Charlie blinked at the voice. Had he heard that correctly? What did the interface mean by creation of a temporary core? And what was wrong with Orb? Why was he unavailable?

Lyra stopped walking, as if she had a thought. She hurried over to Sophia. Of all the children, Sophia was one of the few that wasn’t crying. She had returned to her usual fetal position, though, which Charlie now assumed was her default state. Lyra spoke softly. “Sophia, would you mind joining me? A few of us are about to talk, and I think you could help provide some insight.”

Sofia looked up. “I can…help?”

Lyra nodded, holding out a hand. Sophia took it, and she followed Lyra back toward the tunnel where the other council members had disappeared.

Charlie held up Orb to inspect him. The dungeon core was still covered in a thick layer of padded dirt. Charlie used a few fingers to scrape some of the dirt away. His eyes went wide when he saw it.

Orb’s usual blue glow was heavily faded. More than Charlie had ever seen before. He had green splotches and looked sickly. Like a dungeon core without any life in it. He thought about what the interface had said. Something about allocating resources to the creation of a temporary core? Would that help Orb? What exactly did it mean?

Lyra and Sophia entered the tunnel leading deeper into the dungeon and kept walking. Charlie didn’t see Kashak, Luc, or the others that had gone on ahead. He turned his attention back to the matter at hand.

“Interface, what’s wrong with Orb?”

“Status requested. One moment. Dungeon integrity is currently 58%. Abilities currently unavailable. Dungeon Core unavailable. Would you like to allocate resources to the creation of a temporary core?”

Charlie frowned. Parent had said he would lose the ability to ask specific questions. Maybe if he created whatever a temporary core was, that would help.

“Yes! Create a temporary core!”

“Confirmed. Temporary core creation has begun. Dungeon integrity is now at 28%. Abilities will be available upon the main core’s return to the dungeon.”

So, to get a temporary core and have his abilities returned, Orb had to go back into the dungeon. But his powers wouldn’t work until he had the temporary core! That didn’t make any sense. How was he supposed—oh.

Maybe he didn’t need his power. What if he ate Orb? Before Charlie had the sentience ability used on him, he used to eat his yummy friend all the time. But would that return Orb to the dungeon? He wasn’t sure. But he had to assume the interface wouldn’t ask him to do something impossible. Still, he wished he had time to rub more of the dirt off.

Charlie stretched his mouth really wide and popped Orb inside. He swallowed him whole. It actually wasn’t that bad. In fact, he thought the dirt added a little flavor.

“Confirmation of return of main core. Temporary core creation is still in progress.”

Lyra finally noticed him. “Charlie! What was that? Spit it out! You’ll choke!”

Charlie looked up, confused. What was she worried about?

He looked over at Sophia, who looked at him with wide, concerned eyes.

Lyra rudely put a finger inside his mouth and looked around. She shook her head. “I swore I saw him put something in his mouth…” She listened and realized he was breathing just fine. She sighed, shaking her head. “Guess he’s fine. We’re here anyway.”

Charlie looked up. They hadn’t gone very far into the dungeon at all. He knew the daycare was still easily within sight. There was a door in front of them, on the hallway’s left side. But it was a door with a window. There wasn’t anything but the dungeon wall on the other side. It was clearly one of the fake doors. What was she doing?

She gently kicked the bottom half of the door three times. The bottom half of the door swung open. Florence emerged from the other side, pushing it open. She made a face, wondering why Sophia and Charlie were there, and then shrugged and waved them inside.

Lyra ducked through first, moving carefully so she didn’t drop Charlie. She cradled him against her body with one arm and used the other to crawl. Sophia followed behind her.

Florence peeked out again to make sure no one was watching and then pulled the half door shut tight again.

They were in a small room with a long table. There were eight wooden chairs, four on each side. Each of the chairs had some sort of cushion or blanket folded atop it. Kashak and the boy with him from earlier sat on the far side of the table. Luc sat on the opposite side and end of the table. Florence went to join him. She accidentally bumped into his arm as she sat, frantically apologizing.

Luc sucked in air through gritted teeth for a minute straight. Before letting a breath out. “I’m fine.”

Lyra beckoned for Sophia to take a seat. To her surprise, Sophia walked around the table and sat next to the strange boy with Kashak. Lyra blinked but didn’t say anything. She sat next to Florence.

Kashak leaned forward to look at Sophia, two chairs down from him. “Why did you bring her? She is not a part of the council. And the baby boy? You didn’t trust the other children to watch him for ten minutes?”

Lyra sighed. “I guess we’re getting started. Besides Charlie and Kyo, Sophia is the only one of us that has been outside of the dungeon in a long time. We don’t know how it’s like out there. If we’re escaping, her opinions and knowledge could be very useful.”

She didn't explain Charlie's presence.

Sophia’s lips parted, and she looked around at the others. She felt the pressure of what Lyra just said.

“That’s fine, but we could’ve asked her afterwards if that’s how we decide to move forward,” Kashak said.

The other children all turned to look at him. “What? Why wouldn’t we move forward with the plan? We’ve gotta escape!” Luc said, his voice rising.

Florence shook her head. “I understand this is scary, Kashak, but—”

“I am not scared!” Kashak slammed his hand down on the table as he said it. Charlie’s eyes widened. There was a massive dent where his fist connected with the table. A crater several inches in the wood. Charlie stared at it and then turned back to Kashak.

No normal kid could do something like that.

Charlie would know. He wasn’t normal either.

But what did that mean? Could Kashak use hexes? Or was this something else?

Lyra froze too, for a second. Then she stood up. An angry look on her face. “Kashak! This place is sacred.”

Charlie shuddered in her arms. The room suddenly felt filled with magic. Kashak looked up at her, surprised. He snapped out of his sudden outburst. He didn’t say anything. His eyes cut away from her. She sighed. “What are you suggesting, Kashak? That we stay here for the rest of our lives?” she asked.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Kashak looked up at her, and then at the others. “Yes.”

Luc and Florence gasped. Lyra seemed taken aback. Sophia was quiet.

“We were talking about it…” Kashak put his hand on the shoulder of the boy next to him. “Desmond and I think that it’s best we remain here. Look at what Varroc did to Luc. He was one of our best spear fighters. Now he’s… broken. I know they took Kyo. And before that, it was Tomas. But that is extremely rare. You’ve heard the guards talk. The other daycares take children all the time. We’ve been lucky. Just two of us in all these years? They leave us in peace for the most part. They only took Tomas because we broke the rules. We just need to accept things as they are.”

Luc spoke quietly. “I’m not broken.” He didn’t sound convinced of that himself.

Lyra started to respond, but it was Florence who spoke up. She shot to her feet and walked all the way around the table. She jabbed a finger right at Kashak’s chest.

“How dare you!” she said. By the look on everyone’s faces, Charlie wasn’t the only one surprised. This seemed out of character for the usually quiet Florence. “Kyo loved you! You played with him all the time. And Tomas was like a brother to us. He went with them to save us. How dare you sit here and say that’s okay. You’re supposed to be the strongest one in our entire group. They all saw how you reacted today. You didn’t have to fight. But turning your face away like that when they needed you, that broke them. It broke me.”

Tears streamed down her face.

Kashak looked up, his mouth agape. “Florence…”

Charlie felt a pang in his chest. He didn’t like to see Florence cry. He didn’t know her well at all. But he hated this. He didn’t want any of these children to be sad. His own eyes teared up.

She shook her head, turning to Lyra. “And you and I both know we shouldn’t be having a meeting right now. You’re our leader. You can’t run off to find a solution every time something goes wrong. They don’t need that right now; they need to hear it’s going to be okay. Luc and I needed to hear it was going to be okay. But you just walked up and said we were having a council meeting!”

Lyra’s face grew dark. She closed her eyes and her head fell.

Florence wiped her face and returned to her chair. She plopped down on it and turned away. Charlie had the feeling that if it wasn’t for Luc needing her help, she would’ve stormed out of the room already.

The room was quiet. Lyra sighed. She stood and walked to the head of the table.

“You’re right Florence. I’m sorry. I should’ve been a better leader back there. I was stressed about Kyo, and worried about Luc’s arm. I failed as a leader and didn’t protect us. But that’s why we need to push into the dungeon. Now is the time. Varroc thinks he broke us. He thinks he won. There’s a reason he came in person this time. He’s afraid of us. Tomas gave us this chance. He mapped out a route through the dungeon that would help us escape. But because of that, we know something else as well. It takes days to get to the center of the dungeon. We have at least that long before they get to where they’re going with Kyo. Varroc isn’t sending more supplies for two days at least. Don’t you guys realize it? This is it. This is our chance to make a push into the dungeon. We’ll have a two-day head start. We go after them, get Kyo back, and escape.”

Luc looked stunned. “The window was 24 hours before because they bring food every day. But now we have 48 hours to get everyone out of the dungeon. They wouldn’t even realize we were gone until it was too late!” he said.

Lyra nodded. “Sophia, if we get out of Sange, can you help us find our way to the capital?”

Sophia twisted her lip. “I think so, but why there?” she asked.

For the first time since the incident with Varroc, Luc broke into a grin. “Because we’re going to march all the way to Karze and the let the king know what’s happening here! We can’t break everyone out of Sange, but we can make sure they get help. The king needs to know what’s going on! We’re going to do everything in our power to let him know!”

It was like a switch flipped in Sophia. “Okay! I’ll help!” she said.

Lyra looked around at the others. Florence nodded at her. She turned to Kashak and Desmond.

Kashak wouldn’t meet her eyes. He glanced at Desmond. Desmond didn’t return the gaze. “Well, if we’re going by numbers. We’ve lost. So, fine, I’m in.”

Kashak grunted at Desmond’s betrayal. Desmond shrugged. “At this point, even the baby would vote against us. Come on, man, they need us. We’re the guys who caught a freaking Scaler for Hex King’s sake. If anyone can lead them through the dungeon, it’s us.”

That was just the thing Kashak needed to hear. A smirk crept across his face. “Fine. But I’m more experienced in the dungeons. So don’t think I’ll let you boss me around in there,” he said, looking at Lyra.

She nodded. “Alright, everyone, go and gather the others. We’re going to let them know the plan.” The council members stood. Desmond and Kashak were the first to leave. Florence helped Luc up. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

He eyed Lyra. “You aren’t coming?” he asked.

“I need a minute. Take Sophia back for me,” Lyra said.

Luc exchanged a look with Florence, but they nodded. Lyra waited until they were gone and hurried to pull the door shut. She turned and sat Charlie on the table. She took a few steps back.

“Alright, Charlie. It’s time we talked.”

At the same time, there was a little ding. It was like the timer on an oven was going off.

“Temporary dungeon core creation is complete.”

Charlie and Lyra both looked at the transparent blue dungeon core that suddenly floated between them.

Merlin

Merlin swallowed. Bursts of fire erupted at regular intervals, illuminating the dark mineshaft. The cave was hot. Merlin was so sweaty his clothes clung to his skin. He would’ve left his cloak behind, but he didn’t trust anyone not to steal it. He’d already seen the greedy eyes of the other prisoners. They’d love to replace their torn and weathered clothing with his own.

And so, he wore it, even in this humid, steaming hell of a place.

Crussus looked at him. “And this is the reason casualty rates in the mine are so high. The kierstone they have us mining is more abundant just past areas like these. We call them flare-zones. We don’t know why they happen, but if you can get through without being scorched to death, there’s plenty of that black rock on the other side. You’re not allowed to mine on your first day. The guards don’t want you getting everyone killed. Since there are seven of us, and we only need six men, you can hang back to relay messages if we need you to. That way, we don’t have to cross the zone too many times. We’re just mapping a new site out today, so it shouldn’t take long.”

Merlin nodded. He took a seat. This was not the time to play the hero. Crussus smiled at him and went on ahead. Merlin watched.

There were six men besides himself. One of them was designated the spotter. His job was to memorize the flare-zones pattern and tell everyone when to go. He was apparently great at his job. The others were confident of him. You had to be, to run through a mineshaft that was literally throwing fire at you when he told you to run.

The spotter stroked a long grey beard as he watched the flames.

Crussus stepped up. “I’ll go first. Tell me when,” he said.

The spotter raised a hand. He didn’t take his eyes off the flare-zone. He was watching for any change in the pattern. The slightest alteration meant he would need to start over, wait for the flames to settle into something familiar again. “I’ve got it. I always go first. Lead by example. I want to make sure everyone follows my call outs exactly. So, I’ve gotta show I know what I’m doing.”

Crussus started to protest. But the spotter held another hand up. “Shhh! It’s coming up. 5, 4, 3, 2…” He never said one. He took off and ran into the flare zone. Just after he passed through the entrance, two sharp bursts of flames filled it. He skidded to a stop a moment before another flame shot through the space in front of him. He covered his face and waited. It ended, and he took off again.

The other men cheered him on silently, throwing fist and leaning in.

Merlin had to admit, it was pretty impressive. He stood to watch and joined the others. Rooting the spotter on.

The spotter came to another stop, waiting for a burst of flame to come to an end. He kept an eye on a hole in the wall to his side.

He bounced nervously.

His fingers were counting down the seconds. He had it all mapped out.

Merlin watched the fingers fold into his fist one by one. The flame would end in three fingers.

Two.

One.

The flame didn’t end.

The spotter froze.

“Shit!” he turned, trying to run back. A flame poured out of the hole he’d been watching nervously.

The flame only lasted a second. But the spotter’s skin was indistinguishable from the black wall of the dungeon. He only had a second to curse the flare zone for altering its pattern at the last moment.

Crussus grimaced, his head falling. One of the other men turned to look at Merlin. “Hey uh, we need six men on the other side. You’re gonna have to come with us now.”

Merlin gulped.