“Gotcha!” Half-Elf Scout darts in like a shadow and sends the man’s head flying. Not with his butterfly-shaped knives. Instead, it’s a sharp strike with the side of his hand that does the deed. The head goes bouncing like a ball, boink, boink. Even as the head rolls away, the awful grin on the man’s face bespeaks the certainty of his own victory until the bitter end. You let out the breath you were holding. Finally, you flick the blood from your blade and return it slowly to its scabbard. There’s an audible click as it settles. With that, the room returns to silence. “Is…is it over?” Female Warrior whispers, almost unable to believe it, from where she crouches. That whisper is enough to bring you back to yourself. You look around at the others, all of you standing there in the chamber. Everyone is on the brink of exhaustion. The gods’ miracles have healed the party’s wounds, but they’ve still survived a battle to the death. You let out a breath. Your legs want to give out, but you force yourself to stay standing. You’re the leader. If you must collapse, you have to do it after everyone else. “Probably…I think,” Half-Elf Scout says, almost under his breath. “I was so totally focused, I’m not actually sure.” He moves languidly, with none of his usual quickness, approaching the body of the man in black. The scout was pouring all his attention into the brutal battle. No wonder he doesn’t look as sharp or dexterous as usual. Half-Elf Scout grabs the oaken spear, still sticking out of the man’s corpse, and somehow manages to wrench it free. “Here ya go, Sis,” he says. “Mm… Thanks.” Female Warrior takes the proffered spear and, still sitting, hugs it. You leave her to herself and turn toward Female Bishop. She’s the one who worries you more than anyone in terms of having spent herself. She brought the Supreme God into her very body. The flare that had filled the chamber has long since faded, but you know you can’t imagine the burden it must have laid on her. You call out to her, and she looks vacantly up at you from where she’s sunk down in a corner of the room. You ask whether she’s all right, and in a voice like she’s only half-awake she replies, “It still feels…floaty in here…” Her pale, slim fingers brush the blue ribbon at her slight chest, and she nods. “It’s warm… Yes. I think…I think I’m all right.” You tell her that’s good. Then you pat her on the shoulder and say she did a good job. She appears to ponder your meaning for a second, but then she replies, “Thank you,” and a smile like a flower’s bud appears on her face. As exhausted as she is, it still somehow reminds you of the smile you once saw her smile at the temple. You’re sure that at that moment, her friends were there, too. You’re not sure how you’re sure, but you are. “Words of true power take a fair amount of enduring,” Myrmidon Monk clacks. He’s judged his entry into the conversation perfectly. He seems the least tired of anyone in the party, but no doubt he’s exhausted, too. He leans against the wall, arms folded; he taps his head with an antenna and mutters, “It feels like everything inside your head’s been scrambled. I’m impressed the girl could take it.” “Since it’s the words of the gods, it’s a blessing… No different from a miracle. That’s why,” Female Bishop says. She smiles again and laughs. The aptitude for magic, ultimately, must vary greatly with talent. The same way you feel that, no matter how deep your faith was, you personally would never be able to make requests directly of the gods. Your dalliance with magic, with the words of true power, has taught you that much. Cousin’s got to be under a serious burden, herself. Speaking of her… “…” Well, she isn’t speaking. She says not a word. She’s still biting her lip hard, her face pale, her staff at the ready. It doesn’t feel to her like it’s done. You feel the same way. You only feel like you swung your sword wildly and raced ahead. Even if it turns out this is it—you can hardly just come to a screeching halt. You’re about to say something, about to pat your cousin on the shoulder, when— “It’s not over…!” she exclaims. Thoom. The dungeon shakes. Not the chamber, but the dungeon itself, thrashing as if it were a living thing. “Eek…!” The floor becomes like a bucking beast. Someone just screamed—Female Warrior? You dive to cover her, positioning yourself on one knee in front of her. You look around, trying to figure out what’s happened. “The dimension, the space… It’s shattering!” your cousin yells. What? There’s a rumble in the earth, somewhere deep. As one cataclysmic crash follows another, you’re amazed you can still hear your cousin’s voice. “If we don’t get out of here right now,” she says, “this place is going to swallow us all!” “Get out? Great idea! Any plan for how to do that?” Half-Elf Scout shouts back, bracing himself against the shaking and looking in every direction. “I don’t see an exit!” “Isn’t there any kind of passageway that man was using?” Myrmidon Monk asks. “…I don’t know!” Female Bishop responds with a shake of her head. Rubble is starting to fall from the ceiling, clickety-clack. She looks around, desperate. “There might have been, but it’s broken, warped! Gone!” What to do, then? Female Warrior looks at you pleadingly. No plan occurs to you, but you don’t want to say that. You squeeze her hand and force yourself to think as fast as you can. Crossing dimensions. Warping. Transcending space. There’s a way to do that, just one— The Gate spell. “Yeah… That’s the only way.” Your cousin sounds as despairing as she does determined. Gate. One of the lost, forbidden spells—there’s no one left in the Four-Cornered World who knows how to use it. The last people to do so were mages who teleported around the world at their whim. They could chant this spell as easily as flicking through a hand of cards, planeswalking where they wished…or so you’ve heard. The stories have made Gate one of the great ambitions of spell casters in the Four-Cornered World. Perhaps the mage who created this labyrinth was one who could bend space to their will… It isn’t simply that the spell’s words of true power aren’t recorded anywhere, nor that the spell is advanced or difficult to cast. Once upon a time, a certain necromancer, in his arrogance, chanted this spell and disappeared, never to be seen again. He met the same end as the unfortunate souls who ran into Gate traps in ruins like this one—you saw them yourself on your way here. You must know where you want to go, where you want to appear. Holding the coordinates in your head is profoundly difficult. After all, people can hardly put into words exactly where they are at any given moment. “Aw, tell me you’ve got a scroll or somethin’!” Half-Elf Scout shouts. A scroll—that would be a different matter. A scroll written by one of those ancient mages would allow you to leap from here to there in an instant. Your scout is yelling that if you have one of those, he’d appreciate if you’d use it, and fast. Already, the wire frame in one corner of the room is crumbling away like dust. You don’t want to think about what will happen if it reaches you. “No…,” your cousin says, and her expression is as taut as a bowstring that’s about to snap. “But I can chant it.” You suspected this might be the case. On the way here, she was always the first to notice when space was warped. And you saw her reading desperately through one of her spell books when the demons appeared, looking for some kind of solution. It shouldn’t be that surprising if she’s figured it out. After all, the most accomplished magic user you know is—who else? None other than her. “…Will you let me handle this?” That’s what makes it so funny when she turns to you and asks you this question in an unsteady voice. You’re about to ask how she can even wonder at this late date—but when you think about it, you realize you never really told her. So you laugh, and say that if she can’t do it, no one can. Your cousin blinks. “Got to admit, I’ve never seen you defeated in a contest of luck,” Myrmidon Monk comments, his mandibles clacking like he’s chewing something over. He places a hand on your cousin’s shoulder. “So I’m betting on you. I don’t want to wind up in some gods-forsaken dimension somewhere.” Before your cousin can fully comprehend the meaning of what he’s saying, there’s a tug on her sleeve. “I trust you, too. With you, I’m sure we’ll be okay,” Female Bishop says, smiling at your dumbfounded cousin. She’s made it back to where everyone else is, veritably crawling, supporting herself with the sword and scales. Compared with her, Half-Elf Scout’s movements look light and easy as he sidles up to the rest of you. “What other choice have I got? You pull this off, Sis, and I’m gonna worship you from now on!” Then he crosses his arms, winks, and even puffs out his chest importantly. “All right, let’s do this before we chicken out!” Gods above! How many times has his laid-back attitude saved you and your group? He does it, even though he might be the most frightened of all. You grin, and your scout grins back. Yeah—doesn’t matter either way. “…At least if we end up somewhere we don’t like, we’ll be there together.” Female Warrior grasps your hand and pulls herself to her feet. Among all the rumbling and roaring and shaking, the support she turns to is her oaken spear—and you. She grips your hand, leaning on you, supporting herself on you, and then she looks up at you and winks. “So I’m not scared.” Well, there it is. So you summarize everyone’s opinions, then shrug at your cousin. The rest is up to her. You’re all counting on her. If you have anything to say to her, it’s only that. It’s enough, though. Yes, if you have to add anything at all, it might be— Won’t give you any grief even if you screw this up. That, and not much more. Your cousin’s eyes, which have been fixed on you, waver. Perhaps with anxiety or fear, or perhaps self-doubt. She blinks several times, and the look passes. What’s left is only her usual answer, as full of self-confidence as ever: “…Right!” The wire frame of the chamber is almost completely gone. You stand in the middle of sheer darkness with only the floor beneath your feet to tell you where you are. But the six of you are the first, and last, people to defeat this Dungeon of the Dead. So whatever happens, you have nothing to fear. You need only hold your heads up high and adventure. You all look at each other and nod. That’s the signal. Your cousin holds up her short staff, and then intones the three words of power at the top of her voice: “Z! E! D!” Blue. That’s the first thing you register. The next, that you’re floating. Falling. A shock. You go numb all over, as if your whole body has been struck, but you’re embraced by something sticky. Sinking. It’s cold; you can’t breathe. Your surroundings are dim, and your body feels as heavy as lead. You’re being pulled steadily downward by whatever has a grip on you. You open your mouth and something rushes into it—it’s enough to make you think you’ve been caught by a slime. You struggle; someone grabs your arm, clings to it. It’s Female Warrior. You clasp her hand back. As you try to pull her up, suddenly your arm breaks through the membrane. All at once, you heave yourself up. Immediately, your senses are almost overwhelmed by bright light, fresh air, a breeze. It’s the surface. “Hkk… koff! Hrgh…” Female Warrior hacks furiously. You rub her back and look around. It wasn’t a slime after all. It’s water. You seem to have fallen into water surrounded by stone walls. More importantly. What happened to everyone else? Are they safe? “The—the heck…?!” yelps Half-Elf Scout. “Shit! I can’t swim!” says Myrmidon Monk. “Eeek…?!” There’s a series of noisy splashes as, one by one, your friends burst through the water’s surface, looking like soaked rats. They each cough or expel water from their lungs just like Female Warrior did, but none of them seem to be drowning. At that moment, you hear a voice. “Wh-where in the gods’ names did you come from?!” You look up, past the stone walls, to see an utterly baffled soldier looking back at you. Your eyes meet. You ask where you are and receive the perplexed reply, “The moat.” The already lively situation becomes livelier. You presume it’s people coming to gawk. They start peering into the moat—townspeople, like you could find anywhere. Among them, just for an instant, you think you spot the shadow of the informant girl in her cloak. You’re in the moat surrounding the fortress city… “…My mistake!” exclaims a relentlessly cheerful, innocent voice. Your cousin finally surfaces, letting out a precious “pfwahh” as she gulps in a breath. “It turns out if you go up ten floors from the tenth floor, you wind up in midair!” She sounds so…unbothered. There’s only one thing you can possibly say. ‘Stupid second cousin!’ “You promised you wouldn’t give me a hard time!” she cries. “You’re the worst!” That finally prompts your laughter to overflow, and once it starts, you can’t stop it. She looks at you in disbelief for a second, but then she starts giggling, too. There’s no way to stop it now. You six adventurers, floating drenched in the moat, look at each other and break into gales of laughter. Female Warrior wipes tears from her eyes; Female Bishop holds her hand to her mouth as her shoulders quake, and still she laughs. Half-Elf Scout finds time amidst his guffaws to call to the onlookers for a rope, while Myrmidon Monk clacks his mandibles. It hurts; it feels wonderful. Will you ever laugh harder than you’re laughing now? And the sky. It’s bluer than blue and clear as far as the eye can see.
Chapter 32
13 min read