Chapter 20

Who Needs Keys?

We explored without incident, avoiding two more of the same traps as earlier. The bottom of each promised death. The next thing we encountered was a locked door on the left wall. The door was squat with iron bars aligned across the middle and at the top center. A single long hinge stretched from the floor to the lintel on the left side. The hinge was massive, sticking out about twenty centimeters. Opposite the huge hinge was a lock. There was no doorknob. Only a ring that had been forced through the center of the door. The view through the bars offered us only darkness, yet also showed how thick the door was.

“Why is it so thick?” Robern said. “For what purpose? I don’t sense any traps.”

“Treasure?” Vynk said, rubbing his hands together.

“You think the first door we get to in a level four dungeon is going to have treasure?” Filo said.

“Only one way to find out,” Vynk said, preparing to kick the door down.

He made to slam his boot beside the lock, but Robern grabbed his ankle and stopped him. “Whoa! Hold on. Careful, remember? We need to do things methodically and carefully.”

“Oh. Right. Yea,” Vynk said.

“I still have some leftover keys from a previous dungeon,” Filo said. “Worth a try right?”

“Mmnh,” Pelle said and clicked her tongue. “The dungeon chain item was that poem, otherwise keys stay specific to the dungeon they exist in.”

“Try it anyway,” Lep said.

Pelle wasn’t against trying, and stepped aside for Filo to make the attempt. She and Robern worked together for a few minutes while he kept sensing for traps with every attempt at a turn of key.

“Guess you’re right,” Filo said, after returning the last key to her inventory. “No luck on any of the keys. Also, I think they’re too small.”

“You think we missed a key in one of the traps from earlier?” I said.

“Well, unless anyone has any other ideas, I’d like to kick it down,” Vynk said. “Can you pick the lock, rogue?”

Robern gave a sigh. He retrieved a small leather sack from his personal bag and spilled several lockpick tools onto a palm. Then he looked dubiously at the items.

“What’s wrong?” Arris said.

“Well,” Robern said. “I’m fairly certain these won’t be able to withstand the mechanism of these locks. The lock is much bigger than I’m used to, which means the inner parts are probably heavier and harder to manipulate. In fact, I’m certain these will break on the first try.”

“I don’t get it,” Filo said. “Just take a moment to level them up.”

“That’s easy for someone in Tosin’s position to do,” Robern said. “Not everybody has a crystal growing spellbook with infinite mana. Plus, with three tools, I’d need to spend at least eight mana on each one just to be safe. That’s 24 mana. That’s more than I can afford to lose at the moment.”

“I'll level them for you,” I said. “Why not? I’ve got the mana. We’re a team, right?”

“I don’t want to have to owe you,” Robern said. “I’d hate that. Let’s just have Vynk try and kick it down.”

“Yea. Let me kick it down. Please.”

“How about this,” I said. “Buy me an ale, your choice, and we'll call it even.”

“That’s not a fair trade,” Robern said, shaking his head. “I’m not splitting my loot either. I also don’t want this to come back and bite me when we’re down to deciding who gets the legendary item either.”

“Ok then,” I said. “In exchange, give me a recommendation at the Recruiter’s Post. Help me improve my reputation. That’s more than fair to me, but only if you want to, of your own free will.”

Vynk was itching to swing his foot. His toes were practically dancing on their own and I wondered if he’d be able to wait just a moment while we negotiated. Robern looked away, deep in thought. Reluctantly, he seemed to come to a decision. “As long as everyone here agrees that this does not count when it comes to negotiations over who gets the legendary item.”

In a matter of minutes, I’d leveled up each of Robern’s picklock items eight permanent mana points each. All I’d done was blind leveling since there weren’t any runes, and none of the ones I knew would help in any way.

“Alright,” Robern said when I finished. “Let’s see what we can do.”

He spent a few minutes carefully working the lockpicks in the mechanism. Though the lock was fairly large, the keyhole wasn’t that much proportionally bigger. We waited patiently while Vynk paced, hands in his pockets, and looked up and down the corridors.

When he’d wandered too far, Pelle had to go get him and remind him it was dangerous to stray.

“Wish you would give me the piece of mind by sitting still for another minute,” Robern said.

“Sorry,” Vynk said. “What’s taking so long?”

Just then Robern gave a grunt as the lock let out a loud and heavy click. He returned the items to his inventory and used Sense Trap.

“Still clear,” he said. “Alright Vynk, since you’ve been doing ballet back there this whole time, would you like the honors of opening the door? Just don’t enter until I say it’s safe.”

Vynk’s leg swung in and he planted his boot firmly by the lock. The door easily swung open without protest. Grease squeezed out from between the bands of the large hinge.

We waited behind Robern and filed in once the coast was clear. Vynk stayed at the threshold in case it was a trap and the door might close and lock everyone in.

“Might need someone to really kick it down if anything happens,” he reasoned.

“Nothing but shelves of linens and cloth,” Arris said, daintily picking up some greasy rag and letting it drop to the floor.

“Let’s just investigate thoroughly,” Pelle said. “It would be a shame to come back because we missed something. Especially since this dungeon may take us the better part of a week.”

So we looked through everything. There were a few baskets filled with more bundles of linens, but that was it. Nothing of note.

“I suppose that’s that,” I said. “Shall we move on?”

Our torches burned steadily. We returned to the corridor and continued. We came to another trap soon enough. It was another false plate, but instead of dropping straight down, the victim would have slid down a grimy stone slide.

“Who knows how that would end,” Robern said, after inspecting the trap closely.

We later came to another door, this time on the right. It was the same as the previous. Great long hinge. Thick, with iron bars set into the wood. Robern was a bit quicker this time about picking the lock.

“Ok, a bunch of sacks. At least it’s more interesting this time,” Filo said.

“Let’s see what's inside,” I said.

“There’s a bunch of potatoes in these over here,” Arris said.

“These ones are all salt,” Robern said.

“Sticky wet stuff in this one,” Lep said.

“I’ve found some with a bunch of weird root vegetables in them over here,” I said.

“Ew,” said Pelle, slowly backing away from what she’d found. “I think there’s rotting meat in all of these here.”

She gagged and promptly left the room to stand outside with Vynk.

Arris was ever curious and inspected what Pelle had found. He pulled a giant stiff leg of meat from one of the sacks and gave it a huge sniff.

“It’s not rotting,” he said. “At least not yet. It’s being preserved with oil or grease or something. Not rotten yet, like I said, but I wouldn’t eat it.”

The room had nothing of value to us, so we left it behind, passed a few more similar traps as before, and came to a third door. Within were rows of stacked barrels. All seemed to contain the grease with which the hinges and curing meat had been covered in.

The door to the following room had been left ajar. Through the gap I saw candlelight and conferred in hushed voices with my party members on our approach.

“Let me take a peak,” Robern said. “I’ve got my Shadow Spool spell which I can use to conceal myself.”

Shadow Spool was a ribbon of inky shadow that encased the rogue’s form, completely obscuring him from plain view. The shadow was a marvel on its own, and I never tired of seeing it in action. It looked like a spool of literal shadow was unwinding as Robern made his way to the door. The ribbon of shadow wavered in mid air. No footstep was made as it traveled.

The shadow coalesced at the gap of the door and I winced when I saw the door open just the slightest bit. Then it was flung open and slammed against the wall inside. I heard Robern curse and his shadow turned and began a hasty retreat. Then the silhouette of a robe figure filled the doorway.

“Exposed!” The man said, extending a hand out, palm down, fingers splayed.

A rush of wind blew Robern’s Shadow Spool spell to oblivion, and the rogue tumbled from mid air, landing shoulder first on the floor.

“Trespassers!” the man said, and bolted out into the hall. He raised his other hand and muttered, “Isspere, Fainifo!”

Icy haze collected around his hand and grew to the size of an elephant's tusk. Then it visibly hardened, and a dozen cracks of ice echoed in the corridor. Trails of icy haze twirled from the icy weapon. Then the man took aim and launched the icicle straight at us.