There were monsters in the water.
I knew that it was dangerous when the boss didn’t put away his weapon. As we were crossing a bridge black tentacle slithered out of the water and grabbed the male Noble by the foot. It pulled his legs out from under him and began dragging all of us off the bridge.
“HELP!” The snow-white nobleman began clawing at the wooden bridge hoping to find something to hang on to.
I ran to the other side of the bridge and grabbed onto the railing. We were all attached, so if it pulled one of us in, it’d get all of us, so I was trying to anchor us. It didn’t matter, whatever this was, it’s Power was a lot higher than mine. My hands were pulled off of the post like I hadn’t been trying to hold on at all.
The brown-haired man was already in motion as we were dragged towards the water. He sliced through the tentacle. “GET OFF THE BRIDGE!”
I scrambled to my feet and pulled Oz up to hers. Ren and Justia had picked up the other man and we all ran as fast as we could off the bridge. I stopped once we were a few feet away. I didn’t want to run too far because I didn’t want to run into a spider without the leader.
The Bandits made it off of the bridge intact. The monster must have decided that losing the end of a tentacle was too much to risk, or maybe it only attacked things on a bridge. Either way the tentacle tip was still tightly wrapped around the other man’s leg.
“Get it off!” The man sat down and began clawing at it, but even dead, it was stronger than he was. Not even Justia and Ren could help budge it.
The Bandit leader pulled it off and threw the tip back in the river.
“What was that thing?!” The nobleman demanded.
“River Arms.” He picked the black-haired Noble. "Keep walking before you become monster food.”
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That motivated the young man to walk faster as we traveled. We crossed two more bridges that the Nobleman ran across, dragging us with him, but we didn’t run into any more River Arms. We did run into three more spiders, with which the Bandit leader was careful while he was defeating them. We reached the gate in a little over an hour and my stomach could tell that it was past one in the afternoon. The rest of the students were showing signs of slowing down as well.
We all sat down as the brown-haired man began to mess with the gate.
“Are we going to do more floor hopping?” I didn’t think I could take any more of that.
“Nope, we’re leaving now.” The Bandit leader secured our destination and the gate opened. “Through you go.” He motioned for us to start walking again.
We walked through the gate into a lone gate standing on top of a concrete slab. We were outside. I could tell that we weren’t in the dungeon anymore by the smell of the air. Sure, this air smelled like I was downwind from a bonfire. But it didn’t smell foreign like Dungeon air did.
The building that had housed this gate was a thing of the past. Only one wall was mostly still standing and one section was completely gone. The buildings that I could see in front of the gate were also barely or not even standing.
“Where are we?” I turned to the Nobles, but they all looked as shocked as I was. Rix, on the other hand, looked like she knew exactly where we were.
I didn’t get a chance to ask her though, because the rest of the Bandits came through the gate.
“Come on.” The leader began walking away from the gate.
I was confused because there didn’t appear to be anything except a single shed that was about the size of our RV, probably a little bigger. It definitely stood out because it was made of different material than the rest of the buildings. And because it looked untouched by whatever had destroyed the rest of the area.
The Bandit leader walked over to the shed and knocked on the door on the side. "Clete! It’s Sipher! I got a good haul this time! Open up!”
There were some mechanical noises from behind the door, then it opened up to reveal a lift.
“Get in.” Sipher nudged us all into the lift. It took up almost the whole shed, so there was plenty of room for us to all fit.
I wasn’t prepared for what was at the bottom. It looked like a small town, with buildings and people milling around.
“Well, Nobles! Welcome to The Desolation of Gar!” Sipher slapped me on the back. “Get comfortable, because this bunker was made by Gar herself.” He squeezed my neck a little too hard. "So not even your precious father can break in here.”
I swallowed and looked at Justia. I may have made a big mistake.