I heard a hiss as the pressure relaxed. Instinctively, I rolled the moment that I was free. I was still moving when the leg came down again, smashing against my side and shattering the feeble remains of my barrier.
My phoenix sigil kicked in, the stronger barrier managing to prevent the leg from crushing me until the creature hissed and withdrew its leg.
I looked up, finding the source of the brief respite. Jin was kneeling on top of the creature’s head, repeatedly driving his dagger into the creature’s skull.
I had zero idea how he’d managed to get up there, but he seemed to be doing some damage, until it reared up and threw him right off.
I crawled to Selys-Lyann, my back flaring with agony with every motion. With the sword in my grasp, I tried to stand, but my legs failed to respond. They were feeling rather numb, too. Even if the creature hadn’t snapped my spine like I’d originally feared, it might have done some damage.
Arms seemed to be working, though. So I threw the sword.
Normally, throwing a sword is a terrible idea. Swords aren’t balanced for throwing at the best of times, and doing it without the benefit of working legs was even more difficult.
Fortunately, I didn’t need to hurl the weapon perfectly. I just had to get it airborne.
I was an excellent shot with my gauntlet.
A blast of motion hit the sword directly in the pommel and carried Selys-Lyann into the spider’s neck. It sank in down to the hilt.
I’d been aiming for the head, but hey, close enough.
Ice began to spread rapidly from the wound. The spider toppled forward, rolling on the ground with a crack, seemingly trying to dislodge the weapon without success.
Within another few seconds, the creature’s entire head was ice, and it fell still.
I was jubilant, but I still couldn’t stand.
Sera rushed over to me, one hand still clutching at her throat. She offered me a hand. I accepted it and tried to get up.
That was a mistake.
I’d never felt pain quite like what I felt in that moment. It spread from the middle of my back where the spider had hit all the way up and down my spine and into my legs.
I may have screamed.
My vision went red.
When I could see again, I felt Sera wordlessly slip a ring onto my hand.
I sent a surge of mana into it, felt the warmth spread across my back and legs in an instant.
It still wasn’t enough. I laid there for several seconds, tears forming in my eyes, before Jin managed to pick me up and throw me over his shoulder.
“We need to go.” To emphasize that, he began moving at a jog. Every impact he made against the ground sent another surge of agony through my back, only to be countered by a wash of warmth from the ring.
I didn’t know how long it would take the ring to do its work, but for the moment, I was more helpless than I’d ever been.
Glancing from side-to-side, I saw Sera and Vera moving along with us, and that Derek had busted nearly a dozen holes in the door. The pieces of damaged door were getting stuck on the webbing, so he was being forced to pull the stone pieces out before advancing. that was probably the only reason he hadn’t caught up to us already.
We passed by a newly-formed stairway, one that had soundlessly grown in the center of the room into a hole in the ceiling.
If the stairs had gone down, we might have nearly been safe, but nothing was ever quite that easy.
Jin carried me to the doorway of the next room. I couldn’t see it well from my angle, but I could tell it was open now.
“Vera, go back and get Corin’s sword. We’re probably going to need it.” Jin instructed her. I’d never heard him sound that commanding before.
“Got it,” she replied simply, running back toward the spider.
“What am I missing?” I asked. “What’s in the next room? I can’t see it.”
“You’re not going to like it.” Jin replied.
I winced as he shifted his stance. “Just tell me, we’re not exactly in great shape either way.”
“Statues shooting jets of fire.”
Oh, goddess resh it all.
I thought back to how both Jin and I had been ‘incinerated’ in the test involving fire-breathing statues and closed my eyes.
Last time I’d used Selys-Lyann to try to shield myself with ice, I’d nearly killed myself that way.
“There’s a door on the other side,” Jin continued, “But there’s also a central floor tile. I think it might be another stairway, if we can get there and trigger it somehow.”
I couldn’t think of a way I could get us there safely.
We all had barriers or a shroud, but if the flames were as intense as the ones in the test, our protection wouldn’t last very long. And Jin couldn’t possibly be mobile enough to dodge flames effectively while carrying me.
The demi-gauntlet? Useless here.
The Jaden Box? No one useful to summon and we had an anti-teleportation rune on the room anyway. Maybe the box would have overpowered the rune, but I didn’t have any good summoning options available either way.
Selys-Lyann couldn’t make walls of ice like Sera could. The aura was designed to cut and spread, not form barriers.
If she wasn’t so exhausted, if she was a bit more powerful, Sera could have made this trivial—
And maybe, just maybe, I could make her strong enough.
I tilted my head toward Sera, wincing at the renewed pain. “Sera, just how confident are you that we’re actually siblings?”
She raised an eyebrow at me, her lips twisting toward a frown.
“Asking for a good reason. I have a waterskin containing a liquid from the tower that I think is probably an enhancement elixir of some kind.” I closed my eyes. “Okay, not the time for secrecy. It’s how I got my attunement. I drank this water, I saw the goddess, and my attunement appeared. Then I saved some of the water and put a preservation enchantment on the waterskin.”
She lifted a hand to her mouth, and I heard the sickly scrape of ragged laughter before she broke into another fit of coughing.