Sandra and her party ran out of the room, and Sandra slammed the wooden door shut behind her, panting and sweating. The party all watched the door, and they waited, listening for anything hitting the door.
“Looks like we’re in the clear.”
Sandra slowly slid down and flumped down on the ground, taking a deep breath. “Oh thank goodness. It was… it was huge…”
As the healer knelt down and started healing the spear wielding party member, the heavily armed member stood back and looked at the party. Their spirits were broken, either grumbling or lost it. But she knew what to do.
Tabitha cleared her throat. “That was great out there today, girls.”
The healer looked up at her and smiled weakly.
Tabitha held up a single finger. “I’m serious, girls. We had problems, but until that last wave of minions you were doing a fantastic job of keeping us healed, we just were caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
The healer looked away, trying not to smile. “That’s… good, but…” she gave a sidelong look over to Sandra, who had her head down. “Not all of us really pulled our weight that fight… And I was running out of magic anyway.”
Tabitha puffed out her chest. “That’s why we’re gonna go through some training, adventurin’ style!”
The healer just blinked at Tabitha.
“No, no! Hear me out. If we were just a bit more powerful, each step would go faster.” Tabitha began to pace. “We wouldn’t have to worry as much about being hurt if we had better armor.” She turned. “With some more spells, and better weapons and more skills we’ll have this whole thing whipped! We just gotta find a place to kill some monsters to figure it out.”
The healer nodded her head. “Yeah… yeah… that… might work.”
“I doubt it,” the muffled voice came from Sandra’s head. “Did you see it? It was huge. We’d need a lot more than just… a little more training to fight it…” She looked up. “Just look at what it did to us when we made a mistake…”
Tabitha rolled her eyes. “Yes, and she is also alive. We got out with our lives, and healing magic is like a dang miracle.” The form on the ground was yet breathing, her eyes cracked open. “Right? Are you alright?”
She grunted and sat up. “Yeah… yeah I think I’m good.”
Sandra stood. “I’m just saying, this is too dangerous. We should take a break, find something easier to do!”
The healer scoffed with an offended noise. “You see what we have to deal with? Sandra barely hit anything during the fight. And now she is telling us we can’t do this.” She stood up starting to stomp over to Sandra.
Tabitha got in her way, though, trying to smile. “Woah. Look I know Sandra’s aim is bad, but she just… panics, you know? You’ve seen the aim when she’s hitting targets. We just need to find something to get her used to it, you know…”
Sandra whimpered behind her, and Tabitha’s smile faded.
“You see! She doesn’t want to do anything like that.” The healer stomped. “She’s bringing us all down!” She twisted around. “This isn’t working… come on!” The healer stomped away, and her patient smiled somewhat sheepishly, but followed her companion out.
Tabitha wheeled around to Sandra, her eyes angry. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes.
“Tabby…” Sandra reached out to her. “Look, I--”
Tabitha wheeled back around and started stomping off herself, without a word.
Great canine teeth dug into stone, sending dust into the already foggy air. Its menacing howl echoing as it scrambled to face its enemies. The party was glowing and trying to keep away, but their motions were stifled as if they were pressing against some unseen substance all around them.
Smolder gave a firm flap of her wings, but even going up was slowed down, as if she were swimming in some thick substance. "How long does this take?!"
Garble threw Sandra aside, his other hand holding Spike like a sack of potatoes. "Too damn long. Sandra! You said we could just hop out of here with magic, right? It's just slowing us down!"
Sandra snapped out of her vision as she hit the ground. "It's working. It takes time. We just… don't die!" She retreated on all fours, barely getting back to her feet in time for the wolf to smash through the pillar they had tried to hide behind. "Survive!"
"Yeah yeah, survive, easy," grunted Garble as he ducked under the wolf, rolling out onto its other side all too slowly. "Spike, you in there bud? We could use some of your… anything right now."
Spike could hear him calling. He could also hear Twilight's frantic shouts.
"Spike! What happened? Spike! Please talk to me. Spike, please… Spike…" He could hear her sniffles. He could tell she was starting to cry, but he was too hurt to form much of a response to either of the two people trying to talk to him.
"O--" It was barely a syllable, not enough to please anyone.
"No food," reminded Smolder. "Grab one of his potions. Wait, didn't--"
"--Yeah!" Garble patted himself down, grabbing out one of the vials he had purchased and practically shoving it in Spike's mouth. "Eat it! Eat the damn thing!"
That was surely not the way healing potions were meant to be administered, but with a soft crunch, it broke against Spike's gem-breaking teeth and the potion poured into him.
Garble thrust out his hand in time to catch the teeth of the wolf, causing him to be shoved back wildly instead of bit, suddenly airborne but out of control. He came back down against one of the piles of stone with a rough crunch of the harsh landing. "Dang it all…" He dug out another potion and quickly downed one himself. "Thought I'd keep this a little longer."
Spike wasn't there. The sudden toss caused Garble to lose his grip. Spike was on the ground, watching the Wolf storm off after Garble. "H-hey… Stop."
"Spike! I can hear you," came the frantic voice of Twilight. "Oh, thank Celestia! You're alright?"
"I am… not alright." He crunched the glass into dust and swallowed to clear his throat. "We messed up."
"Is it as bad as it looks?" asked Twilight in a little scared voice.
"Yeah, maybe…" Spike looked around, but his staff was nowhere near him. He thrust a hand out and his shield appeared on it. "Maybe." He pulled himself up, and it was like moving in molasses, but he pulled up an armored boot, and slammed it on the floor. The wolf turned away from its current quarry to Spike, who was still standing.
Spike slowly, torturously, raised his shield, and the wolf guardian ran at him. It was hard to see, it was so bright. Too bright. He grit his teeth and closed his eyes as the wolf came bearing down on him.
And there was a light pop. No bone shattering crunch. No slicing winds. Spike cracked his eyes open, teeth still grit. The fog was gone, and for that matter so was the giant room. In fact, he was standing in the room with the light pillar. He lowered his shield and looked around. Garble was in a pile on the ground, groaning, and his other party members were still there, standing.
“... Oh.”
Sandra sighed herself and sank to the floor. “Thank goodness.” She looked around as if for the first time. "This isn't the first… oh yeah."
Smolder softly swatted their human partner on the back. "Please don't say 'oh yeah'. What is it?"
Sandra gestured to the pillar. “By touching the pillars we got a spell to teleport us back down the tower.” She rolled her shoulders. “I thought it would take us down to the first floor, but it seems it takes us to the pillar. I think if we cast it again it’ll take us to the first floor.”
"Hey." Garble sat up slowly, holding where it hurt the most along his ribs. "Spike?"
"Yeah?" Spike sank down, Smolder's idea seeming a good one. "What's up?"
"I saw what you did."
"Huh?" Spike slowly rolled a shoulder, trying to get things in the right place.
Garble hiked a thumb towards the great door that hid the wolf. "It was about to… bite my dang head off… I heard you. It heard you… Thanks."
Smolder gave a weak thumbs up, looking like she wasn't up for moving too far from where she started. "That means you saved our back ends twice today, Spike. You're the hero."
"I wouldn't go that far," acidly retorted Garble with a scowl. "Anyway, how do we go home now? Just do the glow thing, again?"
"Yep." Sandra took a slow breath. "That's it… Outside of a fight, it works way faster, I think. I heard something about that. One big thing though, you may have noticed..."
Smolder hiked a brow. "There's more?"
"Just a little. If any of us use it, we all get dragged along. We're a party and it will affect the whole party. That much I know for sure." Sandra lifted her shoulders softly. "Probably for the best there if you ask me. Imagine just some of us vanishing in the middle of a big fight."
Spike shuddered, imagining facing down the wolf alone. “No thanks.”
"You're… okay Spike?" came Twilight's little voice. "Your levels are going back up, slower than I'd like."
“Yeah, that sounds awful,” Smolder said. “Anyway, time to leave, will you do the honors, Sandra?”
Garble looked down to Spike. “Hey, you got some more healing magic? I don’t wanna walk through town like this if I don’t have to.”
Spike slapped his hand down on the floor only to discover a stick in a way. He blinked with confusion and rolled over to see his staff there. A weight he hadn't realized lifted away as he grasped it carefully. "Yeah… one heal I can do."
As Spike healed Garble, Sandra became lost in her thoughts. “So… what are we doing now? We got stopped going up the tower.”
Smolder laughed. “Really? Isn’t it obvious?” She smacked her fist into her palm. “It’s time to start training. Like, we went in here just as soon as we got our new classes. Of course we couldn’t get to the top at first.”
Garble got up from the healing Spike was giving. “You think maybe fighting those weird ice armors near the boss floor would be good.” He cracked his knuckles. “I’m looking forward to fighting something tough.”
Spike hopped up too. “And I bet there are lots of new spells and stuff we could get!”
Scratching her chin, Smolder added, “I bet I could talk to Pella and she’d know how to get better more awesome stuff for my class.”
“Oh heck yes.” Garble grinned a wicked grin, caressing his sword. “I could show this new baby to the guys at the arena. They’ll be jealous as heck.”
As Smolder and Garble continued to gush about how much stronger they’ll get, Spike walked over and looked up to Sandra. “So… what do you think? You ready to do some training and come back to the tower?”
Sandra smiled weakly through the flood of memories to the last time she did this with her party. The time that went badly. “... Yeah. Let’s do it.”
Spike held a hand near a fin. "Can you hear me, Twi? We'll be alright. Just a little mistake. We'll get better."
They all glowed, but unlike the first time, it raised to a crescendo rapidly, the flash leaving the room empty. They had other places to be.