2018 Contest Entry - The Iron Reaver's Throne

Entry by HonestAbe

The Iron Reaver had lived a long time ago.  His history didn’t really matter anymore, since all the places he once made famous were no longer civilizations.  He and his armies broke them. The old Dwarf was a tough bastard, apparently, and ruled from his throne city. He had some kind of engineer guild under him, and they made a bunch of secure dungeons and cities.  Brilliant work, the secrets long buried and hidden. Exactly the kind of thing he wanted to study. The risk of death and dismemberment is of course a problem, but that’s the life he chose. These thrones were never exactly the same, and many had been raided or broken down over the years.  

Dorian Meer wanted that knowledge, how these dwarves were so effective.  They only used steel and iron, and yet their creations were holding up to the test of time better than any Elven ruin.  Of course, he was going to allow his allies to plunder it. There was no question on that. But he wanted the mechanisms and engineering marvels intact.  They needed to be intact. “Hey! Thurn says we’re here.”

He looked up, and smiled.  The real reason he could even afford this.  Alexandra Heliot, whose red hair hung down her entire back.  Curvaceous and taller than him by a couple of inches, she was a gladiator by trade.  She had entered the slave arenas as a free woman and come out the other side victorious.  There were some scars, but he didn’t seem to mind. Her popularity and winnings had paid for this entire venture.  He personally thought it was his winning charm, but she had the winning smile.

Jarsk Thurn, on the other hand, was a drunkard and a grave robber.  Kind of what they needed here. He was tall, dark haired, and rippled with muscle.  His job here was simple. Break down doors that no one else could, lead them to the secret entrances.  His share of the loot from this was going to be the smallest, but the man only needed it for drinks anyways.  He had five older brothers, and yet he was the only one ‘without an arrow in the knee’ to be able to go with them.  And yet Dorian didn’t believe that. The man looked older than his skin. He had seen some things in these wastes, and it was his skill that had guided them safely here so far.  

“Finally!  It’s about time!” The screeching voice of their magical expert spoke up.  Lenna Shadewake, as she called herself, was part sorceress and part rogue.  Shorter than five foot, she was often confused for a man. The pixie cut blonde hair didn’t help with that.  Lenna was his old flame, and hotly jealous of Alexandra. She was also the only mage or rogue that they could find willing to spend months out on this kind of adventure.  After the month and change it took to get here, he was fairly sure that Lenna just wanted to get back at him for breaking up with her.  

“Where is it?” Dorian asked.  This landscape was confusing, covered in mist and rather cold.  Thick rocks stuck out from the mist, and the highlands here had the shadow of what was once habitations. Old mounds that could have been buildings lined the old road leading into the city, but now that they were inside the place it was impossible to tell.  “All I see is mud and stone.”

“Ai.” Thurn’s word for everything under the sun.  “Over there.” He pointed at a row of nearly identical stones running along the road.  Just like everything else around here. He stopped in front of what was conceivable the millionth stone he had seen.  “Ai.” There was nothing here. Just a couple of mounds of stone and grass. Yet Thurn seemed to know what he was doing.  Dorian waited patiently, as the man hammered a few stones with the backside of his enchanted iron axe. He would pick up one featureless rock, replace it with another, until they were in an arrangement that looked exactly the same as it did before.  “Ai!” He pronounced gladly. Then he kicked the middle stone.  

The entire hill before them collapsed inwards, stairs and thick iron railings extending out of the mud like bones.  Dorian leaned forward, hearing the creaking and clanking that arose. There! Completely hidden, yet the mechanism rose out of the mud without any problem after what had to be hundreds of years.  With a flash of magic, the mud concealing the entrance sucked away into the walls, revealing dark stone steps, going down into the deep. The stone was black, almost reflective. Dorian ran his hand over it, the smooth stone cool and comforting.  

“Stay your hand.” Lenna called.  Dorian froze. “Don’t lose your fingers.”  The part-time Rogue stepped forward with a stick, jabbing the featureless stone just inches from his hand.  The entire face of the stone rippled, as rusty needles sprayed out. A burst of fire came from her hand, the short woman lighting up the black stone.  “Thurn, you can read the stones here, can’t you?”

“Ai.” The man nodded.  “Don’t know the meaning but me Da showed me all the dangerous ones.  T’was before he become a stonelion.”

“Stonelion?” Dorian asked carefully.  Thurn had been mentioning creatures that he hadn’t known about for weeks.  

“Ai.” Dorian’s least favorite word.  “Big. Mean.” Durn wasn’t overly descriptive about it.  As per usual. Why did he even bother asking him? It was just going to be some other thing that bore no further thinking.  “This stone is black iron. Won’t break.” He tapped the walls. “No one knows how it was done.”

The real reason Dorian was here.  He, unlike the rest of the College of Whispers, thought that the secret to its creation lied in alchemy, and not magic.  His opinion wasn’t very popular, and if it wasn’t for Alexandra they wouldn’t be here. “Have you heard of any golems or native eidolons made from this?” He asked.  

“Ai.” Shouldn’t have bothered.  

“Hey!” Lenna screeched.  “There is a door up ahead.  But it’s through some gloom spell that you can’t see through.  My magic vision spell lets me see through it, but the door is just on hinges.  It’s not even locked.”

That’s when things got a bit more troubling.  Lenna couldn’t figure out what was the problem with the gloom.  We found it out rather quickly. Our weapons became invisible, and only their comfortable weight in our sheathes told us that they were still there.  Thurn was not happy about this, grumbling about how he wasn’t going to be able to throw his spears if he couldn’t get them back. But past the gloom, Dorian could hardly wait for Lenna to declare the way in safe before pushing in.  

The interior of the doorway became a gigantic room.  It was too dark to see beyond Lenna’s flames. But the sound of his feet echoed across the black stones, and then something echoed back.  “Lenna, how bright can you make this?”

“I can keep up the flames for hours, but we will need torches.”

“They’re invisible!” Alexandra announced, holding something in her hand.  “Mine are invisible, like my weapon!”

“Just light them.  Not like we will recover them later.” Thurn muttered.  

“These can be refilled!” Alexandra hissed at him.  “I brought lots of oil to refill them.”

“Wait, I hear something.” Lenna spoke up.  She opened her hands wider, and light filled the entire space, a gigantic room shaped almost like a wide set of stairs.  At the top of the stairs, they could see things moving towards them. Skeletons, but with some kind of dark magic upon them.  “Undead!”

“Ai!” Thurn bellowed.  “They’s is other adventurers!”

The skeletons weren’t that hard to deal with.  Every adventurer had dealt with them at least once in their life.  Alexandra disarmed them with her trident, Lenna would smack them with her dagger, and Thurn was able to break them down with the pointed part of his axe.  Magical weapons could destroy them, or at least do it much easier. His crossbow was virtually useless. “Their armor,” He said, as soon as they were down.  “It looks like it was torn apart by something powerful.”

Thurn was running his hands over the shredded and destroyed metal plates that they once wore. “Ai.” Oh, the day was still young.  “They bought armor in my hometown. That’s our blacksmith’s mark.” He said that with a bit of melancholy. “I’ll bring back something to bury.”

Dorian found one of the skeletons had been wearing slightly better clothing.  It too, looked shredded. But it had something that interested him much more. Journals.  They were filled with diagrams and some kind of notes about the place. More importantly, it had a lot of the dungeon mapped out!  Dorian cackled in excitement as he read through the journal.

“What is it?” Alexandra asked, her voice quiet.  

“It’s a journal.  From this group, and what they went through.  As, uh, as well as two other groups before them.” He pointed at the shape of the room.  “Apparently this entire place, it’s a giant circle. Geometric perfection, maybe a mile across.”  He read further. “It also has a few warnings, but there is a language barrier.” After Lenna shined her light on the book, he was able to make out some of them.  “Something about hair entering people. Another about being smitten by slime.” Thurn shuddered about the hair business. “But it does show me where the other adventurers went.”

“Ai.” Thurn said, in a different tone this time.  “Why return here?”

He flipped to the last pages of the journal.  “Ran out of food. Weapons still invisible.”

“Ai, ai.” Thurn murmured, as he continued his preparations.  “Brought lots with us.”

With one more check of the journal, Dorian slipped it into his vest pocket.  “Alexandra, do you want to try one of those torches?” With some fumbling, the redhead managed to get oil into the invisible torch.  The flame lit, a gentle light that only carried a few meters. This place seemed to suck up the brightness greedily. “Lead the way, Thurn.”

“Ai.” He walked forward, taking them up the stairs quietly, coming to the first part of why this place was called a maze.  Four tunnels went out from this direction, three of which had markings on them. “Never this. Bad. Dangerous.” He pointed at the leftmost door.  “Bad, Scary, Bad.” He pointed at the second, third, and fourth. “This Bad.” He pointed at the second door. “Least bad.” Thurn’s vocabulary never failed to amuse, Dorian told himself, before nodding and stepping forward behind Lenna.  “Duck!” Alexandra called. Up ahead, there were what looked like dark stone flowers hanging from the ceiling. Thurn was warding them away from himself with his axe, which the stone flowers seemed to avoid. Alexandra was avoiding them and driving them away with what he assumed was her trident.  

Lenna stepped into the tunnel, counting on her shortness of height.  Dorian was keeping his crossbow out, mostly as a club. The stone flowers seemed to not like him too much.  That all changed when Lenna stepped directly under one. It shot out, clamping down on her head. The ‘petals’ of the flower wrapped around her scalp, looking like a sickly elven hat.  Lenna screamed, and ran forward. The flower hit its maximum length and then let go, releasing her. As Lenna ran, hair poured out from the flower like a river. She had no idea of what was happening in the dim light.  

With a roar, Dorian swung his crossbow at the flower.  It cracked, shattering and breaking off from its stem and falling onto the floor.  All of the flowers above started hissing, and Dorian started running. Alexandra tripped him.  “Get down. They can’t hit the floor. Crawl.”

As one group they crawled, Lenna whimpering something as she moved.  The hall was almost sixty feet of snapping stone flowers, and every foot of that was a slow crawl.  At the other end, there was a small room with a stone table set into the center. They all took a moment to breath, and Thurn was hissing in pain.  There were angry marks on his bare arm from where one of the flowers had bit him. The petal marks were red and weeping pus already. “Lenna,” he called, before looking over at her.  She was clutching rivers of thick blonde hair. He couldn’t see how long it was, but she was panicky. “Lenna! Thurn is hurt!”

That shocked her out of whatever funk she was in.  She crawled over, the hair dragging behind her. She reached into her pack, pulling out one of many vials of liquid.  She murmured words of magic as she poured it over the mark. Thurn was silent, stoic as the wound swelled up to twice its size before finally returning to a normal bruised color.  He sighed in relief. “T-that’s good.” Lenna whispered.

“Your hair,” Alexandra spoke up.  “It’s longer than you are tall.”

“It’s heavy!” Lenna spoke up.  “It’s like its made of metal.” She picked up a section of the hair, letting it hit the ground with a crunch.  “Wait.” She muttered. “When its off the ground it gets lighter.”

“I’ll help.  It’s resisting my knife.” Alexandra said, sitting down with Lenna to control what had to be ten feet of hair.  Dorian stepped over to Thurn, who was wrapping his swollen arm. He was looking at the path ahead, twin tunnels splitting off.  

“Ai.” His word for everything. “No marks here.  Just guess.”

Both tunnels looked the same.  They both curved away from the center of the maze.  They had no features to speak of. It was too suspicious.  “After those flowers, I am willing to bet these tunnels are trapped.”  He drew his crossbow, before loading an untipped crossbow bolt. A string was tied to it, and then to the base of the crossbow.  “Ten feet of string, and you load the tip with a rock.” He shot twice. The left tunnel let the rock he shot bounce a few dozen feet before coming to a stop.  The right tunnel shimmered before the rock turned to dust.  

“Ai.” He and Thurn both murmured.  By the time they had surveyed the non-murder tunnel, Lenna was able to stand.  Her new hairstyle was impressive, he had to admit. A thick updo followed by a braid going down to her ankles now decorated the short woman’s head.  The moment the braid left the ground, she stabilized. Whatever had enchanted her hair, it stopped working the moment her hair left the ground.

“Which way?” Lenna asked, looking a lot better.  

“Ai.” He and Thurn pointed, Thurn looking less than pleased at his imitation.  Thurn led the way with a huff, tapping his axe against the wall as he went. Lenna was walking along, her head bowed by the new weight.  For as long as he had known her the woman hated her hair. Hated dealing with it, hated having to worry about it. Now it shined, and he had a very good view of the giant braid.  Alexandra gave him a look over the shorter Lenna’s head, flipping her own red mane of hair in response. Oh, she was probably mad that he was looking at his ex girlfriend. He kept his eyes on her swaying hair for the walk down the tunnel.  

It went on for a bit, until it came to a circular room with almost the exact same layout as the room they had come from.  Thurn looked at Dorian. “Shoot rock.” Dorian sighed, before taking aim with his bolt and launching a rock down both hallways.  Both hallways let the rocks fall. “Deeper into the maze?” Alexandra asked. “Or back away from the interior.”

“Deeper.” Dorian muttered, seeing odd groove marks in the tunnel leading back towards the outer areas.  He didn’t like it. Thurn again led the way, tapping his axe along the way. His axe struck the wall, and thick black tubes of energy flew out and struck him, grabbing him by the legs and dragging Thurn away.  Faster than a man could run, faster than a wolf even! Alexandra held her hand out, stopping anyone from following. “Lenna, stop the trap.”

Lenna took her sweet time doing that.  But once her tools had jammed the trap, she nodded to them.  “Thurn!” Dorian yelled, not hearing any of the screams you would normally expect.  “Thurn! Jarsk!” He yelled again, moving down the tunnel behind Lenna’s bobbing braid.  This tunnel went on for hundreds of feet, before plummeting steadily down. It became a slide, and as a group they had to carefully make their way down to the bottom.  There, they found what was left of him. His armor and gear were all laid out at the bottom of the slide. There was a dead end, with a break in the wall, more like a crevice.  Jenna tripped over his invisible axe. Alexandra loaded up his bag, and left his armor. Curious, his bandage looked like something had burst out from it.

“The walls.” Lenna murmured.  “They can move. Look, the drag marks on the floor.”

Alexandra tried to open the crevice, or push on the walls, but they did not give.  There was no sign of anything here that they could use. The only reaction anything had was when the enchanted axe struck the wall.  A flood of black liquid issued forth, hissing as anything but the dark stone of the dungeon was consumed. Alexandra was able to dodge backwards out of it fast enough, and Dorian was far back from the edge.  Lenna was the one who suffered, as the boiling black liquid splashed upon her robes and shoes. Her hair touched the walls of the tunnel for a second, and she lost her footing for just long enough that she slipped.  Alexandra pulled her arms, getting Lenna out of the muck before she could be sucked under. “Climb!” She yelled, as they had to climb up the slick slide.

At the top of the slide and back before they had lost Thurn, they collapsed in a heap.  Everyone was breathing hard, and Lenna hissed as she kicked off the smoking remains of her boots.  Her robes had melted from her ankles to the knees, and after her boots were kicked off her boney feet those legs were revealed.  There was no blemish or scar from the liquid. “Thank the Gods. You’re alright.” Dorian admitted. He looked up to see Alexandra less than amused.  “We all made it.” He offered, seeing Alexandra’s features soften. They had left Thurn’s armor down in that tunnel. It was too heavy for them to carry out.  

“Now what?  We just lost our guide!” Lenna screeched, letting her hair thump onto the floor heavily.  

“Best chance we have is to mark where we have gone, find another guide, and come back.  We should take things carefully. Perhaps bring back a digging team.”

“It took us a month to get here, and it will take another two months to return.  Thurn will be long dead by then.” Alexandra pointed out.

“If he isn’t already!” Dorian yelled, losing his hair thin control.  “But at least I won’t lose everyone to this place!” He led the way back, underneath the flowers and helping Lenna with her extra weight.  They nearly fled at a run back to the exit, and found only a smooth wall. The door had gone, and even Lenna’s dagger could find nothing in the wall.  No gaps, no breaks. Their exit was gone.

“Is this the same place?” Alexandra asked, slightly panicked.  Lenna was in full blown panic mode. “Did the walls move?”

Moving walls.  For some reason that caught his attention.  “Lenna, stop for a second!” He yelled. She did, still distraught.  Dorian put his ear up to the stone walls, but he could barely hear anything.  A long scrape, here and there. “It’s a mile across.” He murmured, stepping away from the wall while Lenna clawed at it with her enchanted dagger, and Alexandra tried carving into it with the enchanted axe.  “We wouldn’t even notice it.”

As a child, he had experienced a wonder of engineering that could rotate carriages inside of cramped spaces.  It would spin the carriage, on giant wheels. A Dwarven idea given form. Alexandra stopped swinging, hissing as she stood next to him.  “What’s going on in that brain of yours?”

“We’re on a giant dwarven mechanism.  So large that it could rotate without us noticing.  Moving so slowly that no one would be able to see. We are on a giant rotating circle, and it is moving so slowly that we won’t notice.  We cannot notice, for we are now part of the maze.” He opened the journal. “A perfect circle. A mile wide perfect circle.” He opened his mouth in awe.  “Those brilliant runty bastards.”

“Lenna, stop!” Alexandra yelled.  “The door will come back eventually.”  That got Lenna to pay attention, her blonde braid bobbing over to them.  Dorian did his best to keep his eyes from wandering. “Dorian says we are on a mechanism.  Something that spins.”

“But I can’t tell how fast it spins, or when the door will reappear.” He stated.

“Can you see which way this is spinning?” Alexandra asked.  

Dorian nodded, pressing his ear against the walls again.  He threw some rocks into the air a few times, testing where they fell and what direction they did go.  He felt comfortable in his guess. “It is rotating to the right. Which means that the tunnel we went down was away from the rotation, and the door we need to exit from.”  

“So we could wait for the door to come back,” Lenna muttered, looking at the wall which was not in motion or visibly moving. “Or chase after it?”

“I say we chase after it.” Alexandra decided.  “After we find Lenna some shoes.”

“I have some slippers in my bag.” She whined. “But maybe those skeletons have some good boots.”  She ended up having to use her slippers, as the boots were too large. It was with some trepidation that they returned to the four tunnel split, and looked at the right pair of tunnels.  All they had to go on was Thurn’s warning of scary and bad to describe these tunnels. His rock test offered nothing to go on, and both featureless tunnels were the same. “You pick,” He offered Alexandra.  She might know more about all of this.

She sniffed at both of the tunnels, before nodding.  “The scary one. I’d rather face something fearful than another trap like the one that got Thurn.” Lenna walked forward, leading the way down the tunnel and looking for traps.  Dorian and then Alexandra followed behind her closely, matching her steps. After the tunnel sloped upwards a bit, they came to a new room. This one looked like a workshop, with a kiln and advanced equipment.  Tarnished brass sheets with dwarven writing on them hung on chains over the kiln and other areas, with simple instructions on the operation of the equipment. “Look at this!” He murmured. “A smithy!”

“But where is the wood and oil?” Alexandra asked, digging through piles of rusted metal.  “Or the tools?”

“I don’t see any metal or materials to work with.” Lenna said, tiredly.  She let her massive mane of hair droop onto a table, coiling it so that she didn’t have to work as hard to hold it up.  Dorian clipped his crossbow back into his belt, before entering the workshop. Only one other tunnel branched off from this point, and they had been underground for hours already.  He couldn’t understand the old writing, but he could see the pictures.

“The tools are invisible.” Dorian grinned, looking at the walls.  “Feel for them on the floor!” Lenna carefully looked, poking things more with her slippered feet than anything else.  Alexandra gave him a smirk as she bent over and went digging for invisible tools. Dorian could hear Lenna panic, and twisted to face her with his crossbow.  She was shrieking about something and pointing. A monster made out of rusted metal, chains, and a black iron mask rose from the corner.

It made no noise or call for anger as it charged forward.  Lenna raised her tiny little enchanted dagger, and shouted magic words as it flew from her hand and stabbed the creature in the mask.  Alexandra barreled into it, her trident stabbing and getting caught in the chains. The creature seemed to only have eyes for Alexandra, wrapping around her and attacking her from all sides.  As it turned, Dorian was able to see a dwarven mechanism on the back. “Lenna!” He pointed, shooting one of his crossbow bolts at the target. Her knife soon joined his, carving into the brass.  He tried to take a step back, to get a better angle. His foot tripped over something, and the rest of the fight he missed out on. When he finally got on his feet again, Lenna had destroyed the mechanism on top of Alexandra, and its mask was stuck to her face.  She looked like some kind of Southern reveler, wearing a mask over her features.

Her hands were grasping the iron mask, trying to pry it off.  Even though it lacked any form of mechanical catch it adhered to her face, covering her from forehead to chin.  Her hands were reaching, not a sound coming out. Lenna was on the floor, her hair having fallen to the stone and become an even greater weight.  Large red welts covered her ankles and arms, and the remains of chains were all around her. Alexandra rolled, coming to a standing position. The mask held her chin tightly, and she ran up to him, not a sound escaping from her.  He could see her eyes inside the mask, more panicked than he had ever seen.

More importantly, he could see the mask described in the wall behind her.  “Hang on! I can break this!” He fumbled on the floor for what had tripped him, feeling that it was a spike of some kind.  Not what he was looking for. Lenna joined him in his search, and together they eventually found the whole array of tools the brass sheets described.  

At the center of the helmet was a small slot, where a pointed instrument could fit.  Discovering which one it had to be took hours, hours that Alexandra spent unable to speak or do anything more than look through the thin slots of the mask.  He didn’t know how long it took, but eventually he found the right tool. With a sharp crack the mask broke in half.  Lenna kicked one of the halves beneath a table, and the other she stepped on.  Dorian couldn’t care less. Alexandra’s face was like an entirely different woman.  Not a scar, not a scratch, and so youthful that she never would have been accepted at a knightly gathering as she had in the past.  Or at least as she once was. Her lips were plump, almost a glossy look. Her face looked to be in a permanent state of innocent surprise.  

Alexandra gasped, looking up at him with what appeared to be lines of kohl on her eyes.  Her hands felt across her face, almost making sure it was still there. “Dorian!” She murmured.  “Thanks!”

“This area should be safe enough now.” Lenna sighed, rubbing her neck.  “We need to take a rest.”

Alexandra nodded, digging out some of the rations from Thurn’s pack.  They spent an hour resting and eating, though Alexandra spent a lot of that time looking through a piece of polished silver at her reflection.  Lenna was testing her knife against a section of hair, but after five minutes of her hair stubbornly refusing to be cut by her enchanted knife she gave up.  Her slight snoring followed, the exhaustion of the hike catching up to her. Lenna could fall asleep anywhere and doing anything. Alexandra only slept when she was at wits end.  Today, she did so. Her torch started to gutter out, and Dorian didn’t want to dig through his girlfriend’s belts to find the oil to refill it.

So instead, he looked for whatever lit this place when it was in use.  There were no scorch marks on the ceilings to suggest torches in use, but this place had to stay lit somehow.  No one could survive in this darkness. The sheets of brass seemed to have no clues. But what they did show him was how to make were basic pieces of armor, or gear.  The Iron Reaver would probably have set this up so that his spoils of war could work the forges.

He glanced at Lenna, and smirked.  They probably had to make this work for idiots, and he wanted to see if he could replicate their work.  His entire goal here was to see how they did their work. Why to this day their artifacts were so unique.  He picked up the invisible hammer and started following the instructions. All it took was one of her tossed off slippers and some kind of special iron table.  The metal, it formed around where the hammer struck. If the tuning fork instrument was next to the hammer, instead of crushing metal it would rise up from the table and form into another shape.  Some of it shaped around the slipper, and it became a boot. The metal was thin, and in some places what filled it in wasn’t actually metal. It was like leather, but not. Lenna didn’t even rouse as he borrowed her other slipper to make the second shoe.  

It took almost two hours, and as long as he was working the forge ran hot.  It lit up the tunnels, even though the torch had gone out. He only realized that he had spent that much time when the unblemished face of Alexandra appeared in front of him.  “What are you doing?” She hissed. Lenna didn’t even notice.

“Her boots got ruined, so I made her new ones.” He tried to explain, motioning to the hammer and tuning fork.  “This place, it can make whatever you want it to! As long as you understand how to make the metal come forth, you can make anything!”

She was looking at what were becoming shin high boots.  “Can you try to make a javelin?”

Lenna woke up in the middle of his shoddy attempts to make a weapon.  Whatever this forge was, it couldn’t do it. Any attempts to make a weapon or sharp object would make the metal fall back into the table as if it had never been worked.  Alexandra lost her excitement for this room fairly quickly after seeing that it couldn’t make any weapons. Lenna, on the other hand, stared with awe at the dark boots that were before her.  “Where are my slippers?” She asked.

“They are incorporated into the design, so that your feet don’t get chafed by something unfamiliar.  I am not a great tailor, but I thought this might help you in this place.” The less said about the odd metal raised heel, the better.  Lenna pulled the boots on, grinning as the slippers inside accepted her feet.

Lenna came over to him with her hair piled into her hands, and stood on her tiptoes to hug him.  “You’re always so thoughtful.” He swore he could feel her lips on his neck for just a moment. “Thank you.” She whispered.  

Alexandra offered everyone a round of water.  She had a gourd that contained much more water than it seemed to.  Or that was how she explained it. She for once didn’t complain about Lenna’s closeness.  Lenna seemed to adjust to the added height given by the boots, and they didn’t actually have a perfect fit.  Her calves had a lot of wiggle room. They set out into the next tunnel, Lenna’s new shoes making small metal noises as she walked.  Alexandra had lit her torch again, and this time the tunnel led safely to another chamber. This tunnel’s trap had already been disabled by someone else.  Their invisible tool had left an indent in the wall from where the trap had been disabled.

Lenna made sure this was fully disabled before stepping past some kind of pressure plate.  There were no markings on the walls, and he had tried chalk and even a dagger to mark them.  How Thurn’s people did it he didn’t know. “Up ahead.” Alexandra called. “Take this.” She handed him the enchanted axe.  It was a heavy weight in his hands, and Alexandra clapped him on the shoulder. “I don’t think your little knife is good for backing me up.  Not to mention your crossbow will run out of ammo eventually.”

“Thanks.” He said, not quite thankful.  He was no good with axes or barbaric weapons like this.  He hefted the heavy axe with both hands, the tool unfamiliar.  He couldn’t even know how far to swing this thing, not being able to see the axe head.  “Wait, what do you see?”

“The way out, I think.” Lenna interrupted, pointing at where the tunnel had taken them.  It was a room with four tunnels and one large archway leading out towards another entrance hall.  “Look!” She pointed, and they could see down a large section of stairs. It led outwards towards a wider hall, the light no longer lighting up enough to see it all.  

“Lenna, use your light spell.” Alexandra asked, carefully.  Lenna nodded, before casting her spell. An orb of bright light moved forward, making Dorian blink.  After so long with just an oil lamp, this bright light was enough to be shocking. What was more shocking was the giant skeletal creature hovering just over their heads.  It was like a fish, except that its ribs were as long as the hall was tall. “Oh Gods.” The skull of the creature, shaped like a bird, turned around from where it hovered over a doorway.  The teeth were as large as spears. “Run!”

They ran, everyone moving as fast as they could.  Coming back to the room they just came from, they could see some new devilry surrounding the tunnel they had arrived through.  A dark mist had surrounded the left pair of tunnels, and looked like it had tendrils reaching out to grasp out at anything that came close.  Lenna made a split second decision and dove into the rightmost tunnel, sloping heavily down and almost making them all trip as they ran. Lenna’s new boots were doing something for her.  She almost outran Alexandra with them! For some reason her legs were looking less bony, too. He put that out of his mind, not wanting to be caught staring.

“What was that th-” Lenna began, as her boot landed on a section of the floor.  It shifted, and without a word she set off at a run. A puff of smoke hit Alexandra, who was not as prepared for the trap.  They followed Lenna up the rest of the tunnel, coming to a stop at a circular room with a large table and three more tunnels.  Alexandra was coughing, having trouble breathing. “She’s choking!”

Getting her armor off seemed to make things worse and not better.  She coughed harder, her lips and throat swelling up. Dorian did the only thing he had been taught and tried to breath for her, kissing his girlfriend and pushing air into her mouth.  Her response was more passionate than he expected! She was eager, and seemed to have no problem breathing through her nose as she kissed him back. As soon as his lips left hers, however, the coughing and gasping returned.  

“Oh that is a nasty curse…” Lenna started saying, but Dorian could understand the picture well enough.  Their hands roamed and he lost track of all else for a great amount of time. When Alexandra could finally breathe without gasping for air, he was utterly drained.  His pants were off somewhere, and the only article of clothing left she had was an armored skirt. That mask had done more than soften her face, it had made her entire body get worked over!

He took a look at his girlfriend, her kohl rimmed eyes innocent and glad.  She giggled, before realizing where they were and neither of them could remember how long they had been here.  They were able to find most of their belongings, though Dorian wasn’t able to find his belt or his knife. Alexandra lost a javelin and her undershirt.  When they both had gathered their items and dignity, they finally looked for Lenna.

They found her, robes more damaged and covered in scrapes.  Shattered chunks of stone surrounded her, and she leaned down onto her legs.  The robes were tattered up to the thighs now, and Lenna’s legs were looking better than ever.  How that was possible, he didn’t know. “Are you okay?” Dorian dared to ask, Alexandra looking embarrassed that they had not been helping her.  

“No.” She answered honestly.  “I just killed a wolf made out of stone.”  

“Sorry.” He offered, helping her to her feet.  “We just couldn’t stop.”

“I could see that!” Lenna screeched.  “I had to protect you while you just ignored me, for hours!” Her arms were wrapped in bandages that looked suspiciously like Alexandra’s lost shirt.  “But I did explore some of the area.”

“Uh, sorry again.” Dorian started, but then just trailed off as he felt awkward about it.  “Well, uh, what did you find?”

“Two traps.  Disabled them, but found out that they reset or trigger automatically if you disable them.  But I found something you might like.” Lenna stood up, her hair needing a hand as she did so.  Dorian couldn’t remember her thighs being as plump as when they were courting, but it might just be his imagination.  Still, he followed Lenna and her shoes down the hallway. She was walking gingerly, and he could see her shoes looked different.  Almost like the chunky boot heel had shrunk. He put it out of his mind as Lenna walked down past a pit trap. A few sparks sprayed from her shoes as she landed on the other side of the pit trap.  Dorian narrowed his eyes, seeing that some metal was being left behind on the floor. Her shoes really were changing.

Alexandra gave him a shoulder pat as she also leapt the distance, and he brazenly followed.  His jump was not as good as either of his fellows, and he tripped on the other side. No one laughed, for which he was grateful.  But Lenna showed them something extraordinary as she moved down the tunnel. It ended in an archway, twisting and wending its way.  “This is…” He murmured, as the oil lamp was no longer the only source of light. Giant glowing glyphs were on the ceiling, and casting their light along rows between what had to be buildings inside the mechanism.  They had windows and everything. Lenna led the way towards one of them, carefully. Her legs were swaying in front of him, and he had to shake his head to get the image of that out of his mind. The long braid and legs on display were too distracting.  

They all peaked into the windows, grinning.  The buildings were two story creations, with just archways connecting them to streets.  They were not good defensive positions. Dorian couldn’t see what each shop was dedicated to, but he could feel Lenna and Alexandra staring at him.  They were here for loot, and a return on their money they invested. Looking around, he could see that some of the shops were just tailors or craft workshops.  Not the return they were hoping for. “Aha!” He pointed to an engraver’s shop. “Dwarven writing, it should be lightweight and hold its value.”

Lenna and Alexandra brightened, following him into the shop.  They found bronze scroll carriers with Dwarven runes on them, which Alexandra took.  They didn’t dare open them here. The second story of the building had a small living area, and a hatch that could be closed over the stairs leading down.  The only lack of security were the wide windows. Lenna had stuffed her bag full of some gold and silver that she had found in the living area, as well as an old map scroll.  He himself went into the crafting area, and saw something more interesting. “This isn’t written in their language!”

“What is it?” Lenna approached, holding some kind of knick knack.  

“Lizardfolk language.” He murmured.  “Perhaps it is some kind of lexicon for understanding the dwarven one!  I speak a little of it, I should be able to translate it.” And translate it he did, taking hours to do it under the light of the lamp.  When he finally got it, the scroll glowed, and turned to ash. “Too bad.” Alexandra tutted. “Can you speak Dwarven now?”

“I hope so!” Dorian stood up, before feeling the magic come upon him.  With a wrenching feeling he could feel something burst from his lower spine and back.  His pants ripped, as a tail that should belong on a lizardfolk now rested on him. “Oh Gods!”

“It was bound to happen to you eventually,” Lenna whined. He turned around, holding his pants up and looking at the large tail now hanging off his behind.  It was… not uncomfortable. It felt like it had been there his whole life. This spell must have been written into the scroll, but he didn’t understand all of the nuances of lizardspeak.  “There is a tailor shop across the street. Let’s go there and get your pants fixed up.” Lenna offered, looking across at the other shop. She was probably after more loot, which he was fine with.  

Dorian was not here for gold or riches.  He wanted to understand these people. With trepidation they crossed the small path, ducking into the opposite shop.  It was a tailor, for certain. There were closets full of hanging clothing covered in dust. He went for the tools of the trade, and immediately set to sewing something functional out of his ruined pants.  The tail was odd to walk with, and let him lean further forward when he ran. He might be able to keep up with his fellows if they ever needed to run. Lenna disappeared upstairs to probably take everything of value, while Alexandra presumably stood guard by one of the windows.  

They were doing what adventurers do best, as he looked up and saw her digging through different hangers and piles of items to find things she wanted.  He spent a good ten minutes adding fabric to the back of his trousers and working around the tail. When he had finished, Lenna was grinning about some kind of find, and Alexandra was grinning as she packed some kind of outfit she found into her bag.  “You look happier.” Lenna smirked. “We could raid all of these shops for stuff to sell!”

“But this won’t fund another expedition.” Alexandra pointed out.  “This place needs curse breakers and mages of a better caliber.” Than Lenna, she meant.  Lenna wasn’t happy about her presumptions. “We need to go deeper into this place and find the throne room.  If we prove it exists, we can fund the next expedition and more.”

“You’re right.” He wasn’t going to understand this until he found some engineering guildhall.  Something that he could study and learn from. Lenna stiffened, looking behind him. A shadow had crossed over the window, and they could see a long spindly leg place itself down gingerly as something moved above the building.  “Run or hide?” Whatever that was, it was very large.

“One exit.” Alexandra whispered.  “Wait.” The monster stopped moving, standing above their building.  Alexandra’s hand held stiff in a fist, signalling them to be quiet. Still, the monster remained.  “Run,” She whispered, pointing towards a street that angled uphill. Possibly to the center of this place.  On an unspoken countdown, all three of them broke cover and sprinted. Dorian smirked as he pulled ahead, the tail letting him lean ever more forward and run faster.  He was in the lead for once in his life!

Then it was all stolen from him, as something stabbed him in the tail.  There was a sharp pain for a moment, and then he was imbalanced. Alexandra caught him, dragging him along as something with four giant legs and pincer teeth attacked something on the ground behind them.  Lenna was still with them, as he could hear her shoes hitting the floor. The only thing that was left behind was his tail.  It had fallen off.  The creature was tearing it to shreds, and Dorian pulled himself up to run with the others.  Lenna pointed, and an old faded sign with an unmistakable beer bottle on it was up ahead in some kind of alleyway.  Lenna kicked the door open and dove in, as Alexandra and Dorian followed.

They all slammed the large door shut, sighing in relief as the door closed.  They were in some kind of inn, though anything edible or drinkable had long gone.  “You’re glowing.” Lenna mentioned. “Dorian, you’re glowing!” Sure enough, he was. Though in a few seconds he stopped glowing as a replacement tail sprouted from his backside.  When he stood back up he could see that he was now eye to eye with Lenna. He used to stand taller than her by inches!

“The spell!  It must pay a price for replacing the tail.” He realized.  

“That tail saved us.  It drew the monster away from our position.” Alexandra said, patting him on the shoulder.  His girlfriend was now taller than him by more than a half-foot! That was an oddity he couldn’t quite get used to.  

“This place is an inn.” Lenna sighed with relief.  “That means water and beds.”

Alexandra hefted her weapons.  “We should clear every room, then.  Then we can take a break. Go over what we have taken.”  That took a while, even though the place only had four rooms upstairs.  Lenna found plenty of coinage and valuable tools that would fetch a decent price back home.  Alexandra discovered how to make the baths work, and he was politely kicked out of that room to watch the door while she and Lenna restored some of their sanity.  When the women returned, their gear looked clean and free of grime. Lenna’s robes looked different. The tattered bottom edges were now a loose skirt, probably the product of magic.  It did not stop him from looking at the both of them as they descended the stairs. Then it was his turn. Truth be told, after a bath he felt a lot more alive and well.

They spent ten hours there, going over much of the things they had taken.  They couldn’t read what the scrolls said, so it was a guessing game as to which had the most value.  The coinage was a mixture of gold, bronze, and silver coins taken from all over the coastlines. Only some of the coinage was the valuable black iron of the locality.  Some jewelry had been found, but it wasn’t made here. It had markings of being Verusian, powerful even back when this place was alive. It would sell, but nothing here was going to be worth the time and effort they had come here with and they all knew it.  

So, they slept in a pile of beds and recovered.  When they were able to leave, they went through a back door.  It went out an alleyway, and into an empty street. This one curved upwards and away from the center of the mechanism. The buildings here looked residential, multi tiered and open to the elements.  They carefully made their way past a row of bakeries and granaries. All were dark and empty. Nothing moved here, and the dust of their civilization just left more questions than answers. When the road leveled out, it ended at a giant wall.  An absolutely huge interior wall. Guarding it was another one of those four legged monstrosities. It wasn’t moving.

“Come on.” Alexandra said quietly, moving them into the closest building.  It let them take cover in a residential building and give them view of the creature’s legs.  For an entire day, it felt like, they stood watch. Not once did the creature leave or move. A second one moved by, but it was still a bad sign.  

“I have an idea.” Lenna said proudly.  “We use another tail and run for the doors it’s guarding.”

“Rip off Dorian’s tail?” Alexandra mused.  “He might get even shorter.”

“I vote we don’t do this plan.” Dorian spoke up.  

“I vote we do!” Alexandra said happily.  “You’re outvoted.”

And that was how he had his tail ripped off by an over eager girlfriend.  Dorian watched as the painful process culminated with the tail being thrown down a side street, in view of the beast.  It twitched, and then leapt sixty feet to pounce on the fallen tail. Dorian started running as fast as he could, as Lenna and Alexandra broke ground and ran to the wall entrance.  He was already glowing by the time they had arrived, and he used one hand to hold up his pants while the other held the enchanted axe. When the glow ended, he could feel smaller, but not in height.  He dove into the opening door just as the creature noticed their presence. It’s claw swept into the room they entered, forcing the door widely open. Alexandra didn’t bother slowing down, running past stone statues of guardian spirits.  They activated, spraying liquid fire down upon the floor. It hit her, and Dorian was the one to grab her this time and drag her to safety. They took cover in a row of fluted columns, patting out the fires on Alexandra’s armor and clothing.  Some of Thurn’s pack was also aflame, and Lenna put it out quickly. Alexandra hissed in pain as Lenna healed her wounds, but the damage had been done.

Alexandra’s main trident was halfway melted.  Her armor wasn’t any better, and the broken remains were tossed aside.  Her skin was angry and red still, and they spent a few minutes in the shadow of the pillar looking after her.  He didn’t care about what happened to him, he just followed Lenna’s instructions and helped patch her up. “Lucky I have burn salves.” Lenna muttered, pulling small vials out from her bag.  “But getting out of here is going to be harder.”

“Not if we follow the spin of the mechanism.” Dorian replied.  “There is a tower here, near the ceiling. I want to see if I can measure the spin from the top of it.”

“We need to find a place to let Alexandra heal.” Lenna countered.  “Not put ourselves at further risk!” He nodded, grabbing his girlfriend in his arms and helping her to her feet.  Lenna took the other shoulder, and between them they were able to get into the cover of a large colonnade. “Looks like we might take your tower.” She pointed, and there was an iron fence surrounding most properties here.  The fence around the tower had a breach in it. They were able to crawl with Alexandra through the breach, and into the shattered doors of the tower. “You make sure this place is safe. I’m going to take care of Alexandra over here,” She motioned towards some kind of side chamber.  “You make sure this place isn’t going to kill us.”

This place had been pillaged by someone, Dorian saw.  Everything of value had been peeled off the walls. Even the furniture had been taken apart for anything of value.  He found the source of the problem quickly enough. Four skeletons from those who had come before were scattered around the room at the top of the tower, and surrounding those corpses was a gigantic ball of malicious magic.  An ooze. The bane of many adventurers, they would destroy any weapons that came into contact with them. Unless heavily enchanted, the ooze would simply absorb it. It was guarding the upstairs, and he knew just how to get Lenna onboard with fighting it.

“Someone else came here first.” He said to her. “They’ve died upstairs and left all of their loot in a pile.” Lenna stood up straighter, her braid swinging.  “The ooze that killed them is still up there.”

“Ooze?” She looked doubtful now.  “How large?”

“You’ve got your magic and you can wipe it out from a distance!” Dorian said, making sure that Alexandra wasn’t watching him shower his ex girlfriend with praise.  “I bet if i just hold its attention with my crossbow you can blast it with your magic.” She leveled a glare at him. “It’s about the size of a horse.”

“You do know that oozes duplicate if you shoot them with arrows?” She asked.

Dorian looked crestfallen.  “Well, uh, what about the axe?  It’s enchanted.”

“It might work.  But I don’t want to take that risk.  I’ve put Alexandra to sleep, and we can rest up for now.” She said. “As soon as she is better we can take on that ooze.” While Lenna did that, Dorian tried to secure their position and close off the outside world.  Nothing was moving, sadly. But he did figure out what his newest tail had taken from him while he was doing that. His waist was as small as Lenna’s now. It was concave, unnatural. Thankfully his shirt concealed it, but at this rate he was going to shrink away into some pubescent nothing.  He had to tie his belt an extra two loops tighter just to keep his pants on. Even so, the baggy ends kept getting stuck under his shoes.

Alexandra recovered a few hours later, much to Lenna’s relief.  When she rolled off the small bundle of furs they had made for her, she reached for her weapons and realized she wasn’t in danger.  “Is everyone alright?”

“We made it.  You were the only one to get struck by those defenses.  The fire melted your armor, but we grabbed your weapons.”

Alexandra nodded.  She reached into her pack and grabbed a few rations to eat, passing them around.  “That’s alright. Armor can be replaced. I guess I’ll use my backup.” She had an entire duplicate armor in her bag, and took her time adjusting it.  Dorian helped her get it on, seeing the remaining welts on her skin looking painful. “What now?” She asked, after she had recovered her gear.

“There is an ooze in this tower that Dorian wants us to fight.” Lenna interrupted with a screeching tone.  “He wants to see the top.” Her legs were looking even plumper now, filled out in a way that she had never been.  The boots he had created for her were a perfect fit now.

“Sounds good.” Alexandra stood tall, and fluffed her hair before grasping her trident.  She was on her spare weapon now too, which allowed her to carry another thirty pounds of loot out of here. “I fought many Ooze in the arena.  I think this one should be easily enough dealt with. Dorian, don’t shoot it. Just keep it away from Lenna. Oozes are slow, and you can outrun them easily.  The issue is actually killing them. The best way to do that is to light them on fire. If this ooze is immune to that, then Lenna will have to use some of her frost magic.”

Lenna looked less than confident about that.  They swiftly moved up the stairs, Alexandra in the lead.  Dorian was less than focused with that in front of him. It was a surprise when Alexandra broke into a dash, picking up fallen rocks and sharp objects to stab the ooze with.  Furniture and other objects were also used, the giant spherical enemy looking unphased. Some of Alexandra’s precious oil was thrown onto the ooze, along with a lit match. The Ooze just seemed to absorb the fire, and wasn’t affected.  “Lenna!” Alexandra called. “Take it down!”

Lenna just seemed frozen at the top of the stairs.  She didn’t raise her wand, or do anything. Dorian shook her shoulder.  “Come on! Take it out!”

“I can’t.” She whispered.  

“Why not?!” He yelled, watching as his girlfriend kept circling the creature.

“I’m a fraud.” She said, quietly.  “I don’t know all that magic. Most of that was just enchanted stones I bought to convince you I could.”

“You aren’t a real wizard?!”

Lenna looked crestfallen.  “I’ve got one stone left for ice magic.  Make it count.” She placed the stone into his hand.  He snarled, smashing the stone against the axe. It would give it a temporary spell effect.  Lenna had lied to him! She said she could handle magic, and she had been lying this whole time!  He was furious! It was that cold fury that carried him right into combat, and buried Thurn’s enchanted axe into the ooze.  The creature shuddered, and then burst like it had been filled with air. He was showered with its innards, covering him and the area directly around the target.  It all boiled into the air in thick clouds of purple smoke, coming off of his skin and clothes without making them stain.

He took a deep breath, looking around at the room.  Alexandra gave him a nod, grinning. Lenna didn’t meet his eyes.  He didn’t want to deal with that yet. He sighed, sitting down. All of his strength just seemed to leave him, as he looked down at what had to be his first melee kill.  The glow of the frost magic left the axe, which wasn’t broken. “Thurn’s axe really is as good as he said it was!” Alexandra beamed. “Great strike, Dorian!”

He glanced back at Lenna.  “Couldn’t have done it without Lenna’s help.” He offered, seeing the fraud mage look back up at him.  “Let’s see what these people had.”

They found the sweet spot.  These adventurers had found a Dwarven incense lamp, as well as a set of weights and measures for their currency.  Seven different platforms existed to compare living currency to. It was a rare object for anyone to find. Lenna held it aloft with a sharply pitched cackle.  Coins were in every bag, along with waterskins and wineskins. A giant jeweled goblet was also in their bags, though Lenna was distrustful of it. They wrapped that in one of the dead men’s cloaks and placed it in their bags.  Strange black metal gauntlets had survived the ooze, where nothing else had. These were also placed in a bag, and it was a jubilant moment as they all divided up their new take. With everything they were heavily loaded, and had enough to justify returning.  

“Look.” Lenna mentioned, pointing out of the windows at the top of the tower.  “You can see it spinning.”

The walls of the cavern could be seen from the top of the tower.  More importantly, he could see them subtly shifting. “I can measure this!” Dorian said, excited.  “I can measure how fast its moving, how long we’ve been here, and find out when the door will reappear!”

Easier said than done.  Dorian spent three hours just doing all of the math in one of his travel journals.  Even then, he had gotten three answers and had to guess which one was the most correct.  Lenna and Alexandra seemed to be in high spirits nonetheless, as he approached them. His fingers were covered in soot and ink, but he held up the book to them.  “Two days, and that door will reappear.”

“Really?” Lenna smiled.  Alexandra also gave him a smile, her face so innocent that it was off-putting.  “It’ll take us a while to get back there. How long until it comes back?”

“Another five days after that.” He admitted.  It was a guess, and if Lenna was going to lie about being the wizard they needed he could lie about not knowing for certain.  “But that gives us a day or so to go deeper, or four if we take our time.”

“Unless we find a lexicon or guild hall you are looking for, I think we have gotten all we can carry and still run.” Alexandra added.  “We should take it safe, and escape with this. We can fund another expedition to find the throne room later.” He turned his head, looking towards the fort that rested at the very center of this mechanism.  Everything he wanted was inside of it! He was so close! But he glanced back at his fellows. Lenna’s hair had touched the ground again, and she had given up on trying to pull it off. She just let her head be dragged to the floor.  Alexandra’s perfect face was frozen in its position, and he couldn’t tell what she was actually feeling anymore. She couldn’t help but smile at him, her glossy lips promising joy. Not that it wasn’t a bad thing, but it made understanding his girlfriend that much harder.  This wasn’t something that they could fix here.

The longer they stayed here, the worse that things would get, and so Dorian did what he thought was best.  “I’m going to sketch some of this, and then we are going back. We need to have a solid plan for getting past those gates.”

“I’ve got some rope we can let down the wall and climb down.” Lenna perked up.  “If we can just climb to the top of that inner wall, or make a hole into it, we could make it easier for the return journey.” She pointed to a building that touched the wall.  “If I were a secret way out of the inner walls, I would be inside that building.”

“Sounds good.” Dorian stated, his vision swimming in and out of focus for a moment.  He would tell Lenna about that, but he was less than trusting about her at this moment.  “We just have to get there.”

The streets here were empty, but too clean to truly be considered such.  They finally were able to see why. Some kind of wheeled mechanism rolled through the streets, an equal mix of spears and brushes of all things.  It moved along, sweeping the street for anything alive and anything that could be picked up. He tried to document it, but Alexandra pulled him down from the window before he could get a better look at the thing.  “Don’t risk it.” She warned him. “We’re all getting out of here.”

They waited a while for that thing to leave, before crossing the street.  The building they arrived at was a large atrium with outbuildings, surrounding a few giant mushrooms.  Out of paranoia they avoided them. Stairs in the back of the building led upwards, and Lenna had to disable a trap on them before they could move upwards.  Dorian’s vision was swimming again, and he had to blink many times on their way to the uppermost section of the building. The highest they could get was a third floor gallery with a window facing the wall.  

Between his crossbow and Lenna’s rope, they were able to get a hook over the wall.  Getting that hook to get stuck in something? That took a few shots. His arms were shaky before they started climbing.  Alexandra went first, her lithe body moving up the rope with confidence. Lenna went next, confident until her hair touched the top of the dark stone walls.  Then Alexandra had to help her up to the top. Dorian climbed last, arriving on top of the wall. It had sharp spiky crenelations, and wasn’t meant to be walked on top of.  You had to straddle it, with six inch spikes being the only feature on top of the sloped stone. In the distance they could still see the four legged monster still reaching for them through the gate, to which he shuddered.  

This time the crossbow wasn’t able to get a good shot off.  They attracted attention from something. Rolling down the top of the wall was an orb, covered in holes for the spikes to fit into.  A baleful red eye was set into the center of the orb. “Lenna, do you know any wind spells?” Alexandra asked, grabbing Dorian’s crossbow.  

“Not what you have in mind!” She yelled back, as Alexandra threw the crossbow like a javelin.  He could hear his beloved weapon crack as it was impaled onto a railing in one of the residential buildings.  Alexandra threw her net over Lenna and leapt into the air, hoping against hope that the rope would hold. But Dorian could see that there was nothing to anchor that rope.  With a heave he threw himself onto the rope on the other side of the wall, providing the leverage necessary for his friends to go down the rope.

The orb glowed, before releasing a spell at them.  Dorian cried out in pain as he let a few feet of rope go out, the spell going over the heads of his friends.  The tension on the rope tightened as they got to the destination, but that still left him with nothing to anchor him.  If he tried to go down that rope, he would just fall forty feet to die. As he thought this, the Orb arrived. It silently rolled along the top of the wall, cutting him off from his friends.  Then it turned again to face them. Dorian glared. He was an alchemist, and he had what it took. Reaching into his belt, he grabbed a light steps potion and a strength reinforcement vial. He wasn’t a great alchemist, and he would be feeling the ill effects later.  But right now he needed this.  

His feet could find purchase anywhere, now.  His arms bulged with muscle, and with that he ran up the wall and used the Orb as the counterweight.  He overestimated, coming around so fast that he overshot the swing and swung over the top of the other half of the rope.  He dangled like a ripe fruit, the ropes rubbing as he slid down towards his friends. And yet the baleful eye of the orb settled upon his friends still, the entire orb glowing blue.  Thunder crackled, and he knew that thing was about to launch a lightning spell at his friends. They were still recovering, and Lenna was tied up in the net still. Trying to free someone from an invisible net sounded impossible.  

So, he pulled on both ropes.  Just before he would have slammed into his friends he wrenched himself into the air, tail and arms fully extended.  The spell hit him like a sucker punch, instantly touching every inch of his body and burning out anything it touched.  The bright light was the last thing he knew.

When Dorian could see again, it was a creamy pair of thighs that his face kept bouncing against.  Something was wrong here, and he could tell that. His eyesight was improved, a bit. Even in the darkness he could make out some shapes.  Beyond the dim light of the lamp he could see details he couldn’t before. More importantly, he was now a bird. Wings, feathers, and a bird tail.  No more lizard tail. That was a plus. Twisting his head, he could see that he was wrapped up in something invisible, and was strapped to the bottom of someone’s bag.  Judging by the frilly skirt and thighs, he was being carried by Lenna. Her shoes were clicking against the floor louder than they did in the past, and with just a thought his new bird neck rotated enough to look down her smooth calves to the boots.  The heels, for that was what they were now, were like spikes coming off her foot. And even as he watched, more metal was flaking off from them.

Lenna had changed the way she was walking, too.  Her hips were swaying side to side, the long braid swinging back and forth while her skirt fluttered around a rear end he remembered being much smaller.  Twisting his neck again, the net shifted and he was given a view up Lenna’s brief outfit. Lenna wasn’t wearing a single stitch of clothing underneath that fluttering skirt!  In awe, he simply stared at the sight of what resembled a perfectly grown peach until someone grabbed him by the tailfeathers.

“Looks like someone is awake.” Lenna stated, blushing.  He was freed from the net with a moment’s effort, and Alexandra offered her arm for him to stand on.  However he ended up a bird, it seemed to come with all of the understanding of how to use it. With a hop he made it over to her wrist, stabilizing his hop with a pump of his wings.  

“What happened?” The voice that came out from him was higher pitched, but still recognizable as Human.  Or capable of human speech. “I’m a bird!”

“Celestial Hawk, actually.” Alexandra clarified.  From her wrist he had a fantastic view of her kohl rimmed eyes and glossy smile.  “You’re immune to lightning.”

“What.” He was honestly confused.  He felt less confused when Alexandra hugged him to her chest.  Her very reasonably large chest.

“You saved us!  You turned into a bird somehow and intercepted everything that Orb tried to hit us with!  Because of you we made it back to the tunnels!”

Lenna wouldn’t meet his eyes, but he looked back at her.  “How did you get past the four legged monsters?”

“We didn’t.” Lenna interrupted.  “We had to go out a new set of tunnels.” She pointed around them, where three tunnels converged.  “We just went through a trapped pressure plate chamber and are running out of items to disable them with.”

“So, we aren’t following the way we came? How long has it been?”

“Hours, Dorian.  Just a few hours.  Perhaps more than a half day.” Alexandra stared at Lenna, who was still blushing.  “Lenna also has to apologize to you.”

“For what?” He murmured, turning on his perch to face her.  “What did you do?”

“You were dying.  You weren’t completely immune to the lightning.” Lenna said, looking uncomfortable.  “I am almost out of poultices and my limited healing magic couldn’t effect you. So I performed the Familiar rite.”

“You turned me into your personal familiar?”

“It was the only way to save you!  I don’t know how to fix birds, and you were sparking!  You couldn’t move and we couldn’t tell if you were breathing or not!  So I did it.” She hmphed, hair twitching. “I can free you in a year’s time.”

“A year?” Alexandra gasped.  “Why so long?”

“A rite of Familiar is renewed once a year.” Dorian answered for both of them, somehow remembering from his studies.  “If it is not renewed I would be released from the arcane bond that was forged.”

“But you lose the ability to speak.  A Familiar can speak, while a normal animal cannot.  Before I did the rite you couldn’t say anything.”

“Lovely.” Dorian chirped.  “At least you both made it past the four legged things that chased us.”

“We are taking a break now.” Alexandra decided, making Dorian almost fall over as she sat down on a large table in the chamber between the tunnels.  Dorian was deposited into her lap, where he tried not to scratch her. Lenna sat near them, trying not to feel excluded. For some reason he could tell that she was feeling hurt by this.  He was kind of angry at her for all of this, but couldn’t blame her for it.  Especially when he got to see whatever was happening to her new rear end. Across from him, he could see Lenna pull at her skirt, trying to cover her thighs.  She never had any problems before this with them being on display, so something had to have changed. He was getting quite the thrill out of watching her try to keep that skirt down.  

Lenna glared at him, covering her exposed thighs with her hands.  How could she have known? He grilled his mind, trying to remember.  Then it hit him. A wizard and their familiar shared senses. She could see through his eyes.  With an internal smirk he settled onto the plump thighs of Alexandra, rubbing his feathers into her.  Lenna dared to glare at him. It was her own fault for doing this. As Alexandra prepared food for everyone, Dorian practiced making Lenna uncomfortable with his eyes during the meal, looking between her exposed thighs and her hair.  Alexandra said nothing during the process, the permanent innocence of her face hiding all that she was feeling.

Lenna stood up as soon as the small meal was complete.  “Alright! We are leaving.” Her skirt and hair swirled as she stood, and her blush was still present.  Dorian could feel Alexandra move him to her shoulder, the padded material of her armor forming a more effective perch.  It also gave him a pleasant view into his girlfriends cleavage. His new eyesight was getting a lot of good use, but his attention was dragged away by one of the tunnels.

It brightened for a moment.  “Which way do we think leads out of here?” He asked quietly, as something seemed to be getting closer.  Lenna pointed towards the bright light.

“Let’s go the other way.” Alexandra offered, leading the way.  Creatures that gave off light were always bad news.

“Wait!” With his new eyesight, he could see the floors and the pressure plates that followed.  More importantly, he could see and feel something moving in the air here. “Lenna, I can see traps.”

Using his eyes, she was able to find out that there was invisible slicing blades spinning around in the tunnel.  Using her hair, they would let one end touch the walls and then ‘catch’ an invisible sword on it until the weapon shattered.  The noise didn’t seem to attract the attention of whatever was putting off light in the other tunnel, and they got through the invisible trap.  Judging by the bones on the floor here, someone else had lost a hand. “That’s promising.” Alexandra pointed out. “Someone else came this far.”

“I guess.” Lenna murmured, annoyed that her hair had resisted the weapons of the trap.  “I can see where another trap was disabled.” She pointed at a broken needle shoved into an innocent slot in the floor.  “Be careful around it.”

They moved around it cautiously.  Even so, it wasn’t carefully enough.  The pin had been false. The wall itself was the pressure plate, and the tunnel rumbled as the walls unfolded.  Lenna was in the lead, while he and Alexandra were moving slowly behind. Alexandra was the one carrying most of their stuff, and she was moving slower with it.  He felt bad just adding his weight to her load.

Slots opened in the walls and two small bat like creatures darted out.  They had bat wings, but the center of their bodies were just featureless spheres.  Nothing in this place was kind or made without reason. The creatures hovered outside of the range of their group, a single green eye looking at them at the center of the spheres.  Every time someone took a step forward, they would flutter back out of possible attack range. Alexandra said nothing, carefully drawing one of her javelins. “Go.” She whispered.

This new body had reflexes that he could use.  With a leap, he charged into the air and flapped his wings.  Talons extended, he tried to attack the flying creatures. They fluttered out of his strike range, dodging upwards in a way that a hawk could not simply adjust to.  One of the spheres screeched and died, a javelin piercing it. Lenna started whispering the words of magic to activate her magical dagger, and the other sphere glowed.  It shot towards Lenna in a flash of magic, hitting her in the face.

With his hawk like vision he could see it slip into her mouth.  The bat wings turned to ash as the creature became one with Lenna, slamming her mouth shut against her wishes.  Her lips turned purple and were forced into a slight smile, then froze into that position. Lenna clawed at them, flaring her nose as she had to breath through it.  Alexandra retrieved her javelin before coming back over to Lenna, who was still clawing at her frozen lips and mouth. Dorian landed on Alexandra’s shoulder as soon as he could.  

They could hear her trying to talk past whatever the creature did to her, but her lips stayed in that stubborn smile.  Dorian thought that the purple was a good color for her, and with that thought she gave him a deep glare. ‘You would, wouldn’t you!’

“I heard you.” Dorian spoke up.  “I heard you in my head!”

Lenna huffed through her nose.  ‘Mages can call to their familiars, but you have to concentrate.’ Her voice echoed in his mind.  ‘That was a magebinding trap. They won’t last forever, but it still can last days.’

“Lenna says she can’t move her lips until the trap that hit her runs out of magic and dies.  Days at least.” He translated for Alexandra. She nodded, and helped Lenna to her feet.

“Then we should keep moving.” Was her only reply.  At the end of the tunnel, there was a large platform.  It had five tunnels coming off of it, all leading down long slides.  A rope had been tied to a central pillar, but the frayed ends of it going down the middle of the five paths showed what may have happened.  “Lenna, see if anything is trapped here.” Alexandra asked politely. His ex girlfriend darted forward, hair bobbing as she looked over the room and gave Alexandra a thumbs up.  

‘Tell her the rope was cut by something from below.  Bad sign.’ Lenna whispered into his mind. “She doesn’t like the third tunnel, with the rope.” Dorian helpfully said.  With his eyesight, he stared at each of the tunnel openings. The tunnels on the right had spikes in the walls, further down.  Some were shifting and turning into spikes or cutting blades. “I also think the ones on the right are a very bad plan.”

They settled on trying the left pair of tunnels down, since they didn’t appear overly threatening.  The second of the five tunnels was a slide, and once on it they would be unable to stop. Climbing down was futile, as Lenna’s metal shoes couldn’t find traction.  She slipped, sliding down the tunnel, with Alexandra quickly following her. Lenna hit some kind of magic trap too fast, and went through what looked like a spider web.  The slide kept going at a steep pace until it ran into a wall, and all three of them ended up crashing into one another at the bottom. Dorian had to pull himself out from under Alexandra’s pack.  

Everyone was hissing in pain, and Lenna reached down to take off her shoes.  The boot heel had shrunken down to the smallest of spikes, a style of shoe he hadn’t seen outside of Verusian noble houses.  They called it a stiletto or something. They looked taller, too. Lenna flared her nose in frustration as she took her boots off, when the cuts appeared.  That spiderweb she passed through seemed to have been made of razor wire of some sort, as her entire outfit started flaking apart. Her muted scream accompanied her hands holding the scraps to her chest, where the most of the cuts had occurred.  

Her robes fell off of her like confetti, and the straps to her pack shredded.  The boots were held across her chest, preserving her modesty. Not that she had much to show off, anyways.  ‘I heard that!’ Her thought roared, as Lenna blushed.

“The web, it’s replacing itself!” Alexandra called, already standing again.  This was something he could deal with. With a bit of effort he was able to disable the trap, Lenna ordering his talons on what to do.  Then he had to wait at the top of the tunnel for Lenna and Alexandra to crawl out. Lenna ordered him to turn his head, which he did. If she didn’t want him to look, so be it.  When he was allowed to look again, Lenna was pulling her boots back on. She had grabbed a duplicate copy of her robes from her bag, this pair going all the way down to her ankles.  Her feet were arching nicely into those boots, though. Alexandra was looking exhausted, having carried their bags up the tunnel.

“We shouldn’t rest here.” She stated.  “We need to keep moving.”

‘Dorian, you should scout ahead.’ Lenna’s voice came to him, as she stood up on her heeled boots.  Sparks kicked off the backs of them, which Dorian decided not to comment on. ‘I can see what you see, and you can check for another trap.’

Alexandra, once looped in, agreed with Lenna’s logic.  The slide would be dangerous and hard for them to stop or slow down enough to avoid a trap.  So, he flew down. All he saw were featureless walls and floors. At the bottom of the slide, there was a path leading ahead.  It was flat, and very normal looking. Lenna and Alexandra slid down soon after him, Lenna tripping on the landing. Her scream of pain rocked through his head, making him close his eyes before whatever trap went off fired.  He knew one had because of the sound of something clicking, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing new. Maybe a few sparkles in the air, but that could be from dust.

“What was that?” He asked.  

Alexandra was clutching her skirt, looking uncomfortable.  “I don’t know. I think I stepped on something, but all I felt was a breeze.  I’m fine, let’s go.”

This specific tunnel went on for a few hundred feet, meandering before arriving at a long pit.  At the other side of the pit was another archway, but the pit was filled with water. Forty feet long and an unknown depth, Dorian couldn’t see the bottom even with his vision.  “Oily water.” Alexandra brought up. “Something more than water in there.” She dipped one of her javelins in, the brackish water rippling and flowing off of it as she brought it up.  “Deep, too.”

‘You can fly across.’ Lenna spoke to him. ‘But it looks like the pit was the trap, and it filled over time. I think i see a lever on the other side.’  

“Don’t.” Alexandra muttered.  “This place reminds me of oil.  Oil, Lenna your shoes! Stay back!”  Lenna followed what she said, her heels stepping away from what could be flammable.  

“Hang on.” Dorian said, hopping down to the floor.  Without fanfare he sniffed the water. Even tasted it a little.  “Something died in here, and you just can see rot. Probably another adventurer.  Alchemically speaking it won’t light on fire. We just need to swim across.”

Lenna’s annoyance spiked, but Dorian didn’t even give her a glance.  Alexandra was easy to guess her reaction. With a shrug, she was already undoing her armor and packing it into her bag.  Shamelessly she had nothing else to put away. Lenna, blushing, followed soon after. Alexandra tied both bags she was carrying together, securing them about her wrist before hefting them and her weapons.  Lenna’s pack was less securely tied down, but she held it aloft all the same. He didn’t give her a glance, knowing that Alexandra would take offence. She made sure he was looking at her.

Being a bird had its benefits, oh yes it did.  He coasted over the top of the water, wind under his wings and completely unhindered.  Alexandra and Lenna swam, one arm holding their bag and the other moving them through. For a distance of only forty feet, they seemed to tire from it quickly.  The reason why showed itself soon enough, as bright green fluorescent leeches were all over them. “Strength sappers!” Alexandra yelled, quickly ripping them off herself.  Lenna made no noise, and quietly peeled them off her skin. Breathing hard, both women withdrew from the edge of the pit. They looked pale, their skin drawn and tight. “I can barely lift my bag,” Alexandra admitted, once they were gone.  

Then she hiccuped.  This normally wouldn’t be notable, except that she coughed a number of sparkles from her mouth at the time.  They glowed, floating through the air towards Alexandra’s bare back. She tried to catch them in her hands, but they didn’t seem concerned by the effort.  Worst, she was hiccuping more.

“Lenna!” Dorian said loudly.  She had been getting her robes back on, and wasn’t paying attention.  She ran over, her robes barely settled by her waist when Alexandra’s hiccups stopped.  All around her, there were bright little sparkles. A bit of wind was kicking up around her, and the red hair was whipping around.  Lenna’s robes got pushed back, and Dorian made the mistake of trying to ward off the wind. As a bird, he had these wonderful things called feathers.  He was caught and sent him into the walls, hard.

Or would have, if Lenna didn’t catch him.  With a final gust of wind that knocked their bags over and sent a few last leeches sliding back into the pit, there was a flash of magic.  When the spots cleared Alexandra had a bright pair of butterfly wings coming off her back. Warm colored marks on her skin showed where the magic had marked her, and Alexandra looked in shock at the gigantic bug wings that were already brushing the walls.  “Oh gods.”

‘Wow.’ Lenna murmured in his head.  He himself offered a chirp at the magnificent view.  Alexandra covered her skin, looking at the massive wings.  

“This isn’t too bad.” She offered, reaching for her bag.  “I still feel weaker, though.”

“Lenna also got weakened.” He translated the profanity ridden thoughts.  “But she wasn’t carrying as much as you.”

There was a hissing noise as Alexandra tried to pick up her armor.  She gave a slight grunt of pain as she let go, her fingers looking slightly burned.  “I’m part fae.” She shuddered. “I can’t touch iron.”

“Your armor is made from steel though!” Dorian muttered.  “That’s not iron!”

“Iron burns fae.  It’s why the ancient Verusians developed iron weapons!” Alexandra folded her arms, sounding annoyed for the first time in days.  “I just know that’s what this place did to me.”

Lenna nodded, the most she could communicate right now.  “So what can we do to help?” Lenna’s question was translated.  

“Fixing this kind of magic is not expensive as long as we get to a priest in a hurry.” Alexandra said, her face softening back into its innocent shape.  “We should just leave the armor. It’s just dead weight to us, and we can always afford more when we return.”

Lenna had to be the one to pull the armor out of her bags, while Alexandra dug out spare clothing.  The raid on the tailor shop earlier seemed a good decision, as she pulled out a halter top covered in dwarven runes, as well as a pair of pants so tight that she couldn’t lace them together in front.  Lenna gave him an annoyed glance for staring too long at the sight. Lenna had to repair damaged straps on her pack, but a last check over was enough. The three of them wandered forward, coming to a large stone cavern.  This room looked incomplete, with only one other door in it. Large chains ran across the floor, connected to the necks of skeletons that had long since lost cohesion. Lenna still gave them a wide berth, as they tried to cross the room.  Someone must have triggered something, because an iron gate slammed shut over their destination.

The chains rattled, as three sets of them stood up on their own.  Shadows seemed to float through the air towards them, the chains connected to them rattling.  More importantly, there was plenty of room on those chains to reach them. Alexandra stepped forward, her outfit barely keeping her decent as she swung her trident at the shadow.  Her weapon became visible for the first time since they had entered this dungeon as it was cut in half, the trident tip passing through the shadow without a problem. Alexandra wasn’t phased, stepping back away from the counterstrike.  “Ghosts!” She called, not looking over her shoulder. “Only magic weapons can harm them!”

Two of the ghosts centered on her, while the third went after Lenna.  The resident mage was silent, as she tried to run away from the swift moving ghost and tripped on her boots.  Long cuts opened along her back as her robes offered no resistance. Instead of blood, soulstuff came out of the wound and swelled into the ghost.  “Lenna, give me your knife!” He called.

‘Arretum!’ She yelled into his head.  ‘Say it!’

She slid the knife over to him, the ghost not even concerned.  He grabbed it with his talon, before clearly pronouncing the words.  “Arretum!” The knife glowed, taking flight and carving through the ghost like it didn’t even exist.  There was a clatter as something fell to the floor in addition to the chains, but Dorian didn’t concern himself much.  The knife was responding to some kind of connection. With his improved vision he could see the outlines of these ghosts, and sent the knife in towards the creatures.  Alexandra hadn’t been touched. She was used to fighting human opponents, and she danced around their weapons and attempts. Dorian smiled internally as the knife broke both ghosts down to nothing, and the chains finally went silent.  The knife, now out of enemies, flew to his side and stopped moving.

“I thought you said like five words to activate that thing!” He told Lenna.  “You made that seem like it was hard!”

Lenna couldn’t move her lips, but she hmmphed and folded her arms.  Another damned lie. Dorian was realizing more and more that Lenna had been two faced to him for months.  Years, even. He held up the small dagger in his talons, giving an experimental slash with it. His body overbalanced and fell over because of it.  Great. Carrying this would be impossible. Lenna looked apologetic and retrieved the knife, while Alexandra was picking up the weapons the ghosts were using.  “Ghost glass!” She said happily. “We can use these!” Maybe once they could see the weapons he would be happier about them. Alexandra nodded to herself, her eyes more confident.  “Fragile, but they sell for a large amount of money.”

The promise of riches raised their spirits a bit.  Lenna found the release switch for the gate that had blocked their exit, and they considered leaving.  “Perhaps while the doors are blocked we should rest in here.” Alexandra voiced. “I know I’m tired, but what do you think?  Lenna?”

Lenna’s permanent smiling lips could explain nothing.  But she nodded once, grabbing a blanket from her bag to rest.  ‘You can warn us or use the dagger if anything happens.’ She mentally spoke to him.  ‘Don’t let us sleep too long.’

Alexandra was pale and shaken by all of this, and she needed no urging to sleep.  Dorian dutifully kept watch, as much as a man turned into a hawk could stay sharp.  The lamp went out in the darkness of the chamber, and he still kept watch. As a hawk it was difficult to stay awake when the light went out, almost impossible.  But he was better than that, not when they had come this far. So against whatever biological imperative birds had, he stayed awake in the dark. He didn’t know how many hours it had been when he noticed Alexandra stirring.  Part of staying awake had been a monumental effort to find things to be distracted by. A redhead in a loose halter top was plenty helpful for reasons to stay awake.

“I can’t see.” Alexandra muttered.  “Did the lamp go out?”

“Verily.” Lenna said.  “I can speaketh!”

“Finally.” Alexandra said warmly.  “Though your old Verusian is very out of practice.”  There was a squeak from Lenna as Alexandra used her boot to light a match, and lit the lamp.  All three of them looked at each other, making sure they all were the same as they had been on the previous night.  Lenna’s lips were still purple, a glossy color in the low light. Perhaps a bit more swollen, too. Alexandra’s face was still one of innocent delight, clean and unblemished for all that they had journeyed here.  Her body had changed in no other ways than the butterfly wings, which she couldn’t control. He was still a bird. An annoyed bird. “Open the gate and let us continue.”

A light round of food and water and they all moved forward.  Lenna was rubbing her lips with the back of her hand, while the other held her dagger.  Alexandra was using two of the ghost glass weapons, as she was down to those and the enchanted axe.  Her javelins had been used up and her tridents were destroyed. The new tunnel seemed as incomplete as the rest of this area.  Dorian had to be carried by Lenna this time, as Alexandra’s halter top didn’t allow for a hawk to perch on her shoulders without hurting her.  Lenna, however, had a wide pack that he could sit on happily.

In the tunnel he thought that his eyes caught something in the distance, but when they light came forward nothing was there.  Just a long tunnel, which seemed to get longer by the minute. Longer and longer it stretched, going for miles. Just going on and on and on, looping into colors and swirls of glory.  That dream ended when he fell beak first into the floor. An illusion! He’d been caught up in an illusion! Stumbling, he looked around to see Lenna whispering words of magic for a cut on Alexandra’s neck, and a pile of steaming remains next to her.  “Thanks, Lenna.” Alexandra said proudly. “I couldn’t figure out what was happening.”

Lenna looked strangely proud.  “I’ve never been able to break an illusion before.  Maybe having a familiar helps more than those academics let on.”

“Good job.” He carefully admitted.  “Does that mean you can cast things like teleportation and other grand magicks?”

“I’m not going to try in a place that likely has confounding and unfindable magic on it already.” Lenna countered.  “Let’s go. It’s been almost a day already.”

The tunnel went up, sharply.  It arrived at a scene of horrific destruction.  Three bodies lay draped over a fourth, the strange bones looking more like a bird than a human.  “Harpy.” Alexandra said, nodding. She picked up the skull and looked at the sharp teeth. “Dhampir Harpy.  A difficult opponent.”

“For all we know that was one of their friends before whatever happened in here did.” Dorian added.  “But more importantly, I can see where the survivor went.” He pointed a talon towards drag marks in the dirt.  “I assume they went somewhere they thought was safe?”

“Let’s hope so.” Lenna spoke up, her lips pouting as she looked between the other exits in the room.  “I can tell that these places are full of pits or worse. Blood stains on ceilings is never a good sign.”

“The way this guy went, I can’t see anything.” Dorian said, hopping forward to the tunnel.  Where it started, there was a cloud of darkness. “It’s a spell!”

“A Darkness spell.  Anything in there gets blinded and kind of numb.” Lenna clarified.  “In this place? Anything can happen.” She looked at the drag marks.  “But they went into this when desperate.” There were darker marks in the dirt.  “He was bleeding out.”

“I say we go the same way.” Alexandra said.  She waved one of the bones inside the darkness, and drew it back without blemish or mark.  She threw it, but there was no noise of the bone hitting the ground.

“Silence spell, too.” Lenna shuddered.  “I can’t cast anything once we are in there.  Or see anything.”

Alexandra gave a smile.  “Follow me, then.” With that, she stepped into the darkness.  Lenna picked him up, drawing him into her arms. Her hair bobbed as she followed Alexandra into the dark.  Dorian knew nothing about his time in this place, for it numbed all senses. He could breath, and he could taste dank wet air.  That was all. It had to be minutes that he rested in Lenna’s arms. Unseeing and unfeeling, they passed through dripping water and other surprises he could not fathom.  

When they came out on the other side, they were drenched.  Being a drenched bird was very high on his list of things to never occur ever again.  Lenna’s hair dried instantly. This was perhaps the only good thing that happened, because Alexandra must have gotten hit by some kind of horrid spell. She had left her boots behind, and a pair of black furry hooves decorated her ankles and feet.

Strangely she wasn't at all angry. Alexandra was just kicking them back and forth, waiting for her things to dry. “Are you alright?” He asked, hopping across the floor and leaving wet prints on it. “Alexandra?”

“This is inconvenient, but I can manage.” Was her only reply.

“Alexandra, you would normally be angry and yelling by this point. You've spent years getting those ankles to look right, and now they're hooves.” Her face remained cheerful and for eyed. “Why aren't you angry?” Besides what was happening to her, hey boyfriend was a bird for at least a year.

“Whatever that mask did, I can't actually feel anger. Rage, agony, hope?  I can't feel any of those things. I can remember them as concepts but I cannot feel them, or remember feeling them.” She remained in that innocent look as she explained that. “As long as we get out of here I logically know we can fix this.”

Dorian didn't have hands to wrap around her. More than anything right now he needed to show her that he was going to fix this!  To his surprise, Lenna sat down next to Alexandra and wrapped her arms around her. “Dorian loves you, and he won't let this stand. We will get out of here, and we will fix our problems and be rich.”  Lenna didn’t like hugging anyone. It was just something she did not approve of. “This is what the big lug would do if he had arms. He really does love you.”

Lenna was deeply uncomfortable admitting that, but Alexandra’s eyes misted as she gave a real smile.  Dorian was picked up and squeezed into cleavage as Alexandra held him. The moment ended when the lamp started running low on oil, requiring them to have to care about the real world again.  Lenna offered her arm to Dorian, and Alexandra filled up the lamp before holding it aloft and a ghost glass blade in her other hand. A bit more confident, they moved forward into the only tunnel that wasn’t blocked off in this section.  Two had some form of trap that had crushed the tunnel from above, and so Lenna in her own expert opinion decided to not travel through.

Her legs had developed a new walk in her boots, her hips undulating back and forth as she walked.  She was probably the one holding him so he wouldn’t stare at her as that happened. But she was also the one who felt the tripwire first, and threw out her arm.  Dorian went through the air to be caught by Alexandra, who hissed as his claws cut her arms out of reflex. Up ahead, the walls came alive and moved, as the two sides of the tunnel slammed into the center, catching Lenna.  Her stiletto boots slipped as she tried to avoid them, and the walls wrapped around her like a stone blanket. Only one booted heel stuck out, and Alexandra grabbed it with all her might. The shoe slipped off, revealing Lenna’s foot.  The skin was darkening to a blue, with white marks running like tattoos down to the curved arch of her foot.

“She could be turning into a Draugr or something.” Alexandra said, pulling him back with the boot in hand.  She dropped it, placing it and the lamp down on the floor so she could fight if needed. The walls seemed to get more loose, and even bleed.  After a few minutes the walls shuddered and died, releasing Lenna from their grip. Or what might be Lenna. The blue skinned and elven eared woman that stood up from the remains of the walls looked imperiously back at them.  And then, when she tried to take a step without a boot on, flailed and crashed with a yell.

“Lenna?”  Her butt looked pretty good at this angle.  Her robes were tight across it.

She gave a glare as she stood up, one hand covering her rear end as she stood up.  “It’s me.” She said, her voice a whisper of a difference from normal. “Can I have my boot back?”

“It’s her.” Dorian declared.  Alexandra relaxed, setting him down so Lenna could get her boot back on.  Her new skin color must be signifying of being a different race, and through his eyes Lenna was able to feel and realize her new ears and skin coloration.  Wind was whipping around her constantly, forcing Dorian to keep his wings tucked near her. This had a fantastic effect on her robes, as the bottoms fluttered loudly.  

“Lenna,” Alexandra seemed to help her robes settle.  “You have boobs.”

Lenna looked down with glee, only to see that she barely had any now.  She had gone from flat to something resembling very slight curves. She deflated upon realization that they didn’t do much for her.  The only sound as she glared down at that was the whipping robes. “Typical. Even a trap that changes my race won’t give me what I really want.”

“Don’t say that in a place such as this!” Alexandra chided, her own torso only covered by a halter top that she freely left to sway.  There was sideboob aplenty to stare at there. Lenna stood up, still making noise from the winds that surrounded her. Alexandra brightened.  “Wait, you’re a sylph! You can see in the dark! I fought one in the arena once. He was a tough fight.”

Lenna nodded, glancing down at her robes that noisily fluttered in the wind.  A wind she couldn’t get rid of. “I can’t sneak like this. I’m changing these.”

Dorian, as her familiar, could clearly see her focusing.  She was imagining a utilitarian skirt instead of the loose robe ends.  Thick and covering the knees, with pleats to resist the wind. As she started uttering words of magic, Dorian thought she should have done better.  The image distorted, as his thoughts mixed with hers and the spell fired. Her robes shrunk, becoming a frilly little skirt in front, getting tighter and longer in back.  The skirt barely covered her thighs, while the back could barely touch her knees. The material was thick, and heavily ruffled. The rest of her outfit had changed to match.  It looked like a ruffled party dress, with long sleeves and gloves, and the ruffles silently moved in the wind. It tightly hugged her body, showing off her nice hips and legs.  Hells, he could even see the shape of her belly button in the fabric. Every inch of her creamy thighs was on display, and when the spell completed and she looked down Lenna immediately went red in the face.  “Dorian!” She hissed shrilly. “I can’t cast that more than once a day!”

The boots, the dress, and the hair made Lenna look like a Verusian streetwalker.  He also selectively preened a few feathers as she yelled at him. “Your magic seems to be stronger now.” He answered carefully.  “Before you couldn’t do things like this.” It really was. In the past she could only affect one part of her outfit.

“That doesn’t matter!” She hissed.  “Don’t do that again!”

“He’s your familiar.” Alexandra said softly.  “When you perform magic you’ll need his input.”

Lenna shuddered as that statement was processed.  “That scares me more than you know.” She tapped her stiletto heels onto the floor, sparks coming off from them.  “Let’s keep moving. I don’t want to imagine another five days in this place.”

The end of the tunnel came to an archway, with four other familiar tunnels.  Familiar because he had seen these marks before. “I know where we are!” He yelled, flapping his wings to get ahead.  Lenna was letting him walk on his own now, but the gusts of wind provided lots of lift for takeoff. He had also got a fantastic view of her swaying walk from behind.  He knew she was unhappy about it, but for some reason Lenna felt even more uncomfortable if he stared at Alexandra’s body. “This is where we started!” He yelled. “We are in the right place!”

This was the same room that Thurn had declared the tunnels as Bad and Scary.  Down the left tunnel, the stone flowers could be seen hanging from the roof. Lenna say those and bit her thumb in their general direction.  Alexandra walked at a more sedate pace, with Dorian hopping along behind. The old stone table was right where they had last seen it, along with the piles of skeletons near the door.  A door that was not there. “Dorian you said it would be here!” Lenna screeched.

“Just calm down and sit down somewhere!” He complained back.  To his surprise and Lenna’s, her body did as it was told and sat down right where she was standing.  Her short skirt did nothing to hide her as she sat down, legs crossed. Her hands were the only thing preserving her dignity as she made muted noises of complaint.  “We are here a few hours early.” Or, if his calculations were wrong, five days too early. He did not want to tell them about that problem and how he had three different guesses.  

“I can’t stand back up!” Lenna screeched.  “Dorian what did you do to me now?!” Well, this was a fun surprise.  If she was telling the truth, and he didn’t think she would fake this, she must have a compulsion to obey.  There was no way he wasn’t going to take advantage of this.

“Whatever happened you did it to yourself!” He screeched back.  “You were the one who fell into that trap, and now you’re a sylph.  Just a bit more patience and we can get out of here.”

“Ai.” A voice murmured.  Everyone twisted back towards the archway with the tunnels.  That was Thurn’s voice. Sure enough, they could see Thurn’s head in the darkness.  Lenna made a larger attempt to close her legs, but they might as well have been as heavy as her hair.  

“Thurn!  You’re alive!” Alexandra said warmly.  

“Ai.” He repeated.  Oh, how Dorian hated that word.  It could mean everything and nothing all at the same time.  Of course, what came around the corner was anything and everything he loved and hated about Thurn.  Thurn’s face was now mounted on the body of a giant cat. The skin was scaled, or thick bones that covered the exterior.  The skin looked like granite more than flesh. A giant barbed tail came off the end of the body, looking more like a dire flail than anything normal.  “Ai?” The head rotated in a full circle, making Dorian shudder.

“Stonelion. He’s a stonelion.” Alexandra took a step back.  That movement alone was enough for Thurn to notice, and he leapt.  The giant claw tore large cuts along Alexandra’s bare midriff, and sent his girlfriend rolling down the steps towards Lenna.  Dorian leapt into the air, a hawk’s cry leaving his new mouth and getting the attention of Thurn.

“Arretum!” He yelled, Lenna’s dagger coming alive and carving into Thurn’s face.  Thurn seemed to feel none of it, leaping into the air. Only Dorian’s ability to see helped him dodge the attempt, and the giant cat like Thurn slammed into a wall.  The wall didn’t even seem to buckle. Thurn caked off a few scales, but his head swivelled, staying locked on Dorian. If that wasn’t a reason to flap his wings harder and faster he couldn’t find one.  Alexandra was trying to stand back up, while Lenna remained sitting cross legged on the floor. “Get up, Lenna!” He yelled.

Lenna unfroze, finally able to preserve her dignity.  She rolled to her feet, careful to lead with her giant hair and get it off the ground first.  But Thurn noticed when her stiletto heels caused a spark on the floor. Even with the knife, he no longer had eyes for Dorian.  Exactly what Alexandra was waiting for. She reared back and threw one of her weapons, the heavy object sailing through the air as Alexandra’s fingers smoked.  She must have touched something iron. The effect was obvious, as Thurn’s face caved in. The impression of his very own axe went right into his head, and yet the cat body stood tall.  Even with the head of Thurn brutalized it was still coming. This time for both Lenna and Alexandra.

“Cast something!” He yelled.  

“I can’t!” Lenna claimed.  “I can’t hurt that!”

“Try!  You’re a sylph now!”  Thurn was looking between Alexandra and Lenna.  The decision for who it would attack was made for him when another weapon buried itself into Thurn’s face.  Alexandra braced herself after her throw, as the stonelion Thurn came at her again, this time tearing her arms and thighs.  Sylphs were creatures of the wind and the air. Lenna had to try something.

Unfamiliar words of magic tumbled from her glossy purple lips, as she held her hands out towards the creature.  Dorian flew near her, seeing that she was focusing on the ruined face of Thurn. He too, angled his eyes on the ruined form.  Together, they could both imagine clearly the invisible axe buried in his brain. “Arva Aresh Ur Karem; Reticala Fulgur!” They chanted together, the words tumbling forth.  His own body lit with magic, as did Lenna’s. From both of them, gigantic bolts of lightning angled out and struck Thurn, impacting the enchanted axe still buried in his skull.  Shocks rattled the entire room and a thunderclap of noise followed, sparks flowing down the body of the stonelion.

The lamp was crushed as the beast fell, Thurn’s axe exploding with magic violence along with the ghost glass blade buried next to it.  This seemed to be the final straw, as what was left of Thurn’s body turned black. Sparks stopped flowing, and the afterimage of the lightning dominated his vision.  Dorian glided to the floor, his body seemingly spent of all strength. He knew that Lenna was alive, and gasping on the floor. Alexandra was close to the stonelion when they struck it, and he landed to look for her.  Found her he did, as Lenna murmured a light spell and used him as a focus.

Alexandra was holding herself on the floor, her outfit somehow having resisted the claws of Thurn.  Her skin was torn, but she wasn’t dying. Instead, she was smiling in relief. “I never want to fight one of those ever again!” She admitted.  “They are as scary as Thurn made them out to be!”

Lenna wasn’t even capable of casting a spark of magic after all of that, and by the light of her last spell they lit a torch.  The oil lamp had been broken, and the spare was just too much effort at this point. Lenna collapsed next to Alexandra, and they both tiredly wrapped her wounds.  For good measure a bit of alcohol was poured on. The door was glanced at every few moments, but it stubbornly remained a blank wall. He made sure that he was sitting next to Alexandra’s face, as close as he could.  Lenna was close too, her hair weighing her down too much to allow her to try moving further.

The torch would last for an hour at best.  They all knew it, but didn’t care. They all stared at it as it burnt down to embers.  As the last piece of charcoal started to darken, they could see the walls change. “Only in darkness it appears.” Lenna murmured.  “Dorian I can see the door! It’s closing, hurry!”

Packs and exhausted individuals crawled forward, through the shrinking doorway and its associated gloomy magic.  Alexandra was the first through, before reaching back and grabbing Lenna’s braid and holding it aloft so she could crawl through as well.  Dorian hopped through, seeing the dark tunnel ahead. He recognized the symbols that Thurn had kicked and hopped over to push it with his beak.  With a grinding noise the tunnel opened into darkness. “Oh.” Alexandra huffed. “It’s night.”

The sky was pink in the distance as they climbed the slick black stone stairs and arrived under the stars.  Almost as soon as they had left, the entrance was swallowed up by the hill behind them. Gasping for breath, Lenna started laughing.  “We made it.”

“We did.”  Alexandra, too, was laughing.  “We can go home.”

“Damn straight.” Dorian sighed.  “But we know this place now. Lenna can actually cast magic, and Alexandra knows what to look for when we hire more people.”

“More people?” Lenna sighed.

“Hey!” He gave a tired complaint.  “The Iron Reaver’s throne and horde are still in there.  I plan on getting you all in there, and coming back out of here alive.  This time with all the riches you could ever need.” And he would understand their technology.  This place had secrets, and Dorian would be damned if he did not do his best to take them for himself.  “We are coming back here, and next time we are going to be even better.” The first rays of light from the sun crested the hills, getting lost in the perpetual fog that was here.  It was a promise, he decided. There would be a next time. And next time, he would have his body back. They all would.