NOVEL NEXT Chapter 118: Your chest is untouched? Let me fix that
It hadn't even been ten seconds after Ducaz's disappearance before the party returned. Marin was the first to emerge, shouting to no one in particular, "Second level cleared!"
Master Sensei, for his part, was violently throwing himself against the inner rim of the containment sphere, attempting to will it through the window. The bubble moved like a bubble. Which was to say, not very fast.
Then came the thunder.
The chamber dimmed. Candles fluttered out as the air crackled. The stone floor quivered beneath invisible weight. A droning hum rose from the soles of everyone's boots, until the very bedrock of the dungeon vibrated in rhythm with a foreign pulse.
Anders stepped into view. He raised a hand, stretched his fingers, arcane symbols blooming across his forearm in tongues that predated bone.
"Insolent fool! You've faced your end!" Anders roared as he opened his palm at Master Sensei.
Light poured from his palm. Raw spell pressure pressed down on the room like a thunderhead. Even Marin stumbled back.
Wait. No. At least move me out of the way before you wield the literal spell of destruction!
"Oh my Lord, he's going to vaporize him," someone who sounded like Lena whispered.
He clenched his fist.
The floor cracked.
He thrust his arm forward.
A titanic shockwave erupted—
—and out of Anders's palm came a slightly bigger bubble.
It whooshed forward with the gentle enthusiasm of a child blowing soap spheres on a spring day. The larger dome bloomed, translucent and vaguely pink, before gently wrapping itself around the original Master Sensei sphere like a matryoshka doll of imprisonment.
The divine pressure vanished instantly. The room stopped shaking. One of the torches snorted back to life in embarrassment.
"There," Anders said, clapping his hands together like he'd just put up a tent. "Double bubble."
That's it? That's the spell?
"Why did you do that?" Rob asked.
"Bring him along. We have a third level to clear." Anders walked away without further explanation.
The rumbling seemed to have woken up someone, at least.
Griesa dragged herself out of the room, rubbing her eyes. "Uhhh… Good morning?"
Lena skipped over and patted the dust off her Griesa's coat. "Hey, Griesa! Sorry to interrupt your beauty sleep, but we need to descend before you drool all the water out of your body."
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"Who cares about looking pretty?" Griesa wiped the drool off her mouth and looked around. "We're like… in an abandoned tower."
"How are you feeling, Miss Griesa?" Marin walked over and extended a hand.
In one fluid motion, Griesa yanked a lever hidden in the lining of her coat. A chorus of whirrs, clicks, and chirps erupted as a swarm of mechanical grooming arms unfolded from her sleeves and collar like a bouquet of robotic spiders. One spritzed her with rosewater. Another fluffed her hair. A third began daintily applying blush while a fourth dabbed her lips with something that sparkled suspiciously.
"Miss Griesa?" Marin repeated, a little concerned now.
Griesa smiled, now ten times more radiant, and fluttered her lashes. "Oh, I'm perfectly peachy, sir. Just a little sleepy! Thank you so much for asking." She gave his hand a dainty squeeze before her eyes dropped instinctively to his chest. "Do you need to clean your breastplate—where's your right breastplate?"
Marin looked down like he was only now noticing. "Oh. Huh. Some book slapped it off me. It's no big deal."
Griesa gasped as if Marin had just told her he'd lost a limb. "Some book slapped it off you?!"
"Don't worry. My chest is unharmed."
"Your chest is untouched?"
"My chest is untouched."
"Let me fix that! Your breastplate, I mean." Tiny hinges flung open across the sleeves, revealing tucked-away compartments of arcane soldering needles, rune-etched tape measurers, and enchanted rivet spiders. With a hiss and a pop, a tiny forge lit up at her hip. "Hold still!" she barked, voice shrill with both panic and fury. "Where else did that cursed leaf-folder touch you?! Did it scrape your vambrace? Nick your greaves? Befoul your sabaton?!" She leaned in and sniffed his shoulder like a suspicious cat. "Did it smell like burnt celery?!"
"I—uh—what—?" Marin stammered as she began hammering the new plate into place with a wand that doubled as a tiny impact driver.
Lena was doubled over laughing in the background.
We're going to need another bubble for her.
"You poor, poor thing," Griesa muttered, more to the armor than to him now. "Don't worry. Auntie Griesa's got you. We'll have you polished and purified in no time."
"I think I'm fine," Marin mumbled weakly.
"No one is fine after such scandalous showing of academic disintegrity," Griesa declared, jamming a gemstone seal into place with a satisfying click. "There. Reinforced, re-riveted, and if it so much as thinks about flapping at you again, the ward will smite it with righteous ornamental lightning."
The right breastplate roared once like thunder.
"Why are you all dawdling?" Anders said, irritated. "I can sense it. I am very close to Archmage Grimbles' Grand Library. His secret to the 'Legendary Artifact Tracking' spell shall soon be mine," He said, assured of himself.
Are you really sure, though, or are we going to just drag this on another month doing random things without ever actually getting the knives?
"We're coming," Marin said. The breastplate roared.
"This breastplate automatically roars when it detects human temperature close to your chest," Griesa declared smugly.
"Then please move your face away from my chest, Miss Griesa," Marin said. The breastplate roared again.
"Oh, sorry!" Griesa peeled her cheek away from Marin's chest. "I'm just testing, uh, the roaring function! It's all good." She patted his right chest. The breastplate roared. "Just testing one last time!"
Lena strapped Blorbo on her back again. "Let's go!"
Then they all walked off, forgetting to drag Master Sensei along altogether. Except for Rob.
Rob watched the party go, turned back to the floating bubble-bubble, sighed, then pushed the bubble along.