The broken bones she had scattered about the ground began to rattle and the miasma began to seep from them like tendrils. Each piece sought out and found another and they began to pull themselves back together. Once the skeleton was again complete, it charged.

Mercy glanced at its health bar, as it bore down on them. Hoping to have done at least a little bit of damage. But to her confusion, when she looked at the place above its head where the meter should have been, there was only empty space it didn’t have one at all.

"Welp, it could be invisible, ooor they're indestructible..."

“You keep trying different combinations. I'll hold it off!” Screamed Barnabis, twirling his hammer in his hands.

He charged forward to meet the enemy. The clang of metal-on-metal wrang out, as the blade of the halberd met the shaft of Barnabis’ hammer. He had deflected the blow. Then he swung his own weapon, shattering the femur of the undead abomination. Without one of its legs, the creature lost its sense of balance and fell over. It swiped at Barnabis as it fell but, he was more than agile enough to avoid the blow for it.

Mercy grabbed Barnabis’s notebook off the tomb and turned to face her own challenge; the doors. With as much haste as she could safely muster, she started trying combination after combination, recording them down as she went. The first ended in failure and another skeleton appeared. After the second attempt, to her horror, there were now four. It wasn’t just one grisly skeleton added for every failure.

“No! They’re doubling! Not good!”

Another failure brought the grand total up to eight. On the fourth attempt, no new skeletons were added, which meant, she had unlocked yet another door. She peered at the door marked 7 and watched as the Iron bars that had once stood in her way, rescind into the stone in the floor.

“Barnabis, I got the next door!” She shouted in excitement

“That’s great news! Now...if you could please hurry and get the last one? That would be greatly appreciated” He said, in between fending off attacks.

He was doing everything he could not to succumb to the Skeletons. He had taken a few hits and was bleeding from a cut on his forehead and his health pool had dropped by a quarter.

“I’m going as fast as I can.” She replied, running through a number of doors.

Sixteen enemies now crowded the floor. It was starting to become difficult for her to move about freely. The skeletons occupied so much space in the room that she was forced to slow down.

A small number of the mob that was trying to bring an end to poor Barnabis, broke off from the group. They began to position themselves in front of the doorways; blocking them. She was going to have to smash her way through them and take damage if she wanted to enter the next sequence. It was a price she would gladly pay.

Without hesitation she crashed the skeletons, splashing herself with a health pot after every door. There was only one combination left to get the key that would open the sarcophagus and, get them out of there.

By her estimates, she only had 2 more attempts before they were overrun. She looked over the notes, trying to find some sort of pattern in the codes before making her next attempt. Unfortunately, she couldn’t find one in the numbers, and she was running out of time. Luck would have to be by her side; she couldn’t afford for it not to be.

She had seen no respawn point in the room. Which meant that meant if they died now. They would be kicked from the dungeon; possibly locked out of it completely. Not every dungeon allowed for multiple attempts to clear it.

Some, especially those that held extremely rare and valuable gear, only allowed one attempt to try to retrieve the treasures hidden inside. These were known as Lock-Out dungeons. And for a party to have any chance at beating one, they needed to be thoroughly prepared and preferably, over-leveled.

She completed another sequence of doors; failure. Now, 32 skeletons flooded the chamber. They crowded together, pushing Barnabis back against the tomb. He wasn’t even trying to fight them off any longer.

He had deployed some kind of magical force field around himself. She could see a translucent blue sphere, through the holes in the skeletal mob’s bodies as they beat on it. She could barely make out Barnabis, as he sat with his back against the stone, knees to his chest, head in his hands, cowering. Panic began to take over

This was her last chance. She needed to put in the next combination. It needed to be the right one. And it needed to be now.

There were so many skeletons that she couldn’t run through the room. She had to resort to dodging, juking, and using the walls like springboards to jump off of, in order to avoid getting killed. She only had one more door to go, when a skeletal hand came out of nowhere and wrapped around her ankle. And she went down.

Due to the speed that she had been traveling, her body was sent crashing across the floor; out of control. She flailed and rolled until she came to a sudden stop as her back slammed against one of the stone walls.

Her vision tinted red and pain seeped its way into every fiber of her being. She tried to stand but the room was spinning, threatening to tip her over. She popped another potion and by that time the feeling cleared, she was surrounded.

The skeletal warriors stabbed and slashed at her furiously. They attacked her with knives, swords, spears, and axes. So many came at once, it was all Mercy could do to not end up like Swiss cheese. A flash of light and a loud bang came to her rescue.

In the split second before the sudden explosion, Mercy had seen an alchemical grenade bounce off the wall behind her. She had just enough time to avert her gaze and blocked her face before chunks of charred, flaming bones were blasted towards her. Only a few managed to find their marks, knocking out half her health. She couldn’t worry about it right now. He had made her an opening.

She looked over at Barnabis. He was already at the ready with another Alchemical grenade; waiting for the next opportunity to lob it when she was in need. With every hope in her heart, she entered the last passageway, praying it would be the correct one, and open the door with the key to the tomb.

When she reached the end of the passageway, she knew that her prayers had gone unanswered. Sixty-four skeletal warriors now filled every inch of the room. There was no way around them, no way through them, and no way to kill them. All hope was gone.

Three grenades went off one after the other; sending skeletal pieces showering throughout the room.

“Over here, Lassie! We need to regroup!” Barnabis called out from his defensive position.

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Using the space he had provided with his bombs, Mercy raced across the clearing. Leaping over the last few skeletons, she passed right through the magical barrier and landed safely next to him. It seemed the barrier spell he had created only kept out hostile enemies.

“What’s the plan?” She asked.

“Heck if I know. My mana won't hold out much longer. All I do know is that if you mess up again, we will quite literally be swimming in skeletons.” He replied.

“We already are. Do you even have enough grenades to keep clearing out pathways for me?”

“Aye, I do, at least for one or two more attempts. But I’m afraid that if we use them all up: If we end up running into any more enemies in the other levels, we'll be screwed.” He said.

He wasn’t wrong to be worried about that. If he wasted them all here and they needed them later, they might as well just die here and not waste their efforts and supplies. On the other hand, if it was a Puzzle dungeon, there was always a chance that there wouldn’t be any more enemies at all aside from the boss. Although, that line of thinking hadn't worked for this floor.

The enemies were bearing down on the barrier, and with every strike, Barnabis’s mana was being depleted. She could see the sweat from the effort of maintaining it pouring down his brow. He was running low; cracks had begun to form in the shield.

She would have to risk it. There was no way she had gotten this far not to give it her all and take chances. Besides, there wasn’t really any other way to beat this room. Or...was there?

“Hey Barnabis, Do you have another one of those shrink potions?” She asked

“Aye, I do? What’s cooking up in that noggin of yours Lass?” He asked.

“The Keyhole. If you can shrink down enough to get inside, then maybe, you can push the lock pins and we can get it open.”

“Smart plan! only one hitch though. In my shrunken form, I can't upkeep the concentration required for my barrier spell. I can only do one or the other; not both. When I shrink, you’ll be completely unprotected. And what if the lock is enchanted, and only the key will work?”

“Well, it’s either we try this, or we blow all our grenades on one last chance and hope we get lucky. And so far, luck has not been on our side. Even if we take that chance, there’s no guaranteeing I’ll get the code correct.”

He nodded and she continued.

“So….. Here’s what we're going to do. You hand me the biggest, most explosive grenade that you’ve got. I'll throw it and when it goes off, I want you to drop your barrier, shrink down, and I'll put you in the keyhole. Sound good?” Mercy asked.

“Sounds good to me.” He replied, reaching into his bag, he shuffled through it until he found what he was looking for.

Then, he brought out the bomb. It was a fiery red sphere, made of glass that had been textured with gold to look like dragon scales. At its core, she could see intense and angry flames; blasting against the walls that held it, as if trying to escape.

“Is that...what I think it is?”

“Yup, it’s a dragon bomb. Made with 100% grade “C” dragon fire. By yours truly, of course.”

Dragon bombs were no laughing matter. They were highly explosive and did a lot of damage in a large radius. The higher the grade of the flame used to produce it, the more eruptive the blast. A grade “C” like this one might be good to clear about half the room. Had it been an “A” grade every last thing in here, living or not, would have been liquefied.

“Are you sure you want to waste that? It’s worth a decent amount of gold.”

“Aye, I've been saving it for a special occasion. And I can’t think of a better time than now. Besides, you did ask for my biggest explosive...”

He handed her the dragon bomb. It was hot to the touch. Almost to the point of burning her.

“You know how to use it right? Just pull on the tooth and count to 2. Then let her roll.”

“Got it.” She confirmed, gripping the tooth. “Now, are you ready?”

“Ready when you are Lassie!”

She yanked on the old dragon-welp tooth he had used for the pin, counted, and tossed it gently: Just on the other side of the force field. It rolled underneath several pairs of skeletal feet until it disappeared from sight.

A second later and the angry flames of the trapped dragon fire, now free and out for revenge, ripped through the chamber. It was as if they still contained the very essence of the beast they had once belonged to. Nothing stood in their way. Then, just as quickly as they appeared, they were gone; leaving only smoke and ash.

Barnabis released the mana from the force field causing it to disappear. He splashed himself with a small blue vial he produced from his bag and began to shrink. When he was small enough, she scooped him into her hand and cupped him to the keyhole. As he crawled out of her palm, the smoke started to clear, and she was finally able to see the damage that the dragon bomb had caused.

The enemies that had been directly caught in the blast were gone: Completely vaporized. Those closest to it were reduced to mere blackened splinters that littered the floor. The rest seemed to have been thrown across the room to be broken apart against the walls. Only a few still remained fully intact or were only missing a few bones.

Those that could began to regroup. They lumber towards her, jaw bones chattering angrily, while the ones she had just destroyed began to pull themselves together once again.

“Barnabis! Please hurry! They're already starting to rebuild themselves!”

“I’m doing the best I can but I have no idea what I'm doing. I’ve always been an upstanding gnome. I’ve never stolen anything in my life and the skills of a thief are foreign to me!” He said, his smaller size making his pitch a lot higher than it should be.

“Alright um, let me walk you through it. The rotating part is the tumbler, if you walk on it, it should rotate slightly. Now, you might have to give it a bit of effort but keep pressure on it. After that, if you look up, you should see a series of pins, most likely on the ceiling. Do you see them?”

“Yes, I see them.”

“Ok good. Now there should be a little lip, somewhere in the pin tubes. You need to get the pins to rest on that lip. When you’ve got all of them correct, the tumbler should spin free. Spin it all the way and it should unlock.”

“I’m on it.”

The skeletons continued to move towards her. Every time they took a step, a new row would form at the back. With every new wave bringing Mercy closure and closure to death. They began to bang what remaining weapons they had rhythmically on the ground.

“Any second now would be good!”

She waited for a moment, but there was no reply.

“Barnabis?!”

No answer.

A dark thought came to her and she realized that Barnabis didn’t need her to complete this room anymore. If he stayed in the keyhole he would be safe from the skeletons. He could wait until she died, then finish the lock and move on, on his own. He could take the treasure all for himself.

“Barnabis?! Please!?”

The first wave of skeletons reached her. They surrounded her on all sides, chattering their skulls menacingly with excitement. She lashed out with her blades, cracking a few ribs and arms but her attacks did little to deter the enemy. They grabbed hold of her by the limbs and pinned her to the ground.

One leaned down and brought its aged yellowed skull inches from her face. It stared into her eyes with its own empty sockets. Fear clutched her chest. She tried to take a deep breath but the putrid scent of death coming from its body was unbearable and she started to gag.

The creature hissed angrily. It straightened its spine and raised the double-sided axe that it held high above its head. She closed her eyes and braced herself, as the blade cleaved down towards her.

The blow never came. She opened her eyes to see that the blade had stopped just at her throat. She looked up, the enemy who wielded it appeared to be frozen in place. She reached her hand up and gently removed the axe from her neck. The whole skeleton collapsed: Then, like dominoes, the rest followed suit.

“Sorry about that Lassie. A couple-a those pins got stuck pretty good, didn’t mean to leave you hanging.” Said Barnabis, jumping from the keyhole.

He landed in a pile of bones. Then began to grow back to regular size.

“It’s okay, better late than ever. I honestly half thought you were going to leave me to die.”

He crossed his arms and gave her a stern expression.

“Now you listen here. I am a gnome of my word, and you best believe it. If you’re going to be the party leader then the least you can do is trust your party.”

She apologized to him. She didn’t know how she felt about being the party leader. She had never really thought about leading a party before and wasn’t certain she was up for the job. She pushed the thoughts out of the way for now. It was currently only her and Barnabis anyway. She could figure things out more once they cleared this dungeon.

They approached the tomb. One on either side of the stone slab. Together, they pushed the lid off the sarcophagus, and it fell to the floor. Revealing, a set of stairs that led, down, into the shadows.

"After you Lassie!"