I Think I Went the Right Way! Right?

“Right,” said Chloe.

“Left,” said Luka.

Chloe looked at her. “I’m the dog here, okay? And down the left path I smell bad things.”

The mage girl looked unconvinced. “Like?”

Chloe put her hands on her hips and sniffed the air near the dark lefthand pathway. Both it and the one on the right looked identical—leading down a stairwell where the torches vanished into nothing but blackness. Still, the smells coming from the left were nothing to sneeze at—

“Achoo!”

Chloe’s ears and tail were stiffened out from the force of the sneeze. Motes of dust flew through the air in a blast, stirring up a cloud that made her nose even more tingly. She rubbed it furiously, eyes watering. Luka gestured the soaking handkerchief to Chloe, who very much turned it down.

“It’s just the dust down here,” she said, stuffing it back into her sidebag. “Everyone knows in a maze you keep your hand on the left wall.”

“But two identical paths aren’t a maze!” Chloe protested. “They’re just—two identical paths! Are you really not gonna trust a girl with a dog’s nose?”

Luka considered that. “Okay. You win this one.”

Chloe cheered to herself and arrogantly strode through the right doorway, motioning for Luka to follow her. She trailed behind at an even pace, the two of them stepping into the darkness and leaving the torchlit corridor above behind them. Chloe’s dog-like nightvision activated down here, showing the stairs and walls in grainy grayscale, where motion was haunted by a very noticeable white-hued presence. With proper attentiveness, nothing would escape her notice. She sniffed the air, and the overwhelming negative energy from the left corridor was absent down here… but the further they went, the deeper and deeper it bored into the land… the more she began to wonder if there was something more sinister than what she sniffed in the other corridor just further up ahead. She drew her sword to be safe. Behind her, Luka produced a tiny lantern and flipped her floating grimoire to a page, whispering, “Fiiré lite, projectus.”

The corridor’s blackness was suddenly swallowed up by blue flame, conjured in the color of Luka’s magical energy. Chloe’s normal vision returned.

“What? When I met you, you said you couldn’t conjure a fireball?”

Luka gave her a confused expression. “I can’t? This is harmless aura flame, it’s only for light.”

Chloe inspected the blue fire, realizing it gave off no heat. “Wow… that’s so cool!”

Luka blushed. “Are we reaching level two?”

“Not even close,” said Chloe. “The adventurers I spoke to said, ‘you’ll know when it’s level two.’”

“What does that mean?”

Chloe pondered it. “No clue!”

The stairs ended, leveling out into a corridor not unlike the one they’d come from. In fact, the only difference was the lack of lit torches—culverts lined the walls, as did several unbroken pots. Chloe sniffed, tail wagging with the excitement and expectation of more enemies to cut down. However, she smelled nothing; neither the presence of more stone goblins, nor hostility of any kind. It was empty, or at least seemed it.

“Luka,” said Chloe. “Take a look into the pots—do you think there will be more mana capsules?”

“Good idea,” said Luka, carefully moving over to one. She peered inside with her lamp. “Nothing here.”

Chloe herself peered into another. Nothing but dust.

Her companion walked ahead of her, peering into yet another pot. “Wait, here’s one!”

She reached into the pot—

—and the two of them heard a click down at the end of the corridor. Then, stone scraping against stone.

Attention directed toward the noise, ears perked, Chloe quickly moved toward Luka with her sword out, ready to fight back anything that showed itself. But no enemy came. Instead there came the sound of more stone scraping against stone, and Chloe stood there in shock as she watched a wall suddenly slide across the ground further up the corridor. She whipped around, and noticed the same happening much closer, right at the bottom of the stairwell!

“Luka, put it back! It’s a trap, we’re closed in!”

Luka scrambled to replace the tiny marble that was in her hand, but as she did, nothing more happened.

“Did you get a look at what kind of mana capsule it was?” Chloe asked.

“I did, it’s got the symbol for Avian power.”

“Avian power? What does that mean?”

“Avian power is the power of birds,” Luka said. “Not flight, or the wind, but the traits and energy of bird species’ themselves.”

Chloe was impressed but confused. “So it has nothing to do with what just happened? Like you didn’t accidentally crush it and use the spell inside, did you?”

“No, no!” Luka said. “A spell for bird-like energy wouldn’t do this.”

“Well, maybe, uh, grabbing it—or putting your hand in the pot—uh, conjured the walls somehow?”

“No,” said Luka. “The walls weren’t conjured. That’s not how conjured things act, they materialize. These walls were waiting, almost like—”

Then, the walls began moving again, down the corridor and behind them both. In fact, Chloe felt the floor shaking, a terrible vibration rolling through the stone beneath their feet.

“Chloe, I don’t like this!” said Luka in terror.

“I don’t either!” Chloe got closer to her as the walls and floor rumbled, watching the blocked exit at the far end of the corridor slide, slowly, into the opposite wall it’d emerged from, and then… start to open up again?

The sound of pebbles falling atop metal made Chloe’s Retriever ears twitch, and she turned to see the wall that had closed off the bottom of the stairs doing the same thing as the wall all the way down the hall: it was sliding into the wall opposite, showing again the open passageway leading to the stairs they’d come from. Except, the passage was now blocked with iron bars.

No, those are the stairs we avoided, Chloe realized. The room is moving! It’s sliding to the left—toward the corridor we hadn’t gone down, somehow!

How did this happen? Was it really triggered when Luka stuck her hand in the jar?

Chloe sniffed the air, and determined it really was the same as the one she’d refused to go down. The room, truly, had shifted, putting them directly in the path of the corridor they’d meant to avoid. Out ahead, Chloe could just vaguely see with her nightvision, was the precipice of an enormous, open chamber.

Luka stared past the iron bars and up the stairs, and then down the hall. “I think there’s a monster down there.”

Chloe’s dog-like senses were all alight. “I think you’re right.”

She motioned for Luka to follow and led the way, emerging into the new room. This larger chamber smelled exactly like the bad scent.

Rumble.

Pebbles fell from the ceiling. Then came a loud, angry groaning.

Torches lit in sconces along the walls, lighting the chamber with a brilliant orange. Chloe saw a large, hulking figure emerge from the shaking floor, not too different in appearance from the stone goblins, save for its much larger size; like a troll made of pavement and bedrock. Two glowing red eyes shone out at them from the darkness, and it began its slow, lumbering journey toward them.

Chloe could smell Luka’s panic. She held up her sword and stepped in front of her friend. “If all else fails, we grab each other, run down the hall and use your teleportation spell to get back into the corridor, okay? So save your energy for it, if you think you’ll need it.”

Luka’s grimoire lit up with a soft blue glow, dozens of pages flipping all at once to land on the one she needed. “R-right.”

“We got this, Luka.”

Luka gulped, and nodded frantically.

The large stone beast made its way toward them. So much bigger and more imposing than any of the monsters Chloe had so far faced.

“You’re not a creepy ghost!” she said, charging toward it. “You don’t scare me!”

She slid on the heels of her boots and got low to the ground, scooting around to the beasts’ backside. She spied Luka running the opposite direction, keeping way more distance. Chloe fearlessly jumped into the air and, with two hands, brought the blade of her sword atop the beast’s head. It clanged back, hard, and she fell to the ground and tumbled away, having left hardly a scratch. Her wrists and hands hurt from the force of the failed attack.

“It’s tough clay!” she said to Luka, somersaulting out of the beast’s attack range. True to expectations, it lifted both of its great, heavy arms and brought them down onto the ground, sending a rock-shattering burst of power through the air in Chloe’s direction. She just narrowly avoided it—wind, rock fragments, and other debris scattered around her.

Damn! My sword isn’t gonna cut it. Literally.

She couldn’t see any weak spots on the creature. All of it was cooked clay.

Think, Chloe, think! What should you do?

Luka was hovering in the air, sending small bursts of blue energy toward the hulking monster. Just like Chloe’s attack, it seemed to be doing nothing.

“Luka! Shoot your blue fire at it!”

“I told you! My blue fire isn’t hot enough to do anything!” Luka replied from across the room, trying to keep her distance from the troll-like golem.

Right, silly me, thought Chloe. Even if it was normal flame, what could fire do against hardened clay unless it was insanely hotter than usual?

Then, Chloe recalled the two other mana capsules Luka had stashed away;

This blue one has to be a water spell of some kind because of the teardrop rune, she’d said after their encounter with the goblins.

And the green one is a growth spell. Plants.

A light went off over Chloe’s head. Her tail began to wag she was so excited.

“LUKA! THE MANA CAPSULES!”

The troll golem brought both of its fists down near Luka, sending her onto the ground on her rear—her grimoire launched from orbit, out of her control. It landed across the room, far from both of them. The troll golem paid no mind, but now Luka was defenseless. She put up her arms and screamed in resolute terror.

Chloe lunged, sprinting toward her friend. She dove for Luka, pulling her out of the golem’s range with all her strength just before another ground slam attack. The two of them stumbled near the entrance, Luka looking ragged and ready to run for the corridor.

“Wait!” said Chloe, pulling her back. “You’re book is across the room!”

“Oh, you’re right!” said Luka, panicked.

“I have an idea,” said Chloe as the beast slowly lumbered toward them. “The two mana capsules—one is water, one is growing plants. Right?”

“I mean, maybe?!” said Luka. “They’re from those archetypal energies, but the spell could be anything!”

“We have to try. Get them out. We’re gonna use the water one first, and get the clay all wet. Then we’re gonna use the growth one and see what happens!”

Luka nodded and produced the two capsules from her bag. Chloe grabbed the blue one and said, “How do I use it?”

Luka could hardly take her eyes off the lumbering golem. “Just—hold it out and squeeze—”

Right, like how I crushed the fire one with my jaw, Chloe recalled. She held out her hand at the approaching beast and crushed the capsule. A cold, liquid energy emerged from it, rolling down her arm with an aquatic glow. It gathered around her, and suddenly—

—a powerful tidal wave materialized before her, engulfing the room with a cold curtain of heavy water. It met the golem in the middle and splashed over it, sending it to the ground with the force of a wicked storm. It landed with a catastrophic thud, and Chloe could tell much of its body had soaked to the point of becoming mud. Still, it was moving, trying to right itself.

“NOW!” she said.

Luka stepped forward and crushed her capsule.

~CHLOE AND LUKA’S INVENTORY~

MANA CAPSULES ACQUIRED: x2

(AVIAN – [spell unknown] capsule x1)

(GROWTH – [spell unknown] capsule)

MANA CAPSULES USED: x3

(FIRE – “Flame Cyclone” capsule)

(WATER – “Summon Wave” capsule)

TREASURES ACQUIRED: x3

(assorted gold coins from the wraith chamber)

(Wraith Key – minor)