Chapter 79

Opal heard the crash of falling stone and the cry of anger below and smiled. Yes, everything was going exactly as planned, she could even hear Red scrambling up the stairs two floors below.

Now came her part in the plan, she hauled on the rope by her side and the counterweight she had roped to the shutters fell free, the rock dropping, well, like a rock, the rope it was attached to hauling the shutters wide with a bang and then snapping taut on the super-sized crossbow ballista that Opal was currently straddling. She nearly fell over as the whole thing lurched forward, the arms of the bow slamming up against the window frame, the back tipping up as more counterweights fell in sequence.

Opal found herself staring down into the street below, or more specifically, the street spanning pit, a huge square hole where the cobble road had fallen into the basement below. It had been a frantic piece of work to get everything prepared, Rain had needed to apply all his great strength to rip out basically everything that wasn’t earth from the basement.

Removing everything hadn’t been part of the plan originally, but they had quickly found that any remaining wooden beams or chunks of stone Lyra’s Skill instantly latched onto and tried to use to replace the ceiling Rain had ripped out, structural supports literally growing tree-like from beam to beam. Which was a problem as her, in her opinion, genius plan called for the ceiling to collapse as soon as Lyra’s ability was turned off.

She grinned fiercely as she looked down at her prey, the big nasty leveler who had hurt her Rain. He was climbing to his feet along with his weird red dog, their clothes dirtied with the soaking mud, the dog circling, agitated and looking for enemies.

She hauled on a rope to her side and the ballista shifted perfectly into position, the black metal bolt aimed straight at the Ranker’s chest.

Then she slammed her fist down on the trigger with a cry of exhilaration.

The metal arms of the bow snapped forward so violently that the stone window frame shattered beneath them, blowing out in a stream of stone. But that was as nothing compared to the force of the ballista bolt itself that ripped the air asunder as it exploded forward directly on target with the Ranker.

The bolt screamed through the air like a bolt of straightened lightening, down into the pit, and straight into the Ranker’s ches-

Bane’s hand snapped up and his fingers locked around the shaft instantly stopping it in place, the black metal tip an inch from his chest. He swayed backwards as he absorbed the enormous force behind the bolt, but he took it, his feet sliding slightly in the mud.

The bolt was stopped, the Ranker somehow unharmed, the plan was ruin-

Opal slammed the shutters closed and scrambled back into the building.

The Ranker blinked up at the sudden motion, then his eyes were drawn down to the rag tied around the base of the bolt, the rag that was currently igniting, blooming to life with fire.

Rain stood from his chair, yes, this was perfect. Their mad scramble to throw all of their plans together was paying off, the trap had snapped shut over Bane and he hadn’t been able to stop it.

The ballista bolt hadn’t pierced the Ranker’s body, but that wasn’t a concern, it had never been the main point of the plan. Opal had asked for FIRE, and Rain had instantly agreed to it. He had very vivid horrible memories of the sheer blinding agony that fire could cause, very few things come close to that feeling of having your flesh burned away. Because of that it was perfect for the Ranker, it was the least of what that evil creature deserved.

The problem had been, where were they to get said fire? In the end he had found the solution to both Opal’s town cave problem and the fire problem in the same place, a place he had been aware of in his past life, a huge distillery in the center of town. The distillery was a complex made up of several buildings, including basements that connected the buildings beneath the street.

They’d ransacked the distillery and emptied every single barrel of liquid they could find into the basement, completely flooding the place. This was after testing the stuff was flammable of course. It had been very flammable to Opal’s delight, more than perfect for what they had in mind.

Now the Ranker was trapped in a pit that was about to be filled with a raging firestorm, burning him and his shitty dog alive.

Rain’s claws twitched with anticipation, waiting to hear the screams, hungry to see terrible pain on the Ranker’s face, to see him suffer.

Then his nose caught a scent. A very concentrated scent that almost made him feel woozy, a smell that smelled exactly like a ten thousand times stronger version of the liquid they had earlier poured from the barrels.

His eyes widened in shock, but it was already far far too late to do anything.

Unknowingly, Lyra’s ability had gasified, trapped, and concentrated much of the liquid they had poured out in its attempt to hide it.

They had accidentally created a large bomb.

BOOOM!!

The street exploded, the surrounding buildings instantly disintegrating into the air as the cobble ripped up in a wave that roared toward Rain, sending the road skyward in a fraction of a moment.

All Rain had time for was to throw his arms up protectively before the world became a howling maelstrom of earth and stone, cobble pelting his body with a fury as he was fully lifted into the air and thrown bodily down the street, the chair he had been sat on instantly shredded to kindling as it was blown away.