Well that's not fucking good.

  The door to the crypt—now quite possibly his tomb—was sealed so completely that even the fine point of his knife couldn’t find an opening. He licked his finger and waved it around the edge of the slab, but even his enhanced senses couldn't detect the faintest hint of a breeze.

  He was well and truly trapped.

  Panic rose from the depths of Sam's gut and gave a vigorous tug on the bottom of his lungs. His breathing became laboured, and every flickering shadow screamed of instant death.

  His hubris had caught up to him. He’d seen enough movies and played enough games to know that there were always traps in the dungeon. He should have proceeded more carefully; he should have known better.

  He ground his jaw, trying, with mild success, to get his breathing under control. He’d seen multiple entrances as he’d scouted the building; there had to be another way out. It seemed logical that The Arbiter would want to force warriors into the dungeon. This wasn't simply a killing floor—it was a test, which meant there had to be multiple exits. There had to be an escape.

  The logic of the argument helped get his breathing back under control, and he sincerely hoped he wasn't deluding himself. He might be trapped for now, but that didn't mean there wasn't a way out. He took a wavering breath and set off down the stairs, carefully pressing each one with the butt of his spear before advancing.

  The walls had once been covered in flowing murals, the bas-relief chipped and scratched with a clear malice. Alcoves were interspersed at even intervals, though most of the statues they contained were either destroyed or vandalized beyond recognition. Sam spotted one that was encased in rusty iron bands, crude spikes thrust through the figure like a pincushion. Whoever had raided this place had done so with prejudice.

  Sam continued his steady descent, being mindful of his rapidly depleting torch. He’d seen several sconces on the walls, but so far none had contained a suitable replacement. The mist thickened the further down he went, and his limited visibility was reduced to almost nothing.

  He was forced to keep his shield in his inventory in order to hold the torch, and he felt naked without it. His heart pounded with each new step, convinced that some terrible beast would come leaping out of the fog to devour him. The tap-tapping of his spear on the stone felt so very small in that world of mist and fire; a beacon in the dark that would surely summon some ancient terror.

  Yet, nothing answered his call. And when the floor finally levelled out, he almost knelt down and kissed it. Flat ground was normally something he took for granted, but anything was better than continuing his inexorable descent. He must have been almost a kilometre underground, and the weight of all the stone above him hung like an executioner’s axe.

  He pressed forward, spear at the ready, eyes sweeping the walls and ceilings for traps. The corridor continued in an unbroken line, and eventually, he glimpsed the outline of a threshold, the angular lintel rising out of the mist like the bow of some ancient ship.

  He stopped, danger senses lighting up like a Christmas tree. He hadn't given much thought to instinct or intuition before being dropped through the portal to Olympos…but now? He wasn't sure if it was the impact of his new skills, or some long-suppressed sense honed by millions of years of evolution, but he found himself relying more and more on the twinges in his gut and the goosebumps on the back of his neck.

  He pressed his spear into the stone just beneath the opening, grinning as the rock depressed. The response was instantaneous, as a row of sharpened metal poles were launched from recessed holes in the stone frame. The metal thrummed, spears rattling against one another a foot in front of his face. If he’d been standing on the stone when the trap activated, he would have been skewered ten times over. His enhanced constitution wouldn’t have made a difference. While the last trap had been aiming to lock him in, this one had been set to kill.

  He watched as the spears slowly retracted, the mechanism rumbling on gears that likely hadn’t seen oil in a thousand years. His ears strained for any reaction from beyond the opening, but any sounds were swallowed by the swirling haze. Stepping through the doorway, he found himself on a small stone platform suspended halfway up the wall of a massive chamber.

  The room stretched for miles in every direction, and the roof was lost in a veil of shadows that loomed high overhead. Sam’s torch was like a lonely star, hanging in the void of space—but it wasn’t the only one. Suspended out among the dark were flickering green lights that bathed the room in a sickly glow.

  The lights appeared to be affixed to the roofs of tall buildings that poked through the mist. At first, he thought he was looking at the remains of some ancient city, but the closer he looked, the more it reminded him of something else.

  The Twilight Crypts, he repeated the phrase over in his mind, the teetering steeples taking on a new meaning. Not buildings: mausoleums. A massive catacomb built to commemorate the dead.

  The entire place was the tomb.

  He took a deep, shuddering breath and nearly gagged as the smell assaulted his nostrils. Of all the dungeons he had to discover, of course, it was the giant, scary tomb. He recalled Arther’s comment about the Arbiter subtly influencing the cultures of the various member races, and this was one that had definitely made it into humanity’s zeitgeist. He just had to hope there were no actual gheists. He wasn’t exactly sure what he’d do against something that didn’t have a corporeal body. He gulped and shoved the thought aside, noticing the darting shadows that congregated around the flickering werelights.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  The nightseekers’ distinctive bone carapaces caught the light, and he breathed a small sigh of relief. He was confident he could handle a few overgrown bats; it was the more magical residents that worried him.

  He walked to the edge of his dais and began another slow, methodical descent into the mist. There was a rugged stairwell that hugged the wall in a series of harsh switchbacks. The stairs were too far apart to be comfortable, and his legs were burning after only a few minutes.

  He continued surveying the vault from his vantage point and noticed a similar platform farther along the wall. He observed an identical set of stairs descending from the platform, but they were broken and cut off fifty feet above the ground.

  What would have happened if he’d come down from that entrance? Would he just be stuck? He had a length of rope in his inventory, but he wasn't confident he’d be able to attach to anything securely enough to make it to the ground.

  So there was an element of luck to all this, despite the gods making it seem like the climb was entirely determined by merit. His mother always said, “Better lucky than good,” but when literal deities were involved, he wasn't going to put too much faith in chance.

  His already abysmal visibility worsened the farther down he went. The ground level was mired in the rank-smelling fog. His torch had almost burned down to the nub, and he found himself compulsively checking the walls for a replacement.

  There was that luck again.

  Any wood that might have still remained had rotted away in the musky damp. He was furious with himself for not prioritizing the purchase of a lantern. While the plan hadn’t been to hunt throughout the night, it had been foolish to assume he’d always have access to wood for a torch. An assumption that now might get him killed.

  After nearly fifteen minutes of climbing, he finally made his way down to the floor of the crypt. The cold stone continued unabated, but he thought he could make out the impression of towering structures, rising out of sight. The arrangement was not dissimilar to a city, and he had to admit, its scale was impressive. Whoever had built these had clearly valued their dead.

  His eyes were drawn to something at the base of the stairs, a shape that broke up the harsh angles and jagged corners. He cautiously made his way towards it and nearly dropped his waning torch as the sockets of a pockmarked skull caught the light.

  The skull was housed in a rusty metal helmet and rested on a pile of pitted chainmail. The bent blade of a sword lay beside it, as well as the broken remains of a spear. Sam’s heart leapt at the sight of the oiled wood, somehow still intact despite the moisture. He had to suppress a yell of victory as he gently pulled the chunk of wood from the pile, trying not to look directly at the skull. He wrapped the butt of the spear in rags and let out a long breath as they caught.

  While he may still die in this place, at least he wouldn't do it in the dark.

  He took a second to rummage through the remaining pile, but none of the armour was usable; the metal rusted all the way through in some places. As he checked for any coins or additional weapons, the head of the spear rolled out from under the pile. He cocked his head, the shape all too familiar.

  He picked it up and found himself looking at a twin to his own spear, though one that had seen better days. The wide blade has the same asymmetrical leaf shape, complete with harsh serrations along one of the lower edges. He recalled Arther saying he’d made it in the Ilen’Var style, and the pieces clicked into place.

  The too-big doors, the too-high stairs, and now the blocky-looking skull peeking back at him. The crypt felt alien because it was. He’d automatically assumed that the place was inspired by Earth, but why would it be? Humans were only one of seven races. The place was clearly made by a group of ancient var, plucked out of the cosmos and repurposed for the War.

  He looked down again at the armoured skeleton and wondered what had happened. The way it was positioned at the base of the stairs made it seem like some kind of guard, and as he looked, he could make out more bodies scattered across what appeared to be a wide courtyard.

  With that thought, a notification appeared in his vision:

  [New Quest: Discover the Secret of the Twilight Crypts]

  Reward: 3,000 Spira

  Sam’s breath caught as he read the reward total. That was the kind of sum that almost made the stress of the place worth it…almost. It was an odd thing to wish for a monster attack, but he’d need more than a few of them to justify the time committed to the dungeon.

  He moved towards the next body, keen to see if it had any decent loot. There were four of them strewn throughout the courtyard, and the next ones were in even worse shape than the first.

  When he approached the fourth, however, the hairs on the back of his arms began to stand up. His enhanced hearing detected a subtle grinding noise, like the scraping of heavy stones. He stopped, gripping his spear tightly. His eyes swept the courtyard, trying to find the source of the sound, which was growing louder by the second.

  A gust of biting wind swept between the buildings, bringing with it a bone-chilling howl. The mist congealed around the fallen soldier, the metal clattering like hail on a tin roof. Sam took a step back and watched, aghast, as the pile of bones slowly rose into the air, the chainmail vest taking on a distinctly humanoid shape.

  Yeah, no, fuck that.

  Sam didn't wait for the spectre to finish assembling itself. He lashed out, spear thrusting just beneath the helmet, severing what remained of the spine. The skeleton groaned as the head tumbled free, clattering to the ground. The monster stumbled, seemingly unsure of what to do.

  Often in TV or movies, the hero would wait for the monster to finish getting ready before attacking. There seemed to be some kind of unwritten rule that you couldn't attack until both sides were prepared—Sam had no such compulsions.

  He noticed that the mist was concentrated in the creature’s chest, forming a glowing green core. The werelight was bright enough that he could see it through the tattered remains of the soldier’s tabard, and he thrust again, piercing straight through the other side.

  The light exploded in a tiny puff, and a soft chime informed him that the creature was fully dead. He took a step back as the body collapsed into a cloud of dust. His torch flickered in the breeze but stayed lit, the darkness pressing in around him.

  More noises drifted from between the buildings; the sounds of shuffling feet melding together into a ghastly line of percussion. The clicking of bone lent an off-kilter tempo, and the zombies’ moans added to the sepulchral chorus. Whatever was coming for him–there were a lot of them.

  He felt a bead of sweat drip down the side of his neck. The first skeleton must have been some kind of early warning system. He’d only been inside the Dungeon for a few minutes, and he’d already rung the damn alarm bell.

  “So much for stealth,” he muttered under his breath.