Before he could steal it, I flipped the chain up and over my head, feeling the weight of the key settle against my chest. As everyone shouted, I realized what I’d done and tried to pry the chain off, but the key wouldn’t budge. It rested against my cloak as through it was melded to my clothing, my skin, my soul.
“What the hell?” Frantic, I turned to Reggie. “Help me get this off!” I clawed at the chain but it wouldn’t move.
Reggie hurried to my side and reached out to touch the key. There was a sizzle and a spark and he yanked his hand away, shouting. His fingers were red and blistering.
“Damn it, that hurts!”
“What happened?” Thornhold raced over, his eyes wide. “Why did you put that on?” he asked me, almost accusatory.
“I didn’t realize what I was doing. It was…it felt like Reggie was going to attack me and I couldn’t let him touch the key,” I said, holding out my hand. “Let’s see your fingers.”
Ray pulled out his first aid kit. “Sit down and give me your hand,” he said.
Reggie obeyed. “I wasn’t going to steal it from you, Erenye.”
“I know that now, but while I was holding it, all I could think about was keeping it safe.” I felt incredibly guilty. Somehow, I’d hurt Reggie.
Ray stared at the key for a moment. “That key has a powerful aura. I can’t tell if it’s malign, benign, or just neutral, but it’s magical.” He leaned forward, examining the key without touching it. I felt a little odd, given it was resting between my breasts, but Ray wasn’t a perv and if he could figure out what this was, then all so much the better.
“What are you getting?” Geoff asked. “My gaming group knew there was some sort of artifact in this dungeon, but we didn’t know what we were looking for. We hadn’t made it through this dungeon fully by the time I came in.”
Brynn poked around the inside of the sarcophagus. “There’s nothing else here, and this room has no other exits from what I can see.”
“I think you’re right—this key is the artifact,” I said. “I don’t know what it does, but for now, I seem to be stuck with it. I hope to hell it doesn’t do anything like life leeching.”
“I don’t think so,” Reggie said, looking up from where Ray was dressing his burns.
“How’s the hand?”
“He’s got some strong first degree burns—maybe light second degree. I think, as long as we keep them clean and medicated, they should be all right. We have antibiotic ointment in the kits, but we need to be more cautious in the future.” Ray finished cleaning the burns, then spread the ointment over them and wrapped them in clean gauze.
“I wonder…There has to be some sort of storehouse in the game with extra supplies, don’t you think? We should ask Liesel,” I said. “She might know more about the key, too.”
“Maybe she can help Geoff, too,” Thornhold said. “And she might have a stock of meds that will help more with Reggie’s hand.”
“Okay, let’s head out. Do the creatures respawn?” Brynn asked.
“Not until we leave the dungeon. They might respawn after—I’m not positive but I think I remember something about that in the contract we signed.”
We gathered up everything we could salvage—my arrows that were still unbroken and anything else we might have dropped. As we headed up the stairs, I glanced back at the sarcophagus, then down at the key hanging around my neck.
To be honest, I was frightened. I couldn’t get the chain—and, therefore, the key—off my neck. I didn’t knowwhatit was, or where it might lead to. I had no clue what I’d gotten myself into, and unfortunately, I had dragged everybody else with me. Hoping that the key didn’t lead to some portal into hell, I followed the others as we headed up to the entrance.
CHAPTER 16: WE HAVE OURSELVES A QUEST
The minutewe came out into the open, I began to breathe easier. The zombies and shades and darkness of the tomb had left me feeling shaken and scared. I tried the key once again, hoping that being under an open sky might break whatever spell was keeping it chained to my neck, but no such luck.
“It’s definitely stuck. Let’s head back to Liesel’s place.” I glanced at my watch, hoping that there would be some notification that the game was fixed, but no such luck. “Let’s go.”
We headed off, once again crossing through the field, past the charred ruins of Liesel’s house. As we stopped in the fields to grab a few of the pumpkins and squashes still there, the moon shone down on us, and a cold tang filled the air.
“Tell me about this Liesel,” Geoff said.
“She’s an employee of the game,” I said, tiredly. We’d been in the dungeon all afternoon and part of the night, and everybody looked worn out and ragged. And our clothes stank to high heaven from zombie guts and blood and everything else we’d been through.
Somewhere, behind us, an owl hooted long and melancholy, echoing through the air.
“I’m so grateful you asked for a dungeon adventure when you did,” Geoff said. “I would probably be dead without you stumbling in there, especially since there aren’t any restraints on the Syms now. Creatures made for battle, that have no sense of emotion—good or bad—without any controls on their actions…it’s a scary thought. And Abarria is filled with them.”
