The party travelled down a long hallway for some time, examining rooms as they passed. They seemed to have left the storage section now and were into the inner workings of the fortress; there were entire chambers carved out for the sole purpose of housing large magic circles, few of which Tiriana could identify, especially without taking time to stop and investigate them.
While there was little benefit to doing so right now, there was always the possibility that these powerful enchantments could be used to their own advantage- especially important given how difficult their first fight had been.
“I recognize this one,” the elf told the group as she briefly examined the latest room. “This was probably a node in their defensive array. I should be able to activate it and give us a safe place to sleep for the night.”
“Even though it’s meant to protect the entire fortress?” Sera asked, keen to pick up what she could about magic.
“With direct access to the source like this, yes. I’ll have to power it myself but it should be doable if I limit it to the doorway.” Tiriana looked over her shoulder at the others, who were loitering near the entrance to the room, keeping lookout. “Go ahead and relax, we’re safe here for the night.”
Vivi slumped to the ground where she stood, spent. Layla, on the other hand, merely stomped her way off to a corner and began unpacking her tent. Sera thought it was odd to do inside, but she wasn’t about to broach the subject to her directly.
“Does she ever take the armor off in public?” she asked as she laid out her bedroll. Like the others, she wasn’t bothering setting up a tent.
“Even I’ve never seen her face,” Vivi told her as she munched on her jerky.
“Probably because she’s uglier than sin.” Rinnie said it with such confidence that Sera nearly believed her, but then she remembered how little the two liked each other.
“Wait, really?”
“Vivi, I’d like you to think back to every word those two have ever said to each other and consider that question again,” Tiriana said wryly, sitting down to join them. Hearing that, Vivi had a look of realization on her face.
“Oh, right…”
“Hey, Tiriana. Should we really be going further in? What happens if we run into more than one of those giants?” Sera asked.
“I would have said no if I thought it was likely. If there were a lot of them here we wouldn’t have run into just one, or at the very least reinforcements would have come for us by now. So either their communications or terrible or there aren’t that many here,” Tiriana explained. “Layla would probably have argued but I think Vivi would have sided with me, and even Layla wouldn’t have continued without the both of us.”
“I trust you the most, so yes,” Vivi affirmed. “But if you think it’s safe then I’ll follow your lead.”
“Safe is more than I can guarantee, but as long as we don’t fight in a room that large again, we’ll at least have an advantage. Those…leapers don’t seem to have any ranged attacks, and Layla can overpower them head to head.”
“Isn’t that assuming there are no other types, though?” Sera inquired further.
“We can’t make decisions based on information we don’t have,” Tiriana said with a shrug. “We’ll turn back if it gets dangerous, though, don’t worry.”
With that said, they chatted a bit about less important topics before going to bed. Tomorrow was sure to be eventful.
When the party encountered a second checkpoint, security even more solid than the first, they knew they were close to something critical. There were two ways they could go from there, but the decision to take the one with the most security on it was unanimous. Unlike the previous passages, the traps in this one were linked to scanners that would have disarmed them if presented with some form of identification…assuming they were powered, that is.
“I’ve never seen a setup like this before,” Rinnie admitted as she examined the first obstacle they encountered. Previous triggers had been unpredictable and hard to spot; this one was obvious, but also unavoidable. Tiriana had identified triggers for magical traps that were currently unpowered, but even with those out of the way, the group was still faced with a stretch of pressure plates with no gaps between them.
“Shouldn’t this be your specialty?” Layla spat, unamused by the wait as Rinnie tried to disable the trap. The construction seemed to be too solid to be bypassed, though, and she hadn’t even managed to pry any of the bricks loose to get at the mechanisms below.
“Don’t be rude,” Tiriana admonished with a sigh. “This sort of security is usually reserved for vaults and command centers. It’s meant to prevent anyone from entering unauthorized while still ensuring people that should be there can get in without someone letting them in from the inside. The traps we’ve seen before now are probably remotely activated instead.”
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“I don’t care what it’s for, I care about getting past it.”
“A water-walking miracle should get us through, I think. It’s an unconventional application but the effect is essentially to reduce surface pressure,” Vivi contributed. Tiriana looked to Rinnie first, but she just shrugged, so the elf gave Vivi a nod. “Alright, give me some time to prepare it. Blessing five people at once will take a longer prayer.”
Most of Vivi’s miracles had been performed with just a couple of verses in Sera’s experience, but this time she began to recite what seemed like an entire poem. The rest of the group sat around awkwardly waiting for Vivi to finish with nothing else to do. Eventually she finished, but a few more moments passed as they looked at each other, none of them quite willing to be the first to test it.
“You go first. Scouting is your role, is it not?” Layla said to Rinnie after a few seconds of silence.
“And you survived the last trap you walked into without a scratch. How about you do it?” the little archer retorted, pointing at Layla’s sturdy armor.
“You’re both ridiculous. Here, happy?” Tiriana said with a sigh, stepping onto the pressure plates with an air of calm. Sera wasn’t exactly surprised when nothing bad happened, but she was glad she hadn’t needed to test it, all the same. With a bit of grumbling the others started to move as well.
Soon the group came to a point in the hall where it cut sharply to the left. It wasn’t a complete ninety-degree turn; if she were forced to estimate, Sera would guess it was somewhere around forty-five to sixty degrees. If the layout of the fortress was mirrored, the hall on the other side would be doing the same, so they likely terminated in a room rather than connecting directly to form a loop.
“Wait here. I heard something,” Rinnie whispered after a few more minutes of walking. She disappeared into the darkness, one hand on the wall to guide her. Sera and the others waited in silence until she returned, a serious look on her face.
“Enemies ahead?” Layla asked bluntly when Rinnie was close enough to pick up her whisper. Rinnie nodded gravely.
“Three. There’s a chamber at the end of the hall with a trio of those giants sorting scrap in it. Metal, and some kind of glowing crystal fragments,” Rinnie reported. “I don’t think they noticed me. The door was only open a crack.”
“How big is the room?” Tiriana asked next.
“Pretty big, but nothing compared to that cistern. We can probably lure them into the hall safely, though, since the traps stop a bit before the door.”
“Assuming they’re dumb enough to follow us out, anyway. Hmm…I think I should go in first. I can hit them with something powerful, but I’ll need to take precautions or I’ll blow out all of our eardrums.” Tiriana seemed to be preparing her spells already when she finished speaking, confident no one would object. She wasn’t wrong, although it was likely not because the others simply had that much confidence in her abilities.
“Feel free,” Layla huffed. “It is not as if their capabilities will improve if you fail.”
“Make sure to pull back and let the big lug take the hits if you botch it,” Rinnie responded in turn.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, you two,” the elven mage shot back sarcastically before going ahead. The other followed behind at a short distance and waited for Tiriana to launch her surprise attack. She stopped before the door, and paused, and then all sound from her direction cut off entirely and the light from Vivi’s luminary seemed to dim starting a few feet from the elf.
When she was ready, Tiriana threw open the door and cast one arm forward- at which point Zeus himself seemed to descend upon the room ahead. No one had any doubt exactly why she had needed them to stay back. Even through her veil of shadow, Tiriana’s lightning blast was nearly blinding, and although the sound was heavily muted, it was still audible. Such a massive burst of power didn’t come without a toll, however, as the elf was left panting by the exertion.
Sera and the others came up behind her fully expecting that attack to have annihilated their opponents, but Tiriana never took her eyes off of the room ahead, waiting for the smoke to clear. She no longer had the energy to clear it out magically without it being wasteful, so it was several long moments before the air was clear enough to see.
“Impossible,” was the first word from her mouth. One of the giants in the room beyond, similar in appearance to the one they fought the day before, lay smoking on the ground, immobile. The other two, thicker and more heavily armored, though, were not only intact but utterly undamaged. Rinnie loosed an arrow the instant they came into sight, and although her target failed to catch the arrow, it simply bounced off its armor instead.
“That arrow had so much mana in it that it could have put a hole in Aisinct,” she commented bitterly.
“The fact you won’t stop bringing that up is exactly why he hates you,” Tiriana told the scout before bringing both her hands up at the same time as their two enemies, projecting a barrier just before a hail of bullets came their way. They bounced harmlessly off Tiriana’s wall of force, but she looked strained, unlike the last time Sera saw her fend off bullets. “I think those two are interfering with mana somehow. Their bullets are draining my barrier.”
“So you mean to say you are useless in this fight,” Layla accused as she stepped forward, observing the bullets coming their way from the edge of Tiriana’s defensive screen.
“Of course not! They can only disrupt spells held together with mana, so if I throw a physical object at them it’ll hurt the same! But it would be nice if you’d stop looking and help so I can cast something else!”
With a harrumph, the armored woman stepped out of cover, and to Sera’s amazement, her armor survived the incoming hail of projectiles none the worse for wear. She merely stood there while bullets challenged her plate mail and lost. After a moment of that, she unslung her poleax and started to march forward as the giants shifted their aim to her. Their aim was remarkably accurate, with few if any of the rounds missing their target, granting Tiriana a reprieve.
A flash from behind heralded the complete of a miracle by Vivi, who stepped up and patted Tiriana on the back.
“I temporarily consecrated the doorway as a temple door. We should be safe for the moment, so don’t worry about us and do your thing.”
“Thanks. Hope they enjoyed that freebie because it’s the only one they’re getting.”