The entrance to the Dungeon stood at the bottom of a craggy cliff on the moors. It felt like a lifetime since I’d seen it last.

I walked amongst the tour group, following the trail once known as Adventurer’s Way. “Tourist’s Way” would be a better name for it these days, I grumbled to myself.

Most of the others didn’t seem to appreciate where they were. They just stared at their phones or chattered among themselves. One lady kept fondling the trinkets she’d bought a moment before at the Dungeon gift shop.

Yep, that’s right. A cutesy gift shop now blighted the legendary site of the Dungeon of Ruul. The very idea was ludicrous. For thousands of years, delvers had walked the Adventurer’s Way and entered the threshold. They saw the Dungeon’s surreal beauty and confronted its unimaginable horrors. A few won fortune and glory. Many more perished. Their bones still collected dust in the Dungeon’s depths.

Putting up a gift shop trivialized the place. It was just another insult to the adventurers of the past-- and to the Dungeon itself.

No wonder the tourists didn’t take it seriously.

Two imposing stone pillars loomed ahead of the tour group, the first of three pairs lining the hallowed pathway to the Dungeon threshold. As the guide led us between the first pair of pillars, I balked, hardly believing my eyes.

“The fuck is this?” I blurted out.

Rope barriers had been installed all along the walkway, keeping spectators out of arm’s reach of the pillars. Striding past the crowd, I looked ahead to see that the rope barrier also ran in front of the Dungeon threshold.

I shook my head in disgust. When I was a kid, you could go right up to the archway and feel the Dungeon’s cool air wash over you, heavy with the smell of earth and stones. Now, you had to observe it from behind a barrier, as if it were a display in a museum.

To make it even worse, two uniformed guards stood there, armed with truncheons. They were already squinting at us as if they expected us to do something wrong.

As we neared the second pair of pillars, the tour guide stopped and waited for everyone to gather around. I walked to the edge of the crowd and gazed towards the threshold. The dark, yawning entrance was wide enough for three men to enter side-by-side, though it was barred by an iron gate, welded shut. It had been so for all of my lifetime.

We were close enough that I could read the sign attached to the rusted bars: ‘Entrance is Prohibited.’

The guide launched into a spiel. “The origins of this site go back 5,000 years. The archway was built by an adventurers’ guild during the Old Heroic Age, and the pillars are much older. We don’t even know who built them.”

“Nice!” a dad said as he swept around with his phone, catching a panoramic view of the pillars. He wore blue-tinted wrap-around sunglasses and chewed a piece of gum. “Prolly aliens,” he said between smacks of his gum.

“You think so?” said his freckle-faced son, also wearing wrap-around sunglasses.

“Prolly.”

The guide continued, “Look at the ground beneath your feet. You are walking in the footsteps of the famous dungeon delvers of the past, from King Buldar to Vlard Drakin.”

A warm feeling came over me. Vlard Drakin was my grandfather, and he was, indeed, one of the last great dungeon delvers. His birthday was coming up. That was why I’d decided to visit the Dungeon site after all these years. I missed him, and I wanted to honor him.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

“But why should we still visit this site today?" The guide asked rhetorically. "What relevance can it have when we know the Dungeon died 50 years ago? Apart from a few reactionaries and romantics, no one doubts that the Dungeon’s death was a blessing. It spelled the end of monsters, magic, and heroes and led us into the modern age.”

I groaned. I'd hoped there wouldn’t be quite so much propaganda on the tour.

“Be that as it may,” the guide continued pompously, “The Dungeon site provides an interesting window into our problematic past.”

Someone scoffed, echoing my sentiment. Scanning the tour group, I noticed a pretty blonde girl. She tossed her head, swinging her bangs away from her eyes, and frowned at the guide.

Oh, it’s her!

I’d noticed the young blonde earlier because she’d arrived late, catching up with the group as we were passing through the gift shop on our way to the trail. My first impression was that she was a little full of herself. She moved with enough swagger to be a pop star and had the looks for it, too.

Not that she seemed like a rich girl or anything. She wore simple clothing: an oversized sweater and tight black jeans. A large bosom swelled beneath the folds of the sweater, and her hips flared out to make an hourglass. Judging by her bubble butt and the way she moved, I guessed she was some kind of athlete, maybe on the college volleyball team or something.

She cast her cool blue eyes around the shop, wrinkling her nose at the plush toys and trinkets. A rack of T-shirts caught her eye. She moved a shirt to get a better view. It depicted the iconic Dungeon entrance with the words ‘I survived the Dungeon of Ruul’ written boldly on top. Her pretty eyebrows scrunched together disdainfully as she shook her head.

I’d noticed all this approvingly. She seemed to have the right attitude towards the Dungeon.

Her gaze met mine for a moment. I looked into her eyes to see what was there. My grandfather always said people's eyes revealed their character. Hers were bright blue, like sapphire, accentuated by eyeshadow. They were piercing but sensitive. After a couple of seconds, her cheeks reddened and she looked away, her bangs falling over her face.

I’d sort of forgotten about her as I walked along the Hero’s Way, focused on all the memories of my grandfather that kept flooding into my mind.

But now that I saw her scoff at the tour guide’s speech, she caught my attention again. Most people would never publicly display any hint of pro-Dungeon diving sentiment.

The guide wilted under the girl’s sharp gaze. Then he continued his spiel, talking about the end of the High Heroic Age and the death of the Dungeon more than fifty years ago.

As a little boy, I’d refused to believe in the Dungeon’s death, insisting I was going to be an adventurer like my grandfather. In my teens, I started to believe I could sense the Dungeon’s sentience when I stood at the threshold. Nothing dramatic. It just felt like I was confronting something alive.

But that was years ago. After I grew up and moved to the big city, Adalgard, I was never sure if those feelings were just my youthful imagination.

Now, more than 10 years later, I gazed at the threshold once again. It stood in ominous silence, moss and ivy clinging to its stones. An intense stillness emanated from the blackness inside the archway. A watchfulness.

Yes… I could still sense it.

Turning my attention inward, I listened to my mind. Was it telling me anything? A faint intuition flickered… It seemed to say, The Dungeon lives.

Listening more intently to that intuition, I heard it clearly, unmistakably. The Dungeon was alive. And angry.

I remembered my lessons on Dungeon metaphysics. The Dungeon was part of the universal order and had a legitimate role in the world. That was why it had to be given the honor it was due. No more and no less.

I drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

How can I be so sure of all this?

I had no evidence, only intuition. And yet, I felt certain. The Dungeon lived.

The government had outlawed the adventuring academies, disbanded the guilds, and abandoned the ancient festivals in honor of Ruul. All on the pretext that the Dungeon was dead.

But that was a lie. I shivered. A dark premonition passed over me like a cloud. The Dungeon would repay our rulers for their impudence sooner or later. And when it did, who would they turn to for help, now that all the heroes were gone?

A soft voice came beside me. “If magic is dead, why would they need to outlaw it? Ever wonder about that?”

Turning, I saw the girl standing by my side.