Chapter Eighty - Path of Broken Reflections

You are Entering The Path of Broken Reflections Dungeon

Levels 7-10

Your entire party has entered the Dungeon

Seal Dungeon until exit?

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

“Any changes to your quest?” Amaryllis asked.

Pruning the Evil

You 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 trinkets they could either use or sell--so he was familiar with the first floor, at least.

I imagined that five or six drolls like Moon Moon would tear through a couple of glass golems with no problem.

“Should we get some lights?” I asked as we moved down the darkened tunnel that was the dungeon’s entrance.

“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 illuminated the tunnel ahead and reflected off the hundreds of glassy facets growing all across the walls of the tunnel.

Our group huddled a little closer together as our faint reflections passed by every which way in the walls around us.

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

“Dungeons don’t need to comply with your sense of fashion,” Amaryllis said. Still, she was the one that looked the least comfortable about being in such a narrow tunnel.

Then we reached a door. A large, circular doorway that looked more like a faceted crystal than a proper door, but it had large brass hinges on one side and a complex handle on the other.

“This one needs turning,” Moon Moon said before reaching for the round handle.

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

“Whoa,” I said as I stepped out.

We were in a ravine. A huge open area that was cut into the ground like a massive scar. It reminded me of pictures of the Grand Canyon. 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 platform overlooking the rapidly flowing water way off at the bottom of the ravine. Glass spikes jutting out from around the churning waves, like teeth waiting for someone clumsy to trip and fall into their maw.

Unlike the Wonderland dungeon, I couldn’t spot any path down.

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

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

Moon Moon moved to the edge of our platform, 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 underneath. I moved closer, then dropped to one knee next to Moon Moon and brought a hand down. From so close it was easy to see the foot-thick beginning of a glass bridge, but when I looked up I couldn’t see the tiny imperfections in the glass beyond a few meters. “We need to cross this?” I asked.

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

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

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

“The book mentioned wires making that dangerous,” Awen said. “Awa, I think I can 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 coursing 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 courage in hand, I stepped onto the bridge, then bounced on it a few times, ears perked for the faintest 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 opened them and looked straight down. I saw her entire body tensing. I couldn’t blame 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 nineties instead of teenagers. Each step was slow and placed just-so on the slippery glass 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 last trip. It was very sad. But we have made it.”

I didn’t know quite what to say, so I picked up Orange and set 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 since the dungeon went 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 knocking anything down, Broccoli. Awen can 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 on either side to keep it locked. A bit of grunting, some twisting, and then even more grunting later, the door was sliding open on a pair of hinges that were as thick around as my thighs.

The room beyond the door was like a cathedral. Faint light illuminated the room from behind monolithic stained-glass windows and the walls were made of large grey bricks. The passageway we stepped into curved off to the left a ways, only stopping at a large device that looked like a sextant with about a hundred extra arms. There was another passage branching off that one and veering off to the right, but I couldn’t see far into that one without being at the intersection myself.

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

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

“That one,” Moon Moon said.

I followed his pointing finger to the wall behind the device. A glowing gem floated, suspended between two glass hands just before the opened chest of a strange statue.

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

“I’ve been demoted to team lamppost,” 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 glass golem, similar to the one we had fought outside of the dungeon, but... warped. Its surface wasn’t made of as many clean lines, instead it was broken up and covered in tiny asymmetrical bumps and bubbles just under the surface, like really old window panes. One of its four legs even looked a bit shorter than the others.

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

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

“No,” Moon Moon said. “But without its glowy thing you can’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 place 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 can 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 another leg, then we dogpile it.”

“I like this plan,” 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 nodded at me.

“Go Moon Moon!”

The droll leapt ahead, tail wiggling behind him as he pounced onto the glass 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 Glass Golem Gem Guardian, level 9.

“It’s level nine,” I said before firing off towards the creature with a burst of stamina. I planted 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 glass giant stumbled forwards a couple of ungainly steps.

“Close your eyes!” Amaryllis screamed.

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

It was partially wasted. The clap of her lightning attack shook the room and left me with a huge greenish-white mark across my vision even through 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 black.

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

It splintered.

The golem tipped.

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

I shot out of my crouch and 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 glassy splinters that showered down on the two of us. I did my best to shield both myself and Awen until the last piece of glass tinkled to the floor.

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

Congratulations! You have busted Glass Golem Gem Guardian, level 9. Bonus Exp is granted for breaking a construct above your level! Due to combating as a team your reward is reduced!

“Awaaa,” Awen whispered.

I looked down to her flushed face and 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!”

***