Octophobia
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Spire's Spite - Arc 2 - Chapter 51
🕑 Added 2024-10-31 02:00:03 +0000 UTC"Wait! We can talk about this," Fritz entreated, hoping his voice reached through the clear dome that separated his team from the other crew. He sheathed Quicksilver in a show of good faith, displaying an honest desire for diplomacy and hiding his duplicity.
Larry stood in front, a brutal expression on his already brutal, slightly burnt face. Behind him and holding the staff projecting the protection, Jasper glanced around tiredly. And further behind, Toby stood in the door's shadowy arch and Jane was kneeling. She fussed over the wretched-looking dagger-wielder woman, applying grease and bandages to her blackened skin. Thankfully, the woman had passed out or had been put to sleep with some medicine or tonic and no longer cried out in agony.
Toby and Jane stole swift stares at each other, having some silent conversation with only their eyes and glances. Larry and Fred stood at the edge of the barrier, glaring and glowering. Fred pulled the arrow from his leg with a grunt, then drank down a thin red potion.
"I don't care what you have to say," Larry growled.
The floor shook again, stronger than before.
"The flood is coming, let's work together to loot this room rather than squabble amongst ourselves," Fritz offered.
He was happy to make the bargain, he and his team had already opened the golden cage earlier. There had been two doors built into the bars, both were locked but it was a simple problem to remedy with Fritz's lockpicking skills. They had not been magically protected like the vault and stairway doors. Inside, on a desk, they had found a chest and had quickly stored it away in Cal's black pack, not wanting to waste what little time they had to themselves sorting through its contents.
After all, they had an ambush to plan. Too bad it hadn't worked.
"Give them a chance," Toby said, who's words were followed by Jane's, "Yeah, this place is sinking, it's not worth fighting over if we all drown."
Larry's face scrunched into a scowl, but a thoughtful glint entered his blunt stare.
"You couldn't get all the treasure with your head start?" He asked.
"No there's plenty left, though it's locked up in these displays and behind barriers like your wonderful dome," Fritz said. "Your club shattered a case, far more than we've been able to manage," he added untruthfully. They had the time to smash the glass and grab the contents of three of the displays before preparing their attack.
"Hmm," Larry hummed in consideration, greed and his dull desire for revenge seemingly at odds.
Suddenly, Fred staggered, then fell face down on the red carpet with a thud. Larry turned to see the man convulsing and spitting bloody foam.
Fritz winced internally, of all the times for the raider's poison to actually work it had to be now when he was negotiating. He had hoped that whatever potion the man had drank would stall the venom's progress. Too bad the Krakosi had such skill in brewing deadly things. Too bad it acted so fast, just when he almost had Larry agree to a truce.
For a moment they watched in mute horror as the doomed man twitched violently. After several heartbeats, Fred finally fell still, silent and dead as a stone.
"Nope, time to die," Larry said bitterly. "Jasper the elixir."
Jasper looked at his fallen crew, worry creeping over his features and with one hand began to search through his pouches.
"It's not here it must be in my pack," he said in a higher-than-normal pitch, all that breathiness stolen away by the stress of the confrontation.
"I'll get it," Toby said darkly, his eye were like daggers, cutting from Jasper to Fritz and his team beyond.
"It'll be in the bottom-left outer pouch," Jasper directed.
Fritz seethed, his legs wanted to pace and his mind wanted to scream. He tried again for diplomacy, he needed that key and having to fight the ridiculously, strong man who held it was the worst possible situation.
The floor rumbled again.
Okay, not the worst situation, he conceded internally.
Every moment the pulsing of Trap Sense in the back of his mind grew quicker, more urgent. Ten minutes, five? Another devastating swing from Larry's club and maybe they would have even less than that.
Toby walked to the packs hidden somewhere down the stairs and was back within moments, hefting a bottle filled with what looked like liquid iron. With an exaggerated limp, he strode towards Larry, but was stopped by an order.
"That's close enough, throw it."
"What?"' Toby asked, halting beside Jasper who eyed him warily.
"Throw it," Larry ordered again, caution and mistrust written plain across his brutish features.
Toby glanced around furtively and his eyes met Jane's. There was a flurry of movement from the pair. Toby spun, stabbing a throwing dagger into Jasper's throat, the blade gleamed with a red outline and was quickly buried up to its hilt into the man's neck. The wind mage looked surprised, then he fell, gurgling and pouring out tide of blood which soaked the already red carpet.
Jane raked the burnt woman's own dagger across her defenceless neck, slitting her throat neatly without a fuss and without a fight. The woman died without even waking. In a moment of stunned silence none made a move. Larry stared at the two incredulously, his face a blank mask until it twisted into a grimace of absolute fury.
"Scumsucking traitors!" He bellowed, turning his back on Fritz to face the pair and raising his huge club over his head.
The protective dome still stood somehow, and with a quick glance, Fritz found the cause. Even without Jasper holding it the staff hovered stiffly in the air, it glowed subtly while still maintaining the protective field.
"Toby, the staff!" He cried, and Toby, seemingly by reflex, acted, grabbing the pale glowing object and deactivating it.
The dome fell away and Fritz moved, followed by his whole team. There was a burning roar from behind him and he stepped out of the path of the torrent of flames, then had to duck a spray of acid that arced over his head. Both streams splattered Larry's back and his bellow became a scream as he sizzled and was scorched. Smoke and steam cascaded from him and the club he held above his head began to hum with that brutal force again.
Fritz picked up Mortal Edge from where it lay by Fred's corpse, and sprinted towards Larry, activating his dagger's curse. He needed to stop the man from striking and potentially breaking the walls or bringing down the glass roof. Sprinting, and joined by a Bull Rushing Bert and an Interposing Rosie the three were within a foot of the man before the club came down.
Larry must have been holding back before, this swing felt like the very sky was falling. Bert and Rosie were blown away, crashing into the golden cage and bending the bars with their bone-breaking impact. Fritz himself was rendered intangible, the bleak cold of shadow washing over him as his friends and the floor were devastated. Even in his phased form, Fritz could feel the wave of force flow through him, leaving his insubstantial body trembling.
Great cracks could be heard, snapping from the stone below his feet. Water sprayed from under the carpet like a fountain. Jane and Toby had also been blown backwards, however they had already been retreating and suffered far less than the others. Though Fritz could also see a transparent barrier dissipate around Jane, she likely had some kind of protective Treasure, which made sense, you had to keep the Healer safe.
Larry raised his weapon with one hand and pointed at Toby, yelling, "Fight me, coward!"
Again that false rage boiled in his chest and Fritz had to stop himself from striking while he was still a mere shade. Instead, he floated above the man, it was an odd, eerie feeling to move himself so without leaping. He poised himself to fall upon Larry with Mortal Edge gripped in both hands, ready to plunge into his unprotected neck.
His second was up, and adding Gloom Strike to his blade, Fritz plummeted the small distance, the tip of his dagger finding its mark just between the man's shoulders and neck. Mortal Edge cut into tough skin but was soon stopped by the density of the muscle beneath, it stuck fast, the blade buried only halfway while blood spilled from around it. Fritz tried to press it further, but it was impossible, like trying to split a log with a kitchen knife.
Larry bellowed and spun, swinging his enormous club horizontally without looking. The sweeping blow would have splattered Fritz, but he had felt it coming and easily ducked below it, leaving his dagger in the man's flesh. Panting, and feeling the drain on his stamina from having no Dusksong, Fritz conjured a black orb of shadow around Larry's head, then wove Lethargy into the mans body.
Fritz staggered as he retreated from the man's reach, and leapt into a dive as the club reversed its path. Larry had swung again, this time lower, and the huge bone whooshed just over Fritz's head by an inch.
"What did you do!" Larry cried out blindly, obviously not realising he could just walk out of the Illusory Shadow's effect.
"You're forever blind! You will never see the light again!" Fritz lied, yelling over the noise of rushing water and signalling to Bert who had struggled back to his feet. Surprisingly Rosie also stood, blearily and bloody but not nearly as injured as Fritz thought she'd be.
"Bastard!" Larry yelled. Turning this way and that, sweeping the club wildly. From the corner of his eye, Fritz could see Toby and Jane collecting bags and packs, then move on to looting their former team.
Fritz glanced to Bert who nodded, spat a glob of thick dark blood and prepared to rush again.
"Over here you blundering, blowhole botherer," Fritz cried out as Cal pelted Larry with another fist-sized stone that bounced off his breastplate with a clang. Larry turned to the noise and Fritz continued levelling insults to distract him while making sure to not to get so much as brushed by the club's terrible, thrumming arcs.
Bert thundered into the stocky man, a low tackle that nearly took the both of them off their feet, but only succeeded in locking them both in a scuffling stalemate. Bert pawed at the man, trying to find some purchase with which to throw him to the ground, quickly he found Fritz's blade still stuck in the man and with a grunt of effort leveraged it to nearly pull the man to the floor. Larry had to drop his club to fend off Bert's grip. Even while blind and cursed, he was able to grab Bert by the shoulders, then with arms rippling with force, he pulled him off his feet, into to air and tossed him away.
Bert crashed into a plinth, spun like a top and slammed into the floor, he lay still for a moment before lifting his head, standing up, and winking one swollen eye at Fritz. Cal threw a stone that disappeared into the false darkness and thudded wetly, likely striking Larry's head. The orb of black vanished to show a pale face bulging with veins, incensed and insane. Larry shouted wordlessly and made to leap at Fritz.
It was time to go.
Fritz shifted the cracked stone beneath the carpet Larry stood upon, and a gout of saltwater sprayed forth at high speed, blasting the man a step backwards and covering their escape in a haze of mist.
Waving the retreat, Fritz spun and ran, followed by the rest of his team, Bert limped along before a bone snapped back into place and he Bull Rushed past them in a streak of bruises and blood. The glass dome overhead cracked and both Lauren and Fritz were sprinkled with seawater, they grimaced and redoubled their pace, leaving Larry behind. Only when he saw a glint of red did Fritz alter his path, scooping up a glittering gem the size of his fist and slipping it into a pocket, before resuming the most direct path out.
The rushing and roaring grew in volume, the floor shook like a ship's deck in a storm, threatening to trip Fritz's tired legs. The activation of his Abilities had left him as wrung out as he had been in the Sunken Spire and the terror that he had felt then, when he was weak and wretched, returned. He screamed as he sprinted to the Stairway doors. He wasn't the only one.
Behind them, there was more cracking, and geysers of water blasted from the floor, accompanied by shards of shattered stone. Fritz nearly bounced off the steel doors still blocking their way, in the distance he could hear Larry bellowing and slamming the ground with his club in some mad fit of rage. Obviously he'd realised he couldn't catch them.
Larry's lost it, he wants to take us all with him.
Bert was already by the steel doors, waiting for Fritz, the key he had stolen while wrestling with Larry firmly in the left lock. With shaking hands Fritz rummaged in his pocket pulling free his own steel key and plunging it into the other keyhole. Together, without even glancing to each other, they turned the keys. Fritz couldn't hear the clunk and the clank of the tumblers and mechanism, and for a moment he feared that they had failed, that they had the wrong keys or had somehow broken the doors.
As his stomach fell as if weighed down by a stone the size of the moon, then the doors swung open. Just in time, as his Traps Sense screamed to a crescendo. He heard the vault door buckle and saw the glass above spiderweb with long cracks. The greatest tremor so far threw him and his team to the floor as the room tilted sideways.
They scrabbled and scrambled, crawling and climbing into the stairway beyond, his whole team cursing, yelling or crying as they piled in and up the stairs. When he was through the doors, Fritz glanced behind, watched the flood come, swallowing Larry, the cage and washing everything away. The unstoppable wave surged toward them, the edges of the archway fuzzed and blurred.
The Stairway's opening and the view to the Floor beyond flickered between grey and black. Then suddenly, it stopped. The thunder of water was silent, the tremors had stilled and the light snuffed out. The archway had been sealed with scaled stone. Or perhaps it had always been such and the portal had closed?
Fritz shook his head and lay amongst the panting bodies, wet with seawater, blood and sweat.
"Everyone alive?" Fritz croaked.
There were grumbles and some sniffling whines.
"Roll call," he ordered.
"Lauren!" Lauren said tearily.
"Rosie!" Rosie grumbled.
"Bert!" Bert laughed.
"George!" George groaned.
"Cal!" Cal called.
"Fritz!" Fritz ended, relief flooding through him. Then in the quiet, he noticed that there were too many bodies. They had intruders, trying to be as quiet as possible, yet stuck in the press of people piled in the stairway.
"Toby? Jane?" Fritz asked, too weary to summon any anger.
"We're here," Toby said morosely as Jane cried and blew her nose into a handkerchief.
"Of course you are," Fritz groaned. "Bloody rats. I should kill you both where you stand."
"We're not standing," Toby argued.
"It's a figure of speech," Fritz stated, struggling to stand from under an armoured arm and a scaled leg. He quickly gave up, slumping and deciding to rest and revel in his and his team's survival. So what if they had a couple of stowaways? They could be dealt with. Later.
Slowly, after a minute or two of everyone catching their breaths, they began to disentangle themselves. Once standing they trudged up the stairs, letting Toby and Jane stay in the rear. Fritz felt it was safe to do so, not sensing any animosity from the two, they were just as, if not more, tired as his own team. They didn't look up to another fight.
They stepped through the doorway to enter the Well room, fittingly it had taken the form of a sitting room or quiet private room in a library. Armchairs, tea tables and desks were arranged neatly around a hovering sphere of blue and green shapes. It glowed with an internal light and Fritz immediately knew it to be the Well. Instead of being covered in bookcases the walls were bare stone and, surprisingly, across from where he stood were four rather than three doors.
That mystery could wait for later, as could his other problems, for now, he needed the promised recovery of the dimly glowing sphere. Again, he was not alone as he walked wearily to the Well and placed a hand upon it, pulling in its cool, refreshing Power, letting it soothe his aches and pains away.
When he had taken all he was due, he strode to an armchair and sat heavily, breathing out a sigh and contemplating the current situation, or rather, situations. He had many choices to make, the least of which was his new Ability now that he was level eighteen.
What really wracked his mind was what to do with Toby and Jane, they had also healed up some and were whispering together, as they always did. It was somewhat nostalgic and a bitter pang ran through him amplified by Dusksong's hiss.
"Jane, can you do anything for my team?" Fritz asked, seeing that some of them were still somewhat scuffed and bruised, especially Bert who had taken the worst beating he'd ever seen.
"I could," Jane hedged, her eyes shifting slyly, as cunning as a cuttlefish.
"Then do it, would you?" Fritz said exasperatedly.
"What do I get out of it?" Jane asked.
"We'll decide your fate later when we've had time to rest," Fritz said, already tired of her bargaining. "I'm sure helping us will sweeten some of the sourness held for you."
She hesitated for a moment, but soon walked briskly to Bert's side and began to sew some lingering cuts together with her Ability.
Fritz watched, but when he saw nothing untoward, he levelled his gaze on Toby who was searching the room with his customary grumpy frown. His eyes hovered most on the doors out and he seemed to be contemplating an escape.
"Go through, I won't stop you," Fritz said easily. "Though you never know what lies beyond. It could be far worse than staying here with us."
Toby shuffled on his feet and shrugged.
"Unlikely," he disagreed, but he made no move to flee. Instead, he set down his burdensome packs and bags and sat opposite Fritz in a near identical armchair.
"I see you've managed to scavenge more than your share of packs, and treasures," Fritz noted.
"Found them lying around. No one will miss them," Toby said.
"The bags or the crew?"
Toby shrugged, his lip quirking.
"I'm sure the Nightshark would though," Fritz posited. "Larry was respected."
"Feared," Bert corrected, joining the conversation by pulling over a desk chair and sitting on it backwards.
He looked far better now, even if he had distinctly plum-coloured patches all over his body. Though Fritz knew those would fade in time and would likely be gone after a good night's rest. Oh, how he could do with a short nap, those Abilities really took it out of him. Now that he'd had Dusksong for some time he had almost forgotten what it felt like to be draining his own Stamina to use his Powers.
"Both," Jane added, after leaving Lauren's side. She had mended the fire mage's cut arm as best she could, which was actually quite well. The long, deep cut was now a light scar rather than the nasty scab the Well had left it. Fritz was annoyed that he was impressed.
"Either way, they won't be happy you helped murder him," Fritz stated.
"Blackmail is it?" Toby summarised.
"Maybe. I'm still deciding if you two can be trusted any further," Fritz said.
"We helped you out by bringing down the dome," Toby said.
"By betraying them," Fritz said offhandedly. "Hardly trustworthy."
Toby and Jane looked to each other. Sometimes, like now, it felt like the two could read each other's minds, it was nauseating.
Fritz sighed, they really were impossible to trust, but he couldn't just attack them, kill them in cold blood. Not right now, even if his Dusksong wouldn't stop pestering him to punish them.
"We keep quiet about you and you keep quiet about us," Jane offered. "Seeings you don't have any of the Nightshark's men with you that means you must have lied and schemed your way here."
Internally Fritz scowled, though on the outside he maintained his blandest smirk. Jane was always something of a conniving witch, it didn't surprise him that she had guessed some of his and Bert's predicament.
"Blackmail is it?" Fritz repeated flatly, and Bert scowled. It seemed he was also at the end of his rope with these two. Even if he didn't speak Fritz could see the anger and a spark of hurt in his friend's amber eyes. Truly his friend had finally had enough of defending their former crew.
"Both ways, mutual disclosure," Toby stated. A bitter taste washed over Fritz's tongue, fury he thought burnt out, burst back into being, white-hot and wild.
"Or I could kill you right now," Fritz said, standing suddenly, letting his Dusksong run rampant for a moment before reigning it in and glaring down at their startled faces.
Wrestling with his anger, he found that Quicksilver was in his hand, he must have drawn it on instinct. Its black blade was inches from Toby's throat. The traitor didn't dare move, his wide, terrified gaze was locked on the jagged edge, and a bead of sweat rolled down his forehead.
"Don't!" Jane cried.
"Why!?" Fritz yelled. "You're traitors, we can't trust a thing you say. Give me one good reason not to be rid of you. Right here and right now."
"I'm with child!"
Comments
yohan gu
Wow, you are right, well spotted
Octophobia
Thank you so much, hearing such nice comments really brightens my day. Thanks for reading! :)
Octophobia
Good eye. :)
Kemizle
Tftc I figured she was pregnant always holding her belly
Malcolm Haynes
Tftc! This has become my favorite story. Anxiously awaiting each chapter and so sad when I’m done.
