There was light up ahead. A long and thin tunnel joined the next room to the previous, and as we stared down its length, we could clearly make out something shining brightly.

Now, during our walk through the dungeon, we’d largely been silent. There had however been one conversation that was vital to have: What were we supposed to do when we encountered Ephesis?

He was theoretically on our side, but if he seemed hostile for some reason… well, we were probably fucked. Perhaps we could have used some of our time to make a battle plan contingency just in case, but after the fourth or fifth room filled with corpses, not even Rock considered trying to fight the man. We didn’t like our odds.

That meant that the name of the game was diplomacy, which posed a new question: How should we greet him? Or more specifically, who should greet him?

While we were all hoping for the best, the fact that the high priest had opened the portal as soon as he’d woken up kind of had us on edge. He was, after all, a guy who’d seen his whole city murdered and then had sat in a trance for however many centuries: It was possible he wasn’t in the best headspace right now.

Just to be on the safe side, we decided that instead of all five of us coming at him at once, we’d just send one of us.

Rock considered doing it, but he admitted it might be better if Cal or I took the lead. It was possible, he claimed, that the high priest would feel more at ease with another human.

From there, you’d think it would be simple: Cal had a stunningly high Charisma and great diplomacy skills to boot. She was clearly the girl for the job here.

Sadly, the rest of them didn’t see eye to eye with me. “He knows who you are!” they said. “He gave you control of the city, and you finished his quest! Far better you than some random person he doesn’t know about.”

All this to say, when we at last saw light up ahead, this is how I ended up walking forth, alone, heart beating out of my chest.

If this is how I go out, I’m going to be pissed, I thought. I mean, I won’t actually be pissed, because I’ll be dead, but I’ll be pissed in spirit. Possibly literally? Are spirits real here? I mentally slapped myself. Maybe not the time.

When at last I reached the room ahead, I was stunned. Ephesis was present, but that part was at least expected — it was the rest of what I saw that grabbed my attention.

The first items of note were a large smattering of light orbs, spread out evenly throughout the cavern. Despite the room being even larger than the one we’d originally found ourselves in, there wasn’t even a speck of shadow to be seen. While this in and of itself wasn’t that odd given who we were dealing with, it did make it easier to see everything else that was going on.

Mainly, that included the giant, floating rift in the center of the room.

It was a jagged, dark, void radiating a sense of wrongness as if it were a scar in the very fabric of reality itself. It hung halfway between the floor and ceiling, taller than two forest shadows atop one another, and it gave off a sort of pressure that stopped me cold in my tracks. Were it not for the all-encompassing light which shone from every angle, I would have almost expected the rift to open up and swallow me whole.

What the hell even is that? I don’t remember seeing anything like that in Ephesis’s vision, although I sincerely doubt he created it. It wasn’t exactly screaming “holy light” after all.

There was one final item of note, a sharp contrast to the black, obsidian walls and the light-sucking void: Centered around the rift were a series of concentric circles, appearing inlaid into the ground. Precise lines and ornate flourishes connected them all together, and the entirety of the pattern glowed with golden light.

I’d yet to see any magic which could be cast in such a way, but even with my relative lack of magical knowledge, the sight of it shouted “I’m a magic diagram!” so intensely that I had very little doubt as to what I was looking at.

At its center, standing below the rift, was the high priest. He looked much the same as last I’d seen him, wizened with gray hair and flowing yellow and cream-colored robes. While he looked none the worse for wear from his brutal rampage across the dungeon, it was strange to see him appear so animated given the statuesque image I had of him in my head.

He noticed me shortly after I walked in, spinning about to face me. Thankfully, he looked neither shocked nor angry as he opened his mouth to shout out.

“Ah! Tess! The one who opened the dungeon portal, yes? I had some limited level of awareness while I was in the trance, but it’s a joy to meet you now that I’m up and about. I think I sense your friends a bit further back, do I not? Have them come; have them come. Exciting things are in motion.”

His cheery demeanor surprised me, and while I was relieved to see that he was in a good mood, the way he spoke was far from what I’d expected. As if realizing that I was taken aback, he flashed me a disarming grin.

“You’re a bit tense, then. Understandable! A nasty place we’re in, and the pressure from the scar can’t be making it any easier on you. Here, how’s this?” He coaxed a thread of mana out of his palm and it appeared to weave itself into a dizzying formation. Once complete, it faded away.

In its place, however, a grand and fanciful chandelier faded into existence, entirely formed from light. It lifted out of the high priest’s hands, dodging the rift and eventually attaching itself to the cavern’s ceiling. It flooded the room in a warmer, amber light, and under its glow, I found myself suddenly calmer, more at ease.

Nice, I decided. Wonder if we could get one of these for the bathhouse. It was an odd thought to have, given the circumstances, but I felt myself incapable of being too worried at the moment.

I called out to the others. “Come in! The high priest is here, and it’s all safe!” Soon thereafter, all four of them came through the tunnel, their eyes widening at the rift and the magic diagram. I watched in amusement as the amber light struck them, and their muscles drastically moved as they each let go of their pent up tension. They joined me, while the high priest still stood in the center of the room.

“Ahh, and the gentleman who was with you when you discovered me. A lovely reunion of sorts.” Ephesis nodded towards Rock. Thankfully, if he bore the shadow any ill will for trying to strike him down when we first found him, he didn’t show it. “Welcome, welcome. This works nicely, in fact. I could use some assistance for this spell I’m casting, and you’re all just in time to help! Truly, it must be the Light’s will, yes?”

The five of us glanced between one another, dozens of questions forming on our lips at once. It was at last Rock who managed to get one out.

“I will aid in anything which removes the threat of the dark god. Before that, we need a few answers. Why did you immediately open the dungeon portal? What are you casting? Why would you need our help?” While doing his best to be polite, Rock was nonetheless fairly blunt with his words, getting straight to the point.

Ephesis donned a sheepish grin, the expression looking strange on the man who I was certain could fry us all dead in a heartbeat. “Ah, yes. Well, my apologies for that one. I perhaps got a tad impatient. I’ve had quite a long time to figure out what I would do if the dungeon was ever reopened, and then once it became an option… well, I was almost worried that it would disappear if I didn’t open it immediately, you understand?”

Internally, I let out a sigh of relief. I’d briefly worried that he might be a bit unstable given how abruptly he’d run into everything, but it seemed that he was just impatient. It was, if not exactly how I’d want him to have acted, understandable at least.

“As for what I’m casting, it’s a sort of a divine linkage spell — It will strengthen my connection to my goddess. Especially now that the prison seems to be wearing thin, it should allow me to widen our link and pull her through to this side. Once she’s out, she will be more than capable of taking care of the rest.”

Some part of me was fairly worried about doing anything that related to gods or releasing them, but it seemed that ship had already sailed. And frankly, I was out of my depth here, and I knew it. I either had to trust that the high priest knew what he was doing, or we’d be all the way back to square one.

“So? If we’re going to do this, how do we help?” If we were going to trust the guy in the end, I mostly just wanted to get everything over with. The less time I had to spend in the creepy dungeon, the better, and it’d be an incredible relief once all of this was behind me.

On hearing my question, Ephesis beamed at the five of us. “A very simple affair! If you five just space yourself equidistantly about the ritual circle, you’d be able to assist in providing some of the energy for the ritual to succeed. I confess, as much as I was about to do just that, it would take a rather heavy toll on me were I to try it alone.”

Well, that seemed simple enough. If the only thing I needed to do was play the role of a mana battery, I would count this as a win. I would have been lying if I said I wasn’t a little freaked out at the prospect of being linked to some big, high level spell, but it would be fine, wouldn’t it? And in any case, the warm glow of the chandelier seemed to soothe any worries out of me before they could bubble up.

The five of us looked to one another wordlessly. For a moment, it looked like Rock would protest, but the words died on his lips. He nodded, and it appeared we were all in accordance.

Seeing that we’d agreed, Ephesis gave a brief clap. “Delightful! Now if you’d just spread out, I can explain things a bit further.”

We followed the priest’s instructions, standing along the circumference of one of the central circles, evenly spaced apart. I felt like I should have been feeling some sort of butterflies forming, but none came. I was calm. Ready.

“Before we begin, I’ll warn you that you might find the coming sensation a bit unpleasant. A touch painful even. It’s incredibly vital that you do not move during the process, however. If you leave the circle while the spell is in progress, or if you break my concentration, it could fail. To that end, if it’s all right with each of you, I’d ask that you allow me to help bind you in place.”

I frowned, both at the mention of the incoming pain, and at the idea of being bound to the circle. The others — barring Jason, who gave a quick thumbs up — looked equally concerned. Sensing our hesitation, Ephesis called out to each of us in turn.

“It is, of course, quite a thing I ask of you, but think of it this way. Tess, as soon as this is over, your quest is done. No more frantically running about. No more being forced to talk with kings. No more nearly dying in dungeons or having to live in a ruined city with a darkened sky. You’ll be free. Burdenless.”

I felt his words sink into me, draining me of the last ounce of tension I felt. He was right. I was so close to being done with this nightmare of a quest. Just one little spell’s worth of discomfort, and I’d be done. I felt deeply at peace at the thought.

“Rock and Hartha, yes? If we’re successful here, this will be the spell that saves your forest. You two, more than any of your kin, will be responsible for protecting your tribe. A small bit of pain in exchange for being heroes.”

They’ll probably have another celebration. That’ll be two of them with Hartha at the center of them. Good for her. And Rock too, I guess.

“And… Cal. This is exactly what you promised your father you’d be doing, is it not? Perhaps not your true reasoning, but here we serve the Light to drive out the darkness in the deadlands. He will be remarkably proud of you, I’m certain.”

Something about the priest’s words caused a stray thought to pop into my head. It seemed important, but before I could focus on it, it disappeared. Hate it when that happens.

He turned to Jason, this time taking a long pause. He blinked at our scaled companion for a few beats before at last opening his mouth. “And… Well, your friends are all doing it, right? If nothing else, you’ll get to go through it with them. Perhaps think of it as a bonding experience?”

His words appeared to resonate with the rock thrower, as he looked entirely at ease now. Not that he didn’t normally, but there was a certain tranquil expression on his face that was one step further than usual. In fact, scanning the room, it was one that was shared by all of us — myself included, I imagined.

“Lovely, lovely. Let’s get those bindings up, then.” He took a seat on the ground and closed his eyes before summoning up a barrier of light around himself, identical to the one we’d seen him in earlier. Once he was all settled in, a thread of mana escaped from his palm, and after it was fully woven into the desired pattern, it faded. This time, however, the effect was quite different from the chandelier he’d created earlier.

From the ground, sets of shining, iridescent chains shot up beneath each of us. For a split second, I was almost alarmed, but they moved too fast for me to even react to them. Each chain ended in a shackle of sorts, and each of us got four of them, one to clamp down on each limb. They yanked our arms down to our sides and were exceptionally taught, restricting our range of motion.

Seeing a solid twenty chains around the room, my Identify Skill had a field day and activated with the skill description.

Light’s Shackles

Roots, silences, pacifies, mana locks, reduces mental re-

My eyes skipped over the long list of effects. It was a binding. What more did I need to know? I caught the end of the notification, however, which I found curious.

Duration: Channeled. This spell effect will continue for as long as the caster concentrates on it.

Neat. Outside of my weapon and armor enhancements, I wasn’t sure I’d seen something like that before.

It was a good thing Ephesis had this spell, really. I wasn’t used to situations like this. It was nice that I wouldn’t be able to screw anything up by accident. The rest seemed to agree with that sentiment, as none of them appeared worried by our bindings. It was good to be able to help!

“Ahh, those appear to be working nicely. Now. Let’s begin, shall we?”