My eyes fluttered open, but my vision was a blur, and so was my mind. I couldn’t remember why I was lying on the ground or why my body hurt so badly. I moaned as I tried to move and quickly gave up. I wasn’t quite ready for something drastic like moving.

  “You’re awake,” Ersabet said. “Good. Let me inspect you.” She reached out and grabbed my hand. I blinked at her as she stared off into the distance. My mind was too scrambled to realize what she was doing.

  She refocused her eyes on me and said, “You have multiple external injuries and minor internal bleeding. We must sort out your external injuries first before we heal you.” She looked over her shoulder. “Fela, help me move him, please.”

  They rolled me onto my back, freeing the arm I had been lying on. I tried to lift it and couldn’t, so I leaned forward to get a better look. My arm was limp and bloody. My eyes followed the scrapes on my arm down to my hand, and I cringed at the sight of my fingers. Three of them were crooked, either broken or dislocated.

  “These first,” Ersabet said and held my injured hand in hers. She grasped my misdirected pinky finger and yanked. My eyes rolled back into my head from the pain, and I decided to close them and keep them closed as she reset each of my misshapen fingers.

  “Your shoulder is dislocated,” she said. “Fela, secure him.”

  Fela came around to my good side and pushed down on my uninjured shoulder with one hand and put her other on my hip. Ersabet sat down, facing me, and stuck her foot into my armpit. She grabbed my arm and, with a surprisingly gentle tug, popped my arm back into its socket.

  I screamed for about three seconds before passing out for another ten. Ersabet forced me to sit up and had me take two long drinks from the healing potion she had received in an earlier reward box.

  My body trembled and goosebumps rose across my skin as the potion worked its magic. My stomach spasmed, and I was pretty sure a few other organs did too. Slowly the pain left my body. I looked at my charred left arm. My jerkin and Tabby’s shoulder armor had saved most of my upper arm, but my underclothes had been burned away from my bicep to my forearm. The skin had melted away into a horrific red and white and black mottled mess.

  I breathed slowly and watched the potion work. My melted skin transformed into a healthy, healing pink color, and within a minute, burn scars started to form. I turned my attention away from my burn and back to my previously broken fingers. I held my hand up and wiggled them, each finger moving exactly as it should.

  “It’s neat, isn’t it?” Kitz said excitedly as he popped up behind me. The kid made me jump, but I laughed and pulled him into a hug. Since I was still sitting, he easily wrapped his arms around me and hugged me tightly back. The emotions I felt in that moment nearly overcame me, and I almost burst out crying in front of everyone, but I managed to keep it in and lost only a single tear.

  “I’m sorry, Kitz,” I said. “You got hurt because of me. I should never have put you in danger like this.”

  He released his hug. “But I’m fine now. That magic potion worked wonders. He pointed out his burned thigh. “Look at the scar!” He tapped it with a finger. “I wasn’t hurt nearly as bad as you. When you hit that wall, I thought you died!”

  “For a moment, I thought I did too. What happened after I passed out?”

  “We happened,” Latro said, stepping forward. He stuck out a hand, offering to help me up. “You’re welcome.” His tone wasn’t nearly as friendly as his words.

  “Thanks, but I don’t need any help.” I stood, without taking his hand. Hoping to not offend him, I said, “Thought we might have been lost there for a minute. I appreciate you saving the day.”

  “Your thanks is unnecessary. I am not fighting for you. I am fighting to reopen the portal, so I can escape this sandy shithole. If I am forced to stay here another month, I might end up killing everyone in the city just for the fun of it.”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  His words served as a chilling reminder of who Latro was – an average player in Quest for Conquest. Unlike Ersabet, Latro saw humans as toys to be played with. No matter what civility he may show me, I needed to always remember that fact.

  Fela pulled me away from Latro, saving me from further conversation with him. “Are you well now?”

  “Yeah. I’m a little sore, but I’m fine. Thank you for helping us.”

  She smiled. “I have a feeling that you would have done the same. Now, how about we clear this floor?” Her eyes were eager for the challenges ahead.

  I couldn’t help but smile back at her. “Lead the way. I’ll be at your side.”

  Fela was the antithesis of Latro. She made me feel like I mattered, like I was a person, and that instantly made me like her, but I tried to remind myself that Prajio had crafted the same illusion around me. Fela had not spoken up when Ersabet was kicked out of the party for her heretical beliefs. If she knew what I was, she would kill me, just as Prajio had attempted.

  Or would she? The question plagued my mind no matter how much I tried to blot it out. I knew it was naive to even consider the notion that she could be good, yet I considered it nonetheless.

  I followed at her flank as she led us to the end of the hallway and thought a lot of stupid thoughts about how I could recruit her, and maybe others to my team. They were only thoughts, though. I’d never do it. I couldn’t.

  Thank God Val couldn’t read my mind.

  “What do you expect we’ll encounter down here?” I asked. “Before we met you in the safe room, we had to fight a giant mushroom monster.” I puffed out my chest. “We kicked its ass, of course.”

  Fela laughed. “I have never met another human like you. I see why Ersabet keeps you around.”

  “It’s a mutually beneficial relationship,” I said, “but I think we’re becoming friends.” If Ersabet knew I was having this conversation with Fela, she would knock me senseless.

  Fela scrunched her eyes. “Friends, you say?”

  “Why not? Have you never made friends with a human?”

  “That would be difficult, as most humans either worship us or fear us.”

  “I don’t worship you, nor do I fear you. You seem pretty nice to me.”

  She chuckled to herself, which I took as a good sign. “You do not fear me because you are blessed with incredible gifts, just like me and my kin.”

  “And all the Kurskins,” I muttered.

  “Yes, and all the Kurskins.”

  “I’ve always wondered why you all have powers, and most humans don’t. What’s different about your people?” It was a risky question, but I was curious what she’d say about that.

  “The creator chose to bless us. Why? I cannot say.”

  “My uncle claimed otherwise. He believed the Kurskins’ magic was bestowed by the creator, while yours was sourced from evil. From the abyss.”

  She scoffed. “There is no abyss. That is a lie to turn your people against us. We sailed here on boats, as did the Kurskins. We don’t come from the depths of the world, but from the other side.”

  That was their backup lie, and not the first time I’d heard it.

  “I’d like to go there someday,” I said. “To your lands on the other side of the world.”

  Fela looked at me sympathetically. “I’d take you back if I could, but we can never return. This is our home now.”

  “Oh,” was all I had to say.

  The conversation died out there, and for the better. I didn’t want to raise any red flags by asking the wrong question. Plus, we had reached the end of the long hallway, and we were getting our first glimpse of the second floor. It was not at all what I was expecting.

  Instead of a buried city, the second floor was a single, buried palace, and its scope was breathtaking. We were raised slightly above it and would have to walk down a trail to enter through the walled palace complex. The wall itself was mostly intact, but there were a few ruined sections that anyone could easily pass through. Inside the walls were dead gardens, statues, and small, ornate buildings, which lined the road to the palace steps. The width of those steps was difficult to tell from a distance, but it looked to span the length of a football field. The palace itself was nearly as vast as the entire buried city from the first floor.

  The ceiling of the underground chamber rested atop the palace, crushing the rounded roof and many adjacent spires. It was like the palace was sandwiched between two unimaginably large rocks.

  Delen, Tabby, and Kitz walked up next to me as I looked out at the palace grounds.

  “This is going to be interesting,” Delen said. “I would assume our way out will be within the palace itself.”

  “That’s a good bet,” I said.

  “Mummies,” Tabby said offhandedly.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Mummies. I bet we’re going to have to fight mummies.”

  “Aren’t mummies found in pyramids and old tombs?” I asked.

  Tabby pointed at the broken palace. “That looks like a tomb to me.”

  “I have heard tales of how the people of ancient Nessa mummified the dead,” Delen said. “And of course, there are stories of those mummified corpses being resurrected, but I’ve always considered it fiction.”

  “What’s a mummy?” Kitz asked.

  “A mummy is a zombie wrapped in bandages,” Tabby said.

  “What’s a zombie?”

  “A zombie is like a draugr,” I told him.

  “Oh,” he said. “I saw one once near an old ruin in the mountains. It was gross. Didn’t look very tough though.”

  “What are you four yapping about?” Ersabet said loudly from our side. “We are departing.”

  Sure enough, the group of Dalari had already started walking down the winding path to the palace. Since the system didn’t name each floor, I’d call this one The Forgotten Palace that May or May Not have Mummies Inside.