The Demon King’s castle was protected by a barrier.

The barrier was held up by four enchanted seals.

The seals were kept in four dungeons spread around the southern continent and protected by four powerful demon lords and their armies.

It seemed simple enough. Defeat the demon lords, destroy the seals, then enter the Demon King’s castle and kill the king himself. That was the way this kind of thing worked in stories, after all. But Isandra had a few questions. First of all, why did the Demon King not simply replace the broken seals? It was true that they were impressive works of sorcery, but with an entire continent of resources he should be able to manage it. And why even bother to destroy them at all? After all, the king had to leave his castle sometimes. Why not just wait for him to go on a hunting trip, or whatever it was demon kings did, and attack him then? Unfortunately, her fellow heroes had insisted that this was the best path, preferring to lower the Demon King’s defenses as much as possible and create their own opportunity to attack instead of waiting for one.

Of course, her fellow heroes just raised more questions as far as she was concerned. First, there was Friedrich, the Miracle, the “child born of no mother.” It was true that he was adopted, but lots of people were. Wasn’t one of the heroes of prophecy supposed to be something more remarkable? When Isandra had questioned Andra von Ekko, the princess’ consort and the woman in charge of finding the four heroes, about it she had insisted that she had looked carefully into Friedrich’s past and confirmed that he was indeed the hero in question. However, she had refused to explain any further. Friedrich was a capable enough swordsman, but he was also nothing spectacular. Plus he had a habit of breaking swords, meaning the heroes kept having to take replacements from defeated demons. He was handsome and charming, but somehow didn’t seem terribly heroic.

Next was Alistair, the Stranger, the “being from another world.” Alistair was a vampire. According to Lady von Ekko, this meant he was of the “world of the night,” whatever that meant. However, if the “being from another world” was just a vampire, what made Alistair so special? Lady von Ekko insisted that she had looked into his background, too, and determined that he was one of the heroes. His nutritional requirements and insistence on following a number of inconvenient vampire traditions made him rather difficult to travel with. At least he was useful in a fight, whenever they could actually get him to fight.

Finally, there was Hermia, the Paragon, the Saint. There was little question that she was a real saint; Isandra had seen her performance at the tournament. However, shortly after arriving on the southern continent, Hermia had confessed that she had lost her powers. And to make things worse, the woman was a complete liability. Aside from being useless in a fight and having no healing powers, she had a habit of making herself known to any demon she encountered. It was almost as if she were trying to get them captured.

Still, Isandra had to admit that her doubts were proving to be unfounded. After all, over the course of the last year, the heroes had managed to find and destroy three of the four seals. They had also evaded the Demon King’s attempts to have them hunted down and captured. Thankfully, the southern continent was still full of humans, so it was easy enough to stay hidden in their travels.

On this day, she stood at the side of her allies, looking up at the enormous final door of the Lair of Keys and Locks. It was tall enough that the glow of Isandra’s light potion could barely reach the top, and it was, of course, locked. Isandra couldn’t understand it. They had scoured every corner of this maze of a dungeon, dug up every key they could find and tested them all. And yet the door remained unmoved. Now the keys sat in a pile next to the door as the party wondered what to do next.

It had been like this in each dungeon. The Vault of Rage and Fire had been a fort loaded with demon soldiers. It would have required an army to take it. Thankfully, Isandra had managed to sneak in using an invisibility spell and break the seal without ever encountering the demon lord or his army. Next had been the Catacombs of Shadows and Silence, a huge underground complex full of traps and puzzles, all pressure plates, spell-activated doors, and buttons in impossible-to-reach places. Fortunately, Friedrich had bribed a demon who was tired of accidentally activating the traps into guiding them to the seal. Finally, there was the Crypt of Secrets and Whispers. The dungeon itself wasn’t anything remarkable, little more than living quarters for the lord who guarded the seal, but it had been nearly impossible to find. It was extremely well-hidden deep in a forest and the only people who knew its location were the people of a nearby human village, who were all loyal to the Demon King. Thankfully, in an uncharacteristic moment of brilliance, Hermia had declared her intent to pledge her loyalty to the demon lord and managed to convince one of the villagers to tell her his location.

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But now they were faced with an impassable barrier. And they needed a key that couldn’t be found anywhere in the dungeon. She supposed they would have to wait. The demon lord would have to leave at some point, after all. Unless he had another way out. A secret entrance would make more sense than unlocking and locking twenty or so doors every time he left.

Hermia, looking bored, crouched on the stone floor and started writing something in the dust with her finger. Friedrich, growing frustrated, kicked at the pile of keys, sending several of them flying at the door and causing Alistair to flinch. Alistair was having a particularly difficult time with this dungeon.

“It’s not right,” he murmured, hugging himself. “All these doors...I’m not supposed to be here.”

“We’re still in the same building, though,” Isandra replied. “So you’ve only really broken the rule once.”

Alistair shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way. It’s about the locks, don’t you see? I can’t pass through locking doors uninvited. I can feel the natural forces that govern the undead pulling at me even now.”

Isandra didn’t see. The rules Alistair followed seemed completely inconsistent.

Friedrich seemed to notice it, too. “What about businesses? They have locking doors. Can’t you go into them?”

“Dungeons aren’t businesses,” Alistair said, raising his voice.

Hermia rolled her eyes. “We go through this every time. You’re in here with us, aren’t you? There aren’t any natural forces keeping you out. Just like how you whine and complain every time we cross a stream, but you always make it to the other side.”

“That rule doesn’t really make sense, either,” Friedrich added. “What exactly counts as running water? Do gutters and storm drains? Do pipes? You shouldn’t even be able to walk around a city.”

“It makes sense, okay?” Alistair insisted, giving each word a sharpness as if trying to emphasize them all at once. “When you’re a vampire, and you feel those forces affect you, you understand. I’ve been a vampire for the last two hundred years. I’ve been following these rules this entire time. If they weren’t real, then I would have been acting like a fool this entire time. They have to be real.”

Hermia snorted a laugh. “You’re living a lie. If all vampires are this pathetic, I can’t believe the Athorians haven’t wiped you out yet.”

“Look, Alistair, if this is an anxiety thing, just let us know,” Isandra said, trying to defuse the situation. “I’m sure we can figure out a way to accommodate⁠—”

“I don’t have anxiety,” Alistair snapped. “These are actual physical laws that govern vampires. I just need to not be here right now.”

“Well, we can’t leave until we break the seal,” Friedrich said.

“Then open the door,” Alistair shouted.

“We can’t, idiot,” Hermia replied.

Alistair looked up at the door again. He knew he could leave if he wanted. He could retrace his steps back to the entrance and be away from all of this, but the locked door before him raised a question in his mind; what if a vampire were locked in a building in which they had not been invited? They could not physically leave, but they could not physically stay. Two physical laws of the universe contradicted each other. This was impossible. The only way it made sense was if vampires could only be kept out, not kept in. No matter how secure a room was, a vampire would always be able to escape it. Therefore no barrier could physically stand up to a vampire’s strength.

He didn’t bother checking his reasoning for inconsistencies, fearing that he would find some; instead he marched up to the door, grabbed the handle, and with a great heave, tore it off its hinges and tossed it aside where it bounced against the floor and wall with a series of deafening clangs and forced Hermia to scramble out of its path.

His surprised allies joined him at his side to look into the final room. There, with the assistance of Isandra’s light potion, the seal was visible. Like the others, it was a huge circular object that took up most of one wall. It was made of a porcelain-like material and the surface was painted with arcane symbols. Beneath it stood the demon lord, who looked up at the heroes with surprise. He had bird-like features, all feathers and talons and beak, and was in the midst of eating some sunflower seeds. The floor was littered with the shells.

“If it’s just the shells, do they still count as seeds?” Friedrich asked.

Alistair began to scream with rage.