Shepherd's Quest: The Broken Key #1 (38 page)

The tool bounced along the passage as it headed for the rapidly closing opening. Then just before the stone settled to the floor, the tool emerged from beneath the falling stone.

With a thump, the stone settled against the floor, completely blocking the mouth of the passage. “That was close,” commented Kevik.

“I would hate to have been in there when that stone began to fall,” observed Chad.

“Me too,” agreed Bart. Untying the string from the screw, he put the string back in his pack and the vise-pick in with the others. After that he distributed the coins and gems to the others. He kept the largest gem, the one that the trigger had been attached to, for himself.

“Need a break?” asked Riyan.

Bart shook his head. “No, let’s keep going. The sooner we’re done with this the better.” Taking the lantern, he stepped out and once again they began combing the passages for the key.

They didn’t come across anything other than more crisscrossing passages and dead ends. Neither treasure nor rooms, just passages. After awhile they began coming to areas they have already been to, and even with the coins placed on the ground at the junctions, they’ve begun to get turned around.

Finally they came to the end of a passage with a door. “Man if this isn’t it I say we call it a day,” Riyan said. The past hour of wandering through passages has left him tired and discouraged.

“I think there is still one more area off that way,” Bart said pointing behind them and to the left, “that we haven’t been to yet. We passed by a passage with no coins on the way here.”

“Okay fine,” Riyan replied. “Check here and back there, then we call it a day.”

“Agreed,” said Bart. In fact, he was becoming rather tired as well. Sighing he said,

“Stay here,” then went to the door. He went forward to do his pack-on-a-rope trick again.

But same as the last dozen times, he failed to find anything. Of course he knew that the one time he didn’t do it would be the time he runs afoul of one.

Moving to the door, he grew cautious as he recalled the water behind that previous door he opened that almost killed them. He glanced behind him to tell the others to back away, but they had already done so.

Turning back to the door, he approached and began to notice how there were specks of soot on the door and the surrounding walls. Fire? How would there have been a fire here? Unless the trap somehow dealt with fire?

Then he began examining the walls leading away from the door and saw how they too held evidence that fire once raged through here. The specs of soot finally ended twenty feet away from the door.

“What is it?” asked Riyan. They had been watching him closely examining the walls.

“Soot,” he replied. Glancing down to them he said, “This whole end of the passage shows signs of there having been a fire here.”

“Fire?” asked Chad. “How is that possible?”

“I’m not sure,” he replied.

“Better leave the door alone then,” suggested Riyan. “No sense in risking it.” But then Bart’s suspicious nature kicked in. What if this area had been treated like this in order to convince a thief not to try the door? After all the other traps a thief would have come across by this time, he would be getting rather paranoid about a stone passage with soot lining the end. He had almost walked away from it himself.

He turned back to Riyan and said, “I’m going to open the door.”

“Are you crazy?” Riyan asked him. “It’s not worth it. We can always come back if there is no other way.”

But Bart was already moving back to the door as he ignored Riyan. He checked the door again and found it locked. The lock was rather complicated, more complicated in fact than most locks he had come across down here. Despite it’s complexity he had it opened in just a few minutes.

After putting the lockpicks away, he took the handle of the door and opened it. The smell of lantern oil hit him a split second before gallons of lantern oil poured through the door and engulfed him.

Kevik was the first to realize what was happening and only his quick reflexes saved Bart from a horrible death. In the blink of an eye, he cast his goo spell and completely encased the lantern where it sat a few feet behind Bart. When the oil hit the lantern, the goo kept it upright and airtight. Otherwise the burning wick in the lantern would have ignited the lantern oil flowing out of the door into a fireball.

A string of expletives erupted from Bart at his own stupidity. The signs were there, he had just misinterpreted them. Now his clothing was soaked with lantern oil, and the fumes were making him cough.

He turned around and saw the others staring at him. They had backed up quite a bit to avoid coming into contact with the oil. “Don’t say anything,” he said.

Riyan shrugged, “I’m just glad Kevik reacted as fast as he did. I didn’t even realize what was happening before he had already reacted.” Kevik grinned. “You have to react fast when you’re a magic user. Slow magic users tend not to survive very long.”

Bart nodded. “I see that.” He glanced to the goo coated lantern, the light coming from the burning wick within cast a green pall to the passage as it made its way through the goo. “I think you can get rid of that now,” he told Kevik.

“You sure?” Kevik asked. “Fumes are still present that may be ignited.” Bart glanced to the lantern and could see the flame was dying out from lack of oxygen anyway. “Fine,” he said. “Wait until the flame dies out.” Bart then heard Riyan groan as Kevik’s bobbing sphere appeared to give them light.

“Isn’t there some other spell you could use?” Riyan asked.

“Sorry,” he replied. “This was the only light spell I’ve learned. At the time I thought having a light like this would be petty neat.”

“Seeing as how you are the only one with a light,” Bart said to Kevik, “how about checking out that room.” He indicated the room from where the oil poured out. “Don’t worry,” he added when he saw Kevik grow nervous, “I’ll come with you.”

“Alright,” Kevik agreed and began walking forward. Riyan and Chad accompanied him.

The oil fumes were very strong and they covered their nose and mouths with cloth to avoid breathing the worst of it. Inside the room, they found that it wasn’t really all that large, merely five feet square and ten feet high. A small round opening in the ceiling must be where they would pour in the lantern oil after resetting the trap.

“Pretty effective,” Bart commented as they left. “Open the door and the oil would be ignited by whatever source of light the thief had on him.”

“Unless he had an annoying bobbing light,” said Riyan dryly.

Bart chuckled.

By this time the flame in the lantern had died out and Kevik dispelled the goo spell.

He picked it up and carried it with him as they quickly left the oil coated passage. When they made it back to the junction of passages, they came to a stop.

“I need to get this washed out,” Bart said indicating his oil soaked clothes. “My eyes are beginning to sting from the fumes.”

“What about that last area we have yet to check?” Riyan asked.

“Do it tomorrow,” he said. “There’s no way I can work traps and such as I am now.”

“Alright,” Riyan said. “Back to the surface.” In order to better find the area where they still needed to search, at every junction they came to, he took the coins that had been placed there to mark their passing and formed them into arrows pointing the way back to the unexplored area. That way on their return, they would have only to follow the arrows.

It took them some doing but they finally found the stairs leading back up to the kitchen. “It’s still light out!” exclaimed Chad. “I thought we had been down there longer.”

They went to a nearby window and looked out. From the position of the sun it looked like they still had a couple more hours of daylight left. Leaving the kitchen behind, they quickly made their way back to the hall where they found their horses safe and sound.

Bart went outside and to the small pool where they watered their horses and began to strip. He was quickly naked and used dirt to work the lantern oil out of his clothes. When the others showed up and saw what he was doing, he said, “Better dirty clothes than ones full of lantern oil.”

“But you’ve fouled the water,” complained Kevik. “What are we and the horses supposed to drink now?”

Giving him an irritated look, Bart said, “I’m sure there are other places around here.

Go find one.”

“Come on,” Riyan said and then he and the others took the horses in search of water.

As they left Bart behind, they heard a splash as he entered the water and began scrubbing the oil out of his hair and off his skin.

Later, they were back in the hall after watering the horses and allowing them to graze.

Bart’s clothes still had a touch of odor from the oil about them but it wasn’t nearly as strong. They had decided, or rather Bart had decided, that they should rest before resuming their exploration. “After everything that happened today, I need a break.”

“Not to mention the fact that we didn’t get all that great a sleep last night either,” Chad added.

“You could say that again,” Kevik replied. “It took me over an hour to get back to sleep after the ghost battle.”

A thoughtful look came over Riyan as he glanced outside. “You know, it might not be a bad idea to find another place to spend the night before it gets dark,” he said. “If the battle we witnessed is a nightly occurrence, we’ll not get much sleep tonight either.” Bart grinned. “You do have a point.”

The others agreed and so it was decided to move to another building that had enough room for them and their horses. They searched the neighboring structures until they came across one that still had all four walls and most of its ceiling. It was a single story structure with a room large enough for their needs.

One wall of the room held windows that looked out towards what Riyan called the

‘Command Building’ as it held a commanding presence here in the ruins. They made their camp near that wall and put their horses on the far side of the room. There were a few scraggly bushes on that side they could munch on if they needed.

After a short stint of hauling in wood to last them through the night, they soon had a fire going. Seeing as how there was still some light left, Riyan took Chad with him to the edge of the ruins to hunt for a couple rabbits for dinner with his sling.

Chad followed his friend silently for a few minutes until they reached the forest’s edge. Then he said, “Adventuring isn’t what I had thought it was going to be.” Riyan glanced over his shoulder at his friend. “Oh?”

“I mean, we’ve narrowly escaped death a couple times now,” he explained.

“What did you think it was going to be like?” Riyan asked. “A carefree adventure with no risks?” He glanced to his friend again and grinned. “You can’t have one without the other you know.”

“I realize that,” Chad admitted.

“Remember all those tales we used to tell each other?” When he saw Chad nod, he continued. “This is just like those.”

“Yeah, but one of us usually died in those stories,” he said.

“Relax,” Riyan said reassuringly, “Bart’s with us, not to mention we now have a magic user on our side. Kevik seems a rather capable person.”

“True,” replied Chad. “He’s definitely quick with his magic.”

“So just relax,” Riyan told him as he turned his attention back to the forest. “A tale is a tale, but this is real life. A person is always more careful in real life than in a story.” Then from up ahead he saw the bushes move. “Shhh,” he said to Chad.

Moving forward, he began to twirl his sling. When the animal poked its head out, they readily recognized it as a kidog. Riyan then rapidly increased the twirl of his sling and released the stone. It flew straight and true, striking the kidog in the side.

With a cry of pain, the kidog lurched back into the bushes in an attempt to flee. The stone didn’t immediately kill it, rather it had crushed its left hindquarter. Riyan noticed it dragging its leg as it fled. He was amazed at how fast the kidog moved despite its useless extremity.

“After it!” hollered Riyan and then he and Chad raced into the bushes. They quickly overtook the kidog and came to a halt as it backed up against a tree. It bared its teeth and growled as it set to defend itself.

Chad pulled forth his sword and advanced upon it. “I got this,” he said confidently.

“If you say so,” replied Riyan. Just to be on the safe side, he placed another stone in his sling.

The kidog snarled and growled with its ears low against its skull as Chad closed the distance. “Be careful,” he heard Riyan say behind him. Gripping the sword in both hands, Chad moved to within striking distance. He and the kidog locked eyes for a brief moment before he yelled an inarticulate cry and swung the sword.

The kidog dodged clumsily to the side due to its injured leg but it needn’t bothered.

Chad’s sword struck the tree half a foot above where he had been aiming. The blade sank in deep and lodged in the tree. Then the kidog snarled and leaped at him as he was trying to pull forth the sword from the trunk.

“Watch out!” yelled Riyan at the unexpected attack.

Chad failed to react in time and the kidog’s teeth sank into his left forearm. A cry of pain exploded from his throat as he forgot all about the sword and fell to the ground.

Then Riyan was there with his sling. He kept it closed with the rock in it as he began striking the kidog in the back with the stone filled cup.

“Get it off!” Chad yelled as he struggled to free himself. Already, blood was beginning to flow pretty good from where the kidog’s teeth were embedded in his flesh.

Riyan kept pummeling the kidog with the stone in the sling until it finally let go. The animal backed away and moved off into the bushes.

Once it let go, Riyan immediately removed his shirt and began wrapping it around the wound on Chad’s arm. Out of the corner of his eye he kept alert for another attack by the kidog but it had slipped away.

“Is it bad?” asked Chad. His face was a bit pale and Riyan could tell he was fearful of what he might tell him.