After the hall of traps, we continued relying on Sigrid’s danger sense to warn us of impending problems as we progressed through the labyrinth. While her ability to pinpoint the source of any danger was suspect, we nevertheless went forward confident that she could at least give us some advance warning. We also relied on Kenji’s heightened senses to direct us. We had much less confidence that his choices at each intersection were the right ones, but nobody had anything better to go on, so went with whatever he said. At first, whenever there was a choice of direction to make he’d spend a bit of time exploring the options with his senses before choosing. Then we reached one such juncture and he quickly chose a certain path.

“This one,” Kenji said.

“What makes you sure?” I said.

“It smells different.”

“What kind of smell is it?” Morgan said.

“It smells like my grandmother’s bathroom.”

“That’s oddly specific,” she said.

“Flowers, I guess,” Kenji said.

Sigrid nodded her head. “I know exactly what you mean. My grandma’s bathroom smells like that too.”

After a while, it took less and less time for him to decide; just a quick sniff, then he’d point down a hallway. We were just about to turn a corner when Sigrid stopped.

“There’s something ahead,” she whispered.

“I’m not surprised. The smell has been getting much stronger recently,” Kenji said, keeping his voice low.

“Think you can do the scouty ninja thing again?” I said.

The teenager grinned at me, then pulled the cowl up to cover his face and slunk off into the shadows once more.

Once he’d disappeared around the corner, the rest of us leaned in close to each other, talking in hushed whispers.

“This is taking a long time and we haven’t really made any progress on the quest,” Sigrid said.

“I wonder where the others are?” Morgan said.

“I’m sure your brother’s fine,” I said.

“Pfff. Like I care about that dork.”

“You care too much,” Lancelot said. “Big sister syndrome.”

“Shush,” she said. “I’m trying to look cool.”

“You and Kenji are lucky,” Sigrid said. “You have family here with you.”

“Is it lucky?” Morgan said. “I think I’d feel a lot better if he was still safe back on Earth.”

“I wonder if the people back home know what happened to us?” I said. “To them, we must have just disappeared all of a sudden. Three hundred people, all gone at once.”

“And all people who were at that convention,” Lancelot said. “I’ve been wondering about that too. They must be going ape-shit trying to figure out what happened to us.”

“I guess you’re right,” Morgan said. “As worried as I am about Arthur right now, our parents must be a hundred times more worried about us.”

Lancelot pushed his shoulders back and stood up straight. “We’ll just have to do our best to finish this quickly and get home.”

Assuming we didn’t die first.

I couldn’t help remembering Stratos’ threat about how the next time I die here, it might be for good.

“There was a weird guy up ahead,” Kenji said suddenly. As usual, I hadn’t even been aware he was there.

“Was?” Lancelot said.

“I, um, subjugated him,” Kenji said. He held out a small yellow mana crystal.

Lancelot clapped Kenji on the shoulder. “Nice.”

“How was he weird?” I said.

“He was dressed up like a Greek soldier, but he didn’t have a face.”

“You mean his face was covered by his helmet,” Sigrid said.

“No,” Kenji said, “I mean he had no face.”

“Creepy and weird,” Sigrid said.

“There’s something else too.”

“What is it?” I said.

Kenji scratched his head through the cowl. “I think it’d be better if you just saw it for yourself.”

He led us around the corner and down the corridor to a four-way intersection where the passage to the right opened into a small room. Its furnishings were spartan, just a rack of weapons, a table with a single chair, and a large bell. It also held an actual Spartan: a dead soldier in the armor of an ancient Greek warrior. His head had been sliced off, and just as Kenji had said, I could see through the helmet’s eye slits and the gaps beside the nose guard that he had no face, only smooth skin. But having no face wasn’t the weirdest thing about him: he also had nothing inside him. Just meat.

Despite how it looks in the movies, it’s not easy to decapitate someone. There’s a reason why being an executioner was a real job, it took care and practice to be able to slice someone’s head off with a single stroke of an axe. As horrible as it would be to be killed like that, it would’ve been so much worse if the executioner had to hack away at your neck a few times before managing to sever your head from the rest of you. This Spartan soldier’s head had been sliced cleanly off, but where you’d expect to see spine and tendons, there wasn’t anything. Just meat.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“I had only meant to slit his throat, but my sword sliced right through his neck. I know it’s sharp and all, but this was different.”

There was another wound in the creature’s chest where Kenji had dug out the mana crystal, a gaping slash through which the insides were clearly visible. Picture a giant, raw, boneless chicken breast covered in human skin. That’s what it was made of. No bones, no blood, no organs. Just meat.

“Super creepy,” Sigrid said.

Out of curiosity, and because it was now second nature, I used All Shall Be Revealed on the body.

Flesh Golem Corpse Items: Flesh Golem Core

“Huh,” I said.

“What is it?” said Sigrid.

“It’s a Golem.” I pulled out a knife and went over to its head. I knelt down and pulled off the helmet, then held the head in one hand and carefully cut it. It looked like raw chicken, but it was more like cutting firm tofu. I soon revealed a small clay tablet, smaller than a deck of cards, with strange symbols inscribed on it.

“What’s that?” said Lancelot.

“The Golem’s core,” I said.

“What do you do with it?”

“No idea,” I said, stuffing it into my inventory. “Yet.”

I did a quick evaluation of the weapons on the rack, but nothing stood out. Same with the bell.

“Bet you anything this is a warning bell,” Lancelot said as he watched me evaluate it. “Anybody comes by, this guy’s supposed to ring it. Nice work taking him out before he could send the warning, Kenji.”

“Yeah,” said Morgan. “But who was he supposed to warn?”

Kenji pointed down the corridor directly opposite us that went straight for about twenty feet, then ended in a door. “That’s where the smell is coming from.”

It was the first door we’d seen since the Giant Rat King’s nest. This one was made of wood, with intricate carvings of peonies, crocuses, and some other flowers I couldn’t identify.

“Grandma’s bathroom,” Morgan said.

Kenji nodded.

I slid my knife back into its sheath, thankful that I didn’t have to wipe any blood off of it first. “Are y’all ready for this?”

“Jeez, you sound like Jane,” Sigrid said.

“Don’t be mean,” I said, but I was smiling. She smiled back.

We approached the door cautiously, trying to be as quiet as possible. Kenji placed his ear to the wood.

“I think I hear water,” he whispered. “Like a fountain, maybe?” He put his hand on the handle of the door then looked back at us. I nodded, and he slowly, carefully pushed the door open. When it was open wide enough to see what was beyond it I gasped then reached out and pulled the door closed again.

“What? Did you see something?” Sigrid said. “My danger sense is off the charts.”

“Statues,” I said.

With my quick peek I saw that the room beyond the door was enormous, and unlike anything we’d seen so far. There were trees, lots of them, and it was well lit. It was a waterfall Kenji had heard, not a fountain; I saw it cascading down a natural stone outer wall. And there were the statues, lots of statues.

“Well, we already know how easy those are to deal with,” Lancelot said. “Even if it’s just the five of us.”

“These are different,” I said. “The other ones were marble, these are made of stone.”

“So?”

“So, we know that somewhere in this place there’s a Gorgon.”

Lancelot grimaced. “Medusa turned you to stone if you looked at her.”

“I thought you were prepared for this,” Sigrid said.

I closed my eyes and sighed. “I was. I worked with Byron to make a really cool helmet that used mirrors to take what's in front of you directly and reflect an image of it in front of your eyes.”

“So you could look her in the face and not get stoned. Clever.”

“Thanks,” I said. “We made a bunch of them.”

“I wouldn’t mind getting stoned,” Sigrid said. She mimed smoking a joint.

“Now who sounds like Jane?” I said.

“So, what’s the problem?” Lancelot said. “Whip out some helmets and let’s go hunt ourselves a Gorgon.”

“The problem is that the helmets are all in Byron’s inventory.”

“Crap.”

“Yeah.”

“So what’re we gonna do?” Morgan said. Everyone looked at me. I gnawed my lip as I used All Shall Be Revealed on them to remind myself of everyone’s capabilities.

Sigrid Sorrensen Team Maple Leaf Affinity: Air - Competent Gifts: Danger, Will Robinson - Detect potential threats Powers:

Heavenly Body - Competent: Boosted strength, agility, and toughness

Shield Maiden - Competent: Boost the defence of nearby allies

Your Achilles Heel Is Showing - Novice: Detect weaknesses

Skills: Affinity Control - Competent

Fitness - Adept

Kung Fu - Competent

Sword - Competent

Spear - Competent

Kenji Hachiman

Team Maple Leaf

Affinity:

Shadow - Competent

Gifts:

Trust Your Senses - Enhanced range and sensitivity of all senses

Powers:

Stealth - Adept: Move and hide undetected

Spiderwalk - Adept: Can move up walls and along ceilings

Skills:

Affinity Control - Competent

Kung Fu - Competent

Ninjutsu - Adept

Otaku - Competent

Sword - Adept

Morgan Crenshaw

Unaffiliated

Affinity:

Void - Competent

Gifts:

Hands Off My Stash - Extra-dimensional storage space

Powers:

Alchemy - Adept: Create potions

Don’t Believe It - Competent: Create illusions

What Do You Need? - Adept: Create simple temporary objects that remain as long as mana is used to maintain them

Skills:

Chemistry - Competent

Crossbow - Competent

Knife - Competent

Kung Fu - Novice

Mixology - Competent

Jake Repuski (Lancelot)

Unaffiliated

Affinity:

Fire - Competent

Gifts:

Tougher Than I Look - Improved vitality

Powers:

I Go Crazy - Competent: Go berserk to increase attack at the cost of defense

It’s Just A Flesh Wound - Competent: Regeneration

Skills:

Affinity Control - Competent

Kung Fu - Novice

Sword - Adept

A smile crept across my face as a plan began to form.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do,” I said.