The city itself was very quiet… incredibly overgrown… but quiet. It didn’t take us long to travel to the castle gates. Which is when things got a bit more difficult. The gate to the castle was closed… and funnily enough… castles are not designed to be easily opened from the outside… and surprisingly, we had not brought any siege equipment with us.

  Alexander: “Any idea for this little obstacle?”

  Boff: “We could improvise a battering ram with some wooden beams from the houses maybe?”

  Damecus: “That would draw too much attention.”

  Phoenix: “I can levitate somebody over the wall. Then they could use the mechanism on the other side to open it.”

  Thank the gods for that levitation spell. Smashing our way in would have been a nightmare.

  Alexander: “Doors like this usually require two people to open them.”

  Dwynfel: “Can you levitate two of us?”

  Phoenix: “I can. But the more weight that I lift, the more mana I use. I would suggest we try to minimise mana consumption in case we are indeed attacked by a horde of rampaging arachnids.”

  Urgh… that means I’m doing it, doesn’t it?

  Dwynfel: “Fair point.”

  Damecus: “Well, that rules me out.”

  Phoenix: “I would advise Dwynfel and Alexander. They are both the lightest and Alexander knows how these doors function.”

  Alexander: “And what do we do if we are attacked whilst trying to open the door?”

  Phoenix: “Try not to die.”

  Alexander: “Good… great… glad we’ve thought it all through.”

  Phoenix: “I can’t cast this on two people separately at the same time. It will be quicker if you hold onto each other so I can treat you as one object.”

  Alexander: “Fair enough.”

  Alexander strided over to me and picked me up. He held me like he was cuddling an infant. This is so fucking humiliating… why do people always do this… I know I’m the size of a child… but come on… there has to be a more dignified way for this to happen.

  Phoenix: “Levitation.”

  We rose up from the ground and slowly floated over the wall. I forgot how weird this sensation is. As we reached the top of the wall, we could see within the castle walls. We couldn’t see a single living thing… well, that isn’t technically true… plants are living things… but you know what I mean… no humans… no lizardmen… no animal of any kind… just plant life… everywhere… and I mean everywhere.

  It had only lightly spread into the city… the castle was more of a jungle at this point. Vines everywhere… large flowers bigger than Damecus… bushes blocking whole paths.

  Alexander: “Well, that isn’t normal.”

  Phoenix: “I cannot see you anymore. I’m going to start lowering you down. Shout if I’m going too fast!”

  We started to slowly float down. To be fair to Phoenix… even without seeing us she seemed to be able to gauge the speed of descent very well.

  We landed on the ramparts on the other side of the wall and checked out the immediate area… just in case of spiders.

  Alexander: “You sure these spider things of yours are here? Place seems awfully quiet.”

  Dwynfel: “Well, something had to have attacked this place… they wouldn’t have evacuated just because of some flowers and vines. The king would have just had them burned away… and I can’t think of anything else that would allow the plant life to grow this quickly. A jungle doesn’t just form over roads and paths and infest an entire city in three months.”

  Alexander: “Fair point, well made. The mechanism for the door should be this way.”

  He led me to a room in a guard tower beside the door. We had to climb around a tree that had grown through the floor of the ramparts to get to it… but we managed to get there without falling.

  Inside the room was a kind of pedestal with two cylindrical bars sticking out of the side of it.

  Alexander: “So, basically, you take one bar, I take the other. We lift them up to unlock the mechanism, then we push clockwise to open the gate. Once it is open, we let go, the pedestal shall drop and will lock into place.”

  Dwynfel: “It looks heavy.”

  Alexander: “Oh, it is. They normally have two big burly blokes doing this kind of thing. Not a spindly lad like me, and certainly not somebody like… anyway, we should probably get to it. And by the way, this will make quite a bit of noise. So, we should try to be quick to allow the others to get in before we draw too much attention to ourselves.”

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Fucking hell… he wasn’t lying about this being heavy… fuck… I don’t care about the mana… she should have sent Damecus instead of me… fuck… I can barely lift this fucking thing… even with Alexander…

  Alexander: “Okay, we’ve lifted it. Now to turn it… three… two… one… go…”

  Fuck… I think my back is going to snap… it’s alright for him… he’s not having to use his fucking shoulder to prop the bloody thing up. Fuck… if my shoulder is dislocated after this, then I’m blaming him entirely for not pointing this out before we were levitated.

  Right… we’ve nearly gone round once… nearly done… nearly done…

  Alexander: “Just another three turns and it should be open all the way.”

  Dwynfel: “Seriously? I thought it would just be one?”

  Alexander: “It is a very large door.”

  Dwynfel: “Right… well… I’m going to collapse and die before we get to four… we stop at two and they can crawl under!”

  Alexander: “You sure you can make it to two?”

  Dwynfel: “Not if we keep talking!”

  Alexander: “Understood.”

  Fuck… fuck… fuck… am I unfit? Fuck… it’s just opening a door… this is some poor sod’s job… just opening and closing this door all day. They must have the upper body strength of a god… or maybe they just aren’t a fucking goblin… just fuck.

  Alexander: “That’s two.”

  We lowered the pedestal down into the lock position and I collapsed into a heap on the floor. Alexander walked over to a window in the side of the room. He leaned out of it and shouted.

  Alexander: “I’m afraid you’ll have to crawl through the half-open door. It is a tad harder to open than we anticipated!”

  Alexander came over to me and lifted me up onto my feet. Once I got my breath back, we left the room, climbed over the tree and down the steps toward everybody else who was waiting for us at the bottom.

  Damecus: “You look like death.”

  Dwynfel: “I am not made to lift heavy things.”

  Suddenly there was a loud screech in the distance.

  Damecus: “They know we are here.”

  Alexander: “It was to be expected. The door was not exactly silent.”

  Damecus: “Advance with caution. Draw your weapons, but do not attack first. We still have no guarantee that they intend us harm.

  Flynn: “They certainly intended somebody harm.”

  Flynn bent down and moved a large vine out of the way to reveal a lizardman skeleton.

  Dwynfel: “How on earth can there be a skeleton here… it takes years of time for something to decompose like this.”

  Damecus: “Some of the larger arachnid species of this world cocoon their prey. They then fill the cocoon with digestive fluid. The victim’s skin and flesh melts away, leaving only the bones. Then the arachnid simply drinks what was once its prey out of the cocoon and discards the bones.”

  Dwynfel: “Damecus… last time we were here, there was only one lizardman that lived in this city…”

  Damecus: “It is not him.”

  Dwynfel: “How do you know?”

  Damecus: “There is no skull fracture.”

  I looked back at the skull of the dead lizardman. He’s right… the skull has no signs of a fracture… or any previous injury at all.

  Damecus: “Nomius threw an axe into the back of that fucker’s head. There is no way that did not leave a mark.”

  Boff: “By Jove, care to fill us in on who exactly you’re looking for? I thought we were looking for a young prince?”

  Agaroth: “And Jon…”

  Boff: “Right… umm… who’s Jon?”

  Agaroth: “Husband a that wife from the pier. Told her we’d keep an eye out. Was in the castle when everything kicked off. Tall fella wi’ fancy threads...”

  Boff: “He a knight?”

  Agaroth: “Nah… tailor. Was doing the king’s measurements apparently.”

  You’d think he would have mentioned this before we were in the creepy castle surrounded by psychotic spiders.

  Dwynfel: “We’re getting a bit off track here. The prince is the priority. We’ll keep an eye out for this… Jon… but there is a lizardman that lives here that… umm… well…”

  Damecus: “…that I would really like to cease living.”

  Boff: “Bit of an arse, is he?”

  Dwynfel: “Bit of an understatement.”

  Flynn: “If only one lizardman lives here, and this isn’t him, then what is this one doing here?

  Damecus: “My guess, he’s Shadow clan. They’ve had their eye on this city for a while. If they heard that it had been evacuated for any reason, they would likely have seen it as a chance to take the place. This body is likely part of a scouting party. Evidently, their mission did not go well. I suspect that we will find more bodies as we move forward. The Shadow clan would not give up after one loss.”

  Alexander: “Uplifting though this little chat is, we are being watched.”

  Alexander pointed up to one of the arrow slits in the side of the keep. A small glowing eye could be seen through the slit.

  Alexander: “I can also here scurrying to both the east and the west. They are surrounding us.”

  Phoenix: “Well, this does not bode well.”