We spent another hour in the Spawn Room, eating our meager dungeon rations—hardtack biscuits and some mystery-meat jerky washed down with warm water from a leather wineskin. I found my rations in a backpack that Sonja said was mine. I also found some rope, a tinderbox, and a bedroll among the rations. By the time we were ready to go, our Magic Points (for me, Stephen, and Constantine) and Hit Points had recharged to full strength.

We lit our torches from the eternal candles set in the column walls. My friends explained that the candles' flames were magical, which meant our torches would not go out unless magically extinguished. The torches also had little hoods attached to the tops. Constantine showed me how to flip the hood over the flame to hide it if we needed to sneak up on something in the darkness. When it was time to see again, he flipped the hood open, and the flame roared back to life. With our eternal torches lit, we set out through the ruined door and into the dungeon.

As I walked through that broken door and into the darkness beyond, my hand holding the torch trembled with excitement. I felt no fear, strangely enough, just an intense desire to get on with this quest and fulfill my destiny. Or go home. I couldn’t tell which I wanted more. I was having a hard time distinguishing between my—Chris Able’s—thoughts and those of Mace. I was just thankful that I had a character with enough courage to prop me up.

A dungeon world right out of an RPG, I thought as I left the Spawn Room. What’s it going to be like? A damp cave? An ancient labyrinth? An abandoned underground kingdom filled with mountains of gold, jewels the size of apples, and a hibernating dragon?

Just beyond the door, our torches illuminated a wide set of ten steps carved out of the cavern floor, which led down to a long hall about twenty feet wide. The walls, floors, and ceilings were relatively smooth but dusty and scuffed. It smelled like an old cellar. My torchlight couldn’t find the end of the hall, but I could see openings to new hallways on either side of me.

Ancient labyrinth it is.

Sonja nudged me and said proudly, “This is where I died the first time. A skeleton ambushed me from that corridor over there and stuck me through the heart with a rusty spear.”

I stared at the dark opening where she had pointed, my heart thumping. I wondered if a spear held by a bony hand was about to stick me from the shadows too.

“Don’t worry,” she said, noticing my wariness, “we took care of them.”

I licked my dry lips and asked, “You guys know where you’re going, right?”

Constantine walked next to me. “Oh yeah. We explored those hallways our first time through. Nothing in them worth noting, although they did a fine job of wasting our time. The way forward is the way to Level Two.”

We continued straight for about fifty paces until our torches lit up the arched entrance to a large room. My friends didn’t seem too concerned as they strode forward, but I steeled myself for whatever this new room contained.

My torchlight illuminated a massive chamber with open sarcophagi arranged against the left and right walls. Some of the stone lids lay in pieces next to each box, while others were slightly askew. Carvings of armored warriors holding their swords and shields adorned the tops of each box. Some boxes were the size of humans, while others looked more dwarven. I was surprised to see one box had a carving with goblinoid features. The room was dry and had a sweet desiccated odor that I remembered from my police days—the scent of old bodies.

“Aaaand this is where I died the second time,” Sonja said. “Oh, look, you can still see some of the clackers I killed before they swarmed me.” She pointed to a pile of bones with bits of dried flesh stuck to them near the first open sarcophagus.

I stopped. “Should we be concerned that most of these sarcophagi are open?”

“Nope,” Stephen said as he marched down the middle of the hall without missing a step.

“They’re empty,” Constantine said. “We got all the skeletons our first time through. I figure the aberration harvested its souls from the people that didn’t turn to skeletons. That’s how it had so many eyes and mouths and limbs.”

I shuddered—what a horrible fate. I remembered the overwhelming gratitude I felt from the souls of the people I had released from that thing.

I studied each sarcophagus we passed, not exactly comforted by Constantine’s assurances. “We didn’t fight the aberration our first time through?”

“We only saw the skeletons,” he said. “It was either hiding somewhere in an off passage, or it didn’t feel like tangling with us.”

“Or we just weren’t a high enough rank yet,” Sonja said from up ahead. “The Tomb always adjusts to our skills. It seems to want to challenge us, not kill us. Or least it did before you died, Mace.”

“I wonder why it chose that moment to kill me off,” I said. “If The Tomb wants to challenge us, why wouldn’t it let me fight them off until you all arrived to help?”

“Maybe it punishes idiots with death,” Stephen said.

“I’m getting sick of your mouth, heretic,” I growled.

I usually think of myself as a pretty even-tempered guy. I had lots of training in the academy on how to control my emotions. But Stephen—who was my good friend Alec in the real world and my old college roommate—was poking me and poking me, and I felt like he was one insult away from me punching him in his bony bearded jaw.

And why did I call him a heretic?

I knew instantly that I’d crossed some line, though I didn’t know what it was. Constantine sucked in a breath. Sonja whipped around and glared at me.

Stephen stopped in his tracks and stood very still. Then he whirled around, snarled a word, and held a hand out like he wanted to Force-choke me. I was so surprised to see it encased in that oily black mist that I didn’t have time to react. All I felt was that same goosebumpy, nauseated feeling when I first saw his magic hands back in the Spawn Room.

My breath caught like I had phlegm stuck in my throat. But then my breath wouldn’t release, and I couldn’t draw any more. My hands went to my throat in a futile attempt at removing whatever was blocking my airways. I felt my tongue flop out of my mouth and my eyes bulge, yet no sound came from my throat. I’d never choked before, but let me tell you something: it’s a terrifying and powerless feeling.

“Stephen!” Sonja yelled. “Let him go! He didn’t know!”

“He did know,” Stephen snarled, “or he wouldn’t have said it.”

I shook my head desperately, hoping he’d understand that I’d hadn’t meant what he thought I meant.

Then Constantine swung a massive, dwarven fist in an uppercut to Stephen’s jaw. The wizard’s head snapped back, and he landed on his ass.

The choking immediately stopped. I fell to my knees, gasping and wheezing.

“Enough,” Constantine said in a calm voice. “We’re never going to survive this place if you two keep rehashing old feuds.”

Once I got my breathing under control, I lost control of my temper. All that I could feel was that Stephen’s attack had been an unjust assault on my honor as an Ancestral Paladin. That could not stand. With a snarl, I stood and unsheathed my sword.

But Constantine suddenly had his shield in his arm and blocked my path toward Stephen.

“I said, enough.” He stared at me with cold, gray eyes that only moments before were merry. A hardness in his voice made me pause. It was a resolve that told me I would literally have to kill him to get to Stephen.

“What’s wrong with him?” I asked with a raspy voice, then started coughing again.

“Simple answer: Never call him the ‘h’ word.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s what your people called my people,” Stephen said, still sitting on the floor, “just before they slaughtered them all.”

I stood there trying to process that. Mace's thoughts were mingling with my own, and I had to pause to determine whether they were mine—Chris Able’s—or his. My instincts told me that Stephen was full of shit. His people had been dangerous and committed heinous crimes. My ancestors had no choice but to round them up and—

I swallowed once. Mace had many memories regarding Stephen’s “Krait zealots.” From a young age, he’d heard stories of how the Ancestral Paladins had hunted down and burned alive every Krait wizard they could find. Mace’s grandfather had proudly told him these stories. It was he who had passed on to Mace the teachings of the Ancestral Paladins and their sacred duty to keep Krait’s blasphemies from polluting the world again. I—Mace—remembered my grandfather giving me the sword I now held in my hand and making me swear an oath to defend the innocent, free the enslaved…and kill every Krait worshiper I found.

I looked at the sword in my hand. I wanted nothing more than to ram it down Stephen’s throat.

Alec, I thought suddenly. That’s Alec, not Stephen.

I slowly reigned in Mace’s murderous desires and shoved my sword back in its sheath.

And then I felt sick to my stomach over wanting to ram a sword down anyone’s throat, much less one of my best friends.

I bent over, put my hands on my knees, and whispered, “This is really confusing.”

Sonja put a hand on my shoulder. “It gets better. Just like with all your other skills, you’ll learn to use them when you need them.” She squeezed my shoulder, and I stood up straight. I looked into her hazel eyes. “Just keep remembering who you are. You are Chris Able.”

I nodded. “And you’re Melony Hahn.”

She smiled. Though Sonja looked nothing like Melony, I could feel Melony there with me. I could almost see Melony’s dimple on her left cheek.

Then I walked over to Stephen, still sitting on the floor. Constantine watched me all the way, but I held up both hands, signaling that I had no intention to fight. When I got to Stephen, I offered my hand and said, “I promise never to call you that again. If you promise never to choke me again.”

Stephen moved his sore jaw back and forth and looked up at me with venomous eyes. He looked at my hand, looked at me, and then stood up on his own.

“I make no promises,” he said. Then he picked up the torch that he’d dropped and started walking back down the long hallway. “That one Hit Point was worth it, Constantine.”

“I can heal you, brother,” Constantine said to him. But Stephen kept on walking. I looked at Constantine, and he shrugged. “That’s probably the best you’re gonna get from him.”

In a low voice, I asked, “Did we fight before I died?”

Constantine glanced at Sonja, who gave him a weary sigh, and then she hurried up to Stephen, who was getting farther ahead.

Once Sonja began talking to Stephen, Constantine said quietly, “Yeah. You killed him.”