Chapter 43: Hourglass Sandfall

“Sphinx of Black Quartz, judge my vow.”

I inched backward to gain a fuller view of the giant black statue, waiting for her reply.

With another clashing like frosty glass crushing and crumbling in a titan’s grip, the statue moved like melted gems to take a lounging, stretched out repose. Her paws loomed to either side of me; sentries poised to deal with wrong answers.

“Speak your vow, Gnarlroot the Eld,” she hummed.

As if stimulated by the honey-deep tone of the Sphinx’s voice, my bees rattled their wings, harmonizing with her tones.

My honeycomb was glowing a dim neon grey, and it brought me a sense of ease and sharp tranquility of mind.

“I vow to protect Realms of Lore as best I can,” I said, clear and assured.

“I require more specificity,” said the Sphinx, calm, but the copper brilliance of her eye slats dulled a degree.

“We’re going to put an end to Telemoon,” said Azwold, “and we’re going to discover how a spirit got trapped here. How to set Eld’s story right.”

“Azwold,” said the Sphinx. “Level 36 Spirit Mage. I am afraid this vow is not yours to make or give.”

“His words seem wise,” I said. “I revise my vow to include them.”

The Sphinx of Black Quartz rose from the flat dirt to stare down at us, like a cat inspecting a stunned mouse.

We had no other recourse but to stand and await judgement.

The massive statue of dark gem-stuff twisted her head from side to side, crystalline whiskers thick as broomsticks rattled and clattered. She then raised a paw, revealing toe beans like little alluvial boulders. She groomed her paw, exposing an amethyst tongue; a grating, rib-rattling lick.

Then she looked down at me. “I judge your vow... acceptable. But only just.”

A whirl of dust swept up all around us, cycling the Sphinx’s circumference and halfway up her quartz form. There was an obscuring haze.

When the gentle tempest died and the dust settled, the statue had shrunk to its original form; like a forbidden mount, never to be navigated away from its one and only place.

We watched the sandy tendrils ebb their way around the statue’s rear where the path continued, curving around the dark shape and floating away from us.

“Proceed,” came the statue’s last whisper before it resumed an indeterminate period of silence and stillness.

Realizing I had laced my finger bones together in an anticipatory clasp, I unlaced them. I bowed my head, trying to process the experience. I walked around the statue, but near enough to it to run a hand along its flank and haunch, to affirm its solid state, perhaps.

I looked back and saw that Azwold had not yet taken his gaze from her, expectant. He stole a glance at me.

“That’s it?” he said.

“It would appear so.”

“Where’s the key?”

“It is a key that is not a key,” I reminded him.

“You understand how unhelpful that is, right?” He strode to join me.

I stared at the stone walls on either side of the continuing pathway, tall as a two taverns leaning above a dusty alley. The tail end of wending sand tendrils led us, always a few strides ahead as we left the Sphinx behind.

“I do not think we can rely on logic alone for this stage of the quest,” I said.

“Probably right.”

In the shade of high walls on either side, things darkened as we walked. I stretched my arms as wide as they might go and reckoned I could touch both cold stone walls simultaneously if I dislocated all my arm and shoulder joints. I imagined walking along a fault line, spanning the gap between sleeping tectonic plates with my hands.

The time of day was difficult to discern, but I saw a trickling curtain of autumn-colored light ahead. When we stepped out into the fading daylight falling in from above, we found another arena, but square this time.

And then we beheld a proper wonder in an already wondrous world.

The Hourglass Sandfall spilled from the corners of the square above, each corner carved to serve as a pour spout. Sand spilled in and I marveled. After long moments of simply watching, looking, questioning; I saw that diagonally opposing corners of the square above us poured in to join as one ribbon of a double helix, bending only once in the middle before cascading into a chasm below whose depth was impossible to guess. The haze forced mirage-like imaginings of what was down there.

“This really is something, ain’t it? But we can’t stand here gawping at it all day, or night,” said Azwold, glancing up. The blood orange of fading day gave way to the grey-blue of dusk.

Torch flames the color of sphinx eyes sprung alive just ahead of us on either side. We walked between them and up to a low railing that served as a comically inefficient safety fence.

“So then,” I said. “A key that is not a key. Thoughts?”

“Honestly, I thought this was a dungeon. It’s a lot like Alkali Hollow was; not much in the way of enticing Spirit Mage loot. It’s why I’ve never been. Yet. You’d think they’d add more loot to epic questline objectives...”

[Warning RoL denizens. Time’s up.]

“What the…?” said Azwold, swiping a hectic finger over his tablet’s glass for an answer. A countdown timer appeared on it.

“Another stupid countdown? Good gods… Twenty seconds to figure this out, Eld. I can’t believe I couldn’t find more info! There was barely a mention of this place in Grandfather’s Journal.”

A sliver of moonlight slunk over the stone from above. Several seconds ticked silently by as the silver light edged to land upon me.

Belvan’s [Hourglass Talisman] appeared, hanging translucently around my neck. The sand inside was a similar neon grey as I was used to. I held the Hourglass up to bathe it more fully in dim, crescent moonlight. I watched the grains swirl within.

“Eld...” said Azwold feebly.

Then I watched his avatar whisk away like pixelated purple sand.

I held my hand up. The bones fragmented, existing in a world on the verge of disappearing.

Several luminescent orbs swept over the edges above and came swirling into the sand and out to me. I floated up. A squad of faeries held me like a blanket to be hung on a clothesline.

At first I was awash in flowing particles, dust, and disorientation; a turbulent burial. And then it was different. I was part of the flowing, falling at the same speed as the sand. I may not have known I was falling at all except for the air between sand bits.

The sand grew thicker as I fell, more liquid. It became a hill, and I rode it, sliding like a winter child without his toboggan.

I was deposited onto a stone floor, tumbling and grinding to a halt on the gritty cobbles.

It was pitch dark, so I cast [Spell: Vision Wisps III], and the space revealed itself to me. I was in a dungeon. As the mage had suspected.

Before me, I saw a hallway leading to a T branch, dark bricks choked with moss and curtained above with cobwebs.

Delightful.

Even accompanied by my full five person party, we would fall short of the minimum level requirement to tackle this dungeon. Was I meant to fight my way through alone? I had to assume that the fae had tossed me down the sandy chasm for a reason. Mayhap it was naught but a hasty measure?

I contemplated standing still at the start, waiting out the shutdown duration in relative safety. It seemed folly to attempt a dungeon alone.

I stood at the Hourglass Sandfall dungeon’s start point for a time, stewing over events and debating with myself about what to do. Or what not to do. Long enough for things to gain a surreal flavor.

I glanced behind me at what looked like a beach cave-in through the solid mountain stone. It reminded me of the oubliette where I had found my lost hand. The last cell’s sandy corner was a miniature replica.

I decided that having a look down the corridor—a mere peek—would not alter my state of safety. I could assess what initial threats the dungeon might pose.

I went over my current spell list and what Trojainous had chosen for me. Though most of my abilities were useful, I would have spent them differently. I indulged myself in a momentary daydream of clearing my points and spending them as I wished.

I had several new abilities since power leveling up to level 35, one of which was called [Spell: Incorporeal]. Trojainous had maxed out [Spell: Acid Spit III], to try his experiment on melting the Caustic Cube, but he had put two points into my Ectoplasm tree at the same level 25 tier. At 2nd level, [Spell: Incorporeal II] allowed me to reduce my threat level to zero and allowed me 5 seconds to escape any hostile attacker’s aggro zone.

This knowledge spurred me to investigatory action. I was at full mana and was at near full health. My passive regen would top me up by the time I met anything that might damage me further, or so I hoped.

And so I went, inspecting the mossy brick wall which pathed off either right or left around corners. I could not determine the best way. Or if they led the same place or different ones.

I recalled a sign I once read in a dungeon: “70% of players go left at this juncture,” or something like that. It was not useful information at the time, and it was not useful now either. Besides, it may have been right, not left.

Moreover, I had heard that nineteen percent of statistics are made up on the spot, anyway. Or was it seventeen?

I needed to guess. With thoughts of the oubliette, my left hand came to mind. I chose that direction.

The inky black persisted. I moved as quietly as I could, unable to attain a proper stealth state. I simply tried to be quiet. I wondered whether deep darkness was typical in this dungeon or if it were a function of the server being offline. The dungeon’s persistent existence was curious. The rest of the Realm had snapped out of existence. Beyond curious.

I realized I was as bad as the Mage, letting curiosity drive me into tricky situations. I had escape options if danger sniffed me out, but that knowledge did little to assuage my growing uncertainty. Delving too far alone was unwise.

I thought I heard a soft skittering, or a hiss so faint it may have been a feather falling. If I had indeed heard something, it was impossible to guess a distance. My vision wisps allowed me perfect night vision, but even so, the tenebrous haze of the claustrophobic stonework around me did not make vision a straightforward thing.

A solid wall appeared ahead, a corner, a ninety-degree turn. I would have only the slightest bit of cover versus anything waiting around the bend. If a monster’s programming told it to fix its gaze on that spot, to lie in wait, it would see me.

[Spell: Acid Spit III] was the only good damage spell the Telemoon Spirit Mage had chosen for me, which was nice, but as I progressed in levels I had grown to understand the value of an effective offensive. I might survive an ambush temporarily, but not forever. I could not kill fast enough.

Silencing my inner debate, I took a peek.

And instantly shrank up against the mossy wall, wishing I had not looked.

Spiders. Giant ones, hanging creepily in webworks and lurking among dark things. Dead things, I reckoned.

It had been no auditory hallucination. Hissing and skittering echoed around the stone and brick corner. I wasted a few nonexistent heartbeats making futile calculations. Had the sounds increased in number or volume? And how long to wait before casting [Spell: Incorporeal II]?

If I cast it too early and the spiders had not locked aggro onto me, then it would be on cooldown. I would be vulnerable. If I waited too long, a chitinous arm covered in sparse bug fuzz could creep around the corner and snag me faster than reason. Mayhap I should leave them be.

I wondered if casting it preemptively could prevent threat locking altogether. I could just cast it and run back to the sandy hill to sit and wait out my downtime interlude.

I glanced up. It was a bad move.

One of the monstrous arachnids was sagging from the stonework corner, working its alien mouthparts and gazing into my core with its overabundance of eyes. Pale and cloudy, they needed no light to see.

I emitted a wail and ran for the entrance, attempting a hasty [Spell: Incorporeal II]. My form went intangible and translucent. I stole a look back and saw the creature wiggling in an unsavory way.

Another crept around the corner, tasting the dank air with unfathomable types of receptors. Then more came.

I ran faster. Maybe if I focused on one spider—causing all the harm I could in the shortest order possible—I might hold the others at bay and regenerate just fast enough to kill a second one the same way.

But the monsters continued to filter into the corridor; more spider mass per square inch than the hallway should have been able to accommodate.

Doom loomed.