She made quick work of her solo dungeon dive. Traps that would have taken numerous adventurers working together to overcome—giant rolling boulders, a rain of spears, and waves of hostile undead—were no match for Shannon. They were child’s play in the face of her magic. Earlier in the dungeon, she had held back her power so that she could properly enjoy the dungeon’s traps, so she hadn’t used much of her magic. Now that she was taking over for Rowe—after having been the cause of his injuries, no less—she wasn’t focused on dying. Her only goal now was to reach the end of the dungeon and collect Leo’s effects.
Shannon waved her wand, entirely focused on pushing forward through the dark corridors. She destroyed the giant boulder that was rolling straight at her, nullified the rain of spears with a gust of wind, and purged the waves of undead with holy magic. Shannon had fought in all sorts of places in all sorts of time periods, and she could have eaten this dungeon for breakfast.
She saw fewer corpses littered around her; only a few people had made it this far. Finally, thanks to her focus on reaching the dungeon’s innermost depths rather than trying to get herself killed, she conquered the labyrinth and found herself in front of a set of doors twice her height. They were adorned with magnificent carvings, lending credibility to the idea that this was a monarch’s resting place. The doors glittered like they were brand-new, and they didn’t have a single scratch on them. It looked like hardly anyone had ever touched them.
“So this is the last room of the king’s tomb,” Shannon murmured, gently laying her hands on the cold doors and slowly pushing them open. They let out a dull creak and a cloud of dust. Beyond them was an incredible sight: “Whoa, gold!”
The king had left behind a gold coffin, gold cups, gold bars, and gold dinnerware—masses and masses of gold, all of which glittered dazzlingly. Shannon, who was mostly unconcerned with dungeons, let out a breath at the awe-inspiring tableau. “I don’t think I’ve seen anything like this,” she said aloud.
Enchanted, she let her gaze travel around the room. She didn’t care much for money, but she felt drawn to the gold. The treasure was laid out in an orderly fashion; no one, it seemed, had ever touched it. The golden coffin in the center of the room was likely the king’s casket.
“Ah, no, I’ve got a job to do,” she remembered. Treasure wasn’t her goal; she had to find Leo’s body. None of the corpses she’d seen along the way had looked to be his, which meant it was probable that he’d made it all the way to this room.
She decided to search the area and went to look at the blind spots created by the glittering mountains of gold. She approached a table heaped with gold bars, and in front of it, she found scattered bones.
“These, maybe?” she murmured. Upon closer inspection, she could tell the bones didn’t belong to a single skeleton—there were three skulls there, likely all from the same group of adventurers. They had all died together, and their flesh had decayed, leaving behind only their bones and the things they had brought with them. Interestingly, several gold bars were mixed in among their skeletons.
“So they died holding the ingots?” Shannon mused. “I get it. There’s something off about the gold in this room.”
She picked up one of the gold bars and cast a spell on it—the same one she had used to extract the poison from Rowe’s body. Instantly, purple liquid bubbled out from inside the bar. That was when Shannon realized what was strange about the chamber: The treasure was toxic.
The gold bars had all been crammed full of poison and then charmed to captivate those who beheld them. It had even dazzled Shannon; no regular person would have been able to resist the magic. The gold lured in its victims, bewitched them, and finished them off with poison. It was the tomb’s last defense against grave robbers.
For the moment, she decided to search the skeletons for their personal effects. “Let’s see,” she muttered. Shannon had to push aside clothes, bags, and weapons that still covered the bones as she searched the chamber for her target. “Oh, here it is.” She picked up a dull, silver pendant that had been lying directly underneath a skull. An L was inscribed on it, just as Rowe had said. “Looks like he actually made it all the way in.”
Shannon stared at the skeleton. Though Leo had died in the final chamber, he’d made his dreams a reality. He’d made it all the way to the end of one of the most dangerous dungeons in the world. There was nothing more he could have achieved.
She gathered his skeleton’s belongings and put them in her sorcerous space. “Now then, let’s get back to Mr. Rowe.”