Chapter 44

“This is it, we get one shot at this,” said Rain. “We make it out completely undetected and we’ll be free, at least for a time.”

Lyra swallowed, suddenly feeling the gravity of the situation.

“Just be careful not to break my invisibility okay.”

She activated her Skill and the group dematerialised.

They slipped out of the small cave the spiral stair had emerged into and into a side passage. They passed through winding passage after winding passage until Opal suddenly elbowed Rain and pressed her finger to her lips.

“Just past here is the entrance to the dungeon. Scary place for monsters, there are always loads of levelers around, lots of weak levelers especially, they like to attack in mobs, very dangerous,” said Opal.

“I’d be willing to bet that Inquisitor set a guard for me,” said Rain

“And the people after my bounty too, but it’s not just a guard.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll see.”

Rain slunk down the tunnel, careful not to accidentally kick any stones out of range of lyra’s invisibility. Ahead a light cast across the tunnel from a break in the wall

Rain slowed as he approached

“Let’s throw Red at them to bait them,” said Opal with an evil grin.

“Wha-! No, please don’t! I’m carrying your stuff, you going to throw that too?”

Opal snorted in reply. “I’d take that off first, obviously.”

Rain ignored them and stepped toward the corner. He slowly peeked his head around it and the entrance came into view, he recalled how it had looked when he had first entered the dungeon in a different lifetime. A twenty foot tall arched entrance constructed out of heavy block stonework worn and weathered and broken down by time, covered in moss and crawling vines.

This time however it was different. The entrance was not open, instead a pair of monumentally thick and heavy doors had been closed, blocking the exit. Each door was a solid block of stone over a meter thick covered in scars and pockmarks as though they had been attacked many many times but weathered all. Rain looked at the stone with a new understanding, the stone was damaged in the same way that the castle in the center of the dungeon city had been damaged. Whatever had been done to them had been done with the intent to destroy.

A few inches above the surface of the two stone doors a huge glowing circular fractalgram hovered, a maze of complex symbols and curlicue scripture running around the circle in concentric lines very slowly spinning in opposite directions. In the center of this amazingly complex and powerful piece of magic was a bright glowing icon that looked like a crowned dragon’s head.

“That’s why nobody can leave, the Inquisitor used a gift of the Royals to enchant the entrance. She alone controls when the dungeon reopens and goes out of lockdown,” said Lyra leaning over his head.

In front of the huge sealed door a large wooden palisade had been built, like a minor fort, behind which were a group of levelers camping out and watching all the many tunnels that led from the entrance cavern.

Two elves stood on the outside. One was smoking some kind of roll up while the other was nervously fiddling with a pair of violet lensed spectacles in his hands.

Rain pulled his head back.

“Two elves. One with a pair of spectacles.”

“Hrmm. That’s bad. Two elves will be difficult to get past without them sensing my magic.”

“You should just kill and eat them both,” said Opal.

“I can’t. If I do that then they’ll know we were trying to leave.”

“Did they look alert?”

“Not really.”

“Then we should watch and wait and hope they get distracted, I can hold the invisibility for a while yet.”

Rain crept forward and peeked around the corner once more. The Elves hadn’t moved.

“Stop fiddling with it. You’ll go blind,” said the smoking elf

“Haha, very funny. Do you have any idea how to work these?”

“Pshh naw, this shit is for guards and merchants trying to stop thieves. I kill monsters for a living. The fuck would I use one of those for?”

“Rich people use them.”

“Yeah and If I was rich maybe I’d have a use for one. I should be down there in the dungeon hunting whatever this monster is the Inquisitor bitch wants us to kill, not up here like some shit level town guard.”

“SHH!! You can’t say something like that! She’ll publicly castrate you if she hears!”

The nervous Elf looked around as though expecting the Inquisitor to jump out of thin air brandishing a pair of testicle scissors.

“Bah.”

Rain pulled back.

“I want to go now. While they are distracted.”

“Uhm, we could still wait?”

“I think this is the best time. They aren’t going to move from the entrance and they’ll just pass the spectacles to the next Elf who comes to guard. Going while they haven’t figured out how to work the spectacles is the least risky.”

“I suppose you’re right. Okay I’ll- I’ll try my best to keep us invisible, just remember, no sudden motion or anything!”

Rain nodded and slipped into the entrance cavern, his broad feet padding carefully across the stone cavern floor, his toe pads spreading as he eased each foot down flat.

He neared slowly, watching the Elves carefully.

“You should probably stop messing around with that you know, if you break it the cost of it will come out of your own hide, those things are unbelievably expensive.”

“Well I gotta know how it works, what if that Rescuer tries to come by here? Fifty K, fifty thousand big fat gold coins! Are you kidding me? Of course I want to be the one to catch her.”

The smoking Elf grunted. “Alright, that’s fair. Have you tried pushing your mana into it? There’s a bit on the side that looks like it would make a good mana focus.”

The Elf blinked. “Huh, so there is.”

Rain took his chance before the Elf worked out what he was doing. He padded across the entrance cavern to a dark tunnel on the other side. The nervous Elf squinted at the spectacles until one of the lenses suddenly let out a whining sound and smoke began to whisp off its surface.

“What did you do!” said the smoking elf with a scowl. “You broke it! Look give it here.”

The smoking Elf snatched the spectacles from the other Elf’s hands. Unfortunately, the second Elf fumbled it at the same time and the spectacles clattered to the ground. An awkward tinkle of glass broke the silence. The two Elves stared down at the spectacles.

“What did you dooooooOOOOO!”

As the two Elves started yelling at each other Rain drew further and further away.

“You could kill and take them with us you know,” whispered Opal.

“No, there’s more levelers behind the palisade, look.”

The pair of angry Elves who had started throwing punches at each other were joined by several more levelers who instead of trying to separate them joined in the scrum.

Rain finally made it to the tunnel and felt Lyra let out a held in breath above him.

“They didn’t see us, we actually did it! That couldn’t have gone better, they weren’t even aware of my magic!”

“These levelers are nearly as dumb as the ones who I set mushrooms on,” said Opal crossing her arms.

“The Inquisitor must be very confident in that seal to not put better people on it...”