Brinn couldn’t help it. He broke out into a chuckle.

  “I have to be honest with you Favel, the fact the lich is a bard would make him less scary, not more. What are you so afraid of? Lutes? Spoken verse? Perhaps a romantic ballad?” His chuckle grew into more of a laugh, but Brinn managed to keep it from echoing down the halls. He had been adventuring for years, now. He could be a professional.

  “A bard brought the kingdom of Lindunn to its knees in a year,” snapped Favel. The look in his eyes was intense, almost manic. Brinn blinked. The anger in Favel’s eyes seemed…personal. Lindunn, an elven kingdom, had fallen into disarray and civil war a few years before the party had begun traveling together. Brinn had long suspected that Favel might be some sort of refugee from the conflict, but he’d never heard anything about a bard. What could a poet have done to bring down an entire nation?

  “I—“ Brinn started, trying to offer an olive branch and apologize. He was probably being a little insensitive. They had been trapped in a dungeon, after all, and Brinn’s particular brand of humor had never been known to put Favel in a good mood.

  “A bard isn’t just some fop from the stories who goes around singing songs,” continued Favel, each word coming out of his mouth faster as he worked himself into more of a fury. Brinn was shocked. He’d never seen this much emotion from the man, not even when he’d been scared earlier. “They can sway nations with a whisper. They can trap you in an illusion so deep, and so real; that the monsters in it can hurt you simply because you believe they can. And this bard…”

  Favel’s voice fell. In an instant, all the air seemed to deflate out of him.

  “This bard might be able to rewrite fate itself, bend our very existence to the rules of narrative and storytelling.”

  “Well, problem solved, then!” said Brinn, with a cheery smile. Favel stared, nonplussed. Brinn would have to clarify. He continued: “Because…if he’s writing a tale, then there’s a hell of a good chance the good guys win.”

  Favel snorted.

  “Even I thought you were smarter than that. You’ve never read a tragedy? And say you’re right, say the bard has already written a story where the ‘good guys,’ win, what are the chances that he wrote us as the good guys? And, if he did, and in the end we stand over his corpse in glorious victory, what cost are we going to have to pay to get there?”

  Brinn didn’t have a good response to that. He also still wasn’t sure you called a dead undead a corpse. As he mulled it over, the pair came to a stop. They could finally make out the light source they’d been heading towards through the seemingly endless hallway. The two adventurers had come to a doorway, complete with a knob and keyhole. Warm light spilled from underneath, and the chimes they’d been hearing since they left the entrance hall were clear, now. A harpsichord, Brinn was certain now. He grimaced. He hated the harpsichord.

  Favel raised a wand. To Brinn’s surprise, this one looked unfamiliar. He glanced down, and yes, there was Favel’s usual wand, attached firmly to his belt by small threads of air mana. The icy orb above them seemed to pulse and flare as an orange-red ripple tore through its surface. Brinn remembered the elf’s hand, when he stood awaiting the undead assault that never came—tucked into the pouch, grasping something inside. Favel pointed the wand at the door, and after a moment of listening to the gentle chimes, he spoke: “Open the door, Brinn.”

  Brinn reached for the door. Its knob was a dull, dusty silver, but as his hand closed around it felt warm. Inviting. He hadn’t realized until now just how cold it was, here in the dungeon. The feeling felt wrong, somehow. Was he being manipulated? It didn’t matter. He turned the knob, readying an alchemical flame in the palm of his hand—it was designed to heat potions, but in Brinn’s experience, nothing liked to be set on fire. The light from under the door snuffed out in a gust of wind as the door swung wide—and Brinn’s jaw dropped. In front of him, Favel lowered his wand. There was no eerie study, no bard sitting at a harpsichord and sipping at wine while he entertained himself; no horrific lich rising from a tomb. Brinn had imagined many different figures waiting before them, or even a horde of undead—but instead; he was met…with a garden?

  The music was gone, replaced by the dull clinking of ceramic against glass. Sunlight poured through trees, hanging vines, and spilled onto Brinn’s face in humid air. He could hear birds, somewhere out of sight, calling to their mates. He stepped through the doorway and his feet stepped onto soft grass. He heard Favel following behind him, speechless. He cried out in joy. It wasn’t that they had escaped the dungeon—this place was too wrong, too surreal to truly have been a part of the outside world he knew—but he could feel the mana coursing through the air. Not that subtle shift of illusion magic, but the tell-tale vibrations that told him that this garden could grow ingredients with magical properties. Each way he looked, the garden seemed to go on forever, and—

  “Fuck,” said Brinn, simply. He saw Favel, behind him, a few feet in front of the doorway—where the door no longer was. In its place, lay a small end table; the sort one would keep next to their bed. On it, was two masquerade masks, and an envelope. There was no seal. Instead, it was held shut by a thin, pink ribbon. The door frame hung in the air around it, empty, and Brinn watched in horror as it transmuted into vines and began to shrink away, retracting into the earth towards their roots.

  “Fuck,” Favel agreed.

  It was nice when they got along.

  Brinn shrugged, and reached for the envelope, ready to burn it with alchemical flame if he sensed anything. Applied directly, it would burn pure, avoiding any toxic fumes or poison that the envelope might release into the air. Favel waved his hands over the masks that were present in the garden, checking them for magical anomaly. Finding nothing, the two squated down on their haunches in the grass and began to read:

  “To the two fine gentlemen that find themselves in the garden of my creation, You have been cordially invited to a tea party.

  The rules must be followed.

  1. All party-goers must wear their masks.

  2. No violence until the party has concluded.

  3. Everyone will be referred to by their proper title.

  4. The hostess of the party will be treated with respect.”

  The note was stained with a flowery perfume, the same sickly-sweet scent that flooded the entire garden around them but amplified many times over. It wasn't inviting.

  “I think we’ve found our bard-lich…” said Brinn.

  “No,” said Favel, frowning. “This is something else.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Lindunn,” he said. “I’ve met him. Once I was sure this was a bard-lich, I could recognize the mana signature—and even if I couldn’t. How many bards turned lich could there possibly be? Most people have never even heard of one.”

  “It’s not exactly an appealing choice to someone so focused around their own charisma. But hold on—you’ve…met him?” Just who was the elf he’d come to know over these years?

  “I was involved in the war. He brought my entire nation to its knees.”

  “Sure, I guessed as much, from what you said earlier. But how do you know it’s the same guy? We haven’t exactly seen any paintings.” asked Brinn.

  Favel sighed. “Because I’m the one that convinced Alexander to come here.”

  “You knew?!”

  “Of course I knew. I was here to put an end to the man, once and for all.”

  “Then why were you acting like it was such a big deal when we found out? Why didn’t you tell me when we first got separated? Or before any of this? We could have avoided this entire disaster!”

  “How am I supposed to explain to you I’m the one who got us in here?”

  “How about ‘hey Brinn, I’m the one who got us in here. There’s an evil bard that destroyed my entire nation, and you should probably be on the lookout for illusion magic and make sure the party doesn’t get separated.”

  Favel sighed. “If I was honest about my motivations when I brought it up, Alexander wouldn’t have agreed.”

  Favel was right. Brinn had only known Alexander for a few years, and they hadn’t traveled together for the entire time—but Alexander wouldn’t let the group get involved in hostile politics; or a revenge plot. That was how adventurers get themselves killed. Even Brinn knew that. Favel, though—Brinn was starting to understand that Favel had never been a career adventurer. From the start, it had been about this, every decision culminating in him executing his revenge.

  “You would only do all of this if it was personal. Truly personal. Not just you being on opposite sides of a war.”

  “I promise you,” said Favel, “it is. If we survive this next place, I might even tell you about it.”

  As frustrated as Brinn was with Favel’s tight lips—and as angry as he was at him for leading them into this mess without making everyone aware of the true stakes—Brinn had to be fine with that. There was no use in ruminating over it now; and Brinn finally had a plan. He pulled out his dagger, and started cutting away at some of the vegetation in the area, trying to get to those fruits, seeds, roots, and leaves with magical properties. He even found the seeds of Frostwheat, blue and thick like a berry with an icy chill from its core if you flooded it with mana.

  Brinn had been quite suspicious of the plants here in the garden, but as he performed his various tests to be certain of his properties—he crushed them, rubbed the juices on his wrist or lip; smelled them, pushed small amounts of mana into them and watched how the flow would shift; and found that to the last, every plant was exactly what it seemed to be. This place may have been surreal, it might have even been impossible in the environment of the labyrinth, but each of the plants here was undeniably real. He pocketed as many as he could, Frostwheat, an assortment of powerful poisonous mushrooms, vines that could could make a glue or a lubricant based on what kind of mana he pressed through them. He even found low Snapling bushes that crackled and popped with fire mana if you broke them. This garden was an incredible find, almost too incredible.

  As if it were specifically here to allow him to stock up on the ingredients they desperately needed, with nothing but a couple rashes on Brinn’s wrist for the trouble. He spat out a couple of the seeds he’d been chewing on. Too many of those and he’d start hallucinating. Might be good for some kind of draft of confusion, though…he thought to himself, as he ambled back towards Favel with a pack newly filled with herbs. The automated enchantments in the bag would slowly dry them, preserving them for ages to come.

  Favel crouched down by a small stream that cut its way through the small clearing where the door had once stood.

  “This is…unbelievably rich with pure mana,” said Favel, dipping his hands into the water. He started filling the skins from his belt with it. Mana-rich water wasn’t nearly as good as a potion, but it was the next best thing. Brinn wandered back over to him; and noticed a small cobbled path crossing the little creek. Each stone poked out just far enough that you could cross the stream without wetting your shoes, if you were careful.

  He pointed towards the path, leading into a stretch of forest ahead of them.

  “I suppose it’s this way to the ‘tea party,’ then.”

  Full of mana, and with alchemical ingredients to help them last out the next few days, they pressed into the tree-line—only to find that what they saw ahead wasn’t the start of the forest. They stepped between two oaks one moment, seemingly into a forest—and the next step took them into a clearing again. Brinn blinked. The clearing was almost identical to the one they’d just left, save the center, in which lay a finely crafted, circular glass table. There were four chairs sat around it, and in each, set a different figure; more surreal than the next. There was a stuffed rabbit, once a bright pink, but having faded to a dull, reddish thing.. A severed head, sitting on top of a shoe box. Each had an assortment of pink and blue ribbons around it, and each seemed barely sewed together. At the head of the table—or, really, in the biggest chair directly across from them, as a circular table didn’t have a head—sat a child.

  An undead child. She wore a blue dress, covered in lace and puff and buttons. Her features were stitched into place, quite messily. Considering the sewing needle she held in her hand like a scepter, Brinn was half convinced she had done it herself. She was staring directly at them. Brinn’s nose started to itch, and he reached up to scratch it only for his fingers to meet cold, smooth porcelain. He scrambled and grabbed at his face, finding something had affixed itself to his eyes; it didn't block his vision at all but he couldn't get it off. Tearing at it felt like he was trying to pull off his own face from the eyebrows.

  Brinn needed no more information to make his decision.

  “Nope!” he said, and pivoted on one foot and stepped back out of the clearing and into the into the forest—only to step between two trees and come out on the other side, seeing the same scene from the wrong angle. He was now looking at the girl from the other side side. He could see Favel, now, on the opposite end of the clearing, just past the treeline. He had just been teleported—he’d felt the mana this time, he was certain. Brinn turned around again and tried to step into the forest. Again, something seemed to shift, and this time he walked directly into Favel’s back on the other side of the clearing, sending them both stumbling to the ground. Again, the tell-tale signature of teleportation magic.

  In front of them, the girl smiled.

  “I’ve decided to impose a fifth rule,” she said, and her voice seemed to whisper in Brinn’s ear in spite of the distance. “No one leaves the garden until the tea is finished.”