The lever was still screaming. It hadn’t stopped since Wobblethighs bumped it, which meant it was now approaching minute seven of an uninterrupted, high-pitched shriek that sounded less like machinery and more like a tea kettle having an existential breakdown. The statue, having somehow managed to wheel itself into the room before all the chaos, had decided this was the perfect moment to escalate its romantic campaign.
“Oh brave sir,” it murmured, voice sultry in a way only someone made of marble and misplaced voice modulation could manage. “Protect me with your valorous thighs—oh, I mean, arms.”
“I—what?” Wobblethighs stammered, holding his dented shield sideways like he was considering proposing to it instead. “Now is really not the time!”
The giant lizard, meanwhile, had taken one loping step forward. Its scales shimmered like burnt bronze plaid, its eyes reflecting the flickering torches in confused anticipation, as if trying to remember whether it had ordered takeout or if this was just another unexpected delivery of screaming snacks. It opened its mouth slowly. Wide. Thoughtfully. Like it was reading a menu. Derrin’s legs moved before his faith did.
“Grumble of Healing!” he shouted, not because anyone was hurt yet, but because it was the first spell that didn’t require a blood sample and a long chat with the divine suggestion box.
A soft blue glow rolled out from his hand like a disappointed sigh. It washed over the party—and the lizard. Everyone felt mildly better about their life choices. The lizard’s shoulders relaxed. It blinked twice. Then it licked its eye thoughtfully and crouched lower, more focused now.
“That… helped no one,” Derrin said, clutching his homemade holy symbol like it might become useful if he just apologized to it hard enough.
Calla, bless her chaos-streaked soul, had decided that now—yes, now—was the time for art. She stepped forward, spun once on the squeaky tile, and launched into a dance entitled “Denial in Three-and-a-Half Acts.” It involved wide sweeping motions, a scarf toss, and what might generously be described as an off-beat attempt at jazz hands.
The lizard paused. Its head tilted. Its tail twitched. Then, bewilderingly, it began to sway.
“Is it… dancing?” Derrin hissed.
“I think I unlocked something primal,” Calla said breathlessly, twirling in a circle that was at least thirty percent flailing.
“I’ll flank it!” Wobblethighs cried, then immediately tripped over a puzzle tile labeled “Insert Childhood Memory.” It exploded into confetti and guilt.
The lizard blinked again.
That was when the system finally broke. The air shimmered, and a system popup forcibly imposed itself between reality and everyone’s better judgment.
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> SYSTEM MALFUNCTION DETECTED
> Divine Assistance Queued (1)
> Spell Slot Overflow – Error 441: You Tried Too Hard
> New Spell Unlocked: [Holy Complication]
> Effect: ???
> Side Effects: Probable. Emotional.
“Holy Complication!” Derrin shouted, mostly because it was new, and new meant maybe-not-immediately-lethal.
The effect was… unclear. A shaft of light exploded from the ceiling, accompanied by the sound of an organ trying to remember what key it was in. The light hit the lizard square in the chest. The beast shrieked—not in pain, exactly, but more like someone being forced to sit through their own voicemail recording. It reeled backward, flailing its limbs and knocking over a shelf full of rejected trial prizes (including a cursed ladle and a boot that only traveled left).
It staggered. It spun. It tried to mimic Calla’s final move—what she would later call “The Crescendo of Unwanted Clarity.” And then it collapsed, tail twitching, onto the tile floor with a heavy thud. The lever finally stopped screaming.
The statue sighed, “Well, that was invigorating,” and promptly short-circuited into sleep mode.
For a long moment, the only sound was Calla’s uneven breathing and the faint rattle of Wobblethighs brushing confetti off his shoulder plates. Then the system coughed again, politely but with a note of exhausted obligation.
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> Trial Complete
> Experience Points Awarded: +247
> Derivative Combat Efficiency Rating: 3.5/10 (New High Score!)
> Level Up:
> DERRIN – Cleric (Level 2)
> New Spell: [Sanctified Delay – Causes enemies to briefly reconsider their life choices]
> CALLA – Bardic Outlier (Level 2)
> New Ability: [Distractingly Interpretive Flourish – Stuns enemies in 10 ft. of secondhand embarrassment]
> Party Title Unlocked: “Technically Victorious”
Derrin fell backward onto the stone floor, chest heaving. “We’re alive.”
Calla collapsed beside him, arms splayed out like a starfish having an identity crisis. “I think… I think that was my best performance yet.”
Wobblethighs slowly removed a lizard scale from his helmet and held it up to the light. “I’m keeping this,” he said. “I may give it to her.”
Derrin didn’t have the strength to ask who “her” was. He just lay there, staring at the ceiling, trying to process how being slightly holy and consistently unlucky had somehow, once again, not gotten him killed. The torches dimmed slightly.
Somewhere, faintly, the statue whispered, “Call me…”
And the party lay in a heap of post-combat confusion, unresolved trauma, and several unanswered questions—one of which was: What fresh nonsense lay in the next room?
****
Somewhere between the fading echo of a recently defeated lizard and the faint whiff of roasted confusion, Derrin stirred. He blinked, sat up slowly, and immediately regretted it. His spine made a sound like a harp being dropped down a stairwell. Still, he was alive. The level-up message still floated in the back of his mind like a half-remembered compliment from someone who wasn’t sure they meant it. Somewhere deep in the back of his divine senses, Voherin probably rolled over and groaned. He squinted across the room.
In the far corner—partially hidden behind a curtain of dangling vines and fate-dampening banners—Sir Wobblethighs was engaged in a hushed conversation with the Entry Hall statue, now fully reanimated and wearing what looked suspiciously like a scarf someone had donated from Calla’s wardrobe.
Derrin’s cheeks went warm. The statue giggled. Statues, it turned out, were surprisingly flirty when given free will and roller skates. Trying very hard not to listen, Derrin turned his focus to the far end of the chamber where the door leading deeper into the cave system stood—massive, locked, and judging them quietly. Between them and that door sat a pedestal with a puzzle cube on top and, far more distressingly, a floor composed entirely of obviously cursed tiles.
They were square, unnervingly clean, and slightly iridescent. A small plaque nearby read:
EMOTIONAL ACCESS PANEL:
Please provide compliments to proceed.
Note: Failure to flatter may result in confetti-based emotional retribution.
Derrin stared. “No.”
Calla was already skipping forward, delight etched across her face like stage lighting had just cued her entrance. “Oh, tiles!” she cooed, twirling once. “Your alignment is impeccable, your grout lines divine, your symmetry is a metaphor for emotional balance!”
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The tiles reacted immediately. One near her flared, burst into multicolored confetti, and emitted a loud “WHEE!”
Calla clapped her hands. “They like me!” She proceeded across the room in a trail of twirls, twitches, and praise. “I adore your shimmering unpredictability! Your confetti is a celebration of surface-level connection!”
More tiles exploded. One tried to play music. It was mostly kazoo-based. Calla, undeterred, incorporated it into her rhythm. She moved with theatrical passion and zero regard for self-preservation.
“It’s like watching someone seduce a dance floor,” Derrin muttered.
“She’s got form,” said Wobblethighs, having rejoined them with the statue now rolling fondly behind him, occasionally whispering “champion of my foyer” under its breath.
Derrin sighed and followed across, choosing the safest-looking tiles and offering half-hearted praise like, “You are... unexpectedly stable,” and, “This corner really works for you.”
Confetti sprayed at least once, but he made it through with minimal glitter to the face. Wobblethighs simply stomped forward, and the tiles—perhaps sensing a man too full of inconvenient destiny and confused romantic energy—let him pass with only a few disgruntled chirps. They reached the pedestal and found, to their combined misfortune, another statue.
This one was larger, clearly male, with sharp angular features and a sash that read “TRIAL 2 – DO NOT POLISH
“You’re still using that entrance phrase?” the male statue huffed. “Unbelievable.”
The first statue cooed, “You’re still incapable of ending a sentence without shouting.”
“Some of us were forged for importance!”
“You were forged for indoor signage and moderate traffic control!”
They glared.
Wobblethighs shifted uncomfortably. “Did we... interrupt something?”
Derrin cleared his throat. “We’re here for the trial.”
The male statue straightened, now clearly trying to perform through emotional turbulence.
“Very well,” he sniffed. “To pass, you must solve three puzzles, each one designed to test your—THE DOOR.”
He slapped a tile. “Oh curse it all, that was the answer.” He slapped another one. “And that one too!”
The pedestal groaned, a small fan inside wheezing as though even it couldn’t take the drama.
“Let me,” Derrin muttered, stepping up to the puzzle cube. He rotated one side. It beeped politely. He turned another. Confetti exploded. The door behind them blinked once. Then nothing.
“I think it’s a logic puzzle,” Derrin said. “Based on—”
Sir Wobblethighs, trying to reposition his shoulder strap, tripped over a tile, landed squarely on the cube, and accidentally depressed three sigils at once.The room went completely still. Then:
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> Puzzle Sequence Accepted
> Congratulations: You Have Solved The Puzzle Through Unorthodox Bodily Logic
> New Achievement Unlocked: “Flat of the Blade, Seat of the Pants”
The door creaked open slowly, revealing only darkness beyond—and a faint trail of glowing footprints.
Wobblethighs stood and dusted himself off. “What did I miss?”
Calla clapped. “Poetic chaos.”
Derrin rubbed his eyes. “We’re going to die in here.”
And the party moved forward—into deeper trials, stranger mechanisms, and at least one performance piece Calla had been saving for a time of particularly emotional resonance.
****
The door creaked open with the sort of weary reluctance usually reserved for bureaucrats being asked to work overtime, and the party stepped into the next chamber. Above them, carved in cracked stone and bedazzled with glitter that time had not been kind to, hung a crooked sign:
THE HALL OF FORGOTTEN SIDE QUESTS
Abandon all continuity, ye who enter here.
The smell hit first: a cocktail of mold, misplaced ambition, and slightly burnt paper. The room was dim, lit by flickering sconces shaped like exclamation marks and several orbs of light that floated in lazy, unhelpful circles. Scrolls—hundreds of them—hung pinned to a massive, mold-flecked corkboard that took up the far wall. A few had fallen off and drifted to the floor, where they sat like discarded resumes waiting for the universe to call them back. Calla skipped ahead and immediately began reading the notices aloud in increasingly theatrical tones.
“Find my lost chicken (who may now be a minor god). Intriguing. Defeat the Cheesemancer of Crumb Hollow. Tempting.” She gasped and clutched one scroll to her chest. “Deliver this pie to a village that no longer exists. It’s so tragic. So… poetically impossible.”
Wobblethighs peered at a particularly dusty note labeled ‘Free cursed ring – not a trap’ and muttered, “That’s how I lost my last ring finger. Had to repurpose the pinkie.”
Derrin, overwhelmed by the narrative fallout stuck to every surface like ancient cobwebs of unfinished plot, turned to the system and whispered, “Any guidance?”
The air jittered with divine static. Then:
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> Side Quest Log: Memory Full
> You Already Have Enough Poor Decisions Active
> Warning: Accepting Additional Quests May Result in Existential Overflow
> Suggestion: Finish Something For Once
Derrin sighed, rubbed his eyes, and stepped quietly toward the far wall, beyond the reach of Calla’s echoing recital and Wobblethighs’ increasingly impassioned debate with a scroll that claimed to lead to “The Lost Spoon of Spatulon.”
He needed a moment. Without ceremony, he reached into the side pouch of his satchel and drew out the muffin. Stale. Slightly crumbly. Impossibly durable. Morinxandar. Friend. Advisor. Emotional gluten. Derrin sat down cross-legged beside a pile of expired plot hooks and held the muffin gently in both hands. He stared at it the way some people stare into campfires or existential voids.
“I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing,” he said softly. “They follow me. I think. Or maybe I follow them. Honestly, it’s a bit blurry.” He shifted his grip and frowned. “Voherin hasn’t said a word since the spell explosion. Or the lizard. Or the... whatever that flirtation was.”
The muffin remained silent, but a single crumb broke loose and rolled toward him like punctuation.
Derrin blinked. “Is that a sign? That’s a sign, isn’t it? You always drop crumbs at the important parts.”
Still silence. But the weight of the moment felt... muffinish.
“I just wanted a moment to breathe,” Derrin whispered. “To not feel like the only person in the room who’s making it up as he goes.”
“Aw, that’s adorable,” Calla said, appearing directly over his shoulder like an exuberant nightmare in scarves and jingles.
Derrin yelped, nearly dropping Morinxandar. “Personal space!”
Calla plopped down beside him, hugging a scroll titled “Mend the Shattered Echoes of a Once-Unified Barbershop Quartet.” She peered at the muffin.
“Is it... alive?” she asked.
“It’s... complicated.”
“I respect that.”
Somewhere nearby, a sharp squeak echoed through the chamber. Pip, the chipmunk, had finally awoken from his nap in Calla’s hood and emerged blinking in existential confusion. He twitched twice, wiggled his nose, and began chittering in a rapid series of clicks and squeals that translated—loosely—as: “What in the name of shredded acorns happened, and why does everything smell like scorched ego and confetti?!”
Calla patted him gently. “You missed a dance battle and a divine system crisis.”
Pip narrowed his eyes, rubbed his tiny paws over his face, and squeaked something that sounded suspiciously like a prayer. Derrin stood, carefully tucking Morinxandar back into his pouch with the reverence of a pilgrim shelving scripture.
“Right,” he said. “Let’s get out of this room before one of these scrolls tricks us into fighting a cursed kettle for the honor of a sentient teabag.”
Calla giggled and linked arms with him—without asking, of course. Wobblethighs, now arguing with a parchment labeled “Become the Cheese King”, reluctantly followed. And as they approached the next corridor, another scroll fluttered from the board and landed gently at their feet, unopened.
Nobody picked it up. Yet.
****
The door didn’t open so much as sigh. It exhaled like a bureaucrat three minutes before lunch and slid inward with a groan that suggested it had seen things—terrible things—like tax audits and interpretive poetry. A cold breeze greeted them, not the kind that brushes past the skin, but the kind that somehow wafts through your self-esteem. The walls inside shimmered, not with light, but with the vague shimmer of memory—specifically the kind you wake up remembering at 3:12 a.m. and then have to go eat cheese to forget.
A sign above the archway spelled it out in swirling calligraphy:
THE CHAMBER OF SLIGHT EMOTIONAL TRAUMA
“Not pain. Just... that thing you wish you’d done differently.”
“Ah,” said Derrin, shoulders already slumping. “So this is the therapy room.”
Wobblethighs squinted at the glowing stones beneath their feet. “This seems like the kind of place where swords can’t help you.”
Calla twirled once on her heel and immediately slipped on a puddle of unresolved teenage angst. “Oh no,” she whispered, eyes wide. “It’s interpretive.”
The moment they stepped inside, the room reacted. Not violently, not loudly—just... intimately. The walls rippled. The air thickened like old gravy. Each party member found themselves standing in a different corner of their own psyche, confronted by that most dangerous of beasts: Themselves, But Remembering.
Derrin’s breath caught in his throat as he stood in a stone alcove that suddenly echoed with every unanswered prayer he’d ever muttered into moldy rafters and empty pews. One by one, the gods filed past in his memory—indifferent, distracted, and in one case, actively annoyed. Even the god he eventually browbeat into reluctant acceptance, Voherin the Begrudged, showed up halfway through, muttered something about “emotional overtime”, and promptly disappeared again.
He tried to call out. Tried to say, “I’m here, I’m trying, I’m doing my best.” But in that memory-space, his words turned into echoes no one caught. Again.
Calla, meanwhile, faced her own mirrored nightmare. She stood once more on the stage of the Silver Lyric Conservatory, ribbons swirling, scarf caught in the perfect beam of moonlit spotlight... and not a single soul watching. Her grand interpretive finale—“The Crumpling of Identity Through Bureaucratic Neglect (in C minor)”—came to a tragic crescendo just as her backup tambourinist let out a soft snore, rolled off his stool, and landed with a squeaky thunk. No applause. No pity. Just the echo of empty chairs and an emotionally distant janitor sweeping glitter.
She clutched her scarf tighter. Even her memory-self looked tired.
Wobblethighs stood in a much smaller corner, arms folded, helmet tucked under one arm like a man attending his own trial. Projected in spectral light was the legendary Great Sale of ’82—a tale told in bursts of color and half-remembered coupons. He watched as his past self stormed a temple because someone had advertised “50% off relics, no holy tax,” only to realize he’d been lured in by a discount bakery and a sorcerer with a flair for signage.
“Was it real?” he muttered, eyes misty. “Was it just indigestion and a broken calendar?”
A gentle clank beside him broke the memory loop. The Entryway Statue—now wheeled in manually after throwing a brief fit over the door threshold—rested a smooth marble hand on his pauldron.
“I believed in your sale,” she said.
That might have been the closest Wobblethighs had come to blushing in full armor. The chamber pulsed once. The lights dimmed. And the door behind them creaked open with the patience of a disappointed guidance counselor. They emerged into the next corridor slowly, blinking away the last emotional shrapnel.
Derrin’s hands were jammed deep in his robe pockets. His eyes stared forward with the thousand-yard stare of someone who just remembered that time he sneezed mid-prayer and knocked over a shrine candle. “That... that was worse than a lizard.”
Calla sniffled. “I didn’t even get one clap. Not one. The janitor unplugged the stage lights mid-performance.”
Wobblethighs simply patted the statue’s hand and said, “It wasn’t about the savings. It was about the hope.”
They stood in silence for a beat. Maybe two. Then Pip sneezed, fell out of Calla’s hood, and immediately scampered up the nearest wall like a chipmunk trying to escape the memory of ever caring about anything.
“I hate this place,” he squeaked in chipmunkese.
Derrin nodded. “At least we’re still together.”
Calla brightened slightly. “We’re trauma-bonded now! That’s like friendship with confetti.”
Behind them, the door sealed shut with a soft click and a whisper that might have said, “Never speak of this again.” And so they trudged forward—shaken, emotionally bruised, and just barely more cohesive than before.
