"What a shame," the professor said simply. Then he gestured to Garta and me. "Let's go, boys."

The professor followed us into the tower without looking back at Kadhi. For all the work he did playing favorites, he dropped Kadhi too easily for him to have ever been genuine about his favoritism. What had been his goal, playing favorites this whole time? If it was for political reasons, wouldn't Rose's ass be the better one to kiss?

This man could not be trusted. Not for a fucking second. I wasn't going to tell him shit of what I knew.

The big doors closed behind us without prompting. Inside the tower, I couldn't hear the noise of the city no matter how hard I tried. Instead, the more I listened, the more I heard a faint whispering somewhere above. I couldn't tell how many monsters were here, either, despite my enhanced senses. The tower was tall, and it seemed the monsters were far higher than my senses could reach at this point.

"This corridor will lead us to a flight of stairs to the first upper chamber. It's unguarded, so I'll take the rear and let your chosen leader take the lead," the professor said. He wasn't going to offer any other information?

I laughed, and Rose smiled like she'd been waiting for the professor to give her permission to step up.

"I'll take the front," Rose said. "Rila and Gerard can keep a look out in our peripheries, and then Garta in the back. We'll go at this like we would any dungeon we knew nothing about. Clean slate. Be on the lookout for anything."

When she got a nod from all of us, she headed down the corridor and casted a simple spell to radiate light about twenty feet ahead. Barely enough to give us time to react but it should do well enough for our reflexes. Our footsteps fell in sink easily, though the professor trailing behind seemed to walk with a totally different pattern. Almost like he wanted to distract us.

I paid him no mind and hoped the others would as well. Our pace picked up only slightly with Rose leading us. The end of the corridor led to a long staircase that wrapped around the outside of the tower. Each window showed a new glimpse of the march below. If Rila or Garta had been disturbed by its growing size, they didn't let on.

At the top of the stairs were heavy double doors. Rose pressed her ear to its wood surface for a moment, she whispered, "Can anyone hear behind this door? To tell us if there's any presence behind this door? There could be some spell preventing us from hearing past it, and if so, we need to be extra careful going forward."

I didn't need to get closer to the door to know I wouldn't be able to hear any better, and I wasn't ready to use [7-Time-Returner] yet. "Just some whispering," I said. "But that's the same from when we stepped inside the tower. It's not any louder than it was down there."

"The whispering is coming from higher up," Rila said. "There's no one behind these doors, but there's a ton of magic. I can see it leaking out between the cracks."

So she could see magic? Interesting.

Rose nodded and studied the doors again. "A ton of ambient magic? So there might be traps. Who thinks they have a shield better than me?" She grinned. Probably no one did.

"Follow your leader," she said quietly, then rubbed her palms together and pushed open the door with a grunt.

Immediately, there was fire. I hadn't been able to see Rose's shield before, but I could see it now in the way the flames stopped at the edges of it. The blast went on for five long seconds, then vanished as if it'd never been there.

"That won't be the only one," Rose said. "Watch where you put your feet. If we set off too many of these fire traps at once, it might be too much for even my shield to take all at the same time."

"I don't think it's triggered by where we step," Rila said. Her eyes roamed around the chamber--though it was more like another corridor. "I don't see any magic lingering in the tiles, which is what I'd imagine I'd see if the tiles were setting off the flame jets. Maybe there's some motion sensor..."

The chamber was wide and open and the ceilings were high with only a single wood chandelier in the middle with enough candles to keep the majority of the room lit. Four walls, a floor, a ceiling. All the same stone as the rest of the tower. Big stained glass windows of shades of red and purple.

What stood out was an oppressive feeling made the big room seem much more narrow,, It tried to tell my senses that there was only one safe path: the one that was directly forward to the stairway on the other side of the room.

Rose led the way forward, but when we should've been halfway to the door according to the visible distance between where we were and the other side of the room, we seemed to have barely made it a few feet across. The further we went, we found ourselves having to take a turn around invisible corners because of the pressure of that oppressive feeling.

We were in some maze, but I was hoping we weren't somehow lost in it despite being able to see the exit straight ahead. Somehow, the exit was always straight ahead. Then out of nowhere, fire would engulf us from all sides. Each time for a second longer. We were all sweating and we weren't even half-way through.

"This isn't going well," Rose said. "What are our options?"

"Run," Rila said. Her eyes shifted around. "Moving this slow isn't doing us any favors."

"Running will just mean triggering more fire," Garta said. "From what I can see, there's magic hiding the walls of a maze. I'm still not sure what triggers the fire. We need to figure that out."

"Moving slow means we're hit with the flame jets more often," I said, "and it seems like it's happening more often the further we go. Seems likely that we'll get to a point where we're just walking through an inferno."

Rose set her jaw and swallowed. "Running might be the way to go then."

"Are the walls impenetrable?" I asked.

Rila frowned but said nothing, looking to Rose. She blinked, then looked around the room much like Rila was earlier.

"I suppose we could give it a try," Rose said. She tucked some of her pink hair behind her ear and chewed on her lip. Then she gave a bright smile. "Since I have the highest strength, allow me."

Rila gave her a light shove. "We get it. You're the older, more experienced one. Teach us your ways and all that bullshit. Now more breaking walls and less gloating."

Rose laughed, ruffled Rila's hair much to her chagrin, then turned toward the door on the other wise. "Get behind me in a line. Rila, put up a temporary shield behind me."

We filed behind Rose, and Rila activated her shield. Hers was visible. A set of literal shields that created a makeshift barrier between us and whatever might happen. A halo appeared like a winged band around Rose's head in bright white light. Power radiated off of her, vaguely reminding me of the power I felt when I'd used [Synchronize].

Then a beam of light shot out from in front of her like a laser clear to the other side of the room. She staggered forward once the light died, and the halo around her head disappeared. Rila steadied her.

"Did that do the trick?" Rose asked, looking to Garta.

"Definitely," he said. "Still should be careful with the fire. And whatever we'll find upstairs. I doubt that didn't set off a bunch of alarms or something."

"What kind of alarms?" Rose asked. She sounded exasperated. "Well, whatever, let's keep going. Same formation as before."

Despite the oppressive feeling trying to steer us away from the invisible wall, I guessed the fact that there was a hole in it weakened the effect in that area. It was like walking against hurricane winds. Then when we were close enough, the pressure vanished, and we walked through without any trouble.

Except the fire that came at us hard all at once. Definitely more powerful than it'd been before. Rila reinforced Rose's shield as we followed her at a run. By the time we were on the other side, Garta's sleeve was smoking and Rose had to wipe some soot off Rila's face.

"Well done," Professor Widhia said from behind us. Unharmed. Not a hair out of place. With a smile. "Perhaps lacking some finesse, but a job well done indeed. Are you prepared for what's next?"

Rose returned his smile with a charming one of her own. "Flame skulls."

"Something like that, yes," the professor said, a sparkle in his eye.