Thankfully Min didn't lock the vault before she took up her guard post here or that might've been a bit more of a problem for us if it had come to blows after all. She simply has to turn the wheel and it starts to swing open almost of its own accord, although I imagine her immense orcish strength helps some. We hang back all the same, weapons in hand, ready for anything.
After Min pulled her axe from Roe's body, Krakka did what he could for the fallen hob, speaking low, whispered rites and a blessing to Serena to help his spirit on the way to wherever he hoped to go. He struck me as a follower of Thorin, if he gave allegiance to any god at all, and the way he met his end surely means the Stormlord's already sent his Valkyries to whisk Roe's spirit away to feast with his fallen friends in Valhalla.
Shay is ... shaky, if I'm honest. Her mother's not holding up much better after that, but it's written clearer on the half-orc's face. This death's hit her harder than any that have come before, and for many more reasons than the obvious. Tarrow and Garnon too, from what I can tell, although it's clearer with the boy, the dragonhalf wizard certainly still keeping a tight rein on his emotions. I'd worry about them all more if I could, but right now there's no time for grief. There's still work to be done.
The sounds from above are petering out now, and I'm not sure if that's a good sign or not. We can only hope that Driver 8's done what he clearly intended, quelling what resistance was left, and now he'll be standing in front of the doorway above, making sure no-one else comes down here looking to stop us. Hopefully Yeslee's having similar success at the keep's gate, although after that ogre came smashing through I have to wonder ...
Once the door finishes its long, heavy outward swing and the vault's open to us, none of us move for several moments. A silence falls over the group as we look at each other, old friends and tentative new ones, a conflicting wave of emotions playing through us all, but more than anything we're hesitant. We don't know what to expect going in there.
Even over the smell of blood that clings to everything, not only from Roe's body but hanging on all of us who haven't had opportunity to clean up yet, there's something else. Something deep down, an undercurrent to everything else. Something awfully familiar, now I reach for it, but it still takes me a moment to recognise it.
Ozone. A crackling charge in the atmosphere, potent and palpable. The whole place smells like magic. Something's going on down here. Not that we can see anything yet – like the entrance to the keep, this vault was built to defend in case that massive door was ever breached, so beyond there's a tight passage that cuts at a sharp angle directly to the right, gloomy without any direct torchlight to show the way.
Finally Kesla breaks the silence, letting out a deep sigh and stepping forward, but she stops when Min quickly raises her axe one-handed in front of her, no threat, simply cutting her off. She remains focused on the gloomy portal open before us for a few moments, then clears her throat, squares her shoulders and steps through, and before Kesla can follow Shay shoulders past and steps after her mother.
"Stay sharp." Kesla says after a moment, flexing and tightening her grips as she finally goes through herself. It takes me a moment to realise she directed that to all of us, not just me specifically, but I'd take it to heart all the same if I wasn't already wound so tight. That smell's got me right on edge, I can't help it. Something here doesn't sit right.
Looking back at the others, I see they're as uncomfortable as me, but I suspect for a variety of different reasons. I hang back for now, letting others forge ahead, Krakka and Garnon, then Tarrow. Finally it's just me here with Art and Wenrich.
"Are you all right?" my old friend asks me, clear concern in his eyes as he watches me.
"You smell that, right? You feel it? That charge, in the air."
YOU ARE READING
NEVER SPLIT THE PARTY: The Adventures of the Creeping Bam (BOOK 1: The Job)
FantasyTAO is a broken world held together with nothing but magic and the will of the gods who protect it and its people. Ten thousand years ago THE SUNDERING struck and Tao was almost torn apart by a terrible magical cataclysm which resulted in the plane...
