99: A Never Ending Staircase

“Let me check over Nyssa first,” Angelica dug through her bag, pulling out a couple of basic instruments. After letting Celeste set her on the ground, she took her temperature, checked her pulse, and listened for her breathing rhythm. Following her initial checks, she ran through a brief checklist provided to her by Kaiser, only standing back up once each of the boxes had a check within them. “She’s fine, don't worry, just sleeping. Usually someone only falls asleep for a couple of hours, but knowing her it might even take a couple of days.”

“Days? Why days for her?” Celeste felt her palms clam up while the others around her echoed a similar sentiment. “I thought it was pretty consistent no matter the person?”

“No, no, it’s not like she’s especially sick or something,” Angelica waved her hands before continuing to pack up her little kit into its black zip-up bag. “When people pass out after losing control of their powers, their body wants to return to being awake, just some physiological reaction, return to how it was. But with Nyssa, for some reason each time it happened in the past, it's like she’s subconsciously reveling in the chance to sleep; so she just... stays asleep. I assure you, she’ll wake up very refreshed and quite happy.”

“Really?” Conrad looked back and forth between Nyssa and Angelica. “I’ve never heard of people waking up happy from this type of stuff, they’re usually quite... down. Melancholic even.”

“She’s unique in that way, you know?” Angelica shrugged, before looking down at Nyssa. “No one’s really managed to figure out a lot of things in regards to her. On this though, I’d even be willing to bet money. So, don’t worry, alright? Also, by the way, you can pick her up again if you want Celeste. Unless you want me to do it?”

“I got it, don’t worry,” Celeste stepped forward before the words finished leaving her mouth. She crouched down, and with immaculate technique, slipped Nyssa back onto her back in the pack strap carrying position. “Is this good?”

“Perfect,” Angelica stood back up, slinging her bag back over her shoulder. “Let’s start walking, I’ll talk to you all while we move.”

She led the way, and, as everyone walked behind like a row of death row inmates, they left the gymnasium room, traversed the length of the blinding white hallway, and punched through a wall to reveal a solid door.

A keypad sat at the door’s center, and before Ryker ran up to blow the entire door off, Angelica pulled him back. “That won’t work. All these doors are reinforced.”

“Huh? With enough explosions thoug...” Ryker trailed off as Angelica shook her head.

“We’d be here for years. You’ll see in a sec.” Angelica walked up to the door. She pulled out a half-crumpled piece of paper from her back pocket. On it, a list of codes. Without a moment’s delay, she began testing each one by one, her fingers flying across the keypad like a well-experienced bank teller’s.

Ten codes in, the keypad’s LED blinked from red to green, and the mechanical sound of gears turning and latches unlocking began filling the area. The door’s center, despite weighing more than everyone standing in front of it combined, began a slow spin. It eased the door open, and with it, the series of hundreds of doors behind it began opening as well, like a well-constructed domino stack.

“Each of these doors is reinforced like those walls. Which means, although this first can be blown open with enough force—due to an inherent weakness in having its unlocking and locking mechanism,” Angelica explained to Ryker as they began walking up the long flight of stairs back to the cavern they had started in. “You would struggle to get through all the subsequent doors the same way you all struggled to get past the near-indestructible wall.”

“Is there a way to get through these types of walls then?” Ryker asked, walking side-by-side with Angelica as the rest followed behind on the two-wide staircase. Dim lights illuminated their path—and how far they had to the end—a fact everyone appreciated even if a little disappointed at the sheer length of the staircase. It just stretched on like a mining shaft. All the way at the end, near where everything converged due to the distance, a faint door could be seen.

“Is this the path of dao or something...?” Conrad muttered to Electra as they climbed. “We’re suffering for ascension.”

“I... think you need to stop reading so many webnovels...” Electra pat Conrad on the back. “Touching more grass might help you ‘ascend’.”

Angelica sighed as she overheard the conversation, along with Albion and Titus’s laughter. As the sound of their footsteps continued at a steady rhythm, she turned to look at the students. “Anyway, I think it's time we get to the meat of the issue, you all falling into this... dangerous trap, to put it lightly. And also, yes, we’re going to talk about it right now, don’t give me that look. I’ll talk to Nyssa later.”

As she walked, she fell into thought. “Just where to start? It was a definite misstep, I’ll be blunt with you all. It doesn’t look good. I didn’t warn you about it because it wasn’t life threatening, but it doesn’t erase the fact that you did trip at this obstacle. It’s a sad truth, but you put yourselves in a lot of danger. In another universe, this could’ve led to the deaths of half, or more, of the team. I hope this situation doesn’t repeat itself.”

A heavy atmosphere settled on the group. Everyone’s steps slowed, people’s heads bowed down, and gazes drilled into the ground. After a brief moment of silence, everyone replied with a flavor of “It won’t happen again.”

“Good, good,” Angelica smiled, patting those she could reach on the shoulder. “I trust you all in this regard. Just make sure to put in your due diligence and everything will be okay. If I give you all reading materials, there’s a reason, so do try and read it all.”

““We understand,”” Electra and Ryker spoke up as the leaders of the group. Though frowning, both spoke with clear eyes as the others nodded along.

“Good, I’m glad,” Angelica put her hands on her hips as they continued scaling the never-ending staircase. “Now, considering we’re past dinner time, we’ll scale back to the surface, I’ll point out details and describe to you all the significance of certain parts, so you have a better idea of what to look for in the future, and then we’ll pack up and head back to town.”

“Oh, are we cutting it short?” Albion asked from the back as he mustered the breath to keep climbing.

“Yeah, the original plan was to stop before the trap, sleep for the night, then spend tomorrow disabled the trap together safely before finishing the last bits of the base. But you all cleaned up the corners quite well on the way down because of zealousness, and the rest of the base past the trap collapsed and was destroyed when you all triggered the trap, so there’s no need to go through it.” Angelica explained as they neared the top. “We’re close though, so just push through the last bit of climbing!”