The last hour of Iniya Kintala’s life went like this.

Her party had recently finished clearing the third and final level of the Temple of Xyurn, which was supposed to house a significant clue to the location of the artifact The Fellowship of Wood and Silence had been seeking for the past three months, the object of the world quest: the Shadow Lance. This last chamber was the throne room, and the clue should have been here, according to her sage Tolman.

But there was no sign of any clues. None at all. No scrolls, no journals, nothing etched into a wall, not even a gargoyle with a riddle.

“Check again,” Iniya said.

Tolman shook his head. “I checked my notes three times. This is the spot. It has to be. This is the only freaking throne room in here.”

“I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to Wainwright.”

The scout had been wiping his short sword clean on a tapestry. But now he looked up. “You want me to inspect the whole room again?”

“Yes.”

“That will take another hour,” he whined.

“You have someplace else you’d rather be?”

“Matter of fact, yes. The Scarlet Pig is supposed to unveil its new brew tonight.”

Iniya sighed. “You guys think this is another dead end?”

“Seems like it.” Andi prodded the corpse of the gigantic centaur boss they had just dispatched. Black blood pooled around the corpse and reflected the light of their torches.

“What about the rest of you?” Iniya looked over at Callum, her enchanter, and Mariel, her healer who were lounging around, sitting on their backpacks. “Are we wasting our time here?”

They didn’t respond, and Iniya wondered if she was coming off as too much of a bitch. The memory of her last performance review from Lazarus was still fresh. He hadn’t described it as ‘bitchiness’ per se, but still…

“I never said we were wasting our time,” Wainwright muttered. “I just think your information might be wrong.”

Tolman’s eyes flashed. “It’s not. And I’m not. There should be something here. A treasure room with the next clues. My lore’s at 211.”

“So you keep reminding us,” Wainwright said.

“You have any skill over 200, bro? Huh?”

Andi walked over to the sage. Iniya knew she and Wainwright were pretty close and the big warrior was kind of protective. She gave Tolman a playful shove. “My asshole detection is at 250 and it’s pinging like hell right now.”

“Knock it off, guys,” Iniya said. “Executive decision. We search for thirty more minutes. All of us.”

Everyone grumbled, but they all reluctantly got to their feet.

The throne room was made of carved stone and was easily forty feet by forty feet. The only way in or out was through the double doors to the south. Close to the north wall was a dais upon which stood the throne itself, a blocky oversized seat made of metal that looked like it had come from a meteorite. It was square and tall with all sorts of sharp angles.

Andi called over to Callum. “Yo, perhaps you could light us up, so we’re not having to juggle torches while we look.”

“Uh, sure.” The enchanter looked around the room for a suitable target for his illumination spell. “What about on that pillar?”

“Whatever, dude.”

Callum spoke the incantation and gestured at the top of one of the half dozen floor-to-ceiling carved stone pillars that ringed the dais. A glowing sphere of light the size of a softball winked into existence and then floated through the air and attached itself to the top of one of the pillars. Callum spoke another word and glowing sphere grew to the size of a basketball and became so bright it was hard to look at.

“Better,” Andi said.

Everyone extinguished their torches and Mariel collected them all and wrapped them in a leather bundle. In addition to being their healer, she was the party’s torch-bearer, a job that no one ever wanted.

“Uh, do we want to keep these?” Mariel asked in her low, gravelly voice which never ceased to irritate Iniya. Vocal fry, it was called. Ugh. How could anyone talk like that?

Now that there was some better light, they all spread out to search the room properly, although Iniya knew that Wainwright was the only one who had a decent inspect skill. The chances of anyone else finding anything were slim.

Suddenly, Iniya felt the floor rumble beneath her. A deep muffled sound echoed throughout the throne room, like some ancient creaking machinery set in motion.

“I just touched it…” Mariel said. She was backing away from the throne which trembled, shedding dust and shards of black stone. The rumbling got louder as the throne sunk into the ground.

They all crowded around the hole in the middle of the dais. It was more of a pit or a shaft, six feet wide, and pitch black inside. Callum’s illumination spell didn’t light up more than a few feet down.

“Good one, Mariel,” Iniya said.

Wainwright got down on his hands and knees and felt around the perimeter of the pit.

“I’m not detecting any traps. This could be it.” He looked up at Tolman.

The sage just shrugged. “I told you guys.”

“Callum, throw some light down there,” Iniya said. “We’re going down, kids.”

The enchanter cast another illumination spell. This time the glowing ball floated down the shaft.

Wainwright squinted, following the orb’s progress. Iniya knew that he had the best vision of all of them.

“Twenty five… thirty five…”

“That’s one deep mo-fo,” Andi said.

“I think I see spikes,” Wainwright said. “Yeah. Definitely spikes. At the bottom.”

“Makes sense,” Tolman said. “Typical argish construction.”

“Where did the throne go?” asked Mariel.

Wainwright said, “There’s a passage down there. The throne must have slid to one side.”

“Pretty intricate,” Callum said. “I can float you down if you want. I’ve got a little spell power left.”

Wainwright looked over at Iniya for his orders.

She shrugged at him. “Go ahead take a look. But rope up. Just in case there’s an anti-magic plate down there. I don’t want to have to pick your guts off of those spikes.”

“That makes two of us.”

“And don’t touch anything.”

“I never do. Not in my job description.”

Andi helped secure a hundred-foot silken line around Wainwright’s waist and then she tied the other end around one of the pillars.

“I’ll feed your line,” she said.

“Ready?” Callum asked.

“Let’s do this,” Wainwright said.

As Iniya watched, the enchanter cast his float spell on Wainwright who grinned like an idiot, saluted her, then stepped off the edge of the shaft. The spell allowed the scout to drift down into the shaft at a safe rate, like he was falling in slow motion.

“Wuss,” Andi called after him. “In the old days you would have climbed down yourself. Blindfolded.” She fed out the line as he sunk lower into the shaft.

A minute later, Wainwright called up. “I’m in!”

“What do you see?” Iniya called.

“Just as I thought. East/west passage. Throne’s blocking the west. East is clear for as far as I can see—which isn’t far.”

“Ok. Don’t move. We’re all coming down.”

“I’ll spike the rope.”

The sound of clanging and banging echoed up from the depths of the shaft. It went on for what seemed like ten minutes. Finally, Wainwright announced that the rope was secure at his end.

“Do I have to go?” Mariel asked, in her Mariel voice. “My climbing skill, uh, sucks.”

“I have enough for one more float,” Callum said. “But then I’ll be totally tapped out. How long are we going to be hanging out here?”

Iniya glared at him. “Until we find the freaking clue, Callum. You okay with that?”

“Just asking.”

“No floating. Mariel you stay. But keep your eyes open for wanderers.”

“What about me?” Tolman asked. “I don’t have great climbing either.”

“Well, then be careful. We need you down there to identify crap.”

Andi said, “You can follow me. That way if you fall I can grab you. Maybe.” She laughed.

One by one they roped up and made their way down the shaft. Iniya first, then Andi, Tolman, and then finally Callum.

They all huddled in the passage way while Wainwright fished in his bag for some glowstones. Stupidly, they forgot to bring down the torches. The scout offered to climb back up, but Iniya was eager to get going. She could tell everyone was kind of worn out.

“Let’s do this. Standard order,” Iniya said.

They all got in position. Wainwright up front, checking for traps. Iniya next with a few glowstones looped to her staff for light. Then Callum, Tolman, and Andi bringing up the rear.

The passage was narrower than all the other ones in this dungeon, maybe just six feet wide and six feet tall, but the walls and floor and ceiling were perfectly smooth, like they had been polished. It reminded Iniya of something, but she didn’t know what.

Tolman ran his fingers along the wall. He noticed something too.

“Good thing we don’t have torches,” he said. “I think this is oil.”

“Fire trap?” she asked Wainwright.

The scout took a few tentative steps forward. “I don’t think so. There would be more combustibles.”

“Are we moving or what?” Andi called from the back. “I’m getting claustrophobic.”

“Yeah, hang on a sec…” Something was definitely off here, Iniya thought.

And then she felt the rumbling again. And an image popped into her head: the barrel of her father’s shotgun.

“Run!” she screamed.

She didn’t get more than a few steps before the massive metal throne slammed into her like a locomotive.

And then everything went black.