Green Robed Men

As we approached it became increasingly clear that they were the same people who we met earlier. You could even pick out the exact 7 who hid behind the fallen tree. After all they were the only ones who looked battered, dirty, and worn out.

When they stood next to the clean ones they almost looked like peasants near nobles if not for the weapons they carried on them. Those people also only held torches instead of light talismans. As we made it halfway through the path of traps we noticed that most if not all of their backs were turned to us.

They faced the wall opposite us inside the oddly shaped room. It was circular room capped with a convex dome and on the walls: pillars and figures were etched onto the wall with stretched across the entire room, at least from where we were.

Soon we reached the only trap which seemed to be in perpetual motion from some mechanism within the walls. Compared to the previous traps this was the only one which posed any possible danger.

The hallway was around 3 meters wide and the dangling blade came and went into slits of either side of the wall leaving the smallest amount of time where the blade wasn't even visible, but this kinda fucks with my thought of the boar being inside the building originally. Considering the side of the creature it would fit into the hallway, but how could it past the blades without being hurt in the process?

The period from which the blade started on the left and made it's way back to the left was around two and a half seconds. Instead of waiting for the blade to pass us in the middle we walked over to the side. When the blade entered the slit on this side and exited we immediately walked to the other side. The trap was barely a hindrance in our path, but there were still two up ahead.

We quickly and easily by passed those traps as well and by then we were basically at the entrance. Peering into the room we saw what the sides looked like. The decorated walls extended out until it reached another two doorways on the side. Now that we were closer the walls looked like it depicted a story or a continuous narrative of some kind at each doorway interval.

Above each doorway characters were etched onto the wall: North, East, and West. North was ahead where the unaware green robed men were while the right was east and left was west. I could only assume that the doorway we had yet to enter was south.

The doors on both the west and east paths were already opened. That left the final path being north.

"Why don't you untie us? We could help out, after all we're out numbered either way. At least it wouldn't be as bad right?" One of the bound men spoke just before we walked through the entrance way halting our group.

"Free you? Outrageous!" One of the Spirited Sun Disciples spouted

"You want to help us? What reason do we have to trust you to keep that word? You could flee or worse stab us in the back!" Qiao An spoke with a clear voice facing the prisoners who grouped together.

I looked toward the crowd ahead of us and by some miracle it seems that they didn't hear a thing. It was like they were deaf, completely obvious to what's happening behind them. They must be really engrossed in whatever they're doing over there.

"Where can we flee to? Outside? It has been blocked off by that giant boar. Stab you in the back? We don't even have our weapons, you took those from us. As for trust we can charge in first if a battle occurs, how about that? All we ask for is after we leave this structure that we could get our weapons back and go free." The same bound man spoke for the rest of the group who all seemed to share the same opinion.

"Let's just forget about our previous grievances after this, shall we?" Another man from their group chimed in.

"And if no fight even occurs?" Qiao An questioned

"..." They quickly went silent, unprepared for such a question. "Um...then..uhh..."

"We're not going to just let you go after what happened. You started this by killing one of us!" She took one last disdainful look at the group of four before turning back around.

We kept walking and soon our group fully entered the room. The prisoners angerly grumbled at the very back of our group while we advanced forward. When we made it to the very center of the room something changed. The doorway which was blocked off finally had movement.

The door raised up slowly and began to recede into the upper wall. Not long after the cheers of the green robed men erupted from them.

"Yes!!"

"We did it!"

"It's open!"

"Good wor- h-hey who are they?!" Finally one of them noticed our presence and pointed us out.

"Wha- who was supposed to look out for people?!"

"How did they get so close without us noticing?! Did no one ever look behind us ever?! There was a long ass hallway to spot them from! They wouldn't of even had anything to hide behind!" Their joyous moment quickly turned to shock and slight anger.

"Did you you guys bring them here!?!" One of the clean robed members pointed at the group of dirty robed members.

"N-No we- Wait that girl!" One of the dirtied members tried to explain when they glanced over at us and noticed Qiao An.

"S-She how did she survive? Didn't we see her almost die by that boar?" A dirtied member pointed out towards Qiao An.

"That's right she should be dead! When we left she was on the brink of defeat, we swear we thought she was going to die there!" Another dirtied disciple said.

"Then how do you all explain this, huh?!" A clean member chastised the dirtied man.

"You bastards! You all left me to die by that boar?!" Hearing what they said Qiao An rapidly unsheathed her saber and pointed it towards the two who spoke about leaving her behind.

Seeing as she took out her saber the green robed disciples followed after her. Their swords shined from the light which came from torches a few of them held onto. Our group quickly reacted as well and I took out my sword from my waist. With one hand I adopted an aggressive position which had me angle my body away from them to lessen my points of contact and thrust my sword out towards them.

'Well there goes diplomacy; that ended way too fast. Maybe we could still salvage it somehow.'

"Hey! Don't you know who we are? We're-" Just as one of them was about to spout some young master like bullshit another interrupted him. "Hey! That won't work on them. Look at their robes, they're from two of the top three sects! Their background is better than ours, so don't you start your tirade on them."

"Damn that's all basically all I have to deter anyone! How are we supposed to do this now?" The man seemed lost now that his trump card was useless.

"Y-You idiot, why would you say that out loud?! W-We have numbers on you and it looks like those people behind you aren't even part of your group and even if they were, they're unarmed! Our numbers more than double yours so act if you all dare!!" Another quickly admonished the previous before rapidly finding something they could use to threaten us.

"Tch! Do think numbers is all that matters? If we were all mortals then perhaps, but we are all cultivators here! Not to mention the powerhouses of our sect's backgrounds do you believe that your own resources could compare to our own?" Arrogance emanated from Qiao An's voice as she spoke out.

'Resources? Hmm.. so far I've gotten a few basic manuals I've chosen and some contribution points. That's about it... OH Shit, I've neglected everything else in the sect. I probably should've looked at that sect store to see what they had or some training grounds of some sort.'

"You four, in the back! Are you being held hostage? Nod once if you are and nod twice if you are; we'll free you after we defeat these bastards." One of them tried instigating the bound men who stood behind our group.

Hearing the proposal half of our members turned around to see if they would accept their offer. I was one of those people though I didn't completely turn around to look at them; I only glanced toward them in the corner of my eye.

The moment I landed a part of my vision on them the green robed men attacked.

"Quickly some of those dumbasses looked! ATTACK!!!" Shouted who I presume as a one of the green robed men.