We moved out. There were a few life signs down here. The rooms to the left and right had cells in them, and some of the rooms looked like torture chambers, and stones were all stained red. There were no gray dwarves in the corridor, so we continued to the end, and took the stairwell down.
Gwen quipped, “Well, you were partially right.”
There was a thick small iron portcullis that was locked in place, it was also highly enchanted. Beyond that, wasn’t a hallway but a large vault sized room that ran the entire length of the corridor upstairs. It was filled with coin, gold, enchanted armor and weapons, and artwork obviously taken from the good races. There were also skulls decorating the walls, I wondered if those were old enemies of this city’s ruler, king, leader, whatever the hell the gray dwarves had.
The Dwarven royal weapons and armor must have a place of honor, because they were all the way on the other end of the room. I could feel them straight ahead, two hundred feet or so beyond tons of treasure.
Steve sighed, “I hate to sound like a broken record, but how do we get past that enchantment? At least, without everyone in the castle hearing it or sensing it.”
Yeah, collecting loot and fighting our way out of the city from the deepest hole of it would be very difficult if not impossible, so of course this was when we’d run into an obstacle we couldn’t sneak past.
Gwen said, “At least it isn’t fire and air magic.”
I nodded, remembering the explosion from the mine back in the Southern Kingdom. I wondered for a moment how Annabelle was doing, before I took another look.
The enchantment was part earth magic, most likely that was to make the bars immune to being simply melted away by another earth mage, and possibly to make the metal stronger. It wasn’t just the gate either, the enchantment seemed to encase the whole vault. There was also air magic, which was probably the alarm when a breach was detected. I hoped, otherwise it would be a nasty attack of some kind. Lastly, there was life magic, and I suspected it was the gatekeeper of sorts. Like I’d keyed the ship’s security system to the life patterns of our group only. Anyone else trying to get in while it was active would set off growth. Again, just a guess, for all I knew when it was touched it would alarm and cast stasis on the person trying to break in. Essentially freezing them in time, to us it would look like a bunch of gray dwarves appeared out of nowhere, right before they gutted us.
Chances were though, that it was that first one. There were better offensive spells out there in both air and earth, and it being used to detect for certain life patterns just made sense for a vault door. Besides, there was no keyhole, which meant the key was magical.
Steve snickered, “We could wait here cloaked, until someone came down here to count their gold.”
“Helpful suggestions?” I said in a tone of irony, to remove any sting from my words.
Dan said, “I could break the enchantment, but it would probably take about ten minutes.”
Right, and we’d be defending. At least it was a nice tight space, we wouldn’t have to fight more than two of them at once in the stairwell. Still, it was a big gamble and an assumption we could fight our way out.
Cassie said, “What if we all hit it with raw magic, all our magic, all at once.”
That was a better plan, maybe, if it worked.
I asked, “How much magic would it take to block the alarm part. I assume the air magic is meant to make a sound in the castle.”
Cassie shook her head, “I don’t think so. Blocking sound from someone walking or talking is completely different, you’re talking about blocking a master level spell from making a sound at remote, far away from where we are.”
“Right. Okay, anyone think we should turn around and leave, despite the odds of us fighting our way out?”
Silence.
“You’re all nuts. Okay, here’s the plan. We all hit this thing with raw magic to destabilize the enchantment. As soon as it falls, Dan, you need to immediately rip down the door with earth magic. I’m assuming the enchantment will recover as it stabilizes, we can’t count on it being permanent. We’ll block the stairs with ice and stone to delay the enemy. We grab the enchantments we’re looking for, as far as I can tell there are six of them, two swords, a staff, two bows, and a set of armor. Then whatever else we can carry and get out.”
Gwen nodded, “We should grab enchanted stuff first. That’ll be more valuable than thousands of gold, and easier and lighter.”
“Alright, good luck. Wait.”
I pulled out my communicator, and I typed a message to Lyre and Anlyth. If we didn’t contact them in an hour, we wouldn’t be coming back out and they should head back with the ship. On the off chance that time came and went, and we were still alive, I could send another message to push back the time.
“Alright, on three, one, two, three…
Chapter Twenty-Three
Magic, raw and unformed, shot from our six hands at once. I dumped four thousand mana into it in a quick burst, and the others sent a lesser but still healthy amount. It didn’t break the enchantment, but it strained it, bent it out of shape for the moment.
The metal protested a tick, and then there was a loud clank as the portcullis was ripped out of the doorway and shoved into the vault.
Maybe two seconds later, an alarm filled the room and corridor above. I had a feeling that it filled the whole castle, and I hoped that it didn’t fill the entire city’s cavern.
I pulled out the gem and ran toward the back of the vault, which was really stupid, even if time was a critical factor at that point. I got about halfway there when there was an explosion of fire. My mana-shield saved me, but just barely as it was wiped out and I also took several hundred points of damage.
Dan said, “Slow down.”
I sighed, duh. It also hurt, excruciatingly, being burned was not fun.
It didn’t take long though, for my magic to fill up, as I cast heal and moved forward more cautiously. As I got closer to the front of the room, the gem started to pulse, with a bright light. When I was maybe sixty feet away, the gem pulsed brightly with light, as did the six items, and they all disappeared.
Well, shit. The dwarves had obviously hoped we’d make it that far, but obviously had expected us to fail at this point. They’d built in some kind of transport spell into the enchantment. It wasn’t hard really, not even a master level spell. I could do it, just not to anything alive. At least, not without expecting it to come out alive on the other side. Not until I hit master to incorporate the life sphere concepts anyway.
I muttered, “On the good side, more room to carry our own loot.”
Gwen laughed.
I continued to move forward, it seemed the really good stuff was all the way at the end anyway, and the rest of the party followed, no doubt thinking the same thing.
We found a master level enchanted bow, a staff, three swords, a crossbow, and two sets of robes. None of us could use them yet, and we didn’t take the time to figure out what they did, but it would be cool to have them. We had sixteen levels to go for master, but eventually we’d have an item each of good stuff. Sure, we’d be able to make our own at that point, but we still didn’t know how to find master level gems, or how to create them if that was possible. Even if Dan or Anlyth could make them, we didn’t know how long each one would take.
We also took a few handfuls of gold just because, and more gems too. We already had spare expert level gems, which could each hold four enchantments, but more was always good. Even if we never found master level gems, we could still put master level enchantments on expert level gems, mix and match our spheres. Really, they’d still be considered expert level equipment, the only difference was more than one sphere per gem. Granted, that would come in handier in a ship, or to enchant weapons, because most of my equipment were all enchanted with light magic anyway, and I liked it that way, but it was a thing.
They were also a lot more valuable than gold, and much lighter.
“Cloak as soon as we cross the threshold,
as long as there are no grandmasters here, we can take a peek at what we’re facing. Since no one raced down here, I can only assume they’re setting up in the torture hallway in such a way we can’t just walk past them.”
No one commented, or had anything to add, but then my statement was a little on the obvious side.
We cloaked as soon as we passed through the grand enchantment. Nothing really changed, since the alarm sound hadn’t stopped at all. My guess was that it wouldn’t turn off until someone in the ruler’s family made it down there. Maybe that’s another reason they didn’t come down all the way, they wanted the alarm to keep going off until the intruders were dealt with.
My stomach sank as we reached the top of the doorway. There were twenty of those gray dwarf guards, as well as three in robes. I took a chance and assessed them, that didn’t affect the cloak because I didn’t cast anything, it was a sub-option and built into the detect life spell I always had running. I’d just been worried they’d feel it before.
It was with some relief that I saw they were all in journeyman levels, except for one of them in the robes was expert level. They all had somewhere around two thousand hit points, and they had resistances against everything, but only forty percent. The three spellcasters had higher immunities, eighty for the elements, and forty for death, life, light, and darkness. Two had about fifteen hundred hit points, and the expert level one had over two thousand. Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell at all how much they all had in mana shields, just that they had them.
The hundred fifteen mana that it took to check them all, five each, was just a blip, as it took me less than a second at that point to recoup that much mana. They were in a formation of four across the large hallway. Close enough we couldn’t sneak by because of how they held their weapons, but not so close that when the fight started they’d get in each other’s way. There were five rows of that, and the two mages in the back.
I took a moment to pass on all the information I’d gathered, we had time, they were still waiting for us to expose ourselves. Then I gave out the plan.
“Alright, the mages are highly resistant against the elements, but they probably have very large mana shields, and for taking those down resistance doesn’t matter. Let me, Dan, and Cassie hit them all as hard as we can with fire and lightning. As soon as that’s done, Gwen and Steve, hit them as hard as you can with area effect life drain and damaging darkness. If we’re very very lucky, that will kill the expert caster. Aim the center of your blast toward the back row of fighters, make sure the casters take full damage, if the front row only takes fifty percent damage that’s fine with me.”
Lara asked, “What about me?”
I sighed, “Bonus as usual, and if the expert caster lives, cloak us, and we’ll duck into a room. Hopefully we’ll kill enough of the warriors that we can sneak out after that.”
Assuming we lived through the expert’s first attack, which was a hell of an assumption. If he didn’t die, we were screwed.
“On three.”
I put everything I had in it. All seven thousand five hundred and seventy-nine mana. I knew if he didn’t die, no matter how much I held back for my shield wouldn’t be enough. I really hated all or nothing situations.
With my base damage of fifty-four, plus all that mana minus the fifteen mana to form the spell and explosion, plus triple damage, was over twenty-two thousand damage. I was pretty sure that was enough, for most of the journeyman, even with high resistances. Add in everyone else’s area attack, I thought we’d probably be okay.
Except, I was sure in the expert levels my mana shield would be strong enough to withstand that hard of a hit from elemental magic. It was the follow up attacks I was counting on.
“One, two, three…”
Fire left Dan’s and my hand, as Cassie sent out a coruscating ball of electricity, which slammed into the expert and arced out to hit others, then others, losing effectiveness with each jump.
One of the casters, and about two thirds of the warriors just died under our fire and lightning, several others looked injured, so I knew their shields were gone, and they were as good as dead as Gwen shot out a globe of darkness that exploded in their midst, peppering their bodies in shadow spikes. Steve also hit them all with an area of effect drain life.
The bastard was still standing, but at least he was the only one.
Then Lara cast a spell, except it wasn’t a cloaking spell. A spike of pure darkness lanced out of her hand, and hit the expert caster center mass, right in his heart. He looked confused for a moment, and then collapsed on the ground, his chest still and his eyes glassy.
I don’t know who was more shocked, us, or Lara, when me, Gwen, and Steve turned to look at her in disbelief. Cassie and Dan hadn’t been a part of our group long enough to be shocked by what Lara had just done.
Lara looked to be in shock, and she was staring wide eyed at the dead gray dwarf in disbelief.
“Gwen.”
She nodded absently without taking her eyes off Lara, and then cloaked us all.
“One minute, then I need Lara to take over. I hadn’t regened all that much mana, and I used all of it on that spell.”
I nodded in understanding and shifted three thousand of my own mana back into a mana shield. It didn’t slow down my regen, my total was still my total, but it did effect my available mana for spell casting. Still, that left me over four thousand mana to play with.
Steve said, “Lara?” as he took her hand.
Lara blinked, and looked over, “I’ll be alright. I couldn’t let everyone get killed, and he was about to cast, I had too. That cloak and duck in a room plan was lame as hell, and wouldn’t have worked, we’d have all died. No one said anything because they know I won’t kill.”
Her voice sounded empty.
Steve asked, “Are you good, we can talk it out later, right now we’re in deep shit.”
Lara nodded, “I think so, the normal way maybe. I don’t know if I can do that again, but a party needs enhancement and healing, right?”
She sounded small and unsure, but hopeful.
I nodded firmly, “You’ve saved us all countless times Lara, even if this is the first time done in that way, it’s hardly the first time.”
I wasn’t sure what the origin of her hang up was, or if there was even an origin besides who she was as a person. She’d never said, only said she couldn’t bring herself to kill, even evil beings, but she could protect us and heal us while we did it. Lara wasn’t just shy, she was the sweetest most gentle woman I’d ever met. Maybe that was all it was.
Lara looked at me gratefully, and then squeezed Steve’s hand. Then she nodded at Gwen as she cast a cloak over all of us, and Gwen allowed hers to be dispelled.
“Time to go, same party order.”
“You really think that?” she asked.
I nodded, “I thought it was a coup when we snagged you and Steve, a party can’t survive without light magic, and you were a double whammy with life and darkness too. A perfect support caster that all those other fools didn’t understand the value of. It wasn’t until later when we became close as family though, that I realized what a blessing it was to run into you again when we got to Southern Kingdom.”
Lara blushed, but smiled wider when she saw Gwen nodding in agreement with my words. She was a wonderful woman, but she really needed to learn to be more confident. How could she not know how important her and Steve were to the rest of us?
We were quiet then, as we’d finished looting the easy to carry stuff, and Dan and Gwen took point as usual and we made our way back up the stairs. The two guards must’ve been part of the mess downstairs, because they were gone. We took off carefully down the hallway, the ruler was screaming about finding the intruders. A few of them were casting random dispels, but so far they hadn’t cast one in our direction.
One truism is people didn’t walk very closely to walls, they walked out in the hallway leaving a gap. We were able to squeeze through past several guards and patr
ols trying to secure the large mansion. There was a large force blocking the front door, and we imagined there was one in the back as well.
Except… we ran up the stairs, might as well leave the same way we came in. It wasn’t long before we were out, and racing for the mine entrance. We already knew where the traps were as we retraced our steps.
There was another mob of guards blocking that exit, and probably the other two exits to the city too.
“Let’s just blast our way out from here? Might as well wreck their mine too, on the way out.”
It’d probably only take them a day or two to rebuild the foundry and forges with magic, they weren’t weak goblins after all. Still, it might take them longer to find new orc slaves to run it all, and it would make me feel better to kill some of the evil bastards.
Cassie’s laughter tinkled, “Sounds like a plan to me.”
Gwen snickered, “Good idea.”
These were all journeyman as well, but they didn’t look nearly as intimidating without an expert among them. I still put a whole lot of the four thousand mana I had available into the spell, which Dan followed up with fire of his own, and Cassie lightning. Gwen didn’t even cast, as they all fell dead.
Steve tossed a ball of miasma in their midst, and the corpses started to stir as the gray dwarves behind us raised a ruckus and started to charge.
“They’ll buy us a few seconds.”
I understood, as we ran into the spiraling tunnel up to the mine, the undead gray dwarves stood up and took up their guard positions once more. To add insult to injury, Lara cast a spell to give them forty percent resistance to the four elements, they wouldn’t be so easy to destroy with fire.
As we went up, I added four horizontal bars of ice across the tunnel every ten feet or so. It wouldn’t slow them down that much, but it would buy us time to create a little more havoc on the way out.
Both Gwen and Dan pulled their swords, and the two orc guards didn’t know what hit them as they were cut down from behind. None of the orcs were above apprentice level, and all had less than eight hundred hit points and very little resistances. They were worker slaves, not warriors. There were a lot of them, but it wasn’t so much a battle as it was a slaughter.
Island Kingdoms' War Page 15