Chapter 42: Closed
Hide stood at the threshold and watched.
The two Wolfthralls were recovering from the collision — the one that had lost its skull had located it by sound or by some sense that had nothing to do with eyes, the skull dragging itself across the flagstones and reorienting at the base of the neck-vertebrae column.
The other pressed itself upright against the wall, shaking its head once in the way a dog shook off water.
Both of them looked toward the doorway,, with hunger, but neither of them stepped through it.
They stood at the edge of the darkness inside the hall, the Abyssal light from Hide’s palm reaching just far enough to catch the faint glitter of rotted eye-fluid in the empty sockets. The growling had reduced to a low sustained sound.
’Why aren’t they coming out?’
Hide studied them curiously, the chains — he had heard them in the darkness before pulling Fuu clear, the heavy iron rattling of something under restraint.
He could see them now. Each Wolfthrall had iron shackles locked around all four legs, the chain-links thick, the metal dark with age. But the chains ended short after the shackle, their loose ends hanging free against the flagstones.
They were not connected to anything!
’But they’re not leaving.’ Hide narrowed his eyes, contemplating and calculating in his mind.
He looked at the floor of the hall just inside the threshold — the flagstone was the same as everywhere else in this place, dark and worn. Except at the edges of the doorway, where the frame met the floor, there was a faint line cut into the stone.
’So, the chains don’t bind them, but the boundary does. They can’t cross the threshold.’
He noted it, whatever the Dungeon Master had designed this place to do, it hadn’t included letting its wolves patrol the open courtyard.
Good.
But there was another problem about them going inside directly with the wolves looking at them. No, he was not going to make that stupid decision.
"Stay here," he said to Fuu. "Don’t go near the door."
Fuu looked at him. He looked at the glaring Wolfthralls beyond the threshold and looked back at Hide.
"Where are you—"
But Hide was already moving.
He ran back across the courtyard at the speed that his stat-adjusted body had settled into as its normal pace. The pile of bones from the Ossian Thralls was about three hundred meters back, scattered across the flagstones from the extended fight, the fragments inert and dark under the cloud-strobed sky.
He reached it in seconds. Crouched. Sorted two femur bones through the scattered pieces.
He turned back toward the citadel for going back and suddenly he stopped, looking at something through the corner of his eye.
The great iron door at the far end of the road was visible from here — barely, at this distance it was only a vertical shape against the dark, known more by its size than any detail. But at the base of it, there were three shapes.
Small from this distance. Human-shaped and outlined faintly against the door’s surface.
Three people.
Hide’s jaw tightened as he saw those people.
’Those must be the Exterminators from the Emergency Response team.’ He realized. ’Why are there only three of them?’
As the question surfaced in his mind, Hide remembered that outside this iron door, there were five weird symbol switches. Him and Fuu had used two of those switches to get inside the door, leaving only three behind.
’So, this is how it is.’ Hide clenched his fists. This dungeon had a limit to how many people can enter it, and the limit was five people.
Now that the limit was filled, this dungeon was truly closed. Now, no more people can enter, and no can leave, until the Dungeon master is alive.
He looked at the sky and felt a little gloomy, if they failed to kill the dungeon master within the twenty four hour time limit, a gate break would occur. The boundary between this gate and reality would cease to exist and this whole dungeon would eat what part of earth it could.
If that happened... He looked at the castle. At the central tower with its peak above the clouds. At the two citadels, each as large as several buildings. At the courtyard, which was the size of a city block.
Half of Area 5.
Maybe more would be destroyed, killing thousands upon thousands of citizens.
The three Exterminators at the far door had not moved. They couldn’t see him from that distance — he was small and dark against the courtyard, and they had no light source of their own visible from here. But they would explore. They would find the bone piles. They would find the citadel.
And when they found him, he was an unregistered individual inside a dungeon gate without party registration or agency affiliation, which he was sure would end with formal charges.
It was something he absolutely didn’t wish for.
’Kill the Dungeon Master,’ he thought.’ Before they reach the castle. Before the time limit. Both of those.’
He turned and ran back to the citadel.
Fuu was standing exactly where he had been left, which was near the door but not near enough to be a problem, with the potion bottle empty in his hands. The Wolfthralls were still in the hall. Sitting and glaring out at them.
"Better?" Hide asked, meaning the virus.
"Better than before," Fuu said. "But, not good enough."
"Good enough to run?"
A pause. Fuu assessed himself honestly. "Yes."
"Then listen." Hide held up the two femur bones. Fuu looked at them. "The wolves won’t cross the threshold — there’s a boundary they can’t pass. But they can move inside the hall freely. The stairs are to the right." He looked at the hall. "When I throw these, they’ll go for the sound. Away from the stairs. We run for the stairs before they come back."
Fuu stared at the bones. "You want to trick the-"
"No questions allowed." Hide interrupted him.
"..."
Fuu gulped hard and got ready.
"1... 2..."
"...3"
On three Hide threw the bones in, the wolves as expected ran after the sounds to the left, both of them with their chains rattling.
Hide and Fuu jumped in and used all the power their superhuman bodies could access to run towards the stairs.