Mine Knight awoke with a jolt. He had no idea where he was. His eyes darted around behind the steel face guard sloppily welded to a dinged-up hardhat he called a helmet. The sun struggled to break through a mottled blue-gray overcast. The mouth of a rugged sandstone ravine further filtered the sparse sunlight down into a rat's nest of decrepit stone structures and desiccated shrubbery several hundred feet below the surface. The dim light that completed its pilgrimage into the depths shone deceptively bright against Mine Knight's fluorescent-green vest.
A smoky smell wafted its way to Mine Knight's face. Was something burning? He scrambled into a rough facsimile of a standing position and scanned his surroundings like a thief on the run. The extinguished remains of a campfire sat in a shallow pit, encircled by old bricks on a sandy floor of ancient cracked tiles in various tones of gray. The tiles probably formed some kind of pattern originally but it would be impossible to discern it now. He was in the ruins of... some kind of building. He didn't recognize any of it.
The ceiling had certainly seen better days. Several large holes gave a rather clear view of the rather unclear sky. Sandblasted walls of pockmarked beige brickwork surrounded him, forming a large hexagonal chamber with several archways serving as ways in or out. They seemed to lead into a greater labyrinth of similar-looking rooms. The would-be points of entry were blocked by a translucent blue force field. A spool of rope was coiled up near one of the force fields. These he did recognize. He must’ve been in some kind of maze. Great. He also recognized his adventuring pals Tackle Knight and Psych Knight, still very much asleep.
Tackle Knight was sprawled out with his back propped up against a wall. On his head was a round helmet with a sturdy-looking wireframe structure protecting his mouth and nose. His pauldrons and chestplate had the number 47 haphazardly painted on in white, a stark contrast against the dark red of his armor. Mine Knight was pretty sure he had asked what the numbers were for recently but the answer was escaping him.
Psych Knight was on his side, facing away from the others. He wore an ornate wooden mask and a blue robe with an accompanying wizard hat. Psych Knight wasn't actually a wizard but he had claimed his uncle was. At the very least he knew some magic, which was usually helpful. He was also snoring like a bullhorn.
Seeing as he wasn't in any immediate danger, Mine Knight snatched his backpack off the ground and rifled through his belongings. Everything that was supposed to be there was there, plus a tattered parchment map he hadn't seen before. He unfolded the thing expecting answers, but was only further stumped when he realized he had no clue where this was, what this was, and most importantly, why the hell he was there.
It was probably a treasure hunt. He had been doing a lot of those lately. Or this was an abduction and now they were all stuck in a death game. That didn’t happen nearly as often but if it happened twice it could happen again. He really hoped it wasn’t an escort quest. Those were the worst, and if it was one they had clearly failed since it was just the three of them in the room. Mine Knight needed a second opinion and he knew the fastest way to wake everyone up.
He stuck his arm through the force field.
In a split second it went from a pleasant clear blue to a furious bright red. Klaxon screeches ricocheted through the room like a small army of rabid chihuahuas made of sound.
Nigh-instantaneously Tackle Knight was on his feet, hands out ready to, well, tackle something. There wasn't just murder in his eyes, there was an entire massacre ready to be let out and later reported in several national newspapers as a front-page headline. That immediately faded when he saw it was just Mine Knight doing the usual wake-up routine.
Meanwhile Psych Knight pulled the brim of his hat over his ears, rolled over, and then aimlessly flailed his hand at a rolled-up piece of paper he had on the ground nearby. After a couple of misses he eventually hit it, causing the force field, and more importantly the abhorrent acoustics, to vanish along with the paper. He rolled back the other way again, and prepared to re-enter the border checkpoint to Dreamtopia. Right before he could declare things at customs, Mine Knight shook him awake.
"C'mon, man, I told you to only do that if there was an emergency," Tackle Knight grumbled.
"This is an emergency." Mine Knight pointed at his allies accusatively. "Do either of you know where we are?"
"Yeah, it's uh..." Tackle Knight looked around for a second with his hand on the back of his head. "Huh, that's weird. I can't remember."
"Me neither. Pretty sure it's some kinda magic thing." Psych Knight yawned and leafed through a small stack of paper scrolls. "It definitely feels like magic, but I probably set up a-" Psych Knight's voice trailed off as he stared dumbfounded at one of the scrolls. "Wait, no, this should've worked."
"Wait, why didn't what work?" Mine Knight tried to snoop over Psych Knight's shoulder but he was too busy panicking to think about letting anyone else get a look. Tackle Knight stood back from the affair, arms crossed.
"This doesn't make any sense-" Suddenly the scroll vanished from Psych Knight's hands. Now Mine Knight had it. "Hey, give that back!"
Mine Knight procured a pair of reading glasses seemingly from the ether and began examining the scroll. Tackle Knight's pocket suddenly felt just a bit lighter. He gave Mine Knight a look that most people would understand as meaning "really?" Mine Knight definitely understood what that look meant but his eyes were preoccupied with using the glasses to read.
"What is this, Psychic magic resistance? Looks like it's still active."
Psych Knight tore the scroll out of Mine Knight's hands. "Yes, and something's wrong because it didn't stop us from losing our memories."
Tackle Knight cleared his throat. He also plucked his reading glasses off of Mine Knight's visor and put them back in his pocket. "So… the scroll's a dud?"
"It's definitely not a dud."
"How can you tell?"
“Watch this.”
Psych Knight waved a hand in front of Mine Knight’s face. “You’re feeling very tired.”
“Not this time.”
“See? So either it’s super strong Psychic magic or it’s Data magic. I really hope it isn’t Data but there’s a way I can test for it.”
Psych Knight tore up the resistance scroll.
“Making someone forget with Psychic magic is like putting up a mental block around something. I can remove that block. Forgetting something with Data magic takes the information out of your brain. Nothing I can do about that.”
Psych Knight grabbed a stick of charcoal from a small side pouch in his backpack and started drawing a magic circle on a nearby wall. From a larger compartment he produced several strange looking gemstones that glistened with an otherworldly shade of pink. They began glowing as Psych Knight put his hand up to the circle. Suddenly, the gems were gone and the charcoal circle collapsed into dust on the floor.
Everyone stood in awkward silence for a moment. It didn’t work.
Tackle Knight cleared the dead air. “We should leave. We aren’t prepared for whatever magic this place is throwing at us.” He pointed at Mine Knight. “You have a rope trail set up, right?”
Mine Knight hesitated. “Yeah, but… if there’s treasure here it’s gotta be insane if the security is this good!”
“Sure, let’s keep going. Keep forgetting where we are every morning. Keep using up our supplies stuck in…” Tackle Knight took a good look at his surroundings, namely the terrain towering over him,”a giant hole in the middle of the desert. Sounds like a great time.”
“If we’re in the desert that’s at least a week’s travel from Oldhaven. If we can’t remember that we’ll only forget more if we stick around.” Psych Knight picked up the rope. “Maybe the hypothetical treasure could pay off our loan but, y’know, we could also die here.” He stepped out of the room, following the trail they had probably left previously. “You’re more than welcome to stay but I’m getting out of here.”
Tackle Knight followed after him. Mine Knight looked out into the labyrinth of rooms that led deeper into the ruin, performed a brief cost-benefit analysis of his situation, and begrudgingly joined his friends on the way out, grumbling.
“The Debtomancer is gonna kill us.”
The trio trudged along for a good few minutes. Tackle Knight stopped dead in his tracks.
“Something’s watching us.”
Everyone stood silent for a second. A faint scuttling sound echoed through the maze like a bloodthirsty whisper.
Mine Knight brandished a land mine, ready to throw it like a discus.
Tackle Knight shotgunned a dark blue potion and watched the entrances behind the group.
Psych Knight yanked a scroll out of his bag. It floated up into the air and let out a pulse of energy before crumbling to dust.
“I’m not seeing any other living things.”
Hesitant, Psych Knight crept forward, separating himself from the group ever so slightly.
Tackle Knight whipped around to face Psych Knight but by that point it was too late. A dark writhing blur pounced on Psych Knight like a bolt of lightning hopped up on 30 gallons of coffee, sending him sideways into another room.
A small land mine whizzed through the air, ricocheted off a wall, and detonated a few feet away from where Psych Knight had landed. An explosion was heard followed by the sound of whirring gears and the same scuttling sound from before.
The other Knights rushed in to check on Psych Knight. He was on the ground, slightly scuffed up but still alright. A mechanical bug leg was smoldering on the ground nearby.
Tackle Knight helped up Psych Knight while Mine Knight grabbed the severed leg. “...what just happened? Last thing I remember we decided to leave the room.”
Mine Knight presented the leg to the others. “We were leaving, but you got attacked by whatever this was. Looks like it wiped some of your memory too.”
Psych Knight’s eyes widened. “It probably took our memories while we were sleeping.”
Tackle Knight was visibly confused, like a child given an abacus and a pile of tax returns without any instructions. “Why didn’t it trip the force field?”
“It only works on living things. Same with most of my other magic. That must have been a construct.”
“It’s over there!” Mine Knight threw another explosive down the hall at the limping machine.
“Don’t break it! We might be able to get our memories back from it!”
“Trust me, I won’t.”
The flying mine missed the automaton. Instead it detonated in front of it, sending it flying back towards the trio like a giant drunken spider launched from a trebuchet.
It landed on the ground with a THUNK. The machine resembled a massive tick made of wood and metal. Instead of a proboscis it had an odd trumpet-shaped device. Its abdomen was full of ethereal shimmering wisps of… something that floated around in a transparent vessel.
Mine Knight turned to Psych Knight with a smirk. “See? Not broken.”
Its cold, lifeless eyes glared at the party with calculating animosity. Before it could even think about taking a step forward, Tackle Knight did like his namesake and pinned the machine to the ground with ultraviolent fervor. He took one good look at its face and buried it in the sand with a cathartic crunch. Its limbs continued flailing aimlessly under Tackle Knight, proving it still functioned, somewhat.
Mine Knight creeped closer to the writhing machinery. Psych Knight trailed close behind, keeping his distance from the automaton.
“You think you could steal our memories back from that thing?”
“I dunno, I’ve never tried taking something like that before. I guess I can try taking mine first.”
He reached his hand towards the mechanical tick. One of the wisps was gone from the glass chamber. It floated up from Mine Knight’s hand into his head. For a moment he smiled. Then a slightly concerned look took over.
“You, uh, sure I should do this for your guys’ memories? It might not work.”
Tackle Knight grunted, “Just do it! I’m getting tired of holding this thing down.”
Mine Knight sighed and two more of the wisps vanished from the machine. They meandered their way through the air into the respective heads of the Knights who had been lacking them.
“Mine Knight, you motherfucker! I told you we should’ve packed Data magic protection! We’re in The Memoryhole Monastary! What did you think it would’ve used?”
“Hey, I thought Psychic would’ve been good enough! Who the hell uses Data magic anyways? Accountants?”
Tackle Knight got up from the automaton and promptly curbstomped it into the ground like it owed him lots of money and had just gravely insulted his mother.
“First off, no, that would be Economic magic, and second, lots of places do! Don’t you remember The Tomb of Encyclos The Definer? Or The Temple of Thesaurion?”
“Yeah well I didn’t want to spend the extra money on the stuff. You already had plenty of Psychic magic thingies. And those were stupid dungeons. We could’ve gotten some crazy treasure from this place! My sources said so!”
“Your ‘sources’ were a bunch of unreliable anecdotes and rumors. I can’t believe we listened to you.”
Tackle Knight stepped between the two bickering idiots. "Okay, shut up the both of you. Let’s just get the hell outta here and get back to civilization."
“Fine, but Mine Knight is paying for the ferry back to Oldhaven. And I’m picking the next dungeon.”
“Fine! But if you pick another lame one I’m gonna steal your… eyesight or something.”
“Is that a threat? My uncle knows the Prosecutomancer!”
“Sure, and my uncle works for King Moe Narch.”
Tackle Knight groaned and put his hand up to his brow. This went on for the entire way out of the ruin.
