“Are you sure this is where the dungeon opens up?”
Inara gave James an odd look. “I have lived in this world my whole life; you have only just arrived. Do you think you know more than I do about how it should work?”
James wisely did not answer. Still, he worried that they were going in the wrong direction. It just didn’t make sense for the summoning circles to also be the entrance to a dungeon.
“The circles are a gateway to other realms,” Inara explained. “Sometimes, that realm is distant, such as your world. Sometimes it is near, such as heaven and hell. Sometimes it opens up into a temporary realm created by disorganized magic and forgotten spaces. These temporary realms are what we call dungeons.”
James mulled that over as they walked. She spoke as though heaven and hell were real places — and perhaps, now that he’d seen a goddess’s healing powers and a demon’s destructive ability, he could believe it.
Inara led the way while Desiree trailed behind. James hadn’t been able to convince Clyde to join them — the priest insisted that his place was with the villagers, and James had to respect that. For all that Grimora seemed to be a land of strife, the villagers were helpless as lambs.
All except Inara and Desiree. Those two had more fighting spirit than the whole village combined and more to spare.
Finally, the forest opened up into a clearing. Three interlocking stone circles were set into the ground and carved with runes James still couldn’t understand. He scrutinized the writing. There were probably people out there who could memorize these strange symbols and figure them out later, but James certainly wasn’t one of them.
He tsked. “I wish I had some paper or something. A notepad would be nice.”
As soon as he said the word “notepad,” a screen and a keyboard appeared in his vision. He blinked at it, surprised, then barked out a laugh.
“I guess this place is more like a video game than I thought!” he said, ignoring the bemused glances from the rest of his party.
James swiped away the keyboard to find a free-writing tool and walked slowly around the circles, inscribing the letters as faithfully as he could. As he went, he began to recognize some repetitions. Whether they were words or letters, he was almost certain that they carried with them some kind of message.
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Inara waited patiently for him to finish, but by the time he was done, Desiree was vibrating with impatience.
“Can we go now?” she whined.
James shrugged. “Ready when you are,” he said blithely, as though they hadn’t been waiting on him.
Inara almost smiled. She raised her hands and spoke a few words in a foreign tongue.
James’s eyes widened. Did she know another language? Was it related to the symbols on the circles? Had he just wasted his time writing everything down instead of simply asking her if she already knew how to read it?
Before he could voice any of the hundred questions suddenly swirling in his mind however, a portal sprang to life within the summoning circles. It was oval shaped and about six feet tall. Purple magic arced like electricity around its edges.
At the portal’s center, they could see through to the dungeon, but its appearance kept shifting. One moment they were looking into a stairwell, the next it was a hallway filled with magma demons, then a prison cell infested with flaming rats.
Inara was the only one unphased by the shifting landscape. She gritted her teeth. “We will have to find each other as quickly as possible,” she said. “The dungeon is unkind to the unprepared.”
“You mean we’re not going to arrive at the same place?” Desiree asked. Her eyes were wide with equal parts fear and excitement. James was a little jealous of how the kid was able to view this whole thing as some wild adventure. That’s how kids were, though. So certain of their own immortality that every danger was only a challenge to overcome. Even if James had a twenty year old body in this world, he still had a thirty-five year old heart.
Inara waved her hand uncertainly from side to side. “We will be on the same floor of the dungeon, but likely different rooms. There will be no way for us to know where the other is.” She considered. “If I thought you would do it, I would tell you to stay put until I could find you.”
Desiree grinned.
“What if we hold hands?” James asked.
Inara gave him a look that made him regret his words immediately.
Nonetheless, he soldiered on. “Wouldn’t that keep us together when we go through the portal?”
“No.”
“Have you tried it before?”
She hesitated. Desiree giggled.
“No.”
James resisted the urge to fist-pump. “Then, maybe it’s worth a shot?” He held out his hand.
Inara looked for a second like she was searching for a reason, any reason at all, to object again. Finding none, she took his hand.
Her fingers curled loosely around James’s. The shock of contact made him realize how long it had been, really, since he’d touched another human being. Back home he didn’t have any family left alive, and no friends who were close enough to hug. The only physical contact, for as long as he could remember, was the occasional handshake.
Which wasn’t too different from what was happening now. A beautiful woman was holding his hand, but it was for a practical purpose. They were doing science. There was certainly no reason at all to read into it.
Desiree grabbed his other hand. “Let’s go, let’s go!” she said.
Inara needed no further encouragement. With no consideration whatsoever to the confused flip-flopping of James's heart, she led the party through the portal and into the dungeon.