The group pressed forward, finding themselves in a large chamber. What’s more, they were walking on an elevated catwalk, overlooking the rest of the space. Down below, several oddly-shaped rooms were separated by walls. Although they could see everything clearly, the white mage furiously sketched the shape of the walls, not wanting to miss any details. They didn’t know how long they would command such a complete view of the area.

[https://i.imgur.com/pPKHxnl.jpg]

“It’s like the last area, except the rooms are big and the hallways are short…?” Daphne mused.

“It’s probably the same gimmick,” the white mage replied. “We need to pass through every hallway exactly one time.”

“That’s not all,” said the fighter. “Look, there are ladders down into each room. I think we can start from any room, just like in the last puzzle.”

“Can’t we just climb up here and climb down in a different room if we get stuck with no hallways to choose from?” the swordsman suggested.

“No,” said Daphne. “DM wouldn’t allow that. It’s not like him.”

“Well, let’s figure out our route while we’re still up here, then give it a try.”

Everyone nodded and looked over the white mage’s shoulders as he traced around the map with his finger. After a good minute of trying out different paths, a bead of sweat formed on his brow.

“This… This is more difficult than the last one…”

“DM did say this would be harder, right?” Daphne looked to her friends for confirmation, and they nodded. “Keep trying!”

After another few minutes, the white mage threw down the map in frustration. “I can’t find a way! Wherever we start, I always end up in a room with no more hallways to exit through!”

“Maybe there’s no way to do it?” the fighter suggested.

“That can’t be right either,” Daphne denied her firmly. “If there’s no valid solution, then what should we do? Go home? Why would DM bother with easier puzzles if he was just going to give us an impossible one later?”

“To tease you?” the swordsman proposed.

“Arg. I can’t deny the possibility, but I don’t think that’s how he would do it.” While Daphne continued thinking, she sniffed the air once and then looked around. “Do you smell that?”

“I do.” Alenia pointed down at the walled puzzle below. “And I don’t care for it very much.”

“Oh, I smell it now!”

“Me too.”

As Daphne’s human friends weighed in, she turned to Alenia. “I don’t recognize it. What is it?”

“Look.”

The rest of the group looked down and noticed a slight blurriness in the vicinity of each wall, as though hot air was rising from below. Shortly after, smoke billowed from cracks between the walls and the adjoining floors. Then, the walls themselves started to deform.

“I suddenly feel hot…” By this point, everyone, not just the fighter, could feel heat wafting past the catwalk.

“Daphne, do you know what rock looks like when it melts?” asked Alenia.

“No?”

“Hm, we really need to rethink our approach to—actually, now isn’t the time for this. Just because there are no active volcanoes on this continent doesn’t mean you should remain so ignorant of what they produce.”

“Lava?” the white mage asked.

“Look and see.”

As if triggered by Alenia’s words, the walls began descending into the floor.

“The walls are melting!” the fighter shouted. “They’re sinking!”

“Alenia, is this normal for a dungeon?” Daphne asked her elder.

“Absolutely not. Magma can appear in a dungeon, but not under circumstances like these. Usually it’s just in some random pool. A pool you avoid.”

The swordsman pointed downward. “Look at the hallways!”

Everyone noticed that the narrow hallways were not melting into the magma. In fact, what remained were a bunch of bridges over the lava. No longer did the group need to traverse several hallways in a particular order. Now, they had to cross several bridges in a particular order. Over magma.

“…Welcome to the bridge puzzle!”

Snapping their heads towards the new voice, they noticed Daphne, once again a morphling in disguise, standing well up ahead on the catwalk. She continued shouting.

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“…Except the rivers are Lava!” Fake Daphne then jumped over the railing of the catwalk and plummeted into the magma, sinking in to a fair amount of sizzling.

“What the!” Daphne was the first to say anything, but her friends were surely thinking something very similar. The experience was particularly weird for the one who saw her own form disappearing into the magma. She just stared at the spot where her double had disappeared.

Alenia attempted to console her. “Daphne, it was just a monster, pay it no mind.”

“I know, but…”

“S—So anyway,” the white mage began, “That kind of confirms that this puzzle is similar to the last one, right?”

“Much more unpleasant, though…” said the fighter.

The swordsman also weighed in. “Are those bridges even safe to cross?”

“We’ll have to take it slow,” Daphne answered him. “For now, should we try walking around and seeing how the dungeon responds, like we did in that other area?”

“I don’t have a better idea,” the white mage acknowledged.

They decided to descend the first ladder down to the southern-most island. They proceeded north across the lone bridge all the way to the east of the chamber. Up close, the bridge felt more substantial and safe to traverse than it had seemed from up high. Of course, they were all still sweating a bit due to the heat as well as nervousness.

As soon as the last person cleared the bridge, it started rumbling. Turning to look, they saw the bridge wobble a bit and then collapse into the magma.

“Woah!

“D—Daphne, that happened because we were already past it, right?”

“I think so…” Daphne thought for another moment, then nodded. “That’s exactly what DM would do, I think. Let’s continue.”

Before proceeding, they looked around at the island they were standing on. In addition to the two remaining bridges, the island had a ladder up to the catwalk. They were forced to assume climbing the ladder right now was admitting failure. Likely, they’d have to go back to the beginning and start over. At least, with ladders on every island, they could escape at will.

“Which way next?” Daphne asked the white mage.

“It doesn’t really matter. We can just go wherever you want for now… except back the way we came.”

Daphne chose, somewhat randomly, to proceed across the bridge to the west. They crossed the bridge very cautiously, looking for any sign of rumbling or shaking. The bridge was rock-solid until the last person crossed. Then, once again, the bridge rapidly failed and fell into the magma.

The fighter offered a worrisome thought. “If DM makes a mistake with one of these bridges, couldn’t he have it collapse right when we’re on it?”

“L—Lets just get this over with,” Daphne unsuccessfully reassured her, as Alenia and the other elves remained quiet.

Daphne looked back and forth between the two bridges to the left and the two bridges to the right. She pointed at the bridges to the left, so the group walked over to them. Crossing one of the bridges, they arrived back on the southern-most island as the bridge they just used fell and submerged.

With only one choice left, they walked north across the other bridge. Now, they were back on the central island, with three out of five of the bridges already collapsed.

“To the north!” Daphne led the group across one of the two remaining bridges, arriving for the first time on the northern island. “Two choices…” Daphne could already sense that this was going to end in failure, but that was okay, at least for now. They’d simply evacuate via the well-placed ladders and then start over.

Needing to choose between the bridge back to the central island and the bridge to return to the eastern island, Daphne selected the former. For a final time, the bridge they just crossed self-demolished. Setting aside the ladder up, the group was now stranded on the central island. Looking around, the only remaining bridge connected the eastern island to the northern island. “Just one more…”

“Daffy, what if we went north instead of west when we first got to the eastern isl—“

The fighter was cut off by the floor shaking, gently at first, but then much more violently. “An earthquake!?”

“I don’t think that’s it, Daphne,” Alenia answered her. “Everyone get up top, now.”

The group dashed to the ladder and took turns climbing up to the catwalk. When Daphne, who insisted to be the last climber, was about halfway up, the white mage, who was already up top, pointed to the rivers of magma and shouted, “Look!”

Along with the others, Daphne turned her gaze down towards the puzzle. To the north of their current position, at least, the river of magma was clearly rising. After a few moments, just as the river was about to overflow its bank, Daphne heard flow noises from the south and spun around to look at the source. The southern rivers of magma had actually overflowed more quickly for whatever reason, resulting in magma noisily spilling out on to the islands.

However, Daphne’s distraction as she paid attention to the shifting chamber of magma while trying to spin around on the ladder, all while wearing footwear that was not well matched for gripping ladders, led to disaster. Her foot slipped suddenly while she didn’t even have a firm grip on the ladder with her hands. She slipped awkwardly, causing her to tumble down and away from the ladder in a manner that made grabbing it again difficult, even for an agile elf such as herself.

“Daphne!” For once, it was Alenia who shouted, recognizing the danger to Daphne was quite real. Faster than anyone else could react, Alenia had her bow in her hand, arrow nocked and ready. She was clearly looking for an opportunity to shoot through Daphne’s clothing somehow and pin her to a fixture, but there wasn’t anything available to use as a backstop.

Daphne wasn’t very high up to begin with, so the time for her to land in the magma below would be minimal. Just as her friends averted their eyes, not wanting to see her last moments, a tentacle spawned from the ladder’s structural member and wrapped itself around Daphne’s waist, catching her.

Everyone, from Alenia on down, froze, breath held for a few seconds while they absorbed what had just happened. The tentacle slowly and carefully rotated Daphne around and pressed her against the ladder so she could grab on firmly with her hands. After a deep breath, Daphne cautiously climbed the ladder while the tentacle remained below her. Once Daphne stepped back on to the catwalk, the tentacle disappeared.

Even after Daphne was safe, everyone remained quiet for a bit. Then, a distant voice broke the silence. Once again, it was a morphling in Daphne’s form.

“…You’re not allowed to enter the magma.” The morphling turned and walked out of the room, this time with much less drama than when the previous morphling made a show of diving into the magma.

By now, all the islands were completely submerged.

“I’m really glad Daffy’s okay, but, the magma won’t come all the way up here, right?” said the fighter.

“You heard the dungeon master,” Alenia said in response. “We’re not allowed to enter the magma. We should be safe up here.”

“Sure is hot though,” the swordsman complained.

“O—Of course,” said Daphne even as she continued to feel out of breath. “We’re even closer to the magma than before.”

“Not as close as you almost got,” the white mage quipped, but he was quickly silenced by a glare from Alenia showing that she was not amused anymore.

“Anyway, we need to continue. I’ll be more careful,” Daphne promised. “What do we do now, though?”

As if in answer to Daphne’s question, the magma receded, returning to the rivers. Amazingly, the bridges were back in place, too.

“Speak of the devil! We can try again!”

“Daphne, let’s wait a little while,” instructed Alenia.

“Why? I’m okay now…”

“It’s not that. Just, how hot do you think all those surfaces are right now?”

“Oh.”