I Think We Can Defeat the Dungeon's First Boss!

The mana capsule in Luka’s hand exploded with a fury of glowing green energy. Chloe watched in awe as, suddenly, a rolling carpet of grass sprouted from the chamber floor. Atop it came many yellow dandelions, a flower almost as prevalent in her homeland as the sunflowers of its namesake.

And then, that was all.

Luka stood there, sure there would be more—but nothing else happened. The troll golem, while sopping wet and melting into a heap of wet clay, continued to stir on the ground.

Chloe gave Luka a nod and bolted, drawing her sword. The growth spell hadn’t done what she’d hoped—she’d wanted vines to come from the ground and pull it down, or for so many plants to sprout from its wet soil body that it stopped moving, or something other than this newfound lawn of grass and flowers, as pretty as it was.

The beast writhed lumberingly in place as Chloe approached. She used both hands to swing the blade across its throat, cleaving its head from its body. Its red eyes glowed no more, and soon the golem stopped, lying in a puddle of brown mud.

Covered in sweat and dirt, Chloe stood there, weary of something hidden up its sleeve. Finally, however, it seemed they’d felled it.

“Chloe!” Luka said from across the chamber, “that was awesome!”

You deserve credit too, she almost said, but instead looked at Luka with her hands on her hips and replied with, “Of course. Leave it to me.”

Luka made her way over to the felled golem, careful not to step on any of the flowers the spell had conjured. “I don’t understand… what use does a spell like this have down in the Dungeon Complex? All it does is make grass…”

Chloe hadn’t a clue, but it was a curious thing indeed. She looked back at the dead enemy and had an inkling’s intuition. Carefully, she began cutting into its wet clay body, digging through its most hollow portions. The inside of its belly was home to an odd carving, to which Luka pointed and said, “that’s its life rune. It’s what animates golems…”

“I think there’s something else inside it, too,” said Chloe, and the tip of her sword hit something hard. Falling to her knees, she dug through the mud with her hands and found a small chest, not dissimilar in style to the larger one that had contained the phantom from the previous room. With glee she opened it, and held up what was inside.

“Another key!” Unlike the last one, carved of bone with a tiny skull ornament, this one was cold iron, the end of it shaped not unlike the golem’s life rune.

And like that, a wall on the far side of the room began to slide away, revealing a locked door. Even from their distance away, Chloe could tell that the padlock was made with the same cold iron of the bars from the corridor, and the same cold iron of the key in her hand.

They both jumped to their feet. “We did it!” Chloe cheered.

“No—you did it, Chloe,” said Luka candidly, but still with joy in her face.

Chloe accepted that, knowing, certain, that her friend’s time to shine would soon come.

I’ll make sure of it.

They danced around the golem’s muddy body and hugged each other, ecstatic at their discovery. They did a jig, arm in arm. “The Dungeon Complex is way different than I pictured it, Luka!” Chloe said as they danced. “Each big enemy we’ve defeated so far has given us a key! And—d”

The tip of Chloe’s boot made contact with something inside the golem’s hollow head. She tripped and fell, shocked at the sensation.

“Are you okay?” Luka asked.

Chloe nodded, and stuck her hand into the golem’s head. She withdrew another chest, this one smaller. She opened it.

A mana capsule. Glowing brown, with a V-shaped rune inside. When turned around, it was not unlike the peak of a mountain.

“That’s another one!” said Luka. “That’s the archetypal energy of earth!”

Something dawned on Chloe, just then. She handed it to Luka, who stashed it away safely, and made her way back toward the corridor they’d come. Peering into it, she could see that the iron bars that had closed off the stairwell were gone, having maybe lifted back into the ceiling during their fight.

“Wait here,” said Chloe. “I’ll be right back!”

“W-where are you going?” Luka asked.

“Back to the chamber we met in! I think we missed something.”

Luka looked none too happy about Chloe leaving her, but she nodded.

…

Together, the two of them looked down at the three mana capsules they’d collected. A brown one, containing a spell relating somehow to the archetypal element of earth; a yellowish one, containing a spell of Avian traits; and now one glowing a faded lavender, somewhat fog-like with a tiny wisp shaped rune inside, which Luka had said contained the power of the undead.

“And this was inside that specter’s skull?” Luka asked.

Chloe nodded. “These things are everywhere. I wonder how many I missed in the rooms I completed before we met.”

“Me too,” said Luka. “I passed through three of my own before getting stuck in the specter’s treasure room… should we go back?”

Chloe was unsure of how long that would take, or if the rooms had perhaps been discovered by others at this point. She’d met many adventurers on her way into the Dungeon Complex, but given that even the entrance had dozens of distinct tunnels and Chloe was just following her nose, she couldn’t say where any of the other chambers had led.

“Nah,” she finally said. “Let’s just keep moving forward.”

Luka nodded, and looked back at the mana capsules. All of them were slightly larger than the largest they’d so far found, that being the fire one Chloe had unintentionally used.

“You’re telling me there are twenty four different elemental powers?”

“Not all of them are elemental,” said Luka, sounding as if it was all self-evident. “Didn’t you go to school? Or do they not teach you about magic in the Sunflower Empire?”

Chloe hadn’t ever gone to a place of education. She’d lived with her brother and her parents for her entire life, and had only seen magic in action when traveling mages crossed into her village on the way to somewhere else. They were often kind people, sometimes not—but never evil, at least. All she’d seen were fun tricks like conjuring small balls of fire or changing an animal’s color. The children, all Retriever born dog-kin like her, would gather and gawk, impressed but not understanding any of how it was done.

So Chloe said as much. Luka looked dumbfounded. “I assumed knowing about magic was as normal as knowing the sky was blue!”

Chloe could only shrug. “So tell me about it! I want to understand what’s to come.”

Luka looked at her, and nodded. “Well, take a seat. I’ll explain everything I know.”

…

The captive man could hear footsteps getting further and further away from the locked door across the room. His stomach was in agony.

I won’t last here much longer.

Eyes shut in the darkness, he realized now was the time to leave. He hoped his capture had thrown the Artifact Collective off the trail of his closest companions. No, he was sure of it—they’d certainly gotten away while Rogara personally bullied and tortured him for fun, distracted by his own sadism. But enough was enough, and there was a job to do before the forces of evil could do it first.

Carefully, he squeezed his lower belly, sucking air in a very intentional, very precise way—

His ribs and chest nearly burst with the pain, but he managed to stick through it. His might, his willpower, what little he had after days of capture, funneled right into a single intent, and—

“BLEGH!”

A tiny dagger—both blade and handle no longer than an index finger—flew out of his mouth. In the tiny shred of time in which it was falling to the ground, he grasped it; not with his hands, nor even with his feet, for all his limbs were tied together around the other side of the pillar. No—he grasped it with his mind.

He pictured himself holding the dagger, standing before his actual extant body. Then he pictured himself creeping around the back, toward his tied hands, and sawing the rope into threads. The muscles in his arms, chest, throat, and even the brain inside his head strained with the force of conjuring this reality to fruition, but—

Suddenly he leaned away from the pillar, both arms free. He’d done it! Blood rushed back into them, having been cold and numb for hours. The dagger clanged to the floor, but he worried not. After a moment of getting his mind and body back to a state of normalcy, he reached down and began undoing the ropes at his feet.

Rogara’s ugly elven face swam into his thoughts. You’ll never find what you’re looking for, he said to himself. Because I have it right here.

He was suddenly free. He fell to the ground in a heap, temples throbbing. It took all he had to get to his hands and knees and crawl toward the dagger, pick it up, stuff it in the pocket of his trousers.

Come on, he thought. Come on…

Just one more thing to cough up. He could feel it, coming back up from his abdomen, into his throat—

“BLEAAAGH!”

An entire roll of parchment, kept safe in a leather bag, came hurtling out of his mouth. Now that it was out in the world again, it hummed with magic power. He grabbed it, stashed it away with the dagger, and hid in the shadows where he thought of a plan to finally escape for good…

…

~CHLOE AND LUKA’S INVENTORY~

MANA CAPSULES ACQUIRED: x3

(AVIAN – [spell unknown] capsule x1)

(EARTH – [spell unknown] capsule x1)

(UNDEAD – [spell unknown] capsule x1)

MANA CAPSULES USED: x3

(FIRE – “Flame Cyclone” capsule)

(WATER – “Summon Wave” capsule)

(GROWTH – “Grow Field” capsule)

TREASURES ACQUIRED: x3

(assorted gold coins from the wraith chamber)

(Wraith Key – minor)

(Golem Key – major)