Solomon took the guard's weapons and armor and tucked them into his inventory. Kanmi might be able to get some use out of them. He also went ahead and disassembled the body, storing the core with the others he was holding on to. Waste not, want not.

He moved in the direction of the X on his map, but by the time he made it halfway across the room he couldn't see well enough to keep going. He tried waving his hand in front of his face and couldn't see a thing. With a sigh, he put his hatchet away for a moment and pulled his dungeon light out of his inventory. He tucked it into his pants pocket to muffle the light a bit.

He didn't like taking the risk of exposing himself, but in all honesty he didn't think any more guards would be waiting in the dark just in case somebody made it this far. Still, he'd seen some pretty unlikely things over the last week, so Solomon stayed alert as he took up his grip on his hatchet and started moving forward.

He relaxed when he entered the first hallway and found it empty. Getting around the corner would keep any light from shining back down the stairwell and giving him away.

The top floor layout didn't match the bottom floor, but it was reasonably straightforward. A single hallway moved around the floor in a rectangle, with offices on the outside of the rectangle and other rooms tucked away on the inside. Solomon had to turn one of the corners of the rectangle, thankfully not encountering a guard, before he reached the room marked by the X.

He took a breath, crossed his fingers for luck, and tried the door. It was open, which he took as a bad sign. Then his light shined into the room, illuminating a familiar figure. Kanmi was lying on a cot up against the back wall. A closer look showed that his hands were in shackles attached to the back wall by a long chain.

Kanmi looked like he had been dozing, but he roused himself at the light.

"Isn't a little late for this shit?" he asked, before his eyes widened as he realized what he was looking at. "Solomon?"

Solomon smiled. "You didn't think I'd just forget about you, did you?"

Kanmi laughed. "You crazy son of a bitch."

Solomon stepped inside and closed the door, then pulled the light out of his pocket so he could take a look around. Kanmi was pulling himself up to a seated position on his cot. The chains allowed him a decent range of motion, although they would stop him well short of the door. The rest of the room was bare. Judging from the scuff marks and ancient dust ground into the carpet, this had probably been a supply room before somebody had decided to turn it into a prison cell.

"How are you doing?" Solomon asked. He'd tried not to think too much about what Kanmi had gone through at the hands of his captors, but now that he was face to face with his friend he couldn't help but picture some unpleasant scenarios.

"I've been better," Kanmi said, before he caught sight of Solomon's face. "Oh, they haven't beaten me up too bad since the first day. Mostly they're trying to ransom me back to my pops."

Solomon raised an eyebrow. He hadn't realized that interplanetary communication was available just yet. It figured that the aliens would know the ins and outs of the system better than he would.

"They've been having a hell of a time with that," Kanmi said, shaking his head. "I told them, if I was worth that much, why would I be here, you know, but they don't want to hear it."

"Is your family rich or something?" Solomon asked.

"Dad is. Me, not so much," Kanmi said, before changing the subject. "What've you been up to?"

Solomon shrugged. "Got my sister out. Ran some people through the local dungeon to keep the monsters from breaking out."

Kanmi smiled. "I figured it was you when they showed up all pissed off. Good work. Now, get outta here before the guards come back."

Solomon nodded. "Just as soon as we get you out of those chains."

Kanmi snorted, shaking his head. "Funny guy. The key for these things is sitting in the inventory of a man you do not want to meet."

"Who said anything about using a key?" Solomon asked.

"You think this is regular steel?" Kanmi replied, tugging at the chains for emphasis.

Now that Solomon took a closer look, the metal of the chains had a certain luster to it that suggested an extraordinary origin. He stepped closer and followed the chain up to the wall, where the bolt seemed to be held in place by some kind of magic. Then he took a step back and smiled. He pulled one of his pipe bombs off of his belt and held it up for Kanmi to see.

"I never said I was going to just yank it open," Solomon said. "I think with this we have a pretty good shot."

Kanmi pulled back, putting his back up against the wall. "That's more of your crazy exploding powder, right? Come on, man."

"It's not crazy," Solomon said. "There's a science to it."

He took another look at the bolt. The magic holding it in place covered a few inches around the point of contact. He thought going straight at the magic would be a rough bet, but attacking the wall around it would have a better shot. Of course, a bomb was hardly a precision instrument, so really he'd be trying it both ways at the same time.

"Look," Solomon said, "are they ever going to let you go? Will your dad pay up?"

Kanmi didn't answer him right away. A moment later he relaxed, a resigned expression on his face. "Fine. Let's try it your way."

Solomon wasn't going to just blast away, of course. First of all, he pulled the stolen armor out of his inventory and tossed it to Kanmi. While he was at it, he went ahead and grabbed the alligator hide for Kanmi to use as an additional blast shield.

He took the pipe bomb and held it up against the bolt, judging where it would go. Then he used his engineering spells to strengthen the side facing Kanmi as much as he could. He also thinned out the side that would be facing the bolt. Ideally all of the shrapnel would be sent into the wall. It might bounce back, of course, but that would sap a lot of the energy out of it.

He used his affix ability to stick the bomb to the wall, then stepped back and took one more look at things. Kanmi was out at the end of his chain, over six feet away from the bomb. He'd put on the armor and had the leather over his head and upper body, shielding himself from the blast.

Solomon nodded. As long as the blast didn't kill Kanmi right away, they could pluck out any shrapnel that got through and let the system heal him up. After checking with Kanmi and getting a thumb's up, Solomon lit the fuse and trotted out of the room, pressing himself up against the wall by the side of the doorway while he waited for the bomb to go off.