Chapter 40: Chapter 40 – Encounter

There are a dozen different spells strung across the gallery space, between us and the roundhouse that is our target.

The ledge that the path terminates into extends tens of meters to the left and right, and it’s mirrored near-perfectly on the other side. It’s a twenty-meter gap between ledges, though, and the bridge that crosses the gap is a flat slab of something vaguely concrete-like barely wide enough for one person to cross.

“That,” I say definitively, “is a trap.”

“Aye.” Zidanya nods.

“I agree,” Amber says with a small smile, “but perhaps we should share our reasons. I am concerned about the arrow-holes in the wall behind us, and the murder-holes in the ceiling.”

“Narrow,” Zidanya says with a frown. “Neither room to dodge nor room to cover each other, and who’s to say we shall all be across before another shieldmaster faces us across the path?”

“It’s not dungeonstone. Almost certainly rigged to drop.” I glance down and shudder. “Into the Void, no less. That’s just rude.” The other two are looking at me, Amber seeming a little wan. “What? I didn’t see any of the stuff you mentioned, Amber. It’s not like I’d be any less dead from a sufficiency of arrows.”

“Arrows, I can shield you from. The bridge dropping by surprise… I don’t know if I could save us another time.”

“Mm, yeah. Did I say thanks for that, by the way?”

Amber blinks. “No?” She clears her throat, sort of awkwardly. “No, my lord, but it was my duty, honor, and pleasure. Thanks are not necessary.”

“Right.” I straighten up and meet her eyes. “Thank you,” I say, emphatically, “for saving my life.” I can’t help but grin at her reaction. “Also, you look cute when you blush.”

“I… you are ridiculous, my lord.” The dryness in her tone isn’t quite there, and neither is her usual serene expression, and I’m grinning as I turn back to the bridge.

“Zidanya, can you tell what the spells that are strung across the bridge and room are? I was able to see them in the Visor, but not actually, like, see what they do. Are they all tripwires of some sort?”

“If there is but the single strand of mana, that is almost the definition of a tripstrand glyph, or part of it. I would assume all may be.”

“They’re all over the place. Up, down, diagonally across the entrance to the corridor on the other side, across the bridge.” I frown.

“We should take it in a leap.” Amber shrugs when I look at her. “With Instrumental and your enhancements of strength, I can easily take us across. The three of us, even, if Zidanya wishes.”

“With what now?” My eyes narrow at her. “Am I going to be mad about this? Is it going to turn out that you have, like,” and I wave, gesticulating, “a Skill specifically for being used as an instrument, or something equally ethically horrifying?”

“It is a Skill that enhances me when I am being relied upon,” Amber says with one of those not-smirking looks. “As you would be relying on me, did I take us across the span.”

“Two meters until the first tripwire.” I sigh at her quizzical look. “About six and a half feet.”

She nods at that, as though enough has been said on the subject, as though the jump isn’t absolutely absurd. “Zidanya, do you come with me, or on your own?”

“You’ll do well to be shielded from behind. My own way shall suit me; belike those traps aren’t bluffs, for all that they’re not the only danger.”

“Then, Adam, when you’re ready?”

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I breathed in, rifling through the Motes I’d been summoning as we walked. I wasn’t quite at half capacity, and I’d been following the original plan; still, that left me with enough synergy orbs for this, and a bit of anti-magic utility to boost the team with. The Motes, Empower and Amplify alike, flare; and most of what I’d regenerated in the walk through the corridors goes up in not-exactly-smoke.

Amber moves like lightning, sooner done than seen. She sweeps me into a carry, and by the time the squeak of surprise has passed my lips she’s already bounding down the last few steps of the corridor and on the bridge, and before I realize it she’s leapt over the darkness below us as the bridge starts its slow fall. I realize almost belatedly that I’d guessed right about that part of the trap as she hurtles through the air, laughing, and I’m laughing too; even the slamming sound of something hammering into her shield from above doesn’t dent her good cheer.

We’re on the other side before it registers to me how hard it must have hit her shield to sound that loud. I’m on my feet before my emotions figure out how they feel about it, and then I’m running in Amber’s wake down the corridor. She’s got two shields, and she interlocks them vertically as she slams into the roundhouse’s door with all the momentum she can muster.

It doesn’t so much open as shatter. The hinges hold, the deadbolts hold, and the bands across the door don’t so much break as bend impressively; the wood, though, one solid piece though it may be, loses all semblance of shape and turns into a spray of splinters going inwards. Amber is in and through as the bars fall to the ground, one of her shields shifting into a sword, and I’m running in behind her with very little awareness of what I’m doing.

There’s seven of them. Three of them are at the northern door, and that seems like the kind of thing that’ll be relevant in a moment. Of the other four, there’s two on the ground, one squared off against Amber, and one reeling backwards as though punched in the stomach.

My hand hurts.

I realize almost belatedly that my hand hurts because I punched the fourth one in the stomach, just in time for the spell he’d intended to take Amber down with to be targeted instead at me. My Dispel orb moves without my thinking about it, which is good, because I can’t actually see what the guy is casting. The orb vanishes and I catch the tail end of the spell, something that makes my head spin and my joints scream in pain for a split second.

I punch him again, this time closer to properly.

A wormhole navigator needs to be in good shape.This isn’t, obviously, because you’re going to be relying on how much you can bench press or how far you can run when you’re charting a path and solving the grand cosmic puzzle. A wormhole navigator needs to be in good shape because, statistically, being in good shape means you’re better at seeing the patterns, better at staying sharp for longer, and just longer-lived in general.

I punch the guy a third time, step into his stagger, and put everything, the travel and momentum included, into the sidekick; it hits him just above the waist, under the ribcage, and he folds.

Let me be clear about something: the only thing I hate more than violence is exercise. If I had to choose between jogging and being punched repeatedly, well, I did choose being punched repeatedly; I started doing martial arts because it was the kind of thing that was totally unlike anything I’d done and the kind of thing that was totally unlike the Adam that Ash had landed, and I kept doing it because of all the forms of exercise I tried, I hated it least.

Guy-I’m-fighting is on the ground, and I pull a long knife, or maybe a short sword, from a sheath at his waist. The sheath is plain and brown, and the blade is a little over a half meter in length, curved and then curved back at the end; it’s sharp, sharp enough I barely feel the resistance.

The blood rushes into my ears as I kneel there, one foot and one knee on the dungeonstone floor of the roundhouse, both hands locked around the hilt of the sword. The grip, hilt, whatever, is two pieces with a band of metal between them, no guard between it and the blade, and it’s the first time I’ve ever killed someone with a weapon, instead of my orbs.

It feels like justice; I hear in my head the screams and the laughter, and I don’t throw up, but I’m shaky as I rise to my feet. I’m having trouble looking away from the body, but the adrenaline is draining from my system or something, and I’m starting to come back to myself.

“This wasn’t the fight,” I hear myself say. “Why wasn’t this the fight? This was far too easy.”

“My lord.” I startle, remembering I’m not alone in the room. Amber’s voice is formal, clear, and without even the slightest hint of her usual dry humor. “It is as you say.”

I look up. Zidanya’s footsteps, deliberately audible, are behind me; she settles in to my left as Amber steps over to be just behind me and to the right. My mouth is about to open and say something, which is probably a mistake given the extent to which I’ve been operating on reflex since the moment Amber started running to make that jump, but I’m lucky, or maybe unlucky.

It’s not the man in front who speaks, with the scars criss-crossing his visible, muscle-swollen arms and hands. It’s neither of the clear spellcasters still in the corridor, one shrouded in layers of robes and scarves and one in a single equally-concealing garment; and it’s not the woman with the crossbow, leaning on a wall like the picture of ease, body language flaunting the curves under her leathers.

“Well, well, well.” There’s five of them, and it’s the beautiful one who speaks, the one with the ready smile and the two swords and the trained, charming voice. “What a coincidence, to meet you here. My fellow adventurers.

“The opposition.”

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