There are two kinds of secret bookshelf doors: the kind that spins around on a circular platform and gets replaced by a fireplace, and the kind that opens like a door. James had been hoping for the second, but what they got was the first.

  The platform was, of course, invisible until it started moving. Then, it was clear that Desiree had landed mostly on it, but with her hands outside, and she scrambled to her feet, instinctively pressing herself against the bookshelf.

  “Time to go!” James shouted. He grabbed Inara by the hand (in any other circumstance that would have turned his stomach into jelly, but in the heat of the moment it was a move of desperation) and ran for the turning bookshelf. “Virgil! You, too!”

  The four party members clambered onto the platform, pressed tight against each other in a tangle of limbs — only to realize that it wasn’t turning that quickly, actually, and there was plenty of time to feel a little silly about all the rush —

  —and then they were through, and the spinning platform came to a creaking halt. The group burst apart in a mix of battle readiness and nervous laughter.

  “That was so cool!” Desiree whisper-shouted. “I wanna go again!”

  “No—!” Inara’s reprimand went unheeded, and the girl quickly settled the green book back into place, then back out. The click of the latch echoed through the chamber, much louder than it had been inside the library, and the platform rotated once more. A minute later, Desiree was back, the smile on her face impossible to extinguish.

  With a triumphant look at her mother, Desiree announced, “And now we know we have a safe exit.”

  Inara sighed. That was good intel, though she was loath to admit it.

  The secret room was dimly lit by colored candles. For all the light they emitted, they belched out just as much smoke, and James’s eyes watered as he tried to make sense of it all. Thick fur carpets overlapped over the floor, obscuring the beautiful hardwood that the library boasted. The walls were stone, reminiscent of a cave but, upon further investigation, they were more likely made up of the same stone blocks that made the outer walls of the library.

  Further in, a cauldron bubbled with yellow-green liquid. James covered his nose and mouth as he approached; the smell was foul. He would have turned right back around rather than deal with whatever that was, but on a small stand beside the cauldron, he saw a tattered notebook that was the spitting image of the one that had taught him fireball — only this one was green.

  “This place is so cool.” Desiree broke the tense silence. She skipped ahead, heading for the cauldron. “What do you think— oh!”

  Inara yanked her daughter back by the collar. Half a second later, an arrow whizzed past, close and fast enough to blow back Desiree’s bangs.

  Desiree’s eyes went wide, and she froze in place.

  Inara patted her on the head. “You stepped on a trap. Be more careful.”

  Desiree lifted her foot, but there was nothing visible, no raised step or anything she could see. Not until she looked under the fur-lined hide, and then she saw the trip stone that she’d stepped on.

  “How did you even notice that?”

  Inara opened her mouth to respond, then paused. She cocked her head. She didn’t know, exactly, except that she’d known there was a trap there. Her skills may have been locked, but years of experience didn’t just vanish.

  She shrugged. “I just knew.”

  “We need something more concrete than that,” said James. “Virgil, have you seen anything like this before?”

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  The scholar jumped, as if startled to be acknowledged. “No, I, I haven’t. I don’t think there was a room like this in the real library.”

  “Hmm. We’ll have to get rid of all the hides on the floor.” James chuckled suddenly. “Oh, I get it. They’re hides, and they hide the traps.”

  Nobody else seemed to think that was funny, not even Desiree.

  James cleared his throat. “Well. What if we all stand back, and then I fireball the room? That should burn them up but leave the stone floor intact.”

  Desiree looked intrigued by the idea, but Virgil was the one who squashed it.

  “That would likely kill us all,” he said, “if not from the flames themselves, then from the smoke.”

  “Oh. Yeah, well. Yeah. I guess we just step carefully then and pull up the hides as we go.”

  Again, Virgil shook his head. “There’s more to it. Here. Look.” He pointed at the candles which lined the room. Most of them were green, with a few browns and reds thrown into the mix. “You see the smoke?”

  James blinked against it. His eyes hadn’t stopped watering since they entered the room. If it wasn’t for that notebook, he would have encouraged the party to walk right back out.

  Well, except that he had a quest to fully clear the dungeon, and there was probably some sort of secret boss in here.

  So, if it wasn’t for the notebook and if it wasn’t for the quest, he would encourage the party to walk right back out of this hellhole and never look back.

  “I think the smoke is part of a spell,” Virgil continued. “My earth affinity isn’t very high, but I think I could… just a second.” Virgil sat cross-legged on the floor and closed his eyes, keeping his back straight and his breathing deep.

  James watched, bemused, and shared a confused look with Inara. It reminded him of meditation, but when Virgil did it, it looked far more intentional than James’s own bumbling attempts. Virgil looked like he sank into himself, and James got the impression that Virgil was sinking into the earth, too, connecting with it.

  And slowly, the smoke began to change. Rather than a diffuse cloud, it sharpened into lines that pointed from the candles to different points on the floor. It reminded James of a spy movie, when the guy sprays some kind of aerosol on the laser security system and then has to do some cheerleader moves to get across. It always looked super fun, but James was no cheerleader.

  When Virgil opened his eyes, he looked a little tired, but also excited.

  He grinned. “I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to do that.”

  “What did you do?” Desiree asked. She was already getting antsy from staying still so long, and she’d started piling up the furs closest to the group.

  Virgil stood back up. “The smoke is a trap, and the pressure plates are traps. They’re separate, but they are all made from earth magic, so I convinced them to work together. Now the smoke from each candle points to a pressure plate on the floor. We should be able to cross safely, so long as nobody touches the smoke.”

  “Who wants to go first?” James asked. “To be honest, I don’t feel good about my odds getting through here without touching the smoke, but I want that notebook.”

  “Oh, I can do it! Let me do it!” Desiree bounced on the balls of her feet.

  Inara nodded. “Of all of us, she’s the most likely to succeed.”

  “All we need is the book, right?” James asked. “I mean, we need a full clear, so does that mean getting the book is enough, or don’t we need to trigger whatever boss fight this room has in store.”

  Inara hesitated.

  James continued, “It’s just that, that cauldron is boiling like someone was just here, and the furs and such make it seem like there’s a goblin living here. Based on the magic, maybe a shaman or something?”

  “You might be right,” she hedged. “I haven’t seen a quest worded quite like yours before, so it could be true that taking the notebook would be sufficient, but overall it might not be worth the risk of missing out on the quest reward.”

  “What exactly are the quest rewards?” James asked. “You’ve mentioned them a few times like they’re a big deal, but never said exactly what I’ll get.”

  “Let’s just get the notebook and see what happens!” Desiree interrupted. “Come onn, I want to see if I can make it there and back, I bet you I can.”

  James shared a look with Inara. “We do need that notebook either way.”

  She considered for a moment, then nodded. “We’ll be right behind you if anything happens.”

  Desiree whooped. She backed up all the way to the bookshelf to get a running start, then did a series of flips and backbends that reminded James of a Kim Possible episode he’d seen when he was a kid.

  Incredible. There was no way he’d be able to do that himself, not even if he put the next ten levels into agility.

  Desiree grabbed the notebook and held it triumphantly over her head. “I got it!”

  Her voice echoed through the room, and her expression immediately dropped into panic as she realized what she’d just done.

  A bright orange light illuminated a corridor they hadn’t been able to see, and a large shadow loomed from the doorway.

  “WHO DARES ENTER MY QUARTERS?!” a gravely voice boomed from the shadows.

  “Oh, shit,” said James.

  Everyone in your party has received the FEAR debuff!

  Your party has entered COMBAT!