The cramped subterranean room fell silent after the tremor subsided. Dirt rained from the ceiling, and Oliver brushed it from his hair.

Halfdan, Sigrid, Saj, and Charity exchanged wary glances.

The gnomes murmured in hushed tones, their voices traveling down the hallway.

Eventually, a diminutive figure appeared at the threshold, lantern light flickering across his lined features. It was Gallan, the gnome who had brought them here. He rubbed his eyes, looking irritated and sleepy. “What’s all the noise about? Is it you? Is it the Witchfriends?”

Oliver knocked the soil from his clothes. “Something is moving underground.”

Gallan’s droopy eyelids lifted as if the idea woke him up. “Under the ground, eh?” he said, casting the lantern’s light about the chamber. “Close, I would guess.”

Halfdan ran his hand along the earthen wall. “I think it’s just behind this wall.”

Gallan set down the lantern and fetched a small spade from his belt. “Let's see whether it’s a good idea or bad.” He crunched the spade into the wall.

Together, they knelt and began scooping away the earth, passing lumps of clay and stones to the side. The room was already cramped, and soon, it filled with the musty smell of disturbed soil. Worms crawled underfoot. After a few minutes of hard work, they hit rock.

“Here,” Oliver said, pushing his blade into an opening where a wooden door stood in the recess. He looked at his blade and put his finger on it. The steel cut him, and he stuck his finger in his mouth. It hadn’t dulled one iota.

With Halfdan’s help, they pried the door open, revealing a dark void beyond. What they had mistaken for rock was blocks of stone. The door was like an entrance to a castle.

Oliver leaned in, taking the lantern from Galan. A chill draft emanated from the opening, carrying the scent of dust. He stepped through the gap, boots finding steps leading lower. The floor underfoot quivered faintly as if alive. His breath fogged.

“I’ve heard of this,” Halfdan said from behind. “I thought it was only legend, but It’s a living dungeon.”

Sigrid lit a torch, which cast light further ahead and showed walls.

“A what?” Saj asked, peering over the edge.

Halfdan’s voice echoed in the chamber. “Stories tell of dungeons that move through the earth, shifting corridors and chambers. They’re ancient, created during horrific magical events, and said to harbor treasures.”

“Cursed treasures,” Sigrid said.

Oliver studied a point where two entirely different walls fused as if two buildings merged. On one side, what appeared to be a sandstone palace transitioned to roughly cut gray stone.

Charity grabbed his arm. “Do you think it’s dangerous?”

He wasn’t going to lie. “I think so.”

As they ventured farther, the dungeon led them to an oval room where a rift in the floor opened into a lower level. Ragged ropes hung over the edge. Some consisted of dried strands that would break with a firm tug. One seemed solid enough to climb down. They descended slowly, each using frayed rope as a backup.

Below, they emerged into a grand but decayed corridor with statues on either side. Remains of red tapestries adorned the walls. The end of the corridor opened to a vaulted ceilinged hall. At the back stood a throne with a skeleton with a head growing long hair and a beard. A tarnished golden crown rested on its skull. Oliver gently lifted the crown. It felt heavy for its size.

Behind him, Saj crossed his arms against the cold, “I wouldn’t touch anything.”

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Oliver tucked the crown under his arm, studying a gap in the stone chair. He pulled, and a hidden space beneath the skeleton revealed a cloth roll. He unfurled a red banner with a lion clutching a rod and ring stitched in gold. “What’s life without taking risks?”

Saj stopped to think. “Women, wine, food, baths, stickball, eh, I can think of countless things.”

A low hiss startled them. Oozing from cracks in the floor, acidic slimes bulged upward, their gelatinous bodies dissolving stone and metal. The party drew weapons, but Oliver, thinking quickly, summoned an Astral Shield. With the cosmic barrier shimmering around them, the slimes lunged, their acidic forms splattering harmlessly against the protective aura.

They kept coming, and the shield dissolved their bodies. Oliver didn’t know how long they came but feared the shielding would time out.

He prepared to use more mana as more slimes hurled themselves at the shield, sizzling and popping as their corrosive bodies hit the heat. Suddenly, they gave up, retreated into dark corners, and dissolved into cracks.

Oliver dropped the crown, and the ting echoed. He snatched it back up and placed it on his head so he wouldn’t have to hold onto it. I hope it’s not cursed.

“Can you keep that up indefinitely?” Sigrid asked, looking around nervously.

The dungeon trembled again, a subtle shift that rattled loose stones.

“No,” Oliver said.

Saj chewed on a fingernail. “I don’t want to die like this. I want something left to bury.”

They retraced their steps, climbed the rope, and returned to the first passage. The living dungeon had shifted, making the hole they’d carved no longer align with the doorway. But it was still large enough to squeeze through. One by one, they wriggled out, the earth pinching their shoulders and scraping their backs. The last out was Oliver, banner in hand, heart pounding as he slipped through right before the dungeon moved again.

Later that evening, after rest and a meager meal, a messenger gnome summoned Oliver to meet King Pahgna, ruler of the forest gnomes. The audience chamber was a cramped earthen hall lit by natural rock sconces.

King Pahgna’s ancient form sat atop a knotty root throne, his face hidden beneath folds of skin and hair. “May I see the banner?”

Oliver unfurled it, and it seemed to undulate on its own accord as if a breeze stirred it.

The king grunted as he lifted himself to walk with a cane. He ran gnarled fingers over the red and gold. “This is thousands of years old. A kingdom from a time so distant that what is now the forest was once desert, and the southern deserts were green. You carry the banner of Nesobotonia, a mythical kingdom whose stories only the oldest remember.”

Oliver didn’t even see a loose thread. “How is it still intact?”

“Magical,” the Pahgna said, “And hopefully not cursed. Usually, if someone finds a relic in my forest, I will take it. But as I said, this is from before the forest. Only the mountains remember.” The king returned to his seat and dismissed them.

Oliver thanked King Pahgna and got a nod of the head in return.

The next morning, under the dappled sunlight filtering through forest leaves, Oliver led his companions through the forest with no trail to guide him, which the others found worrying, but he had a map.

They needed to move north toward the monastery. Oliver Used his swordstaff to walk a steep rise and met the road. Wagons had carved deep ruts in the dirt.

The path continued under an arch of trees, but finally, the trees gave way to a clearing.

The garden path to the monastery was guarded by two massive stone golems, towering sentinels. Their faces were blank, but their eyes followed every move.

The party paused to look up at them.

Oliver studied the golems with a furrowed brow, remembering how nasty the flesh golems had been. Could there be a connection, or was it mere coincidence? He preferred not to face a Witchfriend until he gained more mana.

Halfdan spun his axe so the blades rotated in a blur. “Stone is stronger than flesh.”

Sigrid nodded and looked at the runes at the golems’ feet. “My arrows will bounce off them like toothpicks.

Saj and Charity hung way back, with Saj taking cover behind her.

Oliver took a step forward. “Will you attack if we continue down this path?”

No answer.

He inched forward. Nothing. Again, he scooted forward and watched.

The stone necks turned, and stone eyes followed.

He backed away. There was no reason to get into a battle with these things.

A shout came from farther down the path. “Wait.” The voice came from a man in white robes and a staff with serpents at the top. He came forward and stopped between the golems. “Are you adventurers?”

Oliver pointed to the pin on his chest. “The Crimson Pike Guild.”

“I see. Well, I have a knight here who needs your help. It will help a lot of people.”

Saj walked up from the back. “Are they injured?”

The priest shook his head and looked past the monastery. “No, it involves a ghost and a lord.”