Ok…ish

The gathering of cloaked figures were so caught up in their worship that they didn’t notice as you crept around them towards the cages. The girl in the cage closest was so terrified and exhausted that when she saw your approach she startled and huddled away from you like a frightened zoo animal. You glanced about to make sure the others were still preoccupied then lowered the bandana from your face, offering a reassuring smile. The girl’s eyes softened with relief and when you made a shushing motion she nodded in turn.

The lock was simple enough, just a latch used to hold in a dog, but you imagined that the girls were so weak from exhaustion and malnourishment that it held them fine. You could bash it in with your wrench, but you also had a pocket knife as well that might be quieter. Taking it out, you begin to slowly work the screws that held the latch in place, the process taking an agonising amount of time as you ill-suited knife slipped out with every half rotation. Eventually you got a screw loose and silently cheered as you went to work on the next.

Another screw wobbled free, then another, and soon you had the whole latch loose and dismantled. Sliding the length of it out and away, you gently opened the cage and waved the girl forward. Hesitantly, and with big scared eyes that constantly flicked back to the cultists, she crept forth. She wore only thin, sweat-stained panties, and tear of cloth about her chest to give her modesty, but there was no time to be self-conscious and she went to your arms. You ushered her out and gestured behind you, to the way you came before moving onto the next cage.

On the other side of the room, a burst of flame went up the wall and consumed the scrolls. The cultists stopped their chanting and began to shout to one another desperately, their hundreds of years worth of secrets going up in smoke.

Chapman, in his grotesque mask waved at them furiously. “Don’t falter! Keep chanting, the ritual MUST go on you fools!”

But it was no use. The cultists had began to panic, the flames were spreading and smoke was rising. In the midst of that chaos you decided to eschew subtly for brute **** and began to smash the latch of the second cage with your wrench. It came free, and the girl inside practically bolted out and off into the madness.

There was a loud scream, and you felt your gaze directed up at the mummified corpse that had been hanging over the ceremony. It began to twitch and move, as if an electric current had been shot through it. The symbols on the stone walls, the markings on the ground, they began to glow an unnatural colour, a bright green.

Chapman was waving his hands, furious now. “No, the process is incomplete! We must-“ but a burst of nearby flame silenced him and behind his skull-jackal mask there was panic. He looked at the writhing corpse hanging above them, and then ran with the others.

Something happened when the flames came into contact with the marked space of the floor, the green energy reacting to the heat in a bizarre way. The fire became green, and within its dancing, flicking form you thought you saw figures, claws, snarling mouths and sinister smiles. Your ring began to burn on your hand and insides clenched together in revulsion. The chain that held the writhing corpse finally gave way and once it hit the fire there was a wave of dark energy released, so powerful that it brought you to your knees.

“Dude!” Marcus and Tina were waving furiously at you, the cultists too busy with their own **** escape to notice them, “let’s go!”

You took a step, then heard the girl in the cage scream. The last one, and it would only take two or three hard swings of your wrench to bust her out. But the flames had grown closer, and the pain from your ring was overwhelming. You had a choice to make, brave the magic inferno and save the girl, or escape with your friends.