“You’re a go-getter,” Rowe muttered. “Oh, there’s another body here.” He stepped carefully over a corpse that was lying on the ground.
“We’re starting to see more and more of them. Guess a lot of people kicked the bucket around here.” Shannon looked around at a number of scattered skeletons. They must have been taken out by the previous trap.
“Hang on a second. I’m gonna look at them.” Rowe moved the skeletons around, checking every part of them and making them rattle a little. He looked like a grave robber scavenging for treasure. Finally, he said, “My son’s not here. They seem like they’ve been here too long to be him, anyway.”
That reminded Shannon. “Speaking of which, is there anything we should be looking for in order to identify him?”
“Yeah. He should have a pendant I gave him when he became an adventurer. He always wore it; it hung down around his chest. The pendant has an ‘L’ on it for his name: Leo.”
“Got it. Since no one’s come out of here alive, we can probably also assume no one’s come down here to loot any corpses. We should be able to identify him by the pendant.”
“Thanks for helping me keep an eye out for that. Though you should be keeping an eye out for traps. Stick close behind me, or I won’t be able to protect you.”
“Well, aren’t you reliable!” Shannon said in a teasing tone. “Lead the way.”
On they went into the depths of the dungeon. They braved pitfalls, poisoned arrows, toxic gas, narrow bridges over wide beds of needles, walls pushing in from both sides, and hordes of wandering skeletons. They also rallied both their caution and their battle prowess to exchange blows with monsters. The deadly traps continued, one after another, as if the dungeon itself were desperate to kill them before they could get any farther.
“AARRGH!”
“Hiyah! Hah!”
Rowe slashed at the undead around them with the holy sword he had bought before they took on the dungeon. Next to him, holy magic enshrouded Shannon’s hands. Together, they were pulverizing their enemies.
“You’re a scary one, girl,” Rowe told Shannon. “Remind me not to make you angry, or I’ll get punched!”
“Better be careful—you never know when I’ll strike!” she bantered back.
They purged the lavishly dressed undead being who had risen from the last casket, and then the largest of the coffins in front of them slid to the side. In its wake, they saw the path to the next room.
Rowe plopped himself, panting, down onto the ground. “This old body can still keep up after all!” he exclaimed.
“This place has such crazy mechanisms and magic,” Shannon said. “They’re really advanced, especially for their time.”
“I’d expect no less from one of the world’s most difficult dungeons.”
“Yup. We should take a break, though. We’ve been going for almost a full day. Let’s get a nap in.”
“Wow, I’d say we’re already about halfway through. We’ve kept up a good pace.”
They set up a tent in the middle of the pharaoh’s room among the caskets, then took out the food they’d each brought. For Rowe, this consisted of dried jerky, wine, and bread; for Shannon, it was fruit and fresh vegetables.
“Oh, so the food you put in that sorcerous space of yours doesn’t go bad?” Rowe asked.
“Nope. This way, I can eat fresh food whenever I want. It’s a girl’s best friend.”
“That’s handy. Maybe I should’ve put a sandwich in there.”
They had been on guard and fighting this whole time. Now, they ate, restoring some of their energy and resting their bodies.
“You really aren’t a typical mage,” Rowe noted, “what with your hand-to-hand abilities.”
“Well, I sort of picked those up along the way, ’cause I’ve been traveling so long. I’m an expert at fighting by this point.”
“Seems like it. Those fighting skills alone would make you a fine soldier. Can you use any weapons?”
“A lot of different ones, to varying degrees. Swords, spears, bows, and throwing weapons too. I’ve had a lot of time on my hands so I learned everything, really.”
“You’re quite the mage to have had such a rich life at your age. Of course you wanted to travel.”
“Well,” Shannon said, elongating the word, “it’s not quite like that.”
“And on top of all that, your magic is excellent. I’ve met a lot of mages in my time, but I’ve never met one as good as you. You have this dignity about you too—it’s like you’ve been training for decades. Have you fought anywhere specific?”
Rowe was smiling, sprinkling his words with jokes, and Shannon forced a smile in return as she scratched at her cheek. “I guess I was in a bit of a fight not that long ago. I get caught up in a lot of things in my travels.”
Rowe thought about this. “I see. So even at your age, people rely on you for your strength.”
A silence fell between them. A while back, she had gained some experience in fighting with magic as a soldier. She’d been forced to kill due to circumstances beyond her control, and even now, she could recall how it felt to slaughter her enemies.
Murder was something she wanted no part of. No matter how badly she got herself hurt, she always did whatever she could to bring other people back alive. Yet she was trying to end her own life. Those two ideas didn’t seem compatible, but that was just who Shannon was.
“Anyway,” Shannon said finally, “there aren’t many bodies around here.” She looked back toward the passageway, but she didn’t see anything that looked like a corpse. There hadn’t been very many corpses in front of the pharaoh’s room either, compared to the heaps of them they’d found in the earlier parts of the dungeon.
Rowe grunted in agreement. “Most of the people who’ve come into this dungeon probably died in the traps upstairs. We wouldn’t have made it this far without my moves and your magic.”
“If he got all the way here, your son must’ve been an excellent adventurer.”
Rowe smiled broadly. “That’s my boy. I trained him myself, and diligently too. His specialty was the katana. He was strong and clever. Even the head of the local government came to pick his brain from time to time—nothing I was smart enough to help with.” He scratched his beard and closed his eyes for a moment, probably yearning for days past. “But one day, he just up and said that he’d decided to take after me and become an adventurer. I don’t know what prompted him to do it, but he was talented, and he probably thought about it long and hard before he came to that decision. I gave him my blessing, and the next thing I knew, he was a famous adventurer. All he ever did was challenge himself by taking on dungeons and fighting monsters.”
“Whoa,” Shannon said. “He really must have been brilliant.”
Rowe laughed. “He took after me. He was incredibly ambitious. Ever since this tomb showed up, there have been rumors that a vast treasure lies at the end of it...but of course, no one has ever returned. He thought that if he could conquer it, he’d come back out as the greatest adventurer of all time. He told me that he’d come back, no two ways about it. But...”
“...he never did,” Shannon finished. Rowe nodded.
“Honestly, he was such an easy kid to raise, but then, right at the end, he had to go and become a troublesome brat. I guess that’s the trade-off. I can’t even hold a service for him without going all the way through this blasted lethal dungeon.” Shannon didn’t respond, and after a moment of silence, Rowe smiled, banishing the dark mood that had briefly hung over him. “Ha ha, sorry about that. Sometimes you can’t shut an old man up. I hope you get what you’re looking for here too, girl. Let’s get some sleep.”
“Thanks. You’re right, we should get some rest.”
They went to bed without speaking another word.