The plants on the side of the room twitched.
I tried to activate the ring of jumping again…
…And nothing happened.
Apparently it does have a limited amount of mana. Oops.
The plants rushed inward.
I ran.
A vine was just about to grab me when Sera cut it in half with a blade of ice, then helped pull us through the doorway into the room where I’d started.
The dragon roared in the distance, but what I heard after was something far more surprising — the gentle sound of a ringing bell.
A few moments later, I realized what had happened as I set Marissa down on the floor.
We took a few deep breaths, then Patrick appeared in the room next to us. “That was fun! Anyone need a break?”
Marissa raised a hand. “I…think I hurt something.”
Sera passed her the return bell that Jin had used. “Go take a rest, Mara. We’ll take care of things from here.”
“Mm. Kay.” Marissa grabbed the bell and rang it, vanishing immediately.
Marissa sounded like she was pretty badly shaken. I hoped that whoever was monitoring the exam would take a look at her head wound now that she was out of the testing area for a while.
We had a more urgent problem to deal with, though.
The dragon had lost its target, and now I could hear its footfalls heading our way.
I picked up the fallen bell, just in case we’d need it later.
“Uh, can we close this door?” Patrick pointed to the entrance of the Tyrant’s room.
“Not sure how to force it shut.” I looked at the opposite side of the Tyrant’s room, where the false wall had been dispelled. “I don’t think it can fit through there, though. We should be—”
A claw smashed away a huge chunk of the wall, making the gap wider.
“—moving as quickly as possible.”
I pointed at the flame statue room.
“On it.” Sera headed toward the room, inspecting it from an angle. “I don’t know if I have enough mana to block all of those.”
“Get what you can.”
She nodded. “Wall. Wall. Wall.”
She pointed, and ice walls appeared, blocking jets of flame.
Jin appeared in the room a moment later, glancing around. “Hm. You have acquired a Patrick.”
“Hey Jin!” Patrick waved enthusiastically.
Jin just gave him a curt nod. “And there’s…that’s a dragon, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, we’re leaving now.” I pointed at the flame statue room. “Want to lead the way?”
“If I must.”
We headed into the chamber.
Sera had managed to block almost all of the statues.
Unfortunately, her ice walls were melting pretty fast, and I doubted she had enough mana to renew them.
I pulled the red key out of my bag. “Remember, the statues can turn. Be careful.”
The two remaining statues were breathing flames across the room in a predictable sequence…at least, predictable until they deliberately changed it when we tried to cross.
Fortunately, we were ready for that. Patrick waved his right hand and deflected the jets of flame out of the way, then stumbled. Jin caught him and dragged him forward.
“Thanks!”
“Keep moving.”
In spite of Patrick’s perpetual cheer, I could tell he didn’t have a lot of mana left himself. Blocking fire from both the dragon and the statues had taxed him close to his limit.
We reached the other side of the room.
I turned the red key in the door.
Nothing happened.
“You have to be kidding me.”
Jin pointed. “There’s a key over there, behind one of the statues.”
I shook my head. “I got the key from this room before and tried it. It didn’t work.”
“I will retrieve it while you try other options.” Jin moved forward, dancing between blasts of flame to head toward the key. I winced, remembering the first time he’d been blasted with the flames, but he was lighter on his feet this time.
And he had his full Sunstone shroud to protect him if he did get hit.
I withdrew the red key from the door. Before I had a moment to consider other options, Sera had slipped by me and she was turning another key in the lock. One with a dragon’s head.
The door clicked open.
“Ooh, nice.”
Ahead of us was a room with a familiar sight — a single central fountain, filled with shimmering blue liquid.
Those of us in the doorway slipped inside, and Jin followed us a moment later with the key from the previous chamber. He’d managed to retrieve it without a scratch.
I scanned the room carefully with my attunement active, but I saw no signs of magic in the room aside from the fountain and a single door on the other side.
“I don’t see any traps. It’s probably safe in here.”
We approached the fountain, but I waved a hand to halt. “That looks like a mana fountain, but let’s be careful here.”
I grabbed a coin out of my bag and flipped it into the water.
It didn’t sizzle on contact. So, probably not acid, at least.
“Jin, can you…?”
He walked over to the water and knelt down, then tentatively reached a hand over to touch it. “It’s mana water.”
We all breathed a sigh of relief.
I also briefly wondered how the examiners had access to a fountain just like the ones in the spire, and if I could figure out a way to make one of my own. Mana water wasn’t nearly as potent as a mana restoration potion, but it was still incredibly useful.
Everyone took a minute just to rest and drink from the pool.
“Should we go back and fight the dragon?” Patrick asked.
I shook my head. “Don’t think we can beat it.”
“Agreed.” Sera added.
“Never fight dragons.” Jin said, without any further explanation.
I agreed, of course, but he sounded almost like he had experience at it.
One more mystery.
“Okay. That,” I pointed at the door, “Is almost certainly going to be a floor guardian room.”
“Oh, right! They’re usually next to mana fountains like this, right?” Patrick sounded excited, and I couldn’t blame him. He hadn’t actually gone on the spire expedition with the rest of us.
He hadn’t nearly been impaled by the limbs of a giant spider, while running from an Emerald-level Soulblade.
Sera, Jin, and I all looked a little more…cautious.
“Plan?” Jin asked.
We had discussed all the rooms we’d already seen, as well as made some other more general plans, but we hadn’t discussed a scenario quite like this. “I think we should run for the stairway if there is one. Even with the mana water, we’re in bad shape.”
I took another drink, considering. “Let me recharge everyone’s phoenix sigils before we go.”
The sound of a gong echoed in the distance.
“…Or maybe not, because I think that means we’re running out of time. How bad of shape are you in?”
“I am intact,” Jin offered helpfully.
“I’m unhurt. You all took the dragon’s attention,” Sera added.
“Uh, not great, honestly,” Patrick admitted. “Phoenix sigil is out, other sigil is bad.”
“I’ll recharge it for just a second, then.” I walked over and grabbed onto Patrick’s sigil, flooding mana into it. It would take minutes to recharge completely, but I could recharge it a little bit in just a few moments. It would be better than nothing.
“We need a plan for if there is no stairway, or if it is inaccessible,” Jin pointed out.
Sera pulled her dueling cane off her belt and handed it to me. “We hit whatever is in there with everything we’ve got. It can’t be worse than a dragon.”