Cyber Mortality

Chapter 46:

"The purple team has kindly offered to scout the way into the dungeon for us," Vyra grins as she stands before the gathered crowd. "Who among you is willing to enter the dungeon?" Around one hundred people raise their hands.

"And who among you are fire mages?" after this question only five hands remain.

"Six fire mages for a group of one hundred," Jez purses her lips. "That would mean each mage would need to protect around fifteen people each."

"I may not be a fire mage," a man steps forward and draws his sword. "But I do have a blade enchanted with fire. Perhaps the blue flames could be used with it."

Vyra gestures for the man to come forward.

"I'm Peter by the way," he shoots over his shoulder as he holds his blade beside the blue flame. After a moment he plunges his sword into the flame and when he removes it the flame clings to the length of the blade.

"Will you be able to hold out long enough to keep feeding the blue flame with your energy?" Vyra inquires of Peter.

"I believe so," he nods.

"Does anyone else have a fire enchanted weapon they would like to use?" a few others step forward and light their own weapons with the blue flames. Once they finish, there are a total of six fire mages and nine people with enchanted weapons.

"Everyone should pair of into groups of six with one member being someone with a blue flame," Vyra commands and everyone does so. Once the groups are made it leaves Vyra and Birch with us.

"Lead the way, Fire Mage," Vyra gestures for Jez to enter the dungeon first.

Jez shoots Vyra a dirty glance before taking her first step into the dungeon. The light of her flame illuminates the first corridor with blue light. After a few paces we hear a scuttling sound like thousands of tiny feet approaching. Jez stops and holds the flame out before our group. After a moment the sound stops and thousands of tiny stars glimmer in the shadows.

"Those are eyes," DeNyle whimpers and draws closer to Jez.

Jez takes another step forward and as she does so the glimmering eyes stay in the shadows of the room, avoiding being touched by the blue light.

"I think it's working," Jez smiles in relief.

"Just keep your eyes out for traps," Vyra warns from beside us. "It wasn't just insects that killed those twelve people."

Ten minutes pass without incident as every corridor we pass through is illuminated with blue fire. The only sounds are the thudding of boots against stone as each group passes through the corridors.

"Do you think we are going the right way?" DeNyle inquires after we pass another doorway leading somewhere else. "This place is a lot bigger than it looked on the outside."

"Duck!" Birch shouts suddenly, hurling himself to the front of the group with his shield before him. A spear slams into his shield and bounces off with a loud bang.

Jez focuses intently on her flame, which is flickering due to the wind created when Birch hurtled past her.

"Careful," Jez warns as she works to get the flame back to a safe size. "You almost blew the fire out."

"You almost got a spear to the face," Birch snarls and kicks the spear out of our path. "You're welcome."

"Thank you," Jez mutters and comes to stand beside him at the front of our group.

"Good work, B," Vyra pats his shoulder. "Look at your foot, DeNyle." She points toward DeNyle and everyone looks at his foot. The stone he stands on is slightly depressed into the ground. When he raises his foot it returns to the height of the other stones.

"Oops," DeNyle winces while standing on one foot. 

Our eyes scour the stone to see if there is anything that makes it different from the others.

"I don't see anything odd," Rocky squats down to take a closer look.

"The only warning I got was the sound of the spear being shot," Birch shrugs. "There was a small click sound."

"So we won't know until a trap is triggered," Jez groans. "Fantastic."

"Birch has really good hearing," Vyra smiles proudly. She gives him a fond pat on the shoulder. "But there was still only a split second before that trap was triggered. We should mark the traps we find somehow so everyone behind us knows." She reaches out her hand and summons a piece of chalk from her inventory. As lightly as she can, Vyra draws an X across the stone.

"Every stone marked with an X will trigger a trap," Vyra says to the next group behind us. "Pass it down the line." Her message travels down the groups until silence ensues.

We continue our slow pace with Birch listening intently as Vyra pokes each stone with her bow staff. Three traps later and we've cleared another corridor. A large room with a rotunda roof stretches before us and in the center is an unlit brazier.

"Is this like a check point?" Jez steps forward and presses her flame to the brazier. It comes to life, creating a flame three feet across which illuminates the whole room. After a few minutes the other fourteen groups file into the room and stand about.

"You can let your flames go and rest," Jez commands. Everyone does so and they slump to the ground. The flickering blue light illuminates a large rotunda above our heads. 

"Goodness," Jez chuckles as she watches all the blue flame bearers rest. "I wasn't even feeling tired yet."

"Not everyone has magical stamina like you, Jez," Rocky sighs before unclenching his white knuckled fist.

"Wouldn't you like to know," Jez winks playfully.

Rocky shakes his head of silver hair and sits down several feet away from her.

"Always trying too hard," DeNyle tuts and pats Jez playfully on the top of her maroon hair. 

Jez shoots him a fiery look before crossing her arms over her chest and closing her eyes.