NOVEL NEXT Chapter 22: Please Let It Be Detachable
This would be a lot easier if I had hands rather than paws, Dominic grumbled to himself as he struggled to work out a way to lift the candle from its stone holder. If he had hands, the main challenge would be in merely avoiding the six stone statues while he ran around lighting each of the torches. As it was, he was failing at the first hurdle.
An arrow came at him and he dodged it but this time wasn’t fast enough to avoid the follow-up. It thunked right into his shoulder and he yowled in pain, even as a chunk was shaved off his health bar. Great, he said to himself, sarcasm being his best way of dealing with the pain. How am I supposed to do this with a dirty great arrow hanging out of me?
Well, there wasn’t anything he could do but push on. The candle was shorter than it had been to begin with: if the other challenges weren’t enough, it was clear that this state of affairs had a timer on it. If Dominic was reading the rhyme correctly, if he didn’t find a way of lighting the torches before the candle went out, he was fucked.
Feeling a mounting sense of panic, he tried to grab the candle with his teeth, but he risked burning off his whiskers. He attempted to grab it with one paw, but his foot just didn’t bend right and all he succeeded in doing was pushing it at an angle.
He did manage to get a grip on it with two paws working simultaneously, pressing on either side of it. Unfortunately, that wasn’t going to work: there was no way of him moving in that case – his body just wasn’t able to be bipedal in the way he was used to.
Then he blinked as the stone arrow sticking out of him suddenly vanished. A moment after, he was forced to jump to the side and then again as two more stone arrows shot at him. They only have one arrow each?
Made sense. He hadn’t seen any hint of a quiver after all. That the arrow also had some recall feature made sense too – he hadn’t seen the two archers come and grab it. Come and grab it… Inspiration hit.
If I can’t take the candle to the torches…maybe I can bring the torches to the candle! Without thinking further, he decided to try: standing on the top of the altar slab just made him target practice.
Bunching up his muscles, he leapt over the top of the statues’ heads and raised weapons. Since he’d also used Quick Strike to increase his momentum, he made it almost halfway down the sanctum in that one leap. Hitting the ground running, he went directly to the torch on the wall to the right of the door.
Please let it be detachable. Please let it be detachable, he prayed to whoever was listening. Rearing up, he placed his forepaws on either side of the torch and quickly leaned in to nudge at it with his nose.
The first nudge made the torch shift and hope sparked in Dominic’s heart. It wouldn’t shift if it were completely fixed in place. Using one paw, he pushed at the shaft of the torch from below. Anticipation grew within him as he saw it shift upwards.
It seemed to take a long time, but finally the torch was pushed far enough out of its holder to fall with a clatter onto the stone tiles below. Just in time – Dominic felt pain shoot through him as he was stabbed by a spear. The statues had caught up with him.
Dominic leaned down to snatch at the torch, easily managing to grip the long shaft in his mouth. Prize secured, he leapt out of the surrounding circle of statues.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t made it unscathed. As well as being stabbed by the spear, he also hadn’t managed to avoid a slice from a sword and the two arrows. His return to the altar was thus significantly slower than retrieving the torch had been.
When the two arrows disappeared from his flesh, it made movement easier, for all that the painful wounds didn’t vanish with them.
Reaching the relative safety of the puddle of light, Dominic leapt onto the altar, a grunt of pain leaving his mouth as the abrupt movement jolted already painful wounds. Waiting for the archers to shoot at him, he dodged the two projectiles and then set to lighting the torch.
Fortunately, the torch was still warm from having been lit not that long ago, and it flared to life quickly. Excellent. Briefly waiting for the archers to once more shoot at him, he repeated his leap over the statues’ heads.
Returning the torch to its holder was a slightly trickier affair than pushing it out in the first place. To his advantage, though, was the fact that the statues would not enter the puddle of light cast by the torch. He still had to keep track of when the archers were likely to be shooting at him, but that was easier than avoiding that plus the spears and swords.
It gave him the time he needed to work out the best way of gripping the torch with his teeth and angling his head to manage to get the tip of the torch back into the holder.
Come on, he told it in frustration as he tried for the fifth time to slot the damn thing into place. Trying to do this without being able to actually see what he was doing was the main reason for his struggle.
When the tip of the torch finally found its place in the iron rings of the holder, Dominic felt a sense of relief pour through him. He let go of the torch, wanting to let the burning light slide down by itself.
His relief quickly turned to panic as the torch started falling instead of sliding into place – clearly its centre of gravity was too high above where it needed to be. Rapidly reacting with a paw, he redirected its trajectory into the right place instead of clattering on the stone floor again.
Breathing a sigh of relief as he eyed the now-replaced torch, he felt like groaning as he thought about the five more he needed to do. Dodging the arrows almost absent-mindedly, he set to his task. At least he’d proved that his method was possible.
Now he knew what to do, the next few torches were annoying, but not nearly as nerve-racking as the first. Each one that he managed to light meant reducing the space the statues could walk in a bit more, making his task easier.
By the time he’d got three torches lit – the one to the right of the door, and the two on the walls either side of the altar wall, the statues were practically restricted to the space to the left of the door. Of course, that made getting the torch out of its holster from the wall to the left of the door a bit difficult.
The fourth torch turned out to be the one where he attracted the most injuries. Due to not being able to lure the statues away from it, he just had to endure the strikes. He’d developed a flick with his paw that was rather efficient at dislodging the torch from its holder, but even that wasn’t enough to allow him to escape without injury.
By the time he escaped back into the lit areas, his health was getting worryingly close to half. Still, after that, he was past the worst of it. Returning with the lit torch, he watched the statues back away from the approaching light until they hit the wall.
With nowhere else to run, the light washed over them and they instantly froze. So that’s why the arrows were OK shooting through the space but the spears and swords weren’t – once in motion, the arrows just continued their trajectory. The spears and swords wouldn’t have.
After that, the fifth and sixth torch were practically a cake-walk. The only pressure was the guttering candle which was close to burning away the last of its wax. Still, it wasn’t a big deal – if the candle went out, Dominic would just be able to use another of the torches to light the last two. It was only as he went to light the fifth torch that he realised he could have had a much easier job if he’d gone about this in a different way. Since the statues avoided the light, he could have just carried around a torch the way he’d wanted to carry the candle….
With the statues all frozen, he didn’t even have to contend with arrows shooting at him every now and again, meaning he could practically relax. Which also meant he could spend some time cursing himself for getting tunnel vision at just the wrong moment. I need to work on that, he told himself grimly.
Finally, he lit the last torch and got it set back in its holder. The moment he’d done that, all of the torches suddenly flared brightly. If they go out again… he thought threateningly, though knew it was empty – who would he even hold to account?
The statues crumbled away into dust which drifted over to six places below each of the torches. Backing away from the one he was standing below, Dominic managed to avoid finding out exactly what would happen if he happened to be sharing space with the dust cloud.
A moment later, the dust reassembled itself into the statues, standing in the same positions they’d held when he entered the room in the first place. Just as well I moved, Dominic said to himself. I’ve already been on the wrong end of sharing a spawn spot.
There was the sound of grinding stone from two opposite ends of the sanctum. First, the doorway. Dominic was relieved to see that it was open again, though he wasn’t exactly looking forward to traversing that corridor again. So where did that other sound come from?
Looking towards the altar, the difference was clear. The altar had itself moved, shifting sideways so that one pillar was left completely uncovered, the weight of the altar being fully supported by the second hexagonal prism.
Curiosity running through him, Dominic approached the uncovered pillar. Curiosity killed the cat, he reminded himself. Though, wasn’t there a second part to that saying? Something about satisfaction bringing it back? Either way, he was hopeful that he might have an idea of what might be awaiting him.
Sure, he could just leave – it was probably the safest option – but if what he suspected was true, he’d be making a big mistake by doing that. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
That didn’t mean he wouldn’t be cautious, though. Padding closer step by small step, he ventured a glance into the suddenly-revealed hole in the centre of the hexagonal pillar. His heart leapt as he saw a very familiar brown object. It was wooden, banded in bronze, with an iconic shape.
Everyone loves big chests, he grinned to himself as excitement rose inside him. Let’s see what epic loot I’ve earned!