We cautiously stepped forward into the cavernous room. As we entered, my little ball of light slowly lit the room, revealing details that the ancient sparking lights had hidden.

Vast vines and woody roots curled upwards from the floor and penetrated the ceiling far overhead. The smell of old growth, wood and water filled the air, and a faint pervasive ‘drip, drip’ came from some dark corner of the room.

Under the vines and roots, covered by enormous leaves too dark a green to be entirely natural, the bronze-gold of the Ancient’s metalwork could be seen.

In the exact center of the room, the monolith of the Arcanum could be seen. As we moved closer, the angle of view slowly shifted, and I let out a shocked gasp as the extent of the damage done was revealed.

Along one side of the monolith, the surface was fractured into fractal intricate puzzle pieces, stretching out into finer and finer gradations until they were lost. And the monolith itself was a dark green with bronze-gold clockwork under it, pulsing evilly.

It looked… incomplete. Broken. There was no other word for it. As we approached, the sound of anguished moans met us, filling our minds.

It was hard to approach, and as I got closer, the sensation became actual physical pain. I only noticed when I felt something dripping from my nose.

“Everyone! Back up! It’s too strong!” I called out.

The reaction was immediate, but not from my group. The monolith shuddered, and a booming roar filled the air, only barely understandable as words.

“NO! LOUD! BRIGHT! GO AWAY!” and a force punched me in the chest, hurling me and the others away, back into the walls behind us.

I staggered to my hands and knees, seeing bright red spots dripping to the floor below me.

“Ok…” I said woozily. “The hard way it is, then.”

All around us, bronze-gold mechanical spiders and vine wrapped humanoid figures began to emerge from the walls.

“Very hard.” I muttered.

I wiped my nose and swallowed back another healing potion, feeling the building headache vanish, and the drip from my nose stop.

Contrary to my expectation, the reinforcements that were summoned by the Arcanum were not particularly hard, though there were a lot of them! Our supply of healing potions was getting very thin by the time they finished.

The last of the mechanical spiders shattered into pieces as Lakshmi tore free it’s mana circuits, and the room fell into silence once more. We waited, the air crackling with tension, but nothing further happened.

“So what exactly are we supposed to be doing here?” Lakshmi asked me when nothing continued to happen for several minutes.

“I just need to touch the Arcanum, and it should acknowledge me!” I said. “But if we get too close, it will shriek again, and send another wave of guardians after us! They probably get tougher each time!”

Lakshmi frowned thoughtfully.

“Well what are we supposed to do?” She said in frustration.

“I say we punch it until it stops squirming!” Said Eshaan boldly.

I rolled my eyes. “No. Just, no Eshaan.”

He looked at me with hurt puppydog eyes, which only made me more irritated.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“If you’re going to puppydog anyone, look at the monolith!” I snapped at him.

My eye roll could have flipped a city when he turned his pout to the Arcanum at the center of the room.

When he finally looked back at me with a helpless shrug I could only shake my head.

What am I missing here? This is a puzzle dungeon! Not serious combat, we need to find the trick to this! Think Lily, think!

Soriya said “It’s a psychic field that surrounds the Arcanum. If we can push through the field, if Lily could get close enough-“

I huffed. “You could touch the Arcanum too you know!”

Soriya shook her head. “We don’t know that would work, not for sure. And with the adds and attack damage, we can’t afford to guess.”

“So what are you suggesting?” Lakshmi said, her hands on her hips. “We just… throw her at the thing?!”

“That… might work.” Soriya said thoughtfully.

“Don’t you dare!” I said angrily.

Camaxtli cleared his throat. “Unlikely. After all, the psychic backlash from the first attack threw us against the walls. There seems to be a physical component to the psychic attacks. If this were the Jubilee, then it would be a simple matter to repair-“

Lakshmi whipped around to look at him in surprise. “What did you say?”

“If this were the Jubilee, then it would be a simple matter to repair the malfunction.” He obligingly repeated. “However, repair would undoubtedly involve close contact-“

“No! It’s missing a part!” Lakshmi spun around pointing at the Arcanum. “It’s missing it’s other half!”

My mouth fell open. She was right! How did I miss that?!

I immediately raised my hands and started to chant. The room roared and the floor shook, and immediately mechanical spiders and vine golems poured from the walls.

Oh, of course. Adds on tap now that we’ve figured out the right key. I grumbled mentally.

“Uh, Lily?!” Eshaan said, holding his sword in front of him. “I don’t think it’s very happy!”

“Just hold them off!” I said. “I only need to summon Oak, the sylvani Arcanum! Or… I guess it’s actually half of Oak? Maybe?”

“Maybe?!” Eshaan said, parrying a blow from a spider golem and bisecting a vine monster in half.

“Spellcasting now!” I said quickly and finished the chant.

Oak appeared in front of me, and it’s whispery voice was almost drowned out by the clang and crack of battle around me.

“Child of Æther, you call?”

I nodded rapidly, then ducked as a long vine tendrile whipped thorugh the space my head had been a second ago.

“Yes!” I pointed at the monolith in the center. “Go repair yourself!”

Oak turned slowly, as though underwater, and I swore that I saw a glint of eager emotion in it’s eyes. It started to move towards the monolith in the center of the room, it’s arms out stretched.

Now that I’d summoned it, and it was in the room, I could see the frayed half of the creature, living tendrils drifting out from it’s side, tendrils that seemed to have their answer in the other half of the rigid fractal patterns of the monolith.

I didn’t have too long to focus on it, as the attacks from the guardians immediately intensified. The thrumming psychic hum from the monolith in the center grew louder and louder, and I could feel myself bleeding from my nose once more.

“Clear the path for her! Make sure nothing stops her!” Eshaan commanded, and my friends struggled to make it so. Soriya hurled an air spell, and almost collapsed, blood running from her nose and ears, but the golems were throw to the side, granting a clear path for Oak to walk through. Lakshmi hurled bolt after bolt from her cannon, and Eshaan, Daniyel, and Camaxtli pushed the golems away.

I sure hope I’m right about this being a last second thing. I thought. I hate forced losses!

Oak reached the barrier where the monolith stood, and moved through it without slowing. The pain in my head reached a fever pitch just as Oak’s tendrils touched the fractal wires that extended from the inner Arcanum.

There was a moment of stillness, and for a heartbeat I was afraid that I’d gambled wrong. Then the pain vanished, and I was left with a single hit point pulsing slowly in my vision from my {Study}.

I don’t think I’ve ever been that close to death. I thought.

I slumped to the ground, my legs splayed to either side of me.

In the center of the room, a harmony of music rose into the air, like fine crystal chimes, and within it, the sound of a voice.

“Sister!”

“Lost self!”

“We are whole!”

“I am whole once more!”

A blinding flash of green and gold, and the monolith in the center of the room stilled, growing still and silent, and I felt a warm weight enter my heart as the regrown Oak joined the other Arcanum within me.

In a ring around the now silent Arcanum monolith, the vine and clockwork golems collapsed, falling into component parts and dust.

I breathed a heavy sigh of relief, and started casting a {Heal} as fast as I could. It wasn’t until I was already through the cast that it occurred to me that it was possible that the anti-magic field was still present, but my luck held out. My friends and I were rapidly restored to full health, and my mana pool drained into a mana puddle.

The group sat on the ground and looked at each other. The only sound was a silent ‘plink’ of distant water hitting stone.

“Well. Now what do we do?” Asked Eshaan.