“It should be over this way,” Maria said.

She led the way, pushing through the brush and undergrowth of the forest. With her Serpent's Blade, she was able to whip at the foliage, slicing it away, and clearing a path for her party. Simply swinging the weapon sent a euphoric feeling straight to her brain. It felt good. Really good.

“Are you sure we didn’t pass it?” Chariot asked.

“Master Eardwulf said we would find the dungeon over here.”

It was still early in the morning. Wet dew trickled down their boots and trousers as they brushed past the undergrowth, and a thin layer of early morning mist twirled through the forest. The trio walked along the stone wall of a steep mountain slope. Jagged rocks protruded occasionally, but there was no sign of any dungeon doorways or anything. The trio had been searching for hours, at one point even splitting up to cover more search areas. Eventually, they came to a clearing, from which a curtain of vegetation hung over the smooth mountain mound of stone. Peeking out from behind the curtain was the edge of a chiseled pillar. Pulling back the vegetation, a gentle gust of warm air blew back against Maria. She shuddered and looked ahead into the tunnel of mossy smooth stone and vines. Torches were mounted along both walls, and the tunnel seemed to stretch forever.

“I found it!” she called out.

Chariot and Tanalia regrouped with her by the entrance, and peered into the tunnel.

“At least there’s light this time,” Tanalia said.

“Yes, I’m not too keen to wander through the dark again,” Chariot said.

“You finally made it,” Irra said from behind.

The trio spun around. Irra, Torrin, and Yarina stood at the edge of the clearing between two trees from which they had set up camp. A tent was pitched, with a small fire beside it that Torrin was in the process of squandering beneath his leather boot.

“Sorry,” Maria said. “We got lost on the way.”

“There’s a path you can take, you know.” Irra gestured to a dirt road opposite where the trio had emerged from into the clearing. It was paved with lit torches, despite it being day.

“Yyyyeeeaaahhh, we missed that,” Maria chuckled awkwardly, scratching the back of her head.

“So, this is your party?” Irra approached with her arms crossed, and her eyes vigilant. She was looking over them, looking quite unimpressed. “You two?”

“Good to see you too,” Tanalia said sarcastically.

“I prayed I had seen the last of you two.”

“Hmm, isn’t that a shame?”

“I understand you may have a preconceived notion of us,” Chariot said, “But I assure you, at least I speak for myself when I say I’m not the person you think I am.”

The dwarf tore a throwing ax from a tree he had used to hang the tent and waved it around at the trio as if it were a twig. “These are who we’re going up against?”

“Don’t underestimate us, dwarf,” Tanalia said with a smug grin.

“And don’t underestimate a dwarf,” he chuckled. “After all, the bigger they are, the more that they bleed.”

Tanalia’s grin only got wider. “I like this group already.”

“It’s a shame. Maria has hardly told me anything about you two,” Irra said. “But I’m sure we’ll get to know each other well enough in this dungeon.”

“Does everyone know the stakes?” Yarina asked. She stood, imposing over everyone else. She was tall, even compared to Tanalia. Her hair was tightly braided and her war ax was securely fastened to her back with a hooked strap. Her face was masked in war paint, streaks of black ink dragged across by her fingers.

“Whoever completes this dungeon first claims the other team's gold?” Tanalia said, her expression quickly shifting to a frown.

“That’s right,” Irra said. “And of course, the glory to know who was the better adventurer.”

Maria rolled her eyes. “Well, we’re here now. I’m ready to go inside if everyone else is.”

“You’re not ready,” Irra said smugly.

“Oh, I’m ready. Ready to kick your ass!” Maria said, raising her voice to a competitive level.

Irra folded her arms and cleared her throat. "You sure have a lot of confidence, don't you?"

"Of course. You need to have a little confidence in everything. And I’m confident we’re going to finish this dungeon before you."

Irra glanced away, awkwardly hiding a subtle smile. "Hmph, I guess I can appreciate someone who's not afraid to show off a little. It's... refreshing," she said in a softer tone.

"Oh?" Maria chuckled. "Coming from you, that's practically a compliment."

"W- Well, don't let it go to your head. I just appreciate the fact that you're not easily shaken, I guess. Most people are too afraid to challenge me because of my superior skill."

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Maria glanced past Irra, and over to Yarina, who only rolled her eyes, and shook her head. “Well… good luck anyways,” she then said back to Irra.

The two groups entered the dungeon. Maria took the lead and walked the long stretch of stone. The tunnel reverberated with the sound of multiple pairs of boots clapping against the ground. A heavy silence fell on the six adventures. Her minimap changed to that of the dungeon, and as she moved deeper, more of the path was revealed. She frowned a little, but it made sense. She had to explore the hallways for them to be marked on her map. At least it would be useful for backtracking later if she ever had to.

“The Challengers Tomb,” Maria said, trying to break the silence and ease some of the tension. “Have these dungeons always been here?”

“For as long as I remember,” Tanalia said.

“Of course they have,” Irra said.

“There are a lot of these types of dungeons scattered throughout the land,” Chariot explained. “Do you not have these dungeons where you’re from, Maria?”

“Not at all. Where did these come from?”

“No one yet knows. Some speculate no one will. An old civilization, a god, there’s no evidence for most of them.”

“That’s not completely true,” Irra said proudly. “There’s been many archeological examinations of these dungeons. Many well-renowned experts have theorized these dungeons to come from the Mythari.”

“The what?” Maria looked back at her. “You mean Mytharia?”

“No, the Mythari. Are you not familiar with them either?”

“I’m new here! I’m not familiar with anything!”

“Well, they’ve long since gone extinct, but they were the first to inhabit these lands. They built large labyrinth-like cities underground, in the sky, and in the deepest parts of the sea. These dungeons were built for sport, a sort of competition they used to hold. Now we just use them for farming experience points, and getting loot.”

“Seems like an appropriate way to use ancient history,” Maria chuckled. “So, how has no one completely looted all these dungeons?”

“They can reset themselves once everyone leaves,” Chariot explained. “In the few that I’ve been in, loot has been randomly generated, so there are some people who camp outside the dungeons and complete them over and over until they get whatever they consider decent loot to be.”

“Then wouldn’t all the puzzles be solved?”

“The answers to them are never the same.”

“Oh. Great,” Maria sighed.

At the end of the tunnel was a large, cylindrical room. The walls were bare, save for the cracks in the stone where nature seeped from. In the center of the room, however, was an elevated circular platform with a thin, square-shaped pedestal in the middle. A pressure plate. Maria had played enough games in the past to recognize one on sight. There was a stone lever beside the platform, likely a return switch.

“I think this is the entrance,” she said. Maria waited for everyone to step onto the platform before pressing her foot against the pressure plate— It sunk into the floor with a grinding screech. A soft, blue light was shown from the gaps of the pressure plate, and several trails of light zigzagged through narrow chisels in the platform. As the light shone around the edges, the platform shifted, and slowly started descending deep into the earth.

Maria held her arms out to steady herself at first, then relaxed as the descent grew smoother. She looked up with the others as the roof flew further and further from them.

“First time in an elevator, lass?” Torrin asked, chucking as he approached Maria from behind.

“No, just… not like this.”

“How far down does this go?” Chariot asked.

“Hopefully not too far,” Maria said, moving closer to the wall to see if she could see through the gap between it and the platform. She could just barely, but not enough to tell how much further down they were going. The deeper they went, the more thick and humid the air became. Maria caught a whiff of the smell of rotting vegetation and stagnant water.

After a while, the platform slowed down, gradually coming to a stop in a rectangular room with a single door before the two parties. When the platform settled, they stepped off and stepped through it into a much larger rectangular room. The ancient walls were slick with moss and lichen growing from every crevice. Rivulets of water trickled down from the ceiling and filled the cracks in the stone floor. As sweat dripped down Maria’s forehead, she felt slimy, and icky, like the environment was already growing over her.

On opposite ends of the rectangular chamber, were two massive doors reaching the ceiling, with three metal beams baring them shut. The outline of each door was color coordinated, one outlined in red, and the other in blue. To the left and right of both doors were pathways deeper into the dungeon, blocked off by steel bars. Before each door, were circular pedestals, large enough for groups of people to stand on, and again, outlined in red and blue in correspondence to the door it was in front of. A long wooden level held in place by two massive semi-circular stones stood at the center of both of them.

Without much hesitation, Tanalia walked over and pulled one.

“Hold on!” Chariot said, but was too late.

A loud thud ruptured the air, as the red door opened inwards, and slammed into the metal beams.

It closed slowly.

“Don’t go pulling every lever you see!” Chariot yelled, her voice bouncing off the walls. “You never know what that lever’s going to do!”

“It seemed obvious enough that we need to pull it,” Tanalia said.

“Stop and think for once. Look at the door! It’s not opening any time soon!”

Maria glanced back at Irra’s party. She stared back and simply shook her head at the trio.

“I take it you three will play the part of the red team?” Irra asked.

“It only seems appropriate,” Yarina added.

“I suppose so,” Maria said. She watched as the other party stepped onto the blue pedestal. The cracks in the stone lit up around them. Maria did the same and climbed onto the red pedestal with Chariot. When both pedestals were lit up, the air wooshed with a soft current from the tunnels. Between the two massive doors, the text materialized out of thin air from an array of pixels.

{Challengers and teams, behold the gateways to triumph, obstructed by the formidable trials that lie ahead.}

{Both teams will race to the finish. Only the one to unbar the door, and slay the final boss beyond, will stand victorious. A prize awaits beyond for only those who are brave and strong enough to face the challenges of the Challengers Tomb.}

“May the best team win!” Maria yelled over to Irra and her party. The three of them glanced over, and all gave a competitive smile, all save for Irra. She glared at Maria, with her arms crossed. Her expression said it all. Maria was going down.

“This should be easy enough,” Chariot said. “We probably need to find three other levers before we can pull that one… or switches… or pressure plates, I’m not sure, three of something.”

“Seems obvious enough,” Tanalia said. “Are we splitting up?”

Maria scoffed. “I’d rather not. Let’s just stick together, and try to work as a team.

{3}

“Eh, not my style,” Tanalia said.

{2}

Maria looked down the right and left paths. They looked nearly identical, with chiseled archways and gargoyles seated atop them. She looked over to Irra and her cocky expression.

{1}

The steel bars blocking off the left tunnel swung open with a raucous, metallic shriek. Maria took a deep breath and readied herself.

{Begin!}