The skeleton swung it at Marissa again, or rather at the air in front of her. It didn’t seem to realize that its weapon had gotten shorter, and it missed entirely.
She closed the distance and punched its skull right off.
I dodged another swing from the skeleton that I was fighting, then swung upward at the skeleton’s sword arm, severing it at the wrist.
It charged. I side-stepped and hit it in the neck. That didn’t actually cut all the way through, but it fell to the floor anyway.
The skeletons ceased to move. We hit them a few more times just to be sure.
“Wanna drop some spheres on the other two?” Marissa asked with a grin.
I didn’t like the idea of wasting Patrick’s mana or more time, but honestly, it was kind of fun. And more importantly, it was a good way to get rid of the pendulums.
“Let’s do it.”
Clearing the remaining pendulums was a little trickier, since they were inside the room. That didn’t pose any problems for Patrick — he could levitate things at a distance — but it meant that Marissa briefly had to go inside the room to cut them down.
We took a minute just to memorize the timing on the flame jets coming from the floor.
The flames go for about three seconds, then off for three seconds before it rotates to the next section. It goes clockwise, then stops at the top-left corner and switches directions. Then it switches directions again when it gets to the top right.
Not as simple as if it was just rotating one way, but not particularly difficult, either. Still, I’m glad I’m not the one going in there.
“Patrick, be ready to deflect the fire for Marissa if she misses her timing.”
Patrick nodded seriously.
Marissa didn’t miss, though. The moment Patrick cast his levitation on the closest pendulum, she was moving.
I launched my shockwave, hit the next chain, and she smashed it apart.
Then she landed, kicked the sphere toward us, and followed it back to the main room with seconds to spare.
We repeated the process until all the pendulums were clear.
“We going through the skeleton room first or the pendulum room?” Patrick asked.
“After all that?” Marissa pointed to the pendulum room with a serious expression.
“Right. Of course.”
We made our way across the pendulum room. The grates made me nervous, but now that we knew the timing, it wasn’t particularly dangerous.
Still, I felt a chill spread-across my sword arm as we moved to the opposite doorway. It took me a moment to realize it wasn’t my imagination — a thin layer ice was starting to creep down my hand and wrist.
I flexed my hand, grimaced, and tried to command the ice to move out of the way.
Nothing happened. I didn’t have the ability to shape ice. And if whatever was causing the ice to spread was listening to my thoughts, it didn’t give me any response.
I sheathed the sword. Only then did the ice begin to melt away.
I need to be careful about using this too much. And I really need to figure out how it works.
We arrived in the safe spot at the entrance to the next room.
We’d chosen the doorway that was already open, with the hope that we’d find the team we were supposed to rescue inside.
We had no such luck.
The room’s contents were simple – two streams of flowing lava, and in between them, a single treasure chest.
The treasure chest was already open.
“Is that thing empty?” Marissa asked.
“Looks like,” I asked. “Patrick, float it here?”
Patrick nodded. “No problem. Levitate.”
He moved the treasure chest to us.
I had a moment of panic at the realization that it could be a mimic — a monster disguised as a treasure box — and re-drew my sword as it approached.
Fortunately, it didn’t bite.
Sometimes an empty box is just an empty box.
“Other team must have already been through here. Let’s check the other door.”
The other door in the pendulum room was closed, but we surmised that the empty box had probably held the key to it. We made our way to the door easily and checked, finding it unlocked. That didn’t prove what the contents of the box had been, but it still gave us another path to check.
I opened the stone door.
This room was very different.
For one thing, the ceiling was about thirty feet up.
For another, there was a steel statue in the center of the room. The statue’s head almost reached the ceiling. I could see some writing on the wall behind the statue, but I didn’t get a chance to read it.
“Ack,” Patrick reflexively took a step back. I caught him before he stepped back onto the grate just a moment before another blast of fire came up behind us. “Sorry, sorry! That’s just…uh, big.”
And it was moving. The statue knelt down, opening a palm toward us.
At first, I thought it might be a friendly gesture of some kind. Maybe everything in here wasn’t trying to kill us.
Then I saw the hole in the center of its hand.
“Resh!” I stepped forward and swung, launching a shockwave of ice.
The blast of flame that emerged from the statue’s hand obliterated the shockwave.
Patrick reacted fast, pushing both hands forward to try to stop the flames. He only managed to slow them for a moment.
In that moment, Marissa shut the door.
The flames must have impacted the stone, but they didn’t blast through.
We all took a few deep breaths.
“Did you see anything other than the giant statue in there?” I asked.
“No people,” Patrick replied.
“There was something written on the back wall about three flames lighting the way,” Marissa offered.
She must have great vision to pick all that up from here.
I considered for a moment. “I’m betting this room was just a clue for the three torches in the entry way. We can come back here if we need to…but I’m going to be honest, I don’t think we should try to fight that thing.”
Marissa looked marginally disappointed, but Patrick nodded quickly in agreement.
We made our way back to the entrance, then to the skeleton room. The skeletons were still pinned beneath the spheres and unmoving.
From there, we checked the next chamber.
“Soulbrand’s forge,” Patrick whispered in awe.
Lava flowed freely down the walls of the room. Even being a few feet away, the temperature was absurdly hot, almost too difficult to bear. Fortunately, the air within seemed breathable. There was probably an enchantment keeping the space habitable, but just barely.
The room itself was divided into rings, each separated by a section of about two feet of flowing lava.
In the outer ring there was some sort of stone pipe toward the back of the room. Lava flowed freely through it, then into the rings in the floor.
To the side of that chimney, I could see a stack of blacksmithing tools. A huge hammer of blackened metal, tongs, and an apron.
Beyond that fiery ring was a section with a stack of silvery and golden metal bars.
Then there was another fiery ring, and in the center of it, a raised platform with an anvil. And next to that, a raised stone table with some other objects on it. I couldn’t see them clearly from a distance.
Ice was spreading across my hand again. I sheathed Selys-Lyann, tucking my hand under my opposite arm to let it warm up.
“I want to make a magic sword here. I want to make all the magic swords here,” Patrick mumbled.