Chapter 13: Chapter 13 – Puzzles and Prizes

Chapter 13 - Puzzles and Prizes

Jax and I looked over the little stone intently. It was not a carved gemstone like the keys had been. Instead, it was a smallish lump of misshapen granite, unremarkable save for the faint glow that pulsed from within.

“What do ye suppose we’s supposed ter do with it?” Jax asked me.

I had no idea, of course, and Bline, Jax's Lady of Power, had remained mum on the subject, refusing to even give the thing a name. The only other thing I knew to do was to get through the wasp room, and neither of us wanted to do that.

“Want to go back to the hub? Read that puzzle clue again?” I suggested.

He shrugged, “Better’n fondlin’ our tits here.”

My eyes glazed over for a moment as Jax walked past me. I shuddered to think what polite company would make of the man.

I had sat down to eat a bit of brunch. The Eggs Benedict on toast was a sumptuous treat after having gone so long… I gagged. My attempt at imagining that I was eating something palatable was abruptly shattered by the greasy mess slowly trying to slide its way down my throat. A chill started its way from the base of my spine, over the top of my head, and ended at my twitching right eye. Trying to drown out the flavor, I took a swig from my skin of Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster that Jax had concocted. I was pretty sure that he had started adding more of the alcohol to make up for our dwindling supply of water… or because he was a booze hound. Likely both.

Coughing roughly, I looked over at Jax. He had sat down just beside and a step below me in the hub room. Of his own ration, I noticed, he was picking at it with distaste, scarcely having eaten any of it. I could hardly blame him. Instead, he seemed to be trying to drown out the hunger by drinking straight from the little jug of alcohol.

“Can’t stomach the stuff anymore, huh?” I asked.

He frowned at it. “I can force meself, if I need ta,” he explained, “but it be doin’ me gut poorly.”

I nodded sagely, “I could do with a salad, myself.” With a nice balsamic…

Trying to change the subject, Jax gestured to the ‘talking stone’ in the middle of the room, “What do you make of the clue, then? ‘Unlock’ any doors fer ya?” He gave me a cheeky grin at his wordplay.

“Well…” I started, not rising to the bait, “we have two of the keys now, and I’m pretty sure the third one is in that, uh… that room.”

Jax grunted in acknowledgment. The less said about it the better.

“I just don’t understand the contradictory lines. Two locks, one door. One door, one lock.”

Jax's back straightened suddenly, “Oh! When ye said it out loud, jus’ now, she clicked fer me.” He looked at me, “Ye hear it? Two locks fer one door, an’ one lock fer the other’n.”

“Other one?” I asked. But as soon as a I said it, I remembered. “The other door! Back at the other end of the hallway!”

Packing away his half-eaten meal, Jax dusted his hands off and stood. “Let’s go check ‘er out. I’ve had all I can stomach o’ this bile, anyway.”

I belched, my eyes watering at the returned flavor mixed with stomach acid. Jax just laughed at my expression.

It did not take us very long to get to the other end of the original passage. The sanctuary room, I noticed as we walked past, was still blocked off. If I had not known it was there, I would have mistaken the featureless wall for any of the others in this place, the patch job was so perfect. As it was, I had to assume that either we were not intended to ever return, or there was some sort of timer in place between uses. I suspected the former.

When we got to it, we found the black door still closed tightly, just as we left it, however there was one quite noticeable difference. The crystal set in its center had morphed into an upturned, slender palm. The delicately carved, feminine hand was stunningly beautiful to behold, shining with the inner light that all of the gems in this place seemed to share. The fingers, I noticed, tapered into sharp crystalline points.

Tracing his hand along it gently, Jax asked, “What do we do now? Give ‘er the rock?”

I shrugged, “Probably. I do remember that there was supposed to have been something we had to fight to open this.”

“We did nay really have to fight ‘em, yon sandy dobber, did we?”

I nodded, “True. But I don’t much remember the wording on the clue for this door. It might not have meant that we had to explicitly fight the thing. And anyway, this hand seems to be expecting us to put something in it.”

He tutted impatiently, “Alright, good enough. Don’t keep the lass waiting, lad.”

“Can’t hurt to try,” I agreed and placed the hunk of granite into the proffered hand.

Nothing happened at first, and our expressions fell. Sighing, I reached to remove the heart, but just as I moved, the hand twitched. Slowly, like a Moonflower closing its petals to the rising sun, the hand curled around our offering and tucked it tightly against the darkly colored door. As soon as the rock touched against it, there was a soft click, and the door swung open a finger’s width. There it stopped, waiting.

Neither of us dared breath for a long time after that, too afraid of what might come next. When nothing else happened, we looked at each other.

Wearing a look of silent determination, Jax stepped forward and lightly pushed on the door.

Given what we had seen of this place thus far, I was fully expecting another of those circular rooms with some sort of creative death awaiting us. What this door opened to, however, was just a small squarish room, rather like a broom closet. Or it would have been if broom closets ran toward baroque floral carvings. Every inch of the walls were covered in intricate vines and flowers of every description and all seemingly sculpted from a single block of stone.

All of that was quite lovely, of course, but what drew our immediate attention was what the room actually contained. Sitting on the floor was a decently sized chest made of some sort of lightly colored and finely polished hard wood. The chest had continued in the theme of the room, being as it was also carved in the same fashion, and was fortified with steel bands along each edge, ending with a large locking mechanism inset with a rounded, triangular slot. It would appear that we would need a Dungeon Key to open it. Hovering just above the chest, a ‘talking gem’ about the size of a man’s hand casually awaited us.

“Huh,” I uttered, mostly just to say something.

Jax squatted down to look over our find. Seeing nothing particularly amiss, he waved in the direction of the hovering gemstone, “Be impolite not ter at least see what she got ter say fer her ownself.”

I nodded, “Go ahead.”

Hearing my agreement, he reached out and lightly tapped the gem.

“Damn,” Jax muttered. “Three keys again.”

I sighed in resignation.

“At least this one appears to be fairly straightforward,” I said, trying to make the best of it. “It seems to be saying that we can technically use any of the keys to open this, but that there is a correct one.”

“What do ye think’ll happen if we choose wrong?”

I smirked, “Consequences.”

“Right,” he said, standing up with a shiver. “We should avoid those. So how do we know which be the right one?”

I shrugged, “Seems simple enough. Whichever one we don’t need for that other door.”

He looked at me, “An’ how do we figure that out?”

“No idea.”

He frowned and stared at the floor for a while. Right now, we just did not have enough information to go on, and unfortunately, it was looking like there was only one thing left we could do. And we both knew it.

“Jax…”

“No.”

“I don’t think we have a choice.”

“You do it then! Ye have a healin’ spell.”

“And what happens if I go into anaphylaxis? It’s hard enough to cast a spell when I’m not injured.”

“Don’t use yer fancy words ta confuse the subject!”

I rolled my eyes, “You know what I meant. Look, it’ll be easy. Just run in, grab the stone, and run out. Then I’ll heal you up like it never happened.”

“Oh, easy as that, is it? Kiss me arse, ya nugget,” he continued petulantly.

“Look, once we make it out of here, I’ll buy you a beer, okay?”

He looked me up and down, “With what? Ye goin’ ta strip fer coin?”

We both stopped. Slowly, my mouth screwed up until I could hold it no longer, and I burst out laughing. Jax just snorted.

“Can you imagine, though?” I chortled, “I mean, what would I even do? Helicopter?”

His head tilted to the side, “Heli-what?”

“You know…” I said, rapidly swinging my pelvis back and forth.

Jax's eyes widened, and he took a step back. “Alright, alright. I’ll go get the cursed thing. Just… just don’t do that again.”

With that, he stepped past me, rapidly striding back the way we had come.

“Aww, Jax… did I make you blush?”

“I ain’t blushin’!”

“Come back here and let’s see then… Jax!”

The wasp room was just as we remembered, an angry buzzing terror. The little insects were crawling over everything: the walls, the floor, the ceiling, flying through the air. Even the pedestal was a living mass of stinging horror. The one exception was the shining gem in the center of the room. It just sat there, taunting us.

Jax stood just before the entryway with his arms crossed. “Just so’s ya know, I ain’t happy about this.”

“Yes, I think you’ve made that very clear,” I said patiently. “So what’s your plan? Slow and steady or run in?”

He looked at me, “Why would I go slow?”

“Sometimes insects will leave you alone if they don’t think you’re a threat?” I said, my voice rising uncertainly.

He considered that for a second before shaking his head, “No. This be the Dungeon. They’ll sting to kill fer sure.”

“Okay then. We need to try to minimize the risk.”

I looked him over. He was wearing a tight fitting, sleeveless tank top with loose but worn trousers that stopped just above the ankle. Meanwhile, his feet were encased in some sort of stitched leather shoe with a hemp string around the ankle to fasten it. If I had to guess, I would say that his legs were mostly fine, barring some holes. His main weakness was, of a certainty, going to be his upper body. I began to disrobe.

“What’re ya doin’?” he asked, his eyes widening.

“You need more clothes,” I explained. “Those stingers aren’t very long, so the more fabric we can layer you with, the less you’ll feel what’s coming.”

“A-alright,” he nodded uncertainly. “Just keep them loins girded. Don’t no person want to see you heli-floppin’ around.”

I snorted at his bastardization, “My underwear? What would you even use them for? Wear it on your head?”

He pursed his lips, “It’s… not a bad idea.”

“Just use your pack!”

“Oh, right,” he said, unslinging it. “I forgot! We even got a change o’ clothes in here.”

I had not forgotten. Mostly, because my spare pants were dangling by the crotch out of the twin holes in the bottom of my bag. The legs had been tapping me on the backside for the last half hour. Emptying the contents onto the ground, I dangled my pack at him.

“Here you go. It even has eye holes,” I said, poking my fingers through them.

When we were done, Jax looked ridiculous. He was wearing all four of our shirts over his torso and three pairs of trousers shoved onto his arms through the leg holes. Meanwhile, our bedrolls had been wrapped around his legs and lashed in place with the rope. He looked like someone who had been kicked out of the bomb squad and become a hobo.

“Don’t tell nobody about this,” his muffled voice emerged from the backpack.

“Of course not, buddy,” I lied, slapping him on the shoulder. “Of course not.”

“This thing smells terrible, by the way,” he complained. “What you been keeping in here?”

“Pemmican,” I deadpanned.

“Ugh… I think them jars be leakin’.”

Chuckling, I reached to grab his hand, but he shied away from me.

“What’re ya doin’ now?”

“I’m going to cast my healing spell before you go,” I explained. “It’s a regen effect, so you may as well start with it going.”

“An’ what’s that got to do with holdin’ me hand?”

“How else am I going to cast it on you?” I asked.

“How would I know? Just flap yer poofin’ hands at me!”

I opened my mouth to explain, but I stopped. Truthfully, I had assumed a healing spell to activate by touch, as it was what I was used to from games like D&D. Wanting to make sure, I pulled up the skill card and reread it.

Nodding slowly, I murmured, “Yeah, you’re right. It just says ‘target’, but it doesn’t explain how to choose one.”

“Anything else?” he asked, curiously.

I shook my head, “Just that I can sacrifice more energy to increase the magnitude. No idea how to do that, though.” I looked up at him, “How strong of a spell do you think I should go for? Assuming I can figure out how.”

His gaze turned to the angry room of horror for a moment before he looked back at me.

“All of it,” he said in a flat voice.

Smirking but agreeing, I said, “All right. Here goes.”

Feeling foolish, but not knowing what else to do, I raised my hands to point my fingers at him. Before I could summon the words to the spell, I suddenly had a flash of the Emperor raining lightning on poor Luke on the floor of the Death Star. I shook my head to try to clear it of the distraction, but I chuckled despite myself. The spell, of course, was a garbled mess in my head. The words were familiar in how utterly foreign they were, and this being my first attempt at it, the spell took several tries before I successfully spat it out.

As soon as the last syllable left my lips, a sudden surge of energy started to pour out from my outstretched hands and towards Jax. I tried to mentally push at it to make it as strong as I could, and it seemed to speed up a little in response. Before half a breath had passed, the spell was over and I looked up.

I could tell the moment the spell took hold because Jax suddenly gasped and hunched over. Through the eye-holes of the bag, I could see that his eyes were scrunched up from the effect, and before I could say a word or ask a question, he darted into the swarm. The wasps were on him before he had taken a step.

Any surface they could land on was a target, their abdomens repeatedly pumping into his, thankfully covered, body like thousands of mounted dogs on their mate. Jax had an arm up trying to keep them from crawling into his eye-holes. From how he was jerking around and cursing, I do not think he was too successful. He made his way haltingly toward the pedestal, favoring his left leg for some reason. I was pretty sure it was just as protected as the other, but the little devils must have found a way in. Once he reached the pedestal, he almost collapsed against it, shuddering slightly.

“Come on, Jax! Grab it and get out of there!” I cheered from the sideline, punching at the air.

Finally, he seemed to come back to himself, and snatching the gem, he sprinted back to the door way. The wasps seemed to recognize his plan to escape and thickened enormously just before the opening. For a moment, I lost sight of him through the surging swarm, but then he burst through into the clear, the wasps peeling off of him as he crossed the barrier. Jax landed on the floor, still cursing a blue streak. As soon as he was out, the wasps immediately calmed, forgetting about him completely.

“Jax! Jax, are you okay?” I bent to roll him over, squatting in my underwear. He was breathing hard and fast from the exertion, cursing every time he had more air to swear with.

As I ripped off the bag from his head, I could see that his face was starting to swell in several spots. My spell may have helped somewhat, but apparently it did not do much for the venom from the stingers. He would have to deal with that himself.

Once he got his breathing back under control, Jax looked up at me and burst out laughing. I grinned uncertainly at his reaction.

“Bline is such a cow,” he finally said, rolling back over onto his stomach. His laughter redoubled.

Of all the things he could have said at that moment, that was not what I was expecting. I was about to try to get him to explain himself, but my stomach took the opportunity to gurgle loudly. The adrenaline leaving my system, and I assumed, the use of the spell, had caused my appetite to surge. Jax just continued howling in laughter, like a man possessed.

You are reading story The Quest of Words at novel35.com

Shrugging, I sat against the wall and popped open a jar of pemmican. For some reason, this one tasted really good. Or maybe I was just too hungry to judge.

Jax had stepped away for a moment to resort his clothing situation. Untying the bed rolls and the several layers we had strapped to him was taking him some time. I had offered to help, but he insisted that he was fine. So, I just sat waiting, idly inspecting our newest find. The blue pop-up had happily labeled it [Dungeon Key: Yellow], and save for the color, it appeared identical to the others in size and shape.

These Keys are really quite pretty. Thinking about it, I had to admit that, as jewelry, the thing was much too big. Save for the diadem of a king or some such, anyone wearing a thing like this would be accused of ostentatiousness bordering on vulgarity. Maybe a pendant?

I had to wonder why the Dungeon had decided to make keys this way. You would expect, or at least I would, that a simple bronze affair with teeth and a nice loop at the end to attach it to a key ring would be the go to, but this place had opted to go all in on the crystalline theme. It was interesting, at least.

I looked up as Jax returned. For some reason, he had opted to change into his spare set of clothes.

I took a breath, “So…”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said, dumping the extra clothes into a loose pile.

I blinked a few times. “That bad, huh?”

Instead of replying, he just started roughly shoving his clothes into his pack, tossing mine to the side. Reaching to grab my belongings, I looked him over. The sores on his face were already starting to go down, I noticed thankfully, and while his arms were mostly untouched, his hands bore several marks, as well.

“I’m sorry about the spell,” I started. Jax's head jerked up to look at me. “I think it only works to help recover wounds. I’ll probably need a different one for things like venom or status effects like it.”

His eyes softened a bit at my explanation, and he resumed his packing. “No worries, mate. No worries,” he chuckled again. “We got the bloody weapon, anyway.”

“Weapon? Oh, the Key. Yeah.” I stood up and pulled a shirt over my head. “Let’s go look at this door again, shall we. And maybe we can get out of this place.”

“Aye. I can nay wait to tell this mangled fud ta tongue me fart-box.”

Honestly, I was past trying to decipher his cryptic swearing at this point.

I was standing in the hub facing the door studying the Keys in my hands. Red Key, Yellow Key, Blue Key. I looked up. Green door. Finally, my eyes drifted down a bit. Two Key slots.

I blinked a few times taking it in. This… this is just insulting. Honestly, it was like a puzzle for four-year olds. After all that we had to go through to get these damned things, it turns out the final puzzle is this?

“I do nay get it.”

My head slowly swiveled to stare at my companion. He was squatted by the door, peering intently at the key holes. “Pardon?”

He gestured frustratedly at the two slots, “These two things be exactly the same, near as I ken. I just do nay see how we’re supposed to pick. Short o’ guessin’.”

Taking a patient breath, I stepped around my unfortunately ignorant companion, and with a small flourish, slotted the Yellow and Blue Keys into their slots. The door, with no discernible fanfare, gave an audible click and swung open a small fraction. I glanced at Jax expectantly.

“Huh…” he said after a moment. “How did ye figure that?”

I smiled mischievously, “You underestimate the singular genius of the human race.”

He snorted, “Ye walloper.”

Deciding to have mercy, I explained a bit about the color wheel by way of mixing paint. Knowing as little as I did about the society of this world, I had to assume that if they had towns, then they had agriculture, and if they had that, then they surely had a concept of pigment or dye. So, I figured that he should at least be able to follow that much.

“But why do mixin’ the two make green?” he asked, finally.

I shrugged. Going any further would require explaining about visible light wavelengths, the absorption and reflection of light by materials, and eye cones, and I hardly wanted to go that far. So, I settled for the old parenting standby, “They just do.”

“Huh…” he said again, standing. “Tis lucky ye knew that then. I’d o’ been stuck here fer ever if’n I was by me ownself.”

Pointing at the door, I said, “Well, shall we?”

“A moment,” he halted me with an outstretched arm. “What about yon chesty?”

“Do you really want to go all the way back there first?” I asked doubtfully.

He nodded, “We earned it fair, we did. An’ we got the Key fer it, proper.”

“All right, fine,” I sighed. Truthfully, I was quite curious as to what we would find, and of course, I was planning on going back for it. I just did not see why we had to do it now. Still, I did not want to argue about it.

So, back we went.

Jax was kneeling down on one knee in front of the chest. I had decided to wait for the outcome several long paces away. Just in case.

Holding the red gem above his head to catch the light for a moment, he said, “Sure be a shame to use this thing. Do ye think we can keep ‘er after we’re done?”

I shrugged before I remembered his back was to me, “I don’t know. Try to take it out again after you’ve opened it.”

Heaving a final, regretful sigh, he bent down and slotted in the gem. I held my breath as the triangular gem fell into place, but all that happened was the sound of a pleasant little click as the lock popped open. When no unforeseen traps materialized, I exhaled in relief. Encouraged, I stepped forward to take a look at our prize. Jax had already begun swinging open the lid, and I grinned excitedly as the contents were revealed.

Inside were four silver coins, a large green marble, and a metallic cylinder.

We stared at the objects for a long moment collecting our thoughts. Honestly, I was a little disappointed. As big as the chest was, I was fully expecting… well, I do not know what. But filled with something anyway.

Curiously, I picked up one of the coins. The metal had been cast into a rough circle slightly smaller than the length of my thumb and about twice the thickness as a quarter. There was a depiction of some sort of horned woman on the front, or at least I assumed it was a woman. The face had no features save for two cut-outs where the eyes should be, and the two horns curved out from her head and almost met atop it. Radiating out from the head were four swords which crossed somewhere in the middle of the coin but behind the face. Each of the swords had a deep groove along its length cut into the metal of the coin, forming eight even wedges. The back of the coin featured a simple compass rose, and looking closely, I could see that an intricate maze had been etched all around the edge.

Jax whistled appreciatively at the coin, “Unbroken Dungeon silver. Be worth two or three times that in coin, some places. Maybe more, bein’ whole.”

That… sounded good. Probingly, I asked, “How long could you live off of this over in…” I struggled to bring up the name he had given for the local city.

“Bradfirth?” he supplied. “Lesse…” he started mumbling and counting on his fingers. “Ye can probably stay at an inn fer… a quarter Brad silver a night? So… a week? Week and a half? Includin’ meals. Nothin’ fancy mind. Longer if y’ain’t picky.”

Doing the math, I figured that the money here could probably set us up for almost a month if we were frugal. Translating that in my head, if I were staying in an inexpensive motel and eating cheaply, these four coins would probably be worth… maybe thirty five hundred dollars or more. I nodded appreciatively. Not a bad haul.

“What did you mean about Brad silver? Is that… the coinage around here?” I asked.

He nodded, “Aye. Around the demesne o’ the Enbraden Clan, anyways.”

“They the local…” I waved my hands vaguely, “royal family or something?”

He shook his head, “Clan, not family. Lot o’ families in a clan. Mostly related, some not. But they be in charge round these parts, sure.” He looked me over, “They not have clans where you be from?”

I grimaced, “Some places. But I’m… currently clanless.” It was technically true. It was even what my stat sheet said.

He grinned, “Same here… me lord.” He waggled his eyebrows at me.

Rolling my eyes a bit, I reached for the marble. It looked a bit like the Gems of Power we had been getting, only bigger.

<bing>

The pop-up notice answered my question before I even asked it.

“Oh, nice!”

Jax scowled at the thing for some reason and said, “It be my turn!”

“For what?” I asked in confusion.

“Last time we had one to share, ye downed ‘er yer ownself. Now it be my turn,” he spelled out. Like it mattered.

“Yeah, alright man, have at it,” I said, passing the stone over to his waiting palm. He smiled a bit when I did not argue and plopped the thing into his pack. At my look, he explained, “Later. When we’s down fer the night.” I could think of no reason that mattered, but it was hardly important. I doubted the Gem would get us to the next level all by itself, Greater or not.

I gestured to the cylinder, “What do you suppose that is?”

He picked up the shiny metal object and looked it over closely. It was about as long as my middle finger and as wide as my thumb. There were no marks or signs of tooling anywhere on its mirror-like surface, and both ends were flattened, almost like they had been shorn off.

“I dunno,” he said. “My Lady. What be this I be holdin’ in mine hand?”

We were both startled to actually hear a response to his question, as for one, She rarely answered requests for knowledge, and two, She never addressed us both at once. Third, and most bizarrely, it did not come in the form of a woman’s voice at all, as I had expected from Jax's descriptions of the Lady of Power. Rather, what we heard was the sound of a man, but as if through a tunnel and far away.

I do wish I had something with a bit more heft ta hand.

As soon as the voice faded, the cylinder flashed once and was replaced with an ornate broadaxe. The effect looked… cheesy? It was almost like a camera trick from a ‘70s fantasy film, like Beastmaster or Deathstalker, as if someone had painted a glow over reality for a moment while an axe was placed in Jax's hand. As decidedly odd as that had been, the axe was real enough.

The broadaxe was about as long as a man’s arm, fully extended, with a hard wooden handle and wrapped in tight leather for the grip. The axehead was shallow, only about the width of a hand across, but very tall, perhaps a foot or more in length. The blade curved up and over the haft, ending in a severe point at the tip. There were some light etchings all along it showing some delicate scroll work. In all, it seemed a handsome weapon.

Jax looked at me, “But I do nay know how to use an axe.”

I had to laugh at that, “It can’t be that hard.” I pointed at the axehead, “Sharp end? Fleshy bits. Remember?”

He wrinkled his nose at me.

We quickly found that the axe had at least one magical property to it. When I had asked to examine the thing, it vanished, again with that ‘70s movie effect, as soon as it left Jax's hand. We panicked for a bit before we discovered that it would reappear in his grip as soon as he wanted it to. As convenient as that was, seeing as how he had no need to try to carry it around with him, it seemed to behave in all other ways like a normal, if well made, axe. Jax maintained that it must have some hidden attributes to it, but I was withholding judgment.

Meanwhile, the Red Key that we had left in the chest had mysteriously vanished. We had looked inside and all around the box in case it had fallen out, but to no avail. Whatever had happened, it solidified in my mind what I had suspected from the beginning. The Keys were one-use items.

What was really bothering me, though, was the manner in which the axe had appeared. That had, of a certainty, been Jax's voice before, and that — combined with the disappearance of the Key — meant that someone… or some thing was listening to us, and acting unseen.

“We may need to start watching what we say in this place,” I said. “That axe was left for you specifically.”

He was still feeling out the piece in his hands, giving it a few experimental swings. Seemingly satisfied, he allowed it to vanish. “Aye. Likely, the Queen’s Faen be about…” he looked around at the bare walls, “somewheres.”

“She has Faen, too? I thought you said they were the helpers of the goddesses?”

He shrugged, “Well… I dunno fer sure. I know the Three have ‘em. I just figured… The Dungeon be a big place. It’d make sense as The Lady o’ the Dungeon would have helpers.”

That seemed good enough to me. For all I knew, this place could be run on hamster wheels.

“Alright. Well… it seems to have worked out well enough this time. But let’s try not to piss them off. If we can,” I said slowly.

“Best not to talk about it, then. Ye never know.” He looked around a final time. “Let’s head back. That last door be waitin’.”

I nodded firmly.

The green door was much as we left it, still hanging slightly ajar. The only difference was, the two Keys we had slotted into it were gone. I was unsurprised for all that it was still unnerving.

I looked over at Jax. He had his new broadaxe out and seemed to be psyching himself up for… whatever was coming. He jerked his chin at the door, “Go on then. Let’s see what she be throwin’ at us next.”

Nodding silently, I stood to one side of the door, and with one last look at my companion, I reached out and slowly pushed it open. The door swung on perfectly oiled hinges, making no sound whatever… onto blackness. Complete and utter. It was an unnatural sort of thing. No shadows, nothing even faintly illuminated. Just a black portal into the abyss.

We just stared, holding our breath. With the grave-like quiet the Dungeon naturally maintained, you could have heard a pin drop from a hundred yards away. The portal did not move or waver, giving no indication that there was anything at all on the other side of it.

Finally, as nothing else seemed like it was going to happen, I relaxed. Not knowing what else to do, I sidled forward and held my hand out toward the black. I could not feel anything. There was no sensation of cold nor heat. No feeling of the motion of air. Nothing. Pulling my hand back, I examined my fingers. They seemed unharmed.

“Well… shit,” I said.

Jax nodded sagely. “Shite indeed.”

“You don’t… you don’t suppose we might have missed anything, do you?” I asked hopefully.

He slowly shook his head, “Nay. There be only one way forward. Into the black fer us.”

So saying, he took the lead once more. Taking a deep breath for courage, he plunged his hand into the darkness fully, feeling around experimentally first. Pulling it back, and seeing that it seemed fine, he stepped forward. And vanished.

“Jax?” I called.

There was no response.

“Crap on a cracker,” I muttered to myself. Either Jax was now dead, meaning I was stranded by myself in a tomb with no escape, or… well, shenanigans, anyway.

Seeing nothing else for it, I steeled myself and closing my eyes firmly, I entered the darkness. I felt nothing. There was no feeling of transition nor of really anything. Opening my eyes was futile, as even the door behind me was lost to the void.

“Jax?” I called again, my voice sounding oddly muted now. As if my I were hearing myself call from a great distance. It was a very disorienting sensation.

Again, there was no response.

“Well… now what am I…”

Suddenly, I was blasted by the brightest light I had ever witnessed. The white of it was all consuming and drowned out everything just as completely as the darkness ever had.

I screamed from the pain of it. My eyes melted and ran down my face from the intensity. My skin and hair burst into flame. My teeth shattered in my skull.

I could see nothing. I could feel nothing. I was nothing.

And then there was THE WORD. The WORD was all. I was the WORD. The universe was the WORD.

Time and space began to unravel save for that one singular MEANING hovering before me. I could not pronounce it. I could not spell it. I could never tell you what alien mind had conceived of it. But I KNEW it. Now and forever, it was etched into my mind with a permanence even the atoms of my body, extant since the creation of the universe and forged in the mantle of suns, could scarcely comprehend.

And that meaning was… TOILET.

…

…

…

What in the…

Abruptly, reality snapped back into place, and I found myself back in the forest again, hovering about five feet in the air, and completely unharmed. A scant second later, gravity reasserted itself, and I face-planted in a puddle of mud. Right beside Jax.

I lay there for a long moment trying to understand what had just happened to me. But as I could not breath, my face buried in the ground as it was, I pulled myself up to my elbows.

This spot looked… familiar.

There was that same fucking rock. There were those same fucking trees. And I was in the same fucking mud puddle that I had fucking started in.

<bling>

“FUCK!”

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