Capítulo 112: A New Party
***** Eris' POV *****
"Wait!"
A sudden shout woke me up as my eyes snapped open.
'Wha? What happened? Did I fall asleep?'
As I was still trying to piece together what was going on I noticed Rudeus running like mad down the corridor.
"Rudeus?"
It didn't look like he heard me. I quickly got up to follow after him, but by the time I got to my feet he disappeared into thin air. He must have stepped on a trap!
"Talhand! Elinalise! Wake up!"
I violently shook them awake.
"Huh? Eris?"
"What are you doing!?"
The two startled adventurers quickly jumped to their feet and reached for their weapons.
"I fell asleep?", Elinalise questioned herself. "Where is everyone?", she questioned as she looked around.
"I don't know", I answered her in a slightly panicked voice. "Rudeus woke me up when he shouted something and the next thing I know he ran into that magic circle over there and disappeared."
"Hmm...", Talhand hummed as he picked up his half eaten plate of food and sniffed it. "I think the food had been drugged."
"What? Drugged!?", Elinalise yelled in surprise. "Why... why would Geese do that?"
"I don't know. It doesn't make any sense."
"He drugged us!?", I yelled out as I clenched my hand into a fist. "He better hope I don't find him!"
"Calm down Eris!", Elinalise scolded me. "We don't know what happened yet. If Geese really did do this he must have had a good reason."
"There is no good reason to betray your friends!"
"We don't know that he betrayed us yet", Talhand answered calmly. "We have to get all the facts before jumping to conclusions."
"More importantly", Elinalise cut in. "Roxy seems to be missing too. Our top priority is to find all of them."
"That boy Rudeus can handle himself, but Roxy is still recovering from being trapped here for over a week."
"I don't understand... Why would Rudeus run into a trap like that? He's the one who kept warning me that I had to be careful down here."
"That's a good point", Elinalise agreed. "The only explanation is that he was following after Roxy. Perhaps she inadvertently stepped on a trap?"
"If that's the case then we have to follow after them!"
"Now hold on a moment", Talhan warned me. "We don't know where that teleportation trap leads to. If we assume that Rudeus followed after Roxy, don't you think that our best plan of action is to wait here? I have a hard time believing there's anything in this dungeon capable of posing a threat to him."
"You don't understand", I pleaded. "He told me himself. The boss monster of this dungeon is his greatest weakness. A monster that is completely immune to magic!"
"Immune to magic!? Are you sure? Does such a monster truly even exist?"
"Yes. Rudeus warned me that he wanted to avoid fighting that monster at all costs. We can't just leave him be. What if this trap sent him to the boss's lair?"
"Then the situation really is dire...", Elinalise spoke sternly. "Rudeus and Roxy are both mages and this isn't something Geese could handle. You're right. We need to go after them."
"Get your gear in order. I'll pack up our food and we'll head out after him."
Since I didn't really have much to pack up, I grabbed Rudeus' sack of traveling gear and threw it over my shoulder. All I had brought with me was my sword and the clothes on my back. Although at this point, even my clothes aren't the same ones I brought.
Once everyone was ready, we all met up beside the teleportation circle.
"Make sure we all hold on to one another when we step into the circle", Talhand said. "As long as we are in contact with one another we'll be guaranteed to be sent to the same place."
Cautiously, the three of us stepped forward in unison.
*Hss!!!*
What awaited us on the other side of the circle was a den of Death Road Tarantulas. The largest of the brood hissed at us, alerting all the other spiders in the room of our presence.
"Yah!!"
Talhand smashed his staff down on the head of a nearby spider, killing it instantly.
"Get into formation!", Elinalise yelled out as she ran in front of me with her shield up.
"Right!", Talhand yelled from behind me.
"Answer my call, god of obscurities, and shatter my enemy! [Stone Cannon]!
Talhand began firing spells at the tarantulas behind us while Elinalise bashed her shield at the ones in front. Are they... trying to protect me?
"I can take care of myself!", I shouted out as I jumped over Elinalise.
After landing in front of Elinalise, I grabbed the hilt of my sword and launched myself at top speed towards the horde of tarantulas.
"Was that the longsword of light!?", Elinalise yelled out in shock.
"She's just like Ghislaine!", Talhand answered back.
Hearing Talhand call me 'just like Ghislaine' had me brimming with pride. I wanted to take this chance to show off what I can do. I cleaved the nearest tarantula in two as I charged right through it and weaved my way through the mass of spiders, slicing off their legs as they attacked me and killing them with fatal strikes to the head. In a matter of minutes, the three of us had the room completely cleared out.
I turned to face my two companions proudly, expecting to be praised for my efforts. Instead I found myself getting berated by Elinalise.
"What do you think you're doing, running off on your own like that! You're going to get all of us killed!"
"Huh?"
"In a labyrinth like this one, we have to stick together, little miss. You know this place is littered with traps, yes?"
"That's right! We're already in a bad situation as is. If we get split up any further it will basically be a death sentence for all of us!"
"I... uh... I-I'm sorry."
The sudden scolding caught me off guard, but I knew what they were saying was right. I can't get overconfident here. Carelessness could lead to death.
"It's ok", Elinalise said as she put her hand on my shoulder. "This is your first labyrinth. Believe me, I get it. Young adventurers are always wanting to prove themselves their first time out, I've seen it a hundred times. But, you know what else I've seen far too many times? Young ones losing their lives due to their bravado. Take this as a lesson from a veteran. You only have one life, don't be so reckless with it."
I took Elinalise's words to heart. That being said, none of us even knew where we were. We didn't even know what floor we were on.
Before progressing any further, the three of us agreed to a traveling formation. Elinalise took the front while I guarded the rear. Talhand took up his position between us and would fire supporting spells while we protected him.
Between the three of us Elinalise was the most experienced at finding and avoiding traps. That's why we agreed that she should take the lead.
Every once in a while we would take a short break while Talhand carved something into the wall or nearby rocks as we traveled.
"What is he doing?", I asked.
"He's marking our path to help us avoid getting lost. It will help us make sure we don't keep searching the same place over and over again."
Most of the monsters here I could handle with relative ease. The only monsters that posed a problem for me were the Iron Crawlers. They had a thick hide that was as hard as steel and I found it quite difficult to kill them via sword. Thankfully, they seemed susceptible to Talhand's magic. We will be fine as long as we can protect him.
"The situation is especially dangerous", Elinalise warned. "We don't have any healers among us. If a single one of us gets injured it will break our formation."
Our progress through the labyrinth was slow and cautious. Every once in a while we would take a break to rest. The three of us took turns standing watch while the other two slept. It was impossible to tell day from night in this dungeon so we just slept when we got tired.
Despite the steady progress we were making, I kept feeling more and more uneasy.
"This is taking too long. It's already been a full day I think, maybe even two. Rudeus and Roxy didn't bring any food or supplies with them. We need to hurry!"
"I know", Elinalise answered. "We feel the same way, but even so we need to be careful and take our time. There's nothing else we can do."
Eventually, we reached two large teleportation circles guarded by a group of Mud Skulls. The three of us made short work of the monsters and Talhand revealed that he was fairly certain that we were at the end of the third floor.
"These large teleportation circles are the ones that we found at the end of the first and second floors. I'm pretty certain that this one will take us down to the fourth floor, which is uncharted territory. As far as I'm aware, nobody has made it this far into the teleportation Labyrinth. We don't know what monsters we will run into on the fourth floor, so stay on guard."
"How do you know it's this one?", I asked while pointing to the one on the left.
"Look here, someone's marked this one for us."
"Oh! You're right", Elinalise exclaimed. "Do you think Geese or Roxy left this for us to show us the way?"
"Can we really trust it if Geese left it behind?", I questioned.
"Look, like I said before, we still don't know what happened. I know it doesn't look good, but I find it hard to believe that Geese would betray us."
"You're right", Elinalise agreed. "Besides, if we ignore the markings it's still a fifty-fifty guess on which way to go. We may as well believe in whoever left these behind for us."
In the end I agreed with the two of them. They haven't led me astray so far at least.
The three of us held onto one another and stepped into the large circle all together. As soon as we arrived on the other side we knew we made the right choice.
Slumped down resting against the wall on the other side of the room was none other than Roxy.
Status de energia semanal
-- Ranking de
Poder 
-- Pedra de
Poder