…future was to hold, and understand why. Understand that it was necessary, that it was really the only way.

--

A chill ran down Matt’s back as he hurried after Mia through the shimmering doorway. As he stepped through, he brought his spear up and braced himself.

They had stepped into what appeared to be a small, dark room. Vic was holding a torch, which illuminated walls made from dark, unevenly stacked bricks. A dark doorway led out from the room, and the light from the torch failed to penetrate far into the corridor behind.

“That is weird,” Thor said as he stepped closer to the wall, tracing the stonework with a finger. “These are not the same walls. It is a different stone and a different build. They are joined together with some kind of mortar, instead of just stacked. It is like we are in a different place.” His finger came away wet, and Thor brought it up to his nose and smelled it. “Water, I think,” he said. “But it smells… wrong. Rancid.”

“Better not drink it then,” Mia said, pointing at Pete. “Let’s move in. Pete, if we encounter someone… something, you take the lead.”

“Ok,” Pete answered and turned to Matt. “Matt, take point with me. You stay on my right. Vic, follow behind us with the torch. Try to stay close so we can see without burning our asses off. Mia, stay right behind Vic and Thor watch our rear.”

Matt stepped up next to Pete and squared his shoulders, shifting the grip on his spear and widening his stance slightly. Next to him, Pete rolled his head as he twirled the hatchet. In his left hand, Matt noted.

Pete gave Matt a nod, and together they moved into the darkness. As they moved forward, the torch slowly revealed more and more of the corridor in flickering bouts of light. What a strange place this is, he thought, the weirdness of everything making him wary as the tunnel made a turn ahead. Twisting his head back, he saw the faint glimmer of the portal behind them, and for a moment he considered suggesting that they go back. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something about this tunnel that felt unnatural. They’d had enough trouble without actively looking for more.

But at the same time, a flame of curiosity deep within him fueled him onwards. His head was still pulsating with a rhythmic pain, and when he turned his attention inwards, he could see the cloud of twirling threads in his mind contracting and expanding. He wanted to find out what everything meant. Why was he still alive? What were the strange threads?

And what was this strange… dungeon?

Pete had noticed him looking back towards the portal. “What do you think? Keep going?”

Matt nodded. “Yes. Something is strange here,” he whispered back. “But let’s continue–carefully.”

Pete gave him a nod, then raised his hatchet in a motion, gesturing at the bend in the tunnel. Matt raised his spear in response, holding it ready and pointing it forward as they moved quickly and silently around the corner. The torchlight followed them a moment later as Vic stayed close behind.

“What the…” Pete started, as they saw two small creatures sitting on the floor just ahead, talking quietly and chewing on… something. “Boglins!? Boglins!”

In a panic, the small creatures threw their half eaten slabs of raw meat to the side, and tried to pull out small daggers from their belts at the same time as getting to their feet. One of them gave a sound halfway between a squeak and a growl as it stumbled and fell back to the ground, whilst the other creature successfully pulled out a scarily long dagger and ran straight at Matt.

“Hold on there, don’t–” Matt thrust his spear out and whipped it to one side to deflect the boglin’s lunge, retreating one step and tracking the creature’s head with the tip of his spear. “Stop!” He tried again. “We don’t want to–”

Ignoring his words, the boglin ducked under his spearpoint as it rushed forward again, and he swung the spear around in a swift motion to catch the monster on the jaw with the shaft. It connected with a solid thunk, and the boglin fell to the floor in a daze, its fall bringing down the other boglin who was just getting to its feet.

“What–” Matt bolted forward and jammed his spear into the creature on the top of the pile, pulled it out, and thrust it back into the other boglin, killing both. “What’s wrong with these creatures? Why did they just attack?”

Pete was shaking his head, hatchet still held ready. “I don’t know. You’d think they’d rather try to run than fight people larger than themselves.”

Thor’s voice rumbled from behind them. “I have never heard of a boglin running from a fight. They will keep going until dead or incapacitated. If you try to capture one, it will just tear itself apart on the shackles.”

“You know about boglins?” Matt asked. “I’ve just–”

“Look sharp!” Pete stepped past the corpses and hefted his hatchet. “Hear that? Get ready for more.”

Matt heard the jabbering shrieks coming from up ahead and readied his spear. What is up with this place?

“Back two steps!” Pete said as more boglins came running at them from the darkness. “Brace!”

Matt retreated with Pete and fell into the guard stance. Fucking ugly bastards, he thought as he looked at the corpses on the floor. Coming up no higher than his waist, and shaped like a barrel, they had a round, solid chest with ridiculously thin legs and arms, and a head that was mostly eyes and teeth. Since he was a child, they had heard about them in stories. Large and mean and vicious. The reality was almost… disappointing.

Rushing towards them, the creatures jumped over the corpses on the floor, but Matt and Pete were ready. As the monsters were in mid-air, Matt and Pete advanced as one, blocking them with spear and hatchet. As Matt parried a wild swing from one of the boglins, he noticed something strange. Something about the way the creatures moved. He wasn’t a great warrior by any sense of the word, but as he made a block and followed up with a jab, there was something unnatural about how easy it was. The boglins were moving too slowly, reacting too slowly. As if they were moving in treacle. A sharp thrust ended his opponent, and Pete had already killed one and moved in to end the last one with a wet crunch.

Again, quiet. For another handful of breaths, they held still, listening. All Matt could hear was the hammering of his heart. He looked at Pete. “They seem…”

“Slow,” Pete nodded back. “Yeah. It’s weird.”

“I noticed the same thing,” Mia said. “It is almost like we are supposed to win the fights. Let’s keep moving, but be careful. Maybe… whatever is going on here is trying to lull us into complacency.”

They moved forward, stepping carefully to avoid the corpses on the ground. Moving in a few more paces, they could see a door at the end of the corridor. Motioning to the others to follow, Pete continued forward.

The thick wooden door looked sturdy, almost out of place. Solid metal hinges joined the door to the wall, and a large metal ring was set into the centre of the door.

Matt whispered to Pete. “Let’s do this.” He lowered his spear as Pete grabbed the ring. In one smooth motion, Pete pulled the door back and Matt stepped into the room, immediately moving to the side to give room for Pete to follow. Moments later, a blur of furry movement was upon him, ramming him from the side.

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Falling, Matt turned his head to see a massive hammer swinging down towards him. He rolled away from the incoming blow as Pete rushed the… huge boglin! Pete’s shoulder tackle gave Matt time to get back to his feet and to look at their foe. The creature was easily twice the size of the boglins they had encountered in the corridor, wearing a torn leather tunic and armed with a large hammer.

Matt circled, watching the boglin carefully and tracking it with the tip of his spear. Pete took a step back and moved with Matt, keeping the creature in the centre between them. Catching Pete’s eyes, Matt gave a sharp nod as he rushed forward, spear held out as he jabbed it at the creature’s head. The boglin moved to parry the thrust with its hammer, and with its full attention on Matt, Pete moved in. Stepping close and swinging the hatchet down hard, he caught the creature on the shoulder, eliciting a scream of anger. The boglin spun around, hatchet still stuck, and Pete scrambled back to avoid the wild hammer swing. Thor joined the fight, stepping up between the monster and Pete with his dagger held out, just as Matt took the opportunity to thrust his spear into the back of the boglins neck.

Matt held on as the creature stiffened and tried to swing back towards him, twisting the spear and pushing again. The motion brought the boglin to its knees, and Thor took the opening, stepping in to jab his dagger into the boglin’s eye, cutting off the creature’s screams.

With a thump, the boglin chief fell to the ground; filling the small room with the sound of their heavy breathing and thumping hearts.

Matt looked around. The room was empty, except for a corner filled with a large bedroll and five smaller ones, as well as a small pot in a corner filled with some kind of stew. Or was that a chamber pot?

As the boglin corpse was bleeding out on the floor, Matt noticed something. Again something glowing? He thought. What’s up with this place and glowing things? He moved closer to the corpse and bent down to examine the strange light.

Thin tendrils of coloured light were reaching out from the creature’s chest, coalescing into distinct symbols and patterns. His heart beat faster as he watched in spellbound fascination as the threads of energy traced out five spheres in the air, hovering over the corpse. As he observed, the spheres coalesced and became solid, threads of colour spinning faster and faster until five small crystal gemstones were floating in the air over the boglin corpse, each a different colour.

“What the… what is that?” Vic bent down next to him.

“I don’t know. They are… beautiful.” Matt was still entranced, his mind busy trying to understand what was happening, trying to connect different pieces of information. The threads were the same as he had seen in the room with the patterned ceiling and on the doorway into this place, the symbols looked similar.

Vic reached out for a crystal. His fingers closed around it, gently, and he plucked it out of the air. It rested in Vic’s hand as he held it out. It was a dark red gemstone, no larger than the tip of a thumb. The threads surrounding the crystal were more dense than Matt had seen them behave before, smaller and more intricate.

Carefully, Matt plucked another crystal, bringing it closer to his face to examine it. He felt a tingling sensation in his hand as threads extended from the crystal to wrap around his hand and reach for his face. Thin tendrils of light quested for his eyes, at first slowly, but then faster and faster. Soon the coloured threads were rushing towards him! He stumbled back as the threads penetrated his eyes, and lines of steely blue blurred his vision. Suddenly he felt the oddest sensation, as the pattern of coloured threads reached into his mind only to be… blocked. That was the only way to describe it. Silver threads of energy inside his mind rejected the coloured light, pushing it back. His body was getting hot and sweat poured down his face, mixing with tears of pain as his mind resisted the foreign pattern. Through the pain, he wondered what was going on. He was left a passive observer to the ongoing conflict, as an instinct spoke to him, and he poured his will into helping the silver threads in his mind. He felt the energy increasing in strength as he focused, surrounding the intruding light, and forcing it out. With a last effort, he pushed, and the world disappeared in a flash of intense light.

The absurdly white flash pulsed, sending daggers of pain into Matt’s temples. It went on and on and on, waves of intense colour reaching down into him to join with a pulsating sensation in his chest, then reaching out into his body. His feet and hands were burning as the energy pulsed through him. Ever so slowly, the whiteness changed in nature, transforming from an opaque all-consuming white light to shades of colours; blue and green and gold and grass and sunshine, silver and the smell of dawn breaking over fields of golden wheat. The fire of a forge, the blue of the ocean. Gradually the colours shifted and separated, becoming rippling rays shooting from his mind and into his body, slowly thinning down to become rivers and streams and then tendrils, thinner and thinner. Energy vibrated through his arms and legs, his fingers tingling. With a gasp, he felt the light forcefully eject through his eyes as his own army of energy withdrew towards his centre. And in a weird sensation, a taste of satisfaction–of victory–spread out from his core.

Keeping his eyes closed, he looked inwards. Where before, a multitude of chaotic coloured threads had filled the space in his mind in a loose cloud of symbols and patterns, he now noticed the beginnings of a sphere taking shape. The threads were merging and coalescing, contracting with density, and the sphere was gently pulsing with energy. The pain that had accompanied him since he connected with the pattern in the ceiling was all but gone.

Fuck me, that was painful. And weird. What the fuck was that?

“Urgh,” he said as he opened his eyes to see a blur above. A blur of faces.

“You alright?” Thor’s voice was slow and deliberate from somewhere above and out of focus.

Mia bent down to hold her hand to his forehead. “Everyone else, quiet. Matt, where does it hurt?” Her face came into focus; very close and with lips pursed.

Matt took a moment to gather his wits, sending his attention around his body. Where he had expected pain or tiredness, it surprised him to find that nothing hurt. His body felt fine–more than fine–as his head cleared, he found himself full of energy and with a renewed strength.

“I’m… I am OK,” he began, sitting up. “Something weird happened. Again.” As he got to his feet, Pete reached out to steady him, but Matt waved him off.

“Really? You guys still don’t see weird coloured threads everywhere?”

“No,” Mia said. “But tell us. What happened?”

“The crystals. They are packed with the threads. With the glowing energy. When I studied the crystal, there was a pattern inside it, and… It was the same as with the ceiling. The pattern tried to connect with something in my mind. Then… Something inside me resisted. It pushed the pattern out–as if something about it didn’t belong.”

He looked around, seeing that each of them had picked a crystal, and as he was talking, they were inspecting them. “You guys don’t see any of this?”

“Nothing,” Thor said. He was holding a dark - almost black - crystal, turning it in his hand as he scrutinised it. “It’s just a pretty stone.”

“It’s like I can almost sense something.” Mia was holding a green crystal close to her eyes, peering into it. “Perhaps a tingle, in my fingertips? Or maybe I’m just imagining it…”

Matt watched them studying the gemstones, staying quiet. Why was nothing happening to the others when they inspected the gemstones? He hadn’t imagined it; something in the gemstone had definitely reached into him. And then something had fought back, rejecting the new pattern. Something he had no control over. Fuck, what’s going on today?

It felt like days had passed since the night raid had woken him, but he guessed it was only noon outside the cave. He was in a place filled with riddles, and the sheer amount of unanswered mysteries was overwhelming. Impressions and experiences and questions kept buzzing around in his head, and he took a deep breath. He needed to organise his thoughts. But where to begin?

First; the wasting. Why was he not dead? What had stopped it? Would it come back? He had never heard of anyone surviving the wasting. It simply didn’t happen. Except… the nobles. The nobles were immune. The explanation was that it was something in their bloodline that made them pure. Not like the farmers, the soldiers, the peasants. Matt was beginning to question that explanation.

Then; there were the patterns. The tendrils of colour that weaved through the world at the edge of his vision. What were they? The pattern in the ceiling and those threads had something to do with how he survived the wasting, but they had also been involved with the shimmering doorway and the gemstones. And now they were inside him. Looking inward, he observed the loose sphere slowly spinning in his mind, patterns and symbols shifting and transforming as he watched, colour and silver pulsating. Ready for… something.

And then; what was up with this weird place? Where had the boglins come from? They had gone down a single corridor with a room at the end. No other doors, no windows, no caves. And just a single doorway which was locked behind some kind of… magical mechanism? There was no way anything could survive there for any length of time, and somehow Matt doubted the boglins could open the magic doorway.

He needed more information.