>>6308038The room jerks a bit before slowly descending towards what you assume is the cellar. Ah, you remark as you give the wall an idle flick, an elevator…
“No, you prole, we’re <span class="mu-i">descending</span>.” Mutters Oti as Obber hops up and down with a gleeful grin. “Do try to keep up.”
The ride is slow. Painfully slow. Like ‘The elevator at your apartment building with the perpetual mold smell’ slow! So slow, in fact, that by the time you reach the bottom floor your leg’s starting to fall asleep… but as the doors creak open to let the dank, clammy basement air into the ele–sorry–<span class="mu-i">SCENDOCHAMBER</span>, you and the rest of your enchanted entourage freeze up like magic-wielding statues at the sound of something huge and gaunt tromping down the hall to your right like a lost elephant!
Waiting until the shape stomps up to the next floor, you let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding in! Phew!
“See? Haste makes <span class="mu-i">waste</span>.” Chortles Oti as if he had anything to do with the damn SCENDOCHAMBER taking so long! Okay, you groan, let’s find this sewer, shall we?
You don’t have to search for very long. Obber’s vamp–erm, <span class="mu-i">SANGUIPHAGE</span> senses lead him straight to the entrance: a tough, heavy metalwrought trapdoor that feels like it could withstand a bomb, let alone the few kicks you deliver to its surface!
To make matters worse, your hand comes across something looped through a groove in the floor and the entrance–a dense, rectangular thing with a toughness similar to the door it’s barring!
A <span class="mu-i">LOCK!</span>
Relaying your findings to your ‘friends’, your worries are immediately bested by a blizzardy blast from Oti’s palm followed by a flurry of force from Toppel’s! Their combined efforts flash-freeze the lock and shatter it like an expensive vase… and with the obstacle overcome all that remains is for Obber to slink over and lift the door open!
The ensuing stench is, well… painfully familiar. And <span class="mu-i">very</span> unwelcome.
“Euuugh…” Toppel groans as she leans against Obber for support, “Do we <span class="mu-i">have</span> to go this way?”
“Yes,” Oti sneers as he descends into the sewer, “Unless you’d prefer to negotiate with the unfeeling automatons hunting you, that is.”
“I’ll pass.” The sorceress fires back with a withering glare. “Come along, Obber.”
>CONTD. 