Solomon's Crucible 98. The Descent (Patreon)

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Solomon felt the explosion more than he heard it. The wall he was leaning against rattled, and he could hear the rumble of echoes working their way down the hallway. He would have liked to believe that anybody hearing it would pass it off as thunder, but that felt like wishful thinking.The quiet part of the jailbreak was over. 

He poked his head in through the doorway and was relieved to find that Kanmi was whole, if lightly singed. He was also off his cot and across the room, covering a distance that previously would have been forbidden to him by the chains. As Solomon watched, Kanmi tucked the alligator leather away in his own inventory.

It wasn't all good news. Taking a closer look, Solomon saw that the chain itself was still intact, despite sitting at ground zero of the explosion. The bolt that had held the chain to the wall was also still intact, as was the spell that had fixed it in place. However, the bomb had managed to dislodge the chunk of wall that had been holding the bolt. Kanmi would have to carry a bit of masonry around with him for now, but he would be able to move.

"You all right?" Solomon asked. He couldn't see any damage, but he didn't want to push Kanmi too hard if he was nursing any injuries.

Kanmi looked at him, blinked, and then patted himself all over. Finally he smiled. "Looks like."

"Good," Solomon said. "We need to move."

Kanmi nodded and stood. He was a little shaky on his feet, but as Solomon led the way out of the room and down the hallway he pulled himself together. He also gathered the chain, wrapping much of the loose material around his arms and leaving himself armed with a pretty dangerous looking two handed flail.

"Are your things anywhere nearby?" Solomon asked.

Kanmi shook his head. "Those are all in inventory. Not mine."

Solomon clicked his tongue. Invaders. Killers. Conquerors. He mentally added "thieves" to hist list of grievances.

"I can always buy replacements," Kanmi said.

He seemed to be ready to say more, but Solomon held up a hand to silence him. They had reached the end of the hallway. Continuing forward would put them into the same room as the doorway to the stairs. He didn't see any guards nearby, but it stood to reason that they would head for the stairs once the alarm had been raised.

"How do you feel about fighting our way down through five flights of stairs?" Solomon asked.

"I'd rather not," Kanmi replied.

"How do you feel about jumping out a fifth story window?" Solomon asked.

"I feel like fighting," Kanmi said.

"That's about what I thought," Solomon said. Unfortunately, the system wasn't a full video game experience, complete with exploits around fall damage. If they jumped from a great enough height, even the system wouldn't be able to put them back together again.

Solomon put his light globe in his pocket and led the way. It still cast enough light to see by, and he gripped his hatchet in hand as he opened the door. He hit the push bar at a decent clip, continuing through as the door banged against the stairwell wall. Nobody was waiting there to try and kill him. Solomon paused for a moment to look around, not quite trusting in his good luck.

"We should hurry," Kanmi said.

Solomon nodded and started moving down the steps two at a time. It would be nice if he still had his shoes, but even with twenty-twenty hindsight he wasn't sure he would have been able to make it up to the fifth floor safely if he was squelching around the whole time.

He was picking up little scrapes and scratches as he hurried down the stairs, but nothing that cost more than a point or two of HP to heal. The stairs were in a switchback pattern, changing directions every half-floor. Solomon kept ready, expecting an ambush at every landing.

They moved down past the fourth floor, to the third, and halfway to the second without any incident. As they were closing in on the second floor landing, though, the door in front of them crashed open and a wide-eyed guard wearing a red armband came through, sword in hand.

Solomon didn't have time to do anything clever. He leaped off the stairs, both feet aimed at the target. Thankfully, the guard didn't quite bring his sword up quickly enough to skewer him, although Solomon did feel a burning pain as it sliced through his calf in the instant before impact. The two footed kick was enough to knock the guard back. Solomon fell down and landed on his rear end. In front of him, the guard lost his balance completely and fell, the back of his head hitting the wall hard. 

Solomon pushed himself up and crawled forward as quickly as he could. The guard, still dazed, was slower to move. Solomon brought his hatchet around and with a couple of quick strikes, ended the fight.

He looked up. It seemed the guard had not been alone. Kanmi had his chain around the neck of the second guard and held it tight with one hand. With the other, he grabbed the block of masonry dangling on the end of the chain and started smashing it against the guard's head. The guard staggered forward, trying to shake free, but fell to his knees. A moment later he collapsed completely. Kanmi unwrapped his weapon from the body and sat back with a sigh.

"Keep going down?" he asked.

Solomon took a peek through the door. Nobody was following hot on the heels of the first two guards. If they headed straight out through this floor they would have to exit through the main door and across the pedestrian bridge. He didn't think they'd get out without fighting through at least one more set of reinforcements.

"Keep going down," Solomon said, dragging himself to his feet.

If they kept going down then there was at least a chance that they could get out of the building without any more fighting. Solomon was getting pretty comfortable in combat, but if they kept rolling the dice sooner or later it was going to come up snake eyes.

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