Looking down at the tape recorder sitting there innocently in the middle of that open coffin, I had a few questions. Was this the great power Ehn had been talking about, the one all those ghosts and this entire chamber were set up to protect? This was… well, it wasn’t what I had expected, to say the least. And how had it even gotten here? It was absolutely from the future, there was no question about it. Sure, the Seosten and even plenty of other species that could be here on Earth at this time could have recording and playback technology. But not exactly like this. This was a full-on classic magnetic cassette tape recorder. Not digital, not some special alien technology or magic. It was a simple handheld tape recorder from like forty years in the past of my normal timeline and several hundred years ahead of this one. Hell, I could see the faded logo.
“Well that’s not what we expected to see, huh?” Whispering those words very softly into the previously silent air as the almost entirely irrational fear that something dramatic would happen if I spoke too loudly and disturbed this thing filled my head, I glanced over to Percy, just in case she happened to be less taken aback than me. “Unless…”
“I am surprised too, Flick,” she confirmed, talking in just as quiet of a voice. Like she too was afraid of waking it up or something. “That device is from the future. It shouldn’t exist in this time unless it was brought back and left. Why is it here? Why in a buried and guarded coffin like this?”
“Good questions,” I muttered. “I’d really like to find out the answers myself.”
Of course, curious and confused as I was, I didn’t just reach out to immediately grab the thing. I wasn’t that stupid. Instead, I very carefully checked around it for magic as well as actual physical traps. There were plenty of both. Which I set out to disable, though it took some tricky work for a few. Whoever had set up these traps really knew what they were doing. If I hadn’t had so many lessons from people like Wyatt, Shyel, Athena, Gaia, even Brom Bones and Doctor Manakel, I would’ve been pretty screwed. It required every lesson I knew from all of them on the subject to disable everything protecting this machine.
While I was doing that, Percy went over to stand under the hole where Cerberus was anxiously waiting, calling up to let him know we were okay and would be out soon. I also sent a few ghosts out to keep an eye on things, while keeping the others (including Doctor Manakel himself) to consult with about what I was actually doing. The old Seosten man watched me carefully, speaking up whenever he noticed anything or thought of something I could test for. Sure, maybe Ehn would consider getting help like that against his rules or whatever, but seriously, he wanted me because of my power, and this was part of my power. Not consulting with ghosts who knew more than I did about any given situation would have been idiotic. I thought Ehn was a lot of things, some worse than others, but I was pretty sure he was not idiotic.
In any case, I was eventually as convinced as I could possibly be that it was safe to touch the recorder. And yet, even then, I didn’t do it myself. I was going to, but Ghost Kaleigh interrupted and pointed out that one of them should do it, since they were already dead. If we had messed up and missed something, it wouldn’t matter. Well, as long as whatever happened didn’t destroy everything in this cave or something. I didn’t like having my ghost take risks that I wasn’t, but Seth called me an idiot and pointed out that it was their choice.
So, I moved to the opposite side of the room with Percy and we watched while ghost Kaleigh carefully picked up the recorder with some energy I gave her. There was a lot of tension as she lifted the thing out of the coffin, from the two of us as well as all the other ghosts who weren’t aboveground with Cerberus. I was holding my breath for those few seconds. And yet, nothing seemed to happen. I gave it a quiet ten count while Kaleigh carefully held the thing out, before exhaling as I slowly walked that way. “Okay, well, points to all of us for actually disabling all the traps, I guess. Good job, team.” I gave the assembled group a couple thumbs up (thumb ups? thumbs ups?) before holding my hand out so Kaleigh could pass over the tape recorder.
“Okay, so… do we listen to it?” I wasn’t sure who I was asking, exactly. Or why I was bothering. Of course I was going to listen to it. There was no way I was going to hand this over to Ehn without knowing what was on it first. After all, he hadn’t told me not to. Mostly because he didn’t tell me it was a tape recorder to begin with. But whatever, the point was, I wouldn’t be breaking any of his rules by listening to what was on this thing right now. Even if the thought did make me nervous. I was absolutely certain this thing wasn’t here by accident. Someone had brought it back from the near present day and left it in this place. Whatever was on it was something that Ehn wanted. He said it was powerful. Information was powerful. But what sort of information could be on this thing that he saw as that important?
I had to know. Even if it was something bad and I couldn’t actually stop him from taking it, I still had to at least be aware ahead of time. If knowledge was power, I wanted to find out exactly what sort of power Ehn was after in this case.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to find out just yet. Because just as my finger hovered over the play button, there was an odd creaking or groaning sound from above. I blinked up that way, just before Percy abruptly grabbed me and lunged away from that spot as the ceiling of the cave fell in. There was a trio of yelps from Cerberus, followed by a crash as the robot dog landed down in the cavern with us, sending up a spray of dirt in every direction.
Before Persephone and I could move from where we had landed on the far side of the cavern, the robot dog was right there. He whined and barked alternatingly between all three heads, clearly afraid that he’d done something wrong and wanted to assure us that he didn’t mean to.
“It’s–” I coughed, then tried again while extricating myself from Percy so I could reach up and rub the nearest head with both hands. “It’s okay, boy. It wasn’t your fault. I really didn’t think it was that unstable up… there…” I had to trail off in the middle of saying that, because something was happening in the now-wider opening that had been left behind when Cerberus fell in. The hole was covered by what looked like a red glowing circle. Worse, there was blood pouring out of the circle and down into this cavern. A lot of it. Way too much.
“Okay, I was a bit of a glutton as a vampire and even I think that’s overboard,” Seth announced as he, Grover, Doctor Manakel, Kaleigh, Jason, Emily, and Chas flickered a little. There was a lot of Necromantic power fluctuations going on right then. “Where’s it coming from?”
“Right now, I’m more interested in where it’s going,” I replied with a frown. “Namely, in this place.” The blood really was coming in quickly. Sure, this was a pretty big cavern, but still. It was rushing like a firehose. Or several fire hoses, rather. The red sticky puddle right where the coffin had been before Cerberus landed on it was already rapidly growing. Apparently there had still been some sort of trap somewhere that we missed. Or maybe it was just something that was going to happen when we moved the tape player no matter what. Either way, it was time to get out of here. Fortunately, I had an emergency teleportation spell for just this sort of situation–okay not just this sort. We absolutely had not considered something like this. But I had brought along a teleportation enchantment that would take me to anywhere within about five hundred feet, as long as I had physically stood in that spot before. It was basically meant as a way to let me quickly escape any sort of cage or trap. Percy, Cerberus and I would be out of here before that blood could even reach our shoes.
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Or… not? When I held out the stone in question and spoke the command word, we didn’t teleport. Instead, the stone itself sparked and then essentially blew up in my hand like a firecracker, making me yelp.
“It is the energy,” Doctor Manakel noted while hovering a bit closer to the rapidly-expanding pool of blood with an intensely curious look, “the wild fluctuations of Necromantic power all over this chamber. It’s become even worse since this started. I’m sure you’ve felt it yourself. It will interfere with any magic you attempt to cast.” He waved a hand over the expanding pool while grimacing. “And I would not allow the blood to touch you. Unless you, for some unfathomable reason, have suddenly decided that you wish to melt yourself down into more of the same red puddle.”
Right, well that was bad news all around. So I couldn’t use magic to get out of this place, and going through the pouring blood was out as well. I’d thought about sending an energy arrow from my bow that way to see if I could break the thing that was pouring it down here and make some sort of opening, but I wasn’t even sure it was solid. It kind of looked like a mix between glass and a portal, so it could go either way. And even if I did break it, that might just send the blood stuff spraying everywhere. Which felt like a bad idea now that I knew about the whole melting thing.
Cerberus had already started backing up from the rising pool, all three of his heads whining as he backpedaled before reaching out with one of them to tug Percy back as well. For her part, Persephone looked at me and shrugged. “I can stand in the blood just fine. But I don’t know how that will get you out. Or Cerberus.” She looked back and forth between us while biting her lip thoughtfully. “Perhaps a teleportation spell cast from the outside will work better?”
My head shook. “The energy in this place will probably still throw it off.” A glance toward Doctor Manakel made the man give a subtle nod of agreement, so I continued. “We need another way.” I took a step back as the pool got near my shoes. It was time to think quickly. Turning, I looked at the dirt wall and frowned before pointing. “Cerberus, buddy, I know you’ve got all those handy zombie-killing lasers. Could you point them at that wall there? Spread them out to make an opening just a little bigger than you are.” By then, I had to step back again. This was getting more dangerous by the second. Pretty soon the whole floor was going to be covered with this stuff. If we didn’t get out of here soon, we were going to have to get creative about standing on things. And it wasn’t like there was an overabundance of stuff in here to do so with.
Fortunately, Cerberus immediately took my instructions to heart. Turning to face the wall, he made all those snake-like tentacle things emerge from his back and spread out before they began firing tiny rapid lasers that way. Soon, dust filled the air as he created a hole right there.
As he was doing that, I took another step out of the way while turning to my ghosts to ask them to deal with the next part. They agreed and I looked back the other way to see Percy already perched on top of Cerberus. She held a hand out to me with a bright smile. “Time to go now?”
Accepting the hand, I nodded as she hauled me up behind her and settled into that spot on the robot dog’s back, with laser tentacles all around me. “Yep, time to go.” I shoved the recorder in my pocket, telling myself we’d listen to it as soon as we were safe. “All right boy, let’s hit it.”
And boy did he hit it. Suddenly, Cerberus threw himself forward, right at the hole he had made. Percy and I both ducked down a bit just to be on the safe side, as our ride ran into his own makeshift tunnel. We would have been blinded and possibly choked (well, I would anyway) by the dirt filling the air from the continued lasers, as well as the heat they were giving off in these tight confines. But that was where my ghosts came in. They were spreading themselves out through the tunnel, using the energy I’d given them to become just sold enough to act as pseudo shields. Obviously, considering what he was meant for, Cerberus was capable of hurting ghosts with his lasers. But he wasn’t doing that now. The rapidly firing beams passed right through the ones in front, tearing up the dirt while leaving the ghosts unharmed. Their semi-transparent bodies kept the dust out of our eyes and helped contain the heat just a bit. Maybe it wasn’t quite how most Necromancers would have used an army of ghosts, but hey, I was working with what I had.
Meanwhile, more of my ghosts were staying behind to pound at the ceiling of the tunnel and knock more dirt down behind us to stop the blood from following very easily. It would still probably get in through cracks, but at least that would buy us time. Every second counted right now, as Cerberus laser-tunneled us out of there. I’d told him to run forward for a ways before going up, just to make absolutely certain we were far from any other traps that might have been waiting for us on the surface. Because I really didn’t trust that whoever had set this up would’ve been satisfied with just the acidic blood pool. For all I knew, that was just meant to chase us out into something even worse.
So, we weren’t going to take any chances with that. Cerberus kept running for almost a full mile, lasers constantly chewing up the dirt and rock ahead of us to create the tunnel he was running through, while my ghosts kept pace on all sides. Finally, he started slanting the tunnel upward when I called out for it. Over the next hundred yards, he brought us up toward the surface, before finally breaking out into open air. With a dangerous snarl that was clearly meant to warn anyone around that he was not in the mood for any problems, Cerberus lunged out and skidded to a halt in the middle of a clearing. His heads were looking in every direction, as were his laser-tentacle things. Only once it looked like the area was clear did he slowly lay down to allow Percy and me to slide off. But he kept his lasers out, clearly not fully convinced the area was safe yet.
For our part, Percy and I looked around intently as well, while my ghosts spread out to check the surrounding area. After a few moments, Grover came back and shook his head. “All clear, boss. Except for the other ghosts around here. They’re watching, but they don’t seem to be in much of a talkative mood. Pretty sure they just want to see what happens next, you know?”
Yeah, I suppose I couldn’t really blame them for that. After all, protecting the thing in that coffin had been the whole reason they were here in this forest for all this time. Now I had it. What was going to happen then once we left with this tape player? Would they just disappear? What about that trap we had set off? Would that acidic blood just stay there? It probably wasn’t a good idea to leave it like that, in case someone stumbled over it. Which just made me picture some little kid falling into that hole and–uugggh, no. Maybe I could convince Ehn to do something about it.
Right now, however, there was something more important to focus on. Namely, the tape player itself. I pulled it out of my pocket and examined the thing once more. I’d already gone over it before, of course, but still. I couldn’t be completely certain that touching this thing again wasn’t going to open up another acidic blood trap somehow. And yet, going over it with a fine-tooth comb yet again revealed nothing special. It was just a tape player.
“Are you going to listen to it, Flick?” Percy prompted anxiously as her eyes glanced between me and the thing in my hands. “I think you should before giving it to Ehn. Just in case.”
Letting out a breath, I nodded. “Yeah, let’s see what we’re dealing with here.” With that, I held the thing up between us and pressed the play button. The tape spun up with a surprisingly loud whirring noise for a moment before a female voice began to speak.
“So I’m not sure this’ll work or not, but here’s hoping it does. I mean, we still exist in this time, so it must work, or he would’ve–never mind. Let me start over. My name is Jaquelin Prose. I’m–I was part of Section Four. We help keep everyone safe from the Boschers, keep them hidden, give them government documents, citizenship papers, that sort of thing. Some of us are cops, firefighters, doctors, anyone who can help. But that’s not–it doesn’t matter. None of that matters. If you’re listening to this, you have to be the right person. You have to be. I don’t even–” There was a heavy sigh. “If you’re listening to this, you have to be the right person. And if you’re the right person, then it’s the right time. That’s… that’s how this is supposed to work, if we did everything right. Please, you have to go to the village you first saw when you arrived in this time period. You have to go now. There isn’t any time to spare. Go there right now and stop him.
“If you don’t, history is going to change. And the Fomorians will get here hundreds of years before they’re supposed to.”