“I’m an idiot and a fool!” Tom exclaimed after making sure everyone was okay. “We’ve been worried sick, and after two days, we sent a party in to check on that floor. Once they saw that it was a maze, they came back and told us.”
Everett handed Max and the others each a ring while their trainer spoke.
“It will work for five minutes at most. Only one of you should use it at a time. Tom and I never thought about giving you one yet since you managed to defeat the tower floor every day. Now, it appears that this is a lesson learned for us all.”
Everyone nodded, storing the rings and laying on the blankets they had spread out on the ground outside.
“I felt like I was going crazy,” Fowl muttered. “I’m fine being underground, but not being able to have a fire was horror. And I didn’t even have enough ale past the first night!”
Max said nothing, lying on the ground, enjoying the warmth of the sun.
A few minutes passed, and then someone was poking his side.
“Wake up, it’s been an hour.”
Rubbing his eyes, Max saw that the sun had gone down and was almost set. The temperature had dropped, but it didn’t bother him. Tanila was smiling and looking at him.
“Where are the others?”“Inside, bathing, going to eat, and then sleep. I’m certain we all could use a good night's rest in our own bed.”
“And no tower climbing tomorrow.”
She nodded and smiled.
“Correct. Now, let’s get you bathed. I hate to tell you this, but you reek.”
Laughing he rolled over and pretended to try and grab her, stopping when he caught his own scent of his armpit.
“Wow, that is awful.”
Chuckling, they walked just a few feet apart, content not to have to smell each other.
Two days passed, and the team stood outside the tower. Each of them felt better prepared with more clothes, food, water, and anything else they imagined would be needed.
“We ready for this?” their dwarven warrior joked.
“Get in there!” Batrire replied, shoving him closer to the portal.
As their eyes adjusted and the floor came into view, everyone heard a sigh of relief from their warrior.
Beneath them was a small bowl with a bright sun overhead, green grass, a gentle breeze, and what looked like a small village town.
“Sweet mother of Ockrim! Sunlight and outdoors!” Fowl exclaimed.
Once ready, the group set out, walking toward the town. They noticed no creatures or monsters outside in the area or that could be seen in town from where they were.
Max Stealthed, checking out the first few streets and houses, finding nothing inside.
“It’s like a ghost town,” Max said as he motioned down the street. “There’s a big building up ahead, but so far, I can’t find anything or hear anyone.”
“Is it just me or have these last two floors been a pain in the arse?”
Ignoring their warrior, they moved forward slowly, staying in formation and keeping an eye out for anything that might come their way.
In the center of town was a massive building, similar to the one in the minotaur town. Inside it was a mine elevator with working levers, ropes, and more.
“You have got to be kidding me!” Fowl shouted. “Another one?!”
Everyone groaned but knew Fowl was right. The idea of being underground wasn’t the idea anyone desired or wanted.
“Welcome to tower climbing,” Cordellia said with a groan.
“We’re doing it,” Batrire muttered when Fowl spun and frowned at them.
“But -””
“We’re doing it.”
Nodding, he turned and moved to the platform, standing on it and making sure that after a few jumps, it didn’t break apart.
“Fine, let's go.”
“You ever worked one of these?” Max asked as he stood next to Fowl.
“Yeah, it's simple. Pull the lever down, and you go down. Move it up… well, there ya go.”
When everyone was ready, Fowl pulled the lever down, and the lift started descending. Yards of dirt and rock passed by as light stones turned on around the edge of the elevator. Finally, the dirt vanished and they found themselves being lowered into a dark chasm, absent of light.
“Oh, hell no!” Fowl muttered, throwing the switch upward.
The elevator continued to lower and their dwarf started to freak out, sliding it up and down, trying to get it to stop.
Objects began to appear in Max’s sonar range, and he realized that bats, at least five feet long, were flying around them.
“Incoming! Bats! Tanila fireball that way!”
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His bow appeared, and Max started shooting arrows. Strange screeches came as his arrows hit their targets in the area without light.
Tanila’s fireball launched outward as they descended, and shrieks came as the light of it flew across the cavern, allowing everyone to see there appeared to be hundreds of bats with massive long teeth, red eyes, and claws on the end of their wings flapping around.
“No! No!” Fowl muttered when the handle snapped off.
“Get it together!” Batrire said as she bonked him on the helm with her staff. “Protect us and stop whining!”
Every second, Max continued firing off arrows and occasionally he would send up a fireball, allowing Cordellia to shoot a few as the light provided her vision of the bats.
Shrieks continued to echo through the cavern as the ones they shot fell toward the ground. A hundred arrows had been fired by Max and at least thirty by their ranger when the speed of the elevator slowed and a thud came as it touched down.
When the base reached the ground, a clicking sound came, and two lights appeared by the front entrance of the platform. About five seconds later another click sounded and two more lights about ten yards away lit up. Clicking continued, slowly picking up speed until a trail of two lights, twenty yards apart, barely illuminated a path through a winding area deep underground.
Glancing up, they could barely see the place they had come from, almost like a tiny moon that added no light at all.
“Seth?”
Max was busy firing arrows and sending out fireballs, and the kills he acquired gave him mana to keep up his magical assault.
“We need to move! I can feel them swarming this platform, and I’m not sure–”
Another clicking sound came, and the lights on the platform were turned off.
When they did, a loud shriek pierced their ears, and Max felt the presence of all the bats coming closer.
“Fire Nova! Move!”
Tanila began casting her spell, and everyone followed Max as they moved toward the two lights.
Her flames erupted outward, providing a blazing light that showed hundreds of bats swarming near them, screeching in pain for those who got close and suffered injury.
Standing at the first area of lights, Max made sure the others were between him and Fowl.
The clang of their dwarf’s mace against something leathery told Max he had managed to hit the one he sensed coming.
More were around them, flying nearby, waiting for something.
Another click came, and both lights they were at went off.
“RUN!”
Casting Fire Nova, Max and the others dashed toward the second light, getting another glimpse of the bats that were descending upon them in the darkness.
“Ogre nuts!” Fowl shouted as he fought off one that was coming in toward Batrire. “What do we do?”
“We run!” Max shouted. Cordellia, just keep shooting in the air. You’ll hit something. It's so thick up there, something will die!”
The sounds of the bats eating the bodies of their fallen kind filled their ears, and everyone started jogging along the lighted trail, trying to make sure they didn’t trip on the rocky floor.
“That trail goes on for miles!” Cordellia shouted as she fired arrow after arrow into the darkness above.
“I know! But we can’t stay here!”
They had passed about eight lights when a click sounded out over the chaos above, the second set of lights on the trail going dark.
Max thought he had been prepared, having three hundred arrows, yet he was almost out, and Cordellia tossed him a pack with another two hundred.
“Fireball!”
Tanila’s spell illuminated the darkness, and Batrire cursed this time, seeing that the horde was still just as thick as it had been an hour before.
“We’re still running! How much further?” Fowl asked as he jogged.
There were still miles of lights ahead, and the clicking sound came every ten seconds. He knew they were ahead by a few miles, but the biggest concern was how long this might go on.
“We’re slowly moving upward! I’m not sure how fast though! How many more arrows?”
Cordellia sent a few more going and said nothing for a moment.
“Maybe a thousand? We’ve shot well over that many already.”
Max grunted and knew that it was true. Fowl had commented the experience was great, always the one to watch that bar and ignore the rest of the chaos around them.
As he tried to weigh his thoughts, the clicking noise changed and became slightly faster. Now, it was every five seconds.
“Seth…”
He knew the concern in Batrire’s voice. Her speed was the slowest, followed by Tanila.
“I can carry you all but I’m not certain how all this works! Does the time of the lights going out change as we get further? Is it based on how long it’s been or how far we have traveled?”
“You need to decide something,” Tanila replied. “If we keep this pace, I’m going to run out of mana soon, and you’ll have to do everything.”
Frowning, Max knew that was the problem. He wasn’t sure how much damage those bats would do one at a time, but if everyone were swarmed with the thousand or more, he knew had to be up there. Eventually, the claws and teeth would find tender, meaty parts, even on their plated warrior.
“Ok, you three get near each other. I’m going to grab you all. Fowl I’m going to need you to hold out your arms again.”
He heard the grumble from their warrior, certain no one else did, but Fowl knew the choices were limited.
When the three women had gotten into a small triangle position, he moved forward, tossing Batrire over his shoulder first, ignoring her grunt before setting Cordellia on top of her. Tanila ended up on his right shoulder, and he moved quickly, grabbing Fowl from underneath his arms.
“Hang on!”
[ Haste ]
As if he were a rock fired from a siege weapon, Max raced forward, feeling the presence of all the bats that had been swarming them left behind. Occasionally, a few might appear at the upper limits of his height for the sonar skill but none were really out ahead of where they had been. Instead, all of the bats were clustered together and waiting for a warm meal.
Lights flew by so fast it was almost enough to make him dizzy.
“I may vomit!” Fowl muttered.
“Close your eyes!” he shouted, not wanting the splatter if that happened to hit him in the face.
With a new dexterity of over two hundred, he ran faster than before and wished he could actually calculate it. Instead, every second was spent focusing on where his feet touched down, avoiding small rocks and little raised pieces of stone in the rising elevation, and trying to figure out just how much further he had to go.
The thirty seconds was almost over, and up ahead, the trail of lights ended about a mile away.
Halfway before they reached the spot, his haste failed, and he almost tripped.
“I can see it!” Fowl shouted! The lights are ending!”
“SETH! RUN!”
The way Tanila shouted forced him to run as fast as possible and not risk looking behind.
All around the cavern, a continual click rang out in a nonstop sound. It was almost as if someone was trying to see how fast they could hit a drum using both hands.
Their mage shifted on his shoulder, and he could see the light behind him of a fireball being sent off, with loud shrieks coming a moment later.
Then he sensed it as the walls got closer to the lights. Before, he had been in a cavern, now, they were running toward a passage, and all along the walls were holes in the rocks. Each click opened a gate, and from that came dozens of bats.
“Hurry!” Fowl shouted.
Max felt his dwarven friend now holding his shield out before them.
They were ten seconds from the ending of the torches and a dark hole.
[ Fire Nova ]
Racing, the spell went off when he was halfway to the hole, shrieks and wails coming from all around. The light of his fire that pulsed out from him three times burnt hundreds, and the dark hole before them was just ahead.
“DOOR!” Fowl shouted, and Max knew he was right. He felt it with his vision.
“Sorry!” Max shouted.
[ Power Strike ]
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