The corridor opened up into a massive, circular chamber that smelled of ozone and ancient dust.

  It was a beautiful room, in the way a guillotine is beautiful—precise, elegant, and designed for a singular purpose. The floor was a vast checkerboard of pressure plates, each one etched with a glowing blue rune. On the far side, a hundred feet away, sat a heavy iron door with no visible handle.

  I held up a hand, stopping the group at the threshold. The stone on my belt buzzed against my hip.

  "The Hall of Logic," the Weaver’s voice murmured, sounding bored. "Only the enlightened may pass. Or you can pick the lock, but I don't think 'Smash' is a lockpicking tool."

  Captain Vane limped to the front, squinting at the glowing tiles. She sheathed her sword and pulled out a battered notebook.

  "Old Jeffersonian script," she whispered, her eyes darting back and forth between the runes. "It’s a syntax puzzle. We have to step on the antecedents without triggering the consequents. If we step on a 'Fire' rune without a 'Water' modifier..." She winced. "We burn."

  "How long?" I asked, looking at the door.

  Vane began sketching a diagram. "The linguistic roots are archaic. I need to conjugate the elemental verbs. Three hours? Maybe four."

  "Four hours?" Liam hissed from the shadows. "We have food for three days. We can't spend four hours doing math."

  The elf was vibrating. Since we had landed in the dungeon, Liam had been pacing like a caged cat. His new eyes were taking in too much information—the heat signature of the rats in the walls, the flow of air currents, the depth of the shadows.

  "Liam, stand down," I warned. "Let Vane work."

  "The door is right there," Liam muttered, his pupils dilated into wide black discs. "I don't need to walk. The shadows connect. Point A to Point B."

  "Liam, don't—"

  Liam didn't listen. The instinct was too strong, the path too clear. He didn't run; he simply folded.

  One second, he was standing next to me. The next, he dissolved into a smear of ink, stepping into the shadow cast by a pillar.

  The world dropped away.

  For the first time, Liam didn't just step through the dark; he stepped into it. The cold was absolute. The silence was deafening.

  And in that split second of transit, between the start and the finish, Liam felt something.

  He wasn't alone.

  From the infinite gray void of the shadow realm, a pair of eyes opened. They were vast, violet, and ancient. They didn't look at him with anger; they looked at him with hunger.

  I see you, little walker, a voice whispered in the static.

  Liam panicked.

  He flailed, forcing himself out of the step, ripping his way back into reality.

  ZIP.

  He materialized on the far side of the room, gasping for air, clutching his chest.

  "Liam!" I shouted from the entrance.

  "I saw it!" Liam screamed, his eyes wide with terror. "It saw me!"

  In his panic, he stumbled. He tried to steady himself, but his boot came down hard on a large, red tile marked with a grinning skull.

  CLICK.

  The sound echoed through the chamber like a gunshot.

  "Oops," Liam whispered.

  The room woke up.

  Gears ground deep within the walls. Panels slid open in the ceiling. The runes on the floor turned from a calm blue to an angry, pulsing crimson.

  "Defensive positions!" I roared.

  "Get down!" Vane screamed, diving behind a pillar.

  It was a kill-box. Hundreds of small ports opened in the walls, firing a swarm of poison darts. From the ceiling, massive, rust-covered logs studded with iron spikes swung down on heavy chains. Jets of flame erupted from the floor tiles.

  It was enough firepower to wipe out an entire platoon.

  But the Misfit Guard wasn't a platoon.

  I stepped in front of Vane, raising my shield. A dozen darts hit the wood with a thwack-thwack-thwack. One slipped past my guard, aiming for my neck. I caught it. I didn't even think about it; my hand just moved, snatching the projectile out of the air.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  I looked at the dart. "Dry rot," I noted, tossing it aside.

  "Faelar! Move!" Willow shrieked.

  The dwarf was standing in the middle of the room, mesmerized by the flashing lights. A massive spiked log, weighing easily half a ton, swung down in a pendulum arc, aimed directly at his head.

  "Pretty colors," Faelar murmured.

  CRASH.

  The log slammed into Faelar’s face.

  It didn't crush his skull. It didn't even knock him down. The ancient wood shattered on impact, exploding into a cloud of splinters and dust. The iron spikes bent against the dwarf’s forehead.

  Faelar blinked, wiping sawdust from his beard. He looked at the broken chain swinging harmlessly above him.

  "Who threw a toothpick at me?" Faelar grumbled, rubbing a spot on his head that wasn't even bruised. "That’s rude."

  "He... he broke the trap," Vane whispered, peeking out from behind me. "With his face."

  "I can't heal anyone!" Willow yelled, waving her hands. "You aren't taking damage! Why aren't you bleeding? I have so much mana and no one is bleeding!"

  The traps continued to fire—flames washing over Elmsworth (who giggled), darts bouncing off Liam’s leather armor like rain. We were indestructible, but we were pinned down.

  "The door is still locked!" I shouted over the noise. "We can't get out!"

  "I shall solve it!" Elmsworth announced, climbing atop a stone block. "I shall use logic!"

  "Elmsworth, no!" I warned. "Do not use logic! Your logic is weaponized!"

  "Logic is just magic with a tie on!" Elmsworth shrieked. He pointed his staff at the mechanism controlling the traps. "Dispel! Unmake! Stop the spinning things!"

  [Casting: Dispel Magic (Wild Magic Variant)]

  A bolt of chaotic pink energy shot from the staff. It hit the central rune in the floor.

  But Elmsworth didn't just dispel the magic. He inverted the parameters.

  The room groaned. The air pressure dropped.

  "Uh oh," Elmsworth said. "Nugget says 'Oops'."

  WHOOSH.

  Gravity reversed.

  One moment, I was standing on the floor. The next, the floor was the ceiling.

  "Waaaaah!"

  The entire party—me, Vane, the soldiers, Faelar, and the flailing Wizard—fell upward. We screamed as we plummeted twenty feet toward the stone ceiling.

  We slammed into the roof hard.

  "Oof," I grunted, hitting the stone flat on my back. Again, I took no damage, but the disorientation was nauseating.

  I scrambled to my feet—which were now planted firmly on the ceiling. I looked "down."

  Below us (which was actually the floor), the traps were still firing wildly. The spiked logs were swinging through empty air. The fire jets were blasting upward, but the flames couldn't reach us up here on the roof.

  "We're safe!" Faelar cheered, sitting on a stalactite. "And I found a bat!"

  "We aren't safe, we're upside down!" Vane yelled, clutching a stone ridge, her knuckles white. She looked nauseous. "My stomach... logic does not dictate falling up!"

  "The door!" Liam pointed.

  The exit door was on the far wall. The problem was, the lever to open it was located halfway down the wall.

  From the floor, it was too high to reach. From the ceiling, it was too low.

  "We can't reach it," Willow said, looking over the edge of the ceiling. "It’s ten feet down. If we jump, we fall back into the fire jets on the floor."

  "We need a rope," I said. "Do we have rope?"

  "I ate the rope," Faelar admitted. "I thought it was licorice. It was not."

  I sighed. I looked at the lever. I looked at my team.

  "Misfit Chain," I ordered.

  "The what?" Vane asked.

  "Faelar, grab my ankles," I said, lying flat on the ceiling. "Liam, you're the lightest. Grab Faelar’s ankles. We dangle you down to the lever."

  "I don't want to go down there!" Liam argued, eyeing the floor where the fire was roaring. "The violet eyes... they’re waiting!"

  "There are no eyes, Liam! Just pull the lever!"

  We formed the chain.

  I braced myself, my new strength making it effortless to hold the weight of two people. Faelar hung upside down, cackling like a maniac. Liam dangled at the bottom, swinging back and forth like a pendulum.

  "Lower! Lower!" Liam yelled, reaching for the lever. "I can't reach it! Faelar, stop wiggling!"

  "I’m purely aerodynamic!" Faelar shouted.

  "Almost... almost..." Liam stretched his fingers.

  On the "floor" far below us, a shadow moved.

  Nugget, the chicken, walked casually across the trapped tiles. The fire jets didn't burn him. The gravity reversal apparently didn't apply to poultry. He pecked at a piece of wood, looked up at the screaming human chain dangling from the ceiling, and clucked judgmentally.

  "Got it!" Liam screamed.

  He grabbed the iron lever and yanked it down with all his weight.

  KA-CHUNK.

  The traps stopped instantly. The fire died. The logs froze.

  And the gravity normalized.

  THUD.

  The Misfit Guard fell twenty feet, crashing into a heap on the floor in a tangle of limbs, armor, and groans.

  I stood up, shaking Faelar off my leg. I looked at the door. It was open.

  "We solved it," I said, dusting myself off.

  "We fell on the ceiling and dangled an elf," Vane corrected, checking her teeth. "That is not solving. That is surviving."

  The stone on my belt buzzed.

  "Task failed successfully," the Weaver’s voice said, sounding tired. "Proceed to the final chamber. And please... stop breaking physics. I have to clean that up."

  We moved into the final corridor. It was wider here, lined with statues of armored knights that watched us with hollow eyes.

  I slowed my pace, letting the others move ahead. I unclipped the stone.

  "Weaver," I whispered.

  "Still here," the voice replied.

  "Why?" I asked. "Why are you helping us? You gave us the map to the Otter. You gave us the dungeon. But in the cave... we changed. We’re stronger. Too strong."

  I looked at Faelar, who was trying to convince Vane that gravity was a myth invented by the government to sell ladders.

  "We aren't normal anymore," I said. "This isn't just luck."

  "No," the Weaver agreed. "It isn't luck. The board has changed, Kaelen."

  "The board?"

  "For a long time, you were pawns," the Weaver said. "Pawns move one square. Pawns die to save the King. Pawns don't survive mountain collapses."

  I gripped the spear—the spear that felt like a toy in my hand now. "And now?"

  "Now, Malacor is waking up," the Weaver said. "The enemy is bringing a Queen to the board. I can't play with pawns anymore."

  There was a pause, and the buzzing of the stone felt heavier.

  "You aren't pawns, Kaelen," the Weaver whispered. "You're the dice. And I’m terrified to see what you roll next."

  "Kaelen!" Vane called out from the front. Her voice was trembling. "You need to see this."

  I clipped the stone to my belt. "Coming."

  We stood before a massive set of double doors. They were twenty feet tall, made of black iron, and sealed with a skull the size of a wagon wheel.

  "Royal Crypt," Vane whispered, tracing the seal. "High-King Jefferson’s personal guard. Kaelen... whatever is behind this door isn't a puzzle. It’s an executioner."

  I looked at the door. I felt the hum of energy in my veins. I looked at my team—dirty, chaotic, and completely unafraid.

  Faelar burped. "Does the executioner have snacks?"

  I smiled. It wasn't a nice smile.

  "Open it," I ordered.