Psycho reached the next tower without incident and found the occupant at the top nailed to the post, the same as Three. This arrow had taken the shaman through the neck, and his limp chin rested on the bone shaft. Psycho tried not to return the dead man’s gaze and instead looked over at position five. The archer caught the last few seconds of his inspection routine, and then the shaman was back against his post.
The elf had plenty of time and crept toward his victim with another arrow ready. He set the mundane projectile on the ground, gripped the level 15 arrow shaft with both hands and pulled. Since this shot hadn’t been slowed by passing through the front and back of the skull, it had penetrated deeper into the stone pillar. Psycho pulled with all his might, his feet bracing against the parapet on either side of the shaman.
With his attention so focused on a high-level item buried deep into the stone of the fortress, when the fire alarm went off, pulsing mana through the entire complex, Psycho felt it and tugged even harder, finally freeing the arrow and flying back toward the hole in the floor. Confusion flooded through him about what the alarm might be for, and he worried the women might be in trouble. The dead shaman had flopped down on top of him, and he hurriedly propped him back up against the pillar. He grabbed for the other arrow and looked toward Five. The shaman was frantically searching the skies, and Psycho watched as a blue shimmer covered the magic user.
A fire protection spell.
Psycho knew what that meant. They thought they were under attack by a dragon. Why would they think that?
Red!
Draya must have cast her spell to kill the prisoners, and the fortress was warded against it. Jace hadn’t said anything about that. Psycho guessed he probably didn’t know. He saw through the corner of his eye that Five was looking his way, but he didn’t care. The element of surprise was gone. Psycho let the dead shaman fall back to the stone as he fled down the stairs, taking the steps three at a time.
When he hit bottom, his elemental bow was out and ready. He could still feel the pulsing of the alarm through the walls, and he raced back to the exit point. He dropped into the shadows and began to wait for the women to return. Would they sense the alarm the same as he did? Would they figure out what it meant?
The alert hunter felt the vibrations in the floor a few moments before a troll came sprinting toward him. Psycho was confident in his hidden position, and as a second troll rounded the corner in front of him, 50 feet behind its friend, Psycho was glad he hadn’t fired at the first one as it would have made him visible to the other one. The lead beast ran by just as the magical lights came on. The archer was visible after the troll had passed, and the second one reared up in alarm. Psycho didn’t allow him to call out and sent a fire arrow through his eye from only thirty feet.
The Point-Blank shot had so many criticals it nearly killed the monster outright, but Psycho had used his Death Shot ability, so it didn’t matter. The beast fell silently to the ground, a charred hole in its face. The archer spun and drew another arrow, knowing that if the first troll had stopped at the sound, Psycho wouldn’t have the full round he needed to make a kill shot before the beast clobbered him with a club. But the other troll was already running around the distant corner, its summoning too important to distract it.
Psycho released a sigh but realized the implication. If the fortress enforcers were running through the halls, the enemies wouldn’t take long to find the women. The elf started after the troll but found after two turns that it was not heading directly toward the hostages but was moving down an adjacent corridor. Psycho decided to stick with the original plan and followed Jace’s directions to the pit. They had a job to complete, and he wanted to ensure that was done first.
The large room was easy to find, and Psycho wasn’t surprised to find another dead troll. The stab wound looked like something Esther would do. He peered down into the pit and saw a bloody mess and two cats patrolling the area. If a fireball had been successfully cast against the prisoners below, he wouldn’t have expected blood, and the cats should be dead too.
Psycho pulled one of the special arrows Jace had taken from the archer’s old tower, charged it with an acid explosion, and fired into the middle of the floor 200 feet below. The shot was a greenish blur, but as it passed halfway, it shimmered through a field of energy and ricocheted harmlessly off the stone floor.
“Hold.”
Psycho heard the tiny voice from one of the side passages out of the room and turned toward it with another arrow pulled. He didn’t see anyone but waited patiently.
“Something just triggered my spell.”
The elf was willing to bet it was a gnome and was proven right when the diminutive character and a much taller storm shaman entered the room. Psycho guessed they had just been here, and the gnome had cast a protection spell. The archer had the drop on them, and at 75 feet, he had his choice of whom he wanted to take out. It had to be the shaman. Psycho had gotten a free pass on magical saving throws in the past, but that was over now, and his Magic Defense wasn’t great. He would likely critically fail any spell; a lightning strike might kill him.
Psycho fired as both NPCs prepared spells. The shaman died before he could get his off, but Pebbles was successful. The archer stood two feet from the edge of the pit, and the stone around him turned to powder and flowed like water over the edge before him. The elf spent a frantic couple of seconds backpedaling against the falling sand, but it was a fruitless effort. His 24 Dexterity kept him from instantly falling, but he couldn’t counter the current and decided to embrace it.
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Psycho took two quick steps with the flow and found the rigid rim of the pit under the moving sand. He pushed off with all his might, leaping as high as he could out over the hole. He stored his bow, used both hands to reach out, and just grabbed the edge of the suspended platform over the center of the pit.
Pebbles cursed and ran through his list of spells to see what he could do, but with his enemy suspended from a wooden structure, the stone enchanter had nothing that would be effective. Instead, as Psycho struggled to hoist himself onto the platform, the gnome moved to the crank and pully system. It had a spring-loaded ratchet to prevent the elevator from falling on its own, and Pebbles pulled back on the lever with all his might. Psycho’s weight was just enough to counter the tension in the line, and as he got to his knees and started to pull his weapons back out, he lurched down and almost lost his balance again.
The archer steadied himself, and as he descended quickly passed the pit’s edge, he had to stand to maintain sight of the short gnome and let fly just as the character disappeared from view. His confirmation that he had hit him was that the elevator stopped suddenly. The gnome had released the lever. Psycho hadn’t had a full round to activate his Death Shot, but at 50 feet, the arrow had enough damage to easily exceed half the gnome’s HP, and he was likely stunned or worse. Psycho guessed the little guy had exceptional Magic Defense and might not have failed the Death Save by 50, which would be required for him to enter a death spiral, so the elf had to get off this platform before the gnome woke up.
The elevator had fallen 15 feet below the hole’s edge. Psycho got the contraption swinging, and at the peak of its motion, that distance was reduced to 10 feet. A 3-foot railing surrounded the platform, and Psycho prepared to step onto it and jump at just the right moment, knowing that the pendulum wouldn’t give him much resistance when he pushed off. When the platform struck the hole’s perimeter, he knew he was getting all the lift he could, and when it swung back again to the gnome’s side, he stepped onto the railing and jumped for the edge.
As expected, the wooden structure shot backward from the force of the leap, but the tall elf didn’t need much help. His fingers found purchase on the edge, and he heaved his body to the floor around the pit. Pebbles was just coming to, but before the gnome could initiate another spell, Psycho drew his katana and ended him.
The elf stood still for a while, catching his breath and trying to figure out what to do. Wards protected the prisoners below. Psycho took the time to fire another acid arrow into the pit to see if the spell ended with the death of the gnome, but the arrow’s magic fizzled into nothing. Jace or Draya could dispel the ward, but he couldn’t. Jace was supposed to be a distraction while they rescued the prisoners, but since the alarm had been triggered, their “hosts” had likely responded with hostility toward Jace’s presence. Also, Draya and Esther were probably in trouble too.
Psycho sprinted out of the room and returned to the rendezvous spot, but no one was there. He had some tracking ability in the forest but could not tell where people had gone over cold stone. Still, Jace had prepared them with a basic understanding of the layout of the fortress, so he headed inward toward where he assumed any prisoners would be taken. After two minutes of travel, the magical lights expired, and while the halls were still dimly lit, there were shadows again, and he hid in them.
He found no other enemies in the halls. So far, he had killed everyone who had seen him, so if they had captured Esther and Draya, they might assume no one else was there. Once Psycho got to the center of the fortress, he drew up suddenly as he rounded a corner and saw two mountain trolls standing guard. He was hidden but could see the large room before him was flooded with light, and while it wasn’t magical, the trolls would get a bonus to see him. Looking closer at the monsters, their eyes glowed with a strange tint, and he guessed they were enchanted lookouts.
They flanked a doorway covered with a heavy red curtain. It wasn’t the type of barrier one would expect for a prison cell, but the trolls wouldn’t be left here unless they were protecting something valuable. Either way, Psycho didn’t feel comfortable trying to sneak past them. If he were discovered, the trolls would catch him Flat-Footed, and the first round of combat would not be pleasant for him.
Instead, he pulled his elemental bow again and aimed. Since he was in the shadows, just outside the room, the first troll didn’t have a prayer, and the arrow took him through the temple. Psycho needed to make it a flaming shot to kill the creature, and it dropped like a tree. The other guard reacted predictably and turned toward the archer. Attacking from the shadows naturally made Psycho visible, and the troll had no problem finding him. It sprinted toward the archer, its long legs eating up the distance in no time. Psycho calmly pulled another arrow, waited the full round to activate his Death Shot ability, and let fly when the charging monster was less than 20 feet away.
The ferocious troll suddenly went limp as the flaming arrow cleaved its skull between the eyes. Psycho side-stepped after the shot, allowing the dead creature to continue into the hall, flop down onto the stone, and slide forward 30 feet before its momentum was spent.
“Good thing there wasn’t three of them,” the elf muttered, pulling another arrow and creeping carefully into the large room. No one else was there, and he guessed the exit on the far side that angled down into the center of the fortress was where he needed to go. Before following that path, the curious elf needed to check behind the curtain.
With his arrow knocked and ready, Psycho used the projectile’s tip to pull the center of the overlapping sheets apart and peek inside. Once he had a clear view, he almost cried out in fear, letting his arrow go instinctively. A massive silver giant stood just inside the room, staring at the curtains. The shot bounced off the guard harmlessly, and its huge fists raised above its head to smash the elven intruder.
“Adam, no!” a call came from inside the room, but the golem had already magically recognized Psycho as a party member and held his attack in check.
The archer relaxed when he realized who it was and stepped fully inside the room and around the adamantium golem. The 8-foot-tall statue didn’t turn but continued to guard the entrance. “What are you doing in here?” Psycho’s voice cracked more than he was comfortable with.
Gromphy was collecting the last rubies from a bin and dumping them in his chest. He looked around at the empty room. “Tis not obvious?”
“You think now is the time to be looting the enemy? As far as I know, all of our other party members are being held prisoner, and we are no closer to finishing our mission.”
The goblin shrugged. “Thou art not a prisoner. I canst not free them by mine own self. What else shouldst I be doing but taking advantage of the situation?” He closed the lid to the chest and stored it in his inventory. After he said the command words, Adam shrunk to a few inches in height, and the crafter stored the valuable item in a pouch on his belt. He walked up to the archer and pointed dramatically toward the curtains. “Anon, stalwart elf, leadeth us on to victory against our impervious foes. We shalt doth our leader proud.”
Psycho rolled his eyes and led the goblin out of the treasure room toward the hall that angled deeper into the fortress.