[Edited] Chapter 35 - The Light at the End of the Rope

Lots of clarification in this chapter, particularly at the end with the puzzle reveal.

Meanwhile, in my life, had the final run of 'The Christmas Story' this weekend up at the community theater. But it got cut short on Saturday right during intermission. Believe it or not, the theater caught fire! Had to evacuate and everything. Nobody was hurt. Still, exciting stuff!

We think it was faulty wiring. It was a really old building, and the place has never had much of a budget. Lots of half-baked 'electricians' floating around this town with more willingness than ability. So we didn't get to do our Sunday performance, sadly.

============

Though preoccupied, I followed Lynnria to the end of the corridor.

And it was the end. Finally.

The walls we had been trudging beside—wending along like the veins in some giant’s body—had abruptly been severed. In front of us was a new wall with what appeared to be a heavy, sliding door set on rails. There was a simple latch handle on one end, and the whole of it looked like it was designed to pull into the left-hand wall.

I should have been more excited. Just getting here had been quite the accomplishment. Both of us had been heavily bruised and battered before even entering the seemingly endless tunnel, and having walked through it in such a condition was a testament to our endurance and will. But at that moment, such a minor victory could not have been further from my mind.

Jax was out there. I had felt her. Could still feel her, though my awareness of our connection was dimming somewhat now, like putting on a comfortable sweater on a cold day. Even so, I could tell she must have been quite distant. I could not say what sort of condition she was in nor anything else of substance.

But she was alive.

The only thing was… I should have already known that. Her respawn timer had to have run out long before, but for some reason, I had not felt that special something connecting us until just now. I mean, I knew the Demon Queen had her locked up… somewhere… somehow. And She must have employed some kind of magical chicanery to interrupt Jax’s normal respawn location—that being right next to me. But I had not even noticed the absence of our connection. To be fair, I usually never thought about it. She was always with me, so I had not needed to. It was just this… thing that existed between us, binding us together.

But having died—however temporarily—my sense of her had severed in that same instant. So why was I only now noticing? I should have felt her from the moment she returned.

And for that matter, where was Arx? She had died well before Jax, and I still could not sense her at all.

“Mia, what’s going on?” I whispered, absently rubbing at the spot just below my sternum where the connection to Jax seemed to originate from.

She did not answer.

However, that was not too uncommon. She was often busy tinkering with whatever it was she did in my head. Or she could have been asleep. She had a bedroom now, after all. Or bathing again… but that assumed she had managed to find the bathroom. She could have even been over in Lynnria’s head. It was hard to say.

Although… wasn’t I just daydreaming about her? What had that been about? I could not quite remember anymore. Frustratingly. But surely daydreams don’t count as part of the… the dream fabric?

In any case, I would need to wait until she was paying attention. I could ask her then.

Refocusing my attention back to the task at hand, I jerked my head toward the door. “Have you checked it yet?”

“For traps, you mean?” Lynnria asked with a dismissive snort. “How am I supposed to do that? Shoot it with dirt?”

I shrugged. “I’ve heard worse ideas. I… don’t know much about finding or disarming traps, to be honest.”

She eyed me critically for a moment but refrained from comment. Not that she needed to. My current state of injury—a badly bruised shoulder, several cracked ribs, more than a few perforations along my lower body, potentially-shattered kneecaps, and of course, the recent sand-blasting my face had sustained—stood as a living testimony to that particular understatement.

Instead, she just sighed. “Same. Grandfather taught me a lot, but he’s no scout. Alright, back up. No telling what might happen.”

I nodded seriously before taking her advice. Most of the traps we had bumbled into had been relatively nonlethal and even avoidable if a person was expecting them… and uninjured enough to do something about it.

Even so, something about that door was making the hackles stand up in back of my neck. Maybe it was just because it was a new thing after so much monotony, but it was hard to say for sure. People tend to have an instinctual suspicion of new things.

Or normally, anyway. Which makes it odd that screenwriters do not account for it more often. Instead, they always have some dumb-ass go up and poke the weird egg-thing. And with their face right over it, no less. I always wished they would at least have the decency to include a side character frantically calling them out on it. Or beating them down with a metal pipe.

But… the plot most go on.

Lynnria took careful aim at the door handle before shouting, “Dirt!”

As before, a loosely packed clod of soil launched from the end of her magical dowel rod and slammed into the door with enough force to rattle the thing nearly off its hinges. However, any concern for the indelicacy of the act was dismissed the moment a fan-blade the size of a serving tray arced vertically through the air just past the door handle.

A duet of nervous swallowing accompanied the soft click of the blade re-slotting itself into the right-hand frame of the door.

“Mercy’s tush,” Lynnria swore softly.

I nodded in complete agreement. “I… think the traps may be getting worse.”

Either we were getting close to something important, or Xhinn was moving away from the ‘torturing us to death’ paradigm toward a more final solution. She could have even been upset we had been using Mia to cheat a little. The Faen did have a degree of insider knowledge, so you could argue that keeping her around was akin to having a hint button installed in my brain. Well, if that’s the case, then that’s just too bad! I’ve got her, and you’re damned straight I’m going to use her!

When she was paying attention, anyway.

“Donum…” Lynnria began, “does that healing spell of yours regenerate body parts? Hypothetically speaking.”

I looked down at her with a degree of shock. “You can’t be serious.”

“No, I mean…” She chuckled nervously. “Well, I was just thinking, what if we hadn’t checked, is all. That trap could have taken my sword arm!”

“Oh.” That’s a reasonable fear, I guess. “It’s a regeneration buff, so… maybe? The worst I’ve ever had to deal with is a few broken bones. But if it did work, it would take a lotof juice, and I don’t even have enough to heal a paper cut right now.”

“No, I know. I was just… just checking.” She clenched her fist, no doubt still imagining the consequences of the might-have-been. I was too, for that matter. Even if that strip of jerky we had stowed was poison free, I doubted it would have enough calories in it to account for something so major. “So, how do we get past this?”

“Maybe we could get a stick to pry it open or something?” I suggested, my eyes naturally drifting toward the only object that could have fit the bill.

“And where exactly do you propose we find—“ She gasped mid-sentence and quickly hid her wand behind her back. “No way! I just got it! There’s no way I’m sticking the Earthen bow into that meat slicer.”

I quirked an eyebrow. “Earthen bow?”

“Well… it needs a name, doesn’t it?” she replied defensively. “So I figured, it shoots earth kind of like a bow. And it sounds a lot better than ‘dirt stick.’”

“Why not just call it a wand? Wand of Earth sounds pretty snazzy.”

She frowned and crossed her arms. “Because I’m a warrior! I can’t very well be seen waving something called a wand around. That would be weird.”

I blinked twice. Moving on.

“I… did notice a slight delay after the trap goes off before it resets itself. We might be able to get the door open in that interval. If we’re quick.”

Lynnria paled at that. Understandably. And for a brief moment, she cast an eye back the way we had come. We both knew that was out, though. It had taken everything we had just to get this far, and even if we did manage to get back to the room with the gravity trap, we would still be in the same boat as when we had started.

She inhaled. “Valleys cut mountains?”

“Huh?”

“You know…” She jerked a thumb toward the door. “Loser has to chance the meat cleaver.”

With that, she assumed a stance I knew all too well, with one foot facing forward and a fist expectantly outstretched.

Huh… I guess some things are just universal.

Matching her stance, I asked, “Do we go on three or shoot?”

*****

“Stop complaining,” Lynnria said scornfully. “Besides, we both know I need my hands more than you do.”

There was some truth to that. Not that logic was ever very persuasive when grievous bodily harm was on the line.

All I could do was sigh—I had been defeated by my own strategy. Most people tend to throw rock more often than not, so the wise thing is to start off with paper. However, I had assumed Lynnria would know that, too.

“Who throws cut in the first round, anyway? Were you trying to lose?” she continued, oblivious.

I just rolled my eyes. “Let’s get this over with.”

She nodded then raised her ‘bow.’

However, far from mentally prepared, I needed to take a few moments to study my target. The doorknob was set with a downward-facing handle, no doubt intended to allow a person to both unlatch and slide the door open in the same motion. Simple enough.

What concerned me, however, was the added weight of the door. Just slapping the handle was not going to cut it. If I intended to get this thing open on the first try, I was going to need to jerk the thing pretty hard, and that would slow my retreat.

“Don’t over commit,” Lynnria advised, parallel to my own thinking. “We don’t know how much time you’ll have.”

I snorted. “You ain’t just whistlin’ Dixie.”

“Wh-what kind of expression is that?” she exclaimed, evidently shocked—which seemed a bit of an overreaction. I could only assume she was trying to stall. However, what I was about to do had taken up far too much head-space for me to bother explaining antiquated alien idioms.

“Never mind.” Fuck me… just when my head starts to feeling okay again, here I am, risking my hands getting sliced off. I cracked my knuckles to steady myself. “Ready.”

Lynnria made a dissatisfied little noise in her throat before extending the wand, her eyes on me. She took a shaky sort of breath, preparing to fire her weapon, then hesitated. Her tongue fluttered nervously between her lips.

I nodded, trying to project confidence. For both our sakes.

Her head bobbed almost imperceptibly in reply. There was no use drawing it out any further. Her eyes flicked to the door.

“Dirt!”

Like a softball shot from a cannon, mud slammed against the door once again. And again, the curved blade sliced through the air just in front of the handle. I lurched forward in practically the same instant, grabbed the handle with both hands, and gave it one solid tug before throwing myself back.

And not a millisecond too soon.

As the blade descended once more, I felt the wind of it brush against my fingers. For a moment, I just stood there, my chest heaving as unspent adrenaline thundered through my veins. Shakily, I brought my hands up, not yet convinced they were still intact… though they did feel a tad burned. And some of the hair was now missing.

“And the wizard pulls out the Dex save,” I whispered. “Chebs…”

Without warning, Lynnria thumped me high on my back and, as keyed up as I was, I almost jumped out of my boots.

“You did it!” she shouted, hopping in place jubilantly. And totally oblivious to the state of my nerves.

However, before I could comment, she flung her arms about my neck and kissed me soundly. And not a short one, either. Barely a moment had passed after our lips met than she seemed to forget her excitement and brazenly pressed me to the wall.

My natural hesitation toward the sudden intimacy melted almost immediately. Maybe it was all the stress. How worn down I was. My injuries. How much I missed my girls. I do not know. But I needed this. I needed to lose myself to the comfort of another’s arms… at least for a little while. It was not until her hands began to work their way up my tunic that I finally came back to myself.

“Lynnria, no,” I said breathlessly. “We can’t.”

“Yes, we can,” she argued in a daze, her teeth nipping at my chest. “I know you want me just as much—“

Abruptly, her head jerked to one side, and a shiver seemed to roll ever so slowly down the length of her body. While she was twitching, I saw a brief flash of fang through her parted lips. But it was over soon enough, and she sagged in relief.

“Hoo… sorry. I don’t know what—” She sucked in a shaky little breath and let it out in a subdued chuckle. Then, once she pushed away, she gave her stomach a considering sort of rub. “Sorry about that, Donum. I don’t mean to rush you. I think… maybe my bow is using Life Energy, after all? I’m starting to get pretty hungry.”

I stared at her. Both because I could not quite line up her words with the situation and because the last time something like this had happened, she had grown a tail. I could not see anything much different, though.

Although… maybe her ears are longer? Or no… they had flared outward. Not by much. Still, it was a noticeable change.

“Okay,” I said slowly. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“What? You never get horny when you’re hungry?” she asked, surprised.

I blinked at the question, not quite certain as to whether it was in character for the girl or not. Sometimes she was prim as a duchess, and others she gave me the impression of an off-duty soldier cooling off at the pub. It was like she was pinballing between competing sets of moral outlooks.

Then again, we had just been kissing one another breathless. So perhaps a bit of openness was warranted.

“Not… really,” I replied. Though admittedly, I was plenty of both at that particular moment.

“Hmm… must be a girl thing,” she reasoned.

“Could be,” I said, going along with it. “I know my… mates certainly do.”

Obviously, Lynnria would not have understood the potential significance of that statement… unless there was more to that hunger of hers than she was letting on. I was only giving her a gentle reminder not to get too frisky with me before she had obtained their approval.

“Well, there you go. Girl thing,” she said with a wink and a grin.

And no fangs. Again.

When I did not reply, she thumped my chest with a knuckle. “Oh, lighten up. I’m sure they’ll love me. Now, come on. Let’s get moving.”

I nodded silently as she turned away. They were certainly going to have a reaction. I knew that much. Whether it was a joyful one was still very much in doubt.

While she was poking her head out the door to scan for immediate threats, I allowed my eyes to trace the line of her. Other than the ears, I could not see much of anything else different. Though… there might have been a touch of an exaggerated tilt to the way she was holding her hips. Whether because of some change within the girl, or just because—as she had said—she was horny, I could not yet determine.

Hmm… how long has it been since the last luck discharge? It certainly felt like it had been a while, but it was not like I could check the time. Regardless, I definitely needed to start paying closer attention to it. Lynnria’s little episodes had thus far lined up pretty well with her state of arousal. But is it specifically that, or is there more to it?

Whatever the root cause, she was beginning to develop lilim-like—or more accurately, Dolilim-like—traits. However, so far they had remained superficial. She had neither claws nor horns. Her behavior had remained… more or less unchanged that I could see.

The hunger was a troubling sign, though. Especially given how ready she had been to pair the state with lust, ‘girl thing’ or not. But was that because she was developing emotional cravings?  That make-out session had been intense, but she had not seemed less hungry for having done it. Nor had there been any indications of nascent empathic abilities.

The only constant was that she kept threatening to develop fangs only for them to recede before taking root. It was like there was a lilim within her, struggling to get out. And each time it pushed, it left a little bit of itself behind.

What am I supposed to do?

I had already warned the girl what would happen to her if she joined up with me, but even I had not thought it would come about so quickly. And it was not helping things that she remained skeptical. Her mind was either being shielded from noticing, or it was simply changing as she went. And that was also very-much in-line with how lilim changed.

The only thing was, implying, however truthfully, that reality did not align with her perception of it was not going to help anything. Neither of us could do anything about it, so why upset her?

Besides… there was also the remote possibility that she was right. Maybe she had not been changing. What if it were only my own memories that were being altered? It would not have been the first time. Bline had even taken a spell out of my head that had been meant to guide my thoughts and actions—if I was understanding a geas correctly. So it was something to consider. And singularly disturbing, if true.

But I soon dismissed the idea. While I could not rule it out, that line of thinking was not overly helpful. It was like the old ‘brain in a jar’ thought experiment. There is no real way to distinguish a false reality from a real one when the only thing you have to base reality upon is the one presented to you.

All I could do was continue my efforts to mitigate the effects of the aura—now doubly important if I was right about the changes being tied to how randy she was getting.

Hmm… she’s really into training. That implied a certain dedication to routine. So maybe… right. I have an idea.

“Lynnria,” I called, stepping up next to her. “Have you been practicing with your charm?”

For a moment, my comment had the intended effect, and she slouched guiltily. But then realization set in, and she gasped, her eyes flashing with anger. “Oh, I see. The gall! How can you think I only kissed you because of your aura? You did a good thing, and I was happy for you. How many times need I remind you, sir? I am your betrothed! What’s wrong with a little kiss now and then? And don’t say you didn’t like it. We both know better than that.”

“Okay, okay…” I said, holding my hands up in immediate surrender. Geez! I didn’t expect her to push back that hard. “I admit, it was nice. It’s just—”

“Ha, ha! You said it was nice. Score one for Lynnria!” she sang triumphantly. Whatever upset she had been fronting had gone up in smoke with that one slight admission. She even started doing a silly little dance.

For a moment, I just stood there. What… what just happened?

However, once she started hip-checking me, I cleared my throat, trying to save what little face I had left. “Regardless, you should practice your luck charm during downtime, if for no other reason than the skill-ups. And especially before and after you sleep. Even if it’s for something simple, like a coin toss. I’ve seen what can happen when a person lets it go too long.”

She just chuckled. “Oh, you’re such a man. As if I don’t think about sex all the time, anyway. But fine. Point taken. And you’re right, I do need the practice if I expect to use the thing during a fight.”

I sagged a bit with relief, glad to have managed a stalemate in the ongoing battle for my chastity… though the losses had been heavy. Ugh… The lilim are going to freak. I just know it.

Silence hung in the air for a few moments. But then Lynnria cast a glance at me from the corner of her eye, “So what was I thinking?”

“Huh? Oh, that.” It would seem she was still hung up about the whole mind-reading business. “It doesn’t happen every time, you know.”

“Doesn’t it? You guessed right last time, even when you didn’t think you could. Come on, just try it. Please?” she begged.

“I don’t know… plums?” I hazarded, really just throwing the first word I could think of at the wall.

Her face fell somewhat. “What’s a plum?”

“Oh… do they not have those here? It’s just a fruit. They’re usually purple. Sweet and kind of sour. A bit squishy,” I explained shortly. Then I cupped my hand. “About this big?”

“You mean like your balls?” she asked, leaning into me. “Because that’s just exactly how I was thinking of holding them.”

I closed my eyes. Good grief. Was she really thinking about my—? I shook my head. Whether she had been or not, she was playing me like a fiddle.

“Lynnria…”

“But it’s so hot!” she protested. “Can’t we do it again?”

“Don’t you think we should get moving?” I reminded her, none-too-gently shoving her toward the open door.

She pouted but did not fight me. “Oh, you. Fine.”

The adjoining area seemed to be yet another hallway, though this one was all but pitch black. It appeared we had rejoined the main labyrinth. However, this time there was a clear blue light softly emanating from off to our left.

Lynnria took a couple of steps in that direction before glancing over her shoulder. “Well, well. Looks like we finally found something worthwhile. Do you suppose your mate is in there?”

“I sure hope so,” I replied evenly, trying very much not to get too excited by the thought. We were coming to the end of our rope, and if she were not in there… well, I did not particularly want Lynnria to see what that would do to me. “Let’s find out, shall we? But go easy. After that last trap… I don’t want to have come all this way only to see you incinerated in the last instant.”

She nodded seriously. “Sound advice. And now that we’re back here, best keep quiet. Don’t want to attract attention.”

The last thing we needed was another encounter with the barrel-golem. We still did not have much to fight it with, and to make even a faint-hearted attempt, I would have to deliberately poison myself with our recently-acquired ‘treasure.’

At least on that one point, I was beginning to feel somewhat confident. My gums were still a bit tingly, and it had been hours since I had attempted gnawing at the jerky. Either I was highly allergic to whatever spice had been used to prepare it with, or it was just straight up toxic.

Not that it mattered. One Status-Effect was very like another, so my solution would be the same either way. As would be the consequences.

Fortunately, we did not fall victim to any more traps… though we did trigger one in the final archway. Lynnria’s outstretched foot just grazed a floor panel, and yet another dart sang past, barely missing her leg by a finger’s breadth, before thudding into the rock to her left.

Then the stone around it began to melt.

We paused to stare, more than a little horrified.

“Make sure to remember that one on the way out,” I cautioned.

My memory was getting pretty good these days, but it was far from perfect. Plus, labyrinths tended toward monotony as a matter of their design. Remembering what is where is one of their primary hurdles.

Note to self: buy some chalk. That would be useful for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which was marking traps we had already stumbled into. One of these days, I’ll actually fall into a Dungeon with a decent pack of adventuring gear ready to go.

She nodded. “You aren’t just whistling dicks.”

“It’s Dixie,” I corrected automatically. But then what she had just said registered, and my brain shorted.

“Dicks-y? Are you certain?” she asked doubtfully into the stunned silence. “I must be missing something. Unless… maybe they’re supposed to be cute in human culture? I don’t know how I feel about that. You wouldn’t normally want to kiss and fondle something you found cute, would you? I mean… well, not like that. Still, it seems like an overly crude expression for someone of your sta—“

“W-w-whoa… stop!” I interrupted quickly.

With her earlier reaction now laid bare, it was a struggle not to laugh outright. But I could hardly let her go around with that kind of misunderstanding, so I explained the reference… necessarily leaving out quite a few relevant details.

“Oh…” She blushed faintly at her mistake, but then she favored me with a bit of a knowing smirk. “I think I like my version better. Eh? Eh?”

I tried to resist smiling back at her, but the expression on her face was so impishly playful, I simply could not help it. For which, I was grateful. It was nice that at least one of us could keep up some good cheer, and the moment of inappropriate levity was a welcome salve to my eroded spirit.

Shit… how is she doing this? I almost wanted to weep from the stress, and here she was on the verge of making me fall for her. But I quickly pushed the thought away. Must remember the lilim. Must remember…

Beyond the archway, there rested a wide, circular room. The stones of it were huge, almost megalithic in their stature, and fitted entirely without mortar. Even the ceiling. Somehow. And unlike the products of the ancient cultures of Earth, these stones were absolutely perfect in their manufacture. Each was set in concentric rows that spiraled and shrank inward toward the center of the room and what seemed to be the only thing holding it all up.

One single pillar.

To top off the implausible nature of the construct, the pillar seemed made of that oh-so-familiar blue crystal that kept cropping up everywhere in the Dungeon. Within it, there rested a very welcome sight indeed.

“Arx.”

The name came as a whisper—jerked from my throat unbidden. The sight of her caused my heart to clutch with longing as though from a revelation. Practically religious in its power. Like a severed and long missing piece of my very being had just been discovered and laid bare for the world to see.

Here was my mate. My lilim. Finally.

I was just glad the Demon Queen had not lied about her being here. Difficult as the journey had been, I would not have put it past her. Though, it would have been one hell of a kick in the teeth.

“Easy,” Lynnria reminded me with a hand on my shoulder.

The sound broke me from my trance, and I looked down. There was not much to see, just simple stone like the rest of the room. But with everything else we had encountered, it was too much to hope that this area would be entirely free of tricks, and I had been about to mindlessly wander forward.

I took a breath and centered myself. It would not do to rush the ending. “Right. Thank you.”

“Of course,” she said. I could tell that she was trying to remain reassuring, but she could not hide the disquiet in her expression. After a moment, her eyes flickered to my captive mate. “She seems… awfully pretty.”

I nodded absently. She was indeed. Heart-wrenchingly. Achingly.

Posed as a sleeping, unborn infant, she looked to be floating in a crystal clear and unperturbed lake. Her near-translucent white hair seemed free to drift as it would, yet not a whit of it moved. She was inert. Utterly frozen in time within a prison of blue.

A blue that spilled out into the room, serving as the only source of light we had yet seen in this dismal place.

Beyond that, there was only one other object of note. Just below and to one side of the column, there was a comparatively small installation that looked strangely similar to an engine block. Whatever it was, its gleaming surface contrasted sharply with the shadows of three notably hexagonal depressions set in a line along its face.

“Looks like that’s where we put the crystals,” I murmured, pointing. “Come on.”

The two of us advanced slowly, tapping and prodding at each stone as we went like blind beggars. The closer we got—the more I pressed at what turned out to be totally mundane and harmless bricks—the more anxious I got. There were no warning signs. No charred bones. No bodies. The bricks were pristine. Nothing about the room hinted at any sort of traps at all… and that only served to heighten my paranoia.

There was no way this was going to be so easy.

Yet we arrived at the central column having found nothing… leaving me with only one conclusion. “There’s got to be something going on with the pillar, then. Maybe a puzzle or a riddle? Something where a wrong answer has disastrous consequences?”

“I don’t see anything,” Lynnria reported from the other side of the column. “No clues. Not even on the mount for the crystals.”

“Damn…”

Frustrated, I placed a cautious hand on the central pillar and stared up at Arx. She did not react at all. Nor could I feel her. And the longer I stood beneath her, the more disturbed I began to feel at that absence. She was right there! I should be able to feel her! I had never once looked at her face and not simultaneously felt at least some connection with her through my Core, even when our experience sharing was off. It was wrong!

“What am I supposed to do?”

Surprisingly, a voice answered, emanating from the crystal. But not from Arx. Still, it was one I recognized. Familiar… and powerful. Yet the presence I usually associated with it was absent. It was like hearing the merest echo of Her.

The Demon Queen.

“Three by three by three.

Through darkness you have traveled, dangers obscene,

The second you have found, seven foreseen.

One of yellow. One of blue. One of green.

Three by three by three.”

Several times now, we had stumbled on these clues, all with similar, recurring themes. Colors. Yellow, blue, green. Numbers. Six, seven, eight. And threes. Always the threes. Though this was the first delivered in Her own voice. She had sounded triumphant. As if pleased. Even overjoyed that we had made it so far.

But the feeling settling in the pit of my stomach was the complete opposite.

“D-donum…” The catch in Lynnria’s throat was all I needed to hear. She knew. Just like I did. But she said the rest anyway. “We only have blue crystals.”

I closed my eyes. At that moment, I did not even want to breathe for fear of letting loose a wretched sob of frustration.

We came so damned far!

Slowly, I brought my hand up to my chest and curled my fingers over the card I had kept pressed against my skin. The one we had found all the way back in the main hall. The one that explained all of this. I had read it many times since then, yet only now did the words written upon it make sense to me.

‘Three by three by three.’

Three sets of three crystals for three ends.

So… fucking close!

‘In yellow. In blue. In green.’

Each set, its own color.

Damn it! Damn it all! Damn me!

‘Six for one. Seven for two. Eight for me.’

That was the key line! Until that moment, its meaning had eluded me, but the answer had been with us all along. She had even written it on that bloody clock!

Blues in three! And as hanging weight, no less! One of six, one of seven, and one… that weighs eight.

Each of the blue crystals we had found in that clock had been similar yet unique. Not just the fact that they were being used as weights. Whether in pounds, shekels, or whatever they used around here, it did not matter. They weighed different amounts!

And only here and now did I realize which of the three we needed. One I was supposed to have figured out by now. There were three ends. Three goals.

Six for one. The lightest weight for my First.

Seven for two. Seven foreseen. The middle weight for my second lilim!

And eight for me. The heaviest for the final door presumably leading to the Solarium and the Demon Queen herself.

But we were still missing the yellow and the green crystals. There would be three of each, I now knew. Each corresponding to the weights indicated by the puzzle, but we had never found them. Did not, in fact, realize we were supposed to have been looking for them until this very moment.

I wanted to scream. To punch something. To curl up and die.

I knew this experience so well. I had been here too many times to count. It was that feeling of spending hours… or perhaps days on a particularly involved RPG only to discover that you had missed some key element at the very beginning of the level. And now you were doomed. The best weapon, the best ending, whatever… it was now gone. Locked away by your own ignorance. There was no path back. You had saved over any hope of that.

Only now, I was experiencing it in real life. When it really mattered. There were no save points. Lynnria might have been able to make it back on her own, if she was exceptionally lucky. But me?

I was absolutely and totally fucked. My legs could barely hold my weight anymore. I might as well have been a wounded and dying animal run to ground.

The Dungeon had slowly and surely been bleeding me dry. Out of stamina. Out of Life. I could not regenerate it, and the only source I might have had was locked behind lustful insanity from which there could be no escape. Not without her.

Not without my Arx. My Arx! She was mine!

How dare the Demon Queen keep her from me?! Locked away like some damned princess in a castle. What a ridiculous insult! If anything she’s my hero. My rock. My confidant. Mine!

And in that instant… that precipice of despair…

Arx’s eyes snapped open.