“Bats!” Cal yelled. “In the stairwell! From the subbasement!”

The bats looked familiar, but Cal couldn’t place them. Where had he seen shadowy, steel-fanged bats? One problem with his job was that after auditing dozens if not hundreds of dungeons was that they all started to blur together.

The Fullgeers/Karl combo had scooted into the hallway in front of Cal, but now he blocked the contraptions way out. He thought about trying out the Ruby’s Staff new Staff Smack ability, but combat always made him feel so awkward.

Cal called to the rogue engineer. “Gwen! We’re under attack!”

Her voice shrieked from the darkness, “That’s not fair! Things attacking us from the second level? We should only have to deal with one level at a time!”

The steel-fanged bats soared toward him, but then, they were washed back down with a seawater blast from Daphne, strapped to the back of Hurricane. It was a torrent of seawater that came down, a hose-blast of pressurized water that pummeled the bats into the wall. Corpses fell onto the steps.

Hurricane had been turned around, but after that initial blast, the goat spun and clattered down to the landing.

As for Kronke, he floated down, his cloak swirling around him. The air was filled with the warm scent of chocolate chip cookies. He landed on the rail of the landing, scythe out. When a fresh batch of bats came fluttering up toward him, he hacked one apart, but the damage leapt from bat to bat to bat, eviscerating six at once.

The bat squeaked and screamed, but the survivors went wheeling back down to the second level.

Helga and Hurricane trotted over to Cal.

Daphne yelled, “HOW’D I DO, ELF BOY? DID I DO GOOD? I KNOW I DID! IT’S LOVING RIDING AROUND ON THIS GOAT! NEVER THOUGHT I’D GET TO DO ANYMORE DUNGEON WORK EITHER, BUT HERE WE ARE!”

Her faucet turned on, and the water formed a very happy face.

Cal was glad someone was happy.

Kronke floated off the railing and switched off his scythe and his cloak. He looked like the happy troll again, in the scorched ruins of his leather vest, white shirt, and pants. Atop his head rested the orange and yellow Laplander hat. “Kronke can fly now. Aroma Flight. Make good smells. Ride those good smells. Cookies smell better than wet bats.”

Gwen stood at the end of the hallway. “Congratulations. Aroma Flight. Kinda love it, Cal. But come and look at what we’re facing. It’s a fun little trap involving giant silver balls and physics. Lots of physics. Momentum equals mass times velocity. See? We’re having fun already.”

Cal nodded. “I like physics. Be right there.”

He and the rest of the party joined Gwen, her blimp, and the coffee machine freezer at the end of the hallway.

The first room of the basement dungeon was rectangular, and it seemed like an obvious trap. There was an entryway directly across from them, about ten feet away. The ceilings were lost in webs, and for once, there weren’t any spiders. However, there were any number of huge balls, ten feet in diameter, that seemed designed to swing through the room and crush whoever was there.

The ceiling was far higher than it should’ve been. It was clear they were in an extra-dimensional space, which wasn’t that rare around Celestial Nodes. With how much power flowing through the place, time and space got funny.

Call still had his Triple A spell up. He checked out the room, though he knew he wasn’t going to get much, since this wasn’t an audit, but an active hostile dungeon trying to kill them. It reminded him of his dungeoneering days.

<<<>>>

Triple A Enhanced Initial Results – Room Scan

Room Type: Trap Room (Obviously. But your girl Gwen figured that out.)

Room Name: Meditations on the Nature of Death

Room Purpose: To dazzle you with physics until you die.

Room Description: There are webs in the ceiling, hiding huge silver balls that will take up the entire room. There might have been an air hockey table around here at some point, but they moved it out of the way of the huge silver balls.

Note: Sometimes executives in their swanky (and mysterious) corner offices need to think about things. To ponder their P&L reports. To noodle over an HR issue. Why do people not eat the lunches they bring to work? Is Ed going out for burgers again? He needs to watch both his weight and his pocketbook. What better way to think than watch silver balls swing back and forth, exchanging various forces. Click. Clack. Click. Clack.

Minion Description:

* Wouldn’t you like to know? Part 1.

Trap Description:

* Wouldn’t you like to know? Part 2.

Treasure Description:

* Wouldn’t you like to know? Part 3.

Apothos Usage Effectiveness: Error (Hostile dungeon detected. Some secrets are so sacred only your hairdresser knows for sure.)

Challenge Level Rating: Part 4 of wouldn’t you like to know.

Manifestation Type: Endogenous Manifestations. This piece of information doesn’t help you.

<<<>>>

Gwen turned to him. “Okay, you’re obviously doing one of your scans. Any luck?”

Cal blinked away the description. “The corner office is important. Not sure why. But once we clear this level, we have to go back up there and check it out. It’ll be easier to do if we beat this dungeon and remove the huge worm monster from the equation.” Cal pointed at the huge silver balls hanging in the ceiling. “What do you think?”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Gwen tapped her bottom lip. “I think we’re dealing with a Newton’s Cradle Pendulum Desk Toy. The tagline is Swinging Kinetic Balls for your Office Décor.”

Cal blinked. “Uh. Yes. That’s very specific of you.”

“You might think that such useless knowledge is one of my secret C-Class superpowers, but actually, my father talked about them constantly.” The rogue’s voice grew rough. “It’s him, Cal. This is my father’s dungeon.”

Cal wasn’t sure how to handle the rogue’s emotions, so he tried to focus her attention on the problem at hand. “Any thoughts on how to get through the trap?”

Gwen put a finger to her lips. “The easiest thing to do would be to trigger the room, let the balls swing, and then just try and either run past them, or wait until they stop swinging. From what I can tell, the trigger is entering the room. The other problem is that the balls probably won’t stop swinging. This is a magical trap, and the rules of physics are slightly bent. Cal, do you think you can use your telekinesis to stop them?”

“I don’t think so. I’m still feeling the strain of bringing Fullgeers down.”

The coffee machine hissed, “Are you saying I’m fat? I’ll have you know, it’s mostly the various milks I have on tap. Liquid is heavy.”

Gwen snapped her fingers. “I was going to maybe suggest Karl tries to freeze them to a stop, but no, this is better. Fullgeers, you have a stupid amount of control over what you dispense, right?”

“Yesss.” Fullgeers screen showed a suspicious face.

“I HAVE WATER!” Daphne yelled. “SO MUCH WATER! I COULD FILL THE ROOM WITH WATER!”

“Not a bad idea,” Gwen said. “I do like working with water thanks to my Fluid Dynamics skill. But hey, Fullgeers, if you had so much control, how come you gave me such terrible coffee every time. Like that time Cal got the coffee that tasted like licorice. Who likes licorice?”

“Kronke like licorice. It is the most friendless of candies.” The troll looked heartbroken.

Fullgeers’s whispered voice steamed out of his spigot. “Who are you to question my methods, girl? I’m ancient and inscrutable.”

Cal waved his hands. “Not important right now. I think I know where Gwen is going. We throw milk goo into the room to stop the mechanism. Even if we could slow them down, then Daphne could spray them with water. And I have the Ruby Staff. If there’s less force at play, I might be able to slow them.”

Helga nodded and chuckled. “Aye, tis good for us to ponder our strategies.” Then her whole demeanor changed. “Too bad the bugger who designed this place went for such clichéd basement décor. It’s an eyesore down here. The plastic wood paneling makes me furious, furious I tell you. If I find green shag carpet, this place will know my unrepentant rage.”

Kronke put his hand in front of her nose. “If you upset, smell Kronke’s finger. Smells like cookie. Make you less rage-y.”

Helga gently pushed the well-meaning troll away.

Fullgeers’s screen face frowned. “My powers have limits. I can throw my sour milk ooze to possibly slow the balls, but my exploits above have drained me. It will take time for me to replenish myself with additional Apothos. For now, I am weary.”’

Kronke summoned the Reaper Cloak and turned back into a giant skeleton in the pink cloak. “Why not let Kronke catch balls? Kronke has Stronk. He can stop them.”

Gwen shook her head. “It’s not just the weight of the ball. It’s the force of the momentum as well. We shouldn’t push Fullgeers. I think Daphne is our best bet. And Karl, maybe you can hit one of the balls with an ice bomb. Let’s get them swinging and see what we’re up against. You guys ready?”

Cal didn’t like that Gwen was having a hard time getting past this trap. Normally, she didn’t have this trouble. How hard was this dungeon going to get? His Triple A scan hadn’t been very helpful.

Gwen sent the shrimp blimp zooming through the room to the other side. The minute it entered the room, there was the chunk of machinery moving and three giant silver balls swung out of the ceiling. They went crashing through the room, filling up the entire rectangular area, and swinging up into the ceiling.

Gwen counted as they swung back and forth. “We have about fifteen seconds. Which should be fine for me to run across there. Cal and Helga and Hurricane would be fine. But I worry about Fullgeers and Kronke.”

The troll disagreed. “Kronke walk on the sweet smell of baking. The Baker bakes with a special ingredient.”

“Love?” Gwen asked, nose wrinkled.

Kronke grinned. “Vanilla.”

“Nice.”

Helga turned the battle goat around, and she walked backward.

The balls continued to swing.

“GET READY! LETHAL PRESSURE WASH ACTIVATED!” Daphne then unleashed a torrent of water that struck the wall, hitting it directly as it swung toward them. Under the torrent, the orb slowed.

She let it swing back across, far slower now, and then, on the second attempt, she stopped it completely.

All was silent.

Gwen still stood there, frowning. “Something doesn’t feel right. There are only three balls. That would work because you have the interaction of the three balls, but the one I saw had five. I’m wondering if there aren’t more.”

She turned Shrimpie around and started it flying back across the room. There was another clang from above, and then four balls came swinging down from the left. The balls cracked into the three balls, and now all seven balls were swinging through the room again. The noise was terrifically loud.

Gwen winced. “Well, we stopped it once, but now we have seven times the mass which means seven times the momentum. That’s terrible. Now what?”

Cal’s heart fell. He couldn’t use his telekinesis, and he didn’t want Daphne to use up all of her Apothos. Worse yet, the longer it took them to get past this trap, the less time they had to get to the inner sanctum, where hopefully, they’d find out who was running the dungeon. Though with all the spider stuff, it was probably their boss, Weavelord.

He tried to talk above the whoosh of the pendulum balls, but they were too loud. He had to wait until the balls rushed past. “Do we know any of Weavelord’s powers? We must know something, right?”

Gwen snorted. “Unless you used your magic, no, we don’t. It’s not like we chatted about his dungeon core days. I would’ve puked.” She stood there, scowling. Then she snapped her fingers. “I think I have an idea. Hey, Karl, can you throw an ice bomb up into the chains holding the balls?”

The spheres roared through the room again.

Gwen answered her own question. Not likely. Not unless you were above them. How about we just toss you up there?”

‘How about you shut your face?” Karl responded none too pleased.

Daphne weighed in. “JUST BECAUSE WE’RE CRACKED CORES, MIRACULOUSLY STILL ALIVE, DOESN’T MEAN WE WANT TO DIE! OR RETIRE! WE WANT TO KEEP WORKING!”

Cal stepped in. “We didn’t suggest that. Not at all. I think I see where Gwen is going with this.”

Gwen lost her temper. “Fine. I’ll go first, and then, if Karl is brave enough to join me, he can come up on the shrimp blimp. Or Cal can use his TK powers, which have come in very useful.”

Without another word, Gwen waited for the balls to pass. She then activated her steampunk backpack. It had hoses, cogs, wheels, and water tank next to a little burning engine. She triggered her wings, and they snapped out from either side. The steam engine puttered to life which caused the wings to flutter. She flew up and caught one of the chains. Once on top, she rode the front ball, back and forth. “Yeah, we just need to break one of the chains. Then we can disrupt the momentum.” She went whooshing away, but her voice carried. Karl! “Come and float on up here.”

Karl’s gem flashed on his freezer door. “You heard her Fullgeers. I get to ride the blimp again.”

Fullgeers hissed. “Even though I think this plan is doomed to fail, I shall disengage the docking structure.” There were some clicks and clacks as the coffee machine released the freezer section.

A second later, the shrimp blimp’s legs had latched onto the freezer.

Karl waited for the balls to go rushing past before he floated up above them.

“This had better freakin’ work!” the freezer wailed. He then dropped an ice bomb on where the chain was connected to the ball. At the same time, Gwen hurled her biggest soup ladle at the link. The ball came free and smashed hit the ground, but then the next silver orb hit it and smashed it into the wall.

But the next chain in line hit Karl, sending him careening toward the wall. “Is this how I die?” the freezer howled in fear.

Ear-blistering explosions forced Cal to slam his hands over his pointed ears as all the swinging orbs smashed into each other, completely obliterating the far-right wall. Blinding dust filled the room.

Gwen’s soup ladle slid across the green linoleum and hit Cal’s boot.

In the dust and destruction, Gwen and Karl were nowhere to be seen.