The Dragon of Roads

"On three. One, two, THREE!"

Bonpricha and I push on the same door, using all our strength and every scrap of magic to secure every advantage for the task. With groaning protests, the door begrudgingly opens inch by precious inch as two Emperors give everything they've got to opening a door. Though the door only barely opens relative to its size, we eventually get it to open a few feet, which is more than enough for normal mortal humanoids to walk through.

The first room inside is massive. Statues of various figures, each one intricate in appearance, line the walls. Said statues are at least ten stories tall, and considering that we have a long hallway ahead of us, our sense of scale is so skewed that we feel like we are barely moving. While there is certainly enough space for us to fly freely in here, it would be less than prudent to do so lest we trigger some sort of trap or smash into a force field.

We don't encounter anything of note. No monsters attack us, no hidden treasures twinkle invitingly for us to come plunder them, no secrets of the universe unravel before us. A grand staircase awaits us on the other end, fortunately with steps sized for us. Unfortunately, the climb to the second floor would require us to travel higher than the statues, so, it will be a bit of a bear. Considering it took us an hour just to walk to the staircase, no one was too excited for what followed, save perhaps for one.

"Hold on now, everyone, I have something for this."

Torborg, virtuous and saintly as he is, had packed a contraption in one of his pocket dimensions. The device in question was a platform, one with dozens of little mechanical legs on the bottom. With a few minutes of tinkering to adjust its settings, he managed to attach part of it to the handrail.

"All aboard!" he called out to us.

Without reservation, we each walked up the stairs until we could turn back around and get onto the platform. With a pull of a lever, the platform began to accelerate up the stairs. It was not a quiet journey, for the platform made a grinding sound on the handrail and dozens of little legs made clinking noises on each and every step. However, no one complained, and with a handful of Abilities used to block out the offending sounds of machinery at work, we began a pleasant if uneventful ride. After a few minutes, we made it to the top, where another set of doors awaited us. Fortunately, these doors were only twice as tall as Nabonidus, and so they would be much more reasonable to open.

After Torborg packed up his platform, we opened the doors and stepped through.

[Now Entering "World Heart Dungeon". Current difficulty set to "Agnostic Scaling"].

"What does 'Agnostic Scaling' mean?" asks It-Has-Pockets.

"It means that the difficulty scales with both how many people we bring with us and, to a lesser extent, how strong we are collectively as an average," answered Bonpricha as she continued to stride boldly into the next room. "I mean no insult, but some of us are stronger than others in our capacity for violence, and so the weaker members water down the difficulty for the stronger members. At the same time, they increase the difficulty in that there should be more enemies. It should not be a big deal, for it should ultimately provide a respectable challenge regardless of our composition."

"I guess I will take your word for it," It-Has-Pockets replies as she withdraws her sword from her dimensional storage.

Most of the others follow suit, for the building tension where nothing has happened has layered unease upon our group. No one is jumping at shadows yet. A glance towards Nabonidus shows that his face remains entirely neutral. One could suppose that surprising an [Oracle] with an ambush would be a tall order.

Ahead of us is another door. It is visibly locked, with giant chains from each corner meeting in the middle where an overly large lock resides. Additionally, along the walls, one can see two conduits of some clear material that connect to the door, but nothing flows through them.

"It seems like we need a key and a means to power the doors."

Torborg's suggestion seems to sum up everyone's shared opinion. To the left, there is a passageway that is rather dark, where hardly any source of illumination offers a means to determine what lies beyond. To our right is a similar passageway, only it is so well lit as to be akin to high noon on a cloudless day.

"Which way do you want to go first, Boss?" asks Bambina.

All eyes turn to me as they await a decision.

"Let's go right." I declare with finality and steel in my voice.

As we move that way, I feel some flicker of power, one that is both familiar and yet elusive. While nothing outwardly suggests that I notice it or am disturbed by it, I task some of my minds to figure out what that was. No answer is found before I enter the next room, and so I decide to continue to remain vigilant in case it happens again.

The next room continues the aesthetics we have seen so far, one of a temple with stone statues and illustrious carvings on the walls and ceiling. I send out a few whelps to examine it, but I don't see any sort of continuous story being told by the artwork, nor do I recognize any of the figures. Perhaps they are all from an age long since lost to time and history.

As we enter the next room, Alterez is the first to speak.

"Oh look," he exclaims dryly. "Goblins. How typical."

The goblins numbered twoscore, which really wasn't enough to challenge us unless they were all masters of magic. The first goblin that saw us let loose a guttural scream, and the whole lot of them, each with primitive weapons in hand, descended upon us with no semblance of order or coordination.

It was, predictably, a one-sided affair.

Chooka, It-Has-Pockets, Torborg, Gambino, Bambina, and Nabonidus handled them, the rest of us staying back and providing support. Of those gathered, they were our weakest and least experienced. Bellwright manifested warped terrain to slow the enemy's advance and to funnel them to our vanguard. In so many ways, it was a textbook example of a clean victory, but considering the goblins were primitive, uncoordinated, and rather lacking in cunning or self-preservation, it would hardly be noteworthy enough for a tale at a tavern.

"Clean work everyone!" I exclaimed after the very short battle concluded. "Anyone hurt?"

A chorus of "nays" echoed back to me, and so we moved on. The next hallway had a grid of tiles, four wide and twelve long. In a pattern, tiles would glow red for a while before the glow would transfer to a nearby tile. Currently, it advanced in slow waves, and under the assumption that stepping on a red tile would be bad, we would have to zigzag back and forth from left to right to weave between solid lines that took up three of the four tiles of width, with a safe passageway between each row. Considering the whole configuration shifted towards us over time, one would have to move at a fast clip to make headway.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"My Emperor, would you permit me to send one of my clones forward to test what happens if one strays into the red?" asked Jericho.

"Do so. The rest of us will stand well clear."

Jericho had been leaving a breadcrumb trail of clones behind her as she went, both to provide a rearguard and to help ensure at least one instance of her would survive, such that she would never truly die. Fully armed and armored, one advanced onto a red tile.

A sickening crunching sound followed. If you blinked, you would miss it. The ceiling had a grid of tiles, each one smaller than those on the floor. In almost an instant, a solid mass of them crushed down onto the floor, encompassing a total area to cover a tile and half of each neighboring tile. Almost as quickly, they retracted up to the ceiling.

Some of the finest armor in the world could be found in Jericho's kit. I had used the best materials and the strongest enchantments I could make, and from testing, she had withstood boulders smashing into her at great speeds with impunity. The fact that this trap treated her armor like it was tinfoil spoke volumes to the force and the metaphysical might it imparted in its blows.

A second clone tried to jump over a red tile, and it likewise was smashed to oblivion for its impertinence.

"Okay, so, no going over those red tiles. It seems like cheating is off the table here."

Jericho shook slightly as she announced her findings. She retains most of the memories of each and every clone, especially their deaths. Ever since she had attained her Dual-Blessing, she had an air of invincibility about her, which was only reinforced by all the equipment I provided to her. Being pulverized into scrap so soon on the first floor of a dungeon humbled and frightened her more than she would openly admit.

I could try to teleport across, but I don't want to find out the hard way that such an action is forbidden. We also have no way of knowing if the dungeon will react to what we do, so we try to keep our cards close to our chest by not employing any Abilities above and beyond what is needed. Many of us have experience with that from duels, sparring, or fighting at World's Hope, so the habit of not showboating is well engrained by now.

"Okay, I got this."

Another Jericho clone entered the trapped area, taking care to stay off the red tiles as she ran her way through the "maze". It was agonizing progress, for she had to sprint to make any headway. After she made it halfway through, the pattern suddenly changed. If the far end was the "top", then it seemed as if blocks were "falling" on her, each one appearing at the far end in a random spot, lingering there for a second, and then rapidly transitioning from one tile to the next to approach our side. While it caught her off guard, she did manage to adjust and dodge the first few.

But certainly not all of them.

With another crunching sound, another Jericho clone perished. An annoyed huff sounded from Jericho's nose as she readied a batch of ten clones. Two entered the "maze", each going back and forth, while the rest lined up at the entrance. Upon triggering the "rain", the rest entered the hallway. They pushed and shoved, seemingly in competition, but to one with keen eyes, they favored advancing one of their own to progress as they forcibly moved her out of the way of oncoming red tiles. The lead two were making good progress, but they ultimately got smashed. Not only that, but the red tiles that they triggered continued onwards, and so, one could not send forth a horde of bodies to eat up the reds. Ergo, that strategy was out.

However, the lead Jericho clone made it beyond halfway, and then a blue tile appeared. She hesitated only for a moment before stepping onto it, and nothing happened. As a red tile of "rain" came at her, it harmlessly passed through her tile.

"Looks like the blue tiles are safe tiles," the Jericho clone with us announced.

Without warning, the blue tile disappeared, and the Jericho clone there summarily found herself turned into paste as a red tile appeared under her feet.

"For a while," she added.

While most of us were cheering, offering encouragement or advice, or surreptitiously gambling on the outcome, a certain someone had remained remarkably quiet.

"You ever see anything like this in any dungeons before?" I asked Bonpricha.

"Nothing like this," she replied neutrally.

"Do you think Jericho can do this?" I asked.

"All things are possible," she replied with the same neutral voice.

"You know, I was thinking of boiling Chooka alive and serving her for dinner. How does that sound?"

I was by no means quiet in this conversation, and all other chatter ceased as everyone looked at me.

"That sounds nice," Bonpricha answered without any comment or emotion.

"Wonderful weather we are having today. Do you think it will rain blood from the sky?" I asked. Everyone was now growing suspicious.

"Rain is good for the crops at least."

Without hesitation, I grabbed Bonpricha by the throat, lifted her off the ground, turned my body to face behind me, and continued with my momentum to choke slam her into the floor.

"Watch out, we are under attack," Bonpricha exclaimed with only a slight degree of alarm.

"You are just an illusion, aren't you?"

Bonpricha's eyes gained focus as she looked at me directly. "Took you long enough. I'm already on the eighth floor. Do try to catch up," she announced smugly as she winked at me.

A moment later, her body shimmered into transparency and then disappeared. I stood up and turned to address the group. Many looked at the whole affair with confusion.

"Looks like Bonpricha has been cheeky. Let's go back to the main door and see if we can figure out how she advanced."

"But I almost got this!" shouted Jericho, right before another crunching sound announced evidence to the contrary.

"If we don't see how Bonpricha figured out how to ascend higher, we can come back and continue this."

Jericho huffed again, but she ultimately obeyed. Dozens of dead bodies littered the hallway she had tried to pass through, each one hampering the attempts of those that followed. It had been so bad that she had begun tasking some of her clones to remove the bodies, as they normally take a few minutes to disappear on their own.

A short while later, we find ourselves before the same door as earlier. The lock and chains remain on the door, and the conduits appear to be unpowered.

"I don't get it. How did she get past the door?" asked Chooka. "Also, I would make for more than just a 'nice' meal."

"Indeed, you would be very delicious," chimed in Jericho and Alterez almost in unison.

Where most women would be chilled by such a ghoulish response, Chooka beamed a winning smile as she stood akimbo to show off her "tasty" body.

Meanwhile, Torborg had a small hammer in hand, and with an ear on the door, he tapped away at it as he moved along it.

"Hmm, that doesn't sound like a metal I know of. I'm not so sure what to make of it."

While Torborg started getting out more tools, an idea came to mind.

"Everyone stand clear!"

Everyone complied with haste, and without fanfare, I wound up as strong a punch as I could muster. The thing about dragons is that, in our mortal forms, we can call upon a respectable amount of what mass we have in our draconic forms. In short, this means that I can pack a wallop when I want to.

My fist smashes into something solid and made from nothingness as an illusion over the door shimmers and disappears. Beyond it, we see the wreckage of a door that had been smashed and torn apart, and not by what I had just done.

"Hey Boss, isn't that cheating to break down doors like that, or at least unsportsmanlike?" asked Bellwright.

"I guess if it works, it works. Seeing as how Bonpricha is still alive, whatever reprisal she faced for doing so has not slowed her down enough to matter."

With that mystery solved, we climbed through the broken door and ascended another set of stairs. Our collective perspective on how to handle the dungeon changed along the way, for any notion of "solving" problems the "right way" quickly became an outdated mode of thinking.