SAMGAR

"We have a problem, Sam xiansheng."

Samgar looked up from his jerky and water canteen. Jindi had just skidded around the corner, her flameless lantern bouncing at her hip opposite her sword. She looked out of breath for the first time since they'd met, her hair nearly coming out of its braid. Samgar swallowed the stringy salted meat with an effort and clambered to his feet, armor clinking around him. His left asscheek had fallen asleep as he ate–the pitch-dark, circular tunnels were damn near impossible to get comfortable at his height, either seated or standing. "What is it? Another melee up ahead? Godsdamnit, I knew I should have hit that one summer mage while I could; fire is fucking dangerous underground–"

"Not the others. I haven't seen any of them since we left the Well, and I think I might have just learned why." Jindi glanced behind her, and Samgar's hand went to his sword on reflex. "There is a huge snake up ahead, and every other path ahead is a dead end."

Samgar relaxed. "Jin, I have seen you jump twenty feet straight up and hurl grown men like they were dolls. You're telling me you're afraid of snakes?"

Jindi glared at him. "I am not afraid of snakes, you metal-headed barbarian. I like snakes. I'm afraid of snakes that, for some reason, are at least 80 feet long and 7 feet high at the skull!"

Her tone strongly implied Samgar himself was responsible for this reckless and inconsiderately sized snake. He blinked and looked from Jindi to his distinctly less than seven feet long sword. The cramped quarters of the tunnel now seemed to him much more of a blessing.

"That would be a problem," he allowed.

"It gets worse. I doubled back and checked the other branches in the tunnel for routes around. No such luck. They're all dead ends. We'd have to return to the Well to find another route." Jindi leaned against the wall with a groan. The lantern at her side clinked against the rock. Samgar eyed it suspiciously–the magical mining lights were supposed to be entirely flameless and durable, but you never could tell with magecraft. "What is that thing?"

Samgar considered the options, digging in the farthest recesses of his mind for every old story involving giant snakes. "Did you get a good look at the hide? What color was it?"

Jindi frowned. "Sort of a greenish-brown? Your people's lamps have too much blue in them. Colors don't look the same as they do in sunlight."

"Did it have a crown of bone on its head?"

"Definitely not. Just some ridges over the eye sockets."

Samgar grimaced. "I was afraid of that. It sounds like we're dealing with a deathcoil."

There was a pause. "With such a charming name, I can only assume it's friendly."

Samgar huffed out a laugh. In the strangely flat lights, he thought he saw Jindi grin.

"I only know a little about them from the old legends." The canteen went back into his leather pack. "They're relatives of the true dragons, great serpents associated with water and earth instead of fire and earth. Hell of a lot stupider, thank the gods, but they're often pressed into service by true dragons–"

"What are you talking about?" Jindi interrupted. "Dragons aren't associated with fire and earth. Dragons hardly ever come to the ground at all."

Samgar blinked, then remembered. "Right, I forgot. Air and water. In the north, dragons are connected to fire and earth; in the south, they're connected to air and water. But deathcoils–"

"They aren't connected," Jindi objected, her brow furrowing. "Dragons rule the wind and rain. They aren't animals, Sam xiansheng."

"Of course, they aren't animals," Samgar replied, annoyance growing. "When was the last time you saw an animal talk without some mage playing a prank? It doesn't matter. The point is that deathcoils are big and powerful, and they can burrow deep underground..."

He looked around at the tunnels around him, rough and narrow, winding from cave to cave and distinctly circular. A chill ran down his spine.

"...and now that I know it's here, it almost certainly created these tunnels to connect the different caves. Shit. It's been right in front of me all along. How could I have been so blind?"

Jindi patted his pauldron sympathetically. "Don't feel bad. It's probably because you're an illiterate barbarian. These things happen."

"You are not nearly as funny as you think you are, kid."

At the word kid, Jindi's lips curled up in a genuine smile. "All right, laoxiong. So it's a legendary huge burrowing snake monster. How do your stories kill it?"

They stood in silence for a long moment. Samgar racked his brains. How did it go? The hero went into the mountains to fend off the flaming dragon, and on the way, the deathcoil–the deathcoil–

"I can't remember," he admitted. "I used to know, I swear. Gods, when did I forget this story? A magic sword was involved. Wait! No, the sword that killed it became magical? Shit. There was something about swords."

"We do have two swords." Jindi pursed her lips. "I don't know, Sam xiansheng. That's a lot to put on our own fighting skills, or on my fighting skills and whatever you do with your sword."

"Unless you have a secret passage around the deathcoil or a self-propelled dragon-slaying spear–" The faint lines around Jindi's eyes tightened. "–we have to work with what we have. Oh! Did I forget to mention the poison? Because their poison is said to be strong enough to kill a kraken. And every one of their seventy teeth is laced with it."

Jindi sighed.

~*~

The plan, if one was generous enough to call it that, was simple.

Sam clattered down the tunnel, lantern on his hip. Now that the dam had been broken, he couldn't help but see the scraping lines of scales on stone, the patterns of powdered minerals mixed into the striated layers of compacted sediment. He was moving fast, the ringing of metal on rock filling the blue-tinted gloom. Just like Jindi had said, the tunnels were starting to slope down; Samgar picked up speed as he ran, left-right-right-left-right according to her directions. He made no effort to muffle the sound of his passage–after all, that would defeat the point.

A three-foot drop in the floor opened into a large, empty cavern. Samgar took it at a run, landed hard, and absorbed the force of it with a roll, coming up at the same speed and scanning his surroundings without stopping. Jindi had been light on the details of the deathcoil's lair, likely due to fixation on its inhabitant. The cavern was almost as large as the Cistern, interrupted by jagged stalagmites and stalactites that jutted at erratic angles like a ghoul's smile. Stripes of brown, beige, and gray encircled the walls like a gritty layer cake. A patch of flat water, perhaps ten feet across, lay at the lowest corner of the cavern. Samgar wondered hysterically if the mere presence of the deathcoil would render the water undrinkable before discarding the thought.

He skidded to a halt in the cavern's center, surveying his surroundings in the lantern's flat, unmoving light. There was no other movement in his eye line. Curious. His heart still pounding, Samgar looked around for his enemy.

"Here, you ugly rat-eater," Samgar called out. "There's a nice, tasty adventurer who definitely isn't covered in steel, ripe for the taking. Don't you want to come out and indulge? Come on, come on..."

The silence that greeted his words was deafening. For a brief moment, Samgar allowed himself to hope that the deathcoil had swum away into the pool. He would like nothing better than to move past this place without drawing his sword.

A pebble fell on his helm with a tiny clink!

Samgar closed his eyes briefly, then reopened them. The only thing he disliked more than hearing that noise was proof that Jindi was right: he couldn't see shit with the lanterns.

Samgar threw himself to the side as an enormous slab of scaled muscle detached from the ceiling and slammed into the floor where he had been standing. The colossal form kept unwinding; Samgar swore as he kept rolling, armor clanging against the damp, rocky floor. It wasn't until he was back on his feet that he realized the great serpent had fallen in an enormous coil around him.

Samgar slowly looked up as a head at least seven feet tall lifted to look at him, white ridges nearly scraping the ceiling, eyes a sickly green in the reflected lamplight.

Seems like 'stupid' is a relative term for deathcoils. Samgar gave the monster a winning smile. "I'd like to say now that when I called you an ugly rat-eater, I really–"

The deathcoil lunged, its jaws gaping wide. Samgar immediately regretted every decision he had ever made.

He barely managed to duck to the side, and the monster's bite closed on its own flank. It reared back, hissing. Samgar shifted inside the coil, keeping his eyes on the head. Then, drawing his claymore, he jabbed at a chink in the deathcoil's armor and was rewarded with an explosive hiss. His breath came hard, but his blood thrummed as he watched the serpent's head shift and match his gaze.

Gods help him, Samgar realized he was actually enjoying himself.

"I take it back," he told the deathcoil. "You are an ugly rat-eater, and so's your mother. Come on! Try it! Gonna eat me this time, or bite your ass again?"

The deathcoil's eyes narrowed. It reared up almost enough to brush its head against the ceiling. Normally, Samgar heartily approved of monsters hitting their own heads on rock; however, this particular spot had Jindi, who had taken advantage of her loud, distracting companion to crawl up the wall and ceiling like a spider with a drinking problem. She froze as the deathcoil paused a handful of feet from her spot. Samgar felt his lips pull back in a vicious grin.

"Come on!" Samgar crouched and, as the deathcoil lunged again, leaped– rebounding off the tight coil and pushing off again. At last, he had just enough height to avoid the serrated teeth; Samgar shoved against its upper jaw to scramble over the coil and to freedom.

The deathcoil hissed in frustration, and Samgar jabbed another chink with his blade before turning and running, looking for the perfect spot. Not there–too small–blocked by a stalagmite–there! His eyes alighted on the best place to make his stand. As soon as he reached it, he took his best, most heroic stance, sword out.

The deathcoil unwound with dreadful, sinuous grace, weaving around the stalagmites. The rest of its body followed with the sound of grinding stone. Samgar's legs shook as it approached, eyes fixed on him. For a moment, he wondered how he had ever thought slaying such a creature was possible. After all, Samgar was no mage. No hero. What was he against inexorable elemental forces?

The deathcoil shifted, eyes glowing in Samgar's lamplight. It wound up again, bracing itself against the rocks. The next strike would be too quick to avoid. Tremendous force focused to a single instant.

"Jin! Now!"

Up on the ceiling, clinging to tiny fissures that were invisible from this far away, Zhang Jindi braced and inhaled. Her focus, too, had been narrowed to a single, diamond-hard point for a strike. Too fast to see, she lashed out with a single palm strike, releasing a sharp cry as she did. With the precious moments Samgar had given her to prepare, her aim was true–and her palm impacted the base of a particularly sharp stalactite.

With a thunderous crack! the stalactite was severed from the cavern ceiling. The force of the strike blew Jindi backwards as well, but her task was done: the deathcoil was already wound around the rocks and stalagmites, so focused on Samgar that it had no chance to evade. The serpent barely had time to look up before the improvised spear impaled its throat, pinning it to the ground and severing its spine. It thrashed for a long minute, eyes filled with all-too-sapient hatred, before finally going still.

Samgar watched it for a long moment, just in case it was playing dead. Then, when he was sure the monstrosity was ended, the adrenaline of the fight immediately converted to ecstasy. He let out a whoop and leaped up again, landing with a clatter. His breath was still coming too fast, and his heart raced, but his body was pleasantly surprised to find itself alive and uninjured.

The revelry had not yet ended when Jindi trooped around the side of the deathcoil, face pale. She looked far older than her pair of decades. Her eyes were still on the great serpent, and she muttered something in Southron. Her right wrist was clutched in her left hand.

Samgar ran to her and, in a feat of adrenaline-inspired idiocy, picked her up and spun her around, just like he used to do with Addy. Jindi hissed in pain, and he set her back down somewhat more carefully.

"Are you badly hurt?" He asked. "That was a hell of a piece of spring magic you pulled up there, kid."

"It wasn't spring magic," Jindi replied. "That was Despondent Palm, a specialty of my old teacher. I...I've never done it successfully before. Think I broke my wrist."

Samgar narrowed his eyes. "You gambled my being eaten by an enormous snake monster against doing a piece of combat magic you've never managed before?"

Jindi at least had the grace to look embarrassed. "I was pretty sure it would work. It gets stronger when you're–never mind. But technically? Yes."

Samgar looked at her without a word. Then, he burst out laughing. Jindi flinched before tilting her head, bemused.

"Gods, you little–oh, who am I kidding? That's exactly the kind of shit I would have done at your age. Is your wrist okay?"

"It'll heal," Jindi answered. "Are you sure you're not mad? I did just gamble with your life right then. Even if I was pretty sure it would work. At least two-thirds sure."

"Mad? Who cares? I haven't gambled with my life in a long time, so you might as well do it now." Samgar grinned at her. "I haven't felt this alive since...I can't remember. Oh! I remembered the rest of the story. With the sword and the deathcoil."

Jindi was watching him as though she had never seen him before and had not yet decided what to make of him. "How does it end?"

Samgar walked toward the mouth of the deathcoil, open and unseeing. Sickly-sweet ooze dripped from its mouth, mixing with the moisture and dust on the floor.

"The blade that has tasted the venom of stone and sea will kill a dragon."

Ashlynn "Ash" Dawnsinger

waiting waiting waiting

Kenna Ashfyre

A knock sounded on Kenna's inn door a half hour before midnight. She stole out of the bed, careful not to bump the snoring woman she met at the pub, whose name she'd already forgotten, tugged on her pants and boots, and went to open it.

A guard with a high ponytail and stern face stared down at Kenna. "The King has sent for you."

Kenna smiled and followed the guard out, even as her heart raced against her chest. This was an opportunity she could not mess up. If he found out who she was, if he recognized her, all those years of planning would be for naught. He couldn't know her identity, not until she found what she sought for in those dungeons.

The air was cool during the short walk from the inn to the castle. She'd seen the keep from afar when she first arrived, massive and glistening and brilliant against the light from a new dawn. Yet in the dark, the castle's towers stretched into the sky like long fingers reaching to snuff out the moon.

Kenna couldn't shake the sense of foreboding that rested in her chest. It is said the sun brings to light that which one keeps closest to their heart. And the dark, the fickle master of secrets and lies, hid away things that were never to be seen. This black against the blue of a vivid night screamed of the secrets hidden away in the depths of a palace.

The guard led her down one long, stone corridor to another, bigger one. Guards stationed at regular intervals watched her pass, some with raised eyebrows, others with stern expressions.

Finally, the guard stopped in front of a large door and knocked once.

"Enter."

The guards on either side tugged open the doors with a creak, and the woman led Kenna inside.

The King stood in the center of a large room, where couches and armchairs sat dramatically in front of a bustling fire. Long, purple curtains decorated the windows. Artwork depicting historic battles hung on every wall.

"Thank you, Lucile. That'll be all."

The guard nodded and left the room, the doors clanking shut behind her.

"I'm glad to see you called." Kenna took a few steps forward. King Charles was without armor. He wore only simple, tight pants and a tunic. A gold circlet sat atop his head. If she didn't know better, she would mistake the slump in his shoulders for exhaustion. But she saw the illusion for what it was—a trick meant to let her guard down. She was not so easily fooled.

The king gave Kenna an appraising look. "I wouldn't be, Kenna Ashfyre." He said the name as though testing it, a question it on his lips. "It is dangerous to be left alone with a powerful man."

"I do not shy from power." Kenna took a step forward, then another, until she stood only a foot away. "And I do not shy from invitations by powerful men." Her eyes purposefully dropped to his lips.

"Is that what you want? To stay the night?" King Charles raised a graying eyebrow. "For me to invite you into my bed?"

"It's a tempting offer," Kenna said. "But I'm afraid I'll have to decline."

"Decline?" The king looked more surprised than affronted. "I looked into you. I know your reputation."

"Then you know why I cannot stay." Kenna fluttered her eyelashes. "If I stay, I won't ever return. And I do hope you'll want to meet again."

The king's face remained ever stoic. "What makes you think I'll invite you back?"

Because you're curious, is what Kenna wanted to say, but that was a dangerous game to play. It was one thing to flirt, to play, to seduce. It was quite another to bed the man who killed her people.

So instead, Kenna shrugged. "I know there are no promises. Nothing is ever guaranteed. If this is meeting is our last, I have enjoyed it."

The king took a step closer, coarse fingers grazing her jaw. Kenna shivered, every nerve alight with disgust. His fingers rested on her chin, pulling her up to look at him. Kenna bit her lip, hoping she appeared nervous. Nervousness was easier to play off than anger.

"You're hiding something, Kenna." King Charles searched her face, as though one glance would reveal all he wanted to know. But Kenna had many years of hiding her identity. Moving from one village to another, shedding names like old skin. He would not know who she was from a single gaze, not unless she wanted him to.

"Aren't we all?" Kenna breathed as the king's head dipped closer, breath ghosting across her lips. She closed her eyes, waiting for the press of his mouth to hers. But it never came. Instead, his breath moved. Whispering past her cheeks. Whistling in her ear.

"I'm not so easily seduced." The king said, his breath hot against her cheek. "I will find out who you are."

"I look forward to that day," Kenna breathed, hand reaching up to rest on the king's chest. Despite what he said, his heart beat fiercely under her fingers. His pupils darkened. He was attracted, curious. That was all good, all according to plan. But she needed him to want more.

So Kenna rose to her toes and took his bottom lip between hers, surprised at the softness. The king didn't move. Didn't kiss her back. But he didn't step away either. After a few seconds, Kenna extracted herself from his grip and backed away. "Farewell, my king."

She retraced her steps out of the castle, back into the city. She even made it all the way to the inn before her hands started to shake. Before the contents of her stomach rose up her throat and into the chamber pot.

***

Kenna stood at the entrance to the dank dungeon. An enormous door rose in front of her, ornate carvings of gods and beasts of legend around the edge. The rest of her competitors watched as two guards, ones who looked exactly the same, opened the doors. Some danced from foot to foot. Others adjusted their armor and their swords.

Kenna fiddled with the silver vial around her neck. She'd dug it out of her saddlebag the moment she returned to her inn the night before. Most of her possessions meant nothing to her, but this—this was the one thing she needed to fulfill her plan. This, and the secret that lay in the depths of the dungeon.

When the doors open, Kenna wrinkled her nose. The dungeon smelled of must and mold and something far more metallic. The scent of blood was hard to wash away, even harder to wash from her memories.

For a moment, Kenna simply stared, waited as the other contestants began their trek into the dungeon. Because for a moment, all she could see was the blood of her mother as King Charles swung his blade across her chest. She could feel the warm liquid splash against her chin, the only part of her face visible under the helmet. Kenna could hear a scream—her scream—as her mother collapsed in front of her. Even two hundred years later, the memory haunted her soul.

Hearts are forever scared by the knowledge of the past. Forever broken by the pieces ripped from the soul.

A clattering in the distance brought Kenna back to the present. Back to the dungeon and the task at hand. She glanced up at one of the guards standing with their backs to the door. A woman with dark, graying hair stared back at her.

"Like what you see?" Kenna asked, folding her arms across her chest.

"You're not my type," the guard said, a smile alighting on her face. "And if you want the King, I wouldn't recommend sleeping with his personal guard."

"Pity. We could've had a lot of fun."

"You'd best get a move on. Don't let them steal your treasure."

"I'm waiting for the screams," Kenna said. "I may be reckless, but I'm not stupid. Traps likely wait just beyond the fork in the hallway."

As if on cue, shouts sounded from the dungeon beyond. And Kenna stepped forward, a ball of light leading the way.

The dungeon was a massive maze of brick lined hallways. Water dripped down one wall, puddling on the floor. There were treasures and secrets to be found here. And the one thing she needed.

Kenna skipped the doors closest to the entrance and the brighter halls. Occasionally, a shuffle or scream set her nerves alight, but so far, the expansive depths provided little of interest. As she moved, Kenna made little scratches into the brick with her knife, an x to mark the way out and a line to mark the paths she'd explored.

Some time later, Kenna found herself face to face with a door as black as night. She tried the handle. It was locked.

Locked was good. Locked meant something interesting on the other side.

Kenna unsheathed her sword, shoving the lock into the space between the doorframe and the door. She leveraged her sword down once, twice, three times, before there was a clang.

Without hesitation, and sword in hand, Kenna shoved open the door. As soon as she stepped inside, the door swung shut behind her, closing her in the dark, diminishing her light.

Inside the room, the air was sickeningly sweet. A drip drip drip sounded somewhere in the distance. Was the room filled with water? Something brushed against her ankle—something with scales—eliciting goosebumps across her flesh.

Heart beating in her chest, Kenna held up her hand, waiting until the flames licked up her arm, illuminating the room. And Kenna gasped.

In front of her, a massive, coiling snake rose out of the depths of a pond. The dark green scales were the size of horses. Two enormous, beady yellow eyes stared at her, fangs bared. She barely had enough time to dive out of the way before it struck, mouth open wide to snap her in two.

Kenna couldn't die, not in this current form. But there are fates far worse than death. And this monstrosity promised a cruel and painful end. Deathcoils were beasts of myth. But then, so was she.

Slamming into the ground, Kenna let her flames wink out. Heat could give her position away, though fighting the monster in the dark couldn't be much better. There had to be some way to get past this beast, though something told her she couldn't go back the way she came.

Kenna reached for her sword just in time to see the reflection of glowing yellow eyes. In time to see, but not react.

The wall met her back and Kenna crumpled to the ground. Her bones ached. Her sword was gone. This was not going according to plan. But that didn't mean she would stop. Not now. Not ever.

Adrenaline coursed through her veins, like a drug. It was an addiction she couldn't control. And it would be her salvation.

She fumbled to her feet, nearly tripping over the sword in the dark. Once again armed, Kenna stared into the dark, listening for the sound of shifting rocks and rippling water. Anything to tell her where the sneak would next strike.

"Help!"

Kenna's head whipped around. Was someone else there?

A glint of flame in the dark drew her attention to somewhere beyond before the slick edge of the snake slid into view. It had to be a trick meant to distract and divert.

"Help!" The cry came again.

Kenna cursed under her breath. That idoit would get themselves killed, and Kenna along with it if they didn't shut their mouth.

And she was right, the deathcoil was suddenly there in her distraction, wrapping its body tightly around Kenna's body. She thrust her sword down once, twice, three times, but the blade didn't pierce through the scales. The breath squeezed from her lungs, her bones ached with the pressure. The sword fell from her grasp.

"Please, don't let it kill me." The plea was desperate now, strangled.

Desperately, Kenna's eyes looked across the room. The flicker of light appeared again. It was the girl with the flaming hair she noticed at the brawl. From the light emanating around the girl, the snake had coiled around her too.

The deathcoil squeezed Kenna tighter and her body screamed. She had to get out of this. She knew what she had to do, but dread coiled in her stomach. It'd been thirty years since she'd been locked out of her true form. Torn away from her powers.

Thirty years since she'd lost Helios.

She'd lost everything then, but she was close to getting everything now. Revenge. Peace. Kenna would not lose. She couldn't change into her true form, but she could let herself go.

Kenna unleashed. Released the anger and fury and hope burning inside her until it consumed her. Flames licked up her arms, her legs, her hair. Two giant, feathered wings exploded from her back. She was fury incarnate. She was fire personified. She was an angel of death.

And she relished it.

The snake let out a shriek, thrashing about, and began to uncoil. Knowing that if the snake got away, and that she wouldn't get a chance like this again, Kenna gripped the edge of a scale, keeping her attached to the monster, even as it writhed beneath her.

The scales smoked, turning from green to gold to red beneath her grasp. And then the scale melted. Kenna let her flames blaze higher, hotter, faster, and sent them straight into the flesh behind the scale, searing the snake from the inside out.

The creature let out one final, terrible screech before it collapsed and stilled.

Movement shifted Kenna's attention from the snake to the girl. Kenna shifted her flames, letting them carry her to the ground. When they disappeared, her body ached, her lungs aching. It would take time for the pain to disappear.

"What is that?" Kenna held out a flaming hand, pointing at the chest the girl clutched desperately in her hand. The girl opened the box, revealing a scroll.

"What are you?" the girl asked, eyes wide with fear.

The flames blinked out at the question. Broken, Kenna wanted to choke out. Alone. Instead she said, "A monster. If you tell anyone what you just saw, I will kill you." It was the way it had to be.

The girl seemed to shy away as Kenna bent down and fished out the scroll. Unrolling it, her eyes traced the two letters. K.C.

King Charles.

Kenna smiled, not because the thought of him made her smile, but because she was closer now, closer than she ever was before.

It wouldn't be long now before she accomplished exactly what she set out to do: kill a kingdom.

And it's king.

Zhang Jindi (张金帝)

When Jindi passes the dungeon threshold she can feel the magic snapping down around her, a power that compels her in blood and metal to stay. It's too acrid and inorganic to be a talisman circle—something the sorcerers of the north have concocted with their alien incantations and brute-force approach to magic, no doubt.

She should have expected it: of course the barbarian king wouldn't let anyone escape, monster or otherwise. Still, Jindi can't help but tense as the magic closes over her as surely as a shutting door. She was raised on a mountaintop at the edge of the sky, where the very air you breathed was a stranger passing briefly through you in the night. The possessiveness of the atmosphere is foreign and domineering, a dungeon in the truest sense.

The handful of champions accompanying her disperse in fraught silence as Jindi pauses in the entranceway. Their torches sway in the darkness, their glow the rich, ruddy orange of a cooling coal. Even so, the catacombs of Nuhan are an endless monochrome, unforgiving and unwelcoming. Everything is gray and gaunt; old spirals of rigid limestone stand half-collapsed, their edges cascading into strewn rubble even as their broken faces stretch upward into the yawning darkness.

It makes a vindicating sort of sense that the grand kingdoms of the barbarian north are built on hollow wreckage.

"I see you made it," someone murmurs behind her. It's Sam, voice lowered as if afraid of shattering the ominous stillness of the dungeons.

"I see Addy didn't," Jindi returns, her volume shatteringly stark. Mixed as Jindi's feelings may be about the people of Nuhan, it's good to know she's not alone in the darkness.

It's here. She's here.

Jindi raises her torch to gesture towards the broken labyrinth; Sam nods as he descends, making sure Jindi isn't too far behind.

The dungeon is so sprawling and sparse that anyone else might've ended up lost, wandering through indistinguishable ruins until the darkness consumed them. When Jindi closes her eyes, though, the anxious restlessness thrumming through her coalesces. She can feel the shape of the energy flowing around her, the weight at her hip grounding her to the moment and her place in it—enough so that she can simply follow the steady gravitational pull of the universe toward where she should be.

When Jindi opens her eyes, she's racing through the dungeons blind, darting nimble and feather-light into the depths. Her feet struggle to find purchase on the uneven ground, but she leverages each slight stumble into further momentum. Behind her she can hear Sam struggling to keep pace, clambering gracelessly over collapsed walls as his armor clanks with his unsteady steps.

"Jin, what the f—slow down, would you?!" Sam's words sputter with his panting; Jindi's torch is long abandoned, but she can see the light from Sam's waving frantically across the flagstones from behind. "Can you at least tell me where we're going?"

"Keep up, xiaozi," Jindi says, but it comes out less teasing than intended. The homing instinct rings through her like the plucked string of a zither, pure and true. She's here. You're here. It's—

It's only Sam's torchlight that stops Jindi from crashing headlong into the wall; it materializes seemingly out of nowhere, the dust-gray limestone blending seamlessly into the shadows. Jindi's arm bangs against something hollow, more forgiving than stone: a locked door embedded in the granite, rattling noisily in its hinges against her weight. She rears back, but barely makes it a few steps before her inadvertent knock is rudely answered—something on the other side knocks back, forcefully enough that the old wood warps before settling into its frame off-kilter.

"Huh." Sam catches up as Jindi blinks at the now-still door. In the darkness, they might have overlooked it entirely; Sam frowns at the way it lists precariously on its hinges. They wait, but there's no further movement. "...Maybe we should pick a different door, kid."

"Maybe," Jindi says doubtfully. The energy that threads through reality—the flowing web that holds the universe together—slides through her like water through an open hand, drawing her into the doorway. The treasure at her side is preternaturally still in anticipation. Before Sam can raise another objection, Jindi knocks again, an ear-splitting drumroll that demands an answer.

Wood splinters as the door explodes outward, blasted from its frame; Jindi barely has time to flip herself upright as she's tossed airborne. Gravel flies as she lands in a crouch, dragging a thick gouge in the pavement with one hand to stop herself from skidding too far. She throws her head up, barely spying the glistening sheen of an enormous limb as it snakes away before the entire wall shudders under the thunderclap of thrown weight. Roiling mass gives way to the inexorable canyon of a gaping maw, savage fangs sputtering venom as they gnash loudly. There's another earth-shattering impact as that terrible jaw butts desperately against the minuscule doorway—once—twice—slavering pools of acid tang and poison miasma stream over the ground, steaming and fetid—before the frenzied clamor stops, retreating with the thick slide of scales.

Through the doorway, Jindi identifies ancient stone columns dotting a cathedral-like chamber, massive even at a limited glance. In the back, edges gleaming knife-like at the very edge of Sam's torchlight, are massive coils—piled high along the walls, thrown around pillars, sliding in a rattling whisper as they churn feverishly. Between snaking spirals of scales, a gelatinous slitted eye blinks.

"What ..." Sam's words are gruff with poorly-concealed apprehension. "...the hell was that?"

For a brief moment, Jindi is thrown, stricken, horror ballooning in the shell of her skin—but it's a flash, stamped out by instinct. On further inspection, this isn't a spiritual monster at all. Not a demonic 魔; it doesn't even have the energy of a 怪, let alone the sentience of a 妖. Big as it may be, this is just a dumb beast, one of the millions in Nuhan. Just an animal in its territory, innocent in the mindlessness of its violent nature.

Jindi thinks of the lizards that used to sun themselves on the slatted tiles of her temple walls. Of the barbarian king pointing his soldier's swords toward her homeland, of his filthy hand pointing hers.

As Sam shifts his torch, the snake's eyes go pinprick-pointed. The scales shiver, shifting like the spinning cylinders of a lock to reveal an archway on the opposite end of the cavern.

It's here. She's here.

"Give me your torch," Jindi says, a bizarre sense of calm settling over her with the slow softness of a snowdrift. She straightens, flicking grit absently off her fingers.

"What?" Sam shoots her a wild look before his mouth settles into a firm frown. It's the face of a parent putting his foot down, but Jindi is no child. "No. Listen, kid—you're quicker than you look, maybe, but—"

Jindi glides forward as if hypnotized, sweeping Sam's torch away as she nears the door. She waves it, a warm arc of heat and light through the darkness; scales click with a vibrating rattle as yards of muscle simultaneously unfurl. A flat head emerges as the beast's length slithers sinuously over the floor. It approaches, quivering eyes locked on the torch.

Jindi smirks.

The snake pounces the moment she dives into the chamber, jaws outstretched and eyes ravenous, but Jindi is barely—barely—faster. Stone ricochets as the snake's jaw plunges into the ground while Jindi tumbles nimbly away, popping back onto her feet. The snake emerges frothing and furious from the plumes of dust, shaking rubble and hissing poison from its maw; Jindi leaps as it whips its head toward her with the force of a cannonball, smashing a hole through the wall. She leverages herself off a furl of scales and sour heat, her body a darting streak through the air as one hand hits the rough stone of a pillar. Jindi barely gets a glimpse of feral eyes and merciless jaws as she slams her foot into the column, kicking off and rebounding away.

She spares the breath for a single wheeze of laughter as she catches the curve of the next column, whirling around it smoothly before plunging into a boiling mass of crushing muscle; the coils begin to close around her, but she compresses herself tightly like a spring and vaults out of the writhing tangle. The resulting momentum sets her on a near-vertical course, crashing into the curve of the vaulted ceiling. She turns, giving the flickering torch another wave; the creature hurls toward her with the destructive, unrestrained fury of a force of nature. At the last second Jindi springs off, soaring in a smooth arch towards yet another pillar.

The snake's head whips around midair, an abrupt and roaring reversal. Jindi hits the pillar feet-first, steps slamming noisily into the crumbling granite as she sprints around its circumference quickly enough to remain airborne before launching herself off towards the last pillar. Without any more upward momentum, she slams gracelessly into the ground. The torch is snuffed out by the impact, the last of its embers flaring; Jindi manages to extract one aching arm, throwing it toward the pillar. At the last second the snake's head swerves, its trajectory yanked away from Jindi, bearing down hungrily on the sputtering torchlight as it goes dark.

And then—silence.

Jindi wheezes, motionless, until the discomfort of sediment digging into her skin outweighs the burn of her muscles. She sits up, wincing as she double-checks the pouch at her side before retrieving a talisman from her robes. A burst of spiritual energy and it lights at her fingertips, illuminating the space in front of her with a sunny glow.

From where its long length stretches, cinched taut in a tangled knot around the scattered pillars, the snake spits poison and seethes. It lunges with its massive head, its reaper teeth, but only manages to pull itself tighter around the pillars with a pained yowl.

"Easy." Jindi pants, stumbling to her feet with less dignity than she'd like. The snake bristles, a ripple that runs through its crested head down the massive wave of its body. Jindi sways, a tide humble and responsive to the snake's aggrieved whims. The grass snakes around her monastery were tameable; surely the theory can't be too different. Jindi moves cautiously to the closest pillar, stroking the side of its enormous body; the snake growls and the muscle beneath her hand twitches, but unable to reach her, it merely glares.

As she keeps petting the snake, gentle but firm, its head slowly lowers to the ground. The promise of violence simmers in its rumbling snarl but begins to quiet as Jindi continues her soothing motions, the two of them locked in a stalemate. Her eyes dart to the open archway mere feet away. She could sneak through; the snake is calm enough that she could make a run for it.

Jindi's eyes follow the shadowed curve of the snake's head as it nods closer and closer to the ground. Its great scaled muzzle skims the floor, its eyes sinking as it strains fruitlessly for her one final time. Jindi drops her hand, sinking to one knee alongside it, eye contact unwavering—a metallic shink and a wet splat— the snake's head suddenly tumbling toward her, glassy eyes and drooling jaw—

The snake's decapitated skull falls at Jindi's feet with a viscous squelch, skidding the last few inches and leaving a grainy trail. Its lurid eyes cloud over, turning filmy and opaque as blood and bile leak from its mouth, from the carnage of its neck.

In the warm sphere of her fading talisman, sword-metal flashes, bloody and steaming like a hungry mouth. Above the ragdoll-limp neck of severed bone and mangled tendon stands Sam, all bold and brass. Heroic. A hero.

He turns away from the desiccated corpse, his sword still steeped blood-dark. When Jindi looks up at him, he meets her horror with benign concern. With care, paternal and horrible like a conqueror.

"Jin?" He takes a step closer, the bright metal of his armor greedily gobbling up the light of her talisman. "Are you okay?"

Inanely, instinctively, Jindi turns her head away.

When she speaks, her words are soft, the whisper of scales over the floor. "Why did you kill it?"

"...What?" Sam sags; Jindi hears his sword clang against the stone as he leans on it, dropping the role of 'protector' and becoming something more human—more humane. Even so, Jindi still can't look at him. "Jindi, of course I had to kill it. It was going to kill you." There's a pause, one where his incredulous silence speaks volumes. "Were you not going to kill it?"

"I didn't have to." Jindi's voice is still quelled, muffled in her throat by some unnameable emotion—something like fear, an abundance of caution. She stands slowly; it feels delicate and difficult, like moving through quicksand. "You didn't have to. I was talking to it—"

"Kid, I'm gonna stop you right there." Sam's tone says: disappointment, derision. All the better, Jindi thinks, somewhat uncharitably. Maybe next time, he won't interfere. "You're many things. Plenty of 'em have surprised me since we came here: smart, intuitive, capable of bouncing off damn walls. But if there's one I didn't take you for, it's naive. Are you honestly asking me why I killed a monster?"

"I could've snuck past it," Jindi snaps, turning sharply toward Sam. His eyes still hold the same warmth and exhaustion they always have, but there's an unyielding layer beneath it Jindi hadn't noticed before: stone. Blood and metal. The cold, uncompromising nature of Nuhan.

"Well, I couldn't have," Sam replies, turning away.

Jindi clenches her teeth tightly enough to hurt—because he's right. He's right, so anything she says in response will be weak and petty, a potshot after a lost war. She turns away, inadvertently looking at the snake's severed head. Her eyes glance off it, unable to linger; she feels sick.

"There's a treasure chest," Sam calls from across the room, grievances forgotten. Jindi can't look at him, either. "Must've opened in the struggle."

"Take what you want," Jindi murmurs, not caring if he hears her. There's a creak as something opens behind her, the sound of paper rustling as she takes a shaky, steadying breath and moves swiftly through the open archway. Despite her efforts, she can't stop shivering like prey.

After many moons traveling by herself—after so little time in so hostile an environment—she'd nearly forgotten that she was alone, what being alone meant for a person like her. That no matter how friendly and nice Sam was, he wasn't like her—that he was from Nuhan, a hero of the kingdom, even if he'd never seen war.

And Jindi...she's put down demons, laid monsters to rest. But she's not a killer. Here in the darkness, even with another person at her side, Jindi is still—in the truest sense and every way that matters—alone.

It's here. She's here.

But not for long.

Evelyn Ashe

There was no rest for the wicked, and no rest for the good. That much, Evelyn knew. A hero's journey was a tiring one, and the villain's a treacherous one. She didn't know who the villain of the story was. Perhaps it was King Charles or the dungeon itself. Perhaps it was the presence of pride that lurked nearby or the shadow of doubt which clung to her shoulders like a cape. Whatever it was, she hoped to survive it.

Swallowing tightly, Evelyn's gaze settled on a large mountain it's abrasive stone jutting out like the spikes of a slumbering creature. It was impressive in size. To distract from the atrocious land beyond, two grand statues framed the mountainside with somber looking faces. The warriors' eyes were pained and if stone could cry Evelyn was sure she saw tears trail down their cheeks.

Between the frozen knights rested a large door inlaid with metal plating depicting the brazen forces of evil. Monsters clawed golden heroes to pieces as blood pooled beneath them and creatures of grotesque physicality twisted across the jeweled metal in warning. It was enough to make Evelyn shiver.

"Not scared are you, darling?" A familiar voice asked, startling Evelyn from her observations. Spinning about she was greeted by the same beautiful red head as before. "I believe a proper introduction is in order."

"Okay," Evelyn nodded, moving to follow the other woman as she beckoned. Head lowered, Evelyn kept pace with the taller girl until she saw the fox tailed boy.

"Guards want us in teams of three," the boy explained.

"And you picked me?" Evelyn asked, looking at the other heroes. They were far more imposing than she was and far less of a liability.

"Of course I did. I'm team captain," the boy stated, grinning from ear to ear.

"I never agreed to that," the girl retorted, collecting a set of beautiful rose gold armor.

"Take it up with the prince if you disagree," the boy smirked leaning in close to Evelyn. "He's my boyfriend by the way. Which means I'm basically royalty."

"Right," Evelyn nodded. "So you know the prince and she knows the King."

"I don't just know the king, darling. I know everything about him," the girl smiled, her eyes taking on a darker tone.

"Finish up!" A guard bellowed, their voice echoing across the large expanse of space. "The King wants no delays."

Remembering the challenge at hand, Evelyn grasped a set of daggers, tucking them into her belt and refusing the armor placed on her stand. As far as she was concerned it would only be a hindrance.

"Before we go in to die I think we should introduce ourselves," the boy decided, holding out his hand. "I'm Ashlynn Dawnsinger. Fox boy extraordinaire. Pseudo prince and all around heart throb."

"He forgot to mention insufferable," the girl scoffed.

"That's Kenna Ashfyre. Possible wife number eight to the King," Ash explained, hand still outstretched.

"Evelyn Ashe," Evelyn noted, hesitantly taking Ash's hand in her own. As soon as their palms connected Ash's two fox tails swayed back and forth excitedly. "Fire genasi."

"Perfect! Pleasure to meet you," Ash beamed, retracting his hand and shaking it out. "You're really warm."

"Sorry about that," Evelyn winced.

"Don't be! I know who to snuggle up to if we get cold!" Ash laughed, clapping Evelyn on the shoulder and joining Kenna by the entrance. Making her way over, Evelyn tried her best to listen to the guard's instructions but she was heavily distracted by Ash's tails. They never seemed to stop moving. She was certain that if they spun about enough he'd start floating.

It wasn't until a thunderous creak blasted from the mountainside that Evelyn was forced to recall her purpose. The golden door with its horrendous carvings swung outward at a snail's pace groaning. It sounded like some sort of howl. As if the mountain were crying out for help.

Stomach turning, Evelyn watched as the other groups of three stormed inside unbothered by the ear grating noise. Looking expectantly at Ash and Kenna, Evelyn was alarmed to find them both waiting patiently.

"Shouldn't we go in?" Evelyn frowned, taking a few steps forward when a blood curdling scream radiated from the confines of the mountainside.

"Traps, love. Let the impatient set them off," Kenna explained, placing a helmet over her red locks and marching towards the doorway. "Come along. We have work to do."

Nodding, Evelyn and Ash pursued her doing their best to remain out of the way. Evelyn would be lying if she said she wasn't horribly intimidated by the other girl but so far Kenna hadn't done anything egregious. Sparing Ash a small smile, Evelyn noticed the way his tails twitched nervously. Pursing her lips she took the boy's hand in her own and together they crossed into the dungeon.

— — —

Evelyn had experienced this kind of darkness before and even then it'd nearly killed her. It was the kind of darkness that pressed in around the lonely and vulnerable. The kind of darkness that could smell your fear and devour your hope.

"Would've been great if they gave us torches," Ash sighed.

"You don't need one, darling," Kenna remarked, a sudden brightness fighting away the dark. Standing with her arms alight Kenna examined the ceiling. To Evelyn's surprise it was covered in pointed rocks.

"Those are some dangerous chandeliers," Evelyn whispered.

"Stay close," Kenna ordered.

With a shrug, Ash inched over to the other girl as they moved further into the darkness. The only thing protecting them was a halo of light and warmth pulsating from Kenna. Sure, Evelyn's hair was alight, but that only did so much. For a moment she even considered using her own powers but given her companions' proximity she decided against it.

Moving about like a flock of lost sheep the trio ran into a set of damp walls where they followed the rock face to an on-stretching hallway. The smell of iron wafted along the tunnel and with it a tangy taste settled in Evelyn's mouth. Blood.

"How cruel to funnel everyone into a trap ridden hallway," Kenna remarked, though she didn't sound very sorry. Moving ahead she stepped on the hand of a corpse unbothered by the growing stench of death. Ash, more hesitant, took special care in avoiding the dead champion as Evelyn trailed behind stopping to close the warrior's eyes.

Eventually, the trio rounded a corner emerging into an expansive corridor filled with other surviving champions. Instinctively, Evelyn tensed. While Ash and Kenna had proven to be friendly there was no guarantee anyone else was. Sensing her nervousness Ash reached out to take Evelyn's hand as they pushed through the crowd.

For some reason everyone had stopped before a door. This door was also inlaid with gold, jewels, and inscriptions. The precious metal was etched with the visage of a mighty serpent eating its own tail. Consuming itself in a never ending cycle. Its eyes were encrusted with bright white gems as its scales refracted an unseen black light, and like the first door this one seemed impossible to surpass.

"How do we get in?" Kenna asked, turning to face her companions.

"Why are you asking me?" Ash frowned.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were team captain," Kenna retorted, eyes settling on Evelyn with an amused expression. "Do you have an answer or not?"

"It won't be easy, but I can teleport us through," Ash decided. "I'm not used to taking two people at once so if we end up in a distant volcano it's not my fault."

"That's not very reassuring," Evelyn admitted, though she wouldn't exactly die by fire. If anything, she'd survive while the others were incinerated. Rolling her eyes, Kenna grasped Ash by the forearm as he took Evelyn's hand. The sensation that followed was nauseating like every molecule in Evelyn's body was being pulled in a different direction before refocusing.

All at once, the trio reappeared in a large expansive chamber. The entire place smelled like fecal matter, decay, and blood. It was enough to make Evelyn gag. As a shiver ran down her spine, Kenna moved to light a series of torches framing the walls. As they flickered to life, shadows danced across the room refracting strangely off a set of massive scales.

"Turn those off," Ash squeaked, eyes wide in panic. At first, Evelyn wasn't sure why the boy was so scared until the scales began to move grating against each other like sand paper. A set of milk colored eyes rolled lazily in the head of a giant snake. While Evelyn had never feared snakes this was an entirely different story.

"Kenna, don't move," Evelyn warned. As far as she knew, snakes were attracted to heat and movement. Both of which would cause Kenna and herself quite a bit of trouble.

"What is that thing?" Kenna hissed, a sound that was horribly ironic.

"A Leviathan," Ash explained. "Oversized deadly snake. They secrete venom from when prey is sensed. You'll be paralyzed first, eaten second, and slowly digest alive in its stomach."

"Lovely," Kenna sighed, fingers inching towards the ornate silver sword at her hip. "What do we do team captain?"

"Leave," Ash directed, eyeing a sealed passage just beyond the moving Leviathan. "If this thing wakes up fully we'll never get out of here."

"About that," Evelyn whimpered. Her companions were too busy discussing a possible plan to notice the Leviathan reared up and watching them. It's milky eyes moved slowly as it's tongue flapped lazily in the air. By the third flick the Leviathan's pupils dilated as its entire body let out a massive tremble.

Without warning the beast lunged forward slamming its head into the metal door barely missing both Kenna and Evelyn. Scales grating restlessly on the floor, the beast righted itself almost instantly (far quicker than its size would indicate.)

"Now would be a good time to run!" Ash declared, bolting for the exit. Scampering across the floor he made a lunge for the adjacent door when a mighty tail knocked him away. A yelp forced its way from Ash's throat as he landed harshly.

The sound alone alerted the Leviathan to his prey's position and in seconds the snake was poised over Ash with dripping fangs. Eyes wide and heart hammering the poor boy remained as still as possible. Trembling from head to toe, Ash turned his face away as a long tongue flicked against his cheek leaving a streak of saliva behind.

'Burn only when necessary.'

Swallowing tightly, Evelyn concentrated on the heat that thrived within her. Letting warmth spread from her heart to her body the temperature skyrocketed as fire blossomed across her tiny frame. Engulfed in fire, Evelyn watched as the Leviathan recoiled. Its eyes and tongue began to move in rapid confusion. The creature wavered, attempting to see despite the drastic change in temperature.

"You could do that this entire time?" Kenna scoffed,a glare marring her beautiful features. While the expression was a familiar one, that didn't mean it hurt any less. Heart sinking, Evelyn turned back to the Leviathan just as it whipped forward. It's mighty head slammed hard into her chest threatening to launch her into the sharp stoned ceiling. Eyes closed, Evelyn did her best to keep hold of the creature's face, blinding it with heat.

"Who cares? Just kill it!" Ash yelled, teleporting onto the back of the Leviathan. A set of silver daggers materialized in the boy's hand soon engulfed in a strange colorful fire. With a look that could kill, Ash became a frenzy of stabbing. His knives plunged beneath scaled skin emerging covered in venom and blood.

With each knife strike the snake recoiled, threatening to dislodge Evelyn. With a violent jerk to the left her body was crushed between the wall. For a second her fire sputtered out as her hold loosened. Gritting her teeth, she plunged a knife deep into the Leviathan'a eye. Clinging to it like her life depended on it, Evelyn caught sight of Ash and Kenna slaughtering the monster. As blood spattered the chamber walls Evelyn's hold began to fail. For a moment she feared falling when a violent shiver stilled the beast mid motion.

A strange sound escaped the Leviathan's throat as it wobbled from side to side. Then, with a final exhale, the creature collapsed taking Evelyn and Ash with it. As a massive scaled body hit the ground a series of splinters launched into the air. Out of breath, in pain, and exhausted, Evelyn let go of her knife.

Ash struggled to his feet, covered in blood both his own and the Leviathan's. It matted his hair and coated his tails as if he'd dipped himself in paint. Letting out a shaky laugh, the boy pulled Evelyn to her feet as Kenna walked gracefully into the room unbothered and unblemished.

"The others are making progress on the door. They'll be in here shortly," Kenna warned, eyes scanning the carnage. As blood continued to seep from the Leviathan's mangled body, Evelyn pulled her knife from its eye socket.

"What's this?" Ash asked, bending over to pull something from a pile of splinters. Standing upright, he turned over a bloodstained scroll with a set of scrawling initials on it. As far as Evelyn knew the scroll could have belonged to anyone but Kenna's eyes narrowed in recognition.

"Something important," Kenna decided, taking the scroll from her companion and tucking it into her belt. "We can look at it later. For now, we keep moving."

"What about the snake?" Evelyn asked, eyeing its dripping fangs.

"Leave it to rot," Kenna shrugged, blowing a strand of hair out of her face.

"Fine, but I'm taking one of these," Ash decided, snapping off a fang. "Gotta keep a souvenir. You want one, Little Ember?"

"Sure," Evelyn nodded, not sure why he'd called her such a name. Nodding, Ash snapped off another fang and passed it over. The tooth was just as big as Evelyn's forearm. Smiling to herself, she tucked it into her belt and moved away from the sleeping giant.

"Care to light the way?" Kenna asked, looking pointedly at Evelyn. For a moment Evelyn wanted to protest. Her powers weren't to be used for minor inconveniences, but she got the impression that Kenna wouldn't care. Nodding, Evelyn took the lead letting fire engulf her once more.

"I can't believe I'm friends with two human torches!" Ash laughed, dancing happily for a moment. "This is so cool!"

Friends. The word alarmed Evelyn. She hadn't had any of those before. "We're friends?"

"Of course we are! When you survive a near death experience you become friends. It's basically tradition," Ash insisted. "Right Kenna?"

"Right," Kenna nodded, but her mind was elsewhere as she thumbed the strange scroll at her waist. "Friends."

Aurelia Regis

The dungeon was a monster and the monster was alive. At its head, a towering stone wall, two eyes, two flaming torches, reflected to illuminate the tunnel in an amber glow. The nose, a heavy-duty padlock, had been broken off with some kind of tool, presumably a crowbar. The mouth, two steel doors, parted to reveal teeth, metal spikes, primed and ready to impale anyone who encroached on its territory. It kept out as much as it kept in. I stepped forward, letting the dungeon swallow me as its tongue, narrow steps with a sharp decline, sucked me inside.

If there was a time to turn back, kick and thrash until the dungeon spat me back out and soaked in shame, I could return home to the safety that boredom offered me, it was now. But as the beast closed its mouth and its teeth locked together with a clang, I knew it was already too late. The only thing I could do now was to go forth, travel along every vein, every artery until the organs of this thing were weak enough that I could easily deliver the final fatal blow to the heart.

Down the throat, a straight stone path that stretched further than the eye could see, there was a pair of flambeaux that lit the path with the same dim amber glow of the tunnel I had entered from. Using all the force I could muster, I pulled the flambeau on my left from its hatches and held it out at arms-length. Carefully, letting the hues of orange guide me down the darkling passage, I made my way into the belly of the beast.

All was quiet, apart from the sound of my boots making contact with the gravelled floor, like a drum beat, one foot after the other in rhythm. They were a size too big, and, despite my efforts to lace them tightly to overcome this, my toes wriggled in the expanse of space and it rendered my steps clumsy. If I had owned a pair of boots, I would have ensured a proper fit, however, my father saw such things as unladylike, of course, and insisted I wear a much more respectable sandal instead. Thus, I had been forced to adapt. In the chaos that followed the brawl, it had been easy to slip through the ranks of the failed competitors who were much too busy commiserating to notice me borrowing their things. The shoes had come from a girl who looked not much older than I, she'd been knocked out early with a blow to the ankle and was one of the few competitors who hadn't gone for a dip in the harbour. Focusing on her shoes being both dry and available, there was no time to check that they were also a comfortable fit. I'd also scored some armour from a boy who - blinded by his own rage - had tossed it aside without a care, and a rapier from a guard who had rushed to the aid of a pretty girl. Deciding that the tides of fate had been kind enough to me, I had snuck away without risking gathering further supplies. Thus, my ill-fitting shoes and armour were all that I had, but I was determined not to let it deter me. Real heroes didn't need armour anyway.

As the flambeau in my hand flickered once more, I could see that the path was beginning to come to an end. The stones continued down another yard or so, and then bisected sharply. Each path was as dark as the other, seemingly as wide as the other, and yet likely contained entirely different ways for me to die a horrifying death. If this was the monster's body, then the left side contained the more vital organs and was where I needed to go. But it felt redundant to ignore the right, when it seemed so obvious that right was the right choice. Or perhaps that was some trickery designed to lure me into a trap and the left rewarded those unafraid of taking risks. It was impossible to choose without knowing what awaited me, and I was all too aware that was the intention. Fate had treated me well before, and I trusted her to do so again.

I pulled a coin from my pocket and tossed it upward, watching as it rotated and then landed in my palm. As the shiny face of the King stared up at me, I looked down the left passage I was about to take and resisted to think about what could have been in the right passage. Unwilling to lose more time on this conundrum, I slipped the coin back into my pocket and took a firm left.

This passage was the same as the last. My grip tightened around the flambeau as it pulled me further into the darkness. Every so often, the path would splinter like a vein connecting to the capillaries, and I trusted the toss of the coin to take me where I needed to be. At the sight of Nuhan architecture on the coin face, I took another right into a corridor far narrower than the last. Another flip resulted in the metallic King staring up at me and I turned left into what was thankfully a wider hallway. At the end of that hallway, there was a door. By my estimate, it had been at least an hour since I'd entered the veins of the dungeon. Had I finally reached one of its organs? Given the stench that lingered in the air, one that reminded me of the crafty merchants back in Nuhan who were known for selling their fish several days too long, I decided that I had reached the stomach.

Behind this door there would be danger, but there was also adventure and I had come this far already. I pressed my hand against the door. It was locked. Unlike the doors at the dungeon's exterior, this one was made of a flimsy wood, maybe cedar, that creaked as I pressed harder but did not open. It had, however, created an opening at the foot of the door where a small amount of liquid had begun to seep through. It trickled down the corridor and pooled at my feet. I crouched down and using my pinky finger scooped some of it up, holding it closer to the light so I could get a good look. It appeared to be some kind of oil, clear in colour, sticky in texture, and as I attempted to wipe it away on my sleeve, the residue resisted and remained on my hand, spreading to cover my palm and other fingers too.

I reached back for the door again. It had no handle, so getting through was going to take some thought. Had I been a fearsome brute I could have broken through with strength alone, but unfortunately I did not possess such physical prowess. As I felt around the border for a weak spot, the top right corner gave way beneath my hand. The oil had transferred from my hand to the wood and seemingly eased the hinges.

It wasn't locked, I realised. It was stuck.

Quickly, I gathered more oil from the pool by my feet and slathered it on the remaining three corners. The hinges groaned and then broke free; the door swung open and I was welcomed into the stomach of the dungeon like I was its next meal. With any luck, I was the dessert it hadn't left any room for.

Inside, the floor was a lake of oil, the walls, made of the dungeon stone I'd become accustomed too, the only thing stopping it from breaking its banks and flooding the entire dungeon. Gold coins lay scattered across the floor, bathed in oil but still shone as bright as the sun this dungeon had never seen. It wasn't unusual for adventurers to find treasure, but it was unusual to find treasure so soon. Moreover, if the story my father had told me rang true, then there was no need for anyone to be in the dungeon and no need to leave treasure for them to find. Which, I realised too late, meant-

It was a trap.

I heard it before I saw it. A hissing that started low and distant and before I could locate it the sound was close, too close, and then it was everywhere. Blurs of green and yellow clouded my vision as the monster poured into the room, sending gold coins flying into the air and a tsunami of oil heading my way. It hit my neck like a bee sting and I staggered backward, fumbling for my weapon. My hand gripped the rapier's handle and I pulled it free from the sling that ran the length of my back. My lungs felt as though they had fallen out of my body. I attempted to take a calming breath anyway.

I knew how to fight, but I had never been in a fight. Despite my mother's protests, I insisted on learning to fence alongside my two brothers. The eldest, Atticus, was a talented swordsman with no patience to learn the rules of fencing. It is an elegant sport, where opponents fight one another with dignity where the fencer must skillfully place a touch on their opponent's torso, neck, or back in order to win the point. Atticus, in complete disregard for the rules, spent many-a-match attempting to stab brother Julian in the leg instead. Whilst Atticus had the superior advance tactic, I had the superior parry and could block any attempt to land a touch against my vest. Whether real fighting mimicked the politeness of fencing, I was about to find out.

From across the room, luminescent yellow eyes surveyed me, allowing me to get a better look at my newfound opponent. The blur of green and yellow I had seen were scales, belonging to a snake so large that the rear end hadn't finished slithering into the room. It eyed me as if I was the meal it had been waiting for, and I considered that perhaps dessert wasn't off the menu after all. At the top of its head, spikes protruded in every direction. Its teeth, so numerous that even dearest Maximus, who I had abandoned at the brawl, would be jealous, were long enough to spear me and still have room for a second victim also. Oil dripped down its face, sliding down its many teeth and landing on the floor in vats. It was a glue trap. Stepping any closer meant cementing my feet to the ground and submitting to certain death.

But I didn't come here to die.

In fencing you bow to your opponent as a sign of respect. Looking at my opponent, I decided to skip that part.

I waited.

It waited.

Then we both lunged.

Fencing was a dance, where you stayed on the balls of your feet and advanced and parried in rhythm with your opponent. If this snake had any feet at all, it would've had two left ones. I advanced, aiming to strike the left side. It swerved, making an advance at my entire body that I struggled to parry. The rapier was far heavier than the sabre I had trained with as I attempted to swing it to defend my other side, it clanged off the floor and I was forced to retreat and readjust my grip. The snake soared toward me, with a clear disregard for the etiquette of a good fight. In an attempt to distract it, I snatched a gold coin from the floor and hurled it at the opposite wall. It only made a small clatter, but it caught the snake's attention.

I swung again, and my rapier clanged off the scales on its back without making so much as an indent on them. The snake recoiled, charging into me and knocking both my weapon and the flambeau from my hands. They rolled across the floor in opposite directions, coming to a stop just outside of my reach. Now, defenceless, the snake could move in on me.

I was going to die.

My brother Julian, who could never best me in a fencing duel no matter how hard he tried, liked to get his revenge by telling me scary stories. For every adventure, he'd tell exaggerated tales of the monsters that tried to stop the heroes. There was one about a snake - a deathcoil, he called it - who lured their victims in with treasures and killed them before they could run. As I stared at the gold coins still sprinkled on the ground and felt the slime of the scales wrapping around me, I knew that monsters didn't only exist in stories. At least I knew what was about to kill me, although that was hardly any comfort in what I perceived to be my dying moments.

The deathcoil suited its name, as it coiled around me and began to constrict, pulling tighter and tighter until it could be sure I was dead. A choke escaped my lips. The snake pulled tighter. A glob of snake oil rolled down my cheek. Then I remembered.

Julian and Atticus, in an overestimation of their culinary skills, had insisted they cook. The vegetables were chopped, the meat was seasoned, and all seemed well. Until they put too much oil in the pan.

My eyes darted around the room, searching for the flambeau that had slipped from my grasp earlier. It was a little to my left, with only a small flame still visible, but a small flame was all that I needed. My arms were bound by the snake, my legs too. Perhaps I wasn't strong enough to break a door, but if I shifted my weight then I could just tip the snake so I...

When Julian put the oil in the pan, he wanted to create a flame to cook with.

But that's the thing about oil.

It catches fire.

And then it burns.

With a guttural scream, the snake ignited. It ran up to the head and down to the tail, catching every drop of oil and letting it burn. It jumped, attempting to extinguish the flame and the knot holding me prisoner loosened. I stumbled backward, reaching blindly for the rapier and finding it in a pool of oil already catching fire. Instinctively, my hands flew in front of my face as I ran from the room. Something burned in my ear, but I couldn't stop. Only when I was back in the corridor could I uncover my eyes and watch as it burned.

After the fire had raged, all that was left was the charred remains of my captor. The head of the snake lay halfway between the room I stood in and the room it had come from. I stepped closer, noticing that inside that room there was a golden chest that the deathcoil had clearly been protecting. On the lock, it bore the royal seal. I needed to open it.

There was no key, but the shape of the hole reminded me of something. It was a tooth, I realised. A tooth that belonged to a very large, very dead snake.

I hurried back to where the deathcoil's head lay and pried open its mouth, saying a silent prayer that it would not suddenly jerk back to life. Settling on the upper right incisor, I seized hold and pulled. With a squelch and a splattering of blood, the tooth broke free. I rushed back to the chest and confirmed my theory that it fit the lock.

Inside, a scroll, also bearing the royal emblem. I planned to stuff it into my pocket and run, go, hide. Get to anywhere that wasn't here and even then I wasn't sure I'd stop running.

But that was before I heard the voice.

SADE

A door like lips opens and speaks the murmur of many voices. Commotion startles the plover who has been roosting in the slate shingles of the castle spires and the bird announces its flight with a "Tweedle tweedle tweep." Somewhere below it, a vole or something skitters in fear. Evelyn Ashe doesn't say anything. Cold warmth congregates in her hands, behind her back.

"Come come, shan't keep His Majesty at edge." The usher is bald with an oiled head and eyes which seem to be held in their drooping place by skin alone. She wears a simple yet elegant smock which buttons all the way down the front. Cords of gold fiber punctuate joints and accentuate form.

When Evelyn accepts the invitation and tiptoes by, the strange woman places her faint, spirit-like hands at the hips of the kindling girl and uses them to direct Evelyn around the castle as a bridle would do to a mule. Past the walls of stones so mammoth that neither constructing nor destroying the castle seemed even a distant fancy. Past the lavender livery which the welcoming grand hall wears. The usher continues to speak, but now only in a whisper so soft that Evelyn dares not respond lest she be accused of eavesdropping. "Shan't keep him on the edge. Don't be afraid. Your way is by the courtyard. We're almost there. It's almost over."

And she is right, the guide, it is only around the pillar to the left and past a bronze statue of a satyr which towers over the two women, and other opulences, that they meet a breeze.

Short pillars of milk-white marble promenade around the courtyard. Haggard, hardened scrub and a splotchy, barren date tree fill it in. Centered by the arrangement is a large wooden box held in place by, and indeed tied to with some of the most impressive ropes Evelyn has ever seen, extravagant scaffolding fashioned as something like a crane. Regarding this strange centerpiece are two men: His Majesty, and another dressed all in black and standing with clenched posture.

Evelyn is abandoned by her guide and the equally strange woman floats around the King to whisper something to him to which he laughs heartily. "I see that," he says, pointing out the hair that gave it away with a look. "Welcome Ms. Ashe. What restraint you showed to get to this place. But what lies beneath? You must be asking the same..." He flashes a symmetrical smile and pushes off from where his feet had been planted to approach her. "This is your way," he says of the box. "It is the only safe way to get down to the dungeons, and in front of you," he lets his arm trail behind him to frame his crooked accomplice, "is the master behind it. Do as he tells you, and, as those have done before you, you shall make it to the dungeon unharmed."

The King continues, "Safe, however, does not entail pleasantness. The speeds reached during the descent regularly induce nausea, panic, and finally phases of unconsciousness. Our master has prepared mentholated juniper to temper such hysterias. It will allow you to sleep through all stimuli and you will wake up as you would from a daytime nap. Many have taken advantage of this treatment and I invite you to do so as well, though it is certainly not necessary. Would you like some?"

Evelyn considers this, and a sensation that the ground below is hollow overtakes her. Fear seizes her heart and drops it like a stone into a well. Behind her back, she rubs her thumbs like two sticks against each other before directing a curt nod at the man in black, accepting His Majesty's generous offer.

The master of the fall procures a vial from the folds of his midnight robes, cracks it open with a twist of his wrist, and fishes out what appears to be a frond from some small fern. With the herb pinched between his forefingers, he comes to Evelyn and guides her towards the elevator structure much like how the female guide had done before. The heavy smell of pine rolls off of him and it makes Evelyn feel so light.

Once the fragile wooden walls swallow her, the man turns Evelyn like the page of a book. "Let out your tongue for me, dear," he says. He brandishes the small branch and places it softly in Evelyn's mouth. "Chew on this slowly, and take care not to bite down on yourself once the numbing takes hold." Finished with his instruction, the man backs away.

"All my admiration to you, Ms. Ashe, and my fortune as well," the King says from behind his back as he makes his way back to where the usher stay. His voice strains to take on volume.

The kindling nods almost compulsively as the jarring cool of juniper stuns her senses and extinguishes her completely. She chews as she was told, and when her tongue swells against her teeth she falls and falls asleep.

CHAPTER II

Babel

Above the commotion, blares a horn. Competitors and commoners alike pry their eyes from the consternating locked door to see two black horses barrelling near, and pulled behind them, merely a more pertinent concern. A slapped-together buggy is lurching in the stallions' wake, slaloming over sand dunes and bucking over the boulders and debris which pepper the wastelands known as Ekka.

As the vehicle comes closer, those who have yet to run can notice a large ring of wood painted white that is hung loosely above the cart. The halo decoration swings and careens around the central post which it is tied to with four lengths of cord, exaggerating the already abrupt movements of the ensemble. At the helm a masked master with a shock of red hair battles with the reins. Cages and canteens alike clatter one way then the other from their hooks and hangings within the kiosk. A man dressed in pinstripes and tartan pitches halfway out the rear window, brandishing some bronze instrument, and once again the horn bellows.

It appears to all to be ataxia, but with a deft snap of her wrist, the driver drives the foremost hooves of her company's steeds into the loose ground. The back of the vehicle becomes the front with a sweeping motion; like that of a sword slightly too short to slice into the congregation at the door. The car leans into the air so that its two starboard wheels are off the ground before collapsing into a cloud of dirt. Half the body of the buggy springs open into an awning which reveals a storefront, and from it, a wooden sign pronouncing that the business is open uncoils on two chains.

Shouts come from the crowd as they unpack themselves, no longer cowering from the threat of collision. The pinstriped man, who faces them now, spurs the diaspora by blowing a final drone of a note on his horn and then another for good measure.

"Out yeez, out yeez!" the man shouts back, waving his instrument about wildly. "Vamoose! Your savior is here!"

From somewhere inside the stall, another voice can be heard. "Didn't you hear him? Get out of the way! Do you want to make it through this door or not?" Those at the outskirts of the mob peer inquisitively at the disembodied noise. They check on the driver, but she is still masked, and still stoic, and still as well. Those with keener senses are able to pick out a golden bird cage sat on the counter of the shop, mired in miscellany. Inside of it a brown bird, about the size of a human head, is prancing around in exasperation and opening and closing its bright yellow beak. "Quit gawking and get out of Sir Fretzel's way!" the bird squawks.

And people do so, for who would they be to disobey a bird?

The man who must therefore be Fretzel disappears from his spot at the rear window before announcing this: "I shall kick this door down!"

Now this is met with a queer reception, not least because the competitor Rune had already tried this tack and the iron slab stood strong, but more so because the back of the buggy was at least ten meters away from the door. The looks of bemusement turn to confusion and then shock as a booted foot takes Fretzel's place in the window and a leg slowly extends behind it. Much to the onlookers' surprise, the foot hovers halfway to the dungeon wall already.

"To the left! To the left! Ack!" says the bird as it leans in the same direction against the confines of its cage. "Ah-ah, a touch right!" it directs Fretzel, who is evidently supine and blind for this maneuver.

"I've got it!" Fretzel shouts back in a strained voice.

The foot wobbles ever closer to the door. Indeed, it eventually makes contact; first the lifeless toe of the boot and then the dead heel. It is pulled back before hitting the door three more feeble times, almost like a knock.

"Oh you fool! You've done it now." the bird says, watching in horror.

The winded Fretzel replies, "You're right."

"I-I'm what? How can that be?"

"You said I've done it and I have."

There is a pause as the bird mulls over this. "Oh you fool!" it cries whilst stomping its claw. "You aren't making any sense."

"No worries, the serpent will explain it all," Fretzel says as he pulls his leg back through the window.

"The wha–"

There is a crash and there is chaos but it's all as Fretzel had said, really. Shreds of metal like teeth flash into the crowd and a scintillating scene of green fills the now shattered doorway. Teeth of the creatures own, the size of elephant tusks, grin, and two snake eyes roll to life. A monster of twenty meters emerges and rears over a populace already prone. Fretzel had done it, as the serpent explains.

The snake strikes down, burying bodies into the arid dirt. With a swipe of its head it snatches another competitor and throws her in the air before catching her with its teeth. Only a strap of the woman's armor wrapped around the snake's fang saves her.

Before the bloodshed, somebody shouts. "Solipsio! Put her down! You know that will do you no good. If you hunger, child, come eat."

"Sade," the serpent Solipsio hisses. He sets the screaming girl down, ignoring her attempts to slice open his hide afterwards, and ducks down to stare at the masked driver with the shock of red hair. "And how do I know any of your recipes will, milady?"

The two of them hiss back and forth in discussion. One brave onlooker approaches Fretzel to ask what the two are talking about.

"How should I know?" Fretzel laments. "They're speaking French."

"Je ne peux pas participer sans l'assurance de la sécurité d'une organisation non affiliée," Solipsio says.

Sade throws her hands in the air. "Le temps que ça prend! La seule chose dont vous serez assuré, c'est que l'ambroisie sera d'ici là fraîche!"

"I apologize, mademoiselle, but I must take my business elsewhere."

"Woe are we!" the bird jumps to interrupt. "Porridge for dinner tonight. And on and on and on!" Then, to punctuate its point, it clamps its beak on one of the wires of its cage and begins fruitlessly chewing on it.

Sade stays calmer. "So be it," she says. "Our competitor, Baba-Rishi, is already arriving in the distance, having completed all requisite certifications."

A procession of clip-clop creeps onto the scene. Baba-Rishi and his business are almost a sympathetic display. Sade cart may be in disarray, but the box tied to this mule is in disrepair. Solipsio turns silently away, making up ground to meet it with great, weaving strides. The donkey at the helm wheezes and freezes at the sight of the beast, only for another beast to poke his head out of the beast of burden's cargo.

Baba-Rishi appears to be a sheep brought back from the gruesome dead. His wool is mottled and rotted in areas, his eyes milky behind the thin frames of crescent moon eyeglasses, and his one remaining horn needles cockeyed through the tweed cap upon his head. When he speaks, nobody can hear him except, presumably, Solipsio, who replies to whatever was said that he would like to purchase the finest ambrosia available. There is another interaction, to which Solipsio looks around and snakes his tail around the leg of one of his victims, snatching it into the air and bobbing the corpse up and down. All of the poor sod's coin tinkles down to the ground. A bottle is placed on the bar in return.

Solipsio tosses the body and uses his tail instead to first pick the spectacles from Baba-Rishi's head and place it upon his own snout, and then to grab the ambrosia offered to him and hold it up to his narrow eyes. What a spectacle! The label on the bottle reads this:

WARNING: This product contains chemicals considered toxic to living organisms. Consumption is known to cause death, as well as cancer in the state of California.

"Wonderful, it all seems properly accredited," Solipsio purrs. Baba-Rishi nods in meek, dwarfed, reply. The snake uncorks the bottle with a flick of the very extremity of his tail, lets his head fall back, opens his jaw impossibly wide, and empties the contents down his infinite throat.

The elixir does as it says on the tin.

As the serpent falls, Sade, for the first time amid this affair, stands. She takes off the gas mask and takes in the smell of dead flesh. She watches with the crowd as Baba-Rishi peddles away on his mule. She feels all the eyes of the world turn to her. "Well," she starts. "Your treasure lies in wait. What? We won't do it all for you."

The competitors stir and those who are able duck into the room which the serpent evacuated while those hurt in the battle for the first time fall as feeling flushes back into their feet. It is young Evelyn who breaks through the lines to open the simple wooden chest which is centered along the back wall of the clay and sandstone room. She places a hand against its wooden crest and after a period of concentration, overturns her palm to reveal a gap burned into the lid, the licks of flame still burning cooly at the outskirts of the opening. Bravely reaching inside the ring of fire, she withdraws a scroll penned by her king.

While the rest are preoccupied with the reveal, Sade returns to her seat and her curious cortège climbs back onto the caravan. There is a yelp and a crack and a cloud of sand, and they ride off–rickety halo glinting–to the evening sun of Ekka, leaving their mess behind. 

Mordecai Caddel

Mordecai opened the door to his mentor's room with an easy twist and push on the knob, his presence cutting off the silence like rocks interrupting waves.

Silas raised an eyebrow as he put down the packet of papers he held, gesturing to the couch Mordecai claimed every morning. "Yes, by all means, you may come in."

"Hypothetically," Mordecai began, his mind running rapid as he sat on the arm of his seat, "if you happened to feel a scenario so deeply where it almost hurt and—and felt like it was real and already happened, but you couldn't exactly see it, I mean—" he quickly glanced at his hand, the one that had reached out to touch Cain's arm. He could still feel the tingling, burning sensation. "I—well, what does that mean, you think?"

Silas took a deep breath and leaned back into his chair, thumb and pointer finger pinching the bridge of his nose. "And you said hypothetically, correct?"

"Yes." there was a pause. "Hypothetically."

"Mhm." Silas looked at the boy, but Mordecai had gotten to know his mentor quite well over the years. He knew what that face of thought and wonder meant.

"You do see something," Mordecai said. "You know, yeah? Tell me, Silas—what does it mean?"

"Yes, I do see something. In fact, I notice changes, too."

Mordecai leaned forward, barely sitting anymore as he waited for the words of wisdom Silas so often provided. When two beings of the same magical ability connect, there was an understanding that no other could match.

But Silas was also one to make Mordecai work for it.

"Well for starters, yesterday you knocked on my door politely. You were also a bit quieter."

Mordecai audibly groaned. "You know what I mean. And I'm serious."

"So am I." Silas nodded, taking his glasses off—an action that always led to a lesson of sorts. "You know, as much as our abilities teach and help us, so does your natural mind. This power is just an addition."

"Yes, but—"

"But what?" Silas interrupted, spinning his glasses around his fingers. For being in his sixties, he could pass for a decade younger. His greyed hair was slicked back and styled, and he wore a tie no matter the occasion. Then again, Mordecai rarely saw him outside his office; the two of them were a forced connection of sorts, but Mordecai couldn't deny that he enjoyed Silas's company. He couldn't speak for Silas, though.

"I just—" Mordecai closed his eyes, searching for a scene that only led to dead ends. "That's never happened to me before. At least, not that intense. I don't know."

"Whatever it was, it's affecting you. And when that happens, you need to press into it."

But I'm scared, Mordecai thought. Pressing into it would mean seeing a possibility with Cain that he did not want to see. He wanted so badly for it only to be a fleeting thought, the tiniest sliver of a chance. And maybe it was.

Silas leaned in. "Our power is a gift, but it leaves no mercy. Do not beg for something it won't give."

*

Mordecai was one of the last to enter the doors to the dungeon.

The abnormally large door was scuffed with marks and dents from unknown creatures, but the heroes walked through willingly, weapons in place. Mordecai found himself lurking behind two who walked side by side, one woman around his age, and a man a bit older. Mordecai recognized him; he was at the center of the Pit, and a clear threat if he somehow remained on the platform while conquering the middle. He overheard the girl call him Sam. Mordecai wasn't looking for allies, really, but he tried to obtain any information he could overhear, all while staying behind the man for a bit of extra safety.

The entrance was narrow and dark, almost tunnel-like as the heroes moved slowly, eyeing the area for—he didn't know, exactly. No rules were given to them, but maybe no rules were needed. The dungeon needed to be cleared, and whatever got in the way needed to be obliterated.

Easier said than done, Mordecai thought as the narrow entry turned into a larger, circled area, full of doors spaced out within yards of one another. It looked oddly symmetrical, like clockwork as twelve doors aligned in a circle. Mordecai watched as Sam pulled on the rusty handle of one of the doors, shaking it back and forth as it did nothing but jiggle slightly.

Mordecai walked slowly in the circle, eyeing each hero as they worked through different tactics to open the doors. Some heroes reached for the handles of locked doors, while others kicked and knocked using weapons to pry them open, but no luck.

"Hey." A voice echoed toward him, and he glanced to his left to find the face. Their piercing blue eyes caught his. "Can I borrow that?"

It took Mordecai a long time to leave her eyes and look at where she was pointing. Her hand gestured to his boot where a few smaller knives rested. How she caught her eye on them was unbeknownst to him, but her focus never faltered.

"Oh." Mordecai lifted his leg to snatch one of the knives, "Yeah, sure."

The girl only nodded as he placed the knife in her hand, turning back to the door that she and another stood by. A woman with black and silver hair pulled back into a tight ponytail and long, black clothes, stood close to the blue-eyed girl. He noticed she wasn't wearing any shoes, which from the rugged gravel they were on, she had to be hurting. But she only shared a small smile at Mordecai before turning her focus back to the door, where the other girl was struggling with Mordecai's knife as she tried to push the knife into the doors crevice.

"Damnit," she muttered before handing the knife back. "This shit is not moving."

"Seems like nobody has gotten one open," the other said, her lilac eyes scanning the room.

Mordecai put his knife back in its place and stood, unsure whether to keep moving or stay. He looked at the girl with blue eyes the color of the sea. Her hair, which was cut short, was a glowing white, even in the dimmed room. She was incredibly focused, which made sense in a scenario such as this, but compared to Mordecai she was true to the mission.

"Have any ideas?" she asked, and it was a signal to stay with the duo. At least for now.

Mordecai moved towards the door, eyeing it up and down, searching for odd crevices or misplaced lines. There wasn't any place for a key, nor was there any space below he could peek under. Whatever the trick, the door wasn't going to be kicked down. There was some sort of pattern or piece that needed to be put in place.

Focus, he told himself. He tried to steady his mind and search for the possibilities, for any sort of outstanding vision or clue so he could—

"I'm Maeve, by the way."

Mordecai looked over at the girl in black, who once again offered him a smile. He overheard the other snicker as he turned back around to face them.

"Okay," he said, then set his mind back to the present, "I mean, sorry. Mordecai. I'm Mordecai."

The stoic figure nodded back as she pulled hair behind her ears. "Rune."

"So, were you using some sort of mind control to get the door to open, or a silent ritual perhaps?" Maeve asked, her smile twisted upwards as her nose scrunched.

Well, sort of, he thought, but an echoed creek rippled through the room, catching the ears and eyes of the heroes as one of the doors opened. Mordecai watched as three heroes slid into the room, but before anyone else could think to follow, the door slammed shut.

"How did they open that?" Maeve pointed, but there was no clear answer as others tried to reopen the door. Murmurs and tension arose as Mordecai pushed his back against the wall, closing his eyes and letting the scenarios flow.

Seek the pattern, he told himself. Come on. Find the open door. Bring me to it.

Doors opened in his mind as future scenes played out. One where he missed all opportunities and found himself alone in the circled room; another where he finally slipped in another but was separated from Maeve and Rune. One where they find the next door...

That one. He exhaled as he welcomed the instructions. Guide me there. Show me.

Silas had told him to press into the potential future. Mordecai had pushed Cain's away until it was too late. He would not run from it. The consequence was one he couldn't bare to face again.

"There." Mordecai opened his eyes. "That door there. Come on. Now."

The two followed with no questions. Mordecai walked up to the door that one hero stood at, messing with the handle. With one shove, the hero fell, and the door opened. The three slipped in before it shut.

They were silent as they moved forward through the narrow walkway. Mordecai welcomed the quiet, despite the concern it brought. Not even Maeve spoke a word. Maybe it was the realization of the mission. The crowd from the Pit brought excitement and adrenaline to the heroes. In the depths of the dungeon, walking into the unknown brought a different feeling. The motivation within was hard to reach.

But it wasn't long till Mordecai's eyes locked on the large shadowed figure that rested at the end. It was one of the beasts they were destined to end. One of many.

Glowing eyes rose as the creature woke from its slumber. A snake the size he'd never imagined stared down at the three, fangs extracted and tail rattling. In the middle, where its body wrapped around, was a small chest. With the Pit falling in the middle and the doors opening at random, the King must've been a fan of luck. But with the large, darkened green snake above, luck seemed dauntingly impossible.

"Let's do this," Rune murmured as she stepped toward the beast, her axe in hand as she swung it around her side, seizing up the snake like it wasn't the first time she's faced something such as this. The snake's hiss vibrated across the walls as it pounced toward Rune. She blocked its fangs with her axe, causing a ringing clash as the impact did nothing but dent the handle.

For once, Mordecai moved forward with no sense of the future. He grabbed his knives as he ran to the side of the beast, reaching out as he stabbed his weapon into thick scales. He struggled to retrieve the knife as it dug into the beast, but with strength pushed by adrenaline, he moved just in time as the snake turned towards him, luminescent eyes looking down. Mordecai stared into its eyes, and his mind flooded with outcomes—with directions. But he could almost see the slight shine beneath the snake's tongue.

"The key—it's in its mouth!" Mordecai shouted as he ducked away from the large fangs that lurched toward him. Rune took another swing with her axe, and Maeve weaved a long blade toward its tail.

The three took turns with their hits and dodges, remaining spread out as the beast turned and turned, keeping the chest wrapped around its body. With how little damage they were giving, Mordecai didn't know how much longer they could keep their pace. He could tell the other two felt the weight of the fight as well. Rune's axe was nearly broken, and Mordecai had lost one of his knives as it stuck to the scales.

"Step back." A small voice was barely heard through the beast's mangled sounds. "Step back!"

Maeve dropped her weapon as she lifted her hands, palms outstretched. And Mordecai saw the brightest strike of lightning he'd ever seen.

The force rattled the room as Mordecai fell onto his back, covering his face from the light as the crackling sound racked his brain. It marked the snake as it twitched and shriveled from the electricity, not quite ending its life but introducing it to real pain.

And just as the little moment of victory would come, it would only go. Mordecai shouted as the final outcome planted in his mind, the image appearing right as it happened in present time. With the last of its strength, the beast pounced at Maeve, its fangs clamped around her body, teeth dug deep into her chest.

Mordecai scrambled for his last knife, but it was Rune who made the final blow. With one swift swing of the axe, the beast's head was chopped clean, mouth barely unclenched from Maeve's body. Her chest tried to work with bloody lungs as she heaved, but the fight was over within seconds.

As Mordecai kneeled next to Maeve, Rune kneeled to retrieve the key from the snake without a glance at the corpse that was a breathing being a moment ago. And at that moment, he wondered who the true hero was.

Mordecai looked down at Maeve, focusing on her face as the bite below was too bloody to bare. His mind took control, beginning to search through different future scenarios. It was blocked. No future held Maeve. There was nothing to see.

"It's a scroll. Looks like the King's initials."

Tears were pushed back as Mordecai looked away from Maeve and up to Rune, whose eyes and stance remained faithful to the mission. She would be the one to clean the fresh blood off her axe, while Mordecai would remorse over the knife in the beast's scales until it rusted.

For a moment, as Rune held onto the scroll tightly, Mordecai thought she would leave him. It wouldn't be difficult to pick her fight and take the journey solo with the scroll. It looked as though Rune was thinking the same as she looked down at Mordecai, swaying on her feet as her eyes gazed around the room.

I wouldn't even blame you, he thought. He had done much, much worse. Whatever Rune would do to him could be justified.

But Rune extended the scroll and placed it in his hand, securing an alliance along with it. Together, they would face more beasts, win more fights, and eventually, accept defeat. Mordecai did not need magic to see the many outcomes that would break them every time.

Marina Santana 

waiting waiting waiting waiting waiting waiting waiting

RUNE

Rune was not accustomed to questioning her own choices. Under her sponsor's instructions, she did not have enough free will to make her own decisions. In the arena, there was no time to second guess oneself. Her time had always been split between the two, and so she had no room for doubt. This was not so in Nuhan.

From the moment she entered this strange kingdom, Rune had been trapped in a never-ending whirlwind of decision making. Where to go, what to do, who to speak with, what to eat? Rapid questions burning the inside of her mind. It was only now, deep below the surface of the soil and surrounded by blackness that she could allow herself to partially rest. And with rest came doubt.

Rune cursed under her breath as the corner she rounded revealed another hallway with only lowly flickering torches and cobwebs. For what felt like hours now she'd been wandering around in the catacombs beneath the city, too distracted to remember the sparse directions she'd been given. The king's men talked much too quickly for her liking. Rune herself had been so preoccupied with her axe's return that she hadn't fully listened, and now here she was, blindly stumbling around like a newborn cub. And so, left alone to her thoughts, doubt seeped into her mind.

If only she hadn't been so foolish. If only she'd paid more attention when Yacob deigned to teach her Common. If only she hadn't left Osk behind. These thoughts consumed her as she stomped her way down the dark corridor, traps be damned. Rune shouldn't have assumed this quest would be so easy. She never should have come here, never should have tried to leave the Citadel. At least there she was loved by the citizens, never mind that she was treated like a prized exotic beast. At least there, she had Osk.

Osk, her brother in blood, the one who took time to teach her the language when no one else did. The one who stood by her in the arena against challengers twice her size. The one who took the punishment for her time and time again when she was too young to understand the rules of the arena. Osk had been free once, he would know what to do in this world of Common and magic users. But Osk was not here. And Rune was alone, standing in front of the first locked door she'd encountered in hours. She had to make a decision. Right or wrong, she would be forced to live with the consequences, or possibly die with them. Her hands trembled as she raised Kal above her head, sharp blade glinting in the dim light. Now or never.

"Wait," a voice cried out from behind her. "Don't open that door!" Rune hesitated for only a moment before spinning on her heels and rushing the charging figure. A simple kick to his kneecap was enough to bring him down as she grabbed the scruff of his neck with her free hand and buried his face in the dirt floor. Knee digging into his shoulder blades, axe poised above the back of his neck, Rune seethed.

The man underneath her whimpered as her blade dug into the meat of his scruff and attempted to use his weight to unseat her. He was a fairly built man, only a bit larger than her, but Rune was strong from a lifetime of combat.

"State your business," she growled, "are you a competitor?" Her r's rolled slightly, making the sentence much more clunky than she would have liked. The man underneath her didn't seem to notice her accent as his arms flung around wildly behind him. "Answer me!" Rune removed her axe from his neck and grabbed the back of his tunic, pulling his head up and bending his torso back at what she knew to be a painful angle.

"You could say that." he wheezed, almost too breathily for her to understand. She grunted, releasing her hold on his tunic and watching in suppressed amusement as his head hit the ground with a thud. Her knee stayed in place, but she allowed him the freedom to move his head to the side as he coughed.

A competitor, then. Rune had not had much contact with the others, save the initial pit fight with the black knight. This sandy-haired man had not been among the other fighters, but she scoured her memory and caught a fragment of his fishy smell.

She'd smelled the same scent when she was forced to relinquish Kal, and she'd glanced sideways to see a man of the same height and build, relinquishing a long, curved knife with a worn wooden handle. If this man, who seemed of average height and build among the humans here, had nothing but a tiny knife to aid him, he must be a magic user.

Rune leapt from his back, feet wide in a defensive stance and axe poised in front of her as the man scrambled to his feet. He held his hands wide, face still red and smudged with dirt from her earlier attack. Like this, she could almost believe he wasn't a threat. But magic users were unpredictable, and she felt her rage simmering underneath her skin at the danger he posed.

"It's alright, I'm not here to hurt you. Why don't you put the axe down and we can have a civil conversation?" He reached into the folds of his coat, slowing when Rune tensed at the sudden movement, and withdrew with the knife she remembered from earlier. "Here, I'll even lend you my knife." he said, spinning it so the flimsy blade rested in his own palm and the handle extended toward her.

Rune hesitated. It was a clear show of trust, and if she wanted to, she could lunge for the handle and pull, slicing his palm open with the blade. If he wanted to kill her he could have when she had her back turned. Or maybe he enjoyed playing with his food. Projecting the image of an unremarkable opponent to lure her into a trap.

Here she was again, faced with another impossible decision. She could almost feel Osk standing behind her, tutting at her indecision. "Rune," he would say, "to be free is to make your own choices. You must practice now, for when you escape in the future." All her life she'd dreamed of escaping. Now, faced with the terrifying notion of her own indecisiveness, all she wanted was to go back.

Rune lowered Kal slightly, eyes narrowed. "You told me not to open the door. Why?" She spoke low and clear, the smooth vowels of her native tongue and clipped consonants of the people of the Citadel combined to create her almost unintelligible accent. Yacob used to laugh at her pronunciation as she tried and failed to mimic the harsh sound of Common. Even held at the end of her blade, the man's mouth quirked up into a smile the moment she uttered the first syllable.

He withdrew his offer of the knife, stashing it back in his coat, and lowered his hands. "I guess it's not much of a secret anymore," he muttered, and Rune's ear strained to pick up the words. "You might say I'm a fortune teller. I see glimpses of the future, and there's an eighty-foot serpent on the other side of that door. Far be it from me to simply let you die." He shrugged, all nonchalance and easy charisma while his face fashioned itself into a placating smile. It would have been enough to fool an idiot, but Rune was no idiot.

"You can see the future, eh?" she said, hefting Kal into her right hand and resting the top of the blade on the ground. If he was trying to charm her into obedience, he had another thing coming. Her master's lady friends had often tried to charm her into spending a night above ground in their sweetly scented parlors, but to accept such an offer would be to risk the master's retribution. Rune did not trust easily, and this man was no exception.

"Tell me," she leaned against Kal's haft, using her sudden ease of motion to trick the man into thinking she was amenable, "what else is on the other side of that door?"

"Did you not hear me?" his smile faltered for just a moment. "I said there's a giant serpent through that door." His voice wavered off into a startled yelp as she turned on her heel and marched toward the wooden door, Kal dragging in the dirt behind her. So, he was telling the truth.

"Are you mad? If you open that door, you'll kill us both!"

"Tell me," Rune hefted her axe into a two handed grip in one smooth motion. "The tunnels are crawling with monsters. As the king says, no one who has entered the tunnels has come out. So how is it that the door is locked?"

"It is?" Fear turned to curiosity in a heartbeat as the man stepped up behind her and tried the handle. "This makes no sense. Unless, of course..." he trailed off, eyes glazing over.

Rune nudged him with her shoulder. "What is it?" she asked, curiosity tugging at the back of her mind. What a wonderful and terrible gift it must be, to see the future. To know the exact result of every action you choose but be powerless to change it. Or to see countless possibilities for every choice you make before you make them. It would be enough to paralyze any sane person, but the man in front of her seemed unaffected as he returned to the present, eyes clearing.

"There's a chest, locked, with a scroll inside, possibly gold. The best scenario is you kill it while I try to get it open. Listen to me," he grabbed her shoulder, face more serious than she'd ever seen it, "you have to behead it. It is very important that the head be destroyed, do you understand?" Rune nodded, face splitting into a wide grin.

"With pleasure." The man shuddered, retrieving his flimsy knife and stepping behind her.

"By the way," he said, voice much less self assured than the last time she'd heard it, "my name is Mordecai. Just in case I don't make it out of here." Mordecai. It was almost too formal to suit him.

"Rune," she said, hefting Kal over her head and bringing him down on the bolt locking the door in place. The bolt shattered and the door swung open to reveal an ugly blue serpent staring down at her. Rune grinned as the ringing in her ears drowned out the cry of the monster in front of her and her vision turned red. "Happy to meet you."

************************

Rune forced the beast's maw open with her legs as she wrenched a long, sharp fang from the front of its mouth. The blood on her hands made the act much more difficult than it had any right to be, but her kill was a good one and so she would not leave without proof that she was the one who had killed it. Blood and brain matter stained the floor of the chamber and her feet squelched with every step as she approached Mordecai.

The man looked like he was on the verge of being sick, and Rune patted him reassuringly on the shoulder, leaving a red stain behind.

"Shouldn't you get that looked at?" he asked weakly, gesturing to her bleeding torso and the set of tiny white fangs embedded in her arm. Rune waved him aside, heaving herself into a sitting position against the wall of the chamber.

It had been a difficult battle, the creature was more cunning than she'd given it credit for. But almost nothing was strong enough to defeat a Berserker at the height of her bloodlust. Now, with her thirst quenched and her foe dead, the pain from her wounds was beginning to creep through her mind. She set aside her axe and wiped her hands on the ground before pulling out the needle-like fangs one at a time.

"It takes more than an oversized serpent to kill me," she huffed, kicking her left leg out at the pile of rubble that had once been a chest. "Did you find the scroll?"

"Yes," Mordecai said, worry tinging his voice as he held up a tightly rolled parchment. "We should leave soon, though. I saw others coming at the sound of the crash."

"We?" Rune quirked an eyebrow. Mordecai chuckled nervously.

"Who doesn't need a soothsayer? And by the looks of it, you can pulverize just about anything that comes in my way. What do you say we stick together a little longer?"

Here it was again, a decision that could either get her killed or save her life. Rune didn't hesitate this time before nodding ascent. This man was no Osk, but his gift was useful, and if he tried to betray her, she'd just cut his head off and be done with it.

Captian Odette Rainmaker

Here is how the bards will tell it: The shadow pierced the light.

Here is how the Captain will tell it: The shadow never left.

Here is how it happened:

Captain Odette Rainmaker stood facing the entrance to the cavernous dungeons, and pretended like her hands weren't trembling. The tight grip on the hilt of her sword was merely anticipatory, not anxious, and the fluttering of her heart was out of excitement for what was to come. Treasure, glory, an official royal pardon--these were locked elements of her future. Whatever fucking fates had knocked her out of the sea had set these beacons of her life ahead; Odette merely had to find a few old and rotting scrolls in order to obtain them.

Squinting into the darkness, Odette couldn't help but notice the resemblance the dungeons held to the underbelly of a pirate ship. Dank, dark, bitten by salt and the sea. There was an element of comfort to it. Nostalgia, even. There had been a time when together, Captain and crew would've made quick work of those dungeons.

But Odette was alone now, facing down the iron gates and the darkness seeping out from beyond them. The squeal of the hinges as two guards pulled the gates open echoed like the howls of direwolves sailors told stories about at night.

Odette's hands didn't tremble as she downed a swig of rum from the flask hanging at her side. They didn't, despite whatever rumors the guards might care to spread. Stoically, bravely, she stepped forward into shadow.

The gates clanged shut behind her. Even if she'd wanted to turn back--even if she'd given up on her pride and honor and reputation, and had fallen to her knees begging to be set free--the King wouldn't have obliged. And she'd lose out on all the promised treasure, besides.

One of Odette's hands remained tightly clamped on the hilt of her sword while the other reached out to touch the walls of the winding caves. What little light had followed her down quickly faded from view as she turned corner after corner, with no sign of life--heroic or otherwise.

She'd heard tales of ghosts, cursed to wander the site of their demise. Surely more than a few wayward souls were trapped down here, waiting for a body to possess, waiting for a vessel to set them free.

Honestly, Odette could hardly blame them. Her ship had been her vessel, and at times, her captaincy still felt like a form of possession. But, gods be good, she really did not want to encounter any ghosts.

Torches lined the walls, long since petered out. Every so often, she'd catch sight of a light up ahead. A fire genasi had been among the candidates set loose in these haunted halls--she assumed it was them who was lighting the way. Odette mulled it over for a moment: Was it worth the confrontation this early in the game? Or should she wait it out, let the others do all of the work, before swooping in and stealing the glory at the end? She was far more familiar with the second method, but the hair at the back of her neck stood up peculiarly with every phantom breeze that swept past her, and Odette thought she'd rather have bloodied knuckles and a guilty conscience than a lonely and frightened soul.

She followed the light.

It led her to an open door, with a chest inside, which Odette found to be terribly convenient. There were no other signs of life, but that was hardly concerning. Perhaps they'd already taken the scroll and left, but she wasn't stupid enough not to check.

The chest opened easily, and a mimic's lolling purple tongue struck out toward her.

"Damn it," she muttered. "Damn it, fuck you, this always happens, fuck." The adhesive glue of its saliva stuck to her arm and Odette hacked at it with her sword, striking at the shapeshifter's flesh before it retreated back into its common chest-like form.

Maybe the torches hadn't been the Genasi after all. Maybe it had been a trick played by a poltergeist hoping to find a friend. Maybe, despite her worries and hopes, Odette had never been alone.

A few more rooms revealed nothing but cobwebs, a few revealed scattered coins that she eagerly pocketed, and several others were hopelessly locked. She ignored most of the rooms in the latter category, but there was one door, stuck haphazardly in the center of a tunnel's fork, that drew her further in. A silver glow seeped from the crack at its bottom and sides. Ordinarily Odette would turn around and walk briskly away from any sign of magic, but magic, down here, was unfortunately a good sign.

She played with the handle of the door for a second before deciding to break it down instead. It'd been awhile since she'd done something of the sort, and her form was all off, and she could already feel a black and blue bruise creeping in to infect her shoulder's beryl skin.

It was worth it, though, when the door swung open and her eyes fell upon what awaited inside.

The room was as abandoned as the rest, with unlit torches lining the walls and a fifty-foot expanse of boring gray stone splayed out across the floor. But, at the far side of the room, a glimmering diamond caught some inexplicable light and hung suspended in midair.

Oh, the folks back home would go mad in their jealousy. Such a gem would fetch a hefty price at any underground market. It would be enough to buy herself new boots, new swords, a new ship. She wouldn't even need the scrolls, or the pardon, or the King's fucking heroic title. She could find her own way in this world. All she needed to do was reach out and grab that diamond, and all of her worries would float away.

Three things happened in rapid succession as Odette grasped the floating gem. First, the diamond burned white-hot, searing a solid circular brand into her skin. Second, the unlit torches came to life with flickering silver flame, drenching the room in a softly glowing light. And third, the floor fell out beneath her.

(Fourthly, belatedly, as she tumbled uselessly through the air, came the realization: It's a thrice-damned trap.)

Odette fell against something solid and cylindrical before careening off of it and onto the damp rocky floor. The fall couldn't have been more than fifteen feet, and whatever solid mass she'd run into had certainly softened it, but the landing still managed to knock the wind out of her. She'd landed hard on her shoulder--the one she'd bruised opening that damn door, of course, because the universe had collectively pooled its spiritual energy together to fuck her specifically. She groaned her displeasure as she reluctantly stumbled to her feet, gem still clasped inexplicably in her hand. Getting out of the pit would be a bitch, but at least she hadn't been stabbed by her own sword on the way down; she'd take the small victories.

Odette blinked groggily, letting her eyes adjust to the slight change in light, and instantly any feeling of victory--small or otherwise--disappeared faster than a hound on herding day.

She wasn't alone in the pit.

That would have been fine, though a bit awkward, if her company had been "fellow-hero-competitor" in nature. Hells, she would have even accepted a vengeful ghost.

Instead, her new companion had speckled emerald scales, brightly shining yellow eyes, and an expression which, even in the relative darkness, betrayed the fact that it was royally pissed off. The creature was coiled uncomfortably tightly in the fifty-foot room and as Odette stumbled backward into a slick solid wall, she watched it unravel and regard her with too-casual coolness.

She'd seen that look one too many times, right before getting swung at with the business end of a sword. And she'd heard tales of this specific brand of beast enough times to know what the Pirate Kings called it: Death.

Death--Deathcoils, technically--were as familiar with forests as they were with the sea. They would lure pirates into their lairs with glimmering gold, and then tightly constrict themselves around the sailors' ships, tugging them to the bottom of the sea. Sometimes, Death would eat its prey before it drowned. Most of the time, it would save the bloated bodies for a midnight snack.

Odette had never seen one in person before, and under less harrowing circumstances she might have noted the beauty that could be found in its five-foot fangs or jagged emerald scales. Under present circumstances, however, she couldn't do much more than finally drop the white-hot bait and use both hands to draw her sword.

The Deathcoil lunged first, striking out towards her faster than any pirate ever had. Odette ducked at the last second, spinning behind it and slashing out with her sword. The blade bounced off of its scales and she cursed to high heavens as it turned back around. Gritting her teeth, she ducked again as the beast struck forward, and its eighty-foot body shifted and moved along with it, sweeping her off of her feet and onto the grimy floor.

Her sword skittered away from her hands, which really wasn't fair. She'd kept a tight grip on the useless fucking jewel while she was careening to her doom, but now the one vehicle that could have saved her was betraying her, leaping away to settle down beside...

...A large wooden chest.

Oh, now that was interesting.

It looked nothing like the mimic's chest she'd been duped by earlier. It exuded a faint silver glow, which matched both the newly-flickering torchlight and the silver jewel that had first tempted her hand. There was a faint aura emanating from the chest, which, if it hadn't been so obviously magic, Odette would have described as warm.

Scaly muscles encircled her torso and Odette's breath was stolen away as the beast began to constrict around her, clearly finding the battle all too easy to win. But damn it, Odette had come here for a fight, and she wouldn't leave without one.

Wriggling awkwardly against the slow but steady constriction, Odette reached two fingers into her dragon-leather boot. Her black dagger was wedged inside, the pointy end facing up, as always. Her fingers glanced against the blade, which drew pinpricks of blood, because fuck her, was apparently why. The serpent's mouth drew level to her own, and she swore the thing was grinning at her.

Then its jaws opened wide, and Odette had all of two seconds to take in the green spores pooling near the sacs beside its fangs as she drew in a deep breath.

A gaseous cloud released from the creature's mouth, and though the spray covered her hair, her face, and her chest, it left no mark beside the burn inside her nose. Though she continued to hold her breath as it dispelled, she could feel the minutiae of it tickling her nose hairs and crawling into the lining of her lungs. When she couldn't hold it in any longer, she coughed desperately, feeling a bit woozy both from the restricted oxygen and from whatever Death had spat in her face.

"Thanks for that," she managed, as it held her more tightly, and her fingers finally got a good enough grip on her dagger to raise it up and stab it awkwardly into the creature's side.

It didn't let her go, but it did loosen its grip enough for Odette to free her arm from its grasp and dig the dagger into one neon yellow eye. Roaring, it reared back, and Odette took another gulp of air before escaping fully and diving beneath its wildly-swinging head. Lurching forward, she reached for her sword and brought her salvation desperately, gratefully, close to her chest. She took approximately five seconds to first attempt to open the chest beside her sword (it was locked) and then kick at its old oaken wood (it was boot-proof).

"Damn it," she muttered, as the creature, black blood dripping from its eye socket, swung back around. She rolled her shoulders back. Even the bruised one would have to hold up, if she was crazy enough and lucky enough to carry out what she was planning next.

The Deathcoil dived forward and Odette leaped into the air, grabbing awkwardly onto its back with her arms before digging between its scales with her broadsword. It didn't do much more than annoy the beast, but it did serve as a perfectly fine leveraging tool as the serpent moved and swung around again, trying to grab at her with its huge gaping maw.

It swung up, up, up, toward the silver-drenched room above, where this whole damn thing had begun. Odette hesitated for only a second before abandoning her sword and grabbing at the ledge with both hands, feet slipping off the scales for just a moment before she managed to pull herself fully up onto the higher ground.

"Alright, bitch," she said, pulling out her flask of rum. "Bottoms up."

It was a long shot, and she'd only have one chance at it, but life was nothing without a little risk. And in this instance, without a little risk, she'd have no life left. She took one last swig from her flask, tore a strip of cloth loose from the bottom of her shirt, and shoved it into the bottle before stepping toward a torch's silver flames.

The Deathcoil surged upward again, its head swinging back and forth as its one good eye tried to track her movements. Odette took her flask, cloth drenched in brown liquor, and held it up to the flickering light.

Her crew had (accidentally) burned down an abandoned trading ship once, when the barrels of rum inside had drawn too close to open flame. She hoped the end result of this half-baked plan would be even half as disastrous.

The cloth caught the flame and Odette turned just as the snake's open mouth veered down toward her, spores once again pooling around its fangs. As unpleasant an experience as it was, it made for an extremely convenient target. She launched the flask into its mouth, and watched as it disappeared down its wide throat.

The creature let out a terrible screech, and Odette realized--or, rather, she hoped--that the silver flames did a hell of a lot more damage than the regular old orange ones did. The snake lurched around, slithering back into the pit as a terrible stench like overcooked chicken began to permeate the room.

Though it seemed to slacken, Odette refused to trust Death. Nothing was ever that simple. She leaped into the pit again, despite every ounce of intelligence she possessed begging her not to, and pulled her sword out from the creature's back. The being shifted, weak but alive, and slithered slowly toward her.

She raised her blade and hacked at the beast's neck like it was a solid and sentient vegetable. Brown blood caked her chest and chin, and she wasn't sure how long she stood there, panting, long after it had fallen completely still.

Limping over to the warmth of the chest, Odette pressed her palm to the center of its oak, trying to align the brand on her palm with where a keyhole would theoretically be.

The chest shone brighter and brighter, but it never burned her. She was past that now. She had to be.

Inside, she found no gems or weapons or gold.

Instead, it opened to reveal a surprisingly pristine scroll, embossed with the initials of her once and future King.

Yasmin Aziz

It had been the dates. Yasmin knew she shouldn't have eaten them. As her mother always said, Yasmin had a weak stomach, made weaker by the attempted poisoning when she was merely 12 years. They had been sitting at the bottom of her bag for much too long, and a very blurry-eyed and anxious Yasmin had eaten them in the wee hours of the tournament morning like a fool.

Quite a fool.

But even fools can become heroes, in Yasmin's world.

Her thigh stitched, her nose bandaged, and her insides still gurgling, Yasmin steps away from the guards who had led her down to the entrance of the dungeons.

Now, this is what Yasmin had been waiting for.

Excitement races through her veins like drugs, intoxicating her mind with dreams of riches and glory.

Last week's tournament pales in comparison to the beauty of the bejewelled door in front of her.

Intricate carvings of the four seasons and their gods decorate the four panels, towering over Yasmin in a display of grandeur and power. Snowy landscapes, with twinkles of silver and diamond, shine with the coldness of Winter unknown to Yasmin. The golden beauty of Summer, captured perfectly and glowing from within, gifts Yasmin with precious memories of summers gone by. Autumn, each leaf and tree sparkling with precious gems, displays the striking change as the world shifts to reds and oranges. Even the tiny lilies in the Spring panel seemed to sway in the breeze, their opal petals carved with care against the backdrop of a lapis lazuli sky.

A slight prickle of uneasiness pokes at her heart, one that dislikes the stale and stagnant air of the underground. But Yasmin disregards this, steeling herself to fully enter the network of caverns through the entrance so beautifully wrought into the shadowy space.

The guards' torches flicker as they crank the doors open.

Once the dark opening is just big enough, she slips through, a torch in one hand and her shamshir in the other.

A smile unknowingly blooms on her face as she places the torch on the dais in the middle of the entry cavern. It lights up immediately, blazing to life and illuminating the majestic room.

More carvings, etched into the stone walls, flicker with the fire. Seeming to dance in the darkness, these works of art celebrate the lives of the gods, detailing the stories that Yasmin heard in the streets of this kingdom. While these walls pale in comparison to her home palace, they still have a primitive, raw beauty.

Yasmin continues to the other door at the end of the cavern, stopping in front of a stone door.

She pushes it.

It doesn't budge.

She pulls it.

Nothing.

Yasmin glares at the door, stony silence emanating from her body. She summons a heavy gust of (rather) stale wind, aiming to slam it open.

The air particles spread in all directions along the wall and the door doesn't give.

At the same time, the fire flickers out.

"Oh, stars," Yasmin groans as she turns to the general direction of the dais, the pitch black of the cavern sending chills down her spine. "Really?"

Unbeknownst to her, a faint light begins to glow from the walls and ceiling until Yasmin is bathed in it, and Yasmin's jaw drops as she stops in her tracks. The carvings had been painted with magic.

Yasmin summons some air to reach the top of one mural, her fingers grazing the magical residue. However, the longer she examines the walls, she notices that most of the magic is pooling in a high section of the cavern, where a rectangular panel with a snake in an apple tree looms ominously.

"Curiouser and curiouser."

Getting closer to the panel, Yasmin hesitantly touches the carved apple. Her light fingers push the apple in, which slides the stone panel over to display a gorgeous bronze door, and Yasmin nearly topples from her patch of pressurized air in surprise.

Buoyed again by a quick gust of wind, Yasmin gingerly approaches the newly revealed door, though, to her everlasting dismay, the door is locked.

A small opening near the handle gives her a sneak peek into the dark cavern, where she can make out the faint glow of the walls, as well as a rancid, sickly sweet smell that makes her shudder. Clapping a hand over her nose, Yasmin swirls a gust of air through her other hand, teasing the edges of the door frame and the lock.

Still, nothing.

Leaning back a little, Yasmin closes her eyes and places her hands on the door, letting the air move through to figure out the lock mechanism. Breathing deeply as she calls on the jinn magic within her, Yasmin traces out "unlock,"حرر, onto the door's panel, which glows briefly as it sinks into the bronze. The wind responds, swirling into the bronze gears and goading them into movement. Slowly, carefully, so as to not disturb any possible entrapments, Yasmin applies just the right amount of pressure, guided by the borrowed magic.

Ever so gradually, the last pin finally clicks into place and the door eases open towards her, flooding her senses with the rather loathsome air of a place forgotten by the heavens.

Yasmin gags, even as triumph buoys her higher.

Slinking into the newly unlocked cavern, Yasmin freezes like stone when she suddenly feels the heavy, heavy stare of another being upon her. Her hand immediately shoots for her shamshir, adrenaline replacing the magic that once flooded her veins.

Red eyes, redder than the blood that once coated her palace floors, pierce through her as if like a blade. Good thing Yasmin loves playing with sharp things.

"Leave." An unnatural, guttural hiss that barely forms into the word fills Yasmin with a deep, deep disgust for all things slimy.

"Why?" Yasmin twirls the shamshir around, its blade glinting in the faint glow of the luminescent walls. Inside, she cursed her luck for getting a giant serpent as her first challenge.

"This isn't a place for humans. Now go, and never come back."

Her eyes taking in the long and winding shape of the new opposer, Yasmin crouches, her legs tensing as she gears to strike.

"Well, alright, I'm human," Yasmin concedes, though her dark eyes harden. "But the problem is, I can't go and never come back."

With an excited grin, she feints right and leaps upward, boosted by quite a few air molecules. The serpent's fangs snap shut on the space where her arm was only a few seconds before, and Yasmin barely manages a glancing blow on its scales. She twists midair to land on the serpent's body, running down its length to avoid the menacing jaws of death (and snake breath).

She cuts her shamshir towards its body, only to be deflected by the darn armoured scales covering its body. With only a second to admire the intricate designs decorating its body, Yasmin veers off to dodge its enormous rattle, the resounding boom making the cavern tremble. Her shamshir has made absolutely no damage to the serpent, so Yasmin reluctantly sheaths it as she dodges another swipe.

Yasmin draws in a deep, musty, breath, as she jumps off of the wall to avoid being skewered. She feels the oxygen reach every cell of her body.

ذبح

Kill.

She brings up the pebbles littering the room to hold the word, letting it shoot towards the offending creature and sear itself into its skin. The serpent lets out a hiss as it recoils, though Yasmin can't tell if it's a pained hiss or simply an ordinary one.

No matter, her mind focuses with instant clarity, the new objective branding itself into her mind and magic. Summoning a strong gust of wind, Yasmin redirects the serpent's head as it makes to bite her head off (or her whole top half, as the serpent's mouth is quite large).

Seeing the smoke rising from the word etched into the serpent's scales, she can sense the serpent's agitation at the unfamiliar magic.

Rolling to avoid another swipe, Yasmin calls on the air to her bidding, having it launch rocks towards the serpent as she attempts to crawl back onto it.

Unfortunately, its slippery scales and writhing body don't cooperate.

Yasmin retreats to a corner of the cavern, still engaged in the barrage of rocks against its head, when its tail suddenly whips towards her and slams her into the wall, knocking the breath out of her.

Her teeth slam onto her tongue and her ribs seem to crack, pain shooting throughout her body and painting her vision with stars. Nausea threatens to overcome her, her stomach still delicate.

Struggling to sit upright, Yasmin cocoons herself inside an air bubble as she draws the breath back into her very bruised lungs, a small spike of panic splintering her heart which she quickly clamps down. The serpent continues its attacks, encircling her with its outlandishly tough body. Wiping away the blood dribbling down her mouth, Yasmin finally catches her breath, when the smouldering word on the serpent's side catches her attention.

An idea sparks into her beleaguered mind, and Yasmin draws on strength deep down to surround the snake and lift it upwards before it can completely strangle her. Spinning gusts of wind around its already circular position, she lifts the serpent into the air above her with a guttural cry, her arms shaking slightly. It writhes and twists as it takes in its new position, threatening to break out and resume its squeezing endeavours.

Panting, sweat mingles with blood as Yasmin falls to one knee with the exertion of keeping such a large creature aloft and trapped.

Noticing the dark grey rocks littering the floor at her knees, she floats a few splinters up to her as she struggles to contain the serpent within its cage of air. Sending a few out to drag along the walls and gather its magic, Yasmin furrows her brow in concentration to condense the rocks and magic into a floating ball in front of her while keeping the serpent up.

احتراق

Burn.

Her left-hand traces out the word into the cloud of rock splinters, of flint, along with the magic she scraped off of the walls. She watches with satisfaction as the whole thing begins to smoke.

In a few moments, the ball bursts into a blaze, fuelled by the oxygen Yasmin keeps tunnelling towards it. She flings it upward towards the serpent, which is still coiling and flailing in its prison.

Death, though terrible, can sometimes be beautiful in its own way.

Fire explodes in the serpent's cocoon of air, lighting up the exquisite details of its scales in one stunning inferno of blues, reds, and purples. The serpent lets out an ungodly shriek and Yasmin nearly flinches, reminded of screams she heard not too long ago.

The heat forces Yasmin lower as she focuses on bottling the dazzling blaze up. The bewitching flames illuminate the cavern even more, and she notices a locked chest in the opposite corner of the cavern in her efforts to roast the serpent. Bingo.

Once the serpent's screeches die out, she suffocates the cocoon more and more until, finally, the glorious fire dies out too and leaves behind a smoking carcass of the once magnificent creature.

Yasmin drops it with a thud far away from her as she funnels the smoke out of the cavern through the open bronze door.

The newly-toasted serpent looms over her in the background, its eerie skin fading into the darkness. Finally able to assess it without the fear of imminent death, Yasmin's eyes trace its scales that stretch nearly 25 metres in the dark cavern.

She gingerly approaches the chest, only to find it locked.

"Locks! I detest locks. Everything is locked in this kingdom." Yasmin grumbles as she fiddles with the padlock.

Looking back over at the serpent's body, Yasmin approaches it, breaking off a fang from its jaw. Surprisingly, its teeth are pristine white, as if untouched by the fire.

Taking this to be a good sign, Yasmin drives it into the padlock's keyhole.

It clatters open in one strike.

Grunting with effort, Yasmin pries the chest open, its wood laced with magic and tingling her skin.

Once again in the faint glow of the magicked walls, Yasmin reaches in and pulls out a scroll from the dark depths of the chest, ignoring her ribs' cry of protest.

"C IX" glows up at her from the scroll's seal. Yasmin baulks at it, confused.

"King Charles? What are you doing here?"