The dungeon was a place darker than even the black mists above—not due to supernatural environmental hazards, but a simple lack of illumination.

“Let there be light,” whispered Jerry. A spark flashed in the darkness, and a torch instantly came to life, shedding light in a large radius around him. “There, all set.”

“What is this place?” muttered Laura, looking around. Dusty brick walls surrounded them, forming a corridor that extended into the darkness. Moreover, a few lines of black glass were embedded into the walls, carrying the fake Prism’s ripples to the surface from somewhere deeper inside—much deeper.

“Not very hospitable, that’s for sure,” Jerry grumbled. “Who doesn’t illuminate their entrance hall? Are they gonna make us travel through darkness the entire time?”

“It’s a dungeon, Jerry.”

“We’re wasting time,” said Horace, already stepping forth. “Let’s go already.”

“Can you see in the darkness, Horace?” asked Laura.

“Of course. I told you, my eyes are sharp.”

“Sharp enough to see without light?”

He shrugged. Beside him, Axehand grunted in mockery and twisted an axe around his temple, implying that Horace was coo-coo.

Eight of them had entered the dungeon. Jerry, Laura, Horace, Axehand, Boney, Headless, Boboar, and Foxy. The poor skeletal animals hadn’t done much lately, so they were happy to help.

As they advanced through the corridor, Axehand, Horace, and Boboar had taken the lead, ready to protect everyone.

“Why even build a corridor underground?” Jerry kept jousting at the place’s design. “That’s so much wasted effort.”

“They needed to keep the fake Prism’s location unpredictable,” Laura explained in a whisper. “If we could guess its location, we wouldn’t have to go through the dungeon; we’d just dig.”

“Hmph.”

The corridor didn’t continue for long before it branched. Two identical paths stretched to the left and right, both equally inviting. Everyone looked at Jerry.

He shook his head. “I can’t tell. The ripples are coming from the black glass on the wall. Could be anywhere.”

Axehand nodded and stepped into the right tunnel. They followed.

However, a few moments later, the tunnel branched off again. This time, there were three paths; right, left, and center. The group paused.

“We’re in a maze,” said Laura.

“Yeah…” Jerry agreed. “Should we try breaking the walls?”

“The whole place might come down on our heads.”

“I see.”

They were at a loss, staring at each other.

“Damn the Wizard Order,” said Horace, clenching his bow. “What a cowardly tactic…”

“This is a great way to buy time.” Laura chewed on her lip. “Aracataron’s army of death knights is probably rushing over as we speak. We need to hurry. Axehand, go right at every single intersection we meet; that’s the way out.”

Axehand obeyed and the group followed, breaking into a light sprint. They chose right, then right again. They kept going.

At some point, the ground changed. From empty and featureless, they began seeing bones strewn over the ground—from past intruders, maybe. Of course, that begged the question of how they died; was it dehydration after being lost in here for days—not very likely—or were there guardians in the maze?

“Keep your guard up, everyone,” said Laura. “There might be ambushes.”

The moment she’d finished speaking, Horace’s eyes widened. “Careful!” he shouted.

A faint sound reached their ears as the bones began sliding on the ground. Suddenly, they rose into the air, flying at the group at great speed. They had jugged, sharp edges, and anyone they rammed into would have a terrible time.

This all happened in a flash. Axehand barely had time to react, turning around on the spot and dashing towards Jerry to protect him. He swatted bones left and right, becoming a momentary maelstrom of axes to protect his Master. The bones were demolished.

However, there were more.

A group of bones headed for Laura, and she barely had time to see where the attack was coming from. She couldn’t defend. Three arrows whistled through the darkness, each meeting a bone accurately in mid-air and breaking them against the wall. One even brushed by Laura’s hair.

She froze, her heart beating faster than a spooked deer’s. With a gulp, she said, “Thank you, Horace…”

“No problem,” he responded.

As for the rest of the bones, they had attacked the undead of their party. The skeletons were fine—their bodieswere resistant to this type of attack. Only Headless had sustained a few injuries, but as a zombie, he was able to shake off an impressive amount of punishment. He took the deep gashes and punctures like a champ.

“Thank you too, Axehand.” Jerry smiled, crouching to pick up the torch he’d dropped. “You saved me.”

Axehand grunted in response.

“Speaking of,” the necromancer turned towards Headless, inspecting him, “have you gotten more durable, Headless?”

The zombie pumped his head in the air.

“Hmm, interesting.” Jerry’s soul slipped into Headless’s body, looking it over carefully. “Has my magic saturated your body, making it stronger?”

“Of course,” said Laura, raising a brow. “Undead grow stronger with age. This is a wide-spread fact… You sure are clueless for a necromancer.”

“Eh. It’s not like anyone ever taught me the ropes. I had to discover everything from scratch.”

“Yes, I can tell,” she responded, gazing at Axehand, who let out an offended grunt. “I can teach you some basic things, if you want, though you’ve probably figured out most by yourself already.”

“You would? Thank you!”

“You’re wasting time again,” Horace growled. “We need to get moving, people.”

“Right. Let’s go, and keep an eye out for bones!”

They proceeded, streaking through the maze at a jogging pace. Corridor after corridor was left behind, and gradually, the ambiance began to change. The corridors grew wider by a bit, and the branches they met were fewer and fewer, as if all paths were converging. They were getting somewhere.

They kept jogging all the while, and the exertion reminded Jerry of the time he took a two-month walk through the forests.

Ah, those were the times…

“Wait,” Horace spoke up, and everyone froze. Axehand instantly arrived by Jerry’s side. They looked around, but no danger was visible.

“What is it?” Laura finally asked.

“Can you hear that?”

Silence fell. Indeed, something could be heard echoing on the walls; a fast-paced scratching sound…and was it approaching?

“Something’s coming,” said Jerry. “Should we run?”

“We seem to be on the right track,” Laura replied quickly. “This might be the only way to the end.”

“Well then, let’s fight.” Horace grinned, already nocking a trio of arrows. “What say you, Axehand? Ready to cut a bit loose?”

The double-skeleton grunted, taking up position beside the hunter.

“Support us, everyone,” said Horace, bending his knees to enhance his balance. His eyes narrowed as they sharpened.

“Axehand told me to tell you he’d kill double your number of enemies,” quipped Jerry.

Horace’s eyes flashed. “Oh? You’ll barely even get a chance to fight.”

Axehand released a challenging grunt, crimson flames licking the inside of his eye sockets.

The scratching sound was easily audible now—whatever that thing was, it was clearly approaching fast. “Get ready,” said Jerry, already stretching his soul perception into the dark tunnel ahead—and also behind, to protect against ambushes.

The sound intensified abruptly—the enemy had rounded the last corner.

“They’re here!” growled Horace, shooting arrow after arrow into the darkness and eliciting a few pained howls.

Creatures jumped into the torch’s radius. They resembled dogs, only larger and significantly meaner. Their eyes were crimson and their sharp claws scratched against the ground as they ran, but they did not growl or bark, and this unnatural silence was more intimidating than anything else.

Flowing black manes stretched out of their backs, and their open jaws were filled with rot as they lunged forth.

The moment these things entered their field of vision, everyone attacked at once. Jerry reached out with his soul and set to smashing the hounds apart, while Laura created a water screen to disorient and slow them down. Headless drew a glaive—that had turned into his signature weapon—and began dicing them, while Boboar jumped into the pack and barreled through the hounds like it was nothing. Foxy remained close to Jerry, and Boney walked by Laura’s side, ready to protect her if needed.

As for Axehand and Horace, they weren’t kidding when they mentioned outkilling each other.

Horace carried a large, open backpack that he’d stuffed full of quivers—a quiver of quivers, essentially. A rain of arrows was let loose on the poor hounds, piercing them in the eyes or between the bones, and they were felled as quickly as they came.

Axehand took a simpler approach; his axes glinted in the torchlight as he stepped forth, completely unafraid of any hound as he hacked them apart. A radius of death quickly formed around him as he fearlessly waded right into their midst, and any hound that managed to bite him got nothing but broken teeth.

“You cheater!” shouted Horace. “You’re blocking my shots!”

Axehand slapped a hound backward, sending it flying right into Horace, who drew a machete and slapped the creature into a wall. “That’s playing dirty!”

Axehand grunted in mockery.

The majority of hounds had been stopped by the wall named Axehand and the artillery named Horace, and the few that made it through were taken care of by everyone else. Boboar, sad that he wasn’t needed, retreated to Jerry’s side, ready to protect him.

“Well,” said Jerry over the din of battle, “this is easy.”

Boney instantly groaned, appalled. “No, Master! You can’t say that!”

“Why not?”

“Because—”

He didn’t have time to finish his sentence.

The entire corridor shook as mechanical sounds filled their ears, rusty gears grinding against each other. In the next moment, the floor opened up, revealing a long row of dark pits that took up the entire corridor. There were screams, shouts, roars, growls, and even the hounds yelped as they fell.

Jerry, Boboar, and Foxy fell into one pit.

Laura, Boney, and the nearby Headless fell into another.

Axehand and Horace fell together, along with a rain of hell hounds.

A moment later, the ground closed back up, sparing only the silent, blood-smeared walls and a single terrified hound that had somehow escaped by being at the very end of the pack. It whimpered as it ran away.

***

As Headless fell, he kept wondering what had happened. He bumped into one wall after another, the downward tunnel twisting between slippery turns.

A few seconds later, his dancing experience came in handy, as he instinctively righted himself—and not one moment later, he landed, barely maintaining his balance at the sudden halt of his descent. It was pitch-dark, after all, so he hadn’t seen the ground coming.

He let out a chuckle, marveling at himself for sticking the landing.

Someone fell on him a moment later, dragging them both to the ground. A woman’s yelp let him know it was Laura, and at the very next moment, she crawled away. Headless felt glad.

Another person fell on him from above, and Headless’s cut-off throat released a gust of air as his stomach was compressed. Someone patted him down.

“Oh, it’s you,” came Boney’s voice. “Good job landing below us, Headless.”

Headless felt proud at the compliment. His head landed on Boney’s a moment after, and Headless was momentarily glad for being immune to pain—that had had to hurt.

“Who’s here?” whispered Laura, while Boney scampered away from Headless’s lying body.

“You, me, and Headless so far,” he replied in the darkness. “But let’s see if anyone else will fall.”

Headless realized he was a cushion, then promptly grabbed his head and crawled away. Nobody else came, regardless.

“Guess it’s just us…” Boney sighed. “What the hell just happened?”

“We fell for a trap, that’s what.” Laura chuckled darkly. “I knew that corridor was suspicious. It must have been a central point for the entire maze… The hound pack finding us right there wasn’t an accident, and neither was the trap. The architect knew we’d have to go through there… I hate to admit it, but that’s smart.”

“It’s also worrying. Those hounds came at the perfect moment…there might be somebody controlling them. Someone intelligent.”

They shivered.

Boney continued, “But why not use spike pitfalls instead? Now, they’ve only inconvenienced us.”

“They probably assumed that whoever assaulted this place wouldn’t be weak enough to die to a simple trap…separating us was more doable. The real killing blow must be hidden in the maze around us. Who knows what sort of monstrosities the architects have prepared.”

“Wait.” Boney looked around. “Are we trapped with enemies?”

“I doubt that. There were so many pitfalls that they couldn’t have separate strong enemies waiting below each. If I had to make a guess, everything is connected, and they have a few really strong undead ready to pick us off one by one.”

“You’ve made quite a few logical leaps there.”

“Well, you’re not dead yet, are you?”

Boney paused. “I am, actually.”

“...Okay.”

Headless did not understand much of the conversation, but he wanted to find Master, so he released a low disembodied growl to usher them. Laura jumped—they were still in total darkness, after all.

“No need to shout, big guy,” said Boney. “I know. Master needs us. We must find him as fast as possible…but it should be easy. I mean, we fell in different pits, but they were right next to each other. Shouldn’t Master be here too, Laura?”

“Obviously not. The pitfalls must have each led to a different corridor at different depths, so we can’t easily meet back up.”

“The pitfalls were right next to each other, silly. No matter the depth, how could they lead to different corridors?”

“This corridor and our previous one are perpendicular to each other, Boney… Obviously.”

A clackle came through the darkness. “Of course. I knew that. So, we need to search for Master.”

“I don’t see any other way. Climbing up would take too long—and how large could an underground maze possibly be?”

“Okay, then. Thank Desistos I was the one carrying the torches.”

“But do you have a match?”

Silence fell again. Headless was growing annoyed and restless, so he politely let out another disembodied roar.

“I know, I know, just give me a moment.” A spark in the darkness, then another torch was lit. Boney, Laura, and Headless stared at each other—well, two of them stared at each other, and the other was holding his head the wrong way. “I had the matches too…obviously.”

“Then let’s go. The longer we’re stationary, the greater the chance of anything creeping up on us, and just by ourselves…”

Boney looked around, suddenly realizing that all the strong people were missing. He gulped. “No need to say anymore. Let’s run!”

They were in a corridor again, and Boney bolted off in a random direction. Laura and Headless followed, and their torchlight parted the darkness as they explored.