I looked at our new surroundings and breathed a sigh of relief; it was the rock walls of a dungeon that greeted us, nothing strange or wacky, just a dungeon! As it turned out it was still a dungeon with a gimmick, it was a maze! Or more accurately a labyrinth. Vast stone passages meandering off in all directions. My only consolation was that it wasn’t swarming with monsters!

The walls of the maze gave off a faint red glow, that on closer inspection turned out to come from tiny red veins. I had seen something similar in every dungeon I had explored, but those had always been large veins giving off plenty of light to see by; these where finer than hairs and only filled the labyrinth with a sort of hazy red gloom. I was wondering if I could find some way to make a torch when the ceiling lit up! It turned out not to be a ceiling but a sky! Above the walls was a vast abyss of blackness, that every now and then would light up as a burning red streak of light made its way across it! It was not lightning, it moved too slowly for that, it was more like a shooting star, only much brighter and closer than any shooting star that I had ever seen. Every flash was followed by a grinding, cracking sound, and it would set the walls of the labyrinth echoing. The sound startled me more than the light.

Before we set off to explore the maze I scratched a mark into the dungeon wall, no matter how large this maze was, if given enough time we would end up back were we had started, and I did not intend to wander round in a loop without knowing about it!

We had not been in the labyrinth long when we come across our first monster. We had just entered a long strait passage when the sky lit up, allowing me to see the full length of the passage, about a third of the way down this passage stood a young minotaur. I froze, but the minotaur was facing the wall and seemed unaware of our existence, as the light faded out, I backed us out of the strait and into the little passage we had been in before. Then, making sure Tom stayed put, I looked round the corner. The minotaur was a juvenile, [his head was only about chest hight] but I still didn’t like our chances if it came to a head on fight. Another flash lit up the passage and I saw that the minotaur was grazing on some moss that grew from the labyrinth wall, he seemed unaware of the flashing light or rumbling noises that came at irregular intervals. His horns were short and bent slightly forward, I got the impression that they were very sharp. I pulled my head back and looked at Tom; wondering if he could tame a minotaur, if he could tame a dungeon monster at all, there had been Danny but I wasn’t sure if he had come from a dungeon or not. That didn’t matter at the moment anyway, in Toms’ current state I doubted he could tame a field mouse! I would have to deal with this on my own.

After some thought I cast fear on the minotaur, [and hoped he was less than level 10] I would have cast fury, but there didn’t seem to be anything around for it to get angry at, and the last thing I wanted was an angry minotaur charging round the corner and bumping into us in an enraged state. He froze when the spell hit, and stood perfectly still, a leg muscle trembled and sweat ran off his nose. Then, with a snort he bolted down the passage away from us! I smiled as the light faded to darkness once more; it was so satisfying when things worked!

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

The labyrinth went on; winding, and meandering aimlessly. There was no roof on top of the walls and the idea of climbing up the wall and getting a sort of over view of the labyrinth had come to me almost immediately, but I had dismissed it as being too easy; that there would be some sort of trap, or something worse waiting for me. [that is what I told myself, the truth is; I don’t like climbing, it always seems to end in me falling] But as the labyrinth wound on the idea started to seem better and better. Finally, I came to the conclusion that it was stupid not to try it. So, I stopped us in one of the small, abandoned passages, and tried climbing. The walls were rough and not that difficult to climb, but when I got to the top, I found the advantage not quite what I had hoped. I couldn’t see far in any direction, all I could see was the tops of other walls going off in all directions, and I could only see that when the light was streaking across the sky. But the biggest problem was the fairies; they arrived while I was still trying to see, if I could see anything. When I first saw them, they looked like dandelion seeds floating gently in the breeze, [ but, of course they were glowing red] when they got closer I heard the whine of their wings! And when they were almost on top of me, I saw what they actually were; vaguely humanoid shapes with wings on their backs that were really too small for them. The wings were working very hard to keep them in the air, and they let off a high-pitched whine that was worse than a mosquito, they didn’t glow like the poppies, it was the air around them was glowing. There was one other thing that I noticed; they were carrying pointy weapons! I decided [very quickly] to get down from the wall. A few of the fairies followed me down, but they were not fast-moving creatures, I swatted one out the air as it came towards me and felt a stinging sensation in my fingers. I glanced at my hand, and stamped on the fairy; its’ light went out, and I got an XP notification. I looked up in time to see Scar run up the wall and catch one of the fairies out of the air, between us we made fast work of the rest!

Telling time underground is something of an art form. Put it another way; it is sheer guess work. The goblins counted time in cycles, it took 6 cycles for a dungeon to grow, secure territory, and reinforce itself. You could tell what stage a dungeon was in if you knew the signs, I didn’t know the signs. This meant that we kept going; wondering through the labyrinth until my feet began to blister, and Tom, who was not in a good way physically, refused to go on. I found a dead end on one of the meandering parts of the labyrinth and managed to drag him in there, and then, before I collapsed, I cut the mark into the wall so as not to forget if we needed to leave in a hurry. I sat with my back against the rough stone wall and tried to relax. The faint red glow that came from the walls was actually quite nice, it was warm and calm, and gave the feeling of darkness without really being dark. But just as I started to think that sleep was possible one of the ‘shooting stars’ would illuminate the sky and I would be back on edge again. At last tiredness won and I fell asleep.