Octophobia
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Spire's Spite - Arc 2 - Chapter 49
🕑 Added 2024-10-24 02:00:03 +0000 UTCThe longer Fritz searched the mosaic map, the more he worried. There wasn't just one key room, from what he could make out there was one on each of the five floors below the sixth. His intuition had been right on the number of floors, though not his team's position. It seemed they had come in between the second and third floor rather than between the first and second. The previous team must have been here for some time to have searched the bottom already. Or perhaps that area had very little in the way of obvious Treasures of materials and required far less time to loot.
Either way, the other crew had a substantial lead in knowledge and keys, and his team was stuck in front of the steel doors of the 'vault'. Fritz did what he could to memorise the map, and felt a sudden breeze sweep past him. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up and he had the keen impression he'd been discovered. He assumed that Larry's crew was moving, and whatever air sense Ability their wind-mage employed was active again.
Fritz wasn't keen on being caught alone, and he had the distinct sense that his Cloak of Dusk wouldn't work well against the searching caress of the magical wind. Taking one last glance of the map, he stealthily sped his way to the stairs and the webbed floor above. While he quietly ran he could hear the thudding steps of the other crew. Luckily, it seemed they weren't actively hunting him but rather making their way towards the stairs just as he was. Though they were moving at a slower pace, for which he was thankful, it would give him time to warn his team and prepare them for the inevitable fight.
He strode through the double doors and to the stairs, he considered for a moment whether to close the doors behind him, but pragmatism won out. It would take too much time to lever the bar into place and would likely alert Larry and the others to the fact that Fritz knew them to be foes. If they had to fight he wanted them to be as confident, and therefore as careless, as possible. That way his counter-assault, or ambush, would be all the more devastating.
Slinking through the dust and webs, Fritz recalled what he could of the map and set off to find the secret room and its hidden key somewhere along the eastern wall. Unfortunately, his passage through the ancient archive would be obvious, he had to slice his way through the thick sheets of dry threads leaving a cut path in his wake. There was nothing to be done for it, so he abandoned stealth and, with Quicksilver's razor edge, hacked his way down the passages, kicking up clouds of dust.
Soon Fritz came to the wall where he suspected the hidden room to be, it was lined with bookcases filled with cracked leather-bound tomes. He pulsed his Awareness again and again as he walked beside them until he felt a small resonance from behind a particularly worn bookcase. The shelves were laden with small, lumpy figurines of what he could only assume were frogs or an approximation thereof. One in particular caught his eye, the misshapen rock was veined with some precious blue stone. He seized it gently and found it was stuck to the shelf it lay upon. He pulled it towards himself like a lever and from behind the bookcase was a click, then the whole bookcase swung backwards, opening silently on well-oiled hinges.
Fritz peered into the cobwebbed-laced opening and again he pulsed his Awareness. He was glad he did, his Trap Sense trilled and he noticed a thin steel wire that was suspended around shin height, hidden among the harmless webs. Fritz stepped over the tripwire and into the small room beyond, finding only bare stone walls and an old desk of dry wood. Quickly, he opened the drawers, searching for the key that was meant to be there. He let out a sigh of relief when he found the blocky steel key in the second drawer.
Fritz snatched it up without hesitation, sliding the cold, solid metal into his shirt's front pocket under his armour. It had a reassuring weight to it. He then checked the last drawers for anything valuable. There was nothing but dust and decayed journals, unreadable and unremarkable. As he turned to leave the floor shuddered, this tremor far more powerful than any of those before it. Fritz's gut lurched and he felt his Trap Sense react, a dull trilling in a slow, sharp rhythm, beating like a heart. A blanket of dread fell over him along with the sense that the Archives had begun to sink in earnest.
He had to get moving.
He sprinted to where he knew his team to be, gathered before before the tall, steel vault doors. Fritz rushed this way and that, dashing and slashing the most direct route. He leant into his grace to slide around corners without tripping and leveraged every once of Strength to push him forward. It was in moments like this that he thanked his past self for aligning nine points to each of his physical Attributes.
Soon he found his team's previous path and after six minutes of running flat out, he slowed to a jog, entering his team's lantern light. He panted, sweat and was absolutely coated in dust and hanging webs.
"Fritz, that you under all that dust?" Bert said, lowering his fists.
Fritz coughed but gave a thumbs up, then he pulled away the sash of sirensilk he'd been using to cover his mouth and catch the flying dust. He shook it out then motioned for his team to make way while slipping the steel key out from his pocket and into the lock.
It fit in with a satisfying clunk and he turned it. With a dull clank and a small tremor from behind the thick steel, the doors ground open. Fritz, pulsed his Awareness then after feeling nothing, ushered his team through the still-opening gap.
"You four go ahead. Lauren, come with me," Fritz wheezed, gripping her wrist so she didn't lose him in the dark. "Bert keep a look out."
Bert looked at him suspiciously but nodded slowly.
"What? Where are we going?" She asked as he pulled he gently along into the darkness.
He led her until they stood before a particularly dense nest of webs and dead spiders and waited, watched, for the telltale light of glowstones and mana lanterns. He easily spotted the brightness and the shadows it cast on the roof, it was still far away but slowly creeping towards the vault doors.
"Burn them," Fritz ordered.
"What?" Lauren asked as if she hadn't heard him clearly.
"The webs. Burn them," Fritz repeated.
"That will set off the whole room, didn't you say something about a dust explosion?"
"I did. Do it," Fritz said coldly.
She looked to the light, realising that the enemy team were still walking through the maze of grey sheets and threads. Lauren hesitated. Fritz stared at her.
They locked gazes for a heartbeat, embers danced lazily in her eyes. She turned away, faced the ancient archive and breathed in. Lauren pulled down the siren silk around her mouth and blew. A great heat bloomed, a torrent of orange fire splashed over the bundled webs. They caught alight in an instant, and suddenly Fritz felt they were far too close to the oncoming devastation.
Danger Sense warned him, and he activated his barrier ring, it dulled the roar and thunder of the spreading conflagration.
"Use your barrier!" Fritz yelled, and she quickly complied, cutting off her fire breath while her body was encompassed in a second skin of rushing water.
Fritz was about to order her to run when a mighty boom sounded from the inferno, and he was thrown from his feet as he was sent soaring. His barrier broke, and he reactivated it mid-air as he hurtled towards the vault door. He slammed into the stone wall next to it, the second protective bubble cushioning his impact and letting him fall to the floor without any bones broken.
Fritz staggered to his feet, grimacing at the slight sting of light burns down the right side of his face.
Lauren had also been blown away by the explosion, though she hit the door itself before falling. She gingerly got to her feet and looked to have fared much better than Fritz himself, her ring's Imbuement was seemingly far more suited to absorbing the intense heat and brutal force. He limped over to where she stood transfixed at the destruction she had wrought, the wave of fire spread, consuming all before it. Ash and embers floated to the ceiling, all was burning save a distant dome of clear, swirling air that soon spun into a tornado of roiling flame.
Fritz cursed, it had been too much to ask to kill all the bastards in one fell swoop. He turned away, the heat was steadily rising, the air was getting hot enough they might be cooked like squid pies in a stone oven. He slipped an elbow around Lauren's own and dragged her through the vault door with him. When they were through he was met with a furious glare, not from Lauren but from Bert.
He was livid. Amber eyes gleamed darkly, reflected flames flickering over them. Bert turned and signalled sharply for Fritz to follow him up the stairs.
"Close the door," Fritz ordered the rest of the team, striding to catch up to Bert. He knew his friend would be angry, but now he suspected that he had misjudged just how mad he'd made him. Small streams of roiling fury emanated from around Bert's shoulders like a haze of transparent steam. Internally, Fritz winced.
This might be a rough conversation.
When they were far enough to talk without eavesdroppers, Bert spun and seized Fritz by his collar. He didn't attempt to dodge and his Danger Sense was silent even as Bert's eyes bore into his own.
"What was that!?" Bert growled. "You said you'd let it lie. Then you went and murdered them?"
"I did let it lie," Fritz protested, making no attempt to escape. "I chanced upon them whilst searching for the key."
"Chanced upon them? Don't give me that, you sought them out to spy on them," Bert stated.
Fritz scoffed at the all-too-true accusation and continued his tale.
"I heard them plan an ambush, they were going to rob and murder us."
"What?" Bert said sharply.
"Exactly what I said. Larry asked Toby and Jane what powers we had, and those two told them everything they knew."
Bert stared into his eyes searching for any deceit, then he scowled. Fritz could see the stream of emotions twist subtly from boiling rage into bitter disappointment.
"Damn," Bert sighed, letting go of Fritz's shirt, then sweeping his hand through his mop of blonde hair. "That didn't mean you had to resort to murder so quickly. Without even talking to the team. Without asking me."
Fritz felt a pang of guilt and a sharper sense of regret. Bert was right, he should have warned him first, he more than deserved it. He had been rash in his actions, going so far as to use Lauren's Ability to enact his assault and not considering it would be her hands also that would be bloodied by the action. It was on his orders, but that might not matter when she would have to wrestle with what she had done.
"If it makes you feel any better they had some kind of protection. And I'm sure some of them survived if not all of them," Fritz said with a sigh.
"It does, and it doesn't. And you also tipped them off that we know they're coming," Bert said. "Coulda' feigned ignorance, have a chance to turn the ambush on its head with a solid scheme."
"That's true, I just saw the opportunity to take them out in one sudden blow. Without having to see their faces. And I took it," Fritz admitted, he left unsaid his desire for not wanting to burden Bert. He tried to spare his friend from having to fight and potentially kill his former crew. He could bear that all himself, he was the Captain after all.
"We had the time and I should have talked to you first," he added earnestly.
Bert nodded. "That's right. Now you're getting it through your skulg-shell skull. I shouldn't have to remind you we're in this together."
"Again, you're right," Fritz said with a small smile. "I'm glad you're with me."
Bert grinned and slapped him on the shoulder. "Me too."
"So what do we do?" Fritz asked. "About our ambush problem."
"I don't know," Bert proudly proclaimed. "Thankfully, we have a whole team of idiots who might have some ideas."
"True as the rain," Fritz agreed. "Let's get back to them then, and ply them for any insights they may have."
With that, they strode right back down the stairs with almost identical smug smiles.
Rosie noticed them first and nudged Cal, who looked at them with some trepidation.
"Why does it look like you've got some mad plan?" He asked.
"We have no such designs, it time for you lot to show some initiative, cunning and guile," Fritz stated pompously. "Unfortunately, from what I saw the other team survived my small trick. They're maybe a little worse for wear but likely still healthy, and even more likely to be angry."
Lauren sighed quietly, seemingly she had been struggling somewhat with what she'd done.
"And why did you want me to incinerate them?" She asked.
"They had planned to ambush us, to rob us, to kill Cal, George and I," Fritz explained, then rapidly briefed them on what he had heard.
When he was done explaining the whole team was scowling and Lauren seemed to have little regret left for trying to burn them all. The fact that they wanted to keep only the ladies, and Bert, alive had led them to some dark conclusions, and Fritz didn't bother to correct them.
"Bastards," Rosie muttered.
"Thugs and ruffians," Lauren agreed.
"Hey now, some of us are proud thugs and regal ruffians and would never do such things," Fritz said.
Lauren merely rolled her eyes at him, she really was getting rather familiar with them, soon she'd be as coarse and cynical as they were. Or maybe not, conventions and politeness fell away with this group due to it lacking a true formal structure and her proprietary would likely return on the outside. He'd been trying to lead them as he would a crew of thieves and found it to work as well as may be expected, which is to say, well enough.
Somewhere down the line, he might have to look into real styles of Captain-ship, but for now, he seemed to be doing fine, except for a couple of small instances with Cal. Fritz shook himself from his thoughts, he was getting ahead of himself.
"Any ideas?" Fritz asked. "Anything that would keep us from having to fight them? I have little doubt we'd win. Though they might have some surprises, and my conscience couldn't bear the thought of you suffering from the mistake of misjudging their strength," he added confidently.
Fritz, of course, had many doubts about their capacity to fight them evenly. He didn't fear this group like he had done the raider, whose enormous strength and skill eclipsed them in every way, and who had both exotic Abilities and Techniques from far away Spires. No, this group posed a different threat, a lesser one, but still not to be overlooked. They were survivors, just as he and Bert were. Willing to take any means to victory.
"Wish this door could be barred like the others, but it only has a lock," George observed.
"Unless we can find something heavy to put in front of it I don't think we'll be keeping it closed," Fritz said. "They also had a key."
"Why were there two keys? That seems odd for a vault," Lauren said.
"There were more than two actually, one on each of the floors before us," Fritz explained.
"Very odd," Lauren said thoughtfully.
"Yes. Though so is this whole Floor," Fritz said waving away the small worry that crept into her face and his gut. "Any other ideas?"
"Sleeping gas?" Cal suggested.
"They have a wind mage, gas won't be much use," Fritz pointed out.
"Caltrops and poisons?" Cal proposed.
"We can do that," Fritz said.
"We can ruin the hinges, or block the doors from opening, fill the lock with molten metal," George said thoughtfully.
"My flames did nothing to the steel," Lauren said. "I can't harm the hinges."
"Think you could melt one of these daggers into the lock?" Fritz said, handing her one of the raider's spares.
"I'll try," she hedged.
"Don't bother, you'd need a furnace and more time to melt the iron of that blade," George said.
"As for hinges, leave that to me and my acid," Bert boasted.
Suddenly the floor shook, again. They all looked to one another, the same nervousness etched on each of their faces.
"Quickly then!" Fritz commanded.
"Give me space," Bert said, raising a palm and pointing it at one of the door's solid hinges. Fritz and the others rapidly retreated up the stairs watching intently. With a hiss, misty liquid spouted from Bert's outstretched hand and soaked the metal. The fluid foamed and sizzled on contact and within moments the hinge was caked in a thin coat of rust.
"Again," Bert cried, spraying down the same spot, further encrusting the hinge in rust. He looked over his handiwork and nodded in satisfaction before blasting the upper hinge on the other side in similar fashion.
"Those hinges aren't moving easily any more," Bert said. "Better get the lock too, just in case," he added as if to himself.
Another hiss, but also a cry of shock from Bert as his acid was forcefully spit out by some magical protection the keyhole possessed.
"Ouch!" He yelled, shaking his hand and glaring at where the returned acid had splattered him.
"Right," Fritz said, "Cal drop what's left of the caltrops."
"Not going to poison them?" Cal asked as the Floor shuddered under their feet. This time however the tremors didn't subside completely. Instead, Fritz could feel a dull vibration from all around.
"No time," Fritz declared. "Bert come on, we've done what we can."
Bert ran up to where they were and together they fled up the stairs.
"Wonder what's in the next room," Rosie said taking the stairs two at a time. "Must be good seeings as it's called a vault."
"It'll be all the most shiny stuff," Bert predicted.
"Filled with old books more like," Cal bemoaned, emptying the sack of their very last caltrops down the stairs. They clinked off the stone like dropped cutlery.
"Get your packs ready, grab anything that looks valuable," Fritz ordered, anticipation warring with greedy excitement in his chest.
They crested the top of the stairway and found themselves in a large room, though it was far smaller than the labyrinthine floors before and far more organised. It had a glass-domed roof, through which Fritz could see a black ocean filled with glowing specs of blue and pink light. He could see that the bright pinpricks were some kind of luminescent jellyfish, floating like stars in a moonless night and filling the room with an ethereal light.
"Wow, look at the sky," Lauren breathed.
"Whoa, look at the gold!" Bert blurted.
Fritz tore his eyes from the ceiling and looked to where Bert was pointing.
What he saw shocked him. There, in the centre of the room was a nine-foot-tall cage with bars made of gold, within were a small section of bookcases and a smattering of richly carved tables and chairs. Surrounding the walls of this room were gilded bookcases and extravagant displays of all kinds. Shelves were stacked with vibrant, well-preserved, leather tomes, while plinths were presenting all manner of precious artefacts. Even the floor was covered in a thick burgundy carpet that only accentuated the appearance of abundant wealth.
Across and opposite where he stood, Fritz could feel the Stairway up, it was barely a hundred yards away. No longer was the shrouding strong enough, or the Door far enough away, to escape his pulses of Awareness. Still, he didn't sigh in relief just yet, his Door Sense was picking up something troubling, something he had to check.
"I can't sense any traps. Start looting," Fritz ordered, though he didn't really need to as the team had started salivating while looking over the opulence of the archive vault and were soon running this way and that to various things that had caught their sight.
Fritz didn't get lost in his avaricious ambitions and instead searched for their way out, that feeling that something was wrong with the Stairway out steadily intensifying as he drew closer. Within a minute he was standing before the Stairway, hidden behind another set of thick steel vault doors.
A heavy weight draped around his shoulders as he took in the terrible truth of the way out. Where the previous set of doors had one keyhole, one lock, this set had two.
"We need another key."
Comments
Octophobia
It would take a couple of steps, but eventually it could. Like Ascending into a illusory trap stone pit.
Kemizle
question can stone pit evolve to be closer to the dusksong attribute ?
