I stood there in the sea of blood, my whole body shaking as I looked from one dull lifeless gaze to the other. All of them were lined up in neat rows, hanging from grizzly chains like some sick marionette show. The room smelled of sickly sweet rot burning the stiff hairs sprouting from my nose. I had thought I had finally escaped the color purple, but this place was lit by the dull purple glow of the twin moons filtering in through the bare floor-to-ceiling windows.

I dropped to my knees and let out the pained howl trapped inside me. It echoed around the chamber disturbing the restless harpies up above. They stayed away though, their eyes flashing in the darkness like foul facsimiles of stars.

Frank sat on the floor beside me, his head bowed in his own form of grieving. I reached out, gently touching her cold fingers. I so badly wanted them to move but no matter how I smoothed my thumb over the soft skin of her hand, they didn’t.

How had it all gone so wrong?

A loud bell chimed around me sending the harpies into a wild flutter. And then the voice spoke the words I had hoped not to hear.

But, I guess I’m getting ahead of myself. There was so much that had happened between that moment I’d lit the carvings torch to now. Stuff you probably want to hear about. So let's go back to that dreary hall outside this wicked place where all this pain didn’t exist.

I lit the final torch and stood back with a painfully broad smile splitting my hairy face. The doors made a loud boom as they swung open on the softly lit room on the other side.

It had finally happened. A puzzle instead of an all-out brawl. This is what I had expected from a rogues challenge dungeon. The thrill that filled me was intense, like the kind you might have felt when the slot machine started spewing coins, or when you scored the goal that won the game.

“I can’t believe it,” Isabella whispered as she stepped up beside me, her shoulder practically brushing against mine. “It’s so beautiful.”

“Yeah, it is,” I whispered back.

Streams of purple light glimmered over the piles of gold and gemstones. In between the many stacks, thick rugs were laid out over the floor. A comfort on our booted feet after tramping across hard cold stone for so long.

Xander stepped up beside us along with Clara and said, “where’s the dragon?”

Clara took a hesitant step forward, her sharp eyes sweeping the room, paying a little extra attention to the deeper shadows. “There’s nothing here, just the gold.”

“It could be like that spriggan beast,” Isabella said. “He appeared out of nowhere.”

“True,” Clara agreed, stepping back until she formed a human shield between Isabella and the room.

I frowned at that, wondering if maybe there was a little more between the two than simply being sisters in arms. Clara was extremely protective of Isabella and did just about anything, even things she didn’t want to do, to keep her happy. If I was right then I felt a little sorry for them. This was not the ideal place for a romantic relationship.

Isabella reached out and pressed her fingers to Clara’s arm, whispering just loud enough for me to hear. “This doesn’t feel right.”

Clara gave a sharp nod of affirmation but said nothing more, her eyes still flicking across the room from one side to the other.

“Who wants to go first?” I asked.

Xander cleared his throat loudly and held his hand out with a little flourish. “Ladies first.”

Clara tossed him a dirty look but it was Isabella who laughed and said, “you men pretend to be big and strong but in a pinch, you’re just little boys hiding behind their mother's skirts.”

Xander shrugged and gestured again for Isabella and Clara to step forward first. When they did he shuffled closer to me and whispered for my ears only, “your days are numbered. Ryder’s blood is on your hands. Don’t think I’ll forget it.”

I gave him a stern look, my loaded crossbow pointed at the man's chest. “That’s a load of hogwash and you know it.”

Xander smiled but it wasn’t the nice kind then followed after the Daughters of Umbra, his scimitar swaying from side to side as he looked for the unavoidable danger.

I was the last to cross the threshold. The moment I moved far enough into the room the doors slammed shut behind us, the audible click of a lock falling into place reminding us that there was no way back. We stood there for a long time in an odd ‘Y’ shaped formation. Nothing came for us.

“Maybe… maybe this is our reward?” Isabella questioned.

Xander let out a whopping noise and sheathed his wide sword, diving into one of the piles as he shoved gold and jewels into his leather pouches. Clara turned to Isabella and when the woman smiled the pair of them followed Xander’s lead, shoving full arm scoops of the wealth into their pockets and pouches alike.

I took a step to follow suit but paused. I had seen this movie before. Touching the tempting gold was a bad idea. I stood stiffly atop one of the rugs. Sweat beaded on my forehead as I listened to my fellow players becoming richer and richer. I would have thought something bad would have happened by now but all seemed hunky-dory.

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Frank fluffed up his feathers but remained silent on my shoulder. I didn’t like that either. He was a vocal companion. That was one of the things I liked about him no matter how often it put me in danger.

I walked across the carpets, being careful to follow their winding path as I moved toward the doors on the other side of the room. That was an oddity compared to the rest of the spire. There had always been an open stairwell over that side of every room before.

The carpets led me toward the wide windows. I looked out over the sea of fluffy white clouds that lay in a thick blanket below and the clear, crisp visual of the stars up above. On any other day, this place would have been magnificent. It wasn’t any other day though, it was today, and today was filled with suspicion and maybe a little fear.

What was the Goddess or the monsters she was keeping hidden waiting for? There had to be something.

I kept walking, moving away from the windows. Something dripped on my face from up above. I flinched, my eyes darting upward as I swiped at the wet spot on my cheek. There was nothing there, only the darkened curvature of the cathedral-style roof. I looked back at my gloved fingers, my stomach cramping as I looked at the darkened splotch. Whatever it was it was dark and thick. Maybe a little sticky.

I kept moving more slowly than before, my head swiveling as I relied heavily on my high perception to show me what I knew was hidden from view. Every step I took toward the doors on the other side added another level of anxiety to the churning storm within me.

“Joe, what are you doing?” Isabella cried in her loud singsong voice. “You’re missing out on all the good stuff.”

“Something feels wrong,” I shouted back.

“If nothing has come for us by now, then nothing is coming,” Clara shot back.

“I think it wants you to think that way,” I said.

“Whatever,” Isabella shouted. “More for me!”

I turned back and looked at them digging deeper and deeper into a second pile. I had to admit, the speed with which they’d pocketed the first pile was impressive. I looked for Xander, no doubt he was doing the exact same thing.

“Ahh… Where is Xander?” I asked loudly when I couldn’t find him.

The girls paused in their mad rush for gold and looked about. Standing tall atop the pile of gold gave them a vantage point I did not have.

“He’s gone,” Clara said quietly, her voice still carrying to me halfway across the room.

“Where did he go?” Isabella asked, slowly climbing down from the miniature mountain of treasure.

“Xander,” Clara shouted.

Only silence returned her call. I took a step back, slowly drawing my blade when my heel kicked something hard and squashy. My eyes closed as I froze in place. I knew what it was without looking. Letting my held breath out with a shudder I turned and looked down at the mutilated corpse at my feet.

Xander stared back at me with vacant eyes, his chest torn open and a bloody cavity where his heart should be.

Isabella must have sprinted across the room because in a flash she was standing next to me. Her scream blasted my ears before I could cover them. I squinted against the pain of it but even that couldn’t hide the way the gold shifted in place, like a false image that appeared in the heatwaves in the outback.

“It’s fake,” I muttered as I spun in place, my eyes darting about like a madman’s. “It’s all fake.”

The piles of gold wavered again before vanishing entirely along with the carpets. Clara yelped as she was dumped unceremoniously to the hard floor from her place atop one of the imaginary piles. A hearty chuckle filled the room.

“Clever man,” a deep disembodied voice spoke from the shadows. “Not many can see through my illusions.”

A hiss sounded as a long multicolored python slithered from the corner by the far door, rushing toward me before lifting up and baring its fangs. Isabella cried out and fired her crossbow but the bolt slipped right through the snake as if it were made of smoke.

The snake began to vibrate as the chuckle returned before I blinding flash of purple light had as blinking away white spots. When our vision cleared, a man stood in front of us, a dull purple glow surrounding his body clothed in fantastical colors and garish accouterments. His eyes blazed as purple as the glow lighting up his thin face and perfectly manicured black beard.

“What are you?” I asked, keeping my sword between me and him.

The man smiled and held his hands wide. “Why, I’m a Djinn of course, can’t you tell?”

Isabella’s voice shook as she said, “you’re a genie?”

“Djinn,” the man corrected. “You can call me Ifrit if you like.”

“What do you want from us?” I asked.

The man laughed again. “What do you think puny human?”

Isabella dropped into a defensive pose, taking out one of the curving daggers she rarely used. “You won’t take us alive. Clara!”

The Djinn laughed again, something he clearly liked to do before stepping aside and swinging out his arm at the corpse laying on the stone behind him. “I’m afraid your Clara will not be joining us.”

“No!” Isabella screamed dropping her dagger as she sprinted across the room.

I might not have liked the woman but seeing Isabella wrecked with grief hurt. Isabella lifted up her dead friend, rocking back and force as she screamed the woman’s name over and over. Even from this distance, I could see the bolt lodged squarely in Clara’s heart.

The Djinn smiled at the display before turning back to me. “Now, where was I?”

I sheathed my blade knowing it would be useless against the monster standing in front of me. If he truly was a Djinn then he would be insubstantial, almost like a ghost. Paltry weapons wouldn’t hurt the monster, they would only anger him, just as Isabella’s bolt had done. There was no doubt in my mind that the man had guided the bolt to Clara’s heart.

The Djinn smiled at me. “There you go again, proving to me just how smart you are. I am delightfully surprised.”

“What do you want from us?” I asked a second time.

The room grew bone-chillingly cold as the Djinn seemed to double in size. “There is only one thing I want from the pair of you. I want you to sleep.”

The wave of drowsiness hit me like a sledgehammer, driving me to my knees. I saw Isabella drop to the ground in the distance, her arms still wrapped around Clara. Frank leaped into the air, screaming his rage to the complete indifference of the Djinn.

An enormous yawn escaped my lips as I dropped to my side. I felt the pain in my shoulder but it was a distant thing. More of a mild nuisance really.

“That’s right, Joe,” the Djinn whispered. “Sleep deeply now. Gift unto me the dream sense.”