“No... I remember it quite firmly” Rum responded Rulli. “You never actually tried to pull at the door with the handle down, not when we were here. You only ever pushed. Except for when you got your axe stuck. But then you didn’t also move the handle down when you failed dislodging.” He confidently and matter-of-factly stroked his beard at the dwarf, who perhaps, if he hadn’t been so upset, would’ve matched the stroking with his own long beard.

“Your memory is unreliable” Rulli retorted with a sour face. “Also, the door was definitely locked the last time we were here!” He raised his axe like as if it was a finger, pointing out his unstubstantiated claim with gestures. “Push, pull, doesn’t matter, we wouldn’t have gotten through without breaking it either way.”

“Oookay” Rum let go of his beard, shrugged his shoulders, and gave up the argument.

They were walking down the tunnel past the opened door, which surprisingly had held no skeletons on the other side. In front of them and in sight down the tunnel was the split they all knew so well, except for Amez. The tunnel they’d visited before opened up to them on the left, bringing back memories of a long and hard-fought battle, and how close they’d all come to death. On the right, meanwhile, the thick square-shaped metallic door waited patiently for them. They stopped a few meters from the big block of metal, which on closer inspection appeared to Rum like mildly rusted steel.

“Sooo... should we try the handle?” The wizard suggested.

Rulli turned to give him a deadpan stare void of bemusement.

“It would be beyond luck” Darmon responded, “if the arrogance of Jorteg was such that he did not care to lock his vault.”

“Beyond luck” Elrith started to clarify, “or it’s intentionally trapped for anyone careless enough to try opening it.”

“Hmm” Darmon thought under his helmet. “If it’s not trapped and we can just open it, then we could save your magic, Elrith? For sometime we’ll really need it. It would be good to have that ace up our sleeve.”

“And if it is trapped, then I’ll have one less team member to share my loot with” Elrith smiled back at the helmet.

“Point taken” the helmet nodded.

Nobody moved.

“So are we blasting it or what are we doing?” Amez asked.

“Well” Elrith said, “it’s not like I’m not open to other ideas. Darmon has a point, if a little flawed, about saving it for later.”

Nobody offered up any ideas.

“Okay” Elrith looked about, before lifting her big Martin off her shoulder, “I suppose blasting it is.” She placed the crossbow in front of her, standing on the ground. “Anyone who doesn’t want to experience fast-flying pieces of metal, or want rocks hitting their faces – please step away.” She took a bolt from a quiver at her belt, and bent over to load Martin as everyone else started steping away and forming a half-circle behind her. All done, she lifted Martin up, putting it against her shoulder, before aiming the big boy right at the door. A hum! was briefly heard behind The Heart-Piercer, before blue magical colors spewed forth from the tattoo hidden under her clothing. The colors flickered there violently at her back for a moment, before seemingly jumping up and over the human’s shoulders, racing across her arms and over the crossbow, arriving at the bolt with speed. There, at the tip of it, in the fabric of light, it formered into an extended vibrating tip of dangerous blue magic.

Clasp!

A WOOOSH! followed in an instant, and then the bolt connected with the metal.

BOOOM!

A cloud of earthen dust spewed forth at them, and Elrith began an immediate coughing fit. A wind of dust passed her and fell upon the faces of the others as well, though it was not as overwhelming as to irritate their lungs. As the explosion settled down, a thin cloud of dust descended down upon everyone.

“Did we break it open?” Amez asked, as he attempted to wave away the cloud of dust with his hand.

After a little while, the air started to clear and Elrith managed to stop coughing so much.

“Seems like it” Rulli answered, as the dwarf took one careful forward step to look a bit closer.

With the air clearing a little more, it became apparent to everyone that now, in front of them, there was a big new soot-covered hole going through the steel door. But, more importantly, the door appeared ever so slightly to have opened, as if whatever closing mechanism and possibly locking mechanism had been in place there had cracked during the explosion.

“Amez” Rulli said without looking at the man, “here’s one use for your halberd.” He pointed with his battleaxe. “Try and see if you can hook the door with your axeblade, and drag it open from a distance.”

Amez looked over at Rum. His big brother shrugged at him, not knowing how to comment. With some silent hesitation, the younger brother stepped forward and held out the halberd. At first, he ledged the axeblade inside the hole, and pulled at the halberd to open the door to a crack. Then, as the initial opening was accomplished, he put his halberd’s end inside the crack and widened it, before a proper grip of his halberd’s axeblade pulled the door wide and fully open.

At the other side was a large cavernous room, with a downwards stone stairway right in front of them, that appeared to hug the rocky walls at their side. There were no enemies in sight, and no treasure.

Rulli stared for a moment, then he turned to look at Darmon. “Care to go first?”

Darmon sighed inside his helmet. “Suppose that’s my job” he let out quietly, before clanking his metallic boots across the tunnel to enter onto a small platform from which the stone stairway went down. As Rum followed through the door, he could see that the stairway was in total a series of 4 connected stairways with 3 landings. The stairs started with a 90 degrees turn to the right, and then followed with 3 stairways joined together by 180 degree turns across landings, creating a downwards vertical zigzaging path. At the final landing, the stairs took a 90 degrees turn to the right again, putting the walker straight onto the rough carved floor of a mountain’s interior, and facing forward into the center of the room.

“Maybe the stairs are trapped instead?” Rulli commented, as he looked down from the platform’s height.

“There’s no treasure inside this room, that’s for sure” Elrith looked around with her own eyes.

At the bottom of the room was nothing but dark, unlit ground. Not even a barrel, or crate, or tiniest of chests was to be seen, and no ornamentations either to indicate that the room served any other purpose besides being spacious for its own sake. Nothing at all was revealed as far as their torchlights could reach, and their torchlight did cover the length of the room, although something small or particularly dark could be hiding at the shadowy ends of their light’s radius. However, this seemed unlikely. The only thing of note down there was what appeared to be another tunnel at the room’s end.

“I suppose the treasure could be hidden further inside” Rulli shrugged.

“Hmm” Darmon produced, thinking and evaluating their situation internally.

“While that would explain” Gilda began, “why they’d put such a tough door here, I don’t understand the practical purposes of this room. Why waste efforts making such a big room, only for it to contain nothing?”

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“Decoy?” Rum offered with raised eyebrows and a hand on his beard.

“You think they wasted all this time just to waste somebody else’s?” Rulli replied.

Rum shrugged. “Just an idea.”

Amez for his part was just staring down and around, his inexperience making him cautious and reluctant to suggest anything or take any initiative.

“I say we just walk down and over to that tunnel” the dwarf gestured with his free hand, “and see what lies through it.”

Nobody objected, but also everyone felt kind of uneasy. For a few seconds, people bit their lips, shuffled their feet, and glanced around. Then Rulli made a point to walk over to the first stairstep, and raise an eyebrow along with his hand which pointed down. Finally, coming out of her own unease and finding her resolve, Elrith nodded firmly, and stepped over with the dwarf. Gilda soon followed her husband, and Darmon understood that the group had made its decision. The tank calmly and wordlessly walked over to Rulli and started down the steps.

They resumed their column, Rum trailing them all at the back.

Clank... clank... clank... Darmon’s boots echoed slowly into the room as they descended. Between the sounds of his boots, which were uncomfortably loud in the silence, there were but the background sounds of the party’s varied breathing. Some air being pulled in nervously, others boredly, most mixedly.

At the next-to-last landing, they turned and walked down the next-to-last set of stairs with another set of clank... clank... clank... and then Darmon stepped out upon the last landing. From there, he took one more step, and another step, and then –

ZAP!-ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

Darmon lit up like a lightshow of white and blue lights. With an initial jolt of electrical energy, his body subsequently froze into place, as a stream of arcing lightning dancing around his metallic form and a weak “uuueeeeeh!” escaped his eye-slits.

For a second, everyone jumped at the sudden rupture of magic, but then everyone just stood there, petrified by the sight. With 2 passing, Rulli finally came out of his own stupor, and glanced down at the floor on which Darmon was standing. Down there was the distinctive shapes of runes, etched into the stone, and shining bright in the same blue and white lights.

“He’s stepped on a lightning enchantment!” Rulli exclaimed. “We don’t have much time. I’ll try and shove him off the runes!” Without hesitation, the dwarf gave his battleaxe over to Gilda, before gauged the distance and the angles of the stairs. After a second’s judgement, the dwarf sprinted 2 steps and then leapt forward, his right foot flying first, and aimed squarely at Darmon’s back. The foot impacted the metallic suit, and Darmon fell forward, while Rulli fell back and hard onto the stone landing. Luckily for Rulli, he did not land within the area of the runes, and a surge of backpain came upon the dwarf, he was not permanently injured from the fall. Unluckily for both of them though, he accomplished only in tipping Darmon over and sending the human down against the stone stairs in front, where the man landed hard, while his feet stubbornly continued to stay within the runic circle. Given the angle and the force of the blow, Rum judged that there was no way Darmon’s feet shouldn’t have shot forward together with the rest of the armored man’s body, and out of the circle’s area. The spell must be physically binding his feet to the ground!

Rum heard Elrith start to breath fast, and faster, and then she was hyperventilating. She turned around, a sudden worried and completely terrified expression on her face. “Somebody do something” she pleaded. And then her face scrumped up into a cry of despair. “NOW!” she pleaded. She pointed a finger at Rum. “Wizard! DO SOMETHING! FIX THIS!” Tears began to form, as she turned around to look at her friend, slowly dying before her eyes and there was nothing, absolutely nothing, she could do about it. “DO SOMETHIIING!!!” she screamed to everyone present.

Rum’s mind, alert and challenged to the core, raced with potential possibilities.

Elrith took a moment to catch her breath. She gulped, the emotional trauma occuring before her strangling her throat. She shook, all over her body, as if her empathy mirrored the agonized dying of Darmon.

Rulli was trying to get back up, and Gilda, who threw both battleaxe and her torch aside, came to help him. The dwarf man was in no shape to do anything though, having damaged himself for the time being with his crash against the stone floor.

Amez looked at Rum’s face. The little brother knew nothing of what to do, and was only hoping that behind Rum’s empty face, some kind of answer was starting to come together.

As the seconds ticked by, Elrith turned again to look at Rum, shoving an accusing finger into his face. “THIS IS WHAT WE HIRED YOU TO FIX! THIS IS THE MAGIC WE HIRED YOU TO PREVENT!” she gulped again, emotion overflowing. “DO SOMETHING!” she screamed.

Rum’s mind stopped. Time was out. He had the beginnings of a plan, or the rough sketches of one. Now, as he took a first step forward, he only hoped that his instincts would follow him and let him complete what he was trying to do, for he’d have no time to practice. A single stair step ahead of Elrith, and he turned around to the crying and despairing party leader and took her hand firmly. “Come!” he ordered. And Elrith, unable to process any other thoughts, simply obeyed the instruction.

Holding the human woman’s hand, Rum went down to the shaking prone upper body of Darmon. He knelt in the middle of the last set of stairs, and reached out with a hand just above the back of Darmon’s armor. “Whatever happens” Rum said without looking Elrith, “trust me, and endure.”

The Heart-Piercerh wasn’t sure if the wizard was talking to her or to Darmon, but she was soon to find out. Rum closed his eyes and transcended over into the ethereal world, to the world of magic and mana. He felt at the violent currents of magic flooding and moving at speeds through Darmon’s shape.

Magic is structured mana. It is spent mana. In traditional theory, it is unusable mana. Mana that has already taken form cannot take another. However, I must add an important nuiance to this picture. Yes, magic as structured mana cannot easily be turned into other magic. Once structured, it cannot easily be restructured. But that doesn’t mean it cannot be affected by tearing, by stretching, by erosion, by attempts to break and undo structure.

With these thoughts in mind, Rum willed his own mana to grow a sort of network, a strong and thick highway or fastlane, an artery of mana, all the way from his hand hovering over Darmon, to his hand holding Elrith. And then, delving inside and into Elrith’s ethereal self, Rum reached deep to twist and to turn her mana, to nourish fast the growth of one more network, a mana artery, across from her hand, over and into her enchantment.

Adequately satisfied with his work, Rum turned back to Darmon’s ethereal being, and sought finally to attach his transbody artery of mana to the currents there within. As the connection happened spontaneously grew out on Rum’s insistence, Rum mentally prepared for the sudden surge that was to come. And, as 2 seconds ticked by, there it came. Like a bursted dam, the flood rushed forward and into his hand, through and across his body, from left arm to the right.

Elrith was nowhere as mentally prepared.

“HUH!” she gasped, her teary eyes widening to the fullest in surprise. To the woman, it was as if a flood of something absolutely horrible entered her body and flowed through her to gods-knows-where. Elrith’s body shook, and she was barely able to keep herself steady there in her own kneeled position as she lost most control of herself. This time however, the lack of control didn’t come from some overwhelming fear, but from the sheer torrent of magic, the onslaught of electrical pulses and sensory blasting from every nerve on her skin along her arm, and over to her torso, and even inside her chest were it burned. Her whole chest felt so warm that calling it uncomfortable would be an understatement, instead it was like something had set her heart, her lungs, and everything else there inside on burning fire. “Uuuuuh” she let out in a faint drained voice, like the final noise of a dying animal.

It lasted for maybe 15 seconds. Then, like a shock of release, like a ton of weight suddenly lifted from her very being, it was no more. Rum, gently, let go of her hand. Elrith had to remind herself that she had legs and that she preferred to sit or stand on them rather than to fall over in overstimulated exhaustion. Next to the 2, Darmon, no longer affected by magic, breathed louder than both of them combined. A deep heaving breath trying to escape through the helmet and letting them know that he was indeed alive. Rum leaned over and slid off Darmon’s helmet to let the fried human breath more easily.

“Rum” Amez sounded behind them. Rum turned to look up at his little brother. “Did you just do what I think you did?” he stared, terrified and wide-eyed at Rum.

“Yes” Rum said, acknowledging his little brother’s terror with tired eyes.

Managing to sit down with some difficulty, and feeling awfully hot around a particular spot in her back, Elrith noticed Rum’s conversation with Amez. She glanced up at Amez, who looked down at her in utter horror, before the young man took one cautious step back. A few breaths in, and she managed to speak. “Why do you look so worried? We saved him, didn’t we?”

“It’s you I’m worried about” Amez responded.

“Me?” she raised an eyebrow. “What about me?” She stared up at him, dumbfounded, and suddenly feeling worry again. When he didn’t immediately respond, she looked at Rum. Rum didn’t look so worried, as much as just tired, and on the verge of sighing. “What’s wrong with me?” she interrogated.

“Eeeeh” Rum began, before choosing not to look her directly in the eye. “There’s not any easy way to say this, but” he breathed out, “as a consequence of diverting all of this excess mana into you, which by the way, didn’t just include the magic of the runic spell, but also some of my own mana pool, and some of your own mana pool, and some of Darmon’s, which all was inevitable given the hastened circumstances – because of that, you currently have a violently unstable concoction of excess mana inside your enchantment, and there’s a very high likelihood you will, any minute now, spontanously detonate.”