“I can’t help but think the difficulty curve of this fucking thing has just taken a little bit of a leap . . .”
Chrissy wasn’t wrong, Lorelei thought, as she felt her stomach knot up. On the good news front – and she was all about locating the upside right now – after a fairly spicey last half an hour, there was a nice shiny ‘EXIT’ sign in glowing pink neon about five hundred yards away from them.
However, that was pretty much where the good news ended, and the catastrophically - manifestly lethal - news began.
Zorrobar pushed out an exploratory fireball – he’d apparently ranked up one of his Skills during the last couple of obstacles and seemed to have quite a bit more fine motor control over his projectiles now – to get a sense of how the land lay in the gap between their current position and safety.
“Fuck,” he said after a moment.
“Yeah,” Chrissy agreed. “That seemed pretty comprehensive.”
“In case anyone is wondering,” Hild added, something unnecessarily to Lorelei’s mind, “there’s absolutely no way I’d be able to tank that sort of damage spike. Pete?”
“Why aye, lass! Not a bleedin' chance, like.”
“Okay everyone, let’s all just take a breath here. Obviously everyone who has made it through the obstacle course has managed to negotiate this final stage – so it cannot be completely impossible. Let us not get carried away with the doom and gloom. Think of all we have achieved so far!”
Lorelei gritted her teeth as the rest of the group nodded sagely at Kris’s latest management speak motivational bollocks. Ever since they’d exited the Hall of Mirrors, he’d been increasingly vocal in his encouragement. Lorelei wasn’t quite so pissed off with him that she didn’t recognise his encouragement had helped them negotiate four or five pretty tricky obstacles since then – although Steffan’s extremely ressurrectable mini-army hadn’t exactly hurt either – but she also knew he was leeching on all the Adoration coming his way from the rest of the group. Sure, he’d been more than liberal with the heals, but he was still a long way from wiping the slate clean in her mind.
***Help Message***
If you’re open to a little friendly words of advice, honey? Jealousy isn’t a great colour on you.
“Jealous! I’m not jealous!” Lorelei thought back to her Guide. “I’m just pissed off that everyone is acting like he’s the second coming of Jesus Fucking Christ when they know he’s a fucking Charm Leech. It’s like they’ve forgotten what he was trying to pull.”
***Confused Face Message***
You know, taking the piss out of you would be much easier if I had programmed emojis into my language filter. What do you reckon? Worth taking a few things off-line to make the required alterations? No? Fine. Just wondering, if you were jealous of this guy, how would it sound different to your current level of whining?
Lorelei dismissed the message, turning away from Kris’s latest team-bonding talk to look at the . . . she kept landing on ‘killing field’ as the only way of describing the final section of the obstacle course. How had anyone come up with something that displayed such a deep hatred for life and a morbid fascination with violent, inventive death. Five hundred yards of twisted metal, shifting platforms, razor-thin wire, and far too many suspiciously glowing runes, each one vibrating with malicious intent. This last section of the course looked like the spawn of a chaotic, drunken one-night’s stand between a factory, a cathedral and a soft play centre.
Lorelei’s mind ground to a halt as it processed the sheer scale of the challenge ahead. The others continued to chat behind her, no doubt formulating some mad scheme involving a lot of screaming and far too much trust in the power of pluck. Her eyes moved slowly, tracking one particularly nasty section where the ground dropped away into a gaping pit of rotating blades—spirals of polished steel, each spinning at speeds that she was sure could turn bone to dust in seconds. Above it, a grid of electrified chains shifted erratically, the air shimmering around them from the heat. If they made it past that, a wall of flame-spewing statues awaited them on the other side, each one carved in the shape of a snake with mouths wide open in a rictus grin. The flames roared and crackled with a heat that made Lorelei take an involuntary step back, sweat already prickling on her skin.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
She blinked, trying to focus on what came next. The others were still talking, voices rising and falling in heated debate about tactics, skills, and how many times they could get away with sacrificing Steffan’s undead. Above the snake statues, narrow beams crisscrossed like a spider's web, suspended precariously high, the only way across the endless pit of shifting, serrated blades. Whoever designed this really did like they tightropes, didn’t they? Lorelei imagined slipping, falling—just a slight misstep—and then being shredded from below, her body flailing uselessly before being churned to pulp.
Beyond the narrow beams came the final stretch, one that almost appeared deceptively simple—a corridor lined with runes set into the floor, glowing faintly blue. Call her cynical, but she wasn’t fooled. Anyone who stepped into that corridor unprepared would find themselves at the mercy of a cascade of magic. A frost trap—was what Zorrobar was describing behind her—one that targeted body heat, triggered by the slightest movement above sub-zero temperatures.
Finally, Lorelei’s gaze flicked upward again to the network of chains crisscrossing overhead the whole of this section, some stretching between the walls while others dangled menacingly, their hooks swaying in the hot, electric air. She sensed they weren’t there for balance or safety. No, these chains were for catching those unfortunate enough to come too close, dragging them upward into a spinning web of spikes above—jagged points slick with the blood of previous attempts. And these fucking things wouldn't even give the luxury of a quick death; they'd tear at flesh and bone before flinging their captives into the fiery depths below.
A sharp hiss filled the air as one of the traps reset, the grinding sound of metal sliding into place filling the silence. Lorelei tore her eyes away from the deathtrap long enough to see Kris pacing back and forth, waving his arms dramatically as he spoke. He was arguing for Steffan’s undead army to take the brunt of what was to come. If they timed it right, they’d be able to send the Zombie Cheerleaders ahead to trigger most of the traps, absorbing the lethal blows meant for the rest of them. Ent or CCMD would follow up in case there was anything that was missed.
It wasn’t actually a terrible plan, she thought. Providing Steffan could keep resummoning his army once they were destroyed. Mind you, considering how much he’d not enjoyed doing that before, she couldn’t really understand how he was okay with this. But he was standing still as Kris spoke, expression completely vacant. Whatever the System had done to him, she didn’t think she liked it, regardless of the extra firepower it gave them.
There was a sharp snap as the ground beneath one of the runes shifted, sending a jolt of energy sparking across the nearby platforms. The noise pulled Lorelei out of her musings, and she could hear Kris’s voice again, talking about heals, about shielding the tanks. She barely registered Chrissy flexing her new barbarian’ muscles, all feral grins and muttered threats to “punch that flame-spewing snake’s bloody teeth out.” To be fair, if her
But no amount of plan could detract from the fact they were looking at five hundred yards of certain death. And she was still under her Chance’s Gambit debuff . . . This didn’t seem to be a great time not have access to lots and lots of useful Luck based Skills.
And then there was the final obstacle, the real kicker, stood right at the end of the course. A massive stone golem, etched with glowing lines of power, standing watch like a guardian of death’s doorstep. Its eyes burned with a sickly purple light, and its fists were the size of boulders. Fuck it. They were actual boulders. A direct hit would turn any of them into a smear on the floor. Zorrobar’s fire magic might help, but it would need to be timed perfectly, and Kris’s heals would have to be fast enough to keep the tanks standing long enough to land a hit. She guessed it was possible. Maybe.
They were going to have no room for mistakes here. And they’d be relying on everyone to pull their weight. Everyone except her, of course. What fucking use was she going to be?
But she’d have to go in anyway.
A sudden tap on her shoulder made her flinch and she turned, startled, to see Pete standing there, “Oy, Lorelei. You ready, pet? We’ve got the plan all sorted. Just waitin’ on you now, like.”
Lorelei’s mouth opened, but no words came out at first. The others were already moving into position, their faces set. Lorelei looked back at the obstacle course, five hundred yards of death and destruction stretching out before her, every second ticking closer to the moment they’d have to move.
"Uh . . . sure. Bring it on."