Vera nodded. “Sounds good. Lemme see…” She put her hand up against the pillar. “Not glass. It’s just thick ice. I think I can break it.”
I nodded, stepping out of the likely path of any water that the pillar might release. “Go right ahead, then.”
She stepped back, too, then fired a shot from the dueling cane into the center of a pillar. A crack spread across the surface where the mana had connected.
The statue moved. An echoing voice emerged from its mouth. “Defilers!”
That didn’t sound good.
There was grinding sound, then a crack as the statue’s foot shattered the stone where it stepped.
Vera shot the pillar again, broadening the crack.
The statue bent its knees and leapt, right at Vera.
“Resh!” Vera dodged out of the way as it descended, already beginning to swing its swords at her.
She ducked a swing aimed at her head, blasting the statue in the chest in response, but it barely budged from the shot.
The pillar was cracked, but the crystal still hadn’t broken.
I didn’t have anything heavy to hit it with.
“Can you hit it again?” I shouted to Vera.
The statue turned toward me and hurled a sword in my direction.
I just barely stepped out of the way in time.
Realizing that might be a viable weapon, I rushed for the thrown sword — only for it to vanish as soon as it hit the opposite wall.
“I’m a little busy!” Vera replied to my request, deflecting a sword with the dueling cane’s blade. She was better with the weapon than I’d expected, swiftly deflecting two cuts from the statue with perfect precision, but it was overwhelming her with the sheer number of angles it could attack from.
She stepped back, giving more ground, and barely avoided triggering another trap.
I rushed back toward them, but I still didn’t have a weapon.
I’m going to regret this.
I rammed myself shoulder-first into the crack in the pillar.
The ice caved on impact. I was bathed in freezing water and tiny fragments of frost.
My dueling tunic protected me from the worst of it. None of the icy shards were pushed free with sufficient force to pierce through it.
But the water was cold, and it hit me with sufficient force to push me to the ground.
The statue turned toward me again, raising a hand, but Vera stepped in and slashed the arm with the dueling cane’s blade. The sword arm went limp, a visible gash where the mana-charged blade had cut deep into it.
That bought me a moment before it threw another sword at me with a different arm.
I didn’t have time to dodge.
Instead, I raised the still-sheathed sword, which had flowed out of the water right next to me, and deflected the thrown blade out of the way.
“Nice!” Vera shouted.
I grinned, standing and drawing the weapon.
It looked like a rusted piece of junk.
That, I considered, is just what happens when I rely on hoping for the best.
But, rusted junk or not, it was a weapon. I ran the statue anyway.
The statue didn’t deign to give me its attention this time. Vera had been forced all the way to the back wall and she blasted it with mana in between parries.
I hit the statue in the back. There was a loud clang and my arm rattled from the impact, but it didn’t do any visible damage.
I did succeed in making it angry.
The statue turned to face me, lashing out at me with three different swords.
Fortunately, this was a game I knew how to play.
I stepped left, deflecting one of the blades into the other two, then kicked the statue in the knee.
As I expected, it wasn’t very well balanced.
The statue stumbled backward, and I lashed out, landing a glancing blow across its face.
Still no damage.
It responded with a slash across my abdomen. I stepped back, failing to avoid it entirely, but my dueling tunic repelled the glancing blow.
Then the blade of Vera’s dueling cane burst through the back of its head, and the statue collapsed to the floor.
I took a step back, breathing a sigh of relief. “Whew.”
Vera leaned back against the wall, breathing heavily. “You can say that again, kid. I haven’t had a fight like that in ages, and I don’t care to have one again.”
I nodded, sheathing the sword and lifting it to show it to her. “You mind if I hold onto this thing?”
“Nah,” she dragged the word out into an exhale, still trying to get her breath back. “Think you earned it. Think you can carry the kid over here, though?”
I set the sword down. “Yeah, you handled a lot more of the fighting. Only fair.”
“Thanks.” She grinned at me. “You did pretty well yourself, though.”
I returned the grin, heading back to the other side of the room. I picked up the child gingerly — his condition seemed unchanged — and then carried him over to Vera, next to the door.
As I returned, the monsters shimmered and vanished as one, leaving tiny colorful crystals behind in their wake.
“Ooh, nice.” Vera picked up the largest crystal, the one that had been left behind by the statue, and shoved it into a pouch at her side. “May as well grab a few of these.”
“I don’t think we have that much time.” I still knelt and snatched a single crystal from the remains of a barghensi as I crossed the room. It was on my way, but I wasn’t willing to deviate from the safe path to collect any others. The monsters might have been dead, but I still was worried about triggering a harder to see trap.
Vera shrugged. “Suit yourself, kid.” She walked to the door. The crystal on it was clear, and she touched it with her free hand. The door opened, displaying a round room with a single pillar at the center. A stone one this time, not another ice pillar. A shame — in spite of being doused with freezing water, I could have lived with more pillars that had treasure inside them.
There were a few more obvious trap tiles on the floor and one particularly foreboding iron chain leading to something on the opposite side of the pillar.
I could see a large wooden door on the opposite side. “Looks like this is it.”
I recognized the double doors; they were the same design as the ones I had used to enter the tower. An exit.
I allowed myself to take a breath of relief as I inched toward the door.
“Looks like you’re struggling there. Hand the kid back to me, yeah?”
I nodded gratefully, arriving next to Vera and handing the unconscious boy back into her arms.
I was sufficiently distracted with that motion that I just barely noticed when she pointed the dueling cane at my chest.
“Don’t move.”
My eyes narrowed.
I strongly considered trying to grab the cane from her hand. My vest could probably take one more shot, and people had a tendency to miss charging targets at short range.
But I’d never seen Vera miss.
I opened my hands and stretched them out to my sides, a gesture of surrender. “Why?”
“It’s nothing personal. I don’t know you, kid. But I’ve gotta make sure my friend here is safe.”
Vera paused, grimacing. “I’m taking this way out. You can find your own way.” Vera made a gesture with her head toward the door where we had entered the room. It was still there. “Maybe you can explain things to the visage.”
I gave her a look that was heavy with skepticism. “That sounds real plausible.”
“Sorry. Hate to do this, but I will fire if you follow me. This is bigger than you know.”
I shrugged. “Do what you’ve got to do.”