We stood there, on the other side of the door for several moments. It was like we had stepped through to another world. Gone was the jagged stone tunnels, with broken bits of bone and small rocks scattered everywhere. We stood in what looked to be a grand entry hall. Though it was crumbling due to its possible ancient origins, the highly detailed carvings that remained were still beautiful.
Examining the statues more closely they appeared to be carved from marble by a master stonemason. Several of the statues were damaged and crumbling, some seem to have been moved or knocked off their pedestals. Perhaps when the wizards moved the dungeon around they caused earthquakes, or it could have been a fierce battle where the combatants crashed into them. However it happened the stone they were carved from should make for excellent rune potency. I greedily scooped up several sling sized stones and a few palm sized ones before noticing that they already had runes on them.
Launching myself to the side I tackled Iva just as she was reaching out to touch one of the beautiful statues. Quickly drawing her knife upon impact she slashed my chest as we fell, stopping once she realized that it was me who had attacked. Pulling out a cleanish piece of cloth from her sack she began to press it to the wound while glaring at me angrily.
“What do you think you're doing?” she barked, the rag in her hands quickly turning crimson.
“Scribed statues” I said wincing in pain as I attempted to sit up.
Looking at the proffered chunk of marble in my hand she relaxed after seeing several dark black lines carved into what looks like the cheek of a statue.
“I'm sorry” she said finally, “Remember that you shouldn’t attack me in the future, were trained to react before our minds realize what’s happening.”
“It's ok, I'll live.” I said to reassure her that I wasn't angry. “It's not that deep, I'm just glad you didn't have it pointed straight at me or I’d be a goner now.”
Digging thru my sack I got out my scribe, journal, and the large chunk of cave worm tooth. Pulling the steel dagger from her belt I attempted to break off a shard along a large crack without success. She took both the blade and tooth from me after she watched me struggle for a moment. She worked the blade into the crack and eventually broke the piece off. Sheathing the knife she handed me the small fragment which I quickly began scribing on after finding the page with the healing rune on it.
“This should be potent enough for multiple uses if I can figure out how to make it stop when the injury is healed. I think I can set it to stop once the injury it's pressed into is repaired. It would only work for smaller surface wounds but considering the place were in, I'm sure we’ll get plenty of use out of it.” I said explaining what I was doing.
The lecture helped keep my mind off the itching burn in my chest that was growing more and more painful as I worked, I even had to ask Iva to flip the pages in my journal at one point to avoid getting blood all over it. I made the carving take as long as the pain allowed without making mistakes. I even cussed at Iva a few times while gesturing angrily though that caused the pain to flare more each time.
It was all for show of course, I was still trying to ensure that Master Bertol didn't get in trouble for giving me this journal. I’ve been taking the time to study my journal every night before we sleep, practicing the new runes I expected we would need so when the time came I would have an excuse for flipping to a page and copying the runes found there.
Once done I quickly pressed the scribed surface into the bloody gash on my chest which triggered the rune. Immediately I felt the pain ease but the burning, itching sensation increased. It felt like an army of flaming ants were crawling across my chest biting me as they went. Seconds later the wound had completely sealed up, all that remained of the wound was a thin scar under the smears of blood. The tooth chunk I had scribed remained in tact still in the palm of my hand.
With an audible sigh of relief, both Iva and I relaxed visibly. I fished out a piece of the Hair Iva had been braiding into smaller cord in the evenings while I studied and made a bracelet, wrapping the tooth piece into it with the runes showing so that I could heal either of us at a moment’s notice. With our new healing charm out of the way we picked ourselves up off the ground and walked to the door avoiding the statues as if a single touch would cause instant death.
“Thank you” Iva said quietly after several moments of silence had passed while we studied the door. “If you hadn't stopped me I would have set off whatever trap those statues held and we would probably both be dead by now.”
Stopping my inspection I turned to her. “It's ok, it ended better than it could have. Though I do have one question for you. How come you can hurt me even while I'm wearing the master bracelet? I thought you couldn't hurt your master when you wear that collar.”
It took her a moment to reply but eventually she answered. “You haven't ordered me not to.” she said, a bit of wariness mixed with a tinge of fear in her voice. “Direct orders are permanent until rescinded or a new master takes the bracelet. If you ordered me to never hurt you I couldn’t even involuntarily injure you, the magic would prevent it.”
“I order you to never hurt me,” I said in a loud clear voice, the look of betrayal and fear plainly visible on her face. “Unless” I continued a moment later with a pause for the dramatic, “It is necessary to save my life or if you feel I'm being an ass and deserve it.” I finished with one of those gotcha grins on my face.
Reaching out and placing a finger under her chin I pushed up gently, closing her open mouth. Her look of fear had changed to one of shock. She clearly hadn't expected me to allow her to retaliate if there was some sort of abuse on my part. I'm sure she fully expected me to take advantage of our master-slave relationship sooner or later. The click of her teeth as her mouth shut must have kickstarted her brain a little because she began to sputter but couldn't find her words.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
”I didn't expect so much leeway in your orders.” she said, once she had collected her thoughts..
“Well, I've never been one to push my opinions on others and honestly I think losing your friendship isn't worth a few moments of forced pleasure.”
“Huh.” she grunted in reply, still confused about my actions. A moment later she turned back to examining the door.
“Thank you.” she said quietly after another minute of silence. “For not using me like most masters do.”
“Never!” I announce still grinning ear to ear, patting her on the shoulder I followed up with the obligatory. “Unless you want me to?” while waggling my eyebrows at her.
With a snort she gestured at the door and said “Are you gonna figure out how to open this or are we camping with the creepy statues tonight?”
It was a large, arched, stone double door. Decorated around the edges with swirling leaf and vine patterns, it was quite beautiful and I was surprised to find something so artistic buried down here with only the likes of us to see it. In the center was a large circular depression inset into the door and at our feet were odd symbols in a haphazard pile.
I knew immediately that it was another puzzle, there were notches here and there in the circle that would fit the oddly shaped pieces. I asked Iva to watch the statues as I worked on the puzzle, every time I placed a piece wrong I flinched, afraid that they would all come to life and attack.
I finally completed the doors puzzle about an hour later, the pieces now forming a large knot pattern in the center of the door. Once complete the pattern began to glow and a bright line cut through the center of the door from ceiling to floor and I heard a faint click as the doors began to swing open.
My cheer of triumph at opening the way forward was drowned out by Iva’s scream. Whipping my head around I could see the five remaining undamaged statues stepping off of their pedestals and turning towards us. I shouted for Iva to run and quickly turned back to the door. If we could get through and possibly barricade the doors we might survive the animated constructs. Turning to wave Iva forward I yanked the doors the rest of the way open and waived her to go through first. The look of confusion wasn't what I expected when she came to a stop before me.
“Quick go through and I'll close the doors behind us.” I said, a bit of fear in my voice as I watched the statues marching slowly towards us.
“Is that supposed to be funny?” Iva said glaring at me before bolting off to the corner furthest from the statues.
Completely confused I turned to go thru the door and nearly walked face first into another closed door which had been directly behind the first. This one was a large metal banded door with a big metal lock box present near the center with metal rods extending from it in several directions. Cursing my luck I ran to where Iva had stopped and began digging through my sack to get my exploding stones. I didn't think my small knife would have any effect on the stone constructs.
The statues spread out before us in an attempt to trap us in the corner. We attacked the one closest to the wall and made a run for the other end of the long room. The statues were slow but not stupid, they nearly got ahold of me as we ran by. The good news was that they were very susceptible to exploding damage and I was able to destroy the first one easily. After the first one fell they began to defend themselves whenever I started getting my sling up to speed. They would raise their off hand up covering their head and torso, in an attempt to catch the projectile.
It worked for the most part, even though they were slow they could still move their hands in time to intercept the stone. After wasting several stones on them all I had achieved was an army of statues with stumps where their left hands should have been. A thought distracted me from the battle momentarily, I wonder why they are all right handed? Are there no left handed statues? Or maybe those are in the next room? As I stopped to ponder these seriously important questions they continued on, plodding ever closer. My contemplations on the subject of left handed statues was rudely interrupted when I was smacked in the back of the head by Iva.
“Wake up!” she yelled, as she threw me bodily under the swing of the nearest statue to roll across the ground away from the attacking constructs.
Diving after me she lashed out in an attempt to hamstring one of them, Her sword merely clanked off the back of the statues leg with no visible effect. Cursing as she got up off the ground, she ran up next to me as I let loose another stone. This one like the rest impacted and only broke off small chunks from the already damaged stump on the statue's left arm.
“Aim for their feet stupid!” she hissed, elbowing me out of the way and reaching into my bag to get herself a few stones.
I let loose just a moment after she threw her stone and was awarded with a proper impact. The statue had moved to block her thrown stone and didn't bother trying to stop mine. It impacted right in the statues nether regions blasting both legs off and ruining any chances of it ever making tiny evil statue babies. This plan worked one more time before they began to ignore her un enchanted stones and only block mine once again.
We had to switch it up and whenever Iva had a runed stone in her hand I launched a regular one. In another ten minutes we were awarded with several crawling legless statues. To avoid wasting what was left of my supply of runed stones we lured them to one corner of the room then ran back to collect better weapons.
After hefting some of the limbs from the previously damaged statues we proceeded to hunt them down and bash them to pieces one by one. Another half hour went by before we finally had ground the last one into gravel. We found the second doors key in the torso of the largest stone warrior.
“Stupid dungeon wizards” I muttered. “If I'd known there was a key inside the statues I would have just broken them all before they animated!”
“Hah, if it were that easy to continue then this place wouldn't be a death sentence.” Iva replied.
After resting for a bit we decided it would be better to set up camp and open the second door in the morning. While Iva heated up some food I spent my time learning from my journal. I also used up the last of our stones to make more explosive ones. I really hoped that we would come across another good source of projectiles. The broken statues having already been scribed on were useless to us now, their energy already tied up in the animation runes.
Once I'd had my fill of studying I laid down next to Iva who had already gone to sleep. Her light rhythmic snoring was making me sleepy so I got out our blanket and after draping it over her snuggled up beneath it. Careful not to touch anywhere that would get me in trouble I gently laid my arm over her midsection and promptly fell asleep.