Sell you a Bridge chapter 61

Gotham Academy July 26th 2010 1:00 PM EDT

Chemistry  class was...interesting. Reggie and I were sitting at our usual table  talking about our raid on the Cathedral. Reggie was grinning like a loon  "It feels so damn good to have money man. The gold from the Cathedral  is real, plus it hasn't devalued normal gold yet. It might not happen at  all considering the incredibly small number of people heading down into  the Labyrinth. I dumped all my stuff at a cash for gold place this  morning before school and made a few grand even at those rates."

I  chuckled at that, but before I could respond a voice cut in from the  side. "You guys actually went into that place? It's crazy dangerous down  there I can't believe you went in." I turned to see a pretty redhead  with bright blue eyes that looked vaguely familiar for some reason. She  flushed a bit when we turned to stare at her "Um, sorry. Didn't mean to  butt in, but seriously you guys could get hurt in that place." She  seemed a bit chagrined to have said anything but was clearly pushing  past the discomfort our of concern.

I  didn't hold it against her. She was clearly just concerned for a  classmate and if I hadn't had powers it actually would have been stupid  to go down there. It didn't hurt that she was cute. Not like, my  girlfriend levels of cute but she had a smattering of freckles and a  pretty adorable button nose. I was surprised I'd never noticed her in  class before. I finally recognized her as Barbara Gordon, she was a  friend of Artemis but I'd only seen her in passing and even my perfect  memory had taken a second to place her.

I  cursed internally, but it was too late now,so I tried to deflect a bit.  The last thing I needed was the police commissioners daughter  (according to Artemis) shoving her cute little nose in my business. I  tried to wave off the concern "Don't worry we were careful. We stuck to  the first few rooms down there and the early stuff isn't too dangerous.  Are you honestly telling me you haven't been down to check it out  yourself?" I knew from Artemis that Barbara had a shared interest in  martial arts, she didn't seem like the type to skip out on some fun.

She  coughed awkwardly "I mean, I guess sticking to the first few rooms  isn't so bad. That's what I did too." She glanced around sneakily "Did  you guys find any potions? Because seriously those things are amazing. I  heard there's already a market for them, people have been auctioning  them off for sky high prices, especially the health ones. I hear they  can cure chronic conditions." That I hadn't known, though I was curious  how much more impressive a potion of rejuvenation would be in real life.

I  nodded with a grin. "We did yeah, they're pretty amazing. Also put the  word out to anyone you know who is headed down there that I'm buying  scrolls of identify for a thousand bucks if anyone finds any." I was  hoping to buy up the supply early before people got deep enough in to  start getting magic items. It probably wouldn't work but if I could  monopolize identify scrolls early before people knew their value I would  be able to make a killing, not to mention I could buy unidentified gear  on the cheap and identify it myself.

Barbara  looked sour. "I don't plan on mentioning it to too many people. You and  I might be smart enough to know our limits but lots of the students  here aren't nearly so prudent. But hey, if you went I assume you brought  Artemis with you? I'll have to ask her about your experience down  there. From the little I've heard every time is different. Hey, maybe I  can go with you next time?" I shot Reggie an unhappy look, we absolutely  could not bring a random school girl with us into the Labyrinth.

My  friend cleared his throat, cutting in "Actually we've sort of got a  regular group we go with, and Morgan's girlfriend is part of it." He  shot her a wink "Not that I suspect you have less than pure intentions  for my buddy but you know how new relationships can be. Inviting a  beautiful woman along to go adventuring with us might get him in trouble  with the little lady." I made a mental note to tell Zee he had called  her that at the first possible opportunity but it seemed to work because  the redhead blushed.

Her  blue eyes widened in panic "Oh I wasn't...I mean not that you  aren't...You're very well built but I don't really...I was just hoping  to have someone to watch my back. Sorry if I came across like I was  flirting." She coughed, clearly trying to distract herself a bit "But  no, I went with my friend Dick last time. He actually goes here I'm not  sure if you know him. We're both pretty good at martial arts so I  thought we could look out for you guys. Or we could look out for each  other I mean."

I  could tell from her aura she meant all of that, but considering I knew  Dick Grayson (because literally no one else would call themselves that  on purpose) was Robin, I would have rather gone into the Labyrinth with a  hungry puma. I gave her a pleasant smile "We really appreciate the  thought but we kind of have a system worked out. Maybe next time though.  But hey stay safe down there. You guys find any scrolls of town portal  yet? I recommend keeping some, we picked them up and they're so useful."

She  seemed relieved for an excuse to change the subject and genuinely  fascinated by the subject. "Town portal? No I haven't seen anything like  that at all." I was wondering how long until someone noticed the fact  that this dungeon was from Diablo, it was an old game and the bad  resolution made it unlikely people would be able to tell from seeing it  in real life. Things like town portal would give it away eventually  though, that said Town Portal scrolls were common enough to be found on  level one so I didn't have to play dumb. Besides she was nice, it  wouldn't hurt to give her a tip.

We  didn't have time to talk any more because class actually started as the  teacher arrived. Mr. Chambers somehow always found something to do last  minute between classes and always got back to the classroom right as  the bell rang. He was never late, but we always had a few minutes to  just chill before he showed up. He stood up at the front of the room and  started listing of the instructions for today's lesson, but before he  could verbalize the list he was writing someone raised their hand.

He  raised an eyebrow but gave a slight nod and the boy who raised his hand  said excitedly. "Um, Mr. Chambers? Can we check out the composition of a  healing potion." Reggie and I both froze and I saw Barb's eyes go wide.  I turned to see who had spoken and groaned. The boy in the beanie with  the vacant smile was one I recognized. Arthur Spudinski, aka Spud. Sweet  guy, not the brightest bulb in the drawer, but I hadn't expected him to  be dense enough to mention the Labyrinth to a fucking teacher.

As  expected Mr. Chambers looked perplexed, but that didn't last long  because Spud pulled a fucking vial of healing potion out of his backpack  and waved it around. I was horrified. It was like watching a train  wreck in slow motion. This was going to massively expand the amount of  people aware of the Labyrinth. I'd asked Barbara to spread my offer  around but I'd only meant to spread it to people in the know. I would  never do anything so stupid as announce the dungeons existence to the  whole school.

Annabel  had really done a great job with this setup. Sacrifices would be  streaming into the damn dungeon to bleed and die for treasure and glory.  It was brilliant. It was also nuts of course, but that was kind of her  wheelhouse. The teacher stepped forward to pluck the vial from Spud's  hands with a dubious look. He didn't smell or taste it because it was an  unknown chemical and that was basic safety, but he did uncork the vial  and use an eyedropper to put a bit on an electron microscope.

I  was honestly curious what the hell was in that stuff myself, but it was  magic, I couldn't imagine the chemical makeup would reveal too much. I  internally cursed the brain dead boy, hoping the potion just looked like  colored water or something under the microscope. Sadly I had no such  luck, the teacher's face looked intrigued and pensive. I think he'd only  bothered to look at it because Spud wasn't the type to make something  up. He was a bit flighty but if he mentioned it he thought it was  something.

Mr.  Chambers looked up at Spud. "Where did you get this? The composition  is...odd. You called a healing potion? Like from a video game? Is it  some new street drug? Maybe some kind of slang for a chemical product?"  He seemed confused, mostly because even Spud wasn't dumb enough to hand  over drugs to a teacher and he probably couldn't figure out what else it  might be. I was dying to know what the stuff looked like under that  microscope.

Spud  just laughed a bit sheepishly. "Oh sorry Mr. C. I got it from the  dungeon. Me and my pals Jake and Trixie were down there yesterday  beating up some skele-dudes. Mega scary but it's pretty good money. I  tried one of the healing potions myself. They taste pretty gross but  they make you feel all better if you get beat up." He noted the  horrified looks on multiple faces in the room "What, did you guys not  know about the dungeon?"

Unfortunately  there was no way to put the genie back in the bottle. The teacher spent  some time asking Spud about the Labyrinth, where he found the entrance  and what was down there. He probably thought it was a joke until the  moron dumped a bag full of gold coins on the table to show off his  spoils. Nothing convinces people you're legit than the equivalent of  buried treasure on a school kid, especially after the teacher checked to  make sure they were real gold. I personally felt like that was besides  the point but I understood the impulse at least.

He  asked around the class, and actually managed to get one other kid to  admit to delving into the dungeon, but everyone else was smart enough to  know admitting to that kind of thing was a bad idea. I knew for a fact  that even if he had the cops block off the entrances they would just  move. I was more worried about news spreading. I was sure other people  had spilled the beans by now, but this was the kind of place where there  were a lot of people likely to get killed because they were too stupid  to be careful. When we got out of class I saw Barbara streak off in a  random direction, probably to talk to Dick, and Reggie and I bolted too.

I texted Artemis to meet us up on  the roof, hoping she was checking her phone before her last class.  Knowing what was going on was important and we needed to make a plan.  We'd just lost some time, our classmates were going to be in that  Labyrinth as soon as they found and entrance and a bunch of them were  going to die. Even on level one there was plenty of things that could  kill them. What's more we had to find out how the league was responding.  Robin was involved and we needed to know more. I pulled out my phone to  call Zee while we waited. We needed to meet up.