As soon as I’d triggered the pressure plate alarm bell, the snoring stopped.

Crap crap. So much for stealth.

“Plan B,” I said.

“Yes!” Andy said, and barged past me into the room. Arthur and Sigrid charged in next, and I followed them along with the rest of the raid team.

The man who’d been dozing on the sheep-skin rug sat up. At first I thought he was wearing a fuzzy shirt, but then I realized that he wasn’t wearing a shirt at all but was covered in thick, dark, curly hair. More like fur than hair, really. If that didn’t give it away, the wide flat nose with huge nostrils and the big horns sprouting from his bovine, fur-covered head did. We’d found the Minotaur.

Minotaur Meet the new boss of the labyrinth, not the same as the old boss. Half man, half bull, all bad. Powers:

One Tough Hombre - Adept: Resistance to physical damage

Swing For The Stands - Adept: Incredibly potent axe attack; Requires Axe (Expert)

Skills:

Axe - Expert

Direction Sense - Adept

Andy was already on it, dashing up before leaping on top of the monster. All I saw was Andy dive, then suddenly change direction when the beast batted him aside with a single backhanded cuff of its big, beefy hand. Andy went flying off and hit the wall hard before crumpling in a jumbled heap, unconscious, on the floor. He hadn’t taken all that much damage, he’d just been unlucky and taken a critical hit that triggered a rare knock out effect.

So much for our best fighter.

“Fry him,” I said, and as the Minotaur started to get to its feet I fired a crackling burst of electricity into its hairy chest. Near me, Arthur and Sigrid did the same, knocking the beast back down.

The sofa shot partway across the room as the Minotaur bashed it aside, this time managing to get fully upright despite another burst of lightning from all three of us. It was gripping a gigantic axe in fingers as big and fat as sausages, and almost as greasy.

“Tough sucker, isn’t he?” Sigrid said. I checked its Status and saw that our attacks had barely made a dent in its health.

An arrow from Kay’s bow whizzed past my ear and planted itself into the Minotaur’s bicep, followed by a fireball from Wayne that erupted on the monster, singing its chest fur but otherwise not seeming to do much else.

“Really tough,” Arthur said, rushing at the Minotaur with the Knight Vice-Commander’s sword crackling with electrcity. Sigrid’s sword was out too and she followed close behind. The two of them effectively blocked the rest of us from doing much, so all we could do was watch at first as they fought.

The Minotaur really was a tough sucker, and surprisingly quick for something so big. It deftly parried Arthur’s attacks, and kept Sigrid busy defending Arthur and herself with her shield. I felt a rush of air blow past me and saw the blur of Kay using her super speed to whiz around the room in order to get line of sight on the monster from the other side. It roared as she sank a few arrows into its back. Bruce and I followed her example and moved farther into the room so he could shoot magic missiles and I could try some Affinity Control attacks without worrying about hitting our friends.

Arthur’s sword sizzled and sparked as he slashed and thrust at the Minotaur, moving with incredible speed and accuracy as though it had a mind of its own. Which, remembering Arthur’s special power to imbue a spiritual intelligence into whatever weapon he wielded, actually was the case. The onslaught from all sides was slowly wearing it down, but our main attackers Arthur and Sigrid were struggling to make their hits land against the surprisingly agile foe.

I heard Arthur’s voice in my head. I’d been told about he used his telepathy to communicate and coordinate during fights, but this was my first experience with it in this context and it surprised me. It reminded me of the chatter you get through headphones while playing an online multiplayer game. It made perfect sense that Arthur would use his power like that, like how he and The Round Table must have communicated through private team chat during eSports competitions back home.

“We’ve gotta slow it down,” Arthur said in my head.

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“Keep it busy, I’ll go for its legs,” Sigrid communicated on the telepathic channel. Had she just used her weakness-detecting ability?

“Understood,” Kay’s voice said in my head.

Arthur launched a flurry of blows that were quick, but had little force behind them. They weren’t meant to hurt it as much as distract it, and on that front they were successful. Kay contributed a few arrows, Bruce a force missile or two, and for my part I shot some laser beams at the Minotaur’s eyes. Its attention being split on so many concurrent threats gave Sigrid the opening she needed. She drove her blade low, landing a deep wound in the monster’s thigh. It roared in pain. Unfortunately, the attack threw her off balance so that when the Minotaur counter-attacked, sweeping its axe in a wide arc, Sigrid was unable to block it and the weapon’s enormous blade hit her hard in her side. She went down.

“Bastard!” Arthur shouted, out loud this time. The followthrough of its attack on Sigrid had carried the axe far to the side, exposing the Minotaur to Arthur’s own counterattack. Arthur took full advantage and jabbed his sword into the beast’s fuzzy chest. From my perspective, I saw the sword’s point burst through its back amid the several arrows sticking out of it, then vanish in a spurt of red blood as Arthur pulled it out again. This, combined with Sigrid’s hit on its leg, forced the monster to sink to one knee.

It was into the yellow now, and moving a lot slower.

“Keep going, we’ve almost got it,” I yelled, switching affinities again and sending wind cutters its way. Whether I’d said it out loud or telepathically I wasn’t really sure and didn’t honestly care. All I could think about was Sigrid. At least I could see the steady rising and falling of Andy’s chest. She was just lying there, not moving at all. Her health bar had steadily fallen to a bare sliver of red, and I knew she was moments away from death.

Kay shot a rapid volley of three arrows, all of them hit and one went right through the Minotaur’s thick neck, then Arthur brought his sword down hard on the top of its head, sinking the blade deep into its skull. The sword was yanked from Arthur’s grip as the Minotaur fell dead to the floor.

Arthur dropped to his knees to check on Sigrid. He held his fingers to her neck. I was right behind him. I could still see the tiniest shred of color in her health bar, and I wasted no time using Laying On Hands. It healed her a bit and slowed the decrease of her health bar, but it was still deep into the red. I hoped it would stabilize her long enough to stay alive until we’d revived Nina and got her a proper heal. Assuming we could revive Nina at all.

Dammit.

“You are one lucky woman,” Arthur said when Sigrid opened her eyes. I hadn’t noticed how he’d gone from feeling her pulse to cradling her head in his lap. He was a smooth one, for sure. “If you hadn’t been wearing that snazzy new armor you’d be a goner.”

I let him deal with her while I went over to revive Andy. He wasn’t actually that hurt, just unlucky. One of those cases where his pride was injured most of all. He sheepishly rubbed the back of his head as he thanked me, then he saw Sigrid on the floor with Arthur.

He and I both knelt beside Sigrid, and she looked over and smiled as she lifted her hand to me. I ignored the jealous glare from Andy as I took it and held it. Arthur seemed to get the message and extricated himself from under her, then went to help the others rescue our friends from their cages. They were still alive, but only barely. The Dopplegangers were dragged into the room, untied, stripped, then tied up again, and the clothes put back on our naked friends. It had to be done for them, they were in no state to do it themselves.

“They’ve been poisoned,” Morgan said. Because most of the people in cages had been women, she’d done most of the dressing.

“Your Alchemy includes poisons, right?” Arthur said. “Can you tell what they’ve been given?”

She shook her head. “Maybe my mastery’s too low.”

The Doppelgangers had all gone back to their natural gray monster bodies after being stripped. Arthur and his sister asked them what poison had been used, but they were no help. I think they’d been counting on the Minotaur beating us and freeing them, and now that we’d slain the brute they seemed lost about what to do and had defaulted to doing nothing.

“Daniel,” Byron said, “maybe their Status can tell us something.” His voice was shaky. His wife was among the poisoned.

“Uh, okay,” I said. I didn’t want to leave Sigrid’s side until I knew she was going to be okay, but I was only being moral support here. Clearly finding a way to cure our other friends was more important, and something I could actually help with. I squeezed Sigrid’s hand and passed it to Andy, then went over and used All Shall Be Revealed to confirm that they were indeed our real friends and not more Doppelgangers, and that they had indeed been poisoned.

“Their Status says they’ve been poisoned by Hydra blood,” I said.

Morgan’s face went pale. “Oh no.”

“What is it?” Byron said. I wasn’t sure how he’d handle more bad news.

“I don’t need the Alchemy power to know the blood of the Hydra is extremely poisonous,” she said. “It’s in the myths.”

“How poisonous?” Byron said. He was definitely about to lose it.

“Poisonous enough to kill Hercules when he wore a shirt that had been dipped in it,” she said.

Byron said nothing, just looked at his unconscious wife with trembling lips.

“What’s the antidote?” I said.

“That’s the problem,” Morgan said. “In mythology, there wasn’t one.”