Darian looks around the entryway. Ahead of him is a long hallway with symbols about fifteen feet up the twenty-foot walls. The symbols appear every ten feet and should supply enough light to explore. The walls appear to be constructed of the same material the entrance was made of, but they’re in much better shape. The floor and ceiling are more of the same, but the floor feels warm to the touch.

Feeling confident that he is at least safe for the moment, Darian checks his arms. He runs his hands up and down his arms and feels only minor pain. “That’s weird. I flew pretty far after getting hit by that statue. My arms should be broken. Is it because I shielded my arms in energy before the blow? How much of a beating can I take now?” He wipes blood away from his eyes and touches the gash on his head. A sharp pain tells him it’s best not to touch it. “Shame I didn’t shield my head too.”

Darian leans against the wall. “Okay, let’s think about my options. Going back out is well… out. I like my insides where they are and outrunning statues that can vanish and reappear isn’t going to happen. How do they do that, anyway? Is it the spears? Could I do that if I had one of their spears? Probably not worth thinking about.” He looks further down the hallway. “I could explore, but I honestly have no idea what’s down here. Nobody told me there was a dungeon in the middle of The Ell Woods. I could run into anything. Animals, monsters, or even more statues. However, it’s not like I can sit here and wait out the statues. I’m going to need food and water, eventually. Actually, how long has it been since I had something to drink? My throat is unbearably dry. Maybe there is some down here, or maybe even a way out.” Darian nods his head decisively. “That settles it then. Time to explore.”

Darian stands up and begins walking down the hallway. However, after a few steps, his vision blurs, and he stumbles against the wall. Leaning against the wall, he tries to right himself but slips and collapses on the floor. His vision darkens and thinking becomes difficult. He tries to stay awake, but sleep takes him.

Darian’s eyes shoot open and dart around the hallway. “What happened? Did I pass out?” He sits upright and puts his hand to his head. “Huh, the gash is gone. It healed that quick? Come to think of it, my leg healed pretty quickly after the hooded guy cut it too.” His thoughts drift to his home and his parents. He remembers the shock on his father’s face the night of the fire, when he saw Darian’s cuts and bruises from training had disappeared. Darian chuckles as he tries to hold back tears. “Maybe all I need to heal is a good nap. Seems to be the case, so far.”

Darian gets to his feet and says aloud, “Well, time to move on. Mom said she wanted me to grow tall. Gotta survive to do that. But, hey, I’m already making good progress on that. Grew a few inches while asleep back in the woods. A few more nights, and maybe I would be as tall as father.”

He wipes his eyes and moves forward. A few minutes into his walk and he’s getting impatient. “Why haven’t I seen any doorways? Surely this can’t just be a hallway into nothing. Where does it lead? I’ve been walking for a while, but I haven’t seen anything. Maybe I missed something? I should turn back for now and rethink this.” Darian turns around and begins walking back.

Thirty minutes later, Darian is panicking. “Where is it? Where is the entrance? I’ve been walking for at least three times as long as I walked away from it. I should be back by now. I can’t be lost. It’s not possible, it’s just a hallway! It has to be around here somewhere.” Darian takes off running.

An hour later, Darian is sitting against the wall, talking to himself. “That’s it, then. I’m going to die, lost in an endless hallway, in a dungeon that shouldn’t exist, in The Ell Woods. I’ve searched the walls, I’ve walked both ways, I even tried pleading with the hallway. There’s not much else I can do. I need to calm down and think this through.”

Darian exhales slowly. He places his hands together and forms his path. His focus drifts toward his center as he feels his natural aura surrounding him. He senses the ambient energy flowing through the hallway as it passes over him. He opens himself to the energy, and it swirls around him in return, almost seeming to test him. His aura moves to connect with the ambient energy. He begins to absorb the energy, almost instinctively, but quickly resists the urge and instead adds his energy to the ambience. He feels as if he’s connected to the hallway itself.

Darian opens his eyes. In front of him, where there was once a wall, there is now a doorway. Through the other side lies a large dark room with a glowing sphere of blue liquid floating above a square fountain in the center of the room. Eight large spikes flank the fountain at each corner. The spikes jut out of the ground and ceiling diagonally, facing the fountain. Liquid slowly drips from each spike and joins the sphere floating at the center. Whether the spike slants down or up, the liquid flows down the spike and joins the sphere at the same pace as the others. Darian quickly gets to his feet and walks through the doorway. “I am not missing my chance to get out of here.”

As he walks into the room, symbols lining the walls light up. Darian flinches and waits. After a few moments of nothing happening, he takes a look around the room. “No exits and no food, but at least it looks like there’s water… As strange as this water is. How is it floating there? Actually, why is it floating there? Well, it’s not a statue, so I think I’m good.” Darian steps closer and reaches out to touch it. To his surprise, the sphere does the same. A portion of the sphere stretches outward as if drawn to Darian. However, as soon as it moves, Darian jumps backwards to a safe distance of ten feet away. The sphere returns to its resting position.

Darian stays low and ready to dodge again if need be. “What was that? It’s clearly not water. Well, it was actually kind of clear before since water doesn’t float, but I don’t really want to touch it anymore.” Darian looks back to the doorway. “Other options include the unending hallway… Strange water, then.”

Darian walks forward, and once again reaches out to touch the sphere. The surface of the sphere bends and stretches towards him like before, but this time, Darian does not jump backwards. He closes his eyes as the water touches his hand. “Oddly warm and thick. It doesn’t feel like water at all.” Darian tries to pull his hand away, but the liquid holds firm. The sphere slowly begins to pull Darian closer to its center as the liquid covers more of Darian’s arm. “I regret touching it now!”

He pulls more of his energy to cover himself as he pulls with all his might. However, no matter how much he resists, he continues to slide closer and closer to the sphere. His entire arm becomes engulfed as the sphere begins to swallow him. The liquid reaches his neck and Darian holds his breath. Soon after, he is completely pulled into the sphere and is unable to escape. He thrashes and swirls, but he does not move from the center of the sphere. After a few moments of struggling, the sphere begins to light up. He closes his eyes.

The sphere disappears, and Darian falls to the floor. He sucks in air as he lies on the cold ground. “Never again. I refuse to touch anything strange ever again.” After catching his breath, Darian looks around. “Where am I?” Looking around the room, Darian sees everything has changed. The large room with spikes that he found himself in before, has been replaced by a even larger dark room. Grandiose carved pillars are positioned evenly throughout the room, accented by red banners with black moons stitched into them. The banners are long and detailed, but slightly worn from either age or misuse. A banner is hanging in front of each pillar. On the walls are more symbols, similar to the symbols in the hallway, that are glowing a faint purple. The purple light is just barely sufficient to see throughout the room.

Darian sits up and continues to look around in confusion. “I don’t understand. How did I get here? Also, why am I dry?” He pats himself down before standing up and examining the room closer. In the center of the room, is a pedestal, though, nothing lies on it. At the end of the room is a large metal door. Darian places his feet beneath him and stands tall. “Well, nothing to do but move forward. Definitely not touching the pedestal, though.”

Darian heads to the large metal door at the end of the room. He walks beneath the banners and past the pillars. He walks beside the pedestal and takes a better look. On the front of the pedestal is an inscription, but he can’t read the language. “Nothing I recognize.” He turns back to the metal door and walks to it. He stares at the door. One spot in particular keeps his attention. A bloody handprint. “It looks dry, which is good, I think, but it being there at all is definitely bad.” He puts his ear against the door. He hears men talking.

With his ear pressed against the door, he notices they are speaking his language. Darian hears one man speaking loudly, “Nothing. Seriously, not a thing. How is that possible? Not even corpses? When Blue Velvet investigated this place, they reported the dungeon was infested with goblins, right? Or am I misremembering?”

Another man speaks up, “No, that’s what they reported. Their disappearance and no corpses makes this really creepy. I mean, it gives me goosebumps. And big ones at that. I have a hard time imagining that whatever is going on with this dungeon, has nothing to do with the demon killed in town.”

In a barely audible tone, a third man offers a warning, “Wait, see that on the floor? Blood. Looks like it’s leading to that door. On me and stay alert.”

Darian hears footsteps approaching his room, leading him to back away from the door and dart behind one of the nearby pillars. He slinks into the shadows and watches the door. A group of four armored men steps through the door. Two in the front holding a sword and shield each, one in the middle holding a long spear, and one in the back holding a bow. All of them covered in steel armor. “This group could give Lord Rainald’s Guards a run for their money.”

The four men slowly stalk into the room, carefully watching every corner. Darian observes them as they stay in formation while slowly exploring the room. The group fans out. The two swordsmen go left and the other two go right. Darian realizes it’s only a matter of time until he gets spotted. He needs to decide what he will do. “Should I run for it? I should be able to outrun them, but I don’t know what it looks like outside that door. Though my energy vision should make picking the right routes a little easier. I could step out and talk to them, but I don’t know what they will do. They seem like adventurers, but that doesn’t mean they won’t just kill me. I need to decide before they find me though.”

After a brief moment, Darian, covered in blood, and loose scraps of clothes, steps out into the light. “Uh, hello?”

The four men immediately turn to face him and the bowman draws his bow, ready to loose his arrow. The four of them stare at Darian for a moment before one swordsman speaks up. “Hold!”

The bowman looks over at the swordsman before removing the tension on his string. The swordsman steps forward. He is wearing full steel plate armor with golden embroidery in the shape of a hawk. He walks to about twenty feet away from Darian and points his sword at him. “Explain yourself, child. What are you doing here and who are you?”

It’s been mere moments since he revealed himself, and Darian has already run into a problem. “Telling them who I am should be fine, but will they actually believe my story of how I got here. Hell, I don’t even know where here is. Should I lie? Say something like ‘I don’t know how I got here. Please, I’m scared.’ I doubt that would work, though. I’m no good at lying. Well, I’ll try the truth and if that doesn’t work, I’ll move on to Plan B. At this distance I can tell he is connected, but he has less energy than me. I doubt he can use strong evocation. If the others are similar to him, I should be able to outrun them easily.”

Darian looks down at the man’s sword before responding, “My name is Darian. I was exploring a dungeon near Elwood and I somehow ended up here.”

The man looks to the swordsman to his rear before looking back at Darian. “Elwood? Truly? That’s about a month’s travel from here.”

Darian cannot hide his shock. “A month? How did I get here then? Shit, now I definitely look suspicious.” Darian prepares an excuse, but the man cuts him off.

“I have a follow-up question for you, child. When did you arrive in this dungeon?”

Darian notices the man with the spear sneaking up behind him around thirty feet back. “He’s also connected.” Darian pretends to not notice and focuses on the swordsman “I umm… I just got here.”

The swordsman nods. “So you came from Elwood to here, today?”

“Yes.”

“Unfortunate. Elwood has been smoking pile of ash for over six months.”

“What? But, I was just there. I… How did it burn down?”

The man looks over at the bowman for a moment before looking back to Darian. “It was one of the first towns attacked by The Empire.”

Darian notices the bowman draw back his arrow before loosing it. The arrow soars straight towards Darian’s head, but he ducks under it at the last moment. At the same time, the spearman dashes in from behind, intending to pierce through Darian’s back, but Darian sidesteps it, turns to face the door, and bursts forward in a mad dash to escape.

Just as he reaches the door, a well-built woman, with steel plates fashioned onto her arms, legs, and torso, walks into sight from behind the doorway. Darian immediately notices she is connected, and a decent amount stronger than him. Her eyes go wide as she sees Darian dashing past her, but she reacts too slowly to grab him. Darian runs into the connecting room and is greeted by a room much worse off than the one he started in. Scraps of wood cover the floor and the walls are beginning to crumble. It’s as if he is in a completely different dungeon again. However, he keeps running.

As he closes in on the doorway to the next room, the woman from before leaps over him from behind and bounces off the wall in front of him. She then lands defiantly in front of the only exit with a smirk on her face. “You’re pretty fast. Are you one of the demons the town’s been talking about?”

Darian sees the four men have caught up and realizes the only way out is through her. He doubts he can handle her though. “No, I just got here, so I don’t know what they’re talking about.”

“Is that so?” She looks over at the man with the golden embroidery. “Thomas, what’s the situation here?”

“We found him in the next room over. He claims he’s from Elwood and was there today. He said he just found himself here after exploring a dungeon in Elwood.”

She looks back to Darian with a smile on her face. “Wow, that’s quite the tale. It holds an impressive amount of problems with it though.” She looks him up and down. “Tell me, lad, how old are you, hmm?”

Darian thinks to himself. “I have no idea how much time has passed since I entered The Ell Woods. So many things don’t match up. Assuming only six months have passed since I entered the forest, I would be twelve, but I’m not sure…”

Darian looks up at her and mumbles, “I’m not sure.”

Her eyes go wide. She looks at him suspiciously before bursting out laughing. “He says, ‘I’m not sure.’ How ridiculous! I love it.” She looks back down at him as he blushes. “Lad, even a five-year-old knows how old they are! Oh, I know! How many are you? Go on, show me with your hands!”

Darian flips her off.

Her laughter echos throughout the dungeon. “I like this kid. That settles it. Tie him up, we’re taking him to Alice. She’ll be able to tell if he’s a demon… Probably.”

The bowman speaks up. “What if he attacks her? Is this not unwise?”

“I’ll watch over him until she’s certain.”

The bowman seems content with that answer.

She looks over the group. “Well? Who’s got rope? Tie him up, so we can get the hell out of here.”