Chapter 43: A Shadow of Doubt

"Come on!" James yelled, as his dark wizards lagged behind, moaning and groaning. "Hurry up, or I'll set the ground under your feet on fire!" They sighed, and ran up to him. He stopped suddenly, hearing a rustling behind him.

He was by the gift of peace, waiting to ambush the troop of gullible do-gooders. The Black Fly had rushed ahead to meet Master Samuel on the third floor. He'd asked James to get the first piece while he went to the bottom to control all the creatures in the stronghold.

Just as James started to relax, he heard a battle-cry. A team of four 'good guys' came. The four of them went into a battle stance, and rushed forward to meet the dark wizards.

I gasped as I jumped up from my slumber. Our team had decided to have a short break from exploring. We were almost at the gift of peace-the reward of the first floor. We'd already fought countless possessed monsters-even though the attack team were supposed to clear the way. Maybe more monsters had come. Before our little nap, we'd fought a hoard of angry goblins led by a furious Minotaur. I looked at my list again.

Exploration:

Mainiac97

Osrie1

Amy11

Haldir6

Attack:

Haru Axe-man

Mark

Slinky

Aubury

Support:

Clayguy7

Capablanca

Creator

Sinlimitless1234

I was so glad Haldir6 was on our side-he'd saved my life so many times in this dungeon I'd lost count. Just as I yawned, stretched, and sat up, the others slowly started waking up. When all of us were awake, Haldir6 waved for attention. "OK, we should make a move on, before we attract the attention of some unwanted goblins!" he yelled. We followed him down a long corridor. At the end, a red-eyed steel-wrought gate of war stood there.

"You know, I'm not opening," he announced. Haldir6 grinned, and smashed his fist into it. The gate groaned, and collapsed into dust. At that moment, I heard a rumbling. Large stones began to fall from the ceiling.

"Oh crap," Haldir6 murmured. "The corridor's caving in! Everybody out!" We were about to run, but Osrie1 had stopped. His face was slowly turning red.

"What's the matter? Hurry up; we're going to get crushed!" I said impatiently.

"OUCH!" he screamed, and I noticed why. A white wolf stood behind him, its teeth sunk deep into his buttocks. I yelled, and tried to kill it with Silverlight. It roared, and lunged at me, its blood-stained fangs inches from my face. The rumbling went more aggressive, and a large lump of rock fell.

"Hurry up!" Haldir6 snarled, but he noticed me fighting with the wolf. He went up to it, and stabbed it with his poisoned dagger right in its ribcage. It howled, and its red eyes slowly transformed back into a normal yellow. It transformed into bones and wolf fur.

"I'm getting worried," Haldir6 thought out loud. "When one wolf comes with a taste for blood, that means a pack is approaching. There are quite a few packs of wolves in this area of the stronghold-we'd better hurry or we might be their next snack." Just as we left the corridor, the rumbling rose to a crescendo and the whole corridor caved in. As rocks and dust flew everywhere, I wondered what would have happened if we'd spent a second longer there.

I was more worried then I'd ever been before. It was pitch-black in here-the darkness seemed to press into my eyeballs. Osrie1 was using a hand of guidance spell-something Aubury taught him-to put some light into the place. I had to squint to see the dull grey walls that surrounded us. Bloodstains were on the floor in the cave area we were in. I wondered if the attack team were alright.

"I'm worried for our lives," I whispered to Amy11 as I caught up with her. "I wish we could turn back and leave Master Samuel to his devices. I don't want to run into the black fly again-that sword of his is something that will haunt me forever." She squeezed my hand reassuringly.

"Try not to worry," she said. "Doubt is a luxury we can't afford at the moment." I smiled back at her. She was right-if we started getting doubtful in situations like this, we'd never stop Master Samuel.

"Let's take a lunch break-I have bread and wine to give to those who didn't bring food." We all brought plenty of food anyway-I had over 50 meat sandwiches and jugs of water in my bag anyway. I was ravenous-I hadn't eaten since before we left. I pulled out a sandwich and began to eat it.

When I was half-way through it, I heard growling coming from the collapsed corridor. Stone and gravel was sent flying everywhere. I knew a big fight was coming. I stared longingly at the remains of my sandwich, and abandoned it to fight.

Through the hole that had exploded through was rubble, at least a dozen possessed wolves, led by three dark wizards, came through the wall. The lead wizard sneered.

"It was easy to avoid the attack team," he growled. "I just had to backtrack, blast some smoke, send a pack or two of wolves at them, and I could slip past to find you lot. You're planning to infiltrate our plans-we must stop you." I grabbed my Easter hammer, and prepared myself for a rather fierce brawl.

The bad guys rushed forward, yelling spells at us (the wolves didn't-the just snarled). I narrowly avoided a fire wave as I ran forward. I smashed my massive hammer into the skull of a wolf. He yelped, his read eyes flickering, and he, along with four other wolves, pounced at me. I, using quick reflexes, grabbed my cape, and a solid giant Easter egg surrounded me. The wolves scratched at it, roaring. I heard a grunt, a smashing sound, a few yelps, and then silence. Reassured that the coast was clear, I came out. I was met with the sight of a dark wizard, grinning evilly, with five perfectly healthy and very angry wolves. I gulped-they'd tricked me into coming out!

I elbowed the offending wizard in the face, kicked a wolf or two out of my way, and ran off. I sunk my sword through the body of a wolf, and ran forward to challenge a dark wizard who was terrorising Amy11.

This continued for a while, before we were surrounded with dead corpses. I sighed, partly because of relief, partly because of tiredness, partly because of pain. A dark wizard, unfortunately, had caught me in a bind of pain, and I would have died if it weren't because of Osrie1, who burst the bind apart. This recent bout of training, along with fighting so many people before, had raised my combat level to 25.

"Come on then, we'd better make a move on to the gift of peace," Haldir6 said, unsure, and we trooped off, a shadow of doubt in our hearts.