“Each door leads to a puzzle of that type?” Alarion guessed. “And I have to complete nine of them?”

“You know, it really takes the fun out of it if you cut me off.” Valentina’s scowl didn’t quite reach her eyes as she glanced sidelong at him. “But no, you only need to complete eight. Guessing correctly on the coinflip puts you ahead of the curve.”

“Alright. So, three of each, then? Or, three of two and two of the other, I guess.”

“Not quite.” She drew his attention to the gems put into the door. ”These rank the difficulty and threat of each challenge. When you complete one, you will return to this room to pick another, but the type and difficulty on offer will be shuffled. Depending on your progress you might be able to pick from all four types, or only one.”

“Four?”

“You’ll see the fourth when it comes available.”

She snapped her fingers, and a number of the gems beneath the doors shimmered and filled with crimson light. The puzzle door had two glowing gems, the arcane door had one, while the gems in the combat door remained unlit.

“You are welcome to choose any type you’d like, but each time you complete a room, the base level of that challenge increases by one on future attempts.”

Alarion eyed the unlit gems as he considered her words. “It only goes up to three regardless, right?”

“Correct. Unlit gems indicate a base challenge. You can leave these at any time and select a different challenge if it is not to your liking and you cannot fail these. In a combat room, if you are defeated, you’ll be sent back here and given the chance to try again. A single lit gem indicates that the room, and thus the dungeon, can be failed. Two removes your ability to retreat. Three indicates the risk of death upon failure. Each is also markedly harder than its predecessor.”

Alarion nodded along as he reviewed the options before him. The obvious option was, well… obvious. Later, assuming he racked up some wins, the setup could force some hard choices, pushing him into a less favorable encounter to avoid ranking up an already difficult alternative. For now, it was a straight selection and if there was one thing Alarion felt he was at least competent at, it was combat.

“Of course, a higher difficulty increases the rewards.” Val added almost as an afterthought.

Alarion stopped in his tracks and turned a less than enthusiastic glare her way. “Anything else I need to know?”

“Mmm, no. Obviously the overall rewards will improve the deeper you delve as will the difficulty, but if your aim is to maximize your results, taking the hardest room you can is probably best.” The woman’s smile was far too sweet as she added. “Assuming you survive. Knowing your limits is an important part of confronting any challenge.”

“And no one has ever completed this dungeon?”

“Not yet! Though I have high hopes.” Whether those ‘high hopes’ were for him, the once goddess left unsaid. “While your empire came after my time, I will say that your Awakened do not disappoint.”

“It is not my empire.” said Alarion.

“Oh? You wear their colors, I would have thought…” Again the woman’s head tipped skyward, and she visibly winced. “Ah. Yes that would explain it. All the more reason to root for you, then. If you would like, I can change the exit location.”

Alarion’s head snapped in her direction. “You can do that?”

“I can, though I doubt your owners are aware, or they wouldn’t have sent you in. One of my many titles in life was Mother of Liberation. I am not fond of slavers.”

“I am not a-” Alarion bit his tongue rather than continue that line of argument and shifted to a more pressing one. “Can you send me anywhere?”

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“Well, not anywhere. It would have to be to the exit of another of our dungeons. Preferably one that is in a safe location for you. Is there somewhere you wanted to go?”

Alarion thought about the question. There were many places he longed to be, home chief among them, but few that still existed in any meaningful sense. Even so, one name at least broached his lips. “The city of Null. Do you have a dungeon near there?”

“Within a hundred miles or so. Did you want me to send you there?”

The young man looked to the door and frowned. “Can I think about it?”

“As long as you need.” The woman smiled. There was a gentleness in her eyes now as she gestured back to the doors. “Or as long as your time limit allows, in any case. Have you decided where you wish to begin?”

“This one, I think.” Alarion answered as he advanced on the puzzle door.

Valentina chuckled. “Ambitious. She is impressed! Good luck!”

With her words at his back, Alarion pushed open the door and stepped through into the same bright light that had greeted him when he’d entered the dungeon.

This time, however, the brightness did not fade as the room resolved around him. Gone were the old hardwood floors and dusty tomes. In their place stood columns of pristine white marble, floors inlaid with gold and black. Above him were vaulted ceilings that stretched off into the distance and arched staircases that led to upper floors.

It reminded him of the dark room he’d found at the bottom of the pit. Sierra had guessed that it had been a throne room, or perhaps a temple. This place carried the same air of opulence and extravagant wealth, without the grim undertones of that subterranean chamber. If anything, this place reminded him of the woman he’d just left. It certainly had Valentina’s colors.

Everything was white, or gold. The stairs were white, the ceiling white and inlaid with gold. The chandeliers, the statues, the seating. Even the lighting held an orange incandescence that flickered off polished surfaces.

Ahead of him lay two columns, behind those were a double arched stairwell to a second floor, as well as an open foyer that contained yet more intricate columns, chairs, tables and priceless looking pieces of art. At the center was a pedestal upon which rested a dark statue of a dancing man playing a stringed instrument as he was attacked.

“Puzzle room.” Alarion reminded himself as he slowly turned in place.

He was certainly puzzled. On first glance, the areas to the left and right of him appeared similar. On a second, he realized that they were almost identical. Looking in all four directions it became clear that the only meaningful distinction were those statues, each of which played a different instrument. A tambourine, a flute, a trumpet, and a violin.

Did most people have to deal with this level of extradimensional weirdness? Or was he just lucky?

With no one direction any more tempting than another, Alarion set off at random to his left. He walked between the two stairwells and approached the pedestal, careful not to get too close to the dark stone statue. It depicted a man in mid-dance, a violin held to his chin as a woman tackled him in a loving embrace. The woman was Val, her features perfectly captured, though the man was unfamiliar.

It was a thing of beauty, borne of endless patience Alarion could not even imagine. As though it were not a figure carved of stone, but one the carver had set free with his chisel. The boy had little understanding of art, yet he could not imagine how one carved stone so that it looked soft. The way Val’s fingers dug into the man’s skin, her carefree expression, the baffled confusion on the subject’s face.

Was this a real place? Some palace plucked from the real Valentina’s life to serve as a fixture for her dungeon? Or was it some fiction she’d concocted simply for his trial. That she could do either felt surreal. And somehow invasive. Almost as though he was in a place he did not belong.

With nowhere else to go, Alarion continued past the statue, his steps echoing off the empty halls as he moved deeper into the palace. He passed two columns topped in gold and looked ahead to see… the statue of a man playing a violin, dancing as Valentina tackled him from behind.

Alarion turned to look back and saw that the statue behind him depicted not a violin, but a flute.

“What…” Alarion murmured as he walked back toward it. The statue was clearly different. Its basic proportions, design and theme were all the same, but the position of his arms and the instrument at his lips were different, he wouldn’t have mistaken one for another.

Worse yet, as Alarion looked back toward where he’d arrived, he could see the violin player on the far side of the room, where the flute player should have been.

Concerned, but not yet truly alarmed, Alarion moved toward one of the nearby staircases. Following it up to the second floor he found it no less opulent, with the same gold filagree, elegant furniture and tasteful railings as the floor below him. He noted an opposing set of staircases not far ahead. And identical stairs not far off to the left and right.

More worryingly, with nothing obstructing his line of sight, as the various walls and stairs had done on the ground floor, Alarion could see into the distance. Far into the distance.

Miles into the distance, with nothing but white marble, gold tipped columns and arched ceilings as far as the eye could see.