“Ok, guys, this is it,” the quiet but intense voice of Oliver, the guy chosen to lead and anchor the group destined to head into the depths of the dungeon, began speaking, trying to psyche up his comrades. “This is the big one, the one we’ve been training for.”

Sadly, his intense pep-talk was interrupted by a soft chuckle from George. He was one half of a pair of twins who were chosen for their uncanny ability to coordinate, a connection so strong that it had even garnered some interest from the Lady Morgana, as some had decided to call the formidable women who had kicked off a lot of the recent changes in their otherwise quiet lives. Nobody knew if the Lady had learned anything from studying the connection, though that might be due to the limited time she had been able to spend on that particular task.

“We will go down there and kick ass,” Fred, the other half of the twins, added, his voice as irreverant as it could be.

“Or we could chew bubble gum,” George added, almost as if finishing the sentence from his brother.

“But where would we get bubble gum? We are all out, you know?” Fred continued, successfully breaking any tension that might have gripped the group.

“Are you quite done?” Angelina, the fourth member of their group, and the only female, asked, her voice exasperated thanks to the twins’ antics.

“Not quite, no,” George replied, only for Fred to continue their two-person comedy until Oliver put an end to it, mostly by warning them that Lady Luna was on her way. While the pair was fairly irreverent on a good day, they were well aware that any mischief directed at the teenage daughter of Lady Morgana would be… unwise.

“Mother asked me to make sure you all have your pendants,” the young woman told them, looking at all five of them in turn. They all checked, making sure that the intricately carved pendants were secure below their underarmour, before nodding.

“Excellent,” Luna closed her eyes for a moment. An unearthly light started to envelop her, a glow coming from deep within her. “This should give you some advantage, at least at first. It won’t last forever, but hopefully, it’ll help you find your footing in the dungeon,” she told them. Then, she began to sing, her voice quiet, but somehow, there was a harmony in the air, as if a dozen additional voices were joining hers, weaving an otherworldly song. The glow around her started to spread, enveloping the five of them until it was infused into their bodies. They could see the young woman stumble for a moment, as if suddenly exhausted, while their bodies felt like they were filled with energy and wrapped in a warm embrace, providing them strength and comfort at the same time.

“Thank you,” Harry, the last and youngest of their number, told the teenager, before looking over to Oliver, nodding in indication that everything was ready.

“Let’s go,” Oliver emphatically said, before walking out of the shelter made from grey stone, courtesy of the Lady Morgana.

Outside, they made their way past the high towers made from this strange, glossy rock and towards the central area, where the heat caused a shimmering haze to rise from the ground. And, more importantly, where the scent of sulfur was strongest, and they needed their various skills to remain comfortable in the oppressive heat. Luckily, the shroud placed around them by Lady Luna lessened the discomfort, allowing them to conserve their stamina as they made their way to those gargantuan stairs leading down into the earth.

The stairs themselves were made from the same material the towers were made of, the same glossy black stone, interspersed with veins of an angry, red glow. These veins shed even more heat than the rest, forming a web beneath the stone and subtly encouraging people to stay away from them as they moved forward.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“It almost looks like obsidian,” Harry said in a quiet voice, almost a whisper, as if he was worried speaking louder would garner them unwanted attention.

“Just without any sharp edges,” Angelina agreed, “Look, even at the edge of the step, there are no edges, it’s all smoothed out, as if it’s a liquid,” she added, pointing towards the edge in question.

The group made their way to the edge, looking down the short drop of about a metre to the next step, feeling just a little apprehensive, a feeling that only increased when they looked down the central shaft around which the steps wound on their way down.

“It’s almost as if the shaft is endless,” George said, now visibly nervous after peering down in what seemed to be an endless abyss.

“Do you reckon we should throw something down to hear how deep it is?” Fred asked and, for once, the usually irreverent attitude was gone, replaced with a previously unseen seriousness.

“No, we shouldn’t be fools of a took, or the Lady Morgana might just throw us down the abyss to see if the abyss blinks,” George shook his head, getting a nod of acceptance from his brother while the rest of their group was looking at the stairs leading downwards.

“Do you see how these steps shimmer in the heat, as if they aren’t really there?” Oliver asked, already trying to spot trouble before the trouble could find them.

“Remember, Lady Hecate said that you generally can’t see into dungeons from the outside. This might just be the phenomenon causing that inability here,” Angelina reminded him.

“Maybe, we should still be careful, who knows what waits for us down there,” Oliver argued back, making plans to drop a rope down each step, to check if the step was actually physically there before dropping down on it. Just because the drop was only a metre in height didn’t mean they should be careless.

“I’ll take the lead, you keep me secure?” Harry asked, taking his spot up ahead. While Oliver was the leader of their group, Harry generally was the one up front, thanks to his incredible agility and even better reflexes. Oliver, the strongest of the five, was in the back, keeping an eye on everything and acting as the rallying point, providing a stable base for the rest to build around. Angelina, the best when it came to ranged combat, in addition to being their medic, remained in the centre of their formation, able to assist the other four while Fred and George took the two flanks, their connection allowing them to coordinate without verbal communication.

After throwing down the rope secured around Oliver, with Fred and George standing ready to intervene with weapons drawn, it was Harry’s job to move down. For a moment, he considered using the rope to rappel down but decided against it; instead, he simply placed one hand on the ground and let himself drop, landing easily.

One by one, the rest of the group followed, getting a hand from him to make sure they didn’t stumble the landing, possibly injuring themselves, until they were all down. Then, they moved the three metres ahead to the next edge and repeated the process, steadily making their way around the central shaft until something changed.

When they moved across the fifth step, just far enough down that the shaft’s top started to get hazy, a blue box appeared before them, telling them that they had entered the Molten Core and were the first group to enter said dungeon.

“How cheery,” George snarked, looking arond and noticing that there were now a lot more of these red, glowing lines in the stone walls all around the shaft, bathing the area in an ominous, crimson light.

“Game face, brother,” Fred reminded him and both of them readied their weapons just in time to welcome the first enemy of the dungeon, a Bitumen made from the same black stone everything seemed to be made out of down here. As usual, the enemy emerged from the wall and was ready to fight by the time it had fully appeared.

Quickly spotting the thing’s core, Fred moved forward, feinting to provide an opening for George, who followed up and destroyed the Bitumen without issues, only for them to realise that the next one was already starting to emerge, possibly creating another gauntlet situation, just as they had dealt with earlier.

“Keep going and push forward,” Oliver commanded and the group continued to move, only now, they had to divide their focus, with Angelina covering Harry as he moved down, Fred and George stopping the Bitumen on the step they were on while Oliver had to cover their backs as they made their way down.

It worked but, as they could already feel, the dungeon would be no walk in the park. Not at all.