Daniel felt like an eternity passed. To his right side was a door that led to a launching pad of sorts to the roof of the terrace of the real Stable, that left the Dungeon. The Dungeon's hold was too weak to maintain the isolation, and this door felt intrinsically connected from this constructed Dungeon and to the very real and solid Stable. The real sound of life in the Stable drifted from the doorway. The vague sound of animals, of workers, of gossip and news. The real tangible world of the Fae; ethereal and shifting but true and vibrant. Not this shadow world of the Dungeon.

Daniel saw the Answer, but not the Question. The problem was that many questions may lead to such an Answer.

And what was the answer? Was the Answer ‘This is who you may have become had you stayed the course according to the Red Lord’s will?’ Or was the answer ‘This is what you were.’

Or was the Answer ‘Elswith is dead, and now you are someone else.’

Or the answer ‘This is what you will never be. You will forever fall short of the mark, always grasping never catching?’

Because the entity had not told him the Answer. And without knowing the true ‘Answer’ it represented, how was he supposed to know the Question? Was this a wordplay question, or a question of self-examination?

Perhaps the question did not matter or did not have to be exact. “Is the question: What happens to those who disobey the King’s command? What happens to those who follow their morals?”

The lights popped and went dark, and all Daniel could see was the red glow of the Entity’s eyes. “Wrong.” The lights flickered madly, blindly fluttering, but unable to return to full brightness. In the shifting shadow of the sliding gloom, the entity spoke again. “What is the question that leads to this?” It said, still wearing Elswith’s imperil face.

Daniel had the distinct impression of wanting to punch that smug face. No wonder Esra had once said that his face was particularly punch-able sometimes.

Daniel knew, felt the hint of what he should do. But the shadow of the trauma and hurt, the sheer sense of betrayal, was just as real as the multitudes of death he had witnessed as the Dragon’s Corpse attacked those rural communities.

Thinking about it meant thinking about that red place, how cold Witness grew in his arms, and how hot her blood was against him as she bleed out, clutching to life as he had been trying to clutch to sanity.

The lights popped and went dark once more as shadows plunged through the tall room. Daniel was afraid that he would lose his footing in the darkness, and tumble off the end of the ledge.

All he could see was the red glow of the Entity’s eyes.

“Too young. Too cowardly to see. Too arrogant.” The Entity said, as though it was speaking to someone else.

The lights came on again, only half of them.

Daniel knew that he was not in a place to Question whatever Answer this was. He also doubted that he would win in a contest of strength against something that had survived a full blast of a fire flower.

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But…was the door truly locked, or had it lied?

So Daniel shuffled to the door, that would lead to a terrace on the roof of the Stable. The knob was an old gilded brass, grime, and age stealing its shine. No hex on this doorknob. But it was also locked.

“Was the question: Why does the chicken cross the road?” he asked a silly meaningless question.

The ledge shuddered slightly, and Daniel wondered if while he was distracted with the Answer, some chaos beast had ascended. But the chaos beats remained as they were, huddle and shuddering from the Entity, as the metal-limbed creatures still appeared as though whatever power animated them was suspended.

The entity blinked in Elswith’s face. Alien disappointment flashed in the entity’s eyes. “That was not the question.” It said at last. The voice changed, becoming more elemental once more. “Dan…Dan…" then it spoke, again as if to someone else "Take him.”

The entity said at last, and then the long-limbed metal creatures started moving. They did not move to the first platform, but struck the yellow-papered wall and start climbing, straight up, driving their limbs into the yellowed wall, puncturing it for purchase. There were many of them, and their featureless faces were all turned toward him. They moved with a surity that they had lack before. From the tears in the wall, that oozing sludge poured fourth, brown and vicous, with shadows of faceless things lurking in the fluid.

There were dozens of them. At least the lower ones were slowed by the oozing sludge from the wall, but small comfort that.

The entity wearing Elswith's face turned toward Daniel, disappointment and regret on it's face. It was already becoming an ‘it’ again. It was still in the shape of Elswith, but the underlying structure of it changed.

If Daniel had had three true fears before, he realized he needed to add a fourth. The Fear of Self, the Fear of Failure, the Fear of Success, and the Fear of whatever that entity was.

Then an odd, echoing noise arose. As though someone had dropped that bucket Orville liked to fill up with snacks when he would do his research in the quiet of the Stable and hide in the Owl’s Scope room.

The echoing came through, sounding tinny and distant, like sound underwater, like thunder across the plains, like trees splitting in the distance, Clank, Clack, CLANG, Bang. went the sound, as though the bucket hit each and every ledge on the way down. All the way down, even on the ledges that did not exist here anymore, such as ledge eleven and ledge five. On the final ledge, a curled dread creature recoiled as though something struck it, and the sound of a rim against the first ledge was loud, as though it was circling along the edge.

Then it fell, and Daniel could swear he had almost seen the bucket. And then bells chimed, and Daniel recognized them. In the Stable, not this yellow-walled dungeon with the slick beige carpets and the unending flickering lights, in the true Owl’s Scope Room, were a collection of old bells. These bells were too important to ever throw away but too outdated to ever be used, so had been crammed into a room that was rarely used.

And they chimed, loud and brilliant and true. The lights flickered and buzzed and stayed on as the sound reverberated. The Law of Fae touched him, dampened and restrained, but present.

The entity looked at Daniel, and Daniel looked back.

“You said with you here, that I can’t open the door. Can someone else?”

The sound of the bells continued to ring solid and true.

"Doorbell rings, so forgive the pause, I should really see the cause." Daniel said, seizing the power and sway of the Law of Fae.

The Entity did not respond but reached for Daniel. The red cloak reached, like the tendrils of a Slither plant, expanding and exploding forward across the jap between the platform

That was a good enough answer for Daniel. Daniel saw it coming but threw his last fire flower to the door.

If against all odds, there was a person on the other side of that door, whoever it was, however they had come to be there, Daniel must at least meet them half way. He could discover whatever foul ploy and plot once he was returned to the Stable.

Was the Game trying to save him? Was there some hidden spy? Was it an assassin waiting for this moment, where Daniel would be completely spent, completely dependent?

He knew that even if the Dungeon did not kill him, if he stayed here any longer, it would spell the death of the Game.

And the death of Witness.