Lowe sagged against the cracked stone wall, breath coming in ragged gulps. The completed final boss of the Gauntlet of Chains lay behind them and, for the first time in what felt like forever, he could hear himself think. The Dungeon itself wouldn’t complete until someone looted the fallen Guardian and it appeared none of them was going to be doing that until Latham took the piss a little more.
“A Six?” Lowe said, sincerely wishing there was a way to pick up XP that was less ‘stabbed in the kidneys’ intensive.
“Being generous, yes.” Latham grinned, pulling off his gauntlets with a theatrical sigh. The things looked like they’d been forged in the heart of a dying star and were probably worth more than Lowe’s entire career earnings. “Now, don’t get me wrong. For a man running a Heroic version of the Gauntlet while being—how do we put this kindly, Hel?”
“Woefully unqualified?” Hel suggested.
“Woefully unqualified,” Latham agreed. “Harsh but fair. Still, all things considered, you didn’t do half bad.” He stretched, letting out a satisfied groan at a click that sounded suspiciously like several tectonic plates colliding. “Of course, you also didn’t do half good.”
“I’d say more of a five-point-five, personally,” Hel said.
“You think? I mean, he did survive until the end.”
“Sure, but in the same way a man finishes a drinking contest by throwing up on his own boots,” Hel said. “Technically, he crossed the finish line. Less technically, he’s going to be paying for new boots.”
“Have you two thought of taking to the stage? What with being such a funny, funny double act.”
Latham reached out a hand and dragged the unwilling Inspector back to his feet. “Now, you started strong. Well, relatively speaking. Entered the Gauntlet, kept your head down, didn’t immediately piss yourself. You’d be surprised how often that isn’t the case.”
“Are we saying ‘strong’,” Hel cut in. “He tripped over his own feet when the chains first started moving. It was all a bit newborn-giraffe-trying-to-ice-skate.”
“Okay. So not strong-strong,” Latham said. “But Level 26 in a Heroic 60? I think we can make allowances. Don’t you remember being as weak as him?”
“Not really. I think I got my fourth Epic Skill around when I lost my first tooth. I can only think back so far.”
“I have literally no friends that do not suck,” Lowe said.
“Anyway,” Latham carried on. “Initial enemy engagement. First wave of Chainbound Thralls. You held your ground.”
“I got choked by a possessed chain.”
“Sure you did!” Latham agreed brightly. “Took it like a champ. And by ‘like a champ,’ I mean flailed around like a horny ferret until Hel fried the thing..”
“You’re welcome, by the way. Frankly, I’d have left you to it, but I figured you’d have whined about it later. And Arebella would probably have comments. Oh, and as I’d already taken care of business on my side, I thought I’d throw you a bone.”
“Now, the second wave.” Latham tapped his chin, a sound like granite grinding against granite. “That was when you got ambitious. Saw an opening, gamely went for it, and—what happened next, Hel?”
“Was that when he dodged left when he should’ve dodged right, got caught mid-roll, and immediately took a chain to the ribs?”
“No. That was later on. The second wave was when he ran straight into a pit trap and then tanked two Thrall attacks while trying to crawl out all on his little lonesome.”
Lowe was pretty sure he’d coughed up a lung after that. “I got back up, didn’t I?”
“You did!” Latham beamed. “You got up, dusted yourself off, and immediately got knocked back down again.”
“The sad little noise you made when you went down the pit for the second time was pretty cute,” Hel added.
“I believe there’s a nice dent of you still embedded in that Thrall’s fist.”
“You do know that healing Skill of yours is stupidly OP, right?” Hel said. “I get you have all sorts of random shit going on under your hood, but there’s still no way you should be making it through a Heroic 60 in one piece. It’s the only reason you made it through without needing to be carried out in a bucket. Or several buckets.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m Chachi the Wonder Cockroach. We done with Masterpiece Theatre yet?”
“Not in a million years,” Latham said. “Next up, was the miniboss. What was she called again?”
“The Shackled Warden,” Hel supplied. “For the record, I usually drop her in two hits.”
“That’s the one. And let’s take a moment to really appreciate how you handled that, little man”
Lowe shifted. “It wasn’t that bad.”
“You charged her. Screaming,” Hel said.
“Was there a different approach I should have taken? I wasn’t getting much advice in the moment.”
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Well, the fact she sent you flying across the chamber should have given you a hint. Never seen someone somersault quite that many times without meaning to. Now, I’ll admit, you rallied after that. By which I mean, you stayed behind me and Hel and let us do most of the work. Tactical. Smart. You let us do all the heavy lifting, conserved your stamina, and, most importantly, didn’t die. Which brings us, finally, to the Gauntlet’s final test.”
“Right,” Lowe said, looking at the body behind them. “The Chainlord.”
“You know, for all the joshing,” Latham said. “I’ll actually give you props there. That fight should’ve put you down. Permanently. But you kept getting up, you kept swinging, and eventually—eventually—we killed the bastard. With minimal intervention on our part, even.”
Hel tilted her head. “Well. Some intervention.”
“You threw a lightning bolt the size of a carriage,” Lowe said.
“Yes, but you were distracting it,” Latham grinned. “Like a legend.”
“Right.”
“And that, my friend, is why I’m giving you a six.”
“I still think you’re being generous,” Hel said.
“You survived, you contributed, and you learned. I think. And, what is more, you get to loot a Level 60 Heroic Dungeon Boss and speak to the nice Merchant over there.”
Lowe looked over at the NPC Merchant that had materialised near the dissolving corpse of the Chainlord. The figure was nothing like the Merchant he remembered from his last Dungeon run. This one was hunched beneath layers of tattered cloth, the hood drawn low enough to cast its face in deep shadow. Rings adorned every visible finger—twisted bands of tarnished silver and iron, some set with cracked gemstones, others carved with sigils.
Then the air around the merchant shimmered, reality bending at the edges, and a voice came out—not the dry, scripted tone of an NPC, but something rich with amusement, like a storyteller who already knew how the tale would end. Lowe recognised it instantly.
Well, look at you. Still standing. Mostly. Alright, kid, let’s call this a bonus round. The house rules say you shouldn’t have access to anything like yet. If ever. But, eh… who’s gonna stop me? Take it, try not to die too quickly, and maybe—just maybe—you’ll start seeing the bigger picture. And if you get really struck, pop up and see me sometime. From memory, you know the way.
Oh great, Lowe thought, just what I need in my life on top of everything else right now.
The defeated Dungeon boss lay in a heap, its armour rusted and broken, the massive chains that had once coiled around its whole body now slack and unmoving. He remembered hitting it once with Slugger which meant he was able to loot, and his mind was suddenly filling up with a list of rewards.
Of course, most of it was completely useless to him. Level 60 weapons and armour, far out of his ability to equip. There was some heavy plate, an executioner’s axe nearly the size of his whole body and a pair of boots still dripping with blood. He didn’t think Latham or Hel would be very interested in any of it, but he was sure they could offload it to the Merchant for a decent sum. It might even cover the cost of the entry fee.
Then something caught his eye at the bottom of the list.
It was a relic, bound in chains of some sort of spectral metal, and the name of it kept shifting and flickering as though uncertain whether it should be seen at all.
The Shackled Grasp.
That was it. That was all the description said.
Lowe frowned, reaching out for it and the moment his fingers brushed the surface, the chains unraveled, dissolving into curling wisps of darkness that then slipped around his wrist like living ink. The item settled tightly at the end of his arm, surprisingly light, the surface warm against his skin. It looked like the remnants of a broken manacle, its shattered links trailing off into nothing.
Hel put a hand on his shoulder, leaning in to look at it.“Fuck a duck! That’s… very much not supposed to be here.”
“Yeah. Whatever the fuck that is is not in any version of this loot table I’ve seen,” Latham said.
Lowe looked between them. “You’re sure?”
“Absolutely,” Hel said. “We’ve run this Gauntlet countless times. I’ve never seen that thing show up.”
“Which means,” Latham said, “someone wants you to have it.” The work that the Temple Warder’s eyebrows did there was not especially subtle. If he could have signed ‘Arkola’ with the movement alone, he would have done.
Lowe rolled the manacle over and over on his wrist, watching the way the broken links seemed to suck in all the light. “There’s no description,” he said.
“Well, no,” said Latham. “It looks like a Unique Soulbound item. You’re going to need to bind it before you can examine it.”
“Well, that sounds like bollocks,” Lowe said. “I have to bind the thing before I know what it does? What happens if it, I don’t know, one-shots me?”
“Don’t be wet, Lowe. It’s a Dungeon reward, not a fucking trap. Unique items don’t fall from trees. If you don’t want it, hand it over to someone with the balls to wear it.” Hel held out her hand.
The Merchant cleared its throat and then shook its head.
“Seems like this is meant for you and you alone, little man. Come on, bind it and put us all out of misery. Remember, there’s a reason you came in with us this morning. If you’re looking for power, I think - by hook or by crook - you’ve found a big wodge of it right there.”
Lowe looked at both of them for a moment and then closed his eyes to concentrate on his tentative connection to the manacle. Cuckoo House had all sorts of relics in their storeroom and, once upon a time, he’d been able to check them out whenever a case demanded. He assumed ‘binding’ with this item would be similar to whenever he linked with one of those.
The Shackled Grasp
A relic of broken pacts and forgotten chains. No known record exists of this item. Its existence is an anomaly. Its purpose? Unclear. But it fits you well.
Effects:
- The Board is Set (Passive) "Every move is answered. Every weight, balanced." Damage received does not disappear. Instead, it becomes Pressure which is stored in invisible chains that tighten with each attack - mental or physical. Bearer can unleash this Pressure in three ways:
Retaliation: Converts accumulated Pressure into a single devastating counterstrike or a chain of lesser attacks.
Endurance: Spends Pressure to restore Stamina and Mana, granting unnatural longevity in a drawn-out fight.
Dispersal: Releases stored Pressure as an area shockwave, knocking back enemies and breaking minor bindings.
Warning: If Pressure is not spent before combat ends, it drags bearer down instead, applying debilitating fatigue until he rests.
- Chains of the Unseen (Active – No Cost, No Cooldown) "A shackle is only as strong as the will that forged it." Allows bearer to suppress an opponents Skill for one minute per combat encounter.
- The Gambit’s Bindings (Passive) "Every chain has a master. Every master, a chain." Bearer’s resistance to control effects—both physical and mental—is heightened to an unnatural degree. Attempts to bind, ensnare, silence, or force obedience falter in his presence.
“Well,” Latham whistled, “I think breakfast is going to be on you . . .”