Now within the mausoleum, a sacred-sounding, if threatening score plays as the step into the dark.

“It’s a bit hard to see,” Kell says, causing his little shoulder companion to glow up a tad, though the action doesn’t make their surroundings much brighter.

Hero snaps his fingers. “One moment.”

He opens up his skill page, and checks out the wizard tree. In only seconds he’s spent enough points to get [mystic light], which he uses immediately, flushing the underground ruins with illumination by means of a hand-bound light.

“Good thinking,” Kell says as they approach the first of a series of rooms defending the mausoleum’s prize.

The room lights itself with magical torches that ignite the moment they step in. Before them they see a complex puzzle of blocks and switches corded up to a system of pulleys that ascend or descend based on the sum combination of “up” switches pulled, all leading up to a frustratingly-high treasure pedestal with a golden key floating atop. What’s more, for every pull of any switch, there’s a door to the side that spawns an irritating group of high HP enemies, one that must surely have been designed for no purpose other than to break controllers and televisions.

Kell looks over to Hero. “This hour-long puzzle looks fun, doesn’t it?” Kell asks in a bland tone.

Hero sighs. “Not really.”

“My thoughts exactly. Get us that key.”

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“Couldn’t you just blow up the door?”

“And cause a cave in?”

“Ahh, good point,” Hero says with a nod, starting to come to terms with the possibility that not all of rules of this world are as he thought.

With a single bound, Hero uses his 1239 points of DEX to pass the puzzle in a single bound, taking up the key and then returning down just as quickly.

The two step up to the door, and pass through as a victorious theme plays.

“Catchy,” Hero says.

“It gets old,” Kell replies without enthusiasm. “You need to go forward for this one.”

“What? Like, ahead?”

“Just by a few steps,” Kell says, egging Hero on, who obliges.

The moment Hero is not even five steps into the room, he is frozen instantly.

“Wh-what’s happening?!”

“Cinematic,” Kell says helpfully. “The dungeon is from a one-player game, so the designers could take that kind of liberty,” he adds as the door closes behind them and the game camera pans over to look into the center of the room.

A horrific, dangerous theme provides the backdrop as magical torches alight to reveal a massive retinue of shadow creatures — disturbing, fluctuating monstrosities in the rough-hewn shapes of animals and humans. Just as the camera pans up on the front-most one, a wolf, Kell fires off another one of his bolts.

The very second the camera pans out and Hero is able to move, he is frozen again so that the progression doors may open, considering the enemies are now dead. The same quippy tune plays.

“That was…” Hero mutters as he almost loses his balance.

“Yes, it was,” Kell says, almost impatiently, as the two pass by the spot where the mini-boss formation existed just seconds ago.

They progress to the next room, where an intimidating statue of an ancient man looks down on them with disapproving, grim eyes. In the deep silence of the room, the statue speaks, its motionless body reverberating its deep, archaic voice.

“ONLY THOSE WHO KNOW THIS, THE DEEPEST OF-”

“Friendship,” Kell says blandly.

That stupid victory theme plays again as the statue splits in two, revealing an open doorway to the next room.