Chapter 182 - Violence in the Vault

After continuing down the corridor through three more passages filled with three different kinds of traps, Clay decided that Eddings had clearly spent too much time watching Indiana Jones movies. This amount of effort spent on traps wasn't even sensible! Sure, they might slow someone down a little bit, but they weren't half as effective as a simple vault door would have been, and they must have taken far longer to install. The whole thing reeked of someone deeply overcompensating for some serious issues.

They'd finally come to something that approximated a vault door. It was about the size of a typical door inside a house, but was made of steel and heavily reinforced around the frame as well. After all the trouble to finally install a good door, instead of having any decent locking system, all it had was a simple keyhole type lock.

The same sort of thing he'd already picked upstairs in order to get into the trapped hallways in the first place.

"Two locked doors, both using the same sort of lock, doesn't improve security," Clay groused aloud as he went to work picking this one.

"That doesn't sound like something we should be complaining about," Kara replied.

"Fair enough," Clay said. "I suppose it's the lack of professionalism that bothers me. But that's something we should welcome in our enemies, I guess."

"Exactly!" Kara replied. "Confusion to our enemies, and all of that."

Clay chuckled under his breath as he went back to work with his picks. This lock was a little different from the others. He wasn't sure why, at first. Something about the placement of the tumblers was slightly off, compared to the locks he picked upstairs.

He proceeded, but with a little more caution than he usually would have used. It felt warranted, and he was intensely glad he'd taken things more slowly when a small needle sprung out from the lock. He yanked his finger back just in time. The needle plunged into the space where his hand had been.

"Well, that is almost certainly poisoned," Clay said.

"What? What happened?" Kara asked.

Clay shifted sideways so she could see the lock a little better. As she peered in closer, he explained, "See that little piece of metal right there? That's a needle. See the dark greenish stuff all over it? I'm going to go out on a limb and say whatever that stuff is, it's not healthy to have inside one's bloodstream."

"Oh shit!” Kara said. "But you weren't hit, right?"

"No, I wasn't," Clay said. "As traps go, this one was fairly basic."

Of course, it had almost been good enough to catch him. If he hadn't noticed that something was a little off, he might have proceeded with picking the lock at full speed, without taking additional precautions. And that might have ended very badly...

But he'd managed anyway. The lock was almost open.

After a few more minutes of fiddling with the lock, Clay managed to disable it. There hadn't been any additional traps, but the whole process had taken about twice as long as it should have, just because he was worried about it, which was probably the point, he figured. Anything which slowed down someone’s progress was a positive when it came to defending against intrusion.

“Are we ready?” he asked.

“Patches is ready.”

“Me too,” Kara replied.

The door opened inward. That would make it difficult to avoid any traps which sprang as he opened it. Clay turned to his friends.

“Both of you need to pull back a little bit. I want you both out of the line of fire in case we trigger anything when we open the door.”

“What about you?” Kara asked as she followed his advice, backing away. Patches did, too.

“I'll be fine,” Clay replied. “If there is anything nasty on the other side, I'm pretty tough. I can handle it.”

He hoped that wasn't just bluster. Once both of them were far enough away from the door that he figured they were safe, Clay said, “All right, I'll give it a go now.”

Then he turned the knob and shoved the door open.

As he did, he attempted to keep himself as much out of the way as possible. He shoved himself back against the passage wall so that he was out of the line of fire. If a handful of darts launched, triggered by the door opening, he wanted to be out of the way.

But nothing happened. There was no trap triggered, and no alarms went off announcing their arrival. Maybe that needle had been the final trap? Clay wasn't willing to trust that. They still needed to proceed with caution and care.

Taking a deep breath, he stepped out into the space beyond. The room where he found himself was nothing like the passage he had just left behind. Where that had clearly been constructed by people, this space looked almost natural. In fact, he felt sure at least some of this cavernous space had formed naturally, rather than being man-made. The flickering torchlight illuminated places where there were obvious signs of human tools expanding the existing cave. But there were also a few stalactites and stalagmites, clear evidence of Mother Nature's hard work.

The room was quite large. In fact, cavernous was not too strong a word to use, especially given the rough walls which surrounded the place. It was a crude circular shape, about fifty feet in diameter. In the center of the room, he saw the source of all their troubles.

There lay a carefully constructed nest. It was made up of a ring of stones, but someone had laid piles of sheepskins across the stones, creating a cozy and comfortable space in the middle of it. Inside that nest was exactly what he'd been looking for.

Two small red dragonets.

Each was only about the size of a house cat. They were also both sound asleep, curled into little balls with their wings covering their faces. They were cute little things, to have caused so much trouble.

For a moment, Clay figured this was it. They'd accomplished their mission. Grab the babies, get back out of this place, and they'd won! All they had to do then was get the babies back to the mom, and the source of the babies' power would be shattered forever.

Unfortunately, the two dragonets were not the only living things in the room.

Clay swore under his breath as a familiar face stepped out of the shadows and into the torchlight. "Turner. You asshole, what the hell are you doing here?"

Turner drew his sword as he approached. "I was here waiting for King Eddings to return. We had a meeting planned to discuss future operations. When a pair of guards were found dead, I figured something dangerous was going on. When your little friend attacked the castle, that tore it, though. I knew I'd find you down here. How'd you find this place?"

"Wasn't that difficult, if you understanding Eddings. He doesn't trust anyone, so he keeps the things most valuable to him closest to hand," Clay replied, drawing his own blade. He'd opted for a sword for this run, simply because it would be easier to manage in close quarters.

Turner noticed. "What, no axe? Disappointing. I would have preferred to kill you at your best."

"I am just as good with a sword as I am with an axe," Clay replied, advancing on him. "Why? Why all of this? Damn it, the alliance was working! Were you that greedy for power?"

"Power, no. But a slip of a girl was taking charge of everything. At least Eddings is an experienced leader of men. Someone we can follow and respect," Turner shot back. "I think it's a little too late to turn you to our side, though, isn't it?"

"Damn right," Clay said.

"Figured as much," Turner replied.

But before he could launch a strike, Kara cleared her throat behind Clay. He spared her the barest glance, all he could afford with Turner's blade so close. She had her bow at the ready, an arrow nocked. Patches stood beside her, his long daggers in his paws.

"I think you brought a sword to a bow fight, dude," Kara said. "Drop it. Or don't. I'd dearly love to put a few arrows into you."

Turner chuckled and didn't drop his weapon. "You think I came here alone? Far from it."

Four heavily armored guards stepped out of the shadowed area where Turner had been waiting before. Each carried a longsword in one hand and a shield in the other. They advanced quickly, coming up alongside Turner, ready to fight.

"You two get the guards," Clay told them. "I'll handle Turner."

"Handle me? You used to show me more respect," Turner snapped. He advanced, blade up.

"That was when I thought you deserved it," Clay replied, bringing his sword down in an overhand strike.

He was dimly aware of the others fighting around him. Kara fired her arrow at Turner, but one of the guards stepped forward with speed that had to indicate a high Agility score, blocking the arrow with his shield. The guards didn't hesitate, rushing in to attack Clay's team. Patches and Kara would have to handle all four of them. They were only tier four. Turner was somehow tier seven now, and he'd clearly been given combat oriented crystals.

Turner's blade slashed down and Clay parried, blocking the blow. Damn, the man was fast! More blows rained down, one after another, almost too fast for him to block. He parried each one, but the lightning speed of the blows forced him to back up, giving ground to his opponent.

"Got some upgrades, I see," Clay said through gritted teeth.

"My liege lord is generous, what can I say?" Turner said. He slashed again, and only a quick step to the side saved Clay from losing his head.

More slashes and strikes fell, one after another, and still he gave ground. Then his back smacked into the cave wall. Out of space to run, he tried to move sideways, but Turner predicted his evasion and stabbed out with his blade, taking Clay in the left shoulder. Driven by crystal-fueled Strength, the sword punched right through his armor, stabbing deep into his flesh. Turner gasped as the pain hit like a hammer, but he kept moving, backing off to the side, letting Turner pull his blade back into a guard position.

Blood flowed freely from the two inch wound, soaking Clay's shirt. First blood had been drawn, and he was not making the best possible showing here. Clay clenched his teeth, grimacing through the pain, and brought his sword back up into a guard as well. This battle wasn't over yet!