In the other realm, the man in the hat, the one known as Dave, the woman, and the man with the tattoos all celebrate the defeating of the warriors of the Black Daimyo, with the man known as Jones looking over some papers behind a small screen.
The man in the hat speaks to the one known as Dave, "That was incredible Dave! What did you call that class!?"
"Holy Vindicator, Jones let me start leveling in it after we left the Storm State." Answers Dave.
The woman speaks,"Why haven't you used it then?"
Dave lifts up the sheet that records Cruxis' abilities and says, "If I use it I have permanent bleed damage, so I saved it for when we needed it."
The conversations are silenced by the rattle and tumble of a few dice from the direction of the one called Jones. The four friends all widen their eyes as Jones writes down the result behind his screen. The man in the tattoos is the one to speak, "Jones... What are you rolling?"
Jones fiddles with something behind his screen and then looks to the man saying, "Who knows? Maybe a perception check will find out.
They all roll with varying degrees of reaction. The man in the hat is the first to speak with his head in his hands, "Negative one."
The woman goes next, "fourteen... Negative one! you need to level your perception."
The man in the hat looks up from his slump and smiles, "But it's way funnier this way."
The one called Dave and the man with the tattoos both state their rolls, but none beat the woman's roll. The one known as Jones proceeded to take out his phone and set a timer as the player's attention returned to the table. With that May looks about the room that had just been the site of their duel with their enemies. She saw that the ceiling slowly was beginning to drop a series of rocks and dust.
"Guys I think the ceiling is..."
"Hey guys, that Tinker guy left his cool staff!" Shouted Zilo over May's deduction. Maldrek began to look it over before saying, "Well it looks to be fire based, might make a good present for Sparky."
"Guys, we should really-"
Cruxis comes over to the staff and asks,"What does it do?"
Zilo shakes it a bit and says, "Well he waved it a bit then-"
"GUYS!" All four of them turned to May who pointed at a crack growing on the ceiling of the room. All but Zilo reacted with fear and shock.
"Was that always there?" Asks Zilo as Cruxis turns to a sweating Maldrek and the paladin asks, "Tell me you have another Teleport spell!"
Maldrek shakes his head and says, "I came for a fight, not for express shipping! RUN!" Maldrek, May, and Cruxis begin running out of the room, with a befuddled Zilo trailing behind beginning to put together the danger.
They bolted out of the war room and into the throne room where the rest of the columns from the previous fight had fallen, Making the ceiling begin to warp. Rubble from the columns looked to be blocking the way. May lightly hops up onto a column and reaches down to help up Cruxis since Zilo and Maldrek are resourceful enough to figure it out themselves. Zilo proves this by also flipping up over the column
Meanwhile Maldrek snaps up a Fly spell and shouts, "I'll scout ahead and keep you up to date on what's ahead." Maldrek begins to gracefully swoop about in the caverns past the throne room as he began to hear some echoing music coming up behind him.
He tilted his head to see Zilo, May, and Cruxis running at double their normal speed from a Haste spell as Zilo's violin ghost performed a song to Inspire Competence so that they might more easily avoid obstacles as the ceiling fell above them.
The group high tailed it through the dungeon room that had held May, Cruxis, and Maldrek onto a room that Zilo had not yet seen. It seemed to be a hallway with two ways to go, and Maldrek stopped looking down both ways. Zilo looked behind them to see the dungeon room cave in on itself and shouted,
"Come on now which way did you all go!"
May shouted back, "We were captured and blindfolded! Who the hell would know!"
Cruxis just immediately decides to run down the left passage way, and the rest of them in panic decide to follow. They come to a perfectly square long hallway with a lever at the entryway Maldrek stops and floats in front of the lever and says, "This probably-"
He is interrupted as Zilo grabs his robe and pulls him into the long hallway. The moment that they step into the hall arrows begin to fire from all angles of the walls, and May shouts. "These things knocked us out! Don't get hit!"
May and Zilo begin to cartwheel and spin through the hallway, avoiding the poison on the arrows. Cruxis lifts his shield and uses it to cover his face as he just keeps running. Luckily the arrows all manage to harmlessly bounce off his protection.
Maldrek actually was the safest since his flight prevented him from touching the pressure plates in the hall. Zilo and May's Dexterity made it simple to dodge any arrows that came their way. The crew continued to run as fast as possible.
The group began to make some headway against the collapsing tunnels behind them. They came to a new room and Zilo could see all his friends past Maldrek starting the next room off with a jump off. Zilo mimicked the jump, but as he looked down he could see a room full of a bubbling green liquid.
To the left and right of the room were slanted platforms to hop scotch between, but Zilo had leapt into the exact center while May and Cruxis took off jumping between them. Zilo thought fast and acted faster thanks to the Haste. He cut his buckler off by the straps, wounding himself a little and threw his buckler down with a spin.
As the buckler hit the surface of the acid Zilo stomped onto it making an indent in the acid's surface and made a feeble hop to reach one of the platforms. He stabbed his sword into the surface giving himself just enough purchase to stand away from the liquid.
He then pulled out his blade and easily jumped over to the tunnel his friends had went through. As they began to flee into the next room as May decided this time to slows down a bit to run parallel with Zilo and shouts,
"Zilo jump in 3, 2, 1, NOW!" As the two of them leap and Zilo looks to see a pit of spikes downward as the hallway opens and he suddenly slams into a sheer slick slope. May during the leap had taken out some daggers and began to climb her way up the slope. Zilo didn't quite have the heads up to begin to climb so he began to wobble backward as Maldrek flew past him with Cruxis hanging below the flying wizard.
Zilo acted fast and snapped out his whip to crack it out and snatch it onto Maldrek's leg. The wizard lost a lot of his momentum and the whip jolted, making Zilo lose his grip and making him need to snatch the whip again before firmly grasping it.
Maldrek now getting use to the weight strained his way up the slope holding Cruxis and being tied off by Zilo. As Maldrek reached the top he let down the paladin and Cruxis grabbed the whip and yanked Zilo up the rest of the slope in one pull.
The friends stood in the familiar spike trap room that separated them when they entered the dungeon. the pressure plate was given a wide berth and looked up at the way out... which was blocked by a giant boulder.
May shouted, "Cruxis, You're the muscle move it!"
"You are crazy, I can't push a boulder off a hole from inside the hole!"
Zilo looks up at it still catching his breath and says, "Maybe magic!?"
Maldrek whips out his spellbook and says, "I got it!"
The tunnels behind them slowly begin to make their way over to the heroes until it looks like their room is next when Maldrek snaps up his hand and shouts to Summon Monster and then out of a gate of pure magic forms a large sized Earth Elemental.
Maldrek points up to the boulder frantically and orders,
"Dig us out! and make something to climb!"
The giant rock being spirals upward and crashes into the boulder making a perfect hole in it, as well as deforming the sides enough for hands and feet to get a grip on and let the group climb out.
The heroes frantically climb up and into the room they first entered before darting around the entryway and diving headlong into the waterway. Finally they surface outside as the new morning sun greets them for escaping the lair of the Black Daimyo.
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