051 Dungeon Diver

The Skeelien Labyrinth consisted of a flattened disk, formed out of sand, with a depressed entrance connected to a short flight of stairs.

The black spire—its most imposing feature—protruded from the center of the disk. The spire narrowed to a needlepoint that never stopped being distressing to look at. Space warped around the sharpened point in strange ways, visible even in the poor light of night.

A large crowd occupied the rooftops, balconies, and stone steps that framed most of the houses in the piazza. It created an image akin to an amphitheater. Bright-eyed spectators cheered with loud voices, looking downright feral in the light of core-powered lamps. Loud drums thudded across the clearing, accompanied by the less noisy blares of trumpets and flutes.

A few children added their voices to the crowd, some of them mounted on the shoulders of their guardians. Half the city had turned up for the spectacle, without reservations on age, hour, or danger. Bargherian flags, complete with the insignia of the hound and the tree, fluttered on long poles across the piazza.

Nicola nudged me and gestured from our spot in a tent reserved for participants. One building stood taller than the others, adorned with wreaths, bright tapestries, and intricate magic sigils. A small, colorful party watched the proceedings from their spot on the highest balcony. The stone steps beneath them stood filled with guards.

“Bargherian royalty,” Nicola said with a sneer. “The crown prince shows little interest in the gathering of peasants. But, the queen regent and the governor are both in attendance.”

I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “I’m not sure I needed the extra pressure, Nicola.”

“You need that and more,” Paz said before Nicola could answer. He had changed into his new armor and stood with the long axe slung across his shoulder. “Burn the image of them into your sight. Those are the insects we must crush underfoot to change the world.”

Before I could broach his worrying comment, bright flames erupted in the clearing.

Ezin strode out of a tent on the other side of the disk and stopped with staff in hand at the entrance of the Labyrinth. His raven hair looked wilder than ever, and he hadn’t bothered to change into an outfit befitting his status. His long robes fluttered in the breeze behind him, split open across the middle to reveal chiseled abs and chest.

What was a Mage even doing with muscles like those? I’d been fighting since my arrival in Vizhima and hadn’t gotten the slightest hint of muscle definition.

Ezin raised a hand to quieten the crowd, and the cheers died soon after—an eerie scene to watch. A restless energy replaced the once unbearable din of the arena, but Ezin directed it masterfully, heightening the crowd’s expectations with slow, languid motions.

He lifted a device to his mouth, some kind of magical loudspeaker, and spoke into the silence of the arena.

“Your Grace,” he said, bowing toward the royal party. “Your Lordship. If you would both permit me?”

The queen regent waved a blue handkerchief. I couldn’t get a good look at her from my spot in the tent, but she cut the picture of a delicate lady dressed in voluminous yet majestic attire.

The governor clapped from his spot beside her—a balding man, judging by the way his head glowed from across the balcony. He was the one who oversaw the running of the city. Yet, next to the queen, he looked like a farmhand.

Ezin rose from his bow. “To the good people of Skeelie, I offer my greetings. And, to our esteemed guests from far and near, I say welcome and well met! The sun has turned three cycles since the last event, and we gather here again in celebration of life and adventure. You may cheer—”

The crowd erupted.

Ezin let them have their bit, and then he raised a hand, calling for silence.

“You have had the entire week to enjoy the festivities, but the finale is now upon us. As is tradition, each Dungeon Festival ends with a Labyrinth incursion where the boldest and bravest may participate to recover the dungeon egg. This challenge lasts but three hours in our world and a week for all who enter.”

He nodded at the tents containing the challengers. “Once the three hours are up, the Labyrinth opens one final time. Your goal as a participant is to recover the dungeon heart also called the Egg of the Labyrinth. Failing that, you must locate one of a handful of exits within one hour of the portal’s reopening.

“This hour isn’t subject to time dilation. The dungeon informs you the instant it occurs. Anyone who fails to escape before the deadline shall get buried in the dungeon, never to be seen again.”

A shiver crawled up my spine at Ezin’s words. The city might have made a jamboree out of the entire affair, but the threat of danger to dungeon divers was very real.

Nicola’s clammy hand closed around my own. I turned to offer her a smile only to realize she hadn’t held me in a bid to offer comfort. She was shivering.

“Give the threat of death,” Ezin said, “the seriousness it deserves. No one has managed to locate the dungeon egg in the nine years since the Labyrinth’s reemergence. And, half the classers who enter fail to return. We hope, this time, that our participants will be victorious—”

The crowd interrupted him, louder and more feverish than ever before. The tall spire had lighted up as Ezin spoke, going from matte black to a pale, translucent blue. Ezin didn’t bother to stifle the crowd and barked something instead to an aide about misjudging the portal’s opening.

The crowd kept cheering. But, there within the tents, a silence descended over the rankers.

I tightened my grip around Nicola’s hand and swiped past the [Scaredy-cat] notification.

Why was everyone treating this like a freaking spectacle? Ezin had just mentioned that the lives of real people were at stake. Didn’t the spectators care about the carnage?

“I’m guessing it’s too late,” I murmured, “to back out of contesting.”

Paz slapped my shoulder and offered hearty laughter. “You’re the one who put our name on the Oath Board, not me.”

“I’ve made my peace with this,” Nicola said, more to herself than us. “I’m just sorry that I couldn’t tell my brothers.”

“Silence, please,” Ezin said, managing to wrangle control of the proceedings from the crowd. “The Labyrinth is now open for entry. A total of one hundred and sixty adventurers, split into forty-one parties, had communicated their intent to compete.

“Of that number, only one hundred and forty-four adventurers have arrived at this venue. These thirty-seven parties will be invited up to the Labyrinth in the order by which they registered. Without further ado . . .” He waved toward our group. “Glamring!”

Mathideus emerged from a tent beside ours. His long, blonde hair fanned out behind him, sporting a brilliant sheen. Gems studded his full plate armor, glittering in the lamplight.

The three men who made up his party sported hair and armor that glowed as immaculate as his. One of them wore his brown hair even longer than Mathideus, while another bore a full head of slightly spiked curls. The third was the goofball I remembered with the purple perm. Where had they found the time to revisit their stylists amid the chaos?

The spectators exploded with fervor at the mere mention of the group, proving Glamring’s popularity despite their wardrobe.

I liked Mathideus. I would cheer if I could, but something Ezin had said lingered in my mind.

Of the 41 initial parties, only 37 remained. Three of those had likely been killed in fights with other rankers, but one of those parties had been obliterated by us.

Four parties. Sixteen adventurers dead. And, somehow, we were responsible for a quarter of those.

Glamring walked up to the stairs that descended into the dungeon. Two guild officials appeared from the sidelines and requested their badges. They performed the same action I had witnessed between Ben and the town guards. A series of large infoboxes unraveled above the rankers, revealing their levels.

Level 25 for Mathideus. Level 21 for the man with the perm. And, levels 23 and 24 for spiky hair and long-long.

“Why do the guild officials need to inspect their levels?” I asked my teammates. “Doesn’t the Labyrinth bar entry to anyone beyond twenty-five?”

“It’s for the gamblers,” Paz said. “The stronger the party, the lower the odds. The Merchant Guild has bookkeepers all over the place.”

My stomach tossed. “Ezin permits this?”

“Hey, believe it or not, all the guilds care about turning a profit. The merchants ensure that the Adventurers get a cut, and the city levies extra taxes on the activity.” He scratched his chin. “Of course, levels alone aren’t enough to make informed guesses on the outcome of a dungeon run. An underground market exists for the sole purpose of selling information on rankers . . . without the guild’s endorsement, of course.”

So, that’s what Liliana had meant by calling me a dark horse.

If any of the Glamring crew were bothered by the activity, they didn’t give voice to it. They strode down the stairs and vanished from sight. The blue spire intensified briefly with their disappearance, then returned to its new pale hue.

“Pay attention to the way the portal works,” Paz said. “It looks like a single entrance, but no two parties begin the dungeon run at the same place. The starting area is huge enough that the Labyrinth can scatter parties in it at random.”

Nicola narrowed her eyes. “How is it that you are well-versed in dungeon lore?”

Paz stared wistfully at the spire. “I almost wish I wasn’t.”

A group of three, dark-skinned men—one of which I vaguely recognized from my first night at The Naked Bard—walked up to Ezin. I’d missed their party name, but all three seemed related, judging by the lines of chalk marking their arms and the way they wore their hair in tight, black locs.

The infoboxes revealed their levels as 19, 18, 19. Pretty even, but nowhere near Glamring in power.

The breath misted out of my nose. A familiar chill settled in my bones, causing a shiver to seize my lungs.

I spun with wide eyes, in time to see Byron striding into our tent. The surrounding rankers shied away from his presence, leaving him to walk unopposed up to me. Beelith and the two casters sneered from behind him, decked in better gear than the last time we’d met.

“I had hoped,” Byron said, stopping in front of my face, “that you would be bold enough to follow through on your boast. But, I never expected you to do so. The hubris of the elves knows no limits. Befitting for fey spawn like you.”

“Oh, for the love of . . .” Paz said, interspersing himself between me and Byron. “What kind of quick shot are you that you couldn’t wait to blow your load in the dungeon?”

Byron’s expression didn’t change. “Move.”

“Or what?” Paz asked, bringing his impressive height to bear against the shorter Byron. He got in the man’s face, wearing a grin.

“Paz,” Nicola warned. “Fights aren’t allowed in the tents.”

“I’m not going to fight him, Nicola,” Paz said. “I’ll only perform cosmetic surgery.”

Nicola sighed, but her eyes betrayed her intent. They settled on Byron with enough malice to show that she was just as eager to start slinging spells.

I placed a hand on each of their shoulders before the situation could devolve. “Ignore him. He’s just trying to bait us.”

Byron smirked. “Some common sense finally peeks through all that bravado.”

“We promised to finish this in the dungeon, Byron, and we will.”

“The same way you finished Team Amaranth, huh?”

The hairs rose on the back of my neck.

“A Dark Elf wandered into the guild today,” Byron said to the hearing of everyone in the tent, “with an item he claimed to have found in the wild. It was a bloodied locket, taken off the corpse of a member of Team Amaranth—for delivery to his widow and estate.”

My teammates stiffened, but they refrained from glancing at me. Their perplexity was visible in their stances, regardless. They knew that I had divested the Guardian of what was likely his most prized possession, but they hadn’t been informed about its submission to the guild.

“You killed them, didn’t you?” Byron continued with the words I’d expected him to say. “You thought to eliminate the competition before the festival even began. How did it feel to pull a knife on unsuspecting comrades? Just another day in the life of a Dark Elf, huh?”

“We didn’t kill them,” Paz interjected with bored ease. “Dreadwood harbors enough threats without counting other rankers. You’re telling me you’ve never happened on a corpse in the wild?” He shrugged his shoulder and tightened his grip on his poleaxe. “What did you want us to do? Pretend like we didn’t see them?”

“What a stupid point to make,” Nicola said, leaping to my defense. She realized as Paz did, the danger of admitting to the accusation. “You can’t honestly be trying to make us look bad for an act of mercy.”

A lump rose in my throat. My teammates had done the smart thing to lie in my defense, but they wouldn’t have needed to if I had just ignored the dead man crying on the ground.

Byron, for his part, kept his gaze solely on me. “I wanted to believe that. But, Team Amaranth is one of the most beloved parties here in Skeelie. It would take an outsider who knows nothing about our ways to do them in.” His face parted in a leer. “And, which outsider is more vicious than the one who attacked me in the middle of the guild? The same one for found the corpse.”

“Byron,” Nicola snarled.

But, he had said his piece. The tent fell silent at his words.

Byron hadn’t come here to shit talk. He had come to paint a target on our backs. And, judging from the suspicious gazes of other rankers, he had succeeded.

Suddenly, the entire ordeal made a truckload of sense. How much of our fight with Team Amaranth was down to coincidence? Byron had certainly been listening for news if he knew about the locket. Was it possible that he had sent parties after us in the first place?

“Your words make no sense,” I stammered.

But, the damage had been done. Forget about the fact that the murder of Team Amaranth was warranted. Every potential ally in the tents now had good reason to be wary of us.

If word got around that we were party killers, encounters with other rankers could turn outright hostile. We would be isolated from friendship and aid . . . until we ran into Red Wyrm, making us easier pickings than we already were.

And, all of it was my fault.

Red Wyrm took their leave, walking back the they came. Beelith threw a final look over her shoulder, lips straining with the urge to cackle.

Paz steered me away. “Come.”

“Not now, Paz.”

“We have been summoned.”

True enough, Ezin called into his loudspeaker. “Damien’s Protection Party? Damien?”

Hey! It seems you are afraid.

+1 has been added to all stats.

“I’m so sorry, guys,” I mumbled to my teammates. “I didn’t think this would happen. I just thought it was right. I assumed their family would want to know that they hadn’t gone missing.”

“You’re too kind for your good,” Nicola said with a sigh. “But, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Just be sure to inform us the next time you intend to try something like this, to avoid our being blindsided.”

Paz laughed as he pushed us out of the tent. “What's there to worry about? The other parties were always the competition. Now, they can drop all pretense and give us reasons to kill them.”

“You can’t be serious,” I said.

“Oh, Byron’s going to regret this one,” Paz said, waving to the tumultuous crowd. “We’d level up on the corpses of all takers. And then, when we finally meet, we’d bash his ugly face in.”