The room was circular in design, though in truth it was more of a cylinder with an absurd height. Long tendrils of gems hung down from a darkened distant ceiling. The gems were suspended into the purple lighting that illuminated the main section of the chamber. In the cardinal directions four pillars made from diamond held up the distant roof.

The black wall had portraits embedded directly into it, colored not with paint but instead with jewels. Each portrait was of a different eminence that had once lead the Architects. Around the inner part of the chamber stood statues that were in honor of some of the greatest of their society. Each one had eyes made from rubies, white hair that had been created thanks to a white jewel, and a body made of diamond.

Even with all of those works of art none of them mattered to me. Instead all I cared about were the two people near me. One was a flawless woman who cradled the other in her arms, though the one she held had already died. The ever present smile I had grown accustomed to seeing had vanished, along with his life. His chest was all one had to see to understand why as it had been ripped open.

“Pierre,” I murmured as I stared at his body. Out of all the people I’d travelled with he’d been the one I most would’ve wanted to call brother.

His heart hit the floor with a wet sound and the momentum of that fall caused it to roll toward Pierre and Lute. My eyes tracked to where it’d come from, to the male figure who was at least a foot taller than myself. The familiar sight of red eyes and white hair made it easy enough to know what exactly he was.

The Architect had a bored expression on his face as he stared at the blood on his hand. The red liquid slowly started to slide down toward his wrist and the long sleeve of the white shirt he wore. As though uninterested in my very existence he paid no attention to me and instead glanced at one of the two other Architects who stood near him.

“Feculent blemish,” the man uttered in a hoarse voice as he flicked his hand at the ground, the blood on it splattering against the hard surface.

The other two Architects began to chortle at that comment. The one on his left was taller than him, but thinner and almost sickeningly pale. The other was a female Architect draped in a silk dress embroidered with emeralds.

“Why!” I bellowed at the Architects.

Without a thought I had already gripped the hilt of my sword with my right hand, while the left began to point in the direction of the trio. The sensation of magic as it began to surge from within tingled down the length of my arm. All around the statues that had been so carefully crafted hundreds of years ago cracked loudly and started to crumble to the ground.

“Irksome presence.” The central Architect showed no concern about my growing fury, though his friends had stopped their laughter.

“Markov said this was a safe place! That you all were peaceful!”

“Markov,” the man said his name with a sneer, “dysfunctional miscreant.”

“Who are you?” I demanded of the mysterious Architect.

The blood stained hand lifted in my direction while a flicker of something flashed in the air. What appeared to be slivers of metal appeared one by one and coalesced around a central image. The rate at which it gathered was almost too fast for me to even realize it had been formed on the spot, the total construction of the object requiring a mere two seconds. When it was all finished a powerful looking handgun was held in the grasp of the murderer, and the weapon had been aimed at the weeping Lute.

“Helim,” was what the Architect said right before he pulled the trigger.

Floor 33

A Frigid Affair

When I woke up from my dream the chill had already seeped deep into my body. Even with a small fire lit within our small cave it could barely hold back the cold. At some point in the night Lisa and Kuzu had crowded in close to me, while the Wolfe brothers had taken up residence as close to the flames as they could get.

I detached myself from the girls and stepped over Kuzu so I could get closer to the firepit. Adam glanced up and gave me a nod, though Lance remained asleep. I knelt down next to the flames and held my hands out to the heat, as though begging for a bit of warmth.

“You alright?” Adam whispered.

“Fine, just fine,” I glanced at the entrance to the cave. The sound of the blizzard outside was a constant reminder of how we couldn’t hope to move off from this frozen wasteland yet.

“You were mumbling a bit in your sleep, something about a Pierre.”

I remained quiet for a short while as I thought on that statement. It was no surprise that I spoke in my sleep, thanks to both Lute and Kuzu I had already confirmed that habit. To agonize over every little thing I spoke of in my slumber would only be a waste of energy.

“Friend of the family.”

“You seem to have a few of those,” Adam murmured.

“I thought everyone did.”

Adam scoffed at that but didn’t press the matter further. Instead he focused on the firepit, the flame dancing in an almost hypnotic way, while he wrapped his arms tighter around his body. Outside the howl of the wind was an ever present reminder of how we had become bogged down on the thirty-third floor.

“Adam, why don’t you take a nap,” I said, “let me handle the night watch.”

“You sure?” Adam asked, his eyes half-closed from the weight of fatigue.

“Yeah, don’t worry,” I patted him on the shoulder to try and reassure him.

Adam swayed beneath the pat but gave a nod in response. He stood up and walked over to a corner of the cave. From his pack Adam pulled out a thick blanket, then collapsed next to his brother.

As he drifted off to sleep I listened to how he breathed, I waited for that moment when any pretense at being asleep would turn to reality. The weather was cold and miserable with little hope of turning to the better, a situation that could ruin my plans and cause innumerable issues for the near future.

Once I was certain that everyone was asleep I quietly stood up and stepped away from the firepit. The entrance continued to be a wall of wind, sleet and snow but I walked into it without hesitation. The frost layered onto my body immediately while my skin cried out at the frigid situation.

I placed one hand on the hilt of my sword.

☗ ☗ ☗ ☗ ☗

It was probably the warmth of the sunlight that woke up Kuzu, as the shafts of warmth filtered in through the cave entrance and tickled her face. She stirred slowly and in turn caused Lisa to wake up alongside her. Like a domino effect the Wolfe brothers were awakened due to the sudden activity within the cave, as Lisa stood up and let out an excited cry.

I had taken up a spot in the doorway of the cave, back pressed upon the cool stones, with my attention focused on the tundra outside of our safe haven. Through the remainder of the night I had seen no sign of any life on the thirty-third floor, though that did not guarantee we were alone. The shifters ranged throughout the thirtieth to the thirty-sixth floors so it was never a good idea to drop your guard.

“The storm already broke?” Adam stood up slowly as he pressed one hand against the wall for support.

“Not too long ago, shortly after the sun came up.” I gave a shrug of indifference.

“Strange,” Adam mumbled as he peered out the cave.

Lance clapped Adam on the back and laughed loudly, as he demonstrated a lack of concern about how fast the blizzard had vanished. “Good luck ain’t it? We be blessed by the Goddess!”

“Luck...yes.” Adam gave a nod of his head before he started to gather up his gear. “We should make for the portal before the next storm rolls in.”

Deeper in the cave Lisa darted around Kuzu while she prepared to leave. Kuzu slipped the glasses onto her face and checked the compass on her wrist, a glance in my direction the most attention she spared me.

The exterior was a bleak flat plain of white with wisps of snow that danced in the wind. No trees could be seen nearby nor any type of animals. It was an inhospitable place that even the shifters found oppressive, a floor that encouraged everyone to move on as fast as possible.

We trudged steadily across that white field with little to do. The entire trip I spent tensed, worried that at any moment a shifter or other creature would burst from the snow. Kuzu couldn’t help but mirror me, this was a new place for her and snow was a rarity she had learned to despise. The Wolfe brothers, however, were so relaxed that I wanted to smack them upside the head.

When the portal loomed on the horizon my daughter let out a squeal of delight before she tried to dash ahead of us all for it. I managed to scoop her up in my arms before she slipped away. She didn’t struggle against me, though she did end up becoming a tad grumpy.

“There might be an ambush,” I reminded my daughter before I let her go.

Lisa let out a small sigh at that comment. “Fiiinnee.”

“Don’t worry, ain’t nothing here,” Lance called over his shoulder to me.

I glared at Lance’s back, though I didn’t vocalize my displeasure. It was fine by me if Lance wanted to be flippant, but when it came to my daughter I preferred caution over recklessness any day. I could only hope she didn’t develop any type of bad habits due to her continual exposure to him.

We gathered around the sphere that acted as a bridge between the floors and even still I didn’t relax. I knew well enough that ambushes could happen while a group was in the midst of a transfer.

Yet in the end we vanished peacefully from the frozen wasteland.

Floor 34

The Lava Bridge

If the previous floor had been too cold than the thirty-fourth was absurdly hot. Even though we’d only been on the floor for a few seconds I’d already developed a thin layer of sweat. Our arrival marked the appearance of a small fog bank around us as the ice and snow melted from our bodies.

Around our entry point were numerous rocks that reached about waist height, bumpy and uneven with no two the same. Further out was a sea of lava that never once stopped moving, no matter how much time would pass the lava was a permanent and active presence on the floor. The rocky ground we stood on, painted red by the glow of the lava, stretched out in a singular direction to where the portal was.

It was not a complex floor, if anything it was one of the simplest in the entire labyrinth, and yet that did little to decrease the danger. Not only was the lava a threat for anyone clumsy enough to fall into it, but there were often shifters that nested amongst the rocks.

As always happened when we arrived on a floor all of us were ready for a battle. I had Lisa pulled in close to my right side while in my left was a pistol. Kuzu had her claws out while her ears twitched, eager to hear any potential threat to us. The Wolfe brothers had weapons prepared in case we were ambushed right from the start.

“Ain’t alone,” Lance growled in warning.

Before I could ask how he knew that to be a fact a nearby stone began to twist. From the side of it extended a long and thin tentacle, one that was bright red and covered in small spikes. The tentacle itself swung at my head. I ducked away from it, dragging Lisa along with me, and aimed my pistol in the direction of the shifter.

Adam proved to be the faster of us as he put two bullets in the shifter. The tentacle it had thrown at us flinched before it fell motionless to the ground. He fired a few more bullets into the now deceased threat to make certain it was dead, the noise of his gun far louder than I might have preferred.

When my attention moved away from the now deceased threat I noticed that Lance was focused on a rock bridge ahead of us. “Smell something?” Adam asked as he stepped in close to his brother.

“Yeah, ain’t sure what though.”

“All the more reason for us to hurry,” I pointed out to the brothers.

Lance gave a sniff at the air, and then he flashed a grin at us. With quick steps he moved over onto the land bridge that stretched over the lava. Every so often he would come to a stop, sniffing at the air like some dog, before he progressed further.

It was when we were halfway across the bridge that four of the stones warped into a humanoid shape, tentacles tossed at us from numerous directions. I leaned to the right, hand pushing Lisa down close to the ground, while I aimed at the nearest shifter with my pistol. When my bullet lodged into the body of the shifter a large hole erupted out the backside of it.

Kuzu dealt with her own problem in a somewhat merciless fashion, claws snapping out at the tentacles at a speed nearly impossible to follow. The bladed ends sliced through the tentacles and turned the long string into numerous chunks. Kuzu gave the shifter no chance to recover as she moved in closer with her claws aimed forward. When her body collided with the hardened body of the monster her claws dug deep into the torso, before she ripped out one of the internal organs.

Relieved that Kuzu did not need my help I turned toward the Wolfe brothers. Adam and Lance had drawn close to one another. Any tentacles that swung in at the pair were knocked away by Lance, his daggers apparently incapable of severing them, while Adam fired his pistol numerous times at the enemy.

What we had all forgotten about was what our little conflict would generate on this deadly floor. A few more shifters rose from their curled forms and moved in like hungry vultures to steal the prey of their fallen brethren. From behind and in front they came, all the eager to capitalize on our distracted state.

“Kuzu! Needles!” I cried out to the kitsune over the cacophony of the fight, a barely discernible call that I could only hope she understood.

Kuzu finished slicing open the throat of her opponent and turned to me, one eyebrow cocked up as though she wasn’t sure what I meant. It was the nod after that helped to dissuade my concerns. Her thin hands lifted up into the air in front of her and she waved them out in the direction of the distant shifters behind our group.

Thin spears of ice formed in the air near Kuzu and shot out at the shifters she had motioned toward. Most of them pierced into the bodies of the monsters, but due to the warmth of the floor a few melted mid-flight.

Reverberations ran across the whole of the land bridge that we stood on. The lava nearby rippled while a few of the small pebbles and rocks on the ground bounced. From off to the east I could hear a loud splash that sounded as though a mountain had fallen into the burning sea. It was a noise I was not familiar with, a fact that did not make me feel any better.

The noise caused the shifters to pause in their attack on us, and then they scattered. Some of them curled up and tried to hide themselves amongst the rocks, but the main bulk of them ran and never stopped. It was such a shift in their aggression that I glanced at Adam and Lance for answers.

“A magma serpent,” Adam breathed out in a whisper filled with fear. His gaze looked to the east while his hands had begun to shake.

Before I could ask what he meant a loud screech that made me wince filled the air. From the horizon on the east a long shape rose out of the ocean of lava, wings made of a leathery material outstretched to their fullest. The head of the creature had the look of any ordinary snake but it was easily large enough to swallow a man whole. The body looked to be heavily armored, while lava dripped freely from the nooks and crannies of the monstrosity.

“Oooh, I didn’t know mom made that,” Lisa commented while she peered at the beast, “what is it daddy?”

“What are you doing! Run you idiots!” Lance roared from ahead of us, already well on the way toward the portal.

The yell shook the rest of us out of our stupor and brought our attention back to what was needed. All four of us followed after Lance, though I couldn’t help but sneak a few peeks in the direction of the magma serpent. It was easily one of the larger creatures I had seen in the labyrinth, and one that I had never known even existed.

I could only attribute that to the fact that whenever I’d previously come here I’d slipped through as fast as possible. Or perhaps it was due to the amount of activity we’d generated? If it was a monster that relied less on sight and more on smell or sound than all of that fighting would’ve been like a spotlight.

It became obvious in a short amount of time that we would not outrun the magma serpent to the portal. My mind began to work at potential ways to deal with the situation, my grip on my sword tightening while my brain churned. While I could run to the portal infinitely faster than I was currently doing I could only carry one person with me, perhaps two at most. The amount of energy required to go back and forth to gather all of us would put me past or close to my limit.

Given the dangers that the next few floors offered it was a risk that I didn’t want to take. So too was another option discarded, though I’d rested a bit on the previous floor I’d also spent a bit too much magic. Lisa could possibly handle the magma serpent but given her lack of combat experience I’d be a risk. That left me with a simple enough solution, though it meant letting the brothers see more of my abilities.

While the others continued on I came to a halt, my feet skidding gently on the rocky ground. Far nearer than I might prefer the magma serpent continued to swim across the surface of the lava, wings folded back against the spine while it’s form stayed low and partially submerged.

Nobody noticed when I stopped, nor did they notice when I aimed my right index finger at the serpent. Kuzu was the first to stop and turn, perhaps because she didn’t hear me running anymore, and so she saw the small ball of light that began to gather near the tip of my finger. As though the monster could sense that I was up to something dangerous it came to a halt, the main bulk of it’s body lifting up out of the lava.

When Adam and Lance turned around all they saw was the aftermath of my attack. Like some sort of guiding light the ball had shot out and attached to the left eye of the serpent. While the monster could only blink and recoil at what had happened a lightning bolt far stronger than what I’d normally utilize struck the ball, drawn to it.

The magma serpent let out a screech that sent a chill down my spine, my arms coated in goosebumps. The great behemoth swung it’s head left and right furiously while blood burst from the erupted left eyeball. With the remaining eye it tried to glare at me, but then it noticed my other hand had lifted up and pointed at it.

While it was a bluff, given my reserves of energy at that point, it was more than enough to spook the monster. With a loud hiss it turned and dove back into the lava. The others all let out sighs of relief as the magma serpent returned back to the east.

“I believe we won’t be bothered anymore,” I said as I turned to the others, “can we get to the next floor now?”