Chapter 67 Perdition!

  Isaac opened the first door they came across that led into the Thronsen manor. No sooner had he unlatched the door did he feel a powerful spell shoot towards him. Both he and Lenna dove out of the way as a lightning bolt blasted through the door, sending shrapnel exploding out in all directions. Right behind the lightning bolt there was a branch of reality magic that traced the opened path. It was immediately clear to the duo that the traps were both hyper lethal, a potential short duration and damaging stun into being hit by a Disintegrate spell, and incredibly sensitive.

  “Touchy touchy.” Isaac teased the traps and their maker even though only Lenna could hear him.

  “Someone really doesn’t want visitors right now.” Lenna commented.

  “If everything is that sensitive, how do you want to do this?” Isaac asked her.

  “You cannot keep your boost active while maintaining both of our shadow-cloaks so I will go first. I have a faster reaction time than you.” She told him.

  “But I’m generally faster than you. Not to mention I can teleport.” He countered.

  “Just let me do my job for once.” Lenna shot back.

  Isaac raised his hands in surrender and stepped back. “By all means, Lady V’Nova, after you.”

  Lenna didn’t reply but instead just continued forwards through the now destroyed door. The pair stalked through the corridors until they reached another doorway. Isaac had noticed all of the propped open doors as he went through the place the first time but hadn’t thought anything of them. Now though, it seemed like all of the doors that he had ignored because they were open were all closed. Each closed door marked another place for traps to be set and the tightrope of survival to be walked.

  Lenna quickly opened the door and dodged out of the way. Or she would have had the door not exploded as soon as the latch was undone. The entire door blasted out a powerful shockwave of sound that threatened to rupture her eardrums. The blast was so intense that Isaac’s shadows were momentarily thrown away from her and all of a sudden a dozen spells tried to lock onto her. All but one of the spells was entirely ignored as her crown and engagement ring were entirely unassailable by mental magics that were under ninth level. The one spell that had managed to lock onto her was a curse that slipped through her protections.

  Lenna felt a searing hot brand attempt to scorch itself into her breast. Based on its position she instantly knew where the ward was that had hit her with it. She drew her sword and stabbed it through the doorway and into the ward that had been covered by wooden trim. She felt the heat build and build until it was finally almost hot enough to leave a mark on her skin before it ran out of power. The curse itself was simply not up to the task of forcing itself on the Lenna V’Nova.

  “That was a curse. It failed, but be careful.” She told her husband. “I don’t like that these traps haven’t been uniform. It shows that whoever made them was planning on buying as much time as possible.”

  “Irregular traps means that whoever is trying to navigate through them is going to have to take their time, even if they can brute force through most of them, because only one trap has to work for it to be the end of them.” Isaac surmised.

  “We should be close to the center of the building.” Lenna commented.

  “Through that wall.” Isaac said and gestured towards the wall at the end of the hallway from them. “Or we can go down that way and then turn right and then right again. There is a small garden with a tea table.” Isaac informed her.

  “Should we go through the wall?” She wondered.

  “What if whoever is alive is right on the other side of the wall?” Isaac asked. “If you want to assume that they are hostile then I am all for it.”

  Lenna shook her head. “No. You are right. Let’s go the long way around.” She replied and followed his directions to arrive at their desired location. The next trap was a localized gravity reversal that sent the pair towards the ceiling which was simultaneously covered in thorny vines and barbed wire that seemed to almost be alive.

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  Lenna cut through the barbed wire easily enough and Isaac turned the vines to ash but the pair were forced to walk on the ceiling until they reached the other side of the door. Once on the other side, the gravity abruptly returned to normal and they were forced to flip in mid air to land on their feet again. Luckily for Isaac, he was actually pretty good at acrobatics. Lenna had, of course, already been trained in such things so she too landed on her feet without any problems.

  The trap after the gravity trap was much more devious than the rest had been. Rather than something flashy, a soft purple fog started to form in the air around them. “Sleeping gas!” Lenna exclaimed and sprinted forwards. Isaac held his breath and chased after her as a green cloud of poison started to form in the same place. The trap had planned to put them to sleep and kill them with poison.

  “I’ve heard of people liking their solitude but this is a bit much.” Isaac criticized. “Like, how much did all of this cost? Why are they only active when the doors are messed with? Is someone actually crazy enough to spend all of this gold for a delaying action?”

  “I am afraid so.” Lenna agreed. The pair then reached the final door that led into the indoor garden. “What kind of trap do you think this will be?” She wondered.

  Isaac hummed in thought for a moment. “Poison Bubble or an entire thunderstorm.” He replied.

  “Why those two in particular?” Lenna wondered.

  “A thunderstorm next to a garden just feels right for some reason, especially because poisons and vines have already been used, and Poison Bubble is always a possibility.” He told her.

  “Should we have Shamesh for this, just in case?” She wondered.

  “I’ll get ready to summon him but I want to wait. If it is something like chain-casted Disintegrates and Invisibility dispelling runes then Shamesh will just get caught in them.” He replied.

  Lenna nodded. “I’ll get the door again.” She told him. “If it is a storm, just let me weather it, I can take it.”

  Isaac eyed her with a raised eyebrow. “Why don’t I get the door then? I can just teleport out.” He asked her.

  “Because of that door with the curse, if it had been you, you might be brain-dead, or worse. Who knows what kinds of mental magic attacks were reflected by my crown. If even one of those got through your ring, it could have spelled disaster.” She countered.

  Isaac frowned and nodded. “I’ll be ready to summon Shamesh just in case.” He told her and followed a few steps behind her. Lenna walked up to the door and lowered herself slightly to be ready to lunge in any direction depending on whatever trap was going to activate. The reason why they couldn’t just remove the magical wards like Isaac had in the past was because they had no idea where they were.

  Magical trap setting often followed one of two mentalities: The first was to leave the wards out in the open to act as a deterrent on their own. That was usually a good way to get the most out of magical wards for the long term. If people knew that proceeding would end horribly for them, they would oftentimes just turn back. This meant that one set of magical traps could fend off multiple groups sometimes multiple times each. The other mentality was the exact opposite: If people didn’t know that there were traps there in the first place, then that meant that hyper lethal traps had a higher chance of doing their jobs of removing incoming threats permanently. Usually, Isaac and Lenna were met with the first style of magical protection so this time was a bit out of their comfort zones.

  Lenna grabbed the door handle and pressed it down while she yanked it open. A dozen jets of water formed from all along the doorway and along the ceiling above them. Hundreds of gallons of water practically materialized in mid air bearing down on the pair. Isaac vanished and reappeared a dozen feet backwards while he summoned Shamesh. Lenna was about to dive forwards when a wall of reality magic formed in front of her to completely block the intruders from entering the garden. Her aura blazed as she prepared to deal with whatever was coming but deep in her heart she knew that it wouldn’t be enough. All along the walls brilliant blue spell sigils formed facing inwards. A chill almost seemed to resonate in the mana in the hallway before a dozen geysers of subzero fog were blasted towards the middle of the hallway.

  ‘Shit.’ Lenna swore internally as her mind raced to find a way out of what was about to be the most chilling situation of her life.

  ‘Shamesh!’ Isaac mentally yelled at his retainer as the skeletal being was being yanked out of his shadow. ‘They are going to freeze her solid!’

  Lenna only had one idea for a way to get herself out of her current situation. She knew that her Armor of Ire would give her some level of protection against the cold but she also knew that the spell chant was far too long to be able to cast it before it was too late. She did have one spell that was guaranteed to work but she knew that Isaac hated it when she used it. This time, however, she was sure that he would agree that it was time to use it. Lenna didn’t even have time to take a deep breath before she began her chant. With only half a lungful of air, Lenna chanted out a spell as fast as she physically could: “I seek atonement for my sins, I embrace perdition!”

  Flames erupted from Lenna’s skin and armor alike in all directions as nearly two dozen spell levels worth of ice magic slammed into her. Her armor started to ice over through the constant torrent of fire as if it wasn’t even there. The fire itself was cold. Ice started to form in ripples and whisps because it tried to freeze around the fire as it was blasting off of her. Her skin wasn’t even hot from her spell but was instead quickly becoming ice cold as well. The massive amount of ice magic had been set up to use the water magic as a multiplier that would be completely impossible to survive, alone anyway. Right when Lenna felt herself getting frostbite, she felt the incoming ice dramatically drop in power. She wished that she could have opened her eyes to see what was happening but her closed eyelids were the only reason her eyes weren’t freezing over.

  Shamesh had launched into action as quickly as he could. A pair of Gates of Flames opened up on either side of her in an attempt to shield her from the ice. Shamesh had just gotten the paired spells off when he realized that it was not nearly enough. ‘I’m going to seal her off.’ He told his master and cast a Reality Bubble around his mistress.

  Lenna felt the ice stop coming but waited another few seconds before she cut off her spell. By the time she had, she was no longer ice cold. She dropped to a knee panting as she blinked open her eyes a few times to clear the water from them. “Lady Lua, I thought I was going to die.” Lenna prayed. She looked around and noticed the Reality Bubble that was around her but she couldn’t see out of it at all. There was nothing but ice in every direction.

  Isaac and Shamesh could do nothing but stare at a Gate of Flames that Shamesh had summoned in front of them to protect them from the spillover of the instant blizzard. He had cancelled his previous two once Lenna was safe inside of his Reality Bubble to save mana. ‘How is the mistress?’ He asked Isaac.

  ‘She feels fine.’ Isaac replied just as silently as Shamesh’s question had been. ‘I can sense her clearly and she feels more or less unharmed. This was an incredibly close call though. I am glad that I had you with me. You might’ve been frozen solid before you could cast a spell otherwise.’

  Shamesh hesitated for a moment before he nodded. ‘I see.’ He said with contemplation radiating through their bond. ‘I am glad that I was with you too.’

  Amaranth Serentia V'Nova Wexler