There were four paths leading outwards, one corridor in each quadrant. They were identical to each other, built with the same stone blocks, but their ceilings were closer together than in the beginning chamber.
“Well,” Kara said, turning slowly to take in our surroundings, “this is different.”
She wasn't wrong.
The Burial Site in Twinfire was darker, more oppressive, filled with decay. It was also more natural, using the preexisting caverns and caves, while this was fully man-made.
It felt almost clinical by comparison.
“Which way?” Athos asked.
I studied each corridor in turn, looking for any distinguishing features.
There were none. Each passage was a mirror of the others, offering no hint as to where it might lead.
"North," Lothras said. "Standing here won't accomplish anything."
"North," I agreed, pointing to the corridor directly ahead of us. "If we keep track of our turns, we should be able to map our progress."
We started our journey. Lothras went at the front, Kara behind him. I was third in line, and Athos was guarding the rear.
The corridor went on for about thirty meters before splitting into a T-junction.
“Go left,” I told Lothras.
We turned left, but in just thirty meters, we had reached another junction.
It was a four-way intersection this time.
"This is going to get confusing fast," Kara muttered.
She was right.
I kept track of every turn we’d made, marking each choice with whatever I could.
But the next time we turned left, something strange happened.
“Something’s wrong,” I said. The group stopped, and the others looked at me.
“I just put that rock over into that corner,” I pointed at one of the rough stone blocks on the ground. “A minute ago, at the previous intersection.”
“So how is it here now?” Lothras asked.
“Labyrinth’s playing with us,” I deduced. “Just like in the Greek myth. It’s moving. Readjusting itself.”
“Wouldn’t we have felt that?” Kara asked, inching a tiny bit closer to me. “That’s kinda creepy.”
“It also means that it doesn’t really matter which way we go,” I was thinking out loud, “there has to be another mechanic to complete.”
After ten minutes of walking, I'd already lost track of how many turns we'd made. The corridors all looked the same, the junctions all identical.
There were no landmarks, no variations in the stonework, nothing to distinguish one passage from another other than the tiny marks I had set.
And the marks were all over the place, not making sense.
"The whole dungeon is designed to disorient us."
"Wonderful," Lothras said flatly. "Any suggestions?"
Before I could answer, the floor beneath his feet shifted.
"Move!"
Lothras threw himself forward as a section of stone floor dropped, revealing a pit lined with iron spikes. He landed hard on the far side, rolling to his feet.
"Traps," he said, his voice tight. "Of course, there are traps."
We proceeded more carefully after that, testing the ground before each step. It slowed our progress considerably, but it was better than losing a party member to a hidden pitfall.
We kept avoiding the traps; walls sprouting dozens of needle-thin darts coated with poison, pressure plates that triggered collapsing walls, spears shooting out of the ceiling.
We were in one big Indiana Jones movie.
“You don’t build a labyrinth like this filled with lethal traps unless you have something worth hiding,” Athos shrugged. “Hopefully it means good loot.”
"They really didn't want visitors," Kara said as we skirted around the trigger zone of another trap that looked like it would launch something wide, sharp, and possibly moving out of both walls.
"Which means we're probably going the right way," I replied. "More traps mean more important areas."
It wasn't the most scientific approach to navigation, but it was all we had.
We encountered our first enemies about twenty minutes into the labyrinth.
One of them looked like a naked woman; slender, tall, with hair down to the buttocks. The only distinctive feature was that it was made entirely out of pure fire.
“That’s… hot?” Kara said. “Pun not intended.”
There were two others as well: a similar figure made out of crackling energy, and a more sturdy, giant-like figure composed entirely of ice.
"Elementals," Athos said, drawing his sword. "Different from the ones the Conjurers can summon."
"Could have been summoned, regardless," I said, raising the Emberwood Longbow. "I doubt this is their natural habitat."
The elementals attacked without preamble, each one moving with fluid, inhuman grace.
The Fire Elemental led the charge, hurling balls of flame that splashed against Lothras's shield as he intercepted them.
"Dread Cry!" Athos activated his new skill, dark energy rippling outward from his position.
The debuff landed on all three elementals, their attacks slowing noticeably as their attack speed dropped by thirty percent.
"Nice," I commented, then raised my bow. "Let's see what this can do. Arrow of Ash&Flames!"
I drew back the string, feeling power gather in the Emberwood Longbow.
The arrow that formed was made out of burning cinders, glowing with destructive energy.
I held the charge long enough to reach the skill's maximum power and released it after about 2 seconds.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The arrow screamed across the chamber, lighting the whole corridor up as if someone just turned on all the lights.
It struck the Lightning Elemental dead center, and the resulting explosion was spectacular.
-747!
The elemental lost more than half its health in a single shot.
"That's more like it," I breathed.
Lothras engaged the Fire Elemental directly, his shield absorbing its attacks while his sword carved chunks from its blazing body. The creature's flames seemed less effective against him.
New fire resistance?
Athos focused on the Frost Elemental, his Rising Tide building with each exchange. The cold-based creature tried to slow him with icy attacks, but the Swordsman was too fast, never staying in one place long enough for the debuffs to stack.
Kara's Song of Valor filled the chamber, boosting our damage output while her Lullaby of Dismay further weakened our enemies.
When the Lightning Elemental tried to recover from my opening attack, I followed up with Piercing Shot.
-358!
The elemental dissipated, its energy scattering into motes of fading light.
"One down!" I called.
Athos finished the Frost Elemental moments later, a perfectly timed Saltstone Edge shattering its icy form into a thousand glittering fragments.
Lothras's fight took slightly longer, partly because the Fire Elemental was more durable than its companions, but likely because, as a Paladin, he had less sustained damage overall.
However, the outcome was never in doubt. A final Smite cleaved through the creature's core, extinguishing its flames permanently.
"Clear," the Paladin announced.
I checked my skill cooldown.
Arrow of Ash and Flames wouldn't be available again for over two minutes, but the damage it had dealt was worth the wait. Almost eight hundred damage from a single skill was game-changing.
"No drops," Athos noted, checking the dissipating remains.
"Summoned creatures rarely drop loot," Lothras explained. "Their existence is tied to whoever created them. When they die, they simply... unmake."
"So someone definitely summoned these things," Kara said. "The original cultists?"
“That would have been almost 200 years ago,” I shrugged. “Maybe someone more… recent?”
We moved on.
The labyrinth continued to not make traditional sense. We encountered more traps: swinging blades, poison gas vents, and floors that crumbled into darkness.
And more enemies, of course. Elementals, and something else: golems.
The golems were different from the elementals.
They were massive constructs of animated stone, standing nearly three meters tall with bodies carved to resemble armored warriors. Their movements were slow but powerful, each step shaking the ground beneath our feet.
There was barely any place around them in the tight corridors.
"Two of them," Lothras observed. "Corridor's too narrow to flank."
"Then we fight them head-on," Athos said. "I'll take the left one. You take the right."
"Kara, focus healing on whoever needs it most," I added. "I'll provide ranged support."
The golems advanced, their stone fists raised for crushing blows.
Lothras challenged the first one with his shield, the impact of the golem’s attack ringing through the corridor like a gong.
Athos engaged the second with Blade Rush, his sword sparking against enchanted stone.
I fired arrow after arrow, each shot chipping away at the constructs' health.
The golems were tanky but also slow, with attacks telegraphed well in advance.
Lothras fought with expertise, blocking each strike with his shield before countering with heavy sword blows of his own, while Athos never really engaged in a fair one-on-one fight; he was flying around whatever little space there was, cutting and stabbing with surgical precision.
Kara was mostly healing Lothras as Athos needed his Rising Tide passive to work.
Must be hard, I thought. Rising Tide is such a strong ability, but it basically forces you to play through the game on half health.
"Saltstone Edge!"
545!
The crescent wave carved through the golem's body, cracking the stone. A follow-up Horizontal Slash finished the job, reducing the construct to a pile of rubble.
Lothras's golem fell moments later, its head caved in by a devastating shield bash followed by a Radiant Edge to the chest.
-884!
The skill was still powerful, but it didn’t reach quadruple digits like against the Undead.
“Well, there’s one thing similar in the two dungeons,” the Paladin said. “Statues still want to kill us.”
"Hey," Kara called, kneeling beside the rubble of Athos's golem. "There's something here."
I moved to join her.
Nestled among the broken stones was a piece of aged parchment, torn along one edge as if it had been separated from a larger document.
I picked it up.
"A map," I said, showing the others. "We need four pieces."
"I wonder if all the monsters drop them or just the golems," Athos asked out loud. "We need to find more."
"At least we have a goal now," Lothras said. "Better than wandering aimlessly."
We pressed deeper into the labyrinth, actively seeking out enemies rather than avoiding them.
The elementals fell quickly, and even though the golems took more effort, it still wasn’t much of a challenge.
We were noticeably stronger.
The second map fragment came from a trio of elementals guarding a dead-end chamber.
The third was from a mixed group of elementals and golems that ambushed us at a four-way intersection.
Each fragment revealed more of the catacombs' layout when I examined them. The pieces were fitting together like a puzzle, slowly forming a coherent picture of the labyrinth's structure.
"One more," Kara said as I slotted the third fragment into place. "Then we'll know where to go."
We found the final group in a wider section of the corridor. Four golems and two elementals, arranged in a defensive formation around a stone pedestal.
"That's a lot of enemies," Athos observed.
"Nothing we can't handle," Lothras replied.
The fight was chaotic.
Four golems meant four sets of crushing attacks to dodge, and the two elementals meant ranged harassment while we dealt with the melee threats.
Kara juggled with her songs, cycling rapidly between damage buffs and restoration.
I used Arrow of Ash & Flames on the Ice Elemental, deleting it from the fight in a single devastating shot.
More effective against Ice.
Athos's Dread Cry bought us precious seconds of reduced enemy attack speed while he carved through the enemies, and Lothras held the line against two golems simultaneously, his shield work nothing short of masterful.
Our pulse was just a tad bit higher once we finished the fight.
And we had the fourth fragment.
I assembled the complete map, watching as the pieces merged into a single coherent document. The labyrinth's layout was revealed in full: a maze of corridors and dead ends, with a single path marked in faded red ink leading to a location near the center.
The Inner Sanctum.
"Got it," I said. "I know where we need to go."
The corridor widened gradually as we progressed, the ceiling rising higher once again, and the blue torches returned.
Then the passage opened into a vast underground chamber, and we all stopped in our tracks.
It was a church.
Or rather, it had been a church, centuries ago. The architecture was unmistakable: vaulted ceilings supported by carved stone pillars, rows of wooden benches facing a raised altar at the far end, alcoves along the walls that might once have held statues of saints or holy symbols.
But this was no place of legitimate worship.
The altar was stained dark with something that could have only been old blood, the discoloration spreading across the stone like a grotesque shadow.
Channels had been carved into its surface, designed to direct fluid flow toward collection basins on either side.
The benches were arranged in a semicircle around the altar, positioned so that every seat would have a clear view of whatever occurred on that raised platform.
And the alcoves…
The alcoves held bones. Human bones, arranged with disturbing care into patterns and shapes that hurt to look at directly.
"Gods," Kara whispered, her hand covering her mouth. She was not rattled by lich lords and drowning, but this reached her stimulus threshold.
"Human sacrifice," Lothras said, his voice flat. "The cultists were murdering innocents for the supposed immortality.”
I walked slowly toward the altar.
People had died here. Many people. Their lives offered up on this stone slab in pursuit of eternal life.
I felt sick and angry. The people of this world might have just been clumps of data, but their feelings, their dreams, their struggles? Those were as real as mine.
That was enough for me, and for many others, to treat them as equals.
Then I saw something: a uniform left on the first bench. The uniform of a priest from the Church of Ravenloft.
"The documents said the catacombs were used for 'various ecclesiastical purposes' after the cult was disbanded," I recalled. "I'm starting to think the church didn't disband anything. I think they just... took over."
"Continued the sacrifices under a different banner?" Athos asked, disgust evident in his tone.
Kara had moved to one of the alcoves, examining the bone arrangements.
"Don't touch anything," Lothras warned. "We don't know what might be trapped. Or cursed."
Good advice. I stepped back from the altar, taking in the full scope of the chamber.
This was where the cultists had conducted their darkest work.
And somewhere beyond this church, deeper in the catacombs, I was sure we would see traces of their success… or failure.
[Cultivation] [Progression] [Fantasy] [Action] [Anti-Hero]
Synopsis (Click to Expand)
Two paths define the world: The Arcane and the Auric. Damon walks a third: The mind.
But a unique power is not a gift. It is a curse.
“Pain is the chisel. Will is the hammer. Mind is the stone.”