Dimensions collide. The moment the words are spoken, we’re lifted off of the hardwood floor and thrown into a state of limbo. We see a glimpse of the study again with all those books scattered across the floor. Then the image fades to another version. This time, the books remain on the shelves. Melinda was right; they skipped the second clue.

Finally, the study appears for a third time. Ron and Luci’s group are tossing open drawers, pulling down books, peeking through urns and under scrolls. By the looks of it, they still haven’t found the keys. That cuts our party down to two for the final fight. At least for now.

As my feet find the ground, another room materializes around us. It’s dim and cluttered, which is all I have time to see before I catch the glow of orange fire rolling over Melinda’s blade.

A poison dagger appears in my hand. Even if I’m “stilted in combat”, I’ll get to her first. She has to know that.

But she doesn’t move, and neither do I.

“Where’d everyone go?” asks Kenji.

Melinda’s eyes narrow. They flit off of me for a split-second. Then her stance changes, brow furrowed, as she scans the room.

Keeping her in the corner of my eye, I take a look as well.

Huh. There’s no one here. We are done with the tower’s security, right?

We appear to be in Sorcerer Laserian’s lab. Part of the room is dedicated to his herbalism. There are several squat shelves of plants, now dry and shriveled, and a wooden potting bench, along with jarred herbs, powders, and draughts. You know, rather innocent, if not neglected for several years.

Along the wall is a curved wooden table with lots of beakers and a coal furnace with an enormous bulbous flask sitting on top. God knows what’s in it. It looks like orange juice I accidentally left in my fridge for a year. Maybe a little less innocent.

But wow, the guy was totally lying about how far he drifted into necromancy. Most of the room is exactly what you’d expect of a mad scientist’s basement. Severed legs and eyeballs and fingers drift in gooey jars. There’s a long stone slab, a table just for butcher’s knives, and a tin bucket filled with blood. The dude’s even got a man-sized bronze cauldron where he probably brewed up his ghost girlfriend.

That’s bad. Evil and bad. And gross.

Thankfully, something is keeping the odor at bay, otherwise we’d all be gagging.

The feature that concerns me, though, is a set of spiral steps leading to the floor above.

“Hayato? Eita? Are you here?” calls Kenji.

Melinda juts a finger at him. “Shhh.” She looks up.

It takes me a moment to hear it: shuffling feet, muffled voices, a sound like wind howling. The noise can’t be coming from the floor above us. It must be higher up.

“They’re fighting,” she says.

The boss or each other?

While she’s distracted, I silently slide the scian from its sheathe. I can attack now. Kill her quickly to give us better odds against the archer. However if I make the first move, Kenji might try to help her.

No, we should go upstairs and join the fray. Elias might be in trouble, and we need to get the final blow on the Sluagh if anything of this is to count for anything. But who will go up the stairs first? I sure as hell won’t.

This is all too goddamn complicated.

“Um. Uh. There’s a, uh…” Kenji stutters.

“What? Out with it,” Melinda snaps. “Oh.”

Well, that’s new. There’s a crimson glow emanating from the bowels of the cauldron.

💀 The Cauldron of Brân (Level 18)

Featured in Irish mythology and Arthurian legend is a magical cauldron with the power to bring the dead back to life, though without any speech, intelligence, personality, or humanity. It was bestowed upon a warrior, gifted to a king, refused by the king, and exploded by another warrior. Now, it has returned and it no longer needs corpses to create a supply of undead. A fresh body will, however, still work - living or dead.

Got it. No bathing in the cauldron.

Melinda, clearly having read the same description, conjures a fireball in her palm and whips it at the cauldron. It reacts very much like a giant bronze pot would react to a fist-sized flame. Meaning not at all.

A leg clothed in rags extends over the edge of the cauldron. Its toes twitch.

“How long is your cooldown?” I ask.

She sneers. “I’m not telling you that.”

As if to highlight her answer, she doesn’t make another move as a second leg flops up over the cauldron’s rim.

“Fine then. I’ll do it.”

I saunter toward the cauldron. I’m not going to be one of those people that lets the big bad grow to full power before they do something about it.

With my scian, I lop the leg off the corpse - quite easily, in fact - as it shimmies upside-down out of the pot. Its bones shatter like old clay. This doesn’t seem too hard.

I raise my knife, poised to slice apart the second leg, when my skin turns to ice. Something tugs at me, and I’m nearly pulled right off my feet.

A cold, dead hand sticks up out of the pot, its boney fingers hooked around my arm, tight as a clamp. Yelping, I try to pull away.

They won’t let go.

Teeth gritted, I bash at them with the pommel of my dagger. Clay, my ass. They won’t break. Do only blades work? Shit! How are they so strong? It’s reeling me in toward the cauldron like a fish. Another hand reaches up, its splintered fingernails raking across my skin.

Alright, gotta get out of here. Searching out Melinda, I try to shadowstep. It doesn’t work. She must not be tagged as an enemy anymore. At least not until I get a fireball in the back. It doesn’t look like Kenji’s going to help out either.

One more idea. Dumping my poison blade into my inventory, I unsheathe my twin dagger so I can slice those damn fingers right off. It’s hard to angle my body. If something nabs my other arm, then I’m useless. If it grabs my torso, then I’m screwed.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

I can’t do this with any amount of stability. Doesn’t matter though. Wrenching the dead hand as close to me as I can, I wriggle the blade under its fingers, carving a deep gash into my own arm, and slice upward. The edge cuts right through.

Free again, I leap back, then shuffle as far away as I can. Stinging pain grips my arm. Better than a dead guy.

Melinda smirks. “Good work.”

“I don’t see you doing any better.” Summoning my poison dagger, I tuck it back into place.

The one-legged corpse is folded back like a circus contortionist, its body dangling over the cauldron by its waist. Then, as gravity tugs it toward the floor, its head and arms spill up and over the edge, and the entire thing crumples to the floor. Unsteadily, the corpse wobbles up onto one foot.

It’s uncannily whole. Uncracked skin. Bloated stomach. Unblinking eyes. A full, drooping mouth. Like it walked right out of a morgue.

Lurching into its first step, the corpse flops back down onto its belly. Resigned, it digs its fingers into the stone cracks and drags itself toward us.

We all just watch, waiting for it to get within range. The undead that grabbed me comes next. Interestingly, they don’t seem to have levels. They’re just an output of the cauldron, I guess.

Kenji clutches his staff close to his chest. “What do we do?”

“We can’t cut it. Fire doesn’t work. Doubt lightning will. I think we need to blow it up.” I look pointedly at Melinda.

“I can’t do that yet.”

Yet. Sounds ominous. Wait, what’s her Level 15 ability again? “You can turn into a living flame, right? Wait, why didn’t you do that the first time we fought?”

She looks shocked. “I didn’t need to. It burns what I touch, but mostly, it’s beneficial for getting myself out of trouble. It won’t hurt the cauldron from the inside if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Huh. Now that I think about it, what’s the archer’s Level 15 ability? Redirecting his arrow? Or was that his weapon that allowed him to do that? I really need to look into the other classes.

The corpse is almost at our feet. Almost casually, Melinda takes a moment to muster up another fireball and flings it. The room bursts with heat as the corpse ignites. Like tinder, the rags around its body welcome the flames.

Beneath a blanket of fire, the corpse rolls and writhes in silence. It’s creepy how quiet it is. Sadly, I don’t think Melinda’s attack will actually kill it back to death. If anything, the flames will just lightly roast it.

Melinda seems to have come to the same conclusion. With one swipe of her sword, she decapitates it. The body stills.

From the cauldron, two new corpses flop to the floor.

“We should ignore it,” offers Melinda. “Continue upstairs, burn down the steps behind us.”

“Yeah, so everyone else portals into an undead army?”

“Hmm.” She purses her lips in thought. Is she actually considering it?

“That would kill your guy and a kid who’s not even competing.”

She launches another ball of flame, then turns to me. Ten second cooldown. Two seconds to conjure. “What do you mean, not competing?”

“The Japanese party. They already finished a visa quest. They said they won’t go after this one, now that we’re here.”

“And you believe them?” she scoffs.

I shrug. “Somewhat.”

She examines Kenji before stabbing down into another undead neck. “Give me another plan then.”

Tapping my dagger against my leg, I try to think. Blowing up the damn thing is definitely the best move. The description said as much. Plus it’s made from bronze which I think is possible to cut - certainly more possible than iron or steel - but only if we have the strength. Unless we can get Elias down here, I don’t think we’re hacking through that thing. Question is, would he need a saw or does his weapon take on the power of his own strength?

In fact, how much fortitude does it take to have skin as thick as metal? There’s going to be a time when I might not be able to cut with dexterity alone, unless I get some kind of armor piercing ability. But that would only negate fortitude earned by equipment, right?

My Pharos to-do list is getting longer and longer: up my strength and/or buy some kind of armor-piercing blade, train acrobatics, learn new dagger strikes, figure out how to parry on purpose, stock up on inventory items, train up draught mixing maybe? Then there’s resting, making sure Luci visits her brother, researching for our next region…

Nope, stay in the present, Helen. Cauldron. Must blow up. Right. We need something that can explode.

“Kenji, any items on you?”

“No.” He shakes his head vigorously. “One health draught.”

Alright then. This is a lab. There has to be something here. Just need to look around.

I glance at Melinda. She’s watching the procession of the next two enemies, her sword positioned down across her body. Again, she doesn’t seem concerned that I’ll attack her. She’s even angling her back toward me. Is she that indifferent or is she leaving herself open as a feint?

“I’m going to look for something we can use,” I say. “Cover me.”

With one eye on the ambling corpses, I move for the shelves most likely to contain something incendiary. Sadly, Laserian’s inventory isn’t nearly as organized as Lord Cathal’s. There are several rows of containers per shelf, mostly unlabeled or classified in completely illegible scrawl. The majority appear to only possess ingredients: plants, powders, animal parts like claws and hair and… ew. Don’t know what the hell that is.

Alright, let’s see. Jar of something fuzzy. Jar of something moldy. Pile of random vials. Note the flaming corpse at my feet. Briefly appreciate Melinda’s attentiveness and current lack of betrayal.

Ugh. If Elias were here, his Skeptic bonus could maybe identify some of this crap. And if my alchemical mixing were any better, I might be able to mix that crap together. All I can see are verified potions.

Okay, this looks like something. I pluck a wide bulb of something syrupy and blue.

Concoction Identified: Lesser Level Boost

Ingredients: (?) part shaved horn, (?) unidentified

(1) partial recipe has been added to your menu.

What’s that, a temporary level bump? I guess that could be useful…

Inventory item added: (1) Lesser Level Boost

Scanning the shelves, I don’t see anything else that looks like a potion. The level boost must have been put here by mistake.

A bluish bruised hand swipes at me. Leaping back, I slice it off at the elbow. The corpse wobbles but continues forward.

Kenji ducks in, thrusting out with his staff. Bands of visible electricity coil around the corpse as it seizes up, then topples to the floor.

“Thanks.”

A few paces away, a precise slash of Melinda’s fiery sword beheads another enemy. As a second corpse limps toward her, she summons a ball of fire and simply presses it against its chest. The dead man erupts in flame.

The cauldron is already spewing more bodies. Three this time.

It’s getting worse.

Kenji places down a ward, but I’m not sure how much good it will do.

“Careful. You’re too close to the cauldron,” I call out.

With several quick bows, he shuffles back, though he’s still dangerously close.

No time to worry about that now. With the room temporarily clear, I chance a quick look at the bookcases nearest to the cauldron. Again, nothing appears useful. Maybe something on the table?

There! Dashing across the room, I swipe up a pair of bottles, ignoring the identifications and recipes I get with them. No time for learning. Only exploding.

Skill Proficiency Increased:

Alchemical Identification 2 (+3 Wits)

Okay, leveling up is good too.

Inventory items added: (1) Lesser Fortitude, (1) Lesser Volatile Burst

Thank you, creepy sorcerer. That sounds explosive enough to me.

As I reach for a third bottle, the lab is seized by a chilled wind. A horrifying, throaty gasp rattles the walls. For a moment, I can’t breathe, like the air has been sucked clean from the room. But not just the air. It cuts deeper than that, straight to the bone, withering my insides and scraping me hollow. I’m emptied, weak, terrified, and alone.

New Status!

Aura of Howling Fear: Death is here. Your movements have been slowed. Physical attacks do 50% less damage. This status cannot be nullified.

A shape moves into the room. Its shadow catches in the glow of the cauldron, long and sharp. Then, the dark consumes it. But it’s there. I know it’s there, I can feel it dripping with malice. Above me. No, there, looming above the- Wait. Shit.

Footsteps thunder down the stairs. Lunging off the side, arrow nocked, the archer lands on the cadaver slab. Behind him, a sword glimmers with heavenly light. Eita, the Knight Templar. He hurries down the steps, his friend right behind him with a staff wrapped in tendrils of fire.

And then. And then. His boots come first, then those dumb medieval trousers, a flash of his blade, that damn fine sexy jacket. When his face emerges, I feel my breath return to my lungs. My heart swells. He’s alive. He’s okay.

When his eyes catch mine, a near-imperceptible smile flits across his face, just as the howling ghost takes form.