Mutants Misplaced
Chapter 3
Corridors and Traps
Walking down the newly discovered corridor, Mikey, being very excited about exploring a secret path, walked slightly ahead of the others.
"This is just like in 'Indiana Jones'! How awesome is that?" he chirped.
"I'll admit, it's rather cool, but if a huge boulder is dropped and rolls towards us, I'll scream." said Sephie.
"Come on, what are the odds of that?"
As he said that, a click could be heard from under his foot.
From a dozen holes in the walls a few meters in front of them, needle sized darts were shot by the dozen at them with high rate of fire and velocity.
Their ninja reflexes kicked in and the team threw themselves out of the line of fire.
"Everyone alright?" Leo asked when the barrage ended.
"Not really, no." said Tyroth. He hadn't been quick enough to get out of the way and took the brunt of the darts. He almost looked like a pincushion with all the darts covering his chest, arms and part of his face.
"Sometimes, this body is just too big and bulky." he said, immediately after that, his body started to heal and pushed out the darts. "But it does have its advantages."
"Sorry, big guy." said Mikey.
"You're lucky no one else was hit by that, Mikey. Those darts were poisoned, and with a rather strong poison at that." said Tyroth.
"If there's one trap, there might be more." said Mona "We'd better be more careful."
"Agreed, and I think that I'll take point." said Donnie.
Walking slowly through the pathway, Donnie carefully scanned the floor ahead of them, looking for tripwires and pressure plates. He needed to be thorough as they didn't know what kind of traps there might be, but the torch didn't give him the best of light and it wouldn't last forever.
After almost twenty minutes, they could see a wooden door at the edge of the light, so far they hadn't found or triggered any more traps, but as they slowly continued, Donnie stopped them.
"Hold up, we got another one here." he said and pointed at a spot a few feet in front of him. "See, another pressure plate." Picking up a small rock, he backed away from the trigger.
"What are you doing?" asked Mona.
"I'm gonna spring this trap and see what it does, just so we know what to expect if we accidentally trigger it."
"I'm not sure if that's such a good idea." said Leo.
"Why do you think I'm keeping my distance. The darts were aimed so that they would stop anyone that travels this way. Whatever trap we have here, shouldn't reach this far from the trigger, and if it does, we have more time to evade it. Trust me, but be ready for anything."
Donnie threw the rock at the pressure plate and a click could be heard. No sooner had the rock hit the plate, when nine long metal spears shot down from the roof, stopping a few inches above the plate, and retracted back into the roof almost instantly.
"That would hurt a lot." said Tyroth.
"Yeah, I'm glad I didn't step on that one." said Mikey with a gulp.
Avoiding the trigger, the mutants now stood in front of the wooden door. Opening it slowly, Tyroth peered inside it before entering.
"Check this out, guys." he called back as he lit what torches he found on the walls.
The room was barely large enough for all the seven mutants to fit inside without stepping on each other, it had a wooden table against one wall and against the opposite wall stood a wooden bed with an animal pelt as blanket. On the table, there were a pair of leather bound books, some rolls of paper, an inkwell and a quill.
In the far corners of the room, stood two strange tables. One was made of stone and had thick legs and a thick circular tabletop, on it were what looked like a medieval chemistry set, complete with a small burner, glass tubes and flasks containing different colored liquids.
The other table was made of black metal and had a pentagon shaped tabletop. On the two top ends of the table, were rows of candles with a horned skull in the middle of the rows, a green crystal ball twice the size of a fist rested on the skull.
Six etchings, colored light blue, sat on the surface of the table, one large and five smaller. The largest was that of a sword with flames behind it, forming an infinity symbol. The smaller symbols were aligned in a star like pattern around the sword, with the top one looking like a fenix, the second, clockwise, was three lines with a common center that were curled into three circles, the third was a ball of fire, the fourth looked almost like an open gate, the fifth and final was a tree with the right half covered with leaves while the left was only barren branches.
"What is this place? Some kind of lab?" asked Raph.
"Looks like it. That's some form of chemistry workbench," said Donnie, pointing at the the first table "but, I'm not sure about the other one."
"Who in their right mind would have their lab hidden behind a hall filled with the walking dead?" said Sephie.
"Works well in keeping unwanted guests away, I'll give them that." said Mona "But how do they get here without disturbing the undead? Do you think there's another hidden door here?"
"Guess there's only one way to find out. You know the drill by now, but be careful, we don't know what we'll find." said Leo.
Donnie, being the scientist he is, wasted no time in hitting the books, hoping to find clues on how to get out of the tomb, as well as being curious to what kind of experiments might have been done here.
But he was disappointed to find that the only writing in the books were seemingly random lines and symbols, sure he didn't expect to find English in the books, but this was nothing but doodles.
"This ain't very helpful." he said. "I can't make heads or tails of it."
"Looks like whoever works here was writing in shorthand." said Sephie when she looked over Donnie's shoulder. "I used to do that in school, but I stopped after I answered in it on a test."
"That still don't help us I'm afraid, shorthand is often highly individual. Too bad, it would have been interesting to know what went on here."
Searching one of the walls, Mona soon found herself next to the chemistry table. Looking at the bottles with colored liquids, she felt a feeling of disgust as it reminded her about Arden and his sick experiments and drugs. Taking a deep breath, she suppressed the urge to smash the bottles.
Noticing his mate's discomfort, Raph walked over to her and placed a comforting arm around her.
"Are you okay, babe?"
"I'm fine, hun, just... some unpleasant memories." she said, nodding to the bottles.
Seeing the bottles, Raph knew what Mona meant and pulled her even closer.
"Don't worry, love." he whispered in her ear "They won't hurt you again, and if they try we'll tear them apart, I promise."
"Thanks, sweetheart."
Tyroth couldn't help his curiosity about the metal table with the symbols. There was something about it that kept distracting him from his search. Deciding that the only way to be able to focus properly on the task at hand, was to give in to his curiosity and examine the damn thing.
Running his fingers across the surface, he could feel magic within the table, faint but still unmistakable. It seemed that magic was more plentiful in this world, compared to their own. But there was still something that felt off to the dragon, the magic in the table was different from that used by the undead warrior, and both of them were different from Tyroth's own magic.
As much as he wanted for him and his friends to find a way back home, he couldn't deny that it would be interesting to explore this world.
"Hey, I think I found something!" said Mikey as he felt around inside a crevice in the wall. Pressing what felt like a button, a part of the wall started to sink into the floor, revealing another cave with light coming in from a large opening.
"Ta-da!"
"Great work, Mikey!" said Leo.
The mutants walked through the rather short cave, still wary for any hidden traps. Once they reached the opening they could see that they were on a ledge a few meters above ground. They could also see the landscape beneath them, open fields with rocks and cliffs, forests and rivers and what seemed like a fortress or castle off in the distance.
But there was one thing that they didn't want to see. The sun had risen.
Well, they got past all the traps, but now they have to find a way to avoid being detected. They can't stay couped up in that tomb forever. And who knows what they might find in this land?
Stay tuned for more. This is only gonna get better, hopefully. :P