10 years ago…

“My feet hurt. Can we take a break?”

“We’re almost there! Come on, another five minutes.”

Velik scowled at Chalin. “You’ve said that four times now.”

They’d been exploring the forest regularly all summer, oftentimes going on overnight camping trips so they could push deeper. At first, it had just been to see what was out there and because they didn’t have a lot of responsibilities at home yet. Their parents had encouraged them, hoping it would lead to an uncommon or even rare hunter-type class when they got older.

Then Chalin had come up with what had seemed like a good idea at first, but which Velik was rapidly becoming less and less enthused about. Chalin had revealed his master plan last night: to go see the ruins of the old dungeon for themselves. The reality of that had turned out to be just endless walking, with no idea how far they had to go or even if they were going in the right direction.

Just as Velik was about to open his mouth to demand a break this time, no more excuses, Chalin let out an excited yell and surged through the brush. A branch snapped back behind him, almost striking Velik across the face and causing him to let out an annoyed huff. That was forgotten a moment later when he saw what had gotten his friend so excited.

“There it is!” Chalin said, practically dancing in place as he gestured wildly ahead. A whole town was sitting ahead of them, but one made of stone instead of wood. A slope ran down a hundred feet to the edge of the first moss-stained building, one of a dozen that they could see from their vantage point.

Exhaustion forgotten, Velik jumped ahead and started running down the hill. “Hey!” Chalin yelped as he scrambled to catch up. “Don’t go in without me!”

* * *

The upper ruins looked just like Velik remembered, except with another decade’s worth of moss coating them. That didn’t really make much of a difference, considering they’d had fifty years of growth before he’d seen them as a child.

Somehow, no trees or bushes grew between those houses, though the old cobblestone streets had long since been lost under a layer of dirt. The streets had been cleaner in the middle of the ruins when he’d been young, but time continued to bury the place. He imagined that one day the buildings would fall down or the dirt would pile up so high that the whole thing would be just another large hill covered in trees.

Today was not that day, however, so Velik started down the hill to begin his search for Torwin. He’d been hoping to avoid the conversation, but bringing the mana compass to the dungeon hadn’t done anything except change which direction the arrow pointed – away from the dungeon, for whatever that was worth.

The dungeon was a lot bigger than the buildings on the surface. Velik actually wasn’t entirely clear on why they were considered part of the whole thing, but everyone agreed that they were. Apparently, they’d been alive back before the core was broken. Monsters had spawned in the buildings, woven out of dungeon magic and ready to tear would-be hunters apart. Maybe that’s all it takes. But then, isn’t the whole forest basically one big dungeon if the only criteria is ‘makes monsters?’

Whatever the reason, the dungeon was weirdly empty. It was supposed to be dead, but not even animals made their homes in the ruins. Velik walked through it, heading for the well in the middle of town, and peered at the moss. It was whole, completely untouched by human hands. He paused to peer briefly at the open doorway of the nearest building, as empty of anything except for dust as it had always been.

* * *

Velik scraped off a chunk of moss from the wall next to the door. “This one’s empty, too,” he yelled out. Chalin was in one of the other houses, looking for any sort of treasure they could take home with them. They probably wouldn’t find anything, but it was still fun to search.

He walked around the building toward the next one, only to fall back with a frightened screech when something leaped out at him. “Blehugahra!” Chalin bellowed, arms raised over his head as he loomed over Velik.

“Don’t do that!” Velik scolded, his breath coming heavy. “What if I’d stabbed you?”

“Nah, I’d just dodge out of the way,” Chalin said. He laughed and gestured behind him. “Those three are all empty, too. This place is lame. I thought there’d be something here, but…”

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“There probably was, but other people already cleaned the place out,” Velik said.

“Probably.” Chalin nodded along. “That’s why we need to go somewhere adults couldn’t fit, so we can find the treasures they missed.”

“Like where?” Velik asked. As far as he could tell, they’d explored the whole dungeon between the two of them.

“Like there.”

* * *

It was a little stone well, three feet high and two feet across. It had a little roof with a metal chain hanging down from it that might have connected to a bucket once upon a time. Or maybe not. It’s not like this was ever a real village. Maybe it’s always been a rusted chain leading down to a dry well since the day the dungeon formed.

The caves at the bottom of the well were the true dungeon. They weren’t really that big, but it was too dark to see unaided. That wasn’t an issue for Velik anymore, and he slipped over the lip to drop thirty feet to the stone. Other than the soft scrape of his boots touching down, everything was silent. His eyes traveled the length of the cave, noting the spot where he’d once piled up wood to make a fire so he could explore, now as bare and empty as everywhere else.

There were three exits, all of them leading to long, looping tunnels that wrapped around each other. Occasional intersections made the whole thing confusing to navigate, so much so that he’d wasted hours walking in circles back when he was younger. Eventually, they’d found the bottom, and Velik easily navigated his way back there now.

He’d last seen the door three years ago. It hadn’t changed one bit, except that it was propped open by a chunk of stone that hadn’t been there before. That’s a good sign for Torwin and his apprentice still being here.

The door itself was tall and narrow, or at least it seemed that way. In truth, it was just as wide as any average door, but being over ten feet tall made it appear stretched and distorted. It had no designs or handle, just a smooth indent with a lip about halfway up for him to curl his fingers around and pull. Otherwise, it was a featureless white slab of stone with hidden hinges to complete the illusion.

Velik cursed the day they’d discovered this door.

* * *

It took the both of them working together, with Velik standing on his toes to get a grip on the indent and Chalin with his arms around Velik’s waist pulling him backward, but they got the door open. It swung open silently, ponderously, like it was reluctant to reveal whatever secrets were hiding beyond it.

The boys weren’t going to be denied by a rock that just happened to be extraordinarily tall, however. They’d already wedged their makeshift torches upright in a small cluster of nearby rocks, but both of them scrambled to claim the lights as soon as the door swung open.

“What happened here?” Velik asked in a hushed whisper as he surveyed the hall. At fifty feet long, maybe more, and half as wide, it was the biggest single room he’d ever seen. A series of pillars ran down the length of the hall on either side, each one thick enough that he couldn’t have gotten his arms around them if he’d tried.

It was also completely wrecked. Half the pillars had been knocked down and now resembled nothing so much as a line of crooked, jagged teeth. The ones that were still upright had chunks missing from them and a spider web of cracks covering their surface. He was sure that a single good shove was all it would take to tip them over.

“Guardian chamber,” Chalin said with a grin. “There must have been an epic battle in here. That means the core is nearby.”

“Was nearby. It’s dead now.”

“Right. It should still be here, right? They’re too big to haul away.”

Velik shrugged. “I guess? That’s what Dad said when I asked him.”

They held the torches up, really just sticks that were burning faster than Velik liked. But they had a whole bundle of them and plenty of time to get back up to the bonfire they’d built at the exit, so it was fine. Even if they somehow lost their light, they could get back by touch now that they’d explored the tunnels.

The far end of the room had another doorway, similar to the one they’d just opened, except it was two doors set into one frame this time. A line of symbols had been carved across their surface, smoothly transitioning from one door to the other at the seam.

“Magic letters,” Chalin said. “This has to be the place.”

“How do you know they’re magic?”

“How do you know they’re not?”

They pried the doors open and walked into the core room. Just like they’d expected, it was an inert pillar with a huge slice missing from it. The stories said that a living dungeon core was a brilliant glowing gem the size of a tree, filled to the brim with magic, but once they were destroyed, they turned to rock.

“This is a lot less exciting than I was expecting,” Velik said.

“Yeah.” Chalin sighed and peered around. “What a letdown. But, hey, what’s that over there?”

* * *

Velik heard soft snoring in the core room and spotted the tripwire strung across the floor halfway through, just a simple, hair-thin cord wrapped around two pillars with a tiny bell hanging from it off to the side. He stepped over the tripwire with a slight smile, not that it mattered. Even with the [Silent] enchantment on his boots and his [Stealth] skill, somebody heard him coming.

“Was wondering if I’d see you here,” Torwin said as he stepped through the door. “Thought maybe not after you ran off the other way in the forest last week, but I guess I was wrong.”