Goos patrolled the base of the Leaning Tower. Far more mobile than the first lethargic pair, the faceless slimes jiggled as they moved, as if energized by proximity to the tower.

“Agh!” Matt stabbed with his swords. The technique was awkward, but it lessened the reverberation.

The goo stretched forward an amorphous limb and slapped Matt across the face before reabsorbing the appendage.

“Wu-wu-wu-wu.”

The beaver was hidden by the thick gravemist but Matt could hear him. Wiggles leaped and body-slammed the goo, bouncing back to land somewhere in the green fog. Then a conduit of fire and lightning streamed over Matt’s shoulder and drove the enemy into the ground.

Matt bent to loot: 10 CCs, 1 jar of goo, 1 shard of glass. He wondered if the goo was part of their mass, but didn’t dare open the jar to check. He scanned their surroundings for more of the Jello beasts while the others looted.

“Are your things still active?” he asked, motioning up and down the curve of his heads-up display, sword in hand. He was pretty sure there hadn’t been an XP notification yet either.

“Might be combat bugged,” said Kurtis. “Happens in some games.”

“Wu…” said Wiggles from somewhere in the mist.

A sour sulfuric scent filled Matt’s nostrils.

“Let’s keep looking,” said Val.

Finding the tower had been easy. Finding the entrance… not so much.

“Think this is what the actual tower was like?” asked Val.

Kurtis frowned and made an ‘I don’t know’ gesture.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” said Matt. “Fallyn?”

“I haven’t been there either.” She shook her head.

“Ch-ch-ch-ch,” said Wiggles.

“What is it?” asked Val. The green clouds swirled up to her waist. “Hey, what’s that?” She dashed ahead.

Matt’s limbs began to drip with white fire.

“Agh!” he called out in surprise, dropping his swords. Matt triple-snapped and then did it again, flashing blue twice. Then an arrow thonked into his right shoulder. He gasped.

Kurtis doused him with heals. Matt’s health line jumped up then fell back down, then jumped up again.

Fallyn spun while her staff built a charge.

Matt lunched back, taking an arrow in his right thigh. Then another. Where the fuck are they? he thought.

“Over here!” Val yelled. “Found it!”

Matt scooped up his swords and limped towards her voice, arrows pulsing angrily. Rapid Regeneration skittered sparks across his injuries. The arrow pushed out of his shoulder while he hobbled through the fog.

“Come on!” Val encouraged.

Where is she?

Matt stumbled towards her voice. Fallyn yelped.

“Down here,” Val called.

Matt slammed his foot into the side of the basement bulkhead.

“You’re right above me!”

Matt leaned down and her pink hair became just barely visible. She was holding open a storm door. He scrambled through and down a flight of rough wood stairs. The room beyond was dark.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

He waited. He watched the dimly lit stairs. Green gravemist flowed over the opening but did not pour through. Then Fallyn and Kurtis hurried down. Wiggles was plopped onto the stairs and Val shut the hatch behind them. The double doors bounced loudly against the cement base. The slim crack between them was the only light.

“I left a trap up there, just in case,” Val whispered. “So, Matt… what now?”

He had no freaking idea.

A soft glow grew around Fallyn’s staff, illuminating her face. Her brown waves flowed away from the light, blown by a phantom wind. She smiled and swept her staff in a slow arc, revealing emptiness and a dirt-stained concrete floor. It reminded Matt of a parking garage. The air felt cool and smelled musty.

‘3,200 XP’ floated up and away, glowing just enough to be visible. His heads-up display faded.

Well, at least there’s that, Matt thought.

“Wu…” the quiet beaver sound echoed.

Matt checked his map. It just showed the broader geography; he couldn’t zoom in. Or at least he didn’t know how to. He tried gesturing like an opening pinch on his phone. He tried thinking, Zoom. Neither worked. The Earth Aspect gem, indicating his location and the blue dot for the quest were in the same spot. They were in the right location, but the specifics were unclear.

Worth a try, he thought and closed the map.

Fallyn had already started forward, leading the way with her light. The glow and the float of her hair gave the odd impression that she was moving underwater.

“Maybe we look for some stairs-stairs-stairs?” Val’s voice echoed. “There is a big tower up there-there-there.”

“Sounds good,” Matt whispered, dampening his echo.

Matt listened to the soft taps of their feet and the shuffle that he knew was the beaver. He cast Rapid Regeneration for a little more light. The tiny blue sparks wove patterns across his skin, giving off a cool glow. Matt held up his arm, trying to direct it. The blue reflected softly along his swords barely illuminating the area beyond his body. He noticed Wiggles looking up at him, mesmerized, from within Fallyn’s spotlight.

“Go on, little buddy,” Matt whispered.

The group proceeded through the stale-aired darkness and walked left around a crumbling stone pillar. Water glistened, a slow trickle down a crack. Matt thought about the weight of the tower above and was suddenly nervous. The ceiling felt even lower than before. He rubbed opposite arms against the cold.

“We have to hit a wall eventually, right-right-right?” echoed Kurtis.

No one responded.

Something about the darkness was making Matt’s skin crawl. It was almost like someone was watching him. He cast Rapid Regeneration again, held up both arms, and turned in a slow three-sixty. The cool blue glow only revealed more concrete and blackness.

As a child, Matt had been afraid of the dark. Isn’t that something every kid goes through? His mom had installed a Spider-Man night-light. The red and white mask had watched his floor from the outlet. No monsters got past its gaze. It got a second life in the hallway when Matt moved back in. Mom had said it was sentimental and ‘Why waste a perfectly good night-light?’

Fallyn seemed more Aquaman than Spider-Man—hair floating with that underwater effect—but she was lighting their way. The group came upon another pillar. This time, Fallyn and her staff-light paused. She leaned the weapon against the crook of her arm and studied the stone pillar. She knelt down, feeling along its surface. Then she stood and walked its circumference. She paused at the left side and cocked her head, hair streaming away from the power glowing in her staff.

Then a vertical seam of light appeared—far brighter than that from her weapon—revealing more of the room. They were nearing a wall and Matt was pretty sure he could make out the beginnings of a staircase. The light tinted purple as Fallyn withdrew a glowing book. Her movement and the shifting light made the walls look irregular—or perhaps they were bumpy and uneven like a cave’s.

That has to be stairs though, right?

“Warning,” Fallyn whispered.

Matt shielded his eyes as the lightning flash tore through the darkness. Then everything went black. A clink like breaking pottery echoed through the space, accompanied by a few crumbles of stone.

Is someone else here? “Did you hear that?” he whispered.

“Hello-lo-lo?” echoed Val.

Fallyn’s staff blazed alight again.

“Hee?” said Wiggles. The animal paused in the spotlight on its hind legs, hands clasped. He twitched his nose and then returned to all fours.

Clink. Clink. Clink-clink. Clink-clink. Clink-clink. The sounds layered on top of each other, from somewhere out in the blackness. Matt couldn’t discern source from echo.

Wiggles stood up again. Then Fallyn swept her staff in an arc in front of them. She shook her head—the movement looked to be in slow motion.

Clink. Clink-clink. Clink-clink. Then the clack of hard-souled footsteps began, accompanied by a prolonged scrape.

Matt glanced back to the far-off seam in the hatch door they’d come through. It was still closed. He hadn’t heard it bang closed a second time. Would Val know if her trap had been triggered?

More clacks. Maybe not footsteps, but what?

Fallyn wordlessly sped her pace towards the wall where they’d spotted stairs. Matt followed her and the light. The clacking and scraping were getting closer. It was all around them now. They had to be almost at the stairs.

Matt could almost see something in the darkness ahead. He hoped it was the wall, the stairs. Then a skeleton stepped into the light, bones pale and smooth. Matt started. He leaped away to the right. Then phalanges gripped around the fur on his forearm.

“Agh!” he pinwheeled the arm to fling the skeleton away.

Something tapped against the trashcan lid on his back. It shoved him forward. He could barely see. He was getting too far from Fallyn’s light.

Matt cast Rapid Regeneration and soft blue reflected off white bone. Skeletons moved all around him.