The tension between Albright and I followed the group as we moved into the tunnel the thralls had attacked us from.

Pushing through an already cramped tunnel was made worse by the presence of the many bodies in it. My imagination supplied the image of a shoggoth barreling down the tight confines at us, making me shudder.

The crew were quiet as well. They were picking up on the vibe between me and Albright and were naturally withdrawing from me, the outsider. That was fine. While I was disappointed, I understood, and wouldn’t hold it against them so long as it didn’t interfere with rescuing Conner. Even the bubbly goth was avoiding my eyes.

“We’ve been scanned,” Albright said, breaking the silence.

I turned to look behind me at Kristy inquisitively. Part of me was worried she would continue to ignore me, but professionalism won out. “Means a psychic is trying to get into our heads passively,” she explained. “The boss is blocking them.”

I thanked her and resumed the half-crouched march. I felt bad for Roy, who was not only taller than me but also significantly bigger, not to mention his armor. If I was feeling the squeeze, he must have felt like Andy Dufresne at the end of Shawshank.

We walked for five minutes with no change in the oppressive silence. I was about to attempt to engage Kristy in conversation again when Roy’s deep voice rumbled back to us.

“Light ahead.”

Tension in the group began to rise as, after another minute of travel, we filed out of the cramped tunnel into a vestibule-like room that abutted a balcony. Large, stone doors stood to the left and right, each likely weighing over a thousand pounds if they weighed one. Roy and Walt each went and checked a door before they went to the balcony. Roy turned to Albright and waved him over.

“Whatever ritual they are doing is in that direction,” Kristy called out softly to Albright, who nodded in acknowledgment as he crossed the small room to stand next to Roy and Walt. I also went over to have a look, ignoring the glare Walt shot me.

The balcony revealed a massive cavern, with the walls lined with similar balconies to our own, as well as walkways that revealed a half dozen tunnels in my glance. A glance was all I spared for the walls, however, due to the huge ritual taking place on the cavern floor. Dozens of cultists wearing the familiar LARPing uniform of the assholes that had ambushed us in the food court knelt in concentric circles around a jagged, glowing ball that wasn’t so much white as it was static like an old TV. Mostly obscured by the floating ball was a man holding out his hands to the side, like a benediction or waiting for an embrace.

As we watched, two cultists appeared from one of the side tunnels dragging a tired, beaten, and terrified woman. Her clothing was dirty and torn, her face swollen on the left side, but other than that I couldn’t make out much due to the distance between us. They were a good six stories down, the light was harsh with strong shadows that interfered with picking up details.

The two cultists forced the woman to her knees in front of the cultist under the glowing ball. One cultist reached down and ripped the captives shirt at the collar, exposing her chest. A gauntleted hand clamped on my shoulder and tugged me back, and it was only then that I realized I had been about to jump down there. I don’t know how I feel about being prevented from going to the aid of the woman, even knowing Roy had just likely saved my life. I suppressed a snarl and returned my attention to what was going on below.

Thankfully, that seemed to be the end of the assault. The cultists took up positions on either side of the woman, restraining her arms in such a way as to present her bare skin to the center cultist. The man under the glowing orb stepped forward, still holding his arms outstretched as if waiting for a hug. He held the pose for what felt like five minutes before all the cultists save for the three in the center suddenly knelt further, placing their foreheads on the floor between their splayed hands.

A sudden silence overcame the entire structure, a wave of it washing over me like a death shroud. In the sudden, deafening silence, the center cultist finally broke his pose to lift one hand in a languid arc, one finger pointing behind him at the glowing orb. A piece of staticky light broke from the orb and crossed the space to over a bare inch from what I’m now calling the head cultist's finger. With the same, no-rush motion, the head cultist slowly arced his hand up and over to touch the odd light to the chest of the captive, just under her right clavicle. Her mouth opened in a silent scream as a familiar symbol was burned into her flesh.

The head cultist held his position as the woman thrashed and silently screamed in agony. At last, the poor woman gave out and slumped in the grip of her captors. As if that was the signal, the circles of cultists rose to their previous positions as sound crept back into the room. The two cultists holding the now unconscious woman bowed to the head cultist before retreating the way they came. The head cultist watched them leave for a moment before his head tilted up toward us with the same languid energy, his eyes seeming to lock onto mine.

“Kill them,” he said quietly. Somehow, I had no trouble hearing him.

The rings of cultists broke into a mad dash for the nearest exits. Roy swore quietly while Albright started issuing orders. I barely noticed as I was watching the head cultist, who seemed to sag as the circles around him were broken. The glowing ball above him flickered. On a hunch, I checked the blood stick for my brother and got a much clearer signal. He was below me. Not at the bottom floor where the ritual had been held, but perhaps a floor above it.

“Hey!” Albright said, suddenly pulling me away from the balcony. “Get with the program!”

“They have a spell that erases memory,” I said as I batted his hand aside. I pulled my Webley from its holster and checked to see if it had rested enough to risk a shot. Black veins were still on the cylinder and barrel, if much reduced since the last time I had looked at it. Iffy. I scowled and re-holstered it. “I haven’t seen them fight with any other magic besides summons. They mostly used automatic weapons.”

“Oh good,” Kristy said with her first smile since my little nap.

Albright glared at me but refocused on the problem at hand. “That lines up with the reports from the other teams,” he said. “There’s also been reports that they have a suicide attack if they get close, something like a biochemical explosion.”

Oh right. I forgot about that.

“Should we back into the tunnel?” Beats suggested. “I don’t like the idea of fighting on two sides,” she said with a gesture at the doors.

“I like the idea of fighting in that tunnel even less,” Roy grumbled, to which Greg lent a taciturn nod.

I walked over to the door on the right, studying the hinge. It looked like it was taken from a bank vault. “Well, the hinge is on this side. Maybe we can block it?”

I grabbed the recessed handle and gave an experimental pull, straining for a moment before the door moved a few inches with a groan of fatigued metal. I shoved it back closed. “It’s really heavy, it wouldn’t take much to keep it shut.”

“I think I have something,” Albright said as he approached. I made way for him, glancing at Beats who had been still for the last minute, her eyes closed. I looked at Kristy and inclined my head at Beats, questioningly.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

She made a hand motion that I interpreted as “Don’t worry about it.” I shrugged.

There was a sudden loud bang that made my head whip around. Right in front of the door I had just been standing next to was a four by four by four cube of what looked to be solid steel. Albright leaned over it, panting heavily, sweat covering his face.

“That,” he said between breaths. “Was harder—than I thought it’d be.”

“The time dilation?” Roy asked.

“Likely,” Albright replied as he visibly forced himself to straighten. “Beats?”

“Sound acts weird here,” she said, eyes still closed. “But I’m hearing a lot of chanting on the next floor and a lot of running around pretty much everywhere else. I’m not sure about the next room though.” She said, pointing to the door to the left.

Albright turned to Roy who nodded and crossed to the left door. “Are you recovered enough?” Albright asked Greg.

Greg slowly nodded. “Have to be,” he said with some difficulty, as if the words were unfamiliar.

Albright seemed to struggle with the decision before giving the big-chinned front liner a nod. Greg hefted his big machine gun in his right hand and his sword in his left and went to stand with Roy.

“Walt, stand by,” Albright said, his rifle suddenly appearing in his hands with a grunt. “As soon as the fighting starts, I want you to get a look around the place while we have them distracted.”

“Got it,” he said, his hands running over his equipment one by one with a kind of ritualistic practice.

“Colm, stay back with the ladies,” Albright ordered. “Only engage if the enemy gets past us.”

I shrugged. “Sure.”

At some unseen signal, Roy heaved on the left door with apparent ease as Greg stepped in front of him, swinging his gun left and right to be followed by Roy.

“Got a message coming from command,” Kristy said suddenly as Albright followed Roy and Greg into the next room, swinging his rifle to check the corners.

“Yes?” Albright prompted without looking back. I frowned as I looked around. Where had Walt gone? For an asshole, he sure is competent at being a ninja, I begrudgingly acknowledged.

“The first word sounds like it might start with a B,” Kristy said, squinting into the air.

I frowned in confusion for a moment or two before I got it. “The time dilation,” I muttered in realization. Everything outside the domain was slowed down compared to us.

“Surprised they can even get anything down here,” Beats said without opening her eyes. Kristy crossed over and took her hand, leading her toward the new room where Albright was waving us over.

I don’t know what I expected the next room to be, but a mess hall wasn’t it. Rows of tables and benches, all carved from the surrounding, dark stone, stretched to the back wall. The far wall was dominated by a surprisingly normal-looking buffet counter. I was able to spot a grill, a couple of ovens, and a microwave in the food prep area. The right wall was open to the center ritual room, similar to the vestibule we had just left.

“They’re close,” Beats said, opening her eyes. “We’ve got maybe a minute.”

Six pairs of eyes swung to the opposite wall, where a much less impressive set of normal double doors rested. “We’ll hold there to force a choke,” Albright said, shortly followed by Roy and Greg taking up positions by the door. “We’ll fall back to the other room if we get overwhelmed.” The blonde telepath examined the tables between the two doors, his eyes going from the legs—which seemed to have been grown right out of the floor—to his two front liners. “I wish we had some time to create cover—“

Albright stuttered to a stop as a loud snap and crash rang out through the room. Five pairs of eyes turned toward me (and several guns), who had just finished pushing a table over onto its side, breaking its legs. “Push it up against the doors? Force them to make a hole?” I suggested.

Albright nodded and came over to help me move the table, before shaking his head. “The one closest to the door,” he instructed.

I nodded and hopped over the fallen table, repeating the effort of snapping the legs off the floor. It would probably be a lot harder if I wasn’t weakening the legs with my magic, as the table was made from a very sturdy stone. I shoved the nearly six hundred-pound table against the doors with Greg and Roy’s help, just as there was a loud thump from the other side that rattled the doors.

“Go,” Roy said as he braced against the table. “Bring more. The longer we make them fight through the choke point, the better.”

I nodded gamely and went over to break more table legs. I was setting my legs on the next one when a crash forced my eyes up.

A large, pink and red arm had burst through the wall next to the door and had Roy’s head in its grip. With startling violence, the arm shook Roy like a terrier worrying a rat before flinging the big knight across the room like he was a hacky sack. Beats screamed in alarm and rushed over to the fallen knight.

With a grimace of rage, Greg raised his giant sword with one hand and brought it down, severing the giant arm in one blow. A horrible cry of anguish resounded from the other side of the door. The next moment, the doors were perforated by a storm of bullets. I barely managed to erect a telekinetic wall in front of me to block the edge of the spray, dancing out of the way in what I’m sure the others will remember as a dignified manner.

The bullets suddenly stopped coming through the door, though the gunfire didn’t stop. A familiar bloom of magic from Kristy became evident as her magic ate the bullets that came our way.

“Sorry,” she said, looking my way with regret in her eyes. “I should have been ready.”

“No—“ I glanced around to make sure no one had caught a bullet. “No harm, no foul,” I continued. “Let’s kill these motherfuckers.”

Kristy grinned without mirth with a glance at Roy’s unmoving form as she slung her backpack around into her hands. Once again a mouth formed on the back of the item and it released dozens of pink comets. The little not-bullets hovered in the air for a brief moment before zipping through the door, where the gunfire suddenly died off to be replaced by screams.

“Beats!” Albright yelled from his crouched position behind the first table I had tipped.

“He’s alive! But he won’t be fighting anytime soon!” She called back.

Albright swore. “Colm! Go—“

I felt something at the edge of my perception slam down, forcing a groan from Albright’s mouth. He began to breathe heavily, the vein in his forehead standing out against the flushed skin of his face as he grit his teeth with effort.

“Oh fuck,” I muttered, realizing the spectacled blonde was probably shielding us from a mental attack. I crossed the room and knelt next to the straining telepath. “How long can you hold out?”

“If it was just me,” he growled out through his clenched jaw. “A good while. But shielding all of you? A few minutes.”

“Walt!” I yelled. “If you’re around, see if you can take out the telepath or we’re all fucked!”

I squeezed Albright’s shoulder. “I’ll see what I can do to help,” I said as I stepped away.

“What,” he panted. “You’re suddenly a psychic now, as well?”

“Even better,” I waggled my eyebrows at him. “I’m paranoid.”

I honed my telekinesis into a fine point and began to draw and write as fast I was able, creating a small ward at my feet, etched into the stone floor.

Hanging out with Alice over the past year had really drilled in how dangerous telepaths were. And even if it wasn’t for Alice’s influence, I’ve seen enough X-Men movies to know that if Xavier had slightly fewer morals, he’d be running the Earth. So, along with helping me to improve my mental defense, she and I had collaborated (translated: she was my guinea pig) on a set of any-telepathy wards I was basing on my favorite attention wards.

Similar to how my normal attention wards made focusing on the area around them difficult, my brand new anti-telepathy wards basically flooded the area with background noise similar to a loud party, combined with the effect of someone shining a bright light in your eyes. Then, to top it all off, it did its best to direct attention elsewhere like a traditional attention ward.

Before I finished the ward I grabbed Albright’s hand and dragged him over to the spell, focusing on the way his magic felt so I could key him to the ward. I didn’t have time to do a thorough study so I eyeballed it, laying out the final symbols.

I felt Albright relax. “Jesus,” he said, pulling his hand out of my grip. “That’s loud."

I shrugged. “Sorry, I don’t know you well enough to key it to you yet."

He rubbed his head and sighed. “No, it’s fine. I can deal with a bit of noise. What kind of ward is that?”

“Colm’s Ward of Mind Your Business,” I said with a small smile. “Still work shopping the name.”

Albright snorted, glancing at the ward. His expression shifted to one of surprise. “You did this just now?”

A crash from the door made us whip our heads towards the action. I glanced at him. “I told you outside, my main focus is wards and... something-graphy.”

“Thaumagraphy,” Albright supplied, retrieving his rifle from where he had dropped it. “Kristy?”

“They stopped shooting, sir,” Kristy said, in a way that reminded me of a child saying the ice cream truck had run out of ice cream.

“I’ll see if I can fix that,” he said. He began to move toward the double door but paused. He frowned in concentration before a large, belt-fed machine gun, similar to Greg’s appeared in his hands, held awkwardly with his other rifle. He offered the bigger gun to me.

“I’ve never actually used one of these before,” I said, taking it from him. It had a pleasing weight.

“The most complicated thing is loading it, and that’s already taken care of,” he said. “Roy said you’re strong, so just control the recoil and spray through the door and see if you get our friends to donate something for Kristy to work with.”

I lifted the big gun with a smile. “Sure,” I said as I stalked towards the doors. “Always wanted to be Rambo for Halloween.”