Here's today's chapter! Hope you enjoy :)

Plum

16 – Beyond the Gate

“I’m not swimming in that,” Bella said, gesturing to the dark, slow-moving river.

“I’d rather not, either,” Delilah echoed, and Trevor nodded along.

Andy frowned, looking at Omar, who shrugged. “If it was just the water, I’d tell people to suck it up, but we all saw that giant toad. Who knows how many or what else is down there.”

“All right. I’ll get us across. Just watch me for a few minutes while I change my class.” Andy sat down and opened his status page.

Meanwhile, Trevor nudged Omar. “What’s he mean?”

“He has another class that can…open passageways.”

“Yeah?”

Andy lost track of their conversation because he’d already confirmed with the System that he was sure he wanted to change classes, and the world was rapidly fading to black as he slumped onto his side. Moments later, he blinked, pushing himself to a seated position again. Bella was there, kneeling beside him, and she smiled brightly at his recovery.

“Maybe ten minutes,” she said, anticipating his question.

“Heh, thanks.” Andy clambered to his feet, checking his status sheet, running his eyes over his Axiomatic Pathfinder abilities:

Axiomatic Artistry – Bound: 3Greater Axiom of Passage – Bound: 5Axiom of Separation – Bound: 2Axiom of Time – Bound: 1

The one he found himself changing classes for, more frequently than he’d prefer, was the Greater Axiom of Passage. Considering he was only level ten in the class, he wondered if he maybe ought to spend some time leveling it up. If he could teleport people short—and not so short—distances already, what would the class be like at level twenty or forty?

For the briefest of moments, he contemplated not changing back to Brimstone Stalker, but then he peered across the dark water, squinting into the distance, and failed to see the far shore. He looked around, suddenly aware of how Bella and Trevor had been feeling all along; the world was blackness, and only the little pool of lantern light saved him from a sudden rush of primal panic. “Damn,” he whispered.

“What?” Bella asked, her voice also hushed.

“Didn’t quite realize how dark it is down here.”

“Will your spell work if you can’t see?” Omar asked, stepping away from the edge of the water, the metal straps on his shield glinting in the kerosene flame.

“It’ll work,” Andy said. “I got a good look at the bank over there.” He stepped closer to the water, then held up his hand, but before he started casting, he said, “Just be ready! Move through when I say so. I can’t keep the passage open very long, and it takes a lot of mana.”

Omar and Bella knew as much; he was speaking for the others’ benefit. As they all lined up, ready to move, Andy began drawing his hand through the air, channeling mana. Brilliant lines of violet light took shape under his fingertip as he rapidly carved out the Axiom.

“Pretty!” Delilah whispered.

“So much brighter down here!” Bella added.

Andy concentrated and finished the Axiom with a flourish, and then a ghostly bridge, like solid fog, took shape before him, stretching away into the darkness. “Go!”

Omar led the way, charging onto the shimmering, glass-like “passage,” and Trevor pushed Delilah ahead of him, also hurrying. Bella, with Chani clinging to her pack, ran across next, and Andy watched as the light of her lamp illuminated the wide, dark river, and then the others waiting on the far shore. Smiling at the ease of the passage’s creation, Andy strode across. When he stepped onto the far bank, he checked his mana to confirm what he already knew: he hadn’t used any more than the base cost of 150.

“That was an easy one.”

“That’s a hell of a spell,” Trevor remarked, watching with the others as the ghostly bridge broke apart into real-seeming fog, drifting down to the river’s surface and then flowing with the current until it became too thin to see.

“You should level that class more,” Bella said, lowering Chani to the ground.

Andy shook his head. “Too damn dark down here.”

“Hey!” Bella held her lantern up, cocking her head at him. It dangled from a hook on the bottom rim of her shield.

“Was that hook always there?”

She shook her head. “Lydia made it for me.”

“Andy,” Omar interjected, “if you want my vote, please change back to your primary class. I’d like to finish this rescue quickly and…successfully.”

“Fair enough,” Andy replied. He moved about ten steps from the river, toward the mouth of the tunnel they’d spied from the other side. As he sat down on the cold stone again, he said, “Don’t let any giant toads eat me.” Then, he selected Brimstone Stalker and changed classes.

Ten minutes later, he was leading the way deeper into the tunnel, his world once more filled with the warm glow of Flame Sight. The stone toad statue was looming larger and larger as they progressed, its flat, bulbous head nearly scraping the tunnel ceiling. The gate, about twenty feet behind it, was growing clearer, too, and Andy was more and more certain that it had been constructed from ancient railroad ties. It was big and heavy looking, but it was also crude; there were sizeable gaps between the ties and the tunnel wall.

When Bella’s lantern light finally fell on the statue, everyone who hadn’t seen the construct clearly reacted audibly. Trevor swore, and even Omar hissed, sucking air between his teeth. Bella’s reaction was more visceral; she gasped and stumbled back, but Andy caught her elbow, steadying her. “It’s the statue.”

“Oh, dang! I thought…” She squinted into the dim light. “Its eyes!”

Andy nodded. He’d noticed them too, as they drew closer. The giant toad statue had gemstone or crystal eyes. Omar approached it and rubbed his gloved hand over the rough surface. “It’s concrete.”

Andy walked around the statue, careful to keep his eye on the wooden gate, in case more bogwarts were lurking nearby. He could see Omar was right, and the biggest giveaway was that the back half of the statue was much rougher—partially crumbled, with lengths of rebar jutting out. “Maybe they gathered it from the parking garage.”

“Or other building foundations,” Trevor said.

“There’s room on the side of the gate,” Delilah said, pointing to where the curved tunnel wall made a gap. “I think we could fit.”

“Let me take a look,” Andy said, padding forward and leaning close to the gate, peering between two of the massive timbers. After he glimpsed the other side, he quickly turned and hissed, “Turn down the light!”

Bella hastily twisted the knob on her lantern, and as the light dimmed, Andy looked back through the gap. Beyond the gate was a vast cavern, large enough that the far end looked to be obscured by a thick, humid haze. Giant fungal growths filled the center of the space, like an alien forest, and a river, much smaller than the one they’d just crossed, ran through the center.

What made Andy ask Bella to turn down her lantern, though, were the dozens or maybe hundreds of bogwarts he saw moving about in the cavern. They clustered near crude structures built from bricks, chunks of concrete, wood, and even parts of automobiles—all apparently scavenged from the university grounds. He stared for a long time, and he felt Delilah lean against the gate beside him, also using her Elven dark-vision to spy out the depths of the cavern.

“I think I see them!” she hissed.

Andy glanced at her, then put his eye back to the crack. “Where?”

“On the left, past the stream, up near the cavern wall. See the cages?”

Andy peered past a cluster of bogwart huts, up the gentle slope on the far side of the cavern, and, sure enough, he spied out the “cages.” They were rough pens built against the cavern wall, mostly from chunks of concrete. Inside were the huddled figures of men, women, and children—dozens of them. They were too distant for Andy to tell whether some—or all—of them were elves, but he agreed with Delilah; it seemed clear that the captives were the objective of their quest.

“Where are you?” he whispered, scanning the cavern again.

“What are you looking for?” Delilah asked, also whispering.

He smiled, glancing at her. “Do you see a System Node?”

“No, but if I were guessing, I’d bet it was inside that big building by the river.”

Andy had noticed the building, too—twice the size of the other ramshackle huts. If there were a bogwart boss or chieftain, he’d bet it would be in there. “Yep.”

“I can kinda see what you’re talking about,” Bella said, and Andy realized she’d also leaned against the door. “That weird blue glow is everywhere, and I can see the toad people moving around.”

“I think it’s some kind of bioluminescent fungus,” Andy said.

“Oh! Makes sense,” she agreed.

“So?” Trevor asked. “Are we going to kill all of them, or, like, try to sneak the survivors out?”

“Sneaking seems like it would be hard. I could see Andy making it.” When Omar spoke, Andy leaned away from the gate and looked over Delilah’s head to see the Paladin there, peering through another gap between timbers.

“I could definitely make it there,” he agreed. “I could probably even hide among the prisoners and open a passage. If I did that, though, I’d have to leave with them, because if I tried to stay and fight in my other class, I’d get overwhelmed. There are just too many of them.”

“How many do you think?” Bella asked.

“More than a hundred,” Delilah said immediately. She glanced at Andy. “I’ve been trying to count them.”

“They’re tougher than goblins, right?” Omar asked.

“Yeah,” Andy replied, “definitely.” He studied the cavern again, trying to confirm Delilah’s count, and then he spied something large, limned in an amber glow, moving in the water at the center of the cavern. “Not just bogwarts, either. I think there’s at least one giant toad in the river.”

Bella stepped away from the gate, shaking her head. “I don’t like the idea of Andy sneaking up there alone to try to rescue those people. He’ll have to change his class when he gets there, and if one of the toads notices him, he’ll be helpless!”

“That’s true,” Omar said, moving away from the gate.

“So let’s fight!” Trevor growled. “If we lure them into this tunnel, we can set up traps, and they can’t come at us more than a few at a time.”

Andy turned, running his eyes from one side of the cavern to the other. “You know, he’s not wrong. My smoke could fill this space, and the bogwarts I fought earlier really didn’t like the heat.”

“I can set some magical wards, too,” Delilah said, her voice rising with excitement as she shrugged off her backpack.

“I think we could hold the line,” Omar said, nodding to Trevor and Bella. “There’s just enough room for us to swing our weapons if we stand side-by-side.”

Andy scratched his chin, thinking. He didn’t really like the idea of slaughtering an entire community, monstrous or not, but there was no doubt as to the violent nature of the bogwarts. They were intelligent enough to use tools, to make crude structures and even clothing, but they had little regard for the lives or freedom of others. They were keeping people in pens for…what? Food?

He shook his head and voiced his thoughts, “Seems like the best way to get those people free is going to be fighting. Not to mention, if we drive the bogwarts out, we can capture their System Node.” Maybe to assuage his own uneasy feelings, he added, “I mean, I don’t think there’s going to be any reasoning with these things. I don’t like the looks of the pens they’re holding those people in—reminds me of livestock.”

“They sure as hell started it!” Trevor said, putting an arm over Delilah’s shoulders.

Omar nodded, shifting his shield. “When I look in that cavern, I see monsters keeping people in pens. It’s clear what we have to do.”

Andy turned further, looking up and down the lengthy tunnel. He settled his eyes on the big concrete statue, pointing to it. “We should set up beyond the statue—use it to further choke the flow of enemies. I’ll be behind the bogwarts—hitting from the rear—so when I start filling this part of the tunnel with smoke, the statue and the gate will only add to their confusion.”

Delilah was fishing through her backpack, and she straightened, holding up a large, sky-blue stick of chalk—the kind kids might use to write on sidewalks. “I can make some wards that will weaken and confuse enemies who pass over them.”

“Oh?” Andy pointed to the gate. “You should make them there, near the middle! We’ll open the gate just enough so that the toads all have to pass over your wards.”

“Um, Andy?” Bella asked. “Do you have any extra kerosene in, um, storage?”

Andy looked at her. “Yeah. Is your lamp running low?”

“Not yet, but I was thinking…what if we covered the ground where we’ll be fighting with kerosene—I mean where the toads will be; we’ll stand further up the tunnel. Would it ignite when you did your, uh, hot smoke thing?”

Andy grinned fiercely. “I like the way you think, Bella.” He licked a finger and held it high, nodding as the airflow blew coolly against his wet skin. “There’s plenty of airflow in here—a draft leading from the river to the cavern. I don’t think we need to worry about breathing.”

Omar hooked his mace onto his belt. “All right. Let’s get set up. We might as well build a small fortification—it’ll help us stay out of the fire and also make it harder for them to overrun us.” He gestured toward the mouth of the tunnel. “There’s plenty of rock and debris back by the river.”

“I’ll help,” Andy said. He glanced at Delilah. “Can you keep an eye out? Watch through the gate to be sure none of them come this way?”

“Yes!” She hurried back to the gate, peering through the gap where the two halves met.

“Come on, then, everyone,” Omar said, leaning his shield against the wall. “Let’s haul some stones.”