675: Stepping through

Stepping through

0'Baracus, will you be able to tell which pathway is the correct one and guide me through it safely?' 2

'Affirmative. As long as there is a panel nearby, I can access the internal support system and find the shortest and safest route.'

'Then I can use it to ditch these guys and finally be free,' Hao Xuan secretly concluded. Burak and the other Barbarians hadn't harmed him in any way but he wasn't going to stick around till the end to find out what their true intentions were.

He directed his attention back towards the situation at hand, 'Alright, so is there a way to open the door any sooner?'

'I can try to do a manual override. After that it can be opened by force. Would you like me to proceed?'

'Sure, do it now.'

As soon as Hao Xuan gave the order a muffled clang came from either side of the door. Woken by the sound, Burak and Isak both looked towards it and saw Hao Xuan who was standing in front of the console.

Hao Xuan turned to meet their inquisitive gazes.

"Pull... a little bit....and it should...open now," he gestured towards the door and stepped back.

Burak stood up and walked over, glancing at the door and then Hao Xuan with narrowed eyes.

"What did you do, sneaky human?"

Hao Xuan shrugged and looked away pretending to stare at something on the wall beside him. Still suspicious, Burak reached out and carefully placed his meaty fingers in the center of the door before pulling.

At first nothing happened. But he continued to apply more and more strength until with a loud grinding sound it moved just an inch.

*Whoosh*

A puff of musty air leaked from the crack forcing Hao Xuan to cover his nose. It smelled like a mixture of old clothes and disinfectant that on their own weren't overly foul-smelling but together they made for quite a rancid odor that went straight into one's brain.

And not a moment later a new wave of whispers crashed against Hao Xuan's mind. These were even louder and absolutely incoherent, a word here, a broken scream there. Hao Xuan couldn't understand a single thing. He was forced into diverting a majority of his focus on keeping them out of his mind.

Isak jumped up to his feet and walked over with wide strides to help. He grabbed the other side and pulled, increasing the crack to half a meter. When Burak tried to let go of the door, it threatened to close again.

'Is there a spring or something behind the doors?'

*Beep*

'Until the power turns on and inverts the switches, the resting position of the doors will not change.'

'But doesn't that mean I won't be able to open any doors by myself?'

'For now. Once you regain some Qi you can probably hold it open long enough to walk through by yourself.'

'Good, good,' Hao Xuan nodded.

The other Barbarians that had been mediating and recovering were now all up and ready from all the noise that was being made by forcefully opening the door.

The smallest Barbarian was close to a meter wide from shoulder to shoulder so they could still squeeze through the opening. Isak gestured towards the first group of three and they happily came forward.

With a little hop and a skip, they crossed to the other side of the door that where nothing else could be seen. Hao Xuan noticed that their torches illuminated a much smaller area as compared to when they were on his side of the door.

'There it is again. Why isn't the light traveling the same distance?'

He had seen this before multiple times. There were some places where the laws of physics were just a little different. Not enough to jump out, but enough to make a difference when the need arose.

Hao Xuan wasn't sure if the others didn't notice this peculiarity or just didn't care, but he wasn't going to be the one to point it out.

When half of the Barbarians had crossed Burak raised a hand gesturing the next three to stop. He looked towards Hao Xuan, "Now you."

Hao Xuan was more or less expecting that and proceeded to go through the door without making a fuss. He had prepared himself for another wave of whispers but the moment he stepped on the other side all the whispers stopped, all at once.

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