We sit there for a time to collect ourselves. Jonas removes the two other healing elixirs from his pouch and swallows one eagerly, handing the other to Tyrus, who hesitates before handing it off to Meg, insisting that our tank take it.
“We may need you to pull us out,” he explains, voice still hoarse.
While we recover, I break my own rule and pull up the [Squad Status] in my [Interface]. It feels like a betrayal of trust to look at it, but at this point I’m too curious. I need to know where everyone is, what everyone has access to: Jonas in particular, because if my theory is right, then he’s probably the beefiest of us all. He’d have to be, if he’s channeling out his own [Hit Points] to heal us every time.
The [Squad Status] lists each party member on the left hand side of my vision, in order of how we met: name, level, adventurer type, and class.
> [Keira Ogdyn | Level 3 | Ranged: Urban Ranger]
> [Flynt Stoutbrooke | Level 3 | Caster: Combat Sorcerer]
> [Megha Suri | Level 3 | Melee: Fighter]
> [Jonas Tanner | Level 3 | Healer: Necromancer]
> [Tyrus Berggren | Level 3 | Melee: Rogue]
From the fact that we’re all the same level I figure Meg must have just hit [Level 3] the first time I looked, while Flynt and Jonas had to have been close to it. Tyrus and I must be nearly comparable in our XP, so while Meg is probably at the top end, nearly [Level 4] at this point, he and I are pretty nearly at the start of it.
The first thing I do is pull up Jonas.
> [Jonas Tanner, Qethian Human: Necromancer]
> [Level: 3]
> [Reputation: Noted]
> [Defense: 14]
> [Hit Points: 27 / 84]
> [Experience: 1325 / 2200]
> [Stamina: 20 / 150]
> [Essence: 30 / 300]
That [Hit Points] total is impressive and makes sense. He’s a conduit. He needs to have a deep well to draw from, and honestly, I’d have expected it to be a little higher than that. His withering hands is probably an HP suck, which would explain the different color of the damage counter.
Maybe he’s able to go above his original [Hit Points] and then distribute them as he needs to? He took a lot of damage when touching and wading through that goo. If he sucked HP out of the creature, it would go a long way to explain how he’s still standing. That healing potion couldn’t have gotten him all that much.
He’s also not that far off from my own [Experience]. He must not get XP for everything, then, but he has to get points for things that we kill, otherwise he’d be pretty far back there, probably still [Level 2].
Unless he gets points for healing?
It’s possible. I still have no idea what the rules are, and I didn’t play the games long enough to get a sense of whether the different classes racked up points differently or not. When I played—or, at least, when I attempted to—I chose a melee fighter like Meg, and even then, I didn’t make it through the first act, so I’m far from an expert.
I didn’t even look at the healer class.
I’m about to pull up Meg’s profile when a light hand lands on my shoulder, startling me out of my thoughts. Jonas is in front of me, and it’s my turn to get a big hug. I realize how slender he is, how ultimately delicate; it’s hard not to question where all those [Hit Points] come from.
He hugs me tightly, though, and whispers, “Thank you for helping me save him.”
I just hug him back, meeting Flynt’s gaze over Jonas’s shoulder. His expression is drawn and concerned.
I wonder if he’s also trying to work out where Jonas’s powers come from, how they work. Flynt is smart and observant, and he knows magic. He has to have a theory. I wonder how right it is and decide it has to be pretty close: if I, a marketing consultant from a magic-free world, worked it out, then someone who went to a magical academy run by elves has to have.
Something else is nagging me too, though.
As the adrenaline melts away, I’m able to realize just how close we were to losing Tyrus. I don’t really understand how death works here, but anywhere else and he would have been dead and irrecoverable.
What if I hadn’t had the hit points to share? What if it took us longer to get rid of the creatures? What if another creature interrupted us as we tried to heal him? There would have been no getting him back. I could feel how hard Jonas was struggling, how much he was taking, how hard the whole spell was.
It wasn’t just emotion causing that. Tyrus was snatched back from the jaws. By any logic, he should be dead.
But this isn’t a place ruled by logic, is it. They say the magic is disappearing, but it seems pretty plentiful to me. I wonder what it was like before, when there were dragons.
I look at our rogue as he fusses to get his clothing back into something resembling order and then combs his fingers through his now much shorter beard—where before it was distinguished gentleman of a bygone era, now it’s more middle-aged English professor. Even aside from that, he looks bedraggled, but at least he’s whole. At least he’s up and talking. At least he’s alive.
I squeeze Jonas tighter for a moment, letting my own emotions sweep over us, and then I release him. He gives me a tight smile and stands, returning toward Tyrus, hand on his back. Jonas kisses him lightly on the top of the head and then picks up his stuff, eying the inert ooze.
My stomach twists for them. I find myself glancing first at Meg, who is using the tip of her sword to stir the ooze and ensure it’s dead, and then I look over toward Flynt, still standing sentry, on guard for anything that may come up through the crevices. I want to talk with him, clear the air after our awkward night across the fire from Phaelen.
Again, I wonder how I can feel so deeply for these people in just a couple weeks? All four of them. We barely know each other, and we all clearly have our secrets—some of us deeper than others. We barely have anything in common except for the fact that something seems to have thrown us together and we’ve mutually decided to follow and see where it goes: out of curiosity, duty, selfishness, who knows.
Though, honestly, I’m not sure it really matters. Haven’t I, in my real life, fallen deeply in love with someone through a handful of emails on a computer screen? And everything we’ve been through so far has been so much deeper than that.
Why am I so afraid of this?
Because part of me still doesn’t think it’s real. And I need to get over that.
Flynt puts his hand out into my frame of vision, jarring me from my thoughts. I smile slightly at him and take it, letting him pull me to my feet. He gives me a brief half a hug that feels like he wants to last longer, but he releases me quickly instead, turning toward what Tyrus saw down the narrow tunnel behind me.
He starts to carefully jump between the rocks toward it and we follow his lead, down to a round entry point. The remains of a heavy stone door litter the tunnel and the mouth of the vestibule on the other side, looking as if it were blasted open.
It leads to a round chamber with a high natural stone ceiling adorned by heavy stalactites of gleaming quartz and some kind of iridescent material. The walls, however, look artificially made: polished to perfection and perfectly round. Chests are scattered throughout the space, several open—some emptied, some not.
There are also bodies. Three dwarves and a human, who look (and smell) recently deceased, as if they’ve only been there for a few days. They must be the team we were sent after, though they don't really look like adventurers from what I can tell—they don't have any weapons around them, though I suppose they could have been taken. Or they could be spellcasters. Alongside them are what look like collapsed, half-pulverized skeletons. They’re all in the middle of the room.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“Jonas,” Flynt says, pulling the short sword from the scabbard at his waist—the one I’ve only seen him use in the training we’ve started to do in the Emporium’s cellar (much to his father’s chagrin). “Check them, if you don’t mind. Let’s make sure they’re going to stay dead. I don’t think we can handle any more surprises right now.”
“Definitely not,” Meg agrees, sword at the ready as she surveys the room. “Tyrus, you and Keira work well together, maybe you can check the room for traps?”
He looks at me, still adjusting his tunic a little. “I go left you go right?”
I nod. “Don’t get too hypnotized by the gold.”
He scoffs. “I’ll do my best.”
Together, we begin our opposite circuits.
“They don’t look plagued,” Jonas says from the center of the room. “I’m hesitant to get too close, though. One of them looks like there may be a trap on it. It’s not very subtle, thankfully, but I don’t want to risk trying to dismantle it, not with as weak as I’m feeling right now.”
“Understandable,” Flynt agrees. “Let’s clear the rest of the room first, then we’ll take a closer look at the bodies.”
“They look like they were killed in a fight. It’s definitely not the work of the slimes. There are stab wounds, blood. They smell awful.” Jonas crouches down a couple paces from the bodies to examine one of the skeletons—again, careful not to touch or get too close. “There’s a dagger in the skeleton.”
I pause and glance back at him. “What do you mean in the skeleton?”
“It looks like it was using it when it collapsed.”
“Just stay put,” Tyrus says. “The last thing we need is for you to awaken something and get stabbed. I think we’re out of healing elixirs, unless Keira has something hiding in her bag.”
“Not that I know of,” I reply. “Let’s not get stabbed. Wait. Shit, hold up.”
The back of my neck tingles and unease settles between by shoulder blades. I stop dead about three paces away from what looks like some kind of altar-like structure in the back of the room. It doesn't feel permanent, more like the sort of thing in an airport chapel that's designed to be moved from one place to another. It’s draped in moldy purple cloth and has several boxes stacked on it, one of which is open. But that’s not the problem.
“I see something gleaming just ahead of you, Tyrus. It may be some kind of trip wire or pressure trigger.”
“I see it.” He slowly crouches down and then follows along an invisible line. “Looks like it goes all the way to your side.”
“Ideas?”
“Figure out what it attaches to and go from there,” he mutters, pulling out one of his daggers. He traces the wire to the wall on his side and then up and to the ceiling. He frowns, peering at it. “Looks like it links to something up there. We should be able to cut it and anchor it somewhere else out of the way. We will have to do it together and keep the tension equal on both sides, or I’m afraid the whole ceiling may cave in on us.”
I follow my line along a similar route. It’s nearly invisible for most of the way but as it gets up into the ceiling I can see it shine in ambient light and, sure enough.
“It looks like some kind of box.”
“Maybe magical fire. Or something that could cause a reactive explosion, like those arrows of yours. Jonas, you, Flynt and Meg, get out, let us deal with this. I’d rather risk only two of us than all of us.”
“Tyrus.” Jonas’s voice is wary.
“This is what I do. And Elf Girl is good for it, too, aren’t you Keira?”
“I really wish you all would stop calling me that.” I pull out my elven dagger that I wear at my left hip. “Let’s do this.”
“Be careful,” Flynt says. “I’ll keep a hold spell at the ready.”
I glance over my shoulder at him and smile slightly. Meg just gives me a nod and the three of them back out, though Flynt stays as far into the entryway as he can without being under the vault ceiling.
“Let’s go about my arm’s length from the wall and cut it there,” Tyrus says.
“Okay. I need to find something to anchor it with.”
“A fork?” He nods his chin toward a box of what looks like silverware half dumped out behind me.
“I don’t know that I’ll be able to get it deep enough… wait. Give me a minute.”
I sheath my dagger and then draw an arrow, one with a heavier shaft and bigger head than I usually use, and then I search the side of the room for a place between the stones. I make sure to stand as wide as I dare, and I draw back, shooting down at a slight angle away. It thunks hard into the cave floor, penetrating a good few inches into the ground before it stops, the shaft quivering with the pent-up momentum.
I groan silently at just how unintentionally phallic that all sounds, and then nudge it with my foot. It seems well rooted in place and the angle should be enough to keep it from sliding back. Hopefully.
“Great,” Tyrus says. “Maybe we switch places and you do that again over here.”
I nod and we slowly cross the room, giving the wire a wide berth. I repeat the process on the other side and then slide my bow back over my shoulder, unsheathing my dagger once again and crouching down. Tyrus and I make eye contact and slowly grasp the wire with the hand nearest the wall, holding as steadily as possible.
“Okay,” he says, his voice hushed. “After the count of three. One… two… three…”
We slice.
I startle slightly at the weight on the other end of the wire but slowly, carefully, swing it around toward the arrow poking up out of the ground. I barely breathe as I wrap the wire around it as many times as I can before carefully knotting it, thankful I remember something from when my childhood best friend was teaching me his boyscout knots.
I hold my breath as I slowly let go. There’s a creaking noise against the arrow, but it holds. I look over at Tyrus, who is just letting go of his. There’s a long moment of silence before we both slowly exhale.
“Okay!” he calls back. “Let’s just be very, very careful. I don’t know how long this will hold it.”
The others enter and Tyrus helps Jonas dismantle the pressure trap on one of the bodies, giving him the opportunity to inspect and confirm that they are dead dead, and not about to be reanimated anytime soon.
Jonas and Flynt then work together to move the bodies out of the cavern, searching through them for any evidence of who they were or that they are the team we were sent to find. They eventually find several satchels against the front wall, just off the door, in which they find a book like ours as well as what look like excavation tools and field notebooks.
The rest of us focus on the loot. And there’s potentially a lot of it—though not as much as there originally appeared to be.
A lot of the gleaming gold visual comes from the brass hardware on the various chests, most of which are actually empty, while others contain things like sets of silverware, tarnished place settings, and candelabras. It looks like someone’s ancient banquet dressings. We even find, much to Tyrus’s barely contained chagrin, a chest filled with moth-eaten tablecloths.
“At least it’s not clothing this time,” Jonas says, soliciting some grumbling from Tyrus and more than a few dwarvish curse words (which I'm definitely beginning to recognize).
We do find several small sacks of coins and gems, however, scattered throughout, which all go in the bag. Then, we make our way up to the altar.
There are three small boxes there. One of them contains a large brooch about the size of my palm with a large red gem in the middle of it. The second has a pair of necklaces each with a pendant: one black the other also red. The third is empty, but has a large depression in the middle of its velvet insides. Something was in it, though judging by the dust in and around the impression, it’s been empty for a while.
“What do you think of this?” Tyrus looks over his shoulder at Meg who has appeared behind us.
She reaches forward to lift the box. “I don’t know. But whatever it was, it was old and important. This is carved from Inver wood, and the Inver tree has been extinct since…”
“Before the Dragon Wars,” Tyrus says. “That’s what I thought too.”
“Why have something like that somewhere like this, though?” I ask. “This looks like some rich person’s forgotten storage unit.”
Meg looks around. “It could be. There aren’t any estates around here, but that wouldn’t stop anyone from creating a portal. It’s not unheard of, especially among many of the older families, to keep valuables off their grounds and in far-off places like this. You just need a… ah.”
She moves toward the center of the room and pushes aside a couple of crates revealing a brass circle laid in the stone. “The right words and a properly linked traveler’s wand would likely transport us straight into a cellar in the home of one of Qeth’s wealthiest families.”
I frown. “They’d really forget about it?”
“Just because it hasn’t been touched for a while doesn’t mean it’s forgotten,” Tyrus says. “Though who knows about the wealthy. But that doesn’t explain why something from the Dragon Wars would be somewhere like this. This isn’t the place you keep jewels and artifacts.”
“No, it’s not,” Meg agrees. “Unless maybe that’s the point. Would you ever think to look here?”
Tyrus nods vaguely. “Probably not. Though it does look like a few people thought to recently.”
“True. Or maybe they didn't know what they had.” She looks around the room again. “Alright. Let’s get moving. We’re losing daylight and I don’t want to be up in this mountain after dark. Not in our current shape.”
She and Tyrus head down from the altar and I pause to put the three boxes into my bag, closing it before following. I happen to glance aside as I do and catch sight of an object that had fallen down into the shadows against one of the chests.
Reaching down, I pull up a large, leather-bound book. I even recognize the title: Lost Artifacts of the Dragon Wars. This one looks significantly older and more worn than the copy I found in the cult chambers of the spider cave; the binding is cracked and the gold inlaid lettering on the cover is tarnished. There are also several dog-eared pages and a bunch of different papers shoved inside it. Interesting. I tuck it into the bag to take a look at later, too. It’s too much of a coincidence not to put more consideration into it.
I follow the others out and am just past the halfway point when I hear a quiet ting as the wire releases from one of the arrows.
I’m off like a shot, rushing toward the open doorway and I launch myself for it, sliding out just as half the ceiling collapses down behind me, a puff of debris accompanying me out. I lay there panting, the four of them staring down at me, all of us covered in dust.
“I feel like Indiana Jones,” I say, a little too excitedly. “Also. For the record. That one wasn’t mine.”