The adjoining area seemed to be yet another hallway, though this one was all but pitch black. It appeared we had rejoined the main labyrinth. However, this time there was a clear blue light softly emanating from off to our left.
Lynnria took a couple of steps in that direction before glancing over her shoulder. “Well, well. Looks like we finally found something worthwhile. Do you suppose your mate is in there?”
“Hopefully,” I replied evenly, trying very much not to get too excited by the thought. We were coming to the end of our rope, and if she were not in there… well, I did not particularly want Lynnria to see what that would do to me. “Let’s find out, shall we? But go easy. After that last trap… I don’t want to have come all this way only to see you incinerated in the last instant.”
She nodded seriously. “Sound advice. And now that we’re back here, best keep quiet. Don’t want to attract attention.”
The last thing we needed was another encounter with the barrel-golem. We still did not have much to fight it with, and to make even a faint-hearted attempt, I would have to deliberately poison myself.
At least on that one point, I was beginning to feel somewhat confident. My gums were still a bit tingly, and it had been hours since I had attempted gnawing at the jerky. Either I was highly allergic to whatever spice had been used to prepare it with, or it was just straight up toxic. Not that it mattered. My solution would be the same either way.
Fortunately, we did not fall victim to any more traps… though we did trigger one in the final archway. Lynnria’s outstretched foot just grazed a floor panel, and yet another dart sang past, barely missing her leg by a finger’s breadth, before thudding into the rock to her left.
Then the stone around it began to melt.
We paused to stare, more than a little horrified.
“Make sure to remember that one on the way out,” I cautioned.
My memory was getting pretty good these days, but it was far from perfect. Plus, labyrinths tended toward monotony as a matter of their design. Remembering what is where is one of their primary hurdles.
Note to self: buy some chalk. That would be useful for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which was marking traps we had already stumbled into. And one of these days, I would actually fall into a Dungeon with a decent pack of adventuring gear ready to go.
She nodded. “You aren’t just whistling dicks.”
“It’s Dixie,” I corrected automatically. But then what she had just said registered, and my brain shorted.
“Dicks-y? Are you sure?” she asked doubtfully into the stunned silence. “I must be missing something. Unless… maybe they’re supposed to be cute in human culture? I mean… I guess I can see that, but it still seems like an overly crude expression for someone of your—“
“W-w-whoa… stop!” I interrupted quickly.
With her earlier reaction now laid bare, it was a struggle not to laugh outright. But I could hardly let her go around with that kind of misunderstanding, so I explained the reference… necessarily leaving out quite a few relevant details.
“Oh…” She blushed faintly at her mistake, but then she favored me with a bit of a knowing smirk. “I think I like my version better. Eh? Eh?”
I tried not to, but the impish expression on her face was so cute I could not help but smile back at her. For which, I was grateful. It was nice that at least one of us could keep up some good cheer, and the moment of inappropriate levity was a welcome salve to my eroded spirit.
Shit… how is she doing this? I almost wanted to weep from the stress, and here she was on the verge of making me fall for her. But I quickly pushed the thought away.
Beyond the archway, there rested a wide, circular room. The stones of it were huge, almost megalithic in their stature, and fitted entirely without mortar. Even the ceiling. Somehow. And unlike the products of the ancient cultures of Earth, these stones were absolutely perfect in their manufacture. Each was set in concentric rows that spiraled and shrank inward toward the center of the room and what seemed to be the only thing holding it all up.
One single pillar.
To top off the implausible nature of the construct, the pillar seemed made of that oh-so-familiar blue crystal that kept cropping up within the Dungeon. Within it, there rested a very welcome sight indeed.
“Arx.”
The name came as a whisper—jerked from my throat unbidden. The sight of her caused my heart to clutch with longing as though from a revelation. Practically religious in its power. Like a severed and long missing piece of my very being had just been discovered and laid bare for the world to see.
Here was my mate. My lilim. Finally.
“Easy,” Lynnria reminded me with a hand on my shoulder.
The sound broke me from my trance, and I looked down. There was not much to see, just simple stone like the rest of the room. But with everything else we had encountered, it was too much to hope that this area would be entirely free of tricks, and I had been about to mindlessly wander forward.
I took a breath and centered myself. It would not do to rush the ending. “Right. Thank you.”
“Of course,” she said. I could tell that she was trying to remain reassuring, but she could not hide the disquiet in her expression. After a moment, her eyes flickered to my captive mate. “She seems… awfully pretty.”
I nodded absently. She was indeed. Heart-wrenchingly. Achingly.
Posed as a sleeping, unborn infant, she looked to be floating in a crystal clear and unperturbed lake. Her near-translucent white hair seemed free to drift as it would, yet not a whit of it moved. She was inert. Utterly frozen in time within a prison of blue.
A blue that spilled out into the room. And the only source of light we had yet seen in this dismal place.
Beyond that, there was only one other object of note. Just below and to one side of the column, there was a comparatively small installation that looked strangely similar to an engine block. Whatever it was, its gleaming surface contrasted sharply with the shadows of three notably hexagonal depressions set in a line along its face.
“Looks like that’s where we put the crystals,” I murmured, pointing. “Come on.”
The two of us advanced slowly, tapping and prodding at each stone as we went like blind beggars. The closer we got, the more I pressed at what turned out to be totally mundane and harmless bricks, the more anxious I got. There were no warning signs. No charred bones. No bodies. The bricks were pristine. Nothing about the room hinted at any sort of traps at all… and that only served to heighten my paranoia.
There was no way this was going to be so easy.
Yet we arrived at the central column having found nothing… leaving me with only one conclusion. “There’s got to be something going on with the pillar, then. Maybe a puzzle or a riddle? Something where a wrong answer has disastrous consequences?”
“I don’t see anything,” Lynnria reported from the other side of the column. “No clues. Not even on the mount for the crystals.”
“Damn…”
Frustrated, I placed a cautious hand on the central pillar and stared up at Arx. She did not react at all. Nor could I feel her. And the longer I stood beneath her, the more disturbed I began to feel at that absence. She was right there!
“What am I supposed to do?”
Surprisingly, a voice answered, emanating from the crystal. But not from Arx. Still, it was one I recognized. Familiar… and powerful. Yet the presence I usually associated with it was absent. It was like hearing the merest echo of Her.
The Demon Queen.
“Three by three by three.
Through darkness you have traveled, dangers obscene,
The second you have found, seven foreseen.
One of yellow. One of blue. One of green.
Three by three by three.”
Several times now, we had stumbled on these clues, all on the same theme. Though this was the first delivered in Her own voice. She had sounded triumphant. As if pleased. Even overjoyed that we had made it so far.
But the feeling settling in the pit of my stomach was the complete opposite.
“D-donum…” The catch in Lynnria’s throat was all I needed to hear. She knew. Just like I did. But she said the rest anyway. “We only have blue crystals.”
I closed my eyes. At that moment, I did not even want to breathe for fear of letting loose a wretched sob of frustration.
We came so damned far!
Slowly, I brought my hand up to my chest and curled my fingers over the card I had kept pressed against my skin. The one we had found all the way back in the main hall. The one that explained all of this. I had read it many times since then, yet only now did the words written upon it make sense to me.
‘Three by three by three.’
Three sets of three crystals for three ends.
So… fucking close!
‘In yellow. In blue. In green.’
Each set, its own color.
Damn it! Damn it all! Damn me!
‘Six for one. Seven for two. Eight for me.’
That was the key line! Until that moment, its meaning had eluded me, but the answer had been with us all along. She had even written it on that bloody clock!
Blues in three! And as hanging weight, no less! One of six, one of seven, and one of eight.
Each of the blue crystals we had found in that clock had been similar yet unique. Not just the fact that they were being used as weights. Whether in pounds, shekels, or whatever they used around here, it did not matter. They were different!
And only here and now did I realize which of the three we needed. One I was supposed to have figured out by now. Seven foreseen. Seven for two. The middle weight for my second lilim!
But we were missing the yellow and the green. We had never found them. Did not, in fact, realize we were supposed to have been looking for them until this very moment.
I wanted to scream. To punch something. To curl up and die.
I knew this experience so well. I had been here too many times to count. It was that feeling of spending hours… or perhaps days on a particularly involved RPG only to discover that you had missed some key element. And now you were doomed. The best weapon, the best ending, whatever… it was now gone. Locked away by your own ignorance. There was no path back. You had saved over any hope of that.
Only now, I was experiencing it in real life. When it really mattered. There were no save points. Lynnria might have been able to make it back on her own, if she was exceptionally lucky. But me?
I was absolutely and totally fucked. My legs could barely hold my weight anymore. I was as a wounded and dying animal run to ground.
The Dungeon had slowly and surely been bleeding me dry. Out of stamina. Out of Life. I could not regenerate it, and the only source I might have had was locked behind lustful insanity from which there could be no escape. Not without her.
Not without my Arx. My Arx! She was mine!
How dare She keep her from me?! Locked away like some damned princess in a castle. What a ridiculous insult! If anything she was my hero. My rock. My confidant. Mine!
And in that instant… that precipice of despair…
Arx’s eyes snapped open.
Seleroan
Hey there, gentle reader.
Enjoying the content? Well, why not drop by my Patreon? It helps me keep this show running, and allows me to afford great things like editors, cover artists, and food!
Each chapter is now being personalized with some... passable chapter-inspired AI generated art. I try. But it gives things a bit of color. And you can read ahead!
Come on down! We'd love to see you.
The adjoining area seemed to be yet another hallway, though this one was all but pitch black. It appeared we had rejoined the main labyrinth. However, this time there was a clear blue light softly emanating from off to our left.
Lynnria took a couple of steps in that direction before glancing over her shoulder. “Well, well. Looks like we finally found something worthwhile. Do you suppose your mate is in there?”
“Hopefully,” I replied evenly, trying very much not to get too excited by the thought. We were coming to the end of our rope, and if she were not in there… well, I did not particularly want Lynnria to see what that would do to me. “Let’s find out, shall we? But go easy. After that last trap… I don’t want to have come all this way only to see you incinerated in the last instant.”
She nodded seriously. “Sound advice. And now that we’re back here, best keep quiet. Don’t want to attract attention.”
The last thing we needed was another encounter with the barrel-golem. We still did not have much to fight it with, and to make even a faint-hearted attempt, I would have to deliberately poison myself.
At least on that one point, I was beginning to feel somewhat confident. My gums were still a bit tingly, and it had been hours since I had attempted gnawing at the jerky. Either I was highly allergic to whatever spice had been used to prepare it with, or it was just straight up toxic. Not that it mattered. My solution would be the same either way.
Fortunately, we did not fall victim to any more traps… though we did trigger one in the final archway. Lynnria’s outstretched foot just grazed a floor panel, and yet another dart sang past, barely missing her leg by a finger’s breadth, before thudding into the rock to her left.
Then the stone around it began to melt.
We paused to stare, more than a little horrified.
“Make sure to remember that one on the way out,” I cautioned.
My memory was getting pretty good these days, but it was far from perfect. Plus, labyrinths tended toward monotony as a matter of their design. Remembering what is where is one of their primary hurdles.
Note to self: buy some chalk. That would be useful for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which was marking traps we had already stumbled into. And one of these days, I would actually fall into a Dungeon with a decent pack of adventuring gear ready to go.
She nodded. “You aren’t just whistling dicks.”
“It’s Dixie,” I corrected automatically. But then what she had just said registered, and my brain shorted.
“Dicks-y? Are you sure?” she asked doubtfully into the stunned silence. “I must be missing something. Unless… maybe they’re supposed to be cute in human culture? I mean… I guess I can see that, but it still seems like an overly crude expression for someone of your—“
“W-w-whoa… stop!” I interrupted quickly.
With her earlier reaction now laid bare, it was a struggle not to laugh outright. But I could hardly let her go around with that kind of misunderstanding, so I explained the reference… necessarily leaving out quite a few relevant details.
“Oh…” She blushed faintly at her mistake, but then she favored me with a bit of a knowing smirk. “I think I like my version better. Eh? Eh?”
I tried not to, but the impish expression on her face was so cute I could not help but smile back at her. For which, I was grateful. It was nice that at least one of us could keep up some good cheer, and the moment of inappropriate levity was a welcome salve to my eroded spirit.
Shit… how is she doing this? I almost wanted to weep from the stress, and here she was on the verge of making me fall for her. But I quickly pushed the thought away.
Beyond the archway, there rested a wide, circular room. The stones of it were huge, almost megalithic in their stature, and fitted entirely without mortar. Even the ceiling. Somehow. And unlike the products of the ancient cultures of Earth, these stones were absolutely perfect in their manufacture. Each was set in concentric rows that spiraled and shrank inward toward the center of the room and what seemed to be the only thing holding it all up.
One single pillar.
To top off the implausible nature of the construct, the pillar seemed made of that oh-so-familiar blue crystal that kept cropping up within the Dungeon. Within it, there rested a very welcome sight indeed.
“Arx.”
The name came as a whisper—jerked from my throat unbidden. The sight of her caused my heart to clutch with longing as though from a revelation. Practically religious in its power. Like a severed and long missing piece of my very being had just been discovered and laid bare for the world to see.
Here was my mate. My lilim. Finally.
“Easy,” Lynnria reminded me with a hand on my shoulder.
The sound broke me from my trance, and I looked down. There was not much to see, just simple stone like the rest of the room. But with everything else we had encountered, it was too much to hope that this area would be entirely free of tricks, and I had been about to mindlessly wander forward.
I took a breath and centered myself. It would not do to rush the ending. “Right. Thank you.”
“Of course,” she said. I could tell that she was trying to remain reassuring, but she could not hide the disquiet in her expression. After a moment, her eyes flickered to my captive mate. “She seems… awfully pretty.”
I nodded absently. She was indeed. Heart-wrenchingly. Achingly.
Posed as a sleeping, unborn infant, she looked to be floating in a crystal clear and unperturbed lake. Her near-translucent white hair seemed free to drift as it would, yet not a whit of it moved. She was inert. Utterly frozen in time within a prison of blue.
A blue that spilled out into the room. And the only source of light we had yet seen in this dismal place.
Beyond that, there was only one other object of note. Just below and to one side of the column, there was a comparatively small installation that looked strangely similar to an engine block. Whatever it was, its gleaming surface contrasted sharply with the shadows of three notably hexagonal depressions set in a line along its face.
“Looks like that’s where we put the crystals,” I murmured, pointing. “Come on.”
The two of us advanced slowly, tapping and prodding at each stone as we went like blind beggars. The closer we got, the more I pressed at what turned out to be totally mundane and harmless bricks, the more anxious I got. There were no warning signs. No charred bones. No bodies. The bricks were pristine. Nothing about the room hinted at any sort of traps at all… and that only served to heighten my paranoia.
There was no way this was going to be so easy.
Yet we arrived at the central column having found nothing… leaving me with only one conclusion. “There’s got to be something going on with the pillar, then. Maybe a puzzle or a riddle? Something where a wrong answer has disastrous consequences?”
“I don’t see anything,” Lynnria reported from the other side of the column. “No clues. Not even on the mount for the crystals.”
“Damn…”
Frustrated, I placed a cautious hand on the central pillar and stared up at Arx. She did not react at all. Nor could I feel her. And the longer I stood beneath her, the more disturbed I began to feel at that absence. She was right there!
“What am I supposed to do?”
Surprisingly, a voice answered, emanating from the crystal. But not from Arx. Still, it was one I recognized. Familiar… and powerful. Yet the presence I usually associated with it was absent. It was like hearing the merest echo of Her.
The Demon Queen.
“Three by three by three.
Through darkness you have traveled, dangers obscene,
The second you have found, seven foreseen.
One of yellow. One of blue. One of green.
Three by three by three.”
Several times now, we had stumbled on these clues, all on the same theme. Though this was the first delivered in Her own voice. She had sounded triumphant. As if pleased. Even overjoyed that we had made it so far.
But the feeling settling in the pit of my stomach was the complete opposite.
“D-donum…” The catch in Lynnria’s throat was all I needed to hear. She knew. Just like I did. But she said the rest anyway. “We only have blue crystals.”
I closed my eyes. At that moment, I did not even want to breathe for fear of letting loose a wretched sob of frustration.
We came so damned far!
Slowly, I brought my hand up to my chest and curled my fingers over the card I had kept pressed against my skin. The one we had found all the way back in the main hall. The one that explained all of this. I had read it many times since then, yet only now did the words written upon it make sense to me.
‘Three by three by three.’
Three sets of three crystals for three ends.
So… fucking close!
‘In yellow. In blue. In green.’
Each set, its own color.
Damn it! Damn it all! Damn me!
‘Six for one. Seven for two. Eight for me.’
That was the key line! Until that moment, its meaning had eluded me, but the answer had been with us all along. She had even written it on that bloody clock!
Blues in three! And as hanging weight, no less! One of six, one of seven, and one of eight.
Each of the blue crystals we had found in that clock had been similar yet unique. Not just the fact that they were being used as weights. Whether in pounds, shekels, or whatever they used around here, it did not matter. They were different!
And only here and now did I realize which of the three we needed. One I was supposed to have figured out by now. Seven foreseen. Seven for two. The middle weight for my second lilim!
But we were missing the yellow and the green. We had never found them. Did not, in fact, realize we were supposed to have been looking for them until this very moment.
I wanted to scream. To punch something. To curl up and die.
I knew this experience so well. I had been here too many times to count. It was that feeling of spending hours… or perhaps days on a particularly involved RPG only to discover that you had missed some key element. And now you were doomed. The best weapon, the best ending, whatever… it was now gone. Locked away by your own ignorance. There was no path back. You had saved over any hope of that.
Only now, I was experiencing it in real life. When it really mattered. There were no save points. Lynnria might have been able to make it back on her own, if she was exceptionally lucky. But me?
I was absolutely and totally fucked. My legs could barely hold my weight anymore. I was as a wounded and dying animal run to ground.
The Dungeon had slowly and surely been bleeding me dry. Out of stamina. Out of Life. I could not regenerate it, and the only source I might have had was locked behind lustful insanity from which there could be no escape. Not without her.
Not without my Arx. My Arx! She was mine!
How dare She keep her from me?! Locked away like some damned princess in a castle. What a ridiculous insult! If anything she was my hero. My rock. My confidant. Mine!
And in that instant… that precipice of despair…
Arx’s eyes snapped open.
Seleroan
Hey there, gentle reader.
Enjoying the content? Well, why not drop by my Patreon? It helps me keep this show running, and allows me to afford great things like editors, cover artists, and food!
Each chapter is now being personalized with some... passable chapter-inspired AI generated art. I try. But it gives things a bit of color. And you can read ahead!
Come on down! We'd love to see you.
