Zalan looked up at the newest room they entered. They were at the foot of a giant spiral staircase leading to where the dragon and treasure lay. He was breathing laboriously, rubbing at the throbbing wound in his bruised neck. He looked around at his friends, trying to get a feel for how well they fared.

They were down to four swords, one for each swordsman. Gorb’s second sword had been given to his wounded sister. Yelsa was out of arrows, an empty quiver hanging at her hip.

The right side of Rep’s face was washed in a purple mesh of bruises, specks of blood, and multiple little splinters running along his cheek up to his eyebrows. Rep smiled at him, happy to have escaped the Fleshless king, but his smile couldn’t extend to the right side of his lips. Zalan noted with gratitude that Rep’s wounded arm hadn’t gotten much worse and it looked like he could manage himself pretty well.

Gorb looked worse off than Rep, bruises running up and down his arms after being battered by the king’s scepter. There was a dark, burned patch at the back of his left ear where Zalan’s lightning had struck him and his face was red with strain. He was breathing the hardest, leaning against the wall with his eyes closed. In his current state, he wouldn’t be missing his second sword.

Fran was laying flat on the ground but smiling widely at the spiraling staircase above her. Her leg was a mess of colors, and at an unnatural angle after being slammed off of Docrun’s back. Despite the look of her wound, each of her breaths seemed to be filled with joy.

Yelsa sat over Fran's leg, raising and lowering her hands multiple times as she tried to decide what to do to heal it. She was the best off, with only a mostly-healed wound on her leg. She looked up to Zalan at a loss.

“We should not have come here,” Yelsa said sadly to him.

Fran’s smile widened, her face exuding exuberance as her friends tried to assess their situation after Yelsa’s grave words.

“Nonsense! That was the greatest battle I have ever fought!” she said proudly. She laughed as she remembered the last few minutes. “What a fight!”

“Fran, your leg is broken!” Yelsa exclaimed.

“And we still won!” Fran said, as if Yelsa had issued her a compliment.

“Won? We could barely lay a scratch on him,” Rep said.

“And yet we emerged victorious!” Fran said to Rep’s consternation.

“She means we beat King Docrun because we were able to successfully get out of his chamber without him killing any one of us,” Gorb said, his eyes still closed.

“Absurd! We barely won!” Rep said.

“We barely survived,” Fran corrected, holding up a red and purple finger to make her point. “But we handily won.”

The sound of two stomachs groaned simultaneously. It didn’t take long to realize that no one had the power of the Satiator within them anymore.

“Time to eat our little rations,” Rep said, pulling out what little food he packed for himself from his pocket. The others followed his lead, already missing the sensation of not being hungry for days at a time. Between mouthfuls of date fruits, Yelsa went over to Rep to redress his wound. In the meantime, Fran decided to recount the battle.

“Remember how you stood up against him when he was charging at you at the door? You tried to pull a feint against impossible odds! Very impressive, Rep.”

“Yes, well, I was just trying to stay alive,” Rep said, but he had gone bashful over the praise, focusing on his pained arm in embarrassment.

“And Zalan! I saw you imbue the entirety of your blade! Amazing!” Fran said.

Zalan looked at the sword he was still gripping with knuckle-white intensity. He relaxed his hand and admired the fact that he was, in fact, able to hold some electricity through the blade. He was really learning how to control his power. It was almost a shame that he would be leaving this world so soon. The searing pain around his neck made it clear that “almost a shame” was the most he felt. Fran was still raving over the battle as Zalan reflected on his new capabilities.

“Did you see how I got his thumb off? No one else could get a good slice in, but I just flew in and disarmed the mad king! That leap was magnificent, thank you Gorb,” Fran said. Gorb scoffed, but a slight smile mingled with his stoic expression for a moment.

“And who could forget Gorb and Yelsa’s splendid finish, launching the crown midair and pinning it out of reach. What a move!” Fran laughed. “I do not believe I have ever given you the credit you deserve for being such a marksman, Yelsa. Truly an unparalleled archer.”

Yelsa cracked a grin for a moment, but then looked back at Fran’s grotesque fractured leg and returned to her frown.

“Lucky that you happened to slap the crown off the king’s head, right Zalan?” Fran looked up. Zalan made a face, uncertain how to reply, but Gorb spoke on his behalf.

“That was no accident. He deliberately threw the crown off when he was at the brink of death. Did you not hear him order me to keep it away from the king immediately?” Gorb asked.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Right!” Fran said, her eyes widening as the point registered. “Zalan, perhaps your otherworldly knowledge is more worthwhile than you let on! How did you know to do that?”

“I saw him react when we mentioned his treasure and there were times he touched his crown during the battle. I thought if those echoes existed, then maybe the vanity of royalty stuck around too. He wouldn’t want to be separated from his crown, even if he was Fleshless,” Zalan explained.

“Amazing. I wish I could have thought of that,” Fran said, her smile unwavering. “But it was a good battle all the same. Oh what a fight, right Gorb?”

“A good fight, but a terrible situation,” Gorb replied. “How are we to take on a dragon in this condition?”

“We do not need to take it on!” Fran exclaimed.

The others looked at her in confusion, except for Zalan who knew where she was going with this. She grinned, looking between them.

“The purpose of our quest is to retrieve the Homeseeker. We can simply steal it and run out, no battle necessary,” Fran said.

“Because that went so well this time,” Yelsa grumbled.

“Docrun was ready for us, but Hatewing will have an entire hoard to keep track of! He will not notice the loss of one measly Artifact. We should be able to sneak in, get the object, and sneak out,” Fran said.

“You do not want to fight the dragon anymore?” Rep asked cautiously.

“Oh, I would love to fight the dragon,” Fran said immediately. “But I seem to have a broken leg, Gorb is completely spent, Zalan is a mite shy of losing his neck, and I think your arm is still in disrepair. So, another time, perhaps.”

“Another time, indeed,” Rep replied graciously.

“How do we know that there are enough treasures in the room to keep him distracted? I recall Gorb mentioning that there was speculation that Docrun was running out of wealth before his death,” Yelsa brought up.

“No way,” Zalan shook his head with certainty. “Did you see how Docrun, as a rotting corpse, reacted at the mere mention of the word ‘treasure?’ He’s got something significant up there.”

The others nodded in agreement, even Yelsa coming around to the idea.

“We are forgetting one thing!” Yelsa said. “None of us have ever seen the Homeseeker before. We have no idea what the Artifact looks like!”

Fran’s smile fidgeted, then descended.

“Hmm,” she acknowledged. “That does pose a problem.”

“It is a golden artifact. Cube shaped, with black-colored corners,” Rep said. The others looked at him in shock, even Gorb opened an eye in surprise.

“How do you know that?” Zalan asked.

Rep looked at him in surprise.

“Madam Hikma told us!” Rep said.

“She did?” Zalan asked, having forgotten every aspect of the conversation between him and the woman of wisdom. It felt like ages ago to him.

“You do not recall? She told us about it right before she told us that we would have to get it from Castle Docrun,” Rep said.

Zalan stared at him with a blank face, none of this resonating with him.

“Right before she said we would have to face a dragon…” Rep continued slowly, trying to spur the memory in Zalan’s mind. Zalan shook his head slightly, not recalling any part of this conversation.

“Right before she said we would need an Elemental,” Rep prompted, almost desperate to see recognition. Zalan’s eyes lit up.

“Oh yeah! I forgot about that! Well, to be honest, I still don’t remember any of it except for the part where she told us to get an Elemental and then we borrowed a bunch of books,” Zalan said, embarrassed.

“That is a lot to forget,” Rep said, concerned.

Zalan recalled having faced the Mind of Madness and the Melders that messed with his mind and thought that might have something to do with it. Traumatic experiences and blocking out information in his mind or something. He didn’t really care.

“Yeah, I guess,” he shrugged noncommittally.

“Do not be ashamed,” Fran said to Zalan. “Rep has a very good memory when it comes to the Artifacts he has heard of. He has always been like this since—”

There was a slight thump on the other end of the door to King Docrun’s chamber. The travelers looked at one another nervously.

“Perhaps we can continue this conversation from the top of the stairs,” Gorb said, getting up immediately to carry Fran.

“Yeah,” Zalan picked up the scepter from the floor and handed it to Yelsa before he made his way to the base of the spiraling stairs.

“What do you want to do with this? I am not throwing this back in there,” she warned.

“I thought you might want a weapon,” Zalan said, nodding to her empty quiver.

Yelsa peered at him for a moment longer, then shrugged.

“Thank you. Though, I am not very good at hand-to-hand combat,” Yelsa admitted as she followed him up the stairs.

“Don’t worry. I’m pretty sure this will be hand-to-wing combat,” Zalan replied, smirking.

“That was awful, send him back to the Fleshless,” Fran groaned at his joke. She was clinging to Gorb’s shoulders, her injured leg held tenderly. “I would kick you were it not for my better judgment.”

The adventurers made their way up the stairs for the next few minutes, often stopping to take a breather on what felt like the infinite ascent. They were in much better spirits now, feeling as though the worst was behind them. Zalan had a slight giddiness welling up in his stomach, with him being so near the Homeseeker. Throughout their way up, they heard random skittering along the walls. Zalan couldn’t see anything, but it always put a pit of disgust in his stomach whenever he heard it. Like there were some large bugs living in the walls..

When they were resting on the stairs about halfway up the tower, they heard an eerie creaking sound echo through the stairway. They looked at one another for a moment, then came to the same dreaded realization that the creaking was the sound of a door opening. They peeked over the side of the stone stairs.

King Docrun stepped within, his crown returned to his head.

He looked around slowly, almost confused. He stepped around in a circle a few times to get a better view of the area. He knelt down, poking lightly at something on the ground. Fran breathed deeply as it occurred to her that he was examining the date pits they had spat out on the floor. Then, Docrun looked straight up. All of the travelers flipped back to the stairs and pinned themselves flat.

“He is searching for us,” Rep whispered, terrified.

They heard him take another few steps, but no one dared put their head back over the edge and get caught. After a few more sounds of Docrun’s feet scraping the stone floor, Zalan decided to chance the peek to see what was happening. He inched his head over the edge of the stairway and looked down, the others watching him with silent intensity. Zalan’s eyes went wide in fear.

King Docrun began to shamble slowly up the stairs.