The lancegay of the Dead King, my warped Ring of Sensing, the jade brooch I’d covered the holes in my armour with, 2 boxes of shot for the handcannon (but not the handcannon itself), 4 waterskins, a dagger, my spellbook, my bar of wax, the stone of control, the frozen flame, the anti-infection ointment, all my potion vials, the longbow, the lodestone, my flint and steel, half a hundred coins, two gold necklaces, the map of the fourth floor Brace’s party had tried to draw, and two splotched pieces of parchment were all that remained of my things.

  Of note the swan shift and the warlock’s ring had both been destroyed before I’d been able to test them. In retrospect, the shift may have even been able to save me if the swan form was uninjured. Perhaps the ring had some healing magic as well, though Dave had done nothing to save himself.

  There were no clothes in that list, nor anything to carry the mess with.

  I’d survived with less before, though my current problems could be said to be due to a lack of armour.

  The centipedes’ mound held treasures. I could clean clothes which fit if there were any. I could fashion bags from those which didn’t. I needed to check the mound.

  So I kept telling myself, and yet, my feet refused to move. My heart pounded, and a dozen alternate tasks demanded my attention instead.

  I needed to write a new spell. I needed to return to Brace and see what had become of Tom and his house. I needed to return to the map on the first floor and record it that we might more safely navigate the depths of the dungeon. I needed more water, only half my skins were filled. I hadn’t eaten in two days.

  Anything which let me avoid that mound of filth and decay.

  The only portion of myself, a tiny, flickering ember, that allowed me to continue to consider the hoard, was the fact that I was naked. As the see through being of acid there was little I could do and little for Attar to see besides. Back in my natural form, my nakedness was a perversion, fit not even for barbarians.

  I didn’t need to feel happy about digging through the muck. I didn’t even need to feel okay. I merely needed to act anyway, regardless of my feelings. There was the path forward, that was how I would succeed.

  ***

  First were the turnip and the strips of dried meat, along with a number of hardtack biscuits. I wasn’t that hungry and I doubted I ever would be. The filth would kill me faster than starvation, teleport cleansed or no.

  There was a helmet, which was the least useful piece of armour to Attar or myself, and when stuck upon my head revealed no magics beside.

  A smooth gaming disc rested in a fine porcelain cup, both inexplicable unmarred by their time beneath the surface of gnawed bones and broken stone. Both raised questions. Who had made it this far in the dungeon with such extravagances, and then failed to such petty foes?

  I rubbed my abdomen, feeling the ghost of the injury. Everyone made mistakes.

  The game piece was mundane, but the cup... A dash of water into its blessedly clean interior and a sip from the rim revealed it was anything but.

  Attar was here to help me. He cared for me and considered me one of his closest friends, despite our short time together. There wasn’t a speck of guile in his soul.

  I added the cup to my pile of things. It would be more useful if I were a diplomat attending tea parties, but it could have saved me from Gunhild and it would have possibly revealed Dave to me earlier as well. I didn’t know how I would transport it without breaking it, but it was worth the effort.

  There was an iron spike to replace the one I’d lost if I could find a means to carry it, and a pair of poles, one a foot in length, and the other twenty.

  A large leather and wood construct which looked like a bellows with too many levers and valves was so confounding I gave up after a few minutes of trying to make it work. It was probably for the best as beside it lay the body of cat whose hair appeared to have been boiled off and next to the cat a preserved cloudy eye.

  A simple club didn’t hold any advantages over my lancegay or cutlass, and obviously hadn’t served its owners well either, or it wouldn’t be lying next to a pair of potions and a book of theology in a mound of rotting corpses.

  One of the potions was a potion which proclaimed to allow the user to breath underwater, the other was unlabelled. Both I added to my own collection.

  The book of theology was joined by a book of hagiography, which would have been useful when determining the dangers presented by the holy man’s cards. I readied my dream potion in hand before opening the books, but both were mundane. I set them down. While both could be used as spellbooks I already had a spellbook and it was as much as I could carry as it was.

  A few moments more of digging found a prayer book of the Delta. Conan’s map suggested they’d passed by this way, but by the other books I suspected it more likely a religious sort had met their end here.

  I unearthed a second cup and bowl after a little digging, the cup preserved to pristine cleanliness under the bowl. A sip revealed it held the same powers as its twin. The bowl was filthy so I put it aside to be tested after a teleport. Attar suggested cleaning it with our water, but water alone could not remove such a vile residue.

  Speaking of vile, there was a sextant wrought into forms and shapes which would have been at home set in the mural of the first floor. My fingers burned where they held it. To describe it politely, and to omit the worst, beneath my fingers a man was depicted being torn asunder and raped at once. This itself being the tamest of depictions on the tool.

  Attar shielded his gaze, “Destroy it. It chills me more than mere metal should allow.”

  I tossed it away from myself and readied my spellbook to record a spell.

  I activated the spell burnt into the centre of the room, Acid Pool, and pressed the pool into the sextant, but the vile thing did not die. The acid slid from it like water, though the stone around it hissed and smoked.

  Acid Pool II: An endless pool of acid the size of two ordinary man’s fists pressed together drips ceaselessly over the course of an hour. It moves half the speed of a man walking, following the whims of its master, slowing as the hour’s end approaches.

  I had my spell now, recorded in the pages of my book, for what good it would do me against foul icons.

  Sword Storm III

  The invisible blade pierced the pool of acid in a great shower of caustic spray, and clove the sextant in two. Two became four, and four became rubble as the sword chopped and stabbed until nothing of the imagery remained. Tension eased from both our shoulders.

  “Is there no order to things?” Attar shook his head sadly.

  “Warlocks are perverted by nature. One nearly convinced me of the neutrality of their dark magic, but never have I felt their pact-breaking to be aught but evil.”

  Attar bit his lip and continued to shake his head. I left him to his thoughts. Dark places could not be passed by, only through.

  I found two more tools hidden in the midden. A pair of reddish crystal scissors—cinnabar of all things, though how the crystals grew so large I could not say—and an hourglass. Naturally, the hourglass elected within me a great caution. I’d lost Attart to one, though it had been her choice. This one appeared of a completely different make and style but I clutched my dream potion once more, on the off chance it might save me.

  Turning the hourglass both backward and forward elected no sense of wonder and so I put it aside to be safely ignored. Being able to tell the time was useful, but without Cillian, I had no idea what time the hourglass was tuned to in the first place. Presumably, one hour.

  The scissors, though ingenious, were more decorative than useful or magical. If I wanted to stain my clothing perhaps I’d keep them, but first I’d need clothing to stain. Which left the four articles of clothing I’d managed to find.

  The strangest was the mask. It was of my face, naturally, but not the face I wore now, nor the demonic reflection of my female self. Nor any face I’d ever worn. It was how I’d appeared before the Corpse in the Sky had changed my skin, but wrinkled, with less muscle and fat in my cheeks. Sunken. An old man.

  That wasn’t the strange part. At this point it would have been stranger if the mask had depicted anyone else.

  The strange part was, I couldn’t move it. I couldn’t even feel it budge. Even a house or a tree had some give when a normal man pressed upon them, and I was far stronger than any normal man. This was like a child trying to budge a boulder. Immobile. Unchanging. Impervious.

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  I brought my sword around from where it hovered over the remains of the sextant, but using it as a lever, it too could not move the mask.

  But it could lift what was under the mask, with the mask on it.

  What did that mean? And why?

  Could the mask therefore be worn?

  Teleported?

  I moved the scoop of refuse with the mask atop it over to the potions for further teleport cleaning.

  Next was another mask, this one smaller, so small it only covered my eyes. The mask had no eye holes, but instead two deep slits which darkened the room around me and prevented me from looking up or down. If they hadn’t been as pristine as the cups I’d have never tried them, as it was, my face was still itching afterwards from the memory of wearing them.

  Masks tested, that left three pieces of real clothing. A silken undershirt held only by thin straps and covered in garnets, a cloak made from serpentine, and a simple linen skirt. Both the undershirt and skirt were too small for me, so Attar had to test them. Neither appeared magical, and he had no need for the skirt with his kā?āya.

  The cloak was as heavy as stone, and did not bend in the slightest when I tried it on. It was a carving of a cloak and nothing more.

  So.

  The immovable mask, the pile of books, the two cups, two potions, the iron spike, the one foot pole and the twenty foot.

  I bundled them all in my arms with my finger threaded through my spellbook to the correct page.

  True Teleport II

  Two feet later and myself and the items were all miraculously cleaned, all but for the mask, which remained where it had been.

  Huh. Perhaps I should have tried wearing it. But how I’d achieve that physically paled in comparison to the psychological hurdle of donning something so seeped in filth. It could lie where it lay.

  “We can tie off the skirt with the camisole and form a bag for at least some of your items,” Attar suggested, studying the pile.

  His idea had merit, but two major flaws. First, I’d look ridiculous carrying around clothes not cut to my form and far too small for my figure. I’d be the laughing stock of the dungeon. Second, they were filthy, and I didn’t want to risk a second spell.

  “If you could carry them, I’d be most grateful. The twisting of my mind from that book still compels me to avoid the clothing. Perhaps the potions, mine and the centipedes, and the cups.”

  “Of course, Oswic! Happy to. Anything else? There is still room.”

  I studied my possessions.

  “The frozen flame, the ring of sensing, the wax, the explosive rune, the stone of control, and of course, the waterskins, if you are strong enough.”

  “I shall have to be. It is only a fraction of what you’ve been carrying all along. I’ll manage until you are restored.”

  While Attar gathered my things to sling about his shoulder, I studied our options of egress. Two exits, including the one we’d entered by, led south. One led north. Our path was north and east according to Attar’s ghost.

  The north exit was an open archway. I sent my sword through on a silent pass, just in case, but the arches had not yet failed me. Whatever compulsion drove the warlocks to trap their doors did not seem to apply to the open spaces. Perhaps they were how the warlocks themselves navigated.

  One, maybe two more rooms, then we would return to Brace and crew to see how they fared now that Tom’s soul was free.

  Attar summoned his armoured feet and I led the way forward into the next room holding my spellbook and spear aloft.

  The bookcase pivoted closed behind me as I entered the room. Then pivoted again a moment later to reveal Attar.

  The room was square, perhaps fifty by fifty feet. In its direct centre stood a large iron sarcophagus, to the south side, the side facing us, was a large chest, to the left and behind me the walls were struck through with veins of yellow crystal.

  ...

  Bookcase?

  I turned back to the entrance. Sure enough it was blocked by a bookcase, hiding the centipede’s lair from view.

  The path had been completely unblocked before.

  I hastened over to the shelf and pressed on one side, then the other. It spun easily enough, though elected a loud grinding noise as it did so. Someone howled from a room nearby.

  Sure enough, there was the centipede room beyond the bookcase, but there was no way to arrange the case such that it was invisible from the other side. At least, so it seemed, but when I stepped back into the centipede room to study it, it disappeared. I could still see Attar on the other side, but once again the archway appeared unimpeded.

  Attar followed me back through and was just as startled as I was.

  “A bookcase from only one side? What strange sorcery is this?” he demanded.

  I stepped back into the sarcophagus room, pushing the bookcase to pivot around me as I—

  I blinked. When had I started pushing the bookcase?

  A second grinding sound announced Attar’s re-arrival.

  “We have realities overlapping here,” Attar said with a frown, “the transition is so seamless as not to exist.”

  Were we indeed transcending realities? Or merely losing time? Or perhaps a teleportal so subtle we couldn’t notice it. I had a spell which might provide some clue.

  ?North Star?

  Reality screamed, the protection on my spell flickered and died, and the star failed to appear. Instead, a transparent globe like a glass bauble shimmered into existence around my head. The sounds of the dungeon, the strange laughter of the walls, the dripping of water, the moans, groans, and clinking chains, the screams and mad cackles, were cut off in an instant. All I could hear was my own breathing and the pounding of blood in my ears.

  Peaceful.

  Attar looked up at me, concerned. His lips were moving, “Are you alright?” or something similar.

  “I’m fine. My spell failed, but the Corpse in the Sky’s protection has kept it to me. The dungeon has warped my magic once again.”

  Attar relaxed, satisfied with my answer. I suppose he could hear me.

  Which might suggest the globe was magical rather than simple glass. It was rather light for glass. I attempted to dim it in the manner of my skin.

  “What is it?”

  I could hear him! The bauble appeared no less diminished, however.

  I tapped the globe, “A helmet of some sort, I suppose. It blocks out sound if I wish it, but can be changed with a thought.”

  “What does that have to do with our strange layered realities here?”

  “Nothing, so far as I can tell. I was trying to summon to me my compass, but now the spell is wasted. It was our only compass, and mortal compass only work in a handful of rooms here. The mystery will have to lie unsolved.”

  I led the way back into the room. It held two additional exits, both on the opposite wall in each of the far corners.

  I sent my sword to the eastern most door, a simple thing of wood and iron hinges.

  “What of the chest? And the sarcophagus, for that matter?” Attar asked.

  “I am an emissary of the dead king,” I lifted my lancegay, “And even were I not, it is the custom in the painted lands to let the dead lie.”

  A custom I’d failed at innumerous times in the Bleak Fort, but this was clearly a crypt. There was a difference between looting a fallen foe and robbing one already laid to rest. I wasn’t sure where eating the dead lay on the spectrum. It should have weighed more heavily on my spirits than it did, but the constant joy and fulfillment I’d felt since that transgression had been one of the main forces buoying me through the dungeon’s horrors. Justice was strange to the human mind.

  The lock snapped with barely a sound, the door swung silent open, and the floor slid away beneath it, revealing a pit of spikes, ten feet wide and perhaps four feet across.

  Attar shivered, “I was lucky, becoming trapped as I did. I’d not have survived even the simplest traps here.”

  “It was a close thing for me as well. And as you can see and hear, I have not come through this dungeon unscathed.”

  “Must we jump the pit?”

  I approached the edge. It was about as deep as I was tall, with sheer sides. The hall was long beyond it, turning before revealing anything of note, though I couldn’t make out the direction it turned, so straight were the corridors.

  “I’m not longer sure of our path, so one door is nearly as good as the other. Let us try the portcullis first.”

  Attar and I hid behind the non-existent bookshelf while my sword tore down the wooden portcullis which barred the second path. The wood was fragile and my sword was strong, the task was done in less than a minute.

  We entered the room beyond at the same time as five orcneas, who regarded the shattered portcullis with piggish bemusement.

  “Did you consider knocking?”

  Attar started and his ogres appeared between us and the orcs, “Where did you come from?”

  “We wandered here and there, and here again, and presently our wandering took us to the noise coming from our treasury,” the spokesman indicated the jewels, armour, and other treasures lying on the ground, “Where did you come from? One who bears the favour of the dead king, and one who perverts his sacred tenets?”

  “I am Oswic, Magi of the Sacred Order, Wise Man of Blackbridge, The Starcaller of Dawn, Master of Twilight, Voice of the Storm, Speaker on the Wind, Five Time Hoopstone Champion of Ravenhold, and Darkswallower of Bleak Fort.”

  I could hear his tendons creak as the Orcneas peeled back his lips from his tusks in a feral smile, “Good. Darkswallower is one of our own. I am Hávarer, the First King, Vinetender, and Master of the Sun. Be welcome here.”

  I bent in a shallow bow, “Auspicious titles, Sunmaster. It is an honour.”

  “And you?” The pig-corpse head turned to Attar, “The necromancer? What is your name?”

  Attar looked desperately at me, then back at the orc, “Attar, Master. I bear the dead king no ill will, and I hope bears me none in return for the choices I did not make. I am who I am.”

  “How did you come to be in this place? The Darkswallower is clear. He is the their foe. But you?”

  “I was also taken prisoner. And escaped. Now we seek to undo the rift the warlocks have wrought on the dungeon and free ourselves and our friends.”

  “Will you kill the warlocks?”

  Attar drew himself up, “As they stand in our way.”

  “Then go in peace.”

  As one, all five orcneas faded from view, as if they’d only ever been a mirage on a salt flat, which dried as we approached. All that remained was the echoes of dry, rasping laughter, which took far too long to fade.

  Huh.

  That was new.