CA Chapter Twenty-five (Patreon)

Vexxx let out a horrible scream, and Alpha started to take a step toward him, but Myles put out his arm and stopped her. When she looked at him, there was a distinct smirk on his face. Tess, who was behind Alpha, couldn’t get past Alpha or Myles, so she, too, was left staring at the boy as he was lifted into the air clenched in a rocky, remorseless fist.

As Vexxx’s bloodcurdling howl faded into silence broken only by the grinding of stone, the boy’s expression shifted from terrified to puzzled. Slowly, he lifted his free hand and patted the enormous extremity, which completely engulfed his body from his armpits to his knees. His feet kicked, making the hem of his robe billow, revealing his skinny ankles.

“Uh, what the hell, man?” he asked, voice cracking on the word ‘hell’.

“Look around,” Myles urged. The AI was obviously feeling unusually helpful today.

The lightning mage did so, and his eyes locked onto something on the ceiling above him. “Bro, there’s a switch up here. Like, a legit lever, or some junk.” Lifting his hand, he reached up and pushed something, and everyone else froze.

A whole lot of nothing happened, except that Vexxx tried again to wriggle free of the hand that clutched him. “Dude, I can’t even with this,” the boy whined, kicking his feet helplessly. “I pulled the lever, but it didn’t move!”

Alpha rubbed her temples, where she felt a headache threatening. Looking over at Myles, she asked, “So, how do we get him out of there?”

Myles just shrugged and smiled enigmatically. Apparently his brief moment of charity was over.

Sighing, Alpha looked in at Vexxx, then stepped to the side, giving Tess room to move forward. “I have a feeling,” she sent a sidelong glance at Myles, “going in there is a bad idea. Tess, can you hit that thing from here? Vexxx, try shocking it.”

Nodding, Vexxx rubbed his hands together and then laid his palms flat on the stony skin of the fist. Sparks arced into the air, and then he gasped, his dark skin growing noticeably paler as the fingers around his chest tightened. “Nope, no magic,” he managed, eyes large and frightened.

Tess hesitated, then looked at Alpha. “I have a fireball spell, or I can just,” she held out a hand, and a slingshot appeared there, “shoot it, and see if it even works.”

“Nope,” Vexxx squeaked, though his color was returning now that the hand had stopped closing. “Hard pass. This is another damned puzzle, and y’all better figure it out, because I am not getting turned into toe jam.”

“Technically,” Tess said, grinning, “it’d be finger jam. Is that a thing?”

Alpha snorted. “No, and as much as I hate to admit it, the kid is right. This place is full of traps, and when there’s no trap, there’s a puzzle.”

“Or a trapped puzzle,” Tess added, shaking her head.

“Right.” Alpha rubbed her temples again. “Okay. What clues do we have?”

Tess raised a finger. “Darkness.” Another. “Hidden spaces in the middle of a maze.”

Alpha lifted her own forefinger. “There are four zones.” She looked around. “And four of us came through from the first floor.” Glancing at Toggle and Amy, she corrected herself. “Four groups, anyway.”

Tess groaned. “It’s a co-op puzzle.”

For a moment, Alpha wasn’t sure what she meant, and then the light dawned and she groaned, too. “We’re going to have to split up again.”

Vexxx, who had remained unusually silent, spoke up, though he sounded slightly breathless. “Anybody want to let the guy stuck in the trap in on your little confab?”

Shaking her head, Alpha pointed to each of them in turn. “Tess came through on her own, and ended up in her own zone in the maze. Then you, and your ‘big-head district’, while Amy, and Toggle, and I were in the ‘hard rock zone’. Myles…” She trailed off, staring at Myles.

He grinned. “Yep. I was in the stalactite site.”

“Okay,” Alpha nodded. “Then each person or group got their own zone. And each zone also has its own weird area where either our eyes or our maps don’t work. Once we figured out how to get into one of them, then only one of us was allowed to enter, and that person immediately fell into a trap that keeps him from leaving, but didn’t actually hurt him, and even helpfully lifted him to within reaching distance of-”

“How do you know that?” Vexxx asked, sounding belligerent. “That you can’t come in, I mean. Maybe you’re just supposed to walk in here and pull off one of these fingers with your super vampire strength. Or Tess can break one off with her pickaxe.”

Alpha tapped her finger on her chin, a gesture she’d picked up from Amythyst. “Hmm. I could try that. Do you want me to?” She shifted as if she was going to take a step through the invitingly open door, and Vexxx waved his arms frantically.

“Nah, man, just kidding. Just, like, finish what you were saying.”

She snorted a half laugh, and pointed toward the lever that Vexxx claimed was there, even though it was invisible from where she stood. “And finally, we have a conveniently placed lever that doesn’t work. Yet.”

Vexxx still looked confused, and Alpha sighed. “The key is that this place separated us from the very beginning. We thought that meant we needed to find each other, but if it’s really a co-op puzzle, then we each need to go to our zone and do what we did here.” She eyed the dangling lightning mage. “Hopefully it doesn’t matter which of us does which zone, because this one should have been Tess. At this point, we’re just going to have to go to the next one, and hope for the best.”

“Wait,” Vexxx said with dawning horror, “you mean I have to hang here until you guys get to all the other spots and hope you’re right about how this works?”

Alpha smirked. “That’s right. Unless you want us to come in there and try smacking your snuggle buddy, there.”

The mage, who had almost fully recovered from being squeezed the first time, paled again. “No, that’s okay. Just,” he hesitated, biting his lip, “hurry, okay? If I log out before we can set up a tent, I’m going to get kicked out of the dungeon, and I don’t want to have to come all the way back by myself.” His eyes flicked away. “Like, you guys are lame, and stuff, but I guess you’re better than fighting the fairies and dealing with the traps on my own.”

Alpha, who had already started to turn away, hesitated and looked back at the suspended teenager. “Yeah,” she said, “you don’t suck quite as much as I thought at first, either.”

(===||:::::::::::::::>

Since Tess couldn’t see in the dark, they decided to take her to the ‘Big Head District’ first. As long as they didn’t actually mess with any of the heads, it was the next safest zone, and Toggle was able to easily disarm the few traps that triggered with simple proximity. The gnome even shimmered with the silver glow of a skill increase once, and Alpha wondered how much his [Disarm Trap] skill had improved since they entered the maze.

The trickiest part of the journey was, once again, getting through the darkened halls to the central chamber, but this time they all stopped at the door to the chamber, which was identical to the first one.

Tess shifted uneasily, her hand on the door handle. “Are you sure about this, Alpha? I really don’t want to be dwarf jelly, either.”

Myles laughed, and Alpha shot him a look before she patted her friend on the shoulder. “Do you want me to do this one? It’d mean you’d have to depend on this guy,” she hitched a thumb at Myles, “to get you safely through the ‘Hard Rock’ zone. Lights don’t work at all there, so you’d be blind the entire time. I can send Toggle with you to deal with the traps, though.”

Beside her, Toggle’s little shoulders stiffened and squared, clearly proud that he was able to help.

Tess sighed and shook her head. “No. This makes the most sense.” Pushing on the door, the half-dwarf sent, ::I’m going in,:: over party chat.

::About time!:: Vexxx sent back. The mage was frustrated and bored, and had been peppering them with ‘Are you there yet?’ since five minutes after they left him.

As soon as Tess stepped into the room, a huge, rough-hewn hand rose up from the ground and wrapped around her body, squeezing her tightly even as it raised her toward the ceiling. Unlike Vexxx, Tess didn’t scream, and she looked up as she got closer and closer to the top of the room. When the fist holding her ground to a halt, she looked down with a triumphant grin. ::I see the switch. Should I try it?::

Alpha said “No,” as Vexxx answered “Yes!”, and Tess reached up and pushed at something out of sight above her. Nothing happened.

::Nada. Sorry, Vexxx. Looks like we have to keep going,:: she sent.

::What if I do mine at the same time?:: the boy asked, sounding a little frantic. ::On three. One. two. Three!::

Tess pushed, and presumably Vexxx did, too, because Tess’s hand actually moved slightly. The axe maiden looked down, visibly surprised. ::It did move, this time. About a quarter of the way.::

Alpha smiled. ::That’s actually a great sign that we’re on the right track.::

They all froze as the hand holding Tess shifted, stone crunching. She gasped, her rosy cheeks paling, and said, “It got tighter!”

::Vexxx, are you okay?:: Alpha asked, urgently.

There was a tense pause, and then Vexxx shakily replied, ::Yeah, but I can hardly breathe now. I have a debuff, too. Constricted. It reduces my recovery rates, all of them, and I just took almost a hundred points of damage.::

Turning back to Tess, Alpha said, “How are you, Tess?”

Shaking her head so her braids dragged across the top of the stone fist, Tess said, “I’m okay. I used a trick my pony at summer camp loved to do with her girth, and took in a huge breath when this thing grabbed me. Then when I let the breath out, it was actually pretty comfortable. Now, not so much, but I’m still good.”

Alpha nodded in relief and turned to Myles. “All right, so things are getting a little more serious now. Do we go to your zone next, or mine?”

The sword reaper looked torn, but he finally huffed out a defeated sigh. “It’d be more fun to make you take me to the next one, but since we’re running out of time, let’s split up here. You take Toggle and Amy and go to the Hard Rock Cavé, and I’ll go do mine on my own.”

“Will you be all right?” Tess asked, and Myles and Alpha both turned to look at her, brows raised. As far as Tess knew, Myles was a moderator, and could probably either one-shot anything in the dungeon, or just delete it before it could even move, if he didn’t just teleport himself straight to his goal.

“Oh,” the dwarf muttered, cheeks turning pink again. “Right. Go ahead, then.”

Alpha nodded and turned to go. Toggle darted ahead, already watching for any traps that might have reset themselves or just appeared out of thin air. ::Vexxx,:: she sent, ::Myles is going to his area, and I’m going to mine. Do you have another thirty or forty minutes?:: Mapping the area out originally had been incredibly time consuming, but with a map in hand and a high-level [Disarm Trap] skill, Alpha was pretty sure she could get there in half an hour or so.

::...Yeah. But hurry,:: the boy sent back.

“Yeah,:: she sent, increasing her pace until she was almost on Toggle’s heels. ::I’m on it.::