60)

Ernesto made his way down the steps first again, this time checking each step as well as the backing, smacking them with the short but heavy hammer to listen for a hollow spot.

At the bottom, he used the hammer on the landing itself, to no visible effect. Although it did in fact arm the trap so that even the lightest of weight moving over the landing would set it off.

Then the boy squirmed his way around the dividing wall between the steps and the corridor leading into the next room again. “The next room is pretty brightly lit, like sunlight. But the entrance is covered up with plants.”

Iris looked up at the ceiling. “Great, more plants.”

First Molly, then Bee made their way around the wall, then Buttercup sauntered across the floor at the bottom of the steps just before his mistress could work her way around.

There was a click.

The platform was only about half an inch thick and sat on a bed of forty eight upscaled mattress springs. A set of pins designed by Alelan to be dislodged by the first person to walk across it would then launch the next person into the air.

Only a few feet, which would toss them up to drop down to a short but relatively harmless landing.

A full sized person anyways. For a twenty some pound cat…

For a moment my concern for even a cat’s suffering outweighed the humor of his panicked shriek, then Iris called out, "Flash step." and appeared on top of the platform in a blur to catch the cat as it fell nearly halfway to the ceiling twenty feet above, all four limbs and its tail flailing about, into her arms.

Then I laughed until tears began to flow, slowing down only to mimic the cat's yowl and begin to laugh again.

I nearly missed their entrance to the Jungle.

The room was at the widest point of my reach, thirty feet in each direction. But the floor stood five feet down from the entrance, with steps going down into an overgrown patch of grass, weeds, and bushes.

Even a few small trees circled the room with their branches extending to where the room went five feet beyond my reach, making the room seventy feet wide altogether.

In the middle of the room stood a stone keep built on a scale for the one foot something kobolds. A tower on each corner and a solid interior that held my core inside on top of a platform surrounded by a circular tube that wound down to a lower level.

A central tower held the crossbow they had missed the week before mounted on a pivot with a two kobold team to reload and fire it.

Which they did before the adventurers could even enter the room.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

The boy jerked as he fought off the instinct to duck and endanger the people behind him, instead only throwing his arm up in front of his face as the bolt flew over his head and down the corridor behind him.

Iris who stood in the back got a good look at it as she snapped her head up to watch it fly by, then glared at the room ahead. “Go, Tark won’t throw something at us we can’t handle. Get in before they can reload.”

All right, the second part is possibly some good strategizing. But I may have to correct her thinking on that first part. Knowing when to retreat, plan, and then return is fairly important.

Ernesto rushed down the steps and threw his hand out with a shout as the other three came down as well. The kobolds in the front two towers fired their scaled up toothpick crossbow which now fired sharpened wooded skewer sized bolts. Ones that were solid enough that the one that hit him did so hard enough to stick into him through the padding on his chest.

The boy didn’t seem to notice, which is what I had worried about when he got the Pain suppression ability.

The other three, well four with the cat, followed him and spread out around him as they stepped off the side of the steps. Glancing around, Iris commanded, “Go left, take cover behind the trees.”

So that would give them some cover and time to plan, but didn't this room remind them of anything? Round, with trees all around. Tree with Squirrels. Anyone?

Each tree only had two rodents waiting for them, Molly smacked the one throwing itself at her with her racket, but Iris took hers to the face and fell over from the shock and maybe a little from the impact. But mainly I think from having a face full of scratching, chitterings squirrel.

Ernesto who had taken the rear grabbed it and threw it away before grabbing the old woman and dragging her the last ten feet to get both her and him behind some bushes and a tree.

Iris scrambled up halfway to her feet looking in all directions, then looking shocked to see both the girls and the boy all looking at her for directions. She froze for a moment then turned to look at the fort, panting and trying to plan.

As Molly reached for her scratched up face, the old woman nearly snarled. “No! ...sorry, it’s just… It’s not bad enough for you to use a spell. Fix me up later, when we take a break.”

A few skewer sized bolts shooting overhead seemed to get Iris focused again. "Molly give Ernesto your bag to use for a shield. Bee followed him up close enough to hit the closest two towers with fire, then I’m going to flash step up there with them. Molly call out if you see anything moving up to attack them. Does anyone see any big flaw in the plan? ...no? Then we go, right now."

Ernesto could have done better not stomping forward in a straight line, the larger crossbow bolt went right through the bag with the sound of something shattering inside, and even then it impacted into his chest a few inches. But he did get Bee, and her aunt behind her, up close enough for the fire and flash plan to work.

Almost immediately after appearing in a blur on the mostly flat roof of the keep, Iris kicked a kobold off the tower.

And Molly called out a warning as the four kobolds with long handled scalpel spears rode out on black faced raccoons from the brush on the far end of the room.

The closest one took Molly’s bag to the face as it tried to close in, then Ernesto was charging at the others who had been close behind it.

Only to put his foot into a pit trap whose covering was more than strong enough to hold up even under a Raccoon and Kobold combination, but not a large teenager.

The boy went face first into the ground with his leg snapping forward just below his knee.

Molly screamed. Bee sent a bolt of flames into the other kobold rider as it tried to charge its spear into the boy, holding the flame on both riders and mount as they tried to turn to escape the fire.

On top of the keep, Iris grabbed a hold of the crenelated top of the center tower while screaming “Spin Kick!” Catching two of the kobolds who had turned from their skewer shooter to close in on her. Then she screamed again as one of the two in the central tower grabbed a hold of her hand to bite into her finger.

The healer ran up to help pull Ernesto’s leg from the trap, then froze for a moment. “You have a crossbow bolt in your chest!”

The boy seemed surprised as well. Pulling it free she laid her hand over the wound, both to stop the bleeding and begin to heal the wound as Bee stood guard.

Up above, Iris dropped to one knee to grab the last of the skewer shooters by the leg and lifted him up to dash his head against the roof, only to get knocked over on her side as the two in the central tower leaped down to her back and shoulders.

The two remaining riders had split to come around the keep from each size to force Bee to only target one. But Buttercup sprang out to tackle one of the kobolds and its mount, allowing Bee to focus her attention, and her fire on the other of the pair.

Moments later a partially healed but limping Ernesto helped Molly to climb up to the top of the keep to where both of Iris's hands were full applying pressure to her wounds as she sat in a circle of dead kobolds.

The good news.

[ You have reached Copper rank four. ]