Chương 69: 69 Loop 2, Part 23

"Nice and easy, time to get up." Finn shoved me awake because he had decided four hours of sleep was enough. He shook my shoulder hard enough that it hurt a little, and I opened my eyes. The timer had ticked down to twenty-five hours while we slept, and it was clear we were running out of time. While I hated Finn for waking me, I didn't blame him.

"I only slept four hours. That wasn't enough, man."

"Be glad I gave you four," Finn said.

"If we don't get through this thing quickly, we're gonna run out of time." I was pleasantly surprised that my little nap hadn't been plagued by nightmares or images of people dying. Maybe the secret was exhausting myself beyond belief and then sleeping. I didn't like that at all. My mana had mostly refilled while I slept, thanks to Flag meditating the entire time and boosting my regen. My back ached as I sat up, and I thought about lying down again.

Even so, the effort involved in arguing with Finn about why I was still lying down just wasn't gonna be worth it. Finn was already walking around, checking for any signs that the dungeon had messed with us. I didn't think it was likely, but it definitely wasn't worth not doing and getting caught off guard. In my experience, that always created more work.

"I keep thinking about the twenty-three trees I didn't kill," Axe said unprompted.

"My blade thirsts for their sap."

"Dude, we drowned most of those twenty-three. It's kinda pointless."

"A shame."

"I know, I know," I said sagely. He stood there expectantly, and it was clear what he wanted. I'd told him back when he'd shrunk himself that I'd make him big as soon as I had full mana again, and I was full again now. But that was the trouble with making promises. They always made for more work later. Unless...

"Right," I said.

"Axe, buddy. Making you big. That's definitely my responsibility to deal with." I paused and let out a long, suffering sigh.

"I guess I'll do it..." I trailed off as Finn lifted his wand and cast [Embiggen]. The spell took effect, and Axe grew larger. The first time, I hadn't really had time to appreciate the spell working. This time, though, I watched as our friendly neighborhood faceless golem grew from a squat little thing with an axe for a head into a great, hulking axe-headed thing the size of a doorway.

"Better," Axe said, his text as large as himself now.

"The trees will know. Their doom is inevitable."

"But there are no more trees, Axe," I said innocently.

"We're past the trees."

"Then the next thing will know its doom. All shall tremble before me." Flag was absolutely ecstatic.

"Oh, he's so big," Flag said, his voice low and quiet and odd.

"Axe. Axe. Do you feel taller? You must feel taller, right?"

"I feel like myself again. Something I have not felt for centuries." He did that thing where he repeated the words multiple times, trailing off as if lost in thought. It was clear there was something more to Axe's situation. It made me wonder how souls got trapped in objects, anyway.

"Okay, that was a win, Finn," I said to Finn.

"Especially since I didn't have to do the work." Of course, that was when we all noticed the pillar. It hadn't been there when we'd gone to sleep. I was fairly sure about that, because I know I would've complained about Finn or Flag getting distracted by it when I was trying to sleep. It had the same gray stone as everything else in the room. Except on one side was a hole, clearly the size and shape of the crank we had just found. Of course. The dungeon had built us a new to-do list while we were sleeping. Yay.

"That's aggressive. Even for it." Finn walked over to the pillar, moved around it a few times, and said, "What do you think it does?"

"Isn't it obvious? You put the crank into the hole, and then physically exert yourself until it's done cranking. And when it is done cranking, it'll reveal a key, or a secret passage, or in general, create more work for us to do in order to finish this dungeon." Finn eyed me sideways with that meaningful look, as if trying to get me to realize I shouldn't insult the dungeon that was listening to us. I didn't need to care. Probably. I recast my morning spells.

At least one of them had ended while I'd slept, and I hadn't had a [Float] active for a while, either. With the spells cast, I floated over, exerting energy. The movement made me miss my chair. That was going to be my first priority when we got out of the dungeon. Getting a new throne to float on.

"Yeah. See, right here." I pointed to the hole in the pillar.

"Then put the crank in." For a moment, I pictured a universe where I hadn't told Finn about the timeloop and had to come do this on my own. He turned the crank. To our immediate right, water rushed away through all eight channels at once. The sound got louder as the level dropped, turning from a quiet bubbling into a deep, gurgling roar. Things and shapes that had been hidden beneath the surface appeared one after another. First, stone decorations around the channels.

Then dark, gross-looking stains on the floors and walls. And finally, tiles of grit that spun briefly before disappearing into the drains in the wall. Now we could see where every river began. And more importantly, none of them required swimming anymore. For a moment, nobody did anything. It was obvious that was what the crank was going to do. But it was still a pretty major change to the room. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"Huh," Finn said, which was a statement of all time.

"Dude, it's a hand crank. What did you expect to happen?" I said.

"I don't know, man. The dungeon drained its own moat. Does that thing happen often in dungeons?"

"Oh, this is my first time. But I'm betting it's either helpful or a trap." Flag responded.

"It is most likely both helpful and a trap," Axe said. But Finn wasn't worried about a trap. No, he was looking at the empty channels and thinking. Thinking in a very specific way that I knew meant I was going to have to do more work. I shuddered involuntarily.

"Hey, do you think it'll be easier to get your golems back now? You know, since there's no water keeping them down there?" I glanced in the direction of three of the strands of [Mana Tether], dim at the edge of my attention. It would've been nice to have the three of them back, especially considering we'd lost an additional golem per room so far. Not that they'd proved very useful after helping me get the key, but I was sure they'd have an opportunity to redeem themselves soon.

I knew if I tried to argue, it would just be a waste of effort, so I decided to go with flattery instead. Because who didn't like a little flattery?

"You know what, Finn? That's the first useful thing anyone's said since I woke up. Congratulations."

"... Are you feeling okay?" He immediately clocked it as fake.

"I'm being genuine here." There really was an easy, quick way to do this. But I knew it needed to be done, so I had someone else do it.

"Flag. Hey. Do you mind going down to retrieve my three golems?"

"Oh, okay, that's not a problem." Flag floated off down the tunnel, leaving the group. He returned about ten minutes later, and we all stared at him.

"I asked them to move, but they wouldn't follow me. I don't think they're gonna listen to my commands." I let out a loud groan. Well, fuck. I floated toward the golems, following the silver tether. About fifteen minutes later, I had to return. What a fucking waste of time. But I knew the golems were headed toward us. As if to confirm the thought, Flag spoke up.

"They're coming. I can feel them through our tether." Then, directly into the [Mana Tether] line, Hello, fellow golems. Hello. Hello."

"I don't think they can hear you," Finn said.

"Well, if they can't, they can't. But after the dungeon responded to me, I'm making it a habit: saying hi to everybody. You never know who's listening." It took another few minutes, but the three of them came up out of the mouth of the channel one after the other, rejoining the rest of the army. Finn had already set our next course of action. We still needed two keys for the remaining doors, and his channel was the only one any of us had left unfinished.

Now that the water was gone, there was nothing preventing us from finishing exploring it. Unfortunately, not much excuse still wasn't the same thing as no excuse. Despite my attempts to find one. With our decisions made, we went down Finn's channel. The water was gone now, except for puddles caught in the low spots, leaving the stones slick beneath us. Thin strips of blue light ran along the ceiling, reflecting off the water. Finn went first.

I floated behind him, with Axe and Flag following after me and the rest of our golems squeezing in after us. Every few yards, Finn touched his wand to the wall and left another mark.

"You're doing the maze thing?"

"Yep."

"And that's what you did last time?"

"Of course." I checked the wall behind us, where the marks were, of course, already there. Okay. Well, I wasn't going to waste more effort double-checking.

"I only spent about eight minutes in the maze before I turned around for our meetup."

"And you're sure there's a key at the end?"

"No. Not really." I stopped floating. And stared at him.

"I mean, I thought so at the time. But I didn't want to keep exploring and not make it back on time. And then you ended up with a key, so it was a moot point." That was a downgrade in confidence I wanted to poke at. But the alternative was exploring all the past paths again, and I wasn't yet ready to expend that amount of effort finding a key. The channel opened up into mirrors. Hundreds of them. They covered the walls, floors, and ceilings, broken only by narrow gaps running between them.

Some were twice my height. Others were thin strips barely wider than my hand. The mirrors stood at different angles, turning the room into a maze that looked like it continued forever. Except the mirrors didn't seem to be solid. No. They seemed to be made of water. Sheets of water stood upright, sideways, and overhead, stacked on top of each other at impossible angles. Every one reflected us, and every reflection seemed to contain another reflection beyond it.

I could see Finn standing in front of me, behind me, twenty feet to my left, and at least six Finns apparently occupying the same piece of wall. Axe had multiplied into an army. Flag had multiplied into a significantly cheerier army. And I, oddly enough, seemed to have multiplied into twice as large an army as everybody else. As if I were the star of the show. Blue-white light came from somewhere overhead, casting everything and every reflection in bizarre shadows.

"Okay. That feels excessive."

"Why? I count many axes," Axe said, pleased.

"An army of me, as it should be."

"Nobody's cloning you, buddy. It's a mirror." I paused for the joke. Did they not have those back in your day? Except there was something odd about the clones. And the mirrors. Because our reflections didn't always move when we did. I raised my left hand. A ridiculous number of Lazlos raised theirs. When I lowered it, they lowered theirs. Except a few of them hadn't moved. I raised my other hand. Even more Lazlos stayed put. I stopped moving forward.

"What the fuck?"

"Yeah?" Finn said.

"There's something wrong here."

"My reflection isn't moving." Finn glanced at the nearest mirror, and his reflection moved, because of course it did.

"Looks fine to me."

"It wasn't doing that a second ago."

"Laz, this entire room is full of mirrors and water. We're gonna see weird shit."

"That's not particularly comforting."

"Come on. Let's find this key." Finn turned the corner, and I floated after him to catch up. Except the hall was empty. I stopped.

"Finn?" Okay. Maybe he'd taken another turn. I floated toward the next corner. Except there wasn't one. It was a dead end with just another mirror where my reflection stared at me, unblinking. I turned back to find Axe and Flag. Except they were gone, too. And then, in the nearest wall, my reflection floated exactly where it should've been, three feet off the ground. Except that was the only part in its proper place. Its wand was out in my right hand and it had the audacity to be wearing my robes. And my face.

Except I wasn't smiling. It was. Its eyes were open too wide. Its lips had pulled back far enough to show every tooth. And then it leveled its wand straight at me.