If they had traveled in silence before, the trip through the tunnel was in something more still than that. The soft scuffing of their boots against the hardened tunnel floor was the only sound anyone heard. Their ears strained trying to pick up any sounds that might indicate the trolls were coming closer to them. Drew wasn’t sure how long they traveled like this. The silence grated on his nerves. He felt like they had been traveling in the semi-darkness for hours, but he assumed it was less than an hour.
All his senses were on high alert. Looking ahead of them, under the DIA building, was a glowing ley line, like the one that had been under the headquarters building. He judged their distance traveled by how close that glowing node appeared. When it looked like it was only a few football fields ahead of them, Daryl’s aura appeared at the end of the tunnel. Drew held his hand up and everyone behind him stopped. Robbi turned to figure out what had caused the silence and seeing Drew’s hand, stopped as well.
“The door is just a little bit ahead, no movement there yet. We should probably take a short break,” Daryl’s voice came into his head.
Drew nodded, whispering to the others, his voice too loud after the long walk in the quiet dark. “Daryl says the door is just ahead, let’s take a minute to eat and drink something. We have no idea what’s on the other side of that door.”
Trista and Sarah both sat down swinging their backpacks around and pulling some water and snacks out of them. Drew did the same, while Robbi kept his eyes staring forward, the sword in his hands resting against the floor of the tunnel. Drew had no idea how heavy their weapons must have gotten since they had begun their trek through the tunnel, but by the way the two girls were massaging their hands in between bites, it had begun to take its toll. After Drew had a few gulps of water, he swung his pack back on and then relieved Robbi at point.
Drew idly chewed on some of his jerky while he watched the way ahead. He would miss the meat when it ran out. They did still have some canned chili and soups. They really needed to figure out a way to get some fresh meat soon. It would do wonders for the morale of the group.
The break was short, none of them really feeling relaxed enough to do more than mechanically chew food and take a few drinks from their water bottles. When Robbi was done, they began to walk again. The door came into sight in short order.
It looked old, the wood having a darkened quality he associated with ancient church doors. It was clearly something the trolls had created, not something man would have put down here. About five feet across and eight feet tall, its strange proportions marking it out of place for a human building but would have fit with the trolls more bulky frame better. There was no handle or hinges on this side, so Drew assumed there would be guards posted on the far side of the door.
The plan was to blow the door apart and then storm through, hopefully killing the guards before they could sound an alarm to whatever other trolls were still in the cavern. And Daryl and Robbi stood behind him while he considered the best way to blow it up. It looked sturdy enough. Drew decided he would use a fireball to break it down, then launch a frostfire ball through the hole. Holding up a hand, he pointed it at the door, and then cast the spell.
Chapter Thirty-Nine — Cage Fight
The fireball impacted the door, and for a half second Drew thought that it wouldn’t be enough to break through. The shockwave from the explosion pushed him back a step even from where they stood 40 feet back. Dirt flew through the air and he covered his face with his arm, his ears ringing. He blinked away the dirt from his eyes and looked up. Smoke and dirt filled the air where the door had been, and he launched frostfire ball into the gap, intending for it to explode a couple of meters past the door.
This time the explosion wasn’t anywhere near as potent feeling, due to the concussive force having somewhere to go rather than back down the tunnel he was standing in. Robbi immediately ran past him, his blood sword held at the ready. Drew followed, still trying to blink his eyes clear of the dust while his jaw was working to try and relieve the pressure on his ears.
Almost tripping over a fragment of door, he cleared the dust cloud and stepped to the right of the door, taking a moment to survey the scene. Two trolls lay on the floor near the door, two more trolls still sat, stunned, at a table. Robbi charged the two at the table, his red sword seemed to grow longer as he held it in a two-handed grip. Drew cast lightning bolt at the farther one, the bolt of electricity hitting it in the chest and sending it and the chair it had been sitting on rolling backward.
Robbi’s troll put an arm up to block the sword swing. The red sword bit deeply into its arm, cutting more than halfway through before stopping. Robbi kicked the troll in the chest, ripping the sword out of its flesh as the manaborn tumbled out of his chair. A cry of pain and alarm went up but was quickly silenced by two acid arrows Drew shot at his face. The caustic fluid ate away at his mouth instantly. Robbi raised the sword above his head then swung it down, separating the troll’s head from the rest of its body.
Green blood spurted everywhere, pooling on the floor around the two dead trolls, shards of ice from the frostfire ball and shrapnel from the door having opened a dozen wounds. The headless troll’s body spurted blood in short intervals. Drew just stared at it until the troll’s heart stopped pumping. When he exited the trance, he realized that someone was dry heaving behind him. Turning around, he saw that it was Trista, Sarah holding the girl’s hair and rubbing her back. Daryl and Robbi were already examining the room.
Two exits ran away from the small room on opposite sides of each other away from the tunnel entrance. A few torches burned around the room, giving off a strange purple light, creating an acerbic scent to the air that combined with the smell of troll blood and charred flesh. It made Drew want to sneeze.
“Daryl, check the left tunnel. Go a hundred feet and come back if you don’t run into anything,” Drew said while they waited for Trista to get over her first smell of battle. Drew wondered idly who cleaned up all the trolls he’d killed before he collapsed. Probably Daryl; for a vegetarian, that man had seen a lot of burned meat lately.
Robbi seemed like an old hand at this. Having taken up a position near the right tunnel, he stared into it with his sword held ready. Drew glanced around the room again. None of the trolls were growing xatherite, and aside from having Daryl harvest them for their skin and their weapons, there wasn’t anything worth looting. Sometimes he wished the world was more like video games. He loved pulling two-handed swords out of rabbit loot bags.
There wasn’t anything else to do here. While they waited, he walked over to Robbi. Forcing himself not to look at several streaks of green blood slowly trickling down the other man’s armor, he looked at the sword. Its clean length still glowed red in the glowrock’s light; Drew wondered where the blood had gone.
Sound from the hallway Daryl went down caused both Drew and Robbi to turn their attention in that direction. Daryl’s aura made its way into the room, but he didn’t bother to remove his invisibility. “They’re down there, people, dozens of them,” he said, the excitement clear in his voice. “I counted six trolls guarding them.” Without another word he turned and headed down the passage.
“Wait!” Drew called after him, but the aura was already gone and didn’t reappear. Sarah and Trista had caught up to them, although Trista still looked pale. Drew looked back at the other tunnel and frowned, “Frak,” he cursed, “I wish we could block that entrance somehow, don’t like the idea of having unexplored stuff between us and our exit.”