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374. Get Screwed
🕑 Added 2025-04-26 23:32:11 +0000 UTCEnergy signatures rushed at them from all directions. Ike turned to the windows, preparing to shatter through them, then paused. He looked at Wisp and Mag.
“What?” Wisp asked.
“Wherever we are, it’s somewhere Brightbriar led us,” Ike said.
“Right, which is where we don’t want to be,” Wisp said, nodding slowly.
Ike nodded, meeting her eyes. “It’s somewhere Brightbriar controls. Somewhere in his stronghold. If we tried to get here, we’d have to fight all kinds of puppets and carve our way to the heart of his stronghold, but he just led us here. We got here for no effort.”
“It’s meant to be a trap, but… counter-trapping the trapman? I like it, I like it. It’s like acting like you’re trapped in someone else’s web, only to whip around and eat them instead,” Wisp said, nodding. “Of course, it does mean we have to stand and fight, rather than run away.”
Mag bounced over. He looked from Ike to Wisp, then bobbled his head. “Didn’t we get teleported here, or something? Maybe we aren’t in Brightbriar’s stronghold.”
“Oh, right. Wizard’s Tower. But… Wizard’s Towers can’t just be tossed up in a heartbeat. Someone, either Brightbriar, one of his puppets, or an underling of some sort, invested a lot of time and mana to make this. They can’t just yank it up or retreat at a moment’s notice, not without sacrificing a lot,” Ike said.
“Can they cut off the doors? Couldn’t we be in a manor way far away from Brightbriar’s territory, that maybe teleport-links to Brightbriar’s territory, but if the Wizard’s Tower works the way Scar said it does—which, I don’t know, she’s the enemy, but still, then… couldn’t they just cut off the link between the door and the next place, and lock us here?” Mag pointed out.
Wisp raised her brows. “Can’t believe I’m saying this, but birdbrain has a point.”
Ike thought for a moment. Scar’s description of the Wizard’s Tower had mostly been accurate from what he recalled of Shopkeep’s city. The Moving Tower part was new to him, but if it worked like Shopkeep’s city had, then moving around doors, walls, or even rooms was as easy as flicking a finger, so it was probably easy to cut off paths as well. “You’re not wrong, but those puppets have to be coming from somewhere. There’s at least one door they haven’t locked down yet, if there’s puppets coming at us.
“Here’s what I’m thinking. I’ll sprint for the source of the puppets, with you two clinging to me. If the puppets are still coming here from somewhere, there’s a chance we can trace it back to somewhere deeper in Brightbriar’s territory. If we can’t, then we run for it. Good?” Ike looked from Mag to Wisp, spreading his hands.
Mag nodded. He transformed and fluttered over to Ike’s shoulder.
“I just heard ‘I’ll do all the work while you chill,’ so I’m down,” Wisp said, and jumped at Ike. Midair, she transformed into a tiny spider and landed on his chest, scurrying over to share Ike’s shoulder with Shawn.
Ike rolled out his shoulders. He activated Storm Clad and surged mana toward his legs. As the puppets came into view from both directions, Ike dropped into a runner’s stance, facing away from the entrance they’d just come from. The puppets closed in. Generic-shaped puppets with blank faces and black hair, they rushed at him from all sides. Some didn’t even wear clothes, while others wore generic white robes. They held cheap swords, or activated simple spells.
Ike burst off, racing directly toward the puppets. They formed a wall, blocking his path, but they couldn’t hold him back. He smashed through them, shouldering them aside. They swung swords and loosed spells, but Ike blazed past. The momentary gaps in the puppet army appeared like paths to him, wide open and easy to dart through. Lightning zapped from his legs to the puppets as he sped past, leaving miniscule black scars behind.
Ahead, the snarl of puppets grew tighter. They surged in a clump, their shoulders locked together, hip to hip, elbows jostling, far closer than any human being would choose to walk to another. Ike narrowed his eyes and kept running, closing the gap between him and the clump.
“Gonna crash through?” Wisp asked. Somehow, her voice came from the top of his head, a reality Ike didn’t want to contemplate.
“Nah. I’ve learned from the best.” Ike leaped into the air and stepped onto the puppets’ shoulders, hopping from one puppet to the next. They reached for his ankles, trying to trap him, but he moved too quickly. Their hands closed on nothing, or at best, got zapped as he ran past. He rounded the corner this way and finally came upon the door, a wide-open double-door blazing with bright gold light. The second he laid eyes on it, the door began to swing shut.
“Ike!” Mag shouted, right in his ear.
Ike winced. “I know, I see it.”
“Yeah, you should save yelling Ike for the important things, like when you see something tasty and you want to eat it,” Wisp advised him.
“That’s not important either,” Ike informed her. The puppets were so close that he no longer had to jump. His eyes trained down, he stepped from shoulder to shoulder, taking tiny small steps to dash across the puppets, from one to the next.
The door swung. One inch at a time, edging toward closed, the light slowly cut off by the occlusion of the door. Ike ran, while the puppets carried him away. It was like running on the surface of a speeding river. True, he was far faster, but they were still working against him. He closed in on the door, as the door slowly closed. A few inches of light. An inch. A hair.
Ike lunged, grabbing for the door handle.
