feeling in my gut. It's a feeling I'm familiar with and one that reminds me of home.
It’s the feeling that somebody strong is nearby.
“Alright, stand back!” Mei-Mei pulls something out of her pocket and holds it up above her. “Keh-heh! Detonation in three! Two—!”
A prickling chill runs down my whole body and all of my muscles tense up all at once.
There’s no time.
Without hesitation, I instantly scoop Bran up underneath my free arm and kick off the ground, sprinting towards the still-intact door—carrying him, Mei-Mei, and the tree along with me.
“What are you doing, idiot?!” Mei-Mei beats on the top of my head. “Get back! We’re too close!”
“Fwahaha! There's no time!" I laugh and flex all the muscles in my legs to their absolute limits. Bursting off the ground, I continue sprinting towards the door, kicking up chunks of floor behind me.
Quickly arriving at the other side—without even slowing down—I slam the flat of my foot against the surface of the door and put the full force of my momentum behind it. With a short cry of twisting metal, the door snaps away from the rest of the wall and crumples forward beneath my foot. Without missing a beat, I continue my sprint into the newly opened hallway.
“Ah! My precious putty! It took me weeks to make that!” Mei-Mei cries from above my shoulders. “And why didn’t you just do this in the first place?! Tell me in advance that you can do these things, dammit! It would have been useful to know!”
“I feel sick...” Bran complains from underneath my arm as he’s jostled around against his will.
Two more doors!
Sprinting down the hallway, I instantly arrive at the next door and burst through it in the same fashion. It crumples underfoot and I continue onward at full speed.
One more!
“Wha—?!”
“Huh—?!”
Ignoring the two startled guards on the other side, I charge right between them, leaving them in the dust as I quickly come up on the fourth and final door. Planting my foot against it, another prickling chill runs down my spine—even more intense than the last.
As the fourth and final door crumples beneath my foot and I take my first step into, what should be, the elevator waiting room—I hear it. Laughter.
“Gyahahaha!”
An explosion of screaming metal and concrete suddenly rings out from behind me. Despite the deafening noise, the deep and booming laughter of a woman cuts cleanly through the screeching chaos before quickly trailing off down into the floor behind me.
I blink—wincing slightly at the sudden loudness and turn my head back toward the Curse Ward. Opening my eyes, I’m met with—
The sky.
... Fweh?
Time seems to slow as I struggle to process what it is I’m looking at. Where the Curse Ward once was, I find myself now looking out at the beautiful blue vastness of the bright open sky stretching out behind me. My eyes are drawn a little higher, and I quickly find myself squinting up at the blinding radiance of the sun as it peeks out at me over a fluffy white cloud, gently warming the back of my legs. A roaring wind whips at my back, threatening to drag me out into the wide-open outside air. The guards I had sprinted past are no longer there either—nor is the entire hallway I had only just passed through—replaced by nothing but an empty air that seems to stop just short of the heel on my back foot.
Fweh? Why am I suddenly outside? Where did the Curse Ward—?
Something above my head grabs my hair and yanks it forward, swivelling my face back around to face the front. I quickly realize it's Mei-Mei as she shouts something in my ear. I can't hear her over the noise but, knowing her, it's probably something like ‘Don’t get distracted, idiot! Leave the thinking to me!’
Mm! No point in thinking about what happened behind me! Pepper Black is a woman who runs straight ahead! Never looking back! Paying no mind to the mess she leaves in her path!
My sense of time resumes and—still in full sprint—I take my second step into the room.