The Dungeon of the Duskknife

We pushed open the doors with effort. Stone ground against stone as they creaked open, revealing a grand entrance hall adorned with countless statues of what I could only presume to be the wizard Galthranor himself. The statues were easily nine feet tall each, and ran the length of the hall, each one spaced about every five feet from the next. At the far end of the hall two statues larger than the rest held massive iron spears, which they crossed before a grand stone staircase.

We entered cautiously, our footsteps echoing faintly throughout the cavernous room. The air seemed to deaden as we passed the threshold into the roots of the mountain.

Atlas shivered. “I feel like I’m back in the zoo.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“All the eyes.” He responded, checking back over his shoulder, “Following me.”

I looked up, noticing for the first time how real the eyes of the statues looked. They were intricately detailed, carved with unnerving precision and painted with a pastel blue paint. I observed one as we walked past, feeling a chill run up my spine. No matter where you stood, the eyes seemed to follow you.

“Yeah,” I said, “There’s no way those aren’t coming to life at some point.”

“What are you talking about?” Lynessa asked. I’d forgotten I was the only one who could hear Atlas. To be fair, he was quiet a majority of the time, and he still didn’t like Lynessa, even after she’d started calling him by his proper name.

“Oh, just the statues with the creepy eyes.” I said, “I’m giving it until we reach the midpoint of the hall until they start coming to life and attacking us.”

“Two-thirds.” Atlas added, “Tops.”

“Oh,” said Lynessa, “I don’t think those statues are going to move. Look at their feet and the surrounding stonework. If something that heavy moved, it would leave marks or scratches on the nearby floor. In addition, the statue’s joints would display ruts or grooves where the limbs pivot in place.”

“Ah.” I replied, somewhat embarrassed. “You must have a lot of experience with moving statues then.”

“A little.” She replied, “I’ve been in a lot of dungeons like this. After you’ve seen a few, it’s pretty obvious what to look for. Those statues are likely a distraction for that pit trap hidden in the floor.”

“Pit trap?” I asked, suddenly freezing in place, “When were you going to tell me about that?”

“Before we got to it.” Lynessa said, “Look, there it is.” She pointed to a spot on the ground. I squinted, though I wasn’t able to see anything out of the ordinary.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Positive.” She responded. She pointed a finger, releasing a small ball of light. The ball dropped to the floor, bounced once, and slowly rolled forwards. It lost momentum quickly, nearly coming to a rest. Just as the ball of light looked as though it would stop, it crossed an invisible line, causing a large swath of the floor to hinge downwards violently. The ball fell away into a dark chasm, eventually fading into the darkness below. We did not hear it land.

Atlas crept to the edge of the pit and cautiously sniffed it.

“It smells of decay.” He said. He smacked a small stone into the hole with his paw.

The pit, once opened, was forty feet long and twenty wide. Fortunately, the statues of Galthranor that had been positioned in that area remained floating, kept aloft by strange clouds of a fluorescent blue script. The spacing of the statues made it simple to climb from one to the next, and before I knew it, I was already halfway across the gap.

“Are all traps this easy to circumvent?” I asked.

“Usually.” Lynessa said as she leapt from one statue to the next, “Most of them rely on the element of surprise to actually kill anyone, and they have to be navigable by their creators in the event of a worst-case situation where they must be traversed. They’re more of a deterrent than anything else.”

Atlas hissed as he clawed his way over one of the statues’ heads. He perched awkwardly, all four paws situated directly beneath him as he straightened out his head and his tail to maintain balance. I chuckled.

“Keep laughing, moron.” He hissed, “See where that gets you.”

I was about to crack a joke, when the statue he was on suddenly rocked. Atlas’ eyes widened in shock as he scrabbled at the stone face of the statue, his claws finding just enough purchase to prevent him from falling. He stuck one of his back paws on the statue’s shoulders and tried to push himself back on top of its head.

“Hold on!” Lynessa called back. She was the farthest along the line of statues. She wrapped one arm around the neck of the statue she clung to, extending the other. Light glowed at the end of her fingers as she prepared to cast a spell. Her statue moved too, though this time the stone likeness of Galthranor grabbed her in its stony hands, crushing her against its chest.

I could see where this was going. I slid down the back of the statue I was on, narrowly missing as it reached for me. I wrapped my arms around its waist, pushing my knees up under my chest. The statue flipped in air as its arms reached farther and farther back, turning perpendicular to its original position. I made the mistake of looking up, realizing that the statue’s back now faced the endless chasm beneath us.

Things were looking back. I could feel my grip slipping. The statue stopped trying to reach for me and instead grabbed my wrists, wrenching them apart. I yelled in pain and wrapped my feet around the statue instead. It released my wrists and grabbed for my ankles as I managed to grip its forehead. I kicked off, feeling my legs swing out into empty air as my fingers dug into whatever crevices they could find in the statue’s face.

I looked back over my shoulder. Atlas was battling his statue, worrying ineffectually at its stone neck while his hind legs kicked at its belly. The statue attempted to punch him, but the tiger writhed out of the way, squirming his way back onto its back.

“Atlas!” I shouted, “Jump to mine!”

“It won’t help.” He responded, “There’s not enough room for the both of us.”

“Just use it to leap to the next one!” I said, “We need to get Lynessa free!”

He growled. “You know I don’t like her.”

“You don’t need to like her.” I said, “But she’s a mage. She might have some helpful magic.”

“You know,” Atlas said as he wormed his way back on top of the statue he was wrestling, “If you use nothing but magic to solve all of your problems, when we go back home you won’t be able to do anything on your own.”

“Save the lecture for later.” I said. Atlas chuckled. He positioned his paws beneath him, sized up the distance, and leapt.

He landed square on my statue’s legs, pushing off with a mighty pounce that carried him to the statue that still held Lynessa. He smacked into the statue belly first with a mild oof. Of course, I didn’t have time to laugh at his clumsy landing. When Atlas had pushed off the statue’s feet, he’d sent them swinging downwards at an alarming speed. The head, which I still clung to, shot upwards. I screamed as my fingers lost their grip, sending me flying. A sudden lurch in my stomach told me I was airborne.

I sailed through the air in a perfect three-point arc, clearing the opposite edge of the chasm and getting clotheslined on the shaft of the spear held by one of the large statues at the room’s end. I was dimly aware that had I been launched slightly higher and to the right, that I would have been impaled on the spears’ crossed points. At the current moment, I did not have time to reflect on that fact, so instead I slid down the shaft of the spear and reached the floor with a thump.

Atlas had freed Lynessa from the clutches of the statue, and now the mage was able to let loose a spell. It collided with the shifting cloud of magic beneath the statue. The statue reached out a hand to grab her, but it slowed, then stopped, frozen in place. She steadied herself on the statue, and repeated the process with the others in turns, until every one was aloft and inert.

The rest of the party advanced cautiously after that, but eventually managed to assemble on the grand staircase that led upwards into the dungeon. Atlas grumbled about having chipped a tooth while Lynessa dusted herself off. Imalor just grinned. He had been the only one not to be on a statue when they animated, and he had a good chuckle at our expense, mimicking us flailing on the backs of the statues.

“And then you sort of flailed your hands like so,” he explained, mimicking me flying through the air, “The look on your face was priceless.”

“Yes, well I’m glad our brush with death entertained you so.” Lynessa said. She was trying to keep a straight face, and failing miserably.

“It didn’t look that funny!” I protested.

Atlas snorted. “You looked like a marmoset falling out of a tree.”

“Well, maybe next time someone should listen to me when I say the statues are going to come to life!” I said.

“You got lucky with that one.” Atlas replied. “I prefer to trust the experts.”

“I thought you didn’t like her.” I said.

“I don’t.” He replied, “But seeing the way you bypass a trap versus the way she does it, it’s really no contest.”

I sighed and looked up the staircase. Purple lights stretched upwards for as far as the eye could see.

“That’s a lot of stairs.” I said.

“Aye,” said Imalor, “Gonna be hell on my knees.”

I nudged Lynessa with my elbow. “Got any magic to help us get up there faster?”

She shook her head. “No. I’m not very skilled with levitation magic. We’re just going to have to climb up the hard way.”

“Some expert.” Atlas grumbled.