by DB King
He looked around. Everyone was listening intently. “We’re going to have to watch out for traps in the corridor,” he went on, “but I’ll go in front and use my Ward Detect spell to detect any traps, and my Charm and Disarm spell to disable them. Once we’re past the corridor and inside the dungeon, Anja and I will take the lead. Follow our guidance, and don’t take any unnecessary risks. The dungeon will not spawn anything that’s not within our power to defeat, but that doesn’t mean we can be careless. It’s dangerous, and can be deadly. Follow my lead and watch each other’s backs, and I’m sure we’ll have a good dungeon run.”
With that, he drew his sword, turned and plunged into the dungeon.
It felt like coming home.
With his mace in his right hand and his sword in his left, Marcus stalked up the corridor like a hunting cat. The corridor was only wide enough for two to walk side-by-side, and so Anja took her spot beside Marcus, with Kairn and Dirk following close behind. The dwarf’s eyes gleamed with pleasure at the prospect of battle, and Dirk the slum dweller gazed around in amazement, devouring every detail with his eyes.
Marcus led his team up the corridor, watching carefully for traps. When they came to the first corner, Marcus cast his trap detection spell, speaking the name aloud and using his intention to power the words and conjure the spell. “Ward Detect.”
Wards: none
Traps: Rockfall
He grinned. This dungeon hasn’t evolved that much, he thought. When he had first started this dungeon it had manifested a rockfall trap at about this point. As soon as he had the thought, however, his Dungeon Master’s Instinct pressed him. Take care, it murmured, almost like a voice in his ear.
“There’s a rockfall trap up ahead,” he said. “Can anyone see the rune? I can’t.”
Most of the traps in the dungeons had a fairly obvious trigger—a rune, a pressure plate, or a tripwire—but not all of them.
Anja shook her head. “Nothing obvious,” she said. “Let’s go around the corner and…”
She took one step forward. There was a crash from further up the corridor, and a deep, loud grinding rumble filled their ears.
“Look out!” Anja cried, leaping back. “It’s a huge boulder!”
Marcus stuck his head around the corner and saw it—a massive round boulder, big enough to fill the whole corridor, was rolling down toward them, gathering speed.
“Back!” he yelled, and everyone pulled back, retreating down the corridor.
The boulder slammed into the wall opposite them, but instead of stopping, it bounced and rolled toward them again.
“Hero’s Might!” Marcus shouted, activating the strength buff spell that had become so useful to him over the last few months.
A surge of power flooded through him, and he felt like he had the strength of a giant flowing in his upper limbs. He hurled himself forward and slammed into the boulder, wrapping his arms across it and pressing his shoulder into it.
It stopped.
“Woah!” Dirk yelled exultantly. “That was amazing!”
“Yes,” Marcus gasped, the weight of the massive boulder pressing down on him, “but I’m not sure how long I can hold it!”
Kairn leaped forward gamely and pressed his shoulder to it as well. The dwarf was strong, but even the two of them could not hope to hold the boulder forever. If they let it go, there was nothing to stop it rolling down the corridor, right over them. Already Marcus could feel his strength buff waning, and he did not want to have to cast it again so soon. Casting spells came with a cost. There must be another solution.
“Dirk! Where are you going?” Anja called from behind them.
“What’s happening?” shouted Marcus. He couldn’t turn his head far enough to get a proper look.
“He’s run off!” Anja said disbelievingly. “I thought he had more guts than that!”
“No,” Ella said. “He’s coming back!”
“I thought you had more faith in me than that,” Dirk’s voice said, sounding out of breath. “Out of the way, you two!”
Out of the corner of his eye, with one cheek pressed against the huge boulder, Marcus saw Dirk Ninelives approaching, struggling under the weight of something heavy. Marcus scooted his feet out of the way, and Dirk dropped another boulder down and rammed it up against the big one, jamming it in so that it would take the weight.
“Let the weight go slowly, Marcus,” he said. “Carefully now!”
Kairn was chuckling and he and Marcus carefully let the smaller boulder take the weight. There was a grating noise of stone on stone and all eyes were locked on the larger boulder as they waited to see if it would hold.
It did. They all stood back, relieved.
“A trick worthy of a stonemason!” Kairn said. Everyone laughed, and Anja turned to Dirk and apologized humbly for doubting him.
“I saw that smaller rock lying by the side of the passage as we came up,” Dirk said proudly. “It was just the right size to wedge the bigger one in place.”
“I’m sorry,” Anja said. “I thought you’d run away.”
“Technically, I did!” Dirk laughed, punching her on the shoulder. “But I came back, and that’s what counts. Don’t worry. It takes more than a gigantic boulder to make Dirk Ninelives turn tail and flee. Come on now! Onward! I want to see what other challenges this dungeon has in store for us!”
Chapter 4
It took a bit of work, but eventually they managed to get past the wedged boulder. There was just enough of a gap for Dirk and Anja to squeeze past, but it was too narrow for Marcus, and there was no hope of Kairn climbing over, thick-set and broad shouldered as he was, and clad in his heavy armor. Eventually, Kairn linked his hands to give Marcus a step up, and Marcus climbed up onto the boulder. Casting Hero’s Might to give himself the extra physical strength he needed, Marcus reached down and grabbed Kairn’s hand, hauling him up onto the boulder.
They both landed heavily on the other side. Kairn thanked Marcus stiffly and fussily brushed at his acre of white beard with one hand. Clearly, Kairn took it as a point of shame that he’d had to be pulled up. Marcus suppressed a smile. Dwarven honor was certainly a prickly thing.
“Well, you two,” Ella said, flying over the boulder with ease, “are we ready to go on?”
Marcus, trying not to chuckle at Kairn’s indignant grumbling, turned and looked up at Ella. “I’m ready,” he said. “But we’ll need to look out for the next trap. This dungeon’s first trap used to be a fall of small boulders from the ceiling. That’s evolved into this one monstrously large rolling boulder. I guess that the next trap will also have evolved.”
“And what did the second trap used to be?” Dirk asked.
“I’d like to know that too,” Anja added, “I’ve never fought the Bladehand dungeon in its previous form. What was the second trap?”
Marcus looked up the corridor past his friends. It continued straight for some way, then curved out of sight. From beyond, he thought he heard a faint metallic clanging noise, but he might have just been imagining things.
“The second trap,” he said, “took the form of two rows of deadly spikes that appeared from each wall, crossing horizontally across the corridor to skewer anyone who passed. It was enough to just watch and not trigger the rune before, but something tells me that it’s going to be a little more elaborate this time.”
In fact, his Instinct was telling him very clearly that there was something deadly around that next corner, and that it was not the bladehand. He cast his trap detection spell. “Ward Detect!”
Immediately, the response flashed before his eyes.
Ward detected: None
Trap detected: Immolator
“Immolator!” Marcus said. “That doesn’t sound pleasant. Come on, it’s just around that corner. Take care, and watch out for trigger runes.”
With Marcus in the lead, the little group progressed up the corridor. As they approached, the metallic swish, clang noise got louder. Marcus leaned around the corner
, and there, right in front of him, was the next trap.
The immolator trap was well named. On the floor in front of them, extending four feet up from the floor, were three rows of spears, all made of flame. They barred the adventurers’ way like three fences one behind the other, but that was not all. As Marcus’s companions came around the corner to see, the three rows of spears retracted into the floor, one after the other, then slammed back into place. It was this movement that made the metallic swish, clang noise that Marcus had heard from further down the corridor.
Everyone stood still, watching in silence. The spears burned steadily for a few moments before withdrawing and slamming back into place. They retracted and returned one after the other. The set nearest to the adventurers withdrew first, then the middle one, then the furthest one. Swish, clang, swish, clang, swish, clang. By the time the furthest away one had retracted, the nearest one was back in place.
“There’s about two feet of clear space between each row,” Dirk said speculatively, “It almost looks as if a very swift and agile man could run the gauntlet if he timed it right. I’d be willing to try it, I think.”
“You’d be mad to chance it,” Anja objected, shaking her head. “Marcus, surely there must be some other way past? Even if Dirk was able to do it, I don’t think I could.”
“Aye,” Kairn growled, “and I definitely wouldn’t. I’m too slow for such nonsense.”
“I’m not prepared to have anyone try it,” Marcus said firmly. “You’re right, there must be another way. Let’s just stay here for a moment and think about it. There’s no rush. These dungeons reward creative thinking and observation.”
Everyone agreed with that suggestion. They stood about, watching the immolator trap’s flame fences withdrawing and slamming into place, swish, clang, swish, clang, swish, clang.
It was Ella who saw it first. “What’s that?” she said, shading her eyes and pointing. She was hovering just by Marcus’s shoulder, and he looked where she was pointing, squinting past the heat haze to something on the wall beyond the flames.
“I think,” he said, a little doubtfully, “I think it’s a lever in the wall.”
“There’s only one thing it could be for if it is,” Anja said with certainty. “A lever in the vicinity of a trap…”
“… will disable the trap,” Marcus finished her sentence for her.
“But how are we to get across and push the lever?” Kairn asked.
“I’ll fly over, of course,” Ella said. “There’s a clear six feet of air above the tops of the flames. If I stick to the ceiling and move fast, I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
Marcus was doubtful, but Ella was sure of herself and wanted to try, so he didn’t want to hold her back. After all, it was that or try to run across the floor and stick to the gaps as the flame spears retracted, and Marcus didn’t like the odds of that one bit. His Dungeon Master’s Instinct was stubbornly silent on what the right thing to do was.
“If we had a crossbow, we could fire it at the lever and try to trip it that way, perhaps,” Kairn growled, squinting through gloom and the heat haze, “It looks like it’s designed to be knocked by a projectile fired from this side.”
“But we don’t,” Ella said firmly. “I’ll go now.”
She flew up to the top of the corridor, hung there for a moment, then zoomed like an arrow along the line of the roof, face forward like a swimmer cutting through clear water.
“Wow! She’s fast!” Anja said admiringly. “I had no idea she was so quick!”
It was true. Ella had crossed the space above the flames in less time than it would have taken Marcus to snap his fingers. Ella pirouetted proudly in the air beyond the flames. They moved up and down, swish, clang, and, with a loud, angry whoosh, each bar of flame slammed up to the roof of the corridor, filling the space from floor to ceiling.
They retracted row by row as before, but it would have been a bad idea for anyone to chance it. Even with her speed, there was no way Ella would have been able to safely make it back across to her companions.
She was trapped on the other side.
Kairn cursed in the native dwarf language, and Anja bit her nails. Dirk came up beside Marcus and slapped him on the shoulder comfortingly. He stood frowning and rubbing at his thinning hairline.
Marcus peered through the rows of tall flames at his little faerie companion. He could only see her faintly in the gloom beyond the bright light.
“She seems to be trying to move the lever,” he muttered, “but why doesn’t she do it?”
Swish, clang. He couldn’t see her properly, but he thought she had turned to face them again. She flew up again, toward the edge of the immolation trap. She waved her hands, gesturing, and she seemed to be shouting, but her voice was thin and was drowned out by the constant hiss and mutter of the flames.
“Oh, I don’t like this one bit,” Kairn said. Dirk seemed to be gauging his chances for a dash through, but Marcus placed a hand on the smaller man’s shoulder.
“If anyone is going to run that gauntlet, it’s going to be me, not you,” he said, firmly. “I have my magic to help me. I can cast Fleetfoot to boost my speed, and if worst comes to the worst I have my elemental water ability to heal myself if necessary on the other side.”
“I don’t like it,” Anja said. “Those are some intense flames. If one even touches you…”
“I don’t like it one bit either,” Marcus replied grimly, “but I like leaving Ella on the other side even less. We should have thought of it—she’s too small, and the lever is too big and too stiff. She can’t move it herself. Step back, I’m going in.”
The others, hearing the iron resolution in his voice, stepped back out of the way as he asked. He reached for his spells, summoning Fleetfoot, his powerful speed buff. Then, when the spell was floating in his mind, as yet unspoken, a strange thing happened. Time seemed to slow, and the noises around him—the whoosh of the flames, Kairn’s hoarse breathing, Dirk’s nervous fingers tapping on his leather belt—all faded into the background. Marcus felt a pleasant sensation as the peril of the situation melted away.
His emotions cooled, and he felt as if he was viewing his predicament from outside himself. The problem was no less pressing, the situation was no less dangerous, and yet he felt removed from the whole thing, less emotionally caught up in it.
This shift happened in less time than it took to think about it. Instead of casting his spell, he held it there, suspended in the front of his mind, intended but not yet enacted. Behind it, he became aware of his other spells—here was Hero’s Might, and here was his lockbreaking spell, Ethereal Key. All his spells seemed to float at the edge of his awareness, as if he were looking down at them from a height. He knew that all he had to do was to turn his intention to them and he could call them up, bringing them to the forefront of his awareness without actually casting them.
Experimentally, he let Fleetfoot sink back a little and brought Hero’s Might to the forefront of his mind. It hung there, the spell shaped into shining golden words in the front of his mind. He turned his head to look at his companions. Everything had slowed to a snail’s pace. Kairn blinked, and the fall of his eyelid with its gray lashes under bushy brows was as slow as the falling of an autumn leaf through still air.
He turned his attention to Anja and would have cried out loud in his surprise if he had been in his normal state of mind. There were words in front of her, shining like the afterimages of bright light when you close your eyes after looking at the sun.
The words seemed to hang in the air about a foot in front of Anja’s chest.
Name: Anja Drakefell
Species Marker: Human / Darkling Hybrid
Top Skill: One-handed weapon
Handicap: Brute Strength
Augment Slot: (empty)
Too amazed to react, he turned his attention to Kairn and saw the same thing, golden words hanging in the air in front of the dwarf.
Name: Kairn Greymane
Species Marke
r: Ironbone Dwarf
Top Skill: Two-Handed weapon
Handicap: Speed
Augment Slot: (empty)
Unable to resist continuing, he looked to Dirk.
Name: Dirk of Nine Lives
Species Marker: Human
Top Skill: Cunning
Handicap: Brute Strength
Augmentation Slot: (empty)
Last but not least, he looked through the flames to where Ella stood, floating in mid-air beside the lever.
Name: (unreadable)
Species Marker: Faerie
Top Skill: (unreadable)
Handicap: (unreadable)
Augmentation Slot: (empty)
Marcus did not hesitate. Those Augmentation Slots called to him, asking to be filled. He could feel them, like a gap where a missing tooth should be, impossible to ignore. He reached for one of his spells. What to use? Who to augment? The answer was obvious. He reached for Hero’s Might, and applied it into Ella’s empty Augmentation Slot.
It fitted and took effect like a key slipping into a well-oiled lock. In that moment, as Marcus felt the spell apply, he flooded back into his body. His awareness colored brightly again, time sped up, and the ambient noise of the corridor took its place in his attention again.
There was a sudden, loud “whoop!” from the other side of the flames. It was Ella. She gave a great cry of satisfaction and delight, and there was a grinding noise.
Swish, clang, hissssss… the flames went out. Ella crowed with delight, caroming from wall to wall and leaving cracks in the stone on each side with every impact. Using her newly augmented strength, she had pulled the lever with ease, deactivating the trap.
“Careful!” Marcus cried as she blasted toward him and flung her skinny insectoid arms around his neck.
“What happened?” Anja laughed disbelievingly as the adventurers passed across the part of the corridor where the flames had been. “How did you do that? She’s as strong as Kairn!”
