The mural revealed my friends were alive. Eric had already been fused and was still chained and imprisoned. The ogre I’d fought was doing well, as was the Dead King and his courtiers. It refused to reveal the toad-dragon or the orcneas for whatever reason, and the various animals I’d encountered were also excluded with one strange exception.

I could see the giant spiders waiting in almost the exact same positions I’d first encountered them. It couldn’t only be intelligence as a factor. I’d seen the spark behind the eyes of the giant frogs, and the mural refused to show the Trogodytes.

It wasn’t magical ability. The ogre, Dead King, and the Corpse in the Sky were all visible.

I’d have guessed something to do with sentience or souls, but again, why the Ogre and not the orcneas or Trogodytes?

I wanted to see if I could use the mural to spy on Tom, but I’d sworn not to reveal his presence to others and Attart was always watching. None of us in the room could be seen, though I could follow Oswic once he walked out the door back the way we’d come.

It refused to reveal anything outside the dungeon.

We’d exhausted the pool of people we knew, but not the people we didn’t know.

I focused on Tom’s mother.

My efforts were soon rewarded with an image of a homely old woman. She was dressed in extravagant clothes which looked out of place on her matronly frame. She was clearly much taller than Tom, being the size and shape of a normal woman, at least judging by her surroundings.

They weren’t filthy, not in the traditional sense, but certainly in an arcane manner. Books and potions and cauldrons of all sorts lay scattered about everywhere. Some were broken, both books and potions, and scattered pages and dripping liquids abounded.

I could see why Tom didn’t want to do it himself.

“Who is she?” asked Attart.

“A woman who I am sworn to help. I have to clean her house before leaving this place.”

“What about your friends?”

“They’re closer. Eric I’m not sure how to save. It might be that the cave bees cannot harm me, but I’m not sure. Eric is protected from them because he ate enough of the honey, or maybe the jelly they produce. I could fill the room with smoke if we find the right materials and were careful.”

Perhaps the Spawning Cauldron or Amber Cloud?

“If you restore me to, my body I can fill the room with smoke through necromancy.”

“I don’t want to leave Eric any longer than necessary in there. But if you can guarantee it, we’ll still free him faster than the first time round without risking his life.”

I didn’t like dictating fate like this. Sometimes the right thing to do was nothing when you weren’t ready, but it was also one of the hardest.

“I can’t guarantee the smoke will work on those bees, but I can guarantee smoke.”

“It will have to be enough.”

***

Lightstep. The spell vanished as soon as I cast it, but I still cast it. Back to square one.

Lightstep Again: The caster is made lighter, pulled upwards constantly with 80lbs of force for the next hour.

I stood.

“Craters and corrosion! I lost the spell. The dungeon is working against me. If we’re not lucky we might have to find a rope instead.”

Then again, I didn’t fancy another bout with the ogre. Maybe we would be better served finding the stairs instead of going down the well. We’d still have to be careful to sneak past, but it should be possible. I’d get a few Scorch, Sword, Scintillation style spells ready in case it wasn’t. The ogre had struggled against a spell less than half as powerful.

“Which way do we go?”

I pointed to the door to my right.

“There, then north. The halls all look similar enough I can’t guide us with any confidence, but the first floor is pretty interconnected. So long as we move in the rough general direction of the stairs we’ll be fine.”

“I will try the door.”

Attart ran ahead without waiting for a reply. She sunk partway into the door, but her head refused to follow her legs and torso.

She slunk back to join me in crouching behind the barrels of rotten fruit. Oswic was already in position.

“It would make sense if I could not go out of your sight, but you cannot see me without your ring. And I am able to go around corners entirely without resistance as long as I am close enough.”

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I shrugged.

Magic Swords III

“Maybe it—”

The door groaned and cracked under the weight of my swords, but the wood held. One second, two, and then it screamed and scraped open.

My shoulders twitched toward my ears and all the hair on my arms stood up. The door was stronger than I’d expected. What an awful sound. From the howls, the other denizens of the dungeon agreed. Even Attart had raised her ghostly hands over her ghostly ears.

“Sorry.” I said.

“Why do you not open them yourself?” Attart asked, “Or make a spell for opening doors?”

“To answer both your questions, too many are stuck, locked, trapped, or all three.”

I headed for the door, “Besides, I already have a spell for opening doors, as you just saw.”

“Do you not risk drawing attention?”

“Better an ogre than a lightning bolt out of the blue. At least I can run away from the ogre.”

The corridor switched back on itself, which was vaguely familiar, but the switch back opened into an archway faster than I remembered. Maybe I’d been remembering some other corridor.

☼North Star☼

The celestial compass spun about and pointed directly back out of the archway.

I’d been pretty sure that was north already, but it was good to be sure.

Dimming torches lit the room brighter than my compass. If I willed it, my skin would be far brighter still, but I could see just fine.

Broken and headless statues were scattered through the room, nine in all. A broken sword lay at one of their feet.

I hadn’t seen this room before, but hadn’t I stepped on a broken sword? It had been my first weapon in these blackened halls. When had that been?

I proceeded slowly with my ring senses outstretched. Even with Attart and my ring, and Oswic’s extra pair of eyes, the going was as slow as ever. I’d missed traps before without the ring, I wasn’t risking them now.

Oswic had timed it while we were walking, as his eyes saw most poorly in the dark. We were moving about twenty feet per second, less than a step every five seconds. Oswic and I were well used to patience, and Attart proved that no discipline was mastered without the same, true magic or necromancy.

The room’s second exit was also to the north. I stopped just shy of the wooden door, my ring had detected a vent and a series of arcane mechanisms.

A gas trap.

“Can you stick your head in the floor and look there?” I pointed.

Attart bent down and pressed her face against the floor as one going to sleep, “It does not appear so. Perhaps the space is too small for my head?”

It was a good guess. I was getting the sense that spirits were still bound by most natural laws. Nature did not resent a shortcut, but it abhorred a loophole. Passing through an object was one thing, fitting in a space smaller than yourself was another.

I crept toward the spot where Attart was still kneeling. The trigger would be near the doorway if the warlocks wanted to improve their odds of catching the most intruders. It would be avoidable so they themselves could pass. I studied the flagstones. If I was designing the trap I would put it right...

Nailed it in one.

My ring showed me a coiled spring and series of levers resting under my chosen flagstone. I didn’t understand the mechanism, save that it would set off the trap with enough weight. I certainly didn’t know how to disable it. But I could step over it easily enough.

Provided the door was open.

The slow creep down the hallway across the room and to the door had taken long enough that one of my swords had already faded.

If this door was as tough as the last one, they might not be enough, but I’d give it a go.

Oswic and I crouched behind a statue. Attart stood at forty-five degrees from us to the door in order to watch.

BANG!

The door flew off its hinges in a single piece. It hadn’t been latched and swung easily enough Oswic could have pushed it open with a single finger.

Oh well.

GONG!

The door was brought to an abrupt halt with the low ringing of metal and toppled back into the room I was crouched it.

WHAP.

The door landed perfectly flat on the flagstone with the trap beneath it. All three of us winced, even Attart, but nothing happened.

I crept toward the door and it soon became clear. The flagstones in front of the door were all level. The door rested equally on all of them, unable to depress the stone it was larger than.

“Like a glade in the forest,” I whispered, “That was lucky.”

Standing next to the door I was now able to make out what it had hit.

There in the doorway, nearly completely blocking the entrance to the next room was a great twisted tree, like an ancient pine. Bare branches fifteen feet in length stretched from it in every direction making the tree as tall as it was wide. Set atop it was a horribly familiar giant bowl.

The dark altar.

Strangely, though every stone and sconce of the dungeon’s dim halls pulled at me with promises of revealing their sins (the potion was showing no signs of letting up), the altar itself was calm. Even the bowl which had warped me into a demon and later doomed me to look like one of the fae held no trace of evil.

What was I supposed to make of that?

“Is something wrong with the tree?” Attart asked.

Oswic and I were both frowning at it. My eyes hardened, “There should be. It is that altar which tore my body from me and left me as you see me now.”

“With golden skin?”

“No that was the corpse in the sky.”

“And green hair?”

“That was the druid stone I found below. I lost it to a strange dia...” I trailed off. The sun had risen twice without sunrise since we’d been tossed adrift in time. The druid’s binding of endless suns had transcended time. It wasn’t enough for the suns to only be bound to me, even if I was the only who could access it, for the magic was not my own. The stone had carved a new path through magic of which I was the only traveller. How much power had been wrought into that stone?

I needed to find it again.

Could I find it again?

It seemed to care little for time.

Attart ploughed through my hesitation, “The light in your eyes?”

“That was Elysium.”

Attart was still for a moment, then she said in a small voice, “It makes me feel calm. And whole.”

I felt the smile crawl across my lips, “We were never meant to be afraid.”

Who had said that? Oscar? Conan? Perhaps an echo from my own lips. It wasn’t a statement anyone could claim, because the truth was so obvious once spoken it belonged to everyone.

Attart smiled back, unsure. “What... How can I keep this feeling? I’m afraid—no, scared? I’m scared to stop looking at the light.”

“The light is universal. The warlocks hid it. Destroying their mural will be the first thing we do.”

She looked away, “Lead the way.”