Chapter 5

The gemstones were arranged in some sort of pattern, but what kind, Caleb had no clue. Chiseled lines covered the entirety of the wall. They converged around the position of each gemstone – one yellow, one green, one blue, and one much larger red, each with a soft glow to them. The larger red stone was in the center, the lines emanating from it dominated over half the wall. Each other stone – sapphire, emerald, topaz – were placed further out. It was like a wealthy caveman’s version of modern art.

Caleb stepped closer, reaching out and tracing one of the carvings with a finger, going up, reaching a sharp point, and then steeply back down. His hand grazed closer to the topaz stone – it was roughly the size of his fist. Quite beautiful really. Back on earth, the thing would be worth a fortune, or it would have been – the apocalypse couldn’t be good for the jewelry market.

He touched it, expecting nothing of course, but was met with a pleasant surprise. It glowed even brighter, shining like someone had just turned a flashlight on it. The light sparkled, filling the room in warm yellow. Then it became somehow more powerful, so blazingly bright Caleb had to turn his gaze and squeeze his eyes shut.

After roughly five seconds, the light faded, and the gemstone was as it was before.

“Well, that obviously means something,” he muttered, stepping back to take another look at the larger picture. But what? And why did the blue one look familiar?

His eyes shot wide. The one set in the archway! Caleb turned and jogged out the room, into the much larger chamber, and then out the archway and into the bitter cold. He looked up. There it was. Set into the highest point of the arch, the color of the deep sea, was a matching pair.

An idea was already taking shape inside his mind. He ran back to the gem-studded wall and touched the sapphire. Just as the topaz, it too, grew blindingly bright. Caleb didn’t wait around for it to die down. He shaded his vision and stumbled, eyes closed, back out.

The other stone was glowing as well. They were more than just a matching pair. They were linked! Like two signaling devices, touching one would cause both of them to radiate light like the sun.

All of the curving and sharp lines on the wall, they weren’t random, they were a map. A map of the mountain range, each peak carved into the stone, valleys winding through like rivers. The blue gemstone near the righthand corner was signifying where the gemstone in the arch was in relation to the others. He could see it now.

I bet each of the gemstones is telling me where one of the Dungeon’s bosses is located. Bolvun was here. He touched the stone near the sapphire, avoiding the gem itself so he wouldn’t set it off. The other two Hands are the yellow on here, and the green one near the top of the map. The central ruby is undoubtedly Thrymm. Shit, I hope me touching these gemstones isn’t setting off some sort of alarm to the other bosses. If they have a map like this in their lair as well, I might as well be shooting off a flare, telling them exactly where I am.

He shrugged. Oh well. If that were the case, so be it. It would save him the trouble of having to hunt them down. But he needed to get much stronger first. Bolvun had been level twenty-five, Caleb was just now level twelve.

There were still some things that he wanted to test to be sure that his hypothesis was correct. Caleb pressed his fingers against the cool topaz, the ran back outside. It was easy to spot. Burning like a signal fire, far away across the mountainous terrain atop a distant peak, shone a matching yellow light.

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. One of the main things he’d been worried about was actually finding all of his enemies. It didn’t look like that would be an issue now.

He repeated the process with the red gem and saw it shine from the tallest mountain like it were a volcano ready to blow. The emerald gem, Caleb had to climb up the wall to reach. He probably could have leapt and touched it, or just broke his hands into the wall with his incredible strength, making his own hand and footholds, but instead he climbed it as he would’ve before, slowly creeping up, pads of his fingers barely biting into the rough carvings. Sometimes it feels good to do things the old fashioned way.

After touching the final gemstone, he ran back outside, but he didn’t see a green light shining in the distance. For a brief moment, he was distraught. Was his idea not correct? But that wouldn’t make any sense, the other two had worked pretty much perfectly.

However, after a few more seconds studying the map, Caleb deduced that the lair of the emerald Hand was just inconveniently located, blocked from his view by the terrain.

There was still one more thing he wanted to test. Something that he hoped wouldn’t break the map. Caleb pried his fingers into the stone around the sapphire set in the map. It cracked and broke beneath his powerful fingers as they worked themselves in like tree roots. He clenched his eyes closed, bracing for the onslaught of brilliant light, but it never came. Even though his fingers were embedded into the rock, clutched tight around the gemstone, it was no brighter than normal, soft as a glowstick.

With a final tug, he wrenched the thing out of its setting, and beheld it in his hand. I love super strength. It weighed about a pound or two, about half the size of a baseball. But why wasn’t it shining?

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His first panicked thought was that by ripping it from the wall, he’d ruined whatever magical connectivity had been there. However, as soon as that thought crossed his mind, light erupted from the stone. He dropped it clattering to the ground with a surprised yelp. It rolled across the stony floor, and the light receded.

“What the hell?” Caleb leaned down and poked it. Light. Then again. Light again. A quick glance out the doorway proved that the two gemstones were still connected – when he touched one, they both shone.