Something up the hallway has been bothering me. I don’t know if it’s a sound, some reflection of light off something or what. I just have this nagging in the, well, in the back of my perception skill that’s calling me. I ready my spear.

  “What’s up?” Jes asks, eyeing my stance.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I kind of sense something wrong up ahead. Stay here, be ready. Sadie, keep watch out the other way.”

  Jes huffs for a moment, and looks about to say something. I turn away before she does.

  I step as lightly as I can, hoping to level up in stealth. I wonder if it’s possible to level in Stealth if no one is there to hear you, or if someone must actively not notice you. Maybe Sadie can answer that later.

  Every sound of water dripping vaguely in the distance is suddenly apparent. The humidity in the air presses against me. Somehow, my Perception and Stealth skills are triggering together, making me inhumanly aware of the sound of the crunch of each step I take. I’m in some surreal world, slightly higher resolution than usual, and a much higher contrast.

  The wall has a line. Something on the right-hand wall is unnatural. I move to the opposite side of the corridor to approach the abnormality; spear ready, ears perked, scanning the wide corridor. I look behind me. The others haven’t moved, they’re a good half a football field back.

  It’s a door.

  It now strikes me as extremely odd that we’ve never found an actual door. This one is low, set into the stone wall, probably an inch over my head. It’s made of wood, probably, either painted gray or some gray lumber, I’m not a wood guy. There’s a horizontal handle of metal, a simple L latch. I creep back to the others.

  “It’s a door,” I say as soon as I can without shouting. Sadie rushes over from the rear-guard position.

  “What do you mean a door?” Jes asks.

  “A door,” I draw an outline in the air. “Like, a plain old door. Not a portal or anything. It’s a wooden door with a handle.”

  “I haven’t seen any doors,” Jes says.

  I think for a few seconds. “We haven’t either.”

  “I vote we open it,” Sadie declares. “Carefully.”

  “Hold on a minute,” Jes disagrees. “What if it’s the minotaur’s bedroom?”

  “Can he fit through that door?” I wonder aloud.

  “Fine, not the minotaur, but we can’t just go opening doors.”

  “I vote we open it, too,” I say. “Baco?”

  “Unfair,” Jes counters. “The pig will always side with you. Her, too.”

  “Sadie,” Sadie corrects. “And there’s plenty I disagree on with Dom.”

  Jes narrows her eyes. “Like what?”

  “Whether or not he’s funny,” Sadie decides. She doesn’t even stop to think about what we might disagree on, that’s just her immediate answer. I’m more than a little offended.

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  I indicate myself, Sadie, and Baco. “We’re going to open the door. You don’t have to be there, okay.”

  “If everyone from back home thinks like you,” Jes grumbles, “that explains why there’s no one left around.”

  I head to the door. Sadie, Baco, and Jes all follow. A few seconds later, we’re gathered around the door like it’s some relic we don’t understand.

  “Do we knock?” I ask.

  Jes holds her hand out across my chest, stopping me from getting closer to the door.

  “Might be trapped,” she whispers. I wasn’t aware we were supposed to be whispering.

  “None of the doors we’ve found have been trapped,” I point out. “Odds are this one isn’t either.”

  “None of them haven’t been, either,” Sadie adds.

  I give her a quick snarl. “Whose side are you on?”

  “The one that doesn’t get us all killed,” Sadie explains.

  “I’m with her,” Jes whispers.

  “You’re kidding me,” I gasp, staring at Sadie. “You two are now against me?”

  “I’m supposed to keep you alive, remember?” Sadie says. “It you touch that door and you burst into flame, I haven’t done my job. If you turn that handle and the floor opens into a pit of spikes, I haven’t done my job. If on the other side is a horde of venomous snakes, I haven’t done my job.”

  “Alright, alright,” I say. “Then what do we do?”

  Apparently, the answer to that question is that we all stand there, staring at a door like a monkey that just found fire.

  “This is stupid,” I whisper.

  “Let’s throw something at it,” Jes suggests.

  “Now you want it opened?” I taunt.

  Jes shrugs. “If we’re going to get it opened, first we have to make sure it’s not electric or something.”

  “We,” I note out loud.

  “Curiosity is overriding caution,” Jes says.

  Sadie looks around. “What do we throw?”

  I reach down and grab a pea sized pebble. Sadie ignites her hands. Jes extends the cestus spikes. Baco lowers his head to charge. I step back and toss the pebble.

  Dink.

  We all watch it drop to the ground. Precisely the way a pebble thrown at a wooden door would.

  “What now?” Sadie asks, picking up Jes’ whisper.

  “I’m going to knock,” I say.

  Jes takes a huge gulp of air and nods.

  I knock twice.

  Nothing. Feels like a regular door.

  I knock twice more.

  “Hello?” I call to the door. “Your food is here.”

  “Do NOT imply that we are edible,” Jes snaps.

  She’s right. Bad choice. I knock again.

  “Try the handle,” Sadie urges.

  I tap the handle with the head of my spear. No sparks. No trapdoor. No giant boulder barreling toward us.

  “Open it,” Sadie says.

  “I’m getting there,” I say. I reach out and touch the handle. It’s cool, hard metal. I don’t see anything like a lock. I push the handle down. It doesn’t budge.

  “It’s stuck,” I announce. “Or, it isn’t a doorknob.”

  I grasp the handle and pull.

  To my utter amazement, the door tugs open. We each take an immediate step back, weapons ready, guard up. It’s dark in there.

  “Sadie?”

  She knows exactly what I want and tosses an orange ember into the room. It’s maybe twice the size of a walk-in closet with shelves along one side and back wall.

  “Is this the janitor supply room?” I ask, stepping in. Sadie follows, her hand held high, burning yellow as our biological torch. The shelves have a variety of supplies, from rope to little boxes to leather squares. There are crude wooden crates on the shelves. Slats of wood and dowels lean against a far corner. An empty metal bucket lies on its side. Items wrapped in cloth and tied with twine cover one shelf. It’s a supply closet of some sort.

  “Hello,” Jes says, stepping to the back wall. “What have we here?”

  She picks up a yellow wooden bow, already strung.

  “You know how to use one?” I ask.

  “Summer camp,” she says. “Not great, maybe skill level two or three.”

  “Once you fire it, the system will know,” Sadie says.

  Jes picks up a rectangular quiver with a handful of arrows in it and slips it across her back. She readjusts her belt and Akon holder to not be blocked. I start poking through the crates and I unwrap one of the cloth wrapped objects.

  Cheese. I find a hand-sized wheel of hard cheese. She gets a bow and I get cheese.

  “Dom,” Sadie calls. I turn and I’m smacked in the face by something.

  A leather vest. Smooth and warm, made of some lightweight tan skin thick enough to at least provide minimal protection. It’s not hardened rawhide like Jes’ breastplate, but it’s a huge step from running around without a shirt. I put it on, and of course, because that’s the way things work here, it fits. Tiny wooden sticks work as buttons to fasten it shut. It’s not uncomfortable and certainly better than being shirtless, even if I do look a bit like a peasant. At least I’m not a shirtless peasant. Sadie spots an actual torch on the wall and lights it.

  I pull another box off the shelf and dig under shreds of cloth.

  Oh, yes.