Ben glanced down at his map and the screenshot he’d overlaid on it. He’d taken the screenshot back in Fort Blackwood of the empty shelf were the necromancer books should’ve been for sale. Thanks to a stupid law, something about a prince being killed, they weren’t available for sale, but Ben had known that wouldn’t stop the practice entirely. Just like any other outlawed activity, it would’ve gone underground.

Most of the scratches looked random, like they’d occurred from years of people handling the books on the shelf, but a small grouping near the center had caught his eye. Once he’d adjusted the tint of the photo, he knew he’d been right, had started grinning and humming as he left the store. Those scratches clearly depicted a series of mountains and trees, with a star in one corner and a tower in another. Near the bottom the of the map was a small ‘x’.

It had taken some finagling to get the map to line up, but once he’d figured out the some and panned the picture around a bit, the star had lined up with Torial and the small tower with Fort Blackwood.

That meant ‘x’ marks the spot.

Once the siege on Torial had started, he decided it was time to solve the mystery. He’d left Shiro and the others to find the new settlement and set out on his own.

Ben glanced back at the sound of grunts and swords slashing through the underbrush. He sighed. The orcs were still following him, even after running nonstop for days to try and shake them. Once this was over, Ben intended to track down whoever had programmed the orcs and choke them. Not to kill them. No, just enough to make sure they understood how annoying the orcs were. Then, he’d tar and feather them. After that, he’d come up with a few other methods of torture to drive the point home.

He summoned Fido and waved at the orcs. He doubted Fido would do much damage, though he might get lucky and Fido would kill one of them. In reality, Fido would probably just slow them down enough for him to find his destination.

According to the map, he was still slightly west of the ‘x’, which would put it somewhere in the valley below him. He wasn’t surprised, considering the valley stood out from the rest of the landscape like a sore thumb. More like a broken thumb. A thick mist obscured most of the view into it, but what he could see of the valley were dead tree limbs sticking out and a few bogs of a thick, bubbling liquid.

He passed through the mist, half expecting it to poison him, and into the eerie silence beyond where the only sounds were the crunch of dead grass beneath his feet and his own breathing. He stepped gingerly to keep from falling into the bogs as he navigated the fallen logs and gnarled roots sticking out of the ground. The mist swirled in patches around him, forcing him to check his map to make sure he was heading in the right direction. He found himself turned around on several occasions, heading back towards the way he came, with no idea how it happened.

“Leave now or die.”

Ben jumped at the sudden noise. He turned quickly in a circle trying to find the speaker, but the words had come from all around him at once and the mist obscured everything past ten paces. He shivered, failing to convince himself it was only because of the cold, as he licked his lips, “I found the clue leading me here.”

“There is only death here.” The voice replied.

“I know,” Ben said, “That’s why I’m here. I want to be a necromancer.”

The voice didn’t immediately respond. Ben waited, his head on a swivel, for several seconds. It felt like an eternity in that place. When it did speak, all it said was, “Prove yourself worthy.”

The mist swirled around him, thickening as it did so, until he could barely see his hands. The sound of explosions filled the air around him followed by rattling noises. He recognized the sound, had heard it dozens of times over the last few days, and drew his sword. It was the sound Fido made as he burst from the ground. The sound of his bones rattling as he walked.

What was he supposed to do? Kill them all? There had to be dozens of the creatures, if not hundreds of them, forming around him. Or maybe he needed to summon his own skeleton warrior? He’d have to wait for the cooldown timer before he could summon Fido again. He’d be dead long before that happened if the skeletons decided to attack. Except, that didn’t feel right. He was here to learn how to do magic like this, not fight against them.

He glanced at the map. He was close to the ‘x’ on the map, but not quite there yet. Did he need to reach the destination? It made more sense than trying to kill all the skeletons.

He inched his way forward, feeling each step before putting his weight down. The attack came suddenly, the sword appearing out of the mist a few inches from him before slashing him across the shoulder. His armor deflected most of the damage, but the sudden impact knocked him off balance. He stumbled several steps before a second impact across his other side sent him reeling in the other direction.

Cursing loudly, Ben started swinging his sword around him. His sword connected with unseen enemies hiding in the mist, jarring his arm into numbness, as he walked forward. The skeleton warriors continued attacking him causing his health to plummet as blow after blow materialized out of the mist. He gritted his teeth as pain blossomed with each cut, felt blood flowing down his back and soak through his shirt.

His foot collided with something mid step, sending him sprawling across the ground and his sword clattered away into the mist. He frantically felt around for it as he expected blows to rain down on his back, knowing he wouldn’t survive.

The attacks never materialized.

Confused, Ben pulled himself up to a crouch and waited. A brief swirl in the mist revealed the area around him. A dozen skeletons, all with swords drawn, stood unmoving a few feet from him. Ben found his sword and reached for it. The skeletons reacted the moment his hand touched the sword. He quickly let go of it. The skeletons stopped.

He grabbed the sword and sheathed it as quickly as he could manage. He looked up to find a sword inches from his face. He shuttered as a small laugh escaped his lips. It was a maniacal, evil laugh. It sounded nothing at all like a giggle.

He crawled out from under the sword and stood up. He took a few tentative steps, but the skeletons didn’t move. They only attacked if he was armed. He would’ve never figured it out if he hadn’t tripped. Sheer dumb luck, though he’d never admit it to his friends.

He drank a health potion as he walked, letting the mist swallow up the skeletons in his wake. A few minutes later, he suddenly stepped out of the mist in front of a small cave entrance. He turned around to watch as the swirling mist seemed to collide with an invisible barrier and twist back onto itself.

A pair of torches burned at the entrance to the cave, but they didn’t penetrate far into the cave. Something about the darkness in the cave set his hair standing and sent goosebumps up his arms.

He tried to grab one of the torches, but it wouldn’t budge. He studied it closer before realizing that it was nailed into the bracket. He’d need a hammer to get it loose. Sighing to himself, he rummaged around on the ground until he found a thick stick and tied some dead grass to the end. He made four more, just in case, before lighting one and setting off down the tunnel.

The light from his torch only extended a few feet in front of him, nowhere near as far as it should, and the darkness looked thicker, almost inky, as he walked. The walls had been chiseled out of the stone, the marks from the tools easily visible in the meager torchlight, until the path was just wide enough for two people to walk side by side. A dozen feet in, the tunnel entrance was lost in the darkness.

Further in, the tunnel split. He stared down both paths, raising the torch above his head, but the darkness made it impossible to see more than a few feet. It had to be another puzzle, but he needed to figure out the clue.

He almost resorted to Will’s method of flipping a coin, but thought better of it. Something told him the wrong path would lead to his death and he didn’t want to leave his survival to a coin flip. Not with his luck still at the basic level.

He studied the walls first, but found nothing useful, before deciding to walk back to the entrance to search the area outside. A sizzling, spluttering noise drew him from his thoughts. He glanced up to see the inky blackness had formed a wall a few inches from his torch, which was causing the torch to make the noises as a thin tendril of the darkness reached out to stifle the light.

Ben jerked the torch away from the tendrils and took several steps back. The darkness slowly slid forward. He was trapped.

He backtracked to the split in the tunnel and stared down both directions. He had time before the darkness reached him since it was traveling so slowly, but not much. He had to solve the puzzle.

His eyes fell on the map. He hadn’t bothered closing it, and on a whim, started scrolling across the screenshot. He found the solution, or at least a what he thought could be a solution, a few seconds later. Beneath the ‘x’ was a series of scratches he had originally thought were from a book scraping against the shelf, but now that he was standing at the beginning of what he assumed was a maze, it could also be a map.

He chewed on his lip for a second, debating his options. He could follow the map, what he hoped was a map, could try flipping a coin, or explore the maze blindly. So, hope, luck, and stupidity. He didn’t like the choices but decided on hope. Do not trust to hope. It has forsaken these lands.

He shoved the thought aside as he studied the scratches. There were four entrances to the maze, and no way for him to know which one he had entered through. He selected one at random and set out along the path he traced to the center of the maze. After several splits, the path led to a dead end. Muttering under his breath, he ran back to the entrance. The blackness wall, he’d have to come up with a better name when he wasn’t fighting off panic, had cut the distance to the split by almost half.

He rotated the map to the next possible entrance and set out. This time, it led him to the opening of a small cavern. Glancing at the map, he couldn’t tell if the scratches indicated there was a cavern here, or if it was a random smudge.

After a few tentative steps into the cavern, a large thud behind him told him exactly what had happened. He glanced back anyway, hoping he was wrong, but saw a hidden stone door had blocked the entrance.

He turned back at a second noise, a grating sound, as a dozen hatches in the floor opened. From each hatch, a dark gray hound, their skin covered in festering boils and ooze, climbed out. He scanned the nearest one, pulling up a notification labeling it a ‘Plague Hound’, as he drew his sword.

The hounds growled, their red eyes locking onto him, and bared their teeth. Ben gripped his sword tighter in one hand while casting fireball with the other and threw it at the pack.

The hounds tried to dodge, several leaping clear of the fiery explosion, but a few were too slow to escape and were engulfed in flame. Ben lunged at the nearest, slashing it midair as another charged him. He tried to roll out of the way of the attack, but its jaws clamped on his ankle. It yanked hard, throwing him to the ground and knocking the air out of his lungs, and started shaking him.

The ankle snapped, sending a shooting pain up his leg. Ben swung his sword blindly, cutting the hound across the snout. It yelped in surprise, letting go of his ankle. Ben cast ice shard and released it at the hound. The shards tore through it, killing it instantly.

Another hound leapt at him from the side, grabbing his outstretched arm in its maw. He ignored the notification that popped up, telling him he was diseased, and pommeled it with his hilt. The blow took the creature at the top of its head, crushing its skull.

He tried to cast a spell at an attacking hound, only to find his arm wouldn’t respond to his commands, and swore loudly as he took several steps backwards out of the way.

He swung his sword wildly, forcing the nearest hounds to jump back. He shoved his sword into the ground, digging it into the hard-packed dirt, and tried to summon Fido. A notification popped up telling him the cooldown timer had another fifteen seconds before he could successfully cast it again.

He grabbed his sword in time to stab another wolf midair as it leapt at him. The blade sunk deep, and the dead wolf’s momentum ripped it from his hand.

Ben cast fireball at the center of the pack as he hurried to grab his sword. This time, the hounds dodged, leaping past the fireball and landing close enough to attack. He cried out in surprise, throwing himself backwards against the wall, as their mouth’s snapped shut on empty air.

He threw another fireball, this time at just past his feet, to put a barrier between himself and the hounds. They leapt back, snarling at the fire. Ben reached into his inventory to grab his staff as he rubbed his leg in the dirt to smother the few embers that took hold on his pant leg.

The cooldown timer ran out, and Ben immediately cast Fido behind the hounds. Fixated on him, they ignored the sound behind them. Fido grabbed the nearest hound as he emerged, pulling into in the open grave as he emerged. The ground collapsed back onto itself once Fido was free, burying the hound and leveling up Ben’s spell in the process.

Fido attacked the next hound as Ben downed a health potion. Once his ankle had mended, Ben stood up. The ankle was still tender but could hold some of his weight. Ben attacked, twirling the staff in his hands as fast as he could. Caught as they were between the two, the hounds couldn’t escape the onslaught.

The door slid open after he killed the final hound. Seeing no other way out, Ben backtracked to the tunnel entrance. This time, the darkness wall was only a few feet from the split.

Ben studied the map. He shifted between the two remaining options and tracing a path to the center of the maze along each. The first took the path he was currently on, while the second required the other. Sighing, Ben reached into his pouch and pulled out a coin.

He decided the path he was on was heads and the other as tails. He flipped the coin, landing on tails.

He pressed himself against the stone wall as he worked his way to the other path, the darkness now only a few inches from his back. The tendrils reached out, sending icy shivers down his spine wherever they touched him and sending his health plummeting. Once on the other side, he pulled out his last health potion and swallowed it as he followed the map.

The path split a dozen times, each leading him deeper into the maze, until he breathed a sigh of relief as he turned the final corner on the map and heard the words, “Welcome, new apprentice, to the Academy of the Arcane Arts.”