Parry finished his meal, licking his fingers. The gnoll did something like the same, though it had a grooming, animal quality. He knew the monster would have done just that after eating one of Parry's legs or liver or brains. That thought wasn't going to lead anywhere nicer, so he abandoned it, instead climbing down from the crate and reaching for the rest of his gear.

The gnoll watched him with curiosity (not hunger, Parry convinced himself).

"How long is the spell going to last?"

Parry nearly leaped out of his boots. "Shhh!"

"It can't hear me, I'm in your memory bunker."

"Right. I know. I just--it's tense."

"So...?"

"We're friends now. That's it. Not a spell, the spell was in the convincing. The food is just what friends share."

A slightly more worried, "So...?"

"We're friends until I do something unfriendly. Or it gets hungry. Or I anger it. Or whatever, I don't know, it's meant for timid woodland denizens, mid-level dungeon monsters."

Parry left a few strips of jerky on the crate for the gnoll and as calmly as possible walked out the doorway. The monster seemed content to stay there, or at least it didn't follow. The thing was eerily quiet when it wasn't pounding down the door.

"We're safe until that thing changes its mind? I'm digging for more spells."

"No, I need your eyes. Get up here, but keep talking with your thoughts. We should be quiet as possible."

A calico kitten with its fur fluffed to maximum perched on the boy's shoulder, looking back. "I think it's eating the jerky, I can hear it."

"Bon appetit. I'm going back." The strategy of alternating lefts and rights paid off, he only had to walk it in reverse to retrace his steps. Soon he was back in the large round central chamber. Squaring his shoulders, he walked forward into the corridor where the gnoll had first appeared.

"What makes you think it's up ahead? And what is 'it' anyway, what are we looking for?"

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Parry used his nose, trying to detect if the gnoll had come from some nest or lair, but the smell of the shaggy monster remained about the same strength.

"I still don't know. I have to trust I'll know it when I see it."

"What if it was back there? What if it was something on the creature's body? What if its loincloth was heavily enchanted and you were meant to claim it?"

"Just keep your eyes open. So long as we stay friendly, we at least have time."

This hallway led in and faintly down without any doors or intersections, at least for the moment. Maybe the gnoll had no home here and had been teleported in from elsewhere? Maybe it spawned from nothing when someone entered this floor? After all, what would it eat and drink? He shook his head, banishing those questions. Nothing about dungeons made sense. The professors at the magic academies had theories, but in all his lives Parry had avoided those discussions almost as much as he avoided dungeons themselves. It all smacked of the Creator or a feature of the game world that obeyed nothing but its own arbitrary rules.

After what felt like half an hour, the corridor opened into yet another round room, lit by yet more of those ubiquitous torches evenly spaced along the wall. This chamber contained three things: first, another teleport pattern etched into the floor glowing a very faint gold. Second was a chest, made of the same stout wood as the doors, banded on its edges by wrought iron. Third, a large crossbow, drawn and loaded, pointed just at the chest, with a cord securing its trigger to the lid.

The cat blinked a few times. So did Parry.

"It's trapped."

"You think?"

"No, I mean, that trap is ridiculously obvious, so there's probably another trap, hidden."

"If you say so."

Hugging the wall to avoid prematurely stepping on the teleport and to stay out of the line of the crossbow, Parry inched his way forward.

"It's not improvised, look. There are pulleys for the cord which are mounted on flagstones set right into the floor and wall. The crossbow itself is secured on a plinth. No one brought that in."

He looked the contraption over carefully as he could, but from any angle it appeared to be just what it was: a trap that advertised itself.

Standing behind, it was easy enough to disarm the crossbow. Parry had been in enough infantries to remember how to work nearly any piece of artillery, not to mention simpler weapons like this. If there was a secondary trap, it was intensely magical and subtle and way beyond his ability to detect. So he took a chance and removed the bolt.

It came off easily. He held it up. "Wood, tipped in metal, no poison or runes or anything I can see," he whispered aloud, as much to himself as to the demon on his shoulder. Then he dry-fired the crossbow, which twanged and did nothing else. The cord went slack, it was easy enough to reel it in and coil it behind the trap.

They listened for a long moment: no rumbling, no charging of enemy footsteps, no gnoll, no moving platforms or hiss of gas, no sand or water or spikes...nothing.

Carefully prodding the floor ahead, he moved to the chest, finding it closed but not locked. He looked over the hinges, pressed the wood and even sprinkled on some draftsman's sand from his shaper tools, in case they revealed hidden writing.

Finally, he opened it.

Inside was a small sack and a rolled up parchment. The sack contained three gold and a handful of silver coins of the Tyryn Palisade.

The parchment was in English.

"It's from me."