“Waltzing visions, let’s dance!” Frinx shouted for the third or fourth time during the same fight.

  “Why do they keep saying that?” Durn asked as she sent a stream of air toward an approaching Fire Construct. Each blazed a striking yellow, almost golden color that went beyond anything natural.

  Alongside the Foxtapus and Bronze Motif, Durn maintained a defensive position in front of Witmie. The sooner Witmie solved the door puzzle the better, but she was running into an issue.

  The first three rows were in place, but the last row of three tiles was out of order and she couldn’t figure out how to get them in order without messing up everything else.

  Merijest was unbothered by the onslaught. With flicks of her wrist, drops of blood flew from her lip and formed into icicles. The fire melted the ice, but the melted ice put out the fire.

  But for each downed Fire Construct, more appeared to fill the ranks. The flames waltzed through the chamber with dazzling coordination.

  Thesa was the most set upon. Synchronous pairs of Fire Constructs descended on her. The elementals were weak, only taking a strike or two from Thesa’s halberd to eliminate, but the sheer number threatened to swallow every last bit of oxygen in the chamber.

  As a fiery hand gripped her dominant shoulder, Frostbite chirped like a gecko. Thesa activated her armor’s [Back Up] ability, blasting the enemy back. She looked around. She could use [Dive] to get out of the fray, but the Fire Constructs would catch up to her again soon. She could try her new [Corvoid] ability but she hadn’t even tried it out yet and she wasn’t sure it would be more helpful than [Dive] in this situation. The most important thing would be to take out the summoner.

  Thesa caught a glimpse of Merijest’s ice magic and realized that cold magic was probably a good call under these circumstances. She took the Menthic Axe from her belt and threw it in a spinning arc toward Frinx. As the axe left her hand, Thesa’s Peppermint Wyrm stirred on her non-dominant shoulder and sprayed cold breath in the same direction, clearing a handful of Fire Constructs.

  “Ow!” Frinx shouted as the axe caught them in the right leg. As the [Bard] fell over and stopped playing, all the Fire Constructs paused. The Menthic Axe wrenched itself from the wound and returned to Thesa’s hand.

  Merijest swept her arms wide and cold air flooded the room, shrinking the Fire Constructs.

  Thesa used the opportunity to [Dive] beside Frinx and grab them by the collar of their armor.

  “Hey, come on!” Frinx yelled.

  “Get out of here, Frinx,” Thesa said. “And tell the Knights not to come anywhere near us.” She was a little light headed from the depleting oxygen and she could feel anger bubbling inside herself. “All the Knights do is lie and take and hurt. Go!”

  Thesa lifted Frinx and hurled the Knight toward the stairwell with impressive force.

  “Geez, fine,” Frinx said, scoffing. “Don’t have to be so rude… I don’t know why Vlurlaw didn’t come here herself…” The Knight turned to leave but as their right leg hit the ground they winced and fell into a crouch. “Ow, ow! Ow!” The last of their Fire Constructs was extinguished.

  “Wait, um.” Thesa was starting to regret her showy aggression.

  Frinx sat on the ground, inspecting their leg. The armor was crumpled into the raw wound on their calf. They winced and hissed at the pain.

  Thesa hectically approached. “Are you…ok?”

  Frinx looked up with wet eyes. “I’m fine,” they lied. “It doesn’t hurt that bad.”

  Thesa looked over at Merijest in search of guidance. The demoness only shrugged. Thesa recalled her intention to give everyone a chance at redemption.

  “Here,” Thesa said, handing a potion to Frinx.

  Frinx looked up with distrust in their eyes, but took the potion and drank it. The shrapnel receded from their wound as it closed.

  “Just so you know,” Frinx said, “I’m basically scouting right now. [Archknight Superior] will probably send someone better at this next time.”

  “Why hasn’t Beautuk attacked us directly?” Thesa asked.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “He used a lot of his strength when he–wait no. Forget I said anything.”

  Before Thesa could reply, Witmie chimed in.

  “Got it!” Witmie slid the door puzzle into a solved position. As the door opened, air rushed out toward the party. It was dusty but more full of oxygen. Thesa looked at the open passage and when she turned back to Frinx, the Knight was gone.

  ***

  The final chamber was unoccupied. A wooden desk stood on a wooden floor. On the desk, a journal laid open beside a chunk of bone-lead.

  “What?!” Thesa shouted.

  Merijest looked around. Something was off.

  Witmie had already sat down at the desk.

  “Oooh, environmental storytelling,” she said and then she read aloud. “‘Door with wings? Door made of hair? Door that is not really a door?’ It’s a bunch of door ideas.” Each page was covered in doodles and random notes.

  “It doesn’t say where the [Dungeon Core] went?” Thesa asked. In a stack of books near the wall, there was a well-read copy of Plume and Granby’s Encyclopedia of Doors.

  “No, it just stops. But the author of this might have just dropped the project midway through. There’s a bunch of notes about ‘door theory’ and ‘what makes a good door’ so I guess that’s no surprise.”

  “Let me see the book,” Merijest said, extending a clawed hand. Thesa and Witmie turned to see the circular pattern of blood Merijest had smeared on the floor and the open wound on the demoness’s thigh.

  Witmie obliged to Merijest’s request and the demoness placed the book in the center of the bloody sigil. She placed the chunk of bone-lead atop it. “Thesa, help me with this. It’s time to learn the Dead Tongue.”

  Thesa gulped.

  ***

  “The Dead Tongue is not exactly like other languages,” Merijest explained. “Sometimes using it feels more like writing equations than making utterances. It's never a good idea to speak it without a thorough plan.”

  Thesa nodded, but her head was spinning. She hadn’t been expecting a language lesson right then, but the Dead Tongue was part of her contract to become a [Witch].

  “Until I tell you otherwise, do not say any of these words aloud. To begin, we call a spirit,” Merijest explained. “For that, we have a vocative plea.” She [Messaged], “‘Srikot,’” then she continued aloud, “is a generic term for a ‘spirit.’ It’s considered neutral and inoffensive. But to decline it, you need to add an infix. So in the vocative tense it becomes ‘srikziot.’” Each time she said a word from the Dead Tongue, she slipped back into a [Message].

  Thesa almost whispered the word, but caught herself and [Messaged] “srikziot” in reply. Luckily she was familiar with all of the sounds so far.

  “That goes at the beginning of the phrase. It’s how we get a spirit’s attention,” Merijest continued. “Eventually we can talk about how to call on a specific spirit, but for now this will work.”

  Thesa nodded again. She was barely following and Merijest was just launching into this whole thing.

  “But we also need to add some words in the corporeal case. This is something non-magical languages don’t have,” Merijest said. “It’s basically the physical component. The word for book is ‘rekhet’ and we will decline it in a way that attaches this book to the word itself. The last word is ‘vrivri’ which is a verb used for ‘vocative pleas’ and it means something like ‘come to’ or ‘connect with.’ We’ll get into conjugation later, though. I’m going to teach you the full phrase and we can talk about it more in the future. Just be careful practicing the corporeal case and never say it aloud unless you are certain. It can have unintended consequences.”

  Merijest took Thesa’s hand and brought it to the wound on her own thigh. Thesa shook as the demoness smeared the blood and brought Thesa’s wet palm onto the leather book cover with her own claw resting atop it.

  “Ok, repeat my [Message] aloud,” Merijest said.

  “Wait, what will I do after that?” Thesa replied.

  “I’ll take over from there. Just focus on this one phrase for now,” Merijest said with a sharp-toothed smile. “You’ve got this, kitten. Just say, ‘srikziot, ithrekhetik vrivri, ithvliekik vrivri.’”

  Thesa didn’t think Merijest had explained the word ‘ithvliekik’ but she had zoned out during some of the explanation and couldn’t be completely certain. She repeated the vocative plea. She had never cast a spell like this. When she was a [Paladin], her spells were all managed through prayers. As a [Witch], she usually drew power from an internal well. She never understood how anyone could cast spells outside of what the [System] granted directly.

  Thesa’s eyes began to unfocus as if from exhaustion. She blinked to no avail as everything around her faded except for the book, the sigil, and Merijest. They were in an endless void. The demoness continued speaking the Dead Tongue without any explanation to Thesa.

  The strange words pouring from her mouth took shape in the air as clouds of gray ash, barely discernible against the nothingness. The book and sigil exhaled gray wisps of their own which mingled with Merijest’s words in an effervescent dance.

  A singular point of blue light dilated like a pupil in the darkness. The light remained the size of a small fist before sprouting out into fractals. It expanded into a dome around Thesa and Merijest.

  As the demoness continued speaking, her voice moved between two states. One was her regular speaking voice. The other sounded like overlapping echoes through brass pipes.

  Thesa thought she recognized the word ‘srikziot’ once or twice but she wasn’t certain. The conversation seemed incredibly fast and yet it went on for a very. Long. Time.

  When the conversation finally ended, the blue fractals receded into a singular point and vanished.

  Merijest said, “srikziot, ikrekhetith khirkhir, ikvliekith khirkhir.” The darkness receded, returning the pair to the tower chamber. “We finish the spell with another vocative plea. It basically says we’re done and by reversing the corporeal case into the acorporeal case, you separate the book and the blood sigil from the words.”

  Thesa nodded again, still confused.

  “There’s a lot more to learn,” Merijest continued. “And we’ll need more access to materials like bone-lead, but that should be a good start. There’s more vocabulary to learn, safety considerations, true names, and the like.”

  The floor was still smeared with the demoness’s blood and the book remained, but the bone-lead had been used up and vanished.

  “So, where did we go during that?” Thesa asked. When she looked around, Witmie and Durn weren’t paying any attention. Witmie was drawing and Durn was crocheting.

  “We didn’t go anywhere,” Merijest replied. “It’s all perception.”

  “And what did we get from that spell?”

  “I know what happened to this tower’s [Dungeon Core].,” Merijest said. Then she frowned and added, “But more importantly, I know why we can’t find IsterNgiv.”

  What sort of magical doors would you make?

  ***

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