After I finally made it back on my feet we began making our way forward once again. I summoned two spear skellies to act as scouts. Or at least to trip any ambushes that were lying in wait for us along the way.

  We walked for another ten minutes or so before suddenly stumbling into a clearing. In the middle of it stood a golden structure. It was shaped similarly to those step pyramids from Central America and Mexico. There were no people sized steps leading upward though. Only a set of black doors recessed into the bottom block of stone. It looked like we’d be climbing up from the inside.

  The walls reflected the sunlight around the clearing, making things appear extra bright, especially after the gloom of the jungle and its covered canopy. Along each row of the pyramid sat statues around the ledges. Atop the bottom step sat a horde of goblins. Above that were a scattering of trolls. Above that was a handful of larger, uglier monsters. At the top of the pyramid, stood a single, large, four-armed motherfucker. It looked a lot like the four armed villain from that one game…mortal street something. Even had the ugly shaved head and tall ass topknot. I hated when he came on screen as a kid.

  “I really hope those aren’t like telling us what we’re going to find inside,” I muttered.

  “Come on! Getting hints like that is extremely helpful,” Mara argued.

  “Oh, yeah?” I countered. “What exactly can you tell from the statues that you haven’t seen before?”

  “Everything gets bigger. Ipso facto I need larger solar beams,” she grinned at me.

  “Is that even how you use ipso facto?” Oliver asked.

  “Who cares! You know what I meant. Don’t hate,” Mara scoffed.

  “Years of university training…wasted,” John chortled over his shoulder.

  “I hate all of you,” I grumbled. “Come on. Let’s go kill some shit or whatever. I need new minions.”

  Together we all stepped into the clearing and followed the skellies to the front door. I silently ordered them to open the doors. One pushed on one door. The other pulled the opposite door. Both were shot multiple times with darts. Neither reacted. Stupid skeletons.

  “Well, looks like it’s booby trapped or something. Good job, Grace,” Mara called out.

  “I mean if it keeps the pesky missionaries off the front steps, who are we to judge?” Ashley laughed.

  I looked around to see what had set off the trap. They were both still being periodically bombarded with darts. And neither had managed to open the doors yet. I couldn’t see any super obvious traps, so in my expert opinion as the necromancer, it was magic.

  Now to figure out how to–

  “Try having them press that big knob thingy over there,” Oliver pointed to the side of the little alcove the doors were in.

  With a shrug I redirected the skellies to what was now very obviously a switch or button of some sort. Probably important or whatever. They both had to press on it to get it to move, but once they did the doors began gliding open. They opened outward, effectively cutting off where the darts had been coming from.

  I sent my minions through the door. This time they were not bombarded with darts. With a shrug I went to follow behind them, causing the others to hurry forward as well. I snickered as Mara had to hurry to get ahead of me.

  Once we were all through the doors they closed behind us with a gentle thump. I had a feeling we weren’t going to be able to go back that way even if we wanted to. Onward and upward it was…or whatever.

  Inside the pyramid was made of more mundane stone. The corridor we found ourselves in had grey stone floors and a more tan stone walls. It was lit periodically by torches hung from sconces on the walls.

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  I was immediately relieved to find out that the corridor was not endless like the last one we’d been in. There was clearly a large, well lit room ahead. I thanked all the goddesses. We did not need more wacky shenanigans. Let me just kill shit. So much simpler. So straightforward.

  Which is why when we stepped into the room, of course it was a puzzle room. I mentally kicked myself for even thinking the thoughts that clearly jinxed us.

  The room was about twenty feet square. There were no doors that I could see. In the corners were large, multileveled candelabras basically covered in candles and dried candle wax drippings. They lit up the room quite well if unevenly. In the center of the room were a pair of pedestals. The one on the left was empty, while the one on the right held an almost life-sized goblin statue. It was if anything, uglier and more twisted than the real thing. On the back wall was carved: A feather against a heart. Sins against a soul. Fate against fate.

  Well damn. Definitely a puzzle room. And I had a sinking suspicion it was going to involve weights and the pedestals. I recognized the weighing a feather against a heart from Egyptian mythology, and honestly the others weren’t that hard to figure out. At least the hint wasn’t impossible.

  “So,” I sighed wearily. “How much does a stone goblin weigh?”

  “And how do we add weight?” Ashley asked.

  We all looked around. Suddenly there was a grinding noise. The wall behind us slid closed over the hallway we’d entered from. But by doing so it uncovered a large jug and a smaller jug. Behind them was a large fountain of water.

  We all shuffled forward and took a look at our new supplies. Then Mara started cursing loudly. Just obscene things that would have made even the proverbial sailor blush.

  “What?” I asked.

  She took a breath, which interrupted her tirade. “I think this is a puzzle within a puzzle.”

  “Ok…” I drawled out. “Want to share with the class?”

  “Die Hard,” she muttered. We all groaned. This did look suspiciously like the water puzzle from Die Hard 3.

  “What was it?” John asked. “Four gallons using a five and three gallon jug?”

  “Yeah, and I can never remember the trick,” Mara muttered.

  “Something about emptying the five gallon jug into the three gallon jug. And then…” John trailed off.

  “That leaves two gallons in the first jug,” I said.

  “Ok!” Ashley shouted. “Dump the three gallon jug and add the two gallons.” We all nod along. “Fill the five gallon jug and then add the one gallon into the three gallon jug, leaving…”

  “Four gallons,” we all chorused together.

  We immediately set about filling and emptying the jugs. It didn’t take long for us to have the ‘four gallons’ of water in the large jug. Mara went to grab it and run it to the pedestal.

  I grabbed her arm to stop her, “Let a skelly do it. No sense risking one of us.”

  She nodded her head and stepped back. I waved one of my skeletons forward and it lifted the jug easily then tottered over to the empty pedestal. It lifted the jug onto the pedestal.

  The room was so quiet I head the click sound from the pedestal an instant before spears erupted from the pedestal in all directions. The skeleton was impaled. I didn’t think anything of it, skelly is mostly empty space and slashing and piercing damage don’t really affect them. Right?

  Apparently they do, or there was something funky about those spears because the instant the spears retreated my minion crumbled to pieces before disintegrating into dust or ash or whatever.

  “So,” I trailed off.

  “Guess that wasn’t the solution after all.” Mara finished.

  “No problem I’ve got another and I can make more. I just wish we knew if it was too much or too little.” I sent the other skeleton to collect the jug and bring it back.

  “Maybe we can weigh the statue and try to match the weights?” Ashley asked.

  “Worth a shot,” I shrugged. I sent skelly over to bring us the statue. I didn’t want to get too close to the pedestals after that last demonstration. It marched over and easily lifted the statue off of the pedestal and brought it over, setting it down in front of me.

  John walked over and lifted it so easily, he almost fell over backward with the amount of effort he’d put into it. “Oh, shit! I think this thing is hollow. It barely weighs anything.”

  He sat it back down and I went to pick it up. It did not in fact weigh ‘barely anything.’ But it was only like twenty pounds or so. The skin on this thing must have been incredibly thin because the statue still stood several feet tall.

  Everyone else took a turn lifting the statue, because human nature. Then Mara walked over to the jugs and dumped them both out before lifting them empty. “Huh. I think these together without water weigh the same as that ugly thing.”

  Then we all had to of course lift the jugs, because human nature. We all agreed that it looked like the fountain may have been a red herring all this time.

  I quickly ordered the skeleton to replace the statue and then place the empty jugs on the pedestal. As soon as it was done there was a grinding noise and the wall across from us split open to reveal another corridor. This one came to a bend after a few dozen feet or so.

  Before we headed out I decided to make another skeleton, just in case. I took my spear and slammed it against the ground while pouring spiritual energy into it. The energy gathered and gathered and then sputtered out. The spear didn’t sink into the ground. No minion was born. Damnit.