Andrew Rowe - On the Shoulders of Titans

Sheridan shrugged. “Derek is usually the one leading the way, and he prefers physical stuff. That’d be either red or yellow.”

“So, it’s normal that there are gems on the doors?” I asked.

Sheridan frowned. “Now that you mention it, this spire doesn’t usually have them, outside of Judgments. The Tortoise Spire has them on every floor, though.”

I scratched my chin. “…Any idea about why there might be a change?”

Sheridan shook their head. “Katashi’s personal preference, maybe? Don’t know.”

That was an interesting possibility.

Could Katashi be restricting the spire in Tenjin’s absence? “Hm.” Probably wasn’t worth worrying about immediately. “Okay. Red is fighting, yellow is speed and agility?”

“Red is more like brute force in general, but yeah. Something like that. Blue tends to be puzzles.”

I turned to the others. “Any preferences?”

Marissa enthusiastically punched one hand into the other, then winced. Apparently, she wasn’t fully healed yet.

Patrick just shrugged.

“We’ll check each of them. Mara, up front with me. Unless Sheridan is hiding physical combat skills?”

Sheridan shook their head. “I’m a Mender and a Necromancer. I can fight a bit, but healing is my focus. My attack spells are ranged.”

“Okay, let’s do this.”

We walked to the blue door first, since it seemed the least likely to explode in our faces.

It led to a circular room with a large pool of water in the center. No monsters, no obvious traps. Just a big pool of water.

I closed the door. “None of you have water magic, I assume?”

A chorus of shaking heads.

“Okay, we’ll skip that for now.”

Selys-Lyann could potentially freeze the water, but without walking in, I couldn’t get a better look at what the actual challenge was. If it was something like swimming to the next room, I didn’t think it would be a good idea without water magic.

I opened the yellow door.

There was no floor in the next room.

It was just a long hallway with vines draped from the ceiling, leading to another yellow door on the other side.

Some of the vines looked sturdier than others.

I gazed downward, but there was only pitch blackness below. Clearly, falling was a bad idea.

I closed the door.

“Not too bad,” Patrick noted. “I think I could maintain four levitation spells at this point. We could probably skip the vines entirely.”

“And Corin’s got ‘is ring.” Mara looked thoughtful. “We want to try this one?”

I shook my head. “Let’s check the last one first. I have a feeling there’s going to be a trick in there.”

We headed to the red door and pulled it open.

The room ahead was circular, with doors on the left and right sides.

The floor was grass and dirt, rather than stone. The more concerning part, however, were the knee-high mushrooms that stuck out in dozens of places. There were probably at least thirty of them.

“Mushrooms?” Marissa asked. “That’s the challenge?”

She had to say something.

All at once, the mushrooms began to rip themselves free from the ground. They sprouted tiny, spongy arms and legs and charged.

Marissa lowered herself into a combat stance, but they never got that close.

Instead, the hoard of mushroom creatures stopped a dozen feet away and opened fang-filled mouths, ejecting clouds of some kind of mist.

Or, more likely, toxic spores.

I tried to slam the door shut.

Obviously, it couldn’t be that simple.

As soon as the door closed, it disintegrated, leaving no barrier between us and the clouds of spores.

Patrick reacted quickly, pushing his hand forward. A gust of wind blasted outward, pushing back the mist.

“Don’t get close or breathe that in!” Sheridan instructed. “You do not want to see what happens.”

I drew Selys-Lyann and slashed in mid-air, launching a shockwave of ice and freezing a pair of them solid.

Marissa punched at the air, sending out a shockwave of her own and blasting several of the mushrooms back.

But there were dozens. Patrick maintained the gust of wind, but the mushrooms were pressing through it.

Sheridan pointed at the floor. Spears of bone erupted from the ground, piercing through the lead wave of mushrooms and stopping the charge.

That gave Patrick a moment to point with his other hand and hurl a tiny, compact sphere of flame.

He stopped the wind for just a moment, then when the sphere of flame was near the mushrooms, he activated the wind again.

The moment the wind made contact with the sphere, it detonated, annihilating nearly every remaining mushroom.

Patrick stepped forward, blasting the smoke from the explosion clear with another concentrated burst of wind, then clearing the remaining mushrooms with more blasts of fire and lightning.

“Wow.” Marissa nudged Patrick. “Not bad.”

Patrick blushed. “Wide area spells are sort of what I’m made for.”

“Still, Mara’s right. You were quick to counter those spores. That could have gone a lot worse.” I pointed toward the room. “I guess we’ve pretty much cleared this one out. May as well go inside and check the doors?”

Patrick spent a few more moments using wind to send the remaining spores as far from us as possible, then created bubbles of air around us just in case. I hadn’t realized he had that degree of control of air magic. It was pretty impressive.

The south door had a white gem, which was intriguing, but it was locked. “White means, what, a safe room?”

Sheridan nodded. “Yeah. We definitely want to get back here if we can. It’s strange to have one so close to where we started. You usually have to go through about six rooms to get to a safer room. There are shortcuts, but right next to the entrance is…odd.”

“Can we break it open?” Marissa asked.

Sheridan shook their head. “Not a good idea. Spire guardians often show up if you start breaking things, and I don’t know if we can handle one.”

“Other door, then.” I pointed across the room. Another red gem. “Hopefully the key is over that way.”

We headed to the other door and opened it.

The next room was another long hallway, much like the one with the vines, but wrought from solid stone. It was wide enough to walk two abreast, but just barely.

The floor was dirt and grass, though, and I could see some roots protruding from the floor.

“Anyone see any obvious traps?” I asked.

“Nothing.” Patrick frowned. “I don’t like it.”

“Better than the vines,” Mara offered. “I bet those were going to reach down and try to eat us or somethin’.”

She was probably right. I turned to Sheridan. “Preference on this room or the vines?”

“It’s generally safer to continue down the same path unless you have a good reason to go back. Every door leads you one step closer to an exit.”

“On it is, then.” I turned toward Patrick. “Be ready to levitate us if the floor is dangerous?”

“You got it.”

We pressed on into the next room.

The distinct lack of immediate death traps made me nervous.

Maybe it’s just a hallway?

That was too optimistic, of course. I never believed it.

We reached the door on the opposite side of the hall. There weren’t any obvious traps on it, but we didn’t have someone like Vera with us who could check with any degree of reliability.

I turned the door knob and opened it.

There was a solid stone wall on the other side.

The door we’d entered the room from slammed shut. That was a little startling, but not particularly worrisome in itself.

There was a grinding noise as the walls of the hallway began to move closer together.