Slayers in Viscusia: What Kind of Tunnel Is This? [Episode 197887]

The four heroes rushed through the woods in hot pursuit of their wizard quarry.  They couldn’t keep sight of him, but he had very little advance and his trail was easy to follow.

Lina was running ahead, being the most dedicated in catching this food ticket wanted criminal.  Gourry and Amelia were close behind, and Zelgadis was following at the same pace, although looking a bit bored.

When they heard a crashing sound, coming from close by in front of them, Lina frowned and redoubled her efforts.  In no time, they came into view of a small tumulus in the forest, with a rectangular opening on its side.  The dark hole in the ground was revealing a volley of steep steps from a limestone stairs disappearing in the darkness below the forest.  A big, square block of stone was upturned next to this entrance, crushing some small bushes.  Dust and flying leaves were only barely settling down when the pursuers stopped next to it, showing that this heavy door had been moved only a few seconds ago.

“What’s this doing here...?” Gourry asked, blinking.

“MacGuffin’s escape route, no doubts.  Come on, we mustn’t let him distance us!” Lina urged them.

“Lina, wait!” Zelgadis called, leaning next to the slab of stone.  He brushed the moss and twigs covering it, finding carved inscriptions, just as he expected.  “There’s something written on this... it looks like ancient runes... maybe we should try to decrypt them first before heading in there....”

“We don’t have the time!  We can’t know if this tunnel has another egress; if it’s the case, then that damn wizard could vanish on us....”

“But we have no idea of what this place could be.” Zelgadis countered.  “And it can’t be a mere coincidence if a wizard we’re pursuing happens to find a hidden stone door in the middle of the forest....”

“Of course, it’s not.” Lina retorted.  “He knew where he was going; he was looking for this secret passage, that’s for sure.  Which mean it can certainly allow him to escape if we don’t get in fast!”

“Alright, alright.” Zel conceded.  “But I still don’t like it.  Those runes on the stone look suspiciously like danger warnings to me.”

“We mustn’t be agfraid to confront danger in order to bring back a criminal to justice, M. Zelgadis.” Amelia stated.

“This has nothing to do with fear.  I’m a bit wary of venturing into the lion’s den with so little knowledge of what’s ahead, that’s all.”

“Don’t worry, Zelgadis, we’ll be careful.  It isn’t like we’re novice at this, anyway.” Lina spoke.  “LIGHTING!” she called, invoking a ball of light.  She then stepped inside the tunnel, walking down the stairs, and her companions soon followed.

“I wonder how he did move this heavy stone so fast....” Gourry pondered, scratching his head.

“With magic, of course.” Lina deduced.  “Good thing he was in a hurry, though, or else he might have covered his tracks better.”

For now, they had no trouble with the traces of their bounty, as footprints could easily be seen in the dust covering the steps and the floor, otherwise undisturbed for years.

The stairs weren’t very long, and reached a straight, long stonework tunnel below the forest.  The quarter wasn’t sprinting any more, since they couldn’t see very far and had no clue on what could wait for them in the darkness.

“I wonder what kind of place is this....” Amelia said, looking at the walls in curiosity.

“Hard to tell...” Zelgadis answered.  “Maybe a woodland temple... or the entrance of a tomb...”

“Or a place for brigands to hide their treasures...” Lina hypothesized in turn.

“None of which are reassuring....” Amelia noted.

Gourry felt like adding his two copper pieces, just to say something.  “Me, it makes me think of some secret passage leading out of a fortress....”

“Except there’s no castle around.” Lina dismissed.

Gourry just shrugged.  “Could be all it is left of an old, destroyed castle.”

Lina, not ready to concede this point, just shushed everybody.  “Enough small talk!  We must stay silent if we want to catch this damn wizard.”

They progressed silently for a while, the tunnel still going straight with no turn.

Amelia shivered, rubbing her unprotected arms.  Then, an icy wind made her tremble even more, and her teeth clattered.  “Is it me, or is it getting really cold in there?”

“No... you’re right....” Lina confirmed, a deep frown on her face.

“Ain’t it always colder underground?” Gourry tried.

“Not THIS colder.  That’s not natural.  Get ready.” Lina warned them, her hand instinctively going to her sword pommel.

The other did such, preparing to draw their weapons or to conjure magic if needed.

Squinting her eyes, Lina peered forward.  She could see something ahead, but wasn’t sure of what until she dimmed the light of her own spell.  Doing so, she got confirmation that there was some faint light further down the corridor... but it was quite unlike any lighting coming from torches or lanterns, or even most magical radiances.  It was of a weird, pinkish tone, and very pale.

The party walked much more carefully by now.  Gourry and Zelgadis had a hand on their swords, while Lina and Amelia where ready to launch a barrage of magic spells.

They finally exited the narrow corridor to enter a larger room — though it was still much longer than it was large.  In a way, one could say they reached a wider tunnel.  Scattered on the dusty floor, mostly piling up against the walls, were what looked heap of broken plate armors mixed with white bones.  Those bones could be mistaken for human ones at first glance, but a closer look revealed a few skulls as well, which were rather draconic in appearance, maybe coming from lizardmen or a similar species.

The adventurers frowned.  The debris littering the floor were making it harder to spot MacGuffin’s traces, but it was still clear he did walk through the middle of the room toward the strange light.  From where they stood, they still couldn’t tell exactly what it was, but it seemed to occupy most of the wall opposite to them, at the other end of the passageway, a good fifty meters from them.  Yet, they didn’t rush after their quarry.  The whole place was awash with bad vibrations.

“The cold is coming from here... I’m sure...” Amelia whispered, a small cloud of mist escaping her mouth.

Lina just nodded.

“There’s really something weird with those bones...” Zelgadis added.

“Yes,” Lina agreed, “they’re plain not dusty enough compared to the rest of the place.”

“Hu?”  Gourry blinked.  “What’s so special about that?”

“Quite simply,” Lina answered, her eyes darting back and forth, “this means they get to shake the dust from times to times....”

“And I bet it’s not some maid coming down here to tidy up the place....” Zelgadis joked.

Amelia began shivering even harder.  “We wouldn’t be so lucky....”

As if on cue, twin pinpoints of red light flared within the orbits of the nearest skull... and the stacks of bones and armors all began to rise with sinister gritting sounds.

Amelia screeched.  Lina rolled her eyes.  Zelgadis drew his sword.  Gourry bolted in surprise, this turn of event unexpected from him, as he wasn’t paying attention to what his companions had been eluding at.

Now fully reconstituted, the skeletons stood a good two meters tall, with large reptilian skulls atop hunched humanoids bodies.  Dirty plates from red and black armors covered their shoulders, torso and hips, and they brandished rusty but wicked-looking curved swords.  There were dozens of them filling the underground room.

“FIREBALL!” Lina yelled.  She wasn’t about to wait for the abominations to swarm them, even if she knew that this particular spell could be dangerous in such close quarters.  Yet, being an experienced sorceress, she aimed not at the closest monsters but deep within their ranks.  The fiery storm exploded in the midst of the dead warriors, incinerating many of them into small piles of dust.

“FLARE ARROW!” Zelgadis invoked next.  Flaming bolts shoot from his fingers and burst powerfully against the closest monsters, shattering their plastrons and burning their bones.  Those pinpoint attacks were dealing precisely with the near-by enemies spared by Lina’s spell.

“Light come forth!” Gourry called.  He hadn’t let the temporary shock dull his honed fighter reflexes.  A ray of pure white light coalesced from the handle of his sword after he discarded the blade.  Jumping into the fray, he immediately blocked the blows from the two closest skeletons, their weapons shattering against the raw magic energy.  Then Gourry cleanly slashed through one skeleton, then another, sending bones and broken pieces of armor to fly around.  The Sword of Light, as usual, proved a devastating tool against the creatures of darkness.

“I hate those things!” Amelia whined shrilly.  Yet, the priestess didn’t let fear or disgust paralyze her, and she joined the fight, her white magic efficiently striking down the necromantic monstrosities.  “ELMEKIA LANCE! — Don’t touch me! — DAM BRASS! — Get away, you foul horrors!!”

Any beginning or even moderately skilled adventurers would have been in mortal danger from so many powerful undeads in such close quarters.  Those guardians were clearly tasked to prevent anybody from reaching whatever they defended.  No doubt they could have easily rooted even a strong party of several fighters.  But Lina and her sidekicks were hardly average, or even ordinary.  Their devastating mastery of magic quickly destroyed the unliving opponents up to the last one.

“Okay...” Lina sighed, wiping her brow.  “I don’t think they’ll ever rise again...” she commented.  Looking around she counted at the very least fifty piles of scorched bones and various scrap metal.

“Who could have created all these horrors and placed them here!” Amelia pondered, still shivering from the chilling encounter.

“Maybe the guy we were chasing...” Gourry ventured, busy bolting back the blade on the extinguished handle of his sword.

“No, those looked like more ancient kind of undeads... not the mere puppets I’d expect from a necromancer of this era.” Lina pointed out.  “On the other hand, I would bet MacGuffin knew those bozos were here... he certainly lead us right to them.”

“You’re right.” Zelgadis nodded.  “I don’t see his body anywhere... and he had too little advance anyway... we surely would have stumbled on the wizard fighting the skeletons if they’d attacked him.  Which mean either he used a secret passage we didn’t see... or he had a free pass through this room.”

“Free pass?  You mean those corpses were good friends of him?” Gourry puzzled.

“No, you idiot,” Lina spat, “but he could have know a mystical password....”

“Or used a special ring with a magical seal... I’ve heard of those....” Amelia added.

“Yes, whatever.  That’s not important.” Lina cut short the discussion.  “What is certain, even if they couldn’t kill us, they did a good job delaying us.  Let’s go, I won’t let that slippery wizard escape again!”

The group hurried toward the other end of the room, which the undeads had prevented them to approach.  There, they finally could see the origin of the strange pinkish halo.  It was some sort of... curtain made of light, or more probably of pure magical energy.  It was occupying the whole tunnel, from floor to ceiling, forming a pink-glowing, shimmering barrier.

Lina and the others stopped.  Squinting their eyes, they noticed the thin sheet of light was slightly transparent; enough, at least to distinguish what was on the other side... a wall, about three meters away from it.

This was intriguing them greatly, and they examined the glowing curtain more closely.  It wasn’t giving of any heat, just light, and seemed pretty much immaterial.  It was giving of a weak buzzing sound, however, but so faint that they weren’t even sure if it was a trick of their ear or not.  None dared touching it yet, though, as it certainly wasn’t inspiring trust.

“What’s that thing...?” Gourry asked around, knowing he was out of his depth.

“No idea...” Lina confessed.  “That’s radiating strong magic, no doubt about it... but I can’t tell if it’s a barrier of some sort or something else....”

“It... ‘feels’ neither like black magic or white magic....” Amelia analyzed.  “I’ve never seen anything like that... very weird.”

Zelgadis picked up a broken piece of armor from the former guardians, and threw it toward the pink curtain.  It when through it without any noticeable resistance and hit the wall on the other side.  “If it’s a barrier, it doesn’t stop metal....” the chimera noted.

Then he noticed that they never heard the steel fragment hit the floor.  Glancing down, Zelgadis realized that the ground area just past the magic curtain was darker than it should.  “Hey!  Look at that, there’s a pit just behind that thing!”

“Oh?  Maybe that’s this thingie do...” Gourry mused, “... hiding the hole so that anybody who step past it fall?”

“Possible...” Lina mused, “... but unlikely.  There’s better ways to hide a trap with illusory magic.  And that just doesn’t feel like a common illusion....”

“Whatever the case....” Zelgadis added, kneeling close to the pink barrier, “... MacGuffin’s trail leads here.  His traces stop right at the edge of the curtain... or the edge of the chasm, for that matter.  Either he fell down or—”

“ —he went elsewhere.” Lina finished for Zel.

“What?  What do you mean, Miss Lina?” Amelia inquired.

“Just think about it: that guy we are chasing has a big bounty on his head, and would surely get the axe if he’s caught.  In his spot, I’d try to get away from the kingdom as fast as I can.  Now, if he were to hear about some place that would allow him to escape and travel far away....”

“Oh...” Zelgadis nodded in understanding, “so you believe this is...”

“... a dimensional door, indeed.” Lina confirmed.

“A what?” Gourry asked.

“Ah yes, I understand now!” Amelia beamed.  For Gourry, she explained: “A dimensional door is a magical portal that send anybody going through to another place.  Which could be just behind this wall, or toward some faraway land...”

“... or even another plane of existence.” Lina ended.

“Ah... okay...” Gourry mumbled, not too convincingly.  “But... didn’t the bit of armor Zel threw just bumped on the other side?  It was sent nowhere....”

“That’s true,” Lina admitted, “but I’ve heard that some dimensional doors only work when it’s an actual living being going through it.  Ordinary items are plain not affected.  That seems to be the case here.”

“So, Miss Lina, do you have an idea where this one could go?”

“This, unfortunately, we have no way to tell....” Lina said.

“Maybe if we decrypt the runes at the entrance, we could find a hint.” Zelgadis suggested.

“Or we can go back to town and search the local libraries if they have some reports or legends about this place....” Amelia helpfully proposed.

“Hey!” Lina protested.  “Now wait a second, we can’t do that!  Every moment we spend chatting is giving MacGuffin more of a lead on us!  If we tally any more doing futile researches, he’ll definitely have gotten away by the time we go through the portal!”

“But...” Zelgadis argued, “Lina, we have absolutely no idea where we’ll be sent if we jump onto this thing!  It could be some very dangerous place... maybe even one with no air or deadly in many other ways.  We could very well just end up in the middle of the Sea of Chaos, for all we know!”

“Come on,” Lina countered, “if MacGuffin had planned his escape, then you can bet he wouldn’t have left for some plane that would kill him outright.”

“Unless he knew about it beforehand, and used some protective magic just before going through....” Amelia theorized, which earned her a dirty glare from Lina.

“Even if you’re right,” Zel resumed his argument, “it could very well be another continent.  And what if there’s no immediate way back?  Then, though luck to get the recompense for MacGuffin, even if we catch him.”

Gourry rubbed his chin.  “Oh, yeah... hadn’t thought of that.”

“I can’t believe this!” Lina fumed.  “Are you just a bunch of whining wimps?  How can you call yourself heroes if a little jump to the unknown is scaring you shitless?  Amelia, didn’t you say it was our duty to bring back this scoundrel to justice?”

The young princess twiddled her fingers in embarrassment.  “Well, yes, but...”

“Come on, don’t tell me we came all the way down here and fought those undeads for nothing!  I’m not going to turn heels and leave without the treasure... er... the bounty... I mean, I’m not going to let a wanted criminal run away!”

Whirling around, Lina faced the shimmering curtain and took a posture usually more typical of the Saillune Princess, a finger pointed toward the ceiling.

“In the name of JUSTICE, we must overcome our fears and face this challenge!”