The way to the tenth floor is not a staircase, but a hole, one that leads into the abyss. You stand at the farthest extremity of the ninth floor and peer into it, into a darkness that seems to lead to the very bowels of the earth. There’s no wind. You didn’t expect to be able to see anything in the blackness, but there isn’t even the breath of a breeze coming up from the depths. This does not feel like a place people should tread—but it’s awfully late to be worrying about that. This was surprisingly close to the elevator. You mutter, purposely, that you ended up taking quite a detour. “Whoever built this maze was rotten to the core, I tell ya,” Half-Elf Scout says, picking up the thread with a theatrical shake of his head. Female Bishop giggles. “Unlike on the fourth and fifth floor, it doesn’t seem like there are any hidden areas down here.” After this calm assessment, she brushes a hand along the dungeon wall. The one packed full of trapped adventurers, bristling with arms and legs and other body parts in a wretched array. There can’t possibly be some secret hidden within it. It’s merely an adventurers’ graveyard. “Which makes me think…if we want to get to the tenth floor, this is the only way to do it,” Female Bishop says. “Gives me the creeps…,” Female Warrior grumbles, frowning openly. She taps the edge of the pit with the butt of her spear and looks at you. “How do we know it’s not just full of spikes at the bottom?” Maybe she’s needling you, maybe she’s worried—or maybe both. You tell her you figure it will work out somehow, as you peer into the hole. “If they wanted to set a trap, I think they would have picked somewhere more traditional,” Myrmidon Monk says, his antennae bobbing. He offers that he thinks there’s a bottom to this pit. “What bothers me more is that there doesn’t seem to be a way to get back out.” “I don’t think we have to worry about that,” says your cousin, who nonetheless looks nonplussed as she looks into the pit. You move around behind her, ready to grab her collar at any time if she should get too close and start to fall. You’re not sure what she’s thinking. “I mean, think about it. He managed to come up here.” The man in black. Now that she mentions it, that’s true. If he can come and go at will, then there must be some way to get down to the tenth floor, and some way to get back up. At the very least…you pick up what your cousin is saying, thinking about the sight of the sun as you do. At the very least, we should be on the right track—he took the elevator himself. Meaning that this floor, this area, should offer some way down to the bottom level. A giant, yawning hole, perhaps. “That’s assuming this isn’t a clever trap he set because he knows we’ll think that,” Female Warrior snaps. You’re actually grateful for it. Vigilance, suspicion, and even cowardice are all necessary things. You nod, then jerk your chin in the direction of Half-Elf Scout and Female Bishop; one of them the most perceptive member of your party, the other not distracted by what she sees. Not even Myrmidon Monk and his antennae can quite match them. “……I do feel something. A strange aura,” Female Bishop begins haltingly after listening closely to the hole. “If it was just a bottomless pit, I don’t…I don’t think it would feel like this.” “The thing about a trap is, ya usually try to hide it,” quips Half-Elf Scout, carefully surveying every inch of the rim of the hole and finally standing up. There was one spot with a door that wouldn’t open; when it was pried open, on the other side was a wall. That would seem to imply that this pit is the only path left. “Gotta wonder if our rope is long enough to get us down there…,” says Half-Elf Scout. “I know the Slow Down spell—that should let us down gently,” replies your cousin. With that, the final problem is solved. Meaning… “Meaning today is the day that fool dies,” Myrmidon Monk clacks out. “Very interesting.” Lastly, you take a look around at your party. Everyone looks squarely back at you. Your feelings, and your answer, are united. The tenth floor, eh? With this appreciative murmur, you tell your cousin you’re counting on her, and then you throw yourself into the darkness, into the abyss. “Terra…semel…levius! Earth, for a time, grow lighter!” Your cousin’s words of true power follow you down—still it feels like they take an eternity. “Just don’t look up, okay?” Female Warrior jokes. You hear the others come after you, one by one. “Eek!” cries one of the girls—Female Bishop or your cousin, you can’t be sure. One thing’s clear: Whatever happens, this won’t be boring. “…Huh! Looks about the same as everything else,” Half-Elf Scout says, and he’s exactly right. You land in a dark, cramped, and very familiar dungeon hallway. You still see nothing but wire frame. The only appreciable difference is a stone stela standing in front of you. It bears a gold plaque inscribed with words in an ancient language: FOR YOU—DEATH. The Dungeon of the Dead. Yes, that’s what this is, why it bears that name. You look in each direction, trying to decide which way to go. You’re about to set foot into the darkness when— “Be careful!” your cousin shouts, and you freeze. Slowly, you bring your foot back to where it was and turn around. Your cousin’s face is pale and bloodless. “This space is warped. Even worse than on the ninth floor…” She hugs herself and shudders as if from cold, then she looks up at you and says hoarsely, “If we aren’t careful where we step, who knows where we might find ourselves…?” “Well, how are we supposed to walk anywhere like that?” Female Warrior says, a tremble in her voice as if she might start crying at any moment. “I don’t want to end up like…them…” You know what she must be thinking of: the adventurers buried in the wall on the ninth floor. Nobody would want to end up condemned to spend all eternity as a plaything, providing “comfort” to the dungeon’s inhabitants. You pat her on the shoulder in an attempt to calm her down and ask your cousin if it’s at all possible to see the distortions. She looks very thoughtful for a moment, chewing on her thumbnail and staring into space. “I almost feel like it’s…sort of like a whirlpool…” It’s Female Bishop who finally provides the real answer. “To the left, I think.” She stretches a long, slim finger, pointing down the left branch of the hallway. “It’s sort of…” She makes a spinning motion in the air with one hand. “It’s like the flow of the whirlpool goes from left to right. That’s what it feels like to me. So…” So going to the left would take you toward the center of the whirlpool, the center of the distortion. As for what you’ll find there—that’s clear enough. The man in black. “That settles it, then.” The clacking of Myrmidon Monk’s mandibles sounds like a falling gavel. “Left’s the only way to go. With our scout investigating ahead, of course.” “If I suddenly get whipped off somewhere,” says Half-Elf Scout, “I hope you’ll at least put up a tombstone for me.” You tell him that if he expects to get teleported away, maybe you should hold on to the loot. “Oof!” He laughs. “Yeah, nobody wants you giving us the slip,” Female Warrior agrees. “Right?” You say that you agree completely. Female Bishop and your cousin look at you, still a bit disbelieving. We’ve come this far. If we can’t trust our party members by now, what can we trust? It’s the same way everyone has entrusted you with leading them in combat, even though a single wrong move on your part could get everybody killed. If the two of them are wrong and their suggestion wipes out the party, so be it. It’s nothing to worry about. So your scout leads, and you take a confident step after him down the hallway. Nothing happened. Hmm. You sigh demonstratively, and then for the umpteenth time: ‘Let’s go.’ You can hear the footsteps of the others behind you over the rattling of your own armor. “What if he’s not there?” Female Warrior asks tartly. “I mean… You know. What if we don’t find him?” “He practically invited us down here! I’d tell him to post some dang office hours!” You glance behind you as you listen to Female Warrior and Half-Elf Scout chat. Myrmidon Monk is vigilantly watching everyone’s back, while your cousin and Female Bishop look at each other and giggle. No problems at all. If you’re going to die here, then your time to die has come. It’s as simple as that. Without reluctance, without hesitation, you kick down the first chamber door on the tenth level. Can’t spend very long exploring this floor. A giant who exudes poison gas. Hordes of terrible vampires. A fire dragon, a frost giant. As each monster blocks your path, you, and your party with you, take them down and advance farther into the dungeon. Your blade sings, the spear thrusts, the knives glint, the spells are deployed, and you leave monster corpses in your wake. Each time you get through a chamber, there’s the dimensional warping again. You follow it to the next room. Break in, fight, kill, and move on to the next thing. Break in, fight, kill, and move on to the next thing. You hardly even know where you are anymore, but what you must do is obvious enough. You and your party now move within the realms of the very greatest adventurers in the Four-Cornered World. If you cannot make it through this, then perhaps no one in the world can survive this dungeon. There is only one possible thing that could stand in your way. Death itself. Finally. You arrive before the door. For better or for worse, you arrive. Standing before you is a thick door, just like all the other doors to all the other chambers you’ve entered thus far. As you stand and look up at it, though, you feel sure: Whatever happens, this is the end of the adventure. You take a breath in, then let it out. You look at the others. They all nod. By now, you need no time to steel your resolve, there’s no time to confirm with everyone. You only need to check your equipment and that of your companions and make sure everything is ready. You’ve managed to conserve your HP, and you have spells remaining as well. Your equipment is in good order. No problems anywhere. No pointing getting scared now: Even if you wanted to turn tail and run, you’ve been given no way home. If you turn around, all you’ll find behind you are hallways that lead nowhere. You murmur quietly, asking whether you and your companions should go. They reply that yes, they should. That’s all; nothing more. You give the door a powerful kick, knocking it down, and then your party piles into the room. The dim chamber beyond is—much as you expected—just like all the others. Empty, desolate. Only wire frame, defining a stone square. This is the nexus of the Death? Frankly, the altar on the fourth floor would have seemed more appropriate than this. There is, however, proof that you have indeed reached the innermost room of the deepest level of the dungeon: a throne. An ornate chair is sitting at the far end of the chamber, and on it, a hunching, shadowy figure. It seems to grow as it rises up, assuming human form and standing before you. The man in black. “Ha! Excellent work. Simply excellent.” You hear slow, measured clapping. On the man’s face, as the shadows fall away, you can see a smile of appreciation. It makes your skin crawl. “I had high hopes for you, it’s true. But few are the adventurers who have made it this far.” “Dungeon Master…,” says Female Bishop, in a voice that trembles for only a beat. “Who or what are you?!” It’s not really a question; it’s a simple confirmation. Who is this person at the world’s northernmost extremity, from which the Death spreads out over the land? This root of all evil? This greatest enemy? Female Bishop, however, has a reason for asking—as does Female Warrior, with her oaken spear. Anyone who has lost someone in these halls would have a reason. “I don’t care if you’re an immortal wizard or the king of demons! What drove you to all of this?” Female Warrior’s question hangs in the air. Then the man in black laughs, a burbling sound. He says only: “He’s dead, you know.” The man shrugs. He sounds so calm.
Chapter 28
11 min read