The gold and blue dust followed Keith as he stepped out of the combat room. Their colors flowed into his body, disappearing as they scattered over his robes. Keith stopped in his tracks, looking at a small blue box that appeared in front of his face.

“Well that was stylish,” Elenore clapped.

“It’s whatever,” Keith shrugged.

“What’s that door?” Caster asked, pointing to a door on the other side of the combat room.

His eyes missed it during the chaos of the fight, but now he could see it. The door was just like the other two in the dungeon, but this one had golden lines along with its detailing, and a small chest-shield-shaped hole in the center.

“That’s the boss door Caster. We gotta get to the puzzle room and get the key inside it to open that door. It’s kinda like the skill check door but just locked instead of magically stuck,” Elenore answered.

Caster nodded and joined his two companions at the door on the right side of the starting room as they stood on the sides of the closed door.

“Be careful, this is supposed to be a puzzle room with no enemies, but this dungeon is haywire, so there could be twenty goblins for all we know,” Elenore warned him, nudging him to the side of the door. “I’ll go first.”

“Ready,” Keith nodded, daggers in hand.

Elenore kicked the door in its center, and the wooden halves gave way instantly. She followed the path into the next room, ax low once more, with Keith just behind her. Caster peaked his head into the next room just as he did before.

Fogrun Dungeon – Floor 1/1: Puzzle Room

Elenore and Keith slowly came to a stop, their heads pointing downward at something on the floor. Caster eased his way into the next room, keeping close to the wall. When he saw it, he realized why they had frozen in place.

A goblin was on its knees in the center of the room, just in front of a pillar that stood at least two-men high. Its arms hung limp at its sides, and its skin was sickly pale. A pool of blood had formed under its body, the source coming from its dried-up wrists. A yellow ring floated just above its head, identical to a halo.

“What? Is this a forbidden sacrificial summon?!” Keith spat.

“Reckon so,” Elenore nodded, straightening her back from her pounce-ready position.

“Gah-ha-ha-ha!” The goblin’s head jerked upward.

Both Keith and Elenore raised their weapons again, they’d nearly been taken by surprise.

But the goblin’s body didn’t move. Only its head moved. It roamed upward, in a slow, struggling fashion. The goblin’s eyes weren’t black, but yellow. Not yellow-colored eyes, but a glowing neon light. It was like the creature had placed sun-colored moonrocks in its eye sockets. Its mouth was agape, but it managed to speak.

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“In carnage, he blooms, like a flower in the dawn,” it eked. The voice that spoke did not belong to the creature.

Both Elenore and Keith hesitated to strike.

The goblin’s head lowed, its glowing eyes peering past both Keith and Elenore. It was looking right at Caster. It raised its withered arm, revealing a piece of parchment paper with a strange ink pattern that resembled three misshapen ‘question marks’, each one connected to a single base ‘dot’ in the center of the parchment.

“Have you seen the Yellow Sign?”

Cursed!

Level Up! Occult Level Increased +1!

The goblin’s head suddenly jerked, revolving 180 degrees away from the direction that a functioning head is supposed to face. Its neck snapped and the halo dissipated.

Its torso fell toward the ground, but its body dissipated before it even hit the stone. The only thing left was the odd parchment paper.

“I’ve never heard either of those two sentences before. Was that an omen? A curse?” Keith said, slowly putting his daggers away.

“Beats me,” Elenore sheathed her weapon.

“The Archmage’s note was talking about the Yellow King, right? Maybe it has something to do with him,” Caster suggested.

“What was drawn on that paper?” Keith asked, approaching the parchment left behind.

“I ain’t touching it.” Elenore refused.

Keith knelt, flipping over the parchment with his knife. It lay on the ground, limp and not cursed. He picked up the paper and placed it in his cloak pocket.

“We’ll ask the Archmage.” He stood. “Doesn’t look like there are any more surprises in here. We got the lodestone, let's synch it.”

Caster looked around the rest of the room. Again, this one was square, though slightly larger than the starting and combat rooms. In the center of the room was a tall obelisk. It had at least a dozen ridges etched around it, like rungs that led to the top. The obelisk was split into three sections, each had a glowing color that flowed from the base to the top. The color at the base started red, then become blue, then yellow, green, and white at the top, then it would disappear for a moment before the glow would reset at the bottom.

Elenore stepped on a tile, an elevated square near the left wall of the room. The color of the left portion of the obelisk froze at the top, just after the white color but before the red appeared. Keith timed his portion of the obelisk and did the same. Both then looked at Caster.

“Waiting on you bud,” Elenore said, nodding her head in the direction of the last tile on the north part of the room.

“Oh, sorry.” Caster lowered his head and walked around the tower.

He made his way around to the back of the room and stood with his back against the wall so he could see the color of the obelisk rise.

“Just step on it once the color turns white, you wanna make the light stop moving once it disappears,” Elenore explained.

Caster nodded, watching as the color climbed. He readied, and as the color turned white, he quickly stepped onto the tile. He stood in confusion as the color returned to red.

“Haha,” Elenore chuckled, stifling her laugh as she snorted. “Sorry, you’re probably gonna have to stomp on it since you’re a lot lighter than a person.”

Caster would have blushed if he had a normal human face. He stepped off the tile and waited as the color returned to red. Once again, he timed the hues, and just as it turned white, he leaped up onto the tile.

CLUNK

The tile sunk into the ground, and the colors disappeared.

CLINK

A noise came from the obelisk.

Caster looked up to see both Elenore and Keith standing near the tower. An opening had been made, revealing a hollow portion in the center of the structure. Keith reached in and took out a chest-shield-shaped golden tube.

A sound echoed through the halls of the dungeon. It was a guttural roar that shook the loose dust and pebbles on the stone. Caster had to fan his arms out to keep his balance as the ground shook.

“Was that the Dungeon Core, or the boss?” Elenore asked.

“Both,” Keith answered, before sprinting toward the gold-laced door.