“I like it!” said Lianshi, rising smoothly to her feet. “That was actually pretty good. I’m feeling cautiously optimistic.”
“Only cautiously?” Leonis scowled. “I was hoping for cheers by the end of it.”
“Hurray,” said Scorio and Lianshi together in mock enthusiasm, and when Leonis rolled his eyes and turned away, they shared a look of genuine mirth.
“Here,” said Lianshi, extending him a hand. “Get up, old man.”
“Show more respect,” said Scorio, accepting her help. He limped a bit on his wounded leg, then carefully put weight on it. “Reincarnated Great Souls these days, I tell you.”
Leonis had moved up to the black archway that had appeared in the far wall. “Next room should be a trap, right? First room in a new level?”
“And an Emberling level trap at that,” said Lianshi, moving up beside him. “I’ll go first. Probably best to immediately sidestep or the like when you go through.”
“Agreed,” said Scorio, refilling his reservoir with Coal mana. “See you on the other side.”
Lianshi took a deep breath, raised both eyebrows as she pursed her lips, then stepped through before exhaling.
Leonis gave Scorio an affirming nod, then followed after.
Scorio exhaled shakily, was about to step through, but then paused to look back between the plinths and fallen gleaming statues to where Naomi’s dark blood still stained the rugs. He felt his resolve harden, then plunged into the darkness.
Chapter 75
The room beyond was broad, low-ceilinged, and otherwise featureless. Pools of sterile white light slowly moved about the floor without an obvious source, bringing into stark relief the massive flagstones. The far wall was a stone’s throw away, innocuous, and all the more unsettling for being so.
“No niches, no alcoves, nothing,” said Lianshi, voice tense. “This Emberling trap’s got me all spooked.”
“One way to find out what they’ve got in store for us,” said Leonis. “Ladies first?”
“Joke’s getting old,” said Lianshi, pushing away from the wall and tentatively stepping forth. “Though the ground. Those big flagstones. Anybody else sense… something off about them?”
“Off, how?” asked Scorio, studying the flagstone immediately before him. It was roughly textured but otherwise looked to be made of solid stone.
“Just a feeling. Like… different densities in the air,” said Lianshi, hesitating. “Reach out with your Emberling sense.”
Scorio frowned, did so, and realized what she meant. Ahead of them, static and almost waiting for them, was a sense of weight in the air, hovering over some of the flagstones. As if the stone itself were pulling at his senses.
“Yes,” breathed Leonis. “I see what you mean. Avoid those, then?”
“Would have been hell to try this without our Emberling senses,” said Lianshi, moving out wide to avoid the first invisible source of weight. “Even now I can barely pick up on—”
The wall to her left bulged, a shape pushing through the stone as if it were a sheet of cloth, and then a gray, insectoid creature extruded itself and oriented on Lianshi. It was the size of a large dog, but its body was that of a spider, with a child’s torso emerging from where the head should be. The child’s face was featureless, a curved expanse of stone, but wavering snakes surrounded this blankness like a serpentine halo.
Lianshi froze, watching intently, but the spider-child made no move to rush her; instead, it rose to angle its abdomen at her, pointing what looked like spinnerets, from which it loosed a great, glistening stream of webbing.
“Lianshi!” roared Leonis, rushing forth.
Scorio ran forward as well, going out wide to avoid the area of density before him. Lianshi’s form went iridescent, making her invulnerable, but that did nothing to stop the webbing from wrapping around her, and immediately the spider-child began to haul her toward it.
Leonis raised Nezzar high as he reached the webbing and clubbed at the thick strands, but they only stretched beneath it, so that he pounded them to the ground without much effect.
Igniting his Heart, Scorio reached them a moment later and swiped his claws through the strands, slicing through with ease. Lianshi let out a cry as she staggered back, tearing at the webbing in desperation.
“Stand still,” shouted Scorio, moving to help her, but she was frantic, her eyes wide as she clawed at the filaments from within. Staggering, her body still glimmering with its invulnerability, she let out a strangled cry of horror, and then her feet went out from under her.
“No!” Scorio lunged forward, letting go of his scaled form so that he could clasp her wrist with his good hand as the flagstone behind her disappeared, becoming a funnel that led straight down into nothingness.
Worse yet was the pull it exerted on Lianshi. A terrible, unnaturally strong suction that brooked no denial. Lianshi stared at Scorio through the veil of webbing over her face, kicking her feet as she tried to find traction on the sloping funnel floor, but the surface was slick, and she only managed to scrabble within her torn cocoon.
Leonis was battling the creature behind them, and Scorio felt the burns and cuts in his arm begin to scream, the agony mounting as he fought to hold to his rim of normal ground just outside the funnel’s treacherous declivity.
Lianshi’s gleaming power flickered and disappeared. Her feet kicked uselessly at the depths of the funnel, and she fought to catch hold of Scorio’s arm. He let out a cry as his grip began to weaken, and then ignited his Heart again. Or tried to. He needed just a bit more mana, and in wretched horror set to sweeping more of the thick Coal that hung about them into his reservoir.
“Scorio!” Lianshi’s voice was breathless, terrified, heartbreaking.
“Hold… on…” he grimaced. Where was Leonis? He felt himself sliding forward, the funnel’s pull drawing him into its field. He was too hurt to hold on. But he couldn’t let go. Just a little more mana. Again and again, he tried to ignite, and again and again, he felt his Heart almost incandesce.
“I believe in you!” Lianshi cried as her hand slipped free of his own, and then she slid down the funnel and was consumed by its dark core.
For a moment Scorio just lay there, eyes wide, shocked, his own hand outstretched, his blood staining the stone floor; then he willed his Heart to ignite, and this time it did, roaring into flame. His outstretched hand changed, became clothed in black scales, his long talons burning white-hot. What had he thought to do—bury his talons into her? Hook her like some fish, and prevent her from slipping away, no matter the cost?
Leonis gave a shout behind him, and Scorio snapped back to the present. Bounced to his feet, his wounds and pain belonging to another man, and wheeled to see Leonis wrestling with the spider-child, who’d snared his forearm and was now reeling him closer.
Closer to another flagstone of dark density, an illusion, Scorio realized, over another funnel-trap.
With a cry he leaped forward and slashed the webbing away, allowing Leonis to stagger back in relief, and then he ran around the huge flagstone. The spider-child oriented on him, but Scorio came in too fast and low; its next cast flew over him entirely, missing, and then Scorio reached the wall. He leaped up at the spider-child as it skittered higher up the wall, and slashed its head clear off as he passed, claws sliding through its featureless head as if it were made of cream.
The spider fiend fell off the wall to spasm on the ground, and Scorio landed heavily, staggered, then turned to where Leonis was staring, aghast, at the funnel that had consumed Lianshi.
“To the far side!” shouted Scorio, forcing his legs to move, running around the other traps, giving each area of density a wide berth. “Come on!”