The end of the crypt proved to be more than just a dead-end – it was an obnoxious puzzle.
The wall before them was a mural – one that displayed four different levers in two adjacent rooms being manipulated by mummified corpses.
“Ugh,” Tara groaned. “I hate these things.”
Fauna gasped. “But Tara, they aren’t as bad as something like a Horde challenge!”
“Yuh, and that’s the problem. It’s gotta be the most boring ‘puzzle’ ever conceived.”
“What’s it all about?” Ethan asked, his eyes puzzling over the dusty wall-mural.
“Nothing to worry about,” Klax assured him. “Four levers must simply be tripped at the same time.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it,” Tara grumbled, her tail drooping low while Fauna’s ears perked up.
“I’ll go with Mr Eth-I mean-the Archon!”
The hybrids, including Ethan, stared at her.
“T-that is…” she stumbled. “We’ve got to split up, right?”
“That is the particular nuisance of this kind of puzzle,” Klax agreed. “Though I’m almost certain with the sheer size of Ethan he could trip two at the same ti-“
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Fauna interrupted vehemently. “Even if he could, there may be deadly traps that the levers activate!”
Klax was about to argue further until Tara grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and pulled him towards the now open doors on the left hand side of the crypt mural.
“Ah, c’mon, Klaxy,” she said. “Lets allow our bodacious bunnygirl her dream of being alone with Mr Ethan.”
“T-that’s not-!” Fauna stammered as Tara shot her a mischievous smile.
Ethan merely laughed at the whole spectacle. “Alright. Guess we’ll take the left.”
The chamber they entered was another one filled with open sarcophagi and chests that had been recently looted. It was weird – the whole place had the vibe of an MMO Raid Dungeon that’d been recently plundered of its riches. Ethan and co. were basically the party who’d entered too late, and were presently in the unenviable position of having to wait for the new monsters to spawn.
A more pressing problem was that, even with five whole eyes at his disposal, Ethan couldn’t make out any levers in the room.
“A spell of concealment hangs over this place,” Fauna said as she rubbed her hands on the walls. “I can take care of it, but it might take a while.”
Ethan nodded. “You’re the boss, Ms Magic paws. Tell me what I gotta do to help and I’ll do it.”
The Hopla shook her head, her ears flapping up a storm of dust.
“No, no – you can relax, Ethan. I’ll start the incantation as soon as possible. But – well – if the spell goes haywire…”
“I’ll protect you,” Ethan finished in the face of the blushing girl. “Hey, don’t worry about it. Us hybrids gotta depend on each other, right?”
“R-right…” Fauna whispered.
For the next few minutes the Hopla glowed with indigo/violet energy, casting a spell of Divination that lit up the whole room in an otherworldly glow, throwing the shadows of the emptied sarcophagi across the barren walls. Ethan slumped down and inspected his gargantuan flesh-blades, wondering when the hell he’d get to cut something again.
And it was in that moment of relative quiet that he suddenly began hearing voices echoing from down the hall.
“You’ve been talking to him, haven’t you?”
He whipped his head round to see the closed door behind him and Fauna, and only when the voice continued did he realize who it was.
“C’mon, Klax. I ain’t not baby kitten.”
His senses began to pick up movement – perhaps the swift turning of a head and flaring of fangs.
“Alright, Tara. Yes. I told him everything.”
Ethan felt the hairs on the backs of his hind legs tingle with little goosebumps. It seemed his newly upgraded Appraisal ability didn’t just let him see through walls, but hear through them too…
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And he was currently eavesdropping on a very interesting conversation next door.
Ok – ethics time, he counseled himself. Peeping and eavesdropping are morally dubious activities. Only in the event that one must gather important wartime intelligence are such acts permissible! These are your friends, Ethan. Do you really wanna hear them argue?
“Everything? Including your lovey-dovey plan to save your damsel in distress?”
…then again, these are strange, morally grey times we live in.
And just like that, there goes another string from your moral bow…
“If that’s what you call it, so be it,” Klax replied. “But you know as well as I do, Tara, that Jun’Ei is the only one with a long-term plan for this little revolution we’re planning. Without her, we are blind.”
“Oh, pardon me. I forgot that wandering aimlessly through stuffy tombs gave us 80/80 vision.”
“If you have something to say, then say it.”
Ethan registered Klax’s anger. But, strangely, he never felt any sort of hatred emanate from Tara’s voice. Instead, it sounded like she was approaching the old wolfman with pity.
“Klax,” she said gently. “I know you don’t want to accept it, but –“
“She’s not dead.”
“Klax…”
“She’s not.”
Silence then – unbroken until Fauna’s breathing became heavier as her spell began to work on the room’s aura of concealment.
Then – a sudden change of tone:
"We’ve all lost people, Klax. But throwing the Archon and the team into some suicidal charge on nothing but a hunch ain’t the way to win this war.”
“It’s not ‘hunch’, Tara. I know she’s out there. And the Delves are how we find her. I’m sure of it.”
Ethan could sense the awkwardness between them – both Hybrids wanting, needing to say something while they both knew they couldn’t quite articulate the subject in any way that mattered.
“I made a promise to follow you into battle no matter what,” Tara finally replied. “I did that because you’re a fighter, man. You’re the best goddamn chance we have – hell, I thought you were the only chance we’d have until the Archon showed up. But you can’t give me shit for wanting to take the fight to the humans now while you’re moping over your lost love.”
“This isn’t about me!” Klax yelled back – in a manner that Ethan could scarcely even believe was his. “This is about all of us…her dream is the dream we’re all following. Don’t you remember, Tara?”
The Minxit sounded as though she was about to make a retort and thought better of it – the words dying in her throat before she formed them.
“Do you remember the last words she ever said to me?”
“…of course I do. You don’t have to-“
“She said, ‘take care of them, Klax.’ She said that because she believed in us, and I’m not about to leave her out there to die in some human castle, rotting away to nothing, while we’re out here living our lives.”
“Damnit, Klax, we all feel bad about losing her. Don’t you think – don’t you think we miss her, too? But she’s gone, man. Can’t you accept that?”
The way Klax replied was so quiet that Ethan would be forgiven for thinking the old wolf was dissolving plain out of existence itself with this final word:
“No.”
“-uh, Ethan?” a voice much closer suddenly perked up. “Are you ready?”
The Hopla had revealed the location of the levers and Ethan was surprised to find that he’d almost entirely forgotten why they were even here in the first place.
“Uh, yeah!” he stuttered, much to Fauna’s conclusion. “Let’s get it done.”
Fauna sent a little shockwave through the ground to alert their companions as they then pulled their own levers, saying nothing more, while Ethan’s mind became more troubled than it had been by the monsters they’d slain so far.
When the met up outside their respective rooms the atmosphere was immediately tense. The mural ‘dead-end’ began to creak open, shuddering through ancient dust to reveal a narrow corridor of red sandstone that looked into nothing but a void of nothingness.
“Um…did anything happen on your end?”
The question was Fauna’s, since no one was apparently interested in speaking up.
“…nothing, Faun,” Klax answered. “Let’s just keep moving forward.”
Ethan eyed them both as they walked past him, Tara putting on a show of patting Faun on her back and mumbling about what she and Ethan got up to alone – but it was clear the teasing was nothing but an act.
I wonder…Ethan thought. Is Tara right? Is the old wolf just looking to remove the guilt on his head at leaving his old ‘love’ behind during their last big batte? Would we really be better just striking against the Greycloaks now?
Remembering the face of the young boy in the forest, Ethan couldn’t be sure of the right answer even now. All he knew from Klax was that there was a reason beyond simply attaining power that they had to go through these Delves. And the reason had to do with this missing Prophetess…
Reality suddenly had bigger concerns – from behind them, far back along the crypt’s entrance, Ethan heard a sound that couldn’t be mistaken for anything else:
Skittering.
The tiny patter of insect limbs on stone, and the snapping of mandibles that began to surge in number, until they became a single mass of chittering death.
He wasn’t the only one that noticed. The hairs of Tara’s back leaped as her feet felt the trembling in the stones beneath them.
And, chancing a look over his shoulder, Ethan saw what was storming down the corridor towards them:
Enemies Identified:
[Scarab Congregation: Level 40]
HP: 500
It was a black mass of beetles that had merged into one – a wave of undulating darkness charging towards them. And already their chittering was becoming a war cry – that of an entire ecosystem of insects throwing themselves against the intruders, consuming everything in their path.
“Faun?” Ethan asked. “Remember that little thing you mentioned about traps?”
Fauna gulped as she felt Tara tense beside her. “Y-yeah…”
“Except this ain’t a trap I’m disarming,” Tara murmured. “There’s only one way we’re getting outta this one.”
Ethan didn’t need to hear her shout the word. Before the first letter had left her lips, he was barreling down the sandstone hall with his sprinting comrades.
“RUN!”
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image [https://img.wattpad.com/bf8d648f632530683afd9d9fc0896fb4f98e6b75/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f616c5a5a6c5566445178635a6b673d3d2d313437373930373731322e3138303031373438366436386236313832373434343830393239322e706e67]