Zeke maintained [Triune Colossus], fueling the skill with earth mana as he marched down the gravel lane. On either side of him grew oak trees, their low, interlocking branches spreading across the open area to create a nearly impenetrable canopy. Moonlight filtered through, dancing with the drifting fog that hung over the whole area.

Behind him, the rest of the party came. First, there was Sasha, then Eta, Pudge, and finally, Silik protecting the rear. Thankfully, they hadn’t been attacked since the gargoyle’s assault, but they all knew it was only a matter of time before something else came after them. So, tense but ready, they followed Zeke down the path and towards the manor looming ahead.

Zeke only caught a few spare glances of the structure, but it was enough to give him a sense of its construction. And each glimpse further supported his first assertion that, with its gothic architecture, sharp angles, and severe steeples, it looked like a stereotypical haunted house one might see in a Halloween movie.

But every moment brought with it the feel of rotting tendrils trying to encapsulate his flesh.

“That’s the ambient mana,” Eveline said. “Disease, poison, with a touch of arcane. It’s not quite attuned to death, but it’s certainly death-adjacent. Call it rot, maybe.”

Zeke didn’t respond to the former demoness-turned-mind-spirit. Instead, he kept his attention trained on his surroundings. The gargoyle attack had come without much warning, proving that the creatures within the dungeon could mask their presence from his senses. Perhaps that ability was unique to the gargoyle, but in response to its attack, Zeke had resolved to take a “better safe than sorry” attitude. Hopefully, it would help him and his companions survive.

“Not friends?” asked Eveline.

“Huh?”

“You always think of them as companions. A party, sometimes. But never friends,” she said. “Why?”

“Because they aren’t,” Zeke stated. In his life back on Earth, he’d had a lot of acquaintances. Some were closer than others, but after his injury, they’d drifted away. Part of that was his fault – he certainly wasn’t in a psychological place for friendship at the time – but it also served to open his eyes to the differences between friends, acquaintances, and family.

Most people best fit into the second category. They were fun to have around, and they would be there so long as things were light and easy. However, the moment something happened to upset the status quo, they were nowhere to be seen. By contrast, friends and family would stick around no matter what.

“Pudge is family. The others are only here by happenstance,” Zeke stated. “Maybe that changes as time goes on, but for now, they’re just acquaintances. I led them in here, so they’re my responsibility, but I’m not naïve enough to assign more meaning to these relationships than what’s really there.”

Zeke had no interest in discussing it further, largely because, even after years, the fact that lifelong “friends” had all but abandoned him still stung. It was one thing to move on, but it would take a lot longer for him to completely forget that situation. So, he was grateful that his current circumstances required so much of his focus. Otherwise, he might have found himself spiraling into a pit of self-pity.

After a couple of minutes, the lane reached a four-way intersection, at the center of which was a grotesque statue.

Sasha gasped, whispering, “Is that…”

“It’s a little too eroded to tell for sure,” said Eta.

“But it looks like…like…I don’t even know how to describe it,” Sasha said.

From a distance, the statue in question looked more like a pile of rock. However, as they’d drawn closer, Zeke found himself wishing his vision wasn’t quite as sharp as it was. The subject of the statue could only be described as a ghoul feasting on the innards of its slain enemies. To Zeke, the ghoul itself looked like a combination of zombie, goblin, and the wights he’d seen back in the Radiant Isles. With arms and legs that were too long, huge claws, a distended stomach, and a host of sharp teeth, it made for a wholly horrifying sight.

“The artist was very talented,” remarked Eveline. “Those intestines it’s eating are very realistic.”

“Who would build something like that?” asked Jasper.

“It’s a dungeon,” Eta answered. “None of this is real.”

“It feels real,” muttered Sasha.

“For all intents and purposes, it is,” Zeke stated. “It’s just staged.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Pudge said. He rarely spoke, especially in a group setting, but when he did, the others had learned to listen. “We monsters are real, and we have to go through them. The other details are meaningless.”

That was easy to say, but in practice, it was extremely difficult to ignore such a grotesque and realistic piece of art.

“I would be more worried about what it represents,” said Eveline. “Most dungeons follow themes. So, when you encounter a statue that seems to venerate a ghoul, you should probably take that as a sign of what’s to come.”

“Are you saying that we’re going to be fighting ghouls?”

Eveline gave a mental shrug. “No idea. Maybe. Probably. It depends on how far you get,” she said. “But if you keep going until the end, I’d say it was almost certain.”

“Great.”

After that, Zeke turned to his companions and asked, “So, which way do you think?”

Discounting the option of going back, there were three choices before them. To the left, the path descended, with the trees giving way to an open plaza populated by a few more ghoulish statues. Beyond that, the landscape was obscured by the everpresent fog.

To the right, a pair of stone retaining walls replaced the trees lining the path, but the curve of the trail and the dense fog hid any other details.

And finally, the foreboding manor lay ahead.

“Right,” said Sasha.

At the same time, Pudge said, “Left.”

Adding his own opinion to the mix, Jasper said that they should go towards the manor, supporting his assertion by saying that it was the most obvious way to defeat the dungeon. “We will be forced to go there eventually. May as well get it out of the way.”

Zeke glanced at Eta and asked her opinion, but she refused to act as the tie-breaker, saying, “I don’t know. Any advice I would give would be completely unsupported by evidence.”

For his part, Silik just shrugged as he continued his vigil. While everyone else had concerned themselves with the nature of the dungeon and which path to take, the hulking kobold general had refused to let down his guard. Instead, he continued to survey their surroundings, anticipating an attack that, so far, had not manifested.

“I do not recommend going straight to the big house. You are in no way ready for what’s inside,” Eveline stated.

“What do you mean? That’s probably the way out, right?”

“Most dungeons are arranged in levels. After defeating each one, you have the chance to leave,” Eveline answered. “Those three paths represent different levels. I’m fairly certain that the house contains the final challenge.”

“And you don’t think we can take that.”

“Perhaps,” Eveline acknowledged. “You do keep surprising me. But you said it yourself – you’re not here to conquer the dungeon. You’re here to stall while the giants lose your trail. So, logically speaking, it’s probably better to simply do the bare minimum, then wait it out until you’re ready to leave.”

“But the rewards…”

“Will be minor,” she stated. “Again, this is a matter of priorities. Even if it wasn’t, I’d advise that you work your way up rather than…ah…jump into the deep end before you even know if you can swim.”

That made perfect sense to Zeke, which came as a bit of a surprise due to the pattern of disagreements in his relationship with the parasitic mind spirit living in his brain.

“Oh, that’s just unfair and reductive,” Eveline said, feigning offense.

Zeke couldn’t help but grin a little at her mock affront. In a lot of ways, his relationship with Eveline was closer than he’d ever enjoyed with anyone else. She knew him better, certainly. So, even though she had a habit of belittling him, her tone was always playful and teasing. That attitude serve to inject at least a little levity into what would otherwise be horrifying circumstances.

“You think there’s any difference between left and right?” he asked, glancing in both directions. No matter which one they chose, he suspected it would be challenging.

“I don’t know,” Eveline admitted.

After a little while longer, during which the rest of his companions discussed the problem at hand, Zeke told them what Eveline had said. He didn’t attribute it to the mind spirit, of course; none of them knew about her, and if they did, the response probably wouldn’t be good. Instead, he took credit for her reasoning, finishing with, “I don’t think it matters whether we go left or right. So, I think we should head down that way.” He pointed to the left. “At least down there, we can see what we’re getting into.”

That much was certainly true, given that the plaza was mostly visible. The same couldn’t be said for the right-most path, which was completely hidden by the tall, stone retaining walls, thick bank of fog, and the curve of the path.

Noone argued with Zeke’s assessment, so, after only a few more moments, the party left the grotesque statue behind as they strode down the path toward the plaza. Meanwhile, the howling had never ceased, even if none of them could pinpoint the location of its origin. Instead, it felt as if the sound followed them wherever they went, emanating from all around.

That continued as they descended the slight slope of a shallow hill, ending up in the plaza. There, Zeke saw a series of four statues in the center of the plaza. Like the other statue they had found, the subjects were ghouls, though instead of feeding on some unidentifiable mass of meat and innards, they stood back to back, facing four different directions.

“That’s not ominous at all,” muttered Sasha.

Almost as soon as she spoke, a sound like stone grinding against stone filled the air as one of the statues turned its head toward them. Zeke immediately stopped, holding his hands out wide to shield his friends from whatever was about to happen.

But nothing did.

That gave him leave to leverage his [Inspection] ability to get more information on the monster.

Ghoulgoyle – Level 56

“Ghoulgoyle? Ugh. That’s just bad,” Eveline remarked. “Who names these things, anyway?”

Zeke ignored her, turning his ability on the other four statues. The results for each one were identical, save that one was level fifty-four and another was level fifty-eight. Four monsters, each one higher-leveled than any of Zeke’s companions.

“Maybe we should’ve just taken our chances with the giants,” he said to Eveline.

“Once again – I told you so,” she said with a smug sense of superiority. “But I don’t think it’s the time to point that out. Because those things aren’t going to stand still indefinitely.”

“You just pointed it out.”

“Only to say that it wasn’t the time to mention that I cautioned you against this plan for this very reason,” she said. “Do you remember when I told you it was a bad idea to…”

Zeke tuned her out as he watched the still motionless ghoulgoyles. None of his companions had moved a muscle since he’d stopped. “Sasha,” Zeke said. The sound of his voice got the attention of the statue-like monsters. Even as each of them turned their heads toward him, he added, “I need to start prepping something big. Silik, protect her. The rest of you…just do your thing.”

That was all the instructions he could give before, suddenly, the statues erupted into motion. It sounded like an avalanche as the creatures bounded from their plinths, making a beeline toward the sound of Zeke’s voice. He met their charge with one his own, increasing his weight as he swung his hammer in a vicious, horizontal swing that connected with the lead ghoulgoyle.

It was like hitting a solid wall, and Zeke’s hammer rebounded so violently that it almost twisted him around in the opposite direction. Caught off balance, he could do nothing to mitigate the damage of the ghoulgoyle’s counterattack, which sent him reeling backwards. But Zeke was no novice warrior, and he quickly recovered enough to regain his balance before aiming another attack at the monster. This time, though, instead of meeting it head-on, he targeted the thing’s comparatively spindly legs.

The hammer connected, and once again, Zeke found unexpected resistance. If the previous attack had felt like hitting a solid wall, then the latest blow was akin to swinging a baseball bat at a telephone pole. There was slightly more give, and his attack resulted in a few stone chips flying across the plaza.

But it did very little real damage, aside from briefly staggering the creature. Zeke didn’t let that dissuade him, and he used the brief opening to connect with a monstrous uppercut that took the monster directly in its ghoulish chin. Once again, it did little real damage, but the already unbalanced monster could do nothing to mitigate the sheer momentum behind the blow. As a result, it was sent flipping backward into its fellows.

The four ghoulgoyles collapsed into a pile of tangled limbs, stone wings, and gnashing teeth, giving the others an opportunity to bring their own powers to bear. Eta waved her arm, casting a wave of fist-sized and spikey spores at the tangled monsters. When they hit, they erupted into clouds of powder before settling into the cracks and crevices in the ghoulgoyles’ bodies.

“Slowing effect. Nice,” said Eveline. “The spores act as a –”

“Not the time, Eveline!” Zeke growled, already dashing back into the fray. Before he hit, a great ball of [Hellfire] enveloped the creatures. Silik followed up with a lance of light, and the combined abilities resulted in a small, localized explosion of flame and light, the shockwave of which slightly staggered Zeke.

When he resumed his charge, he saw that, aside from a few missing chips of stone, the ghoulgoyles were almost entirely unharmed. But they were still on their back feet.

“Talons, really,” Eveline remarked.

Zeke paid her commentary no mind as he crashed into the pile, hammer-first. With his strength, his attacks packed quite a punch, so he expected explosive results. And at first, that’s what he got. The blow landed with the force of a meteor, cracking the stone tiles of the plaza and briefly scattering the dense fog. However, when the dust settled, Zeke saw that the ghoulgoyles were still very much intact.

And they had no intention of standing idly by while he wound up another attack.

A claw took him in the chest, and for the first time, he experienced what his enemies must have felt when he’d used [Leech Strike] so long ago. The earth mana coursing through him was ripped away, taking quite a bit of vitality with it. He staggered back as he saw his attacker’s body rebuilding itself, pebble by pebble.

As the ghoulgoyle pushed itself to its feet, the grotesque thing actually grinned. Zeke stepped back, still reeling from his lost vitality. However, as a veteran of hundreds of battles, he quickly regained and, as he backed away to put some distance between himself and his recovering enemies, he shouted, “Be careful! They have some sort of leech attack!”

It was the only instruction Zeke managed to give before the ghoulgoyles leaped forward, and the battle resumed.