Robin hissed in frustration and let his hand fall from the stone blocking the party’s way back to the cavern and the tunnel that led to the temple room. The thing wasn’t shifting and he had not been able to find any mechanism to cause it to open once more. Jhess, with her superior skill at finding traps and hidden doors, might still turn up something, or Drev, with his superior magical senses, but Robin was tapped out.

Instead he turned to examine their surroundings. Even if trapped, they had found a hidden room that collected vast amounts of magic. That had to be good for something. And it had been marked on the map. It was important somehow. Might as well investigate that since they were here and clearly not heading back any time soon.

The place looked like a public bath house. The stairs had spiralled them down to a sort of entrance location, but the cavern they were in now was large and vaulted, with low stone walls—just high enough for a bit of privacy here and there—winding through the space.

A large, circular pool dominated the centre of the space with several smaller ones around the perimeter and within the mazy coil of the low, stone walls Robin had noticed. Most of them were long empty, and the mosaic-work around them cracked and warped, most with fist sized outcroppings of crystal marring things even further.

The central pool was full, however, though based on the way the contents glimmered and moved of their own volition, Robin suspected the contents weren’t water. Liquid magic? Some kind of enchanted acid? A resting ooze just waiting to rise up and engulf them all?

Most of the potential options that sprung immediately to mind were…not good ones.

There was no water running through the room, though Robin could see the channels that should have been filled with it. There weren’t any flickers of illusions, either, which was decidedly eerie, after spending so long in the ruins of Tarin-Tiran where fragments of illusion magic were almost ever-present, even after ages of decay and ruination.

Careful! Robin called telepathically to his familiar.

Rerebos had spotted the shiny waters of the central pool and was fluttering above them curiously. If the little dragon-in-disguise had had a way to scoop them up, Robin was sure an attempt would already have been made, regardless of the potential consequences.

At least the pool made no move to form a pseudopod and lash out at the winged cat flying above it. Robin didn’t completely rule out the ooze threat, but he did reduce the odds in the tally he was running in his head.

I see tunnels. Rerebos announced. Three of them, at the edges of the cavern. One looks natural, one has an ornate archway, and the other is some kind worked stone.

Robin could feel his familiar’s opinion of each. The last one, the worked stone, came with a bit of withering disdain.

The work must not be that great. If it was, it would have triggered Rerebos’s greed, like the ornate archway clearly had.

‘I can’t find anything,’ Jhess said disgustedly. ‘You finger-wagglers having any luck?’

‘No,’ Drev said.

Vance shook his head.

‘My vision is still unreliable,’ Savra said sourly, ‘but I suspect we’re not likely to be able to return that way.’

‘Well, there are other exits nearby,’ Robin reminded the party. ‘We established that before we chose the entrance we did. The others were further away, or looked less reliable, but they do exist. We can try and work our way around to one of them if we have to. Might even be easier than boring through several feet of solid stone.’

‘What is that?’ Vance interrupter the burgeoning discussion to point at the softly glimmering central pool.

‘I have no idea,’ Robin said, ‘but I suspect it’s dangerous.’

Jhess froze in the act of reaching out to touch the stuff.

‘It’s intensely magical, whatever it is,’ Drev said, squinting at the pool. ‘And it doesn’t appear to have any kind of magical signature that I recognise.’

‘Maybe it’s just pure magic? Filtered by the crystals somehow? The wild magic explosions could be a side effect of pulling away whatever gives a certain bit of magic a signature or resonance?’ Robin hummed a bit as he thought.

‘Resonance. That’s a nice term for it,’ Drev said. ‘I like it!’

‘Thanks.’ Robin didn’t mention he’d stolen it from a tabletop RPG from his old world. Not like there was anyone here to contest him or push a copyright violation or anything.

‘Trust a bard to use a word like resonance.’ Jhess shook her head, but her smile said she was just teasing.

‘Why don’t you stick a dagger in that stuff,’ Robin shot back. ‘Let’s see if it does anything.’ He paused. ‘Though maybe tie a bit of string to it and toss it in. Probably safer not to be in direct contact with it. Just in case.’

Jhess looked alarmed, but a look from Savra calmed her nerves. Though with both Drev and Vance clamouring for the experiment to go forward, Robin wasn’t sure how.

Those two agreeing on something dangerous and magic-related was usually a good reason to be nervous.

‘This might even prove the way to reverse the block that trapped us here,’ Drev mused. ‘It smacks of a certain sort of puzzle favoured by living dungeons.’

Robin didn’t think it was that likely, but it was worth a shot. Might as well exhaust the options here before deciding which of the three tunnels to take out of here.

He quickly compared them to the mental copy of the map they had found in the temple and to Red’s journal. Either the natural tunnel or the worked stone one seemed likely to lead to the next location that overlapped on both maps. The ornate tunnel was probably their best bet for the fastest, shortest route out of this place. Though with dungeons it was all but impossible to tell. Ruddy places did ridiculous things with spatial dynamics.

Jhess, having properly tied her knife to a piece of string, tossed the weapon into the pool, skimming it in so as to minimise splash damage.

The pool exploded with coruscating light and the dagger dissolved into steel-grey sparks, which whirled through the air like fireflies before winking out of existence.

Jhess was left holding a much shortened piece of string.

‘Right. Don’t touch the pool of condensed magic,’ Robin said. ‘Message received.’

‘We haven’t tested enough things to definitively say that,’ Vance protested.

Drev concurred.

‘Throw some meat in,’ the mage demanded.

‘Me?’ Robin blinked. ‘Why me?’

‘It’s your turn, and aside from Jhess, you’re the one with the largest supply of contraband supplies.’

‘I beg your pardon!’ Robin acted affronted, but he materialised a small bit of steak nonetheless. ‘Contraband? This is…emergency rations for my familiar!’

‘Sure,’ Jhess smirked. ‘Rations you packed in Noviel knowing you’d just happen to find a familiar? Pull the other one.’

Robin forced a laugh. He had come a bit too close to letting something slip there. Rerebos the adorable flying kitten was a familiar everyone could get behind. Rerebos the miniature shadow dragon? That was a dicier prospect.

He tossed the gobbet of meat into the pool. Once again, it hissed and fizzed, it’s true nature sublimating into something wilder, more unusual. Though in this case that was a small gobbet of pink slime that hauled itself up out of the pool of its own volition and scurried away into a crack even as Jhess tried to smash it beneath her heel.

‘That is definitely going to come back and haunt us, someday,’ the rogue said sourly. ‘Unless we get out of this dungeon sharpish.’

‘But we have a way out,’ Drev said, snapping his fingers. ‘We just need to figure out how to use it.’

‘I don’t follow,’ Savra said, frowning.

Robin did, but only because he’d been part of far too many dungeoneering parties in his world, and played with far too many people whose idea of a fun game was trying to weirdest things the could imagine to get out of a situation—forcing the DM to contort into more and more twisted a pretzel as they tried to keep the game on some semblance of rails.

The really fun ones gave up, went with it, then figured out how to make it look like it was all part of a grand plan to begin with.

‘He wants us to splash the stone blocking our way with a bunch of that.’ Robin gestured to the pool. ‘But there’s an obvious problem there.’

‘Anything that touches the pool changes,’ Savra said, nodding. ‘How do we transport the liquid the required distance without mishap.’

‘That’s the million gold piece question,’ Robin said, flashing an insincere smile.

‘Any suggestions?’ Jhess asked. ‘Because I’ve got nothing. And you’re not getting any more of my daggers!’

‘We shouldn’t spend too long coming up with things either,’ Robin warned. ‘That’s a good way to get stuck down here. Right now we have no idea where to head next if we’re ambushed and have to flee. If we can’t get that stone open we’re going to need another route out of here.’

‘Jhess can scout us one, and Savra can help with her divinatory powers.’ Drev flicked his fingers dismissively. ‘We’ve got a potential solution right here that’s also a prime candidate for research. Do you have any idea what we might learn by studying this?’

The excited mage wasn’t completely wrong. And the idea of some more secrets or perks was definitely tempting. Robin sighed.

‘I’ll send Riri to help scout the tunnels. He’s already spotted three, though Jhess might find a hidden one. I’ll see if I can think of any ballads or legends that might offer a solution to a problem like this.’

‘I’ll work with Jhess and divine our best course of action,’ Savra said. ‘No, I will not aid you in unlocking the secrets of this pool.’ She held up a hand before Drev could protest. ‘You have quite enough enquiring minds as it is.’

‘Fair enough,’ the mage conceded, deflating a bit.

The party split to perform their respective tasks, though Robin kept part of his attention with Rerebos. He still hated to split a party. Too many years of gaming convincing him it would always end in disaster.

And it was probably right to be paranoid. A dungeon was not a dungeon master, but it was a damn close approximation. And they’d already tripped one trap.

Be careful. Robin sent to his familiar, following the words with a surge of affection and caution.

Robin got back a surge of emotion that was a mixture almost more appropriate to a resentful teenager: embarrassment, irritation, and a trace of love.

He took it.

‘Right,’ he said, turning to the mage and the librarian. ‘Let’s get creative. Now…’