Escape from the Cell

Belinda reached her arms out to Carola and cradled her, keeping her from hitting the floor. "Don't worry," she said. "We'll find some way to get out of this hellhole, especially with Matthias and Jarlath to help us. Somehow, we always manage to." She turned toward Jarlath, struggling to keep her thoughts together. "So how is this thing put together? I mean, you know..." She felt bitter anger as she lost her train of thought.

"That's a good question," said Jarlath, sounding more confident now that he was in something resembling his element. "Whenever you're dealing with magical structures like this, you always have to think carefully about how they're composed and arranged, and look for weaknesses. Often, the sorts of wizards who build huge, complex, overwhelming structures like this one get overconfident and ignore small weaknesses that could be potentially devastating. We call that exhaust port syndrome--after, I'm sure you two have heard of this, how Helena of Aqualaria destroyed Horkus the Wicked's fortress by plugging the small unsheilded hole he used to expel the waste products of his magical reactions. In other words, the small problems that wizards ignore when building these huge secret fortresses can come back and bite them in the arse--semi-literally, in that case." Belinda laughed at that, and even Carola giggled slightly.

"So anyway," he said. "It's rather complicated. You see, due to my atypically strong intuition, I have a pretty good intuitive sense of how these things work sometimes, and, well, when I faced Vaeren, I got the sense that that wasn't his real body. I think Vaeren may have evolved into a noncorporeal being." Matthias gave him a confused look. "He doesn't have a body--the body he was in when we faced him was another one of his animates. In fact, the whole structure kind of is. This fortress is as much his body as the form we faced is. He's defining its form and everything in it with his mind. I suspect that Carola might have opened the cell if that wasn't the case, but see, he could just restore it if it was broken--he probably has trained himself to do that sort of thing subconsciously. He probably wants you ladies to be better templates for his warrior animates--I don't think he's the kind of person who's interested in pleasures of the flesh, thankfully, as I suspect he doesn't have any.

"Anyway, he's at least subconsciously aware of everything that goes on here, but I don't think he has as complete control as he might. Although his will is probably very strong, he probably only recently succeeded into becoming a noncorporeal entity--which is why he needs a central animate for his body and why he needs to verbally order the other animates. On the other hand, he might be able to transfer his mind into another animate if his main form were destroyed, but if we found some way to sufficiently isolate it from the others, that would be made more difficult. He is probably also drawing on some external power source, possibly stored in another dimension, so there would have to be some kind of conduit to that power source. Destroying it might kill him and destroy his fortress. On the other hand, it would probably be heavily guarded. And then, created structures like this, if he had only just figured out how to create it, might still have some form of instability, it might be easily disrupted by a certain substance--this is just a theory but--Carola, did you notice that the meat we were given has barely any salt?"

"Yes, I did." She seemed to have regained her composure now.

"That makes my head hurt," said Matthias. "I don't think I could have understood that even if I were human again."

"So what are we supposed to do, dump a bloody giant salt shaker on this thing?" said Belinda, very irritated. "Those are all nice theories, but how are they going to get us out of here?"

Carola groaned. "What's wrong?" Belinda asked.

"I feel so sick to my stomach," she said, "even worse than when I got that premonition..." She clutched her stomach, and then a realization came to her. "It's the pyramid, right? This thing is useless. It doesn't even work, it just makes me sick to my stomach. I can't even remember what my premonition earlier was, except very vaguely--it feels like a bad dream..."

"Wait a minute--that's it!" Jarlath's face lit up. "I did see the bars move slightly. Probably, not even the strongest man in existance could have moved that. Vaeren's mind was pushing against you--but the pyramid's power was pushing back! Maybe if you concentrate more..." He took Carola's hand. "Do you think you could try to open the bars again?" She nodded and pulled herself up. "Alright." She gripped the bars again, and Jarlath gripped her shoulders.

"Concentrate on the pyramid," he said. "Feel its power radiating through you..." She could see the pyramid inside her now, just as it had been in the chamber of the Guardians. She felt a strange, pure light coursing through her. She nodded.

"Alright," said Jarlath, his voice sounding very distant now. "Now focus that power into your arms..." She did so, and her arms now felt not worn out but bursting with strenght and energy.

"Now pull!"

Carola felt the mighty bars crumple like paper. The whole door crumbled to dust. Heavy and dizzy with power, she crumpled and fell on Jarlath, almost knocking him over. He recovered himself, holding her in his arms.

"We did it!" he shouted, embracing Carola enthusiastically. "You got us free!" His shouts of rejoicing were drowned out by a wrenching ethereal wail. "What was that?" said Matthias, who along with Belinda was rushing around like a decapitated wyvern.

"I'll be that's his alarm, or maybe his unconscious trying to get the attention of his conscious mind," said Jarlath. He realized that, with Carola unconcsious for now and Matthias and Belinda disoriented by the rabbit warrior spell, he was more or less the leader. He rather liked this idea, although he wasn't sure now was the best time. At least he got to hold Carola in his arms, although he couldn't continue to do so for long, as she was taller than he was. "Could you take care of her?" he asked Belinda. Belinda carefully took her, although she was a bit wobbly, as her hand-eye coordination was beginning to go. "OK, so now what?" said Belinda. "Should we go for those conduit things or attack him directly? And how are we going to figure out where to go, anyway?"

"Probably my intuition could help--after all, I am a seventh son of a seventh son [9100]. Assuming all the weird, twisty magic doesn't disorient me too much. Anyway, I think we should

1. Attack the conduits."
2. Try attacking him directly. He's pretty powerful, but I have an idea."
3. Actually, I have no idea. Let's try to get out of here and come up with a better plan."

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