THE BASEMENT TEMPLE IN THE BANDIT'S CAMP
"Yes of course", Raven was the first to respond to my invitation.
"Is it safe to be in a bandit's camp?" Minna asked us.
"I don't know if there are bandits who returned here but if we find danger just hide inside the carriage", I told my friends.
Although the bandit camp was abandoned, the guards and soldiers from Gaesov town couldn't be bothered to come to the camp to check it out, so we reached the camp exactly the way we left it last time we were here.
Even the corpses of the bandits that I killed before were still lying around uncared for although their eyes and body parts were snacked on by vultures or crows.
"Did you actually kill these bandits? This is not a small camp", Raven asked me in shock and surprise as he witnessed the cleared bandit camp.
"Well yes but only a few of them, I drugged the rest of them and trapped their Boss in an alley behind here", I told my friends in a summary of how I defeated a bandit camp.
"Really, you did all that by yourself?" Minna asked me admiringly.
"There is nothing here, let's just go", Bommurs told us.
"Why don't we check the treasure room, I might have missed some good stuff in there", I asked my friends as we rushed to the Bandit Boss' room.
There wasn't much to take from the room because we cleared almost everything before we left here last time but there might be something that I missed.
"Wait I have something that could help", Ronnie suddenly spoke to us in his newly learned language of the Ten-Kingdoms.
"Fantastic", I told him and my friends as Ronnie brought what appeared to be a scanner of some sort from his shuttle and shone the gadget all around the room.
"What are you doing, Ronnie?" Minna asked him.
"I'm searching through the walls", he replied to her to her amazement.
"Can you really do that?" she asked him.
"That and much more with this device", he replied to us.
At first, Ronnie didn't discover much but suddenly he spoke out loud, "Holy Grump, there's a secret room in here", Ronnie informed us.
There was a hidden room behind one of the walls that didn't look out of the ordinary. But the equipment doesn't lie.
"Now how do we open this room?" Raven asked us.
"I can destroy the walls with my phaser", Ronnie told us, but it was a waste to use the weapon.
"Look around first, don't waste the laser, there might be danger inside and the laser would be more useful then", I told Ronnie.
We searched every inch of the room until we finally found a loose plank on the floor, so we broke the plank and to our surprise we found a switch under it.
"I'll be damned, there is a switch", Ronnie told us about the damned switch.
It must be the switch that opens the secret room, so we quickly turned it, as the walls before the secret room opened.
"Wow, there's a stair going down", Bommurs said to us while Minna was a little reserved.
"Wouldn't it be dangerous down there?" Minna asked us.
"Bommurs, look after Minna", I told him, and he came forward immediately and took Minna's hands.
"That's more like it", I told Bommurs in my mind with a wink and I hoped that he would see it as my encouraging him with Minna.
----
Teenagers were usually undeterred by danger, so we all went down the secret stairs into the secret basement of the bandit camp.
"What is this place?" Raven asked us as we scanned through a secret room that was adorned with skulls and skeletons.
"Is this an evil heretic den?" Minna asked us with fear on her face showing quite obviously.
"I'll protect you", Bommurs said to her immediately as he took her hands.
"You finally get it", I told Bommurs in my mind, giving him a smile to encourage him.
Heretics were outlawed by the kingdom's Church of All Seeing and they often run their activities hidden in secret places like this bandit camp.
"Who would have thought the Bandit Boss that I caught was a Heretic?" I wondered to myself.
"What is that statue?" Bommurs asked us as he touched it.
"Don't touch..", I tried to warn Bommurs but was too late.
There was a feeling of Deja vue when my friend touched the strange statue, like something of this sort happened to me before.
"Yes, it happened to us before in a Pyramid although you might have forgotten about it", my previous self would have told me.
Suddenly memories of my experiences in the Pyramid with my previous life rushed back to me. During that experience, my friends touched some paintings in a pyramid that came alive to attack them.
It was wiser not to touch things in strange and unexplored places.
The statue that was about eight feet high suddenly animated and began to move and flex its muscles. Suddenly the statue's eyes opened and saw us in front of it.
"Rawwwwwwrrr"
The Statue made a strange creaking sound as if to roar and warn us away, but we were still standing there motionless, unable to comprehend the situation.
The Statue wasn't a living thing but most likely was a magic puppet of some sort. In my previous memories, it was common for rich families to put such puppets as guards to guard over precious vaults and places.
Suddenly the Statue rushed toward us in a violent rage.
"Everybody leave now", I told my friends as we ran quickly from the place.
"Zzziiinnggg"
Ronnie shot a laser at the statue that broke its arm.
"Good shot", I told the Grump, but the statue still has another arm, and his laser was on cooldown.
Usually, hand phasers could shoot quite a few lasers consecutively to meet the needs of battle, but Ronnie's phaser was a little faulty, so his phasers could only store charges enough for one shot before needing a recharge.
After firing at the animated statue, Ronnie's weapon became useless, and he quickly ran.
"Magic Missiles"
I summoned and fired several magic pellets from my soul realm at the statue.
Although the missiles failed to break the statue the momentum from the missiles pushed it back a little. This gave us a reprieve as we quickly climbed the stairs to return to the bandit's room.
"What was that thing?" Raven asked me.