Wizard Tournament: Chapter 116 (Patreon)
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“Further than that,” Alex told them. The rest of their group was crouched just a few paces behind him while he peeked around the corner with his wand. “The only reason I’m so close is because I have to be to get a line of sight.” He shooed them further down the hallway. “Back!” he said. “Back!”
“I don’t like this,” Wix complained to Draevin as they retreated all the way back to the doorway behind the guildhall’s front desk. “He’s too close. I’ve seen the damage that wand can do…”
“Well we’re pretty short on options right about now,” he told her. “If we don’t get through that barrier right now we’ll lose track of that Peter illusion. We’re just going to have to take a chance here.”
“I’m with Wix,” Heph said. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this whole thing.”
Sylnya just laughed at them. “That’s been all week for us. Welcome to the club.” She turned and cupped her hands around her mouth and hollered back down the hall at Alex. “We’re ready! Let’s do this!”
Alex gave her a thumbs up. Istven was still standing right beside the insane human. Draevin saw him hold out his hand and could guess at what was being said. Alex just shook his head and leaned around the corner. A moment later it happened.
KABOOM!
A shockwave of pressure and sound ricocheted down the hall and knocked Draevin off his feet. He found himself staring at the ceiling and wondering why he hadn’t erected an ice barrier to block the force of the explosion. He would have if there’d been any indication it would be that powerful as far away as they’d retreated. Lesson learned. Sylnya helped him up. He saw her lips moving but couldn’t hear what she said. “What?” he asked.
She rolled her eyes and handed him a Healing Lotus. She tipped her hand back incrementally to indicate he should only drink a little bit. He did as instructed and felt a tingle in his ears. “That was so cool!” he heard Grrbraa saying as his senses returned to him. Sylnya grabbed the Lotus out of Draevin’s hands and foisted it on Wix next. She handed another to the group of human toughs and indicated how they should share it around. The muscly humans were groaning as they tried to stand back up.
Sylnya clapped her hands. “Let’s go, people! Let’s go!”
Draevin nodded. “Right. Grrbraa, run ahead and see if the barrier came down or not.” The werebeast was practically vibrating with energy and as soon as he got a command he sprinted off to do it. “Come on,” Draevin said. He started down the hall after the werebeast and Sylnya, Heph and Wix followed after him.
At the end of the hall they could already see that Alex was collapsed on the floor. Grrbraa rushed past him and around the corner. When the four of them reached Istven he was actually in the process of removing his crown and unsurprisingly looked calm and collected as always. At first glance Alex looked dead. They found him crumpled on the ground close to where he’d activated the Boom Stick. Blood was pouring from his ears, nose, mouth and even eyes. It looked like he’d flown back into the wall behind him and cracked his skull against it. There was only a slight movement from his chest and a bubble of blood was growing and shrinking around his nose.
“I tried to tell him he should just let me use it,” Istven explained. “He refused.” He didn’t sound the least bit concerned with the human’s fate. He leaned down to retrieve the pyroclastic rod from where it was still clutched in Alex’s hand. The hand twitched.
“Mmm,” Alex moaned.
“I’d leave that,” Draevin warned. He brought his magic to bear and readied himself to attack Istven if necessary. The last thing they needed was for the Black Prince to gain such a powerful artifact to add to his arsenal when he inevitably betrayed them.
Istven shrugged and turned around to follow after Grrbraa. Sylnya already had a Healing Lotus in hand and shoved it in Alex’s mouth. “I really hope that worked at least,” Sylnya said.
“I got through!” Grrbraa shouted excitedly.
“Is he going to be okay?” Draevin asked. He didn’t feel a particularly strong attachment to the older human, but he’d done a lot to support them and it would be a shame if anything happened to him.
Sylnya stayed crouched next to him. “We’ll see,” was all she said.
Not seeing what else he could do, Draevin turned to see what Grrbraa was up to. Around the corner he found all the scattered bodies in the hall leading to the barrier had been swept away by the force of the explosion and gathered at the other end of the T-intersection. Grrbraa was digging into the rubble with his claws while Istven merely watched.
“I got through!” the werebeast shouted again. He dug his claws into the pile of stone that had formed where the barrier used to be while his tail wagged violently. It looked like the ceiling had collapsed and stone had tumbled down to fill the space, but as the werebeast dug a hole opened up at the top. “We can squeeze through here!” Grrbraa said.
“Good,” Draevin told him. “Do it.” He turned around to find Wix and Heph milling about, watching Grrbraa dig. Behind them the human toughs had gathered around Alex.
“Go!” Alex coughed out weakly. “You don’t need me.” He pressed the Boom Stick into the hands of one of his men and waved them off. “Find Peter,” he told them, “we can’t do it without him.”
“We’ll find him,” the human that had taken the Boom Stick promised.
Sylnya stepped away from Alex and shook her head. “That bad?” Draevin asked quietly.
“Worse,” she confirmed.
“Well he’s right,” Draevin said. “We have to go. We don’t have time to worry about him.”
At the top of the pile of stone Grrbraa was squeezing through. Being the largest of them by far, it would be easy for the others to follow after him. Hephian lined up to be next and Wix waited behind him. Grrbraa popped out the other side. “What do I do?” he called through the hole.
“Run ahead!” Draevin shouted. “Try to find Peter and don’t get killed!”
Heph got on his hands and knees to crawl through the hole. Istven seemed too proud to crawl like everyone else. He began to ooze into his own shadow. Sylnya snapped a finger in his face. “Where are you going, Istven?” she asked.
“To find Peter, of course. I can travel much faster than the rest of you through shadows.”
“Good, then you can catch up”—she nodded her head back to where Alex rested—“after you fix him.”
Istven looked back at Alex. “Why would I do that? What use will one more human be to us?”
“He’s related to Peter,” Draevin reminded him. Heph dropped through the far side of the little tunnel and Wix climbed in next. “I think he’d appreciate if you saved him.”
“Besides,” Sylnya said as she stepped up to follow Wix into the short tunnel, “what will it cost you but a few seconds of your time?”
Istven stood still for a moment. “Fine,” he said. Without another word he turned and walked back to where Alex lay struggling on the ground. The human was trying to pick himself up by leaning against the wall, but his legs looked hideously twisted.
Sylnya slipped through the short tunnel faster than any of the others and Draevin got on his hands and knees to follow after her. “We’re going ahead now,” Sylnya called out from the other side of the rubble pile. “You’ll just have to catch up, Drae.”
“No, wait!” Draevin tried to say, “It will just take me—”
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
The rest of Draevin’s words were cut off by a wordless howl from behind him. It seemed Istven was once again lending another the healing power of his crown. Draevin did not envy the human his fate. It would have been far less pain to simply allow one of his human friends to re-break his legs and drink more Healing Lotus.
When Draevin emerged from the far end of the rubble pile he slid to the ground and saw the tail end of Wixerna’s robes flitting around the corner of the hall up ahead. It seemed the designer of this hidden labyrinthine space had wanted nothing but shapeless stone hallways to connect everything. He picked himself up and started to jog after them. Behind him he could hear the tumble of gravel as the first of the human toughs followed after him. There was no need to wait for them with everyone else having already run off ahead. Draevin wasn’t even entirely sure why Alex had insisted on bringing them. At least Peter had magic to command, but these other humans were going to be the next thing to useless if a fight actually broke out.
Draevin reached the corner and when he turned he found the halls continued on. Up ahead it looked like the path branched off in several different directions. He could see Sylnya—astride her shadow stalker, Kot—with Heph and Wix. They paused for a moment before picking a direction and disappearing around another corner. When he reached the junction himself he saw the dusty werebeast paw prints that likely informed their decision.
“But how did Grrbraa know which way to go?” Draevin wondered aloud. Could he smell Peter’s illusion? A dark shadow flitted up to Draevin. It paused briefly before zipping away in the direction the others had gone. That had to be Istven. Draevin followed as fast as his legs would take him.
Before him, Draevin found the hall dropped off into a descending staircase. That would be how he caught up! Without even thinking about it, he leapt into the air and formed an ice slide. As he whizzed down the steps he started to hear shouting up ahead. He was close to the action now. He came to a stop at the bottom of the stairs and found himself facing a massive door set into the wall. It was covered in intricate runes and made all of gold. The cost of such a structure was unfathomable. It was easily four times Draevin’s height. The noise he’d heard was coming from behind that door and it looked like it was cracked open enough for a person to slip through.
“Draevin, no!” he heard someone shouting from the other side. He charged forward.
As soon as Draevin stepped across the threshold a force as solid and unyielding as a mountain slammed into him. He hit the wall beside him and felt himself getting crushed from two sides. In front of him he could see everyone that had preceded him: Grrbraa, Sylnya, Kot, Hephian, Wixerna. Vines were spreading out from Sylnya’s body, though whether that was intentional or just from the force being applied to her, Draevin couldn’t guess at. The rest of his allies looked completely incapacitated.
“Ah, yes, Draevin,” a familiar voice said. “I was wondering when you’d show up.”
Draevin strained his head to the side so he could see the rest of the room. It was a massive space. As massive as the door that led into it. The room formed a circle that looked to be roughly the same size as the out-of-bounds line of the arena. Gold gilding covered every surface forming intricate rune patterns. At the center of the room was a wooden table that looked out of place. There were six seats but only one was currently occupied. The bright white form of the Guild announcer, Maeve, sat at the end of the table studying Draevin and his friends. A contingent of Guild guards were assembled behind her.
Midway across the room, someone was approaching the table at a slow walking pace: Peter’s illusion.
Maeve had a glass orb of some kind in one of her hands and it was glowing white with raw mana. “You’re going to tell me how you found this place,” Maeve told them matter-of-factly, “and then you’re going to tell me how you got in this place.”
She waved her hand at the Peter-illusion. It kept walking towards her.
“What is that?” she demanded. “Some kind of illusion?”
Peter’s illusion reached Maeve’s table. It stopped right next to her and pointed to the glass orb in her hand. “This is it, guys!” it announced. “I’m either pointing to myself right now, or my last known location before I went somewhere this spell couldn’t track.” The illusion turned around and smiled. “I hope that helps!” it said in all-too-cheery a voice.
Without another word the illusion faded away.
Maeve started laughing. “Hahaha! Oh, I see now. That pesky human used some kind of tracking spell, did he?” She looked at the captives she now had under her control and with a wave of her hand she increased the pressure against them. Draevin felt like his ribs were about to start cracking. He heard moans coming from the others.
“That’s one question answered.” Maeve pointed to Hephian. “You,” she said, “tell me how your little group got inside this sanctum.”
Heph moved his head around, suddenly free. He gave Draevin a dark look, then spat some blood on the ground. “I ain’t tellin’ you shit,” he said. “You can eat my ass.”
Maeve let out an exaggerated sigh. “Yes, I was afraid that would be the answer. I’ve never seen you fight in the arena, little elf. You know what that makes you?”
“Your future step-father?” Heph asked.
“No. Expendable.” Maeve snapped her finger and Hephian’s head exploded.
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