Blackstone Tower

I never take thieves with me when I explore dungeons. My character is usually strong enough to weather any trap, so I didn’t need anyone to disarm them for me. I’d really like to have a thief now.

. . . . .

Graham, Orion, and Robin entered the tower, in that order. They passed through a short hallway in the darkness. It was like a thick black curtain; somehow the light from the entrance couldn’t pierce it. The silence was so thick they could hear each other’s heartbeats. Robin’s were the loudest. Graham took one more step then noticed that the way the sound echoed had changed. “It opens up here,” he said. He reached for the wall and felt how the stone sharply turned, spreading out and away from the hallway.

“Just go,” Orion said.

Graham frowned. “Easy for you to say. You’re not in front.” He took a cautious step, holding the spikes before him, point forward. A fire sprang into being ahead of them, a marvelous blue. It shed light on their surroundings.

Graham covered his eyes at the sudden light, then studied his surroundings. It was a circular room with five doors set in the walls, equidistant. The fire burned in the center of the room, settled in a pit in the floor. It was surrounded by a ring of seats, also set into the floor but not as deep.

“It’s clear. Nothing dangerous.” As soon as he said that, Orion brushed past him and sat next to the fire. Graham frowned and took a closer look at the door to his left. He stepped on a groove in the ground which connected all the doors in a pentagram formation.

Robin tapped on his shoulder. “Excuse me… do you think it’s safe here? I-I’d really like to get some sleep. I haven’t had much recently…”

Graham blinked. “Uh, yeah, go ahead. Orion and I can keep watch.”

She smiled and loosed a breath. “Thank you. Really.”

Graham smiled back as she curled up on one of the cushioned seats opposite Orion. He pursed his lips. “I should probably watch the door.” He went back to the hallway and followed it to the entrance. Or to where it should be. It wasn’t there. His eyes widened and he felt along the wall in front of him. “How do I open this?” He beat it with his fists and cursed. “Are we fucking trapped? I should’ve known this would happen.”

Obviously, the ‘admins’ didn’t want them to leave the tower. At least, not before they’d done… something. Probably to do with the five doors. Graham snorted and shook his head. “So predictable, yet I didn’t see it coming. Stupid!”

He went back to the room. “We’re locked in,” he announced. Orion glanced at him and nodded, then went back to roasting a tuber he’d impaled with a stick. Graham frowned. “Isn’t he bothered?” He sighed. “At least we’ve got some food. The only problem is water…”

Robin pushed herself up on her elbows, rubbing her eyes. “What was that?”

Graham sat down next to her and clasped his hands, leaning forward. “The entrance is gone. We’re not getting out.” He looked into the fire. It burned but there was no fuel. No familiar crackle that he’d come to associate with fire. Just a gentle flickering roar.

Robin paled and sat up. “We can’t get out? But… what’ll we do? We don’t have water!” She chewed on her fingernails, looking at her knees.

“Check the doors,” Orion said. She looked at him, her eyes lost. “The doors. Just over there, and there, and there, also there.” His gaze flickered to one of them and hers followed.

She swallowed and wrung her hands. “But what’s behind them? What if it’s a monster?”

Orion shrugged, pulling his tuber out of the fire and broke the skin open. He scooped out a bit of the potato-y innards and swallowed it down with a grimace. “Edible. Barely.” He took another scoop.

Robin huddled her knees against her chest, wrapping her arms around them. “I don’t understand what’s going on. Why are we even here?”

Graham quirked a brow. “Well, I’m assuming they want us to become Seekers… for some reason.”

She glanced at him, face half hidden by her arms. “But how do we do that?”

He blinked. “You don’t know how to become a Seeker? They teach this stuff in school!”

She frowned, blushing. “I didn’t really pay attention. I was never interested in becoming one…”

Graham rubbed his face and sighed. “Alright, I’ll explain it to you, so pay attention.” She nodded. He cleared his throat. “There are five stages to Seeking: Purifying, Foundation Building, Core Formation, Soul Vessel, and Severing. After that is immortality, though I don’t consider that to be one of the stages. The goal of Seeking is to become immortal so, once you’ve done that, you’re not Seeking anymore.”

“So, we start with Purifying? How do we do that?” Robin asked.

Graham crossed his arms. “We need a scripture. It will tell us how to purify our bodies. That’s why I came here. I thought I’d be able to find a scripture.”

She tilted her head. “What makes you think you’ll find one here?”

Orion looked at her. “Where else would you find one?” he asked.

Graham nodded. “This is the most conspicuous place I could see after I scaled a hill. If they want us to be Seekers, they wouldn’t have put the scriptures somewhere obscure. Chances are, we’ll find one behind one of these doors.”

Robin's eyes shifted from one door to the next. “Then… should we go in?”

Graham shook his head. “Not yet. Let’s all rest up first. Like you said; who knows what’s behind them?”

Robin groaned. “You’re not making me feel very confident.”

Graham laughed and Orion chuckled quietly.

Graham peered closely at one of the doors, squinting his eyes. “Damn this light. My eyes are starting to hurt.” The fire painted everything in a ruddy blue tint that he just couldn’t get used to.

The doors all looked the same; brown wood with a visible grain and knots here and there; a metal handle, likely brass; an indented section on the top and bottom of each of them. His eyes followed the grooves in the stone floor that connected each door. “Why are they connected like that? Some kind of magic?”

If only there were more clues in the room. Besides the pit and the fire and the doors, it was barren. There was nothing to indicate what might be behind the doors. It was bad design. You should always make sure the player understands the goal and the rewards when you give them a quest. Seraphim and Nautilus were proving themselves to be lacking as admins… or Game Masters… or whatever you wanted to call them.

He sighed and grabbed one of the reddish tubers, impaling it with a stick like Orion had. The others were asleep, as Graham had volunteered to keep watch. It wasn’t nearly so unnerving when they were in a sealed room. Though, being in a sealed room was unnerving itself.

He held the tuber over the fire. “At least we have that. And I didn’t have to rub sticks together until I had blisters. So that’s nice.” Robin stirred next to him, grasping her left side and moaning. She trembled and her breath came in quick rasps. Graham frowned, his brow furrowed. “Is she hurt? She didn’t say anything, though?”

He reached out a hand but pulled it back. She’d calmed down, her expression untwisting. “I should ask her about it when she wakes up,” he decided. He twisted and grabbed his jacket from behind him, letting the remaining two tubers tumble out, then draped it over her. “She probably doesn’t need it, but… it seems like the nice thing to do.”

He finished cooking the tuber and ate it. That only took ten minutes. Orion and Robin probably wouldn’t wake up for hours. So, bored, he went back to inspecting the doors. He looked at the one just right of the entrance. Just like the others, it seemed to be an ordinary door. There were no sigils on it like he might have expected.

Sigils were magical symbols that Seekers used to create talismans or enchant weapons and objects. Graham blinked, looking down at the grooves in the floor once more. “Is this pentagram a sigil?” He stooped and ran a finger along it. The inside of the groove was bumpy and rough but the lighting made it hard to tell what the bumps were.

Graham didn’t know much about sigils. Unlike the stages of Seeking, it wasn’t common knowledge. Likely because sigils could make weapons that even a mortal could use. Perhaps if he joined Attela’s Militia, they’d teach him about them.

He sighed and gave up, instead looking at the doorknob. Brass and round with designs moulded onto it. They might have been sigils, but they seemed more decorative. He reached out and touched the handle. Searing pain pierced his palm and he leapt back. He cradled his arm, biting his tongue to keep from screaming out in pain.

He opened his hand. A glowing red mark stained his palm, but it wasn’t a burn… and it moved. Slipping down his arm like liquid fire, it seeped into the mark near his elbow and filled up the numeral in the center until it glowed red-hot.

Steam rolled off the mark but, somehow, the pain was bearable. The numeral broke, shattered into pieces within the circle, and reformed into spidery script. It read: Enter alone. You have one minute.

He blinked. “Is the mark a sigil, too? I never knew you could draw them on flesh…” The text broke up again and reformed as the number ‘60’. It began to count down. Graham’s jaw fell and he quickly sprang into action. Scrambling over to Orion, he shook him awake. “Orion. Orion!” he whispered hoarsely.

Orion blinked and became alert surprisingly fast. “What is it?” he asked.

“Listen. I touched one of the doorknobs and now the mark on my arm is telling me to enter. Don’t touch the doors! Wait until I get back!”

Orion sat up and grabbed Graham’s arm. The number read ‘52’, then ‘51’. He stood and pulled Graham up with him.

Graham pulled his arm out of Orion’s grasp. “Look, I don’t have much time. I have to go.”

Orion nodded. “Graham, I’m sorry,” he said.

Graham blinked. “What?”

Orion grimaced. “About earlier. I was an ass. I thought we might be attacked and separated, so I wanted to hold on to one of the fruits. I shouldn’t have tried to take it.”

Graham’s jaw flapped, his eyes swimming. “I mean… is now really the time for that?” He looked at his arm. 42 seconds.

“Now might be the last time.”

Graham’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not dying. Don’t even pretend that’s what’s going to happen. I’m not.” He turned and headed for the door. He stopped just before it and looked back. “And about earlier… don’t worry about it. It’s not a big deal.”

“Wait.” Orion picked his shield up off the seat and handed it to Graham. “Take this.”

Graham nodded, strapping the shield in place. He turned the handle and entered.

Beyond the door was a stairwell. Hot pins stabbed his arm as the mark changed once more. Be aware of your surroundings, it read. He frowned. “My surroundings? What in the surroundings?”

The stairs led upward at a curve. Graham followed them. He came to a new floor, a curved hallway extending in front of him. Yellow moss covered the walls in splotches, casting similarly colored light bright enough to see easily. “At least it’s not blue. Yellow is much more tolerable.”

He held out the shield in front of him and shimmied forward, his right foot always ahead of the left. This way he’d always have his feet on the ground and spread to give him the most stable footing. There was a faint click as he slid his foot forward and his gut wound up into a knot. “Oh, fuck no.” He threw himself forward, running with all the speed he possessed.

Loud clangs shattered the air as spikes slammed out from one wall into the other. They shot out in a cascade down the path, Graham barely managing to stay ahead of the deadly barrage. A wall appeared ahead. Graham furrowed his brow, breathing heavily. “A dead end? No, it’s a sharp turn!”

Just on the right, there was an opening. Graham ran forward, thanking his past self for getting some proper shoes, then jumped and kicked off the wall. He sailed around the corner, slamming into the wall and bouncing off the floor, the shield clanging against the stone. The succession of spikes slowly retracted.

He lay against the floor, cheek pressed to cold stone and his breath coming in gasps. “Alright,” he said, groaning. “Be aware of the traps.” He stood and looked back at the trapped passage. Peering around the corner with the shield covering his head, he examined the wall the spikes came out of. Chunks of the moss had fallen off the wall in an orderly array. “The holes were covered by the moss. Now, I see. If I’d paid more attention, I might have noticed. And then there was whatever I stepped on. That must’ve been the trigger. I’ll have to watch my step.”

He backed up and sat down with his back to the wall to catch his breath. In the quiet, he heard a faint trickling and sucked in a breath. “Water!” He hadn’t had anything to drink since yesterday and his mouth was beginning to taste like chalk.

He stood and continued along the new passage, keeping a better eye on the floor and walls. Occasionally he’d scratch some of the moss away with one of his bone spikes to make sure there was nothing underneath.

He came to a stretch of floor where the bricks were laid strangely. A diagonal criss-cross pattern that left small diamond-shaped holes between the bricks. “Another trap,” he thought. But where was the trigger? His eyes scanned the floor and the walls, looking for a raised piece he might bump or step on. He found nothing of note.

Further study of the ground did tell him one thing. There were certain parts here and there where the pattern didn’t match up right, meaning there was a solid patch where there should be a diamond. His eyes narrowed. “The pattern doesn’t go on that long… maybe ten steps to cross… it could be the whole thing is the trigger, except for the parts without the diamonds.”

He pictured crossing it like some deadly game of hopscotch. Taking each step landing on his toes and making sure not to lose his balance. He swallowed heavily and tossed a spike out. It clattered against the floor, rolling over the diamond holes. Nothing happened.

“Fuck,” Graham thought. If the spike had set off the trap, at least he’d have confirmation it was there. Since it didn’t, he hadn’t really learned anything. The trap might need more weight to set it off, so he hadn’t proved it wasn’t there.

He wiped some sweat from his forehead and inched his foot forward… then pulled it back. He shook his head. “No, no. There’s got to be a way to confirm the trap is there without risking mortal injury. And I don’t very much feel like trying to outrun another one.” Graham began to pace, rubbing his temples in circles.

“Throwing the rest of the spikes won’t work; they’re not heavy enough.” He only had three more tucked into his waist so even their combined weight wouldn’t do much. “I can’t jump over it; it’s too far.” His eyes narrowed. “Maybe I can…” He peered at the wall and imagined himself running at an angle then kicking off the wall to give him extra momentum to clear the distance, just like he’d done to escape the first trap.

But… when he’d done it before, he hadn’t covered much ground. It was too risky. He ruled that out. The shield’s straps bit into his arm and he dug his fingers underneath to scratch it. “That’s it! I’ll use the shield.” He undid the straps and took it off.

Carefully approaching the changed pattern, he tossed the shield up and leapt back, covering his head. It rung out as it struck the ground, then the hall exploded with sound. The shield was sent flying and bounced off the ceiling and the walls before nearly taking Graham’s head off.

Hot steam filled his vision, the moisture making it hard to breathe. Graham crawled away and grabbed the shield, but it burned his hand. He snatched it back and cradled it against him. “What happened?” he asked, choking on sticky moisture. It coated his throat and got into his lungs. He coughed violently until the steam cleared.

He looked down the path, watching the cloud of steam drift away. “I don’t understand. Steam? Not spikes?” He grimaced and tried to rub off the sticky film that had accumulated on his skin, but it was stubborn.

He frowned. “Feels like I’ve been working outside on a humid day… in a swamp.” He tested the shield again and found it as hot as a slide on a sunny day. Which is to say, you could forge a sword with its heat. Closing his eyes, he tried to figure out what had happened. “I dropped the shield, it went flying and nearly hit me, steam filled the place, the shield is very hot… so the trap doesn’t shoot spikes of metal, but jets of steam?”

That wasn’t very reassuring. They must be pressurised, considering how they sent the shield flying. “I can’t afford to set them off again. I’ll be cooked alive.” But now he’d confirmed the trap was there. Progress.

The shield had cooled down. Carefully, he stabbed it down onto a spot without a diamond, then jumped back with the shield still in his hands. Nothing happened. He smiled. “Haha, alright. Just have to step on the parts without the diamonds. Probably.” Either way, he needed to keep going.

He stood before the trap, taking a moment to calm his trembling legs. “Alright, I’ve got my path picked out. I just have to keep my balance and focus.” He took the first leap, landing right where he’d stabbed the shield. Nothing happened. He laughed quietly, keeping a hand on the wall to balance himself, as he had only one foot on the ground. “Going good. Stay focused, Graham,” he told himself.

He leapt to the next one and the next one. But the one after that was further apart than the others… and it was in the center of the hall, too far to use either wall as a support. He swallowed. “I’ll have to jump to that one and, immediately after, the next.” His heart pounded in his chest as he bent his leg.

He leapt… and landed safely. But the shield! It had thrown off his balance. His arms spun as they tried to keep him upright, but the shield weighed him down on one side and continued to throw him off. Further and further forward he fell. Gritting his teeth, he extended his leg as far as it would go and landed on the next safe spot!

His face screwed up at the pain in his groin. “I cannot do the splits! Goddamn shield.” He tossed it forward like a frisbee and it landed on the other side. Thankfully, he wasn’t really doing the splits… it only felt like that because he wasn’t very flexible.

He took deep breaths to prepare himself, then thrust his weight forward. His back foot left the safe patch and he balanced on his front foot, then leapt the remaining two. Now on safe ground, he collapsed and curled into a ball, groaning and cursing the world for doing this to him.

Several minutes passed and he recovered, standing and kicking the shield spitefully. He picked it up and continued on his way toward the trickling sound.