A sigh of relief escaped Autumn as she stepped cautiously through another doorway of chronomagical twistings. Behind her, she left her agedness within the room of clay and broken art. Another chamber of gloom loomed before her, lit only by her party’s various lanterns. She looked around. Tall walls burdened by script far too degraded to read greeted her.

  And another door.

  To the east, it rested, looming much larger than all the rest. Near double. Perhaps even triple, so large it was. It stretched all the way up to the ceiling and dominated the wall it adorned. Like all the others, it was decorated with intricate engravings. However, this time they were not of elves old or young, but of a monster sinister.

  Faceless. Many-limbed. Shadow and smoke. A giant of cloak and darkness wound its way around depictions of ancient ruins set atop sand painted the color of night. Armies large met the beast atop the black-dunes, for all the shade seemed to care. They looked so small, minuscule, as they cowered in its sharp shadow. War-clad and doomed.

  Autumn shivered.

  Skin prickling, she turned away from the sight to glance around the rest of the chamber.

  No other doors led out; a dead-end.

  The room looked empty. Mostly. Only a single dead body slumped against the far wall in a puddle of dried blood interrupted the isolation. Beside it rested a pair of items; a rusty dagger and a crimson-stained journal.

  To Autumn’s eyes, there didn’t seem to be any traps here, unlike the last rooms. Still, she awaited the all-clear from her more roguishly inclined and experienced compatriots before stepping any further.

  Once they’d sufficiently swept the room for traps, not finding any, Autumn made her way over to the body while the others spread out to search for anything else hidden within. She stopped beside the body and knelt beside it, taking care to not stain her clothes with dried blood.

  Yellowed teeth grinned up at Autumn through lips pulled back.

  The body was male. Elven too, judging by the sharp features and pointed ears evident even through the taut, papery skin clinging to their bones. Moldy leathers and red-ruined linens clung loosely to the dead elf’s body, cut open wide across the elf’s stomach. The cut matched the profile of the rusty blade when Autumn gingerly checked it against the wound.

  Autumn grimaced quietly. Whomever this had been hadn’t died quickly.

  A quick rifle through the decaying pouches on the elf’s belt revealed little, aside from a handful of silver coins. Only a dozen or so. Autumn quickly pocketed those.

  Only one other item of interest remained unchecked; the book.

  Reaching over, she gingerly picked it up, shuddering slightly at the gritty feeling between her fingertips.

  The book was ruined. Almost completely. Blood had stuck the pages together where it’d fallen and the words inside had mostly turned into a mess of unintelligible ink blots. Still, Autumn could pick out a few words here and there, even some complete sentences, as she carefully leafed through the red book.

  “What’d you find?” Nethlia asked curiously as she came up behind Autumn. “A book?”

  Autumn nodded as she glanced over her shoulder at the demoness. “From what I can make out, I think it’s a journal. Most of the pages are stuck together, unfortunately.”

  “Anything useful inside?”

  “Give me a second to look,” Autumn said as she carefully paged through the book. After a moment, she found a section that she could understand and, more importantly, relevant to them. “Aha! Listen to this. ‘Ralo’ - that’s a name, I think - ‘Ralo brought a map from a wandering trader today. Says it’ll lead to an ancient tomb filled with treasure. Personally, I think he was scammed... A vote today... Halowyn is excited to be traveling once more after our break. She is smiling more; it lights up my soul. Why does she look at Ralo? He is scum. A fool. Not worthy of her affections.

  Flipping a few pages, Autumn jumped ahead. “Hmm, this looks interesting. ‘We found the tomb today, right where the map said it’d be. Damn near buried. Still, we made our way inside after clearing what sand we could... Ralo was smug. I just want to punch his face in.’ Blah, blah, blah, skipping. Aha! ‘The traps almost got us... Balter was almost killed. Did Ralo care? No.’

  Nethlia snorted. “This writer seems to hold no little animosity towards this Ralo character.”

  “Yeah, it seems like it,” Autumn said. Flipping forward, she read out another section. “‘A mirror of undeath bars our path. Halowyn says she’ll take care of it. I believe in her abilities... Inside rested a mad Necromancer. Ralo almost got us killed once more. He couldn’t leave well enough alone. The Necromancer noticed the moment he stole some kind of key from him. We barely escaped with our lives.”

  “Looks like we found our mystery thieves, huh?” Liddie said as she inspected the rusty blade, having approached the pair while Autumn was reading. She plucked it from the dried blood to lift the edges of the elf’s apparel. “I wonder where the last key is? I don’t see it here.”

  Autumn hummed. “That’s true. Maybe there’s something in here that’ll tell us?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Not like we have any other plans.”

  Looking back to the crimson book, Autumn continued reading, the words more grimly written further in. “‘We never should've come here. Traps got Tafir, Zin, and Salowyn. Balter turned to ash before my eyes. Even Halowyn is dead. My sweet Halowyn. Why does Ralo get to live while she dies?! He didn’t even care when that undead cut her down! Damn him! I’ll kill him!’”

  Liddie snorted. “How dramatic. Which one do you think this is? Ralo or the writer?” she asked, gesturing to the body before them.

  “The writer. See here. ‘Ralo stabbed me, the bastard. He stole the map from me and fled with the key into the room of black sand. I don’t know what lies within, but I hope it kills the traitor. We were tricked. It was not wealth he desired, but that hells-damned key. I hope he chokes on it.’” Autumn looked up from the book as she trailed off. “It ends here.”

  Nethlia looked toward the towering door to their east. Sandstone made, it loomed over them — a grim portent decorating its face.

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  “Looks like we need to head in then,” she said, clutching her hammer tight. While gesturing to the others to gather, she nodded towards the monster on the door. “Anybody recognize this shade?”

  Only shakes of the head were her answer.

  “No matter. Let’s take it as we go. Does anyone see a way to open it? We don’t need another gem key, do we?”

  Standing up, Autumn tucked the bloodied book away into her larger pouch upon her belt before looking over at the looming door. As she approached it, she glanced over it to see if it had any such recesses or wells that the others sported. She had no such luck in finding any. However, what she did find were a set of crimson handprints pressed onto the sandstone.

  Perhaps they just needed to push? Or maybe this Ralo guy knew how to open this door?

  Autumn didn’t have any other idea on how to open it either way. Approaching the marks, she reached out and placed her hands against the door. As soon as her palms touched the cool surface, a jolt raced up her arm. She tried to wrench her hands away but found them stuck fast. Within her, her magic surged at the probing intrusion and rushed to meet it.

  The shock latched onto her magic and withdrew into the door. And like a flood, her magic followed.

  Beyond Autumn’s palms, the cool stone began to heat, slowly at first, but soon reached a scorching temperature. It felt like she’d plunged her hands into molten metal or foolishly held her hands to lava.

  Sweat steamed from her brow.

  Her grinding teeth squeaked against a held scream.

  Fire within. Fire without.

  Time seemed to stretch into infinity in the igneous moment.

  Finally, the door had its fill. It let Autumn go as a deep rumble echoed through the room. Slowly, the door ground open.

  Autumn staggered back from the door into a set of awaiting arms of red. The pain faded as she lay in Nethlia’s arms. When her mind returned from its white-hot agony, she looked down at her hands, expecting to see blackened, blistering skin. She was surprised to see nothing of the sort - only pale, unblemished skin greeted her eyes.

  “Are you okay?” Nethlia asked, naked concern in her voice.

  “I-,” Autumn coughed out. Clearing her throat, she spoke once more. “I’m fine, surprisingly. That hurt like a bitch. Got the door open, at least.” She smiled hesitantly.

  True to her word, the door ground loudly open before them, filling the chamber with resonate sound. There was only darkness beyond the parting doors. A void. Reality laid bare and woven into a veil that drifted and swayed in an unseen, unfelt breeze. Silence emerged from the darkness, devouring the room and sent shivers rolling up the party’s spines.

  The dark-portal was as horrible to gaze upon as it was unfathomable.

  Pyre broke the heavy silence with a whisper. “We aren’t going through that, are we?”

  Autumn jumped slightly at the gunshot sound of her words. She looked over her shoulder at the younger girl. “It’s not like we have much of a choice. We need to get the key. And unless one of the other locked doors back there leads to the pharaoh’s final resting place, I think this is the way there too.”

  “Have heart!” Liddie barked playfully as she slung her arm around Pyre’s shoulders, much to the girl’s displeasure. “We’ve survived everything this tomb has thrown at us so far!”

  “Didn’t you get almost bitten in half by a mimic?”

  “Details!”

  Autumn ignored the rest of the pair’s bickering as she further examined the woven gloom. This way leads to madness, it seemed to say.

  Behind her, Nethlia spoke as she too examined the way. “Think this’ll lead us into another realm or something?”

  “Maybe,” Autumn answered. “Maybe not. It’s not like we noticed when we fell into the Feydark. I doubt it’ll straight up kill us though.”

  “You know that for a fact?”

  Autumn shrugged, running her finger over the ferryman’s ring she wore. “Just a feeling. Still, I doubt it’ll be a pleasant experience.” Turning her eyes to the rest of the party, she spoke up a little louder. “Anyone having second thoughts?” she joked.

  Liddie snorted. “A little late for that. Hells with it. I’ll step into the creepy portal with ya!”

  Everyone else nodded at her statement. Some more enthusiastically than others.

  “Well, see you on the other side then,” Autumn said.

  Turning, she stepped through the darksome door and into the veil beyond. The others swiftly followed.

  Nausea laid claim to her mind as she fell, feet swept out from beneath her. Nothing was as it should be. Up was down. In was out. Left became right and right became wrong. The air crawled and twisted like soup. Down, down, and down she fell. Or was it up? Tumbling. Turning. Coiling. Things unseen appeared before her eyes, only to vanish almost as quickly as they came. Realms of death and decay. Hellfire and ice. And blood, oh, so much blood. Lakes of it.

  Purple. Autumn could taste the color purple.

  Her lungs screamed for air that wasn’t. Her eyes yearned for light that never was. She twisted, gasped, clawed, and bit as she fell.

  Forever.

  And never.

  ...

  …

  …

  She wanted off this fairground ride.

  Fortunately, the darksome veil soon granted her wish as it spat her stumbling free into a new and even stranger place than whence she’d been. Gone were the tomb’s beige sandstone walls, floors, and ceiling, replaced instead by an endless sea of black dunes rolling evermore beneath an equally sable sky. Bygone castles of ancient peoples and places littered the horizon, walls burdened by the heavy surf piled up against them, driven there by howling winds.

  Autumn could barely hear herself think amongst the squall as she stood atop a high dune.

  As she glanced around, eyes shielded from the harsh sands blasting her, Autumn noticed another thing other worldly about this place. There was no sun, nor moon, nor stars lighting the sky, yet she could still see. An omni-present grayness illuminated the world dull. Her own lantern light, pale as it was, shone in the gloam like a lighthouse.

  A sudden popping sound erupted behind her, like air escaping a tire in an instant. She had only a moment to notice it before near 300 pounds of demonic muscle crashed into her, sending both her and a newly arrived Nethlia tumbling uncontrollably down the high dune they’d appeared upon.

  Autumn’s yelp of fright was quickly cut off as she ate a large helping of sand on her way down.

  When the pair finally came to a stop at the base, Autumn sent a baleful glare Nethlia’s way as she dug herself out of the black sand. Nethlia sent an apologetic smile her way.

  “Sorry!”

  Autumn chose to forgive her, magnanimously.

  Another popping sound erupted above as another member of their party exited the veil, swiftly followed by the rest one by one. Soon, they slid down the dune after the already descended pair and gathered with them in the shelter of the dune. Above them, the winds howled furiously.

  “What now!” Liddie asked, yelling to be heard over the noise.

  “We need to find our missing tomb robber! Hopefully, they’ll have the key with them! After that, we need to find the exit to this place!”

  “How do you know there is one?!” Pyre asked. “For all we know, we’re trapped here!”

  Autumn shook her head. “I don’t think so! While difficult, there hasn’t been an impossible challenge within the tomb so far! This’ll just be the same!”

  “If you say so!”

  “It doesn’t matter!” Nethlia bellowed, her voice a war-horn. Eyes turned to her instinctively. “We’re here now, so we’ll deal with it! We’ll make for the closest castle we saw coming in! Our lost friend likely had the same idea! Keep your eyes out for that monster while we walk! The one that was on the door! If we’re lucky, we might avoid its notice entirely!”

  Liddie snorted. “Knowing our luck?!”

  Nethlia acknowledged her point with a grim nod.

  Bundling up the best they could, the party set off towards the castles in the distance, boots slipping in the sand as the winds battered their bodies with waves upon waves of sand.

  High in the dark sky, unseen by those on the ground, a giant shadow moved.