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  [colpse]Chapter Eighty - Path of Broken Refles

  You are Entering The Path of Broken Refles DungeonLevels 7-10Your entire party has ehe DungeonSeal Dungeon until exit?

  “No thanks,” I told the s before it promptly (heh) disappeared.

  “Any ges to your quest?” Amaryllis asked.

  Pruning the EvilYou have heard of the location of a corrupted dungeon. Explore it, find any signs of great Evil. Eradicate them!

  “None,” I said.

  Amaryllis huffed, then she insisted that I take the rear of the group, with Awen before me and Moon Moon at the very front. The droll had tackled the first level of the dungeon a few times already with his pack--it was a good source of a few trihey could either use or sell--so he was familiar with the first floor, at least.

  I imagihat five or six drolls like Moon Moon would tear through a couple of gss golems with no problem.

  “Should we get some lights?” I asked as we moved down the darkeuhat was the dungeorance.

  “I’ve got it,” Amaryllis said. She raised a wing, then paused. “Humans don’t lose their night vision to red light, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  She nodded and light started to flood into a ball between the points of two talons. It hovered over her outstretched wing, glowing a bright red that illumihe tunnel ahead and reflected off the hundreds of gssy facets growing all across the walls of the tunnel.

  roup huddled a little clether as our faint refles passed by every which way in the walls around us.

  “Spooky,” I said. “I was expeg a bit more... I don’t know, something else. Not this aesthetic.”

  “Dungeons don’t o ply with your sense of fashion,” Amaryllis said. Still, she was the ohat looked the least fortable about being in such a narrow tunnel.

  Then we reached a door. A rge, circur doorway that looked more like a faceted crystal than a proper door, but it had rge brass hinges on one side and a plex handle oher.

  “This one urning,” Moon Moon said before reag for the round handle.

  The door ushed open without so much as a whisper of protest.

  “Whoa,” I said as I stepped out.

  We were in a ravine. A huge opehat was cut into the ground like a massive scar. It reminded me of pictures of the Grand yon. Walls of stone, nearly a hundred meters apart that sparkled as they caught the light from the blue-white sun above.

  We found ourselves on a small ptform overlooking the rapidly flowing water way off at the bottom of the ravine. Gss spikes jutting out from around the ing waves, like teeth waiting for someone clumsy to trip and fall into their maw.

  Uhe Wondernd dungeon, I couldn’t spot any path down.

  “That’s the first floor,” Moon Moon said as he poiraight across from us.

  There was aform there, with a gss door beyond it. “Um, how do we get there?” I asked.

  Moon Moon moved to the edge of our ptform, then put a foot over the edge and stomped it down.

  There was a dull thud, and the shadow cast by his foot revealed a surface just underh. I moved closer, then dropped to one knee o Moon Moon and brought a hand down. From so close it was easy to see the foot-thick beginning of a gss bridge, but when I looked up I couldn’t see the tiny imperfes in the gss beyond a few meters. “We o cross this?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Moon Moon said. Suiting a to words, he squatted onto all fours and began padding across the bridge. It looked as if he was walking oy air, kind of like he did all the time.

  The cat iion yawned and started walking ahead of me, pausing a little ways down to look bad see if we were following.

  “Well, I for one fly,” Amaryllis said.

  “The book mentioned wires making that dangerous,” Awen said. “Awa, I think I see them.” She pointed off to the side.

  She was right. If I squinted I could just barely catch sight of razor-thin wires sparkling in the sunlight as the wind c through the ravine made them wobble a little. There were hundreds of them. And as the wind was sliced apart, there came a sound like a faint and distant hum.

  Taking my ce in hand, I stepped onto the bridge, then bounced on it a few times, ears perked for the fai crack or splintering sound, but it was as solid as stone, if a little more slippery. “Well then,” I said. “let’s get a move on?”

  “Awa,” Awen said. She closed her eyes as she took her first step, then opehem and looked straight down. I saw her entire body tensing. I couldn’t bme her. Looking down to see a hundred foot drop under you was kind of spooky.

  “Hey, Awen,” I said. “It might help if you look at me instead of straight down, yeah?”

  Awen swallowed and tore her eyes up. “Oh-okay.”

  “Yeah Awen,” Amaryllis said. “You keep your eyes on Broccoli’s backside.”

  “Awa!”

  We crossed the bridge slowly, as if we were all in our ies instead of teenagers. Each step was sloced just-so on the slippery gss surface, and I’m certain that a single ‘crack’ sound would have been enough to stop all of our hearts.

  “We have made it,” Moon Moon said as he hopped on the opposite ledge. “And no one walked off the edge. Good good!”

  “That happened?” I asked as I hurried up a little and stepped onto solid stone.

  “Walks Very Crooked did not make it back from his st trip. It was very sad. But we have made it.”

  I didn’t know quite what to say, so I picked up e a her on my shoulder while the girls caught up with us.

  “So, this first room, it’s got a puzzle in it, right?”

  “Yes,” Moon Moon said. “It’s very easy. But we haven’t tried it sihe dungeo bad.”

  “Let’s try to form up, then,” Amaryllis said. “Broccoli, Moon Moon, you two at the front. Awen and I will take the back. Focus on knog anything down, Broccoli. Awen smash them, and I’ll fry anything that looks at me funny.”

  “What if I look at you funny?” I asked.

  “You look funny period,” she said. “Now open that door. It’s evening already, despite the light in the Dungeon saying otherwise.”

  “Right-o!” I said as I moved over to the door. It had a big brass wheel in the middle, with spokes poking out of it and two rods that slotted into the walls oher side to keep it locked. A bit of grunting, some twisting, and then even mruntihe door was sliding open on a pair of hihat were as thick around as my thighs.

  The room beyond the door was like a cathedral. Faint light illumihe room from behind monolithic stained-gss windows and the walls were made rey bricks. The passageway we stepped into curved off to the left a ways, only stopping at a rge device that looked like a sextant with about a hundred extra arms. There was another passage brang off that one and veering off to the right, but I couldn’t see far into that ohout being at the interseyself.

  Moon Moon moved ahead of us and poio the device. “That’s the thing,” he said. “You o make the light go from that thing to the hing.”

  “What light?” I asked as I approached the weird device. It was the size of a small car, aop a marble plinth as if it iece of art. It was certainly pretty enough.

  “That one,” Moon Moon said.

  I followed his pointing fio the wall behind the device. A glowing gem floated, suspended between two gss hands just before the opened chest of a straatue.

  “Amaryllis, you shine some light that way?” I asked.

  “I’ve beeed to team mppost,” Amaryllis griped. Still, she pointed a light towards the gem and that end of the room lit up.

  The statue-thing holding the gem was a gss golem, simir to the one we had fought outside of the dungeon, but... ed. Its surface wasn’t made of as many lines, instead it was broken up and covered in tiny asymmetrical bumps and bubbles just uhe surface, like really old window panes. One of its fs even looked a bit shorter thahers.

  “When you reach for the glowing rock, it’ll eat it. You o beat it up to get it back,” Moon Moon expined.

  “It won’t try to fight until then?” I asked as I took off my backpad pushed it into a nook to the side. I carefully pced e atop it and gave the kitty a pat on the head.

  “No,” Moon Moon said. “But without its glowy thing you ’t move on. It’s like this three times.”

  It was right up against the wall, so there was no sneaking around it. In fact, the best pce to fight it would be a little bit deeper into the corridor.

  I brought my shovel around and tried to think on how best to tackle the golem. In the end I went for simplicity first. “Okay. Moon Moon, you try to grab the gem. I’m going to kick it from behind. Amaryllis, hit it in the leg as hard as you without making us all go deaf. Awen, if her attack doesn’t break its leg, you’ll do the honours. If it doesn't fall from that, we break an, then we dogpile it.”

  “I like this pn,” Moon Moon said. “Usually we all just jump on it and rip and tear until it’s done.”

  I grinned. “Everyone ready?”

  Amaryllis flicked her wrist, revealing that magic dagger she sometimes used, and Awen fumbled her hammer out of her belt and me.

  “Go Moon Moon!”

  The droll leapt ahead, tail wiggling behind him as he pounced onto the gss golem’s chest and swiped at the gem.

  It was sucked into the monster’s chest before he could so much as touch it.

  “Insight,” I muttered.

  A Gss Golem Gem Guardian, level 9.

  “It’s level nine,” I said before firing off towards the creature with a burst of stamina. I pnted one foot on its head, then hopped towards the wall behind it. There wasn’t much space between the golem and the wall, which was exactly what I wanted.

  Spending all of my stamina on the first fight would have been silly. So I kept a bit in reserve as I kicked the golem with my back pressed up against the wall for support.

  The lumbering gss giant stumbled forwards a couple of ungainly steps.

  “Close your eyes!” Amaryllis screamed.

  I did as she asked while nding in a crouch behind the golem. I even pressed my hands over my ears food measure.

  It artially wasted. The cp of her lightning attack shook the room a me with a huge greenish-white mark ay visiohrough closed eyelids.

  It did a number on the golem though, sending a spider web of cracks through one of its better legs and turning its surface bck.

  “Ah-awa!” Awen screamed as she rao the monster and with a full body swing to give her attae weight, smashed her hammer into the creature’s leg.

  It splintered.

  The golem tipped.

  Awen’s eyes widened as the huge struct started to fall on a direct path towards her.

  I shot out of my croud dove across the floor to tackle her out of the way.

  Everything shook as the golem fell onto its side and exploded into thousands of gssy splihat showered down owo of us. I did my best to shield both myself and Awen until the st piece of gss tio the floor.

  Then, as one, all the shards started to fade away.

  gratutions! You have busted Gss Golem Gem Guardian, level 9. Bonus Exp is granted for breaking a struct above your level! Due to bating as a team your reward is reduced!

  “Awaaa,” Awen whispered.

  I looked down to her flushed fad grinned. “Sorry about that,” I said.

  “N-no,” Awen said. “I don’t mind.”

  “That was easy!” Moon Moon said as he plucked the glowing gem from the fading remains of the golem. “No loot though.”

  I hopped to my feet, then helped Awen up. “I’ll take easy,” I said. “Now, let’s figure out this thing and keep on moving!”

  ***

  AnnouOne of my other stories on Royal Roads, Love Crafted, has finished. If you're looking for something horrifibsp;cute to read, then give it a gander!