The five gathered below the yellow artifact, its monochrome yellow hue overpowering any other colors they brought in with them.

“A Chaos Chamber? What is that?” Fran asked Rep.

Rep was staring intently at the ceiling, then looked around them cautiously, his eyes lingering on the two skeletons in one corner.

“It is a trap. An Artifact that alters the room it is placed in and causes unexplainable phenomena. We may be trapped in here,” Rep said.

“For how long?” Yelsa asked.

Rep shook his head, nibbling at the inside of his cheek.

“Fantastic,” Fran threw her arms in the air, annoyed. “Come on Gorb, we will break down some walls and find our way out.”

“I was thinking the same,” Gorb nodded, following her to the wall where the door to the way out used to be.

Rep sat himself down on the floor, pulling his knees up to his chin, shuddering.

“Do you know of any way to deactivate a Chaos Chamber?” Yelsa asked.

Rep shook his head, dejected.

“I think now would be a good time to try and destroy the Artifact, in that case,” Yelsa said, drawing her bow.

“It would not be much of a trap room if all it took to escape would be destroying the brightest thing in the room,” Rep murmured.

Yelsa gave him a glance, rolled her eyes dismissively, then nocked an arrow and fired it at the shiny Artifact. The arrow deflected off of it harmlessly. Yelsa armed herself with another arrow and tried again. And again.

Zalan sat down next to Rep while Gorb and Fran blasted their combined power against the wall.

“How bad is it, Rep?” Zalan asked.

“There are many number of dangerous Artifacts in the world. Whenever I would learn about them, I would be told how to avoid them. There are too many dangers involved in them to try and utilize them for yourself. A Chaos Chamber is one such Artifact. We never should have entered this room. We may be stuck here for days. The Satiator will surely lose its power on us and we will starve. If not something worse,” Rep sighed. “This is all my fault.”

Air blasted through the room as Fran and Gorb unleashed a particularly large blast against the wall. The skeletons slumped over.

“This isn’t your fault, Rep. These guys are higher Level than you and they didn’t know any better,” Zalan said.

“But I should have known better!” Rep lamented. “I studied Chaos Chambers! I recall them being set up near treasure rooms to catch thieves. I should have put these pieces together when we were on our way here.”

“Hey, at least we know we’re going the right way,” Zalan said, shifting his head to one side to avoid an arrow that clattered down next to him.

“Why are you being so calm about this?” Rep asked. “Please do not say it is only for my sake.”

Zalan didn’t want to admit he thought this room was the least of his worries in the dream world. He thought that would be too dismissive. But with the Homeseeker feeling so close, this really didn’t seem like such a substantial problem to him. They would simply get out eventually, grab the Homeseeker, and he’d go home. This was no big deal.

“I’m really confident we’ll find our way out. Especially if we don’t panic,” Zalan said finally.

Rep stopped biting the inside of his lip and looked up at the Chaos Chamber Artifact. An arrow bounced off of it harmlessly. Then his hair shifted from warm air as Fran and Gorb tried their best to break the wall down.

“I see,” Rep said, encouraged. “We should try and assist them however we can.”

“Right,” Zalan nodded, helping his friend up and making their way to Fran and Gorb, shielding their faces from the heat let off from Fran’s flames.

“We are not making much headway,” Fran sputtered, looking at the dark scorch mark on the yellow-lit wall.

“Can we help?” Rep offered.

“Absolutely. On three,” Fran raised her hand and counted off.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

The four of them put as much power as they could behind their abilities, the room shuddering slightly at the combined effort. When they lowered their hands, they were disappointed to see very little change in the wall’s shape.

“It looks… slightly altered?” Rep offered, inspecting the tiny difference in the part they attacked and the spot next to it.

“This will take too long. And we will lose all our energy trying to do something we do not know is possible,” Gorb mentioned.

“Have you tried alternating between hot and cold attacks?” Zalan suggested.

“How do you mean?” Gorb asked.

“Like, put really hot energy in one spot then cool it down aggressively with air,” Zalan explained.

“I do not understand,” Gorb mentioned.

“It could break the stone. You keep alternating, which messes up the composition of molecules or something. I don’t remember really well, it’s called Heat Fatigue or something,” Zalan replied.

Fran and Gorb stared at him for a moment with narrow eyes, nothing he said made any sense to them. Then turned to Rep for an explanation.

“I have not the slightest idea,” Rep shrugged.

“Trust me, I learned it in physics…” Zalan tried to calculate how to end that sentence without it sounding too far-fetched, “...from university?” He wasn’t sure whether Gorb and Fran would take it as well as Rep did.

“In your other world?” Fran asked, a slight smile on her face.

“Yeah, actually,” Zalan said.

Again, Fran and Gorb turned to Rep.

“He knows things I have not heard of,” Rep said, trying to corroborate. “He knew how to transfer his lightning through a Boznok mace without imbuing it.”

“How is it you know nothing of the basics of this realm, but are suddenly suggesting you know how to make a stone wall feel fatigued?” Gorb asked.

“Just try it, then you can make fun of me. It should take a lot less energy than just blasting away at the wall,” Zalan insisted.

Gorb looked at Fran skeptically, who shrugged. Fran stepped forward to heat a single large stone piece, getting it to emanate with heat before stepping away and allowing Gorb to blast it with the coldest rush of air he could muster. They stared at it as Gorb blasted it, then turned to Zalan, disappointed.

“You have to do it a lot. Maybe like a hundred times?” Zalan shrugged.

“One hundred?” Fran balked.

“Better than using your full power a hundred times, right?” Rep chimed in.

Gorb and Fran looked at him in annoyance, then nodded and continued their hot and cold exchange. Zalan, feeling awkward every time they would look at him for an explanation, decided to try practicing imbuing his blade with lightning to pass the time and distract himself from their scrutiny. He was able to keep his power at his sword’s tip for a few seconds longer, and was beginning to spread the energy downward before it would dissipate entirely. As frustrating as it was for it all to disappear at once, Zalan felt really good about the progress.

Rep began to join Fran in heating the stone with his good hand before stepping away for Gorb to cool it down. Occasionally, they would look over at Yelsa who was gathering arrows from the floor to continue firing at the Artifact that was deciding the single color to splay across the room. Despite the direness of the overall situation, Zalan was much happier being in a circumstance like this than being attacked relentlessly by monsters of different sizes. He especially found it better than having to ever see a Roach again.

“Hey!” Fran said, surprised. Everyone in the room turned and saw a deep crack running through the stone she, Gorb and Rep had been targeting.

“Thank God,” Yelsa gathered all the arrows from the floor to make her way over to the wall.

“Should we continue to fatigue the wall, Zalan?” Gorb asked.

“I don’t know. This is about as far as I knew this science would go,” Zalan shrugged.

“Let me see just how exhausted this stone is,” Gorb drew his sword and struck it powerfully with the butt of the hilt and the crack spread further.

The others watched excitedly as Gorb hammered away at the stone, ready to breathe fresh air after having their own recycled air warmed up and cooled down dozens of times. Gorb hacked away at the wall until the top half of it gave way, crumbling apart to the point that Gorb could drag away the pieces of the stone with his hand, creating a decently sized hole in the wall. The travelers peered into the hole, trying to understand. Fran held up her flame to get a better view of what was beyond the hole.

“I may have never architected a castle before, but I believe this looks wrong,” Fran said, severely disappointed.

Behind the hole in the wall was another wall made of stone. Zalan ran a hand through his hair, staring dumbfounded. He had so desperately wanted a full breath of air that he realized just how thin the air was starting to feel in the Chaos Chamber. Fran’s fire was eating away at the oxygen with her every use.

“No,” Yelsa groaned, then repeated louder, “No! We were so close to the Homeseeker! We must have been right next to it! How do we stop a Chaos Chamber, Rep?”

“I wish I knew,” Rep said, looking beyond the hole in the wall with despair.

“We have to get out of here soon!” Yelsa bemoaned, firing at the ceiling Artifact again with no response.

“Maybe we can try out power on the Artifact now?” Zalan asked, looking up at it.

“Hmm,” Gorb looked up. “Perhaps. But now that we know how to fatigue the wall, perhaps our efforts are better suited to focusing on breaking down this second wall.”

“What if there are more walls behind it?” Yelsa asked. “That used to be a door, remember?”

“I think we should at least try this second wall,” said Fran as she glanced at the Artifact. “Then we can know if this goes any deeper…” She seemed to trail in disbelief at the end of her sentence and Gorb and Zalan looked over to her.

“Did you notice something about the Artifact?” Gorb asked, hopeful.

“No, but I believe I noticed something much worse,” Fran raised her hand to the wall.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Zalan grumbled.

There was no longer a hole in the wall they all attacked. It was once again solid, unblemished stone covered in yellow light.