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Chapter 33: Spell & Sword Round 2.2
🕑 Added 2023-08-25 14:59:59 +0000 UTCThe destruction from the archway settled down, leaving only a few floating pieces of pink pinata paper.
Pablo sent in another horse pinata and waited. It trotted through the archway and nothing happened. He urged it through the area further and sent in his other dolls to spread out.
Only one of them triggered a trap as a spike shot toward the dia de muertos doll, missing it by a good two feet above its head.
“If we go through on our hands and knees, it looks like the spikes will just fly over us,” Alex suggested.
“I’m not crawling around anywhere,” Diane sneered. “Blocking spikes is what my shield is for.”
Grady and Sarah both shrugged, clearly not interested in crawling around either. Especially since they all knew the five younger wolves were still lurking about somewhere.
Alex looked at them all and shook his head, “Fine, but we take it slow. Got it?”
The group grunted their affirmation and crept toward the archway.
— — —
Elza waited behind the hill leading to their house, sitting on a gagged and struggling Yost. “Just a minute, dear,” she whispered.
The lizardwoman was watching a tripwire she had placed at the base of the hill. While she blended into the grass, she was counting on the group to eventually spot her where she would run away and they’d stumble over the tripwire. When that happened, a bowl filled with her poisonous spit would be shot at their faces.
The bowl was camouflaged in a small hole she had dug and a thin piece of sod covered it. Once the wire was tripped, the sod would pull off and the bowl would launch in their direction.
During the chaos, the group would likely run in various directions. In each direction, she had buried spikes in the ground so that only the tips were visible and long enough to pierce through their shoes. The tips had been poked into her finger before she buried them, coating them in her poisonous blood.
Rick had of course been watching this and chuckled as the group slowly made their way to the spot Elza had picked.
Elza watched Pablo’s dolls approach the tripwire and held her breath. The doll closest to it stopped and crawled under the wire. Elza let out the breath she’d been holding. Then she heard the Toymaster tell the Spell & Sword to stop.
“Wait. My dolls are acting strange,” the man said.
Elza whispered a curse while Yosk panted under her, losing steam. She looked down at her mate and sighed, “Alright Yosk. Go cause some mayhem.”
The lizardman’s eyes shot wide open and full of fervor. Elza untied the gag in his mouth and got off of him. She hoped that Yosk could cause enough of a distraction for the group to run over the tripwire anyway.
Yosk sprang to his feet and grabbed his machete coated in poison. “For R-I-I-I-I-C-K!” he shouted his warcry and thwapped his feet down the hill.
The group below looked up and laughed as Yosk once again made himself an easy target. Alex and Sarah began unleashing their spells. Alex’s purple mana spear struck Yosk in the throat while Sarah’s flames charred his body, killing him mid-warcry. The lizardman’s corpse rolled down the hill stopping a few feet away from the tripwire.
Grady laughed and walked forward to pluck Yosk’s loot sack, “What a moro-”. The warrior stopped as his foot snagged the tripwire and he heard an audible snap. The bowl of poison flung directly at Grady who brought his shield up just in time.
The poison splashed against the shield and sprayed his large shoulders. Despite being a warrior class, Grady hadn’t been able to afford proper armor. His torso was covered in a simple pre-system shirt that the poison soaked into.
“Oh, fuck. That burns,” Grady groaned and dropped his sword and shield before ripping his shirt off, making his healing doll fly off in the process before it had a chance to inject him with the precious red fluid.
Diane whistled and pulled a health portion from her belt and slowly opened the top.
“Hurry up!” Grady yelled while everyone in his group except for Alex laughed as Diane theatrically tilted the bottle in a painfully slow manner.
Elza cursed again at the top of the hill. The poison hadn’t caused as much chaos as she’d hoped. She’d have to make a last stand when they crested the hill and hopefully take one of them down with her.
She sighed and plopped down out of sight. Unfortunately, she sat directly on top of one of the remaining pinatas, detonating it.
Pablo smiled and for the first time, kept his mouth shut for his contribution. He had seen the lizardwoman watching and commanded the pinata to flank her.
— — —
It was really difficult for Rick to keep his mouth shut to his minions when they didn’t see something sneaking up on them. It was like watching a horror movie and wanting to shout at the person, don’t go in there dipshit!’. While he wanted more CP, he was pulling for the Spell & Sword to make it to Luca.
If they ended up making it there or even defeating Luca, he’d tell Jimmy to pay them whatever they wanted to infiltrate the Eagle Empire and sell jets from right under Gus’ nose.
Rick watched as Billy and the Ceaseless Wolves readied themselves. They had heard the explosion and knew that it was nearly time for them to fight.
— — —
The group of Challengers saw the archway to the next area but hadn’t moved.
“Let’s check for traps first,” Alex said.
“Can we check out that big block of ice before we go through that next doorway?” Sarah asked.
“I’ve wanted to see what that’s all about too,” Grady said.
Alex nodded, “Half the fun is discovering any secrets this place might have.”
Pablo squinted at the glacier, “There’s some kind of light in that direction too.”
“Yeah, I see it,” Alex said. “Let’s scour the area for any traps and head that way.”
For the next hour, the group slowly moved around and spotted a couple of the poisoned spikes. Sarah scorched the ground around the traps to mark where they were.
“Good thinking,” Grady said gratefully. Leading the way, he and Diane were the most likely to step on a trap.
Once they couldn’t spot anymore, they relaxed and moved more freely to the glacier. It didn’t take them long to spot the source of the glowing light.
“A treasure chest!” Grady shouted in delight and made a move to run toward it.
Diane grabbed him by the back of his collar, “Did that poison worm its way into your brain?”
Grady’s ears turned red, “I was going to check for traps.”
“Right,” Diane and Pablo said as one.
Pablo's dolls clattered forward as potential trap fodder but came up empty. “Maybe the chest itself is trapped?” he suggested.
“Probably,” Alex grunted. “Wish we had some kind of rogue.”
“Then we wouldn’t be the Spell & Sword, would we?” Diane said.
As Rick watched the group, he suddenly wished he had trapped the chests in hopes of Diane opening them first.
“Well I’d rather stay alive than uphold the integrity of our group name,” Alex snapped.
“Oh, get the stick out of your ass. You’re no fun to tease,” Diane said. “I’ll go check the chest. Between my shield and Thick Skin, I should be okay if it’s just one of those spike traps. That bitch Kara helped me level it up.”
“Careful. She’s probably watching,” Sarah said.
Diane blushed for a moment and recovered, “Whatever. She knows what she is.”
Rick observed as the woman approached the chest, shield up. For all of her faults, she was at least cautious. She moved methodically and checked her surroundings. Her meticulous approach allowed her to move at a decent pace and avoid traps or detect any potential danger.
She arrived at the glowing chest and took a deep breath. She gently ran her fingers around the lid and didn’t find anything malicious. “Stay back,” she said. Diane relaxed her face, ensuring that the people watching the broadcast saw her appear to be strong in the face of potential death.
She opened the latch and pushed the lid up. Diane’s lip curled into a sneer, “Oh, gross. What the hell is this?”
Rick cackled as Diane pulled out a copy of a Playboy magazine issued in July of 1992.
Some of the group cringed, but Grady ran forward. “Wow, that’s a classic!” he said and gently took it from Diane’s hands. “Look, the pages aren’t even stuck together!”
Diane gagged. “Dude. Just - Stop,” she said, shuddering as she rejoined the group.
Grady didn’t seem to mind as he tucked the magazine in his pant line.
“This glacier is interesting. It seems out of place, but it obviously provides for the stream. I wonder why the dungeon wanted it?” Sarah tactfully changed the subject.
Alex bent down and studied the water. “Think it’s safe to drink?”
Sarah shrugged, “Maybe this is where the wolves and those lizard people get their water?”
“Good point,” Alex said. He dipped his pinky finger in the water and brought it to his mouth. “Seems fine.”
Pablo joined the two and cupped his hands, scooping the glacier water up and slurping it. “Oh, yeah. That might be the best water I’ve ever had.”
Alex perked up and did the same. “You know, with this whole System Integration, a lot of people have been dying from lack of food and water. The supply chain is completely toast and the stores got wiped out almost immediately.”
“We could help a lot of people,” Sarah said, perking up.
“Or, we could bottle it up and sell it for a fortune,” Diane interjected.
“Oh, shut up. We could get barrels of this stuff and help a lot of people. That’s more important than a couple of credits,” Alex snapped back.
Rick listened as the Spell & Sword hatched a plan to steal his precious Energy reserve. “If you bastards drain that stream, I will add poison to it - motherfuckers.” Only Billy could hear the threat, making the gunslinger chuckle.
Diane stayed vigilant, ignoring Alex, and noticed the herd of bargle. “Check that out,” she said pointing at the guinea pig-goat hybrids.
“Good job, D. Looks like you found the food solution too!” Alex said with some excitement.
She cocked an eyebrow at him, “I see XP and Credits.”
“There are a lot of them, but they don’t look too dangerous. Should we attack?” Pablo asked.
Alex smiled, “Hell yeah. I also have a new spell I got after that last fight that I want to test.”
