Prota and Krain made their way through the tower. After seeing Anta open the passageway through the sundial, it wasn’t hard for Prota to crack the code and trace the correct ancient sigils to enable the doorway to open. After that, the two men found themselves in a series of hexagonal rooms, each one with a unique puzzle to solve. While Krain wasn’t good at puzzles, he was happy to see this, since it was the perfect thing to get Prota back on his feet again.

Prota eagerly tackled each puzzle. The first one involved stones embedded in the walls, each with a different symbol. They had to be arranged a certain way in order to open a door hidden in the floor. After some experimenting, Prota learned that the tiles symbolized elemental magic: fire, water, air, earth, light, and dark. Once he was confident about this, the rest was a cinch. He simply had to lay them in a circle in the center of the room, with opposite abilities across from each other.

The puzzles got progressively harder as they made their way down.

“Hey, did we try this button on the wall?” Wanting to help out, Krain pressed the button without thinking.

Suddenly, an alarm sounded, and something dropped from the ceilings. They looked like eggs.

Prota glared at Krain.

“My bad,” Krain gulped. The eggs started to hatch, and the men readied their weapons.

Lizard-like creatures hatched from the eggs, fighting the adventurers with their sharp claws and agile movements. The party of two wasn’t doing badly against them, until..

“Prota!”

The aforementioned fighter collapsed suddenly.

“Did one of them get you?” Krain asked.

Prota’s breath heaved as he clenched his chest. “No,” he managed to gasp out. “It’s… my heart.” A pounding, stabbing pain took over. His vision got blurry.

Krain ran towards him and protected him from the multiple lizards leaping at him, slashing them all away in one hit with his zweihander. “Don’t worry,” Krain said, as he fought. “I’ll take care of these guys.”

Prota’s attack lasted surprisingly long. It seemed he wasn’t close enough to Anta for the pain to be nullified. By the time his attack ended, Krain had defeated all of the lizard men.

Krain reached out a raggy gloved hand and lifted up his friend.

“Thanks,” Prota said, feeling a little ashamed.

“Doing better now?”

“Yeah.”

“We’ve come so far,” Krain said. “Don’t give up now.”