The whisper receded like steam pulled into a broken vent, but its echo lingered in Xander’s bones. It hadn’t been language, not in any way he could parse, but the intention behind it still hummed at the base of his skull like a tuning fork tuned to madness.

  He summoned the spear back without a word. The formerly broken weapon once again formed in his hand. The faint white glow of the enchantment was swallowed almost immediately by the heat-dark gloom ahead.

  The hallway stretched forward, built of obsidian stone slathered in rust. Cracked iron beams crisscrossed the ceiling above, some bowed with age or pressure. A thin orange light pulsed up through the grated floor panels beneath their boots. The walls bled heat. Pipes ticked softly, swelling and settling in response to some hidden rhythm. Gears clanked faintly from deeper in the structure, a mechanical heartbeat echoing from a body long dead but still twitching.

  No one spoke.

  Jo was already moving to the front left flank, blade low, head on a swivel. Kane took the lead, ready to shield the others. Zoey lagged for a breath, then fell in beside Ford at the rear. She was favoring her side where the burn hadn’t fully healed. Her new sword was already drawn. Black steel with a short, wicked-looking blade.

  "Everyone, pay attention. This feels like ambush territory," Xander said. "Watch the grates."

  The passage turned into a shallow incline, the metal underfoot slick with old oil and ash. Steam vents hissed at intervals along the walls, some sudden enough to make flinches ripple through the group. Xander stepped over a gutter channel where molten slag had once flowed, now just a trough of cracked obsidian.

  Then the chains started moving.

  Thin lengths of rusted iron hung embedded in the walls. At first glance, they appeared to be dungeon set dressing. But as the team passed, some twitched. Just enough to make it impossible to ignore. Something was running across the chains further up in the ceiling.

  "Maybe it is routine," Ford said.

  Zoey gave a quiet snort. "Doesn’t seem like a union gig either."

  They passed a set of half-buried runes carved into the wall near an old furnace inspection door. Most were choked with soot, obscured beneath black grime and slag buildup, but a few lines pulsed faintly beneath the filth. Not enough to cast light. Just enough to catch the eye. They were jagged angular glyphs that meant nothing to Xander but made his stomach tighten like a pulled knot.

  The whispers came again.

  Not loud. It was like hearing someone talking through a wall. Quiet and muffled, like the moment before a scream when the world goes still. Xander’s fingers closed tighter around the haft of his spear.

  He didn’t say a word. He just nodded once toward the hallway’s end.

  The tunnel widened into a side chamber, which looked like an old pump station turned corridor checkpoint. Blackened pipes ran up both sides like skeletal trees, the overhead grating swaying slightly with furnace breath. A cracked floor panel gaped in the center of the room, and from it spilled movement.

  Furry soot-colored bodies with their tails on fire.

  [Analyze] Furnace Rat | Level: 8 | Status: Indifferent | Class: Beast

  A dozen of them poured out of the floor vent, their black teeth clacking as they skittered across the walls and piping in synchronized arcs. They didn’t attack or even glance at the team. Just ran, streaking deeper into the next tunnel like they had somewhere very important to be.

  Zoey tracked one with her new blade, then lowered it. "Right. Warm-up act."

  "Not interested in the fight," Kane said.

  "Or just smarter than they look," Jo added, already stepping toward the exit.

  "They’re running from something." Ford said.

  Or toward it, Xander thought. He didn’t voice it.

  They passed through the chamber, weapons high, stepping carefully over spots where the rats had burned trails through the filth. The whisper faded again, but the pressure hadn’t left. It was like something overhead watched.

  The hallway opened up once again. Instead of a medium-sized room, the one they had entered was massive.

  Columns of blackened steel rose like the supports of a cathedral, each one carved with rings of heat scoring and hammered runes. Huge pulley rigs hung overhead, their chains trailing down into pits where the glow of submerged forges painted everything in shades of orange and red. Broken elevators. Gear assemblies. Heat haze that danced like spirits.

  It should’ve been a place of deafening noise. Instead, it was quiet. Just the soft ticking of cooling metal and the intermittent hiss of pressure releases.

  The group paused.

  Xander’s eyes scanned the platforms, the walkways, the pulley lines. No movement beyond what the forge air stirred. Nothing waiting.

  Then came the screaming again.

  It tore out of the corridor ahead. It was distant but distinct, a voice pushed through stone and steel, ragged with pain.

  Then it stopped. It didn't fade, just stopped.

  Xander didn’t wait for consensus. He moved into the room, and the others followed without question. The sound had direction, and the dungeon's design left no false turns here. There were no branching corridors, no maintenance ladders or side doors. The dungeon funneled them forward with no choice of direction.

  Kane and Xander were at the head of the group, with Jo and Zoey following right behind. Ford was the last in the progression.

  The iron gate behind them slammed shut the instant Ford cleared the doorway, locking into place with a violence that echoed through the floor. Whirling around, Ford felt for a lock or doorknob. There was none.

  Then the forge lit.

  Fire surged from vents along the floor and walls, blooming in waves as ancient pipes flared to life. Channels beneath the grated stone burst into glowing orange, molten metal pulsing through the system like blood pumped from a fresh kill. Heat slammed into them hard enough to stagger. It didn’t build up. It arrived in a wave, as though the room had only been waiting to inhale.

  Above, a grid of scaffold bridges and rust-choked catwalks stretched through the gloom like an iron canopy, dense and layered, crowded with movement. Boots scraped across metal. Chains swayed. Something shifted overhead beyond the glow.

  Xander’s eyes locked on the shape of the room. It wasn’t built for labor. It was an arena, a crucible arranged with cold intent.

  And at its center stood the valve console.

  It loomed like a machine heart, black iron casing streaked with soot and grease. Heavy pressure pipes fed into it from each corner of the room, and just above them, a gauge the size of a truck tire began to tremble. The needle climbed steadily, dragging with it a low mechanical groan that set the walls humming in sympathy.

  Then came the hiss. Sharp, directional bursts from all four corners as steam vents released in rapid pulses. First one, then three more, jetting high into the air like pressure bleeding from the jaws of something buried.

  [Event Timer] 9:56

  "Okay, we have ten minutes," Ford said, already squinting toward the readout. "That’s a pressure chamber fail gauge there at the center."

  "And it just started," Xander said.

  The first steam vent burst near Jo, forcing her to step back. She didn’t flinch, just watched the pipe warily as it hissed again and spewed another blast toward the ceiling.

  Jo pointed toward the corners. "Four valves, four feeds. Pressure’s rising faster than it can vent."

  "Safe to say it’s a puzzle," Ford added.

  A sound drifted down from the scaffolds above, soft at first, then clearer as more voices joined in a guttural, rhythmic, and unmistakably deliberate chant .

  "The Maw eats fire, drinks blood, breathes smoke, spits iron."

  Xander turned toward the closest valve on the outside of the room. There were crude engravings near its base. The symbols had been scorched into the pipe metal, rough but visible of flames licking upward in a crude etching.

  "They’re giving us the sequence," he said.

  "That is bait," Jo said. "This isn’t a baby's first escape room. That’s too easy."

  "Balance puzzle," Kane said. "Maybe you have to turn the valve the right amount. Not simply turn it."

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  A glowing coal dropped from above, sizzling against the stone near Jo’s boot. She shifted her stance. Another one fell, then a second. This one was larger, bouncing once and spitting heat as it rolled across the floor.

  Above them, shadows stirred.

  Xander looked up, and the last part of the trap clicked into place.

  The catwalks weren’t empty.

  Orks smaller than Gruk crouched low across the bridges. Their skin was darkened with ash and burn-scars, and their armor looked forged directly onto their bodies. They carried short bows of black iron with arrows already notched.

  One loosed a shot.

  It struck stone two paces from Ford and started a small patch of fire on the floor. The next volley came seconds later, a cluster of molten bolts raining down in arcs that sent them scattering.

  "Console’s our only cover," Xander snapped.

  They ran.

  Jo led the dash, dodging a vent burst and weaving under a burning arrow. Kane was next, absorbing two glancing shots on his shield as he closed the distance. Zoey came behind him, her short sword still in hand more from instinct than need, her boots skimming slick stone as another bolt flashed past her arm.

  Ford and Xander followed tight, sliding behind the console just as another pipe erupted near the fire valve, the pressure blast whistling high above their heads like a scream from the forge itself.

  The surrounding air shimmered with heat.

  Xander crouched behind the iron frame, scanning the gauge as it ticked higher, and higher still.

  The timer counted down.

  [Event Timer] 9:40

  And the chanting continued.

  "The Maw eats Fire…"

  The words circled the room, carried on heat and rising smoke, louder now, shouted in cadence from the catwalks above. Somewhere up there, behind the slats and scaffolds, the archers moved again, shadows repositioning as the pressure gauge at the center console ticked steadily higher.

  Ford lifted his staff toward the overhead gratework. A shimmer of golden light pulsed outward in a tight hemisphere, expanding to form a domed ward above them. It was barely enough for the circle around the console, but it would stop a bolt or two.

  "We have to go now," Xander said. "That shield’s a buffer, not a plan."

  Zoey peered through the edge of the ward as another glob of molten slag sizzled across the stones. "And here I thought fire was optional."

  Kane shifted his weight, still half-crouched behind the valve console. "So who wants to be the test dummy?"

  "It has to be me," Xander said.

  Jo looked ready to argue, but he was already moving. "Divine Aegis gives me a window."

  Ford dropped his focus just long enough to nod. "Five seconds, maybe six."

  "Good enough."

  Xander broke from cover with a sharp pivot, boots hitting the metal flooring at a sprint. A molten bolt struck behind him, leaving a crater of bubbling slag, but his Aegis surged to life in a thin shimmer, wrapping him in white-blue light. Arrows hissed against it as he ran, heat washing over his coat as he skidded up to the first valve.

  The fire valve was marked in darkened iron. A set of crude symbols had been etched above it. One was a circle while the other was a slash, but there were no instructions beyond that. Open? Closed?

  "There are two symbols here. I think it's open and closed," Xander said. "Which one do we want?"

  "Pick one!" Kane shouted from across the room.

  "Open it! That’s how you release pressure!" Jo shouted.

  Xander yanked the wheel toward the open mark. It turned with resistance, metal groaning as something deep in the walls shifted. Above them, steam jets along the south-facing pipes hissed lower, just for a heartbeat. Then, the gauge on the console ticked backward one notch.

  "Pressure dropped!" Ford called.

  "This sounds too easy," Zoey said. "I'm not sure open is the right choice for all of them."

  A horn blast blared from the catwalks above. Archers shuffled positions, drawing new lines of fire. Xander turned just in time to see two slag bolts streaking toward him, glowing white with heat.

  Xander ducked and ran back toward the center.

  Jo blurred from the side, her blade flickering in a tight arc as she deflected the first bolt with a clang of steel. The second hit Ford’s shield mid-air, shattering into a shower of sparks above the console.

  "I got the next one!" Kane said.

  Kane was charging across the floor opposite the fire valve. His shield raised, sword back, legs pumping through the growing heat. The blood valve stood against the far wall, and it was twice the distance.

  The catwalks above erupted with motion. Arrows sang down like falling stars.

  A bolt cracked against Kane’s shield, rocking him mid-stride. Another punched through a rusted pipe to his left and unleashed a burst of pressurized steam right into his path.

  He didn’t stop.

  Steam blasted over him, curling around his armor and leaving angry red marks on exposed skin. He roared through it and smashed shoulder-first into the valve station.

  "Second valve!" he shouted. "Opening now!"

  The wheel shifted with a thunk. Pressure vented through the side grates, and the rising scream of the pipes dipped low. Around the room, the jets of steam thinned, no longer screaming geysers but hissing threads.

  Back at the center, Xander saw the gauge drop another marker.

  Two valves down.

  The chanting overhead didn’t stop.

  "The Maw breathes smoke…"

  [Event Timer] 7:12

  The archers kept moving, vanishing into the layered shadows of the scaffold network like ghosts with burning arrows. Every shift brought a new line of fire. The pressure gauge trembled, its needle climbing again as the hiss of steam vents swelled in volume.

  Xander pressed against the console, scanning for the next valve. Two remained.

  He spotted it across the chamber, on the right wall. Its housing looked different from the fire valve. It was a soot-choked frame and had a coating of greasy plaque. The symbol had been obscured by black buildup, more burned crust than rust.

  "I’ve got the next one," he said, then moved.

  He slipped around the corner of the console just as another volley hissed overhead. Divine Aegis flared to life again, catching one bolt mid-arc before it could crash into the back of his neck. The force rocked him sideways, but he kept running, slamming into a low pipe for cover halfway to the valve.

  He reached up and scraped two fingers across the grime, clearing a streak just wide enough to reveal a rough engraving beneath. Jagged vertical lines, seven of them, burned into the valve housing like claw marks.

  "I can't tell if I have the right symbol!" he said.

  "What is it?" Kane shouted.

  "Not sure. Looks like smoke trails. Bunch of wavy vertical lines over several horizontal lines."

  [Event Timer] 6:34

  There wasn’t time to debate it. Heat surged from the floor vents in a rising wave, and the chanting above rattled down like drumbeats. Xander turned the wheel toward open.

  The reaction was instantaneous.

  A molten conduit above his head burst open with a shriek of steam and steel. Liquid metal sprayed across the far wall like fire from a dragon’s maw. A rain of slag slammed onto the floor just paces behind him, igniting whatever grime still clung to the stone. The blast’s heat curled his coat. Jo swore behind him.

  [Event Timer] 4:34

  Ford shouted something over the roar, but it was drowned in the shrieking hiss of ruptured pressure. Even the archers paused, a wave of laughter echoing from the scaffold.

  Xander gritted his teeth, spun the wheel back to neutral, then dove behind a support beam as a second molten droplet splashed across the stone where he’d been.

  "That one’s wrong!" he called out. "Not Smoke!"

  "New fun fact! Everyone notice the timer?" Jo said once the roar of the steam and laughter overhead died down. "Wrong choices have time penalties."

  "I’ve got the last valve!" Kane shouted from the far side.

  Xander turned in time to see Kane at the fourth station.

  "I've got a rectangle with wavy vertical lines coming out of the to,." Kane said.

  "That’s it," Xander said. "Try to open it."

  Kane cranked the valve. It gave more easily than the others. Somewhere in the ceiling, metal shifted, and the forge flames along the far wall surged higher with renewed fury.

  The gauge didn’t drop. It spiked.

  [Event Timer] 2:15

  "What the hell?" Zoey said, ducking as another bolt scorched the air above her head. "That was the right valve!"

  Jo slapped a hand against the console frame. "It’s not just which valve. We’ve got the positions wrong!"

  "The Maw breathes smoke," Zoey repeated, eyes narrowing. "The other lines were about eating and drinking. But smoke isn’t something you take in. You breathe it out."

  Xander turned, catching the logic mid-run. "So we should’ve been closing them."

  "Yeah," Jo said. "We were venting the room wrong. That one? That was an exhale."

  "Reverse it!" Xander shouted. "Kane, close it!"

  Kane was already moving. He spun the valve back the other direction, straining against the wheel as it fought him halfway, then clicked hard into place.

  There was a shudder in the pipes. A deep, groaning exhale through the vents, followed by a lull as the forge flames dulled slightly, just enough to cast shorter shadows.

  The pressure gauge ticked back.

  Slightly.

  [Event Timer] 1:59

  Xander exhaled through gritted teeth, the heat still pulsing through the floor. They were almost there, and the margin for error had just shrunk again.

  Above them, the slag?archers shifted again.

  Metal boots scraped along the scaffold rails as they set fresh positions for another volley, their silhouettes bunching along the outer spans. He could feel their timing in the air, a tension that synced with the thrum of the forge lines and the rising chant overhead. The pressure gauge at the console trembled again, the needle caught between stabilization and another catastrophic climb.

  Only one valve remained.

  "We’re out of grace here. One mistake and the whole line pops." Jo called.

  The chanting grew louder, the final lines pounding through the rafters.

  "The Maw spits iron."

  Ford braced himself against the console frame. "That sounds like output. Expelling. Not taking in."

  Xander nodded. "Then we're going with closed?"

  "I’m with you." Jo called.

  Above them, the slag?archers drew as one, molten arrows heating from orange to white. The scaffolds creaked under their weight. A single horn call rolled across the chamber, low and hollow.

  Xander reached for the last wheel and turned it toward closed.

  The room reacted like a living thing struck awake. A concussive blast erupted high in the rafters, a shockwave of steam punching outward with enough force to tear several archers off their platforms. Their bodies hit metal beams on the way down, slag bows clattering loose and skidding across the floor as the roar traveled through every pipe in the room.

  The gauge dropped fast.

  Molten channels faded from white to orange, then sank back to a deep, simmering red as the forge’s pressure bled out through controlled release lines hidden in the walls.

  On the far side of the chamber, the portcullis shuddered. Its chains screamed in protest before finally giving way, raising link by grinding link until the entry beyond revealed a narrow chamber lit by the soft glow of another molten trough.

  A chest sat at the center, resting on an iron platform.

  Steam still hissed from the vents, but it no longer screamed. The chamber felt different now. For the first time since the gate slammed shut behind them, no one moved.

  Xander moved to lean against the center console, his armor ticking with heat, his limbs leaden. He wasn’t hurt, just coming down from the sustained adrenaline high. Around him, the others were slowing too, shoulders sagging, breaths shallow and ragged.

  Kane knelt where he’d ducked behind a vent pipe, steam-welts still red on his arm. Ford hovered near him, one hand on his shoulder, the other casting a low gleam of healing light that didn’t quite reach his own tired eyes.

  "I'm going to go on record here and say that sucked. Not a fan of this dungeon," Ford stated.

  Jo pressed her back to the console beside Xander, blade still in hand but lowered. "That was one hell of a ride. Zero stars, do not recommend."

  He laughed, still watching the far gate. "Yeah, I'd like to speak to the manager."

  Zoey didn’t answer. She just stood a few feet away, staring up at the catwalks like she expected another volley to fall. When nothing came, she rolled her shoulders, shook out her arms, and let out a low whistle.

  "Okay," she said finally. "So that sucked."

  Nobody argued.

  Zoey stepped over a fallen archer, nudged aside a still?steaming slag bow, then crouched to lift it. "Loot tax," she said, slinging it over her shoulder with a small, satisfied grin.

  Before anyone could answer, a fresh sound drifted through the open gate.

  It was a chorus of agony, layered beneath a low, rhythmic chanting that made the forge room feel suddenly colder despite the heat still radiating from the walls.

  The Red Barn Inquiry

  Quest Update! One player you were sent to rescue has died! Hurry, adventurer, your window is closing fast!

  Difficulty: Hard

  Completion Conditions: Find the players within the dungeon and escort them to safety.

  Rewards: Variable

  Xander traded a glance with Jo.

  They were running out of time to save the adventurers.