Chapter 185

Jay had found a few traps fairly quickly once he lowered himself down to floor level and was now breathing a bit heavily. The most recent trap had given him some trouble. He was on his belly at the moment and was staring at an opened trigger housing, the pressure plate he had already removed and set aside.

The trap was more advanced than the ones he was familiar with and he was trying to learn how to disarm it when his hand brushed up against something it should not have.

A wooden bolt shot out of an almost imperceptible hole in the wall. It flew threw the air and over Jay's body that was still laying on the floor. Had he been standing the bolt would have certainly struck him.

The bolt continued on its way through the air until it struck the stone wall across from where it had originated from. The bolt bounced off of the wall with a cracking sound and then fell to the floor, where it quickly dissipated in to motes of light.

The children had all stopped talking when the bolt had fired and Jay had frozen in place, not wanting to trigger anything else.

Carly looked spooked and stood up but did not walk any closer to Jay. He hadn't entirely cleared the room of traps yet and who knew what she might trigger in an attempt to reach him.

“You ok? Jay?” Carly called out. The children sat huddled in a group to the side with worried faces.

“What? What happened?” Victor yelled down from above and some of the sunlight disappeared as his form momentarily blocked the light.

“I'm alright!” Jay called out but was careful not to move too much. “Just touched something I shouldn't have, that's all.”

“Don't do that!” Victor yelled, “They hurt!”

Jay mumbled under his breath, “I didn't mean to touch it...” He took a deep breath and let it out. “Thanks Victor, I'll try and keep that in mind!” he yelled back.

Jay caught a glimpse of the children out of the corner of his eye and called out to them. “I'm fine, really. It didn't even touch me! This is why I have you guys lay down like this when you work with a trap!”

The children seemed satisfied that Jay wasn't hurt and calmed down a bit as Jay returned his attention to the trap. After some study he decided that there was a problem. There was holes to put a trap pin in to. The problem was that the holes didn't line up enough to put a pin through unless the trigger was depressed.

Jay would have to trigger the trap and then hold the trigger down as he inserted the trap pin.

Jay shrugged as he lay on the ground. At least he knew the bolt would go right over his head, he thought to himself. Maybe he should warn the others first though?

“I'm going to trigger the trap again. I have no choice, it's the only way to make the trigger safe. Just so you know when the bolt shoots out again – I meant to do that. Everything is fine. Ok?” Jay said to the room but mainly was speaking to the children.

Without waiting for a reply Jay used one hand to force the trigger downwards and then held it there. As he did so another wooden bolt shot over his head and smacked in to the wall across from it. The bolt bounced off the wall and fell to the ground. It burst in to motes of light and vanished. He used his other hand to gently insert the trap pin.

With a high pitched tinkle the pin slipped from his grasp and bounced off of a number of parts before it came to rest at the bottom of the trigger housing, out of reach.

“Crap.” Jay said a bit too loudly.

“What's wrong now?” Carly yelled out worriedly.

Jay moved his now empty hand back to one of his vest's pockets and pulled out another pin. They all spilled in to a little pile on the floor next to him as he pulled one pin out. Jay sighed. He realized that he would need to buy some more pins at this rate.

Jay used the new pin correctly this time and managed to insert it in to the holes he had aimed for. He could feel a light resistance before the pin breached the hole and slid all the way inside. Only a nub of the pin now showed.

Jay carefully released the trigger and it thankfully stayed put.

It had taken longer than usual for Jay to disarm that last trap and his forehead was covered in sweat when he finally sat up and sighed. “Done with that one. Let me do a once over of the room to be sure I got everything and then we can start looking for secrets.”

The children looked excited at the prospect as they were becoming restless, having stayed in one spot for too long. Carly seemed just fine where she was however and looked as if she was just waiting for the way forward to be revealed for her.

Jay stood up and groaned. He was a bit stiff from being on the ground and trying to stay motionless for so long. He bent over and picked up all of the trap pins he had dropped. He dropped a few as he attempted to do so and was forced to bend over once again to pick them up.

Sore from laying on the ground for so long he walked it off the best he could as he scanned for additional traps.

He found none and was thankful for that. He was still a bit stressed out from accidentally triggering the last trap. Thankfully it had just been a wooden bolt. It could have been far worse.

Everything in the ruins so far had been fairly easy. They had been uncomfortable at times but never in any real danger as long as they all did what they were supposed to do. Even the wooden bolt probably wouldn't have given him any more than a minor wound.

It was the perfect place to bring a group of adventurous children to for a chance at fun. It wasn't entirely safe – but it was certainly safer than a dungeon would be.

Jay walked one last time around the room – he did not want to miss any traps and the thought of missing one was the reason he checked the room twice before he proclaimed that it was safe.

“Traps are done. Everyone up and at em, let's find the way out of here!” Jay said in an upbeat manner that passed to the children as well who all jumped up and began to check the walls.

The room had the entrance they had entered through, and was longer than it was wide. At the other end of the room however was nothing. No door.

Torches lined the walls at even intervals, everywhere except for the far end of the room, all lit, and with the assistance of the sunlit metal grating above provided just enough light to see by.

Everyone was careful as they moved about. There were still open trap trigger housings. They were made safe, but Jay had left the pressure plates off so that they could avoid them entirely.

The lack of any objects in the room just meant that the group exhausted their options quickly. There did not appear to be any other exit from the room.

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The children seemed a bit upset as they had expected to find the door right away. They had tried pushing on various spots on the walls. Bess had used her water bottle to dribble water in places in hopes that the door would work just as the previous one had. The water did not reveal a door or anything else unfortunately, and finally Bess gave up and used her water bottle instead to take a long drink from it after which she capped it and put it away.

“Give up yet?” Victor called down from up above. A shadow passed over them as he moved or adjusted his position over the metal grate.

“No!” the children all yelled while Carly searched a section of wall the children had already searched.

Jay smiled at their enthusiasm.

Neiman and Cory were working on a side wall and Jay and Bess were inspecting the far end of the room that was unlit.

It wasn't as bright there as in the rest of the room but it was still plain enough to see that there was nothing there. No door or device or anything. So whatever they were looking for was right in front of them, just hidden. They were doing something wrong, Jay thought to himself, but what?

“It's dim over here, can you get a torch for me please? I'm too short.” Bess said matter of factly.

Jay nodded and reached out to the nearest torch and handed it to her.

“Thanks!” Bess said and quickly returned to inspecting the wall.

Jay smiled and nodded and took a torch further back for himself. The two continued to inspect the far wall and Bess walked right up to it.

“It looks shinier here,” she said as she pointed to a specific portion of the wall.

Jay came over and the two held their torches close to the wall. A number of sparks suddenly shot out in to the air as Bess' torch made contact with it purely on accident.

Both Jay and Bess pulled their torches back quickly, worried about setting off a trap. Jay inspected the wall closely while holding the torch at a distance from it. There appeared to be a shiny line where Bess had touched the wall with her torch where there had been nothing only moments before.

“I think Bess found something!” Jay yelled and the others came walking over in excitement.

“What? How?” Victor could be heard mumbling to himself from far above the group but everyone was far too excited to pay him any attention.

Jay let Bess explain what had happened to the rest of the group as they watched Jay and Bess hold the flames of their torches close to the wall. The wall blackened a bit except for the shiny line, which quickly expanded the more they traced it with their torches. Soon enough the flames had revealed the outlines of a door in the stone as if the material that had hidden the door had been burnt away.

Jay pushed on the left side of the door and then the right. It didn't budge.

“Now how do we open it?” Neiman asked in confusion as he inspected the wall.

It was Cory that ended up having the bright idea to use the torches on the rest of the door's surface to see if anything else was hidden.

“If fire showed the edges of the door maybe it'll show something more too?” Cory had offered.

Jay nodded and was immediately reminded of an old art project from when he was a child. His favorite babysitter would always bring over art supplies and a project of some sort for them to do. Once she had brought a stack of fat black crayons along with bright colored ink markers.

She had him first use the markers to cover the page completely in a rainbow of colors. After the ink had dried she had him take the thick black crayons and color the page completely black. The page was entirely covered in waxy black crayon.

That had confused Jay at the time. Why would you color a page of paper a beautiful rainbow of colors only to then hide it under a thick layer of black crayon? It hadn't made any sense.

But once that had been done she had handed Jay a penny and told him to scratch away at the crayon. She told him to use the penny to draw just as he would a pencil or pen and so he did. He drew with the penny and as he did it scratched off the black crayon and revealed the bright colors beneath.

And that was what Jay did now with his torch. He used it like he had that penny long ago. He went over the entirety of the door with his torch, one pass at a time, and as he did so additional features were revealed.

Two white outlines of hands had been revealed in the center of the door after Jay had finished running flames over it.

“Hey look! Cory was right!” Neiman called out.

“Great work Cory!” Bess said happily and she slapped Cory on the back firmly.

Carly smiled but didn't appear all that interested. Everyone else had things taken care of, she didn't really feel as if she needed to be involved. Of course the others would have found the way out. She had complete faith in them.

“Ok, gather around everyone. Let's see what happens!” Jay said and the others all gathered up at the 'door.'

Jay reached his hands out and turned them so that their orientation matched those on the door. As he placed his hands inside of the white outlines on the door the outline of the door crackled and fell away. With a groaning sound the door slid in to the wall to the left and revealed a narrow passageway.

Victor above began to laugh. “You did it! Didn't think you'd get that one. Good work. I'll see you in the next room!” Victor continued to laugh as he got up and ran off. The room brightened as his shadow no longer blocked the metal grate and sunlight streamed in.

“Alright, follow me, everyone be careful.” Jay said as the group returned their torches to their brackets on the walls and got in to a single file line – the corridor ahead was almost too narrow to travel any other manner.

“Here we go,” Jay said and led the group in to the corridor. It was well lit by magical wall sconces and appeared to go on for quite a distance. He kept a close eye out for traps in front of him as the group walked slowly along behind him.

As they traveled their single file line morphed in to more of a loose grouping and Jay had to tell his group numerous times not to walk in front of him. There could be traps. As they continued on however it became clear that no trap had been found in the corridor yet. There was a chance it wasn't trapped at all.

They approached a section with a metal grating overhead and they could make out Victor on the other side when they reached it. They all stared above them and waved hello.

Victor didn't say anything but instead watched them carefully with a sly smile.

Carly stepped up to stand next to Jay but it was crowded in the narrow passageway and as she jockeyed for more room she unfortunately stepped a little too far forwards, past the point where Jay had cleared of traps.

A sharp click sound stopped everyone as Carly's right foot touched the ground and the group went silent as Victor's smile widened.

“You missed one!” Victor said and laughed.

Everyone tried to back away from Carly who looked scared as she realized she had stepped on something she shouldn't have.

Victor's laughter filled the corridor as the floor dropped out from under them. “All you had to do was follow the rules!”

Victor's last sentence was the last thing the group heard as they were unceremoniously dropped in to chute and then on to a slide. The slide went on for what felt like minutes as the group slid down it at great speed. Magical lighting flashed by them as they continued their rapid descent.

Carly was screaming as was Cory. Bess was shouting something angry as Neiman kept quiet with a terrified look on his face.

Jay just looked frustrated. He would have found that trap if it hadn't been for Carly.

The rest of the group had one hell of a ride as the slide sloshed them left and right when it turned. They screamed and floundered in an attempt to slow themselves down but to no effect. Jay glared at Carly in disappointment the entire ride down. He glared the best he could given the circumstances anyway.

The angle of their descent went up and their speed increased to a frightening rate.

Jay finally screamed.