"This intersection looks familiar, "I say, crouching down and running my fingers over a scratch someone left on the polished obsidian-black wall that casts our reflections like a distorted mirror. "I think this is the third time we've passed here."

"How? We were turning left at every fork! This shouldn't be possible," complains my last-minute companion.

"Could it be that the walls are shifting?" I wonder. It's the only explanation that makes sense to me. Well, that, or the laws of how space connects work differently in a dungeon. I don't know which idea I find more disturbing. "Do you think someone left these marks? Could it be a clue, a riddle?

"Huh? No idea."

Enea's brows fall low, casting a shadow over her narrowed eyes that dart restlessly between patches of glowing moss hanging from the ceiling as if scanning for anything that may give us a clue of the way to follow. She presses her lips together into a thin, bloodless line that twitches every time she exhales through her nose. I see her curl her fingers into a fist at her side, then unclench, only to clench again.

"Let's try to follow them instead this time, hopefully it will lead us somewhere else."

"Okay."

So, we turn right this time, then left, then right again. Then we enter a room with a heap of moss-covered stones and cracked tiles that seem familiar too, like a deja vu.

I slam my fist against the cold, unyielding wall, making Enea jump and shriek in surprise. Echoes of the noise are reflected in staggered delays, sounding like high-pitched laughter.

I turn around in a slow circle. There are six tunnels leading into this room. All of them look familiar, all of them we have wandered before. Every path leads back to itself, every decision a loop in disguise. The flame of an endlessly burning torch wavers high up on the wall, casting dancing shadows that pool into every corner. I bite down a shout of frustration, tasting blood. This maze is mocking us.

And then there is the black stone door opposite all the tunnels, but it's closed.

"Do you think we are supposed to go through there to advance?" I ask.

"It could be. But it's solid rock. It will be impossible to break down without a pickaxe or something heavy. Could it be that we need to find a key or something? There is always supposed to be a way forward in dungeons, even if it is not obvious at first glance."

"Hmm, I don't think it's a key we need, though. There is no keyhole," I point out. My eyes wander over the heaps of cracked tiles again. An idea hits me. "This is supposed to be a challenge. Right? A challenge that can take many forms to test our strength, but also our wit and resourcefulness."

"Yeah, everybody knows that."

"Could it be a puzzle? Maybe we need to arrange those tiles in a certain way."

Enea groans. "Shit! You are right. I should have recognized that. It's a classic theme." She takes a closer look at the ground. "Do you see that grey rectangle on the wall? Maybe we need to fit them there."

"Worth a try."

I sigh and crouch down to start arranging tiles. Enea copies me. I think she is right about that spot on the wall, because the tiles stick to it like magnets.

Soon, we grow even more frustrated because there seems to be more than one way for them to fit together.

After what seems like an eternity, an image emerges from the chaos. The tiles form a mural. It's a battle, a battle between humans and some lizard-like beings that walk on two legs, armed with spears.

It seems to be telling a story. It starts on the left with a pitched fight between two equally sized groups, then more lizardmen arrive. The humans get overwhelmed and captured. The lizardmen tie the defeated humans up and drag them into a cave. And there they pen them up like cattle, taking their gear and their clothes from them. On the last image, the lizardmen are roasting a human on a spit over an open campfire.

Finally, the last piece falls into place. The image begins to vibrate and glow. Cracks seal back together as if time is reversing, until everything is smooth again.

Then there is silence. We look at each other, at the still-sealed door. A loud rumble behind our backs makes us whirl around.

Where there were six tunnels, leading into this place, only smooth stone walls remain. Shit! Are we trapped?

Click!

I see something flash in the corner of my eye, flying at me in a blur. I twist my body aside out of reflex, feeling as if I were still training with Bae. The wind of a spear kisses my cheek as it screams past me before clattering against the stone with a sickening, crystalline crunch. Obsidian splinters bury themselves deep into the mortar, in a cone around the point of impact.

Something snarls behind me. I turn and see a lizardman, about shoulder height, looking almost exactly like the drawings, standing under the open doorway, glaring at me. Then, a second lizardman steps into the cave, armed with another obsidian-pointed spear, and a third, and a fourth. They stare at our frozen forms with gleeful eyes, licking their lips with their forked tongues.

"Shit! Kobolds!" exclaims Enea, unsheathing a long dagger and stepping closer to the wall as if to cover her back.

A good reaction, but we need something with more reach. I lift the fallen spear with a flick of my foot, without bending down or letting the kobolds out of sight.

They seem to have stopped for now. They chatter between themselves with excited guttural snarls, apparently judging us to be harmless, seeming smug in their numerical superiority.

The balance of the spear I picked up feels a bit strange—the head is too heavy, dragging the shaft forward with each motion like an animal on a leash. The wood is also slightly warped, which makes the now chipped tip point off-center. It feels more like a gamble than a weapon, almost too awkward to be used. I turn it slightly and adjust my grip closer to the tip, trying to compensate for the weight. Then I hurl it at the biggest kobold like a javelin.

It rips through the scaly side of his neck like a stone through a paper wall, leaving a messy gash in its wake.

The kobold clutches his throat, letting his spear clatter to the ground. He sags onto his tailbone, his backward-bending knees failing him. Blue blood spurts out between his clenched fingers while he stares at me with accusing eyes.

His three companions snarl even louder, glaring at us with a stare sharp enough to flay skin. The corners of their mouths curl down in a venomous scowl, an expression of pure venom, promising a violent death.

A kobold skulks to each side like silent stalkers, as if trying to encircle us, the points of their spears always pointing at us.

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The last kobold looks at the weapon I hurled back at them, fallen at his feet, now even more broken than before, then up at his wheezing friend. He kicks the already ash-pale kobold over and pulls his spear out from beneath him. Then he creeps in my direction, following his companion.

"Can you hold one off while I finish off the other ones?" I ask in a hurry.

Enea looks at the one closest to her and gulps. "Yes?" she says, sounding hesitant.

I take a two-handed longsword out of my spatial ring and rush toward the second one before the straggler can arrive and gang up on me. I step around his spear and slash toward his center mass in a diagonal-downward strike. He yelps, but manages to retrieve his spear, parrying my strike off course. Though it costs him his balance, and he stumbles over his own feet.

Before I can take advantage of the opening, his straggling companion arrives and lunges at me. I barely manage to parry it, diverting the strike over my head. I let the momentum twirl my sword around before coming back at him from the other side like a pendulum. This time, I leave a gash on his forearm, earning another snarl.

I remember something Bae told me: if you can't go for the body, go for the hands or the legs. You don't need much reach for that, and amateurs often forget to protect them. A target that can't move or hold a weapon is a dead target.

That is what they are, amateurs. They are fast, twitchy, and unpredictable, but have nothing of the refined and calculated movements with which Bae tormented me.

I block a halfhearted sweep, leaving us in a bind, then I step forward, turn the edge of my sword to remove the friction, and slash my sword along the shaft of the spear into his hands. Three fingers drop to the ground. He steps back, almost dropping the spear, snarling louder and glaring at me with hateful eyes.

Before I can follow up on it, the kobold on the ground lunges his spear in my general direction, forcing me to disengage from his friend.

I'm getting frustrated. The kobolds may be bad fighters individually, but having to divide my attention between two opponents working together ramps up the difficulty.

Then I see movement in the corner of my eye. The third one?

I take a step back to have the solid wall guarding my backside, but it's just Enea. She creeps up behind the standing up lizardman and, before he can become aware of the presence of a new opponent, catches him by the shoulder with her offhand and slashes his throat.

The next strike of my sword sends the last, already injured kobold's head flying.

"I'm not useless!" exclaims the panting Enea, glaring at me. She looks at the sword in my hands, then at my ring as if reappraising me. Then shakes her head.

When did I say that she was useless? "Sorry." Thinking about it, maybe I did sound a bit patronizing when I asked her to keep only one of them occupied. "Err. That was awesome work." I say, feeling the heat of embarrassment rush up my cheeks.

"Never mind. Do you think there will be more enemies up ahead?" She asks, peering into the now open doorway.

"Probably, judging by the painting, but it's not like we have another option than continuing now."

"Seven hells!" she curses. "Let's go! We are still on a timer."

We wander through sparsely illuminated tunnels. There is no confusion about which way to take this time, just a single eerily silent path. Sometimes there are chambers, on both sides, filled with random clutter and heaps of pelts and feathers that must be sleeping places, but the lizardmen seem to have left in a hurry. I can see traces of their passage and footprints in the soft mud.

In one chamber, I find a soot-stained pot filled with a pungent-smelling stew, still warm to the touch.

"Where do you think everybody is?" I ask.

"No idea, but this place gives me the creeps," answers Enea with a shudder. She steps out from another chamber and glances up the path ahead. "We may need to keep an eye open for chokepoints to hold them back if they return, if we haven't managed to get away by then."

A loud ring echoes through the tunnel, of metal clashing somewhere up ahead. We look at each other.

"Do you think other applicants are fighting too?" I ask.

"It sounds like it," whispers Enea, frowning. "I know we are supposed to be competing with each other, but maybe we should try to help out. There is strength in numbers. It may be our only chance to get past."

We rush forward until we arrive at a vast cave filled with towering columns and stalactites, illuminated by glowing moss spreading along the ceiling. But the sight that awaits us here isn't at all what we expected.

Two teenagers are facing each other, heavily panting, surrounded by heaps of kobold and human corpses.

"Hold still! Have some honor for once in your pathetic existence and let my sword cut you down, you son of a toothless hyena that works for free in the red-light district!" yells a midget of a boy dressed in a fancy-looking robe now smudged with mud and gore. "You are not worthy of walking the same walls as the peerless beauty, fairy Linea!"

"And that is for you to decide, hmm?" scoffs a slightly older boy, somewhat less well dressed. He wobbles slightly on his feet, then straightens again. "You wouldn't even have come this far if it wasn't for all those artifacts your daddy gave you, you blustering peacock." He briefly glances at the trickle of blood dripping down his fingers. Then, he takes something out of between his robes, swallows it, and points the tip of his sword forward. "Be a man for once and come at me. You dog! Let strength judge our worthiness! There is only space for one of us in this world."

"You dare?!" My father is a gold-core-ranked expert. He will erase your whole pathetic family if you so much as touch a hair on my body!"

The second boy snorts. "Are you an idiot? He'll never find out about it. What happens in a dungeon, stays in a dungeon. Everybody knows that." He shakes his head. "History will remember that you died a dishonorable death to some worthless and pathetic kobold."

They dart toward each other in a blur, and sparks fly.

"What nonsense is this?" I ask, hiding in the shadow of a column, next to Enea.

"How should I know? But they are both wasting their time, look!" She points at a massive stairwell leading into the depths about two hundred steps away on the other side of the room. "That's the entrance to the next floor. They are wasting their time."

"We aren't the only ones watching them either," I observe, pointing at a trio of cultivators hidden behind a boulder like hyenas in ambush, looking at the fight with greed in their eyes, as if waiting to sweep in at the perfect moment. I recognize one of them, it's one of the boys who entered the dungeon at the same time we did.

"True," whispers Enea, her eyes wandering between white hanging curtains of calque and towering smooth polished columns. "I think if we slide down that underground river, we can sneak almost next to the exit unseen."

"Okay!"

The water catches me without warning. A cold rush catches my ankles and sweeps my feet from underneath me. I hit the slick, algae-covered stone with a grunt and slide into a deep pool, arms flailing, frightening a school of small, translucent fish that blur into hidden crevices before turning and looking at the intruder with too big eyes. But we are already past.

The stream drags me down a narrow channel that twists like a serpent between cone-shaped stalagmites and broken columns, into the heart of the cave. The walls close in, slick and ringing with the echoes of the fight somewhere above us, out of sight. Each turn makes me bump into the rock, trying to batter and abuse my body, but I'm having fun. If you don't battle the current, it's almost like the river wants you to play along with it as if it is a capricious toddler excited about something new. Then it finally tires of us and spits us out into a big pool where it leaves us drifting. The river carries on, somewhere up ahead, but it has already forgotten about us.

Up above, I can see a corner of the hole where the stairway disappears into.

I claw at the muddy slope, soaked to the bone, limbs shivering as the icy water trickles down my back. Enea curses behind me, then follows, heaving herself out of the river's grip. I smile and continue climbing in silence. We are only ten steps away from the exit. The earth gives away between my fingers, slick as oil, clinging to my skin in thick, heavy clumps that try to drag me back. But I don't give up.

I lift myself upward until there is nothing left to climb, and I sit on the edge of the slope. Then I remember that I'm not alone and lean over the edge to reach out to catch Enea, who has been sliding in place, unable to crawl forward for a while.

"Thanks," she mutters.

"Shit!" We hear someone cry behind us, his voice echoing around the cave.

I look back and see the slightly less well-dressed youth, leaning over the body of the other boy, wiping the blood of his blade with a corner of the now-dead boy's robe.

I wink at him, a grin on my lips.

"I'll pay each of you a spirit-coin if you keep your mouth shut!" he yells at us.

"Try to get out of here alive first!" I yell back.

"Alive, why?" I see him blinking in confusion. Then he whirls around, coming face to face with the three boys sneaking up on him. "Honorless traitors!" he spits out, unsheathing his sword again.

We don't wait to see the resolution of the fight and walk down the steps.

We cross a big gate and arrive in a slightly smaller, brightly illuminated cave. It's one hollow, almost spherical space, with another stair and a portal on the far side. There is a fountain in the middle, and benches where people can rest. A man dressed in clean but simple robes looks up from a notebook, taking in our mud-covered form.

"Forty-first and forty-second to arrive. Good, good," he mumbles, writing something down in his booklet. "You pass. Congratulations! Hand these tokens over at the registrar, and you will be assigned a room based on your performance."

"Forty-first, huh?" I think we entered the dungeon in the high eighties. After all, we made better time than I thought.

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