Dungeon Master (Karma System)

Max reviewed the Five Knots attempt with Anna the following morning.

The viewing screen showed the burial passage after the instance reset. The sentinels had returned to their alcoves, and the preparation-room guardian once again stood beside the bell rope.

Max had built the passage as an old burial road connecting the cemetery to the fortress crypt. It provided a shorter way through the outer wall, not a safe one.

Anna moved one finger down the record on her clipboard.

”They crossed the outer wall faster than Matthew’s corpse wagon attempt.”

”They also found the inner gate.” Max said.

”With three injured party members, almost no mana, and an alarm behind them.”

Quin stood beside the screen. ”The tunnel did its job. It gave them a shorter road. They wasted what the road saved. Maybe next time they can make it through without triggering the alarm.”

Max changed the display to show the underground gatehouse. The portcullis filled the passage. Its chains rose into the protected winch chamber on the inner side of the wall. Every control capable of raising the gate remained inside the fortress.

The defenders had kept it closed and attacked from protected positions while the alarm brought reinforcements into the tunnel behind Five Knots.

Quin studied the gate. ”It trapped them between the gatehouse and the reinforcements.”

”The passage is shorter.” Max said. ”It is not safer.”

The portcullis was not indestructible. Nothing on a training level was supposed to be. Its purpose was to stop an unprepared group and force a prepared one to spend time, strength, and resources breaching it while the defenders attacked.

Five Knots had discovered where the gate was vulnerable. Whether another party could use that information was not Max’s problem to solve for them.

Max returned the display to the preparation room. The rope was ordinary. The guardian had managed to pull it while collapsing.

Five Knots had come within seconds of stopping it.

”Are you going to change anything?” Anna asked.

”No.”

The route had worked exactly as Max designed it. The adventurers had found it through observation, fought through its defenses, and brought useful information back from a failed attempt.

Making the second attempt easier would erase the value of the first.

The next party needed to use what Five Knots learned.

Matthew Warrens intended to do exactly that.

The Golden Axe guild master listened while Tessa described every room in order. Kesh’s map lay between them on the tavern table. It showed one unbroken line from the ruined chapel to the portcullis beneath the inner keep.

Six known obstacles stood along it.

Open the concealed stair.

Defeat the sentinels without allowing them to repair themselves.

Stop the preparation-room guardian from ringing the alarm.

Reach the underground gatehouse.

Survive the defenders firing through the closed portcullis.

Breach the gate before reinforcements arrived.

Matthew read the list twice.

”How much did Min move it?” he asked.

”Less than an inch.” Tessa said. ”She had almost no mana left.”

Kesh tapped the lower-left corner of the gate on his sketch. ”The stone around this groove has been repaired. The gate still weighs more than we could lift, but this is where the wall gave first.”

Matthew traced the route from the cemetery to the inner wall. ”Then the gate is the real fight.”

Kesh tapped the preparation room on his map. ”Only if you stop the bell.”

”We will.”

Tessa looked at the final two obstacles. ”Stopping the bell keeps the tunnel clear behind you. It does nothing about the guards on the other side.”

”We do not need them to come out.” Matthew said. ”We need enough room to crawl under their gate.”

Golden Axe prepared two broad iron wedges, three long pry bars, and a heavy mallet. None of the tools could lift the portcullis by itself. Their purpose was to preserve every inch the mage managed to gain and keep the gate from settling back into its trench.

Matthew selected the same shield-bearer, healer, mage, and tracker from his earlier attempts. They were an established team, and every one of them understood the plan before they approached the Level Four arch.

Five Knots watched them enter.

Max, Anna, and Quin watched from his office.

Matthew’s party crossed the burial grounds without attracting a patrol. The tracker found the concealed ring, and the shield-bearer moved the false coffin.

The sentinels activated inside the first chamber. Golden Axe used Five Knots’ information immediately. The shield-bearer held the passage while Matthew and the tracker dragged damaged skeletons away from the repairing light in the alcoves. The mage waited until the undead crowded together before breaking most of them with one spell.

The party cleared the chamber without using a healing potion.

At the preparation room, the tracker hooked the bell rope and pulled it away from the guardian. The robed undead resisted the mage and damaged the shield-bearer’s armor, but Golden Axe refused to split its attention. They destroyed the attendants, brought down the guardian, and kept its hand away from the rope.

No bell rang.

Quin nodded once. ”Better.”

Max looked at the time recorded beside the viewing screen. ”Much better.”

Matthew’s party continued east beneath the outer ward. They reached the underground gatehouse before any reinforcements entered the tunnel.

No undead waited on their side of the portcullis.

The chains rose into an enclosed winch room above the stairway, far beyond the bars. Narrow openings overlooked the tunnel from the inner gatehouse. The tracker saw green light move behind them.

The defenders were watching.

A warning bell sounded inside the gatehouse. Its answer rang from the towers above, and black fire appeared in channels along the tunnel walls.

The first crossbow bolt arrived before Matthew finished placing the tools on the floor.

The shield-bearer caught it. Two more struck his shield, and a ribbon of black fire passed through the bars beside him. The portcullis remained shut while the undead attacked from safety.

The mage raised an angled wall of stone from the tunnel floor. It was only waist-high, but it gave Matthew and the tracker enough cover to reach the repaired groove Kesh had marked. The shield-bearer stood above them and protected the open side.

Bolts hammered the shield. Hooked blades reached between the portcullis bars and scraped across the stone wall. The tracker fired through one of the narrow openings whenever green light appeared, forcing the undead there to duck without giving Golden Axe any reason to expect the guard was dead.

Matthew fitted the first pry bar beneath the lower-left corner of the gate.

The mage pressed both hands against the floor. Her magic entered the repaired seam and the shallow trench beneath the portcullis. The black stone resisted her, but the newer mortar did not.

A crack climbed beside the left groove.

Matthew and the tracker forced the pry bar down. The gate rose two fingers from the trench, and the tracker hammered an iron wedge into the gap before its weight could settle again.

The portcullis crushed the edge of the wedge but remained slightly raised.

That was enough room for a second bar.

Golden Axe worked beneath constant fire. The gatehouse defenders never abandoned their cover. The shield-bearer absorbed what he could, the healer repaired the injuries he could not prevent, and the mage divided her strength between the stone barrier and the floor beneath the gate.

The first barrier broke under black fire.

The mage raised another without standing.

Matthew called the effort instead of the fight. Lift. Hold. Wedge. Move the bar. Lift again.

The repaired groove split wider. Stone pushed upward beneath the bottom rail while three adventurers leaned on the pry bars. The portcullis rose one foot, then two.

Armored footsteps began echoing from the preparation room behind them. The gatehouse alarm had given the outer defenders time to enter the burial road.

The undead stabbed through the opening as soon as it became large enough. A hooked blade caught the tracker across the back and dragged him away from the mallet. The healer pulled him behind the shield and spent two spells closing the wound.

The gate began settling.

The mage abandoned the protective wall and poured the rest of the spell into the floor. A solid block of stone rose beneath the damaged corner. Matthew drove the second iron wedge beside it.

The portcullis stopped three feet above the trench.

There was no longer any cover between Golden Axe and the firing openings.

The shield-bearer crawled beneath the gate first with his shield held ahead of him. He forced the ground-level defenders away from the opening long enough for Matthew to follow and help him hold the base of the stairs. The healer guided the wounded tracker through next. The mage crossed last, leaving the raised block in place while bolts and dark magic struck the tunnel behind her.

The moment the mage cleared the bars, her control over the raised block slipped. The stone split, both iron wedges folded, and the portcullis crashed back into its trench.

Above them, the gatehouse winch had never moved. The breach had already cost the mage one of her largest spells, the healer two spells, and the shield-bearer a fresh crack across his shield.

Armored undead waited on the stairway. Golden Axe defeated them before they could reform around the wounded tracker, but the fight cost them more time.

The alarm had already awakened the rest of Dread Fort. Cold lights brightened throughout the keep while defenders converged on the inner stairs.

The secret route had carried them as far as it could.

From there, Golden Axe fought toward the throne room.

They did not stop to clear every side chamber. Kesh’s map ended at the portcullis, so the tracker chose the stairs that climbed most directly through the center of the keep. The shield-bearer blocked intersections while the others passed. The mage sealed one doorway with stone and collapsed a second stair behind them.

Undead still reached the party.

The first group cost them two healing spells. The second broke the tracker’s bow and forced him to fight with a shorter weapon. A black knight followed them through the collapsed stairwell and remained close enough that Matthew had to deal with it while the rest of the party kept moving.

Golden Axe did not defeat most of Dread Fort’s defenders.

They stayed ahead of them.

The throne-room doors appeared at the end of a long hall.

Two grave knights guarded them. The party struck before the knights could form a line. The fight consumed the mage’s last large spell and the healer’s final potion, but it ended with both doors clear.

Matthew placed one hand against the black stone.

”Everyone ready?”

The shield-bearer looked at his cracked shield. The tracker had blood running down one side of his armor. The healer could cast only a few more spells, and the mage was breathing hard enough to be heard across the hall.

”No,” said the healer.

Matthew pushed the doors open anyway.

They had entered the dungeon to kill Kildra. Reaching his throne exhausted did not change the objective, and turning around would only leave the attempt unfinished.

The throne room was larger than it appeared through Max’s viewing screen. Black pillars rose along both sides. Undead courtiers stood between them, but none moved to block the entrance.

Kildra sat upon the throne at the far end.

Heavy armor covered his body. Black fire surrounded his exposed skull and traveled in slow lines across the arms of the throne.

[Kildra, Warden of the Last Threshold]

Kildra rose. ”You crossed beneath my walls.”

Matthew lowered his spear. ”We came to kill you.”

”Then the road has brought you to the proper place.”

The courtiers stepped back against the pillars.

Golden Axe attacked as a party.

The shield-bearer took Kildra’s attention while Matthew searched for an opening in his armor. The mage placed a barrier across the throne-room entrance to delay the undead climbing the keep. The tracker attacked from the edge of the room, and the healer spent everything she had keeping the front line alive.

Their plan was sound. They had too little strength left to carry it out.

Kildra’s black fire absorbed the first spell that struck him. His weapon drove the shield-bearer backward with every impact. When Matthew found a gap beneath one shoulder plate, his spear entered far enough to release a stream of black flame instead of blood. The fire around that shoulder flickered for a breath.

The wound was real but it did not slow the Warden.

The barrier at the entrance broke. Grave knights entered the room, and Kildra’s fire reached toward them. The moment it touched their armor, they moved faster.

Matthew’s party had seen that ability from the outer ward. Seeing it again did not provide a way to stop it.

The mage tried to cut the strands of fire. The tracker targeted the knights before the power reached them. The healer abandoned offense completely.

For a short time, the party held.

Then the shield-bearer’s cracked defense failed.

The formation went with it.

The tracker disappeared first. The mage followed after exhausting the last of her mana on a spell that drove two grave knights away from the healer. Matthew remained close enough to Kildra to strike him once more before black fire covered his spear and shattered its head.

The healer and guild master vanished within seconds of one another.

The throne room became silent.

Anna’s clipboard updated.

[First throne-room entry recorded.]

[Party: Golden Axe.]

[Objective status: Failed.]

[Kildra, Warden of the Last Threshold: Undefeated.]

Max leaned back in his chair.

The adventurers had not solved Dread Fort. They had reached the correct problem.

Quin looked at the empty room on the screen. ”They arrived with almost nothing left.”

”Next time they will try to preserve more.” Anna said.

Kildra returned to his throne. The wound beneath his shoulder plate closed as the instance began restoring itself.

He looked toward Max through the dungeon connection.

”They reached me weakened.”

”Be careful, they will learn from that.” Max warned.

Black fire moved around Kildra’s skull.

”Then I will measure what remains when they arrive at full strength. I hope that they can prove worthy.”

In the Sanctuary hospital, Matthew woke to find Tessa and Kesh waiting beside the beds.

Kesh already held a blank map.

”Did you reach the winch?” He asked.

”No.” Matthew said.

”Then how did you get through?”

”We broke the repaired groove and forced one corner high enough to crawl under.”

Kesh wrote that beneath his gatehouse sketch.

”And the stairs?”

Matthew described the route and the cost of reaching the throne.

Tessa listened until he finished. ”So the tunnel works.”

Matthew looked at the restored spear beside his bed.

”The tunnel works. We reached Kildra.”