Gold glimmered in front of them – a fortune of cups, plates, goblets, jewellery, even a throne, a wooden frame long-since rotted, gold leaf barely holding the shape. Hakara found a lump of rock that had fallen from the wall and tossed it forward. As it neared the heaps of gold, its movement slowed, before stopping and hanging in the air. Then it started to glow, turning from pale green to red as it was heated up, deforming into molten rock and oozing to the floor.

‘Maybe this is an optional competition or something? If we can get something out, then we can get a prize at the end?’ Sharlan poked at the barrier with a wand, the crystal tip rapidly heating itself before she withdrew it, as the melted stone oozed downwards, scorching the floor. ‘Seems a bit dangerous for people without magical knowledge.’

‘Maybe there was something earlier we missed?’ Hakara looked at it through the lens – it showed the barrier as completely solid, impossible to even see through. ‘I don’t think there’s much that can be done here.’

The scuff of leather on stone came from behind them, and they both jumped. A dart of flame licked out into the green-tinged darkness and briefly illuminated it, before Opet stepped into sight. He looked slightly sweaty and grimy, as though he had been exercising, a sheen of sweat visible on his forehead and arms. He looked at the two of them in surprise, as Sharlan spoke.

‘You entered as well? Guess there must be some non-magical way past the door. Any idea how to get past this?’ She pointed at the barrier. ‘Hakara found this weird lens thing. Some neat illusion work, but I was expecting rather more obvious puzzles and stuff. This all seems rather vague. Aurastine needs to put some more actual effort in, and some actual clues.’

He smiled uneasily, especially when he saw the melted puddle of rock on the floor. ‘I, ah… wasn’t expecting to see you until later.’

Sharlan gave Hakara a sharp nudge, pushing her forward. ‘Um, well, yes. We saw the Serpent’s Tomb was open and decided to have a look around. I’ve never really had the chance to properly look at the architecture in here, it’s quite impressive. I didn’t expect it to be quite so curvy.’ She felt herself blushing again and looked away, as he walked closer, keeping a wary distance from the barrier.

‘A lens? Mind if I have a look?’ He held his hand out, and Hakara passed it over. He took it very carefully, holding it be the least amount possible, and tapped it with his finger. A resonant chime sounded out, reverberating around the narrow space. Hakara’s thoughts fuzzed for a moment, sound making it impossible to concentrate, before she shook herself out of it. But the barrier started to fade, melting away from the middle outwards with a rippling noise.

‘Sound activation? I wonder if it requires a certain pitch, or is keyed to that specific item? It’s normally too complex for any practical applications.’ Hakara tried to spot any runework or glyphs, wanting to study them, to try and analyse the underlying principles. Keying off a particular sound could be used to layer and cascade spells, by setting them from similar tones. Although that might lead to the Brasseye’s Overbound, where a particular series of workings in close proximity started to leak into each other, resulting in impossible-to-achieve triggering conditions as they all conflicted together.

Sharlan reached through and picked up a golden goblet, studded with bright gemstones. ‘This should show we got through, right? Pretty good fakes though, they feel real.’ She ran her hand through a box of jewelled chains, letting them trail over her fingers. Opet looked over the hoard, eyes skimming the shining wealth, before darting through where the barrier had been and picking up a chunky bracelet, the gold studded with jet, onyx and obsidian, stark and dark against the lustre of the metal. The gems drew the eye, something seeming to move within them, just on the verge of visibility.

As Hakara stepped forward herself, there was a hissing, fizzing sound, as the barrier started to reform. She grabbed the first thing that came to hand – a short wand, ivory chased with gold, a pale blue crystal bound on the end with golden wire. It seemed purely ornamental, without any of the markings or bindings of a truly functional wand. It seemed a lot of work to make something so accurate without finishing the job, but this was just a fairground game, albeit a detailed one.

She jumped backwards as the barrier reasserted itself, forming back into a solid screen with a popping sound. Opet tapped the lens again, but this time it had no effect. It must be set to only activate once, or once per lens. If other people were coming through, then presumably there were more of the things, and other people had to be allowed to get prizes as well.

‘So, I’ve never done something like this before.’ Opet was carefully holding the bracelet, as though it might bite. ‘I’m here with some friends, why don’t we go and find them?’

Sharlan gave Hakara a nudge. ‘I’m sure Hakara will be happy to talk to you about it.’ She gave her a harder nudge, pushing her forward. ‘Don’t mind me, I’ll just follow along behind.’

They started to walk out of the treasure room, taking another turning, Hakara explaining to Opet. ‘It’s sort of a set of puzzles. So the students can demonstrate what they’ve learned, and there’s normally little prizes and things for people to win. Like setting up Castle Blackhawk back home every year.’ She reached out and tapped the bracelet. ‘This is probably just made of tin or pewter, and under a temporary enchantment. Bound to this place, so it won’t last for long. Although it’s very well done, they’ve even managed to get the weight right, and that’s really hard. We can probably trade it for a prize at the end.’ Opet nodded along, the width of the passageway forcing them to walk close together, his shoulder and arm brushing against Hakara’s. ‘Although it is strange that there’s no-one else here. I would have thought there would be a few other groups around. And some of the tasks do seem rather hard. How did you get past the door?’

‘Oh, one of my friends figured something out. She’s pretty good at getting through locked doors. I think it’s this way.’

He turned abruptly, walking down a passageway that didn’t look different from any of the others, although it wound and twisted around a lot before opening up into a circular chamber. The path forward was blocked by was another of the circular doors, although this one was ringed with indentations. It looked like other items were meant to be used as keys, pushed into the crevices to make the door open.

There were several other people there already. They looked up, all looking slightly startled as they walked in. One stood out – a slight figure, wearing armour, but their hands and face were wrapped in strips of fabric, the only skin visible a slightly purple-ish pointed ear, clearly tinted an odd colour by the light in here. Red eyes gleamed out from between the wrappings, and they had weapons sheathed on each hip. The rest of the group were all dressed like Opet – clean but functional armour, and with a collection of over-sized belt-knives, the largest weapons that were allowed in town.

‘Wow, five of you? Normally they don’t let such large groups in at once, because someone does something unexpected and buggers the magic up.’ Sharlan marched past them and approached the door, hands on her hips as she studied it. ‘Yeah, looks like a lock-puzzle, doesn’t it? You guys find anything that might be the key-pieces? The layout this year is really dull. Last year was far better, there was a whole “elemental planes” theme going on, with different rooms being water and air and mud and ash and so on. Even managed to get a fire elemental, that was something to see.’

Opet spoke, looking at the cloth-covered figure. ‘These two were in the treasure room, they helped grab some items from there. They managed to solve the puzzle on the outer door, which is quite impressive, isn’t it?’ He was speaking in a strangely emphatic way, vigorously nodding his head. The red eyes glinted, before a female voice sounded.

‘Any help would be appreciated. There doesn’t appear to be a lock to pick, or anything to force it open.’

‘Well, Hakara’s an expert at this stuff. Aced all her magical theory classes! Now, get over here.’

Hakara slowly approached – the stone underfoot here was more obviously worn and pitted, covered with smooth-sided ripples and dents, almost as though eroded away by some strange and shifting force. Those red eyes stared at her, the figure’s slim body entirely enveloped in armour and cloth, a wisp of silvery hair trickling from underneath. Adventurers were often a little odd – a few passed through her father’s inn sometimes, seeking out Ashfall Keep, but most weren’t this obviously peculiar. Still, she smiled at them, the fabric moving slightly. Were they smiling back? Maybe they’d been cursed in some way, so had an unfortunate appearance. Their voice was quiet, but smooth and precise, without betraying any obvious accent.

‘I wasn’t expecting young Opet to bring friends. But I’m sure an appropriate prize awaits.’

Hakara examined the door. Even without magical knowledge, it was clear that it was made to be opened by the use of specific items, keyed into the magic of the door. The indentations were all a little vague, nothing more than gentle concavities in the stone disc. Experimentally, she tried pushing the wand against one – there was a barely-visible spark, the metal clinging to the stone for a moment before being released. So it was actively checking items, rather than a passive key? Whoever had made this had put more effort in than was really needed, in that case. Given the type of protection that the other door had used, then it was possible that security flaws had been left on this one as well.

‘Sharlan, come here, I want to try something.’

As Sharlan approached, the shrouded woman stepped away, moving over to Opet, the two falling into whispered conversation, not audible as anything other than mumbled whispers. Hakara attempted to analyse the magic of the door – it appeared as a woven web, densely-packed lines atop, between and around each other. The lines should be crisp and clear, but were diffused and cloudy, often fading together into blobby masses. Had some pre-existing security been recycled for this event?

‘Hmmm, I think that might be something to work with. Although I would need to… Yes, maybe, if we could get one of the items. Sharlan, do you remember that lecture we had from Garth Flamebinder? “Advanced Applied Flamecraft”, that one?’

‘A bit? I think I slept through most of it, I’ll be honest. Oh, wait, where he told us about that weird dungeon he had to get through?’ She groaned in recollection. ‘Oh, I get it. We’re going to need pretty good timing, right?’ She looked at the door, trying to judge the distance between the niches. ‘I think I can get most of them?’

‘I can do two, but I’ll need you to do the rest. Opet, could you bring that bracelet over as well? Now, what I need you to do is push both the items against the material binding at the same time, while Sharlan and I will try and use combative casting effects to affect the bound coronal matrix, which should result in a thaumic overload, tripping all of the bindings simultaneously.’

He was staring at her blankly, before Sharlan explained again. ‘Push the items against the notches, we’ll try and do magic and get it open.’

‘That’s what I said!’ She’d tried to be as clear as possible, and surely accuracy was important in such a situation? ‘On three then?’ She moved to stand next to Sharlan, being sure to stay out of the arc of her spread hands, not wanting to get singed. ‘One… Two… Three!’

Opet shoved the items into two adjacent niches, as Hakara conjured up two darts of magic. These shot forward and slammed into two of the niches, as a wide fan of flame washed out from between Sharlan’s fingers. The niches shone with a pale glow, as the magic tried to respond, before the magical lines shifted. It was impressive craftwork, but the lines overlapping as they did meant that a positive reaction from one could be forced into the others, making it react as though all the items were in place.

Dust fell from the roof as the door slowly rolled open. There was another sound beneath it, a strange, rolling, scraping hissing sound, something sliding over stone. Hakara craned her neck, curious to see what was on the other side, then blinked and rubbed her eyes. Darkness, or something more absolute than that – not the absence of light, but the room was void, solid nothingness.

‘Little morsels, such fun to play with!’ This came from behind them. Hakara turned, as a shape emerged from one of the other tunnels – a six-limbed humanoid torso atop a giant serpentine tail, the human part wearing battered and worn battle-armour. A bright golden plume emerged from a peaked helmet covering the thing’s face, each of the hands holding a different sword, but all looked very sharp. The spicy scent intensified, clearly coming from the creature – was that meant to have been a timer or something?

The others started to scrabble towards the newly-opened chamber, as the cloth-wrapped woman drew her swords. Was she part of the show? Although she should have made more of an introduction if she was! Hakara followed them through, as a clash of metal sounded, the woman’s twin swords blocking a cascade of attacks.

Despite the seeming-nothingness that surrounded them, the room had a floor, or at least something to stand on. Distant flecks of light could be seen, gleaming with a cold constancy, like far-distant stars. The only thing in here was a stone podium, that seemed to be floating in the infinite void. As combat raged behind her, she approached, Opet moving ahead of her.

‘There should be a magical crystal or something, see if you can find that!’ Opet was looking around the room furiously.

There was a loud crash, and Hakara looked behind herself to see the woman roll out of the way of an attack, before the snake-tail flicked around and smashed her backwards, knocking her against a wall in a cloud of debris.

The podium was further away than it looked, the darkness making distance hard to judge. And, when they got there, larger than she had thought – at least four paces to a side, a triangular block of white marble sat atop whatever they were standing on (she really hoped an illusion, rather than thin barriers of magical force being the only thing separating them from whatever-it-was beneath and around them).

The side closest to her, the only one fully visible, depicted some kind of progression – a horned and robed figure carried a book (probably a spellbook, to judge by the aura carved around it), and was surveying crouched and respectful masses, all of whom were bowing to them. The following panels depicted the book-bearer in similar positions – feasting while being waited upon, calling up forces from the book to empower their followers. And then disaster of some kind, the followers and supplicants are dead, or otherwise stricken, and laying on their backs. She could see the edge of another panel, this one showing someone carrying something circular in their hands, an orb with a small handle attached.

The top of the podium was worn and pitted, scorch marks marring the otherwise pristine surface. From the patterns of the scorch marks, some items had been present when the flame had been applied – had they missed another puzzle or item room somewhere? Although with the twisting and winding tunnels, it would have been easy to bypass something without even realising! It really was terrible design, at least put up signs or something if there were rooms they were meant to visit!

The sounds of combat intensified, the six weapons weaving and slashing, hemming the woman in before a sword lashed out in a barely-dodged attack. It was impressively done, with a terrifying physicality – had they managed to get some of the senior illusionists to help?

Sharlan reached forward and wiped her finger through the black char, revealing the gleaming white marble beneath. As soon as she touched it, then a spark of flame flashed on her fingertip, getting brightly reflected backwards. Some form of reaction started, more fire getting drawn from her fingertips, a pattern starting to appear, interwoven runes and glyphs. Mercifully, not the Unreadable Tongue, but the shapes were only half-recognisable, close enough to what she knew that she could get the general idea, but it took time and effort to recognise each of them.

Treyf? So that meant a calling. But it was a trefoil split, leading into… That looked like Ulthir and Faran but made into a single symbol. Did it predate the Glottal Consolidation? So that would mean that it could have the focus switched and inverted. Where was the locking helix? If that could be rebound, then…

Sharlan looked at her, as she continued to trace her finger through the ash, using her flame to try and make a fresh mark, the surface resisting her. ‘This stuff’s too tough!’

Hakara went to her pack, quickly picking through the vials and jars, until she found a jar of silver-coloured metal filings stored in oil. She unscrewed it then started to pour over the altar, trying to make the appropriate shape. It wouldn’t pass muster in class, but as long as it worked! It caught light from Sharlan’s finger, burning with a clear white light, sparking for a moment before dying away.

‘You need to do Hurlan, about there! And then an inverted Tanith.’ There was a cry of pain from behind them, as the woman failed to parry an attack, a long-handled sword slicing down her torso. She retaliated by skidding to the side and leaping onto the writhing snake body, plunging both her swords into it, before the tail whipped around and sent her flying, smashing her into a wall in a cloud of dust and debris.

Hakara tried to work ahead of Sharlan’s finger, trying to make sure the patterns she laid were far enough apart to catch light in the right order. Other marks were starting to glow from beneath the ash, as whatever they were doing had some effect. And then the symbols flipped, the empty void around them rippling as something ripped, and they started to fall through space.