Chapter One - Grit, and Vinegar.

Clang!

Brinn tore through the crowded pouches in his pack, and pulled out his emergency kit.  He squatted low, back bent over the task at hand. A drop of sweat fell from the tip of a long, loose lock of hair. He hadn’t looked up since they entered the chamber. It must not have been empty. Twice, there was a flash of golden light from the darker depths of the room that lit it up like the sun. Each time, it brought a new set of inhuman screams to replace the last, each vocalization cut short by the broad man’s falling longsword. Or so he assumed. Brinn stole a glance away from his vials, but he only caught glimpses of movement in the chamber without more flashes of Alexander’s smiting light. The small section of it where they braced in front of the door was lit dim by a dull glow from an icy orb that floated above their heads. He could hear the undead’s infernal groans from both sides of the door, and that was all the information he needed. He returned to his work, trusting the Paladin to keep any threats on this side of the door at bay.

A constant stream of alchemical advice spewed silently from his lips in a whisper as Brinn scrambled for the right ingredients. It was mostly curses, but among them were the names of various alchemical ingredients: Aqua Vitae, and hartshorn. Vinegar with Bloodleaf extract. Mix. He would normally do this in a lab, under controlled conditions, but here Brinn didn’t even have time for basic safety measures. Hells, he hadn’t even managed to retrieve his goggles; they still dangled loosely at his belt. If he got any in his eyes, he’d have to deal with the resulting irritation. Finally, he had everything he needed, and he started working the corks out of the vials with his teeth.

Aqua Vitae, and hartshorn. Vinegar with Bloodleaf extract. Mix. 

“Always in that order," he whispered absently. It was a mantra, and as he spoke his focus narrowed in closer on the project in front of him “Always in that order. Only in that order.” He could smell the reaction forming—it was a good sign, but that also told him he needed to replace his corks soon. The seal should have been airtight. Underneath the acrid smell of the potion drifting up from his feet, the room smelled of rotting flesh, dust, and bad luck.

“Brinn,” said Favel, as he whipped his wand from left to right; conducting his own symphony of the elements. “The door is breaking.” Ice crawled its way from the seams where the heavy wood of the door met stone frame, grew outward from there, slow and cracking.  It would provide some meagre reinforcement to their barricade’s failing hinges. The wood of the massive door was beginning to bow in from the undead’s weight. It creaked, and groaned, and Brinn knew that it couldn’t hold for much longer. Greta’s stance widened as she strained against the  door. The ravenous undead would be upon them at any moment.

Brinn swore again as a vial slipped from his grasp, but he managed to snatch it from the stone floor before it tumbled from the edge of the stair. He groaned in frustration through closed lips as he ground his teeth. He’d have to wait. The solution had been disturbed, and it would need a touch of his own mana to calm. He thought about all the ways he would punch this potion, if it were a person. The thought helped to calm him. 

Slowly, he eased his mana senses into the potion. Its mana was whirling, and counter to the direction he’d been spinning the vial in his fingers, having the opposite effect of that he'd needed. Some of the ambient mana in the air—death mana—began to leak in, and annihilate itself against the life mana within. He admonished himself for his carelessness and sprinkled more ground Bloodleaf into the vial with a grimace. The extra mass in the potion would harm the efficiency of the reaction, and Brinn was going to need a big reaction.  He felt a hand on his shoulder, gentle. Alexander. Brinn still didn't look, only staring more intently into the potion in front of him as he massaged its mana from the outside and tried to work his senses back in.

Alexander had turned away from his grisly work. A few poorly stitched zombies lay in pieces on the chamber floor, and when he laid his hand on Brinn's shoulder he felt a determined sereneness flow onto him. It was obviously foreign, but by no means unwelcome. He steadied the flow of his mana, 

Brinn decided this was the wrong time to mention that his ‘hartshorn’ was really fermented cow urine.

“Seriously, boy, that stench makes it hard to focus.” said a small voice from behind him. “Add some perfumes to those things, would you? I wouldn’t move, by the way.” Their rogue, Spinny. The gnome was working away at some trap or another with her tools, and to Brinn’s horror, he realized he had knelt directly on a pressure plate. There was a lockpick lodged sideways in the trap’s trigger mechanism. The two plates pressed it together, hard, hard enough that the pick bent at the middle and seemed to threaten to snap at any moment. It glowed dully as it absorbed more and more of the mana that tried to pull the plates together.  He let out a small prayer to gods he wasn’t certain could still hear him from this cursed place. Even with a quick glance around the room, Brinn didn’t see a trap the mechanism was meant to activate. He refocused his efforts on manipulating his mana. 

He started as the gnome reached out and pulled the lockpick free with a look of satisfaction. The plates came together with a clack, and Brinn cringed away, barely holding on to the newly corked brew in the process and nearly throwing it from the landing a second time, Thankfully, he managed to keep a handle on things. With that done, Spinny made her way farther into the room, by the corpses—Were they called corpses? They had already been corpses, in the first place—of the now-dead undead that Alexander had slain. 

“Done!” shouted Brinn, as he felt his mana stabilize the reaction. The mix was finally done—a healing herb, mixed with a little traditional alchemy—not to mention a healthy dose of his pure mana to amplify the effects—and he had a concoction that could bring a horde of undead to its knees. He looked at his new weapon with grim satisfaction. He would reap, and—

“I’m a hundred and thirty seven years old,” said Spinny. Brinn wasn’t sure why that was relevant. “...and I will whoop you if you don’t get on with this.” said the gnome. That got a snort out of Favel, and nearly made Greta lose hold of the door. The ice cracked around them, and the magelight the wizard had conjured nearly winked out as the elf redoubled his own focus. Brinn didn’t think it was that funny. He was fighting for his life here! For their lives! And an old woman was threatening to whoop him. 

Brinn stood, triumphant,, and held it over his shoulder ready to toss it through the moment he saw a gap in the door he could see—but the door seemed to hold. For a moment. Then there was a sharp crack and the top began to tip towards them with shards of falling ice. Rather than crashing through it and crushing it into splinters, the undead instead seemed intent on simply toppling the grand doorway directly on top of the vantage he'd taken.

The door continued to tip downwards as Greta desperately heaved, trying to buy Brinn the time he needed to scramble out of the way. 

This time, it was Favel that swore, as he dived out of the way, his wand zipping to his belt on a line of air mana when he let it go. That kind of trick was practically a parlor trick to a wizard of Favel’s alleged caliber—though the man had always struck Brinn as a bit of a fop. 

Alexander threw himself aside next, then finally Greta too. Brinn's own escape from the falling gateway had been touch and go at best, as he tumbled down the stairs and attempted to throw the vial over his shoulder without looking. He rolled to his feet—adventuring experience was good for something, even if you weren't a fighter—and as he rose, the world seemed to slow to a crawl as Brinn finally got a good look at the beings which had chased them deep into the labyrinth. 

The creatures were especially monstrous examples of the art of necromancy, each of them some three or four corpses sewn and fused together with stitches. Idly, Brinn realized one of them had a blue ribbon on one of its heads. The second from the left, if you didn’t count the one on its elbow. Most zombies were simply resurrected corpses, but they were dealing with something different here. If anything was left of the ones Alexander was fighting before, he would have to study them, see if he could work out some of the alchemical processes the necromancer had used to support the mana flow through the corpses it had used.

His own clumsiness may have ruined the triumphant drama of the moment, but the vial sailed true through the air, hitting the undead he had aimed for square in the face—only to bounce once off of its skull, once off of the wall, and come to a rolling stop at the beast’s many feet.

Brinn was going to die. 

The monster charged him, in a flurry of claws, teeth, and thrashing limbs. There was a series of sickening sounds as something popped and cracked in the creature's back. As it was about to reach him, his eyes slammed shut against the horror he faced, he heard a tiny crunch. 

Brinn's heart soared. He opened his eyes to see  a pink-grey mist erupt from underneath the creature. The others were right. It smelled terrible. 

To his surprise, the brew was completely effective. The life mana in the healing mist ate away at the undead, attacking from everywhere as the one that had accosted him thrashed away, pushing him down the small set of stairs that had led to the grand door. They didn’t need to breathe, but they did it anyway out of instinct. That was enough to spread the life energy into them through the vapor and slowly begin melting them into a thick, pungent sludge from inside.

When the mist cleared, there was little left, but a pile of loose limbs and gore, lined with thick black sludge where death mana had sewn them together. Brinn found his eyes lingering on the blue ribbon, still pristine in the unholy miasma

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 The beast also had buttons for eyes, on one of its heads, he noticed

. 

“By my grandmother’s axe, boy, the little gnome is right,” said Greta, heaving as she set her axe onto the ground. The dwarf dusted some of the labyrinth’s loose dirt from her clothes. “That smells something awful.” 

Brinn grinned sheepishly as he pulled himself to his feet.

“That’s not my fault,” he said, “that’s the melting undead.” Thankfully the tumble down the stairs had left him uninjured, and as wounded as his pride may have been he was glad to have been able to deal with yet another group of undead without endangering the party around him.

“You melted them,” said Favel with disdain.

“I strongly doubt you could prove that in front of a magistrate,” said Brinn with a wink. “It was a healing potion!”

“I—no. Nothing that heals anyone smells like that.” The elf turned away, and returned to examining the wall’s carved motifs with a frown of regret. 

Brinn’s job was done. He took a moment to examine the chamber for himself, now that the immediate threat had been dealt with. It was small, and constructed mainly from the same dull, grey stone that the hall leading to it had. The difference was mainly in its shape, and the series of steps leading down from the door and up towards the largest of the motifs along the walls. The mural depicted a group of adventurers, pitted against a dragon on the side of a snowy mountain. It was massive, and dominated the entire opposite wall of the chamber.Favel had stepped over in order to examine it further, and his frown only deepened further. Brinn would have to get him alone, ask him what had him so rattled. 

Alexander looked over the scene, stroking his beard. “That’s the last of those you had supplies for mix, isn’t it?”They had been using this concoction—one he had prepared weeks before this expedition, in the earliest days of his preparation. 

“Yeah. We’re gonna have to fight them from here on out.” Brinn said.

He didn’t have any more vials of ‘hartshorn’—or healing potions, for that matter. Looking through his pouch they were mostly left with an assortment of poisons, and  a few explosives. There were other ready-to-mix ingredients, but most of them were various ways to augment healing and curative potions—Bloodleaf. Which he’d just used the last of. Between what little he had, and the combined strength ofFavel and Alexander, they could probably handle a few more hordes—but they’d always been a cautious group. One that avoided danger. These were a hell of a lot more expensive, and a hell of a lot harder to produce. Once they were out of those, they’d be on their own. He spent some time searching through his pack, making sure nothing was left in the smaller pockets hidden on the inside of the bag. He came up with about ten vials, and little but the most basic herbs—nothing left with magical properties.. They’d really worked through their supplies. “Three explosive vials and all my poisons left—but the latter probably won’t work on any of the undead. I think we should make our way back out.”

“Agreed,” said Alexander, still stroking his chin in thought. “Spins? What would you say we pulled in loot?”

All four of them turned slowly to the little gnome, bracing for the bad news. With the dust settling around her and her goggles on, he could hardly tell her apart from a child. Only her voice, and her eyes, betrayed her experience. That, or having a basic understanding of gnome physiology and aging. Anyone with experience with the Wilder could make some educated guesses at their ages, but their nature was to be tricksy, and ageless.

“It’s not looking great, but we might pull in a profit.” she said. “A very small one.” They’d collected an assortment of armor and other clothing from the undead, made especially valuable by the fact they hadn’t had to damage them. Healing potions were, however, expensive.

She added the last part with a grimace, and turned back to something in her hands. Working away at her skein of yarn with her lockpicks. Brinn was pretty sure that wasn’t how you were supposed to do that, but he still wore the sash she had made for him with its little vial holders. The cozies often got caught in his fingers, or in each other, or the other studs and straps of his adventuring gear—but the little gnome had clearly worked so very hard on the bauble, and each vial holder was distinctly labeled correctly for each of the vials he kept on hand at all times in a dungeon—healing potions, a poison or two. In two pairs—Greta and Spinny, and unfortunately, he andFavel, led by a lone Alexander of course, they made their way down the grand hall that led to the chamber they’d been trapped in just moments before.

“Stay close, and stay with your partner,” said Alexander.

“Aye,” said Greta. 

“Yep,” said Brinn.

Spins answered by grabbing onto Greta’s arm, andFavel simply stared on with disdain as Brinn lightly held on to his robe. One of the first rules of dungeoneering was to keep physical contact with someone at all times outside of combat, and even in combat, if you could manage it. It ensured they would know, as soon as something happened. After so many months adventuring together, the party knew each other well, and Brinn couldn’t help but notice that in the way that each of them moved, clearing the hall ahead of them with silent efficiency. Thankfully, no undead had made their way into the passages behind them. Spinny checked over the chalk marks she’d left just past each branching path as they walked. Each was meant to show where they’d already been, signifying in this case that they’d cut a straight line directly into the maze without branching off. An icy ball floated overhead, following from above.Favel’s orbs of light. Bored, he spent a few moments examining the orb.

“Wouldn’t it be easier to use fire magic to cast light?” he said.

“Hm?” said Favel, distracted. “I don’t use fire magic, surely you’ve noticed that after this long traveling together.”

Brinn balked for a moment. He hadn’t really expected an answer. The elf almost never answered his questions, usually just responding to them with a snort of disdain. Something was bothering the wizard. 

“Of course I have.” Brin, in fact, had not.. “But you’ve never mentioned why.” 

Despite his clearly faulty memory, Brinn was reasonably sure this was true; the elf played most information very close to the chest. 

“I’m an ice specialist,” saidFavel, and it was clear from his tone that he wouldn’t be brooking further discussion on the topic. 

“Is that why you’re so cold?” Brinn muttered. The wizard ignored him, and turned back to looking at the engravings along the walls with a brooding intensity. Are they what’s bothering him? Brinn wondered in silence, as he frowned.. He was sure thatFavel was hiding something—it was generally accepted practice that one specialized in both heat and cold magic, as they could be used to cancel each other out when needed, and had defenses in place to keep them from burning themselves to a crisp, or freezing themselves into a statue. But, sadly, he also knewFavel well enough at this point not to pry. He only even got this much out of him because the elf was distracted, and stressed. 

Spinny made a little squeak behind them, and the group stopped, Alex holding up a closed fist to signal them to freeze. There was a moment of hesitation, and when Brinn turned to look at her behind him he found her staring agape at an empty expanse of hallway branching off to the left. Greta was pulling at her arm, trying to get her to come with the group, but the gnome refused, brushing at Greta’s arm without looking away. The light fromFavel’s orb flickered. 

“Spinny?” said Alexander, not turning to face them. He kept his eyes on the hall ahead of them, peeled for undead. “Everything alright?”

“C’mon, miss…” Greta continued to tug at the older woman, more insistent now. They had already cleared the hallway, but it wasn’t good for them to linger too long. There was no telling whether or not more undead would filter in through the hallways behind them, or ahead of them. The gnome continued to stare, and Brinn realized that she wasn’t staring into the hallway, but at the floor beside it—where the white chalk mark marking which way they’d gone should have been. Where there was nothing but smooth, tiled stone.

“The mark is gone.” whispered the gnome. 

Brin’s heart dropped. The marks were only chalk, surely they wouldn’t last forever—but it couldn't have even been an hour since they first passed this place, and they had cleared the hallway of undead before they’d started marking their way. It was difficult to focus on something so trivial with a horde bearing down on you, after all. If one of the marks was missing, either something else was in here with them, or they’d gotten turned around.

Alexander didn’t move his head, still keeping them fixed on the hallway in front of the group.

“I can see the next hallway. There’s no mark by that path, either.”

The blue light pulsing from the orb above flickered. Spinny tore away from the group, pressing ahead into the darkness with her head bowed down, scrambling to find any of the marks, but as the group pressed after her they were all gone. 

It was impossible. They were deep into the labyrinth, and despite only having moved in a straight line, all of the markers of where they’d been so far were gone. 

“Not alone, Spins!” cried Greta. Brinn could practically hear her grip tightening on the haft of her axe as she pressed past Alexander after the gnome. The paladin pressed forwards after her, but Greta and Spinny soon faded into the darkness of the hall. Cursing, Alexander picked up the pace, and Brinn made to follow him, but found himself caught in an iron grip—Favel had a hold on his arm with an iron grip. 

“Don’t.” 

“What are you doing?” said Brin, pulling away from him to try and catch up to Alexander. But as he looked, it was too late. Alex was gone, fading from the light ofFavel’s orb far more quickly than he should have.To his surprise, he didn’t see the man’s holy light replacing it. What was Alexander doing? Was he just wandering around in the dark? Something was wrong. Brin’s mind began to race. He fingered at the corks of the vials on his sash. “What’s going on? Why aren’t we going after them?”

“They’re not real,” saidFavel. For the first time in the entire time Brinn had known him, the elf looked horrified, and stared on in horror at the engraving in the wall next to them. A lute, with a headstock carved to look like the head of an archdragon, its grand horns wrapping down back towards the lute’s body. The detail was exquisite, but he had no idea whyFavel would be so affected by it. It was an engraving of a lute.

“What are you talking about? Let’s go, they’re getting away.”

“They’re. Not. Real,” repeated the elf, eyes wide and this time, he stared Brinn directly in the eye. The wizard was shaking. Brin’s heart started to race as quickly as his thoughts.They had just seen Alexander, he’d only just stepped from the orb’s light.

“How do you know, Favel?” he said, confused. The group had been traveling close. There was no way that they had been separated—no, he was wrong. Brinn remembered the shift in the mana as they’d stepped into the hallway. He had dismissed it before, thought it was nothing. Had that been when they stepped into the illusion?

Favel snarled, and yanked Brinn to the side, dragging Brinn down a hallway. It looked the same.

“Wait, we don’t have chalk!” he said.

“We don’t have time,” shouted Favel as he turned, throwing Brinn past him, and erected not one, not two, but three walls of ice separating them from the main hall. “The others are gone. We’re trapped in here, now, and the only thing I’m still certain is real is you.”