I hadn’t seen anything on the wall where I walked, and I continued onto the corner by the nearest iron gate. There was a shaft attached to the wall that could hold an emberbrand or torch, and I saw a strange slot cut out near the base of the metal there. I raised my glowing short sword higher so that I could get a better look and then I wiggled on the hanger a bit.
“I think this is it!” I called out to them. “This torch holder can move sideways.”
“Do it and let’s see what happens.” Mirea’s voice rang out from the other side of the shelving that seemed to split the room.
“Alright. Here it goes,” I said as I moved the metal over. There was a soft clicking sound from inside of the wall, but I didn’t see the hidden door open.
“Nothing seems to be happening,” I said as the cylindrical piece of metal slid back to its original place on the wall slot.
“This one over here can move!” Bylem called out from the opposite corner as me. “Maybe if I—” I watched him move his, and I pushed my own hanger back into the offset position at the same time. There was a series of clicks now, and they seemed to crawl around on the inside of the wall like a stampede of rats.
Then the spot of wall where Cornalic was standing shifted inward an inch, and the muscular man wasted no time in pushing it open.
“Dear friends, that appears to have—”
A sudden scream cut off his words, and I felt my spine try to eject from my skin with surprise. The skeleton sitting in the chair in the middle of the room was suddenly animated, and it thrashed against its bonds as if the creature was experiencing the same amount of pain it probably had when it was alive and someone cut open its skull.
“This can’t be goo—” Bylem shouted, but then the screams of every single skeleton in the cages lining the walls began, and we all winced with the avalanche of noise.
Cornalic was running across the room, and he leapt over the large skeleton in the chair with an acrobatic flip. He skidded to a stop before the entrance and slammed the door shut with both of his massive hands. Then he leaned against the wood with a panicked look on his face.
I was about to ask him what was wrong with the hallways beyond the door, but then the chains in all the cells seemed to break free of their anchors in the walls, and the skeletons near me crashed into the iron cages. The metal bars made a tearing sound, and I looked up to see that the metal wasn’t anchored at all, and the skeletons were slowly pushing the cage wall free of the cell that was separating them from us.
I spun around to face the other side of the room, and saw that the two cages nearest Bylem, Wicum, and Mirea were in the same predicament as mine, and the horde of undead was about to tear the metal away from the wall.
In half a minute the entire room would be filled with fifty angry skeletons.
Chapter 16
“Shut up!” I yelled over the roar of the skeletons. I dashed toward the one tied to the chair and vaulted over a low shelf in my path. I yanked my broadsword out of its sheath with a wide cut aimed at the large asshole that was making the loudest screeching sound in the room. My slash removed the top half of the skeleton’s body, and the chair, with almost no effort. The thing’s heath bar emptied, and it stopped screaming immediately. I jumped up on top of the wood armrests half a second later so that I could look over the shelving at my companions.
“Kill as many of them through the bars as you can!” I shouted at my friends. Wicum had been trying to hold both of the cages against their slots in the ceiling, but there was a four foot stone pillar between each, and the man was kind of spread eagled out to leverage against the wall of angry skeletons.
I turned around to my own wall, and cursed when I saw the bars of the left-most cell fall free of the wall and land on the tile. A quick count of the skeletons gave me thirteen, and they stumbled toward me with their sharp boney fingers outstretched.
Time to bring some DPS.
I jumped from the chair and landed on top of the short shelf I’d vaulted a moment ago. There were two skeletons at the head of the pack, and I squatted down as I flung both of my arms out. Each of my swords connected with the head of a skeleton. My left glowing short sword ripped the head off of the neck bone of one, and my magical longer sword cut the other skeleton’s head in half as if it was made of papier mâché. They both fell to the ground in a heap of bones, and their empty life bars confirmed that they had returned to their un-animated state.
I pushed off of the shelf with my legs and felt the thing fall away beneath me, I expected my leap to only carry me a few feet forward, but I misjudged the strength of my legs, and I ended up half jumping, half falling into the mass of skeletons. The undead monsters hadn’t been expecting my movement, and neither had I actually, but I reacted faster to the change in position, and my broadsword cleaved two more skeletons into halves with a single swing.
I flicked my short sword inward, crushed the chest of a fifth skeleton, and then I dodged a clumsy scratch from an asshole on my right side with a quick shuffle of my feet. The attack had thrown the awkward monster off balance a bit, and I was able to flick my magical sword upward to take off the front half of its bone face.
Seven more.
Three attacked me at once with their sharp fingers. I knocked the two on my right with a wide parry from the flat side of my broadsword, and then caught the left one’s fingers on the guard of my glowing short sword. The skeleton let out a shriek of annoyance and tried to yank the weapon out of my grip, but it might as well have been a toddler, and I just yanked the blade away before I drove the point into the thing’s skull.
Another made a leap at me with its hands outstretched as if to cut my eyeballs from my face, but I whipped my broadsword around in front of me, cut off both of its arms, and then ducked to the left side as it tumbled past. I doubted that I had done enough damage to kill the thing, but it was going to have a hard time scratching me with no arms.
I heard the sound of the iron cage crash behind me, and I gritted my teeth with the thought of another dozen skeletons swarming me. At least none of these had weapons. I was sure that their boney fingers were sharp, but I didn’t really have to worry about them getting close enough for me to find out. My swords could keep them at bay as long as I didn’t let them get behind me.
The two skeletons I’d parried earlier each made another attack, but I spun away with another sweep of my broadsword. I hadn’t really expected to hit anything with the attack, but the remaining skeletons had started to close in around me, and my magic blade ended up slicing one of them in half.
The four remaining ones with arms sprinted toward me, but they moved with an awkward gait, and I managed to pull a feint move to the right that they all shifted toward. The first two dove to where they had thought I would have been standing, and my two swords clipped the backs of their spines easily. Their heads rolled free, and their bodies collapsed into piles of dusty bones.
The last two didn’t realize that they were in trouble, and they came toward me with their arms outstretched like they were zombies on the hunt for brains. My short sword knocked the arms of the left one into the right, and I twisted my hips as I swung my broad sword around. The blade cut through both of them easily, and they crumbled into piles of dusty bones instantly.
The skeleton without the arms was still struggling to push itself off of the stone ground, and I punched my magical blade through its skull as prepared for the next group of skeletons to reach me.
But they didn’t come.
I focused on the far side of the room, and saw Cornalic finish the last one off with a spin of his dual short swords. I couldn’t believe that the man had killed all of them as quickly as he had, and I realized that he must have used some sort of trickery to kill a bunch of them before the cage fell. The half-orc turned around to face me after the last skeleton fell into pieces at his feet, and the cloaked man raised a finger to his lips.
I ignored his movement, and ran to the other side of the room. Wicum and Mirea were stan
ding on opposite sides of Bylem, and the siblings were doing their best to protect the fenia from the twenty skeletons that had swarmed them. I saw on my UI that a sliver of Wicum’s health was gone, and I guessed that one of the creatures had managed to scratch him through his armor.
I hit the back part of the group that was attacking Mirea, and three of the monsters fell with a single sweep of my broadsword. As soon as the trio collapsed under my blade I stabbed another one through the back of the skull with my shorter sword. The health bar on this one emptied immediately, and I shuffled another foot into the group while I windmilled both of my blades around in a standard Filipino martial arts kata. These things were all sorts of stupid, and they didn’t seem to realize I was behind them until I’d cut down eight of them. By then Mirea had dealt with the remaining two she had been tangling with, and she spun around to aid her brother.
A handful of seconds later the group of skeletons was defeated. I had kind of expected the screeching sound to end when the last monster lay in a pile, but I still heard the echo of their scream in my ears, and I wondered if the noise would just ring in my brain for a few hours.
“Dearest friends! We have a problem!” Cornalic called from the side of the room where we had entered, and we ran over to him.
The half-orc was standing in front of the door, and there was a broadsword wedged into its handle. The point of the blade dug into the stone tile a few feet away from the door handle at an angle, and it was kind of vibrating against a pressure that was pushing from the other side.
It was where the other screams were coming from.
“Hey, that’s my spare sword!” Wicum shouted as he pointed to the blade. Then the man looked at his belt and I saw the empty sheath tied there.
“I’m afraid it is, dear friend. I needed something to brace this closed for a few moments. Would you like it back?”
“Yes!” the man growled.
“Very well.” The half-orc moved to pull it from the angry door, but the rest of us shouted in protest.
“Okay, leave it,” Wicum groaned. “What do we do? Is that hallway filled with all the skeletons we just walked past?”
“And then some, I do believe,” the half-orc said as he tapped his chin with his large pointer finger. “There is the secret door we opened. Perhaps we can look in there quickly? Maybe there will be another exit?”
“This doesn’t look as if it will hold for more than another minute.” Mirea bit her upper lip and pointed at her brother’s wedged sword.
“I would estimate the same, dear lady.”
“I’d rather make our stand in the secret room,” I said. “The entrance door was narrow. It would be easy to defend.”
“If there is nothing in there that can attack us from behind,” Bylem sighed.
“Cornalic and I can take care of anything behind us if Mirea and Wicum can hold the entrance to the room,” I said to the fenia.
“It is a better plan that waiting for this to break and then fighting another horde in this open space. Let’s go.” Mirea nodded to me, and we turned away from the door.
“But… I really liked that sword,” Wicum sighed.
“If we live through this, I’ll buy you another one,” his sister said as the five of us jogged toward the secret door that had seemed to trigger the horde of skeletons.
There was a snapping sound of wood, and the clang of metal behind us two seconds after we started our run.
“That didn’t last long!” I shouted as I sprinted past the chair and slid into the secret room.
I was the first one in through the open door, and I had my weapons ready. But there were no skeletons inside the twenty by twenty foot square room, just a raised stone platform with a large metal chest on top, and a dozen alcoves in the stone walls that were each filled with a smaller chest.
This was a treasure room.
“Dearest friends! We are going to be wealthy!” Cornalic shouted from beside me as we each spun around the room.
“If there is gold in those chests,” I said.
“Of course there is gold in them! Why would they hide them in a secret room if there was no gold?” Bylem panted as he turned to face the door.
“Worry about the chests after we handle these skeletons!” Mirea shouted at us as she stood at the archway. I glanced beyond the woman and saw a sea of boney skeletons pouring into the previous room. My stomach dropped at the sight, and I realized we were going to have a really long battle ahead.
“Jump back!” Cornalic shouted as the piece of wall beside Mirea began to swing closed. The woman let out a surprised yelp as she moved to the side, and the thick piece of stone slid into place over the hole in the wall. There was a kind of suction sound it made as it closed, and I guessed that the thing was making an airtight seal.
The four of us turned around in the room to face the half-orc. He was standing at one of the corners in the room, and had his hand on a metal switch level that I hadn’t noticed when I first surveyed the space.
“Why did you do that? Now we’ll have to open it again and they’ll have swarmed around the door. It’s going to be even hard—”
“Ah, ah, ah, my dear beauty. I have spotted another lever on the adjacent corner of the room here. I am guessing it will open that spot in the wall and take us out of here in a different manner.” The muscular man gestured to the other side of the large chest, and I saw another lever set against the opposite wall. The metal was a gray color, and I had missed both of the levers because they kind of blended in with the stone of the walls. I could not see the part of the stone that the man indicated was a door, but I seemed to have a harder time finding those secret entrances.
“Oh. I’m sorry for yelling at you,” the woman grimaced at the half-orc.
“No worries, dear lady. I understand.” The half-orc let go of the switch and then gestured to the room. “Should we see what is on the other side of this second hidden door, or should we open these chests and see what—”
“Chests!” the four of us said in unison, and Cornalic smiled.
“I believe the side chests should be opened first, in case the large and obvious one is trapped and we are forced to flee the room,” the man advised as he stepped to the nearest alcove.
“You are the expert. Do what you think you need to do,” Wicum said.
“This first chest does not appear to be trapped,” the green skinned man said. “Nor is it locked. I shall open.” The man flipped a small handle on the front of the chest and then lifted the metal lid. When a fireball didn’t erupt in the man’s grinning face, we all moved to his side to peer into the chest.
There were four large leather pouches inside, and Cornalic lifted one up as if it was a scorpion. Then he untied the neck of the leather so that we could see the contents.
It was filled with tiny diamonds.
“Whoa,” I said with a gasp.
“I agree, dearest friend Leo. I am somewhat versed in the worth of precious stones, and I estimate the bag to be worth a thousand gold at the low end.”
“What are in the other bags?” Bylem asked with a pant that actually made him sound like a dog.
“Emeralds,” the half-orc said as he opened the next bag. Then he opened the remaining two leather pouches to reveal rubies and sapphires.
“How much do you think these four bags are worth?” Mirea asked the muscular man.
“At least thirty-five hundred gold. Possibly more.”
“By the Light! This is going to be my best haul ever,” Bylem said as he gestured to the other chests in the room.
“Same with us,” Wicum said as he gestured to his sister.
“It might just be so with me as well, dear friends,” Cornalic said as he set the pouches on the floor away from the alcove. The other four turned to look at me, and I guessed that they expected me to share if this was my best haul.
“This is actually my first real dungeon exploration; my other one was more accidental. I’m very grateful that you all allowed me to joi
n.”
The two humans and fenia smiled at me, but Cornalic was already opening the second chest and peering at its contents.
“Gold plates with encrusted gems and platinum as accent decorations. This must be the king and queen’s personal eating set,” the man said as he pulled one of them out of the chest to show us. The thing looked like a china plate set, but instead of porcelain, it was made of thick gold, and etched with a fine inlay of platinum banding. “We could probably sell this to one of the richer houses for ten thousand, the gold alone is probably worth three or four.”
“I’m going to retire,” Bylem laughed and did a little cat dance next to me.
It took another ten minutes for the half-orc to open up the rest of the chests. When he had finished we had pulled out an ornate set of cutlery, more plates of various sizes, gold chalices encrusted with various gems, gold napkin holders, pitchers, and various other serving implements. It was a lot of loot, and Cornalic believed that we could sell everything we’d found so far for twenty thousand gold.
“I’m going to retire, on an island in Iria, with a harem.” Bylem giggled.
“I don’t think you’ll have enough gold for that,” Mirea snickered at the cat-man.
“I’m going to go on vacation then. On an island in Iria, with a harem. For maybe three months. Grr.”
“That’s realistic,” the woman laughed.
“How are we going to take all this back?” Wicum asked as he held his arms out to all the gold dishes on the floor.
“We should probably take the gems with us, and then finish exploring the rest of the dungeon. Clear the other room if we need to,” I said as I nodded to the wall where we had entered, “and then we can just carry everything out. We might be able to cram most of it into the larger chest.”
“Ahh yes. The large chest,” the half-orc let out a dark chuckle and rubbed the palms of his large hands together. “Let us see what secrets it holds.”
The man stepped to the side of the stone dais and then peered at the base of the stone pedestal. He paced a slow circle around the chest and inspected every angle of its metal surfaces. The rest of the group had taken a few steps away from the half-orc so that he could work, and also so that they would be less likely to get hit with any sort of trap inside of the chest.
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