I retraced my path up the spiral stairs, pulling myself to the upper level. My new robe weighed me down like Jovian gravity—a dripping 50-pound vinegar wetsuit that smelled worse than it looked.

  I wobbled past the room of deep shelves. They lay no longer in ruin—even the two kegs looked unbroken. Everything looked rotted and fragile—but intact. Where was the destruction I’d seen when I first entered? Furthermore, the boar carcass wasn’t here.

  I grunted in befuddlement. Maybe fighting an undead pig wasn’t in my future. Perhaps a previous visitor smashed the decoration.

  Continuing past the winepress, I relaxed more when I saw the soft, colored lighting from the lounge ahead. A giant stuffed boar standing on a trophy platform shrieked and charged.

  Knowing how the dungeon worked, I should have been ready, but the creature still startled me. I turned and fled past the winepress, careful not to slip on the trail of dripping vinegar.

  The boar moved faster than I expected any undead could move. Fleeing toward the room of deep shelving, I blind-cast a Compression Sphere as cloven hooves scraped against the floor tiles around the corner.

  I timed it well. Big Barry sped into the room as the spell finished. Dust, flying splinters, and chunks of rotten lumber shattered the stillness. The cloud of pressurized air tossed the boar across the room, but it bounced against the wall like a balloon, carrying no inertia and suffering no harm. A stuffed animal weighed less than blood and tissue, and the creature soon regained its footing.

  The room took the brunt of the damage, and I coughed and backed away to escape the dust. Compression Sphere wasn’t suitable for small spaces.

  The tusker charged without skipping a beat, but I caught it on my spear. The impaled, mummified beast writhed on my weapon, which I held onto for dear life. When the boar freed itself, I used the piercing weapon to keep it at a distance.

  Letting my training take over, I kept the thing at bay. I tactically backed away while fighting, losing only 48 health before killing it. Felling the tusker rewarded 30 experience points, bringing me within 13 experience points of level 7.

  I pawed through the grisly pi?ata’s stuffing for goodies but found only a cracked gray core in its center. Grumbling, I tossed it aside.

  I performed a Rest and Mend, though the action seemed unnecessary. From my recollection, Big Barry served as the dungeon’s last monster. It wasn’t much of a boss, but it left me in quite a disheveled state. The dust from the room clung to my vinegar-soaked robe. The irony that I bathed before visiting Our Lady of Balance hadn’t escaped me. Compression Sphere had obliterated the shelving. The leftover debris gave me another déjà vu feeling, and I recognized the disarray as the state I’d first entered the room.

  Backtracking through the dungeon toward the entrance, I passed the winepress room and into the lounge where Big Barry’s platform stood empty. Everything in the dining room looked as I first found it, aside from two discrepancies. Six, not four, chairs occupied the table. The second irregularity involved a skeleton dressed in rags, sitting at the table’s head.

  I didn’t move.

  It didn’t move.

  We remained that way for quite a while. I saw no nameplate over it, so I reasoned I could avoid fighting it if I disturbed nothing.

  Should I be worried about fighting a skeleton? Skeletons counted for the weakest undead, and I only needed a few experience points to reach level 7. Layers of rotting cloths and meat still encased the corpse, so perhaps it would animate into a zombie, ghoul, or higher-level undead.

  The strange thing revolved around its appearance. I’d not seen it before on my way in, and a skeletal host was something I would have remembered. Even though Detect Magic didn’t reveal undead in other fantasy games, I cast the spell—the corpse appeared magically inert. Nothing in the room glowed.

  Without disturbing the corpse or showing it disrespect, I inched closer, taking care not to touch or step on anything. Nothing about it caught my attention, and its ragged robes stood apart from my own. I breathed a sigh of relief to know that Future Apache wasn’t sitting before me. After ascertaining that this wasn’t my body, I backed away.

  Even though I almost reached level 7, I had enough excitement for one morning. I could sleep at night without solving this mystery and ignore the contradictions in this crazy dungeon’s timeline.

  I tiptoed past the dining table—with every step, my eyes fixed on the rictus grin of my enigmatic friend. It made no motion to stop me.

  The large hallway's trap area lay free of stone pellets, bones, and chairs. The doorway to the dark room beyond the trap was closed, but it stood ajar when I first entered the dungeon.

  This dungeon worked backward. Focusing on the changes would reveal how Future Apache uncovered its secrets. Theoretically, if the open door now stood closed, theory dictated that I’d figured out how to bypass the trap and open the door.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  What if I opened the door, and a skeleton popped out? No—that didn’t make any sense. The skeleton sat in the dining room. I rubbed my hands through my hair, trying to figure out this crazy puzzle.

  Did I want to press my luck?

  I counted three options. I could climb over this trap to investigate this last door, tempt fate and harass the skeleton, or call it a day and leave the dungeon. I could live with myself for leaving corpses alone, but what self-respecting dungeoneer could pass up a mysterious door? Curiosity got the better of me, so I resolved to investigate.

  Returning to the room with the table, I moved carefully to avoid disturbing my bony companion and dragged two of the dining chairs midway into the outer passage.

  I’d seen two chairs in the hallway before, so there must have been a reason for bringing them here. The trap battered them, so perhaps I used them to trigger the trap to see how it worked. But I already knew how it worked. The holes, pressure plates, and pellets testified to its design.

  There must have been a different reason for bringing two chairs out here. I suppose I could have triggered the trap by tossing them onto the discolored tiles. If it took time to reset, a person might run across safely, but it seemed a reckless solution.

  But I wasn’t reckless, which meant Future Apache wasn’t. No, these chairs served another function.

  I crouched and studied the tiles, using the dim light from my glow stone.

  I liked these glow stones, but they made for an awkward light source in combat. When I dropped them to fight, their low profile projected shadows across the ceiling, creating distracting dancing shapes. Light from low vantages gave everything a malevolent appearance, like someone holding a flashlight under their chin.

  Fastening a glow stone to a helmet or shield would free up an extra hand, and I made a mental note to myself to do so as soon as I left this dungeon.

  I picked up a chair and aligned its feet to the tile corners. It fit perfectly, and nothing happened when I placed my weight on it. I swung the other chair further down the hallway, aligning its feet with the tile corners. Stepping from one seat to the next, I repeated the process, playing The Floor is Lava, bridging the length of the passage.

  My situation worsened once I reached the door. Standing on a chair surrounded by trapped pressure plates, I saw no way to react to dangers in the next room safely. I would be in trouble if anything beyond this unopened door sprang out at me.

  Soloing involved foolish risks.

  Reaching down, I turned the doorknob, opened the door, and peered into the room’s inky depths.

  “Hello?” I felt stupid asking out loud, but what else does one say to an unexplored room? I hoped for no answer, and after waiting, I exhaled with relief.

  Maneuvering from the chair into the doorway required some balance, but I dropped onto the floor without breaking my neck or triggering traps. The small chamber contained the dilapidated furnishings of a study or a small office.

  I recast Detect Magic and spotted a glowing ring on a desk.

  The ring bore the lost name of the pontifex! I considered that the seated corpse might be the ring’s owner, but that contradicted Mother Marteen’s story—the town cremated the pontifex after his execution. The corpse at the table showed no signs of immolation.

  I picked up the ring, appreciating that I might be the only person in Miros who knew the pontifex’s name—Tybalt Ashton.

  Parchments and scrolls crowded the desk area—most involved logistical records of various operations within Our Lady of Balance. I perused the writing and noticed Tybalt Ashton’s signature on the documents. This office belonged to the pontifex. It made sense because the heretic winemaker ran this temple, and winery equipment filled its sublevels.

  A thorough search through the parchments produced a small book containing lists of sermons, schedules, tasks, and thoughts. It served as a diary or journal referring to council debates about prohibition. Its pages contained speeches, arguments, and mentions of Adrian, who I assumed represented Tybalt’s accuser, St. Adrian the Lame. It seems they had been close friends until the end of the diary.

  The last few pages described Tybalt’s plan to prove Adrian to be a hypocrite. He consumed the booze he seized from raids. I chuckled to learn that the so-called pious prohibitionist was a wino.

  History had mistakenly reversed the roles of saint and sinner. Adrian had framed his confidant, Tybalt, to win an ecumenical struggle. All the while, both of them knew about the forbidden reserves beneath the temple.

  A sealed letter at the end of the diary caught my attention. I broke it open to read it.

  The message penned by Tybalt addressed Adrian’s abuse of power and addiction. The pontifex explained he poisoned his own supplies to prevent Adrian from drinking himself to death.

  Because I had broken the seal, Adrian had never received the letter. The city had arrested and executed the pontifex before he delivered it.

  Adrian had inadvertently poisoned himself on the pontifex’s reserves, explaining his mysterious disappearance. The corpse in the dining room belonged to St. Adrian the Lame.

  A sharp scream echoed from the dining room as if to answer the revelation. The fury behind the sound left no room for interpretation. Adrian the Lame sought to keep its secret.

  I knew when I’d outstayed my welcome and hurried to get out of here.

  As I withdrew to the hallway, I stashed the diary, ring, and letter into my inventory. The sound of a scraping chair echoed from the dining room.

  While I gingerly stepped from one chair to the next, something made dragging sounds from the room with the long table.

  Scrape—click! Scrape—click!

  On shaking legs, I bridged my way across the pressure plates and leaped onto the safe tiles by the T-junction—the narrow passage leading to the statue alcove. When I jumped, the chair kicked out from under me, and the hallway erupted in loud bangs as stone rocks the size of golf balls fired from the walls, battering the furniture to pieces.

  I rolled to safety beyond the trapped tiles.

  A shambling skeleton rounded the corner, confirming my fears.

  “Nope! Nope! Nope!” Pumping my arms, I sprinted toward the narrow stairs leading to the statue alcove. Anything with “wight” in its name surpassed my powers. Level 6 adventurers had no business facing such a monster.

  Rasping sounds from the wight’s hollow throat summoned a translucent Wall of Force. It appeared before the narrow passage, blocking my exit to the alcove. My forward momentum bounced me off the barrier, causing me to sprawl across the floor—almost into the discolored tiles.

  Caught between a trap, a wall of force, and a cacowight, I scanned the walls and ceiling. Nothing in the environment offered handholds or grips to climb over the trap.

  Behind me, the trap's loud banging stopped, and mechanisms beneath the floor reset. I could hear the undead horror again without the noisy pellets flying across the hall.

  Scrape—click! Scrape—click!

  I cast Shocking Reach and wasn’t surprised that the spell did not damage the walking horror. Undead resisted electrical damage in other RPGs, and this game wasn’t any different.

  Opening my user interface slowed time down. Even though it seemed a suitable circumstance to panic, I had to keep my wits about me. Even with a spare power point, nothing on my list of powers could help me get into that office, bypass the Wall of Force, or kill a monster with 520 health. Nor did I see any item in my void bag that might save me. It carried only camping supplies and equipment.

  I closed my interface and looked longingly at the office door. Teleporting past the trap would draw the wight into it, but The Book of Dungeons spell system offered no such solution.