Chapter 58: The Bloody Mess

A bright blue light appeared cutting off the Harclaw family's discussion. After the light went away looked towards the light source. It was Jaime, she was laying on the ground. Linri immediately headed towards her.

The worst of his worries had come to life. Jaime was lying on the ground, she was a bloody mess. Her silver hair was covered in blood, her porcelain-like skin had countless bruises and cuts, one of her eyes was swollen and there was blood coming out of her mouth.

"Mom!" Linri called his mother who was just behind her.

Linri sat beside her and gently raised her head to make breathing easier. His feelings were in a turmoil. What if something to her? What if what happened was because of him?

Lyra sat beside and started to treat her wounds. Others from the expedition had formed a circle around them watching intently. Someone teleporting here had become an almost common occurrence to them but this was the first time that it was someone on the verge of death.

One of the people among them left the circle and sat across Lyra. He had unkempt blonde hair, a dirty beard. He had glasses but one of the lenses was cracked. He started to help with treatment and from his actions, he seemed experienced with this. At least more so than Lyra.

They slowly cleaned the wounds and bandaged them. Throughout this whole ordeal, the man did not say a single word. After he was done patching up Jaime he stood back up and left just like that. Linri looked at the almost mummy-like Jaime.

"Mom, is she gonna be alright?" He sounded worried.

"Don't worry, she will be fine." Lyra then proceeded to inject something to her.

Linri looked at Jaime helplessly. There was nothing he could do to help her. Wait! There was actually something he could do to help her. That was to get them out of here and take her to a real hospital.

"Mom, do you have any idea about how to escape this place?" Lyra was done with the injection so she lifted her head to look at Linri. She had a bitter smile on her face.

"No idea, but don't worry we will get out. Now that you are here we can't afford to keep staying here. Oh yeah, last time I checked you were supposed to go away if I did not return." She gave Linri a fierce glare. That was only the tip of the iceberg. The rage she felt at this moment was not even close to what she let on. Her son basically threw his life away just to reach this trap. Wasn't it enough that she and her husband were locked here to die? Was this really how her family going to die?

Even though she was angry, she could not really criticize her son. She did the same thing when Arkady went missing, so she could at least understand why Linri did not listen to her. Well if they could survive this, it would be better that Linri did not appear on 'her' doorstep suddenly. It would be too much to take in for him.

"Is that so? How come I don't remember? I guess I forgot when my arm suddenly got healed." Linri shamelessly denied it and pushed the blame on Lyra.

Linri created the mental link with the Togk deities. They got him into this mess and they should clean up after themselves if they still wanted to go through with the deal.

"So is there really no way out? Are we going to be trapped in here?" Linri asked Lyra again, that was just a cover though. The person who he really asked were the deities.

"No need to get worried sweetie, we will get out." Lyra sounded like she was consoled Linri but it was also a way for her to firm her resolve.

"Seems like you survived, Harclaw. I guess we have to get you out now. Listen to my instructions and follow them perfectly." Lozna's ancient voice boomed inside his head.

Linri took a deep breath, he was calmer now. He did not know if there were still sentient statues outside but they could at least leave the room. Linri then placed his backpack under Jaime's head and headed towards the torch next to the stone door. He pulled it but nothing happened. Then one of the people from the expedition team chimed in.

"You are wasting your time kid. We have already tried that, nothing is gonna happen."

Linri ignored him and went to the next location indicated by Lozna. The man who just spoke was obviously irritated by Linri ignoring him. However, he swallowed his words when he saw what happened next.

Linri had pushed a tile on the right wall around the middle. That should not have happened because they had checked everything in this place and that tile did not cave in before. Linri then proceeded to do this 5 more times. He would push on a tile then move to the next one. Some of them were on the walls while some of them were on the ground.

Finally, Linri returned to the same torch he pulled before and did the same. This time with a loud grinding sound the stone door opened. Some people were in disbelief, they were either pinching themselves or rubbing their eyes to see if this was some kind of illusion. Then they rushed out of the room with all they had, afraid that the door would suddenly close leaving them stranded all over again.

Once they left there were not any more statues so they could leave the temple without a hitch. Some of them even kissed to ground and cursed the gods of the temple. It was a funny sight to see as he knew that those gods were currently watching them.

The whole expedition team then left the cursed Forest of Rundabar. After traversing the road they took they managed to make it home safely. There was one thing, however, neither Linri nor his parents spoke of what happened inside the temple including his arm suddenly healing.

Linri himself did not want to talk about it so he did not ask but it was quite curious as to why they did not tell him anything on the way home.

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