‘Keep going! Don’t stop!’ Horatio cried as the nearest monsters evaporated.

They ran on. The only way was onwards. The only direction was forwards. There were still monsters everywhere in this dungeon-pit, and it seemed that more were appearing by the second, but they hadn’t come this far just to die near the bottom of this pit.

The bottom of this pit. They must be near the bottom of this pit now, mustn’t they? They had been getting further down with each turn of the spiral ledge, and the air had been getting hotter and hotter as they neared its molten magma nadir. Sweat dripped down his forehead and stung his eyes, and he wiped it away with a hand.

Horatio risked a quick look over the edge of the ledge as he ran. Yes! The magma was very close now. No wonder it was so hot. Only two or three more turns of the circle, and they would be at the bottom of this hellish pit. But where did the ledge lead to? He couldn’t see an end point of it—from what he could glimpse, it just seemed to blend into the roiling, seething magma.

But there must be something else down here at the bottom of the Tower of Tartarus. They couldn’t have fought their way all the way down here for nothing.

Could they?

A flock of succubses flew at them along the ledge, screeching and screaming, beating their wings. Wyvera took a turn at the front of the party now, dancing in and out among the succubses that flailed around and failed to catch her with their extended claws. The masked dancer’s flowing gown and headdress trailed behind her as she wove between the succubses, sliding her deadly dagger into their flesh and felling them one by one.

Horatio realised that he felt no temptation towards the dancer any more, only respect for her as an equal and a fellow fighter. She had progressed considerably in her battle skills during their journey and she was a formidable opponent.

Wyvera finished off the succubuses, but a band of orcs came rushing forwards, hot on their heels. Now Primus stepped up and threw a succession of fire, ice and lightning spells at the orcs, frying or freezing them and then blasting them away with a wind attack. Only he missed a few at the back, but Egea came to the front of the battle party and hit them with her own tornado attack, sending them tumbling over the ledge and into the magma of the pit where they roared and screamed and dissolved into nothingness.

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And then without warning they had reached the bottom of the pit.

The ledge did indeed just stop, coming to an end on the horizontal, leaving only the bubbling heat of the magma.

But there was a big door in the side of the pit where the ledge ended.

Actually, ‘door’ wasn’t really the right word. Instead of a rectangular frame, a wide circular pulsating organic mass was set into the pit-wall, coloured purple and brown and black. There was a hole in the centre of it, and veiny folds that ran from the edge of the circle to the hole, and the whole thing dripped with glistening translucent slime.

Not so much a door, but a sphincter.

‘Urrrgghh,’ said Egea. ‘Gross! Do we have to go in there?’

‘It would appear so…’ said Alex.

‘Come on,’ said Horatio. ‘We haven’t come this far and fought our way through all those monsters in order to turn back now.’

He beckoned for the others to follow his lead, then took a deep breath, shut his eyes, put his head down and ran through the sphincter-door.

It felt like soft flesh as he hit it, but it opened up for him and allowed him to pass through, coating him with slime, into whatever horrid chamber lay beyond.

He opened his eyes as he took a few more stumbling steps to allow his companions space to come through the sphincter-door behind him.

What lay beyond was a vast subterranean chamber of black stone, illuminated red and orange in the glow from more lava flows and magma pools that dotted the floor.

But there wasn’t time to take in the chamber properly because a few paces in front of Horatio there stood a humongous humanoid beast with white-and-yellow fur, a long tail and a reptilian head. Apparently it had been waiting for them.

‘Bloody dragons!’ cursed Wyvera as she arrived at Horatio’s side. ‘I’ve really had enough of them now!’

‘How dare you infiltrate this pit,’ said the dragon in a deep, disturbingly human voice, ‘and disturb my Master’s business. I am the guardian of this chamber and I will not let you go further. Your ridiculous foray into the depths of Braxia ends now!’

Horatio raised his sword, and hoped that the rest of the party had made it through into the chamber behind him.

Boss battle.