All wounds fully healed, we continued our walk through the forest. Once more I led the way with Wabbit at my side, while Clary and Malk walked together behind me. Conversation had returned a while after we’d left the wolf pack, but it was far less interesting than before, so I tuned most of it out.

After what I judged to be about an hour, Wabbit’s ears pricked up, and I felt something in the air, a faint sense of power. We had to be nearing the dungeon.

I grinned and sped up, the others following a second behind. In moments I broke out from the forest into an open area, and now that there was no canopy of leaves to block the sky I could see a vast mountain. The mountain was quite sheer at its base, forming a flat wall that cut the clearing into a semi-circle.

Built into that wall was a very big door.

The door was ornate, with runes and symbols scattered about the surface in a way that seemed random. Chaotic, but there had to be some sort of pattern to it… especially since there was no clear method of opening the door otherwise. I reached out with my senses, and felt a faint magical current running through the various runes, and permeating the door as a whole.

Malk stepped forward and said, “This must be the dungeon.”

“Yes, but how do we open the door?” asked Clary.

Malk smirked and took another step toward the door. He said, “We could try this,” and with a sudden movement he lifted his foot and kicked the door.

He then gasped, “Oh wow that hurts,” and hopped away whimpering. He made his way over to a tree and leaned against it, still whimpering.

“It’s never that simple, Malk.” I said.

“He’s such an endearing idiot. Alright, let me try.” Clary walked over to the door, inspecting it from different angles. She hesitated, then knocked on it twice.

Malk laughed through gritted teeth, and said, “Brilliant idea. Really. Knocking.”

In a wounded tone, Clary replied, “Hey, it couldn’t hurt to try!”

“Unlike your wonderful idea to kick it, Malk. Really, so much more ‘brilliant’ than knocking.” I shot at him. He grimaced, and Clary began taking items out of her pack, laying them around the door. She made a circle of salt and began chanting, drawing little bits and pieces of darkness around her in what was some kind of spell.

“So what’s this?” I asked.

She broke her incantation for a moment to answer, “I’m performing a ritual of opening, designed to address the door and tell it open for us. It should work, I’ve tested it on a bound door. Admittedly, I bound the door myself, but… well, let’s hope!”

She continued the chant for another minute before taking all the energy she had gathered and flinging it at the door with a distinct lack of grace. Using my sense, I watched two things happen.

In the physical world, that which Clary and the others observed, the darkness seemed to flood over the door and dissipate quickly, expended. The door seemed unaffected, as if the spell had just failed in some way, some fault of Clary’s.

But in the realm of magic and energy, I saw the darkness flow towards the door and stop, as if it hit a wall. The current of magic I’d seen was forming a barrier that stopped anything from reaching the door. Without a way to reach the door, the spell just faded.

Clary sighed. “Alright, I’m spent. Wabbit, any ideas?”

Just a more competent version of Malk’s plan.

Wabbit jumped and blinked out of existence, reappearing mid-air in front of the door. His claws had grown long and dangerous, covered and fused with darkness. He slashed wildly, a storm of cuts and gouges, then hit the door, bouncing off it. He created a platform to bounce off of, flying towards a different part of the door and repeating the slashing.

He soared across the door, cutting and slashing at different parts, before finally returning to the center of the door and slamming it with all his might. As he touched the door, a wave of darkness exploded outward and he was sent flying, landing back by Malk and Clary.

The door was completely unharmed, as I’d expected.

Irritably, Malk said, “Well there has to be some way in. Clary, you told me the traps seemed easy, the items rewarding. All I see is an impenetrable door!”

“I don’t understand it either, there was no mention of impassable barriers, the writer mentioned that he was able to just shield himself and walk through most of the dungeon, observing various items behind traps, some obvious and some not obvious. He said there was a big door, but that it just opened at his touch.” Her tone was defensive.

Then how do you explain this? Did you lead us to the wrong dungeon, accused Wabbit, or did you just completely fail at your research?

My mouth tilted into a smirk. “You three really need to start paying attention. Put the pieces together, think it through, do something other than approach the problem so… linearly.”

They looked at me in confusion, and I sighed before continuing. “Clary, did your research mention werewolves? Wolf packs? Having to fight off a deadly threat before even reaching the door?”

“Well, no, but…” her face lit up with understanding, and she said, “…the werewolves!”

Malk raised his hand. “Uh, hi, I’m still confused.”

“The werewolf I broke said that he and his kin would only attack those who were deemed likely to surmount the dungeon and retrieve the items. They were a layer of security only employed when needed. This door, and likely the rest of the dungeon, operates on the same principle. If the entrant is incapable of overcoming the dungeon, it relaxes its defenses, probably to save energy. We are competent, so the door is activated as a layer of defense to try and stop us,” I explained.

Malk frowned and said, “Okay, so that’s why the door is impassable, but that doesn’t fix the problem of the door being, well, impassable.”

“Oh, I know how to open the door. I just wanted to see if any of you would get creative, or have a flash of intellect,” I said as I strolled forth to the door.

I placed my hand on it, and darkness flowed from me across the door, and at each of the carvings they dug into the wood. As the darkness flowed into the areas I’d selected, cracks appeared on the door, and after a moment they flared up in a flash of purple light and vanished. I nudged the door with my foot, and it creaked open.

The others looked at the door, then me, then back to the door, then back to me, and stared. “How?” asked Clary.

And how do I learn how to do that, asked Wabbit.

“It was fairly easy. You three attacked the door. I attacked the spell.”

“There was a spell on it?” inquired Malk.

“Yes. Sort of. In a weird way. Basically, the door was completely ordinary, but there was some kind of magical matrix woven into the runes. They formed this current of energy that sort of functioned as a shield and sealing spell, keeping the door closed. You all tried to target the door, and the shield functioned properly. I targeted the shield, and it buckled. Make sense?”

They nodded, so I opened the door the rest of the way, and walked inside.