The Proverbial War

On an abstracted sounding note he added, "or dig us in deeper."

I swallowed nervously as I watched him reach up and wrap the other end of the wire from his pack around the node hanging down from the ceiling. The piece of wire that he had spliced between the two contact points began to glow and the scroll fell from its midair hover over the pedestal.

Colt caught up the scroll that had rolled itself up in a reflexive action upon having been released from the invisible electric charge.

"There we go…… oh darn! It's burning the wire in half! It's got too much juice on it!" Colt exclaimed before lunging for the tunnel corridor where I stood.

He dove into the tunnel to land at my feet, while I watched blue sparks snap out in abandon in the other room as the bypassing wire burned through. A blue wave of light pulsed throughout the cavern and there was the immediate sound of wind powered projectiles slamming into stone in the room beyond.

"Are you hit?" Colt asked shaking my shoulder roughly.

In a daze I said, "No, I don't think so. You?"

"Me neither. We skated by that one! We should……."

The sound of onrushing water overrode his voice and completed the circuit of panic driven paranoia that my consciousness had flown apart into. I turned to run for the scroll room and the way we had come in order to escape the sound of water that was coming at us from the darkness of the tunnel at our backs.

Before I could make any headway I was seized fast to Colt's side as he pressed up against the side wall of the tunnel.

"No! We have to go out against the water! It's the only way we can make it!"

The man was crazy! Certifiable insanity was the essence of the thing that he proposed to do!

There was no more time for thought as the water hit us and filled the tunnel up. We were pressed back against the side of the tunnel by the onrushing water and it was a miracle that both of us kept our feet under us.

I gasped for breath as the remaining air pocket was soon gone and we were fully submerged within the tunnel. There was light enough given off by the scroll to see by, but I wasn't prepared for the sudden jerk to my arm that had me pressing against the onrushing flow of water that had slacked off some in intensity.

I had no choice, but to struggle in an attempt to follow as we walked forward against the flow of water.