Sien and his master ended up in an unusual situation. Both were being chased by huge boars that wouldn’t let them be. Sien was slowly losing strength after running with no stop. Sam noticed that Sien was struggling.

“Can’t you use magic?!” Sam desperately asked not knowing what to do.

“I can’t!” Loudly answered Sien.

“I thought you royals can do magic-” Sam shouted but his voice became distant as fell into some hole. Sien didn’t notice his master falling and ran into the same gap.

They both struggled with standing up, especially Sam. Sien softened his landing by falling on Sam. They looked up to see the hole they fell through. It was a single hole in the ceiling of the cave with no way of reaching it.

“Well… Let’s hope there is another way out…” Said Sam trying to find some source of light or another path that could lead them out of the cave.

“There is a crack in the wall we can fit through.” Sien found a crack that he would easily go through.

“How convenient it would be to be small as a kid right now…” The crack was twice as small as Sam. He had to squeeze through the gap by crouching.

On the other side, they didn’t find a light coming out of the cave but there were flowers that gave a dim blue light and showed the path ahead. Not having any other options they followed the path.

The path was blocked by a square double door made of stone and illustrations engraved on the walls. Sien wanted to open the doors but Sam stopped him.

“Hey! You know what you’re doing?”

“Opening the doors?”

“Boy. Do you know where those doors lead to?” Asked Sam as he kneeled down to be on Sien’s eye level.

“To the exit?” Said Sien, not being sure about his answer as Sam's face changed after he said that.

“No… Those are the doors to a dungeon.”

“What’s a dungeon?”

“Um. You don’t know what a dungeon is? I thought they would tell the stories about them to kids… A dungeon is a dangerous place. This one doesn’t have a mark on it from the army or the adventurers. So it wasn’t explored yet or… No one left this place alive! So we are not going in there.” Sam explained as he was about to leave this place through the crack and find another way out but Sien ignored his warning and opened the doors.

“Adventure!” The boy shouted as he ran through the doors.

“No… You did not… You’re lucky that I have a good heart…” Whispered Sam as he slowly walked to Sien, disappointed in his action.

“If it’s a dangerous place, what can we expect here?”

“Everything. From traps to monsters that lay down in here. The only good thing is that dungeons hold treasures in them. It’s the only thing keeping me going through it right now…”

“A treasure?! We could use some coins for the travel!” Said Sien as he showed how much space he had in his pouch.

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“We could use our lives to the fullest…” Sam could only imagine him dying in a place like this.

“It is living to the fullest!” Sien ran forward to the next room.

The room was small and almost empty. It had three chests. One of them was open and held coins and the other two were closed. Sien approached the chest and took the coins from it.

“Hey! What are you doing?! It might be a trap!” Sam shouted as he looked around in fear, looking for some kind of trap that Sien might have activated. Then he saw a text on the wall “Humans are greedy but heroes think of others.”

Once Sien took all the coins from one chest. He counted them and left a hand of them back in the chest as they didn’t fit in his small pouch. He ran up to Sam to show the coins.

“We have enough money for the journey!”

“Don’t you want to open the other chests?”

“Why? There are three and we have enough coins. We can leave something for others who might come here. Like the adventurers.”

“Yeah… but if there is no trap why don’t we-” Sam wanted to take more but the hidden passage opened as they passed the test. “Looks like we passed the test.”

“What test?” Asked Sien, not understanding how the dungeons work, he was able to pass the first test.

“There are many different types of dungeons. We got lucky because it's a testing dungeon. That means we are tested if we are worthy. There are also battle dungeons which are pure battles with monsters and the unknown.” Explained Sam as they walked along another path with glowing blue flowers.

“Cool! So what are they testing us for?”

“Good question… Maybe the answer was on the gates but we didn’t have time to check them.”

“You didn’t want to check them in the first place. You wanted to try another way out. I think that is the only way out.”

“You’re saying that because you want to explore the dungeon…”

“Maybe…” Sien said playfully as he ran to the next door. This time he read the sentence above it.

“Helping others can drag you to the death.” The doors opened as Sam finished reading the text. “I don’t like that. There is death in there. And I don’t agree with this…” Sam looked back thinking of leaving this place but on the other hand the text mocked his values. “Helping others doesn’t bring death. Let’s go.”

This time Sam was the one leading. The room was spacious with metal cages that could fit a whole person. There were five of them in total and one of them had a skeleton inside.

They first approached the cage with a skeleton inside. He had the clothing of a peasant and nothing with him. The others, on closer inspection, had only a single bone inside. Like a single rib or a finger.

“I don’t get it.” Said Sien as he scratched his head, confused with a puzzle left for them.

“Check the skeleton once more, maybe we missed something…”

Before even checking the corpse Sien noticed a sign on the floor. Each cage had a small sign under the cage door. The one with a skeleton had written death on it. The other two had death too and the last one that was empty had life.

While they tried to figure it out some kind of gas slowly spread around the room. In a panic, Sam entered the cage with a “Life” sign and the cage doors closed. He noticed that there were pressure plates inside them. Once he raised his legs the cage opened. His eyes moved from Sien and the gas back and forth.

“Maybe they are right. Helping others will bring me to death.” Sam pushed Sien inside the cage and quickly entered the cage with a death sign. “Save your family, Sien.” Once Sam entered the cage all the doors closed and Sien fell through the hole that suddenly appeared under his cage.

Sien screamed Sam’s name as he fell down. The falling slowed down as he was reaching the bottom of the hole. His landing was gentle which surprised him, the cage door opened but he remained inside.

“Master… Sam died… because of me… I killed him! If only I listened to him! We could just leave the cave a different way… but my curiosity… I killed my master…” Sien sobbed as he fell to his knees, all his strength leaving his body.

The text on the wall in front of him shined in a red light. This time the text wasn’t part of a puzzle but a note for the ones who fell down here.

“Heroes don’t die in vain. The saved carry their wishes and values so they would never be forgotten.”

As Sien read that Sam’s voice rang through his head. “Save your family, Sien.”