Scanning the room with his magical sight, Tobian glimpsed a glow under one of the more enormous snake corpses. As he approached, he saw that someone had killed the snake, severing its head. The body was lying on top of something and poking out from under it was an axe.

  Pulling some rope from a bag, Tobian looped one end and threw it at the large corpse. The loop missed, so he pulled it back and tossed it again. Success, as it looped around several parts of the body. With some wiggling and pulling, he pulled it a little down the creature’s back and tightened it. Allowing as much slack as possible, he soon stood thirty feet from the corpse and pulled.

  The creature was heavy, but he wasn’t trying to drag the whole thing or pull it off whatever was under it. He leaned his entire body into pulling the rope, but it didn’t budge the corpse. He backed up, took a quick run, and leapt…

  Tobian landed face up on the floor. When the rope went taut, it pulled his shoulders backward while the rest of his body continued moving. The large backpack cushioned some of the fall, but its rigid frame slammed into his shoulder blades. With a small grunt of pain, he took a moment to compose himself before standing up.

  The corpse had moved, no longer covering the glowing magical item beneath it.

  It was another corpse, this a human male. Probably a few years older than Tobian. The snake’s death throes flattened his face and body, misshaping them. Grasped in the dead man’s hand was a sword. Its magical aura was what Tobian had been detecting.

  Looking at the misshapen face, he didn’t recognize the unfortunate person. The chain shirt on the corpse was non-magical and had a style distinct from the scale leggings. The dead man’s face seemed at peace.

  He suspected this guy wasn’t a jailor, since the sealing of the prisons had resulted in the death or relocation of most of them. Sirah’s earlier comment about the door being opened and possibly another group here already kept running through his mind. Working quickly, Tobian gathered the items the corpse had on it and stored them in a separate bag. In a pack were four bricks of dried rations. Why would a jailer need to carry extra food? He stored the man’s money pouch, uncounted with the other items.

  Once Tobian finished the gruesome task, he looked around the room again. He spotted nothing magical, but slowly walked up and down to get different views. The skins of the mangled Serpeloth corpses were worth little to nothing.

  Mulling over what he found, he meandered through the doorway to the next room. Eryx, who held a hand up to stop Tobian before he darted into the next room, immediately joined him. A nearby explosion echoed and shook the dust in the air.

  “We should go back, give them space to finish,” a large flying body interrupted Eryx through the doorway. The body skidded on the stone and landed ten feet from Tobian and the demon.

  Darius coughed a little; specs of blood sprayed out as he sat up. Going to a knee, he looked around as if he’d misplaced something.

  “Weapon,” Darius said as he patted his belt looking for anything.

  Tobian held out a sword to him, but the look of disgust from the fighter gave him an answer. “I don’t have any non-sword weapons, but I can get ya a large rock or piece of wood.”

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  “Both,” Darius stepped close to Tobian.

  Tobian summoned one of the largest stones he had in the bag. A small boulder the size of his head popped out and fell to the floor. He reached a hand in his backpack and called forth a door. The door appeared next to him, briefly standing upright before falling to the side.

  Darius moved and grabbed it before it toppled over. A brief look of amazement appeared on his face before he secured his grip on the side of the door and bent over to pick up the boulder with his other hand. With the narrow door in one hand, and a large stone in the other, Darius launched himself into the other room.

  “Is that a door?” Tristan’s voice called out from the battle followed by a loud wooden thump.

  “When one door closes,” Eryx said between a succession of thumps. The battle through the doorway held the flying imp’s attention.

  Tobian inched closer to see what they were fighting. When he was a dozen feet from the demon, Eryx turned and looked at him. “Shoo, stand back in case Darius gets thrown this way again.” Eryx turned and looked back at the door muttering, “would just be my luck, have his teammate squash my charge.”

  A loud explosion in the other room shook the while structure. The explosion knocked more dust loose from the ceiling and walls, clouding the air. Tobian held in the urge to cough and looked around the room to distract from the nearby battle.

  Another thump pulled Tobian’s attention back to the entrance. He looked to see if someone had thrown Darius, but saw neither the fighter nor anything else that could have caused the noise.

  “Eryx, what was that?” Tobian said as he looked around. The demon was nowhere to be seen. He switched his vision back to the magical spectrum and saw nothing. A feeling of unease rose within Tobian and he pulled out his sword.

  The dust shifted above and in front of him, as if something was on the ceiling. He stepped back and lifted his sword in front of him.

  Something hit his sword hard, knocking it to the side, and almost out of his hand. Swinging the sword around, he swung it down in front of him. The blade glanced off something invisible. Tobian quickly shifted his gaze into the magical spectrum. There he couldn’t see what was attacking him. He spun around then jumped to the side in paranoia. There was nothing nearby him, at least nothing that was actively using magic near him.

  Blinding, swinging his sword in an arc, he did little but disturb more of the dust. Where did that damn demon go; he thought as he moved towards a door.

  “Eryx, this better not be a joke,” Tobian called out when he saw something shimmer near the doorway. Like heat rising from a stone, whatever it was distorted, the magical aura radiating from the floor and walls.

  Focusing on the shimmering, Tobian thought he saw a long shape coiled near the exit. Monitoring the shimmer, Tobian slowly moved toward it. He occasionally spun around and swung at the air as if he was still trying to locate the invisible creature. When he was ten feet away, he spun around, exposing his back to it, while simultaneously summoning an oil lantern from a bag toward the invisible creature.

  The sound of glass breaking and metal being bent pulled him back around. A massive Serpeloth had been stopped mid-strike with an oil lantern stuck in its mouth. The creature was trying to dislodge the item from its teeth, while also trying to shake the bits of glass out.

  Tobian swung his sword down on the creature’s face. The snake-like beast swung its head out of the way. Something thumped against Tobian’s side, knocking him to the ground, and his sword out of his hand.

  Looking up at the creature, Tobian saw its stomach look bulbous. He quickly got to his feet, keeping his sword between him and the demon snake.

  “Ha, did Darius feed you a boulder, would you like seconds?” Tobian said, stepping closer to the creature and summoning a large stone. The rock appeared, flew a few inches, then slammed against the stone floor as the creature easily moved out of the way.

  Moving away from Tobian, the Serpeloth thrust the tip of its tail into its mouth behind the oil lantern. Out of the creature’s mouth flew the lantern, striking a far wall. Tobian used the moment of respite to summon one of the loaded crossbows. It appeared in his hand. He quickly fired it at the snake. The bolt missed the creature, and Tobian tossed the crossbow to the side. He summoned a second loaded crossbow as he stepped away from the creature.

  Thump! Something slammed against the creature’s side, hitting its bulbous part. Tobian didn’t see what it was, just heard the thump and saw the snake jolt as if something hit it. The Serpeloth slammed its tail against its belly near the large bulge. With it distracted, Tobian fired his crossbow again. The bolt flew true, hitting the creature inside the mouth and exiting through its cheek.

  With a hissing scream, the snake reared its head up briefly before looking down at Tobian. Black ichor dropped from the wound on the mouth to the floor. The snake coiled and waved side to side as it glared at the packwick.

  As quick as lightning, the demon snake struck out. Its jaw was wide open as it flew toward its target. Tobian leapt to the left and swung his sword down. Both the blade and the snake missed. Slamming its head into the floor, it wobbled, lifting back up before swinging its head to the side, gnashing its teeth.

  Tobian threw himself backward, but some teeth caught him, scratching by his hip, catching on his belt. The Serpeloth threw its head upward, pulling the packwick with it. As the roof approached, Tobian saw one of his bags was inside the creature’s mouth. Quickly, he called forth all the stones and rocks contained within it.

  Slamming against the ceiling is the last thing Tobian remembered before everything went dark.