The shadowless cave continued on a bit farther, then the tunnel opened up into a gigantic cavern. Directly across from the tunnel the rough rock had been hewn into an intricate facade with an impressive portico supported by thick round columns in front of a tall, narrow opening. I couldn’t tell you if the architecture was Doric or Ionic or whateveric, but it was clearly Greek.

It reminded me of the temple in Petra; you know, the one where Indiana Jones found the Holy Grail, only this one’s fancy facade was hidden inside a cave. The cavern containing the facade wall also had a now-familiar arrangement of twelve objects in a circle, each one marked with one of the twelve affinities. Here, the affinity objects were short columns in the same style as the ones holding up the portico.

Quest: Solve the [Hidden] Dungeon under Olympus Mountain

Reward: Dungeon control

Continuing through the facade’s entrance, we were disappointed to find nothing. No monsters. No long corridors flanked by torches that flared to life as we progressed down it, not that any were needed with the mysterious light still illuminating everything with its shadowless glow. No floor tiles that triggered poisonous darts or huge spinning blades shooting from the walls. Not even a pit trap, for heaven’s sake. Just a massive circular room with a high domed ceiling, a bunch of statues, and three doors.

Every bit of the walls and dome were adorned with intricate tile mosaics depicting the greatest hits of Greek mythology. The Titans. The Olympians. The other gods and heroes, they were all there. They even had my two favorites, the golden apple of Eris and Prometheus giving fire to humanity. There were also marble statues positioned around the edge of the room, dozens of them. Each statue was different, but each one was the figure of a mythological character depicted in the mural behind them.

“Chekov’s gun,” Jane said when she and I checked out the statue of Hercules.

“Excuse me?” I said.

“These statues, for some reason they make me think of Chekov’s gun.”

“Shouldn’t that be Chekov’s phaser?”

“Wrong Chekov, doofus. I mean the playwright. You know, his rule that if you have a prop gun appear in one scene, you know someone’s gonna get shot before the play’s over. I’ll bet you anything these are Chekov’s statues. We’re gonna be fighting them before we leave this place.”

“That is how these things usually work.”

And there were the doors.

Apart from the statues, the only things in the room were those three doors. I really do mean they were in the room, too. They weren’t in the wall, like you’d expect a door to be, but were just standing on the floor not attached to any walls at all. Three doors, equally spaced, all in a row. Just standing there, leading nowhere.

We examined them as closely as we could, walking around to see them from both sides, and as far as we could tell they were identical in every detail, because they had no details at all. They were perfectly flat. All the same size, all made of the same silvery metal, all with a simple handle on one side only.

“I guess we’ve got to open one,” Arthur had said.

“Yeah, but which one?” Kay said.

“What difference does it make?” Jane said. “They’re all the same.”

“You’re assuming we can only pick one,” Morgan said, moving up to the door on the left side and reaching out for the handle.

“Wait!” Sigrid said, but it was too late. Morgan had already gripped the handle.

Turns out there was a trap after all.

Quest: Solve the Light Dungeon under Olympus Mountain

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Reward: Dungeon control

Light Dungeon, huh? That explains some things. But I'd have to worry about that later, after we dealt with the statues.

As soon as Morgan touched the handle on the door, the statues started to move. All of them. They were still solid marble, but they moved as though they were flesh and blood. They weren’t in a rush, they just started ambling towards us, a bit jerkily. They reminded me of the stop motion skeletons in that old Jason and the Argonauts movie.

“Form a circle,” Arthur shouted. “Melee fighters on the outside.”

We all converged in the center of the room and after a bit of jostling we managed to arrange ourselves into defensive formation before the first statues reached us. Jane caught my eye and she opened her mouth to say something, but before she could I said, “Now is not the time to say I told you so.” She laughed and swished her rapier a few times, taking her position in the outer ring of our defensive circle as the statue of Athena closed in on her.

I had been ready for a tough battle, I think we all were. After all, we were fighting Gods and Heroes, plus even a few Titans. But really, we weren’t. We were only fighting statues. They did not have divine strength or powers. I’m sure they were strong, and a different party may have had a very hard time in that situation, but we made mincemeat of them.

Our outer ring of fighters was a machine.

Jane, blinking in to deliver a few surprise jabs, then blinking over to another foe and doing the same.

Arthur, decapitating statues with wide swings of his sword while Lancelot’s sword and Galahad’s spear caused their own brands of devastation. I could feel the warm swell of power coming from Arthur's Hallowed Ground spell, increasing the attack and defence of the entire group. Once or twice, Galahad used his ability to increase gravity to crush a statue into chunks as though it had been struck by an invisible hammer of god, but I could see how much of his mana that zorched up, so I understood why he used it sparingly.

Andy and Chika did their part in smashing marble with their potent martial arts strikes and throws. They reminded me of Gimli and Legolas, keeping a running head count and trying to outdo one another.

Seeing how much better coordinated Wayne had become at using his powers, his flaming sword slashing hell among the statues while his summoned skeletons flanked him as undead bone-shields, was a sight I'd never forget. Same with Sam’s summoned tigers ripping statues apart with their powerful claws, simply unforgettable.

I could barely see Kenji as he slashed through the enemy line, using the magic sword his sister had won in the tournament as a deadly ninjato and his equally deadly ninja abiliies to slip among the enemies like smoke on a breeze.

Sigrid at my side, destroying statues with her sword as I used omni-do to take down my own fair share.

Inside the circle, Byron pulled an endless supply of arrows, bolts, and darts from his extra-dimensional inventory, keeping Kay’s bow singing, Morgan’s crossbow humming, and his own throwing arm tossing. And in the well-protected center of it all, Nina maintained her blessing to strengthen everyone, while casting out quick healing to anyone who took a hit from a statue while Bruce beside her sniped at any statue he was able to get a good bead on with his magic force missiles. A few of the statues had ranged weapons, and when one of these got fired toward the middle group Nina would throw up a small, targeted force field for just long enough to block the incoming missile, a very efficient way to use her power to defend against attacks she could see coming.

They had this down to a fine art, and it made me wonder what Sigrid's role was when I wasn't there to distract her with the need to protect me.

The enemy had us outnumbered at least four to one, but the battle was over in less than a few minutes leaving us all a bit bewildered, surrounded by shards of broken marble and a cloud of dust.

“Is that it?” Kay said, an arrow nocked in the string of her bow.

“Looks like it,” Arthur said.

Buoyed by the easy victory, we collected the mana crystals each statue had dropped and returned our attention to the doors.

“Let’s try this again,” Morgan said, grasping the door handle once more. This time nothing happened. She cast a look at her brother and inclined her head toward the other doors.

“Oh, right,” Arthur said, taking the middle door handle.

“I’ll take this one,” Jane said, grabbing the handle on the last door. “Let’s do three-two-one-open, ok?” Morgan and Arthur nodded. “Three...two...one...open!”

All three pulled their door open at exactly the same moment. And that’s the moment when things stopped going well for us.

As we later discovered, as soon as a door in the dungeon’s round room was opened it would immediately teleport the entire party to a different place in the labyrinth. But we’d opened all the doors at once, so instead of sending us all to one place, it divided us and sent us in smaller groups to all three places. I had been transported with Sigrid, Kenji, Morgan, and Lancelot to a small square room with an opening on each side, all leading into corridors. Everything — walls, floor, and ceiling — was made from identical stone blocks. The corridors looked similar, each was a different length but all of them ended in a turn, one turning to the left and three to the right. It was definitely a labyrinth.

“What the hell?” Sigrid said, looking around. “Where are we?

Lancelot crouched low, sword drawn and shield ready. “And where are the others?”

Morgan tried to open her map screen, but couldn’t. I gave it a try too.

System: Map function currently unavailable

“This is bad,” she said.