Another dozen steps and it was summer.
By the time the natural cavern walls started to give way to worked stone bricks, it felt like we were near a hearth.
We reached another doorway, and then transitioned into something that looked more like I’d have initially expected. The next chamber was a square room of cut stone with a single central pillar. That pillar had a fist-sized red crystal in the center.
There were torches in the corners of the room. Three out of the four were lit.
There were three doorways: the entrance, one straight ahead, and one to our right. All of the doors were open.
Near the pillar I saw a pair of lion-like monsters with fierce horns. I couldn’t identify them at a glance, but they looked formidable. They were, however, lying unmoving on the ground, covered in wounds.
“The temple hasn’t completely reset,” I mused aloud. “The first team will have already solved some of these rooms. That’s going to make things a little easier, but since there were still dangers in the entry hall, it’s going to be tough to know which places are completely clear.”
We moved cautiously into the chamber. Marissa kicked one of the lion-like monster bodies, just to be sure it was dead. It didn’t move. “Shouldn’t these have vanished if they’re dead?” She blinked. “Come to think of it, the centipede didn’t disappear, either.”
“Temple monsters aren’t like spire ones,” Patrick explained. “I don’t think they turn into crystals.”
“Huh. Wonder why that is.”
I was curious, too, and I had theories…but this wasn’t the time for that discussion. “Patrick, I see an unlit torch, and my climber instincts are telling me that’s a problem. Can you handle that?”
“If the other group didn’t light it, there might be a reason for that,” Marissa suggested. “Maybe they had to be lit in a certain order? The doors are already open. Lighting something might close them, or trigger a trap.”
I frowned. I didn’t like leaving a torch unlit on a visceral level, but I agreed with her. “Okay. We’ll keep it in mind, but we’ll leave it as-is for now. Let’s check the right doorway.”
I heard a whir as I approached the doorway. I jumped backward just in time to avoid getting smashed by a huge metallic sphere that swung out of the doorway.
That’s…weirdly familiar.
I’d nearly been crushed by a similar pendulum trap during my Judgment. Ah, memories.
After backing away to a safe distance, I got a better look at the room beyond the doorway. There were several swinging spheres, similar to the room I’d seen in the spire, but this room had a notable difference.
The room’s floor wasn’t stone. Instead, it was a metallic grate, divided into four sections. Periodically, jets of fire would blast upward from one of the sections to incinerate anything above them.
My first thought was to try to find the runes to disable the traps, but I checked with my attunement, and I couldn’t see them from outside the room.
There were two more pathways from that room. One was straight across from us, and the other was on the left side. The doorway across from us was open, but the one on the left was closed. The closed door was solid stone, which was a little strange. It also had a keyhole.
There were a couple stone outcroppings right in front of each doorway. They looked large enough to stand on safely, but they’d be tough to reach.
I remembered how Keras had handled the pendulum room in the spire. We didn’t have the same sword skills he did, but his solution was an easy one, and it would eliminate a good part of the danger.
“Marissa, do you think you’d be able to cut through those spheres?”
She frowned. “Haven’t had much luck with cutting metal. It’s tougher than stone. I could probably manage it if they were standin’ still, but it’d while. Can’t do it while they’re movin’ at that speed, wouldn’t get a clean cut. Maybe just the chains that’re holdin’ ‘em?”
I considered that, then shook my head. “Too much of a risk that one of the spheres will fall on the grates. Those things don’t look like they can support too much weight, and it might break that part of the floor.”
“That really a problem, though? I think we could just hop across if the traps were gone.”
I tried to judge the distance to the exits — it was probably about twenty feet. With my ring, I could make it easily. Patrick could levitate. Marissa could jump almost as far as I could, even without the ring.
It was possible, but I still felt like it was a bad solution.
“Let’s check the other room while we think.”
We checked the other doorway from the entrance room.
That room was more straightforward. The room was circular, with three piles of human-looking bones on the floor.
Also, the bones were on fire.
“Hope that isn’t the team we’re supposed to be rescuing,” Patrick remarked.
Marissa shot him a shocked look, but I just laughed.
“The door beyond it is open,” I pointed at the single door on the other side, “So they made it further. Those are probably some kind of animated bone monsters. Betting they’ll stand up when we get inside.”
Marissa took on a contemplative look, then asked, “You boys ever do any bowling?”
Two minutes later, we enacted the plan.
As soon as the pendulum swung out of the doorway, Patrick pointed a hand at it. “Levitate.”
The pendulum paused in its swing, then began to descend more slowly.
This was expected — we knew it was probably too heavy for Patrick to hold it completely.
I swung Selys-Lyann, projecting a wave of ice to hit the chain, freezing it solid.
Marissa leapt from the ground, swinging a blade-aura from her hand and smashed the frozen chain.
The pendulum slowly descended slowly to the floor.
The three of us worked together to roll the sphere to the entrance to the other room.
“Ready?”
We lined it up.
Patrick pointed again. “Levitate.” He couldn’t lift it completely, but that lowered the effective weight, making the sphere much easier to move.
Marissa lowered herself, braced against the sphere, and then shoved.
Crunch.
The sphere crashed right into the first bone pile, mashing the skeleton to pulp.
The three of us let out a combined cheer.
Then the other two bone piles began to rise from the ground.
We’d known that might happen.
“My turn.” I stepped in front of Marissa, swinging Selys-Lyann in a wide arc. The frozen shockwave that emerged hit both skeletons, extinguishing a portion of the fire around them.
That wasn’t enough to stop the bones from coming together and beginning to lurch toward us, but it had extinguished a good portion of the flames.
Each of the skeletons formed a blazing sword between their hands.
Their eye sockets burned with menace. Or maybe fire. It was probably just more fire, to be honest.
Marissa went left, while I went right.
I swung Selys-Lyann. It cut right through the skeleton’s flame sword without resistance, then smashed into the skeleton’s ribs. The latter part wasn’t very effective, though. Slashing weapons weren’t great against skeletons.
The skeleton fell backward from my strike and its own counterattack fell far short.
Marissa lunged at her skeleton, but had to fall back when it jabbed at her stomach. She had a disadvantage in reach, and that meant she had to wait until she found an opening.
Patrick made her one. As he pointed his hand, the flame sword the skeleton near her was carrying twisted, then shrank to the length of a dagger.