Chapter 7 - Through Fire and Shadow
Zach walked through the Elven Quarter, his pack over his shoulder and his hands twitching. His nerves had been restless since yesterday and there was precious little he could do than stuff his palms in his pockets.
The news of the lindrakes being cleared out had spread fast and Ryu had been eager all week for them to get back to the ruins before anyone else stumbled across it. Zach shared his concern as well as his enthusiasm, but part of him was still shaken by their brush with the crystalline beasts.
Lazy as the guards might be at times, Zach knew they wouldn’t give the all clear if they weren’t confident the lindrakes were gone. The problem was that he didn’t have much confidence in them. He did find comfort in not hearing of any other incidents since a hunting party had been sent out. Zach had made sure to keep an ear out for such news whenever he’d gone out for a meal.
If his nervousness had just been over the lindrakes, that might have been enough. Sumire had asked some questions the night before he truly wished she hadn’t. Zach hated lying to her. He trusted Sumire and thought of her as family, but the topic of the ruins just made him paranoid of someone hearing him say the wrong thing. As excited he was to be exploring an untouched site, Zach looked forward to when this discovery was well behind him.
He tried to push those thoughts aside and focus on the practical as he approached a small blacksmith’s shop near the southern gate. It had been the location Zach and Ryu had agreed upon to meet at before first bell and the city gates opened.
As he waited, he gazed over the racks of weapons displayed in the shop’s window, but quickly dismissed the notion. A weapon in his hand was as much danger to himself as anything else.
It was a pity that Ore magic wasn’t terribly well suited for combat situations. True, there were those legends of Imperial battle mages tossing boulders and plucking stone daggers out of rock walls, but that still came back to the issue of weapon skills or the lack there of. Now smithing and artificing work? It excelled. Such was the reason Ore mages got snapped up by the Rosar Knights and local Magic Brigades as well as why Zach preferred to keep his magic close to his chest.
If he were honest, Zach would admit that exploring the ruins had been a refreshing chance to use his magic for the first time in a while.
Zach mused on the subject for a few moments as the street beside the gate began to fill with merchants and other travelers ready to strike out on the roads beyond the city walls. It wasn’t a thick crowd, though the carts and beasts of burden did add to its mass. There were probably twice as many milling their way towards the churches of the city for worship. These were simply those whose faith was outweighed by the desire to be ahead of the noonday rush.
The early morning rush came in the form of Ryu hustling up the block with Sora flapping lazily above his head. Ryu came to a stop beside Zach, huffing and puffing with his hands on his knees.
“Did I… keep you… waiting?” he asked in between breaths.
“Only been here about ten minutes,” Zach replied as Ryu took a gulp from his waterskin. “Surprised I got here ahead of you.”
Ryu wiped a bead of water from his lip as he stowed the waterskin away. “Was doing charm work and lost track of time,” he replied.
Zach rolled his eyes at Ryu using Cant to tell him he was late because he’d been practicing his lockpicking. Much as he disliked the slang tongue, it was probably a wise move. Hearing the words ‘lock’ and ‘pick’ come out of a Yoru’s mouth was sure way to draw a guardsman’s ire and it was too early in the morning for that hassle.
“Old habits?” Zach remarked.
“More like a short order,” Ryu whispered conspiratorially.
Zach nodded, realizing what lock the elf had been practicing on. “Still eager, huh?” he snorted.
“Hey, can’t let you have all the fun.”
The two laughed and started making their way towards the gate. Soon enough, first bell echoed over the city and the gate opened. The line of carriages, carts, and their drivers staggered forward while those on foot progressed alongside them.
Zach and Ryu blended into the crowd. The guards barely even seemed to look at them as they left the city. Now they only had to leave the line of travelers.
Fortunately, the proper attire for exploring ruins wasn’t too dissimilar from what one might wear while foraging for herbs. Zach and Ryu traded words over the subject in case anyone was near enough to hear. He might have been a poor trainee as a hunter, but recalling the facts associated with herbs worth harvesting was one of Aoi’s lessons he had confidence in.
As they walked, Sora spread her wings and took to the sky above, keeping a vigilant eye on what was around the boys as they eventually broke from the loose caravan and struck out into the woods.
After some trekking, they came to a familiar hole in the forest floor. Ryu made quick work of lashing his rope around a tree, sending the other end of it down into the cellar. He gave a sharp whistle to Sora as he pulled the knot tight, but the bird ignored him and perched herself on a branch up above him. Ryu glared up at her and Sora simply dug her talons into the bark.
“Leave her be,” Zach said, grimacing as he looked down into the cellar. “She’d just be stir crazy down there.”
“Fine,” Ryu muttered before looking back up. “Sora, keep watch.”
The bird squawked at the command. Deciding to take it as an assent, Ryu turned and hopped down into the cellar. Zach tossed their bags down before joining him in the abandoned space.
Zach pulled out his lantern along with a flint and striker. Holding the lamp aloft, he led the way into the Dwarven hallway.
It was a little slow going at first as Zach insisted on checking to make sure the traps were still deactivated from their previous visit. Excessive? Perhaps, but one could never be too careful. There was always the odd tale of dwarves having put mechanisms into there traps that reset them after their secret lever had been pulled.
It was debatable how true those stories were, of course. Relic hunters were often want to embellish their adventures, especially if it meant an extra round of drinks. As much as Zach like to think he would have noticed such mechanisms should they actually exist, he decided to err on the side of caution. Dwarves had been a paranoid bunch with Ore magic that supposedly eclipsed anything a human could do.
Their fortunes held as Zach quickly saw that the trapdoors remained locked shut. He and Ryu soon made their way down the corridor in a fraction of the time it had taken their first visit. They passed the chamber they had explored before, neither sparing more than a glance inside, before heading down the stairsteps that lead deeper into the ruins.
Zach kept his senses sharp as he slowly made his way down, scanning the floor for any signs of new traps. To his surprise, he found none. While he forced himself to remain cautious, Zach allowed himself to entertain the idea that they were at least done with trapdoors for the time being.
As they descended, the rhythmic dripping that had drummed on their nerves before was back and was growing steadily louder. They came to the bottom of the steps and found the floor fitted with a large metal grate.
On the other side of the room was a door with strips of metal bolted to it, blanketing the wood. It was odd, even by Dwarven standards. Zach wasn’t even sure it would need a lock. The weight alone might be enough to keep it in place.
As he and Ryu crossed the grate, Zach tried to cast some lantern light down through the grate, but failed to see what lay beneath them. All he could make out was the dripping noise that echoed up from the dark depths.
He wasn’t able to ponder this long as Ryu suddenly jerked him back by the collar an off his feet.
BOOM!
A bolt of flame shot down from the ceiling straight to where Zach had been standing. The gout passed through the grate with a hiss as it touched the metal.
Before Zach could react, Ryu grabbed hold of him again and pulled him to his feet. “Move!” the elf shouted as he hustled back to the stairs.
Without wasting a second thought, Zach followed after him and felt the radiant heat of a second firebolt streak past. This one had been closer than the first. With speed he didn’t know he had, he joined Ryu back on the stairsteps, gazing onto the landing in bewilderment.
“Wh… where?” Zach huffed, catching his breath.
Ryu inched towards the edge of the stairs and pointed up. Zach followed and cast his lantern.
The ceiling was studded with red-gold gems. They were scattered about in a loose grid, none more than a foot apart. Each seemed to be fitted into a metal dish to directed downwards. A few of them glowed faintly in the firelight of the lantern.
“Fi… fire crystals?” Zach breathed, this time in shock more than exhaustion.
“Yep,” Ryu remarked dryly. “Any idea how we get past?”
Zach looked around the room but found no answer to give. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t even know what triggered them. There’s definitely no pressure plate or lever we could have tripped.”
Ryu rubbed his chin, clearly thinking the same.
It didn’t make sense. There weren’t any mechanisms they had activated. Yet, the crystals had gone off right above them. Like they knew where they were standing. But how?
Tripwires were the first theory to pop into Zach’s mind. A thin enough cord might be enough to avoid being sensed by his magic and that would be if he was close enough to where it was set up. However, the theory crumbled in the face of how the crystals seemed to track their movements. The amount of wires needed for that would have made the floor look like a spider’s web.
As Zach pondered for a second potential answer, he noticed the crystals nearest to the steps had begun to glow and were significantly brighter than the others. He and Ryu quickly retreated back up a few steps. A pop of flame shot down a moment later.
“How?” Zach remarked, feeling quite stumped by the puzzle before him. At least this proved there wasn’t a mechanical element, but that still left the question of what was triggering the crystals.
Ryu gazed up at the ceiling for a moment before looking back at Zach. Specifically, his lantern.
“What?”
“I have an idea,” Ryu replied. He took a slow step towards the grated landing. “Just… take the lantern and stay back a bit, okay?”
Zach’s eyebrows shot up. “Wait! Ryu, what are you…”
Ryu hustled across the grated floor. He darted right and left, staying in constant motion in case one of the crystals above him went of and tried to roast him alive.
But none did. Not a single fire crystal so much as glowed as Ryu passed underneath.
After a moment, Ryu stopped moving about and looked back at Zach, a wild grin on his face.
“But… how?” Zach said dumbfounded as he took a step away from the stairs.
“Stop!” Ryu shouted, making Zach pause mid-step. “I think it’s the lantern. The light seems to be what triggers them.”
Zach blinked at the idea. He’d heard stranger tales involving enchanted tools, but with a single crystal?
“Do you think you can grab one of them off? Might be worth researching later.”
A few minutes later, Ryu managed to find a spot on the room’s wall he could climb up and pry one of the dishes from the ceiling with his dagger. There were more crystals inside beside the fire gems. With a better understanding of what they were dealing with, Zach told him to separate the crystals and stow the device away in his bag where light wouldn’t be an issue.
With their first relic of the day stashed away, Ryu approached the metal door and gave the handle a testing rattle. When it proved to be lock, he took out his picks and got to work.
Zach couldn’t see Ryu’s work. He wasn’t sure how much Ryu could see his own work. Zach could do little more than stand back and up the stairsteps with the lantern, providing a little light to see but, crucially, not enough to trigger the fire traps.
Minutes ticked by, longer than Zach knew most lockpicking required. Granted, most picking wasn’t done on Dwarven locks. He was about to say something when a heavy click echoed through the room and he saw Ryu push the door open.
Once he had the door fully open and had one foot on the other side, Zach carefully tossed the lantern across the landing to Ryu and hustled after him. Even if the fire traps couldn’t be triggered without the light, he wasn’t about to take chances and linger under them.
“Nice job,” Zach remarked as he crossed the doorway. “Guess that practicing paid…” He trailed off as he turned and look at the metal door. A rather familiar Dwarven key was sticking out of the lock, one that Ryu quickly collected.
“Don’t give me that look,” he muttered as he shoved the key back into his pack. “Do you want to wait here for an hour while I tried to pick it or just thank the goddess that these dwarves used the same key for all their locks?”
I’m more glad that you thought to bring the key with you at all, Zach answered mentally. Not that he was looking to complain. It would have ruined the day if they had been forced to turn back after only making it a stone’s throw further than before and nearly getting roasted by traps.
The two continued on, turning the corner and finding a hallway lined with more doors, three on either side with a final one at the end of the hall. These weren’t metal like the one before, which Zach took as a sign that there weren’t more fire traps waiting for them. These were more ordinary designs of sturdy-looking oak with iron banding reinforcing them. Each had a small window cut in them with bars fixed in, through which a faint purple glow emanated.
Zach tested the handle on the nearest door. “Ryu, pass me the key,” he said. “Ryu?”
Not hearing a response, Zach turned and found Ryu standing rooted to where they had entered. His eyes darted left and right while he clutched his hands into fists at.
“Ryu!” Zach shouted, snapping him out of his daze. “What’s wrong?”
“S-sorry,” Ryu stuttered, giving his head a shake. “Something about this place… I think it’s starting to get to me.”
Zach nodded in understanding. “I get it,” he said candidly. “Just try not to space out on me like that, okay?”
Between the trapdoors and fire traps, he couldn’t blame Ryu for being on edge. It might have been how far they had come down into the ruins, but the dread inside of Zach had begun to build. It was like the air itself had become heavy against them.
Zach tried to shake off the feeling as Ryu handed him the key. With a quick turn, the first door swung open and the two stepped inside.
The room was narrow, barely wide enough for Zach and Ryu to stand shoulder to shoulder. One wall was completely bare save for a pair of sconces fixed into the brickwork. Instead of torches, one of the sconces held a luminescent violet crystal fixed. Its faint violet glow bathed the small room, diluted somewhat by the warm light of the lantern. A similar stone sat beneath the second sconce.
On the opposite side of the room were cells built into the brickwork. Each one looked to be about three-foot square with metal bars and matching manacles bolted to the far walls. Zach counted five in the row, each separated by a stone divider.
Zach let out a slow breath, his theory of this being a workshop going with it. He tried not to look at the bars or the brown spots that stained the Dwarven metal. He tried to distract himself with the crystal fixture he collected from the floor and stowed away in his bag. The dread he had felt before seemed to plummet, seemingly skipping his spine and coiling tightly around his stomach.
“L… let’s move on,” he said after a tense moment. Zach turned to find Ryu frozen in place, his eyes fixed to the cells. He laid a hand on the elf’s shoulder, nearly making him jump. “Come on. Let’s check the other rooms and move.”
Ryu blinked and silently nodded his head. They went back into the hallway and started towards the next room. Zach pulled the key back out and inserted it into the lock.
Whoosh.
“Ah!”
Ryu and Zach froze, both looking back the way they had come. The two exchanged looks before Ryu placed a hand on his knife.
“You keep looking around,” he whispered. “I’ll see who followed us.”
Getting a nod from Zach, Ryu crept back up the hallway. He moved quietly, hugging the wall as he went. He soon rounded the corner towards the landing with the fire traps and paused at what he saw.
“Oh… hey, Ryu,” Sumire called weakly from the other side of the room. She was standing at the foot of the stairs, shaking under her cloak as a small ball of light floated lazily by her shoulder.
“Sue?” Ryu said dumbly. “What in the goddess’s name are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing!” Sumire answered hotly. “You mind telling me how to cross or do you want to keep shouting across to each other? I was nearly roasted alive a minute ago!”
Ryu rubbed his temple. Just… one thing at a time. “Send your fairlight over to me and cross,” He instructed. “The traps are light-activated. You’ll be safe if you don’t shine something up at them.”
“Are you sure?”
“How do you think we got across?” Ryu snapped impatiently. “Either send that light over or snuff it out and get over here!”
Sumire glared at her brother but did as instructed. With a wave of her hand, the luminescent ball near her floated lazily across the landing and joined Ryu across the threshold. She gingerly stepped onto the landing, tensely looking up for any sign of a gout of flame about to be shot at her. Seeing none, she hustled across the grated floor.
“Huh,” Sumire remarked as she looked back. “I’m surprised that worked.”
“I’m sure Zach will be dying to explain how it works later,” Ryu said dryly. “Now you mind telling me why you followed us down here?”
“We both know I never bought your story of you and Zach foraging for herbs,” Sumire replied, crossing her arms over her chest. “I knew something was up when he started getting cagey last night, so I deicide to follow you to find out what you’ve been up to.”
Ryu began rubbing his temples again, unsure who he should be more frustrated with. This was not something he had been expecting to deal with today.
He was broken out of his fuming as Zach came hustling up from the hallway.
“Ryu!” Zach shouted as he came around the corner. He stopped when he saw the pair in the doorway. “Sumire?” he remarked, hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath.
Sumire and Ryu, their argument temporarily forgotten, were quick to Zach’s side. “What happened?” Ryu asked. “Did you find something?”
“Bodies,” Zach panted in between breaths. “In the cells.”
Ryu recalled the skeleton they had found upstairs and suppressed a shudder. “Great,” he groaned. “Do you want to head back? That bad?”
“No,” Zach replied, straightening up. “One of them. He’s still… still breathing.”
Ryu and Sumire both looked at the boy, their brains misfiring at what he had just said.
“Say again?”
“Come on,” Zach said before taking Sumire by the arm and leading her down the hall.
“Whoa! Zach, what? Wait!”
Ryu followed close behind as Zach lead Sumire down the hall and by the jails. Sumire paled as she caught glimpses of the cells through the doors Zach had left open during his search, her usual fire smoldering as she looked at Zach anxiously as he dragged her into one of the farthest rooms.
Her anxiety turned to nausea when she saw what was sitting inside one of the cells.
Behind the bars and shackled to the wall by their sole arm was an emaciated figure. Unlike the skeletons that lad in the adjacent cells, this one still had skin, though its bones were still easy to see under the rags given the lack of fat. White hair tumbled down from their head in long, thin strands. It was difficult to tell of they were man or woman, their gaunt frame lacking any indication.
One would have thought the figure dead if not for the faint, glacially slow rise and fall of their chest. The dread that had been suffocating before came back in full force now.
“Zach,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper. “What’s going on?
“I don’t know. Can you heal them?”
Sumire gave him an incredulous look. “Heal them? Zach, I don’t know what miracles you’ve read about, but I can barely heal a papercut!”
“Just try and keep them stable until we get back to town.”
Sumire grimaced before kneeling beside the emaciated figure. Clasping her hands together, she concentrated to try and summon the single healing spell she knew. She lightly touched the prisoner’s chest and allowed the mana to flow.
The figure sucked in a long raspy breath the moment Sumire’s fingers made contact, nearly making the girl jump out of her skin. Everyone seemed to hold their breath as they waited to see what came next.
When nothing happened, Sumire nervously resumed her spell. Ryu maneuvered around her and got to work on the shackle attached to the wall. Zach could do little else but hold the lantern aloft as he watched them work.
Just what had they stumbled onto?
Author's Note
Really happy to have another dungeon crawl chapter. It's always fun coming up with new traps that the Dwarves threw in to keep people out. The fire traps were one I'm particularly proud of and now kinda want to keep in the back pocket should I ever DM a D&D campaign. If you have any ideas for other traps or tricks, feel free to share! I'd love to hear them. As for Zach and Ryu, I more or less wanted this to be a turning point of sorts with how they approach the ruins. Specifically, the question of what in the blazes was going on down there coming much more to the fore. And now Sumire is in the mix with it as well. Look forward to her getting a migraine once she finds out what the boys have been up to. Til next time, please like and leave a comment and I'll see you all next week!| Previous Chapter: | Chapter 6 - Black Hare and Violet Song |
| Next Chapter: | Chapter 8 - Guard On The Wall |
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