With one side of the dungeon entirely solved, the two warrior rats head up into the other offshooting room. The brown rat sets down to arrange the tiles in the various patterns it would take to create a pattern that fit with the images already emblazoned onto the stone. Unfortunately, unlike the keys the images here were simply a different color of rock rather than an actual engraving, so there was not a quick hint wherein the tiles would fit easily into the grooves. That would have been entirely too convenient, with the three or four tile pieces being able to fit into the indentation easily. At the very least, the brown rat could just put the pieces on the symbols that match them, and try and fit the other pieces into the puzzle where they would, but there were nine of each symbol so that was going to take quite a bit of trial and error. Also, the random hole in the middle stymied any attempt to put tiles over that area. They tried putting the five into the slot, but it certainly didn’t fit.

Trena quickly gets bored of watching and wanders back out into the central area.

Out there, the scrawny rat investigating the dias notices that the circular block has a rat emblazoned upon it. Curious, they take out the cylinder. One of the ends has the engravings of the rat, while the other is covered with a depiction of a dragon. Also the doors close.

Every single non-central rat jumps up at the fact that they are suddenly locked in a single square room, with no method of escape. The black rat starts yelling in the chittering rat language first, and the Trena walks over to the closed door to chitter back. The brown rat also yells, and Trena heads black over to that closed door to respond. Unfortunately for the rat caught in the middle, they end up as some sort of go-between translator between two rats stuck in traps on opposite sides.

Eventually, the scrawny rat manages to interrupt the panicking with her discovery of the rat stone, and they show Trena where they pulled it from.

Trena puts it back, and the doors open back up.

Both rats burst in, and they start chittering loudly at each other. The brown rat steps up and has the scrawny one remove the piece again, at which point the doors close. To no one’s surprise, the brown rat takes it and places it back into the slot, and the doors open again.

"Ah, okay. So this is the solution to the doors."

They scrape a note into the stone floor regarding the positions of the stones, and removes the cylinder, closing the door again. Repeating the action with all the other stone blocks, the brown rat sets them aside and tries the other shaped blocks scattered about the chamber, slotting them into the correct position. With the doors not opening even though the slots are filled, the rat resets the original pieces into the holes, opening the door.

Spotting a smooth, image-less cube, the brown-furred rat excitedly runs over to the unsolved puzzle and slots it into the inconvenient hole. The eyeball floats after the rat, watching the excited creature's actions.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Cube goes into hole, and then the tile won’t fall in! Perfect. Trena, now that I’ve solved the hard part, you finish it off,” the brown-furred rat states, walking with the black-furred rat over to the locked door, keys in hand.

“But Terash, you didn’t do anything!” Trena complains, settling down to assemble the nine by nine grid.

o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

"Damnit," Terash says again, before turning to the group behind him with his hands raised. "Can anybody here read?"

"Yeah, just a sec," responds the creature they had brought in with them, stepping up to the writing on the wall. For some reason, there was only one of them, though Terash was fairly certain that there had been two of them earlier. “Across time, summer looks at her compatriots. Before, the guard of life, beyond the waning of it. Life burns brightly.”

“This key has a sun on it, and the sun is hot. The sun is life? So the sun goes in the middle, with the shield on the left… That leaves one key to find.”

"Waning of it?” The black-furred rat bursts out, “Are they mocking us for wanting to get our queen back? ‘'Life burns brightly.' Pah!"

“Keep hold of your temper Yeshi,” snaps Terash, “we’ve not yet been attacked directly, but anything could set off the rage of a watching dungeon. The further we can get without bringing down the defenders, the better our chances of retrieving Queen Miradeen.”

Glowering, Yeshi returns to staring at the door, hand on his broken sword. Satisfied that their leader wasn’t going to do anything rash, Terash returns to check on Trena’s progress on the puzzle.

o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

“Oh good, you’re done,” Terash comments as he walks into the room.

“Lady Marianna helped. She said there isn’t supposed to be more than one of the same symbol in a line,” replies Trena.

“Of course. Lady Marianna’s assistance is already proving invaluable.”

o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

Yeshi paces back and forth in the door room. Idly making conversation, he speaks generally in the direction of the only other creature in the room.

"You know, I've not been itchy since we entered here. Is there some kind of anti-flea magic?"

"Ah. You might want to have someone look over your fur. There might be a bunch of corpses in it now," responds said creature, not wanting to even get near the idea of volunteering for that job.

"Wow. I wish Lady Marianna could get that kind of magic."

"It's probably not worth the cost."

"What are you talking about? No fleas! What could possibly not be worth an itch-free life?"

"How would you like to have everyone you meet want to punch you in the face?"

"Ah. Yeah, makes sense,” the warrior rat admits. "Then again... We haven't led the best lives. Trena is the only one who's had a good upbringing, and that’s basically because she hasn’t had one at all."

"I can relate at least a bit to that. All of my kind were brought into existence for a singular purpose, to serve our creators with the abilities they imbued within us. There are safeguards built into our very being to prevent us from rebelling, and outside our niche we're completely useless."

“So you are dungeon spawn.”