Word Count: 2436
We continued to walk down another long corridor with torches lit until we made it to a gigantic door. It had very beautiful design on it as Vax walked up to it with Grog resting his hand on the door before turning to the goliath.
"Mind giving this a shove, big man?" Vax asked turning toward Grog.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Could you say that again?" Grog asked leaning his arm against the door a smirk on his face reminding me of a guy hitting on someone.
"Oh gods. Oh Grog. You are so mighty, and I am so weak," Vax started saying flexing his muscles when he called Grog mighty, "However can little old me survive without you?"
"Well since you asked so nicely." Grog said satisfaction in his voice as he grabbed onto the side of the door grunting as he pulled the large heavy door open slowly, allowing us passage through it.
"Whoa." Scanlan said at the sight before us. It was a long bridge with lights in some tall stones along the bridge and lights in tall stone pillars next to the bridge. The architecture in itself was amazing.
"Some of my best work." Ripley said proudly. "This far below Whitestone, it took ages." She glanced at Percy as she said this making me roll my eyes dramatically towards Vax, who smirked bumping my shoulder.
"I don't trust her." Vex said as she stopped by Vax and I, as we stood back a little letting the others go forward.
"I don't trust her either." I muttered glaring at her back.
"You two don't trust anyone." Vax said not even glancing at Vex.
"Well... except you." She said to her brother as I started walking again.
"Funny way of showing it sometimes." Vax said walking after me.
"Oh gods." I heard Vex mutter from behind us before following us last.
"Hey, uh just to point this out before we get ourselves killed, we do have evidence now. We could drop this whole thing." Scanlan said as Grog and Keyleth turned towards him, and I glared from behind. "You know, go back and fight our day in court."
"Oh, and abandon the revolution we caused?" I asked Scanlan, lightly bumping into him as I passed by.
"No, whatever the Briarwoods are planning down there, we must end it." Percy said stopping with the rest of the group as I stopped next to him.
"Right, right, yeah, yeah." Scanlan said looking away from us, "Dumb suggestion, Ophelia."
"Yeah, I'm really disappointed in you, Ophelia." Grog said as they both crossed their arms. Before I could walk over to them and beat both their asses, Percy wrapped an arm around my waist holding me close to his side as we started walking on again.
"Don't mind them, love." Percy whispered softly into my ear; I only shot him a small smile in response.
The next room we walked into was a large metal contraption, one part of it was a large metal beam, and the metal contraption next to it was basically a needle. The circular drainage at the bottom had white powder sitting at the edges making me frown wondering what it was.
"Okay uh, Percy, Ophelia, any idea what we are looking at?" Keyleth asked hugging her staff close to her body.
"It's a drug factory!" Scanlan yelled excitedly running past us kneeling in front of the circular drainage shoving his hand into the white powder. "We just hit the jackpot. Anybody have a pipe?"
"I'm fairly certain that would be an unpleasant trip." I said smacking Scanlan in the back of the head as he turned towards me, Percy had let me go so I could smack Scanlan, but he was still standing right behind me.
"This is Residum." Percy said, "The pipes must carry acid for its chemical refinement process."
"And it looks like they are making a lot of it." I said a sigh in my voice.
"Why so much?" Vax asked confused coming to stand on my left since Percy was on my right, who turned to Rippley holding up his gun.
"This was Anders domain." She said calmly, "I only helped them with the Ziggurat."
"Uh, what the heck is this for?" Keyleth asked as she moved to stand in the drain.
"Cassandra!" Percy yelled all of a sudden making everyone look up to see the young de Rolo standing at a lever staring us all down as she pulled the lever slowly closing the entrances. "No." I heard Percy whisper as I watched Vax run forward and following quickly after him. He slid right under the door on time, being a second behind I ran into the glass door banging on it as Vax, and Cass held blades to each other.
"Cass, no!" I yelled loudly banging my fist against the door pleading in my voice, as Percy ran up next to me resting one of his hands on the door.
"Percy. Tell your sister to quit taking the piss before I forget my manners." Vax said keeping his dagger held high against Cass's sword.
"Cass, what are you doing!?" Percy yelled through the glass that divided us with them.
"Excellent work, dear." I heard Sylas's voice say as I looked up watching the figures of him and Delilah coming into view lanterns lighting up as they did. Vax stood quickly throwing his dagger at Sylas's head only for Sylas to tilt it, causing the dagger to miss barely.
"Bit of a slow learner." Sylas said that stupid shit eating smirk on his face. As Vax jumped to stab him with his dagger, I watched Sylas's eyes flash yellow, and slump forward, before standing straight obviously under control.
"No!" Vex and I yelled at the same time.
"Brother!" Vex called out to him.
"Why are you doing this Cass?" I asked the young de Rolo through the glass.
"You did this to yourselves, Ophelia, Percy. The day you left me in the snow, choking on my own blood like a hunted animal, when you betrotheds' family couldn't even bother to try and look for me but helped you. My brother abandoned me, the girl I was excited to be my new sister didn't care for me." Cass said shocking us both as she turned walking towards Sylas, Delilah, and Vax. "I have a new family now. One that transcends death. One that will never leave me. I am a Briarwood." She stopped and turned towards us as she finished her sentence, both Sylas and Delilah resting a hand on either shoulder. Percy collapsed next to me putting a hand to his face as he sobbed. Kneeling next to him I rested my hand on his back rubbing small circles trying to give at least a little comfort as tears fell down my own cheeks.
"You!" I heard Pike say angrily I assume towards Rippley.
"I'm just as trapped as you are." I could hear Rippley say in her defense.
"I must say, I'm quite surprised to see you out of your cage, Anna." Delilah said and as I looked up, I could see the smile on her face. "A delight that you've gone and gotten yourself recaptured."
"Poor Rippley." Sylas started to speak next, "Always the unlucky one."
"Stop!" Vex yelled slamming her fists against the glass, "If you value your lives, you'll let my brother go!"
"I'm afraid life is far more valuable to you then it is to us." Delilah said before walking away with Cassandra first.
"Don't fret." Sylas said walking behind Vax as he looked at us, "We'll take excellent care of him. Be a lamb, would you?" And with that Vax hit a button in the side wall and I could hear the sound of something else closing, most likely the drain that was in the middle of the floor, before the sound of liquid pouring out sounded withing the room.
"An acid traps?" Pike asked as we heard the cry of rats being killed by it in the room. "Oh, real fucking original!" She then yelled angrily.
"Vax! Brother!" Vex yelled banging against the glass desperately, "Wake up! It's me! Wake up!"
"Wait! C-Come, come on!" Scanlan yelled out. "Don't you at least want to see Grog, die?"
"Not the time, Scanlan!" I yelled at him as I stood looking around the room, "Shit, shit, shit."
"Uh guys." Keyleth said worry in her voice.
"Get up the steps quickly." I called out as the others ran up the steps Anna speaking as she did.
"There must be a way out of this." She said with a small fear even in her eyes. "Anyone have a plan?"
"Ophelia?" Pike asked as everyone looked at me.
"Why are you looking at me?" I asked looking around before looking to Percy, "Percy, love, a little help?"
"Right... Well... um... try to stop the acid." Vex called out trying to be helpful.
"Pike! Can't you just pass through walls?" Scanlan asked like it was the best idea in the world.
"I'm not a ghost Scanlan, if I break the connection there's a chance, I might not be able to come back." Pike said exasperated with the other gnome.
"Then let's get to smashing!" Grog yelled, before running up to the door trying to break through it with his battle axe while Pike, used her mace. Though sadly, it didn't work, though I was sure it wasn't going to the glass had to be reinforced enough to withstand acid. "Welp, I'm out of ideas." Grog said turning to us shrugging.
"The feed pipes." Anna said drawing our attention to the pipe near the top of the room. "If we can cut it off, it might buy us some time.
"And how do you propose we do that?" Vex asked her, as Keyleth powered up her staff bringing vines out of the side wall wrapping them around the pipe effectively cutting off the acid.
"Ah, yes!" She said excited as we cheered lightly, before holes started poking through and the acid was coming out faster now. "Oh, not what I was going for!" Keyleth spoke with full panic in her voice.
"Your castle has lousy plumbing, Percy." Scanlan said irritably.
"Alright, new plan for now, stay out of the acid. Scanlan, do your magic hand thing." I said while trying to think of a way out of this.
"Scanlan's hand!" Scanlan yelled strumming his lute. "Come, on! Pile on." We all got on except for Percy who Pike called out to.
"Percy, get over here!" She yelled out.
"Grog, grab him please." I said sighing knowing Percy was still in shock.
"Oh great, Percy's broken. Come here you limp noodle." Grog said as he grabbed Percy and lifted him onto the hand so Scanlan could raise us up higher.
"It won't hold for long, so unless you want to go swimming, we need to come up with something fast!" Scanlan said panicked.
"Percy, snap out of it!" I said grabbing Percy by his vest shirt and slapping him. "These guys came here risking their lives for us! We gotta be here for them!"
"What's the point?" Percy asked, "She's gone again."
"Maybe, but the people in this room, we're not." I said gently, cupping Percy's cheek to make him look at me, "We will never abandon you; I promise I will never abandon you. You want your sister back, and Vex wants her brother back, and if we're to have a chance of saving them then you got to help me find a way out of here."
"Right, you're right." Percy said looking determined quickly kissing my head as he stood, "Scanlan can you get us to the ceiling?"
"What? How?" Scanlan asked exasperatedly, "You fuckers are to heavy! Wait. That's it." With that Scanlan conjured up a guitar pick and started playing a heavy rock guitar sound.
"Ah, the mechanism controls the walls..." Percy said trailing off.
"There!" I yelled pointing at what seemed to be the outline for a control panel in the side of the machine.
"Oh, heck yes! Percy, and Ophelia!" Keyleth yelled.
"Grog! Give me a boost!" I yelled as Grog threw me towards the panel and using my dagger, I jabbed it into the side before yanking the paneling open. "Got it!" I yelled as Percy jumped off Grog grabbing some chains and landing next to me.
"The switches are interconnected. There appears to be a third to pull simultaneously." Percy said as we looked towards each other.
"We need to figure out where triangulate its location." I spoke.
"Yes exactly." Anna said drawing our attention to her, "Good job, Ophelia, maybe I did teach you well, there's no visible controls on the outer walls though."
"The drain." Percy said as my eyes widened in realization.
"The stopper!" I shouted as we all looked down into the acid below.
"In the acid? You would have to be insane..." Keyleth started to say before Grog interrupted her.
"I'm goin in!" He yelled slipping off his clothes all at once diving into the acid below.
"Grog, wait!" Pike yelled jumping to hang off Percy and I's legs to get a little closer sticking out her hand. "I'll heal you!" We watched her glowing gold light encircle him as he swam all the way down ripping off the cover of the control panel below.
"Ready?" Percy yelled looking at me as I nodded at him, "Now!" And with that command we all three pulled on the levers successfully draining the acid. Jumping back onto Scanlan's magic hand he drifted us down as Pike continued to heal Grog as the acid drained. We got close enough to the ground that when Scanlan finally wasn't able to play anymore it wasn't such a hard drop.
"Good to have you back Percival." Vex said as we all sat up taking a deep breath of minor relief that we avoided that death.
"Since I helped out and was also left to die in that mess, don't you think I've earned my freedom?" Anna asked looking to Percy.
"If you're lucky you've earned another hour of life." Percy said standing before helping me up. "Are you alright, love?"
"I'm fine, Percy." I said smiling gently patting his cheek softly before we turned towards the tunnel we saw the Briarwoods, Vax, and Cass go down.
"Now where does this lead?" Vex asked with no excitement in her voice.
"The Ziggurat." Anna said from behind us.
"Cassandra." Percy said softly beside me before we all started running down the tunnel.