The group got to their feet after having had long enough to appreciate the fact they wouldn’t be trapped inside the Chaos Chamber until the end of time.

“I ran too fast and abandoned my arrows. I left about half,” Yelsa noted, looking over her quiver.

“And we left behind some perfectly good daggers,” Rep added, thinking back on the skeleton.

“How did King Docrun ever make it out of there?” Zalan suddenly asked. “He didn’t have any power and he was supposed to be super secret. How would he be able to deactivate it by himself? Did he always go in there with a ladder or something?”

“He always carried his scepter,” Gorb said, his eyes growing wide at the realization.

It took Zalan a second to catch up to his thought process. If the king always had a long stick with him, he could raise it up and deactivate the Artifact without needing the assistance of something to get him to stand taller. And he could keep the solution to the room a secret, further protecting his treasure hoard. Fran shook her head in disbelief.

“It should have been so obvious!” she said.

“I don’t know how that could have been obvious,” Zalan replied.

“I am surprised to hear you say that,” Fran stated. “You were a born leader in the Chaos Chamber. You kept supplying ideas when I think the rest of us had resigned ourselves to the chaos.”

“I wasted a lot of our energy in there,” Zalan frowned. “We threw a lot more of our power around than we needed to.”

“No, we threw around the exact amount of energy necessary,” Gorb replied, nodding to Zalan with new deference. “Were it not for your idea to fatigue the wall, we would not have found that it was part of the trap. Were it not for your suggestion to search the corpses, we would not have found that our plans were folly as soon as we did. And you and Yelsa were the one to tell us to attack the Artifact outright.”

“I mean, Rep was really the one to get us out of there with his idea at the end. And any one of you probably would have thought of all of my ideas given enough time,” Zalan replied. Rep smiled, appreciating how useful he had been in the dire situation.

“How much time? We may have been too exhausted to try,” Fran said.

Zalan didn’t know why he felt so strange about taking the compliment. He didn’t feel like a leader in any way, but he saw the way his companions looked at him differently. Not that they thought he should take charge, but that he was worthy of more respect than they offered him before. All of them except for Rep, who seemed to always be giving everyone he met respect that they hadn’t yet earned.

Zalan figured that the reason he felt strange about the respect was because of how fleeting it was. By this time tomorrow, he would be home and none of these people would matter. Did they even matter now, if they were the equivalent of a lucid dream? Zalan had a hard time pinpointing whether this dream world had any bearing on him. Would he remember anything when he woke up? Was this place real at all?

He noticed they were still looking at him, expectantly.

“Let’s keep moving,” Zalan said, leading the way across the stone bridge.

The bridge stood high above the castle, giving them a good view of the area below. The moat was running very shallow, whether by lack of care from any inhabitants or a natural decrease due to the current season, Zalan couldn’t tell. The flowers could be seen for miles around, waving happily in the breeze and adding splashes of color to the otherwise green sea of grass below. The air was fresh, feeling like Zalan had emerged from a paper bag and could breathe easily after escaping the Chaos Chamber. He looked up, taking in the view of the tall tower the dragon just flew within.

The tower was massive, rounding off in a dome at the top big enough to hold arena bouts within. Zalan could see a gleam lick the edge of the hole in the top of the tower and wondered how much gold could be in the tower for it to shine so brightly. Zalan felt a hint of greed in his heart, excited to take down the dragon, before remembering that he definitely wouldn’t be taking any gold home with him. All that mattered was whether the Homeseeker was up there.

The bridge ended and Zalan stood in front of the next wooden door, very close to the base of the tall tower. They would be going up stairs and challenging a dragon soon, but Zalan was more concerned about what was in this next room. What if it was worse than a Chaos Chamber? He turned around and saw his companions equally apprehensive. Fran looked the most determined and nodded to Zalan. He turned around uncertainly, then put his hand on the door, feeling brave enough to pull it open.

They were somewhat relieved to not see the sickly yellow color of an Artifact hanging from the ceiling and made their way inside with their usual caution. This room was littered with dead bodies, tatters of flesh hanging from decaying corpses along all the walls. The room reeked of death. Zalan pulled out his sword at the mere sight of them and the others in his group quickly joined in preparing themselves. They made sure to leave the door open behind them.

“What do you think happened to them?” Zalan asked.

“How did so many people make it past the Chaos Chamber, but end up dying here?” Yelsa asked.

“So many of them starved to death. Look at their clothing,” Rep pointed out nervously. They had the same bite marks as the skeleton in the Chaos Chamber.

“You think this is also a Chaos Chamber?” Zalan asked.

“Not likely without anything out of the ordinary on the walls or ceiling,” Gorb pointed.

“Maybe when the door opens, it activates some Artifact,” Rep said.

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They looked across the room to the door on the other end. Four corpses sat in their way. Zalan couldn’t tell if there was an Artifact to corroborate Rep’s guess, but he also wasn’t sure he wanted to get close enough to find out.

“I can handle whatever it is,” Fran said confidently.

Zalan continued to lead the way slowly, taking small steps and watching for whatever had killed all the adventurers scattered lifeless around the room. Fran and Rep lit a flame in their palms, brightening the room further than the sunlight granted to them by the window above. Zalan tried to imbue his blade with lightning in preparation for a battle he felt was coming, and he was almost satisfied to see he was able to cause lightning to course through the entire blade before fading less than a second later. It would have been much better to be fully-powered and prepared for a fight, but it was nice to see that imbuing was within his grasp. He might even be able to manage it if he stopped thinking so hard about it. Pure focus wasn’t what made him able to redirect the lightning that struck him and Rep in the Lost City of Xagon when he first got his power.

Something creaked behind them and the entire group swung around with their respective weapons and powers prepared to obliterate the trespasser, only to see the door sliding softly inward, closing itself. The party remained facing the closed door.

“Likely the wind,” Yelsa said, sounding as though she was trying to convince herself.

“Sure,” Zalan nodded. “Let’s just get out of here.”

He turned around to the darkened room and flinched when he saw a figure standing on the other end. Immediately, he raised a hand and blasted it with a bolt of lightning. It crumpled to the floor silently as the others whipped their attention back around to see what had happened.

“What was it?” Fran asked.

“That thing was standing!” Zalan said, rushing over to see whether he needed to stab it.

When they stood over the figure, Rep’s light illuminating the area, they saw it was one of the dead bodies. A small black patch on its decayed cheek showed where Zalan blasted it. It was otherwise unmoving.

“Are you certain you were not seeing things?” Gorb asked gravely. He didn’t sound like he doubted Zalan, instead it sounded like he wanted Zalan to be telling a bad joke.

“Yeah, it was just standing and then—”

Another creak caused them to turn their attention to the exit door. The four corpses from earlier were now standing guard, their arms up in defensive positions, what remained of their burned skin hanging grimly off their bodies.

“Fleshless,” Gorb said, now certain.

“Dear God, Docrun did this,” Yelsa said, firing an arrow at one of the Fleshless. It remained standing, not reacting to the arrow now sprouting from its eye socket.

More and more, the dead around the room began to rise. Zalan stared in shock at the Fleshless with the arrow sticking out of it. He and his companions gathered in the center of the room with their backs to one another, evaluating the creatures standing around them.

“What are they? Why didn’t that one die?” Zalan asked, his head racing around the room as it became crowded with the Fleshless.

“It is already dead,” Fran said.

“The Fleshless are men who passed, brought back by use of an Artifact. A Resurrector,” Rep explained quickly, holding out his sword to try and intimidate the creatures that were beginning to shamble slowly toward them.

That explanation tugged at the idea in Zalan’s head about this world having no consequence. There was an Artifact that could bring things back from the dead! Death had no meaning in this world. It was a dream, for sure. Nothing here mattered except getting home. There were no consequences if there was an Artifact to undo the loss of life.

But he pushed that idea aside as quickly as it came. He needed to focus. Then he would be able to get the Homeseeker and get out of here.

“Are you sure Docrun did this?” Zalan asked, zapping two of the Fleshless and watching them fall. His ability to stun them seemed to do wonders, especially when the remaining muscles holding them together were already so frail.

“This is what he did with those that died of starvation in the Chaos Chamber,” Yelsa said, disgusted. “He brought them back and moved them to this chamber. They are cursed to remain here as guardians of the dead king’s treasure.”

Zalan looked around and saw that there wasn’t a single Fleshless except that they were falling apart, their muscles reduced to almost nothing. It was very possible this was a collection of people who had starved to death. That, added to the decay of however long they had been within this room, and they seemed like they would disintegrate with a faint breeze. Gorb seemed to read his mind, blasting five of them with air, enough for limbs to be torn from the body, but none of the Fleshless showed any sign of having experienced any pain. They didn’t care that they were now left without legs. Mindlessly, they continued their way toward Zalan and his friends. Some held weapons and Zalan wondered if they remembered how to use them from their original lives.

“They look pretty scary, but I think they’re really weak. If I kill enough, I could Level Up and destroy them all,” Zalan said, zapping two more that were getting close.

“You cannot gain Experience from the Fleshless. You cannot kill the dead,” Fran said.

“Great, then what do we do?” Zalan asked.

A Fleshless had closed the gap enough for Zalan to have to block its punch with his sword. The creature was powerful. Strong enough to leave a bad bruise or maybe break a bone if he didn’t stop it. He cut off its head, but the body remained standing, inert. It made him feel deeply disturbed and he kicked it away.

“We should run for it,” Rep said.

“Exercise caution,” Gorb said. “The Fleshless are more powerful if they were a high Level when they were living.”

Gorb blasted a column of air toward the exit, creating a bit of space for them all to run in a single file line between the dead grabbing at them. Fran and Rep’s fire had no effect on the Fleshless, instead creating more terrifying creatures. The Fleshless would ignite in a wild blaze, but continued to progress unhindered as their acrid stench filled the room. Zalan was able to slow them down enough with lightning to assist with any getting close enough to attack. They finally made it to the four Fleshless standing guard at the door and Zalan zapped two while Gorb threw aside the others with a small tornado.

Yelsa bolted for the exit door, slamming into it with her weight and throwing it open for the others. She fired a few arrows at the feet of the Fleshless, pinning them to the ground for a moment before they tore their own legs off in pursuit of the travelers. When Gorb ran through the door, last of the group, he slammed it shut with a powerful burst of air.

“That wasn’t so bad, right?” Zalan asked.

The others nodded in agreement, catching their breath. They seemed pleased that they were able to pass a trap without much struggle. It would be a nightmare to try and rush back now that they were all standing and scratching at the door. Fortunately, they would leave by means of an Artifact instead of back through the front door.

Zalan noticed that Rep’s bandages were a dark red, the wound having opened again in the battle, but Rep looked at it and shook his head. Zalan was going to say something in protest, but Rep shook his head again and pointed his finger at something in the newest room.

It was another Fleshless, this one much larger than the others, similar to Gorb in height. It had most of its skin, save for the left half of its face being charred to a crisp. It still had a good amount of muscle, rather than the decaying remains in the room that they had just escaped. The Fleshless stared at them all with unfocused eyes, gray skin, and a royal staff in one hand.

As well as a crown on its head.

“King Docrun,” Gorb said, stunned.