Crossing the threshold, the party found themselves walking into what seemed to be a large bedchamber. It felt as though it were completely untouched by the passage of time for several seconds, and then everything began to rapidly decay. The giant poster bed rotted away; the dresser and desk collapsed, the wood quickly vanishing, leaving only the gold and silver fastenings; the clothes turned threadbare before disappearing entirely. A few things remained: a small bookshelf with three large tomes and a fist-sized rock shaped like a tetrahedron, a treasure chest made entirely of brass, and three articles of clothing: a dress, a cloak, and a shirt, all sized and shaped for someone significantly larger than a human, with slits in the back as if for wings.

“What just happened?” Camilla said, bewildered.

“I’m not sure,” Rai answered. “Maybe it was magically sealed off from the outside and crossing through the doorway made it experience the passage of time all at once? That would mean that what remains is magical.” His eyes glowed. “As expected. All the preserved items have magic.”

Each of the four headed to a different location: Rai to the bookshelf, Brak to the chest, Isa to the clothing, and Camilla to the center of the room.

Rai picked up one of the books. Hm… I think there’s a magical trap on this book. If I’m reading the flow of magic correctly, this book has preservation magic plus some sort of contingent spell. He set it aside and checked the other two. All of them have those protections.

“Camilla. Can you please move to the side of the room? I need some space.”

The elf obliged and Rai took the largest book to the middle of the room. Here goes nothing…

He opened the cover and was immediately engulfed in a blast of flames.

“Ow! That actually hurt!” he protested, patting down his clothes to make sure they didn’t catch on fire. He prodded at his cheek. “That’s pretty painful… Well, the trap is expended. Let’s trigger the other two.”

With the second book, which he opened out of range of the first book so as not to burn it, he immediately dropped the book and tried to jump back, but failed. His exposed skin was now completely covered in burns. “Camilla… a little help, please?”

Two healing spells later, he was in perfect form once more, but his clothes were in a sorry state. Fortunately, he had had the presence of mind to leave his satchel by the bookshelf, so it was safe.

He touched his shirt and trousers, and the holes disappeared as the damage reversed itself.

“That’s useful,” Camilla said timidly. “I-I mean, being able to repair clothes without sewing…”

“I can repair pretty much anything that isn’t magical this way – and even magical items, though if the magic itself is damaged, the spell won’t help there. It’s a very useful spell, I agree. It’s called Repair; it’s a zeroth tier spell.”

“That fire was intense; I thought you would be hurt worse than that.”

“Oh, I’d probably be dead from that if I weren’t resistant to fire. As a mage who uses fire and lightning, I’m resistant to those elements. I probably only took about half as much damage as I would have if I weren’t. I can just straight-up walk through regular-intensity flames, and I can grab a torch by the burning end, without getting hurt at all. Now to see if I can actually open the last one without needing another healing spell…”

He grabbed the third book and walked over to another empty spot. He opened the book and dropped it in the same movement as he jumped backward, and to Camilla’s surprise he seemed to briefly vanish from existence when the flames erupted. The book hit the floor and he reappeared, smiling.

“Hah! Take that, flame trap!”

“How…?” she whispered.

“What mysteries do you hold, books?” Rai said, collecting them and sitting down against the wall. He opened the first tome. This is… well, that looks like a date, though I don’t recognize the reference; it’s a combination of words and numbers. Maybe this is a journal? It’s written in the same runic language as I’ve been studying, so I should be able to decipher this given enough time.

He closed it and moved onto the next. This one… He flipped through it. This looks like a ledger of some sort. Worth examining, but not high priority.

With the last book in his hands, he frowned. What the…? Is this a book of spells? He turned through the pages. It is! Each page contains the power of a single spell, like a spell scroll. This is… absurdly valuable. If a scholastic mage could study this… Okay, I’m definitely contacting my dad about this one. He’s all the way over on the Isle of Heaven’s Reach, so it might take a while to get in touch with him, but he’s a professor there, so he should be able to help.

He closed the third book, stood up, and walked over to the stone. Picking it up, he was surprised by how light it was. Maybe it’s not a stone? he thought. It’s really smooth, too. I’ll say “unknown material” for now. He turned it over in his hands. Each side has a different rune: City, Ruler, Tower, World. I’m not sure how to operate this, but this is definitely a magic device, not just an enchanted object: the flow of magic within it is too complex for it to be anything else. For now, I’ll just hold onto it.

“Found anything interesting?” he asked the others, looking back.

“Yes,” Brak said. “I managed to get the chest open, with some difficulty.” He stuck his finger in his mouth. “There was a poison needle trap on the lock, but I’m all right. I used magic to heal myself.” He held up a pouch about six inches across and nine inches tall. “This was inside. If I’m reading the magic right, it’s a dimensional bag.”

“Wait, what? Really? A dimensional bag? Don’t you have to be capable of casting fourth-circle spells to make one of those? That’s a nice find! Is it empty?”

“Haven’t checked yet. Just about to.”

The gnome turned the pouch upside down and shook it lightly. Several items fell out. Rai joined Brak and they both sat down to sort through the contents of the bag. Isa, bored of looking at the clothing, came over and sat with them.

“Forty potion bottles of a wide variety of colors – we should get an alchemist to identify them rather than trying to do so ourselves. An amulet with one central blue orb surrounded by six smaller green orbs. An iron ring with a sword, spear, and shield design, obviously sized for someone very big – bigger than any of us. A gold ring set with small amethysts. A silver charm bracelet with a wand charm and a rod charm. A fist-sized glass sphere made of a bunch of smaller glass spheres fused together. And a transparent headband with lengthwise slit in it.” Rai looked up to see Camilla holding the articles of clothing. “A red-and-black dress. A crimson cloak with black claw marks. And a purple shirt.”

“This is a treasure trove, isn’t it?” Isa said.

“You have no idea. Every single one of these items is magical. This is incredible. Even just the bag itself would have been an amazing find; it’s higher quality than any modern dimensional bag. Watch.”

Rai drew his sword and tried to put it in the bag sideways. It shrank in his hand until it could fit through the small opening. He dropped it inside, then slid his hand in and pulled the sword back out, grasping it by the hilt.

“Even things of larger dimensions than the mouth of the bag can be put inside, and all I had to do was picture what I wanted to grab and it was in my hand. Also, when I put my hand in, I got a rough idea of how large the space it connects to is, and it’s around ten feet by five feet by five feet. This thing is great! With everything combined, this is an absolute gold mine of a find. It’ll take some time to identify what the magic items do… as much as I want to do that right away, we’re probably better off putting everything in the pouch and continuing our exploration.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Sounds good to me. We can decide how to split the loot later.”

“Right.”

Brak was the last to leave the room. He paused at the threshold and tilted his head, frowning as though having an internal debate. Then he shook his head and followed after the others.

Back in the room with two doorways, Isa frowned when holding the key ring up to the other doorway did nothing. Rai joined her in frowning, then snapped his fingers.

“The pass pendant! We don’t have authorization to enter these rooms with the key alone!” He pulled out the pendant and held it up to the doorway. The runes brightened, and when Isa raised her ring once more, the passage opened.

The room beyond seemed to be some kind of library… until it, too, rotted and disintegrated before their eyes, leaving five books behind. These weren’t trapped, so Rai flipped through them. One was an illustrated bestiary, another an alchemy manual, the third a chapter book with illustrations every chapter, a fourth some sort of combat arts manual judging by the diagrams, and the last appeared to be a related to magic since it had many magic circles within the text.

Upon returning to the central room, Rai examined the walls again and discovered a third doorway with unlit runes. However, even when they used the key and pass, the runes refused to light up. This was no surprise to Rai, since there was no trace of magical energy left in the runes on the wall.

“It’s a pity, but this portal is broken. We’ll have to head on down to the next floor.”

“D-Do we have to? Can’t we leave?” Camilla asked. “We’ve already found treasure…”

“Of course we do!” Rai said indignantly. “Think of how much more there is to find!”

“This is kind of exciting,” Isa admitted. “I mean, what will we find next?”

The stairs are getting more treacherous the further down we go, Rai thought as they descended once again. I don’t know how far down this stairway goes, but at some point there probably won’t be any stairs…

The third floor down had a completely different layout. There were many tiny rooms, and not much else. They did a thorough sweep and turned up only a single silvery dagger with a flower design on the hilt.

“It’s ornamental,” Isa pronounced. “I’m not sure what metal it’s made of, though. It looks like silver, but it’s not.”

“Silversteel, probably,” Rai said. “It’s a rare metal sometimes used in armor and weapons – it’s more durable than steel, half as heavy, and superficially looks like silver. Supposedly a very good conductor of magic, so it’s often used in making magical weapons and armor. I’m not rich enough to have seen much of it – though that may change after we get back to civilization.”

Reaching the fourth floor required some dangerous jumps between stairs, but they managed. There they were met with three more sealed doorways, though these didn’t require the use of the pass pendant, just the key ring. One led to what Camilla suggested was a kitchen, though most of the enchantments were broken due to the materials that had been enchanted wearing away. What enchantments remained indicated that the ancients used magic for mundane activities – a basin filled with water or made its contents disappear when tapped on the side, a small room had runes that kept it as chilly temperatures, silver shelving had preservation magic, and a large oven appeared to run on magic rather than wood. Rai was quite certain that studying the enchantments could lead to advances in current magical technology, so he wrote down his observations, eating up a couple hours. They also found an empty cornucopia that was a magic item, so they added it to their collection.

The second room was different. It was as large as the top floor, but it was nearly completely empty. The floor was made of stone, like everywhere else, but it was divided up into five-foot-to-a-side polished tiles, making the entire thing a large grid. The only thing present in the room was a square pedestal with an angled top made of the same unknown material as the tetrahedron. To Rai’s Mage Sight, it revealed itself as a magical device.

“So… this is definitely a still-working magical device,” he told the others. “Should I interact with it and see what happens?”

“Go for it,” Isa encouraged. Rai put his hand on top and channeled mana.

There was no reaction.

“Let me try.” Isa touched the side of the pedestal and pushed mana into it.

Immediately, lines of blue light lit up on the sides and several circles with runes in them appeared on top. The pedestal sank smoothly into the floor until it was low enough for her to reach the top easily.

“Huh. I don’t know how to interpret these runes, so you’re going to have to help me there.”

“Let’s take a look…”

“Eswalthi shaminora zenshishi,” an emotionless female voice said, echoing around the room.

“Is that the language of the ancients?!” Rai said excitedly. “Is this device talking to us?! That’s possible?!”

“Er, Rai? Runes.”

“Oh, right! Huh. I don’t recognize all of them. This one means Basic, Beginner, Novice, Simple, or Easy. That one means Challenge. I don’t know that one. Each of the circles has a number in addition to other runes. That one means Expert. I… think these are difficulty settings.”

“Which one is the easiest again?”

“That one.”

Isa pressed her hand against the indicated circle, and the display changed.

“Eswalthi pasthwir muposhi.”

“Okay, so…” Rai studied the display. “Across the top are numbers, and in the circles are runes like Mage, Combat, Range… a lot of compound runes, too, but I don’t know how they work exactly. If I were to take a wild guess, it’s asking for a combat formation composition. Like, how many mages, how many vanguard units, etc. Unfortunately, there are enough runes I don’t know or don’t know how they combine that I’m not completely certain what each of the options mean. But… again, if I were to extrapolate based on what I do know…”

He fell silent and continued examining.

“Okay, I think I’ve got it. This one means Attack Mage, this one means Support Mage, this one means Vanguard Fighter, this one means Ranged Fighter, this one means Defender, this one means… Support Fighter, I think? I don’t think there are options for choosing people that are more than one category.”

“Which is number one?”

“The one on the left.”

“One Attack Mage, one Vanguard Fighter,” Isa said as she hit the number and respective circles. The display changed again.

“Eswalthi shaminora mudari.”

“Let’s see… Illusion, Summon, and… I don’t know the third one.”

“Summon it is,” Isa said, smacking the circle.

The pedestal sank the rest of the way into the ground and six tiles lit up, magic circles appearing on them and creating pillars of light.

“Brak, Camilla: get back!” Rai shouted, drawing his sword. Isa readied her halberd, coating its blade in blood. She grinned as in each pillar of light, something took shape. In the central, further back pillar, a six-foot-tall skeleton that slightly resembled a kobold but for its size and the thickness of its bones, wielding a wooden staff, appeared. In the other two rear pillars, two more lizard-person skeletons, both wearing breastplate armor and carrying double-edged swords, materialized. The three closest pillars revealed three more skeletons, though these had no gear.

“Saurian skeletons?!” Isa said in surprise when they finished appearing and the pillars of light vanished.

“No time to be surprised!” Rai darted toward the left front skeleton as it stepped forward, flames and violet lightning erupting from his sword as he stabbed toward the skeleton’s eye socket. The skull shattered, pierced through by a white spike of sword aura wreathed in elemental energy, and the rest of the skeleton collapsed as a mere pile of bones before disappearing in a puff of green smoke.

Isa charged at the front center skeleton, swinging her halberd and smashing the skeleton apart. The right front skeleton lunged at her, swiping at her with its claws, but she blocked its attack with her weapon before smashing it apart at the hip, scattering its bones everywhere.

And then the skeleton swordsmen were upon them. With power and technique, the one on the left cut an X across Rai’s chest, piercing through his forcefield and leaving deep, bloody gashes. Rai staggered back, eyes widening in shock. At the same time, the other skeleton slashed over Isa’s head, then brought its sword down between her shoulder and neck, slicing all the way to her hip. She shifted her stance, eyes glowing and aura manifesting as she entered Berserk Mode.

“Armor Piercer!”

Her halberd broke through its breastplate and cracked bones, acidic blood eating into them. Her aura smashed across its legs, fracturing them as well, but the animated skeleton was unbothered and attacked again. One swing knocked her halberd aside, and its follow-up thrust grazed the scales on her face. Widening her stance, she stabbed again with another shout, and this time ribs shattered. Where a living creature might have been incapacitated, or at least slowed, the skeleton was not, and it brought its sword down directly onto the top of her head, then dipped the sword low and slashed upward across her chest, sending her tumbling backward in a daze.

Rai recovered from the attack quickly, and while the skeleton was still returning to its neutral stance, he pushed forward, lunging with his left palm forward and trailing fire.

“Burning Palm!”

His hand slammed into the skeleton’s breastplate and flames erupted from the point of impact, washing over the skeleton and flowing inside the armor. The skeleton took several steps back, shaking its skull from side to side. When the flames disappeared, the entire skeleton appeared charred. Rai immediately switched to be on the defensive, twisting his body to evade the thrust and jumping back to dodge the follow-up slash that it evolved into. Sparks shot out as the sword scraped along his forcefield.

Then the final skeleton raised its staff.