When she finally respawned, she chose 'Minotaur's Master dungeon entrance' as her respawn point and raced for the red corridor. She passed through three empty rooms, then emerged into a chaos of melee.

"HAA!" Runescale shouted, then raised his hands and slammed them together, paralyzing himself in a dramatic wave of lightning... that also paralyzed the enemy combatants directly surrounding him.

Maya gaped, taken aback at the actual utility of the spell she'd thought was a joke. Stun-tanking as a mage, by self-paralysis? How?

But the enemy combatants - a pack of goblinoid wolf-men - weren't limited to the direct area around Runescale, and there were many more that he hadn't hit with his tiny AoE. Maya jumped straight into the fray, casting Magestrike as fast as it came off cooldown. Unfortunately, due to her increased damage output, that also meant that she quickly pulled aggro away from Runescale, and the moment the wolf-goblins unfroze they ran for her.

"Hey, no fair!" Runescale complained, but he took the setback in stride, switching to a short sword to deal damage to the enemies from behind.

Maya wondered if he didn't have access to the higher tier spells, then remembered that most players didn't. There'd been such a shortage of magic available for so long - due, they now knew, to Domitius hoarding it - that only a handful of mages had the full complement of even the basic spells. Most hoarded what little magic they were able to collect in hopes of competing a custom spell that could do what they wanted more effectively. Like Runescale, who it seemed had saved up everything for his attempt to get into Storm.

The fight lasted several seconds longer than she'd anticipated, but between her damage, her pets distracting stray enemies, and the rest of the group chipping away at them, they finished off the room.

"We should wait to recover our health and energy before moving on," Maya said. "There's a big angry minotaur on the other side."

Star looked at Maya with surprise. "You made it through the riddle hall, really?"

"It took a bit of figuring out, but yeah. It wasn't that hard."

"Well, there's no point switching tracks at this point. Huh."

Maya shrugged modestly. "I just got lucky."

"Sure."

They waited several more minutes until everyone's derivatives were full, then Runescale pushed the door open.

"You," growled the minotaur, and charged Maya the moment she stepped through the door. She didn't bother trying Heart of Magma, the requirement of a stationary stance made it infeasible for a fight like this. Instead, she focused on evading, firing Ice Spike or Flame Word whenever she got an opening. The rest of the group seemed to know what they were doing, and Maya left them to it. She wasn't going to try micromanaging them, not when they were only here at her request anyway.

The minotaur got in a few good hits, Maya's speed and evasion still insufficient to completely disregard him, but this time she wasn't alone. Before he could finish her off, a final hit from Ben toppled him to the ground. Maya jumped forward to loot him before anyone else wasted the luck bonus, which earned her a dirty glare from Ben. He muttered under his breath about how she stole everything, which didn't make Maya any more inclined to share the actually rather impressive pile of goodies from the miniboss. But she sighed and laid out all the items, gesturing for the others to determine who got what. She could tell Ben thought she was hiding something back for herself, and she couldn't deny she was tempted - after all, her luck guaranteed them a vastly larger haul than they'd get any other time. She deserved it, and they'd never know.

But she resisted the temptation, stubbornly sticking to her ideas of fairness and morality. The more he thought badly of her, the more she wanted to shove his face in the fact that she was not like what he imagined, that she wasn’t some thief or cheat.

"So, what comes next?" Maya asked Star, the only one who seemed to know what to expect here.

"The Master. It's... weird though. He's very talkative, and the cutscene can go on and on and on unless you force the fight."

Hmmm. Maya would ordinarily be happy with a long conversation with a powerful dungeon boss, but right now her luck was on the line and she needed him dead ASAP.

"So how do we force the conflict?"

"Leave it to me."

"Welcome travelers!" shouted the booming voice as the party stepped into the throne room. The floor lay in shallow tiers leading up to a spiked obsidian throne, crystals set into the walls and hanging from the ceiling and even growing from the floor. The crystals glistened and pulsed with inner life, reminding Maya somewhat uncomfortably of Bloodline.

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But the thought was fleeting as her attention was drawn inexorably to the figure standing in front of the throne. A huge lizardine, bare chest crossed by a weapon harness, a collection of black-bladed knives strapped ready to hand. His scales were deep green edged with bands of white, making him look oddly textured, almost inverted.

"Remember," Star whispered. "Keep quiet and I'll handle this."

Maya nodded.

"You have come far and passed many trials to reach me," continued the dungeon's boss. "What is it you seek?"

"Your head on a platter," Star spat, putting an impressive amount of hostility into her voice. Maya almost took a step back, she sounded so hateful.

"Surely there must be something I can offer you which would be of greater value to you than my life," the lizardine said amiably, taking a step forward and holding out his hands to either side. "I welcome all who come to trade and work within my lands. There is no need for violence to mar our relationship."

Star took an aggressive step forward. "You are a monster. There is no accord possible between us."

"Laying it on a bit thick, aren't you?" Maya muttered, and Star shot her a warning glance. Maya closed her beak, nodding.

"But it is such a shame to waste so many workers who come to visit me. Could you perhaps be persuaded to simply go your way? If you do not wish to trade or need an occupation--"

Before he could finish, someone sprinted into the room, freezing as he entered the region of the cutscene. The world glitched for a moment, then the cutscene ended and the newcomer continued forward. Maya recognized him immediately. Rominian, one of Domitius's most loyal followers. Was this where he'd been hiding? That explained why she hadn't seen him around Kalyx.

He ran up to the lizardine, handed over a large sack of what appeared to be herbs, then accepted a token in return and sprinted away without looking at the newcomers.

"Apologies, but I must deal with this," the lizardine said. He raised a hand in a summoning gesture and a pair of large wolf-goblins strutted out of the shadow. He passed them the sack, muttered a few instructions, and they stumped away with it.

Maya glanced at Star for direction, but the albino lizardine woman just shook her head uncertainly. Maya took that as answer enough and shifted into Heart of Magma stance. She might not get off many shots before being forced to move, but she could hit hard and fast at least once or twice.

While her spell charged up, she mentally directed Snappy and Hunter to either side of the lizardman by the throne.

"Why, greetings!" called the amiable boss. "I don't suppose you two would be willing to consider working for me, would you?" Hunter growled in clear denial, but Snappy appeared to be considering it, glancing back and forth between him and Maya, scuttling from side to side.

"Really?" Maya demanded. "After all we've been through together, you would just leave me?"

Snappy clicked her claws irritably, then skittered over to stand next to Hunter as though resigned to her fate. Maya wasn't sure if she should praise or scold the crystalbacked crab, but now wasn't exactly the time to get into it with her own pet.

"You and I are going to have a talk later," she promised as the strain of a spell ready to be cast began to pulse through her arms. She glanced at her party members for approval.

Runescale was creeping up on the boss from behind, Ben had his signature Sparkburst floating above his head, and Star had relocated to stand beside the nearest crystal.

Come to think of it, Ben was also standing by a crystal. Maya wondered if that were important. Would he be using a lot of area attacks they needed to hide from? She considered dropping her stance to find cover, but decided it wasn't worth it. If combat initiated before she could recoup her energy cost... the nearly 100 required to initially cast Heart of Magma would take nearly a minute to recover even at out of combat speeds. She couldn't risk it.

She waited, wondering if there would be a signal, but instead the boss just kept on talking.

"You don't have to steal from me, you know," he said, directing his words at Ben this time. "I am incredibly flexible with my available contracts. I can pay you for short or long term work, and provide as much as you could possibly ask for. Few are unsatisfied with my contracts, and those who are can be renegotiated if necessary.

"See, here's the funny thing," Star shouted. "If you're dead, we don't need to negotiate at all. We can have everything we want, and everything we wouldn't have been willing to pay for, too."

"Barbarian," the boss grumbled, his voice echoing. "Very well. If you refuse to settle this without violence, then let there be violence!" his voice rose as he spoke, ending at a bellow that shook the floor and set the crystals to humming, a high ting of vibration.

The light in the room turned from its calm white to a yellow, then orange, lending the entire room a fiery cast.

Ben and Star fired their attacks in the same moment, and Maya followed up immediately with her prepared barrage of magma.

But this wasn't some sub-boss with more health than sense. This was an actual, serious boss. The health bars appeared, and once Maya's entire barrage was expended his bar had only moved a tiny fraction.

"Grab a crystal!" Star shouted. "Wear him down."

Maya frowned, unable to make the connection between the crystals and the fight, but if Star and Ben were doing it...

She found herself a crystal and ran to it. The moment she touched it, everything became clear. It was covered in magic. She ran a finger across the crystal surface in awe, watching the power bubble and collect on her hand. This was incredible! She could...

She could experiment.

Suddenly, any thought of rushing the combat to its conclusion fled. She gathered magic by the handful, scraping the crystal clean, then ran to another. She could make a bigger and more damaging Magestrike, or a stronger and faster Heart of Magma. She could... she could...

She needed more luck. This wasn't enough. Her mind was fast and clear, but not fast enough for this. Not clear enough to instantly calculate the difficulties of merging disparate spells together.

But this was too good an opportunity to waste. She hesitated, magic pooled on her hands and arms, trying to think of a reason to reasonably procrastinate. If she could just find a way not to spend all the magic in the fight…

Yet it was clearly placed here for that purpose. The boss fight would probably require it to be used. So she had to try for her spells, now or never. She couldn’t get the luck bonus without killing the boss; she couldn’t kill the boss without spending the magic; she couldn’t make awesome new spells without the magic. It was a loop of doom, but one she had to cut through somehow.

There had to be an answer, something she was overlooking. Some way to get everything. Otherwise, what was her luck even good for?

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