Duelling Dungeons

“Doesn’t this feel a little too easy?” Sylvia asked as she wandered through the arc that separated the entrance hall from the first room of the Ritual Chambers.

Unlike the cramped, claustrophobic rooms down in the catacombs, the Ritual Chambers seemed to consist of a series of massive cavernous rooms. Each one had a series of opulent seating areas filled with plush furniture, silk curtains, and gold plates laden with food, arranged around a central altar covered in bloodstains.

An area of sacrifice and murder turned into a spectator sport.

“Not really,” Kass replied as she slid up to the nearest altar and ran her hands across the cold marble surface. “Both sides have had to commit staff to attacks and have started taking losses. We can’t protect every single floor, and if we tried it would only result in more losses, so we need to pick and choose our fights.”

Kass collected herself and stood up straight, and extended her arms with a flourish. “And it looks like the Sanctum has decided that they’re not willing to sacrifice some staff on the off chance they might be able to protect the floor.”

“Then, shouldn’t we hurry through to the end? Trigger the free resurrection?” Sylvia asked.

“As much as I’d like to do that, it wouldn’t be a good idea,” Kass replied. “There might be traps scattered about the floor, and we wouldn’t want to walk into something and take unnecessary casualties accidentally.”

Sylvia raised an eyebrow and slowly swept her gaze around the room. “Really? I may be a poor student, but I’m pretty sure the documents that Talia assembled didn’t say anything about traps in the Ritual Chambers.”

“Well, you’d be partially correct; there aren’t any static traps,” Kass sighed. “Unfortunately, what the Ritual Chambers does have is Sucubii ritualists, and they’ve had more than enough time to prepare for our arrival. So keep an eye out for runes and sigils painted on the walls in blood.”

“Ugh, what is with you, magic users and blood? Why can’t you just use ink or paint like the rest of us?” Sylvia huffed.

“Because blood is a potent magical catalyst, especially when it’s drawn straight from the veins of the caster,” Kass explained. “Plus, the audience likes seeing large flashy magic, and there are very few spectacles as large and flashy as drawing blood out of someone and having it form a magical rune in mid air.”

“You say flashy, I say ghoulish. Trust me, you tend to see that sort of magic in a different light when it’s used on an innocent person, in an uncontrolled environment,” Sylvia replied quietly.

Across the room, Rembrandt looked up from the vigil he and the other Revenants had taken by the door, and glanced back towards Sylvia just for a moment. His jaw swung open slightly, as if he was about to say something, but in the end, he just shook his head and turned back towards the doorway.

“That’s…. true,” Kass said awkwardly. “But there are strict rules about using that sort of thing outside of a safe environment, and everyone in the dungeon circuit takes them seriously. You’ll never see something like that around here.”

“I know,” Sylvia muttered. “Still, once you see something like that, it sticks with you.”

“I bet,” Kass replied, slithering up to her friend. “Don’t worry, that’s something you won’t have to worry about again. I promise.”

“And I believe you,” Sylvia replied, before giving Kass a small smile. After a moment, she took a deep breath and stood up straight. “We should get moving. The longer we sit around here, wasting time, the more time we give the Sanctum to reposition and get a jump on us.”

“This is not a waste of time,” Kass scowled, “and I’m sure you know that.”

“True, but I feel like this is a conversation we’re better off having later,” Sylvia replied, “and not in the middle of a match being broadcast to millions of people.”

“True…” Kass muttered. “Later then.”

“Later,” Sylvia confirmed.

Kass reached up and patted her much larger friend on the back before the pair of them finally wandered over to where Rembrandt and the others were waiting.

The room beyond was fairly similar to the one they were in. Still, instead of luxurious seats right at ground level, there appeared to be private boxes, as you’d see at the theatre, and the altar in the middle of the area was made of obsidian instead of marble.

“Feel anything in there?” Kass asked as she slithered up.

“Blood and dark magic,” Rembrandt hissed. “Old, sunk into the stones.”

“So, what you’re telling me is that if there were any traps in there, they’d be obscured by the background magic,” Kass grumbled.

Rembrandt inclined his head very slightly before turning his head back towards the next room.

“I thought you said finding these traps would be as easy as spotting bloody runes painted around the room,” Sylvia asked.

“Technically, that’s true… but one of the very first things you learn about creating magical traps is how to place them in places that’ll catch people off guard. Like on the sides of the pillars that litter the room, on the back of the altar, and even behind the various draperies covering the walls,” Kass explained. “So, it may be slightly harder than I initially suggested.”

“Isn’t there some other way to trigger them? Like throwing a stone into the middle of the room and seeing if anything tries to vaporise it?”

“That would work against other types of magic, but blood magic reacts to, you know, the living. Which makes things a tad more difficult,” Kass replied.

The team sat there for a moment, staring into the room. “So, why not use your elementals?” Sylvia finally asked.

Kass sighed. “Weren’t you paying attention? I can’t send my elementals in, because they won’t trigger the traps.”

“That’s true, but if they’re not going to trigger, doesn’t that mean you can use them as scouts? They can poke around corners and under tables and stuff, looking for runes. Once they clear the way, we can follow them,” Sylvia replied.

Kass paused for a moment, then a sly smile grew across her face. “That could work! And it wouldn’t take that long either!”

“What can I say?” Sylvia said, a grin pulling at her lips. “There’s more to me than just my good looks.”

“Much more!” Kass agreed as she quickly detached the bottles hanging from her belt and emptied them on the floor. After a couple of seconds, the small puddles rose from the ground and formed roughly humanoid shapes, all saluting her.

“Sweep the right side of the room from the altar to the wall, and destroy any sigils you find. Check everywhere you can reach, including under debris and behind draperies,” Kass ordered. The tiny elementals shot off, scattering around the room.

The little liquid humanoids immediately got to work, climbing over every obstacle they could reach, turning to puddles and slipping through cracks in the walls, and extending their bodies as far as they could go to check the sides of the pillars. It took a couple of minutes, but when the group came back, they all had a slight red tinge.

“Is it safe to keep them around when they’re tainted with blood?” Sylvia asked as Kass knelt and began scooping the little elementals back into their bottles.

“Perfectly. Without either a connection to the caster or a rune to help suspend the spell, blood’s just another liquid,” Kass replied. After she finished collecting her little helpers, Kass gestured to the room. “Shall we go?”

“Are you sure it’s safe? It’s not that I don’t trust your magic, but maybe they left traps out of range of your elementals,” Sylvia replied warily.

“Don’t be like that, my elementals were very throughout, nothing will happ…”

The instant Kass slid into the room, there was an earth-shattering explosion that sent her flying back out, tumbling across the floor to land at Sylvia’s feet.

“What?... Why?...” Kass choked out between laboured breaths. Her entire left side had been shredded, one of her arms completely removed by the explosion, and with every breath, more and more red froth built up on her lips.

“Kass, stay calm,” Sylvia shouted shakily as she fell to her knees. “I’ve got you.”

“It… hurts? Why does it hurt so much?” Kass whined. Her breaths were shallow, laboured, and getting worse.

“I’ve got you,” Sylvia repeated, grabbing one of Kass’s good arms and pushing her magic into her friend. Or at least, that was the plan. When she tried to reach out, her magic just refused to grasp onto anything. It was like Kass wasn’t even there.

“Don’t… let… me…” Kass gasped weakly before going quiet. Her arm went limp, and her head rolled to the side.

“Kass…” Sylvia asked, her voice shaking. It felt like the world was shrinking around them, and darkness was closing in. “Please don’t do this to me…”

Her friend didn’t reply, and when she lowered her ear towards Kass’ chest, she couldn’t hear a heartbeat. This wasn’t supposed to be possible; the safeguards were supposed to prevent it, but despite all that, Kass didn’t disconnect. She just lay there, dead.