The door led out into a corridor, shorter then the first but darker, too. There was still light, somehow – dim like candlelight from sources they couldn't see – but it was so faint that the gleam of Kwanai's eyes was visible on his sharp cheekbones.

Daerth clenched his bandaged hand into a fist, cursing himself for the reckless mood that had led to the injury. For some reason, seeing their Paladin charge into the fray all alone had irked him, but now here he was with a huge gash right through his bowhand.

At least it wasn't my right.

It was easier to hold a bow steady with an injured hand then it was to release an arrow. He wasn't completely out of the reckoning yet.

Up ahead, Raceel (still in the lead) held up his hand and halted.

“Careful. There is a tripwire across the corridor.”

Raceel and Metcenzerin stepped over it carefully, and when Daerth's turn came he saw it was a fairly mundane tripwire, not something god-of-chance worthy. Dull to match the floor, low to the ground... a trigger meant to be stepped on rather then broken. He could see the trap itself, too, or at least how it was to be deployed. A row of tiny holes, noticeable only for their regularity in an otherwise rough and chaotic stone floor, lay just below the cord.

It was easy to avoid, and Kwanai came after him with barely a glance at the wire. Raceel and Metcenzerin had already continued down the corridor, but Daerth waited. The Stitchdoctor hadn't moved.

“It's right there,” Daerth pointed out, feeling somewhat silly for declaring the obvious like a child but unable to read what was going on beyond that featureless mask. The Stitchdoctor regarded the tripwire for a long moment, then looked up at Daerth.

“What?” asked Daerth, but the Stitchdoctor didn't say anything. He just stared. Frustrated, and feeling like the cityman was somehow making fun of him, Daerth turned away with a huff.

Chnnct.

Daerth stopped, closed his eyes. Spirits below... did the Judge send an actual child with us?

He turned around again.

The Stitchdoctor stood, one foot planted firmly on the tripwire, his lens-covered eyes again fixed on the ground. A line of long, gleaming needles crossed the corridor, two of which were bloody from the journey they had taken through the Stitchdoctor's boot and foot.

Slowly, carefully, the Stitchdoctor pulled his foot off the needles. Slowly, carefully, he set it back down on the other side of the row of spikes. Then, straddling the line, he looked up at Daerth again.

“Are... are you saying you need a hand to get over those?” Daerth asked, actually stunned. The Stitchdoctor tilted his head to one side.

“I... am somewhat... poorly balanced,” he croaked finally.

The others had stopped walking. Daerth could feel their eyes on him, and again he felt strangely judged by their gazes.

He raised his eyes in dismay to the ceiling, then held out his hand. The Stitchdoctor's thin, scarred fingers latched around his like a vice and Daerth stood like a statue as the Stitchdoctor used him as an anchor to cross the trap.

“... Good.”

“Glad to be of help,” Daerth muttered, and followed the odd doctor after the others.

Raceel was cautious opening the next door, and quickly checked the back wall, but made no comment as the others followed him into the small stone room. It was wider then it was long, with five slightly-raised stone blocks between them and the iron gate that blocked their way forward.

“I do not read your language,” declared Kwanai, and when that attracted attention he pointed at a line of words Daerth hadn't noticed before carved on the wall near the ceiling. “Translate it.”

Metcenzerin cleared his throat dramatically. “It reads, 'A team of five is permitted to pass; any less or more, and you will not last.' Fairly obvious, unless the lackluster rhyming scheme is meant as a warning of deception.”

“Fairly obvious, you say, and yet I smell corpses.” Kwanai pointed at the ground. “Below. Consumed.”

A jolt of understanding ran through the group, almost as one. Quickly, each man stepped up onto one of the foot-high pedestals.

Click. Click-click-click-click.

The gate dropped.

Metcenzerin knelt on his platform and carefully poked the ground, as if testing for traps. “Is that it? Just a hard limit on how many are allowed to attempt the dungeon at once?”

“Perhaps that is why you are here,” Raceel mused. “Five are needed, and they had a position to fill.”

Metcenzerin glared, but Kwanai forestalled any retort with a low chortle.

“I am amused,” he declared, then stepped off his pedestal and walked for the exit. “And impatient for this day to end. Let us continue.”

There was no corridor this time. The gate led to a closed door, and directly beyond they found a much larger, taller room, circular with a vaulted ceiling. Midway between the walls and the center of the room stood a ring of statues depicting familiar figures, standing tall with hands cupped in front of them, filled with liquid. More corpses littered the ground, almost a score of them. Every one had been crushed.

“Iylihe,” said Metcenzerin quietly, moving around the nearest statue to look at it in the face. “Who gave me voice, I sing for thee.”

“Teru on the left,” continued Raceel less fondly, giving the gambler-god an irritated glance as he passed. “Aros the Serpent, and then Koruen, the Carrion-Eater.” He lingered at the feet of the cruel wargod, but said nothing more of his new patron then that.

“Rehena the Valiant,” Metcenzerin eagerly picked up, skipping past Raceel to the next in line, “And Ebetu, his loyal hound. And – your favourite, Kwanai – Ku'eb, and then Cereth the Thief just to Iylihe's right. The full Circle, and yet their forms seem improperly rendered here. Too human.”

“That could be the trick, right?” suggested Daerth. “Does anyone see any instructions or mechanisms? The gate looks the same as in the last room.”

“There!”

Metcenzerin and Kwanai both raised their hands to point, then shot each other irritated glances. Daerth narrowed his eyes, turning in place to read the words written in a circle on the ceiling.

“Which of you is worthy to stand,

within the light of Teru's Hand?”

“Seems a straight-forward question,” Raceel suggested. “One of us must light the oil within Teru's cupped hands, and it must be one worthy... but what is worthy to Rahena is not necessarily worthy to Teru. Come, Metcenzerin, tell us; what does Teru value in a man?”

But the musician did not immediately reply. He glanced around again at the circle of statues, then settled on Teru again with a thoughtful scowl.

“I'm the only one of us who hasn't killed anyone yet,” commented Daerth, his tone caught halfway between uncaring and grim. “I've never heard of Teru being a murderous god, so maybe that's an important distinction?”

“And yet you have killed,” Kwanai retorted, matching Daerth's tone almost eerily. “Ku'eb distinguishes man and animal only by how they serve after, and your wasted count is great indeed.”

“I've never killed anything wastefully, swamper.”

“Not the first-flesh, perhaps, but their second-flesh goes unclaimed now forever. Ku'eb would never find one such as you worthy.”

“We're not trying to impress Ku'eb, though, are we?”

“Quiet!” Metcenzerin rounded on them, his eyes gleaming. “Enough bickering; I have it, and you're all wrong. It's not about your character at all. It's about simple knowledge. Teru's Hand... it's not about the oil in their hands, it's about... no, watch.”

He stepped up to Teru's statue and ran his fingers down the rather plainly-clad figure's side. Then, at the hip, he ah hahed and plunged his hand into the stone, right into the carved line of a pocket.

Proudly, he withdrew his hand, and between his fingers he held a pristine deck of King's Game cards.

“Teru's Hand,” he lectured smugly as he walked around the circle of statues, sorting and placing cards as he went, “is a hand in podret, the game of desperate gamblers. A card for each god of the Circle... as you can see... and the King card for Teru, because it's his game and he makes the rules. It cannot be beaten, and almost requires cheating to achieve in a standard game.”

“Of course it does,” sighed Daerth. “Of course it does.”

The moment Metcenzerin placed the last card, the King, on the pedestal of Teru's statue, the gate blocking their path fell open. Raceel eyed it for a moment, then turned and grudgingly nodded to Metcenzerin.

“Good work, musician.”

Metcenzerin, somehow, managed to hold himself back from smug gloating, but Daerth could see the effort required on his smirking face.

“After you, paladin.”

“Watch for traps,” Daerth called up, and Raceel glanced shortly over his shoulder with a half-nod of acknowledgment.

“Above us,” the former-paladin warned a moment later. A somewhat-concealed spiked net stretched across the ceiling in the middle of the corridor, waiting to be triggered. “There is a pressure plate here. Hug the walls.”

Daerth obeyed, then, seeing the Stitchdoctor wasn't moving, grabbed his arm and pulled him to the side as well. The group side-stepped around the pressure plate without incident and saw no more traps before they arrived at the next door.

“So far, so good,” Daerth muttered to himself. Metcenzerin heard him and made a superstitious gesture against ill luck.

“When you say that at the table, it's only because the cheater is letting you think you're doing well to up the stakes,” he warned. “We're doing very poorly and Teru is going to pull something out from under our feet before the end.”

“All good comes to evil,” added Kwanai, dutifully dark and uncaring. “All life ends in decay.”

“You would be a joy at parties.”

“My people do not party.”

“And you've never wondered why?”

“Stop bickering like children,” Raceel interrupted impatiently, and tapped the door. “There may be anything beyond. Are you ready for it?”

“One cannot know what--”

“Stop talking, Kwanai. It's getting really old.”

Raceel didn't wait for the bickering to end and just opened the door to the next dungeon room.

The bickering ended.

Even the light warned that this was a very different situation from the previous rooms. No longer dull, vague candlelight flickering on stone, this light gleamed between the cracks in the walls, fierce and red. The room was cavernous, carved by nature more then man, and all around the edges of the chamber lay a hundred iron cages.

Some were large, some were small, but all were occupied. Wild creatures from the mountains to the swamps, city cats and bred-for-war horses, and in two Daerth spotted the gaunt figures of men. Or... one man, and a woman.

The moment the party entered the room, beast eyes began to turn, and within moment the dogs began to bark. They set the entire room off.

There was no doubt what Teru meant this chamber to be. In the middle of it all lay what resembled a Rahenian alter, but lower, longer, and carved with the figures of rats rather then noble horses. Small words replaced the traditional symbols running along the base, unreadable from the door. Raceel approached it after only a moment's hesitation, and read out solemnly,

“'Teru is owed a sacrifice.' That... is all it says.” He reached for the alter and then held up his hand, a single key dangling from a chain between his fingers.

“Get me out!” came a cry, hoarse, from one of the cages. Daerth didn't turn to look, didn't dare meet the caged woman's eyes. It didn't take a genius to know what the trap here was. One key. There was no way Teru would let them open every cage... and Daerth suspected they only got one chance. And they'd better be right.

“Musician...?” prompted Raceel, but Metcenzerin stood silent, his gaze darting around the room in confusion.

Teru is owed a sacrifice...?

Rahena accepted honor-sacrifices, though what exactly those were, Daerth had never heard. The underground followers of Aros killed men in the name of their god, but that was out of vengeance, the fulfilling of violent oaths. Ku'eb... Daerth had begun to suspect the nature-god was far more blood-thirsty then he appeared to northerners just from the way Kwanai spoke, but he had been aware of certain animal sacrifices attributed to him. That was it, though, the only rumors about religious sacrifice to make it all the way to Edgewood; Rahena, Aros, and Ku'eb. Nothing at all about Teru.

“Something approaches.”

Kwanai's low voice was barely audible over the increased clamor of the animals, but Daerth heard him and repeated the warning louder for the others. Raceel reached for his sword, but did not draw it.

“What? Where?”

“I do not know,” replied Kwanai, raising his voice to be heard. “But I feel the stones quiver beneath their footfalls.”

“Metcenzerin, what's the plan here?” Daerth pressed. Then, when the musician did not reply, “What kind of sacrifice does Teru demand of his followers?”

Metcenzerin shook his head. “He doesn't. He is greedy, but not a thief or a beggar... he only takes what is won.”

“But we didn't gamble anything.”

“And yet, he has declared a debt...” Metcenzerin stiffened, his head coming up sharply. “Something is coming, you said? What does a gambler do when his opponent runs off without paying?”

Raceel smiled humorlessly. “He hires enforcers. He sends the collectors.”

“Have any of you ever made a deal with Teru?” Metcenzerin asked urgently. “Even a small one, like at a card game, or before a contest? 'Help me with this one thing', said in haste and then forgotten?”

“I don't deal with the Circle,” Daerth replied, and Kwanai nodded.

“Neither I, save Ku'eb who your people have stolen.”

“Teru is a god of scoundrels,” Raceel added. “I wouldn't call on him for anything.”

Metcenzerin looked to the Stitchdoctor, but the cityman said nothing. He merely stood, leaning slightly to one side as if weary of the affair.

“I always, always, pay my debts before I leave a table,” Metcenzerin said forcefully. “It's not me. So who... what...?”

Daerth could feel it now, too. Subtle, so much so that he didn't know how Kwanai had sensed it before him, but definitely footsteps beyond the stone walls. And they were getting closer quickly.

Kwanai closed his eyes, let out a disgusted breath, then brushed past Metcenzerin. The musician yelped in protest and lunged after him, but Kwanai hastened his step and passed Raceel on the step up to the alter.

“No, you don't!” Metcenzerin demanded passionately, and Daerth realized that Kwanai was now holding the tiered-flute that Metcenzerin usually had hanging at his belt.

Kwanai raised his voice again over the animal sounds, but whatever it was he said, no one understood. In his own alien language he addressed Teru, then smashed Metcenzerin's flute against the stone alter.

Metcenzerin hit him a heartbeat too late, tackling him into the alter and then to the ground. Raceel looked at them for a moment as they wrestled to get up, then tossed the key back onto the alter as well with a weary sigh.

“NOOO!” The woman's scream rose above every other noise in the large, echoing cavern-chamber. “Don't leave me, too!”

The red light from beyond the walls went out, all at once, and the animals went silent. Daerth blinked in the sudden, pitch darkness, but there was nothing to see. Then two pinpricks of yellow-green appeared in the black. Kwanai had turned around.

“I wanted to smash your lute, but it would have been more difficult to get away from you quickly.”

The deep silence returned for a long moment, then Metcenzerin's voice broke it, low and trembling with rage.

“I hate you.”

“And yet, strangely, I find myself beginning to enjoy this relationship.”

“I really hate you.”

The light returned, gradually. The phantom candlelight was back, and the cavern was gone. They stood, all five, in a small stone room, no cages, no alter, and nothing but the remnants of a shattered wooden flute lying on the ground. A corridor opened without door or gate in front of them.

Daerth turned around, confused, but there was no sign of any entrance behind them or above them to explain how they had changed location. By extension, he realized they could no longer retreat if need demanded.

“Whatever just happened, we must continue onwards,” Raceel decided confidently. “Come.”

He set off towards the corridor and Kwanai was just a step behind him. Daerth followed more slowly, and he glanced over at Metcenzerin. The musician was knelt on the ground next to his flute, his hands clenched into fists on his knees and his narrow shoulders trembling.

Should I say something? Daerth thought he probably should, but he didn't have any ideas for what. Eh. He mentally shrugged and quickened his step. Either Metcenzerin would get over it and follow, or he wouldn't. That was his business.

The corridor was long this time, and gradually began to slope generally but unsteadily upwards. Daerth put his hand on the wall at one point and felt moisture, and a few moments later the group stepped over a puddle created by a drip from the ceiling. Moss began to appear, then crawling vines, as the flickering orange light was gradually replaced by steady reflected sunlight.

Daerth stayed a fair bit behind Raceel and Kwanai, and kept glancing over his shoulder. The Stitchdoctor and Metcenzerin were further back still, the former walking along as if in a daze and the latter still stewing over his unwilling sacrifice. In this way, they all came one-by-one into the next room of Teru's Dungeon.

Kwanai, already standing beyond the door, looked back at Daerth as he climbed the last slope.

“Behold, a glimpse of the mind of Teru. Perhaps I have misjudged him.”

Beyond, there was daylight. The last dungeon corridor opened back onto the surface, into a stone chamber with a ceiling of glass, altogether overgrown with plantlife. A single great tree grew in the middle... or, rather, a tree made up of a dozen trunks all twisted together, their different boughs spreading out in every direction intermingled.

That was where anything that could be considered natural ended.

Narrow trees with stems of green, or thick weeds of a kind Daerth had never seen, cropped up here and there among the grassy ground, and twisted among their embracing trunks hung a last four broken corpses. These bodies were not those of peasants or common adventurers; every one of them wore, or had worn, the bright silver armor of the Paladins of Rahena. That armor was either crushed together with the wearers' bodies among the merciless tree stems, or lay where it had fallen from broken limbs to the ground.

Everything armor failed to cover, the beasts had gotten to. Faces were gone, gnawed to the skull and beyond. Finger bones lay scattered in the grass, the hands torn off and fought over for every scrap of flesh. One corpse was little more then bones within a breastplate, eaten thoroughly from within but held in place by the strangling plants.

The 'beasts' were still there. Rabbits. They hopped around the trees, their white fur stained dark red with dried blood and gore. Soft, black rabbit eyes turned to the party as they entered, then refocused on the patches of young clover they all seemed intent on nibbling.

Raceel moved first. He circled the corpses caught in the young trees, his expression unreadable. He stooped and picked up fallen greatswords, flipped the blades over to examine both sides before dropping them into the grass again. Finally, he stopped beside one unrecognizable corpse, and his eyes took on a look Daerth didn't want to see.

“The Second Stallion.” Raceel tugged off his right gauntlet, slowly and deliberately. “The mortal leader of Rahena's herd... the man who taught me everything... the man who banished me for nothing.”

With his bare hand, he touched the grinning skull of the half-gnawed corpse. He raised his fingers to the silver, maned helmet, then tightened his grip and wrenched it free of the snaring plants. The corpse's head came with it, tumbling to the ground at Raceel's feet.

Daerth looked away.

The rabbits stood up, alert, their ears twitching. From their bloody mouths came a single echoing statement, thin but sinister from dozens of tiny throats.

“A lawman in the den of dice,

is like a cat in 'midst of mice.

Turn back, oh cats, before my door,

or face my wrath forevermore.”

“I... suppose this is Teru's wrath?” Daerth asked quietly, glancing sideways at Metcenzerin. The sight of man-eating rabbits seemed to have dulled the musician's pain over his flute – when he replied, his tone matched Daerth's. Low, respectful, disturbed.

“Mice, rats, rabbits... rodents of all kinds. They're his.”

“And Rahena did nothing,” Raceel said, a strange note of vengeful glee tinging his words. Daerth looked back up to see the Fallen Paladin fingering the carved symbols that decorated the helm. “Even for the First Commander, his so-called Second... Rahena did nothing.”

Kwanai moved among the corpses, stopping beside each to mutter in his own language. “The fools,” he commented as he moved from one to another. “The self-righteous fools. Noble men cannot beat a cheater.”

Raceel's unpleasant smile returned. “Not when their own god turns a blind eye. Now Koruen feasts,”

“He is welcome to this first-flesh. But the second-flesh, that is mine now.”

Daerth felt something twist in the pit of his stomach. For a time, he'd forgotten exactly what kind of people the Judge had sent into this wretched dungeon... but Teru seemed intent on reminding them.

Metcenzerin walked, purposefully, around the center tree. “The door's unlocked,” he called, and Daerth moved to join him. Whatever Raceel and Kwanai meant to do in this horrifying garden, that too was their business. Daerth wanted none of it.

Then he heard a weak grunt behind him, and a gasp that was almost a word. He turned just in time to see the Stitchdoctor, leaning against the doorframe, slip heavily and limply to the ground.