I couldn’t deny it; I wanted to pass out. Between the blood loss and the pain of losing my feet and leg, I was ready. That said, I knew that I couldn’t, not yet. I had to find and turn off the mana siphon so that I could plant the dungeon. Then I could rest.

I stared for just a moment at the blood-red door. The red light made me think that whatever was behind the door had to be evil. It was all of the video game training I had gotten. If the door looked spooky, it was.

The only sound was my heavy, labored breathing and my heart beating in my ear. I took a deep breath of the dusty, stale air and let loose a ragged cough. Finally, after spitting up some blood, I gritted my teeth and dragged myself forward. I couldn’t even crawl now because of my missing leg. Worse than that, I didn’t know what would happen with it.

The very fact that nothing was bleeding out was fantastic. However, my mind failed to figure out why it wasn’t. I didn’t understand what was going on with my body. There had to be more problems with what happened, but they weren’t problems I could deal with now. If nothing else, the blood flowing to the leg needed a return to my heart, or it would pool, but it didn’t have a return and wasn’t pooling.

The door was only about ten feet away, so it didn’t take me too long to drag myself over to it. I felt something odd happening the closer I got. My mana wasn’t going down, but I noticed it also wasn’t ticking up anymore.

I dropped to my face and took a deep breath. I didn’t know what I was about to encounter, but I knew I needed to at least try. I owed it to Kasidy and Blink to keep going. I figured that if push came to shove, Blink could force her way out somehow unless they killed her in the cage.

After a short break, I reached my hand out to the door. As my hand touched the dark crystal-like surface, I got a pop-up.

Enter the forsaken Crypt of the Deathwalker?

Yes/No

My hand fell off the door, and the pop-up vanished. This wasn’t what I was expecting or wanting. Crypt sounded like a lair or dungeon from a game. I knew it couldn’t be a dungeon in the way that this world used them but a lair it could still be. If it was a lair, I might not make it back out.

I propped myself back up and looked at the door. I had two choices. I could either stay put or go through the door into the crypt. If I stayed, I would need to figure out a way to get back through the cave and up the stairs. Once up, I would have to drag myself out of the entrance to the escape tunnel where we came in. Then I would have to fight the huge giant rat. The other thing I could do would be to try to tunnel through the stone without my gear and hope not to have a cave-in. Then once I was through set up a dungeon.

I dropped back to the ground. By the time I got through the cave-in or the rock wall, Blink and Kasidy would be done. My only timely option was to see what the Crypt of the Deathwalker was. My only hope was that I could beat it lying down.

I placed my hand on the crypt door and selected yes. The door slowly opened before me. It didn’t creak or groan just swung in from the middle. As they opened, the lights on the inside popped on. The room was huge, with a tall vaulted stone ceiling. I couldn’t see much of it past the first row of what could only be tables with heavy drop cloths over them.

I pulled my way through the doors. As soon as my trailing nub passed the doorway, they closed behind me with a heavy clank. Pulling myself forward, I saw everything in the room covered with drop cloths. It looked every bit like a mad scientist’s evil lab had been closed up for a trip.

There was a thick layer of dust that I couldn’t help stirring up as I pulled forward. I shook my head and got up next to the first covered table. I knew things were on it but not what, so I needed to be careful, but I also had to explore. I had to hope that I would find something worthwhile.

I pulled myself into a seated position with my back kind of to the table and started to work the tarp off. Once I got enough of it off to see the corner of the table, I smiled. It was a stone table top which made me think it could support my weight.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Then I reached up and grabbed the table and pulled myself up. I had to put weight on my left nub, which shot pain into my body. I let loose a screaming grunt as I leaned heavily on the table. I gritted my teeth and finished moving enough of the tarp to pull myself up onto it.

It took me a few moments to get my breathing back down where I needed it. After a few more heavy breaths, I looked around from my higher vantage point. I was right about what I thought at first. It appeared to be a laboratory but not of a scientist. I had just seen some of the same pieces of equipment in the thoughts Blink had sent me.

I was in a necromancer’s lab. I pulled out the dungeon seed and tried to plant it again. Only to get the same message telling me.

Warning!

Within five yards of mana siphon

Move no less than ten yards away or deactivate siphon

The only thing that looked remotely active was the door, and I was still close to those. But it did mean that I could pull myself further into the room, and then I should be away from the siphon unless this whole place was a siphon of some sort.

While on the table, I finished moving the dust-covered cloth off as carefully as possible. I wanted to know what was here and make sure that I was in the type of lab I thought I was in. I needed to know if I was in the Lich’s seat of power and if this was the root of all the problems. Then I might be able to make changes and affect things better.

It was a long and painful half-hour as I cleared off the drop cloths from a few tables. Each one was covered with magical items that increased the efficacy of necromantic skills. Some were just a plus one, and others were percentages, but each would help. Each of the tables I had uncovered was based around different minions. For example, there was a table for skeletal hell dogs and another for zombie hell dogs.

Perched on top of the largest table, I shook my head. “This isn’t the room I want, and this stupid seed still isn’t taking. The whole place has to be the siphon.”

My head was pounding with a headache. The pain, while I was able to shunt it away mostly, was still building up, and the dust was wrecking my breathing. Finally, after getting my coughing under control, I looked around again. There were dozens, perhaps even a hundred, different tables in this room. Then across the walls on the far side were what could be called workstations.

The workstations themselves reminded me of any craftsman’s shop. There was a clear space to work, tools, and small parts in little drawers sitting on top. I even saw one with what I would think was a bench vice bolted to an edge. Pushed up under each station was a wooden chair, and there even appeared to be task lights turned off but nearby.

What my eyes were drawn to most, and the thing that forced me to make a decision, were the two doorways. One was in a direct line from where I slithered in on the wall with the workstations. The other was across the work floor and in the corner beside the workstations but on the wall to my right. The one on the right had a door. That door made me want to move to it before the other way.

The problems with picking to go to the door were several. One was that I would have to navigate the maze of tables. While I knew I could move in the general direction, it was still about two hundred feet away. Dragging myself through the tables meant that I would be covering much more distance, and I wouldn’t be able to keep my eye on the location I was going.

Worse yet, the idiot who set up this room didn’t make clear walkways to the outside. So I would have to deviate around. If I were walking, it wouldn’t seem like much of a hassle, just a mismatch of placing tables from making easy pathways. However, being unable to keep my eyes on where I needed to be meant that I could turn too soon and add more distance.

I sighed and lowered myself to the ground. My leg that was missing was itching, and I wanted to scratch it, but I couldn’t since it wasn’t there. My feet were cramping, but, again, they weren’t there, so I couldn’t do anything.

Then I started my slow, low crawl through the tables. It wasn’t easy, and I got turned around a couple of times but keeping with my general directions, I got out of the tables and to the edge of the room. I had been trying to come out near the door, but I ended up halfway down the edge without workstations.

A few minutes later, I was at the door. Before even trying the door, I tried the dungeon seed again. I had moved far enough that if the main door was causing problems, I would be out of range.

Warning!

Within five yards of mana siphon

Move no less than ten yards away or deactivate siphon

I sighed and shook my head. “So the whole place is one big siphon. Perfect. Now I just hope there’s a back door that isn’t infested with rats.”

I looked up at the door. Unlike the one leading into this laboratory, this door had a handle. It was one of those latch-type handles where you had to press down and swing the door open. The problem, of course, was that it was at normal height.

I drew myself up using the door to support my weight and balanced on my only knee. Then I opened the door. I was worried. Every hour I spent here was a day I could have been in a safe room. Worse than that, I didn’t have a clue what was behind the door. It could take me right out of the Crypt and into a rat nest.

The throbbing pain behind my eye should have been causing it to twitch. I took a deep breath and pressed down on the latch. Then I pushed for all I was worth. The door didn’t budge.

Yelling, I hit the door with my fist. “Can’t I catch a break! I crawl all the way over to a blocked door!”

I pounded on it several times before losing my balance and falling back. As I stared at the door with hatred, my hate turned to anger. Not anger at the door but anger at myself as I saw the hinges on this side of the door.

I muttered. “Damn thing pulls! I’m a fool!”

I punched the stone floor and then pulled myself back up, cursing all the way. My short leg just hurt. It was like the pain from something too cold being forced onto you. Then my nub foot felt like it was there, but all cut up and full of thorns. My missing eye, I could swear, had something in it and was now watering, making me want to sneeze.

I grabbed the latch and pulled the door, falling backward to open it. “I’m going to kill that lich slowly over and over again. I might even let a rat do it for me. A little one, not a huge giant rat.”

I managed not to land on my head when I fell over. It took me just a moment to get the now-cracked open door fully open. Through the open door, I saw what looked like a morgue and a file room all in one.

There were hundreds, perhaps thousands of drawers that I could see from floor to ceiling, and the ceiling stretched up a good two hundred feet. The whole place was vaulted ceilings with stone arches meeting at points halfway up, and the top was a series of great domes.

I pulled myself over to the closed drawer and noticed a small place card on the front, just like a filing cabinet. Each drawer that I could see had one of these small cards with something written on it.

I wrapped my hand around the drawer and pulled back. It stuck for a moment and then pulled back. The slides on the drawer were smooth like I expected on some of the best in office buildings. So smooth that as they got going, they pulled me slightly off balance.

Not having a second leg to shift my weight to, I fell onto the drawer. As I fell, I saw what was in this one—a skeleton in dull black armor with the same crest that had been on the door. Then, just as my hands passed through the lip of the drawer, I got a pop-up.

Containment breached

Skeletal Guard called forth.

* * *