Stretching out in front of Team Six, a rickety bridge made from wooden planks and thick strands of colorful yarn spanned the chasm to another small outcropping of rock on the far side. Cal couldn’t see an entrance in the other wall, but it had to be there because the dungeon was cut straight into the rocks below it. Like a multistory cliff dwelling, the floors of the Heart Dungeon were carved into the side of crevasse. It reminded him of the Aldaleeran ant farm his youngest sister had when they were kids. Except here, rotting wooden ladders linked one level to the next as far down as his heightened elven senses would let him see, and thick brown vines climbed up the walls around them. The vines might be the only thing holding the precariously placed ladders to the wall. Cal shivered at the thought of trying to climb them as the howling wind raged around him.
“Astounding use of the natural elements,” Helga yelled over the wind.
“I wonder how she harnessed the wind without Apothos? She must have reformed a natural tunnel toward the bottom to work with the natural wind currents to create the constant suction upward,” Gwen said.
Cal doubted the rest of the team could hear Gwen’s musings over the roar of the wind, but he had been wondering something along those same lines, although with less technical precision than their structural engineer. With no Apothos left in the dungeon, this wind tunnel would have to have been mechanically created and maintained. Mimi’s design here in the Howling Chasm could rival that of even the best graduates of Shadowcroft Academy, and they were known for their sound design. Mimi’s alma mater, Crossworld Academy of the Arcane, would be proud.
Gwen leaned closer to the edge than Cal would have ever dared and dropped a flare into the darkness. Team Six watched with fascination as the wind twirled it around and buffeted it upward until it blew through one of the openings into the dungeon and got immediately doused in what looked like a vat of boiling water. But once the light of the flare was out, there was no way to tell what had really extinguished it.
“No easy way down,” Kronke shouted.
Hurricane had fallen asleep in his arms and the strong winds hadn’t been enough to wake the goat. Neither were Kronke’s shouted words. Hurricane lay with his chin in the crook of Kronke’s elbow, drooling on the paladin’s armor with his tongue lolling out.
“Looks like we cross.” Gwen made for the bridge. She thoroughly inspected it before she stepped onto it. As the rogue, she was used to taking point to check for traps. As the structural engineer, it was even more important to check the integrity of that bridge. It didn’t look like it would hold her weight, let alone Kronke’s.
She tied Hemp around her waist and then handed the other end to Kronke. “Don’t drop me, big guy. I’m too pretty to plummet to my death. I want an open casket when I go.”
He scrunched up his brows while he puzzled through what she meant, but he laid Hurricane down gently to sleep at his feet while he held tight to his end of the rope.
The rogue made balancing on the swinging planks look easy and reached the other side without incident. She hopped lightly off the other end and motioned for Cal to tie Hemp around his waist and follow.
Cal didn’t trust the bridge, but he trusted her. If Gwen said it was safe, it was.
He rethought that confidence, however, about halfway across as the blowing wind crescendoed into a shrieking gale. The bridge swung uncontrollably beneath him as he clung to the rope on both sides as best he could while not dropping his Ruby Staff. He wished, not for the first time, that he’d been able to use it to fly like Hoob Wetstone had.
“You’ve got this, Cal,” Gwen encouraged.
Easy for her to say. She was already safely on solid ground on the other side of the bridge. He was an accountant, not an adventurer. He’d never been built for this level of hands-on auditing.
Gwen tugged on Hemp, secure around his waist, and the gentle pull nudged him forward, one shaky step at a time. Eventually, after what felt like a lifetime to his trembling muscles, he made it. He couldn’t help but cling to the far wall once Gwen untied him and tossed one end of Hemp back to Helga. Cal did run his hands over the wall, making a show of looking for the entrance to the dungeon, but mostly he was thanking the solid ground for existing.
Back on the other side, Helga roused Hurricane and guided the sleepy, slightly drunk goat across the bridge. Even in that state, Hurricane was probably the most capable on his feet. Once he woke up enough to realize where he was, Hurricane skipped past Helga and started leading her.
About three-quarters of the way across, though, the wind kicked up a body from the depths of the crevasse. A creature with oversized claws and a large head full of razor-sharp teeth nearly collided with Hurricane as the wind thrust it upward. It let out a bloodcurdling scream that Hurricane echoed as only a goat could. Helga lost her footing and backpedaled on the planks, falling onto her rump but managing to stay on the bridge.
The whole team watched as the creature toppled end over end in the current of the howling wind, getting slammed against the side of the crevasse a few times as the wind tossed it up and down, finally landing in one of the upper dungeon levels. It didn’t reemerge. Hopefully because the fall had killed it. Cal didn’t want to run into it on their way down to the inner sanctum.
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“What was that?” Gwen asked. “A minion?”
“No,” Cal said. “Those wouldn’t be alive without Mimi’s Apothos to power them. That was something else.”
Gwen glanced at him expectantly as she took in the slack from Hemp. Helga and Hurricane had resumed their trip across the bridge, keeping an eye out for any more flying bodies in the wind.
“Probably just an errant creature who wandered too far into the mountain,” Cal said. He wanted to believe that, and he didn’t want to alarm his team, but that had looked suspiciously like a drawing he’d seen of a Void Imp when he’d read up on Decaisy Apocalypses. If that were true and they’d just seen a Void Imp, then the Withering Apocalypse was turning into the dreaded Decaisy Apocalypse, and their hopes of survival were lessening every minute they spent here. Cal could calculate their exact odds more precisely on a spreadsheet, but he had a feeling that would make the whole situation concretely more dire.
“You’re a terrible liar, Cal,” Gwen told him.
He nodded. “Whatever it was, we still have to get to the sanctum and get this audit completed.”
“Aye, we do!” Helga said as she and Hurricane stepped off the bridge. “Let’s hope that’s the last scare this dead dungeon has for us. Nearly gave me a heart attack, that flying minion did.”
Neither Cal nor Gwen corrected her. Gwen tossed the rope back to Kronke and admonished him to “be careful.”
That was never his strong suit, and she knew it, so for Kronke, she looped her end of rope around a stalagmite a couple of times for added friction. If Kronke fell, she’d need the help to hold him.
Luck seemed to be with them as he walked across the bridge. His added heft stabilized the swinging, and Cal thought they would be in the clear until Kronke’s booted foot crashed through a rotted plank about ten feet from the end.
First the splintered board went, cutting through the partially frayed rope that had been holding it together. That set off a chain reaction—the entire bridge unraveled before their horrified eyes. Their large, lovable paladin had nothing but air to stand on, and he weighed way too much for that to support him.
His face widened in surprise as he started to fall. Hemp went taut almost immediately since Gwen had been fastidious about taking up the slack as he went. The rope jolted and stopped Kronke’s free fall, but nothing could stop his swing into the side of the crevasse.
His metal armor clanged off the rock and sent a deafening echoing bouncing through the enclosed space. A second later, a softer clang sounded. Then another. Then Kronke’s unmistakable giggle floated up to their ears.
“Kronke bounce!” Kronke laughed again as his armor hit the wall one more time.
Gwen shook her head and enlisted the help of Helga and Hurricane to pull Kronke up the side of the crevasse. Cal grabbed the end of the rope too, but his strengths were not physical.
“You okay, big guy?” Cal asked as Kronke cleared the edge of the outcropping and got to his feet.
Kronke beamed. “Bridge ride almost good as cookies. This good dungeon.”
“Aye,” Helga said. “’Tis well suited for deflecting invaders and it nae be alive anymore. Imagine in all its glory.”
That's exactly what they were here to see. The dungeon in action as it had been. As long as Cal could perform the Omega Audit. He touched the front pocket of his messenger bag to make sure the Omega Audit Crystal was still tucked safely away.
“Let’s get to it, shall we?” Cal said. “Gwen, if you would with the door?”
Gwen coiled Hemp back onto her belt. “I’ve been studying this setup while you guys were taking your time on the bridge. I think it’s your standard pressure sensor but modified to require three people to activate it. Pretty smart. Keeps curious locals and two-person parties from even entering. See the animal tracks in the rocks, there?”
Cal looked down in front of his feet, but he didn’t see anything other than the rough stone surface. Helga shrugged and so did Kronke.
“Honestly, what would you do without me?” Gwen said.
“Kronke not want audits with no Gwen,” he said seriously.
She playfully punched his arm. “Aw, back atcha, big guy. But seriously, in front of the wall, there’s a series of depressions, each one in the shape of a different kind of animal track. See that one. It’s a crocodile. You can tell by the claws. And that one is a moose, but don’t ask me how they would know what those are on this planet. Mimi probably threw it in there to keep the Teeklish guessing if they made it this far. Anyway, I think the ones we’re looking for are the bird, that three-pronged one right there. The panther, that kitty cat–looking one in front of you, Cal, and that coiled one that looks like a dung depression. I’m guessing that one is a snake print. You know, to match the theme of the Hall of Life and Death. Three friends enter.”
Cal stared at the prints in the ground that he could mostly make out now that Gwen had pointed them out to him. Then he looked up at her in astonishment. “You figured all that out while we were all trying not to die falling off the bridge?”
“Well, yeah,” she said, like that was the most normal part of the day.
“How Gwen know animal tracks?” Kronke asked.
“That is thanks to Weavelord. When I was little and he still cared about being a father more than becoming a dungeon core, he used to put me to bed with a picture book called Worlds of Animals Encyclopedia. I know more than anyone probably should about tracks, scat, and the eating habits of literally hundreds of animals. Usually pretty useless, but I used to be a ringer on our dungeon trivia team at the Justification Inn.”
“Those be good times,” Helga said. “Your knowledge of Bharooshian scat be both alarming and admirable.”
Cal did not want to talk about scat any more than they had to. “So, what do we do here?”
“If you’ll each step on your print, the door should open,” Gwen directed.
Helga stepped on the bird tracks, Cal on the panther, and Kronke on the snake. A large rectangle in the wall in front of them dislodged itself, sliding backward and to the side.
“After you.” Cal motioned Gwen through.
But Kronke walked in first.
“Kronke, wait!” Gwen said just as a dart plinked off his shoulder armor.
She started to breathe a sigh of relief, but a dart from the other side shot into his neck.
Kronke plucked it free, sniffed it, and then wobbled forward. “Me don’t smell poison. Me feel poison. Taste like burned almond croissants. Bitter almonds. No like bitter almonds.”
“You big oaf. Mechanical doors can have mechanical traps,” Gwen said, expecting the paladin to shake it off like he usually did when he blundered into traps.
Instead, Kronke fell face-first onto the stone floor.