Chapter 3

The sounds of battle quickly disappeared into the darkness.

“I do hope Oliver’s ok…” For a split second, the king slowed his pace and looked back. “No, it’s Oliver. If there was a knight I trusted more to hold his own, it’s him.”

It was true. King Barstol hadn’t chosen Oliver to accompany him for no real reason. Sure, he wasn’t the strongest knight the kingdom had to offer, or the smartest, or the quickest even. He was, however, the shiftiest.

If there was a problem to be had, King Barstol trusted Oliver more than anyone else to weasel his way out of it.

The stairs felt like they’d go on forever. King Barstol passed floor after floor on his way down, the only light coming from a torch he’d sparked with electricity a few minutes prior.

The flickering torchlight didn’t feel very reassuring.

Every once in a while, King Barstol would pass by another floor, pitch dark and dreary just like the rest. The specific vibe varied. Some floors felt damp and reeked of mold, others gave a thick, bloody smell.

There were a few even that, on the surface, didn't have anything abnormal to them. Those were the ones that scared King Barstol the most.

Eventually he came to a floor, probably twenty or thirty floors under where Oliver and the king had started. On the surface there wasn’t much to it. The door leading west was pried wide open, voluntarily judging by its pristine condition, and there wasn’t any particular smell that came from inside.

But there was the faintest light that came from within the door, and that caught King Barstol’s attention very quickly.

With a single deep breath, the king unsheathed his sword, and slowly walked inside.

The beginning of the floor wasn’t anything especially unusual. Barren prison cells, most unlocked, lined both sides of the wall without an actual prisoner to be found.

Luckily, it seemed most the people locked inside had been able to at least escape this floor before the castle sank. Whether they were alive or mixed with the piles of bones upstairs, King Barstol did not know.

But that light he’d noticed slowly grew brighter with every step.

The light was a faint green, with a bit of flickering every second or so. It wasn’t a harsh light, but calling it soft would’ve also not done it justice. It was light, plain and simple.

“This must be it.” King Barstol couldn’t explain where his confidence came from, but the feeling in his chest had only grown by the second. “Marcus, I’ll get your treasure out, no matter what happens.”

The glow just brightened with every room King Barstol passed through, and at the same time so did his pace.

He started off with the simple slow, methodical walk he had kept throughout the descent down here. Two rooms in he picked up the pace. Five rooms in his legs started to jog.

It only took ten rooms for the king to start a full-on sprint.

Staying safe didn’t matter, nor did caution, conserving stamina, playing things smartly.

Something about that light drew King Barsol in. It didn’t matter what he would have to sacrifice, he needed the light.

And he needed it now.

“Finally…” After the two hundred and seventy-sixth room, King Barstol finally skittered to a halt. His breath was rapid and clothes soaked to the brim with sweat. Neither of those things the king noticed.

Instead, his eyes were fixed on the glowing green orb in front of him. “Marcus’s treasure… I’ve found it.”

He slowly walked forward toward the statue one step at a time. He couldn’t take his eyes off the orb, couldn’t even blink. “What did you—”

“It’ll wake up soon, you know.”

“Wha—!” King Bristol leaped back, mind now firmly back to reality. “Who goes there?”

“Just me, Your Majesty." Oliver walked in. “I see you found his treasure.”

“Oliver…” The king frowned. There was something different to Oliver. His torn clothes were now in better shape than when they’d arrived, and he didn’t show a single sign of the exhaustion he’d shown not even an hour before. “What happened to our pursuers?"

“Dead, of course." Oliver plucked out a coin from his pocket, spinning it midair. “The monster too. Though, the castle would’ve taken care of that on its own.”

“You’re not Oliver.” King Barstol pointed his sword at the man. “Who are you, beast?”
“Beast? Well that’s not very nice.” Oliver rolled his eyes. “I wondered how long it’d take you to figure out. Throughout the years, I’ve figured out that acting can only delay the inevitable.”

“What did you do to him?” King Barstol stepped forward with his sword.

“Chill, chill. Oliver’s fine. I’m… you could call me a curse left by Marcus.”

“A curse?”

“Yes, the curse of this damn castle.” ‘Oliver’ snapped his fingers. The room spun like a merry-go-round, and suddenly, they were fifty feet up in the sky.

Below, the familiar grounds of Marcus’s territory stretched in every direction. King Bristol recognized every tree, the familiar dirt roads, and the big mound of rubble that had one held a great, gleaming castle on top of them.

“I’m assuming you recognize this?”

“Yes, of course, but… Why show me this?”

“Consider it a consolation prize. I can’t give you Marcus’s treasure.”

“W-Why? The man himself asked me to come.”

“He was bound in his chains, just as I’m bound in mine.” ‘Oliver’ shrugged. “His treasure’s a bit too injured as it is. Moving it would only kill them.”

“Kill… them?”

“That’s right. You see now why I can’t let you simply have the treasure. But… You did come all this way. I have another treasure to give you.”

“Another one?” King Barstol looked at the man with suspicion. “What kind of treasure?”

“A story. One that I have a feeling will be told for generations. The true story of what happened in these halls.”

* * *

“I’m so sorry, Your Majesty!" The real Oliver bowed for the fiftieth time as they reached the top floor again. “I can’t believe you beat all three of them simultaneously, and found time to hide my unconscious body.”

“All in a day's work.” King Barstol said. It wasn’t the best excuse the king had created, but as he found the collapsed Oliver back upstairs, it was the first thing to come to mind. “I think we're both glad to see the surface.”

“But are you fine leaving without the treasure?”

“I told you, Oliver, we already got the treasure we needed.” He held up a simple scroll filled with pen marks. “You’ll see what I mean soon.”

“Are you sure? Surely, King Marcus wouldn’t have sent us down here for a simple scroll! He could have just mailed that in the first place!”

“It wasn’t the treasure he meant for us to take out, you’re right about that, but it's the best one we could take.” They reached the entrance after what felt like years. Quietly, the king had never been so happy to see a wooden door in his life. “Now come on, Oliver. We have a story to tell.”