“Bullshit,” said Alkazar. They had finally unlocked the door and stepped into a large open gallery. Paintings and tapestries adorned the walls, and plush plum carpet led to a raised dias in the room’s center.

Two objects on the dias commanded their attention. The first was a golden throne bedecked with emerald leaves and vines bearing clusters of amethyst grapes. The other was a ten-headed hydra bedecked in a heavy breast plate, with chainmail armor cladding its ten necks and ten little leather caps perched atop each of its heads.

“Aww, they’ve got little hats,” said Norah.

The hydra stomped its feed, its heads hissing and twisting around each other, jostling for the best view of the intruders.

“I’m thinking it’s ten kobolds in a suit,” said Alkazar.

“I’m going to say fancy illusion,” said Desmond.

Alkazar scanned the creature. It did not register as an illusion. “Finally, a legit fight!” He and Desmond began casting their combat buffs, but Fang held up a hand.

“That’s what she wants,” he said, eyes fixed on the hydra.

“’She?’ Who’s she?” asked Norah.

“Nevermind. We’ve already wasted two full stacks of buffs on this carnival of bullshit, we’re not wasting another.” The hydra began to slither toward them, the heads weaving and choosing their targets. Fang glared at the monster, his sword resolutely in its scabbard.

“Fang…are you sure about this?” asked Desmond. He shuffled from foot to foot as the creature approached.

“C’mon, you bitch,” Fang muttered, “what is it, huh? Trap? Illusion? Polymorph? You won’t make a fool out of me again.”

“Fang?” Alkazar began to cast a spell.

“No! No more tricks, no more playing her game,” Fang said.

The hydra slid up right in front of them, raising its armored body. Green slime dripped from ten open mouths as twenty greedy eyes decided which adventurer looked most appetizing.

“Steady,” said Fang.

The hydra bared ten sets of fangs.

“Steady!” commanded Fang.

Like ten immense cobras, the heads whipped downward, eash sinking three-inch fangs into the armor and flesh of the adventurers, the heads darting around each other to find a tastier bite.

“Oh shit, it’s a hydra!” yelled Fang.

“Goddammit, Fang,” said Desmond.

But the team sprang into action. Hydras and their powers of regeneration were a known factor. Fang and Norah slashed with incredible speed, cleaving through the chainmail armor and severing heads from necks. Even Desmond committed to the melee, casting a spell that summoned six longswords of glowing light to whirl into the fray. Alkazar merely waited for the perfect moment, a spell on his lips.

Fang severed the final head. “Alkazar, now!”

“Now I’ll show you what you get when you play…with FIRE!” said Alkazar. He finished casting his spell and ten eagle shaped flames erupted forth. With open shrieking beaks they spiraled through the air, questing for targets, until each slammed into a steaming bloody stump of a hydra neck, scorching and sealing the flesh.

Or, they should have. Instead, the hydra appeared totally unmarred from the spell. Then its flesh blistered and bubbled, and two new fully formed heads burst out of each stump. Lacking armor, the winding flame designs crawling up their necks were now clearly visible.

“A pyro-hydra? That’s just gauche,” said Norah.

The twenty heads slavered and reared back. The hydra suddenly glowed with a dungeon master’s buff spell.

“Goddammit, Fang!” said Desmond as twenty heads slammed against them.

Victory was hard fought. The party collapsed together in exhaustion as the final stump crumbled, its flesh blackened with frostbite. Unbuffed and hemmed in, the encounter had cost them an inordinate amount of HP, spells, and patience.

“That sucked, but at least it was a real fight,” said Desmond.

Norah called towards the ceiling. “Did you have to use the bathroom or something?” In response to Alkazar’s inquisitive look, she said, “This wasn’t her. This was the other two. The fighter—” she kicked one of the helmets the hydra had been wearing— “and the trader/crafter.” She jabbed the flame designs across one of the severed hydra heads.

“You can tell?” asked Desmond.

“Don’t they feel completely different? The trader and fighter oversaw this room, the illusionist wasn’t around.”

“I guess there were no illusions this time, but how do you know they were alone?” Alkazar asked.

“Because they’re clearly flirting, and it’s shameless, and it’s gross, and I love it.” Norah smirked at the gigantic corpse.

“Can we go back to why we’re all saying ‘she’?” asked Desmond.

“That we can! Fang, who exactly were you talking about?” said Norah.

“No one. Slip of the tongue,” Fang said.

“Mmm, no,” said Norah. “Whose dungeon is this? You said you just found it, and yet you seem to be familiar with not just the dungeon master, but with the dungeon spirit illusionist she brought on board to help.”

“Wait, the illusionist isn’t the dungeon master?” asked Alkazar.

Norah gestured toward the tapestries. “Check the motifs of the rooms we’ve been in. It’s all decorative and aesthetic, no trace of arcane accoutrements. These are all recipe items, the crafter is the dungeon master here.”

“Look, I don’t know anything. Just seems like a female’s dungeon, is all,” said Fang.

The silence lasted and lasted.

Sarah rubbed her eyes. She needed more coffee. Her back ached from hours spent bent over her desk, VR headset plugged into a developer’s tablet. Illusion magic in Archeron allowed the creation of images, sounds, and haptic feedback from a vast library of standard fantasy illusions. On top of that, a player with ten levels in the Illusionist prestige class could upload their own. It was rare to see a fan-made illusion as they tended towards painfully obvious, but a designer like Sarah could create a very convincing custom job…after hours of work.

She had been through two dozen iterations to arrive at her current design. The visual was child’s play, but the element of integration into the world required perfect refinement. And the illusion’s deployment would be even more difficult—the party would be paranoid at this point, which was good, but made them ultra-alert to chicanery.

“Chicanery. Love that word,” Sarah mumbled. With a few keystrokes, she uploaded the design into her personal illusion library. Then she donned the headset and opened her eyes to the black void of dungeonspace.

Janice and Fernando huddled around a display of a hydra. Fernando was spending mana to equip it with armor.

“What do you think of this?” he asked with a broad smile.

“Aww, little hats! I love it!” Janice giggled.

Oh, for fuck’s sake, thought Sarah. She cleared her throat and the huddled pair jumped.

“Am I interrupting?” asked Sarah.

“Uh, no,” said Janice. “We’re just putting the finishing touches on a monster. I found out I can do templates, so we made a pyro-hydra. Fernando’s putting armor on him to hide the little designs and make him a bit tougher.”

“Very cute,” said Sarah. “With everything else these guys are going through, it just might work. We’ll be sure to buff him if they fall for it. Now pay attention, I’m going to need your help with this.”

Sarah pulled up the illusion she had been working on to show the others. Janice gasped. “Sarah! That’s not okay!”

“Look, you want to keep your dungeon or not? You asked for my help, this is it.” Sarah closed the window. “I’ve got a skeleton of a plan for implementation, but I need to get to work on my next trick. Think you guys can handle it?”

Janice swallowed and nodded.

"You sure?”

“Don’t worry,” said Fernando. “We can do it.”

“Good,” said Sarah. “I need to go. I’ve got work to do on my weekend to save your dungeon.”

“Don’t lie, you’re having fun,” said Janice.

“You—shut up.” Sarah logged off.

“Can I ask how you know Fang?” Norah whispered to Alkazar. They were scanning for traps and illusions as they made their way down the next hallway, several long paces ahead of the other two.

“Desmond and I used to play with him back in the day. Then he started his own guild and we didn’t hear from him for a while. Gave us an invite yesterday out of the blue, thought it’d be fun to get the gang back together,” said Alkazar. “You can call me Bryan, by the way,”

“Has he always been so…intense, Alkazar?”

Alkazar took the hint. “Yeah, pretty much. But he seems kind of weird right now, like he’s angry about something. Really killing the escapism vibe.”

“He and Desmond get on alright?”

“Yeah, for the most part. They butt heads time to time, but that’s all.”

The trip to the next room was blissfully uneventful, the hallway clear of hazards and the door untrapped with only a low level lock holding it shut. Norah had it undone in moments.

Fang pushed the door open, expecting the unexpected, but no such attack came. The room was serene, a blissful Roman garden with a small fountain burbling in one corner and marble statues scattered about. The air was sweetened by several burning incense holders and flower boxes that held blooming orchids. Nearby birdsong hinted at wildlife, though none could be seen. The garden could have been in an Italian villa but for three distinct treasure chests—one perched on a short pillar and two tucked into the corners.

The party eyed the marble statues warily, searching for signs of life.

“Fifty gold says one of those is a marble golem,” said Desmond.

“No chance, it’ll be a stone golem,” said Norah. “Marble golems were released too recently.”

“What does that matter?” asked Desmond.

“Our friendly DM has a thing for the classics.” Norah scanned the floor up to the first statue, Alkazar confirmed no illusions.

The moment it was clear, Fang rushed the statue and smashed it to pieces.

“I want each and every one of those destroyed,” he said. No one argued the point. Ignoring the treasure chests they methodically traced their way to each statue and smashed it to rubble. Not one statue objected to the attacks.

The room clear, the party could finally turn their attention to the chests and the Grindstone treasure within. Still, no one made a move until Norah took a closer look. The chests in the corners on the floor were clear, but the one on the pillar was not. “Got a pressure plate around this one,” she said.

“Disarm it. Don’t argue,” said Fang.

Norah produced her thief’s tools and set to work. She reached her ultra-fine wires and pliers into the tiny gap that surrounded the plate, blending almost seamlessly with the floor and explored the mechanism. After a minute she retracted them.

“You’re going to hate me for this, but I’m not sure that I can,” she said.

“Ugh, why now!?” shouted Fang.

Norah stared at him with a cold expression for a few moments before continuing. “To save you the long explanation, you can make traps harder to disarm by making them harder to set off. This one is a pressure plate that requires a significant amount of weight. More than any adventurer weighs.” She stood on the plate for a moment to demonstrate. “I’m specced for traps, and I still estimate a 50/50 chance I set it off.”

“What’s the point of that?” asked Alkazar.

She pointed at the chest. “Just a liiiiittle too high to be comfortable, am I right?” Indeed, the lip of the chest would come up to Alkazar’s chin.

“Ooooh, so you pick up the chest to get a better look…” began Alkazar.

“And the combined weight is enough for the pressure plate,” finished Desmond.

“Attaboys! We’re learning! The excited adventurer picks up the chest, the trap triggers, and he plunges into the pit trap below with his hands too full to grab anything.” Norah grinned. “Probably even take some crush damage from the chest.”

“Desmond, get the treasure out,” said Fang. “Just grab handfuls and heave them off to the side. Alkazar and Norah, you get the other two. I’m going to keep an eye out for any bullshit.”

They moved to carry out their orders while Fang stood in the center of the room, shield and sword raised, eyes darting around the broken statuary.

As Desmond cracked his knuckles and prepared to open his chest, they heard a digital ping. “Oh no…” he said, his voice tinged with panic. “Guys, I need to step away for a sec.”

Fang’s whipped around. “Wait, don’t—!” But the cleric had already frozen stiff, indicating the player had removed their VR headset. Floating in the space just above and to the right of Desmond’s head was a tiny translucent window, a text message notification. It read:

Mom

Call me RIGHT NOW!

Only it wasn't possible to see other players’ notifications. Fang understood what had happened in the same instant the chest on the pillar pulsed with magic. Its lid sprang open, revealing a warty purple tongue and rows of jagged teeth. Fang shouted an alarm and leaped toward Desmond’s avatar, but the mimic had already fallen onto him, stuffing the cleric’s entire upper body into its gaping maw.

It should have been child’s play for an adventurer of Desmond’s level to fend off a simple mimic grapple, but while AFK he was helpless. Under the combined weight of Desmond and the Mimic, the pressure plate triggered with a loud snap. They dropped down the narrow pit that appeared, landing with a distant splash and flooding the room with the stench of acid.

Norah and Alkazar came running, joining Fang at the edge of the pit. Their friend had disappeared under the opaque green surface of the acid pool.

“Do something! Cast Flight, get him out!” said Fang.

“I can’t target him!” said Alkazar, leaning into the pit as far as he could.

Norah pulled a long steel cord from her pouch and fashioned a noose. She lowered it into the acid pool, letting it sink below the surface and felt around, careful not to tighten the noose too soon. Suddenly the cord went taught and she yanked upwards, reeling the cord in. Fang and Alkazar grabbed hold to help pull. Their efforts were rewarded with a thrashing treasure chest with teeth that snarled at them as it was dragged over the lip of the pit.

“Acid immune little shit!” said Norah. She pierced its side with a thrown dagger and it died instantly. She threw the line back down and this time gripped true on Desmond. They hauled him up, noxious acid running down his armor in green rivulets. His skin was an angry red and blistering, splitting in some areas and bleeding freely. Norah dumped a bag of white powder over his face and chest, neutralizing some of the acid. Alkazar took one of the minor healing potions they had found earlier in the dungeon and poured it into Desmond’s mouth. He was reaching for another when suddenly Desmond sprang to life.

“Sorry guys, I’m-WHAT THE HELL?” Desmond started casting healing spells on himself in rapid succession. Once the acid had run its course and his health was stable, he looked at his friends gathered around him. “I was gone for like thirty seconds! What happened?”

“Mimic Switch spell,” said Fang.

“Oh wow, that old chestnut? I haven’t seen that in years,” said Alkazar.

“Never heard of it,” said Desmond.

“Yes, you have,” said Alkazar. “Remember when we did the Quartz Castle raid, like, a million years ago? Benny went to snag a chest and the DM swapped it with a mimic at the last second?”

“Oooh yeaaaah…” said Desmond.

“Have a nice talk with your mom?” asked Fang.

“Yeah, she—how’d you know I called my mom?”

Fang pointed at the tiny window that was still floating next to the pillar.

“Ho. Lee. Shit,” said Desmond.

“I’m not even mad,” said Fang, although he sounded a little mad.

“We’re reporting that too, right?” said Norah. Everyone nodded.

With all the eagerness of someone tasked with sorting live scorpions, the party began to tabulate the contents of the other two treasure chests. Alkazar reported. “86,500 gold. Handful of rare weapons, ring of Storm Vision, a TON of legendary crafting material (which is awesome), couple of spell books, Armor of the Crimson Lord, and a Manacle Ball. Assuming we’re selling it, this is a damn good chunk of money.”

“Can I grab the Crimson Lord?” asked Norah.

“I could use the Storm Vision ring, too,” said Desmond.

They divided the loot without objection. New magic items were usually donned with fanfare, but Norah and Desmond simply equipped them and headed for the door.

“How you doing for healing spells left?” Fang asked Desmond as they moved on.

“Bad,” Desmond said.

Sarah was just staring at her console now. She was feeling burnt out. It had taken a huge amount of time to figure out how to cast the text message on the perfect plane of vision and build the correct triggers into the illusion. “I’m going to be so pissed if that doesn’t work.”

She sipped her newest cup of coffee and turned her attention to her next task. The sun was setting. She sighed, a moment of mourning for the relaxing Saturday she had planned for herself. But this was for Janice. Ever since she’d moved out, there were precious few moments for her to be the big sister. She’d even introduced Janice to Archeron in hopes that they would adventure together, but her sister had instead been drawn to chatting with her guildmates and designing her dollhouse.

Well, if Sarah could use her skill to protect something important to Janice, she was going to do it, weekend or not. Besides, there was not much further to go. They had just a few rooms left to drive off a team of max level dungeon killers. For Janice, she would press on.

“This one is DEFINITELY a trick!” said Alkazar.

“Yeaaah, this one! This one is the trick!” said Desmond.

They were gathered in front of a pressure plate that was connected to a simple arrow trap. A duplicate of the first one they encountered, so many rooms ago.

“Oh yeah, this one is the trick,” said Norah. She was flat on the ground, searching for signs of the trick.

“Where is it? C’mon I’m ready!” Fang lunged threateningly toward the pressure plate, banging his weapon against his shield.

Something skittered behind them. Everyone spun, weapons drawn and spells on lips. The hallway was empty.

“Was that it? Was that the trick?” asked Alkazar.

“I bet that was the trick,” said Desmond. “Or the trick to the trick.”

“An ambusher, probably meant to push us into the trick trap,” said Norah.

“I say we counter ambush,” said Fang. They agreed and reversed back down the hall from whence they came, shooting glances back over their shoulders at the unsprung trap.

Sarah forced herself to reach for her headset again. The light in her kitchen light hummed, its reflection harsh against the dark window. She wanted to go to bed. In fact, she’d need to very soon. The raid was scheduled for an extremely unreasonable time, likely intentional. She needed to get at least some sleep before she helped Janice manage it. Janice showed natural talent, but the managing mana costs and navigating the UI during a raid would still be too much for a newbie.

She logged back into the game, not at all surprised to find Janice and Fernando still fiddling together over some detail of the dungeon. “Hey guys. How we doing?”

“Great!” said Janice. The girl was still brimming with bubbles despite having been working for more than twelve hours straight. “Well, actually we’re almost out of preparation mana, and I need to fine tune some things so we can have enough for a boss room. But I’m starting to think we can pull this off!” She gave Fernando a playful punch on the shoulder and grinned.

Sarah returned a weary smile. Tired as she was, seeing her sister excited was enough of an energy boost to spark another idea.

Norah and Alkazar once again trudged down the hall, scanning for illusions or traps. “Doing alright?” she asked. The arrow trap had proven to be an arrow trap. But they all agreed, if there was another, that one was the real trap.

“Tired. Frustrated.” Alkazar sighed. “This feels less like a dungeon crawl and more like…some kinda simile.”

“Feels exactly like that. Door.” The adventuring party waited in silence as Norah inspected and unlocked the door.

Once unlocked, Fang peered through the opening, shield raised. “Spiders, I think.” He pushed the door open so the others could see.

A hushed mechanical whirring underlaid the hush in the room, the whispers of hundreds of tiny clockwork springs . Small mantle clocks ticked away in tidy rows, and tall, stately grandfather stood shoulder to shoulder, tocking in synchrony. Spiderwebs crisscrossed this tinkerer’s paradise, strands ranging from gossamer thin to thick as cables. The webs ran in every direction, some reaching up to disappear in a magical blackness that concealed the ceiling.

“I’m just going to fireball the ceiling,” said Alkazar.

“No no no, hang on. Whatever thing you think of doing first is exactly what she wants,” said Norah.

“Or is that what she wants you t—” said Desmond.

“Hush!” Norah cut him off. She passed a hand across her eyes. An inky darkness crept from her pupils like tentacles, spreading until her eyes were rendered entirely black. She searched the darkness above them.

“Darksight, nice,” said Alkazar.

“Tell me Alkazar,” Norah said, “if you were going to fireball the ceiling, where would you aim?”

“Dead center, maximize the coverage area,” said Alkazar.

Norah nodded. “And how much of the room would your fireball cover if you fired at the center?”

“Looks like everything but the corners,” he said after a careful minute of measuring.

“Want to take a guess where the four giant spider nests are?” Norah asked.

“Ha! A miss with a fireball, that’s funny,” said Alkazar.

“Hilarious,” said Desmond, glancing down the hallway behind them. “So what’s the plan?”

“I can hit any two nests,” said Alkazar, “but I’m getting low on spells. Should I do it?”

“No, we need to make every spell count,” said Fang, “We’ll flush them out first, then fireball them.”

“I’m not going in that room,” said Desmond.

“No one is,” said Fang. “Use the hallway to funnel them.”

The party retreated into the hall. Fang took his position near the door. He lit a torch and held it to a thick strand of web, eyes fixed on the ceiling. After a moment, flames began to crawl up the strand, then started to move across the densely packed webs, climbing higher and burning the webs away.

For a moment, nothing seemed to be happening. Then Norah groaned. “Ugh, of course. Triplines.”

One strand of web burned slower than the others. Instead of falling away, it was charring. The moment Fang recognized it for what it was, the complex tripline knotwork hidden within the room gave way to the flames.

A glowing blue rune appeared on the face of a grandfather clock at the far end of the room, perfectly aligned with the doorway where Fang stood. The rune burned bright and the clock’s hands spun, then with a BONG, a lightning bolt arced across the room and splashed against Fang’s shield. The lightning crawled effortlessly across the steel surface, then leaped from body to body, eliciting cries of pain, before flashing down the hall behind them.

“Run!” shouted Fang as the rune began to glow an angry blue again.

They ran. Unfortunately, Norah and Alkazar tried to escape the bolt’s path by running into the room while Fang and Desmond attempted to retreat further down the hall. The tangle of bodies and weapons in the narrow corridor was a prime target for the next lightning bolt, which turned their confused yelling into shouts of pain and anger.

The party scrambled in various directions to escape the path of the spell, all semblance of cohesion lost. Alkazar and Norah slipped inside the door, narrowly avoiding the bolt of lightning that caught Fang and Desmond’s fleeing forms. Without looking, Alkazar lobbed a fireball towards one side of the ceiling, angling it to at least hit two of the nests. But the nests’ occupants, roused by the noise and smoke, were already halfway down the walls.

A horse-sized spider with glowing red eyes shot a silk strand from its spinnerets, hitting Norah in the back. She slashed at the web to no avail as she was lifted her off her feet and pulled towards the pitch-black ceiling.

The other three spiders leapt towards Alkazar. The wizard swung his staff, firing spell after spell. His magic was powerful, but the spiders were nimble. In a matter of moments, one huge creature reached him and sank its dripping fangs into his shoulder, pumping him full of high damage venom.

Alkazar shouted, looking for help from his friends . Fang and Desmond were still down the hall, pinned by bolts of lightning. Norah was nowhere to be seen, disappeared into magical darkness. There were no other options.

He plunged a hand into the folds of his robe and seized a diamond the size of his fist. The rarest of components, reserved for the most powerful of spells, he raised it over his head and spoke aloud.

“I WISH!”

The world froze. The diamond blasted rainbow light in all directions. Overhead, both far away and very close, a Dungeon Master and her friends oohed and aahed over the use of such a spell. For a few precious moments, Alkazar received selective and short-lived editing access to the dungeon. He hurriedly deleted the spiders, the magical darkness, the lightning blasting rune trap, and even the lightning bolt currently arcing down the hallway. He relocated his friends, also frozen, to the floor of the spider room. After a moment of consideration, he also deleted every other feature in the room, leaving them alone surrounded by four walls of bare rock.

The spell ended and the diamond shattered, reduced to mundane glass, its shards tinkling to the floor.

“Everyone okay?” Alkazar asked.

“I’ve always wondered what it was like to be Wished,” said Norah. “Thanks.”

“You saved the day buddy,” said Fang. “Good job.”

Alkazar received several hardy pats on the back for his efforts. “It’s no problem, guys. But could I request payment in healing? I’m basically dead.”

“Sure thing Al,” said Desmond. “But let’s burn through the potions first, okay? Then I’ll top you off.”

They pooled the remaining minor healing potions they had found earlier in the dungeon. Alkazar drank one, then another, then died.

“Fuck,” said Desmond.

They stared at their friend’s body. Norah picked up the potion vial and sniffed it. “High level poison, illusioned to look like just another minor healing potion. I hate this place.”

Desmond reached over and gave Norah a little push on the shoulder, then did the same to Fang. Fang slapped at his hand. “I’m not an illusion. Let’s just get this over with. There can’t be much more to this place.”

Sarah reviewed her plans again. Things were nearly finished. Fernando was busy using the last couple points of preparation mana to sprinkle the dungeon with cheap arrow traps. They had done all they could. If the adventurers made it to the final room, Janice’s dungeon was as good as lost. She was about to sign off when Janice tapped her shoulder.

Her little sister’s avatar was smiling up at her. “Hey! So I know it’s been a really long day and everything...um, I wanted to say thanks. For doing all this stuff, I mean. I don’t know what we would have done without you. Thanks to you, instead of spending the whole day freaking out, it’s actually been…fun.”

“Oh! Well. Good. It is a game, you know. It’s supposed to be fun.” Sarah tried to keep her voice steady against the rush emotion Janice’s words had evoked. “Look, I’m exhausted, I need to sleep. I’ll be back for the actual run, okay? Goodnight.”

Instead of saying goodnight, Janice hugged her as tight as she could. “No matter what happens, this has been great.”

Sarah returned the hug, all at once wishing she could hug her sister in real life. Haptic feedback just wasn’t good enough. She felt a rush of pride towards Janice, for her sister’s boundless energy, for her strong moral compass and boldness, a dangerous combination that had gotten her into this mess in the first place. And that thought led to another—one last idea. “Hey, Janice. Can you and Fernando scrape together some extra mana for me?”

Janice pulled away to stare at her. “There’s no time for you to put anything else together. Not if you want to get any rest at all.”

Sarah nodded. “I know, it’s gonna hurt. But if we pull it off, it’ll hurt them much, much more.”

They stood before not one, but two pressure plates connected to arrow traps. One was set a few feet after the other.

Desmond sighed. “Do you think—”

“Shut the fuck up, Desmond! Just SHUT! THE FUCK! UP!” Fang’s eyes bugged out of his head.

“Wellllll, that was fun. I’m gonna bail,” said Desmond, rubbing his eyes.

“Yeah, I’m drawing the line right there,” said Norah.

“Wait! No, wait, I’m sorry!” Fang grabbed Desmond’s wrist as though he could keep him from signing out. “I’m just tired. We’re all tired. I’ve got a horrible headache. But we’re almost there, we have to be. Just—one more room, and after that we call it. Okay?”

“Fang…Troy. This isn’t fun,” said Desmond. “We’re getting our assess kicked. I appreciate you inviting me on a Grindstone run, but this sucks. I’m exhausted, I’m jittery as fuck, I have a headache too, and we’re probably going to be killed by whatever’s ahead of us.”

“Just one more room, please! For old time’s sake? Norah, I’m sorry. I’ll pay you double! Just one more room?” said Fang.

“I’m paid in shares,” said Norah. “Whose share am I taking?”

“Mine, you can have my share,” Fang said quickly.

Norah stared at him. “You’re going to give me your share of a Grindstone run that you started?”

“Yes, I promise. Just one more room. Deal?”

Desmond and Norah looked at each other, each silently urging the other to refuse.

“Fine,” said Norah.

“Alright. One more goddamn room.” Desmond sighed again. “So what do we do about these traps?”

Without hesitation Fang walked across pressure plates. Arrows pinged off his armor for minimal damage. “Ow. Ow.” He waved the others across.

Reluctantly, they followed. Norah didn’t bother looking for traps.

The room at the end of the corridor could only be the boss chamber. They stepped into a grand hall of crystalline architecture, massive geodes and quartz columns jutting from walls and displayed in cases. Multihued minerals and opals grew from pots of gravel like stony flowers. The floor was alternated jade and seaglass tiles. Wrapped around a large centerpiece crystal at the far end of the hall, a medusa raised her head at their approach. Her serpent tail was covered in armored scales that fit her like a second skin, her torso encased in a bronze breastplate engraved with figures frozen in terror. She wielded a razor-edged shield and wickedly curved scimitar. Most curious of all, her face was obscured by a masked helmet, rendering her petrifying gaze useless.

Even though their level made petrification a remote possibility, the adventurers instantly averted their eyes, convinced the helmet was an illusion. The medusa did not descend from her perch.

“I say we rush her,” said Fang. “If she’s the dungeon boss, we just need to down her and we win.”

“We should be able to handle a medusa,” said Norah. “Surround her and give it everything you’ve got.”

They spread around the perimeter of the room and began to close the distance to the medusa. The crystals scattered around provided plenty of surfaces to see the reflected monster without looking at her.

The moment Fang crossed the center of the room, the medusa sprang towards him. Their shields slammed together and the medusa raked at him with her scimitar. Norah and Desmond moved to flank, and three of them took their shots where they could.

Slowly but surely, the adventurers wore down the medusa’s hitpoints. They were exhausted, they were low on resources, but they were veterans who knew how to take down a dungeon boss, and this fight was following the rules. They blocked her scimitar, they dodged her swinging tail, and snuck attacks around her shield.

“It’s working! Keep it up!” said Fang, deflecting another blow.

“Wop! Wop wop wop! Wop wuh rah ruh ba ba!” came the response.

“What the hell was that?” asked Desmond.

Diverting their attention from the medusa for just a moment, they spotted a whole other squad of adventurers in the room. The ghostly figures stood with stooped shoulders and averted gazes. An illusory caricature of Fang, features distorted and exaggerated, screamed in the face of a smaller adventurer clad in beginner level gear. Speech couldn’t be made with the low level illusory spell, but it was clear Fang was ruthlessly castigating this new player.

“What the fuck? Fang, what am I looking at?” asked Norah, missing a chance to damage the medusa.

“Nothing! I don’t know! Keep fighting!” shouted Fang. His attacks became haphazard as he kept glancing toward the depiction of himself having a tantrum at a newbie.

“Fang, who are those people?” asked Desmond. He stopped attacking the medusa entirely.

“I don’t know! That never happened! Don’t look at it!” ordered Fang.

The scene changed. Now a little halfling in a pink dress was standing between Fang and a chastened looking newbie. They were surrounded by a crowd of players adventurers. The halfling was pointing and shouting at him, snapping her fingers and bobbing her head. The crowd laughed and clapped as the halfling apparently said something particularly devastating. Another person stepped between Fang and the newbie, then another. They gestured for him to go, flanking the little halfling.

“Fuck you, you bitch!” Fang screamed at the illusion, his face red and eyes bulging. He turned from the medusa and charged the illusory halfling, swinging at her wildly. He gave an inarticulate scream and grabbed at her, gnashing his teeth. “You stupid bitch! That was my guild! I’ll fucking kill you and your shitty dungeon! Fuck you!” Spittle flew from Fang’s mouth as he screeched.

“I FUCKING knew it!” said Norah. She threw her knives to the ground and kicked a nearby crystals, swearing.

“I-I don’t understand. What’s going on?” said Desmond.

Norah pointed at Fang. “That asshole promised us a Grindstone run, but it’s actually a revenge quest against some kid’s Dollhouse! THAT’s why all the monsters and traps have been basics. She doesn’t love the classics, she’s stuck with them!”

“Troy…what the fuck,” said Desmond.

Troy finally tore his gaze from the ghostly vision. He glanced between his companions, fury breaking over fear like a wave on rocks. “No! It’s not like that!” Then, seeing their disbelief, Fang rushed the medusa, weapon raised and screaming like a mad man.

He never reached it. With a flick of her wrist, Norah buried a throwing knife deep in his calf. Troy went down to a knee and Norah and Desmond stepped in front of him, weapons raised. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Giving a bully his discipline,” said Desmond.

“What I should have done from the very beginning,” said Norah.

They closed on him. Desmond spent the last of his spells buffing Norah, himself, and the medusa. Troy found his feet and began swinging his sword wildly. They had him flanked in seconds. Norah’s blade darted between the plates of his armor. Troy turned on her and chopped gashes into her sides and chest, but they closed immediately as Desmond gave her all the healing he had left, even as he smashed his mace into Troy’s back.

Norah and Desmond pummeled Troy to his knees. “No! You’re being tricked!” he shouted.

“I don’t think so,” said Norah. “This is the only thing that’s made any sense since we got here.”

The medusa appeared before him and pulled off its helmet. They glimpsed the monstrous visage for only a second before it was replaced by the plump, cherry cheeked face of the halfling.

“You bitch! I hate you!” Troy screamed, unable to pull his gaze away. His resistance petrification was high, but it was not infallible. Dull stagnant gray crept out from behind his eyes and crawled over his body, solidifying him to solid stone. His eyes, white and bulging, were the last to go.

“Enjoy your new statue! Tell your illusionist I want to both fight her and be her!” Norah called towards the ceiling.

“Sorry for the hassle! I’ve got a bunch of dungeon recipes I’ll send you!” Desmond said.

The medusa still hissed and orbited them, as if unsure of what to do with these strange interlopers.

Desmond looked to Norah. “Victory pose?”

Norah laughed. “Hell yeah. I like you, Desmond. Shoot me a message after this.”

They struck heroic poses behind Troy’s embodiment of petulant rage, and locked eyes with the medusa.

Janice shrieked and leaped around the dungeonspace, alternating between hugging Fernando and Sarah. “WE DID IT! WE DID IT! WE SAVED MY DUNGEON!”

Fernando’s jubilation was subdued. “Hooray! I need to go to bed! Can I message you later?”

“I insist,” said Janice with a smile and a twirl. Fernando returned the smile and logged off.

Sarah’s dark and graceful avatar sank to the ground. “Lord. I can’t believe that worked.”

Janice pranced in front of her. “But it did work! It was great and it worked and my dungeon is saaaaaved!”

Sarah grinned despite her fatigue and wiggled her arms in a stationary dance. “Yes it did. I need to rest. Happy to have helped.”

“So, I was wondering?” said Janice.

“…Yes?” said Sarah, pausing her log out process.

“I had a lot of fun doing this, making a dungeon. It was much more interesting than just decorating it. Do you think maybe you could teach me more about it?”

“You did pretty good. A little practice with the interface and you’ll have the gist,” said Sarah.

“Yeah but, but maybe you can help me get some recipes? And maybe do some adventures? And teach me about illusions! Oh! And help me get some Legendary gear?”

“Yeah. I could do that,” said Sarah. As exhausted as she was, a spark of excitement had already begun to make its way through her. “Goodnight, sis.” She logged off and collapsed back into her bed, smiling.