I glared at the riddle before me, sort of hoping that a solution would pop out of my head. I thought about it and looked at the switches before me. It then occurred to me that I had to push the switches to answer. That narrowed things down quite a bit for me.
It definitely wasn't the sun, moon, or skull. I didn't like the look of the blank one.
It couldn't be time, which is what I guessed the hourglass was supposed to represent. The feather then. But why feather? It didn't make any sense. Unless?
It finally clicked in my head, and I could have slapped myself for how dumb I felt. It was a quill. I stepped on the stone switch gingerly; it depressed with a clunk.
"You have chosen wisely. Prepare for the next question!"
I was ready, feeling a surge of confidence. I had this!
"What falls but never breaks, and what breaks but never falls? Answer carefully!" The stone statue uttered.
There went all my confidence. I stared at the stones to weigh my options. It was good of them to leave me hints, but I was stumped. None of the stones matched the riddle individually. Could there be two options? The sun and the moon made sense, to stand for night and day, but I wasn't sure if pushing two switches was a good choice.
"Make your choices lest ye face my wrath!" The statue uttered, breaking my line of thought.
"I'm working on it, calm down!" I snapped at it. I felt foolish yelling at a magic statue, but I was tired and not in the best of moods right now.
Wait? Choices? As in multiple? That confirmed my suspicions. With my foot, I pushed down the sun and the moon symbols in quick succession. They clicked satisfyingly.
"You have answered correctly. One last question awaits you." The words on the tablet shifted again, and the statue spoke its final riddle. "The rich want it, the poor have it, and both will perish if they eat it."
I smiled to myself as I knew this one. This was a popular one that people always pulled out in riddle games, and I had heard it so many times that this was simply a no-brainer for me.
I stepped forward and pushed the button with my feet. It made that delightful clunking sound. Everything was silent for a moment, and then the eyes of the statue turned red.
"You have answered incorrectly!" It shouted at me. I was confused. The answer was nothing! It had to be the blank tile!
I looked down at my feet and realized I had erred in my aim and pushed down the skull. I cursed my overconfidence and my big feet.
"Your bones shall join the legion of those who have tried this challenge and failed! Behold, as the legion comes to claim you!"
Two massive doors to the side opened up, and a wave of bones and skulls with glowing eyes spilled onto the floor. They sat there still for a moment before beginning to twitch and float. The crystalline eyes of the statue detached and floated over the twitching bone piles, and with a pulse of red light, the bones began to coalesce into a shape. Soon it became an osseous horror in front of me, a mass of random skeleton parts in the shape of a poor mockery of the humanoid form. In one hand, it held a long spear made of leg bones, and a shield made of a mass of shoulder blades.
I swore. I swore loud and hard, jumped back from the switch, and got into a fighting stance. I guess I was getting a boss fight after all.
I backed up as far as I could to put as much distance between it and myself but given the reach of the bony polearm it wielded; it wasn't likely to do much good. I had to be careful here. I had trained against shield and spear with Smitty a few times, but this thing had greater reach, was much bigger, and was a construct, which meant I'd have no chance of tiring it out. It was like the stone constructs I fought earlier, though, which meant I knew how to defeat it. Break the crystals and call it a day.
The problem was that it had two crystals this time, and I wasn't entirely clear on how that would change things. Not to mention it was bones, and therefore likely could be considered undead.
There were three main classifications of the undead. Spirits were things like ghosts and wraiths, which meant they were incorporeal for the most part and weaker against magical attacks. Skeletal undead were made of bones and usually fought in hordes. They tended to require blunt force to break apart and were oddly resistant to magic, which is a mystery that magical researchers have been trying to figure out for years. The third type was just called Hunger type, which included vampires, zombies, and the like. They were a deeply complicated subtype, and I didn't have time to run through their characteristics at the moment, as the hulking bone pile before was beginning to move.
Its movements were slow and jerky, like it wasn't sure what to do with itself. It made a thrust that I easily dodged out of the way of. It sat there for a few moments before pulling the spear back and aiming to try again. It looked at me as if it was pondering how it missed, before it tried again. Similar result.
Could the crystals be having trouble animating it? How many skeletons made this thing up?
It then dawned on me. That's why it needed two crystals. There were so many bones in its body that the magic in the animating cores couldn't keep up. Not to mention, they didn't look like proper crypt-stones; they were regular enchanted crystals. Crypt-stones were suffused with the strange mana of the dungeon and had better power for animating constructs.
Why didn't it use them for this thing? I shook my head. My brain was going down a rabbit hole that it didn't have time for. I knew what I had to do, and if I didn't, I would be in a world of hurt.
I rushed forward under its next thrust to get in as close as possible. I scanned it quickly, trying to find the locations of the crystals. I kept as close to it as possible, making it difficult for the thing to bring its weapon to bear. I spotted, through the tangled mass of off-white bones, a glowing light. Taking a chance, I drew the dagger I had found earlier, I drove it through the narrow gap, the needle-like blade slipping right in, and I felt it contact the shining gem. As it cracked, I felt a tingle of energy climb up the blade and into my arm. I couldn't help but shout in surprise and pain as a sense of numbness caused me to lose my grip.
I dropped to the ground and rolled away, skittering behind the statue as I heard the sharp crack and pop of the crystal detonating inside the skeleton hulk, bone shards showering the room. I was grateful I had gotten away, as that likely would have hurt like all nine hells put together.
I rubbed my arm and shook it, trying to get the feeling back in it. It felt like I had fallen asleep on it. The pins and needles that crawled up and down it as sensation worked its way back into the limb made me clench my teeth, but eventually I was able to get my fingers to respond. I peeked around the corner of the statue to see what the hulk was doing, and it was trying its best to get its bearings. It seemed to be having a problem similar to me, its spear arm unable to hold up its weapon, part of the bony mass that made up its body falling onto the floor.
Which means it was even more off balance, and all it had was its shield. I looked carefully for another tell-tale shine of an animating crystal, but I wasn't having any luck from this angle. That meant I was going to have to get back out there. I took a deep breath and darted out, trying my similar trick of sticking close and dodging around its bulk.
With a speed it had lacked just a moment before, it swept its shield in front of me, and I bounced off it pretty hard. I stumbled backwards at the sudden impact, landing on my rear. Wincing at the indignity the stone floor had inflicted on my tailbone, I quickly righted myself, popping back onto my feet. In doing so, I just narrowly missed a skull shattering where I had just been.
I looked at the thing in surprise. It was now throwing parts of itself at me.
I was going to really have to dig into this later, as I could not figure out what exactly was going on with this construct, but I had to focus on the situation at hand.
I ducked under a few more thrown projectiles and tried to find an opening. Every time I tried to move forward, another bone came my way. If I got too close, the shield stopped me. There was part of me that wondered if I could just wait till it expended all its bones, but given its size and density, I would likely be here all day, and I just didn't have the time or patience for any more of this stupid game of Dodge Bones.
We circled each other in that small chamber for what felt like an eternity. I couldn't think of an opening. Attacking from the front seemed impossible. I wanted to try to flank it, but I couldn't seem to find the best angle. I really miss my companions right now. We could've tried all kinds of strategies with the four of us that would have made this fight feel like a bad comedy act rather than a dance with death itself.
I could have used the different perspectives too. We could've seen all the angles and handled this so much better with more than just my eyes tackling a problem. In the end, I suppose, that's why dungeoneering in a group was such a good idea. More perspectives equal better chances of survival. I was going to be so mad if that was the point of this assignment.
It then dawned on me. I needed a new perspective. I ran forward, dodging the thrown bones, and instead of going towards the skeletal horror, I moved towards the statue. It was taller than I. Hells, it was taller than the monster. I quickly scaled it, keeping the stone body between me and my foe.
All those summers of climbing trees when my sister wasn't paying attention finally paid off it seems!
I climbed up, sitting on the lion woman's shoulders, and took in the situation. The skeleton seemed to have trouble looking up, probably because it didn't have proper joints. But it was a magical construct, it shouldn't need to look, unless...
I saw the glint for just a moment as the thing craned its shoddily constructed neck, trying to find me. In the back of the skull, where the brain should be, was a small shine I could see through the cracks.
I knew what I had to do. I stood up on the shoulders of the statue, balanced myself, and leapt, my blade aiming straight for its head. The thing swung its shield up to try to block my strike, but I landed on it instead, rolling forward so as not to lose my momentum, and with a blow as hard as I could manage, I shattered its skull, exposing the crystal. I reached out and grabbed it, the shock of its power coursing through my arm, that numb feeling climbing up that arm for the second time. I resisted the urge to drop it and instead leapt from the monster.
With all my might, I threw the crystal at the corner of the chamber and ducked. It struck the wall with a loud ping, followed by a crack and thud of detonation. I felt some of the shards scratch my skin and stick into my skin, and I gritted my teeth through the pain as I heard the pile of bones collapse onto the floor in a cacophonous rattle.
I stood and dusted myself off, picking bits of crystal out of my skin, before taking a pull of my health potion and trying to shake the feeling back into my arm.
"You have passed the test, Mortal. Claim your prize." The base of the statue opened up to reveal a chest hidden in a small alcove. I pulled it out, opened it, and then cursed myself for not checking for traps. It was a bad habit to assume final chamber chests couldn't be trapped.
Regardless, I found myself gasping at the treasure inside. It was a sword, with faint runes in the blade. Nothing complicated, but something beyond anything I could have afforded from a crafter. It has a simple hilt made of a bronze-like material, and a grip wrapped with quality leather, its origin unclear. I lifted it and it was weighted perfectly. It felt even better than the sword I had been using up to this point. I gave it a few practice swings and was deeply satisfied with its balance and heft. Oh, I was going to look forward to using this after it was appraised.
I looked around for anything else that had been left, picking up the dagger I had used against the first crystal, and returned it to my loot bag.
I looked back at the statue, and the chest turned into mist, and the statue closed back up. That was a new one on me. Most of the time, chests stayed there. A mystery for later.
A previously hidden door opened in the back side of the room, and I saw the familiar glow of the dungeon core and felt the wave of strange mana wash over me, turning my stomach, which mixed with the adrenaline of the fight still coursing through my veins, threatened to have me lose my breakfast. I fought the urge. Breakfast cost money, and I was not in the habit of wasting money.
I entered and looked upon the glowing sphere in awe for a moment. It wasn't the first core I had seen, but there was something beautiful about them to me. The shine, the shimmer, the feeling of some kind of unknowable intelligence behind it.
I felt a compulsion and touched it gently, like I was patting the head of a child. I felt a strange surge shock my body and swore I heard a voice in my head say a single word.
"Help." I pulled my hand back suddenly. I had never heard tell of this kind of reaction before. The core pulsed slightly, and I noticed a small bump on its lower hemisphere.
The dungeons of the Corridor of Infinite Woes were notable for one thing other than the strange nature of its entire being, and that was that the smaller dungeons rarely needed pruning. We had been told to do pruning in our assignment of course, but it was the usual small tendrils as normal, but this was something else.
I touched the bump softly and heard that soft plea for help once again, more insistent than before.
I wasn't sure what was going on, but I had to do something. I would report this later and hope someone knew what was going on.
I sat on the floor and took out my tools. I used the enchanted cutting implements and gently carved at the edges of the protruding spot. Normally, we were told not to touch the main core, just the tendrils, so I was treading unfamiliar territory. I cut, and eventually, the shimmering form peeled away. As I did, I could hear the stone shudder slightly around me.
I swallowed my sense of fear, steeled myself, and peeling the nearly noncorporeal material that made up a dungeon core, I found what was causing the bump. It was a crystal of some kind. Like a crypt-stone but not entirely. I had no idea what this could be. I took a set of forceps from my tools and grabbed them. The dungeon continued to shudder as I gently pulled it free.
The core seemed to ripple suddenly, before solidifying again, the spot I had cut disappearing as I watched. I touched the spot again, and that voice returned.
"Thank you."
Everything was silent again, and I held a strange crystal marble, unlike anything I had seen before, in my hand.
Another mystery. I was up to my neck in mysteries and strange situations these days. Duels, rebellion, family weddings, a new friend, and now talking dungeon cores and weird crystals. It was getting to be too much. If this was how dungeoneering was going to make life, it was going to be hard to resist starting a drinking habit.
I sighed and looked at my timepiece. Plenty of time left. I stood, collecting my tools, and proceeded to the magical circle, where I stood on it. It did nothing.
I stepped off it and stood on it again. Nothing. The return circle was there, but it wasn't working for me.
Oh, this was not good. Very not good at all.