Page 34 of Caveman Alien's Terror

Astrid has no problem standing upright. “More paintings,” she says, illuminating the round wall with the torch. “Not as colorful this time. But much more red. Is that a raptor?” She points.

“It does look like one of those ridiculous things,” I agree after a quick glance. “That picture has been made with some care, but not much skill. Worthless.”

She walks over to the opposite wall, again avoiding the jagged hole in the floor. “What is this?” She raises the torch almost to the ceiling to get light to see by. “Is it a?—”

Her sentence is cut off by a strange hiss coming from the ceiling. A thin mist is being sprayed down on us.

In one long step I’m beside her. At the same moment, there’s a soft ‘pop’ as her torch ignites the mist and we’re surrounded by blue flames.

Astrid squeals in terror and drops the torch.

I pull her into me while it lasts, enjoying her impossibly fast heartbeat and quick breathing, as well as the warm scent of scared woman.

The flames burn out as quickly as they came.

“Not too hot a fire, but a good try,” I observe as I unbend as much as the ceiling will allow. “I imagine it would have discouraged most beings.”

Astrid slowly straightens and takes her arms off her face. “Is it over?”

I look up at the ceiling, where the small holes that the mist came out of are now obvious because the liquid is still dripping from it. “The builders didn’t want us to be cold. Most considerate!”

Astrid checks herself for burns. “That must have been a trap. They knew anyone who entered would want to look closely at that part of the wall. The torch somehow triggered the fire.” Her voice trembles with fear.

“No, you brought the fire yourself,” I tell her and nod at the torch. “They just gave you something that would burn well.”

She looks up and points with a small finger. “The heat from the torch melted a plug placed right there. Just above the most interesting part of the wall, which anyone would want to study closer. Then the torch ignited the liquid that came out. That’s… devious!”

“‘Devious’ is my name,” I tell her. “And this was nothing of the kind. It could never work too well.”

She turns to me, eyes wide. “Oh my, Praxigor! How areyou?!You must be burned— oh, wait. No, you’re fireproof, of course.”

“This was barely a fire,” I scoff. “The flames were much too cold to do anything but warm me up pleasantly.”

She takes my hand with both of hers. “It would have burnedme,though. But you shielded me.”

“So it seems,” I agree, mildly puzzled at the urgency with which I came to her aid. “Your craziness must be rubbing off on me.”

She lifts my hand to her face and kisses it, then places my palm on her own cheek. “Thank you for protecting me. You probably don’t know how much I appreciate it.”

The gesture confuses me. Certainly her cheek is soft and warm against my hand, but it’s hard to think of her as a servant like this. “Probably not. But I’m sure you’ll show me.”

Her eyes glint. “I will.”

I pinch her chin. “And while we wait for that, this fire trap is encouraging. It might mean there’s something here worth protecting.”

She picks up the torch. “That’s what I was thinking, too.” She puts the torch back up at the ceiling where the flammable liquid came out, gathers a few drops of it, and manages to get the thing burning again.

We go down the next set of stairs and find ourselves in a confusing place. While the other levels were empty, this one is all walls in some kind of chaotic pattern.

“A maze,” I immediately realize. “Old Nunkapax the Angry had something like this at the entrance to his lair. It was all made of metal, very hard and heavy. I couldn’t break through it, so I walked around inside it for days before I found Nunkapax himself, dead on the floor. He’d gotten lost in his own maze and was separated from his gold. He must have been lost there for years, dying from a lack of gold despite being so close to his hoard. The walls were full of his claw marks. But I continued for many days more until I found the way to his unguarded hoard. One of my easiest plunders. Nearly doubled my hoard. Then it took me seven months to get back out.”

Astrid stops. “Oh. Maybe we shouldn’t enter it. We might get lost.”

I size up the stone wall, made from carefully cut stones. “We could do this.” I place my palm on one promising-looking stone and push at it. With a scraping sound, it slowly lets me push it in until it falls down on the other side, taking more loose stones with it. “They didn’t use mortar to keep the stones together.”

I continue like that until I reach the middle of the level and the hole made from the stone slab breaking through it.

Astrid looks down through the hole. “This is the last floor it broke through.”

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