Books of Chrona

Volume 9: Turn Back a Page Sometimes

"Jackpot." Jaeger cracked a smile while looking at the horde of somewhat large bugs, crawling in front of them. The sizes of the bugs ranged from as large as a human head to 3 times that size. "These guys didn't make us waste our time looking for them."

"Don't…" Leonze started shaking. "Don't kill me!" He then ran towards the way they came from.

Brittanya turned her head and shouted towards Leonze. "Don't go too far from us, or we'll get separated –" Even before she could finish, Leonze fell down through a crumbling part of the floor. "And he's gone."

Jaegar gave the torch he was holding to Kryllo. "We'll look for him later. Right now, we have to deal with these guys." He started to c***k his knuckles.

"What magic can I use against bugs?" Brittanya put her hands on her waist and started thinking.

Kryllo held out the torch that was just passed to him. "How about… Fire...?"        

"I got it!" She got an idea while she was looking around.

"I'm starting ahead of you." Jaeger then moved so fast that the bugs were getting instantly crushed one by one.

Brittanya then picked up a large rubble made of stone, which was either part of the wall or ceiling before. "Bug smashing Rock Magic!" She threw the rubble at the bugs, and appropriately they were smashed. "There's more where that came from!"

The bugs couldn't get past Jaeger and Brittanya. But for those that did, Kryllo just kicked them away or swung the torch to scare the bugs away from him.

"Hey, help us get rid of them." Jaeger stopped attacking for a while and scolded Kryllo.

"I… don't like… bugs..." Kryllo answered with a straight face.

"I don't like bug juice getting on my clothes, too." Brittanya was now attacking by throwing rocks at the insects. Every bug that gets hit is crushed immediately. "Take this! Rock shower crushing magic attack!"

---

"Where… am I?" Leonze slowly opened his eyes and sat down. He was sitting in the middle of a large room. There were a lot of stone rubble and broken pieces of old wooden furniture. He stood up after gathering his bearings. "This place seems like it was a safe room when it was still an active fortress." He scanned the room and saw skeletons lying around. Almost all of the skeletons were wearing armor or holding weapons.

He walked around looking for an exit. He then saw a skeleton holding a golden, stylishly ornamented dagger. It looked as if the person stabbed itself when it was still alive. "Poor guy, he must have killed himself before the enemies got to him." He knelt down and took the dagger. "There, hope you can rest in peace now." He put the dagger inside the pouch he was carrying on his waist. "Also, this looks like it will sell for a high price. I hope you don't mind." Suddenly, there were crunching sounds heard outside of one of the doors in the room. He stood up and slowly walked toward that door. "Please don’t be bugs. Please don’t be bugs."

---

"That was easy, though there were a lot of them." Jaegar was looking around if there were any left. "Thanks for the help, Kryllo." He wasn't hiding the sarcasm in his tone.

"You're… welcome..." Kryllo started walking towards inside the fortress ahead of Jaegar and Brittanya.

"I don't think you helped much at all." Brittanya was not angry, but was stating it in a matter-of-factly way. "So I guess we can start looking for Leonze now?" She followed Kryllo, who was still holding the lit torch.

"Yeah, let's go look for a way down. We don’t know how far down he went so we can't just jump down from where he fell." Jaegar started walking behind Kryllo and Brittanya.

The three of them continued to walk inside the long corridor, which then eventually led them to a large hall. It had a high ceiling which couldn't be clearly seen, reaching about four to five floors of height.  There were a lot of long tables and chairs that were old and broken down. The large hall wasn't as dark as the corridor they came from, as there was some light coming from what used to be windows. The room seemed to be used as a gathering place in the past, for people inside the fortress.

"Say, do we even know what it is we are looking for?" Brittanya was inspecting the tables intently.

"He never told us. We're just bodyguards, remember?" Jaegar was searching for stairs that would lead them down the fortress. Kryllo was just standing and closed his eyes. Jaegar eventually saw him. "Hey, Kryllo! Are you sleeping?"

"Yes…"

Jaegar then looked toward Brittanya and saw her crawling on the ground, intently looking around for something. "Brittanya, what are you – " He saw an arrow flying towards her. His body reacted quickly. He caught the arrow mid-air using his left hand, before it can reach Brittanya. "Who's there? Show yourself!"

"Who are you talking to?" Brittanya looked up to Jaegar while she was still on the floor.

"Someone else is here. Be ready."

Brittanya stood up and looked around. Kryllo opened his eyes but was still standing, holding the torch.

"Kryllo, use this together with your bow." Jaegar tossed the arrow towards Kryllo. With the torch in his right hand, Kryllo caught the arrow with his left hand.

"A knight, mage and archer. Tell me, what are you doing here?" The woman with long, purple hair and wearing a mask that covered the upper part of her face, appeared through a broken second floor window.

"We're just bodyguards. We actually lost our client and looking for him." Brittanya answered the woman casually.

"You don't have to tell her that!" Jaegar scolded her. "And what about you?" He then turned to the woman on the window. "I'm guessing you're not here for some sight-seeing?"

"All I have to say is that now, I have to kill all of you." She jumped towards Brittanya so fast that only Jaegar was able to react and threw a kick at the speeding attacker. But the woman was able to dodge the kick mid-air. Brittanya then stomped on the ground and some stone flooring flew toward the woman. Using her hands, the woman was able to swat the stones away even before she could reach the ground. She landed a considerable distance across the room from both Jaegar and Brittanya, while Kryllo was a few steps behind them. "Oh. I did not expect that."

"She's as fast as you, Jaegar." Brittanya was genuinely impressed.

"No, I think she's faster."

"I guess that's enough introduction." The woman took out a dagger from a sheath attached on her back. "Time to get serious–"

A giant spider, reaching a height three times that of a normal person, dropped between the woman and Jaegar and the others. It came from way up the ceiling, that they were not able to see it the first time. It was facing towards the party when it landed.

"It seems I don't need to get my hands dirty this time. I'll let this insect deal with you." The woman jumped back to the window. "Or, you can get rid of it for us." She disappeared afterwards.

"Kryllo, you awake?" Jaegar, while still looking at the spider, talked to him without turning back. "Might want to use your bow for this one."

Kryllo looked at the items he was holding. "What… about the… torch…?"

The spider attacked Jaegar and Brittanya using one of its legs. Both of them jumped out of the way. "I don't care, just throw it away!"

When he heard this, Kryllo looked the spider. Then, he threw the torch at its eyes. The spider let out a loud, pained shriek. It then looked straight at Kryllo.

"I think you made it angry." Brittanya was holding her chin, while stating the obvious.

---

Leonze reached the door where he heard the sounds earlier. Now, it was silent. His hand was shaking as he grabbed the door handle. While hesitating, he quickly opened the door. There was nothing moving. It was just a dark hallway, with dead bug creatures everywhere.

"Did they attack each other?"

He continued to walk along the dark hallway. He held a makeshift torch from what he could cobble up with from the room he came from. He was still passing by dead monsters. After a while, he saw some light ahead and ran towards it.

---

The giant spider concentrated its attacks on Kryllo. By using its two front legs, it kept on trying to crush him. Kryllo was using his bow to repel each attack. Jaegar then jumped and kicked the spider on its back, pushing it down to the floor.

Brittanya grabbed the wall and took a large part off of it, leaving a huge hole. "Heavy stone wall magic!" She threw the piece of wall and it dropped on the head of the now lying down spider. It stopped moving.

"The Archer's Den will hang your head if they ever see you using your bow like that again." Jaeger was shaking his head in disbelief. 

Kryllo was holding a now battered bow. "It's… broken..."

"We'll just need to buy a sturdier one next time." Brittanya tried to console him as she put her hands on his shoulder.

"I'm telling you, that's not how you use a bow." Jaegar decided to move things along. "We should go back to looking for – "

The spider suddenly stood up, the piece of wall lying on its head flew in the air. It used one of its legs to attack Brittanya, sending her flying towards the wall. The wall made of stone bricks crumbled on top of her. Then, it jumped upward and stuck to the wall. It started spraying webbing directed at Jaegar and Kryllo. Jaegar tried to jump and get out of the way, but his legs were caught. He fell to the ground on his back. He was stuck due to the webbing.

"Don't just stand there; run!" Jaegar pointed to the corridor they came from.

"I'm stuck… as well..." Kryllo looked at his feet that was covered in webbing.

"Damn, I think it knocked out Brittanya."

The spider was slowly crawling down the wall. Seeing as its prey cannot move, it was moving in a way that it feels sure it has food to eat.

Brittanya burst out of the rubble shouting. "Ah, I'm not out yet!" She started picking up the stone bricks and threw each one with force at the spider. "This is my 'you'll regret throwing me to the wall' counter magic!" About four to five stone bricks hit the spider, and was enough to make the spider fall.

While on the floor, the spider was slowly trying to get up. When Kryllo saw this, he looked at the arrow he was holding, then threw it straight to one of the spider's eyes. The eye that was hit burst and blood spewed out. It caused the spider to shriek again, then quickly climbed up the wall up to the point where the three of them could no longer see it.

A relieved Jaegar closed his eyes for a moment, with a smile on his face. "At least you know what an arrow is for."

---

After Brittanya helped both Jaegar and Kryllo remove the webbing, they continued moving forward inside the fortress. They were still unable to find a way to go down.

"I'm starting to think there are no stairs going down." There was slight irritation on Jaegar's voice.

"Then where did he fall down?" Brittanya kept on looking around in different directions.

"I don't know. And we have to worry about that woman with the mask, too."

"Who… is she…?" Kryllo was now walking behind the two, since he doesn't have a torch anymore.

"That's something I'd like to know. I wonder if she's looking for the same thing as our esteemed client."

Brittanya looked at Jaegar. "You think she believes in fairy tales, too?"

"A lot of crazy people in this world, for sure."

"Oh… look..." Kryllo pointed forward. There was light in front of them. They all looked at each other and hurriedly went towards the light.

Brittanya was surprised. "Hey, we're outside."