The Price of Egress

  The others caught on quick once the chest of loot materialized in the place of the sphinx’s body.

  “Wait, what? Does that mean that-“ Will said.

  “Yeah. I think so. We entered through a back entrance, so we hit the boss first,” Anna said.

  “Confirmed by magic,” I said.

  “Alright, so we wait for the countdown, get kicked out and start again. We can sneak by the creature somehow next time, leave it alive,” he said.

  “I am afraid that would not work, William. Two reasons- first, the dungeon would certainly kick us out to what it believes to be its starting point, to whit, the grounds of the second challenge. Second of all, you cannot enter a dungeon again once you have beaten it,” Adam said.

  “That might still be worth consideration. Alex can travel between Nothing and the demiplane proper, he could very well bring information to the others and have another group come in better prepared,” Clarence said.

  “We need Adam. I really don’t think anyone can learn the things he does, or at least I wouldn’t bet everyone’s lives on it,” I said.

  “I concur. Some of it I could teach, but more of it comes from my class and abilities,” Adam said.

  “Wait, but earlier said that it is the reset period that you need to work, why do we need to clear the rest of it now?” Will said.

  “If we have less than fifteen minutes I will attempt it. But there are several distinct intents in this place, more attuned to it than I can be. There will be interference, and I cannot tell you what will happen if their personalities get mixed in with the passage construct I am planning,” Adam said.

  “So we do the dungeon in an hour,” Anna said.

  “Fifty six minutes, thirty seconds,” I said, and began rushing towards the chest. I pulled it open and just grabbed everything in it and tossed it in my backpack. It was now stuffed full.

  “I can scan for traps, Mr. Will, follow me if you would,” Clarence said, and we all fell into a marching order and towards the entrance of the circular hall that led deeper into the dungeon.

  Ten minutes later I could no longer bear it in silence. Down the black and gold corridors lit by purple light Clarence had spotted a falling blade trap. Again. He was very good at dismantling them, which meant that it took only two minutes, which meant that with twenty more we’d be nearly out of time.

  “Fifth one? Not counting the one that we missed? How the fuck is anyone supposed to move up and down these corridors? How are they still in one piece? What kind of goddamned level design is this,” I said, calmly.

  “Quit your whining. At least you didn’t find the last one with your foot,” Will said, still limping slightly.

  “What’s your armor made out of anyways? I could have sworn that blade was heavy enough to shear through steel,” Anna said.

  “It’s magic stuff. I don’t know, it just says Plate Armor of Radiant Light and describes what it does in the Journal,” Will said.

  “I understand your frustration, but perhaps we should remain quiet. Clarence needs quiet to work efficiently, and we still have not encountered any of the monsters in this dungeon,” Adam said.

  So we shut up, because that was a very good point, and all of us were tense enough to see monstrous shapes in the flicker of firelight and hear their footsteps in the echoes of our own. With this being the fifth time that he was working on disabling the same sort of a trap Clarence had become quite efficient at it and we moved on soon. Then, we hit our next obstacle.

  “Fuck. We don’t have time for this,” I said.

  The hallway in front of us split into three directions, and each one of them was a short hallway splitting up again in two or more segments. We had arrived at a labyrinth.

  “Just stick to one side,” Will said.

  “Slow. Also, it will only work if there aren’t any free-standing walls deeper in,” Anna said.

  “Fuck. Chum, can you scout it out?” I said. The imp was fluttering behind us, keeping a watch on our rear.

  “Eeh, yeah, boss, won’t be much faster than you all. At least you can find me if I do get to the end of it, I guess,” Chum said.

  Adam had put a hand on the wall in front of us, and looked like he was focusing on something from the bearing of his form. When we noticed, we stopped and paid attention. He had knowledge of the Tower that was incomparable to any of the rest of us, and at a guess most people outside this dungeon didn’t know anything at all about it.

  “I believe we can walk through these,” Adam said eventually. Time kept ticking down, under 40 minutes left.

  “How?” I said.

  “A ritual. I will use a fair amount of blood. Please protect me once combat breaks out,” he said.

  He then unwrapped the stained bandage cloth from his left arm all the way up to the shoulder, mechanically peeling it off of his skinless fingers going up and detaching with a soft tearing sound, like removing bindings of a healed wound, until his whole left arm was visible. He gave the end of the bandage to me, and the rest of us were directed to hold on to it in order.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “Do not let it go. Especially do not let it go while inside the wall. Depending on your position when this happens you may end up either in a random spot in Nothing or melded with the wall and thereafter rapidly dead,” Adam said and all of us clung to the slightly damp piece of cloth in our hands a little harder.

  Then Adam drew with this left hand on to the wall, leaving barely legible text in intramuscular fluid and old blood, and when he pressed his hand into it, the hand went through, and then the rest of him followed. One by one my companions took a breath and followed him inside the wall, leaving a trail of bloodied bandage behind, until it was my turn. The sensation was much the same as stepping through a portal- a dream mirror feeling. And we were all on the other side. He repeated that process, once, twice, and each time he grew more dessicated and frail, as if the little blood inside him was diminishing.

  And after the fourth wall things changed. I heard the bovine snort before I noticed anything was wrong. Then I saw the blazing red eyes, and from that the black forms among the shadows resolved into creatures. The monsters seemed as shocked to see us as we were to see them, and it took a few full seconds for combat to break out. The three minotaurs- like you’d imagine, but as perfectly black furred as the sphinx had been and the walls were- looked at us and snorted. Then, eventually they drew their onyx greatswords and charged at us with a roar from less than twelve feet away. Will took on two, and held them off in a clang of blades and shield, standing stalwart in a wide stance daring them to move him- which they failed to do.

  But the third was even closer and at a bad angle, so when he came for Adam we didn’t have time to intervene, and he was slammed into a wall by a horned charge. He whimpered and collapsed, apparently unconscious, and even as Clarence buried his twin shortswords in the monster’s kidneys, debilitating it with pain and quickly killing him with nasty twinned outward slices, our most valuable companion slumped on the ground unmoving.

  But now I had a moment to look around, and I could see that we were near the exit. There was light coming from one of the passages ahead. But then I saw the movement of shadows, and then a dozen more, until a moaning, grasping horde of undead was advancing towards us. These were more skeletal than the zombies we’d faced before, and moved much more quickly. Will was between us and that group and they would overwhelm him soon.

  But not instantly, which meant there was time enough for me to throw up the barrier stored in my staff. The first of the skeletal warriors- which I could now see were armed and armored in the strange black metal of Nothing- dashed into my invisible wall and fell over, just as Will was dispatching the first of the minotaurs on him. In his lunge he opened up his side, and got slammed in the wall by the surviving minotaur, but his armor held.

  Anna and I both unleashed fire behind my barrier. Grease and flame burned hot enough that it became harder to breathe in the dungeon, even before the smoke of the charring corpses reached us. They died without screaming, and with Will and Clarence flanking the last minotaur, the fight was over.

  Adam lay immobile, and he looked very nearly as skeletal as the undead we’d just burned. And I could barely tell that he was breathing, his naked left arm looked like dried jerky and the bandage we’d held on to was ripped away from his wrappings.

  “Now what?” Clarence said.

  I didn’t have the time or inclination to explain myself, instead I grabbed one of the swords and cut off a chunk of minotaur flesh of one of their thighs. It came away, even if I had to saw at it desperately, and I brought it over to Adam, remembering how he’d reacted after the featherworm fight. He did seem to breathe in more deeply when he smelled blood, but nothing else.

  “Health potion. Please tell me someone has one,” I said.

  “I believe- well, let me check, just a moment,” Clarence said, rifling through his many pockets. After what seemed like an eternity, he did produce one. I fed it to Adam immediately.

  It worked differently on the Towerborn entity. Blood began flowing through his skin as if he was freshly flayed, not born this way. And then he stirred. And when he did, there was little left of the composed creature I knew, and he grabbed for the slab of dripping meat. I didn’t think overmuch about how humanoid these creatures had been. We needed Adam, and Adam’s healing ability needed fresh blood and flesh. After he was done with the slab I’d given him he moved on to the open wound, and only when he had chewed it down to the bone did he regain control over himself.

  He took several deep breaths. “I am embarrassed, friend Alex,” he said, “How much time do we have left?”

  “Eighteen minutes. Exit is there,” I said.

  “I see. We will have to proceed under the assumption that the dungeon is cleared then,” Adam said.

  “What do you need?” I said.

  “Just a space to work. And a break in the walls. William, may you?” Adam said.

  With a shrug Will went through his own bag until he found what he was looking for- a warhammer, a historical one with the head not much larger than three fingers in size. But with his strength and striking with the spiky end, he got through the wall in three mighty strikes that resounded through the labyrinth. Behind the wall there it was- Nothing, the Space Inside the Walls, Adam’s speciality.

  He unwrapped even more of his bandages, including many of the enchanted ones we’d found in Rock Toad Caverns, and began laying them out in a pattern towards the hole to Nothing, and drew more diagrams in his fluids on the wall. Ten minutes in he spoke again.

  “This is rather complex. I will have to stay behind. I believe I will be thrust back into Nothing. But I might die. Nobody else could do this, and therefore there is neither time nor reason to argue. Good-bye, friend Alex, I hope we meet again,” he said, and activated the runes.

  The dungeon shuddered. Air began flowing, then gusting, as if in a powerful cross-breeze. And in a way that was obviously more metaphysical than visceral Adam was sucked into the hole in the wall with his wrappings. And we were alone.

  In the darkness, the monsters we had failed to kill remained.

  I'm announcing a change in my posting schedule, motivated both by Royalroad stats (basically, people are mostly catching up to the story more slowly than I am writing it) and my own flagging energy levels (especially for planning and editing).

  No worries, this isn't a hiatus announcement or anything like that, all that's changing is that from now on I will be taking the last full work week of every month off.