Intelligence was a gift that time could not diminish. Not completely. Not fully. Strength could wane, looks could vanish, hair could gray, but a mind unbound conquered all. There were no odds too impossible, challenges too difficult, tasks too great that a clever mind could not solve. That she could not solve.

Even magically imbued, the sands of time couldn’t wipe away a witch’s cunning, no matter how much it tried.

So she did not despair at the sight of the clay golem as it loomed before her in the center of the chamber, for the gray-haired witch had her mind still, had her cleverness, and had her magic. Even as age robbed the youthful vigor from her limbs, in her breast magic coiled tightly. On weathered, bitten lips, words of power awaited to be breathed into existence.

The crack of shattered pottery breaking underfoot sounded through the chamber.

Alerted, the golem swung its clay head in her direction silently.

Autumn stared back, equally silent.

She’d seen her fair share of statues in her time. Here and back on Earth. Granted, they’d not been of the moving kind, but she still felt cultured enough to admire it for what it was. It stood tall and beautifully sculpted like an elvish statue of David. Slim muscles and sharp features of elven masculinity lay bare, nude in soft clay.

Perhaps once this figure depicted had been a famous elf or an artist themselves. Someone dedicated to the beauty of art.

It almost made Autumn regret having to break it. Almost.

From a lonesome plinth, the statue stepped. The ground shuddered beneath its weight. Despite its size, the golem moved with fluidity and grace, as if made from living flesh.

It rounded on the witch, towering over her a mere fifteen feet away.

Slowly, Autumn’s fingers caressed her wand as the construct approached. Calm, it lay loose in her hand, held low and at the ready. Her heart beat in her chest. Resolute. Steel lined her spine. A breath deep, she took.

Clay feet pounded the ground, growing ever closer.

The chamber’s trial demanded of her brains, not brawn, to overcome its challenge. Its entryway had warped her with age once more. Now only her clever mind would see her through danger. Would see the world dance to her tune. To be molded by whims most macabre.

“Hey, Disco Inferno!” she called.

Despite not having a language verbose of its own, the construct still understood her. Her tone, if not the words. A glowering face shifted itself towards the sound of her voice.

“Burn.”

And lo, a whispered word decreed itself onto the weave, plucking the threads to call the elements to heel.

Rather than bathe the clay construct in fiery flames, Autumn urged the magic through a pounding headache to take on a tangential effect. She imposed her tyrannical will on the spellworking word and superheated the air surrounding the clay statue, baking it suddenly with tremendous heat.

The golem staggered as she did too.

A line of crimson dribbled down Autumn’s chin. The pain was biting.

As she gasped, a crack of breaking earthenware resounded throughout the chamber like a gunshot. The sudden and extreme heat had baked a thick outer layer of clay atop the golem, forcing it to move now with jerky, inflexible movements.

But move still, it did.

Bare fury radiated from its stoic mien.

Thankfully, that wasn’t the end to Autumn’s plan.

Clutching the bridge of her nose tight to stem her nosebleed, she stepped aside to let the others through the doorway. They charged towards the golem with runes in hand, primed and ready to discharge their payload onto and into the lumbering construct. Even as age took hold of them again, they lobbed the runes with pinpoint accuracy.

Like a chain of firecrackers going off, the earth-breaker runes detonated across the clay golem’s body with a series of ear-bursting roars.

The construct didn’t stand a chance.

Autumn flinched as fragmented shards of baked clay pinged off her hastily raised shield and all across the room as the golem exploded from within and without. The others survived the ceramic detonation by ducking hurriedly behind either Nelva’s mirror shield, Autumn, or other shattered and fallen statues.

As the dust cleared, it revealed the sundered form of the golem.

Gone was its elven form, reduced to a barely recognizable lump of clay. Headless and legless, it dragged itself doggedly towards the party with one good arm. Much to their alarm and consternation, the soft clay that made up the golem was rapidly reforming.

“Stop it before it fixes itself!” Nethlia bellowed.

With mighty hammer in hand, she lay into the construct with a furious focus.

Unfortunately, she found little purchase as her weapon bore no enchantment upon it and the golem was near immune to such a lack. The only damage she miraculously inflicted upon the construct came not from her might of iron, but from her indomitable strength that not even time could tame. Each of her blows that failed to bite just stoked her fury.

Conversely, Eme’s dragonblade found greater success as it sliced off great chunks of clay from the golem. The shining blade eventually exposed the hard, magical core hidden deep inside the construct’s chest. And with a single swift strike, she clove the crystal it two.

The golem stilled.

Autumn sighed in relief as it died.

Taking a wad of clean gauze from her belt, she stuffed it up her nose to stem the bleeding before staggering over to the now inert lump of clay. Gazing down on the sundered golem, she looked over the cloven crystal nestled within its butchered chest.

According to Edwyn, their expert in such matters of arcane lore, golems were typically made by binding a spirit — usually, but not always — of the earth, into a core of shaped crystal. These cores would work like computers, allowing wizards and other enchanters to program the golem to accomplish certain tasks. Mainly guarding or menial work. And like computers, the constructs often encountered glitches and other logic cascades that resulted in them going “wild.” This often resulted in the death of their crafters. Whether that was on purpose, or accidental was up for debate.

While fascinating, Autumn’s attention was mainly focused on the clay that made up the golem.

An idea had been percolating in her brain. She’d just remembered the lock before, the one on the western door of the first room, and how it’d had flakes of dried clay in it. Perhaps whomever had come before them had fashioned a key out of stolen clay and used it to unlock the door? Autumn thought she might be able to do the same once she figured out a pattern to the doorways.

Crouching down with a stifled groan as her knees ached, Autumn scooped up roughly a pound of clay into a small hempen bag she found lying around in her inventory.

While she did so, the others looted the cloven crystal to add to their growing collection of junk.

As Autumn stood back up, Nethlia stopped beside her, resting her polehammer on the ground to lean her weight onto it. She nodded to Autumn. “Nice plan. It worked out better than I expected, but are you alright?”

“What, you didn’t have faith in me?” Autumn joked, nasally. Blushing, she removed the wad of cloth and cleaned herself up as best she could before continuing. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”

Nethlia smiled. However, it was tinged with frustration and self-recrimination.

“What’s wrong?” Autumn asked.

“It’s my hammer,” Nethlia sighed. “Don’t get me wrong, I love it, but we’ve been running into a fair few creatures that are resistant to anything non-magical, and I haven’t been…it’s frustrating not being able to do much, is all.” She gave her weapon a long look. “Unless I can find someone to enchant it, I need something better.”

“What about Edwyn? Is there nothing they can do?”

Nethlia shook her head. “Nothing permanent. They specialize in disposable enchantments, so unless I want my hammer to break after a single swing, I need something else. No matter how devastating that swing would be.”

Quietly, Autumn contemplated the problem.

They had some spare weapons Nethlia could use, namely the angel’s halberd. However, they had no clue what the enchantment upon it was. For all they knew, it was as horribly cursed as the things they took from the necromancer’s vault. Not even the punching gauntlets of bleeding that the berserker disdained would’ve helped her as neither undead nor constructs could bleed.

There was the option of witchcraft.

Theoretically, Autumn could imbue a weapon with grim magic as she’d done to make her wand and dagger. Practically though? She had little experience with such an art, and her only successful manifestation that could survive divested from herself required both a guide and a pre-made enchanting table. Both of which she currently lacked in regards to enchanting Nethlia’s hammer. At least, not without blowing it up in her face or after only a few uses.

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Perhaps there was something in her lost tome? When she got it back, and she would get it back, she could have a look.

“Sorry, I don’t think I can help you,” Autumn said apologetically. “Maybe there’s something up ahead that might help us identify the stuff we’ve already got?”

Nethlia waved her off. “Don’t worry about it — I was just complaining for the sake of it. I’ll deal. You ready to move on?” she asked, straightening up and hefting her warhammer atop her shoulder.

Autumn nodded.

The pair picked their way through the shattered pottery towards the northern door. Upon approaching, a cursory look revealed young elves adorned it. A quick check of the door showed it to be locked and that the key they had didn’t fit. The recess required a different gemstone — one seemingly attached to a necklace of some kind, judging by the shape of the recessed lock.

With little else they could do here, they made their way over to the western door. Like the last, this one bore the likenesses of young novitiate elves as well. Luckily, it wasn’t locked.

Gently as they could, the adventurers cracked the stone door open.

The perfume of death rushed out to meet them. Rot and decay. It soured their senses, drawing forth unbidden memories best left forgotten. Autumn gagged as the memory of slimy meat danced on her tongue, coaxing acid to fill her throat. Somehow, she managed to keep her gorge down.

Pyre wasn’t so lucky. She turned away to vomit off to the side, adding another layer of foul to the air.

It galled Autumn slightly to know she’d become inured to such scents.

Focusing back on the gap, she peered into the room beyond, letting out a gasp at what she saw.

“Is that a dragon?” she whispered.

In the soft light of her ring’s light, a mound of silver scales glittered. Wings, wide and tattered, lay draped across the stone floor like a leathery carpet. The beast they connected to was just larger than a thoroughbred horse, although far more vicious-looking and scaled. It lay on its side, unmoving. Four legs ended in wickedly sharp claws while a whipcord tail emerged from the beast’s spine. On the other end lay a long and lithe neck that sprouted a head full of horns and a snout full of sharp teeth.

Even in death, it was majestic. In a primal sort of way.

Autumn could see it wasn’t berthing nor did the signs of life linger in her Witchsight. However, neither did she spot any undeathly presence about it. Whether that was because it wasn’t undead or she just failed to spot such, she didn’t know. She’d be cautious all the same.

Around the wyrmling’s neck, a collar of iron bound thickly. Chains of iron too fastened the beast to the stony ground. Sores and bloodied wounds long decayed ringed the creature’s neck proclaiming its long imprisonment, resulting in a myriad of broken scales and splatters of dried blood to litter the ground.

Accompanying the dead creature lay broken, sundered bodies of burglars and fighters of old.

A great battle had once occupied this chamber. Autumn was just glad they’d missed this one out.

Dusty arms and armors lay shattered all across the rust-painted chamber alongside equally broken bodies. A coldness warped the air, chilling bones and breath. The stones beneath lay cracked like ice in great swaths, as if caught in a cone of frosted breath, much like a reverse of her own fiery breath she’d breathed before.

For a moment, no one dared to break the silence.

Edwyn ultimately did in the end, deciding to answer Autumn’s question. “I hope it ain’t. Ifin the stories be true, even a whelpling would be tae much for us tae take on. Each o’ ‘em have a breath like yer spell-scroll did. Only, able tae use ‘em multiple times.”

Everyone shuddered at the thought.

“It’s clearly dead, given the smell,” Liddie said. Her sleeve muffled her voice as she pressed it to her nose to ward off the stench in vain.

Nelva likewise held a perfumed handkerchief to her nose as she spoke. “So we might be facing an undead dragon instead?” she asked with a raised brow. “I’m liking our chances even less if that is the case.”

Glancing trepidatiously back at the silver-scaled beast, Autumn asked a question that’d been on her mind curiously. “Uh, how long ago was it exactly that all the dragons got eaten?”

“Well,” Nelva answered her, “the surviving records differ on when exactly that was, but most agree it happened over four to five thousand years ago. Before the Inferni people arrived on this plane from the hells and during the reign of the Necromancers. Given that we saw the remains of ancient dragons in that putrid graveyard, I’d say that timeline has some merit.”

“Or, they could’ve just dug up some dragon carcasses later.”

Liddie gasped dramatically. “Necromancers robbing graves? The shock! What’ll be next?! Fighters fighting? Thieves thieving? Clerics clericing?”

Rolling her eyes, Autumn huffed. “I’m just saying. We know that dragon bodies don’t decay, so they could’ve dug them up later.” Autumn blinked, turning her eyes back to the rotting corpse. “Dragons don’t decay. Huh, I guess that answers that question.”

Nelva nodded. “That is true. Likely this is just another dragon-blooded beast like the Swamp Tyrant and Fairy-dragon we faced before, rather than a fledgling dragon, thankfully.”

“That’s hardly reassuring. You do remember how those encounters went, right?”

“I remember,” Nelva said grimly.

The group briefly shared grimaces between them as they remembered.

“I don’t hear a heartbeat for it,” Eme said, her twitching ears trained on the chamber before them. “Are we totally, absolutely, positively sure it’s not undead?”

Autumn scratched her cheek in embarrassment. “I think so? I can’t see any magic coming off it, necromantic or otherwise. No signs of life either. But, I’ve been wrong before. So just be careful?”

“Very well,” Nethlia said, taking command once more. “We’ll treat it as if it’s still alive or undead until we know either way. Nelva, I want you to intercept any breath weapons that come our way. The rest of you fan out once we’re through the doorway — clumping up will just get us all killed. Any questions? No? Then let’s go.”

Having said all that needed saying, the party of adventures swiftly made their way through the door of youth and it returned them to their natural ages once more.

The stench of decay only grew more potent the closer they got to the felled beast.

Thankfully, the wyrmling was truly dead.

As Autumn drew closer to the beast’s head, she got a look at what’d ultimately felled the mighty creature. From its long neck flowered a once lustrous blade, now naught but rust. A waterfall of blood had dried down its scales from whence the blade had stabbed to pool down onto the rust-painted stones below.

While it’d fallen, the wyrmling’d had the last laugh in its death throes.

The decayed body of the almost-a-dragon slayer lay crushed and still in the draconic beast’s powerful jaws. One hand stretched towards the rusted blade that’d spelled the wyrmling’s doom.

“What foul luck,” Nelva said as she offered a prayer to the fallen.

Liddie snorted as she stopped beside the noble knight. “Their foul luck is our good fortune. All this loot and we didn’t have to fight a dragon for it. You know, people would kill for this opportunity,” she laughed.

Nelva sighed heavily, turning a baleful eye towards the pirate. “Can’t you have a little more respect for the dead?”

“Uh, no?”

“A little humility on your part wouldn’t harm you, I’m sure.”

Liddie shrugged, grinning. “It actually might. Don’t you know pirates feel physical pain if they’re nice? Kinda like vampires supposedly burn in sunlight.”

“Supposedly, is right,” Nelva said with a grimace.

“Now that’s a story if I ever heard one! Share, princess!”

“I am not a princess!”

Autumn rolled her eyes as the pair devolved into hushed bickering while they picked over the dead thieves for any loot that’d survived the ravages of both the wyrmling and time.

Stepping away, she made her way swiftly over to Nethlia, who stood a short distance away. The horrid smell didn’t seem to bother the berserker as she looked over the rotten body of the winged beast. Autumn herself had to cover her nose with cloth just to stand next to her.

For a silent moment, the pair just stood next to one another.

“You thinking of butchering it?” Autumn asked.

Nethlia started. Drawing herself up, she sighed before nodding. “Yeah. The meat and hide isn’t any good, but I think we could get a good price for the scales and claws, even if it isn’t a proper dragon.”

“Don’t forget the bones. I could work with those, depending on how solid they are.”

“I won’t forget. Speaking of which, could I borrow that butcher’s blade?”

“Oh! Right!” Autumn jolted slightly at the reminder — she’d almost forgotten entirely about the enchanted weapon. Fetching the Butcher’s Cleaver from her belt, she handed it over to Nethlia. “You can use it to fight, if you want — it is enchanted.”

Nethlia took the rusty blade from Autumn gingerly. “Hmm, it’s an idea, but I’m not too keen on the poison effects it has or its reach. It’d be far too easy for me to cut myself in the heat of the moment.”

“Fair.”

Looking over the butchering work laid out before her, Nethlia gestured to the far doors. “How about you and Eme go check out the other doors while I work? See if they're locked or something. And do try not to get in trouble.”

Autumn pouted. “What? Don’t trust me?”

Nethlia chuckled deeply. Reaching over, she patted Autumn’s head teasingly, pushing her hat down further. “It’s not about trust, but experience — you have a habit of getting yourself into trouble when left to your own devices.”

“Since when?!”

Nethlia raised an eyebrow as she gestured around herself.

Blushing, Autumn tried to defend herself. “Okay, this one wasn’t my fault! That sandstorm came out of nowhere! And the goblin horde! And the Underdark! That slave revolt was an accident, I swear!”

By now, Autumn’s face was redder than Nethlia’s skin. Still, the berserker said nothing. She just smiled.

“…I’ll shut up now.”

Autumn retreated with her dignity in tatters as the red-skinned menace chuckled quietly behind her. As she passed by a confused catgirl, she snatched up Eme’s wrist and dragged her along to check out the other doors.

The northern door lay broken in a pile of impassable rubble, sundered by ice and violence.

Conversely, the western door was simply just locked. Trying the key they had, now unmarred by time, proved futile, as this door required a ring-shaped key to unlock it.

Turning away, they looked to the south.

If Autumn’s geography was right — and it was, barring any spacial fuckery — the southern door ought to open up to the first room once unlocked. Youthful elves befell the witch’s eyes from its stony surface. If they passed through this portal, it’d mark the first time they’d’ve de-aged beyond their original ages.

Autumn shuddered.

How far back would it go? She wondered.

She hardly wanted to relive her gangly teenage years, let alone her early childhood, in front of the others.

Taking out the now unmarred gemstone once more, Autumn ran her thumb across it before placing it into the door’s lock. It fit snuggly. So snuggly, in fact, that she couldn’t remove it once it was in. The door’s magical lock let out a dull thunk as it disengaged. With a ponderous grinding sound, it swung slowly open to reveal the first room and entrance as she’d suspected.

Autumn held the lump of clay she’d taken in one hand as she eyed the doorway.

Taking it from the other room had softened it somewhat. By that same metric, if she took it with her into the first room through this doorway, it ought to be soft enough to make a key from the other lock. And if she went back around the way they’d come, it should, should, harden to the point of usability.

That was the hope, at least.

For all she knew, this was simply a waste of time.

Heh. Waste of time. Autumn laughed quietly to herself.

“Are you going through?” Eme asked from beside Autumn. Her voice was suspiciously casual, although her glittering eyes betrayed her excitement. Clearly, she’d come to the same conclusion as Autumn had regarding what would happen to her if she passed through the door of youth.

Autumn blushed slightly in embarrassment. Huffing, she shrugged. “No time like the present, right?”

Taking a fortifying breath, she stepped through the doorway, letting the wave of chronomantic magic wash over her.

Everything went dark as her hat slipped down over her eyes.